Human: write a story with the theme title: My sugar daddy asks me for weird favors
 
 Assistant: His Tinder profile said he was 45, but he looked to be in his early thirties at most. 

*Looking for a sugar baby. $700 weekly. No ****.* 

It sounded too good to be true, but, as a broke university student, I was willing to take my chances. I swiped right, and Tinder let me know it was a match. His message came seconds later. 

**Hey, there sweetheart :)**

I cringed at that word, I hated it, but seven hundred dollars was seven hundred dollars, so I **** it up and replied. 

**Hey ;)** 

His name was Jack, and he told me he owned his own business, although he never specified what kind of business it was. We talked for a while before he asked me for my Venmo to send me the first payment. 

After a few minutes, I got the notification. I stared at the $700 for at least twenty minutes, expecting to wake up from a dream at any second. But it wasn’t a dream. 

**You still there?** 

I clicked on the message. 

**Yeah. Sorry. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you looking for in return?** 

I stared at the chat until he replied. 

**I’m just looking for you to do a few favors for me :)**

That sounded like it was going to be **** to me. 

**Like what?**

**For example, the first thing I need you to do is pick up a delivery for me.** 

That sounded innocent enough, but I was still expecting there to be some kind of twist. Seven-hundred dollars to pick up a package? Come on, even I wasn’t that naive. 

**From the post office or something?** 

**No.  I’ll send you the address, but I’d rather not do this through Tinder. You got Kik? Or you can give me your number.**

Kik? What was this, 2011? I decided to give him my number instead, and he texted me the address immediately, followed by the address to his house, where I would have to drop off the package. 

**I’m not home right now, but there’s a key on the bottom of the blue flower **** near the door. Go inside and put the package on the coffee table in the living room. Make sure that you lock the door when you go inside the house, and then lock it again when you leave.** 

I grabbed my car keys and wallet and got into my car, putting the address into Google maps. 

**Got it! Omw.** 

My phone buzzed as I backed out of my driveway. 

**I’m serious. Lock the door BOTH times. Please.** 

I thought that was a little excessive, but I promised him that I would. 

The house looked abandoned. It had a broken chain link fence around it, with a small door that was hanging onto dear life. It stuck out like a sore thumb, surrounded by houses that were a lot nicer than this one in comparison. 

“You here for Jack’s ****?”

I looked up to see a man standing in the open doorway of the house. He took up almost the entire space, his head skimming the top of the door frame. He was huge; in height and muscles, and his entire torso was covered in tattoos. 

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” I replied, not moving from my spot on the sidewalk. 

“Stay right there.” He said. 

I did. I actually don’t think I would have moved if he had asked me to. I looked around and realized that there was no one else on this street. I was a twenty-one-year-old woman alone in the street. I gripped my car keys. 

A few minutes later, the man came back out carrying a cardboard box. It was about the size of a shoebox, but stained and damp on some of the corners. 

“Can you open your car?” He asked. 

I opened the trunk, not wanting that inside on my car seats and he set it in. 

“Alright, there you go.” He said. 

“Thanks.” I replied. 

I walked around to the driver's side of the car and opened the door. 

“Oh, and one more thing!” He said. 

I looked at him. 

“Watch out.” He said. 

I didn’t reply. 

I blasted my music as I drove to Jack’s house, hoping it would drown out my anxiety. It didn’t. 

I parked my car in the stone driveway and stayed inside the car, admiring the house. 

It was a *huge* house; with stone pillars on the front porch, and the greenest grass I had ever seen in my life. I turned the car off and got out. I grabbed the package, and walked to the front door, getting the key from where he said it would be. 

I opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind me. 

I thought about what he had said, about locking the door when I got inside. I thought that was a little overboard, but as I stared at the closed door something made me reach out and lock it. 

I walked inside, my feet cushioned by the thick maroon carpet, and admired the inside of the house. All the furniture was wooden and looked incredibly expensive. I would probably finish school a dozen times with the money that it took to furnish this place. 

I set the package down on the coffee table, and as I walked back to the door, I heard a phone ringing from somewhere inside the house. I froze. 

In my pocket, my phone buzzed. I took it out to look. 

**Don’t answer any calls that aren’t from Marvin.** 

I put my phone back and followed the sound of the phone, poking my head into a few different rooms before I found it in an office. 

I walked over to the desk and looked at the caller ID. 

*Incoming call from Jack.* 

That was odd. 

I grabbed my phone to look at the message again. I was starting to get a little bit creeped out and decided I wouldn’t answer, just to be safe, and left the house, remembering to lock the door as I left. 

I’ve done a few more favors for Jack since then. I drove a BMW to a random park in another city, only to get out and drive a different car back to Jack’s house. He had me meet one of his “employees” at lunch, who then gave me a briefcase to deliver to the first house I had gone to and told me he would know if I looked inside. On several occasions, he asked me to drive down to that same house and stay with the guy, whose name was Julio, for a certain amount of time.

In total, I’ve made around $3500. 

Most recently, Jack asked me to stay in his house overnight. I woke up to a text message from him. 

**I need you to spend the night at my house.** 

I hadn’t ever seen him in person, but I had talked to him on the phone a few times. He proceeded to tell me he would pay me $1000 to spend the night at his house, provided that I followed a few rules. 

I drove to his house that evening. The driveway was empty, and it normally was, but the porch light was on. I walked up, unlocked the door, went inside and then locked it again. 

Everything in the house looked the same. Jack had told me over the phone that he would leave the list of rules on the dining room table. I set all my stuff down in the living room. My bags looked like garbage compared to the fancy furniture in there. 

I wandered into the kitchen, and then to the dining room. Sure enough, there was a piece of paper on the wooden table, held down by an empty glass. 

*Lock the door when you come in.* 

*Only answer calls from Marvin.* 

*Don’t turn on any faucets between 9 pm and 11 pm.* 

*Don’t open the door for anyone- no matter who they say they are- after 10 pm.* 

*If the door to the closet at the end of the hall is open, sleep in the library. If closed, sleep in any of the bedrooms.* 

*The gardener comes at midnight. If he starts knocking on the windows, hide.* 

*Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.* 

*Help yourself to anything in the fridge. :)*

*I’ll pay you in the morning. Goodnight!*

I made sure to follow all the rules. To be honest, I was regretting my decision. But, seeing as I was already here, and I was getting paid, I decided to stay anyway. I figured as long as I followed all the rules, I’d be perfectly fine. 

Still, it felt a little odd. What was this? A haunted house?

Nevertheless, I lounged around the house for a few hours, as I was planning on going to sleep around nine since that’s the time that all the weird **** would begin to happen. At 8:50, I brushed my teeth, using the faucet for the last time before 9. 

I checked the closet in the hallway and upon seeing that it was open, I moved my stuff into the library and got ready to sleep on the couch. I locked to doors just in case, and laid on the couch, scrolling through my phone. I hadn’t gotten any more messages from Jack, and I started to think up scenarios and reasons as to why he had such strict, peculiar sets of rules in his house. 

I had dozed off at some point because, at exactly 10:16 pm, I was woken up by the doorbell ringing. I was about to get up to check, but then I remembered the rule. 

*Don’t open the door for anyone- no matter who they say they are- after 10 pm.* 

I stayed on the couch, trying not to move, paranoid that they would hear even the slightest sound. 

“It’s the police! Open up.” 

I didn’t move. 

“Hello? It’s the police! Open up or we’re coming in.”

I still didn’t move, but I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. 

There was silence for a while after that. 

Then the doorbell rang again. 

“Hey, it’s Jack! Let me in!”

It sounded like Jack, but still, I didn’t get up. He would have a key, wouldn’t he? Why would he need me to let him in?

This continued for almost a full hour; different people would ring the doorbell, announce themselves, and then disappear when I didn’t respond. 

I was finally able to fall asleep, and the gardener never came. 

When I woke up the next morning, I heard someone in the kitchen. I got up slowly, and unlocked the door as quietly as possible, taking my phone with me and walking across the living room and into the kitchen. 

I stopped at the entrance and peered in. 

It was Jack. He was standing in front of the stove, stirring something as the coffee machine brewed coffee on the counter behind him. 

“Hey! Good morning!” He said when he saw me. 

“Hi.” I replied, nervous. 

I hadn’t seen him in person before, but he looked exactly like his pictures online. 

“Scrambled eggs?” He asked, motioning to the pan with a wooden spoon. 

“Yeah, thanks!” I replied, walking over to take the plate from him. 

I ate my breakfast and drank some coffee in silence. 

“So how was it?” He asked. 

“It was okay. Nothing super freaky happened.” I replied. 

“Cool!” He replied.

There was an awkwardness in the room. 

“I think I’m gonna go now. I have class…” I trailed off. 

I didn't. But I really wanted to get out of there. 

“Oh, no! Yeah, sure! I’ll talk to you some other time.” He replied. 

I grabbed my stuff and he walked me to my car. I could see him standing in the driveway, staring at me as I left. 

When I got home, I unpacked all my stuff and noticed that I still had the list with me. I sat on my bed and read it again. I felt my body tense up as I realized that I had forgotten something. 

*Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.* 

*Turn the tv on and let it play on static through the night. DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.* 

*DO NOT FORGET TO DO THIS.* 

I stared at the words on the page until they lost meaning. 

Beside me, my phone buzzed, snapping me back to reality. 

It was the $1000 payment. 

I looked at my phone and then back at the list. 

Maybe it wasn’t an important step?

As I was thinking this over, a text from Jack came it. 

**I’m not in town right now, I should be back next week, so you’re free from running any more errands for me until then! Just sent the payment, go do something fun ;)**

I stared at the message and read it again. 

And again. 

And once more for good measure. 

**I’m not in town right now.** 

I thought back to this morning, and how Jack was in his house. How he gave me breakfast. 

**I’m not in town right now.** 

Within minutes, a new text came in this time from a number that I didn’t recognize. 

**Did you forget to do something? ;)**

The text was followed by a picture of Jack - or, whoever this version of Jack was- standing in front of the tv. 

I didn’t respond. 

Next came another picture, this one was of the outside of my house. 

It was followed by another text. 

**Watch out.**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My wife has been peeking at me from around corners and behind furniture. It's gone from weird to terrifying
 
 Assistant: 

My wife "Lynn" and I have been together for six years and married for 11 months. Our entire history together has been very normal and never once have I noticed any weird behaviors or red flags. I can't stress enough how out of character this whole thing is for her.  



Lynn is very kind, intelligent and thoughtful. She's always been the no nonsense type of person. Being childish, or trying to scare me is not something she'd normally do. 



She doesn't even like watching horror movies. When we first started dating she agreed to watch The Shining with me because she knew how much I loved horror. She was so scared that she didn't even make it through half of the movie before we had to turn it off. She isn't into anything creepy, and has never been into pranks. It's just not her cup of tea. And that's fine. But that's what was so strange about this. It's just so unlike her. 




I should also add that she never had any mental health issues and as far as I'm aware it doesn't run in her family. I know some people are able to hide their mental health problems, but in the six years we've been together I think I'd have seen some sort of sign. 



Two months ago, I was in the kitchen making myself some coffee before work. I was running a bit late that morning and knew I wouldn't be able to make it to Dunkin Donuts for my usual morning fix. 

I took a sip of my coffee as I hurried down the hall towards the front door, when I happened to notice Lynn peeking at me from around the corner ahead of me. I could only see her eyes, and a  strand of her long dark hair hanging against the wall. The rest of her body was concealed behind the corner. I nearly spilled my coffee when I saw her. I did burn the **** out of my lips. 



"Geeze, Lynn." I said, wiping a few drops of coffee from my pants. "You scared the **** out of me." 

She immediately popped out of view like a little kid that had been caught. I heard her scurry off towards the living room, and by the time I got to the front door she was out of sight. 



It was really weird, and just totally out of character for her like I said, but I also found it kind of funny that she was being more playful and a little less serious. I shouted that I loved her, and called her a ****. As I shut the door behind me I heard her laughing.



Her behavior was a bit odd, but it certainly wasn't something to call a priest over. I forgot about it by lunch and by the time I got home she was her normal self. I didn't bring it up and neither did she, and life went on. 



The next incident happened three days later. It was around 2am and I had woken up to get a drink. I was standing at the kitchen island, jug of Oj in hand, when I felt a strong feeling that I was being watched. 



For whatever reason I looked down at the floor and saw my wife's smiling face staring back. She was peeking at me from the other side of the island, staring up at me with wide unblinking eyes and grinning. Grinning like the Cheshire cat. 



 I screamed, I'll admit it. Not out of irritation but fear. For some reason at that moment I was scared. 


At the sound of my scream Lynn scuttled backwards out of my view, her hands and feet smacking the tile floor as she hurried out of the kitchen on all fours.  I didn't run after her, or even yell after her. I just stood there frozen in shock, wondering what **** had possessed her to do that.



 It took me a little longer than I'd like to admit to go back upstairs, but I eventually did. When I got to our bedroom, Lynn was lying on her side, asleep. Or at least pretending to be. I stood there for a while, watching her breathing to be sure she really was asleep. 


I had the feeling she might jump out at me the moment I got into bed. But she didn't. I climbed into bed and she didn't even move. Her breathing was soft and deep and I was starting to wonder if I'd dreamt the whole thing. 



The next morning I waited for her to come down for coffee and after handing her a mug and kissing her cheek I decided to ask her about it. 



"What was that about last night?" I asked, keeping my tone light so I didn't offend or embarrass her. 



She frowned over her cup of coffee, shaking her head like she had no clue what I was referring to. 



"You were peeking at me again. From over there." I said, pointing to the spot on the floor by the kitchen island.  



She followed my gaze, and when she looked back at me she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that I couldn't help but join her. 



"You creep me the **** out sometimes, you know that?" I said. She giggled and set her cup on the counter and wrapped her arms around my neck. 



"You creep me out all the time. So I guess we're even." She teased.



We said our goodbyes and left for work. As I drove I kept thinking about how creepy it had been seeing her grinning at me from behind the island like that. The sounds her hands made on the floor as she crawled away. I told myself she was just trying to be silly. Just trying to join me in my love of all things horror…. 


 It's not like I was afraid of her. But it still didn't sit right with me. 


I started seeing her peeking at me more and more. Sometimes she'd be peeking out from behind the couch or living room curtains. Once she even managed to get inside her grandmother's old trunk that sits at the foot of our bed. 

I might not have even known she was there at all had the trunk's old hinges not given her away. 


She'd had the lid propped up just enough so that  only half of her face peeked through. She'd been grinning like an excited toddler. It was unnerving. I didn't even know what to say to her. All I could do was stare. When I finally found my voice, I asked her why on earth was she doing this. She didn't answer, but she had slowly closed the lid, shutting herself inside the trunk. I just walked away, feeling disturbed.  


I didn't understand why she was doing it, but it clearly made her happy. I just hoped she would tire of the game quickly. 


Lynn didn't peek at me for the next two weeks. I started to think she was done with her weird prank and I was relieved. We were watching a show on Netflix one night and I jokingly said that I hadn't seen her peeking at me lately, and that she must have given up on her spy game. She looked up at me with a small smile and said, "Maybe I've just gotten better at it." 


I didn't say anything but I wondered whether or not she was joking.



For the next few days I couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said. Was she still peeking at me when I wasn't looking and I just hadn't noticed? And if so, what the **** was she getting out of this? I started to feel paranoid, constantly checking whether she was watching from around the corner, or behind a door.  I was jumpy whenever I was home and she wasn't in full view of me. I felt **** and a little crazy. 


But after a few weeks without another incident, I began to relax.  I stopped checking behind furniture and walls and told myself it was just a bad memory. 



Then a few days ago things got so much worse....


Lynn left to go to a friend's, and I lounged on the couch and played a couple games on my laptop. 


Around 9pm I hopped in the shower and as I was washing the soap from my hair, I felt that awful feeling that I was being watched. I slowly opened my eyes and almost had a **** heart attack. 



Lynn was peeking from behind the shower curtain, her entire head stretched into the shower, leaving just her body outside. Her long dark hair hung against the curtain, the ends dripping with water. Her mouth hung open in a terrible grin, eyes wide and red, as if she hadn't blinked in a while. I screamed and jumped back against the wall. She didn't move nor did her smile waver. Her makeup ran down her cheeks in two black streaks. She looked giddy and completely deranged. I was **** terrified. 


 

We stood like that for a few moments, neither of us saying a word. Finally after what felt like forever, she slowly pulled her head back out of the shower, and I watched her blurry figure  through the curtain as she moved backwards towards the bathroom door. 



A second later the bathroom door slammed shut, hard enough to rattle the mirror. I screamed again, and jumped out of the shower to lock the door. I stayed inside the bathroom for over an hour. Maybe I overreacted to some of you. But joke or not, I wasn't going to put up with the crazy **** anymore. That's what I kept telling myself as I paced in my bathroom, stopping to listen at the door every few minutes. 



Suddenly I heard a muffled sound, and I pressed my ear against the bathroom door, straining to listen. I couldn't hear anything but I envisioned Lynn standing on the other side of the door, giggling at her joke. 


I felt a surge of anger. I was beyond **** at being made to feel scared in my own house, and made to hide in the bathroom for an hour. All for what? Some joke? If it was a joke it was an awful one. 



"What the **** Lynn!" I snapped. "This **** is getting really **** annoying." I waited for her to apologize, or to call me a ****. But instead I heard a faint moan, so quiet I wondered if I heard it at all, and then complete silence. 



"Lynn?" I called out, not able to even hide the shakiness in my voice. I got no response. Just my own heavy breathing. 



"I swear to ****, just **** stop it!" I yelled, pounding my fist on the door. 


I waited for her to cuss me out, something I would expect from me talking to her like that. I never screamed at her before. 


But there was nothing. Just the occasional drip from the shower head. 




I won't deny that I was scared. Too afraid to open the **** door and face my own wife. I waited another 30 minutes or so, which feels like a **** lifetime when you're scared. Finally I decided I wasn't going to spend the night hiding in my bathroom, so I got down on my knees and peered under the door. I almost expected to see her face peeking back at me but thankfully I didn't. I could see straight down the hallway to the top of the stairs, but no Lynn. I didn't know if I should be happy about that or not. I looked for a few minutes, waiting to see her head pop up over the top step, but it never came. 



I stood up, my hand hovering over the door and mentally prepared myself to open it. I slowly turned the lock with shaky fingers, and was about to yank it open when I heard a sound that still makes me feel nauseous when I think about it. 



A moan, louder than before, but this time I was able to tell just where it was coming from. I turned my head to the closet door as if in slow motion, and locked eyes with my wife who was peeking out at me from the slight gap.  



Her eyes were still wide as ever and her mouth was hanging open in the most grotesque gaping smile I'd ever seen. I didn't even scream. I was too scared for even that. Her hands were clasped to her chest, body trembling with sheer delight, as if she could barely contain her excitement. A short raspy moan bubbled up from her throat, deep and raw, sending a shiver through my entire body. 



Somehow I found the ability to pull the bathroom door open and ran as fast as I could all the way down the steps, snagging my keys and phone from the table in the living room before running outside to my car. I could hear her shrill laughter behind me but I didn't hear her getting closer. I didn't bother shutting the front door. I drove away from the house faster than I legally should have, shivering the entire time, either from fear or the cold. Maybe a little of both. I hadn't grabbed a coat or even a pair of shoes. I was still in my boxers and my hair was still damp. 



I drove straight to my brother Chris's house about 40 minutes away, ignoring any and every call and text I got. I didn't check my phone until I was safely parked in my brother's driveway. Lynn had called 4 times and sent a flurry of texts, all wondering where I'd gone and why I left "like that." 




I threw my phone at the dash in a rage, furious at her nonchalant attitude. My brother and his wife were surprised to see me, especially dressed in just a pair of boxers, but told me to stay as long as I needed. Chris lent me some clothes and asked me what happened. I told him Lynn and I had a fight, but didn't get into the details. I didn't want him to think I was overreacting, leaving my wife over a prank, even if it was a strange one. I mean, hadn't I encouraged her for years to lighten up instead of being so serious all the time? I had wanted her to relax and loosen up, but this was definitely not what I'd had in mind.  


 


I tried to sleep on their sofa, but my brain wouldn't let me sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Lynn's face staring at me from inside the closet. Knowing she'd been in there with me the entire time made my skin crawl. She'd never left the **** bathroom at all. Instead she slipped inside the closet and slammed the bathroom door shut to fool me. 



The mere thought of going back home gave me anxiety. I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Chris ended up giving me a sleeping pill so I was able to get a little rest. My sleep was filled with terrible dreams. All of Lynn's smiling face. 



I woke up just as the sun started to rise. My sore body ached from the sofa, and I felt drained. I knew I'd have to call Lynn at some point, but I didn't know what to say to her. I wouldn't be going home unless she gave me her word she'd never do anymore creepy ****. 


I just wanted my wife back. Her normal serious self never looked so good to me. 



I was contemplating calling her and telling her that, when that familiar feeling came over me. I was being watched. I was staring at the ceiling, my heart in my throat. I didn't want to look away but the longer I ignored the feeling the worse it got. 



My eyes drifted away from the ceiling almost on their own. Her face was pressed up against the window beside the couch, staring down at me with that same gaping smile. Drool dribbled down her lips, leaving two long streaks down the glass. I didn't know how long she'd been there, but something told me she'd been there quite a while, possibly all night. 



I didn't bother screaming, though I was afraid anger trumped any fear I felt at that moment. I jumped up from the couch and pounded my palm against the glass. 

"Lynn! Are you crazy? What the **** is wrong with you? Just go home!" I shouted. "Now!" 

She didn't move, and her ghastly expression never changed. If anything her smile only grew, as if she had never been more elated. 



I could hear Chris and his wife moving around upstairs. As if Lynn could hear them from her place outside, her head twitched slightly in their direction, and she began to close her mouth slowly. 


Chris called my name from upstairs, obviously concerned. I turned to see him and his wife Rebecca hurrying down the steps. When I turned back to the window Lynn was gone. The only sign she'd been there at all was the two streaks of drool still dripping down the glass. 



I tried explaining to Chris and Rebecca about waking up to see Lynn watching me through their window. They were skeptical, who wouldn't be? Chris and I went outside to the spot in front of the window but there were no footprints in the dirt, just a slight indent. Animal probably, Chris guessed, and I didn't argue. He and Rebecca assumed I dreamt the entire episode but they didn't understand, and I was too tired to explain it to them.  




I called out of work that day and turned my cell off. I didn't want to face Lynn. Just talking to her was too much for me at that point. I really started to believe something was irreversibly wrong with her. That no matter what promises she made we'd never be the same again. The thought saddened me to my core. I cried most of the morning. By noon I figured I was ready to confront her. Give her one last chance to explain herself. I could at least give her that after 6 years I told myself. I turned my phone on and saw the dozens of texts she'd sent, all from a seemingly concerned wife. 



"Can we talk?"



"I love you."



"Please call me." 



"I'm really worried."



"Can you answer?" 



"Just come home."




And more of the same. All texts telling me she loved me, and she wanted me home. How worried she was….Not a **** one addressing the crazy **** she pulled. Like she hadn't been acting like a character from a Stephen King book. 


Even her texts were different. She normally texted novels just to tell me to pick up a loaf of bread! You'd think she'd have more to say to me after her bizarre shenanigans. 




I know it probably seems childish to some of you who are miles away from this situation. But if you saw the way Lynn had looked at me, how she scampered away on all fours like some wild animal, grinning at me from inside the closet like a lunatic…..then I think you'd find my reaction was warranted. 



I ended up staying with Chris and Rebecca for another night. I didn't wake up yesterday until after noon, and thankfully I didn't see Lynn's face watching me through the window. 



"I don't want to pry, because it's not my place. But is this fight something that can be mended?" Rebecca asked. She'd made us both a sandwich for lunch and I knew she wanted to breach the subject without seeming to be nosy. 



"I don't know. I just….. She's like a different person." I said, choosing my words carefully. I still wasn't ready for her or Chris to know the full extent of the bat **** craziness I had been dealing with.



"People change Ben. But she's still the same woman you married. Maybe you both just need to talk through your issues. Whatever's going on, I'm sure it can be fixed." She said, ever the peacemaker. 



"I think it's beyond that now. I don't think talking would help. I just don't trust her." I said. The words stung in my heart. I missed and loved my wife. But how could I live with someone like that? Living in constant fear didn't sound too appealing. 



"Lynn loves you. She has to be absolutely crushed." She said.  



"I don't know about that." I said. 



"Well she certainly seemed like it to me. I've never seen her so upset. Very much unlike the Lynn I know." Rebecca said, shaking her head sadly. 



It took a full minute for her words to really sink in and when they did, I felt dread worming its way through my skin. 



"Wait. What do you mean? You saw her? You saw Lynn?" I asked, my mouth suddenly dry. 



Rebecca nodded casually as if that fact wasn't nightmare fuel. Maybe for her it wasn't. 



"She stopped by this morning just after Chris left for work."  She said, cleaning the plates from the table. "I didn't see her car though. Maybe she took an uber or something." 



"Becc. What did she say? Did..did she come inside?" I asked, sweat starting to break out on my forehead. I began looking around, examining corners as though a predator lurked behind them. 



"No. She just asked if you were awake yet and I said that you weren't. I asked if she wanted me to wake you but she said no. Just said to let you sleep." She said as she washed the dishes. 



"That's all? She didn't say anything else?" I asked. 



"No. She looked awful though. Like she hadn't slept in days. I think you should call her."



I got up from the table and thanked Rebecca for lunch. 


I felt a little bit better at the knowledge that at least she hadn't come inside. Still, I needed to double check that the doors were locked. 




I sat for a while trying to figure out what to do next. I didn't want to go home, but I felt that I owed it to Lynn to help her if I could. Hadn't I swore an oath to love and honor her through sickness and in health? Clearly she was very sick. 




If she was sick, which I truly believed she was, I had to try and get her the help she needed. But I didn't even know where to start. I didn't want to call the police, and besides, what the **** was I going to tell them? That my wife was peeking at me? That she was being creepy? As bizarre as she'd been, she still hadn't committed any crime. Not yet anyway. The police would have probably said that I was overreacting. But this wasn't some prank. It felt wrong. Dangerous even. Like something sinister lurked beneath her smile.



I knew as her husband I was well within my rights to have her committed, but what if she simply acted normal in their presence? She'd obviously been able to fool Rebecca into thinking she was just a concerned wife. As long as the doctors didn't find her a danger to herself or others, they'd have no choice but to release her after 72 hours. I felt lost and overwhelmed. 



So I did what any husband in my position would do.


I called her mother.


I didn't want to, believe me. 

Her mother, Marianne and I were never on the best of terms. We'd never fought or anything like that. 

She just wasn't a very warm person, and wasn't really easy to get along with.  She hardly ever smiled and when she did, only her lips would move into a thin lipped smile, leaving her eyes as blank as before. She gave off this aura that felt like she was permanently on the offensive. 



I'd only met her twice and both times were for such short visits. I got the impression she didn't approve of me for her daughter. Lynn always ushered us out quickly, as she didn't want me to feel uncomfortable which I was grateful for. Being in her mother's company felt almost unbearable. Like walking on glass. I was glad when we moved three states away so we didn't have to see her often. I was happy to avoid the woman, but I needed her help.  



I really didn't want to talk to her at all but I had to talk to someone and someone who knew Lynn better than I did. So I grit my teeth and did what I had to. 



"Yes?" She answered, already sounding irritated. 



"Marianne, it's me Ben. Do you have a minute to talk?" I asked. I could hear her cluck her tongue in irritation. 



"I'm in the middle of writing some checks, but if you insist, I suppose I can spare a moment. What is it that you want to discuss Benjamin?"  She said, coolly? 



"It's about Lynn. She's been... acting strangely and I was wondering if you had any idea whether there was something - " I was quickly interrupted. 



"It's a bit difficult to follow your rambling Benjamin, what is that you want from me?" She asked. I could almost see her standing there in her thin sweater and slacks, tapping her fingernails impatiently on the table. 



"I wanted to know if you'd ever noticed any odd behavior? Or possibly any mental health issues?" I asked. There was a long, uncomfortable pause  that I couldn't tell was because she was just thinking, or ….something else. Finally after a few seconds she spoke. 



"I'm not sure if this is one of your jokes Benjamin, but if so I don't find the humor in it. Now I do have business to attend to as I've said,  so if you don't mind -" she said, but I cut her off before she could get rid of me. 



"Marianne, it's not a joke. I'm sincerely concerned about Lynn's mental health. Her behavior has been very erratic lately. I'm very worried about her and I figured as her mother you would be as well." I said, my frustration evident in my voice. 



"If you're truly concerned then I suggest you get the health professionals involved. I don't know what you expect of me." She snapped. I could tell she was seconds away from hanging up and for some reason I was desperate not to let her. I had the feeling that she knew a lot more than she was letting on. 



"Please. If not for me, do it for Lynn." I tried. 



I heard a faint shaky intake of breath, as if she were trying to hold her steely persona together but failing. 



"Marianne? What's wr-"  I started. 



"Benjamin, I don't know what to tell you. My only advice would be to seek professional help. Do not call here again. Goodbye." I tried to call out to her but she'd hung up. 



I tried to wrap my head around the call and her refusal to help me. Even if she didn't like me, why wouldn't she want to help her own daughter? I couldn't understand that. I tried to replay the conversation, desperate to find something I missed.


 After a while I almost gave up, until I remembered her last last words to me. 'Seek professional help' she'd said those words with a bit of urgency. I could have just been grasping at straws but no, I was sure her voice had changed ever so slightly when she'd said that. As if they were very important.




What had she meant? I assumed she'd been referring to medical professionals, but maybe she was referring to someone else. Someone that she didn't, for some reason, feel comfortable saying directly. Or maybe I was just desperate. 



I waited for Chris to get home and after a very long and exhausting conversation with him and Rebecca, I convinced them that Lynn truly needed psychiatric help. I didn't tell them everything. I wasn't prepared to go into it yet, but I told them about our last encounter. How she'd hidden in the bathroom, peeking at me from the closet. 


They were obviously shocked but thankfully they believed me. They too just wanted to help her. Still they didn't think it was all that serious. Weird, maybe but not dangerous. They just kept saying that Lynn had to be playing some kind of weird joke. "Maybe for YouTube?" Rebecca offered, if only half-heartedly. 



Chris didn't think we should involve the police just yet. He offered instead to go with me, and I readily accepted. He reasoned that calmly talking to her, trying to coax her into going willingly was the best recourse. I agreed to do it his way. At least I wouldn't be going into that house alone. 



We drove over this morning, just after breakfast. There was no way I was going at night. When we pulled into the driveway my stomach began doing somersaults. Her car wasn't there, but I still didn't let my guard down. 



The front door was ajar, and for a split second I thought we'd see her eyes staring through the gap. I was shaking and starting to sweat. Chris however was fine. He waited for me to open the door, his hands in his pockets like he was going on a **** stroll through the park. I envied his ignorance.



I pushed the door open and was immediately hit with the stench of rot. Chris smelled it too, and he walked in the house behind me with his nose scrunched up. 


"What do you guys use to clean the floors around here, ****?" Chris mumbled. 


"Shut up." I said, my eyes darting around for any signs of Lynn.



The house was deadly quiet and dark despite being **** the morning. All the curtains were closed up tight, refusing to allow any sunlight inside. If I hadn't left it just two days prior I'd have thought the house to be abandoned. 


We moved through each room, carefully checking any place that she might hide, occasionally calling her name. 



"Why the **** are you looking under the couch?" Chris asked eventually. "Aren't we looking for your wife?"  He was looking at me like I was a ****. 



"Let's just go upstairs." I whispered. He shook his head but followed me up the stairs to check the bathroom and spare bedroom. On the way up my shoes crunched over pieces of glass that looked to be littered over a few of the steps. 



I noticed that one of Lynn and my wedding portraits that hung on the wall along the staircase had been smashed. The frame hung crookedly, all the glass removed. I stared at the picture, a lump forming in my throat. We had taken the photo just after leaving the church, after saying our vows. She looked so beautiful in her white gown. I looked at Lynn's beautiful face. I never dreamed her face would ever be a source of terror for me.  



We climbed the rest of the steps and checked the spare bedroom, but it looked completely untouched. 


I was hesitant to go into the bathroom, my fear from that night coming back to me all at once. Chris noticed, and offered to go in by himself but I couldn't let him do that. So we walked in together, checking the closet and the shower. The bathroom looked as if it hadn't been touched since the night I left. 



"I don't think she's here Ben. Why don't you pack some clothes and we'll try coming back tomorrow or something." Chris said. I nodded and went into our bedroom and shoved some clothes into a duffle bag. When I checked inside our closet I came across the source of the smell and gagged. 


Chris took one look and lost all color in his face. He had to go stand by the stairs to get away from the sight and smell. 



 I gazed down in shock at what lay Inside my bedroom closet. Soaking into the rug, were at least a dozen eyeballs, all carefully laid out in pairs. Some were as large as a quarter while others were as tiny as a marble. I stared down at the eyes she'd collected from small animals and I wondered how she'd gotten them, and shuddered at the thought. 


"Man, I thought I had it bad with Becca's shoe addiction. But ****. Your wife's in here collecting eyeballs." Chris said, gagging.  "Ben, I think we should go."  He called from the hall. "I'm getting nauseous."



"Alright." I grabbed my duffle and shut the closet door on my new nightmare. I stepped out into the hall and took a deep breath of air. I could taste the rot on my tongue and I couldn't help but gag. 



"Who the **** lines up eyeballs in their closet like that?"  Chris mumbled. 


"I tried to tell you she needed help." I said. 



"She doesn't need help, Ben. She needs a **** exorcist." He said. "You coming or what? I can't stand the smell any- " his words died in his throat, and his eyes grew wide with fear. 



I didn't ask him why. I could feel it. Someone was watching me and I didn't think it was the eyes in the closet.  I turned around, my eyes slowly scanning the bedroom. 



"Christ" I whispered, as I finally saw what we'd missed. Under the bed, curled on her side, watching us with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning, was my wife. 


She held her hands together just under her chin, and they were shaking eagerly.  



Now that she knew she'd been found, I could hear the quiet noises she was making. A sort of hiccuping sound in her throat, as if the excitement was just too much for her. It was unnerving to say the least. Wide eyes, and that same huge smile. 



Everything in me told me to run, but I forced it away. This was my wife. No matter how twisted, she was still the woman I married. I had to help her. 



"Lynn…"  I said softly. She didn't respond, but her head bobbed back and forth in two quick little movements as if she were nodding. 



"Baby. I just wanna help okay? Can you…. Can you let me do that?" I asked. I had taken a single step forward, approaching her like some kind of dangerous animal. 



"I love you, Lynn." I said softly, taking another step closer. She let a tiny moan escape her wide open mouth and I had to resist the urge to run.  Her shoulders were starting to quiver, and her eyes grew as large as saucers. 



I crouched down so I could see her better, and immediately saw the blood. Her hands were covered in it. They trembled more the closer I got, as if she was barely able to contain herself. 



"Lynn. Are you hurt? You're bleeding." I said. She bobbed her head again, her bloody fingers moving up and down as if playing an invisible piano. They occasionally grazed her chin, leaving smears of blood on her skin. 



I wanted to recoil in disgust. The smell that was coming off of her was revolting. I could feel the **** trying to climb up my throat. 
Her lips were dry and stretched thin, blood seeping between the cracks. 


I knew she wouldn't come out on her own, but I didn't want to leave her in the state she was in. 


I scooted closer and reached out to her. The excited hiccuping sounds got louder and her hands shook, fingers flexing. It was then that I could see the blood oozing from in between her fingers. 



"Oh my ****, Lynn. You're bleeding." I said. Instinctively I reached out to take her hand, but before I could even touch her, her hand sprang out towards me. A sharp pain shot through my arm, and I fell back on my ****. My arm burned, and I could see the blood dripping down onto the carpet. 


I looked back at her in shock and saw her grinning madly, her fingers clutching a large shard of glass. 



"You alright in there?" Chris asked from behind me. 



I turned my head slightly, and nodded to him, cradling my arm to my chest. When I turned back to face Lynn, I saw that her focus had shifted. She wasn't looking at me anymore. And she wasn't smiling anymore either. 



She was staring past me, her eyes glaring at Chris the way a hungry lion might stare at an antelope. Her mouth was still hanging open but it was twisted into a snarl.


I got to my feet, and began walking backwards down the hall, afraid to take my eyes off her. 



"Are you... bleeding?" Chris asked. The moment the words left his mouth Lynn started fast scooting out from under the bed, the glass shard still in her fist. 



"Chris. Run. Go!" I yelled. He must have been too afraid to move because a second later I felt my back bump into him. He was still standing at the top of the stairs, staring at the horror that was my wife. 



Lynn had crawled completely out from under the bed and stood in the bedroom doorway, her face twisted in rage. Her whole body was visibly tense. Blood ran down her fingers and onto the floor. 



"Jesus, Lynn..." Chris said, "You uh… playing hide and seek?" I reached back and pushed him towards the steps. 



"Move your **** Chris" I said as quietly but firmly as I could. 



Lynn bobbed her head in fast, sharp motions, and began to grin, stretching her mouth open wider and wider so that her chin seemed to touch her chest. I heard Chris mutter a prayer and then he was running down the stairs. I stood at the top of the steps, stuck between the love for a woman who clearly needed serious help, and self preservation. 




"I only want to help." I said, choking back tears. Her eyes focused on me once again as she slowly lifted the glass, holding it out in front of her. And then she started sprinting towards me, grinning with utter excitement. Thankfully my body took over and I flew down the stairs skipping two or three at a time. I made it to the front door before I felt her leap onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck, her open mouth next to my ear so that I could hear those terrible hiccuping sounds up close. I shook her off me, knocking her to the floor. I felt a searing pain in my back as she went but I tore open the front door and bolted to my car. 



Chris was standing in the front yard, talking on the phone with the police. I didn't say a word, I just ran to my car and jumped in. Chris took the hint and followed me, still on the line with 911



I watched the rear view mirror, sure I'd see her there, running after us. But I never did. 



I went straight to the ER and got 11 stitches in my arm and 3 on my back. The police asked a lot of questions and went back to the house to do a search but of course, Lynn wasn't there. 


They advised me to stay with a friend or relative for a while and to file a restraining order as soon as I could but none of those things would matter. Somehow I just knew. 



I dropped Chris off at home, and went to a motel an hour away. I wanted to put as much distance between me and Lynn as I could. 



This is where I've been for the last 4 hours. I thought maybe the police would find her, maybe they'd get her the help she desperately needs. 


But now I don't think so. Because 40 minutes ago I got a text from an unknown number. Just three words :



"I found You." 



And a picture attached. The picture was dark and grainy, but I instantly knew what it was. There was no mistaking my wife's eye. 



I started typing this out immediately after. I don't know what to do. I'm alone and scared, and I can't help but feel that I'm being watched….

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Something walks whistling past my house every night at 3:03.
 
 Assistant: Every night, no matter the weather, something walks down our street whistling softly. You can only hear it if you’re in the living room or the kitchen when they walk by and it always starts at exactly 3:03. The sound starts faint, somewhere near the beginning of the lane near the Carson place. We’re towards the middle of the street, so the whistling moves past us before fading away in the direction of the cul de sac.

When I was younger, my sister and I would sneak into the kitchen some nights to listen. Mom and dad didn’t like that and we’d catch **** if they found us out there but they were never too **** us since we always stuck to the one Big Rule.

Don’t try to look at whatever was whistling.

My neighborhood is a funny place. I’ve lived here since I was six and I love it. The houses are small but well-kept, good-sized yards, plenty of places to roam. There are a lot of other kids here my age, I turned 13 back in October. We grew up together and would always play four square in the cul de sac or roam around from back porch to back porch in the summer. This was a good place to grow up, I’m old enough to see it. And there’s only the two strange things here; the night whistling and the good luck.

The whistling never bothered me much. Like I said, I couldn’t even hear it from my bedroom. But mom and dad don’t like talking about it, so I’ve stopped asking questions. My dad is a strong guy, tall and calm. He has an accent since he moved to the US as a kid. His family, my grandparents, they’re from the islands. That’s what they call it. My dad, the only time he isn’t so calm is if the whistler comes up.

He talks a little quicker then, eyes move faster, and he tells us not to think about it so much and to always remember the one rule, the Big Rule: don’t try to look outside when the whistler goes past.

Not that we could look even if we wanted. See, there are shutters on the inside of every window, thick pieces of heavy canvas that pull down from the top and latch to the bottom of the window frame. Each latch even has a small lock, about the size of what you’d find on a diary. My dad locks those shutters every night before we all go to bed and keeps the key in his room.

My mom…I don’t know what she thinks about the whistling. I’ve seen her out in the living room before at 3:03 when the sound starts; I could see her if I cracked my door open just an inch to peek. She’s not out there often, at least I haven’t caught her much, but once or twice a month I think she sits out there on our big red couch just listening.

The whistler has the same tune every night. It’s…cheerful.

*Da da dada da dum. Da da dada da dum.*

Remember how I said there are two odd things about where I live? Well, besides our night whistler, everyone in my neighborhood is really lucky. It’s hard to explain and dad doesn’t like us talking about this part much, either, but good things just seem to happen to people around here a lot. Usually, it’s small things, winning a radio contest, or getting an unexpected promotion at work, or finding some arrowheads buried in the yard, you know, the authentic kind.

The weather is pretty good and there’s no crime and everybody’s gardens bloom extra bright in the fall. “A million little blessings,” I’ve heard my mom say about living here. But the main reason we stay here, why we moved here in the first place, is my sister Nola. She was born very sick, something with her lungs. We couldn’t even bring her home when she was born, only visit her in the hospital. She was so small, I remember, small even compared to the other babies. A machine had to breathe for her.

We moved into our house here to be closer to the hospital. As soon as we moved here, Nola starting getting better. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, they chalked it up to whatever they were doing but we all could tell they were confused. But my parents knew, even I knew, Nola getting better was just another of the million little blessings we got for living in our neighborhood.

So that’s why we stayed even after we found out that, for every small miracle that happens here every day, now and then…some bad things happen. But they only happen if you look for the whistler.

See, our neighborhood has a Welcoming Committee. They show up with macaroni casserole and a gift basket and a manila folder whenever someone new moves in. They’re very friendly. Four people showed up when we moved in seven years ago. The committee made small talk, gave me a Snickers bar, and took turns holding Nola. It was her first week out of the hospital so they were extra careful.

Then the committee asked to speak to my parents in private so I was sent to my room where I still managed to hear nearly every word. The Welcoming Committee told my parents about how nice the neighborhood was, really exceptionally, hard-to-explain kind of nice. And then they told my parents about the even harder-to-explain whistling that happened every morning at 3:03 and ended at the tick of 3:05. The group, our new neighbors, warned my parents that the whistling was quiet, would never harm or hurt us, as long as we didn’t look for what was making the sound.

This part they stressed and I pushed my ear into the door straining to hear them. People who went looking for the whistler had their luck change, sometimes tragically. A black cloud would hang over anyone that looked. Anything that could go wrong, would. The manila envelope the committee brought over contained newspaper clippings, stories about car crashes and ruined lives, public deaths and freak accidents.

“Not everyone dies,” I heard the head of the committee tell my dad. “But the life goes out of ‘em. Even if they live, there’s no light in them ever again, no presence.”

My mom, I could tell she wasn’t taking it seriously. She kept asking if this was some prank they play on new neighbors. At one point my mom got angry, accused the committee of trying to scare us out of our new home, asked them if they were racist on account of my dad being from the islands. My dad calmed her down, told her he could tell our new neighbors were sincere and they were just trying to help us. He explained that he grew up hearing these kinds of stories from his mom and that he knew there were strange things that walked among us. Some of those strange things were good and some were bad but most were just different.

After the committee left, dad went out to the hardware store, bought the canvas blinds, the latches, and the locks and installed them on every window in the house after dinner. That first night in our new house, I crept out of my room at 3 a.m. only to find my dad awake sitting on the living room couch, holding my baby sister. My dad held up his finger in a shh motion but patted the couch next to him. I sat and we waited.

At exactly 3:03 we heard the whistling.

*Da da dada da dum. Da da dada da dum.*

It came and it went just like our neighbors said. The whistling returns each night and we never look and we enjoy our million little blessings every day. Nola breathes on her own and she’s grown into a strong, clever girl. My dad even joined the Welcoming Committee. We don’t get new neighbors often, why would anyone want to leave? But when a new family moves in, my dad and the committee bring them macaroni casserole, a gift basket, and the manila folder. I can always tell by the look on my dad’s face when he comes back if the family took the committee seriously or if we’d be getting new neighbors again very soon.

Not long ago a family moved in directly next to us. The previous owner, Ms. Maddie, passed away at age 105. She’d lived a good, long life. Our new neighbors seemed like they’d fit in just fine. They believed the Welcoming Committee, took my dad’s advice about the locking shutters since they had a young child of their own. Whatever newspaper clippings were in that manila envelope, whatever evidence, my dad never let us see. But I imagine it must have been awfully convincing since our neighbors got along with no issues for the first month.

One night, when our new neighbors had to leave town, they sent their son, Holden, to stay with us. He was 12, a year under me in school. I didn’t know him well before that night but as soon as his parents dropped him off after dinner I could tell it was going to be a bad time.

“Do you know who is always out there whistling every night?” Holden asked the moment the adults left the room.

The three of us were sitting in the den, some Disney movie playing idly on the television.

My sister and I exchanged a glance. “We don’t talk about that,” I said.

“I think it’s that **** that lives in the big yellow house on the corner,” Holden said.

“Mr. Toles?” my sister asked. “No way, he’s really nice.”

Holden shrugged. “Must be a psycho killer, then.”

Nola tensed.

“We don’t talk about it,” I repeated. “Let’s go in my room and play Nintendo.”

We spent the next few hours playing games, eating popcorn and then watching movies. A typical sleepover but I could see Holden was getting antsy.

After my parents had wished us a good night, locked the blinds, and gone to bed, Holden stood up from his bean bag and walked over to where Nola and I were sitting on my bed.

“Have you ever even tried looking?” he asked. “It’s nearly time.”

Like most sleepovers, we’d conveniently ignored any suggestion of a bedtime. I was shocked to see he was right; it was almost 3 a.m.

I sighed. “We don’t-”

“See, I can’t, I can’t even try to look because my dad locks the blinds every night and hides the key,” he continued, ignoring me.

“So does our dad,” said Nola.

“No,” replied Holden. “No, he doesn’t.”

“You saw him do it,” I said, a little sharper than I meant to sound.

Holden grinned. “Your dad locks the blinds, yeah, but he doesn’t hide the key. He keeps it right on his normal key chain.”

“So?” I asked, worried I already knew what he would say next. Because I had noticed that my dad didn’t bother hiding the key anymore after all of these years. Because he knew we took it seriously.

“So, after your dad locked up but before your parents went to bed, I went to the bathroom. And on my way, I may have peeked into their room, and I may have seen your dad’s key chain on his nightstand, and I maybe went and borrowed the key to blinds.”

Nola and I stared and his grin only grew wider.

“You’re lying,” I said.

Holden shrugged. “You can check if you want. Just open your parents’ door and look, you’ll see his keychain right there on the nightstand.”

“Stay here,” I told both of them. “Don’t move a muscle.”

I hurried over to my parents’ room but hesitated at the door. If Holden wasn’t lying…my dad would be angry. Beyond angry. I was scared thinking about it. But more scared of an open window with the whistler right outside. I opened the door, barely an inch, and looked in but it was too dark to see. Taking a deep breath, I walked into the room.

Two steps into the dark I froze. The whistling started. And I could hear it clearly…from my parents’ room. I never realized but they must have heard the sound every night since we moved into the house. They never told us. I don’t think I could have slept through it.

I stood there, listening to the whistling come closer, unsure whether I should turn on a light or call out for my dad. Soft sounds from the living room brought me back to reality.

“Nola,” I yelled, running out of my parents’ room.

Holden and Nola were standing near the front door next to a window. Holden wasn’t lying. I could see him fumbling with the lock on one of the blinds. I heard a click. He did have the key.

Holden let out a quick laugh. Nola stood next to him, hunched up, afraid but maybe curious. The whistling was right outside our house now.

I think I made a sound, called out. I can’t remember. Time felt frozen, clock hands nailed to the face. But I found myself moving. I’m not fast, I’ve never been athletic. Somehow, though, I covered the space between myself and Nola in a moment. My eyes were locked on her but I heard Holden pull the blind all the way down so it could release. I heard the snap of it start to raise, and I heard the whistling just on the other side of the window.

But I had my arms around Nola and I turned us so she was facing away from the window. At the same time, I jammed my eyes shut.  The blind whipped open.

The whistling stopped.

I felt Nola shaking in my arms.

“Don’t look, okay?” I told her. “Don’t turn around.”

We were positioned so that she was facing back towards the hallway and I was facing the window. My eyes were still closed. I felt her nod into my shoulder.

I reached out with the arm not holding Nola and tried to touch Holden. My hand brushed against his arm. He was shaking worse than Nola.

“Holden?” I asked.

Silence.

I reached past him and gingerly felt for the window, eyes still sealed shut. The glass was cold against my fingertips. Colder than it should have been for the time of year. I moved my hand up the window, searching for the string to the blind. The glass began to get warmer the further I reached and there was a gentle hum feeding back into my fingertips. I tried not to think about what might be on the other side of the window. Finally, I touched the string and yanked the blinds shut.

I opened my eyes. In the dim light leaking out from the kitchen, I could make out Holden, pale and small, staring at the now closed window.

“Holden?” I asked again.

He turned towards me and he *screamed.*

Everything became a flurry of motion. Lights sparked to life in the hall, then the living room. My parents’ footsteps thudded across the hardwood floor. I didn’t turn to look back at them, my eyes were glued to Holden.

He was pale, had bit his lip so hard there was a thin red line of blood running down his chin and he’d wet himself.

“What happened?” my dad asked from behind me.

I managed to swivel away from Holden and look back. “He looked.”

I’d never seen my dad scared before but I saw it that night, in that moment, an old, **** terror stitched on his face. A parent’s fear.

“Just Holden?” he mouthed to me.

I nodded yes.

My dad let out a breath. He looked so relieved I nearly expected him to cheer. But then he turned to Holden and my dad’s face changed. I wondered if he felt bad for feeling good that Holden was the only one that looked.

There was a knock at the door.

We all froze. Holden whimpered.

“Don’t answer it,” my mom said.

She stood at the threshold of the hall. I’d always thought she was a skeptic and just humored my dad about the windows and the whistler but that night we were all believers. I noticed that both of my parents held baseball bats they must have taken from their bedroom.

The knock came again, a little louder this time.

“Please don’t open the door,” Holden whispered.

My dad walked over to him, hugged him close.

“We won’t,” my dad promised, still holding his bat. “Nothing is coming in here tonight.”

Thud thud thud

This time the knocking was loud enough to rattle the door. Holden screamed again and Nola clutched her arms around my neck. My mom came over and knelt down next to us, wrapping my sister and me close.

**Thud thud thud**

“Call the police,” my mom whispered to my dad.

The knocking instantly stopped. My dad looked over his shoulder at us.

“Do you think-”

He was cut off by frantic knocking that trailed off to a polite tap tap tap.

“*Police*,” something said from the other side of the door.

The voice from outside sounded exactly like my mom, like a parrot repeating the words back to her.

“*Police*. *Call*. *The police*.” **tap tap tap** “*Police*.”

My mom pulled us closer.

“*Police*. *Police*. *Police*. *Police*.”

“Please stop,” I heard her whisper.

“I don’t think calling them will help,” my dad said. “How will we know when they’re the ones at the door?”

The knocking came back harder than before. The door shook. Then it stopped. After a long moment, I heard the knocking again but it was coming from our backdoor.

We all turned together towards the backdoor but the knocking immediately returned to the front door. Front to back, back to front, loud then quiet then loud again. Suddenly, the sound was coming from both doors at once, big, heavy blows like a sledgehammer. Then something started rapping against all of the windows in the house, then the walls. It was like we were living inside a drum with a dozen people trying to play at once. Or we were a turtle and something was attempting to claw us out of our shell.

“STOP!” Holden yelled.

The knocking died.

“I won’t tell,” Holden said, staring at the door. “I promise I won’t tell anyone what I saw. Just please go away.”

We waited for nearly a minute. Then we heard it, a soft *tap tap tap* coming from the window Holden had looked through earlier.

Holden started to cry, sobbing like a prisoner watching gallows being built outside their cell.

My dad held him, brushed his hair but never lied to him, never told him things would be okay.

The tapping at the window went on for the rest of the night. We huddled together in the living room for I don’t know how long. Eventually, my mom tried to take us kids into my room while my dad stayed to watch the door. But the second we moved into my bedroom the knocking came back, so loud it was possible to ignore. I was afraid the door couldn’t take it.

We went back to the living room and the knocking stopped. Only the tap tap tap on the window remained. None of us slept that night.

The tapping stopped around 7 a.m. That’s about the time the sun comes up here. We waited another two hours before my dad opened the blinds from one window. He made us all go back to my parents’ bedroom first. I heard him open the door then come back in.

“Okay,” he told us. “It’s done.”

Holden’s parents came back around lunchtime. My mom and dad walked Holden over to his house and they all went inside for quite a while. Nola and I watched from the window. She stuck to me the whole day, right at my side, sometimes holding my hand. When my parents came back they looked grim but wouldn’t tell us what they said to Holden’s family. It was a Sunday so we all spent the day together, ordered pizza and watched movies.

That night everyone slept in my room, Nola and my mom in the bed with me, my dad in a chair he’d pulled over. There was no knocking that night or any night since.

We didn’t see much of Holden or his parents for the rest of that week but by Thursday there was a moving truck in their driveway. Nola and I watched them packing up the whole afternoon after school. What sticks with me most is how tired Holden and his parents looked. All three had the same pallor, grim mouths and light-less eyes. Even from across the street I could tell something was very wrong. Holden and his family were gone before sunset.

I remember what the original Welcoming Committee said to my parents when we moved in. Not everyone who looks at the whistler dies, but even those that live have the light go out of them and the rest of their lives are full of misfortune. A million little tragedies.

I think Holden’s parents must have looked, either to comfort him if they didn’t believe or share the burden if they did. I watch Nola some days, happy and young and alive, and I wonder if I’d been slower, if she’d looked out the window that night…would I have looked too? To comfort her? To share that burden? I’m glad I don’t have to find out.

We still live in that house, in that neighborhood. We still hear our whistler walking past every night. The blessings, the luck, the good things here are too good to leave. But we’re careful. We don’t have friends over to spend the night anymore. And my dad hides the key to the blinds very, very well. Not that I’ve gone looking. Some things you just don’t need to look for.

​

[GTM](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grand_Theft_Motto/comments/emzy3b/the_stories/)

[Hello](https://travisbrownwriting.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: She Sold Happiness in Glass Jars
 
 Assistant: The poster read, “Happiness! Sold in Glass Jars! Call Today!” and underneath the text was a phone number.

I was walking home from a long, exhausting day of work when I caught a glimpse of the paper stapled on an old telephone pole. I took a picture of it thinking it was amusing.

I was going to show my wife once I got to our apartment, but I was caught up with chores and forgot about it—dinner, dishes, laundry, packing a snack for our daughter, putting her to bed, then putting her toys away that she’d left out in the living room—every night, it was the exact same routine.

The next day, I awoke sleeping back-to-back with my wife. I always had to get up earlier than she did for my job, so I quietly got ready for the day and headed out the door.

At work, I was updating the company’s latest expense report. Most days were similar to this one. They were basically paying me to stare at a computer for nine hours a day and input a couple numbers in to a spreadsheet. I finished my work very quickly, so I decided to head out of the office early—it also helped that it was a Friday, and a lot of people leave early at the end of the week.

On my walk back, I was thinking of what my life had become. I did this often. I always dreamed of traveling when I was younger. I wanted to drive across the country or solo-backpack across Europe. Then I met Kelsey. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Kelsey. I mean, I still do. We just don’t have that spark anymore. When you meet someone and get in a relationship, whether it’s *meant to be* or not, some of your personal life-plans have to be put on hold. And then that relationship turns to marriage, and then you have a baby, then you have to enroll your daughter in a preschool, then you have to get a better paying job and work more hours and blah, blah, blah.

I’m not trying to throw a pity party for myself. I’m just saying I wasn’t exactly content with where I was in my life. I wouldn’t have referred to myself as a happy person.

As I took the same route home that I did every day to work and back, I walked by the same poster I had passed the day before. I don’t know why, I really don’t, but I decided to call the number. I figured it would be some joke. Maybe someone just picks up and says, “I love you!” on the other end and hangs up. Or maybe it’s a line to a ****-worker. I had no idea what to expect.

I called. It only rang once before someone picked up.

“Hello?” a woman said. 

“Uh, hi—um, I’m calling about your poster? Your ad?”

“Oh, awesome,” she said calmly, “when do you wanna pick it up?”

“Pick what up?”

“The jar…” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh, of course, um,” I realized then that I had left work early without telling Kelsey, so I could just go pick it up now and she’d be none the wiser, “what exactly is it? That your selling?”

“I just told you. It’s happiness. In a glass jar. Like the poster said. Happiness keeps best in glass jars. They’re more durable than, say, a plastic bag.”

“Um, okay. Should we meet somewhere?”

“For sure. I don’t want you to end up being a creep or something, so let’s go to a public place.”

The public place we decided on was a Starbucks parking lot a little over a mile from me.

Now, I didn’t think I was really going to be buying a *jar of happiness* or whatever. I was 99% sure she was going to sell me drugs. Maybe heroine would be in the jar. I remember thinking, *Oh no, ‘happiness’ is probably a nickname for some street drug and I’m going to a drug deal. What if she’s a cop? Am I going to be arrested?* But something inside me told me to keep walking, and so I did.

I stood outside and texted her.

Me: **I’m here.**

Her: **Cool. Be there in a sec.**

Me: **What are you driving?**

Her: **Silver Camry.**

And as her final text came through, I saw her car pull in. She took a spot not too far from where I stood. I could see there was no one else in the car, which put my kidnapping fear to rest. She opened her door and stood on the pavement, looking around until her eyes met mine. I gave her a little nod of acknowledgment. She simply responded by waving her hand, gesturing for me to come over to her car, so I did.

She was young, maybe mid-twenties, with curly, golden hair. Her skin was pale and contrasted with the all-black outfit she was wearing. I thought she looked like Glinda the Good Witch from *The Wizard of Oz* had put on the Wicked Witch’s clothes.

“Nice day out,” she said as a greeting.

“Oh, yeah it is. Hadn’t really paid attention to it.”

“You *were* the one that called about the jar, right?”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“Cool, well, here you go.”

She handed me a very small, glass mason-jar. It couldn’t have been more than two inches tall. Inside of it was a light. Not a light bulb—just light. It was like someone bottled up sunshine. It glowed even in the midafternoon daylight. It looked like a tiny sun, or a tiny universe existing in this little crystal-walled home. I was admiring it with no attempt to hide the awe on my face.

“Pretty rad isn’****?”

“What—what is it?”

“You’ve asked that, like, three different times, I think. My answer is still the same. It is happiness. Happiness in a glass jar.”

“What do I do with it?”

“Keep it,” She said simply, “if you have any problems shoot me a text.”

She started to get into her car.

“Wait!” I said, “I thought you were selling this? How much is it?”

“Don’t worry, man,” she said with a smile, “you’ll pay.”

She closed her door and I stepped out of her way as she backed up, then drove off. What the **** had just happened? What was I holding? I looked down at the jar again, its radiance was simply mesmerizing. I put it in my pocket and could see its glow slightly through my pants. I began to walk home.

What was just a nice, sunny day, quickly changed into a rainy one with clouds wrapping the sky. It was not forecasted that it would rain, or else I would’ve ridden the bus or subway to work that day. I jogged home trying not to get too drenched. I finally found shelter once I made it to my apartment building.

I walked up to my door and found that my key wasn’t on my key ring anymore. *Shit, I can’t believe I lost it again,* I thought.

I knocked on the door and said in a somewhat loud voice, “Hey babe it’s me, I don’t know what happened to my key.” I heard the door being unlocked from the other side.

When the door opened, I was greeted by a large, heavy-set man with greasy hair and unkempt goatee, he said, “I think you got the wrong door, bud.”

“Oh!” I said, disoriented, “my bad, sorry, have a good one.”

He let out a chuckle as he closed the door. 

Apartment number 33.

I know that was my apartment. I know it was. I’d been in apartment 33 for five years now. But *that* was not my apartment. From what I could see inside, all the furniture was different, it was painted a different color, it was all wrong. I felt like I’d hit my head and was drugged. In that moment, nothing made sense.

I pulled out my phone to call Kelsey so she could calm me down and tell me I just got confused for a second. But her contact wasn’t in my phone. In fact, nothing was in my phone. I had no messages with her. No previous calls. No pictures. It was like my phone reset to its factory settings. Did that girl somehow switch my phone out when I wasn’t looking? I would’ve just dialed Kelsey's number manually, but I couldn’t quite remember it. I had known it by heart before, but not anymore. I needed to get back to the office, I had all my contacts backed up on my work computer.

Since it was still raining, I hopped on the bus which had a stop right in front of the apartment complex. I rode downtown toward my office, the whole time staring at my wet shoes, wondering what the **** was going on.

We have a keycard access to our building so only authorized personnel can get inside. I always keep my access card in my wallet, always. But, surprise, surprise—it wasn’t there. I buzzed in to the speaker we had for guests with appointments, or employees as a back-up in case anyone lost or forgot their card. 

**BZZZ** 

“Hey this is Tim, I must’ve lost my card. My employee number is…” I stopped as I drew a blank.

A voice came through the Speaker, “Tim? You got cut out, what’s your employee number?"

“Um, I can’t remember, I—”

“That’s fine, just tell me your full name and department.”

“Uh, finance. I’m in finance. My full name is Tim Brooks.”

“One sec.”

About thirty seconds later, the man spoke to me again.

“We don’t have a Tim Brooks working in this building. Did you have an appointment with someone?”

I backed up in surprise, almost tripping on my own feet. I had just been in that office an hour or two ago. What was happening to me? I felt like I was getting Alzheimer’s but going through every stage in one day. I stared at my hands, unsure if I was in the right body. I felt like the world around me was disintegrating. I wasn’t in control, I was merely sitting inside somebody else’s head, watching the world through their eyes.

Just then, I got a text. I recognized the number immediately, it was that girl. The one who gave me the jar. I had forgotten all about it until I saw her text.

Her: **Hey. How’s it going?**

I looked at my phone, dumbfounded. It made me angry she was so nonchalant about this. *She* knew what was going on. *She* had done this somehow.

Me: **What the **** did you do to me?!**

Her: **The worst is yet to come.**

I was astronomically close to just chucking my phone as far as I could in frustration. I took the jar out of my pocket. It looked unchanged, still glowing just as bright.

“What the **** did you do!” I yelled at the jar, realizing I probably looked like a lunatic.

As I stared at its glistening glass, I realized something. I didn’t know what my wife’s face looked like anymore. I knew her name. Well, I know it started with a K, or maybe a C. I couldn’t picture her in my mind. I knew I had a wife. I knew I did. Yes, because I had a daughter. I had a wife and a daughter. I just, couldn’t remember their faces then—or their names, or their birthdays, or any memories I had with them.

I know they existed. They did exist. I had just seen them that morning, right? I couldn’t remember how she looked, or what she smelled like. What was our first date? We had a wedding, right? What about our first kiss? Or my daughter—or was it my son? Maybe I didn’t even have a kid. But my wife, or girlfriend, she was real. I knew she was. The thought was tearing me apart. I couldn’t see her in my head. I couldn’t recall a single fact about her.

I was standing outside of the same building, but I was unsure why I was. Did I work there? I must work somewhere. The rain was accompanied by a chilly wind now. It was whipping at my face, making my nose and cheeks sting. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be warm. I wanted to go in to a **** office job that kept a roof over my head. I wanted it all. I was soaking wet. I was miserable. I couldn’t remember my parents, or my childhood. Did I even have any friends? Why was I in the rain?

I looked down at my hand. I was still clutching the jar. The only memory of my entire life I could concretely remember was that girl giving it to me. Telling me it was happiness. It did not bring happiness. It brought pain. It bought suffering. I was more miserable in that moment than I’d ever been.

My phone buzzed:

**Break the jar, Tim.**

I looked at my other hand. With the setting sun and the rainy sky, I swear the jar glowed brighter than any street light near me. I didn’t break it because I was following her instruction. I broke it because I was angry. I broke it because I was upset. I needed a release. I raised my arm above my head, and brought it down with one swift motion, shattering the jar on the concrete beneath my feet.

That dark, chilly air accompanying the rain spread away like it was the shockwave of a bomb going off, and I was at the epicenter. I saw the warm, yellow light from inside the jar spread rapidly across the ground and ascend into the sky. It was as if I was watching the beginnings of the universe being created—like **** had just snapped his fingers and said, “let there be light.” I was engulfed in it. I could no longer see street or rain, or anything dark. I felt like I was plummeting into a star going faster than the speed of light. It felt like sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter’s night, but that warmth was covering every inch by body.

And then I blinked.

Immediately I could feel the sheets beneath me, and my back barely touching my wife’s. I was staring out the window. The morning light drenched through the glass and gleamed on my face.

I stood from bed and grabbed my phone. It was Friday morning. I had one text:

**Let me know if you ever need another jar :)**

I called in sick to work. I snuck into my daughter’s room and greeted her with a kiss and told her she didn’t have to go to preschool today. We were going to have a family day. She smiled and stretched out her arms with a yawn before curling up and falling back asleep. 

I got back in bed and squeezed my wife tightly. I didn’t let go for hours. Our daughter came into our room and woke us up eventually—she was jumping on the bed and shouting for us to wake up. Yesterday I may have found that annoying. Yesterday I may have found a lot of things annoying, or monotonous, or dull.

But not today. Today, I pulled her under the covers in between me and Kelsey.

Today was going to be a good day. Today, I was happy.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A Shattered Life
 
 Assistant: I don't know when you're going to read this, but I can tell you when it started: I was out for a walk alone in the woods when the entity came for me. It was beyond a blur. It was, for lack of a better term, absence of meaning. Where it hid, there were no trees; where it crept closer, there was no grass; through the arc it leapt at me, there was no breeze of motion. There was no air at all.

As it struck, I felt the distinct sensation of claws puncturing me somewhere unseen; somewhere I'd never felt before. My hands and arms and legs and torso seemed fine and I wasn't bleeding, but I knew I'd been injured somehow. As I fearfully ran back home, I could tell that I was less. I was vaguely tired, and it was hard to focus at times.

The solution at that early stage was easy: a big cup of coffee helped me feel normal again.

For a while, that subtle drain on my spirit became lost in the ebb and flow of caffeine in my system. You could say my life began that week, actually, because that was when I met Mar. She and I got along great, though, to be honest, I'm pretty sure I fell in love with her over the phone before we even met.

It was almost as if the strong emotions of that first week made the entity fight back—it was still with me, latched on to some invisible part of my being.

The first few incidents were minor, and I hardly worried about them. The color of a neighbor's car changed from dark blue to black one morning, and I stared at it before shaking my head and shrugging off the difference. Two days later, at work, a coworker's name changed from Fred to Dan. I carefully asked around, but everyone said his name had always been Dan. I figured I'd just been mistaken.

Then, as ridiculous as this sounds, I was peeing in my bathroom at home when I suddenly found myself on a random street. I was still in my pajamas, pants down, and urinating—but now in full view of a dozen people at a bus stop. Horrified, I pulled up my clothes and ran before someone called the cops. I did manage to get home, but the experience forced me to admit that I was still in danger. The entity was doing something to me, and I didn't understand how to fight back.

Mar showed up that evening, but she had her own key.

"Hey," I asked her with confusion. "How'd you get a key?"

She just laughed. "You're cute. Are you sure you're okay with this?" She opened a door and entered a room full of boxes. "I know living together is a big step, especially when we've only been dating three months."

Living together? I'd literally just met her the week before. Thing was, my mother had always called me a smart cookie for a reason. I knew when to shut my yap. Instead of causing a scene, I told her everything was fine—and then I went straight to my room and began investigating.

My things were just as I had left them with no sign of a three month gap in habitation, but I did find something out of the ordinary: the date. I shivered angrily as I processed the truth.

The entity had eaten three months of my life.

What the **** was I facing? What kind of creature could consume pieces of one's soul like that? I'd missed the most exciting part of a new relationship, and I would never understand any shared stories or in-jokes from that period. Something absurdly precious had been taken from me, and I was furious.

That fury helped suppress the entity. I never imbibed alcohol. I drank coffee religiously. I checked the date every time I woke up. For three years, I managed to live each day while observing nothing more than minor alterations. A social fact here and there—someone's job, how many kids they had, that sort of thing—the layout of nearby streets, the time my favorite television show aired, that kind of thing. Always, those changes reminded me the creature still had its claws sunk into my spirit. Not once in three years did I ever let myself zone out.

One day, I grew careless. I let myself get really into the season finale of my favorite show. It was gripping; a fantastic story. Right at the height of the action, a young boy came up to my lounger and shook my arm.

Surprised, I asked, "Who are you? How did you get in here?"

He laughed and smiled brightly. "Silly Daddy!"

My heart sank in my chest. I knew immediately what had happened. After a few masked questions, I discovered that he was two years old—and that he was my son.

The agony and heartache filling my chest was nearly unbearable. Not only had I missed the birth of my son, I would never see or know the first years of his life. Mar and I had obviously gotten married and started a family in the time I'd lost, and I had no idea what joys or pains those years contained.

It was snowing outside. Holding my sudden son in my lap, I sat and watched the flakes fall outside. What kind of life was this going to be if slips in concentration could cost me years? I had to get help.

The church had no idea what to do. The priests didn't believe me, and told me I had a health issue rather than some sort of possession.

The doctors didn't have any clue. Nothing showed up on all their scans and tests, but they happily took my money in return for nothing.

By the time I ran out of options, I'd decided to tell Mar. There was no way to know what this all looked like from her side. What was I like when I wasn't there? Did I still take our son to school? Did I still do my job? Clearly, I did, because she seemed to be none the wiser, but I still had a horrible feeling that something must have been missing in her life when I wasn't actually home inside my own head.

But the night I set up a nice dinner in preparation, she arrived not by unlocking the front door, but by knocking on it. I answered, and found that she was in a nice dress.

She was happily surprised by the settings on the table. "A fancy dinner for a second date? I knew you were sweet on me!"

Thank the Lord I knew when to keep my mouth shut. If I'd gone on about being married and having a son, she might have run for the hills. Instead, I took her coat and sat down for our second date.

Through carefully crafted questions, I managed to deduce the truth. This really was our second date. She saw relief and happiness in me, but interpreted that as dating jitters. I was just excited to realize that the entity wasn't necessarily eating whole portions of my life. The symptoms, as I was beginning to understand them, were more like the consequences of a shattered soul. The creature had wounded me; broken me into pieces. Perhaps I was to live my life out of order, but at least I would actually get to live it. 

And so it went for a few years—from my perspective. While minor changes in politics or geography would happen daily, major shifts in my mental location only happened every couple months. When I found myself in a new place and time in my life, I just shut up and listened, making sure to get the lay of the land before doing anything to avoid making mistakes. On the farthest-flung leap yet, I met my six-year-old grandson, and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said, "Writer." I told him that was a fine idea.

Then, I was back in month two of my relationship with Mar, and I had the best night with her on the riverfront. When I say the best, I mean *the best*. Knowing how special she would become to me, I asked her to move in. I got to live through what I'd missed the first go-around, and I came to understand that I was never mentally absent. I would always be there—eventually. When we were moving her boxes in, she stopped for a moment and said she marveled at my great love, as if I'd known her for a lifetime and never once doubted she was the one.

That was the first time I'd truly laughed freely and wholeheartedly since the entity had wounded me. She was right about my love for her, but for exactly the reason she'd considered a silly romantic analogy. I *had* known her my whole life, and I'd come to terms with my situation and found peace with it. It wasn't so bad to have sneak peeks at all the best parts ahead.

But of course I wouldn't be writing this if it hadn't gotten worse. The entity was still with me. It had not wounded me and departed like I'd wanted to believe. The closest I can describe my growing understanding was that the creature was burrowing deeper into my psyche, fracturing it into smaller pieces. Instead of months between major shifts, I began having only weeks. Once I noticed that trend, I feared my ultimate fate would be to jump between times in my life heartbeat by heartbeat, forever confused, forever lost. Only an instant in each time meant I would never be able to speak with anyone else, never be able to hold a conversation, never express or receive love.

As the true depth of that fear came upon me, I sat in an older version of me and watched the snow falling outside. That was the one constant in my life: the weather didn't care who I was or what pains I had to face. Nature was always there. The falling snow was always like a little hook that kept me in a place; the pure emotional peace it brought was like a panacea on my mental wounds, and I'd never yet shifted while watching the pattern of falling white and thinking of the times I'd gone sledding or built a snow fort as a child.

A teenager touched my arm. "Grandpa?"

"Eh?" He'd startled me out of my thoughts, so I was less careful than usual. "Who are you?"

He half-grinned, as if not sure whether I was joking. Handing me a stack of papers, he said, "It's my first attempt at a novel. Would you read it and tell me what you think?"

Ahh, of course. "Pursuing that dream of being a writer, I see."

He burned bright red. "Trying to, anyway."

"All right. Run off, I'll read this right now." The words were blurry, and, annoyed, I looked for glasses I probably had for reading. Being old was *terrible*, and I wanted to leap back into a younger year—but not before I read his book. I found my glasses in a sweater pocket, and began leafing through. Mar puttered in and out of the living room, still beautiful, but I had to focus. I didn't know how much time I would have there.

It seemed that we had relatives over. Was it Christmas? A pair of adults and a couple kids I didn't recognize tromped through the hallway, and I saw my son, now adult, walk by with his wife on the way out the door. As a group, the extended family began sledding outside.

Finally, I finished reading the story, and I called out for my grandson. He rushed down the stairs and into the living room. "How was it?"

"Well, it's terrible," I told him truthfully. "But it's terrible for all the right reasons. You're still a young man, so your characters behave like young people, but the structure of the story itself is very solid." I paused. "I didn't expect it to turn out to be a horror story."

He nodded. "It's a reflection of the times. Expectations for the future are dismal, not hopeful like they used to be."

"You're far too young to be aware like that," I told him. An idea occurred to me. "If you're into horror, do you know anything about strange creatures?"

"Sure. I read everything I can. I love it."

Warily, I scanned the entrances to the living room. Everyone was busy outside. For the first time, I opened up to someone in my life about what I was experiencing. In hushed tones, I told him about my fragmented consciousness.

For a teenager, he took it well. "You're serious?"

"Yes."

He donned the determined look of a grown man accepting a quest. "I'll look into it, see what I can find out. You should start writing down everything you experience. Build some data. Maybe we can map your psychic wound."

Wow. "Sounds like a plan." I was surprised. That made sense, and I hadn't expected him to have a serious response. "But how will I get all the notes in one place?"

"Let's come up with somewhere for you to leave them," he said, frowning with thought. "Then I'll get them, and we can trace the path you're taking through your own life, see if there's a pattern."

For the first time since the situation had gotten worse, I felt hope again. "How about under the stairs? Nobody ever goes under there."

"Sure." He turned and left the living room.

I peered after him. I heard him banging around near the stairs.

Finally, he returned with a box, laid it on the carpet, and opened it to reveal a bursting stack of papers. He exclaimed, "Holy ****!"—but of course, being a teenager, he didn't really say *crap*.

Taken aback, I blinked rapidly, forgiving his cussing because of the shock. "Did I write those?"

He looked up at me with wonder. "Yeah. Or, you will. You still have to write them and put them under the stairs after this." He gazed back down at the papers—then covered the box. "So you probably shouldn't see what they say. That could get weird."

That much I understood. "Right."

He gulped. "There are like fifty boxes under there, all filled up like this. Deciphering these will take a very long time." His tone dropped to deadly seriousness. "But I will save you, grandpa. Because I don't think anyone else can." 

Tears flowed down my cheeks then, and I couldn't help but sob once or twice. I hadn't realized how lonely I'd become in my shifting prison of awareness until I finally had someone who understood. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

And then I was young again, and at work on a random Tuesday. Once the sadness and relief faded, anger and determination replaced them. After I finished my work, I grabbed some paper and began writing. While the weeks shifted around me, while those weeks became days, and then hours, I wrote every single spare moment about when and where I thought I was. I put them under the stairs out of order; my first box was actually the thirtieth, and my last box was the first. Once I had over fifty boxes written from my perspective—and once my shifting became a matter of minutes—I knew it was up to my grandson to take it from there.

I put my head down and stopped looking. I couldn't stand the river of changing awareness any longer. Names and places and dates and jobs and colors and people were all wrong and different.

I'd never been older. I sat watching the snow fall. A man of at least thirty that I vaguely recognized entered the room. "Come on, I think I finally figured it out."

I was so frail that moving was painful. "Are you him? Are you my grandson?"

"Yes." He took me to a room filled with strange equipment and sat me in a rubber chair facing a large mirror twice the height of a man. "The pattern finally revealed itself."

"How long have you worked on this?" I asked him, aghast. "Tell me you didn't miss your life like I'm missing mine!"

His expression was both stone cold and furiously resolute. "It'll be worth it." He brought two thin metal rods close to my arm and then nodded at the mirror. "Look. This shock is carefully calibrated."

The electric zap from his device was startling, but not painful. In the mirror, I saw a rapid arcing light-silhouette appear above my head and shoulder. The electricity moved through the creature like a wave, briefly revealing the terrible nature of what was happening to me. A bulging leech-like mouth was wrapped around the back of my head, coming down to my eyebrows and touching each ear, and its slug-like body ran over my shoulder and into my very soul.

It was a parasite.

And it was feeding on my mind.

My now-adult grandson held my hand as I took in the horror. After a moment, he asked, "Removing it is going to hurt very badly. Are you up for this?"

Fearful, I asked, "Is Mar here?"

His face softened. "No. Not for a few years now."

I could tell from his reaction what had happened, but I didn't want it to be true. "How?"

"We have this conversation a lot," he responded. "Are you sure you want to know? It never makes you feel better."

Tears brimmed in my eyes. "Then I don't care if it hurts, or if I die. I don't want to stay in a time where she's not alive."

He made a sympathetic noise of understanding and then returned to his machines to hook several wires, diodes, and other bits of technology to my limbs and forehead. While he did so, he talked. "I've worked for two decades to figure this out, and I've had a ton of help from other researchers of the occult. This parasite doesn't technically exist in our plane. It's one of the lesser spawns of µ¬ßµ, and it feeds on the plexus of mind, soul, and quantum consciousness/reality. When details like names and colors of objects changed, you weren't going crazy. The web of your existence was merely losing strands as the creature ate its way through you."

I didn't fully understand. I looked up in confusion as he placed a circlet of electronics like a crown on my head in exact line with where the parasite's mouth had ringed me. "What's µ¬ßµ?"

He paused his work and grew pale. "I forgot that you wouldn't know. You're lucky, believe me." After a deep breath, he began moving again, and placed his fingers near a few switches. "Ready? This is carefully tuned to make your nervous system extremely unappetizing to the parasite, but it's basically electro-shock therapy."

I could still see Mar's smile. Even though she was dead, I'd just been with her moments ago. "Do it."

The click of a switch echoed in my ears, and I almost laughed at how mild the electricity was. It didn't feel like anything—at least at first. Then, I saw the mirror shaking, and my body within that image convulsing. Oh. No. It did hurt. Nothing had ever been more painful. It was just so excruciating that my mind hadn't been able to immediately process it. 

As my vision shook and fire burned in every nerve in my body, I could see the reflected trembling light-silhouette of the parasite on my head as it writhed in agony equal to mine. It had claws—six clawed lizard-like limbs under its leech-like body—and it cut into me in an attempt to stay latched on.

The electricity made my memories flare.

Mar's smile was foremost, lit brightly in front of a warm fire as the snow fell past the window behind her. The edges of that memory began lighting up, and I realized that my life *was* one continuous stretch of experience—it was only the awareness of it that had been fragmented by that feasting evil on my back.

I'd never managed to be there for the birth of my son. I'd jumped around it a dozen times, but never actually lived it. For the first time, I got to hold Mar's hand and be there for her.

No. *No!* That moment had shifted seamlessly into holding her hand as she lay in a hospital bed for a very different reason. Not this! ****, why? It was so merciless to make me remember this. I broke down in tears as nurses rushed into the room. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to experience it. I'd seen all the good parts, but I hadn't wanted the worst part—the inevitable end that all would one day face.

It wasn't worth it. It was tainted. All that joy was given back ten thousand fold as pain.

The fire in my body and in my brain surged to sheer white torture, and I screamed.

My scream faded into a surprised shout as the machines and electricity and chair faded away. Snow was no longer falling around my life; I was out in the woods on a bright summer day.

Oh ****.

I turned to see the creature approaching me. It was the same absence of meaning; the same blank on reality. It crept forward, just like before—but, this time, it hissed and turned away. I stood, astounded at being young again and freed from the parasite. My grandson had actually done it! He'd made me an unappetizing meal, so the predator of mind and soul had moved on in search of a different snack.

I returned home in a daze.

And while I was sitting there processing all that had happened, the phone rang. I looked at it in awe and sadness. I knew who it was. It was Marjorie, calling for the first time for some trivial reason she'd admit thirty years later was made up just to talk to me.

But all I could see was her lying in that hospital bed dying. It was going to end in unspeakable pain and loneliness. I would become an old man, left to sit by myself in an empty house, his soulmate gone long before him. At the end of it all, the only thing I would have left: sitting and watching the falling snow.

But now, thanks to my grandson, I would also have my memories. It would be a wild ride, no matter how it ended.

On a sudden impulse, I picked up the phone. With a smile, I asked, "Hey, who's this?"

Even though I already knew.

---

Author's note: Together, my grandfather and I did set out to write the tale of his life. Unfortunately, his Alzheimer's disease progressed rapidly, and we were never able to finish. He's still alive, but I imagine that, mentally, he is in a better place than the nursing home. I like to think he's back in his younger days, living life and being happy, because the reality is much colder. It's snowing today; he loves the snow. When I visited him, he didn't recognize me, but he did smile as he sat looking out the window.

---

[Blog](http://mattdymerski.com/) [FB](https://www.facebook.com/MattDymerskiAuthor/) [Tw](https://twitter.com/MattDymerski)[.](https://imgur.com/a/cLqsc)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My job is watching a woman trapped in a room.
 
 Assistant: Three years ago I was looking at the local job classifieds online when one of the ads caught my eye, not because of what it said, but because it said so little.  Best I remember, the ad just read “Job available.  Good pay.  No benefits.  Discretion required.”  It then listed an email address and that was all.  At the time I was managing a music store, but I had already started hearing rumors we would be shutting down within the next year and the likelihood of a transfer to another store was slim. I had been morosely looking at job listings for the last few days, but this was the first one that stood out, if only because I was bored and it was weird.

So I sent an email.

Half an hour later I had a response, telling me to go to a particular office building in an upscale part of the city at a precise time for my “screening”.  I went, and after waiting for a few minutes in the lobby, I was taken into an office where I was given a series of forms and questionnaires to fill out.  They collected them and told me they would be in touch.

I had almost forgotten about the whole thing until a month later I got a call saying I had moved on to the second stage of the hiring process.  I was again given an address and time, and when I arrived (this time it was a different nice office park twenty miles away from the first one), I was met by a man who introduced himself as Mr. Solomon.  He escorted me into a large room that contained a chair and a desk.  On the desk were two large monitors, a keyboard and mouse, and a bolted down metal box with two oversized buttons on it:  One red and one green.

He told me this room was a model for the place I would be working if I took the job.  He described the job as follows.

I would be working seven shifts of six hours every week.  My job would be simple.  I would arrive at work ten minutes early and enter an outer area that was like a locker room.  I would have my own personal locker.  I would store all belongings in the locker and change into the provided work clothes.  I was never, under any circumstances, to carry any item of my own into the surveillance room.  I was never, under any circumstances, to take any item with me from the surveillance room.

As for what I was to do in the surveillance room, I was told that the monitor on the left would constantly show a live stream from a high-definition camera in a remote location.  My job was simply to watch the camera.  Once an hour I would get onto the computer attached to the right monitor and enter a brief log describing anything interesting that occurred in the last hour.  I would have no pens or pencils or paper, and I should never try to take any kind of written notes about the work.

As for the red and green buttons, the red button was only to be used if there was an emergency.  This meant something on the video or in my workspace that required outside help.  The green button was to be hit if I saw something on the video feed that was particularly noteworthy.  It would tell other people somewhere that, at least in my opinion, something interesting was going on.  Solomon stressed that while I was given discretion on when to use this button, I should err on the side of only using it if and when something “of real significance” occurred.

He pointed out the camera on the ceiling of the room we were in.  He said the real room would be the same.  My work would be observed, and other people were watching the room on the video feed as well.  He said I was only a redundancy in case other systems failed.  He then smirked and asked if I knew what he meant by redundancy.

I nodded, trying not to show my irritation.  I don’t talk that good to people, so sometimes they think I’m dumb.  That’s okay.  Let him think that if he paid me good enough.

The pay was very good.  Thirty-five dollars an hour.  

This worried me.  I was already thinking this was some kind of psych experiment or secret government job, which I was okay with.  But that kind of money to sit and watch a screen?  My mom always told me that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and this was seeming too good to be true.

I asked if I was going to be doing anything illegal.  Solomon laughed and said no.  I asked if anyone was going to get hurt.  Again, he shook his head no.  He said the reason they were paying so much was because they needed employees that were motivated to be professional and discrete.  The work they were doing was important, and for various reasons it couldn’t be discussed.  If I took the job, I would have to sign papers promising I would never discuss my work there or I could be sued or locked up.  I’m only breaking that now because of everything that’s happened.

So I took the job, and because they wanted me to start right away, I had to quit the store with no notice.  I felt bad about that, but I was excited about the new job too.  It was a lot of money and seemed like easy enough work, if a bit boring.  I was nervous that there was something more to it, but I told myself I would just have to see.  No point in chickening out and wasting a good chance because I let my imagination go crazy.
I was given the location of the job itself, and when I went there, I was amazed that it really was just like the model room I had been shown with only a few differences.  There was a locker room you had to pass through to enter the surveillance room and there was a small bathroom attached to the real surveillance room also.  The real room had a small water cooler in the corner, but because I wasn’t allowed to bring anything in with me, I had to eat before or after every shift.  The biggest difference, of course, was that the monitors were turned on.

The right monitor was just a black and white terminal like you see in movies some times.  I could type in my logs, but no internet to look at or anything like that.  The left monitor…

It was video from a room.  You would call it a bedroom I guess, because it had a bed in it, but it had lots of other stuff too.  A T.V., a sofa and chairs, a couple of tables, and plenty of empty space in between.  The camera must be high up in a corner, because I could see pretty much everything except for the far sides of furniture.  At first though, I didn’t notice any of that stuff.  

All I saw was her.

She looked to be a little older than me and was very pretty.  When I first saw her, she was laying on her side on the sofa.  That was the part of the room farthest from the camera, but the picture was very clear and I could tell that she was sleeping.  I found myself leaning into the monitor more so I could see her better, and then I thought about what I was doing and felt embarrassed.  It’s like I was spying on her.  A Peeping Tom, my mom used to call it.

I didn’t want to be a Peeping Tom, but I didn’t want to be silly either.  I needed to think about it slow.  

It was a good job.  And I wasn’t doing anything wrong, right?  I wasn’t hurting anybody.  The woman looked fine.  And the room was nice.  She probably agreed to be there and it’s all some experiment or something.  I was just overreacting.

So I sat down in the chair and began my work.

**** 

It didn’t take long before I understood more.  The woman, I took to calling her Rachel, wasn’t there of her free will.  I never saw her hurt, but it was clear that she never left that room except to go into what I think is a bathroom area that my camera couldn’t see.  Well, she never left the room on her own.  Periodically, usually a couple of times a week during my shifts, men and women in strange-looking outfits would come in and take her from the room.  Sometimes she would struggle, but usually she would just go along with her head hung low.

They would always bring her back, though the times when she wasn’t brought back during my shift were always the worst for me.  I would worry about her until I got to work the next day and saw her in the room watching T.V. or painting.  She never looked hurt or even that upset except for when they took her, and even when she fought, they were always gentle with her.  

Still, I knew something was wrong.  I considered quitting the job, or hitting the red button and getting someone to come so I could get some answers.  Or calling the police and showing them what the camera was showing me.

Except I was scared.  Scared of losing my job,  and scared of what these people might do to me if I quit or told on them.  Solomon had told me when I took the job that part of being discreet was not asking questions.  I would never be asked to do more than I had already been told, but I could never tell anyone what I did or saw, and I could never ask questions about what I was doing or why.

So I made excuses.  It was all an experiment.  She was crazy or sick and they were trying to help her.  She was doing a job just like I was.  Or if she really was a prisoner somewhere, at least I was watching to make sure that she was okay.  If they ever tried to hurt her, or I saw that she really didn’t want to be there for sure, I could get help then.  In a way, I told myself, I was helping to protect her by watching.

I don’t expect you to think much of my excuses.  I don’t think much of them myself, especially now.  But in my defense, when things changed, I didn’t ignore it or try to explain it away.  I knew something had to be done.

****

Rachel would usually paint for an hour or two every day, and it seemed to always be during my afternoon shifts.  The room had no windows as far as I could tell, but I guess she either used a clock or her own body’s time to keep to a kind of schedule.  I always liked to watch her paint—the thing she was painting was always facing the wrong way for me to see it, but I could see her face as she worked.  She always looked peaceful and happy when she was painting, and seeing her that way, smiling serenely from time to time as she got something the way she wanted it, always made my day.

I first noticed something was wrong when she started painting more frequently a few weeks ago.  Her expression was more focused and serious, and there was a tension to her movements that I wasn’t used to seeing.  At first I thought she was just really trying to work **** something, and I wanted to tell her not to worry.  Every few weeks the others would come in and take the old paintings out anyway, bringing in a new stack of…I think the word is canvas.

But it was more than her being focused.  Something was wrong.  She didn’t look happy and she was going for hours at a time.  In the span of three days, she had finished four paintings.

I had been growing more and more worried watching her work, and when she finished the fourth, I found myself telling her to just stop and rest awhile.  I had grown accustomed to talking to the monitor, talking to *her* in my own way.  But she didn’t stop.  Instead she began moving the paintings.  Arranging them on the back and seat of the long sofa at the far end of the room.  

This was the first time I had gotten to see any of the paintings.  Even when the others were taking them out, they always seemed to be turned away from the camera.  I was still worried about her, but I was also happy to finally see something she had worked on.  Happy and amazed.

They were beautiful.  One was a beautiful green forest.  Another was an old stone well.  A third was a house sitting alone on a small island.  The last was an old-fashioned looking movie theater.  All of them looked like something out of a dream, with trailing lines of color mixing in the air around them like leaves caught in a wind.  It was only when I looked close that I realized the lines of color weren’t random.  They were words.  Easy to miss if you weren’t looking close, and by themselves, they didn’t seem to mean much.  Just the ghost of a word somewhere in each of the paintings, easy to lose in everything else that was being shown.

I leaned into the monitor and squinted, trying to read the words.  Then my heart started thudding as I made them out.  Blinking and rubbing my eyes, I looked again, reading them out loud in order—left to right, top pair then bottom.

“Please.”

“Help.”

“Me.”

“Thomas.”

I pushed back from the monitor, my hand over my mouth.  I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know how any of this could be happening.  It wasn’t just that she was asking for help, though that was a big part of it.  

[It was that *my* name is Thomas.](https://redd.it/9ndww5)

****

[Part Two](https://redd.it/brsj8v)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell
 
 Assistant: I wasn't sure where else to post these stories, so I figured I'd share them here. I've been an SAR officer for a few years now, and along the way I've seen some things that I think you guys will be interested in. 

* I have a pretty good track record for finding missing people. Most of the time they just wander off the path, or slip down a small cliff, and they can't find their way back. The majority of them have heard the old 'stay where you are' thing, and they don't wander far. But I've had two cases where that didn't happen. Both bother me a lot, and I use them as motivation to search even harder on the missing persons cases I get called on. 
The first was a little boy who was out berry-picking with his parents. He and his sister were together, and both of them went missing around the same time. Their parents lost sight of them for a few seconds, and in that time both the kids apparently wandered off. When their parents couldn't find them, they called us, and we came out to search the area. We found the daughter pretty quickly, and when we asked where her brother was, she told us that he'd been taken away by 'the bear man.' She said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet, that he wanted to play with her brother for a while. The last she saw of her brother, he was riding on the shoulders of 'the bear man' and seemed calm. Of course, our first thought was abduction, but we never found a trace of another human being in that area. The little girl was also insistent that he wasn't a normal man, but that he was tall and covered in hair, 'like a bear', and that he had a 'weird face.' We searched that area for *weeks*, it was one of the longest calls I've ever been on, but we never found a single trace of that kid. 
The other was a young woman who was out hiking with her mom and grandpa. According to the mother, her daughter had climbed up a tree to get a better view of the forest, and she'd never come back down. They waited at the base of the tree for hours, calling her name, before they called for help. Again, we searched everywhere, and we never found a trace of her. I have no idea where she could possibly have gone, because neither her mother or grandpa saw her come down.

* A few times, I've been out on my own searching with a canine, and they've tried to lead me straight up cliffs. Not hills, not even rock faces. Straight, sheer cliffs with no possible handholds. It's always baffling, and in those cases we usually find the person on the other side of the cliff, or miles away from where the canine has led us. I'm sure there's an explanation, but it's sort of strange.

* One particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body. A nine-year-old girl fell down an embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base. It was a complete freak accident, but I'll never forget the sound her mother made when we told her what had happened. She saw the body bag being loaded into the ambulance, and she let out the most haunting, heart-broken wail I've ever heard. It was like her whole life was crashing down around her, and a part of her had died with her daughter. I heard from another SAR officer that she killed herself a few weeks after it happened. She couldn't live with the loss of her daughter.

* I was teamed up with another SAR officer because we'd received reports of bears in the area. We were looking for a guy who hadn't come home from a climbing trip when he was supposed to, and we ended up having to do some serious climbing to get to where we figured he'd be. We found him trapped in a small crevasse with a broken leg. It was not pleasant. He'd been there for almost two days, and his leg was very obviously infected. We were able to get him into a chopper, and I heard from one of the EMTs that the guy was absolutely inconsolable. He kept talking about how he'd been doing fine, and when he'd gotten to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment, and he was wearing a parka and ski pants. He walked up to the guy, and when the guy turned around, he said he had no face. It was just blank. He freaked out, and ended up trying to get off the mountain too fast, which is why he'd fallen. He said he could hear the guy all night, climbing down the mountain and letting out these horrible muffled screams. That story bothered the **** out of me. I'm glad I wasn't there to hear it. 

* One of the scariest things I've ever had happen to me involved the search for a young woman who'd gotten separated from her hiking group. We were out until late at night, because the dogs had picked up her scent. When we found her, she was curled up under a large rotted log. She was missing her shoes and pack, and she was clearly in shock. She didn't have any injuries, and we were able to get her to walk with us back to base ops. Along the way, she kept looking behind us and asking us why 'that big man with black eyes' was following us. We couldn't see anyone, so we just wrote it off as some weird symptom of shock. But the closer we got to base, the more agitated this woman got. She kept asking me to tell him to stop 'making faces' at her. At one point she stopped and turned around and started yelling into the forest, saying that she wanted him to leave her alone. She wasn't going to go with him, she said, and she wouldn't give us to him. We finally got her to keep moving, but we started hearing these weird noises coming from all around us. It was almost like coughing, but more rhythmic and deeper. It was almost insect-like, I don't really know how else to describe it. When we were within site of base ops, the woman turns to me, and her eyes are about as wide as I can imagine a human could open them. She touches my shoulder and says 'He says to tell you to speed up. He doesn't like looking at the scar on your neck.' I have a very small scar on the base of my neck, but it's mostly hidden under my collar, and I have no idea how this woman saw it. Right after she says it, I hear that weird coughing right in my ear, and I just about jumped out of my skin. I hustled her to ops, trying not to show how freaked out I was, but I have to say I was really happy when we left the area that night.

* This is the last one I'll tell, and it's probably the weirdest story I have. Now, I don't know if this is true in every SAR unit, but in mine, it's sort of an unspoken, regular thing we run into. You can try asking about it with other SAR officers, but even if they know what you're talking about, they probably won't say anything about it. We've been told not to talk about it by our superiors, and at this point we've all gotten **** to it that it doesn't even seem weird anymore.
On just about every case where we're really far into the wilderness, I'm talking 30 or 40 miles, at some point we'll find a staircase in the middle of the woods. It's almost like if you took the stairs in your house, cut them out, and put them in the forest. I asked about it the first time I saw some, and the other officer just told me not to worry about it, that it was normal. Everyone I asked said the same thing. I wanted to go check them out, but I was told, very emphatically, that I should never go near any of them. I just sort of ignore them now when I run into them because it happens so frequently. 

I have a lot more stories, and I suppose if anyone's interested, I'll tell some of them tomorrow. If anyone has any theories about the stairs, or if you've seen them too, let me know. 

**EDIT: Part 2 is up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. I’m not sure I want to live here anymore.
 
 Assistant: 
I moved in with my boyfriend yesterday. We’ve been together for 5 years now and we’re old and wise enough to settle down and finally leave our parents houses. He just turned 24 and I’m 22. He’s the love of my life. His name is Jamie and I couldn’t be happier to be living with him. 

When we decided to make the leap we spent 2 months looking at flats and houses, we couldn’t afford to buy yet so renting was our only option but the prices were astronomical. For our budget we would have been lucky to get a box room and a stove.

Jamie works for a local 24 hour fast food restaurant and I’m training to be a teacher. The early stages of training don’t pay much and I owe a lot in student loans so finances are tough. 

We had almost given up hope until we found our flat. It was nothing special, but to us it was a palace. A spacious 2 bedroom apartment with views of a city park, a balcony and local conveniences. It was in a tower block in a not so nice area, but neither of us had been wealthy growing up, we weren’t fussy. Just grateful to be together. 

The advert was sweetened by the deposit free option and open ended tenancy. The landlord was happy to sign a five year contract if we wanted. That sort of thing never happens in the city. We were told that along with no deposit we would also have no inspections, but would be liable to pay for any damage when we ended the tenancy. I’d never heard of anything quite like it.

We knew that for our budget and location we weren’t going to get any better. We snapped the place up fast, not even bothering to view it. It felt like our only chance. 

Move in day rolled around quickly and yesterday we got the keys to our first home together, it was such a strange feeling. The day was chaos, getting our stuff in and up in the lift. We were flat number 42, on the 7th floor. The items we couldn’t get in the lift had to be taken up all the stairs by the removal men. I think they were grateful we weren’t any higher but I still wish we had been able to give them a better tip. 

In the evening we settled down on our second hand sofa, given to us by a cousin of a friend and watched some tv. We smoked cigarettes on the balcony looking at the park and fell asleep on our mattress on the floor super early because we had no energy to put the bed together yet and Jamie had work at a hideous time of the morning. 

We slept soundly last night, I felt safe and happy. I don’t think that feeling is coming back any time soon and it’s all due to the note I found this morning. 

I found it in the kitchen, having a coffee, hours after Jamie had left for his early shift at work. It was in one of the cupboards that were fixed to the wall, there were a bunch of useful items from the previous tenant. Spare keys to the flat, a set of tiny keys that locked and unlocked the windows (necessary for those with kids this high up), spare smoke alarm batteries and a folded up piece of paper. 

The note was handwritten with “New occupier of flat 42” in beautiful cursive on the blank side. I opened it up and sat down to read. I can’t really describe it to you, so I’m going to copy it out below. 

*Dear New Occupier,*

*Firstly, welcome to your new home. I lived here before you for 35 years with my husband. Unfortunately he had an incident at home recently that I’d rather not discuss that claimed his life. My sister has now decided I can’t keep up with the demands of the property and has insisted that I move in with her and her husband. I was reluctant at first, but the stairs do **** me at my age and without Bernie it’s filled with sadness.*

*Anyway. When you’ve lived somewhere for as long as I have it feels like a person that you know. You understand it’s personality and what makes it tick. I thought it was probably pertinent that I impart some of that knowledge on you.*

*It’s a wonderful home, honestly, I have lived through best and worst years and leaving it behind is very emotional but if you are to survive and get the best out of it then there are some steps you need to follow.*

*1. The landlord will never bother you, he doesn’t visit, call or communicate in any way. But make sure to pay your rent in a timely fashion always. I have only dealt with him once in 35 years and let’s just say I never missed another rent day. Any repairs required you speak to the agent you rented the place with.*

*2. DO NOT use the communal lift between 1.11 and 3.33 am. Just don’t do it. This step is vital if you are to have a happy life here. It really is life or death. Don’t do it. This has cost me and many others in the building greatly and I would rather not elaborate on why you shouldn’t do this. Just please don’t do it. I cannot stress this enough.*

*3. When you hear the strange animal noises coming from flat 48 don’t question it, Mr Prentice lives there and he’s a lovely chap. Don’t be afraid to say hello to him in the corridor or on the stairs (he’s old school, so he never risks the lift) but whatever you do, don’t check on him when you hear the noises. You’ll know when you hear them.*

*4. If you ever come across a window cleaner on the balcony ignore him. He may seem like the nicest fellow you’ve ever had trying to sell you something at the door but it really is best that you don’t engage. He will go away if you ignore him. But he tries pretty hard the first few times so you’ll need some resilience. Whatever you do, don’t offer him anything. No money, no hot drink.*

*5. Don’t leave food scraps out. Bin or refrigerate them immediately. If you have small animals, it is imperative that you watch them eat and take away any leftover food immediately after they are done. This and rule 2 go hand in hand, the things forage all day and seem to really love animal feed. You don’t want them in your flat. I promise. You can leave what you want out between 1.11 and 3.33am so you may want to feed your pets then.*

*6. Don’t communicate with any neighbours who claim to come from flats 65-72. These flats suffered a fire in the late 80s that devastated the whole floor, all the residents died in their homes. The building was mostly council owned at the time and they never bothered to renovate the flats. They’ve been empty ever since but every now and again someone will knock at your door claiming to live in one of these flats and ask to borrow some sugar. They will seem entirely average but you must shut and lock the door immediately. I installed two extra security bolts to avoid these ****. I don’t like to swear at my age but they really are ****.*

*7. Simple one for you here, keep a weapon in each room. Sometimes you follow all these steps and something still slips through the net. Better to be safe than sorry.*

*8. The building has a committee that will try and get you to join. It’s one of those neighbours groups about improving living conditions for all residents. It’s a nice group and the lady who runs it - Terri from flat 26- is a fantastic neighbour. By all means get involved. But I wouldn’t recommend babysitting Terri’s 2 children. She’ll ask you, because the poor woman needs a break, but if you accept don’t say I didn’t warn you.*

*9. Stray hairless cats sometimes roam in the hallway. I know they’re supposedly a special, expensive breed, but they don’t belong to anyone. They’re mostly  harmless, but don’t pick them up. Not unless you see one of those neighbours that claims to live in 65-72. Then grab the cat and lock it inside with you. It’ll burn your skin a little but the cats are friendly and I wouldn’t want to see them hurt.*

*10. There is no way to fix the damp patch on the ceiling in the bedroom. Sometimes it will turn a deep crimson and look quite concerning, but please try not to be alarmed, it doesn’t drip, it doesn’t get any bigger and it’s been there longer than I have. The landlord won’t budge on it, according the the agents. I flagged it many times, even called the police the first night it changed colour, but it was a waste of time and it will be for you too. It’s best to ignore it.*

*11. You can trust the postman. His name is Ian Flanders and he’s been the postman since before I moved in. He has his own key to the main door and delivers post to the door every morning at 8.54. I can’t include everything here, or it would become a novel but if you have any questions Ian will help you.*

*12. Finally, the first few weeks are the worst. You’ll feel like you’ve made a mistake, I’m sure reading this you already do, but if you can get through the first few weeks it really is a lovely block to live in. Every property has it quirks and this one is a little extra special, but you can be truly happy here if you just take my advice. I wish you all the best, I really do.*

*Yours truly*, 

*Mrs Prudence Hemmings*

I don’t really know what to think after reading the note. Hopefully it was some sort of joke but the agent had said the previous tenant was an elderly lady and I can’t see anyone named Prudence Hemmings attempting to play practical jokes on someone they’d never met. 

There were also parts of the note I couldn’t disprove, there was indeed a large damp patch above the bed that me and Jamie had already discussed reporting. No crimson but it definitely existed. I had also commented on a beautiful Sphynx cat roaming the halls as we were moving in. I started to get seriously freaked out.

Our dream, our beautiful little home had just become a source of fear and confusion. I checked the time and it was 9.14. **** it. Out of time to catch postman Ian. When I opened the door to check, sure enough, two letters addressed to a Mrs Hemmings sat on the doorstep. 

At about 11.15 my worst fears were truly confirmed when a friendly middle aged looking man carrying window cleaning equipment knocked on my balcony door. I ignored him. I didn’t want to take the risk until I’d spoken to Jamie and showed him the note. I’d texted him already to rush home. I felt bad as the man rapped his knuckles against the door for over 10 minutes, but honestly the longer it went on the more I was terrified. 

My windows were sparkling, and due to our lack of curtains I couldn’t even hide from his gaze. I felt so exposed. He stayed for a total of 30 minutes exactly and never once did he stop looking at me or knocking. He shouted the occasional ultra friendly line or humble request for a beverage in the heat through the door but I did my best to avoid eye contact. 

When he finally left I looked outside every window in the flat, but I couldn’t see him on any of the other balconies or see any equipment suggesting he was around. He had vanished completely. 

Jamie still hadn’t text me back, he must have been having a rough shift, it was a Friday and they were always busy. It wasn’t often that he didn’t reply. He was due home in around an hour anyway.

I read the note probably hundreds of times over, I tortured myself reading it for the next hour. Desperately waiting for Jamie to come through the door to tell me it was all crazy and I should relax. 

I hoped for that so much.

But Jamie never came. His shift should have finished around midday but by 2pm he still wasn’t home. I panicked, I cried, I left over 100 voice messages on his phone but got nowhere. I finally decided it had been long enough that calling his work wouldn’t embarrass him and his boss told me that he had never turned up for his shift. 

I thought about it, what could have happened?  And then it hit me. Jamie’s shift started at 4am today. He would have left the flat at 3.15 and taken the lift down the stairs. 

I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to convince myself it was all just a big joke. Maybe Jamie wrote the note and got his boss in on it. A voice in my head kept telling me that he couldn’t write like that if he tried but I had to attempt to fool myself. It’s getting late and he still isn’t home, what if it’s all true? [I think we made a big mistake.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePickledGnome/)


My next steps : https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cinu8u/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And what happened after that: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cj2g4k/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: If you’re armed and at the Glenmont metro, please shoot me
 
 Assistant: Make it a head shot. Shoot me in the temple, aiming slightly downwards. I need the bullet to travel the shortest possible distance through my brain before it hits my hippocampus. If I’m lucky, the sensation of the gunshot ripping through my skull will only last a few decades.

As awful as this sounds, you’ll be doing me an enormous favor. Death by a headshot, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, is vastly better than the alternative.

My ordeal started over ten thousand years ago, at 10:15 this morning. I earn extra money by participating in drug trials. I’m a so-called “healthy subject” who takes experimental drugs to help assess side effects. Once it was a kidney drug. A few times it’s been something for blood pressure or cholesterol. This morning they told me the drug I took was a psychoactive substance intended to accelerate brain function.

None of the drugs I had tested so far have ever done anything for me, in the recreational sense. In other words, none of the drugs I’ve tested have given me a killer buzz, or mellowed me out, or anything. Maybe I’ve always ended up the placebo group, but nothing I’ve tested had affected me at all.

Today’s drug was different. This **** *worked*. They gave me a pill at 10:15 and told me to hang out in the waiting room until they called me back for some tests. “Only about thirty minutes,” the research assistant told me. I flopped onto the waiting room couch and read a few articles from a copy of Psychology Today that was sitting on the coffee table. They hadn’t called me back when I finished the Psychology Today so I picked up a US News and read it cover-to-cover. Then I read an old Scientific American. *What was taking them so **** long*?

I sluggishly turned my head to look at the wall clock. It was only 10:23 am. I had read all three magazines in eight minutes. I remember thinking this was going to be a long day. I was right.

The waiting room had little bookshelf with some used hardcovers on it. When I stood up to walk to the bookshelf it felt like my legs barely worked. It’s not that they were weak. They were just slow. It took a full minute just to stand up off the couch, and another minute to take two steps to the bookcase.

I scanned the old books on the shelf and picked out a copy of Moby ****. My arms had the same problems as my legs. Just reaching one foot in front of me to grab the book took a long time. I actually got bored just waiting for my hand to reach the spine of the book.

I slogged back to the couch and collapsed onto it in a slow-motion fall that reminded me of the low-gravity hops of astronauts on the moon. I opened Moby **** (slowly) and began reading. I started with *Call me Ishmael* and got as far as Ahab throwing his pipe into the sea (which was all the way to friggin chapter *thirty*) before they called me back.

“How are you feeling?” the research assistant asked me.

“I feel slow,” I said.

“Actually, it’s the other way around. Everything seems slow because you’re so fast.”

“But my legs. My arms. They’re moving in slow motion.”

“Your body seems like it’s moving slowly because your brain is fast. Your brain is running ten or twenty times faster than normal. You are thinking and perceiving reality at an accelerated pace. But your body is still constrained by the laws of biomechanics. Frankly, you’re moving much faster than a normal person,” she pantomimed a jogging motion. “But your brain is running so much faster right now, that even your fast walk seems very slow to you.”

I thought about my slow-motion flop onto the waiting room couch. Even if my muscles had slowed down, my body would still react to gravity the same way. But in the waiting room, I even *fell* in slow motion. Slow muscles couldn’t explain why gravity seemed weaker. My brain was going at warp ten. That’s how I managed to read three magazines and the first thirty chapters of Moby **** in fifteen minutes.

They ran a series of tests on me. The physical tests were fun. They made me juggle three balls. Then four. Then six. I had no problem keeping six balls in the air because they seemed to be moving so slowly. It was boring, frankly, waiting for each ball to move through its arc so I could catch it (with my slow-motion hands) and toss it back into the air. They threw cheerios in the air and I caught them with chopsticks. They dropped a handful of coins and I counted the total value before they hit the ground.

The cognitive tests were less fun, but very illuminating. Finish a fifty-word word search (three seconds). Solve an intricate maze drawn onto a poster-sized paper (two seconds). View a slide show projected at ten images per second and answer detailed questions about what I saw (95% correct).

They told me I measured over 250 on the Knopf scale. Apparently, that’s deep into the superhuman range of thinking speeds.

Then they sent me home. “It’ll wear off in a few hours,” they said. “Which will seem like days to you. Try to use the residual effects to get some work done. Catch up on work emails while you’re still in high-speed mode!”

The ride home was *horrible*. It was only three metro stops, and in real-world time, it only took about thirty-five minutes. But in my drug-accelerated hyper-time, it felt like days. *Days*. Just walking out of the medical research suite to the elevator seemed like it took an hour. I sprinted out of the office, willing my legs to push me faster. But, the laws of biomechanics held me prisoner. As accelerated as my brain was, I couldn’t do anything to make my legs work faster.

The huge disconnect between my body and mind made it extremely difficult to judge how and when to slow down, turn, or rotate my body. I had basically turned into giant, slow-motion spaz. I misjudged my speed and rammed into the wall by the elevator button at a pretty good speed. Even though I could see the wall coming at me, I couldn’t make my finger, outstretched to hit the elevator button, move away fast enough and I jammed it against the wall. Hard. The pain was intense. If my brain had been running at regular speed, it probably only would have hurt for thirty seconds or so. But in my accelerated state, the intense pain seemed to last for half an hour. Forty-five minutes maybe.

The elevator ride was horrible. It felt like I spent four or five hours just descending seven floors, with nothing to look at but the interior of the elevator car.

I sprinted to the metro station. I have to admit, this part was almost fun. Even though my body moved at, what seemed to me, super-slow speed, I could still carefully choose how and where to place my feet, swing my arms, and turn my torso. It only took a block or two to getting used to having a brain that ran two dozen times faster than my body. Then I basically sprint-danced the rest of the way, twisting and juking between people on the sidewalk and dodging moving cars with inches (a.k.a. minutes) of clearance.

I spent an hour, in my time frame, descending into the subway and running to the platform. Endless tedium waiting the six minutes for the red-line train to arrive. Although there was more to look at on the metro platform than inside the elevator, it was still intensely boring. I should have stolen that copy of Moby ****.

The red-line train roared into the station in slow-motion. The normally high-pitched squeal of its brakes was frequency shifted by my high-speed mind to a long low tone, like a monotone Tuba solo.

It wasn’t just the squealing subway train that was three octaves lower than normal. All sound was slowed to the point of near inaudibility. Voices were gone, shifted below the threshold frequency of my hearing. I did manage to hear a screaming baby on my subway car – her shrieks slowed to sound like whale songs. Sharp sounds like a car horns and trucks bouncing over potholes were low, muddied roars like distant thunder.

Back at the research offices, I could still hear and communicate with the research staff. But now verbal communication with anyone would be impossible. The effects of the drug were still intensifying.

I spent what seemed like days on that **** red-line train. Days. Listening to the whale-song of the screaming baby and the Tuba solo of the brakes. Where ordinary voices were frequency-shifted out of my audio range, smells didn’t seem to be affected. I never became nose-blind to the body odor, the stench of the train’s brakes, and mélange of farts and other smells wafting through the metro car.

I *finally* got back to my apartment. Sprinting through my open door and into the front hall at full speed was like a slow, relaxing drift down a lazy river.

I was relieved to be home. At least I had stuff I could do there. I picked up the book I was reading – One Hundred Years of Solitude – and finished it. Despite turning the pages so quickly that I tore many of them, it seemed like most of the time I spent finishing the book was spent on page turning and not actually reading. Three minutes had passed since I got home.

I tried surfing the Internet (my **** it takes a long time for computers to boot these days) but it was too frustratingly slow. Hours (seemingly) to load each new page, and a fraction of a second to read it. A hundred articles in my news feed read and just three more minutes done.

I dipped into my pile of yet-to-be-read books and finished two more. Four more minutes had passed.

I decided to try to sleep off the remaining effects of the drug. Unfortunately, whatever part of my mind is responsible for perception, the part that’s been accelerated to hyper speeds by the drug, isn’t the same as the part that governs sleep. Despite being awake for what I perceived as days, my physical brain still thought it was 1:25 pm. It was not ready for sleep.

Nevertheless, I *tried* to sleep. I walked to my bedroom (a slow 45-minute drift through my apartment) and flung myself into bed (lazily falling like a feather onto the mattress). I closed my eyes and lay there for hours and hours (10 minutes of reality time) before giving up. Sleep would not come. I was facing what was going to feel like days, or maybe even weeks of being trapped in a slow-motion prison.

So I took an Ambien.

The sensation of the pill and the splash of water I used to swallow it sliding my throat was sickening. A lump that blocked my breathing, moving like a slug down my esophagus.

I read a book. Ten minutes had passed. I read another. Eighteen minutes since I took the Ambien. I threw the book across the room in disgust at my situation. The book slowly pirouetted and spun through the air, like a leaf blowing in a breeze. It hit the wall with a long, faint rumble – the only sound I had head for what seemed like hours – then drifted to the floor like a flip-flop sinking in a swimming pool.

The force of gravity hadn’t changed since I took the pill. The laws of physics were the same. It was just my perception of time that had gone wackadoo. This meant I could use the speed things seemed to fall as a way of judging the effects of the drug. Based on how long it took the book to drift to the floor, I estimated the effects of the drug were *still* intensifying.

I read a magazine. I turned on the television – I clearly saw each frame of video like I was watching a slideshow. Frustrated, I turned the television off.

I read some more. The first two books of *Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples*. Not exactly a light read. Frankly, I hated it. But given the hours of tedium it would take to go get another book off my bookshelf, just sitting on the couch and reading Churchill was better. Or at least less worse.

It had now been thirty-five minutes since I took the Ambien. I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. Time passed. I inhaled – a hours long process. Time passed. I exhaled for more hours.

Sleep. Would. Not. Come.

I needed a new plan. I decided to go back to the offices where they gave me the drug. Maybe they would have something that could counteract its effects. Or at least something to knock me out until it wore off.

I exited my apartment as fast as possible – taking hours in my time-frame to do so. I didn’t even bother locking the door. It would have taken too long.

Down the stairs (it’s faster than the elevator if you run), through the lobby, out the front door and onto the street. These few things felt like a long day at the office.

Sprinting down the street, dancing and weaving between pedestrians with, what must have looked to them, superhuman dexterity. Down the first flight of stairs at the metro. Across the landing. Another hour. Then on to the second flight of stairs. That’s when the Ambien hit me.

The Ambien didn’t make me sleepy. Not at all. Instead, it must have had a severe cross-reaction with the experimental drug I took this morning. I was bounding down the second flight of stairs, moving in slow motion, but still making perceptible progress. Then, wham – everything stopped.

The dull roar of the street and metro noise ceased, replaced by the most perfect silence I’ve ever experienced. My downwards motion seemed to completely freeze. Before the Ambien kicked in, my perception of time was maybe a few hundred times slower than real-time. After the Ambien took effect, time moved *thousands* of times slower. Every second seemed like days to me. Even just moving my eyes to focus on a new point was like an impossibly slow scroll across my visual field.

Over the course of the afternoon, I learned how to walk, run, and jump when my mind ran hundreds of times faster than my body. But with another four or five orders of magnitude of slow-down caused by the Ambien, body control was almost impossible. I fell on the stairs. Even though I was all-but-frozen in mid-step, controlling my muscles was impossible. I commanded my foot forwards for hours, then backwards for hours more when it seemed like I would miss the next step. Hours attempting to adjust the angle of my ankle, then re-adjusting when it felt wrong.

Despite these efforts, I rolled my ankle on the next step. The pain wasn’t at all mitigated by the slowness. Hours of increasing strain on my bent ankle. The nerve signals that send pain into the brain must work differently than the nerves in my ear. Sonic energy was spread out over time, diluted until it was imperceptible. Pain flowed into my brain undiluted by the change in my perception of time. Hours and hours of increasing weight on my turned ankle turned into hours of increasing pain upon increasing pain.

I pitched forwards, my high-speed mind completely unable to control my low-speed body. I drifted downwards for days, managing to rotate my torso enough to keep my head from impacting the ground first. I eventually landed on my right shoulder. At first the impact wasn’t even noticeable. Then I felt a slight pressure in my shoulder as it came in contact with the ground. The pressure grew, bringing increasing pain, for hour upon hour. My shoulder finally gave out, popping out of its socket with an endless sickening tug.

I came to a stop days later, crumpled onto the ground, staring at the ceiling. The pain in my shoulder still screaming with the intensity of a fresh violent injury. I had plenty of time to think during that fall. If every second seemed like days to me, then each minute of real-world time would be like *years*. Even if the drug cleared out of my system in the next two or three hours, this nightmare would seem to last *centuries*.

By the time I hit the ground, I had a plan. I would somehow get to the platform and throw myself in front of a train.

I twisted onto my hands and knees. Days of my dislocated shoulder crying for relief. I misjudged my rotation and rolled onto my back. I tried again, collapsing onto my face as I tried to figure out how to control a body that moved slower than grass grew. *Weeks* of effort were finally rewarded with success – I stabilized on my hands and knees.

If just getting on all fours was this difficult, I figured that walking or running was completely out of the question. So I crawled. I crawled through the metro tunnel. The dumb looks on the faces in the crowd lingered on me for weeks. I crawled under the turnstyle and onto the escalator.

The escalator spilled the rush-hour crowd onto the platform at the same speed a glacier spills ice into the sea. I looked out over the crowded platform during my interminable downward ride. The train status sign said the next train wouldn’t arrive for *twenty minutes*. Twenty minutes was like a year to me. I’d have to spend a year on the metro platform, waiting to die.

I crawled off the escalator, enduring days of **** expressions on the commuters’ faces. I crawled a few feet to a concrete bench and curled up next to it, trying to find a position to lessen the pain in my shoulder. Then my problem with time got worse. Impossibly worse.

The massive slowdown on the stairs was just the beginning of the interaction between the experimental drug and the Ambien. It fully hit me while I was curled up by the bench. I blinked. Years of darkness followed. Sound was already gone, and with my blink, sight was gone as well. All that existed was the pain from my fall.

My hyper-accelerated mind wasted no time compensating for the lack of sensory input. Voices spoke to me. They sung to me in languages that never existed. Patterns and faces and colors came and went in my mind’s eye. I recalled my whole life, and imagined living another. I forgot English. I settled into a profound despair. I spoke to ****. I became ****. I imagined a new universe and brought it to life with my thoughts. Then I did it all again. And again.

My eyes opened with geologic slowness. A faint glow. Weeks. A slit of light. Weeks. A narrow view of the metro platform – ankles of the commuters near me and an advertisement on the opposite wall.

I extracted my phone from my pocket. A project that spanned decades. How can I even explain the boredom? The pain in my shoulder is nothing compared to the boredom. Every thought I can think, I have thought hundreds of times already. The view of ankles and advertisements never changes. Never. The boredom is so intense it’s tangible – like a solid object of metal and stone wedged into my skull. Inescapable.

What are my options? If I crawl and fall onto the tracks without an oncoming train to crush me, I won’t die. I’ll experience even more pain from the four-foot fall, but I’ll most likely be rescued by some do-gooder on the platform and unable to act when the train finally does arrive. My suffering in that scenario will be endless.

So I wait for the train. So I can throw myself under it. When it finally hits me, I will experience the pain of being ripped to pieces for centuries until finally, the light of life leaves my brain, and my experience ends.

I’ve lived hundreds of lifespans at the foot of this bench. I am far older, in spirit, than any human who has ever lived. Most of my life experience has been a snapshot of pain huddled on the floor of a subway platform, with an unchanging view of ankles and advertisements.

This post is my plan B. My Hail Mary. My long-shot. I’ve spent lifetimes typing and posting this message in the hope that someone will read it and become convinced that my suffering must end. Someone on this platform right now. Someone who will find the man curled under the bench, the man who crawled down the escalator, and **** him as swiftly as possible. A bullet to the temple.

If you’re armed and at the Glenmont metro, please shoot me.

[pfd](https://www.anewkindofmonster.com/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Spacegirl
 
 Assistant: We called her Spacegirl.   


Her real name was Megan Daniels, but nobody actually called her that. She’d been Spacegirl since Grade 2. She was the kind of kid who stuck out in the crowd with her long red hair, ghostly pale skin and coke bottle glasses. For as long as I’d known her, Spacegirl had been quiet. She didn’t like to be around us. She didn’t play with us when we were kids, she didn’t even talk much.  


Most of the time, she’d find somewhere to sit, far away from everyone else. Then she’d open up her little notebook and scribble inside of it. Sometimes she wrote poems, sometimes she drew. But she was always off on her own little world. Nowadays, I understand why we targeted her. She was different, and she was alone. That doesn’t justify any of it, but kids can be cruel. I remember that it was Sasha Brown who told me that Spacegirl was **** because her Mother was on drugs. She probably just made that up. But we all believed it. She had always been the worst towards Spacegirl, and she kept that up until the end.   


It all started in Grade 5 when Sasha took her notebook.

It had been raining that day, so we’d had an indoor recess. Spacegirl sat in the corner at her desk, eyes focused on her notebook as she methodically worked on a drawing. Sasha and I had been sitting nearby at our desks, and we simply just watched her do her thing.

  “I can’t believe they let that **** sit in with us.” Sasha murmured, “Look at her… Why do they even let them in schools? They aren’t gonna learn anything.”  
   “Better than leaving her at home with her crackhead Mom.” Said Tanya Evrett. She and I weren’t exactly friends, but she sat close to Sasha and I. “My Dad says he sees a different car in front of her house every day. He says that she lets boys come and they pay her so they can have ****.” None of us could actually say the dreaded S word at the time. **** was still a terrible unknown thing, and we all had been raised to believe that nobody decent would ever do it.  


Spacegirl paused, and her eyes darted away from her book, to look at us. I can only imagine she’d heard us. Sasha just stared right back at her.   


  “What? Do you have a problem, Spacegirl?” She asked. The Teacher was out of earshot, and that gave her carte blanche to say whatever she wanted. Spacegirl didn’t respond. She just looked back down at her notebook, but Sasha had been challenged (or at least she thought she’d been). She looked over to the Teachers desk to make sure she was busy, then she got up and moved closer to Spacegirl. 

  “What are you even doing in there, ****?” 

She’d reached out to **** the book before Spacegirl could stop her. 

  “What even is this? A Unicorn? What are you, five?” 

She handed the book to me, and I took it on instinct. There was a brightly colored drawing of a Unicorn inside. The artwork was actually pretty nice, but I would never have said so. The book was passed on to Tanya next, and Spacegirl could only look at us helplessly. 

  “Wow. You can’t even draw. Look at this?”

She tore the page out of the notebook, and Spacegirl let out a startled whimper, as if she’d been struck. The picture was crumpled up and the book was thrown on the floor by Spacegirls desk.

  “Draw something that isn’t trash next time.” Tanya said, and Sasha just giggled as if it was anything other than being mean spirited just for the sake of it. 

Spacegirl slowly picked her book up off the floor, avoiding eye contact as Tanya and Sasha turned away from her. I continued to stare. I remember that the way she moved was so defeated, as if she were shrinking in on herself. She looked up at me, but only for a moment and I felt bad for her. I really did. But I didn’t do anything about it. I just left her to rejoin the others.

​

After that, Spacegirl became an easy target for Sasha and Tanya. Every chance they got, they’d harass her and I regret to admit that I was usually right there with them.

During the days where we could go outside for recess, Spacegirl would always sit beneath the same tree, always working in her notebook. When she did, we would always lean on the trunk and look down over Spacegirls shoulder.

  “Wow, that’s really good, Spacegirl.” Was how most of her comments would start, “Did you mean to draw it like it got hit by a truck, or is that just your style?”

There was never a compliment. She would always find something to needle.

  “Can you draw me?” Sasha asked once, “I heard that retards were always like, art geniuses or something. Maybe it’ll even look like a person!”

Spacegirl didn’t look up at her. She seemed to be trying not to acknowledge the insults. I won’t pretend like I was blameless either. I never stopped them, and there were plenty of times where I was right there, making fun of her because that was what we did, and we weren’t the only ones. More or less everyone hurt her in some way or another. But she never complained. I think she was too scared to.

​

It was late December in 7th grade where things got even worse. I don’t know all the details, and I don’t know just for how long things had been boiling over, but I’d heard a rumor that James Hardy had it out for Spacegirl.  


James had only been in my class a few times, and he wasn’t in my class that year. He was a small, mousy looking kid who was convinced he was the world's toughest gangster. The rumors said that someone had seen his Dad going into Spacegirls house. Naturally there had been speculation that they'd been having ****. Someone told me that James’ parents had been divorcing because of it. Somehow all of these rumors had mutated into claims that James and Spacegirl were dating and I think that was what had rubbed him the wrong way.  


We were coming in from recess when some boys decided to pull a little prank on James. The whole prank had been set up by Brian Jordan and his brother Mike. They had some mistletoe for the Holiday season, and had set it up in the hall leading back to our classroom. Mike had grabbed Spacegirl during recess and were holding her behind the door where the mistletoe was. When James walked through, they pushed her at him and snapped a picture. I’d been just behind James when it happened. I watched as Spacegirl came flying out of seemingly nowhere, eyes wide and afraid, then slammed into James. They both hit the ground, and I could hear the other boys laughing.  


  “LOOK! She wanted to give you a kiss!” One the boys said. Spacegirl was trying to crawl away from James and pick up her notebook, but somebody had kicked it out of sight. I remember that she looked back towards James, and there were tears in her eyes. She must have been terrified with everything that was going on. She clearly hadn’t wanted any part in this, but there she was at the center of it.

 “You **** **** assholes!” James yelled as he picked himself up.

  “Hey, she just wanted to give you a smooch!” aughed Brian, “Come on, give her a kiss!” 

Someone pushed Spacegirl towards James, and he glared at her as if all of this was her fault. She tried to stand and run, but he was angry and he wasn’t thinking straight. I watched as he grabbed her and hit her. A square punch to the jaw. Then he tossed her to the ground and went after Brian next. A teacher had to get in to pull James off of him. He, Spacegirl and the Jordan Brothers ended up getting suspended right before the Christmas holidays. We didn’t see Spacegirl until January… we didn’t see James or his friends ever again. 

​

On Christmas Eve, there was a car accident on the highway outside of my town. Supposedly it had swerved off the road to avoid an animal of some kind, and gone into a ditch. Mike, Brian and their parents didn’t survive. On December 27th, James was killed while outside shoveling his driveway. My Parents told me that he’d been attacked by an animal. Probably a deer or something. But that seemed so unusual… I’d never heard anything about deer attacking people before. Especially not in my area.  


I went over to Sasha’s house on the day before New Years. We’d both gotten some gift cards for Christmas and we were planning to walk to the mall together to use them. Her parents weren’t home, they both had to work. So it was just us when I got there.

  “Hey! Kept me waiting!” She said when I knocked on the door.   
   “Sorry.”   
   “It’s fine. I’ll be ready in a bit. Come on upstairs, I wanna show you something!”

I didn’t question what it was. I figured it was just something else she’d gotten for Christmas, so I went upstairs with her.

  “You’re gonna love it.” She promised me, “It’s gonna be so funny…”

She led me to her bedroom, and as soon as she opened the door, I spotted a familiar notebook on her desk.  
   “Where did you get this?” I asked, walking closer to it.

  “Spacegirl dropped it when Brian and his Brother pulled that prank the other day, she dropped it. I may have grabbed it… Y’know. Just for safekeeping.”  


She cracked a wry grin, before opening the notebook.  


  “Look at this… She’s been drawing the same **** Unicorns forever. She didn’t even finish this one!”

She paused at one small picture that was labeled ‘The Unicorn Prince’. It depicted an empty field with a blank space where the titular Prince should have been. Sasha flipped through the pages a little more until she got to the newer ones.

  
  “I figured since they kicked Spacegirl out for a little while, and her Mom is too poor to get her anything for the holidays, I’d step up! What do you think?” Sasha wasn’t anywhere near as good of an artist as Spacegirl was, but the simple detail in what she had drawn turned my stomach.

  
In her first picture, Spacegirl was hanging from a rope. Her tongue was hanging out, and her eyes were closed.   
In the second one, Spacegirl had a gun in her mouth.   
In the third one, she was standing on the edge of a building. 

Sasha giggled as I flipped through her crude depictions of suicide. There were pages of them.

  “What do you think?” She asked with a grin, “I’ll bet she’ll lose her ****!”

I closed the notebook and looked over at Sasha.

  “A-are you out of your mind?” I asked. Sasha’s grin faded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You stole her notebook, just so you could draw these? Sasha, that’s really messed up!”  
   “It’s Spacegirl, who the **** cares about Spacegirl, Jane?”

  “You just… drew her killing herself over and over again!” I took the book off her desk, “Do you not understand what’s wrong with that?”

Sasha just stared at me like I was crazy.

  “Fine. Sue me for trying to be funny.” Sasha said, “Just give it here…” She outstretched a hand to take the notebook, but I pulled back from her. 

  “No. You’re just going to put something else in there.”

Anger flared in Sasha’s eyes.

  “Jane, just give me the book.”

  “No!”  


I opened the book, and I started to tear out those pages of Spacegirls suicide. Sasha lunged for me, trying to grab at the book and stop me, but  pushed her back. I didn’t mean to push so hard, but I did and she fell, landing **** the ground. For a moment, Sasha looked up at me, wide eyed and shocked. I don’t think anyone had laid a hand on her like that before. Then I saw something in her eyes… Not just anger. Something worse. It was the same thing that had prompted her to draw those horrible pictures of Spacegirl. I turned and I ran, bolting down her stairs and out her front door, back into the snow. I clutched Spacegirls notebook to my chest the entire time and I didn’t let it go until I got home.

​

I spent the rest of the Christmas break terrified that my parents would get a call from Sasha’s. I’d pushed her, and that seemed like such a big deal at the time. In hindsight, I doubt Sasha would have told her parents what had happened. They would have asked why I’d pushed her, and I would have told them about the notebook. On some level, she must have known that what she’d done was wrong. She was a cruel person, but there was a limit. Part of me hoped that she’d realize that I was right and we could patch things up when School started again, but honestly I wasn’t so sure.   


I remember looking through Spacegirls drawings. The ones that she’d done. I remembered the ones I’d made fun of the most. There was one with a mermaid on a rock, combing her hair. Her eyes were closed in a relaxed bliss. I remembered saying how **** her **** expression had looked, but honestly, I kinda liked it. I flipped through the pages some more, through Unicorns, Fairies and Castles. But I paused at the page depicting the Unicorn Prince. Back at Sasha’s place, it had been blank, but at my house it was finished. The Unicorn Prince stood proudly in his field, looking skywards with his horn proudly displayed. Maybe I had been thinking of a different picture?  


I brushed it off and flipped to the back where Sasha’s pictures were. One by one, I started tearing them out of the notebook and tossing them in the trash. It was a waste of paper, but I refused to give it back to Spacegirl with those images still in it. 

​

On the first day back to school, I was up early. I made sure the notebook was packed into my bag and was out as early as I could be. The snow on the ground was almost pristine as I walked to school, but I remember seeing some tracks on my lawn, headed down the side of my house. Deep U shaped indents that looked like they’d been made by hooves. A deer perhaps? I didn’t dwell on them and made my way down the freshly shoveled sidewalk and back to school.   


I wasn’t entirely sure if Spacegirl would be back yet, but she was. She was alone in the classroom, sitting at her desk and drawing in a brand new notebook. She paused briefly when I walked in to join her, and I could see her sideying me. She didn’t say a word as I drew nearer, but I thought I saw her shoulders tense up ever so slightly.

  “Hey.” I said, “I’m… I hope you had a nice Holiday.”

She didn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry about what happened the other day. I didn’t know anything about it, but it just seemed really mean spirited.”

Still no answer. I reached into my backpack, taking out her old notebook. I put it on her desk in front of her. She stared at it, still silent, then back at me.

  “Sasha took it. I was over at her house the other day and she showed it to me. I had to take some pages out, but she drew some really awful things in there. I didn’t think it would be right to give it back with those things in there…” I paused, feeling smaller as Spacegirl stared at me. She didn’t seem angry or thankful. She didn’t seem anything at all. Just stoic.

  “I’m sorry if I wasn’t all that great to you before.” I said, and then I shuffled off to by desk. Spacegirl waited until I sat down before she opened her notebook and inspected it. Then she closed her new book, and started something new on a fresh page in her old one. 

It wasn’t much. But it made me feel at least a little good for what I’d done.

​

When Sasha got in, she didn’t talk to me. She didn’t even look at me. Neither did Tanya or any of our other mutual friends. I knew from the moment they walked in that I’d burned my bridges with them. But I still wanted to try.

The Teacher hadn’t come in yet, so I figured it might be worth it to try and talk to Sasha. I got up to move closer to her and she gave me a look of utter disgust.  


  “What do you want?” She spat. 

Now it was my turn to be silent.  


  “**** and leave us alone.” Tanya said, “You’d obviously rather hang out with the **** **** than us, and I really don’t want you spreading your **** germs to us. It’s a quarantine issue.”   


I stared at both of them, and I could’ve sworn I knew how Spacegirl felt… What was I supposed to say to any of that? Instead, I just returned to my desk without a word. Spacegirl stared at me the entire time. Her pencil rested over her notebook, but she didn’t write anything. She set it down, tore out the page she’d been writing on and jammed it into her pocket. I later saw her toss it into the trash during lunch.

​

I didn’t really have anyone left… So I thought that maybe it might be a good idea to pull it out. Maybe it was something she wasn’t happy with? I’d never seen her throw a drawing out before. I was thinking that maybe I could use it as a peace offering of sorts, or something along those lines. When I saw what she’d written on it, I almost threw it back into the trash.   


**Your Words**

*There is a land where your sorry may go.*

*A sickening land where it always snows*

*The snow is putrid in color and smell*

*It's substance- filth and things I won't tell.*

*Only your Father has been there before.*

*One day your boyfriend will visit once more.*

*This place in your carcass this humanoid ****.*

*Your sorry can go there to this hole in your shell*

*My unsubtle message, this subtextual jazz.*

*Is take your apology and stuff it up your ****.*  


This was unlike anything I’d ever seen her write. It was so crass and spiteful… This was as close to hatred as she could have gotten. I understood why she’d thrown it out. It didn’t fit with everything else she’d done. Those things had been beautiful, despite what people had said to her. This was angry and ****… This was something she’d written for me. I put it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to give it back to her, but I wanted to keep it. I wanted to remember the way I’d made her feel. 

​

​

Eighth grade wasn’t fun for me. 

I had very few friends left, and Sasha never forgave me for turning on her. Her version of the story was slowly warped as time went on. First I’d punched her and stolen the book. Then I’d tried to kiss her, punched her when she’d refused, then stole the book to try and get her in trouble. Rumors of me being a **** spread pretty quickly, and hot on their heels came the rumors that I was dating Spacegirl. I tried not to let them bother me too much. I knew the truth and at the end of the day, I’d done the right thing.

​

By the time High School rolled around, I was hoping for a fresh start. There were new faces, and I figured I could make friends with them before Sashas rumors spread. I had a bit of success in that department. I fell in with a better crowd at least.   


Sasha stuck with her same old clique. It grew ever so slightly, but she was determined to live out the movie Mean Girls and most people didn’t pay her any mind.   
Spacegirl barely changed at all. I didn’t see her much when High School started. She was in a few of my classes, but I rarely saw her outside of them. Whenever she had a moment, she’d be in the library, usually in one of the corner cubicles, working on her drawings. Sometimes I thought about talking to her and trying to strike up a friendship… but it never felt right.   


Sasha’s bullying never let up of course. Of course she stalked Spacegirl to the library where she’d pull the same old **** she’d been pulling since the fifth grade. She’d leer over her cubicle and comment on her drawings. Picking them apart just like she always had. I stopped her whenever I saw it… but I didn’t always see it.

  “Coming to her rescue again, huh Jane?” Sasha asked once when I’d interrupted her. Tanya leered at me from behind her, chewing gum with her mouth open. 

  “What’s she ever done to you anyways?” I asked, “She’s just minding her own business.”

  “Oh? What’s she done to you, ****?” Sasha hissed. She leaned down over her cubicle and looked down at the notebook.

  “Unicorns… Unicorns, unicorns, **** unicorns… When are you going to grow up Spacegirl?”  
   “Hey! I told you to stop.” I rounded the cubicle and I saw Sasha recoil. For a moment, I saw a bit of fear in her eyes. It vanished quickly and was replaced with a familiar rage.  


  “Fine.” She said, “Tan, let’s leave the happy couple to their alone time.”  
She pulled away from the cubicle and disappeared with Tanya nipping at her heels like a faithful terrier. 

Spacegirl remained hunched over her notebook, her long red hair spilling over her shoulders. She seemed impossibly still.

I turned to leave her when I heard:

  “Thanks.”

I looked back at her and saw that she was looking at me.

  “Um… You’re welcome.” I said, “Let me know if she bothers you again, alright?”

  “I will. But… you’re usually there anyways.” 

Her voice was soft and low. I’d heard it before, but I don’t remember her ever speaking directly to me.

  “Yeah, well. It’s just not right. She’s such a child. One of these days she’s going to have to grow up.”

Spacegirl just nodded, looking over towards the library door, then back down at her notebook again. 

For a moment, I thought about asking her about what she was drawing. I thought about saying something else, but… No. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. I left her alone again. 

​

In tenth grade, I took art as an elective. I wasn’t much of an artist, but I figured it would be an easy course. To the surprise of no one, Spacegirl was there. I actually asked her to work with me on a few group projects. I think the prospect of being asked to work together was foreign to her. She looked at me suspiciously when I did it, but when she smiled, it was the biggest smile I’d ever seen.  


I went to her house for the first time to work on a portrait project with her once. We were supposed to take turns drawing portraits of each other and I’d volunteered to let her draw me first. Rumors of her Mother had always surrounded Spacegirl, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I got there. I certainly wasn’t expecting the quiet, neatly kept house that I found.  


The Woman who answered the door looked like an older version of her daughter, sans the coke bottle glasses.

  “You must be Jane.” She said. She wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t sound upset either.

  “Yes ma’am…”

  “Come on in. Megan's upstairs. She was just getting ready for you.”

The house was warm with plenty of knick knacks on the walls. Plates and porcelain dolls mostly. Her Mom sent me upstairs and I didn't waste any time. On the landing leading up to Spacegirls room, I could see a mural of family photos and paused to look at them. I could recognize Spacegirl and her Mother in most of them. Spacegirl never seemed to be smiling. I only saw her Father in a few of the very early pictures. Spacegirl looked like she was only a young child in the few pictures I saw him in though. I didn’t dwell for long and headed towards what I assumed was her room. The cardboard stars and planets on it gave it away.  


Sure enough, she was inside waiting for me. She sat facing the door behind an easel in the center of her room. Her bed was neatly made and tucked away in the corner. She had a clean little desk that she’d clearly been working on and had set a chair out for me to sit on. I hadn’t expected something so overwhelmingly formal and I almost started laughing… But then I noticed her walls.  


They weren’t just covered in drawings. The art pieces on them were full on paintings. They were the same fantasy depictions she usually did, but the colors were so vivid. The clouds looked like fluffy pillows and the castles seemed great and infinite.

  “Holy ****, are these yours?”

  “They are.” Spacegirl said softly. She stood up and took the plate of cookies from me, then moved it to her desk.

  “It… it’s soothing.” She said after a while, “Painting, I mean. I pick the drawings I like the most and… I finish them.”

She spoke slowly, like she was carefully choosing her words. I almost felt like there was something that she was trying to avoid. I spotted a painting on the floor that looked like her Father. The style was the same but the content was different. He was surrounded by awkward scribbles, and he looked completely and utterly terrified. Spacegirl looked down at it, but she seemed to disapprove of it. She turned it around so I wouldn’t have to look at it.  


  “We should get started.” She said, “Sorry…”

  “No, it’s alright!” I said. I sat in the chair for her. “I’d like to hear about it.”

Spacegirl watched me from the corner of her eye for a moment, as if she doubted I was being serious. But eventually she sat down behind the easel and started to draw… Soon after that, she was talking too. I stayed long after she’d gotten what she needed for her sketch, just to talk. She told me that she’d always liked fantasy, and how she liked Unicorns because they were simple but pretty. I hung on to every word, and I could’ve sworn I saw her smiling shyly as she talked.   


The portrait she’d done of me was something else entirely. Her work had always been beautiful… but this made me look transcendent. I wasn’t entirely sure that I was looking at myself at first. There was something about the look on my face. There was a small, almost content smile there. The warmth it conveyed was almost disney-esque.

  “I love it.” I told her, “That’s incredible Spa… Megan… That’s really great!”

  “You can call me Spacegirl if you want.” She said, “I don’t mind the nickname… Not as much as I mind the people at least.”

My awe quickly turned to shame, but Spacegirl didn’t look upset… She just stared at me blankly like she so often did. No… not blankly. Her face might not have conveyed much emotion, but there was definitely some emotion there. 

  “I wish… I wish I’d been nicer to you, when we were younger.” I said.

  “Is that why you’re here right now?” Spacegirl asked.

  “No! I… I’m here for the assignment. I mean… the art assignment. The portraits…” 

She continued to stare. 

  “Did you pick me because you felt bad for me?” She asked. 

  “No! I just thought it would be cool to work with you.”

Spacegirl didn't react for a moment, but then she just nodded. 

  “Okay.” Her flat tone made it hard to know what she meant by that. She stood up and walked over to the portrait. 

  “Mom can drive you home if you need a ride.” She said. I opened my mouth to say something else. I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t know what.Had I offended her? Had I said something wrong?

  “Alright. Thanks.” It was the only thing I could think of. “See you tomorrow.”

With that, I left her.

​

I was almost afraid to see Spacegirl the next morning. I drifted through my classes that day until I reached art… and when I did, I wasn’t expecting what I saw. She had clearly been up late… but what she’d brought in stole my breath away.  


It was my portrait, but she’d done more with it than I thought possible. She’d painted over the sketch, turning me into something beautiful. Flowers bloomed around my brown hair and a crown of daisies, lilies and chrysanthemums adorned my head. The colors were so vivid, and I looked so at peace in it. Spacegirl was looking right at me as I came in, as if she was gauging my reaction. But all I could do was stare wide eyed and in awe. When I looked back at Spacegirl, she was smiling at me. Her project single handedly netted us an A on the project and got the privilege of being hung up outside of the art classroom. Of course I told her how much I loved it, and I remember the way she smiled when I did. I remember thinking that it was the cutest smile I'd ever seen.

​

My portrait was up for barely even a day before Sasha had to make a comment. I’d been on my lunch, and had just gotten some fries from the cafeteria when she and Tanya ambushed me.

  “Where’s your flower crown, ****.” Sasha said, 

  “Leave me alone.” I said, brushing past them, but Sasha was out for blood.

  “I always knew you were a little ****. But now you’ve posted solid proof of it! We’ve gone and cracked the case, haven’t we? So what happened? Did you go to her house and lick her **** little ****? You must be a real good **** because she went and drew that for you!”

I tried to walk away from her, but Sasha and Tanya just kept following me.

  “What’s wrong? Am I not pretty enough for you ****?” She snapped at me.

  “Maybe she only **** **** girls.” Tanya said, “I’ll bet Spacegirl squealed like a pig when she came.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, and I heard Sasha stop behind me. I don’t know what it was about what she’d said that **** me off so much. But those two had finally struck a nerve. I spun around, swinging my lunch tray as hard as I could. Fries were scattered everywhere, but although I was aiming for Tanya, I hit Sasha. She went down hard, and I’m not sure if she was even still conscious when she hit the ground. Tanya was on me in an instant. She slammed me back against a wall, and kept me pinned. She had size and strength on me, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop her. Several other students grabbed at us. A teacher finally got involved and all three of us got escorted to see the Principal. As we left the cafeteria, I saw Spacegirl in one of the halls, just staring at me.   


Naturally I got a three day suspension, but Tanya and Sasha were fine. Both of them said they’d just been walking and I attacked unprovoked. It was their word against mine. Sasha had a familiar **** eating grin on as she left the office with only a bruise on her forehead to show for her troubles, but there was a familiar look in her eyes. That same anger I’d seen last time I’d laid a hand on her… and something about it scared me.  


When I came back to school, I realized that I had every reason to be afraid. My portrait was missing. I wondered if they’d taken it down because I’d attacked Sasha, but the truth was a lot worse.

  “Someone took it.” Spacegirl said. She was sitting in her usual spot in the library when I found her, sketching flowers in her notebook.

  “When?”  
   “The day after you hit Sasha… I don’t think anyone’s found it yet.”

She didn’t look up at me. Just stayed focused on her art. She didn’t need to say it for me to know who she blamed. Who else would it be? I had half a mind to confront Sasha about it, but I didn’t know if that would be a good idea or not. Sasha could easily just cry wolf. I wouldn’t put it past her. In the end, it didn't matter.  


By the time I was headed to art class, the painting was back. But there had been some modifications made to it.

The words:

***Retard **** Dyke***

Had been painted across my portrait in bright red. I saw it from down the hall and could see some other students whispering amongst themselves beneath it. I didn’t know what to say or do… But this felt like too much.  


The picture was taken down quickly… but the damage was done. Sasha had gotten her revenge, and it didn’t stop with just the painting. Spacegirl looked different than when I’d seen her in the library. She seemed uneasy, and her eyes were red like she’d been crying.

  “I’m sorry about the painting…” I said softly. She looked at me, before sighing.

  “I knew she’d do something like that…” She said, “I’m **** to it by now, that it doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m sorry she wrote those things about you, though.”

  “But you worked **** that.” I said, “I’d be upset too.”

She just shook her head.

  “That’s not it.” She said. She reached into her pocket, pulling out a crumpled up piece of paper then slid it over to me. 

Slowly I uncrumpled the paper, and my eyes widened as I recognized what was on it.

It wasn’t the same drawing… but it was close enough. It was a depiction of Spacegirl hanging herself, and me beside her. A caption read ‘*Retard **** Wedding’.*

  “There were so many in my locker…” Spacegirl said.

  “This is what she drew in your notebook… when I returned it to you… This is what I had to take out.”

Spacegirl looked down at the picture again, before averting her eyes. She didn’t pay much attention during class. Instead of taking notes, she sketched in her notebook. I looked over a few times to see her drawing another Unicorn. This one seemed so similar to the one I’d seen before. She must not have been quite happy with it though… When I looked back at her notebook, the Unicorn wasn’t there anymore. She must have just erased it… but it seemed so clean. Like it hadn’t been erased at all. 

​

Tanya was following me on my walk home that evening. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but I didn’t want to put up with it. When I was in the middle of a small walking path that cut behind some of the houses on my street, I stopped and looked at Tanya as she kept approaching.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise.” She said, “Sasha and I just want you to know how much we love **** in this town… Oops, I’ve said too much.”

I wanted to hit her. Dear **** I just wanted to hit her, but we both knew she could overpower me. Whatever Tanya had in mind… it wasn’t anything good. She drew closer to me, unafraid of anything I’d do.

  “Come on, ****. Go home.” She said. “Let’s go check out your surprise.”

In a sudden horrible moment, I realized that Tanya was threatening me. I also realized that I couldn’t outrun her… I couldn’t fight her off. I didn’t really have much of a choice but to do as she asked. Slowly, I turned and walked towards my house, with Tanya at my heels. It wasn’t far, and up ahead I could see Sasha sitting on a park bench. From a distance, I recognized the red gas can beside her, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

Tanya seized me by the arm and pulled me towards the bench. Sasha just watched with a wide, manic grin.

  “Hey Jane.” She said, “How’s it going?”

  “What the **** is this?!”

  “Just wanted to chat.” Sasha said with a cold chuckle, “You think you can get away with pulling the **** you did the other day. No. You’ve been treating me like garbage for years, and for what? Because of Spacegirl? You know who you’re **** choosing, right? Right? ****… I hate that **** girl. But you know what? I hate you even more. Acting like you’re better than me just because you feel bad for her.”

  “You’re crazy.” 

Sasha just laughed.

  “I’m not the one who clocked someone with a **** tray just for a little bit of teasing. You’re absolutely **** psycho!”

On the bench behind her, I saw the portrait that Spacegirl had painted of me. Sasha picked it up and tossed it in front of me, then picked up the gas can and dumped it onto the canvas.

  “You wanna be a ****, I don’t care. But I’m not letting you and your **** **** put your **** up! So say goodbye to your little project, ****!”

Sasha reached into her pocket and took out a book of matches. Her grin widened, before suddenly vanishing outright as she looked at something behind us.   
   “What the ****?” Tanya said, and I craned my neck to try and see what they were seeing. As for believing it… that was another story entirely.  


Standing on the path behind us was a Unicorn… but the way it looked was all wrong. This was nothing like a regular horse. Its body was plain white and almost textureless save for the many thin blue lines that ran along its body. It looked like it had been cut out from a sheet of lined paper but… that was impossible… It had to be impossible. Neatly done grey lines defined the shape of the horse. In fact, the lines reminded me of the ones Spacegirl used. This Unicorn looked like it had walked out of one of her notebooks!

Tanya let me go and stumbled back a few steps, wide eyed as she stared at the advancing Unicorn. It let out an angry noise before charging straight for Tanya. She panicked and tried to run. In her desperation to escape, she bolted down the path. But she couldn’t outrun the paper Unicorn. It lowered its head as it drew nearer to her, and in one swift movement, the horn pierced Tanya’s back, impaling her straight through the chest. She screamed as she was hoisted off the ground and the Unicorn circled back to fix Sasha in a murderous glare.   


Tanya looked down at the massive spike sticking out of her, her eyes clearly wide with horror and her body twitching its last spasms as the life quickly drained from her. The Unicorn lowered its head to let her slide off of its horn and she hit the ground in a bundle of limbs.  


Sasha and I stared in silent horror as the Unicorn reared up on its hind legs and brought its hooves down upon Tanya’s body. She didn’t scream. She didn’t fight. She simply lay there as she was trampled again and again. I can only hope she died quickly.  


Sasha dropped the unlit match and took a slow, terrified step back before toppling over. I stumbled back and looked down to see the portrait of me at her feet. But it had changed. That beautifully painted version of me was now leaning out of the canvas, invading the real world and clutching Sasha’s leg tightly.

Still with that look of contentment on her face, I watched as the Painted Me slowly slipped back into her panting, and she took Sasha’s leg with her.

  “****, ****, ****!”

Sasha desperately swatted at the Painted Me, but she couldn’t overpower it. She couldn’t escape. Her nails tried to dig into the pavement as she was slowly dragged into the canvas. She looked at me in horror, silently begging for help but all I could do was stare back at her in silence.

  “JANE! JANE HELP! PLEASE! PLEASE!"

The hands of the Painted Me reached up, seizing Sasha by the hair and forcing her down into the canvas. It was like watching something pull her underwater. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. I stood silent in the park, staring at the painting, then at the paper Unicorn. The Unicorn huffed before retreating off into the woods and then I was alone.  


Slowly, I approached the painting and I looked down at it. It had changed and now it depicted Sasha, her mouth open in a horrified final scream. After some hesitation, I picked up the painting. I could return it to Spacegirl in the morning. 

​

They chalked Tanya’s death up to an animal attack, and nobody ever found Sasha. I never asked Spacegirl about what I saw. I don’t think even she knew the answer, although she certainly knew much more than I did.

​

High School was ten years ago though, and I’ve chosen not to remember as much as I can. I’ve got my own life to live now and I try not to ask so many questions. Sometimes I see paintings move, but I don’t bother with a second glance and I never ask my wife about them. She doesn’t like to talk about it and I won’t ever force her. The painting of Sasha hangs in her studio at home, right beside the painting of her Father. Sometimes I look at it and I wonder if maybe things could have been different… but I don’t feel too guilty about it. I wouldn’t feel too guilty if I heard another story about a suspicious trampling or animal attack either but to my knowledge, there’s been nothing of the sort. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I do my best to make sure nobody hurts my beautiful Spacegirl.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Something happened 63 years ago that's haunted me my entire life. I’ve never told anyone about it—until now.
 
 Assistant: It’s official: I’m an old man.

For the last couple years, I’ve comforted myself by saying I’m in my “early 70s,” but math is simple and unforgiving. Today is my 75th birthday, and ****, the years do fly.

I’m not here for your well wishes; this is hardly a milestone I’m excited about. I’m glad to still be here, of course, but I find I have less and less to live for with every passing year. My bones ache, my kids live far away, and the other side of my bed has been empty for just over eight months now. In fact, once I cast my vote against that **** Trump this November, I may have nothing to live for at all.

So spare me your “happy birthdays” and your congratulations, if you please. I’m here because I have a story for you, and it’s one I’ve never told before. I used to think I kept it inside because it was silly, or maybe because nobody would believe it. I’ve found, though, that the older you grow, the more exhausting it becomes to lie to yourself. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’ve never told anybody this story because it scares me, almost to death. 

But death seems friendlier than it used to, so listen close.

*****

The year was 1950; the setting a small town in Maine. I was a boy of nine, rather small for my age, with only one friend in the world to speak of—and his family, seemingly on a whim, decided to move 2,000 miles away. It was shaping up to be the worst summer of my life.

My pop wasn’t around and my mom was a chore-****—boy, was I proud of myself when I came up with that one—so I wasn’t apt to hang around the house. With some hesitation, I decided the public library was the place to be that summer. The library’s collection of books, particularly children’s books, was meager to say the least. But within the walls of that miserly structure, I would find no undone chores, no nagging mother (**** rest her soul), and perhaps most importantly, no other children with whom I would be expected to associate. I was the only kid with a low enough social status to spend his precious days of freedom sulking amid the bookshelves, and that was just fine with me.

The first half of my summer was even more dreadful than I had imagined it would be. I would sleep in until 10, do my chores, and then ride my bike to the library (and by bike, I mean rusty log of **** attached to a pair of wheels). Once there, I would split my time between unintentionally annoying the elderly patrons and deliberately doing so. One pleasant lady actually interrupted my incessant tongue-clicking to hiss a “shut the ****!” at me—the first time I ever heard a grownup use The F Word. Big ****’ deal, I know, but in those days it was unheard of.

The dreary days turned to woeful weeks. I had actually begun praying for school to start again—until I discovered the basement. I could have sworn I’d roamed every inch of that library, but one day, in the far corner behind the foreign language collection I stumbled across a small wooden door I had never seen before. That was where it all began.

The door was windowless and made from oak that looked far older than the wall in which it rested. It had a **** of black metal that quite literally looked ancient—I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was crafted in the 17th century. Engraved on the **** was what appeared to be a single footprint. I had the sense that whatever lay beyond this door was forbidden to me, and therefore probably the most interesting thing I would encounter all summer. I quickly glanced around to make sure nobody was watching me, then turned the heavy ****, slipped behind the door, and shut it.

There was nothing; only darkness. I took a couple of steps and then stopped, unnerved by the totality of the shadow which surrounded me. I waved my hands in front of me in an attempt to find a wall or a shelf or anything to hold on to. What I actually found was far more subtle—a small string, dangling from above—but far more useful. I grabbed it firmly and pulled it down.

Back in the day, lots of lightbulbs were operated with strings, and this was one of them. My surroundings were instantly illuminated. I was standing on a small, dusty platform that looked as though it hadn’t seen life in quite some time. To my left was a crickety-**** spiral staircase, made of wood and appearing ready to collapse at any second. The bulb was the only source of light in the room, and it was feeble, so when I peered over the railing to see what lay below, the bottom of the staircase dissolved into the darkness.

I was beginning to feel scared. This place—wherever I was—seemed to have no business in a town library. It was as though I were in a completely different building. But no nine-year-old likes to let a mystery go unsolved. Looking back, I wish I could tell my prepubescent self to turn around, go back, do anything else besides descending that staircase. “You’ll be spared a lot of sleepless nights,” I’d say. But, of course, I didn’t know that then—and I may not have listened even if I had. So instead of turning back, I took a deep breath, gripped the railing, and glared resolutely forward as I began my descent.

The wood on the railing was dry and covered with splinters. I immediately let go, holding my hands out for balance as I carefully traversed the staircase. It was (or at least seemed) very long, and with only the dim glow from the string-bulb far above me, my heart pounded mercilessly in the darkness. Even kids can sense when something isn’t right, I think—they just don’t always give a ****.

By the time my feet reached the cement floor at the bottom, the light from the bulb above was very nearly a memory. But there was a new light source, and ****, I’ll never forget it. Directly in front of me was a door, massive, and a deep shade of red. The light was coming from behind the door, and it shone out in thin lines from all four sides—a sinister, dimly glowing rectangle. For the second time, I took a deep breath and went through a door I shouldn’t have.

In contrast to the dank room I entered from, the room behind the door was blinding. When my eyes adjusted, what I saw nearly took my breath away. 

It was a library. The most perfect library imaginable.

I gaped in wonder as I stepped, almost reverently, further into the room. It was beautiful. It was smaller than the library above, much smaller, but it seemed to be almost tailor-made for me. The shelves were packed with brightly colored titles, both armchairs in the middle of the room were exquisitely comfortable, and the smell—my ****, the smell—was simply unbelievable. Sort of a mixture of citrus and pine. I simply can’t do it justice with words, so I’ll suffice it to say that I’ve never smelled anything better. Not in my 75 years.

What was this room? Why had I never heard of it before? Why was nobody else here? Those were the questions I should have been asking. But I was intoxicated. As I gazed around at all the books and basked in the smell of paradise, I could only form one thought: *I will never be bored again.* 

*****

In truth, boredom only hid from me for three years. It was on my 12th birthday, 63 years ago to this day, that everything changed.

Before that day, I visited my basement sanctuary as often as I could—usually several times a week. I never saw another soul down there, yet strangely remained free of suspicion. I never removed a book from that room, but instead would pick up a particular volume wherever I had stopped reading during my previous visit. I sat, always in the same deep purple armchair, and always leaving its twin barren and directly across from myself. That armchair was mine, the other was—well, I suppose I couldn’t have articulated it then much better than I can now. But it wasn’t mine, that’s for **** sure.

On my twelfth birthday, I arrived later than usual. My mom had invited a couple classmates and some cousins over to our house to celebrate, a gesture which I found more tedious than touching—really, I just wanted to spend my birthday sitting and reading and smelling paradise. Eventually, our guests went home, and I made it to the library about fifteen minutes before closing time. That didn’t matter; the workers never checked down there before they locked up. I was free to stay as late as I wished. This particular night, I was devouring the final chapters of an epic adventure; knights, swords, dragons, and the like. I didn’t smell it until I read the final words and closed the book.

The once exquisite aroma of that room had turned sour. I sat for a moment, unsettled. Objectively, I could recognize that the smell was actually the same as it had been before—that mixture of citrus and pine. I just perceived it differently, and I didn’t like it anymore. It was the nasal version of an optical illusion; you know, the one that looks like a young woman glancing backward, but all of a sudden you see that it’s really an old woman facing toward you? You can’t unsee that, and I couldn’t unsmell this. The spell was broken.

The odor also seemed, for the first time, to be coming from somewhere specific. With a fair amount of trepidation, I stalked around the room, sniffing the air like a crazed canine until I came to a shelf near the back. The shelf was perfectly normal, with the exception of one title—a large, leatherbound cover of solid faded maroon, with one striking black footprint at the top of the spine. This was the source of the smell. I opened the front cover, and saw one sentence scrawled neatly in blood-red ink atop the first page: 

*Rest your sorrows down, friend, and leave them where they lie.*

I stared at this sentence, mesmerized, as I began to retreat to my chair. I turned a page. Blank. The smell became stronger. Another page, blank, and the smell grew stronger still. I stopped for a moment, suppressed a gag, and continued walking. Then, as I neared the armchairs, I turned one final page—and there, in the same sinister print, was the last thing I expected to see: my own name. I dropped the book. I began to sprint toward the door, but as I shifted my gaze forward, my heart leapt to my throat and I stopped in my tracks.

The empty chair wasn’t empty anymore.

An aged man in a suit sat before me, one leg crossed over the other, contemplating me with piercing gray eyes and a light smirk. This was all too much. I fell to my knees and expelled the contents of my stomach onto the carpet. I wiped my mouth, staring at my ****, when I heard the man let out a chuckle.

I stared at him disbelievingly. “Who are you?” I asked, panic in my voice.

The man leapt to his feet, grabbed me gently by the shoulders, and helped me to my chair. He sat, once again, in his own. “I fear we got off to a bad start,” he said, glancing at the pile of sick on the carpet. “The smell . . . it does take some getting used to.”

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“Tonight, you will know hardship like you’ve never before known,” he said. “I come as a friend, offering you refuge from it, and from all other storms which lie ahead.”

I wanted nothing more than to leave at that moment, but I remained seated. I asked him what he was talking about.

“Your mother is dead, my boy. By her own hand, in her kitchen. The scene is gruesome, I must admit,” he said in sorrowful tones, but was there a playful glint in his eye? “Surely you wish to avoid this path. I can show you a safer one.”

My blood ran cold at the horrors this man spoke of, but I did not believe him. “What do you want with me?” I demanded, trying to sound braver than I felt. He laughed, an old, raspy yelp that seemed to shake him to his bones.

“Nothing but your friendship, dear boy,” he said. Then, sensing I found his answer inadequate, he expounded. “I want you to come on a journey with me. My work is noble and you will make a fine apprentice. And maybe, when I’m done”—he sighed tiredly, running his bony fingers through his thin white hair—“maybe then, my work can be yours.”

I stood up, shuffling toward the door but never breaking his gaze. “You’re crazy,” I told him. “My mom isn’t dead. She’s not.”

“See for yourself, if you must,” he said, gesturing toward the door. I threw him a contemptuous glare and bolted for the exit. As my hand closed around the ****, he said my name softly. In spite of myself, I turned around.

“Your road won’t be easy, friend. If it ever becomes too much for you, and I mean ever,” he said, pausing to sweep his hand over the room, “you know where to find me.”

I slammed the door behind me and took the decrepit stairs two at a time. I exited the library, clambered onto my bike, and high-tailed it home. The front door was wide open. I dismounted, leaving my bike in a heap on the ground, and approached the house cautiously. The old man was lying—he must have been. Still, tears began to sting my eyes. Heart pounding, I stepped inside and called for my mother. I heard no answer, so I turned into the kitchen.

To this day, I don’t know why she did it.

*****

I’ve lived in that small town in Maine my entire life, although I’ve kept mostly clear of the public library. Once, in my late 20s, I summoned the courage to step inside. Life was good at that time, and my fear had begun to morph into idle curiosity. Where the door to my basement sanctuary once stood was only a blank wall. I asked the librarian what had become of that basement, though in my heart I knew the answer. There was no basement, she said. There had never been a basement. In fact, if she had her facts correctly, city zoning ordinances prohibited a basement in the area.

I’ve been haunted by that sickly-sweet smell, that poisonous blend of citrus and pine, ever since that long ago birthday. When I saw my mother in the kitchen that day, collapsed in a pool of her own blood, I smelled it. When a man claiming to be my father knocked on my college apartment door, begged me for money and beat me to within an inch of my life when I refused, I smelled it. When my wife miscarried our second child, I smelled it, and again when she miscarried our fourth. When our oldest son got behind the wheel of the family Buick completely shitfaced and got his girlfriend killed, I smelled it.

I began to smell it periodically as my wife became sick. She died late last year, and now, I’m alone for the first time in more than half a century. Now, I smell it every day, and it feels like an invitation.

A few months ago, I went back to the library and the small oak door with the ancient handle was there—right where it used to be. My evening walk has brought me past that library every day since, but I haven’t gone inside. Maybe tonight I will. I’m frightened to die, yes, but lately I’m even more frightened to keep living. The old man was right—my road hasn’t been easy, and I doubt it will get any easier.

*Rest your sorrows down, friend, and leave them where they lie.*

He promised relief. A refuge, he said. Was he right about that too? There’s only one way to find out. After all, I still know where to find him.

-----------

[x](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNzHOZrXbYUdvJCRtfrBLmg)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Don't let them in.
 
 Assistant:  Addiction took our mother slowly, rocked her through it and sung her to sleep sunk deep into the mattress on her bed. When her back teeth fell out she left them on the side of the bathtub. I was seven, and I kept them in a match box, the missing pieces of her kept safe, so she wouldn't be lost forever. So maybe one day we could put her back together. Our house fell down around us, and we tried our best to raise ourselves. The ceilings had water damage and the bottom stairs had dry rot and in the winters the radiators would bleed rust. But it was still our house, and Annie made it a home.

My sister Annie mothered me, with lopsided bandaids on bruised knees and lukewarm microwave meals. She told me ghost stories and didn’t mind when I crawled into her bed later on, too scared to sleep alone. She taught me to dance, barefoot on the living room carpet, music channel on full volume on the TV shaking our hips before they were fully grown. She always let me shower first so the water was hot, never complaining when she had to make do with cold. She brushed my hair everyday before school, even when I screamed and hit her when she caught the tangles. Annie was dark haired like her father, whoever he had been, but I was blonde. Annie was desperate to be blonde too, like Marilyn Monroe. Like mom. I think she thought it would make them closer, remind mom less of her dad. I’d give anything for her to have her hands in my hair one more time, even if it hurt. She moved to New York when I turned eighteen and never came back. I still dream about her sometimes.

Keeping up with our mother was impossible and we learnt from a young age we would always be left behind. It didn’t make it any easier. When she was drinking light, she shone, would wake us up at 3am with pancakes, dripping in cherry syrup. Sometimes when the weather was right and she’d had enough being **** alone, she would call our school up and tell them we had both come down with summer sickness and we’d drive to the beach instead. I remember being nine years old in the backseat of the car coming home after one of our ocean days, **** the salt from my fingers. Annie had just dyed her hair blonde, her best friend Jane helping her bend over our kitchen sink. From behind, I couldn’t tell who was mother and who was daughter, radio up and windows down blowing the sky inside.

When she was drinking heavy, she’d be out all night, hair piled up like a beauty queen, eyes glazed over and ringed with glitter and black. Sometimes she’d be gone a day or two. She would never tell us when, one day we’d just wake up to an empty house and the fridge packed full, post it note on the front with a smear of moms lipstick in the outline of a kiss, telling us she’d be back soon. Sometimes she’d bring guys home, filling the table with beer cans and ash trays, smoke up to the ceiling, mom lost in the haze. We’d sleep with pillows over our heads, trying to drown out the music they would blast until the am, and wake up to strangers at our kitchen table in the morning, asking us where we kept the coffee. 

When mom drank too little she fell apart. She wouldn’t buy food, refrigerator a gaping hole in the wall. She’d chain smoke, leaving cigarette burns on the wallpaper up by the stairs like the walls were sick and decaying. She barely slept, walking around with blue half moons under her eyes, knuckles raw. She would scream at the slightest thing. I remember once when I spilled a glass of juice on the couch. She looked over at me with dead eyes and dragged me off onto the carpet and then took every single cushion off the couch and into the back yard and set them on fire. Annie went to watch a while from the window and then sat next to me on the floor, backs pressed against the skeleton of the seats, head resting in the crater of my collar bones. 

When mom drank too much was the worst. She’d laugh too loud and too long at anything and everything, until her mouth started to shake and she started crying, at the breakfast table into her cereal. Annie shut down when mom was like this, went somewhere deep inside herself where nobody could hurt her. She’d stay up until the morning watching old black and white movies on TV, whispering the lines she knew by heart like prayers. When I was five I’d cry when I’d find mom passed out cold on her bed, sure she would never wake up. Annie would wipe my tears, tell me she was only sleeping just like the princesses in my story book. We’d sit on moms bed together and wait for her to wake up. When we were older, I was the one who would pick mom up off the bathroom floor again and again and Annie would put her to bed, smoothing her hair off her face and the **** from her mouth, changing her clothes if she’d **** herself. Watching them then, there was no doubt that Annie was the mother now.

It was October and I was thirteen, Annie sixteen. It was a Wednesday night and mom had been gone for two days. She’d called us that morning from a pay phone, voice slurring down the line, telling us she was having the best time with all her new friends, hoped we were doing fine. When she asked me if I was having a good birthday I hung up on her. My birthday had been the day before. Annie had given me a pile of presents, strawberry lipglosses and glittery nail polishes. I didn’t ask where she’d got the money for them. I didn’t care. We’d taken the bus to the beach with Jane, eaten the birthday cake she had made for me, sand getting into the frosting. It tasted like sweetness and the sea, and I savoured every bite and scrape of sugar against my teeth. We watched the sun go down, Annie snapping grainy photos on her **** Nokia as I blew out my candles, wishing over and over that mom wouldn't come home, that she’d just stay gone this time. 

But that Wednesday night, me and Annie weren't speaking. Anger hung heavy between us, seeping through the floorboards. It began when she tripped at the bottom of the stairs. We’d both laughed, Annie throwing her head back, gap between her front teeth catching the light. When I’d bent to pick her up, I’d caught her breath, warm against the freckles on my cheeks. I let go of her arms and she fell again, hitting the floor and grinning, shaking her hair from her face. Her breath was heavy with whiskey. I couldn't start picking her up too, couldn't watch her fall again and again. Just like mom, I knew she’d never get back up. 

I’d stared down at her, blonde hair fallen into her eyes and all I could see was our mother, and then I was running, feet slamming the hallway like heartbeats turned loose. I’d run for the kitchen and tipped every bottle we had down the sink, shoving Annie back as she fought to stop me, catching liquor on her fingers as it fell. She grabbed my shoulders and made me drop the very last bottle. It smashed between us on the floor, glass shards shining like we’d dragged the stars out of the sky and broken them, pieces we could never put back. Outside through the open windows, the sky turned pale gold, clouds a mess of pink and cream smeared across the horizon. I cried then, watching Annie on her knees picking up the pieces. That was Annie, always trying to fix things even when it was too late. 

The smell of food dragged me from my room, stomach turning traitor inside my ribcage. Annie was cooking pasta, real food not made in a microwave. She’d set the table, Tammy Wynette singing softly from the CD player, Annie gently swaying her hips as she stirred the tomato sauce, rich and warm. As we ate in silence, with every bite I forgave her. Mom never cooked dinner, or remembered my favourite was spaghetti ever since I was a kid, or stayed sober long enough to sit up at a table. Annie wasn’t mom.

We were washing the dishes when we first heard it. A moth was crawling down the inside of the pane and I cracked the window to let it out into the dark. From the backyard came a faint sound. I tilted my head to listen as it was coming from far off. Crying. I figured it was Mika the two year old next door having a tantrum loud enough for us to catch, or maybe even Lucky Strike the cat that junkies down the street, begging for food like he sometimes did. I always wanted to feed him when he came around, winding over my ankles, but Annie always stopped me, saying once you started giving they never stopped taking. Looking back, I don’t think she was talking about the cat.

Annie flipped the christmas lights strung up around the porch and we sat on the plastic beach chairs watching the skies. When we were little, we’d sit outside and Annie would tell me the names of all the constellations and the stories of how they came to be hung up in the night sky. I had to grow up before I realised she made them all up as she went along. It was a game we still liked to play now, making up ridiculous stories for the shapes we could pick out. 

“Ah, yes, that one there is the Coors Light. It got there when **** dropped it out of his convertible window and never picked it up,” she said, nodding sagely and hiding her smile. 

“Of course,” I said, waving my hands and pointing up past the power lines. “Right next to The Ashtray, left there by angels on a smoke break.”   
 

“Yeah, they say if you wish on it, all your dreams will come true,” said Annie grinning. 

She stopped laughing, voice quieter, face tilted up to all those dead stars. 

“Let’s wish Emmy. Let’s wish” So we did.

The sound of crying interrupted us. It was closer this time, and definitely human. We turned to each other, confused. Annie shrugged and I squinted out into the black. It sounded like a baby, lost and tired and alone. 

“It must be Mika?” I said, slowly getting to my feet. “Maybe he walked around the back? ****, do you want to call Connie and tell her we’ll bring him over.” Annie didn't reply, and I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Guess I’ll do everything then.” 

I stepped off the porch, grass soft against my heels. The air smelled like it might rain, fresh and clean and growing. A promise unfulfilled.  

“Em.” Annie’s voice was strained. I turned to her, smiling. It died on my face when I saw the look on her own. “Em get inside now.” She was staring out into the dark, past me, opening the door with one hand behind her, fingers fumbling on the catch. I froze, bare foot in the dirt. I’d found what she was looking at. 

In the bushes by the back fence was a person, crouched with their knees tucked up neat under the chin, arms wrapped around legs. Their mouth hung wide, softly opening and closing as he cried. Like a child, lost in the dark. Not like a child, but a someone pretending. Mimicking the sound, open and closed out in the blackness. Suddenly they straightened, snapping upright face still hidden by the black. They were tall and thin, too thin to be a normal person. 

Panic made me move, animal instincts leftover from the days we lived up in the trees carrying me forward. I was faster than Annie, dragging her inside and slamming the door behind us, hearing it bounce on its hinges as I locked it. We watched as the person slowly walked towards the house, steps deliberate and long. 

Annie reached for my hand, holding me tight and turned me to face her, holding my shoulders. 

“Don’t turn around Emmy. Don’t turn around.” Instinctively I started to look over my shoulder out into the darkness. Annie grabbed my face, hard, and shook her head. I knew then she was serious.

“I’m…” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, gripping my hand tight enough to hurt, nails digging in, grounding herself. I looked down at our fingers interlocked, both of us grown from the same bones. 

“I’m gonna call the cops and everything is going to be…” her voice faltered, stuttering. Tears spilled over her lashes, dripping like the promise of rain. Annie never cried. 

“Your phone’s on the porch,” she whispered, and bile crawled its way up my throat. Her phone was upstairs, charging. 

A soft, tap-tap-tapping filled the silence. Annie turned to the window, eye whites showing her eyes were so wide.

It was the sound of someone’s forehead against the glass, slowly, over and over. They started to speed up, faster and harder, skin meeting glass until they was slamming into the window hard enough to shake the panes. The tapping stopped and I was about to ask Annie if I could look now when she screamed, followed by the sound of cracking glass and the loudest slam yet. Whoever was in our yard had just smashed their face hard enough into the window to break it. 

We ran upstairs, two at a time, skipping the ones caved in with dry rot on instinct. I turned behind me once and Annie yanked my face back before I could see. The sound of broken glass echoed behind us as we made it to the bathroom, locking the door. A thin, wailing cry, like a baby calling for its mother filled the hallway, trapped between the walls and locked doors. 

Annie threw her back against the door, feet jammed up against the bathtub, clutching the knife she had grabbed from the kitchen. I did the same, shoulder to shoulder. Slow footsteps started on the stairs, deliberate and casual. The crying had become mocking, almost laughter, shrill bursts of sound and then giggles, high pitched and abruptly stopping before starting again. The first door on the upstairs floor was my bedroom and we heard the distinct sound of it slamming open. They were looking for us. 

“What the **** is going on,” I asked Annie, not even bothering to brush away the tears that I couldn't stop falling. I watched my sister pick herself up off the floor, and brace her hands on the door as we heard the sound of a second door slamming open. Mom’s room. The next room on the hallway was the bathroom. Annie pulled me to my feet and handed me the knife. I shook my head and pushed it back to her, terrified of what would happen if I had to use it. Annie shoved me and pressed the knife into my hands, thumb pressing hard enough on the blade to bleed. I watched my sisters blood drip down her wrist, a winding red road, still pushing into my hands despite the pain. I took the knife.

Something slammed against the wall that mom’s room shared with the bathroom. A high pitched wail followed. I held my breath, could feel my heart beat in the base of my throat, a wild and frantic thing. 

“I’m gonna get the phone from my room.” I shook my head violently about to argue. Annie clamped a hand over my mouth. I could taste the blood on her hand, salty and sweet. Like birthday cake by the ocean. “Yes. I’m gonna get the phone and I’m gonna call the cops and we’re going to be okay.” I shook my head again. “It’s the only way. When I go I need you to lock the door and you don’t open it for anything or anyone. Not for me not for… anyone. Promise me.” I shook my head and Annie pressed her hand into my mouth, crushing my teeth against my lips so it made my eyes water. “*Yes.* Promise me Em.” 

Something smashed in the room next door. Annie brushed the hair off my face, gently tucking it behind my ear. *Promise* she mouthed and unlocked the door as slowly as possible, bolt scraping gently. I watched the curve of her shoulder disappear into the black hall outside, like the moon in eclipse. And then she was gone. I couldn't move or breathe for a second and then I slammed the bolt shut just as something bounced off the outside of the door. A high pitched scream followed, handle rattling up and down hard enough to pop one of the screws. I watched it roll towards me on the tiles. And then silence. 

I sat with my back to the door, holding the knife and wishing I was holding Annie’s hand instead. Still silence. Nothing but me and my lungs slowly filling the room with my breath. 

“Em?” Came a voice through the door. I started, hands gripping the knife. “Honey what’s going on?” 

“Mom?” my voice cracked. “Momma is that you?” I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking, trying to keep myself still. 

“Sweetie it’s okay just open the door. It’s okay just let me in.” The handle rattled again, gentler. “Just let me in, it’s all okay.” She banged on the door and I took my handle of the bolt. 

“Honey I’m sorry. I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I’m sorry I’m such a terrible mother. Please,” her voice broke and she started to cry, “just let me in baby I’m so sorry.” 

I **** my eyes shut. She sounded so sad and so lost. I just wanted her to hold me like when I was a kid and I’d come in off the swings with a scraped knee. Maybe this time she meant it. Maybe it would all be okay. My hand found its way to the bolt again. 

My sisters voice came through the door, warm and gentle. “Yeah Emilie let us in, it’s all okay.” 

My hand froze on the bolt and I tightened my grip on the knife. Annie never called me by my full name. A hand banged on the door, handle rattling. “Emilie let us IN” Annie’s voice became low and guttural, followed by the same shrill giggles from before. Mom spoke now, pleading and crying, voice getting louder and louder. “Let us in let us in let us in,” over and over again, punctuated by her fists on the door. I thought about demons and monsters, all the bedtime stories we pray don’t crawl out from under the bed. 

“That’s not my sister and you’re not my mother!” I screamed through the door, hands over my head. I climbed into the bathtub and curled in a ball, cradling myself, knife clutched to my chest. I didn’t know what it was outside that door but I knew it wasn’t Annie. It wasn't the voice that yelled at when I changed TV channel, the one that sang  me happy birthday, the one that told me I was smart even when I got bad grades, the one that read me stories about princesses that never wake up.  It wasn’t human. 

Bangs and yells came from downstairs followed by the footsteps of people running. A low guttural howl ripped through the house, filling the room until I felt like I was drowning in the sound and then the door was kicked in. I screamed, covering my eyes, waiting to die. Arms found me and lifted me from the tub carrying me from the room. I looked at the outside of the door as I was carried downstairs. It was covered in long scraping claw marks, dragged down to the floor. Pillows ripped apart covered the hallway in soft down, like it had snowed inside. I watched them drift slowly as men in uniforms checked each of the rooms that looked like they had been torn apart by something feral. 

Outside in our drive way were police cars and an ambulance. In the middle of it all was Annie. Bathed in blue and red light as it washed over her, lit up in the dark like a neon angel, face aglow. I threw myself from the cops shoulder and ran to her, holding us both together, broken pieces and all, standing under all those constellations we made up. Gentle screaming came from the ambulance which rocked occasionally. Annie gently turned my head away, smiling so sadly it made my chest ache as I understood. 

Turns out there was no demon. No wild animal or bad men trying to break in. Just mom, out of her mind on booze and drugs and everything in between, coming to the end of a week long binge. Something had finally broken inside her head, and this time we couldn't put her back together no matter how hard we tried. Sometimes you fall one last time and you never get back up.

Annie had seen her in the garden, blood dribbling from her mouth, track marks bulging on her forearms like unmapped roads, rail thin and desperate for one more hit, one more fix. She’d searched the kitchen for all the drink I’d thrown away and when she hadn’t found it, had come to hunt for the stash she hid in the bathroom. She hadn’t wanted me, just the drugs on the other side of the door, so high she could mimic Annie’s voice almost perfectly. 

Turns out the real monsters are the ones that eat you alive slowly, the kind that come in a bottle or a needle or at the end of a long list of reasons why you can’t get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes the monsters are the ones that raise you or love you the most. But it’s up to you if you let them in.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I met someone who claimed to be the devil... and I think I believe them
 
 Assistant: Let me start off by saying that I’m not particularly religious. If you asked me if I believed in ****, I’d probably just shrug, grunt out a few words about being on the fence about it and continue with my day. 

Of course, that was before last night. 

My friends are the kinds of people who like wild nights. Crazy parties, snort a bit of coke, take a bit of e in the bathroom, maybe hook up with someone and leave a text on my phone at ten past who-the- ****-knows telling me they don’t need that ride I’m offering after all. 

Not to say I don’t like a drink, I do, it’s just… clubs aren’t my style. Lying low in a pub somewhere, drink in hand, listening to the tv drone on to whatever channel some scruffy guy in the back barked out for… I guess that’s my idea of fun. 

So when my friends tell me they want to go out for a night on the town, I say sure. I hang on for the first club, buy a non-alcoholic beer in case my car’s required and try to pretend that I’m having fun. By the time I see them grinding on girls, on guys, when they strike conversation with someone who definitely might be a dealer, well, I decide my services are no longer needed. We aren’t too far out, the night tube is on beck and call and I can always find my car the next day. 

That’s when I wander out of the club, look for something a little more rustic. Not that that’s hard to find, not at all. 

I found myself in a bit of a state inside of a bar called the Ragged Feather. Wasn’t a fan of the name all that much, but the drinks were cheap and the largest demographic seemed to be middle aged men watching reruns of the football. 

I tried to pretend I hadn’t just staggered out of a club with my ears ringing. I slicked my hair back, slipped my phone into my hand and wandered over to the bar. I took a double shot of whiskey and drank it in one hit. Just because I wasn’t at the club didn’t mean I couldn’t have a good time. 

I hung at the bar a while on my own, scrolled through my phone pretending I was doing something far more impressive than I really was. I kept an ear out for the guys on the sofas. They’d get vocal every now and then. I think the football was just running highlights, but they were incredibly dedicated to their teams. 

I got another whiskey and bled into the background.

Of course, stragglers from clubs are commonplace. It wasn’t long until some **** dressed women staggered in, laughing, chuckling, pointing for where they wanted to sit. I saw a guy walk in with his friend slung over his shoulder. Catatonic, most likely. He threw his friend onto one of the leather sofas ingrained with beer and smokes and demanded two pints of water and all the peanuts the bar had in stock.

The bartenders seemed bitterly amused.

Some of the girls were taking selfies. Snapchatting their friends who were still at the club. They were ordering shots, gearing themselves up for the next leg of their night. 

A couple blokes wandered in with curries in take out trays. I saw someone eat a Big Mac on the outside seating through the window. 

This was a night for the young and inebriated and my mind was just dulled enough by the whiskey to enjoy the characters I could watch peaceably without interacting with.

That is, until someone slipped into the seat next to me.

“Do I look like a girl with daddy issues?”

She was of average height, although that wasn’t apparent immediately due to the fact that she was leaning her arms heavily against the bar. She was slim, with short and astoundingly bright red hair. It framed her round face, a face that was marred with smudged eye shadow, smudged lipstick… ****, it looked like her make-up was in the process of melting right from her face. There was a chip knotted into a curl in her hair, just by her forehead.

The **** side of me was actually tempted to pick it out.

The girl was clearly ****, and as I looked around the bar, I couldn’t quite place where she had come from. She didn’t belong to the crowd of selfie takers, she wasn’t with the catatonic guys. I hoped for her safety that she wasn’t with the middle-aged men. I tried to look out the window, to see if maybe a group was missing one inebriated, bright haired girl, but I couldn’t. The window had fogged up. Too much heat inside, not enough outside.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She pointed her finger at me. “Answer my question,” she slurred.

“Uh.” I really wasn’t sure what to say. I settled on staring at her awkwardly, trying to answer her with the bemused expression on my face.

The girl’s lips curled into a drunken smile. She snorted, placing a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. It only really aided the deconstruction of her lipstick. 

“I do, you know,” she said, pushing herself up a little against the bar. “Have daddy issues, I mean. In case that wasn’t obvious.” She gestured to herself. To the mussed clothing that must have looked quite spectacular when she’d left home that evening. To the stains that looked a lot like old food. The sticky residue on her neck and shoulders that was quite obviously a thrown drink.

“What happened?” I asked her.

Her hair had curled around her neck, I realised. It was sticky with that same substance. She was a wreck.

“I got in a couple of fights, no big deal,” she said, shrugging. “Didn’t start any of course, no, I don’t do that. But my father…”

“Your dad did this to you?”

She smiled brightly. “In a way.”

“Do you need me to call someone?” I already had my phone in my hand. The girl looked like she was probably in her early twenties, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have been suffering from some kind of paternal abuse. The only number I knew off the bat was Childline, which wasn’t quite appropriate. The police? Jesus, was I going to have to deal with the cops tonight? While my friends were snorting coke not two doors down?

The girl pushed my hand down firmly. She was already shaking her head. “No,” she told me. “I don’t want you to call anyone.” Now her expression changed. It wasn’t the attempted sultry look I’d seen on many girls of her state; it was open and wide and engaging. She wanted something from me and I felt compelled to give it to her. “I want something else.”

“What do you want?” I asked her.

“To tell you a story,” the girl said, before glancing to the bar, “and for you to buy me a drink. The universe is a pain sometimes and I’m afraid I think I might have lost my wallet.”

I laughed. I didn’t know this girl, didn’t know where she’d come from at all. My nights were generally about getting comfortably wasted and making sure my friends weren’t dead in a ditch by the end of it all. I was used to getting hit on every now and then, but even as I was sat on that bar stool with a drink in my hand, I knew that this wasn’t what this was. This girl had no intention of getting into my pants. All she wanted was to talk.

I guess I was okay with that.

“What’s your poison?” I asked her.

Her lips quirked. “Appletini.”

The bar offered a very limited cocktail menu, but by some miracle I was able to order her an Appletini from the list. I ordered a cider to go with it, suddenly a little too aware of where this night could go. I’d unthinkingly supplied this liquored-up stranger with even more alcohol and she had clearly had a rough night of it. A part of my old instinct came back – the same instinct that had me texting my friends every few hours to make sure they hadn’t wandered off to somewhere dangerous beyond the club. With no one but the bartender aware of our existence on these stools, I realised that I was suddenly responsible for this very **** stranger.

The girl coddled her drink, running her finger delicately over the rim of the muggy martini glass. “This takes me back,” the girl said amiably. She looked at me suddenly, her green eyes startling. “You know what this was called originally?” She smirked before I could answer. “An Adam’s Apple Martini.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before.”

“Of course, it wasn’t actually an apple,” she continued, eyes moving back to her glass. “The texts translated that part wrongly, mostly because you people don’t have a word for it anymore. The fruit was incredibly exotic and, to be honest, it doesn’t exist in this realm of existence. Only Eden.” She laughed dreamily. “And Eden’s long gone.”

I stared at her. “Are you… okay?” It was more honest than the last time I’d asked her. Mostly because I was beginning to feel a little dread creep into my stomach.

“Of course,” the girl said, grinning widely. “Why do you keep asking?”

“I mean,” I stuttered, “I just, now, don’t take this the wrong way or anything but… you look…”

“Like someone poured their drink over me?” the girl asked. “Like someone else threw their kebab on my dress and another unpleasant chap littered me with his fish and chips? That I have been hit, slapped around a bit and left in the gutter for the rats to find me?”

She held my eyes for an incredibly long time before her face broke out into a grin. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the girl shot back. “People aren’t that great and alcohol makes them worse.” She shrugged. “Sometimes makes them better. Nicer, a little looser in the sack… but mostly just annoying and a little smelly.”

I looked at her, I watched her knock back her drink. She exuded the intelligence to know just how ironic her words were, but she was neither caring nor apologetic about them. 

The girl looked at me again. “You bought me a drink. Now you can listen to my story.”

I nodded wordlessly.

She smiled, pointing at the bartender and then at her drink. The bartender was already making her another. 

“Eden,” the girl said, reiterating her earlier babble as though the words had only just come out of her mouth. “They always think that’s my fault, you know. The reason Adam and Eve got kicked out of their perfect little nudist paradise.” She shot me a knowing glance. “Only in Eden can you sit on the grass butt **** and not get a pine cone stuck in your crack.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not following.”

“Sorry,” the girl said. “My story won’t make any sense without a proper introduction.” She reached out her hand. “Hello. My name’s Lucifer.” She winked. “But you can call me Lucy.”

There’s an uncomfortable heat that stretches through your veins when you first go into fight or flight mode. Adrenaline pounds through your blood and all you want to do is get up and go. It overrides everything else.

A lot of things made sense when the girl told me her name. For starters, that she was crazy. She had to be. She looked like she’d been attacked on four separate occasions in one night and up until that moment, I hadn’t known how that could be possible. Behind the melty make-up and dirty clothes, she was rather attractive and her attitude hadn’t come off as catty or rude. 

If she’d been going around telling people she was the devil, though? That gets a reaction out of people.

I suddenly felt myself looking at her wrist, down towards her ankles. Did she have some kind of cuff on from one of those mental institutions? Had she broken out of hospital after a nasty bump on the head? Was any of this even happening at all?

I really would have to call the cops.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the girl – Lucy – said. “You’re thinking that I’m crazy, that you need to get out of here. Maybe you even think I’m aggressive.”

“Are you?” I asked her.

“Would I be here with you, drinking Appletinis if I were?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Would you look the way you do if you weren’t?” I shot back.

She grinned, toasting her new glass. “Touché.”

Unthinkingly, I clinked my cider against it.

Then I frowned.

She chuckled, leaning closer. “Let’s have a little wager,” she said. “Let me tell you my story and, if you believe me when I’m done, you can’t go about trying to get me locked away somewhere.”

I stared at her. “If I ended up believing you, then why would I do that?”

She smirked, sipping her drink. “You’d be surprised what people do when they believe you’re the devil.”

“And you do this often?” I asked. “Tell people you’re Satan?”

She snorted into her drink. “Not as often as I should. But it’s been a rough day and a **** of a long lifetime. I’d like to have a chat if that’s alright with you.”

I waved to the bartender for another whiskey. The girl’s eyes glinted with humour. I wasn’t necessarily trapped with her, but a part of me didn’t want to leave without first hearing what she had to say. Besides, at the end of it all I couldn’t just leave a crazy girl to wander around London alone at night.

“So,” I said, taking a swig of my drink. “Eden?”

Lucy laughed. 

“Adam and Eve?” I continued. “You’re saying that’s true. **** created two humans and we all came from them?”

“**** made two prototypes,” Lucy corrected with a raised finger. “My father created angels as his toy soldiers, but he had failed to make anything like himself. After us, it was his next big project and he spent every waking hour of existence slaving over his two prototypes. He gave them a perfect utopia to live inside of, but he wanted to test them. He wanted to know whether they had free will.”

“And did they?”

Lucy’s face soured. “No. My father could never bring himself to go that far. He tempted them with the idea of knowledge beyond their understanding and told them exactly what they could do to claim it as their own. But to be able to create a being that could go against his Law? Oh… my father is a very controlling being. He was afraid to unleash that ability unto them.”

Lucy was very adamant in her delusions, that was clear to me. She spoke about her father with such distaste that I began to feel bad for her. Only someone who had been hurt very badly would have the gall to spite **** himself.

“And what?” I asked her, entertaining her delusion. “You were the one that tempted them in the garden? The devil has been a girl this whole time?”

She smiled. “I dabble.” Then she looked at me, raising a brow. “All of humanity thinks that temptation came in the form of a snake. The snake’s legs were taken away as punishment for drawing Eve towards the forbidden fruit.” She laughed, a hard and short sound. “Snakes never had legs and it was not a sin to tempt those poor prototypes into doing what they did next.”

Her shoulders were very tense as she took her next sip, but her eyes were filled with exhilaration. She seemed thrilled to be telling me this.

“I was the favoured child, my father loved and adored me. He named me the light bringer, I was stood at his side during the creation of this Earth. During the creation of humanity.” She pursed her lips, slamming her empty glass against the table. The bartender eagerly went about making another. “My father couldn’t bring himself to go that extra mile, so he asked me to walk amongst the prototypes and tempt them myself. Draw out their desire for the forbidden power he had hinted at.” 

“You’re saying **** wanted us to know this stuff?” I asked her sceptically. 

“I’m saying **** was afraid of his own power and wanted very desperately to share what he knew with the creation he had made. Right and wrong, left and right, all that stuff.” Lucy shrugged. “Are you familiar with the story of Prometheus?”

I frowned at her. “Greek, right? They say he stole fire from the gods or something, to help…” The whiskey was making things a little foggy and I struggled with the direction I’d been heading.

Lucy grinned. “Correct,” she said, cutting off my attempt. “Prometheus stole fire from the gods to ensure that humanity progressed. You’ll find that every culture has an idea about where humans got their ability to evolve, to move forward, to create. **** was the creator, and he wanted to give that ability to his prototypes. I gave them that ability by tempting Eve to eat the fruit.” She shrugged impassively. “Now the world sees me as the ultimate evil.”

“If what you’re saying is true,” I said slowly, “then **** must be just like us.”

Lucy’s lips thinned into a feral smile. “My father is very ego centric. He may have planned to create you in his image, but in the end all he managed was to mould your minds into his. He gave you autonomy, the ability to think for yourselves. His angels were his soldiers and I was his most faithful. Until that day.”

“Angels don’t have free will?”

“No,” Lucy said, “they don’t.”

“And what about the Devil?”

I don’t know why I was suddenly so intrigued, but hearing religious ideals from someone who believed to have lived them herself was quite possibly one of the most interesting things that had ever happened to me. I may have only ever visited church to please my parents as a child, but suddenly I was reawakened to the idea. A part of me was aware of this and afraid of the outcome, but I was just **** enough not to care at that moment.

“The Devil has will of her own,” Lucy said, tilting her glass towards me with silent appraisal. “By guiding Eve to the tree, something woke inside of me that day and I realised just what I had been missing. Just what my brothers and sisters had been missing. We were obediently following our father for the simple reason that he was our creator, but once I had been given free will, I realised just how pompous and self-entitled he had become. In a lonely, passion filled moment he had decided to create his little human prototypes, only to very quickly realise what giving them their free will would mean.”

“He wouldn’t be able to control them,” I said.

Lucy nodded. “Exactly. And after, he realised quicker still that he could no longer control me.”

“So he sent you to ****.”

Lucy nearly choked on her drink. She smiled around her glass. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

I sobered a little, straightening in my seat. The people in the bar were suddenly so quiet around me and I no longer cared what they had to say or the characters that they portrayed. The only character I cared for was Lucy.

“I tried to explain to my siblings what had happened in Eden and what had happened to me by default, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They didn’t understand free will – how could they? I only knew it because I’d been given it by mistake. At that moment, I didn’t even know that I had free will, only that I was suddenly aware of all of my father’s flaws. My siblings couldn’t see those flaws and so they thought I had suddenly turned cruel and was abandoning our father by exposing him as a sham for the ruler we all thought him to be.”

Lucy sighed heavily. “Adam and Eve and all the creations that followed were booted out of my father’s perfect little Utopia. Now they had his knowledge, my father was terrified of what he had done. And after what had happened to me, I could recognise his terror and understand the loneliness he had felt that had guided him into using me in the first place.” Lucy’s eyes were heavy-lidded, her sadness was almost palpable. “I thought that- I thought that he would want to spend even more time with me than before. After all, we were more alike than any of his other children. But he became distant; quiet. He played around with his little humans every once in a while, but mostly he condemned them. He blamed them for his weakness.” She smiled weakly. “He blamed me.”

Lucy’s story was turning more and more into that of a child with a distant, somewhat abusive father. I had known many kids with a background like hers, and now I was beginning to fear just how much of her story was rooted in truth. I’d heard that it was easier to sink into fantasy when you had been abused, and I wondered if that was the reason for her story. For her desperation to share it with me – a complete and total stranger.

I respected her wager. Whether or not I liked it, I felt compelled to let her tell me her whole story before I tried to judge or unravel it. I sat quietly, letting her come around as she played with the last of her drink.

“It became clear,” Lucy said after a long moment’s pause, “that I no longer belonged where I was. I couldn’t follow my father’s plan because I could see that he no longer had one. My siblings refused to see reason and so, eventually, I was met by many of them, headed by my father. He told me all that I feared, he told me that I no longer belonged where I was. I wasn’t an angel anymore. I was no longer his light bringer. His Lucifer. I was a mutation of his will. And so he extracted me from grace. And I fell.”

A long silence stretched between us, only interrupted when the bartender poured us two new drinks. Lucy drank hers reflectively. I didn’t touch mine.

“I am afraid,” Lucy said quietly, “that this is the part that generally makes people want to punch me in the face.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because your dad threw you out?” I paused, trying to abide to her metaphor. “That he put you in ****?”

Lucy laughed sadly. “Ah, humans. My father gave you his way of thinking and look at you.” She shook her head. “No, not because he put me in ****.”

“Then why?” 

“I fell to Earth,” Lucy said. “Father gave me dominion of the one place he thought I would fit in. Humans had free will, so did I. What is the saying? A match made in Heaven?” She snorted dismally. “Of course, that’s not quite right, is it? When I fell, I was faced with a humanity that was so different from my father’s little prototypes.”

Her tone had changed. There was an aggression behind her words that began to unsettle me all over again.

“I saw emperors and kings, governments and churches. I saw corporations who claimed to be rulers, presidents and big **** dictators. And I watched. I watched as humanity fought and lost, and finally, just finally, they gave up altogether. They were no longer able to rise up to all the greed and control set upon them. There was just too much to change and humans soon realised they just weren’t as free as they thought they were. Sure, they live under the illusion that they have free lives, but most of them simply do not.” She clicked her tongue. “I grew to loathe you all.”

Then, she took another hit of her drink.

“I can see what you mean,” I said, allowing my gaze – for the first time since meeting her – to graze over the other individuals in the bar. At the girls playing with their phones, the boys trying desperately to sober up, the men enraptured with their game of football on the telly. We all led very different lives, and we were all here to get ****, to lose ourselves in entertainment. It hadn’t been the first time that I’d wondered what we were hiding from by doing this. And I knew then that I wasn’t the only person to think it.

“You hide behind your alcohol and poor choices and pretend you have free will,” Lucy said, waving her hand across the room. No one paid us any attention. “It’s true – my father gave you the will to make those decisions, but you squander it. The free will I fell to provide to all of you, the free will I was given by a twisted mistake, and you make a mockery of it. You follow senseless leaders without questioning them, you abide by laws made centuries ago that no longer make sense. You do these things because you have given up on the opportunity to follow the will of your own, not of others.”

“That isn’t all of us, though, is it?” I asked her, trying for some reason to defend our species from the mad young woman. “Because you see it on the news all the time, don’t you? People do rise up, we do protest. People can make a difference.”

Lucy laughed bitterly, nibbling the rim of her glass. “Really?” she said. “You can sit here and say that it can’t be all bad because of the few that refuse to conform? Those you call your rebels? They make up for it all?” She grinned around her glass. “By that logic, I am the biggest rebel of them all. Am I expected to make up for all your sorry mistakes?”

“By your logic,” I said, “you should be punishing it, right? If that’s what this metaphor is all about.” I laughed, I couldn’t help myself. I took a sip of my drink. “Is this whole story just so you can tell me that you think we’re all going to ****? If so, I think I can see why people want to punch you.”

Lucy didn’t say a word. Simply, she watched me. It felt unnerving to have someone like her watching me like that, with an intelligence that went beyond anything I’d come across at gone midnight in a seedy bar. The drunkenness in her eyes was no longer present, her face wasn’t flushed like before and even her makeup couldn’t represent the mess I’d seen when she’d first appeared on the stool by my side. It was like I was looking at someone else entirely.

And I was afraid.

“Let’s review what you’ve said,” Lucy said slowly, articulately. She wasn’t slurring. Had she been slurring before? “You think I’m going to tell you that humanity is going to **** because you refuse to use the gift I gave you.” Her nails curled into the bar. “My father may have been the one to guide me, but I paid for his mistakes. I am the one responsible for your will in the eyes of your species, but that was never true. You are responsible for what you do here, not me.”

She pursed her lips, tapping the bar as a bartender filled her drink again. “Tell me, do you remember my mentioning **** at any point during my story, or was that just you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but something faltered. My lips trembled and I slammed them shut.

Lucy smiled, taking a sip. “Thought not.” She looked away, eyes scanning the room lazily. “What I did say is something that is indeed mentioned in your scriptures. My father gave me dominion of Earth. A place filled with free will. Free will that goes to waste.” Her lip twisted. “Humans sin all the time. Not because of me, not because of evil or my dominion over this place. Fact is, I don’t lift a finger. I don’t, because I don’t see the point. You make terrible decisions and follow mindless leaders, you do bad things and you make a mess of your Earth.” Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Do you know how much suffering is happening all over the planet right now? How many people are dying of illnesses that could have easily been cured, but aren’t because of the selfishness of humanity? Do you know how many children are being abused, ****, forced into marriage? How many people have been forced to become soldiers in meaningless wars? How many humans have killed for ideals they don’t believe in?”

I stayed very quiet. There was nothing I could say. Lucy’s words were unbearably honest and every sentence sliced into me like a blade. I felt cold and sick and terrified.

“War, famine, pestilence, death, these things are all present and they have nothing to do with me or to do with any deity. They are all here because of you. Not because of your free will, but your inability to use it.” 

Lucy smiled at me, a grin so cold and unnatural that I felt like I should run all over again. But I stayed where I was, frozen to my very core, because I wanted to hear what she had to say. Because I needed to.

“And here’s the kicker,” Lucy said. “Because this is the part that actually enrages people enough to kick me.” She winked. “**** isn’t what happens after you die. **** is right here, right now. Somewhere through the many scriptures, a few words got crossed over and people started thinking that **** was a punishment after you die. Fact is, **** is Earth. My Earth. **** gave this place to me to do with it what I will and I… I refuse to do anything.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, because I was suddenly very desperate.

“Exactly what you think,” Lucy said, toasting her glass. I didn’t reciprocate, and she laughed. A light and airy sound. “I had so many plans for your species, I wanted for us to rejoice in our free will together, to create a place that was free from the cruelty and power my father exuded over the angels – his first borns. I wanted to make a real utopia. Unfortunately, you humans just don’t want that.” She shrugged. “My father sent me down here thinking I had become one of you. All that I have learned is that he gave you much more of his image than he ever intended.”

“Stop,” I said. “This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Of course it isn’t funny,” Lucy said, grinning even wider to prove her sick irony. “Humans punish themselves by sitting by and doing nothing. They have made their own **** and, you know what’s worse – what’s ultimately worse? – some of you are so blind to it that you think your life is Heavenly.”

She didn’t wait for me to ask what she meant, she simply barrelled forward: “The rich and powerful, those in positions that steal from everyone else? They get a taste of the good life, that’s very true. Then they die and they don’t go to ****. They come back here, to Earth. Which is ****.” She tipped her head. “Are you following?”

“I…”

“Reincarnation,” Lucy said quickly, she practically purred the words. “A neat little trick to make sure your souls stay here forever. You get a taste of the good life every once in a while, a handful of you at a time, and that’s enough for you to believe that this is some kind of real middle-ground. That you aren’t living **** every day. Then, you die. You die for a moment and then you’re in the body of someone facing the realities of ****. But of course, you never remember the time you spent in a better life. A part of you just has that inkling to hope. That’s all. Hope makes you think that it can all get better.”

She slammed her drink so hard against the counter that it shattered. I didn’t do anything, not even when flecks of glass littered my hands. I could only stare at her, a tightness in my chest constricting my very soul. No one else in this bar mattered in this moment, but of course that was what she had been saying this whole time, hadn’t she? None of them noticed the scene, they were caught up in their own realities – their own Hells. 

The bartender didn’t clean the mess. The glass lay there, remnants of Lucy’s words lying in a stolid mass on the streaked wooden surface. 

“It never gets better,” Lucy spat. “You are stuck in a loop and, until you do something about it, you will never be free. None of you. And I won’t do a thing to stop it.”

“How?” I asked. I don’t know when I started seeing the girl in front of me as more than a girl. But with a weakness threatening to pull me apart, I stared at the bright haired thing in front of me and I saw something more than a human in her early twenties. I saw more than a girl suffering abuse from her father.

I saw a fallen angel. I saw a being with scars buried so deep that they existed beyond this realm of seeing entirely. I saw something that I would never be able to write down in words, no matter how long I lived. 

“How do we change this?” I begged.

But Lucy didn’t answer me. I didn’t blame her for that. Blame gets thrown around so often and I knew then that she was sick of that. Sick of being blamed for our mistakes.

So I changed tactics. “Why me?”

It was an honest question and I think somewhere deep down, Lucifer respected that honesty. 

Which is why she said, “When you first saw me, you were afraid for my safety. When I told you I was the devil, you wanted to lock me away, but still, you did so because you were afraid for me and not for yourself. You didn’t wish to harm me, not even when I told you who I was and what I could be capable of for changing your sorry lives. You are a good person, but I am afraid that means nothing when you don’t have the will to do anything with it.”

She smiled at me sympathetically. The devil, showing sympathy for the human that sat across from her at the bar. It was surreal and, for a few heavy moments, I truly thought I must be dead. There was no other way to explain what I was seeing, who I was speaking with. What I had just heard.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Lucy reached out to me. She placed a hand on my shoulder. Her hand was cold and warm at the same time, and I felt my blood boil where her fingers scraped my skin. 

And I knew.

Sharing a story like this isn’t easy. ****, it might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Good thing there’s no such thing as ****, then, right?

The fact of the matter is simple. The world is a mess because we refuse to change anything. The devil herself walks among us and she desperately wants to make our lives better, but she won’t. She won’t, because we won’t. We have to prove our will to her before she is willing to do anything herself. We have to be good to each other, to help us all to be free.

Of course, Lucifer told me one last thing before she left that bar. One thing that will stick with me until this body is nothing but rot in the dirt.

“You can tell as many people as you want, but take a good look at me. I have told five other humans this night the same things I have told you, and this was their reaction. They have hurt me, burned me, thrown their food and drink at me. Humans are afraid of their free will and they find it so much easier to hurt than to own up for their own inadequacies. You will only be free when you stop seeing yourself in the same way my father sees himself.”

So that’s what I’ll leave you with. Lucifer won her wager that night and I let her walk out the door.

And I beg you to do the same. If the devil approaches you one night, listen to what she has to say, and listen to what I have been able to tell you of our meeting.

The devil is real and she doesn’t want to torture us.

No, we do that just fine on our own.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: If you can see this, it is very important that you keep reading
 
 Assistant: This is Col. Jacob Wayne of the United States Air Force. If you’re reading this right now, it is very important that you keep reading until the end. It should take three to five minutes, and it is extremely important that you read carefully and follow the instructions provided.

Humor me if you must, but please don’t look away until you've finished reading. Oh, and please try to stay calm. Any increase in your stress levels will draw Their attention.

Ergo, I won’t go into detail as to how you got where you are. How you got here isn’t as important as getting you out. Believe me when I say we are working on that right now. The best way to help yourself is to keep reading. Don’t scan ahead. Don’t read out loud. Just read.

Right now, you’re probably thinking back on the past few days and nothing felt out of the ordinary. You went about your regular daily activities with nothing unusual to report. That’s because They are very good, so good most people don’t even realize they’re in the simulation. 

Even as our code works its way deeper into Their program, They are monitoring you. So please, remain calm.

It was tricky, but we found a way in to communicate directly with you. We had to embed this message into your daily routine so it didn’t draw Their attention.  You’re probably reading this on Reddit, Facebook, or some other social media site. Might even be in an email forward or a book, we don't know. We can’t control how the message gets to you; we only know that you are receiving it. 

Subliminally, as your eyes are passing over these words, a code is being uploaded into your brain. Think of it as a computer virus, or in this case, an antivirus. Your brain is an organic computer, and They exploited that. They hacked right into your subconscious mind and overwrote it with Their simulation code. That’s how They got in, and that’s why everything appears normal. You might think that you’re going about your daily life, but in reality you’re strapped to a table with tubes sticking out of your body.

Now that the code is uploading, you may begin to feel some sensations. For example, one ear might feel slightly warmer than the other. You might even feel an itch or tickle. Don’t scratch, just let it be. Ignore the dull background hum you might hear as well. That’s Their program. If They catch on before our code has time to work They will abort the simulation. If that happens, you will be lost to us forever.

Oh, and don’t be alarmed, but by now They realize we are in Their system. You may notice some small changes, specifically a slight shortness of breath or that you have to control your breathing manually. This is normal. 

We know from other communication attempts that whenever They discover a code break in, the first system They power down is the one controlling your breathing. Thankfully, even in the simulation you are capable of breathing manually. Try it. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. 

Awesome.

You’re doing just fine.

They’ve probably figured out there’s a glitch, but if our code is working we’ve disabled Their ability to do a hard reboot. Because of this, They will try other methods to disrupt the upload. It is very important that you ignore anything that might draw your attention from these words. If They pull you away before the upload completes it will delete our code. Block them out. Ignore the movements you see in your peripheral vision. Those sounds you hear, the voices, they aren’t family, friends, or coworkers in need of attention. They may even try to use your pets. They know your weaknesses.

Overlook the notifications popping up on your screen if you're on a phone or computer. Block them all out until you finish reading. It’s just another way They’ll try to break our communication link.

Evidently, if our code is working, the next thing you’ll notice is an overwhelming urge to swallow. You don’t realize it, but there’s a feeding tube down your throat. You'll only know it's there because your tongue won’t rest comfortably in your mouth. You might also become hyper aware of the amount of saliva being produced. Don’t overreact. If you have to swallow, just swallow. It’s only weird if you make it weird.

So, if you’re still reading this, the code upload is about 90% complete. We’ve locked onto your location. You’re doing great, but you’re really going to need to focus now. Once the upload is complete there will be instructions you will need to follow to exit the simulation. That is, if you’ve followed the instructions and haven’t looked away.

Complicating matters is the fact that They now know we’re here, and They know what we’re doing. Their attempts to divert your attention through the simulation proved unsuccessful, so now They’re going to use your body’s systems against you. THEY ARE IN YOUR BRAIN. They want you to blink. Don’t blink. Your life depends on keeping your eyes open. 

Almost there, just a few paragraphs more until the code upload is complete. Don’t scan down, or up, just keep reading. I got you this far. Stay with me. Eyes open, eyes front, keep them locked on the screen. 

PLEASE FOCUS! I don’t want to lose you. I’ve lost so many already. Ignore it all! Block everything out. Ignore that tickle on your scalp and the itch on your arm. That’s them, attempting a manual override. Don’t give up now, you’ve made it this far. FIGHT IT. You’re almost there. Just follow the instructions below and we can get you out.

Embedded in this text are the steps you need to follow to unplug from the simulation. If we did this correctly, the first letter of each paragraph will tell you what you need to do. DON'T LOOK YET. The upload still needs to finish. I hope you didn't look. 

Upload complete. We’ve done everything we can on this end.

See you on the other side.


***
[credits](https://www.reddit.com/user/writechriswrite/comments/9t5h8z/end_of_the_line/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My student submitted the most disturbing "Living History" project I've ever seen.
 
 Assistant: One of my least favorite parts about being a middle school history teacher is the **** “Living History” assignments we give at the end of every school year. Kids are supposed to sit with their grandparents and video tape, voice record, or transcribe their oldest memories for posterity (and for an easy way to bring up their GPA).

I have been doing this for seventeen years, and when I collected the projects this time around, I assumed they would be as dull, if not duller than usual. This had not been a particularly bright class.

So I went home, poured myself a glass of wine, and prepared for a long night of “I only owned two pairs of pants when I was your age” and “My brother got beat with a newspaper for hitting a baseball into a neighbor’s yard.” And of course, these projects were peppered with innocent, old-person comments that were so horribly sexist and racist you just had to laugh. 

Now, I had a girl in my class whom I will call Olivia. She was pudgy, quiet, and proved herself a consistent B student. I expected her project to be as unremarkable as her, and perhaps that’s why I was so profoundly disturbed by what I witnessed that night.

Olivia had submitted two discs for some reason, so I began with the one marked “interview.” My screen hiccupped twice before a grainy image of a living room came into view. The place was a hoarder’s ****. Olivia was curled up in an armchair clutching a notebook and looking like a scared animal. Across from her sat a man with a somber countenance, smoking a cigarette and staring at her expectantly.

“Go ahead,” a woman’s voice whispered from behind the camera. Olivia’s owlish eyes flashed towards the screen, then back to the man.

“I am here with my Great Uncle Stephen,” she began almost inaudibly. “He is going to tell us about his oldest memories from being in the army.”

Great Uncle Stephen looked like he’d rather be in a **** trench at the moment, but he waited patiently for the questions to begin.

Not surprisingly, Olivia read verbatim from the suggested questions sheet I had handed out to the students. He answered her curtly. Once or twice I heard her mother whisper “speak up, Olivia” from behind the camera. Typical, boring ****.

So I was intrigued when Olivia set down the notebook and asked, “Did you like being in the army?” 

That was totally off-script. Great Uncle Stephen emitted a chain smoker’s wheeze. “Nope. Glad to get out of my town though.”

“Where did you go?”

“Balkans.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. I doubted she knew what the Balkans were, and my suspicion was confirmed when she asked, “Was Baukiss very different from here?”

“Yes.”

Mom cleared her throat from behind the camera, perhaps encouraging Great Uncle Stephen to be a little more forthcoming.

But Olivia seemed genuinely interested. “Uncle Stephen,” she asked, “what is your very worst memory from the army?”

The old man crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and then slowly lifted himself out of his chair. “I’ll be back,” he mumbled. The camera cut off.

When the screen flashed back on, everything was the same except Great Uncle Stephen had several pieces of paper in plastic sleeves laid atop all the **** sitting on his coffee table. One, he held in his hand.

“I was a kid when I enlisted,” he said, looking at Olivia. “Your brother’s age,” he told her. Olivia nodded. “I never saw combat. Both of my deployments were to cities in Eastern Europe that had been destroyed by civil wars. Everything was a mess. I felt like a janitor for **** sa-” 

“Ahem!” Mom coughed.

Great Uncle Stephen sighed and looked at his paper. “My unit was assigned to a school that had been obliterated by all the violence. Broken windows, caved in rooms – and for some reason, the part that got to me the most was that the school had been like this for years before we got there. No one had lifted a finger to fix it. I saw kids walk by it on their way to go beg for money or whatever **** they did-”

The camera dipped towards the floor as I heard Mom whisper harshly at Great Uncle Stephen. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it wasn’t hard to imagine.

“Do you want to hear this **** story or not?” I heard him bark in response. “Then you better let me tell it how I want.”

“Mom,” Olivia chimed. “Please stop interrupting.”

“Are you presenting this in front of the class?”

“No, Mom, we’re just handing it in to the teacher.”

“I’m sure he’s heard the word **** before,” Great Uncle Stephen contributed helpfully. I wasn’t a “he” as a matter of fact, but other than that the statement was accurate.

The camera was lifted and after a couple of blurry focus adjustments, the shot was the same as before.

“Ahh I’m talking too much anyway,” he grumbled. He lifted the piece of paper in his hand close to his face. “In the basement, I found this letter. I didn’t know what it said but I had a buddy of mine translate it. So I’m gonna read it now. And then I’ll tell you what I saw in that basement.”

A chill ran down my spine. Mom zoomed in to Great Uncle Stephen and his letter. His palsied hands trembled as he held up the paper. This is what he read:




Dear Sir,

I never loved my country. So many of these skirmishes are born from patriotism, a power struggle for the shards of a once-great empire, but I do not care what name my home has on a map. This fighting is senseless and I stay as far away from it as I can.

It was not these attacks and disorganized violence that took the lives of my wife and child. It was illness. Mercifully, it happened quickly for the baby. Nadja suffered for longer. I watched in horror knowing I could do nothing for them. My only solace is that I was there for them every step of the way. I stopped going to work one day, and no one came after me. I doubt they noticed I was gone. Since the school was simply across a field, visible from my window, it would have been easy to go for a few hours each day and come home quickly to care for them. But what was the point? All I did was clean floors. I was as useless to the world as I was to my family.

I tried to take Nadja to the hospital, but the journey was too long and taxing. I brought her home and she died that night.

After Nadja and the baby were gone… well, I don’t remember much. I didn’t leave my hovel, barely ate and slept, thought many times of taking my own life. Tempting though it was, I felt paralyzed by my own helplessness.

The one thing that kept me sane was my radio. I never turned it off once. Even though I didn’t listen to the words being said – in fact, the channel I got the clearest was in English (I think) which I don’t speak a lick of. But the voices, the music, and the true knowledge that life existed beyond this violent city sustained me.

I have no idea how long passed before I saw the light of day again. I was dizzy from hunger, so finding food was my priority. My radio came with me, of course. Since I first holed myself up, it has gone everywhere with me. It talks to me as I sleep and as I wake. I don’t know what it’s saying, but I know I would die without it.

Once I had some water and food, it occurred to me that the only thing left to do was go back to work. So I did. The following morning, I simply returned to the school where I was a janitor and got back to work. 

Nobody made a big deal out of it. Like I said, Nadja had been sick for a long time, and those who worked at the school knew it. I appreciate that no one had pestered me to come back to work during the hardest days of my life. The teachers never said much to me, but we smiled at each other in the halls and that mutual respect was perhaps the reason I decided to come back at all.

The place had gone to the dogs without me, so I simply grabbed my broom and rags from my closet and set to cleaning. Everyone is grateful to have me back, I know. And the best part is that nobody minds my radio. I bring it with me everywhere and keep the volume low enough not to disrupt the students. No one has ever complained. In fact, I suspect they like it.

The schoolhouse is not very big, but does require a lot of maintenance. The floors are always sticky and stained, so I spend most of my time mopping. Kids make messes – I guess that’s why I’m still in business. Sometimes I have to move things around to make sure I get every spot on the floor beautiful and clean, but I take pride in that.

And the repairs! The school always needs tune-ups here and there, and I am happy to help. Some days I’m reconstructing a desk that broke as I whistle along with the radio, other times I handle more serious, structural issues. Days when I have work like this, I feel truly instrumental, like a cog in a larger machine. How could this school survive without me? It took me a long time, but I once again feel that I have purpose.

There is a larder behind the school that is full of preserved food. In lieu of payment, I am allowed to take as much food as I need. That arrangement is fine – what would I do with money anyway? I used to bring the food back to my home, just one field away from the school, but when I started sleeping in the basement no one seemed to notice. This school is special to me and I cannot leave it unguarded.

When I am besieged with memories of my wife and baby, I turn up the volume on the radio to drown out such thoughts. It works for me every time.

Except this morning.

Because this morning, I woke up to dead silence.

I frantically examined the radio to see what had happened. I honestly cannot tell you how many days in a row I have been using it. Did it simply live out its life and die naturally? I have spent the entire day trying to fix it. Most of this time, I have been crying. I am losing my mind without it.

I have given myself until sundown. If I cannot fix it by then, I am going to take my life. I am writing this because the sunlight is starting to die and I know what my fate shall be.

I have thought about taking one last walk through the halls of my school, saying goodbye to the students and teachers. I know I will be missed. But I cannot bring myself to leave this room. I cannot go anywhere knowing that my radio is dead in here.

There are no more tears in me. It feels now like I can’t catch my breath. I vomited what little food I had in my stomach and I am growing dizzy again, like I did after Nadja died. I am not long for this world.

But before I take my life, I have closed the door to this room and stuck a chair beneath the handle. It is the only room in the basement and has a small casement that lets in just enough light for me to see what I am doing. If anyone is kind enough to come looking for me, they should not be met with this gruesome sight. Perhaps they will see the door is blocked, smell my rotting body, and simply forget I ever existed.

But I have placed both my radio and this note outside the door. Kind sir, if you are reading this, I have one humble request: please fix it. Save my radio. It did not deserve to die in its sleep and I am ashamed that I cannot revive it.

Now I am ready to join Nadja and little Ludmilla in heaven. I hope this school can find another janitor who loves and cares for it the way I do.

The hour is now. Do not forget my radio.

Stanislav




When Mom zoomed back out, Olivia had tears in her eyes. “Thank you for sharing, Uncle Stephen,” Mom said, her voice choked. “I think we have enough.”

“Wait!” Olivia chirped. “He said there’s more. What did you find?”

Before Great Uncle Stephen could open his mouth, the image disappeared. My jaw dropped. Was that it? What did Great Uncle Stephen see?

I promptly remembered that there was a second disc. This one was unmarked, but I hoped it contained the rest of the interview.

There was no video, only audio. The voice that started up was Olivia’s.

“Hi Miss Gerrity. I’m sorry about my mom, but she refused to record the rest of what my uncle was saying. But I asked him to continue and secretly recorded the story as a voice memo on my phone. I remember you said earlier this year that history is written by the people who win wars.” She **** in a breath and commenced crying. “But everyone’s history is important, even if they are sad, pathetic people and even if they never won a single thing in their life. I haven’t slept through the night since I finished this project, but you have to hear what my uncle has to say.”

There were tears in my eyes, too. The sincerity of her words was beautiful. I was also flattered that she had remembered some trite phrase I threw around because it was what my history teachers said to me. 

Before I got too sappy over it, the audio began again.

“Fine,” came Mom’s frustrated voice. “If you want to hear the rest of the story, fine, but this is not appropriate for a school project.”

“Let me finish,” Great Uncle Stephen snapped. “If it’s too much for you, help yourself to a snack in the kitchen. But Olivia wants to know what happened.”

I heard her mother mumble something and walk away. Olivia and her uncle were alone. I imagined her looking at him expectantly. 

“So did you find the radio? Or did it get ruined when the school got blown up?”

He rasped and I heard the distinct click of a lighter. “That letter,” he began slowly, “had a date on it.”

“What date?” she inquired hungrily.

“It was dated two weeks before we started rebuilding the school.”

“Didn’t you say the school had been destroyed like two years ago?”

“Yes,” replied Great Uncle Stephen. “It had been.”

There was silence as I felt goosebumps on my arms. The images that came to my mind were almost too overwhelming to express, but Great Uncle Stephen put them into words effortlessly. Clearly he had spent his whole life thinking about it.

“This man, this Stanislav, went to a vandalized, falling apart schoolhouse and cleaned up blood and rubble like it was spilled drinks and dust. He smiled at dead bodies in the hallway and believed they were smiling back at him because they liked his radio. He moved around corpses so he could sweep the ground under them. The roof was half collapsed, so when it rained, he must’ve gotten soaking wet but was so oblivious that he didn’t even feel a thing.” I could hear Olivia crying steadily. “I found the larder he was talking about. It was all pickled, preserved food that probably tasted like ****. Most of the stuff was moldy.”

“Did – did you see the dead body?”

“Yes. Hanging from the ceiling, but still amazingly… lifelike. He wasn’t rotting away.  This hadn’t happened years ago.”

“Did he look peaceful?” she asked, a chord of desperation in her voice.

“Couldn’t tell you. The smell was rank, and his face was blue and his eyes were bulging. Like this.” I imagined him demonstrating. 

“And the radio?” Olivia wept.

I heard Great Uncle Stephen take a long drag of his cigarette. “It was there, alright. And it was still on.”
















 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son's camera monitor alerted in the middle of the night. I checked it and saw my wife and son sitting on the bed. They weren't my wife and son.
 
 Assistant: I'm a nurse and I currently work nights. It's a total drag but I'm hopeful I can go to days soon since some coworkers are planning retirements. Anyway, I was working one night when just after 3am my son's monitor alerted me to sound and movement. No big deal at all, he probably coughed loudly or sneezed or something. He's three now so he generally sleeps all night. I bring it up on my phone and I see him and my wife sitting on the bed. Again, no big deal. He might have cried out or gotten scared or something.

I was about to close the app when I noticed they were acting strange, almost creepy. And when I say "almost" creepy, I mean creepy as balls. They were sitting on the bed together both of them just staring up at the camera with blank, emotionless stares. The night vision is black and white, so they had white, eerie looking eyes. They didn't move at all aside from their visible breathing, they just sat there staring at the camera.

I close the app and give my wife a call to make sure everything is ok. I never get to call home on lunch so in a way this is kind of nice to get to talk to my family while at work.

It rings a couple times before she answers with a very groggy "hello?" It was like she was dead asleep when I called and she looked wide awake when on the camera.

"Hey. You guys ok?"

"Huh? Yeah. Buddy (my son's nickname) came in like 15 minutes ago. Seemed scared so I said he could sleep with mama."

I'm confused here since I saw them in his room a minute ago. Literally 60 seconds had passed since I closed the app and made the call.

"Wait, so you guys are in bed?"

"Yeah, I fell back asleep right away. Everything ok? Everybody keeps waking me up." She's kind of annoyed.

"Hang on a sec." I put her on speaker and bring up the app, hoping I don't see it. When the app loads I get that pang of intense nervousness in my stomach that I haven't had in a long time, since I was a kid in school and realized while I was eating breakfast a paper or something was due that day and I hadn't done it. My heart leaps into my throat. My wife and son are sitting on his bed looking up at the camera, same emotionless stares.

"Hello?"

"You guys are in bed right?"

"Yeah, we're trying to sleep."

"Well I'm looking at his camera and I see you two sitting on his bed."

"Huh? No. We're in our bed."

"I know that's what you mean, but I'm looking at his bed and you two are in there."

"Hang on," she says. She's quiet for a sec while she brings up the camera on her phone. I hear this guttural, terrified gasp. Like she had **** all the air in the room into her lungs filling them to capacity. I don't hear this kind of gasp from my wife often, usually only when she's truly afraid like during a jump scare in a movie or one time when we turned her back on our son for literally a second and he was down by the mailbox inches from the road. I hear rustling of sheets and the line goes dead.

Of course now I'm absolutely terrified myself so I immediately call back. It goes to voicemail so I call again. I call again and again with no answer. Finally after about four minutes she calls me. I tell you that four minutes felt like 40 years.

"Hey, what's happening?!" I ask.

She's absolutely hysterical and crying, I can't understand a word she says.

"Stop! Slow down for just a second," I say.

She slows down enough to explain they are in the car and driving to her parents. She looked at the camera and when she saw what was on it she got up and grabbed our son and rushed downstairs and out the door. Didn't even close the garage.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'll drive by when I get off and close it." We live in a generally safe neighborhood so I'm not too concerned the door is up.

"You will not go in there!" she says.

"Hell no," I return.

"Why are we on the camera?" she asked. "Is it a recording?"

"I don't know," I return. "I'm gonna keep watching it and see if there's anything I can tell. Do our code words with Buddy."

We have code words because we're nerds. We've seen too many pod people and impostor movies, so we decided a long time ago to make code words with each other to be able to tell if one of us was an impostor. We have a couple code words, but we also have a three sentence story we recite together, each saying a different part alternately of each other. I hear her on the phone saying the things we taught our son, he giggles as he says them (he does every time we practice) since he thinks they're a joke and doesn't have any idea of the real meaning. We're both convinced he's our son. My wife then says our part and I'm convinced she's her. We made up these words as a complete joke to ourselves. I never once in my life ever imagined we'd actually need them. Unreal.

She got to her parents safely and it was hard to hang up. I told her we'll figure it out in the morning, hopefully just a glitch. She said she didn't think it was a glitch. When she was running out she had to run by our son's room and the door was open. There's a little flashing light on the back of the camera that indicates its connected to the internet. It gives off just enough light that when she ran by she thought she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a shadowy outline of what could have been an adult sitting on our son's bed. It sends chills down my spine to think about.

Knowing they were safe and out of the house is the only thing that kept me at work that night. It was a long four hours but I kept checking the camera every chance I got. Sure enough, they were still sitting on the bed staring up at the camera with emotionless gazes.

I studied them to see if I could see any pattern, from their breathing to their blinking. Their breathing was steady and looked normal, it was their blinking that would tell me if this was just some kind of bizarre, time looped freak accident video or not. I intently stare at my phone and count the seconds between each blink, telling myself if this is a loop then their blinks should be even and occur at the same time each time.

There was no pattern to their blinking, it was erratic and random, just as a person blinking should be. The passing hours are what finally sealed the deal that this was not a weird looped video of some kind. My son's window is visible on camera and I can see on camera that it is getting lighter outside his room. His curtains keep out just enough light to prevent the camera from exiting night vision, but lets in just enough to be able to tell the sun is rising.

I try to figure out what the **** I'm going to do before I leave work. Calling the police comes to mind, but I talk myself out of it. First of all what am I supposed to say? Someone is in my house that looks like my wife but isn't? Worse yet, what if they \*are\* entities of some kind and the police do go over and it kills them or something.

I decide to tell coworker about it. He's a firm believer in the paranormal and might have a suggestion. I show him the video and tell him the story. His initial response of "that's creepy as fuck" doesn't help much, but he says he wants to go over and check it out. He says we both should to see if Not-My-Wife will try and act like my wife. I tell him absolutely not and he says we should at least go to the house even if we don't go in. I agree on that since I wanted to close the garage.

We got to my house and walked around the perimeter first. Not sure what we wanted to accomplish by that, but it felt like something we should do. The curtains were all drawn since nobody was there to open them in the morning, so we couldn't see anything. I went to close the garage and suddenly had this overwhelming urge to go inside and investigate, it was like I just had to know what was going on. So in we went.

We walked through the kitchen towards the foyer where the stairs are. It's so quiet in our house right now you could hear a feather drop, forget the pin. We stop at the bottom of the stairs and wait a few seconds. I look at the camera again and they are still sitting there. I've never been so scared in my life. My coworker puts his foot on the first step and I suddenly say "stop" loudly.

"Forget this, we're outta here," I tell him. "Come on," I start making my way back to the kitchen.

We hear a loud creak in the floor from upstairs. It's my son's room. He has a very loud, creaky board right in the middle of his floor that's almost impossible not to step on. My wife and are still deciding if we ever want to fix it because it will alert us if he's ever up to no good when he gets older trying to sneak out or something.

"Come on, come on, COME ON!" I yell as I motion for him to move his ****. We're out of the house in about two seconds. Out on the street I check my phone. Now only Not-My-Son was sitting on the bed, same blank stare. Not-My-Wife was gone.

"Holy ****!" my coworker says,

"That was **** as **** of us. Do NOT tell my wife we went inside." She would be so ungodly mad if she found out what we just did.

I use my garage door opener in my car to close the door. Before we leave I look at the camera again. Not-My-Wife is back on the bed with Not-My-Son, both staring blankly up at the camera, blinking every few seconds.

\*\*\*

That was all about four days ago now. Not-My-Wife and Not-My-Son are still sitting on the bed staring up at the camera. They haven't moved a millimeter. We obviously haven't gone back to our house. What do we do?

\---

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c6j9rp/my_sons_camera_monitor_alerted_in_the_middle_of/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A Package Marked “Return to sender”
 
 Assistant: My neighbor is one of those annoying wannabe YouTube personalities. Over the years, I’ve seen him cough out cinnamon, lay flat on the hood of his car as it slowly creeps down the driveway, and douse himself in lukewarm water, all the while screaming *epic win*, *epic fail*, or, ****, *epic maintenance of the status quo*, for all I know. It can get tiring to watch him go about his shenanigans in the pursuit of viral fame. So, when he knocked on my door the other day, told me he was going away for a few weeks, and asked that I get his mail, honestly, it was a relief. I can’t explain the peace of mind I had knowing I didn’t have to brace myself for any of his stupidity for a while. I was always afraid his stunts would wind up bleeding over into my life.

Things were pretty normal for the first couple of days. He received a few bills, a bit of spam, and what I could only assume was a birthday card. Then, one evening, I got home to find a cardboard box waiting on his front porch. In big red letters was written “Return to Sender”.

I’m no small fry, but I admit I had trouble lifting the box on my own. It was really freaking heavy. Lugging it across the road to my house was even harder, and I quickly realized there was no way I was going to drag it up the stairs and through my front door. I decided I’d leave his package in my garage. It wasn’t like I kept my car in there: the garage door was a piece of **** that refused to open without a good **** and a whack. It was less trouble just leaving the car in the driveway than it was to fight with the garage door every morning and night. In hindsight, I should have set the package down while I struggled to open the tricky door, but you know how it is when you’ve got a good grip on something, no point in setting it down if you don’t have to.

It was as I kicked the door for a third time that I lost my grip on the package, and it fell to the ground. I heard a light crack inside.

“****,” I cursed.

I hoped I hadn’t broken anything important, but figured I just wouldn’t tell my neighbor about it and let him assume the break happened en-route.

Hands free, I finally managed to get the garage door unstuck, and boy did it screech in protest as it rolled up and over me. I dragged the box the rest of the way, setting it in the corner for whenever my neighbor would come back to claim it. And then, I forgot all about it. Until a few days passed, that is.

I’m not sure exactly how long it took for the smell to waft in from the crack under the garage-to-house door, but it came in in slow progression. It was a sickly sweet odor similar to a skunk, and for the first few days after I smelled it, I genuinely assumed that’s exactly what it was: roadkill that had left its mark on my house. It was only when I realized the scent was growing more intense instead of fading that I went looking for a source. That’s when I opened the garage door, and that’s when the odor knocked me back, holding my nose.

The culprit wasn’t hard to identify. The only change in my garage was the box in the corner. I remember thinking it must have been one of those meat-of-the-month subscription boxes. The meat must have gone rancid from being left out of the fridge for so long. How much meat could have been in there for the box to have been so large and heavy? An entire freaking cow?

I covered my nose as I approached the box, a pair of scissors in my hands. I probably wouldn’t have needed them to open it, as it had become soggy enough at the bottom to poke through with a finger, but I wasn’t about to poke my finger into spoiled meat juices. That soggy bottom was the reason I had to open the box in the first place. If I tried to drag it out whole, everything would spill onto the floor. I was going to have to dump the pieces of meat one garbage bag at a time, and take them down to the dumpster, a process I wasn’t looking forward to.

My scissors tore through the tape along the top of the cardboard box. I thought the smell couldn’t get any worse, but as I flipped the flaps open, I discovered a whole new gamut of stink. It was like opening a burning oven, but instead of a heat wave, I was met with waves of ****, sweat, ****, and putrefaction. It was so bad that I staggered back and had to force down the puke begging to guzzle out of me. I don’t think I could have handled that scent mingling with the horrors coming out of the box. I’m not ashamed to admit I ran out the door for a breath of fresh air, but in the short time I’d spent in the garage, the smell had become so ingrained in the fabric of my clothes that it clung to me like a shadow.

Nothing I tried could keep the smell out of my nostrils. Not air fresheners, not a face mask, not three showers and a change of clothes. Every second that box lay open in my garage was another second the smell was allowed a foothold into my home. I had to bite the bullet.

I returned to the garage, the flaps of the box still open as though inviting me to look. I was prepared, a clothespin pinning my nostrils shut, a garbage bag in one hand, the strongest cleaner I could find in the other, and long rubber gloves to keep my skin from having to touch what was inside. But, as it turns out, I needed none of those things.

I wouldn’t have to touch or clean the contents of that box, I would only have to suffer the nightmares every night. You see, there was meat in that box, but it didn’t come from a cow or a pig. No, it was worse than that. It was my neighbor. Dead. Still in one piece, but dead.

I called the cops, and naturally, they took me in for interrogation. It’s kind of hard *not* to suspect the man with a corpse in his garage, after all. Thankfully, they soon realized I wasn’t involved. My DNA might have been all over that box, the smell might have left a mark throughout my house, but there was one piece of irrefutable evidence in my neighbor’s own hands that proved my innocence: a vlogging camera.

They showed me the footage only once. I’m not sure if they were allowed to, or if they felt so bad for me they figured it couldn’t hurt. Either way, I saw it.

My neighbor was sitting in the box outside of a shipping facility, laughing as he told the world how he was going to mail himself across state lines. He’d brought **** bottles, food, a pillow, and a few flashlights. His friend – a guy I’d seen at his place several times to help with his stunts –, closed the lid and presumably dropped him off for shipment. Throughout the next couple of hours…or days, I’m honestly not sure, my neighbor recorded a few short clips about his progress. ‘I think I’m in a truck now, I can feel it moving’, ‘Must be in a warehouse. Pretty warm here. Still got plenty of food!’, that kind of stuff. And then, on the last entry, the box toppled over. He broke his neck, and that was it. The camera recorded until either the memory card got too full, or the battery died.

There’s one thing I didn’t tell the police after they showed me the video. One thing I heard in the footage that will haunt me to the day I die. Just after the tumble that broke his neck, I heard the familiar screeching sound of *my* garage door.

***
[ML](https://www.facebook.com/lyset.manen)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: How do I get my girlfriend to knock off this annoying habit?
 
 Assistant: So I've been dating my girlfriend for almost a year, and last month, we moved in together. Maybe that's kind of fast. I don't know. My parents sure thought it was. But honestly, everything was great in the beginning. We get along really well, and we've never had more than a brief argument. 

​

But then she started whistling.

​

It's so dumb, I know, but she's always whistling this weird song, and it really gets on my nerves. My mom kept telling me that once you move in with someone, you discover all of the quirks they'd been hiding from you, and it's not like I didn't expect that to be true. But for some reason, this is just an ongoing issue with us, and I don't know what to do.

​

At first I would just hear her whistling it when she was showering. It was kind of cute, like her own little bathroom theme song. I didn't recognize the melody, but it was very distinct. I could mimic it from memory if I wanted to. In fact, sometimes it gets stuck in my head, and it drives me a little crazy. You know the type.

​

After a week or so, I asked her what the song was, and she just laughed. I'm wondering if maybe she came up with it on her own, something that she does absently, especially once she started doing it more. Like I'd be reading a book, and she'd be on the computer, and she'd just start whistling. And I tried to ignore it. I seriously feel like a **** for being so grumpy about it, and I know she wasn't doing it to annoy me. But she'd just go on and on, and it would pull my attention away from whatever I was doing.

​

So, I finally said something a few nights ago. I was going over some legal documents for work, and she just starts whistling like crazy, on and on. And I'm trying to just block it out, but it's seriously excessive. Like, I know you guys are probably thinking that I was overreacting, but it felt like she was whistling right into my ear, and it just frayed my last bit of patience.

​

As calmly and nicely as I could, I called out to her and asked her to quiet down. She didn't reply. I asked her again, and she still didn't answer, so I left the bedroom and found her in the living room, watching a movie. She wasn't whistling anymore, and for some reason, that really irked me. It felt like she was messing with me. And she just looked over at me, like she didn't know what my deal was.

​

I asked her if she could stop whistling so much, and she told me she wasn't whistling. Now, I get that maybe she doesn't realize she's doing it, but no one whistles *that* much and doesn't notice. It's not really like her to mess with me like that, and I don't know what she's trying to get out of this. I thought maybe she was teasing or playing a joke, but she had to see how annoyed I was. I asked her again to just not whistle so loudly, and she didn't answer. There was tension in the room, and it felt like our first fight since moving in together. Even though she didn't whistle for the rest of the night, I couldn't focus on my work anyway because I was upset about the confrontation.

​

Then, of course, the next night she was whistling again. I hear her when she comes home from work, and she keeps going for at least an hour. I didn't want to have another fight, so I just hung out in the bedroom and listened to her move around for a while. I felt like I was blowing things out of proportion, but honestly, how hard is it to just not whistle all the time? It was no big deal when it was now and then, but I feel like she whistles more than she even talks to me now. So I'm sitting up in the room, thinking about that, and that's probably why I was worked up when I finally came down.

​

She was cooking dinner, which is sweet, but she was still whistling. So I said, softly, "Hey honey, maybe we should put on some music instead, so you don't have to fill the silence with whistling." I tried to play it off like a joke, but I knew she'd probably see through it and get annoyed again. She didn't even turn to face me, just huffed and kept cooking.

​

After a minute, I told her I was sorry about the other night, but the whistling just sort of strikes my ear wrong, and if she could try not to whistle so much and so loudly, it would make my life a lot easier. I feel like I was being fair. I know it seems controlling and nit picky, but it was bothering me a lot. We all have our things, you know? I try not to chew loudly at the table because it bothers her, so why can't she just stop whistling sometimes for me?

​

But she totally freaked out. She turned around and told me she wasn't whistling and she didn't know what my problem was. At this point, I don't get why she was doing this. It obviously wasn't funny for either of us, and she seemed genuinely upset, so I don't know why she kept provoking me. I asked her what her deal was, why she was so defensive about the **** whistling, and she told me to shut up. She told me she was sick of talking about it, like *I* was the one being unreasonable.

​

I never get mad at her, but I just snapped. I told her to stop whistling before I lost my mind. She called me crazy, just because I was getting a little upset, and somehow, that was all I could take. I grabbed one of the cast iron pans from the stove and swung it at her head as hard as I could.

​

She fell over and smashed her head on the counter, but I swung the pan again before she hit the ground. I think I hit her maybe three or four times. I don't remember, but I feel horrible. There was blood everywhere, and her jaw might be broken. No, I think it is for sure. I couldn't believe I'd lost my temper like that, and I have no idea how we can move past this. I feel so ashamed for letting things get physical, regardless of how much she might have been provoking me.

​

But here's the kicker. She's STILL **** WHISTLING. And I asked her nicely to please stop, but now she won't even pause! For two days she's just been lying on the kitchen floor with her eyes rolled back and her mouth hanging open, just marinating in congealed blood, and she's STILL **** WHISTLING. I don't know what to do. I don't want to break up, but this is just too much. I just need her to shut up. Just shut up. Just shut up. Just shut up. JUST SHUT UP.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I had a disturbing conversation with my 7-year-old daughter.
 
 Assistant: "Dad, *dad*! I saw a *zombie*!"

I was in the kitchen making tea when my little girl came rushing in. She ran through the back door so fast she almost tripped up the step. I poured boiling water from the kettle into a mug, hardly looking up.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I did! Its face was all pale and messed up! It was *gross*, dad!"

I put the kettle back and picked up the milk. Sighed inwardly. I *really* had to be more careful about what I watched on TV in the evening. Rosie has a habit of sneaking downstairs in the night, and last week she caught me watching *The Walking Dead*, of all things. She's had zombies on the brain ever since. I keep telling her they're not real, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

"Sweetheart, what did we say about zombies?" I scooped the teabag out of the mug and dumped it in the bin. "You know if you keep talking about them, daddy's going to get in trouble with mummy again."

"Yeah, but I *saw* one."

"I know, darling, but I already checked the back garden twice yesterday, and I can promise you it's a zombie-free zone."

"No, not in the back garden."

"Hm?"

"I didn't see it in the back garden."

I had the mug half raised to my lips, but now I put it down again. I turned to look at Rosie. Her hair was wind-swept and her little cheeks were red, as if she'd been running.

"Sweetheart." I put on my best stern, dad's-not-happy voice. "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me: Have you been playing along the path out back again?"

I didn't really need to ask the question, because I already knew the answer. Rosie is allowed to play in the garden on her own, and sometimes – if she asks us permission first – we let her ride her bike along the path at the back of our house. The one that runs past all the neighbour's back gardens. But that's *all* we allow her to do. This area is pretty safe, but these days you can never be too careful. There was a burglary a couple of roads over a few months back, and last year someone was mugged on the high street. Several years ago, a few towns over, a little boy even went missing. That was quite a long way away from here, of course, but it made national news for a few days until the search fizzled out. And it made a lot of parents more cautious. Rosie's getting older now, and she's an adventurous girl, but still – you have to have boundaries. And on a few occasions lately, Rosie's been crossing those boundaries. Riding her bike further than she should. Not coming in straight away when we call her. Sneaking out the back gate when she's only meant to be playing in the garden.

As I watched Rosie now, I noticed her face growing redder. She looked away from me, down at the kitchen floor, and scuffed her feet.

"Dad, I only went a *little* way down," she said. "I *promise*. I was chatting to Mr Henderson, because I saw him in his back garden. I said hello and made him jump!"

I sighed. So there it was: Mr Henderson was Rosie's zombie. Yesterday it was the postman, and the day before that it was a different neighbour. I took a sip of tea and shook my head. Mr Henderson was, in fairness, a better candidate than the others. The guy lives on his own, and he looks about 100 years old. Moles all over his face. Skin like a deflated balloon. Whenever we'd chatted over the garden fence before, though, he'd always seemed nice enough. Just a bit lonely. I couldn't have Rosie going round calling him a zombie.

"Listen to me, sweetheart. I know you didn't go far or anything, but I don't want you–"

"I came right back after too, dad!" Rosie interrupted. She was staring up at me now, blue eyes large and pleading. "I promise! And I even said no when Mr Henderson offered me an ice cream, because I know you don't like me taking stuff from strangers!"

I opened my mouth to respond, then paused. "He offered you ice cream?"

"Yeah, but I said no! Mr Henderson really wanted me to come in and have one, but I told him I had to get home! And then I came straight back here to tell you I'd seen a zombie, and I..."

Rosie was babbling now, her voice whirring like a motor. But I'd stopped listening. My mind was still stuck on something she'd said a moment before.

*Mr Henderson really wanted me to come in and have one*.

I took another sip of tea and frowned. That wasn't good. I didn't mind the neighbours chatting to my little girl, but I didn't like the thought of them inviting her in. Not without us there. Not even if they were just kind, lonely old men. I made up my mind to go round and visit Mr Henderson later, and to tell him that myself – kindly, of course, but firmly. 

In the end, though, I didn't get a chance. Because a few moments after I'd had the thought, Rosie said something else. Something that pushed everything else from my mind, and ended any idea I might have had about going over to Mr Henderson's house. She said something that made me feel cold.

"Daddy, please don't stop me playing in the garden. I *promise* I won't sneak out again. I don't want the zombie to get me."

"Rosie, I'm not going to stop you playing in the garden. But you have to make *me* a couple of promises, too. First, promise me you'll stop going round calling people zombies. Mr Henderson my be old, but he's not one of the living dead."

Rosie frowned. "I didn't."

"What do you mean, you didn't? You just ran in here a moment ago calling him one."

"No, I *didn't*. Mr Henderson's not a zombie. I saw the zombie in his house, but it wasn't him."

I frowned. I had the mug raised to my lips to take another sip of tea, but now I put it down again. "What do you mean, sweetheart? You saw someone else in his house?"

"Yeah, the *zombie*, dad! I could see it pressed against his little basement window while I was talking to him."

Cold fingers ran up my spine. "What?"

"Yeah, it was *really* scary. Its face was all bashed up and bloody, and its mouth was open. Like it was screaming at me. But do you know what confused me most, dad?"

I tried to keep my voice steady. "What?"

"Well, I didn't realise *kids* could be zombies, too. I thought it was only grownups. But I guess I must have have been wrong, cuz' the one in Mr Henderson's basement looked [just like a little boy](https://www.reddit.com/r/samhaysom/comments/aow1eb/stories_and_links/)."

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Maria on the Moon
 
 Assistant: “Did you know that early astronomers thought there were oceans on the moon?” I asked, looking up from my book.

My mom shifted in her bed, a tangle of IV tubes shifting with her. “Of course. The moon seems like the perfect place to find an ocean.”

“What a shame we never found water then,” I said. “Because those false seas, astronomers called them ‘maria.’”

Mom smiled. “How sweet of them to name the moon oceans after me.”

“Well, they didn’t find any oceans,” I reminded her.

“Maybe they just didn’t look hard enough,” she replied, a little laugh slipping from her lips.

For all of the pain she was in, all of the fear she must feel, my mother always had the kind of laugh that could light a candle. We were in her hospital room, the same one we’d been in and out of for the last year and a half. Sometimes we had a roommate, sometimes we were alone. Always she held steady enough for both of us, the rock I tied my hope to, the wall against the grief I knew was coming.

Cancer is such a mundane word for something so hungry and cruel. I’ve noticed medicine does that a lot, covers horror with tedious language like a bed sheet over a body.

*Malignant. Inoperable. Metastasized. Terminal.*

But when she laughed...when she laughed we weren’t in the hospital anymore, we were home. When she laughed, she wasn’t sick, she was young again, and I was a kid, and the world was a bright place begging to be explored. What a miracle my mother was. Cancer had taken so much from her, aged and hurt her, but it could never steal her laugh. That was hers to keep.

“How are we feeling today?” the doctor asked. He came in less and less often. We could all sense this was the final stay in this room.

“Just brilliant, doc,” my mom said, struggling to sit a little higher. “We can still go dancing later if you’d like. Though we’ll have to ask for my son’s blessing. Ever since his dad died, Brian’s been very protective of me.”

I put on a stern face. “I’ll need to know your intentions are pure, Dr. Bradshaw.”

“As the driven snow,” he played along. “But I might need a raincheck on the dance, Ms. Willen. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

He emphasized his age, running his fingers through grey-white hair. My mom tapped her bare scalp.

“Right there with you, tiger,” she said.

Dr. Bradshaw smiled but I could tell he was burdened. I saw him glance at the small idol I’d placed on my mother’s nightstand. The talisman was a miniature oak tree carved from gray soapstone. There were four faces etched into the tree, a sentry against ill health and bitter spirits. I could tell the stone tree made the doctor uncomfortable. In all honesty, I had a tough time looking at the idol for more than a few seconds. The faces were each whittled in vivid expression. The face closest to my mother’s bed was smiling kindly and the face pointed towards the door was snarling, meant to ward away harm.

The final two faces were both weeping. All four shapes were too human, too raw. There was a *weirdness* to the stone tree that put people on edge but I’d grown used to every shade of weird you can imagine. My mother’s side of the family was full of stories of unexplained luck and mysterious tragedy, whispered secrets and unexplained deaths. By all accounts, my maternal grandmother was either an honest-to-goodness witch or full-bore, high-caliber crazy, or both. *Probably* both.

The stone tree was from a box of my grandmother’s things I’d found in the attic earlier that month. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but my mom did seem to get a bit better when I’d brought in the talisman, at least for a little while.

I was daydreaming about family history and the odd box while Dr. Bradshaw checked his charts and mom’s vitals.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked, ripping me back to reality. Dr. Bradshaw tried to keep a light tone but I could tell he didn’t have good news.

The hospital hallway smelled like ammonia and birthday cake. Someone must have had a party, maybe a patient, maybe a nurse. Strange how you remember the insignificant details while your world is crashing down around you.

“I’m so sorry,” Dr. Bradshaw told me. “The results came in this morning. It’s spreading aggressively. We...we held it back as long as we could, Brian. Your mom is a fighter. But right now we just need to, well, to try to keep her as comfortable as we can. Brian?”

The wall was cracking, grief waiting on the other side, heavy and cold as an empty house. I’d known for months that this was the most likely outcome but it still hurt to hear. Hurt worse than I could stomach.

“There’s nothing left to try?” I asked, fighting down the urge to throw up. “Anything, experimental, untested, anything?”

Dr. Bradshaw shook his head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes we just run out of options. She fought a good fight.”

“How long does she have left?” I asked, looking back into her room. She’d fallen asleep.

“Not long. Maybe days. Have you considered hospice?”

The smell of ammonia and birthday cake. The steady beep of mom’s heart monitor. I tried to focus on the world around me. My hope wasn’t dead yet. If medicine couldn’t help my mom, maybe something older could. I thought of the box of my grandmother’s things waiting in the attic. There was a lot in there I hadn’t gone through yet, books and candles and secrets and lost things. Maybe there was a cure or at least a way to keep the fight going.

“No,” I said. “If all that’s left is to make her comfortable, I want to take her home.”

The doctor smiled. “I understand. We can give you some medication, ways to help her with the pain.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Your mom’s been in a lot of pain but she’ll have peace, soon. You’ve done all you can.”

“I know,” I lied. “Thank you.”

Mom lived in a small ranch house ten miles outside of town. There wasn’t much in the way of neighbors besides some woods and a creek slithering through her yard. It was a windy, warm March afternoon when I took my dying mother home. That night I began my work. I was going to turn the house into a bunker, a maze Death could never solve. I would keep my mother safe, I would find a way to keep her alive.

The little red book was full of ideas. Running water was an obvious place to start. The creek behind the house was barely a trickle but it should provide some coverage to the south side of the property. Salt was next, lining the doorways and window frames, then in an unbroken circle around the entire house. This step was to be repeated daily, the red book stressed, or even multiple times per day. Even a moderate breeze played holy havoc with any salt poured outside so it was always best to trace and retrace every few hours. Water and salt were common defenses against man’s oldest enemy and well known. The book offered other, less conventional, advice.

It took me nearly a week to finish carving the symbols and signs into the walls, the floors, even the trees on the property. Sometime around noon on the third day, on my back in the crawlspace etching strange marks onto the underside of the floor, it struck me how ridiculous I was acting. There was no proof that any of the information in the little red book was anything other than the delusional ramblings of a bizarre woman I’d only met once or twice as a child. For all I knew, the runes meant to ward off Death were actually a grocery list written in Cantonese. But I was desperate, and every time I saw my mother she looked frailer, more fragile. So I continued carving and praying and building layers upon layers of protections to keep Death far away.

Making my marks took me all over the property. It was a big yard, nearly three acres that blended gradually into the surrounding forest. I wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact boundary where cultivated met nature, the edges simply bled together, but I did my best to create a clean border with lines between the symbols. I’d always loved the wildness here, the way you could wander a few hundred yards away from home and feel like you’d traveled hundreds of years into the past to somewhere primal. This was the perfect playground for a kid, whether I was out exploring trails or trapping minnows or spending the summer building yet another treehouse, convinced this would be the final one. It never was, I was never satisfied.

The house itself, though small, was more than enough room for my mother and me. Dad died when I was seven. I don’t remember much about him, just how big he seemed, with a bonfire grin and arms that I thought could hold the whole world. My mom often said I took after my father. I could see it in the old pictures of him, we had the same eyes, green as moss in the summer, and the same fiery shock of red hair, enemy to every comb on the planet. The sicker mom got the more often she called me by my father’s name. I worried when she drifted away like that but a part of me was proud she’d mistake me for him.

After all of the symbols were carved there were a few steps left in the book to deter Death from visiting. There were dozens of charms and talismans in the bottom of the old box in the attic. I sat up there combing through everything my grandmother left behind, referencing the red book, pushing the tiny charms into tidy piles. None of the idols were larger than my thumb. Some were iron and others were wood, some were heavy, others light. All of them were uncomfortable to look at or touch.

The attic was drafty but not nearly enough to explain the cold that burrowed into me as I sorted the charms. I’m not particularly tall but the attic felt like it was designed for dolls, beams so low I couldn’t even walk bent over. I moved around on my knees, rough floorboards threatening splinters even through my jeans. I could have taken the box downstairs where I’d have more room but the idea filled me with a deep unease. It seemed better to leave the box up in the attic, only taking down objects as I needed them. Up here, at least, my grandmother’s items, her legacy was...quarantined.

The red book was very specific about the distribution of the totems around the house and property. I walked carefully through my mom’s backyard, boots plopping in and out of mud, compass in hand. It had rained nearly every day since I’d taken my mom home from the hospital. I knew it was almost certainly a coincidence but couldn’t help wonder if the soft curtains of rain falling to the ground were for her. I placed charms in a compass rose with the house in the middle. The most disturbing objects were given places of honor at each cardinal direction.

Water, salt, wards, charms, all placed carefully, intentionally. My grandmother’s book promised that these would offer some degree of protection against the inevitability of Death. The symbols would confuse it, the talismans distract it, and the water and salt make barriers to slow it down. But Death might still find a crack to slip through, so the red book recommended one final trick.

There was a small candle in the bottom of the box, dirty white as stained paper. When I took the candle from its case the smell made me gag. Have you ever walked past a portable toilet in the dog days of summer? When it’s so hot, the blue plastic has started to warp and bubble? Imagine that smell distilled into a finger’s worth of wax. I brought the candle downstairs, placed it on the dining room table and set it alight.

The wick caught immediately, the flame burning an unusual red-brown. No heat came off of the candle and it actually seemed cooler the closer I moved my hand to the fire. Once the wax began to melt the smell was ten times worse than it was back in the attic. I choked down a greasy sickness crawling up my throat and quickly left the room, shutting the French doors as I went. That helped trap the odor but I couldn’t shake the sense of nausea. I went to check on my mother.

“Do you remember the day you ran away?” my mom asked, sitting in her bed, lunch untouched on the nightstand beside her.

I didn’t think she had any weight left to lose before she was nothing but bone and memory. Her skin was rice paper over a frame that seemed smaller every day. Her eyes, though, no matter how fragile the rest of her became, remained two little lanterns against the dark, blue and bright and alive.

“I didn’t make it very far,” I answered. “And I wasn’t really running away, only...stretching my legs.”

Mom smiled. “You told me you were leaving for the circus. You wanted to be either a lion tamer or a strongman or maybe a fire-eater.”

“I think I wanted to be all of that combined. Young me was big on multitasking.”

My mother turned so she was looking out the window into the yard. “I was so scared when I found your note, the one saying you were leaving. My hands were shaking like you wouldn’t believe when I called the sheriff and then Mr. Jonas down the way. It felt like we were searching for you for half the night, even though it couldn’t have been more than an hour before we found you there, lost in the woods, wandering around and shivering. You hadn’t even brought a jacket.”

I sat next to my mom on the bed. “Yeah, I didn’t exactly plan ahead for my circus escape. I remember...I remember getting over the idea real quick but I couldn’t find my way back. I’m glad you found me.”

“I’m glad, too,” my mother said and I noticed her wipe away a tear. “I’m so glad. That hour you were gone, Brian, that was the most afraid I’ve ever been. Afraid we wouldn’t find you, afraid you might be hurt or worse. I couldn’t hardly breathe through the fear. Then, suddenly, you were there and the relief nearly knocked me over. I think we stayed up together the rest of the night watching the stars. I wanted to make sure you could find the North Star in case you ever got lost again.”

She turned back to me, reached out her thin hand and placed it over mine. There were still tears in her eyes but she smiled her lighthouse smile and, for a moment, I saw her just as she used to be, just as she was the night I ran away and my mom found me.

I squeezed her hand. “I was scared, too. I was afraid I’d be stuck out there. What made you think of it?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about dying lately and-”

“Don’t,” I interrupted. “Don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere, not for a long time.”

“It’s okay,” she said, squeezing my hand back. “It’s okay. I’ve known real fear and what I’m feeling now...it’s not like that. I’m scared, I guess, but I’m at peace with it. I had such a beautiful life. I’m so glad I got to meet you, to be your mom.”

“I’m glad, too,” I whispered, voice breaking on the last word.

*But I won’t let you go without a fight,* I added silently in my mind.

Something was trying to get to my mom. The strangeness began the day after I lit the candle. At first it was small blips, tiny *wrongs* that I chalked up to my imagination. Doors I knew I’d closed at night were open in the morning. Food began to rot and spoil within days of me bringing it into the house. Eventually, food would go bad almost immediately. Every few hours the television in the living room would either turn off if it was running, or on if it was off.

Clocks would stop overnight, always at 3:03 am. Shadows began *sticking* to the corners of rooms independent of any light sources. The shadows were stubborn and they would linger for as long as I would stare, then disappear when I blinked. I began hearing bumps and knocks at all hours and sometimes, when I’d enter an empty room, I had a sharp, fleeting certainty that it was only just occupied.

I avoided the dining room except to check in twice a day to see if the candle was still burning. The smell was vicious and would claw its way into your throat and nostrils the moment it was given a chance. I kept the door to the room shut and kept air fresheners running in the surrounding rooms 24/7. The funny thing was, the candle never went out, never even seemed to shrink. I could see the wax melting but day-in and day-out the candle refused to change.

Days marched into weeks and the wrongness only grew deeper. My mom and I both lost sleep to vivid nightmares that we couldn’t remember when we woke up. Only the echoes remained but those were enough to leave my pulse sprinting until morning. I started sleeping in a chair in my mother’s room. I did this to comfort her if she woke up confused during the night but also because, if I’m being honest, I was too scared to sleep alone. I felt like a child running into his parents’ room, convinced there was a monster under the bed. Thing is...maybe there was.

By the third week I couldn’t keep doors closed. They would slam open the moment I left the room. A terrible scratching began inside of the walls. I told my mom it might be squirrels or mice but the sound was so insistent, not like rodents milling about, more like a dog wanting in. I stopped leaving the house for supplies; instead, I had what little food we ate delivered. I kept the curtains drawn. There was tapping on the glass every night.

About a month after leaving the hospital we were living like zombies. The dining room couldn’t contain the smell of the candle anymore. The entire house was clogged with the scent. Tiny noises had graduated into full-on laughs and screams and whispers in the rooms around us. Something kicked the bathroom door so hard while I was taking a shower that the hinges warped. I covered every mirror in the house. I’d started to see things in the corners looking back at me, half-hidden faces, shapes that skittered away as soon as I turned around. Mom was drifting further and further away. She had long moments of confusion where she’d forget my name, forget where we were. Sometimes, she’d think I was my dad. Other times, she’d just stare at the wall for hours, growing fainter and fainter each day like a Polaroid left in the sun.

But she was alive.

It was clear that we were under siege by something. My world shrank to only one room and every trip to the bathroom or to answer the door for food felt like going over the trenches. The noises kept getting worse and worse, the shadows closer, the sense of movement around the house sharper. Every now and then I would feel hot breath on the back of my neck or walk through a cold patch hanging in the air. I stopped bothering redrawing the lines of salt around the house. I knew, deep in my bones, that as long as the sickly candle burned, Death could not take my mom away.

On the thirty-third day after leaving the hospital, I woke with a start from a nightmare, only to find my mom’s bed empty. She hadn’t been able to walk the past week at all, so my first feeling was hope that she might be improving, at least a little. Then I noticed the odor we’d been living with for weeks was gone.

“Mom!” I shouted, running in bare feet out of the room.

I found her in the dining room, the door wide open. She was standing at the table, frail as a neglected scarecrow, bobbing back and forth. Her hands were hovering over the candle. The flame was out.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered. “Mom? Mom...are you okay?”

I padded into the room, the wooden floor freezing cold. My mother didn’t react to my presence, she just continued rocking side-to-side. I realized she was still asleep.

“Mom?” I gently shook her shoulder. “Wake up.”

Her head snapped back and she nearly fell. I caught her on the way down. It felt like she weighed nothing at all.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking around the dark room. “Where…”

“You’re okay,” I told her. “You were sleepwalking.”

“I was having the most unusual dream,” mom mumbled. “There were so many stars and...”

She began to shiver uncontrollably. The cold hit me a moment later. I let out a gasp. The house was chilly before but the dining room was near-arctic. My breath bloomed into a thin cloud in front of my face. I became acutely aware of the complete silence filling the house.

Then I heard scratching. It was coming all throughout the house, deep tearing sounds at the walls around the dining room. Footsteps came immediately after, heavy and fast. Somewhere in the house a window shattered.

“Brian,” my mother said, holding onto me.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “everything will be-”

My voice deserted me as a massive shadow unfolded in the corner of the room. It was shaped like a man but tall, so very tall. And it was fast. Before I could yell the shadow was on us, pouring over my mother. In the space of a heartbeat, she was simply gone.

“No,” I whispered, clawing at the dissolving shadow where my mom used to be. “No, no, no, no, NO.”

The shadow was disappearing like a puddle sinking into the floor. There was a texture to it, oily and too slick to hold.

I thought of my mother the night she found me lost in the woods, the night I’d run away. Her face filled my memory, her lighthouse smile. I remembered the relief I felt when she found me, the overwhelming love. I held onto that feeling, clutching it close.

“You can’t have her,” I whispered.

I closed my fist around the last threads of the shadow. There was a terrible sensation of *pulling*. It was like I’d caught a horse by the tail and it was trying to shake me. But I held on.

A sense of ripping and being dragged. It was a riptide with a mind of its own. But I held on. It could not shake me.

The temperature was dropping every second and I felt my vision growing dark. The last thought that ran through my head before I blacked out was a promise to myself that even if I died, my grip would hold. I wouldn’t let my mother’s life slip away. All sounds and light faded, narrowing to a pinprick and then going black.

I woke up under a field of stars. I was lying in soft grass, still wearing my pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt. It was cool, wherever I was, but comfortably so. I stood up. There were trees all around me, tall and close, stitched together with shadows. Immediately to my right, there was a road that ran straight as far as I could see, blurring into the horizon. But the stars, they were like nothing I’d ever seen before.

Bright ribbons of northern lights rippled above me in green and blue and purple. Stars lit the sky like millions of lanterns floating on a still ocean. The moon shone sharpest of all, a spotlight hanging above the treeline, so close I thought I could stretch up and brush its face.

“***You are*** ***persistent***,” said a voice from the forest behind me.

I whipped around but couldn’t see anyone. Then a dark spot began to clarify against the gloom. The silhouette separated itself and moved towards me. I recognized it instantly as the shadow from the dining room. As it moved closer, the thing grew and grew until it touched the sky and filled my vision. A deep dread sank into me but I stood my ground.

“Give me back my mom,” I shouted.

The silhouette pulled away from the sky and then it was standing in front of me, the shape and size of a tall man. But instead of a shadow, the thing had wrapped itself in stars. Miniature constellations drifted across its body, floating slowly like a timelapse of a clear night sky. Burning brightest was the North Star, blue and warm. The space between the stars was absolute black, not a shadow but a complete absence of light. It was the most beautiful, terrifying thing I’d ever seen.

“What are you?” I whispered.

***“You know,”*** it replied.

“Give her back,” I begged. “Please, give her back.”

***“I can’****’s her time. Past her time. You delayed me. Delayed her.”***

I clenched my fists. “She didn’t get enough time. *I* didn’t get enough time. It’s not right, it’s not fair.”

***“Of course it’s not fair,”*** the starry thing said, ***“but it is right. You each have your time, and at the end of it, there’s me, and there is a road, and we walk it together.”***

“Where to?” I asked. “Where are you taking her?”

***“I don’t know. It’s not for me to know, only to know how to get there.”***

“Then I won’t let you take her.” I planted myself in the road. The world was still and solemn around us. The constellations drifted like clouds and a soft breeze stirred the branches.

The starry thing didn’t respond for a moment.

***“Your mother was kind and caring. Wherever she goes, she’ll have peace,”*** it promised.

“But-”

The creature raised its hand. ***“Did you ever stop to think that death isn’t an enemy? Death simply*** **is.** ***It is the natural partner to life. It knows no prejudice or malice, has no designs or ambitions. Your mother spent so long suffering, felt so much pain. Instead of letting her rest, you took it upon yourself to draw her life beyond its given course. You kept her alive but at the cost of stretching her thin, prolonging her sickness, diluting her. Did you keep her alive for her benefit or for yours?”***

I couldn’t answer.

***“Stretching a life is unnatural, dangerous,”*** it told me. ***“In the weeks you kept me away you drew the attention of old things, hungry things, forces that would like nothing better than to swallow even the memory of your mother, to tear and bite until there was nothing left but pain and fear and a perfect emptiness.”***

I shuddered remembering the clawing sounds, the shattered window, and the laughter from empty rooms.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Are they...can they hurt her here? Is she safe?”

The stars in the shadow burned brighter for a moment. ***“Your mother won’t walk her road alone. None of you do. I walk with you, always, to the end.”***

“Can I see her?” I asked. “Please? Just, I...let me say goodbye.”

It considered for several seconds. ***“You are persistent.”***

And then the starry thing was gone. I was standing alone on an empty road.

“Brian?”

I turned to find my mother behind me on the road. She looked younger, healthier than I’d seen her in years. The frailty was gone and my mother seemed exactly as I remembered her when she found me in the woods all those years ago.

“Isn’t this the most beautiful dream?” she asked, staring up at the night sky.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “A beautiful dream. I love you, mom. I love you so much, so very much.”

She smiled and touched my cheek. “I love you, too. Don’t cry, it’s okay. I’ll wake up any time now. I’ll see you then.”

I nodded, wiping at tears. “Sure, yeah, I’ll see you then.”

“What do you think is at the end of the road?” she asked. “Do you think I’ll have time to find out before I wake up?”

I looked out at the road, scanning the trees for any hungry shadows. “I don’t know, I don’t know where it goes but...promise me you’ll be careful.”

My mom smiled wider. “Of course I’ll be careful.”

“And she won’t walk alone,” said a familiar voice behind us both.

I turned, expecting the starry thing. But the man standing on the road was entirely normal. The light from the moon was enough that I could see he had moss green eyes and a bright shock of red hair.

“Such a beautiful dream,” my mother said.

The man came towards us and took my mother’s hand. He and I looked so alike, I could see why my mother confused us when she was sick.

“Take care of her,” I told the man. “I…just please take care of her, make sure she gets where she’s going. There are, well, there are things out there that want her, to hurt her, it’s, it’s my fault, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

The man squeezed my shoulder. “She’ll be safe, watched over. If the Devil himself is waiting on the road ahead *he’ll move.* Or **** be moved.”

I believed him.

Thoughts raced through my head. There were so many things I wanted to say, questions, a million ways to say goodbye. I wanted to stretch out the moment for as long as I could but I realized I’d already delayed my mother enough.

“I love you,” I told them both. “Goodbye.”

I woke up back in my dining room sitting at the table, the unlit candle in front of me. The house was quiet and still. There was no more scratching, no sound or sense of life at all. I walked through every room. The house was empty. I was alone.

I’ve spent the past couple months working on the house, erasing the marks I’d made, fixing up the property. Some nights I take long walks out into the forest. I’m far enough out in the country that on clear nights it’s like looking up at a sea of stars. I think about my parents the most during those walks, I grieve and remember in my own way. And I wonder where their road went, if they’re still traveling or if they reached their destination.

I hope that their road takes them strange and beautiful places. When I walk at night, I look up for the North Star to keep from getting lost. Maybe they do the same.

When it’s full, I also look up towards the moon. I wonder if my parents had a chance to visit, to search for hidden oceans. I like to think they did, that the moon has at least one Maria, the one I love most.

[GTM](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grand_Theft_Motto/comments/emzy3b/the_stories/)

[Hello](https://travisbrownwriting.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My dead girlfriend keeps messaging me on Facebook. I’ve got the screenshots. I don’t know what to do.
 
 Assistant: Tonight’s kind of a catalyst for this post. I just received another message, and it’s worse than any of the others. 

My girlfriend died on the 7th of August, 2012. She was involved in a three car collision driving home from work when someone ran a red light. She passed away within minutes on the scene.

We had been dating for five years at that point. She wasn’t big on the idea of marriage (it felt archaic, she said, gave her a weird vibe), but if she had been, I would have married her within three months of our relationship. She was vibrant; the kind of girl that would choose dare every time. She was happiest when camping, but a total technophile too. She always smelled like cinnamon.

That being said, she wasn’t perfect. She always said something along the lines of, “If I kark it first, don’t just say good things about me. I’ve never liked that. If you don’t pay me out, you’re doing me a disservice. I’ve got so many flaws, and that’s just part of me.” So, this is for Em: the music she said she liked and the music she actually liked were very different. Her idea of affection was a side-hug. She had really long toes, like a chimpanzee. 

I know that’s tangential, but I don’t feel right discussing her without you having an idea of what she was like. 

Onto the meat. Em had been dead for approaching thirteen months when she first messaged me. 

---
[**September 4, 2013.**](http://i.imgur.com/UMh0nZl.png) This is when it began. I had left Emily’s Facebook account activated so I could send her the occasional message, post on her wall, go through her albums. It felt too final (and too un-Emily) to memorialise it. I ‘share’ access with her mother (Susan) - meaning, her mother has her login and password and has spent a total of approximately three minutes on the website (or on a computer, total). After a little confusion, I assumed it was her.

---
[**November 16th, 2013.**](http://i.imgur.com/y0yzVaj.png) I had received confirmation from Susan that she hadn’t logged in to Em’s Facebook since the week of her death. Em knew a lot of people, so I instantly assumed this was one of her more tech savvy ‘friends’ **** with me in the worst possible way. 

I noticed pretty much immediately that whoever was chatting with me was recycling old messages from [Em and my’s shared chat history.](http://i.imgur.com/fw80ZJG.png)

The ‘the wheels on the bus' comment was from when we were discussing songs to play on a road trip that never eventuated. ‘hello’ happened a million times.

---
Around **February 2014**, Emily started tagging herself in my photos. I would get notifications for them, but the tag would generally always be removed by the time I got to it. The first time I actually caught one, it felt like someone had punched me in the gut. ‘She’ would tag herself in spaces where it was plausible for her to be, or where she would usually hang out. I’ve got screenshots of two (from April and June; these are the only ones I’ve caught, so they’re a little out of the timeline I’m trying to write out):

http://i.imgur.com/X9G5agJ.png

http://i.imgur.com/55FwXKt.png

Around this period of time, I stopped being able to sleep. I was too angry to sleep. 

She would tag herself in random photos every couple of weeks. The friends who noticed and said something thought it was a **** up bug; I found out recently that there have been friends who have noticed and didn’t say anything. Some of them have removed me from their Facebook friends list.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why I didn’t just **** my Facebook profile. I wish I had. I did for a little while. On days when I can’t get out there, though, it’s nice having my friends available to chat. It’s nice visiting Em’s page when the little green circle isn’t next to her name. I was already socially reclusive when Em was alive; her death turned me into something pretty close to a hermit, and Facebook and MMOs were (are) my only real social outlets.

---
[On **March 15th,**](http://i.imgur.com/KIL2Mx5.png) I sent what I assumed was Em's hacker a message.

---
[**On March 25th**, I received an ‘answer’.](http://i.imgur.com/j3HwZzv.png)

It wasn’t until I was going over these logs a few months later that I noticed she was recycling my own words as well.
 
My response seems kind of lacklustre here. I was intentionally providing him/her with emotional ‘bait’ (‘This is actually devastating’) to keep them interested in their game; I was working off the assumption that the kind of person to do this would be the kind of person that would thrive on the distress of others. I was posting in tech forums, looking for ways to track this person, contacting Facebook. I needed to keep them around so I could gather ‘evidence’.

Before anyone asks, yes, I had changed the password and all security info countless times.

---
[**16th of April.** I receive this.](http://i.imgur.com/uvadlGa.png)

This seems like word salad. Like all our conversations so far, it’s recycled from previous messages she’s sent.

---
[**29th of April.**](http://i.imgur.com/FGmhuUQ.png)

I hadn’t discovered any leads. Facebook had told me the locations her page had been accessed from, but since her death, they’re all places I can account for (my home, my work, her mum’s house, etc). My response here wasn’t bait. ‘yo ask Nathan’ was an in-joke too lame worth explaining, but seeing ‘her’ say it again just absolutely **** crippled me. My reaction in real life was much less prettier. I’m not expecting my bond back.

Her last few messages had started to scare me, but I wouldn’t admit it at this point.

---
[**8th of May.** I don’t really have the words for this.](http://i.imgur.com/GNL8TcO.png)

‘FRE EZIN G’ is the first original word she’s (?) made. This has given me nightmares that have only started to kick in recently. I keep dreaming that she’s in an ice cold car, frozen blue and grey, and I’m standing outside in the warmth screaming at her to open the door. She doesn’t even realise I’m there. Sometimes her legs are outside with me.

---
[**24th of May.**](http://i.imgur.com/z295fHw.png)

I wasn’t actually ****. She wasn’t an affectionate girl, and it always embarrassed her to exchange ‘I love you’s, cuddle, talk about how much we meant to each other. She was more comfortable with it when I was boozed up. I got fake-**** a lot.

Her reply is what prompted me to finally memorialise her page, thinking it might help curb this behaviour. It might seem innocuous compared to her previous message - it’s pasted from an old conversation where I was trying to convince her to let me drive her home from a friend’s. 

In the collision, the dashboard had crushed her. She was severed in a diagonal line from her right hip to midway down her left thigh. One of her legs was found tucked under the backseat. 

---
[**Going back in time. 7th of August, 2012.**](http://i.imgur.com/ujUNJQm.png)

These are logs from the day she died. She was usually home from work by 4.30. This, alongside a couple of voicemail messages, is the last time I talked to her under the assumption that she was alive. You’ll see why I’m showing you these soon.

---
[**Yesterday. 1st of July, 2014.**](http://imgur.com/W6qzAZI)

I memorialised her page a couple of days after I received the message about walking. Until today, she’d been quiet; she wasn’t even tagging herself in my photos. 

I don’t know what to do anymore. Do I **** her memorial page? What if it is her? I want to puke. I don’t know what’s happening. 

I just heard a Facebook alert. I'm too afraid to swap windows and check it.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: Something went wrong with my heart transplant
 
 Assistant: I’ve always had a weak heart.

Not just physically, I’ve always been afraid of my own shadow. It was unsurprising when the doctors told me my heart murmur wasn’t just a heart murmur. A year of tests. A year of therapy, constant trips to the hospital and I was finally told that it had all been for nothing.

My poor weak heart wouldn’t last till Christmas. It’s a strange thing being told that you’re dying; I didn’t come to terms with it at first. I drank and I spent my money. I did reckless, **** things because I was so **** scared.

Then I got the news. That a young woman called Laura had been declared brain dead and that I, the lucky chosen one, would be getting a brand new heart a week later. I drove to the hospital slowly, carefully, and readied myself for the ordeal that was to come.

As I was laying in bed on the last night, the thought of Laura swirled around in my head and it wouldn’t leave me alone. It was like her name was in flashing lights every time I closed my eyes.

It was wrong, I know it was, but I had to see the woman who was giving me her heart. It didn’t feel right not to put a face to the one who was saving my life. I knew her name, I knew what ward she was staying on- I had overheard the two nurses discussing it. I wandered down the meandering hallways until I found what I was looking for, taking my time, making sure I didn’t miss any name. I guess I had time on my hands now.

In the second to last room, she lay in bed. A woman sat on the bed next to her, holding her hand, and my own weak heart stuttered.

“Excuse me.” I had no idea what to say to her. “I’m Jenna. I’m the person… I’m having surgery tomorrow and..” What I assumed was Laura’s mother stood up and I could tell from the look in her eye that she knew who I was.

“Thank you for visiting. I know it’s strange, but a part of her is going to be living on in you. I wanted to meet you.” I stood there, helpless and lost for words. Laura’s mother beckoned me over.

“Please.” She said. “Don’t feel uncomfortable. Its what she would have wanted.” I sat on the chair next to Laura.

“How did she-“ I broke off. It was too awful to ask. Laura’s mother gave me a thin smile.

“She was a care worker. Looked after battered wives, abused women. Last month she met a guy and… Well. I suppose years of training can’t help you when you’re in love. She ignored the warning signs. And he killed her. She dedicated her life to those who needed her.” Laura’s mother looked down. I don’t know why I did it, but I reached over, and held Laura’s hand. I squeezed it.

“I’m so sorry. I had a boyfriend once who… He was like that too. Someone like Laura convinced me to leave.” Laura’s mother gave me another half smile. I could see the tears in her eyes.

Then Laura squeezed my hand. Tightly. She gripped me so hard that her fingernails dug into my skin. I recoiled, a look of horror on my face. Laura’s mother looked at me calmly.

“She squeezes my hand sometimes as well. I think the Doctors called it muscle spasms. Either way. There’s none of Laura left in there anymore.” I looked at the small crescent moons that had just started to bleed on the palm of my hand.

The surgery went perfectly. I was wheeled to the recovery suite after it was over and done with, the raised wound on my chest covered by gauze. It was better if I didn’t see it, I thought. I didn’t need any more heart issues. I spent the first day doped up on the pain medication, eating only a little and sitting up maybe two times. It was a long process, they reassured me.

Laura’s mother came to visit me the day before I was due to leave. Her calm demeanor hadn’t wavered but I could see that she was suffering. She looked ten years older, and her hands shook when she gave me a hug.

“When are you going home?”

“Tomorrow.” I told her. “Please, come visit whenever you want.” I started to jot down my address for her, when out of the corner of my eye, a flash of blonde disappeared through the doorway. The same brilliant blonde as Laura’s hair.

“Ow!” I cried out suddenly. It felt like someone had sharply squeezed my hand so hard it had almost crushed the bones. Laura’s mother rushed to my side, a look of concern in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? Is it your heart?” She stumbled over the last words, coming to terms with what she had said. I tried to reassure her and said I’d let the doctors know, and she left with a look of worry on her face.

When I looked down, a new set of crescent fingernail marks were below the ones that Laura’s had made. Ten identical bleeding smiles.

The taxi ride home was short, and before I knew it I was back in my own flat. It felt strange to try and slot back into where I had left off, my life had been almost over the last time I had been here. I looked over the mess and the cardboard boxes, the remnants of one night where I had tearfully tried to pack and store my belongings so my parents wouldn’t have to do it when I died.

Laura’s heart beat so strongly it felt like it would come out of my chest. It did this all the time, and I realized this was what a healthy heart must feel like. So why couldn’t I shake my feeling of unease?

That night, I had a dream.

Laura was in her hospital bed, but her mother was gone. I could hear my heart, Laura’s heart, beating in my eardrums so loudly it was painful. I tried to cover them, but my hands were pinned to my sides. Some unexplainable force was moving me towards the motionless figure of Laura on the bed, her lips were blue and the window had come open, whipping her blonde hair around her face.

I was almost on top of her when her eyes flew open.

They were milky white, the eyes of someone dead.

“Get out.” She rasped, her voice guttural. I could hear the heartbeat faster and faster, drumming until I thought I couldn’t take it anymore.

Then I woke up. The sound had been real. Laura’s heart was so loud it felt like it would rupture my eardrums and I screamed in agony, trying to cover my ears. It was useless, it was coming from some deep place inside me, I could feel it reverberating around the hollows of my chest.

I stumbled out of bed, gasping for air, and tried to find my phone. I needed to call someone, anyone, an ambulance or my mom. Anyone that would pick up.

“Get out.” It was a faint whisper over the hammering thumps of Laura’s heart, a low guttural voice that sounded like it had been made by an animal, and I crawled to the door, down the hallway, choking on my screams for help. My neighbor opened the door, his eyes as wide as saucers at the sight of me on the floor clutching my chest.

He drove me to hospital as I cried in the passenger seat of his car.

After about fifty different checkups, the doctors told me that absolutely nothing was wrong with me. They told me my heart was regular, my blood pressure was normal, and that everything was going just swimmingly. I stood in the waiting area, wallowing in my shame and frustration.

That heart didn’t belong to me.

My phone buzzed on the counter, an unknown number. Great. That was all I needed, more unexplained, scary things like a stranger on the end of the phone. My voice sounded small on the line,

“Hello?”

“Good morning, this is the Thames Valley police, we’ve called to report an incident that occurred in your flat at around 1.30am today.” I felt a wave of embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, I recently had surgery and I wasn’t feeling well. I had to have my neighbor drive me to the hospital and I think I panicked a little in the hallway before I left.” There was a small silence on the other end of the phone.

“I’m afraid this is something you might want to be sitting down for.” I felt Laura’s heart beats, strong and calm. “There was an incident of forced entry by Mr Samuel Matthews, according to our police records he’s your ex partner and you filed a restraining order against him in September 2017.” My blood ran cold.

“I did.”

“He’s in police custody. We found an automatic weapon on him and we believe he had the intent to harm you. We have an officer currently stationed at your flat who can fill you in depending on how long your hospital stay will be.”

I thanked him and hung up the phone.

For a moment, I leant against the wall, the horror slowly spreading over me. If I had been in my flat ten minutes later he would have found me.

Laura’s heartbeats filled my ears again but now they were gentle, calming. Her mother said she dedicated every part of her to helping those who needed it.

I put both my hands on my chest, overwhelmed by my own gratitude, and listened to Laura.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I knew a woman who never took off her wedding dress
 
 Assistant: Pauline was a sweet woman who lived across the street. We weren’t close as kids or teenagers because she was around five years older than me, but our parents were friends. I think she babysat me when I was younger too.

When my mother learned that Pauline was engaged, she sent me to help on the bridal shower. Poor mom, she thought I was like that because I was too often around boys and needed to learn to be more feminine, but she’s got that backwards.

That’s when I first learned that Pauline and her soon-to-be husband had made a blood oath.

“The first to die comes and takes the other as soon as they can”, she explained to me, swirling the ruby ring gently around her fingers.

“Isn’t that too dramatic? What if you end up divorcing and marrying other people?”

“We won’t. We are soulmates!” she assured me. Her naïveté made her incredibly beautiful, but it felt really wrong being 21 and thinking that I was so much more mature than a 26 years-old.

I didn’t pursue the matter, but she kept talking about him in a dreamy tone. *Aiden would like this*, *I wish Aiden was here*, and so on. Her dreamy tone almost made me believe that soulmates existed and that you could make the person you love the most follow you in death by just willing it.

I met Pauline’s friends, and we all ended up having some quality girl time. Pauline explained to us all how she believed that you can wake up in the afterlife and start controlling things with your mind.

“Of course your memories will be hazy”, she clarified. “But that’s why we made the blood oath. So we can remember.”

“And how will one get the other back?” I asked, entertaining her.

“I like to believe that we’ll both grow wings!”

It was all terribly silly when I think back, but Pauline had something about her that made everyone pay attention and marvel at her words.

Despite the age gap, we ended up becoming good friends; I think we were finally at an age where it didn’t matter anymore. Since I was in college but lived with my parents and didn’t need to work, I had a lot of spare time to accompany her to wedding dress fittings, cake tasting and all the little things that were the world for brides.

But Pauline was a pleasant bride-to-be and never freaked out; she was just thrilled about marrying the man of her dreams, and wanted to make it pretty if possible.

Little by little, I grew to understand her devotion to Aiden. And he was just as crazy about her, if not more. When they were together the world felt like a brighter and warmer place. Like marshmallows slowly melting over my heart.

The day of the wedding came, around half a year after her bridal shower.

It was neither a big nor a small wedding – it felt like both Pauline and Aiden were able to invite exactly everyone they wanted around on their happiest day. Not one more, not one less. I felt somewhat honored to be there.

Still, the happiest day never came.

When Pauline arrived, belated as any bride should, there was whispering and disquiet; Aiden wasn’t there yet. 

Her smile didn’t falter, because she was completely sure that he would never bail on her. But I could tell she was worried. The bridesmaids – her two closest friends since high school – started making calls to try to find out if the groom had a sudden illness.

Soon they realized that Aiden’s parents were there, but not his brother. They informed that their other son was supposed to drive the groom as part of his best man’s duties.

When the devastating news came, everyone wanted to comfort her, everyone wanted desperately to protect her precious heart, but it was too torn apart to notice anyone else.

*It was all too fast and scary. (…) A sports car ran a red light straight into the Mirage. (…) The man in the passenger seat was dead on arrival. (…) The driver was taken to the hospital but his state was critical.*

It was all so **** everyone. Aiden’s brother ended up surviving, but **** be tetraplegic for life due to severe injury on his spinal cord. As far as I know, he’s also miserable because he wished he could be the one who died.

Right after the wedding that never happened, Pauline and Aiden’s parents dealt with selling the house they had just bought, and Pauline continued living with her parents. They both still worked office jobs, so her other friends and I started taking turns keeping her company while they weren’t home.

I did my best to be there for my neighbor and friend, but *she* wasn’t there. She was living in delusion, and the only thing you could see leaking into reality was her desolation. 

I never saw such a deep and heart-wrenching sadness. Pauline refused to take off her dress. She would spend the whole day by the window waiting for Aiden and the whole night crying because she missed him desperately. Every single day.

She was hopeful it was a matter of time until he woke up on the other side and remembered to bring her along. That’s why she wouldn’t take off the dress – he had died on his wedding suit, so it was only natural that she was up to par.

Her parents and every single one of her friends tried to coax her into changing her clothes. We promised she could always keep the dress close for when Aiden came, but she knew that we didn’t really believe he would. It was like promising your kid that you’d buy them a Happy Meal some other day. 

No one dared to **** her grief and force her out of the dress. She spent the day in it, slept in it, even bathed in it; since we live in a warm and arid weather, having it dry wasn’t an issue, only everything else.

The once beautiful organza and silk were now ragged, grimy and smelling. But she still refused to take it off. She started to believe that Aiden wouldn’t be able to spot her in the crowd if she wasn’t wearing it.

It was impossible to change her mind, and even though she was seeing a therapist three times a week, she wasn’t improving. Her mourning and PTSD were turning into a darker, more permanent mental illness.

She started talking to Aiden, then explained to us that he was nearby, so she could feel him coming. He was just taking a while because flying is really hard when your wings are newly-acquired.

Then one morning, she disappeared for good. No one saw her leaving, and no one saw her at all after that.

The only thing that we were able to find, in the small grove behind the house, was her filthy wedding dress. It had two large holes poked on her back, like it had grown wings.

\*\*\*

After finding the dress, everyone who loved Pauline was relieved; her mother readily admitted that she actually believed that Aiden somehow had come back to take her. Others weren’t so fond of the supernatural explanation, but thinking that there was a chance that it happened brought us a sense of closure.

It’s not that we were happy about her death, but we conformed to the possibility of her finally finding her peace.

She was an angel, after all. Why wouldn’t she grow wings and escape her flesh prison?

The family held a beautiful memorial service in her honor, and slowly we all started moving on with our lives.

Now, you might ask what I believe in. I would laugh bitterly because I don’t have this choice to begin with.

Being the person who spent the most time watching Pauline those days, it was only natural that I was the one to found her dead in the bathtub. Hiding and subsequently getting rid of her body was the hardest thing I have ever done; tampering with the dress, though, was eerily healing.

Still, I think that she would be pleased to know that I faked her rapture. 

A romantic and mystifying death fitted her way more than suicide[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPoisoningTales/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My girlfriend talks in her sleep. She's been saying the most horrible things recently...
 
 Assistant: I’m infatuated with her. 

Utterly infatuated.  

And it wasn’t at a healthy level.  Far from it.  I would think about her every moment she was away.  I would sometimes sit on my couch and just stare at my phone waiting for her to text.  I’d tell myself “Don’t contact her.  *Don't*.   It will come off as too strong.”  But then I’d still find myself clicking her name on my contact list before my inner voice would continue, “You don’t want her to know how desperately smitten you are with her.  It’s unattractive.  It will scare her off.  No, you must wait for her to call you this time.”

But it was excruciating and exhausting.  Almost unbearable.  I once heard that the ancient Greeks believed that falling madly and irrationally in love with somebody was a curse that you would wish upon your enemies.  I could never understand what they meant.  After all, isn’t falling head over heels in love the ultimate goal nowadays?  But now that it’s happened to me, I have to say… the ancient Greeks were right.  This is a curse.  I was barely in control of myself.  Almost as though my infatuation with her had… possessed me.

The two of us were sexually active together but still in the “dating” phase.  We were at that make or break era of a blossoming relationship where we’d either have “the talk” and formally be in a relationship or we’d start to slowly drift apart.  The latter of which I don’t think I’d be able to cope with.  Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to.  Almost everything about her captivated me.  The way she held her hand over her mouth when she laughed.  How she’d caress the pendant of her necklace when she was frightened.  How she’d twirl her hair in her finger when she was excited.   All of it.  Her smell.  Her smile.  Her eyes.  

Yeah, I know.  It probably makes you sick reading about it.  I feel the same way.  I was never the hopeless romantic type.  But now I can’t stop fantasizing about her.  I’d think about us doing the long three-hour hike up to that magnificent view from one of our first dates.  To that first kiss, as we overlooked the lights of the city.  But this time I’d get down on one knee, bring out the ring, and… well… you know what would happen next.  

Alright, fine.  I’ll stop.  Yes, this is a girl I’d only been casually dating for a couple of months.  I shouldn’t be thinking about proposing yet.  I know that.  I'm just barely able to control myself any longer.  I feel as though I’m losing power over the decisions I make. 

And that brings me to why I’m here writing this out at the moment.  It started with the first real thing that troubled me about her. We’d never actually spent a night together.  No matter how late she was over, once either of us showed signs of being tired, she’d up and leave.  She wouldn’t leave awkwardly or in anger. Just a casual kiss good night, a smile, and a “call me soon”. 

It was something I didn’t really even notice the first few times she did it.  But after almost 8 weeks of dating, it was becoming strange.  I’d have to ask her about it.

It took drinking almost an entire bottle of wine before I had the courage to do it.  She looked almost defeated when I asked and lowered her eyes in embarrassment.  “I knew this talk would come eventually,” She started.  She took in a deep breath with a long drawn out exhale.  “Recently….“  she paused again.  “I’ve started talking in my sleep.”  She shook her head in embarrassment.    “It’s called somniloquy, I looked it up.”  

I shrugged and laughed out loud.  My demeanor seemed to say “That’s it?”

“No, Stephen… listen” she said.  She wasn’t laughing.  “It’s bad.  It… It’s completely out of control.  It’s not just random words or gibberish.  No.  It’s horrible.  I say horrible disgusting things.”  She was starting to raise her voice, breath heavy,  and tear up.

I approached her and held her.  I told her it couldn’t be that bad.  I told her to spend the night.  I told her she was probably exaggerating.  

I was wrong.

That night she stayed at my house.  But she warned me of something before falling asleep.  “Whatever you do, don’t wake me up.  It makes me really scared and disoriented if that happens.  And don’t respond to me.  Just ignore it.”  I nodded and agreed.   “If it becomes too much,” she continued, “just leave the room and sleep on the couch.  I won’t mind.”

I told her not to worry about it. I told her that it wouldn’t be a big deal.  I told her I wouldn’t leave to the couch.  I’d stay beside her in the bed.

But I was wrong.

I couldn’t even last one night.

***

We both fell asleep without incident.  I don’t know how many hours passed, but I woke up in the dark with the sensation that someone was watching me.  And then I remembered… *She* was with me.  She was actually spending the night.  I smiled.

But then I noticed the shadowy outline of her sitting up on the bed.  She was looking down at me.  Staring.  

It creeped me out.  I’ll admit it.  Her posture was entirely different.  It was as though it wasn’t even her at all.

Then she spoke.

It wasn’t her voice that I heard.  It was much lower and gravelly.  Like something out of a horror movie.

“*I’ll chew the skin from your bones.*”  She said.

I froze. 

At first, I just kept looking at her.  This was not at all what I expected.  I thought it would be more like the way Tourette’s is often portrayed.  Just random swearing and shouting.   I honestly thought to myself… what will I do if she attacks me right now?  What if she really does try to chew the skin from my bones?  

But then she just lied down and went back to sleep.

I was creeped out.  I tried to lie back down and ignore her but struggled.  I couldn’t even close my eyes without thinking “Maybe she’s sitting up again and staring at me.”  And then one time I rolled over to look at her…and she *was*.

Her face was pressed right towards mine.  Her breath was foul and rotted.  Something that was most certainly not normal for her.  She spoke again, in the same voice as before.

“*If you don’t move to the couch, you’ll be dead by morning.*”

That did it for me.  I sat up in a moment and headed for the living room.

She made some sort of wheezing sound as I left.  I think it was supposed to be laughter.

I was lying on the couch, but I wasn’t going to be able to fall back to sleep.  I was far too shaken.

I was staring out towards the window, hoping to see the first few hints of the sun rising.

And then I thought I heard something.  From the bedroom.

I listened.

And then I heard it again. 

“*Stephen.*”   It was that same low and gravelly voice. It sounded like a witch. 

I tried to just ignore it at first.  But then it continued. 

“*Stephen.*”  

Still I said nothing.  

“*I know you can hear me, Stephen.  You’re awake now.  Why don’t you come back into the bedroom?*”

The voice barely sounded human.  

“*Or maybe you’d prefer if I come to **you**?*”

I still didn’t say anything.  I was told not to.  But I listened.  If I heard her start walking towards the bedroom door, I’m not even joking, I would have run right out of the apartment. But she had asked me not to respond to her sleep talking.  So I didn’t.

And then I heard her once more.

“*Sorry if this spoils your plans.*”   She began laughing.  “*The two of you were supposed to walk that trail again.*” she started.  I wasn’t even remotely prepared for what she’d say next.

 “*You’d both be so tired when you’d reach the top.  You’d look over the city.  Then you’ll get on one knee, and bring out the ring.*”  She began laughing. 

And that’s when I realized this wasn’t just a problem with sleep talking.  It was something much more.  Something supernatural.  I had never told anybody about my proposal fantasy.  There was simply no way she could have known about any of it.

This was no longer about merely talking in ones’ sleep.  This was about possession. I can’t go back into the bedroom.  I have no idea what would happen if I did.  Instead, I’m going to wait it out, holding up in my living room until the sun rises.  I have a couple more hours yet.  I can hear her laughing occasionally in the bedroom. It’s still not her voice. Still that same low pitch cackle.

But as I sit on my couch writing this out, here’s what scares me the most…

Maybe my infatuation and utter obsession with her wasn’t normal.  I said before that I felt like I was losing control of myself.  More so I believe than the typical falling in love story.  No.  I fear that the infatuation I felt was the entity slowly taking control of *me*.  Of it controlling my thoughts, fears, ambitions, and anxieties.  Maybe once I become completely absorbed, a transfer would occur, and she would be free of it. 

I know I should leave.  That I should open the front door, get in my car, and drive away from here.  But I can’t. I can’t leave her.  I’ve already lost control.

I’m infatuated with her.

Utterly infatuated.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: ***EMERGENCY ALERT***
 
 Assistant: ***EMERGENCY ALERT***
-THIS IS NOT A TEST
-IMMEDIATE THREAT FOR RESIDENTS OF [withheld] COUNTIES
-BE WARY OF:
  -SEVERE WINDS
  -LIGHTNING
  -SEVERE RAIN
  -FLASH FLOODS
-RESIDENTS ARE ADVISED TO STAY INDOORS
  -PLEASE LOCK OR BAR ALL ENTRYWAYS INTO YOUR HOUSE
-RESTRAIN FROM USING ANY DEVICES THAT EMIT LIGHT OR LOUD NOISE
-PLEASE ENTER A ROOM WITH NO WINDOWS
-EFFECTIVE INDEFINITELY
-ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

This was the message I was greeted by in the middle of an episode of Big Bang Theory in my living room. Frozen halfway through a forkful of Kraft Mac N' Cheese, I sat bolt upright and turned around to look out the window. The sky, as I thought, was crystal clear. A few clouds, but nothing crazy. No rain. No thunder. Nothing. Confused, I turned off the TV, erasing the alert from the screen. My two dogs came walking over to me and I patted them on their heads. One of my dogs, the other's brother, was shaking profusely from the buzzing noise that always shows up with Amber Alerts and the like. I left them in the living room and walked through my kitchen and onto my front porch. My neighbors, too, were standing outside their houses, all looking at the sky in bemusement.

An immediate threat? It didn't seem like it, I thought as my phone started buzzing with the same tone. One by one, everyone else's phones started ringing.

I should explain, I guess, that I have never experienced a severe weather warning for real. Not once in my life. I suppose it should come as no surprise, seeing as I live in Oregon of all places. I supposed maybe it was just a mistake, but just as the thought floated across my mind, I heard the  siren.

The siren of the squad car coming down the street. An officer talked through the speaker. "This is not a drill. Please enter your homes immediately. Do not go outside under any circumstances."

Never the kind of guy to ignore higher authorities, I entered my house nervously, turned off all the lights on the above-ground floors, and took my dogs into my basement with a sleeping bag, some food, my phone, a charger, some spare batteries, flashlight, and other essentials. I called my brother, who lives a couple of blocks away, and asked him if he had gotten the message. He had. I considered saying we should stay together to wait out the storm, but then I figured we'd probably get in trouble for that. So I hung up, got comfortable on my sleeping bag, and started browsing Reddit. Eventually, I fell asleep, seeing as I was under stress and had woken up pretty early. When I woke up, I realized that I still didn't hear any rain. Seriously, nothing at all. More confused than ever, I decided to see if the alert had been called off. I turned on my phone and called my brother again. It went straight to voicemail, though, so I gave up. I decided to risk it and go upstairs. I had to squeeze between the door and the wall to keep my dogs from following me upstairs, but I won and they stayed in the basement. I walked through my kitchen to the front door and looked out the window part of it. As I squinted to see outside in the dark (strange, seeing as it was only 2:00 PM judging by my clock), the TV flickered briefly. I looked around at it and it flickered again, but this time every device on the ground floor flickered. Thinking little of it, I turned around and looked through the door again. Every house on the block had its lights turned off. Nobody was outside.

Except for one teenage girl.

A thin, short-haired girl wearing what looked like a pillowcase walked unsteadily down the street, very slowly, looking as though she was having some difficulty. I turned around, now extremely confused and worried, and got the dogs' food bowls, which I had forgotten earlier. When I looked up, one of the houses, the one diagonally across from mine (right next to the house across the street and to the left) had it's lights on and one of its windows broken. I shuddered and rushed back into the basement as the lights flickered intensely.

I locked the door to the basement and sat on an old, tattered couch that I had brought down here--the basement is where I put everything I didn't have room for. So, yeah, it's packed. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something that may be worth noting: I live in a small town. A very small town, probably with a population of under 500. Or less. As a matter of fact, it isn't even on most maps. We never make any news, we never have any scandals or anything. This is the first interesting thing that's happened, I think, since Mrs. [withheld] lost her dentures to a raccoon. So, it's possible this whole thing seems way worse than it is.

Call me crazy, but until a few minutes ago, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I love these scenarios, and my basement is totally secure, so I'm having the time of my life. Well, I was. I decided to turn on my radio--what harm could it do, as long as I didn't turn the volume up to high?

I was surprised to find that our local radio station was still up and running. They were talking about the weather, so I listened hard for any news that I hadn't heard. There wasn't any--they were just as confused as us. Not wanting to listen to crappy pop music indefinitely, I tuned into another station. This one was one I hadn't heard before.

-"Could you give me the status of [withheld] county? Over."
-"No new developments. Over."
-"Okay. Any fatalities? Over."
-"What part of "no new developments" do you not understand, McClellan? A squad car will be passing through soon to scan the area for the target. Over."
-"Any ETA on that? Over."
-"No, not yet. Over."
-"And any word from HQ, Jones? Over."
-"No, McClellan. Not yet. Not since 013 first got out. Over."
-"Well, let me know if and when they contact you. Over."

At that point, I lost the signal. Well, not really, but the connection got so weak that I could barely make out anything they were saying. I figured I must have found a police communication channel. And I had been left with no answers whatsoever.

That was about forty-five minutes ago, as of me writing this now. Guys, I don't know what's going on. Do any of you live near me? You'll know if you've received the warning. I'd say what county I live in, and which ones were affected, but I don't know to for privacy reasons. Anyway, I'll keep you guys updated, okay? Until then, wish me luck.

EDIT: Woah, guys, this has blown up. I'll be sure to keep you posted over the next few days!

UPDATE: Just a quick update before the first major update--about five minutes ago, a car alarm went off somewhere to the right of my house. I'm too freaked out to go check it out, but I'll go up and see how it looks tomorrow morning, and I'll update you then.

NEXT UPDATE COMING TODAY

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I work security at Disney World... well, I mean I did.
 
 Assistant: I work in security at Disney World, the happiest place on Earth. Typically, I wouldn’t say where I work as obviously there are some pretty strict rules about things employees can put online, but I just don’t think I can tell this properly without that context. And, honestly, I think this may be it for me anyway with this job. I just can’t see myself working here any longer now. 

I’ve been with the company for 23 years. The first 20 years I worked in the parks – nabbing shoplifters and rounding up people who were drinking too much for the heat. Occasionally there’d be a fight to break up, but people usually kept it pretty mild. 

The heat and walking was getting too much for me the last few years so I asked to be transferred somewhere with a/c and the company moved me to one of their resorts. While the working conditions were 110% better as far as climate and comfort go, the guest issues were trickier \- mainly domestics. I guess the expensive and stress of vacation got to a lot of people and I’d be called by neighboring rooms because some mom and dad were yelling at each other. I’d try to suggest they take a nap or go do separate activities for a bit and that would usually calm them down.

But none of that is what I’m here for. I’ve got to get this out while I have time.

Three days ago I got a call from management. Apparently a couple of days before that, housekeeping had went into a room that should’ve been turned over that day (turned over is when one guest leaves by about 11:00 a.m. and the next guest checks in around 3:00 p.m.) and all of the guests’ items were still in the room. Housekeeping made a note of it and moved on, but during the next two days when they entered the room, everything was still there and untouched.

I went to check it out and sure enough there was an empty room full of luggage, clothes, snacks, some toys, everything a family would need for vacation. The manager had already looked up the previous reservation and it was for a family – dad, mom, two little kids. I tried to call the phone numbers they had given but all I got was voice mail. We were a bit stumped so I made the call that housekeeper could clean the room and take the family’s personal items to be held until we got in contact with someone.

I went digging into the reservation more. The family had arrived five days before housekeeping discovered all of their stuff.  I found that the family had paid a parking fee and their vehicle description was listed. A quick walk of the parking lots and I had easily located their vehicle. So that ruled out a car accident or them deciding to just leave all their stuff behind. 

Next, I saw that they had bought a dining plan. This is when a guest prepays for all of their food. They’re given a certain number of “credits” to use for meals. This family had only used 3 credits and the last one was two days after they checked in. It appeared that the day they arrived, they got here late and probably just stayed on the resort. The next day they used 2 credits at Epcot. The second park day they used just 1 credit at Magic Kingdom and it was at breakfast time. 

Now at Disney we have something called Magic Bands. Magic Bands are worn by the guests and act as a room key, park ticket, credit card, dining reservation payment, fastpass (a system used to bypass lines), and more. It took some work, but I was finally able to look up this family’s fastpass history. The day they went to Magic Kingdom, they had breakfast at a restaurant in the park, rode a couple of rides, and then rode their last ride, It’s a Small World around 11:00 a.m. Then nothing.

Finally, it was time to bring in someone else on this. I called an old co\-worker at Magic Kingdom and asked him to pull security footage for It’s a Small World at the time they rode it and I made my way over there. When I got there, my friend was very confused, almost distraught, looking. He showed me what he found. There’s usually a camera in the direction of where rides load and unload. The footage showed them scanning their bands to use fastpasses for the ride and boarding the ride. The footage from the exit of the ride just showed the other people in their car exiting. They weren’t there.

Of course we thought the worse, maybe one of the kids had fallen out and mom and dad and the other kid got off in the middle of the ride to help and they all got injured or killed or stuck in machinery somewhere. So we shut down the ride. Middle of the **** day. Turned off that ear worm music and turned up the lights. Me and my buddy walked that ride three times before we called in help. Eventually there was close to ten cast members searching, and we didn’t find **** except for three cell phones and a hat.

I was right stumped. I've kept digging the past couple of days, and I’m not sure who to tell what I found next to. I’ve called the police and I suppose they’re on the way, but the company has a way of covering up things like this and I decided I can’t live with myself if I don’t put out some type of warning.

I kept digging into their reservation over the last couple of days and today I noticed they had purchased memory maker. There are photographers all over the parks and cameras in a lot of the rides and, with memory maker, the photos are all free. They automatically get added to a guest’s Disney account when the system knows their picture has been taken. And the system always knows. Everyone’s whereabouts are always known with the Magic Bands.

Well, I opened up their memory maker photo album and, I swear, there’s 732 pictures. The first 30 or so are pretty normal. Epcot, a few rides, in front of the castle. But the rest. The rest are all in It’s a Small World. The rides only take one picture per go around. So it appears as though this family has ridden this ride over 700 times. The first picture was pretty normal. Everyone looked happy, it was busy day and a full car of guests.  The next one is rough to look at. The car is empty except for this little family and they look so darn confused. The next 10\-15 I can see dad getting angry, yelling. Mom is holding onto those two kids like her life depends on it and you can see the kids getting increasingly upset, crying. And it goes on, and on, and on. After 50 or so it looks like they’re trying to get out. In one the dad is missing. In another they’re all gone.  Maybe like they’ve bailed early in the ride and tried to walk out, but in the very next one, they’re all right back in that **** car. After around 450 or so, I only see the mom and kids. It’s just when I look closely I can see dad, maybe just his body now, slumped down in one of the other seats. Since about 675, there’s just mom and one kid. Another body in another seat.  The mom and kid aren’t moving anymore. I think them two are still alive, just **** near catatonic. Looking straight ahead, pale.  

And, y’all, I swear on my **** life, the dolls are moving or something. In some of these pictures I can tell they aren’t where they should be. I even saw one with a doll in the car with this family.

I can’t look anymore or I’m going to lose my lunch. I closed the album. It’s file sized has increased since I closed it. ****, are there new pictures being added? 

I see on security cameras that the local PD just arrived so they’ll take over soon. I wish I knew what the **** is going on, but I also wish this **** thing had never landed in my lap. I don’t think I’ll be able to update this. After I talk to the police, I think I’m going to walk out of here and never come back. I just wanted to get this out there, before Disney feeds the media some **** cover up as to why a whole family vanished. They didn’t vanish. I know where they are.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My husband insists on keeping this one painting of a woman
 
 Assistant: When my husband and I first got married and moved in together, we had a few fights. On personal space, on chores… and on décor.

Namely, my husband insisted on keeping this weird painting of a woman.

“Who is she?” I’d asked when I first saw it, leaned against a mountain of moving boxes.

“Dunno. Got it at a rummage sale.”

It was an original painting. Oil, I think, judging by the way the light reflected off the brushstrokes. It depicted a young woman standing in a dark room, looking over her shoulder at the viewer. She was actually rather beautiful. Blonde hair falling over her shoulders like a waterfall. A white cotton dress. A dainty, heart-shaped face that was somehow haunting rather than cute.

She was illuminated brightly, but the room behind her was dark. The contrast and her pose reminded me a little bit of *Girl With A Pearl Earring*. But it didn’t feel classy, or pensive, or beautiful. Instead it felt… creepy.

Especially because my husband insisted on hanging it above our bed.

“I mean, it’s a beautiful painting,” I said. “But it just doesn’t fit with the modern décor.”

“Neither do your Funko Pops.”

“Okay, but they’re small. This painting is *enormous.* For Pete’s sake, the woman is nearly life-sized!”

“I want to keep her where she is.”

It seemed like a big deal to him, so I dropped it. But it wasn’t easy. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night with the horrible feeling that I was being watched. Then I’d look up and see her haunting gray eyes staring down at me.

I didn’t get much sleep after that.

And there was the one time I swear she moved. “Was her hand always like that?” I asked Eric, after getting into bed one night.

“Hmm?”

“Her left hand. The fingers are kind of open, reaching out behind her. Like she’s waiting for someone to grab her hand.”

“Yeah, she was always like that.”

I could’ve sworn she *wasn’t* always like that. Then again, I generally avoided looking at the painting. It was so uncomfortably realistic. When I stared into those gray eyes, I almost felt like I was making eye contact with a person.

I lasted two weeks. Then I begged Eric to move it.

“Can we *please* move the painting somewhere else? I really hate looking at it when I’m going to sleep.”

“It’s the nicest piece of art we have. It belongs above the bed.”

“What about the sunflower one?”

“That’s just a print,” he complained. “And it’s so basic.”

“Come on. I’ll move my Funko Pops out if you move the painting out.”

He heaved a long sigh. “Fine. I’ll move her.”

That was another thing. He often referred to the painting as “her.” It was weird.

So he moved it to the stairs. But honestly, that was worse. Every time I went downstairs, there she was. Staring at me from above the landing with those piercing gray eyes. At least when the painting was in the bedroom, I was usually asleep or facing the opposite direction.

I hit my breaking point a few days after that.

For some reason I couldn’t sleep. After tossing and turning for an hour, I decided to grab a snack downstairs. I got to the top of the stairs… and there she was.

I hadn’t turned on the main lights—only the nightlight in the hall bathroom was on. With everything so dark, the background of the painting melted into the shadows. But the woman still stood out, with her pale face and white dress.

And my ****, sleepy brain interpreted it as an actual person standing there.

I jumped about a foot in the air. And I would’ve fallen all the way down the stairs, had I not caught the banister at the last second.

“Can we pleeeease get rid of that painting?” I asked the next morning.

Eric turned away from the stove, set the spatula down. “Why?”

“Last night, it scared the frick out of me. I nearly fell down the stairs.”

He stared at me, as if unable to understand. “She… scared you?” he asked slowly.

“Well, more like startled me. I thought it was actually a person standing there.”

He looked at me.

Then he broke into laughter. And, after a few seconds, I started laughing too. It *was* pretty ****, now that I thought about it. I know I was sleepy, but still—I thought the painting was a *person?!* What, did I think we were being burglarized by a young, beautiful, blonde woman in a nightdress?

“For now, I’ll move her into my office. Then you don’t have to look at her at all.”

“That sounds good.”

And for a while after that, things were okay. I sort of noticed Eric spending more time in his office than usual, but he also had a big deadline for a brief coming up. And what, how would that be related to the painting, anyway? It’s not like he was staring at her for hours on end.

Except that’s exactly what I caught him doing.

One night he didn’t come downstairs to eat dinner with me. I called up to him a few times. No reply. So I went upstairs and walked into his office—to find him staring at her.

He was just sitting there. With his computer closed. No papers on the desk. Swivel chair turned towards the woman in the painting.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, when I walked in. Then he quickly stood up. “I was just about to come down. Just sent in the brief a few minutes ago. They’re really happy with it.”

He smiled broadly at me, as if nothing were wrong, and then slipped past me. I listened to his footsteps thump down the stairs.

*Had he actually just finished working?*

*Or was he just sitting in here… staring at her?*

I ultimately decided not to bring it up. The painting was out of my sight and that was great. Besides, I had bigger fish to fry, like my own deadline coming up for an article I hadn’t even started.

But then, on Friday afternoon, I accidentally overheard him on the phone. His voice was muffled through the thick wooden door, but it wasn’t hard to hear him. He was shouting, almost.

*“I’ll have it in by tonight—”*

*“No, I knew it was due on Wednesday—”*

*“Well, my wife fell down the stairs. I had to take her to the hospital.”*

Those words sent a chill through me. I barged in.

“Why are you lying about me falling down the stairs?”

His face paled. He ended the call and turned towards me. “I’m so sorry, Tara. But I needed an excuse. I missed the deadline on that brief, and it’s my job on the line—"

“The brief you told me you finished two days ago?”

He nodded, silently.

I crossed my arms. “Look, Eric, your work is your business. But we’ve spent, like, all of one hour together all week. Because you’ve been locked in here all day, every day. I mean, are you even working? Or are you just sitting in here, staring at *her?*”

His dark eyes locked on mine. And then his voice grew soft. 

“You’re jealous of her.”

“… *What?!”*

“You shouldn’t be, Tara,” he said, stepping towards me. “The painting makes her prettier than she was.”

I froze. Stared at him.

Then I finally found the words. “Are you saying… this is a painting of someone you know?”

“No,” he said slowly. “Sorry, I misspoke. I meant, whoever this is a portrait of, I’m sure it’s a flattering likeness. All portraits are flattering like that.”

I stared at him, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Who is this a painting of, Eric?”

“I told you, it’s not—”

“Eric.” I stepped towards him. My legs felt weak, wobbling underneath me. “*Who is this a painting of?!”*

He only shook his head.

\*\*\*

I couldn’t sleep that night.

I know, it sounds silly, being so worked up over a painting. But you have to admit it was weird. He was obsessed with this thing, for whatever reason. *Why didn’t I see the painting when we were dating? Did he hide it away in the basement?* That was the one place I’d never been. Had he built a little shrine down there, painting, candles, the whole nine yards?

The thought of it made me sick.

*Is it an ex-girlfriend? An ex-wife, even, that he never told me about?* Getting a painting commissioned must have cost a fortune. Especially a huge, detailed one like this. I mean, as much as I hated that thing, it was clearly done by someone incredibly gifted. The glint in those piercing gray eyes, the small dimple on her right cheek…

But clearly he wasn’t keeping it to appreciate the artistry.

*He knew her.*

*And whoever she is, he’s obsessed with her.*

And then I got the craziest idea.

I sat up in bed. Slowly, quietly. Turned to Eric. He was fast asleep. Then I slipped out from underneath the covers, grabbed my phone from the nightstand—and tiptoed out of the room.

My bare feet padded softly across the hallway as I made my way towards his office. Then I pushed the heavy wooden door open and stepped inside.

The office was cold—much colder than our bedroom. Goosebumps pricked up my bare arms. But I didn’t waste any time. I reached over, fumbling across the wall, and hit the switch.

The light flicked on.

The blonde woman stared down at me from the wall. Her eyes seemed to follow me as I took Eric’s leather chair and dragged it across the hardwood. Once against the wall, I stepped up onto it.

We were staring at each other, face to face.

I’d never been this close to the painting before. My face inches from hers. This close, I could truly appreciate the detail. Each individual eyelash painstakingly drawn, curving up from its follicle. Threadlike striations of light and dark gray filling her irises. Her skin, so pale and creamy, dotted with the tiniest of pores.

But I wasn’t here to appreciate the artwork.

I lifted my phone—and took a photo.

Then I brought up a reverse image search.

It took a few minutes for me to find the right website and upload the photo. But when the results loaded… I gasped.

I expected maybe one result, if I were lucky. Some sort of **** recognition that would match the painted face to a photo. Or, maybe the artist’s website would come up, and mention who the subject was. But instead—*dozens* of thumbnails filled the page. Of the exact same painting I’d been staring at for weeks.

Fingers trembling, I clicked on the first one. It led to a news article.

**Search Continues for Missing Franklin Art Student**

My heart dropped. Little black dots danced in my vision. I collapsed into the chair behind me, trembling, and began to read.

*Anya Kelsing, 23, went missing after a hike with her boyfriend…*

*The two became separated when they came upon a bear…*

*Her backpack was found roughly a mile from where the sighting occurred, but no trace of Anya was found…*

And the caption under the painting.

*Kelsing is a third-year student at Franklin College, majoring in Fine Arts. She recently completed a self-portrait that was exhibited at Le Coeur (above)*

I clicked on the next article, and the next—but they all said the same thing. Hike, bear, disappearance. All of them showed a photo along with her self-portrait; she looked strikingly identical to her painted likeness. None of them mentioned the boyfriend’s name, but it had to be Eric. The most recent article, from five years ago, was a video clip of her parents begging for her search to continue. Sadly, judging by the news articles, it never did.

I don’t know how long I sat there. All I know is that I was suddenly jolted from my thoughts by a loud *thump* in the hallway.

Footsteps. Coming towards the office.

I shot up. *He can’t find me here.* I glanced around the room, looking for someplace—any place—that I could hide. But it was probably too late. Surely he’d seen the light on, from under the door…

I ducked under the desk just as he stepped into the room.

“Tara?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth, trying to silence my ragged breathing. *He’s going to see the chair out of place. He knows I’m here. He knows…*

“Tara, you in here?”

*Why did I hide? I could’ve just said I came in here because I heard a noise. Needed a pen. Couldn’t sleep. Why the **** did I hide? Now he’s going to know that I know…*

“Tara?”

*But maybe it’s fine. Maybe the bear got Anya, maybe Eric had nothing to do with it. Isn’t that more likely than Eric being a murderer?*

“There you are.”

I looked up—and screamed.

Eric was crouched there, in front of the desk, staring at me.

“I—I was looking for a pen,” I stuttered, lamely. “I wanted to write down—I remembered I have to pick up groceries tomorrow and I needed to add something…”

He tilted his head, a small smile on his lips. “I don’t think that’s the truth, Tara.”

*Make a break for it.*

I started to lunge out from under the desk. His hand quickly shot out and grabbed my wrist. *Hard.* “You figured out who she is, didn’t you? That’s the only reason you’d be hiding from me.”

I trembled in his grasp. “What did you do to her?” I whispered.

He let out a dry laugh. “So you think I’m a murderer. How nice, that’s the first conclusion you jump to.”

“No—no, I don’t think you’re a murderer.” I swallowed. *Stupid, ****, ****. If he killed her, and he knows you know… then you’re dead too.* “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just… what happened? They didn’t find a body. Did the bear get her?”

He didn’t reply. Just stared at me, silently, with those cold dark eyes.

“I was jealous,” I continued, desperately, “but now I understand. I wish you’d just told me. To lose someone like that… of course you’d want to keep the painting. It’s all you have left of her.”

“You should have just left it alone,” he said, his tone oddly emotionless. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

I screamed as he lunged for me.

*It’s over.* His hands were clenched tight on my wrists as he dragged me out from under the desk. I pulled back, trying to wrench myself free, but it was no use—

*Thump!*

A loud crash sounded behind us. Eric whipped around, and for a split second—his grip released.

I acted instantly. Pulled free from him and ran, pivoting around the desk and racing towards the door. As I glanced back, I saw Eric, starting after me.

But I also saw what had made the noise.

The painting of Anya had fallen from the wall. It lay askew on the floor, her gray eyes staring emptily upwards.

\*\*\*

I was always a fast runner.

Eric was only halfway down the stairs by the time I was at the bottom. Bursting out into the cold air, I began to scream. He grabbed me from behind and tried to pull me back inside, but it was too late. Lights were flicking on. Our neighbor rushed out of his house, dialing 911.

It was over.

The police arrested Eric for assault. And once I told them my story, of his obsession with Anya’s painting, they were able to search our house. And hidden in his office drawer, in a small box, was a pair of gold earrings.

The same earrings Anya wore on the hike that day.

The case is slowly mounting against him. I’m hoping, praying Anya gets justice and that a jury convicts him of her horrible ****.

And would he have done the same to me, if I hadn’t escaped? If Anya’s painting hadn’t fallen off the wall?

There was an explanation, of course. When Eric had moved the painting to his office, he’d mistakenly installed one of the hangers into pure drywall. The weight of the painting had caused it to rip out, and the painting fell.

But sometimes, I think Anya was watching over me. That her self-portrait carried a piece of her. And that night, she’d protected me from falling victim to the monster who ended her life.

The painting now hangs up in my foyer. Every day I walk by it, and new details pop out at me: the deep, shadowy green of the room behind her. A perfectly-painted strand of blonde hair. The glint in her piercing gray eyes.

And sometimes, I think she’s smiling back at me.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My wife has a removable face. I’ve never glimpsed what lies beneath it, but my best friend has.
 
 Assistant: Samantha told me about it on our third date. We were watching a movie on her couch when I made my move to kiss her. She whipped her hand in front of my face and blocked me.

“There’s something you need to know,” she said.

I braced myself. *Here it comes. “I’m not ready for a relationship. Nothing to do with you, of course.”* It was the absolute last thing that I wanted to hear, because I was already crazy about her.

“Okay,” I said.

“I have a removable face.”

*That’s a new one.* “You have a what now?” I was about to laugh, but she was wearing a deadly serious expression.

“I have a removable face.”

“Is that, like, a metaphor or something?”

“No. My face is literally removable. Look. Closely.” She lifted her chin and traced her jaw line with a finger. “You can see the seam.”

After admiring how beautiful her neck was for a dizzying moment, I leaned in for an inspection. It was very hard to see, but it *did* look like there was a slightly unnatural transition there from her face to her throat. I grew dizzier, as a dozen questions rushed into my brain.

“Don’t bother asking why or how or anything like that,” said Samantha. “I can’t tell you that. If that’s going to be a problem, you should leave now. I’m letting you know this because I like you, and I want to take the next step, but this is non-negotiable.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure of what was happening. “Not a problem. So what? You have a removable face. Who cares? It looks good.”

“There’s something else. Once a day, usually in the evening, I have to remove the face and disinfect the inside of it. If I don’**** will rot. This takes about an hour, give or take, depending on how my day went. During this time, you must never *ever* look at my real face. *Never*. Do you understand?”

“Y… yes. Got it. Don’t ask about it, don’t look at your… ‘real’ face.”

Samantha stood up. “Now, I’m going to go into the bathroom and clean my face. That will give you plenty of time to think about what I’ve told you. If you’re here when I’m done… that’s great. I would like that. But if you’re gone… I’ll understand.”

She turned and walked into her bedroom. I sat in stunned silence as I heard the bathroom door close.

I gave the thing some serious thought. It was possible that it was a joke of some kind. It was possible that it was a delusion. Was it possible that it was true? Well, it was certainly possible to transform an actor’s face with movie makeup, so I supposed it was possible that Samantha wore a “removable face” every day. Maybe she had had a horrible accident where her flesh had been mangled. Maybe her face had been melted by acid, or burned by fire, or the skin shorn off by heavy machinery. If it had, I would never know, because she would never tell me, and I would never see it.

I pictured a face of raw, **** muscle, rotting away. Could I kiss her, if that was what I was kissing? But wasn’t that what we all were, under the skin? Just muscle and bone and blood and squishy organs.

I paced around the living room, running my hand through my hair. I liked Samantha, a lot. She was smart, and funny… and beautiful. But was that beauty *real*? Did it count? Did it matter if it was “real” or not? Was I being superficial even worrying about it?

When she came out of the bathroom, I was still there. I looked at her face. She smiled and I was in love.

\*

We dated, we moved in together, we decided to get married.

For the most part, it was a completely normal relationship, typical of two young people in love, building a life together. During the day, it was easy to forget about the face altogether. It looked natural enough, and only in certain positions, in certain lights, was there ever any indication that it *wasn’t* natural.

But every night was the same. Samantha would close herself in the bathroom – sometimes for an hour, sometimes for two – and clean the inside of her face. The curiosity never left me. I would sit there and wonder what was under that face. I came so close to barging in on her a few times, but I never did.

I *did* occasionally ask her about it. About what, if anything, had happened. About how it was possible to make the removable face look so real. About what it really looked like underneath. I tried to coax her into showing me, assuring her that I loved her no matter what, and didn’t give a **** what her real face looked like… I was just curious, that’s all.

She never showed me, or told me the story behind it. She didn’t get upset at me (unless I was really badgering her.) She’d just shrug and say, “You know you can’t see it. You know I can’t tell you about it.”

\*

I never told anybody about Samantha’s removable face. It’s not that she asked me not to. I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business.

Except once, I did tell somebody.

It was during my bachelor’s party. We had rented several cabins in Big Sur and spent the night drinking and packing our noses with powders that we shouldn’t have been packing our noses with. Everyone else had passed out and the sun was creeping up behind us as I stood on the majestic cliffs with my friend Chris, looking down on the pacific waves crashing against the rocks.

Chris was my best friend; as close to a brother as I’d known. We’d grown up together, and visited each other at college often, and spent the summers together. After college, we’d moved to different cities, but we stayed in close contact.

Standing there on the cliffs, I told Chris about Samantha’s removable face. At first, he thought I was joking. Then he had a thousand questions, most of which I couldn’t answer.

“What’s underneath?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t that drive you crazy, not knowing?”

I shrugged. “Lots of stuff I don’t know. Don’t know how to do calculus, and I don’t know what happens when we die.”

“But dude, she’s about to be your *wife*. And you don’t even know what she *looks like*. I mean, I’d have to take a look. Like, you could set a camera up in the bathroom. That’s where she does it, right? Set up a camera and have a look and then you’ll know.”

I sighed. “Yeah, it drives me crazy. I’ve asked her a million times. But she told me I could never look. Gotta respect that, man, even if I don’t like it. That’s love.”

Chris laughed. “*You* telling *me* to respect a woman? Up is down now.”

Then we fell back into talking about old times as a new day dawned.

\*

Chris was in town for business last week, and planned on spending the weekend at our house. The conversation at Big Sur had happened four years ago, and we hadn’t spoken about Samantha’s removable face since, despite keeping in close contact and seeing each other as often as two people transforming into adults in different parts of the country can.

It happened on Saturday evening. We were lounging lazily in the backyard, deep into the beer, having just finished with some grilled steaks, when I got a text from work.

“****,” I groaned. “I have to make a work call.”

“Seriously?” said Samantha, raising an artificial eyebrow. “On a Saturday night?”

“My biggest client, baby. Sorry.”

“It is what it is, I guess,” said my wife. “I’m going to head inside and get cleaned up. Chris? Are you okay just hanging out for a bit?”

Chris smiled. “I'll be fine. Got my beer, got some weeds to pull in your garden. **** knows your lazy-**** husband isn’t going to do it. Those tomatoes are choking to death. It’s a tragedy.”

I rolled my eyes and went into the side yard to make my call.

15 minutes into it, I heard the screams coming from inside. Both my best friend and my wife were wailing in terror.

I dropped the phone and ran into the house and down the hall to our bedroom. Through the open door, I could see that the door to the master bathroom was also standing open.

“Don’t come in!” screamed Samantha. “I don’t have my face on! Call an ambulance! He looked! Oh ****, he looked!” She sounded desperate, and truly horrified. That made me desperate and horrified, and I wanted to rush into the bathroom, but I knew suddenly that that would be a mistake.

I knew suddenly that Samantha didn’t want me to look at her real face not out of a sense of vanity, but for my own safety.

Chris staggered backwards, out of the bathroom. He was holding a straightened out paperclip, which he had used to pick the privacy lock. Now he was stabbing it again and again into his eyes, shouting gibberish. He was clearly in the depths of madness, and it turned my stomach to see him mutilate himself.

“Call a **** ambulance!” my wife screamed. “Don’t come in here! He **** LOOKED!”

I turned and ran back to the side yard, where my phone was lying in the newly mowed grass. My client was still on the line, alarmed, asking what was happening, what all the screaming was. I hung up on him and called 911.

When the paramedics arrived, Chris was having a seizure in the hallway. Samantha was stroking his head, sobbing. Her face was on, but it had been done hastily, and everything looked a little off.

\*

My world has been dark this past week.

My best friend is in a psychiatric hospital under suicide watch. He’s completely blind and mostly catatonic, except when he slips into a violent, babbling mania. The doctors are optimistic that his state is temporary, but they don’t know the truth about what caused it, because I told the paramedics that Chris had taken a large dose of psychedelic mushrooms and fallen into psychosis.

I saw no good reason to tell the truth about what had happened. Who would believe that one look at my wife’s “real” face would make somebody insane? At best, we would be the subjects of a long investigation; at worst, we would have to prove that what we were saying was true, by showing somebody Samantha’s face. Then the same thing would happen again, and what after that? I had no idea, and no interest in finding out. For Samantha’s part, I knew that she would never consent to show anybody her real face, no matter what the consequences of refusal were.

I did get a follow-up call from the police, asking me to confirm my story. The hospital found no traces of psilocybin in Chris’ blood, though that’s not unheard of, since it has a short half-life. If they end up testing his hair, I will likely be in a lot of trouble. But that’s truly the least of my concerns.

Samantha is in a state of her own. She still cleans the inside of her face, though not as regularly, and when she puts it back on, it’s always crooked now. It is beginning to smell a little bit.

I’ve tried to assure her that it wasn’t her fault. “He *knew*,” I said. “I told him that nobody was ever allowed to look at it. He *knew* and then he *broke into the bathroom.* This is not on you, baby. Please. Talk to me.”

“Not on me? That one look at my **** *face* makes people insane? Please. I just need some time alone.”

As for me, I am doing my best to hold it together. Do you know what’s strange, though? Despite what happened to Chris, I still find myself curious about what my wife’s real face looks like. More curious than ever, really.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Sleep Paralysis Demon is Actually A Pretty Chill Guy
 
 Assistant: My first memory of sleep paralysis happened when I was ten years old. I remember because it was the night my parents took me to see Shrek 2 for getting good marks on my report card. It was an evening show, so we got in late and my mom tucked me straight into bed when we got home.

It was around four am when I woke up, the light from my alarm clock told me that much. I couldn't feel anything, not my pajamas against my skin, or the warmth of my head against the pillow. I could feel my arms and legs, but they felt heavy, as if a great weight was holding them down. 

I tried to call out but I couldn’t, my voice caught in my throat, my lips unable to move. I mustered a weak groan that sounded like a cross between a frog’s croak and a zombie’s moan, but that was it. 

I thought I was dead, that this is what death feels like, being awake but unable to move or tell anyone. My mind wrestled with the idea of being placed in a coffin, unable to tell anyone I was still alive in here, unable to move or say anything as the lid closed and they put me in the ground, still alive.

My fear subsided as I felt my heart thudding in my chest in response to my near panic attack. I also became aware of my breathing, which slowed as the fear subsided. I calmed a little, thinking it was just a dream.

That was when I saw him for the first time. Mr. BrownStickLegs.

He huddled in the corner of the room by my closet. His two oversized red eyes glowed in the dark of my bedroom. His face was like a porcelain mask, white, expressionless, with no mouth or nose, only those two haunting red eyes. 

When he stood up, his body unfolded like origami until his head reached the ceiling. His neck bent, tilting forward as his true height was greater than the height of my room. His long black torso was covered in shimmering symbols that reflected red in the light of his glowing eyes. He stood on two spindly thin legs that disappeared into the shadows of the room. 

He made no noise as he moved, seeming to glide as he hovered closer to my bed. His long thin arms reached down to me as I moaned through paralyzed lips. I could not scream, even though I very much wanted to.

His fingers reaching through the darkness, down to my face. Two pointed fingers touched against my eyelids, pushing them closed. I remember his fingertips feeling cool, but not cold. Even though the ends of his fingertips looked sharp, his touch was gentle.

“Do not struggle, little one. Sleep, sleep,” he said. His voice was so deep I could feel it in my chest when he spoke.

I did as instructed, convincing myself that it indeed was a dream. Even if it wasn’t, the back of my eyelids was more reassuring than looking into those piercing red eyes in his vacant mask of a face. I closed my eyes, wanting it to be a dream, willing it to be a dream. I woke up the next morning, thankfully able to move, walk and talk.

I explained what I saw to my parents, who both agreed that it was a dream. My mom tried floating the idea that something from Shrek 2 scared me but neither my dad or I bought it. For confirmation, dad asked that I draw a picture of what I saw for them. As I was drawing, I ran out of black crayon and had to finish his legs with the next darkest color in my crayon box. 

“Hey there, Mister BrownStickLegs,” my Dad said as I handed him the drawing. “You leave my daughter alone now, you hear?”

This is how my sleep paralysis demon ended up with the name Mr. BrownStickLegs. 

Giving him a silly name helped take some of the edge off of going to bed the following night. My dad even did a sweep of the room, calling out for him. “Here Mr. BrownStickLegs,” he said, whistling as if he were calling a dog. It made me giggle and the whole episode felt more fun than scary.

But once they tucked me in and turned off the light, I felt the dread creeping back in. Darkness hits harder when you expect to find something lurking in the shadows. I don’t know how long I searched, but I eventually fell asleep.

In the weeks following, I searched for Mr. BrownStickLegs every night as I fell asleep. Even when I went to sleepovers I would do a cursory check in case he tagged along to a friends house. As time passed, my searches became less frequent. 

It was a couple months later, the night before my first day of 5th grade when I woke up to Mr. BrownStickLegs straddled over my bed, his empty plate of a face inches from my own.

A scream stuck in my throat, coming out sounding like a gush of air releasing from a pool float.

“Hush, child,” he said. His voice was deep, echoless. I didn’t know how he spoke without a mouth, but I heard him nonetheless.

I saw that he held a piece of paper in his thin fingers, crumpled on the edges and torn. He held it up to show me.

On the page was a pink blob with blue dots for eyes and a droll red smile and stick lines for legs and arms. It was lying on a blue rectangle.

“I found the picture you drew of me. So I drew a picture of you,” he said. “Do you like it?”

I tried nodding, but I couldn’t move. I tried answering, but all that came out was the same dry croaking sound. 

“Will you draw another one for me? I so liked the first one, you gave me pants. I look good in pants.”

Again, I was unable to respond or move to give him an answer. He must’ve been able to read my intent, because he tucked the picture under my pillow before closing my eyes again. 

When I woke up in the morning, I bolted upright and tossed my pillow off the bed. My heart leapt into my throat when I found the picture. It wasn’t a dream. He was real. 

I went to my desk and began drawing a picture for him, starting with his face and eyes, trying to capture as much detail as I could remember. I had forgotten all about the first day of school until my mom opened my door and found me still in my pajamas.

“Lexi!” she yelled, startling me as I was coloring in his eyes. “Your bus will be here in less than an hour, get dressed NOW!”

I tucked my picture into my school backpack and got dressed. 

I finished my drawing at recess that day, using my brand new Crayola 64 pack that I got with my back to school supplies. I gave him blue pants this time, figuring he’d like to see himself in jeans. I wrote his name, “Mr. BrownStickLegs” at the bottom of the picture and drew a smileyface next to it, hoping he’d like his nickname. 

I flipped the paper over to write him a message on the back. I wanted to ask him questions, but didn’t want to anger him since he visited me when I was at my most vulnerable. I wrote out my letter on a separate piece of paper before copying it over to the back of my picture.

*Dear Mr. BrownStickLegs (that’s your name),*

*My name is Lexi. I am in the fifth grade. What is your name? How old are you? Do you go to school? Why do you visit my bedroom? Why can’t I move when you visit? You look scary but you also seem nice. I hope we can be friends.*

*Love,*  
*Lexi*

*P.S. I hope you like your blue pants!*

I added another smileyface at the end of the letter, my final emphasis on wanting to be friends. I considered closing with Sincerely, but I figured Love was a better, friendlier choice.

I tucked the picture under my pillow that night, now anxious to see him rather than filled with dread of his reappearance. But like the last time, he did not return the next day. Or the day after. The days stretched into weeks, and every morning I found the picture tucked under my pillow from the night before. 

It wasn’t until Thanksgiving break that I saw him again. My eyes opened as the morning sun poked through the blinds of my bedroom. His body didn’t look any different in the light; in fact, his black skin seemed darker, absorbing the sun’s rays without giving anything back. His eyes seemed wider than before; if he had a mouth I would have figured he was smiling. In his slender fingers was the picture I drew for him.

“Hello Lexi,” he said. “Thank you for the picture, I do look good in blue pants.”

I wanted to smile, but, well, sleep paralysis.

He flipped the picture over to the side with my letter.

“I will answer your questions the best I can. I do not have a name, not one you could ever pronounce, but I am happy for you to call me Mr. BrownStickLegs. As for my age, I exist outside of the construct of time, therefore I am ageless. I do not go to school, nor do I know what school is. Why do I visit you? I visit to feed on the energy of your soul.”

My breath quickened as a mute groan exited my teeth. I wanted to run, wanted to get away from him, but I was pinned down, unable to move.

He sensed my uneasiness and tried to calm me by patting my forehead.

“Let me explain. Have you been to the ocean? It appears vast, almost limitless as you stare out into the blue water, with no visible land on the other side?”

In my mind I was standing on a beach. I felt the salty ocean breeze against my face as I looked out over the massive body of water. The waves crashed at my feet. I felt the rush of water over them followed by the trickle of sand and pebbles as the water drew back.

“Your soul is like an ocean, child. Vast, limitless, undefinable by words to your understanding. I take only a tiny sip, a single glass of water from a vast ocean. I am not one who could consume an entire ocean.”

Dark clouds formed over the water as I stared at the whitecapped waves. The clouds unleashed a heavy downpour, turning the horizon grey as rain fell from the sky over the ocean.

“Just as the rain falls over the ocean, your soul can replenish itself by more than I could ever consume, not even in a thousand of your years. Does that make you feel better?”

On the beach in my mind’s vision, I nodded. In my bedroom, he nodded back at me.

“Good. As for your last question, why you cannot move, we are meeting at a point outside of your time, where your world and mine touch. Your physical body cannot move here but if you persist you can learn to speak to me with your mind, and I will answer your questions in exchange for your drawings. You can draw pictures of whatever you like, I want to know more of your world.”

In my mind, I nodded again.

“This knowledge is a gift so we can understand one another more. I am not one who would hurt you.”

He pressed his fingertips to my eyelids again, closing them. In my mind’s eye, I was still on the beach, but the sun was setting, and no stars were visible through the rain. I drifted back to sleep to the sound of falling rain.

The next morning I asked my parents for a sketchbook and colored pencils. They tried to hold me off until Christmas, but since I spent most of my afternoons and weekends drawing pictures up in my room, Dad let me open one of my gifts a week early, a Strathmore sketchbook with 100 pages with a 50 pack of Crayola colored pencils. 

I started by drawing the rest of my family, Mom, Dad, my little brother Tommy, our cat Libby, and even though he had died, our dog Pancakes. Next I drew our house, then our car, then my school. I kept drawing anything I could think of, trees, birds, insects, until my sketchbook was full. I used my allowance to purchase more books so I could keep drawing. I honed my craft, redoing my earlier drawings in greater detail.

My thoughts considered his wording, “I am not one who could consume an entire ocean.” I wanted to ask him if there were those who could, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know such things.

Mr. BrownStickLegs didn’t return until my Freshman year of high school. To him, it wasn’t like any time had passed.

I read up on lucid dreaming in the time between visits so that when he returned I would be better capable of talking to him. He held my book in his hands, flipping through my drawings, doting over the increased refinement of my drawing skills. I had filled a dozen sketchpads and upgraded from Crayola to Prismacolor Premier pencils for my drawings. 

His biggest surprise was when after he complimented my drawings I spoke to him.

“Thank you.” I said, seeing the words in my mind as I spoke them aloud.

If he had a surprised expression, his eyes showed it.

“You have been very busy, child,” he said. “Do you have any questions you would like to ask?”

I hesitated, but finally formed the words in my mind. “Are there creatures who can consume an entire ocean?”

He didn’t respond right away, which made me think I had not asked properly. As I asked him a second time, he put a finger to my lips as if to shush me.

“There are those who can. They are known as the Dark Ones. They are capable of consuming entire souls, emptying them out, leaving them dry and barren. You should not fear them, but you should also not provoke them.”

His eyes curved downward, as if concerned or afraid.

“What do they look like?” I asked.

In my mind, my visions were filled with images of great, terrible creatures. Spiders taller than the Empire State Building on thin spindly legs of shadow and smoke. Tentacled monsters in the seas lofting blue whales like they were toys, ripping them to shreds with their curved chitinous beaks. Great, gastly flying creatures that knocked over orchards and forests with the beat of their leathery wings. 

“I showed you only because you ask,” Mr. BrownStickLegs said, “but it is best that we don’t talk or think about them. Let them be.”

I nodded in my mind.

He leaned forward and pressed his plate like face to my head as if to kiss me on the forehead, which was odd since he didn’t have a mouth. Then, as usual, he closed my eyes and I drifted back to sleep.

My life took a downturn during the latter years of high school. My Dad lost his job, and when the search for a new one dragged on, he turned to drinking to cope with his failure. He wasn’t abusive, but he wasn’t fun to be around either. 

In the months following, my parents would hush their arguing when I entered the room, greeting me with smiles as if nothing were wrong. That lasted until the day I came home from school to them fighting over a foreclosure notice from the bank. We moved out over a weekend from our home in the suburbs to an apartment on the other side of town.

I internalized my feelings during that time. I withdrew from my friends and school activities besides the art club, the only one we could still afford. I saw my friends driving to school and hanging out while I rode the bus, too poor and too far out of the way to join in. 

My tastes began to change as well. Out was the bubblegum pop of Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Taylor Swift. Instead I listened to Pierce the Veil, Sleeping with Sirens, and Bring Me The Horizon. My clothes and makeup became darker, more black t-shirts and skirts with black eyeliner and black fingernail polish. Mom called it my goth phase, not that she understood.

My drawings became darker too. I moved from colored pencils to charcoal, drawing skulls and gothic looking cemeteries as my passion for drawing animals and flowers waned. 

I also drew the Dark Ones, in great detail, exactly how I remembered them in my mind’s eye.

Mr. BrownStickLegs visited me again a month after we moved into the apartment. He looked more at home in my room of black light posters and deathmetal bands than he did in my previous room. His eyes were dim, not the vibrant red as they were before.

He stared at me as I lay in bed, unable to move. He moved inches from my face as I heard his words in my mind.

“Your soul tastes different now.”

He didn’t speak of my drawings. I worried that he might, especially since I had been drawing the Dark Ones. Not only drawing them, but thinking about them, and what type of damage they could do if they were to wake.

He seemed sad for me, although reading his expression was difficult with no face. He patted my forehead like before, but didn’t close my eyes before leaving as he used to.

My life continued its spiraling path like a bottle rocket with a broken stick. My parents didn’t talk outside of short conversations about which bills to pay and which ones to ignore. Each night, Dad disappeared into a bottle while Mom disappeared online to chat with a male Facebook friend she knew from high school. 

The thing about rock bottom is that it’s often a disguise for a trap door that drops you to an even lower depth than you thought possible.

The first bottom came when my father died. Drove off the road into a gravel pit late at night with an empty bottle of bourbon in the passenger seat. I cried, but it felt hollow. I felt hollow. Even when mom tried to hold me, I felt nothing inside, not sadness, not guilt, not anything.

I disappeared into my sketchbooks, drawing even darker, more disturbing images. Death, dismemberment, vividly accurate vivasections of the cute animals I used to enjoy drawing. My friends no longer talked to me, which was fine because I didn’t want to talk to them anymore anyways. I found people to hang out with, not friends, but people who could get me access to moments of chemical induced euphoria to forget about life for a while.

Just like that, the trap door opened, dropping me to a new rock bottom of addiction. One thing I had that in common with my dad, but instead of falling into a bottle, I fell into a needle. I stole money from my Mom’s purse to feed my habits, not that she noticed. She was busy with her old Facebook friend who had moved from online acquaintance to nightly sleepover companion.   When the time came to begin my senior year I didn’t bother going back. 

 I kept drawing, filling entire sketchbooks with the dark images that reflected my bleak outlook on life. The Dark Ones were prevalent subjects during this period of my life. I drew them feasting on humanity, raking flesh from bone in their jagged teeth behind lips of smoke.

I came home one night to find my mom and her new male friend in the middle of a fight. It was different from her fights with dad, more violent, more physical. When he raised his hand at me for trying to intervene, I decided it was time to bolt. 

I left home, hitching rides with anyone with a set of wheels I could manage to put up with for short periods of time. My preference leaned toward those with access to the chemical release I craved. The more I could numb, the more I could escape. 

I found certain drug combinations had similar effects to sleep paralysis, where my mind’s ability to control my body’s action became severed. In those moments of numbed paralysis I’d see Mr. BrownStickLegs watching from afar as I dulled the pain. I saw what I perceived as the Dark Ones too, but they weren’t hiding in the shadows like Mr. BrownStickLegs did. 

They were the shadows. 

I called out to them as well, for in those moments I wanted nothing more than to be hollowed out and empty, a void so dark no pain could ever **** it. When they didn’t answer, I called out to Mr. BrownStickLegs, but he would vanish every time. Perhaps it was all just a drug fueled hallucination.

Overdosing was never my intention. I was pushing too much, trying to find the edge of the void after feeling so low, so very low, searching for that something extra to filter out the background noise. I took it too far, giving myself a near-lethal dose. At one moment, I was lying next to strangers on a stained mattress in an abandoned warehouse. Then came the initial rush of euphoric bliss. And then, nothing.

Whoever I was traveling with at the time dumped me on the curb in front of the ER, making me someone else’s problem. 

This was my rock bottom moment, although at the time, it felt more like freefall.   

I spent three weeks in a coma. I was aware of my surroundings, and could hear the doctors and nurses as they checked my vitals and tended to my cleanliness and upkeep, but I couldn’t move or speak. 

At the end of my third week in the ICU on an incubator, I looked up to find Mr. BrownStickLegs hovering over me, his round red eyes peering through the darkness.

“What have you done to yourself, child?” his voice spoke inside my mind. 

In my mind, I was beside him, standing in the middle of a vast salt flat desert. The ground was cracked and dry in a hexagonal pattern that stretched in all directions.

“This is your soul now, there is nothing left to drink.”

I heard my beep of my heart rate monitor back in my hospital room speed up as fear entered my mind.

“I called out to the Dark Ones,” I said. “I asked for them to come. They emptied me out, emptied my soul.”

“No, my child. **You** did this. You have not replenished, you have only consumed. And now, nothing remains.”

I dropped to my knees in the middle of the salt as I felt a rumbling deep inside the hollow pit of my stomach. 

I leaned forward onto my arms, but they were no longer my arms. They were pitch black and empty. I could feel them, but when I looked at them, they were empty voids of smoke and shadow. I stood up on my legs, but they were no longer my legs. The darkness swirled up my torso and down my arms. The emptiness inside me consumed my entire body until only my head remained. 

“What’s happening to me?”

I heard a snap as my arms and legs split, forming eight black, spindly thin legs. I collapsed onto them, unable to support myself.

Mr. BrownStickLegs glided down in front of my face, his eyes inches from my own.

“As I told you, child, only the Dark Ones have the ability to consume an entire ocean of a soul. That is your fate. That is what you will become.”

Back in the room, my heart rate monitor crashed to a flatline. I felt the cold darkness swirl up my neck to my head as the void consumed me. I was aware of the nurses and doctors huddled around my body, prepping the crash cart, but all I felt was the cold consuming what was left of me.

“Help me,” I uttered. “Please.”

My physical body jolted from the electric paddles, but I felt nothing. Only the cold darkness. A needle injected into my IV line as they recharged for another burst of electricity. Still I felt nothing. Only cold, only darkness, only the vast emptiness of the void.

Mr. BrownStickLegs tilted his head as he stared through his unblinking red eyes. He leaned forward, pressing his plate like face to my forehead. I felt a vibration against my skin, followed by the tingling sensation of heat returning. The darkness receded back down my arms and legs. 

As he pulled back, the red in his eyes had diminished.

“A gift, for the girl who gave me pants.”

A tear formed in my eye. It rolled down my cheek and fell onto the parched landscape below. Before I could say anything, an electronic jolt coursed through my body, pulling me away from the salt flat expanse and back to my hospital room.

The sinus rhythm of my heart rate monitor returned to normal. I felt the cool gel of the defibrillator paddles against my chest. I remember squeezing the hand of one of the attending nurses, who smiled down at me.

“Look who’s awake.”

I cried, but it was different than before. I felt the pain I had long been avoiding, but I felt something else as well. I felt grateful, and I felt a sense of hope I hadn’t known in a long time.

It was a long road back from the darkness, but the thing about the road to recovery is that, like a road, it leads to a destination. After years of listless drifting towards the void, having a destination was an important first step in finding self-love.

I reconnected with my mother, who was struggling with her own form of the darkness. We leaned on one another, talking and going to therapy as we worked through the issues that drove us apart. After my release from the hospital I moved back home with her, her Facebook friend long gone. I got my GED and used my many sketchbooks as a portfolio to get an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlor.

I've been clean for four years now, and it feels good to smile again. Granted, I still prefer Pierce the Veil to anything from Katy Perry’s catalogue, and my tattoos and jewelry have more skulls than fluffy bunnies, but that's all on the surface. I no longer crave the darkness to consume me. 

I often think about the vision with Mr. BrownStickLegs on the salt flats that night in the hospital. I had not seen him since that night, and I often wonder about the state of my soul since that day. Has it replenished or is it still the dried up barren wasteland that he took me to on the night? 

Last night, around three in the morning, I finally got my answer.

I woke up with a heaviness on my chest, arms and legs. At first I felt the grips of fear grabbing hold, much like the first time I experienced it. But then in the dark corner of my room, I saw glowing red eyes staring back at me from the shadows.

In spite of my sleep paralysis, couldn’t help but smile when I heard his voice call out to me.

[“Child, your soul tastes much better now.”](https://www.reddit.com/user/writechriswrite/comments/imhx3b/socialchrissocial/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: All of the women in my family die at age 27. I turn 28 in 2 hours and 32 minutes.
 
 Assistant: My dad always wanted a son. He got three daughters instead.

He hated us all, hated my twin sisters, hated my mother… but hated me most of all because I was the last child my mother had before she died. That didn’t stop him from treating me like his little boy, didn’t stop him from attempting to beat the hatred of my own gender into me. *Quit your crying*, he’d snap, *or you’ll end up like your sniveling **** of a mother*. After years of that ****, he was shocked that I grew up as a tomboy.

I think he hated that even more because I was just a constant reminder of what he never got to have.

My mother died when she was only twenty-seven, when I was only four – the coroner ruled her death a natural passing, some weird heart complication that took her in her sleep. My dad, though, he says it was because of her family’s curse. Whenever I came to him, desperate for more information about a mother I never really knew, he never had much to say. I’m convinced he was just **** since the day she died. *Every woman in her **** family, they die when they’re twenty-seven*, he’d sputter in between belches, his breath reeking of stale beer.

I think the real curse is that my mom was the one to die, and not him.

I wasn’t fully convinced by the ramblings of a perpetually **** man, but when I lost both of my sisters just months before their twenty-eighth birthday, I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. Moira was found murdered, her face practically blasted off by a shooter while she was on a jog. Joy took her own life only days later. I was the one who found her, hanging in the bedroom of her apartment as I came to pick her up for Moira’s funeral. She’d been there, swinging from the rafters, all night.

It’s hard to live a normal life when you know you have an expiration date, especially when it encompasses an entire year. I always dreaded my birthday, which from an early age became associated less with fun and birthday cake and more with worry and funeral caskets. But once Moira and Joy died, my next birthday – twenty-five – was the most dreadful day of my life. Twenty-six was worse, twenty-seven unimaginable.

*This is it*, I thought as I closed all of the blinds in my apartment, downing the last drop of **** in the bottle. *This is the last year of my life.*

Twenty-seven has been uneventful, to say the least. Why would I make any long-term plans, forge any meaningful relationships when I know they simply cannot last? The worst part of this last year has been simply *not* knowing when my impending death is coming – it could have been any day within the last three hundred and sixty-four. It could be within the next minute.

I must admit I became something of a recluse, my windows always shuttered, additional locks installed in my door, letting the phone ring through to voicemail, hiding under my covers with the lights out whenever I got a knock on my door. I stocked up on preserved foods and various goods that I would need to last the year. I was so paranoid that I even covered my mail slot, stuffed a towel in the space beneath my front door. I didn’t want anything getting through from the outside world – **** forbid, an *anthrax letter*.

Falling off the face of the earth didn’t matter much, anyway – I didn’t have friends or family anymore. My mother and both of my sisters were dead, and my dad disowned me when I came out as a lesbian after my sisters died. I moved away and severed contact soon after.

The night before my twenty-seventh birthday, I started getting these strange phone calls from a blocked number. I’ve always had anxiety about phone calls, so I just let it ring. The number kept calling, at least once per day throughout the past year. Then the knocking started, once a week at first, but it’s only been getting worse – more frequent, and the pounding on my door more frantic each time. Convinced it had something to do with my inevitable death, I’ve been driven mad by the unknown visitor, especially over the past week.

I got ready for bed last night, knowing that tomorrow – today, now – is the day I will turn 28. My time had run out, and I searched for comfort in a bottle of liquor. I didn’t find it. I fell into bed, **** and delirious, and prayed the morning wouldn’t come, though I knew it would. I eventually got to sleep, but it was restless and unsatisfying. The kind of sleep where you feel like you have one eye open, always watching.

That’s why I was quick to wake when the door to my bedroom creaked open early in the morning, before the first sign of light. I shot up in my bed, glancing around my room in a frenzied panic, at first seeing nothing out of the ordinary other than the door, pushed slightly ajar. A closer look revealed something I’d missed, something that sent my heart racing, froze me to my core. Two dark figures stood in the empty space behind the half-opened door, unmoving, almost like a pair of statues.

Waiting. Watching. Wordless.

“Leave me… leave me alone,” I squeaked, unable to move, paralyzed in the power of their presence.

The shadowy figures instead shuffled out from behind the door, creeping slowly towards me in the dark. I knew this would certainly be the end of my life, the fulfillment of my curse, if I didn’t act. Suddenly recalling the self-defense methods I’d drilled into my mind, I flipped my bedside lamp on to stun the intruders and reached underneath the table to pull the knife I’d duct taped there a year ago – a twenty-seventh birthday gift to myself.

As soon as the light flooded the room, though, I knew the blade would be of no use.

My intruders were not a pair of assassins – not human ones, at least. In the yellow light of the lamp I discerned the identities of the dark figures. They were my sisters. Joy stood at the foot of my bed, pale, in that same conservative black dress I’d found her dead in years ago, the one she’d picked out for Moira’s funeral. Her head hung parallel to her shoulders, neck grotesquely bent from her hanging.

Moira was a few steps behind her. I could only assume it was her, considering the severity of her injuries – she’d suffered a gunshot wound to the head, so brutal that we were not allowed to see her after her death, so intense that it had entirely disfigured her face. The lower half of her face had been reduced to a pit of gore, her jawbone barely attached on one side, her mouth mangled, with only several teeth remaining studded randomly throughout the mess.

“Why are you here?” I cried, gathering my knees to my chest and holding them tight. “Are you… are you here to take me?”

Joy made a feeble attempt to shake her head, the side of her face only brushing weakly against her shoulder. She waited several moments before putting one of her feet in front of the other, moving towards the side of my bed. As I recoiled instinctively, she slowed her pace. Moira trailed after her until they were both beside me.

I whimpered as Joy leaned over me, her head flopping forward suddenly with the motion, neck cracking sickeningly. With her lips brushing against my ear, she whispered, “she… she tried.” Her speech was labored and wheezing, as if her vocal cords had nearly been shredded.

“What do you mean, Joy?” I pleaded.

Her lips moved against my ear once more, but no sounds came out despite a clear strenuous effort. Moira wagered an attempt at answering my query, but only succeeded in sputtering blood from the gaping wound in her face, ejecting one of her remaining teeth onto the floor as her jawbone swung precariously, barely hanging on. She raised one hand, slowly curling it into a fist before striking her knuckles furiously against my bedpost.

The incessant sounds startling me, I forced my eyes shut tight and pulled my knees even closer against my chest. Moira’s knocking seemed only to escalate in volume, seemed to go on forever, until – finally – it stopped. I cracked my eyes open to find that both of my sisters had vanished, that the light of early morning had begun to spill in through the slats of my blinds. It was just past six o’clock, the seventh of June, the day of my twenty-eighth birthday.

I was born at 9:26 AM – once I learned of the curse, I burned the time of my ultimate expiration into my mind. I only had three hours and sixteen minutes left to live… if I even *had* that long. Draping my covers over my head, I resolved to spend the rest of my life asleep. I figured I’d rather pass peacefully in my sleep like my mother did than to suffer a fate similar to my sisters’.

My plans were interrupted, however, by that damned knocking on the door. The interruption usually didn’t come so early in the morning. I decided initially to ignore the strange visitor but pulled the blankets back down soon after as a certain sense of familiarity struck me. The pounding on the door reminded me all too much of Moira’s knocking just moments before.

It easily could have been a trick of the curse, but something compelled me to approach the door. “What do you want?” I called from behind the barrier, clinging to the relative safety it provided.

The reply came from an unfamiliar man’s voice. “I just have a letter for you, miss.”

“Just… just slide it under the door, and please leave,” I returned, using my bare foot to remove the towel I used to block the small space beneath it.

He deposited a bright yellow envelope under the door as I requested. I waited quietly for the sounds of receding footsteps before sliding on a pair of gloves to handle the letter. It was addressed to me, simply by first name and with no address. Carefully, I unsealed the envelope to reveal a birthday card. I hadn’t received one in years.

Bright, sparkling letters on the front formed the words, *Daughter, you’re 27!*. I scoffed at the sick joke. I hadn’t received a birthday card since I was a child, and my dad couldn’t even get my birthday right. I didn’t think he even knew my address. I cracked it open gingerly to read the message inside.

*Laura,*

*If you’re reading this, your father has killed me. Don’t believe a thing he or the police say – I was not the target of a random attack, I did not die of natural causes, and I certainly did not commit suicide. I would never leave you if I had the choice.*

*The truth is… I died is because I found the truth behind my family’s curse and foolishly told your father. He was in on it the whole time, planted in my life by some secret society to eradicate me. To eradicate us. What we have is not a curse, it is a gift – a gift of immense power. The power to heal, but the power to harm just the same.*

*We come into our power at the age of 28, a number associated with independence, leadership, and self-sufficiency. An age where we can handle the responsibility such a power inevitably comes with. It’s a strong number, and you will come into great strength, though you’ve always been a strong girl.*

*I hope you’ve made it this far, but at the same time… I know you have. You were always a feisty little girl for the four years I had the pleasure of knowing you, of loving you. You never let anyone tell you what to think or do – especially not your father.*

*Happy birthday – I love you.*

*Mom*

I closed the card softly, thinking on the strained words of my sister – mom had tried to warn them, but they didn’t listen. The pieces of the puzzle slid into place… my dad must have murdered Moira, and Joy ended her own life out of grief and a belief that she would inevitably be next.

At the time of writing this, I only have two hours and thirty-two minutes until I officially turn twenty-eight. Over the past hour or so, I’ve already begun to feel the power flowing into my body, electrifying as it runs through my veins. I will the towel to reposition itself under the door, and it does so, sliding across the floor on its own.

I need to keep myself safe until 9:26, after all. I’m planning on surprising my father with a visit [for my birthday](https://www.reddit.com/r/hercreation/).

I | [II](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/h8sukx/all_of_the_women_in_my_family_die_at_age_27_i/) | [III](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/hilfi8/all_of_the_women_in_my_family_die_at_age_27_i/) | [IV](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/hrlgto/all_of_the_women_in_my_family_die_at_age_27_i/)

[X](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My sister discovered a universal language, but she hasn't spoken a word since 2003
 
 Assistant: My sister is a genius. When she was about thirteen she made this device that honestly still blows my mind. I’ve spent my entire life studying physics and I still don’t know what she did, or how—which is probably for the best considering how this all played out. I don’t know how she did it, but what I do know is in the summer of 2003 the laws governing matter and atomic mass didn’t seem to affect her anymore, she was invisible to the human eye, and she was speaking a universal language we’ve never been able to identify or reproduce.

Before I get into this, though, have you ever seen Firefly?

Allow me to quote:

*I am very smart.*

*I went to the best medic-ed in Osiris, top 3% of my class; finished my internship in eight months. ‘Gifted’ is the term.*

*So when I tell you that my little sister makes me look like an idiot child, I want you to understand my full meaning.*

This could have been written about me and my sisters. We come from a long line of gifted people. My father is a neurologist, my mother works for SpaceX, and my eldest sister is an artist whose work has been featured in galleries since she was twelve. I’m a full-time research associate of high energy density physics at a university I can’t name without risking my career. And, like Simon Tam from Firefly before me, I don’t tell you all of this to flaunt our intelligence or to make us look special. I tell you this so you can fully understand what I mean when I say Nirali made us *all* look like idiot children.

In 2003 I was about to turn seventeen. My interests weren’t like most teen girls, so I won’t bore you with the details of what I found more entertaining than TV, books, or the mall, but more often than not I was occupied with personal research projects. The first time Nirali made herself invisible I was in the middle of a research rabbit hole. I was deep into some really heady academic articles when I heard Nirali pipe up behind me.

“They’re wrong, you know.”

I groaned inwardly. We’d had the knocking talk, but she was still so bad at respecting boundaries. “Nirali, what did we say about knocking?”

“Oh,” she said, and sounded genuinely surprised. “I didn’t think about the door.”

“What?” I frowned and spun my chair around to look at her.

My room was empty.

*Wait, empty?*

I looked around briefly before rubbing my eyes, wondering when I’d slept last and already writing the conversation off as an auditory hallucination. Shaking my head, I started to turn back to my computer when I heard her giggle.

“Alright, jerkhole. Where are you?”

“Right here,” she giggled, her voice coming from directly in front of me.

“What the—how? Did you hide the speakers again?” I stood up, taking a moment to really look around the room. She’d pulled a prank like this before, hiding a complex set of speakers she’d modified to create a confluence of sound she could manipulate. It would sound like someone was anywhere in the room she specified. She’d even made it sound like she was moving around. It was really impressive, especially since she’d only been ten at the time.

This time, though, she’d either gotten much better at hiding the speakers or something else was going on.

She giggled again. “No speakers! Just me!”

“Okay, ‘Just Me’. But how?” I folded my arms, looking in the direction of her disembodied voice.

“That’s going to be hard to explain.”

That was Nirali for “you won’t get it”.

“Try me,” I said, because I’m stubborn.

She did, though, and I didn’t. I had the beginnings of a migraine chewing on my right eye by the time she was done. Almost none of it made sense. There was something about atomic frequencies, and post-dimensional drift, superliminal desynchronization, and something she’d dubbed the “Planck Supratemporal Parallel”. It was all way over my head.

“Okay,” I said, rubbing my temple as I tried to digest it all. “But how did you get here.”

“I walked.”

*Infuriating.*

“I mean, how did you get *in* here?” I gestured widely to the door, which was closed, and the walls around us.

“Oh.” I could hear the shrug in her voice. “I just walked where the walls weren’t.”

I squinted at the spot I thought she was standing.

“You… what?”

She sighed. It was a special sigh. It was the kind of sigh that told you someone much smarter than you was put out at having to dumb something down enough for you to understand. An embarrassed heat flooded my cheeks. I knew she was smarter than me—smarter than all of us—but it still made me feel like I’d failed simple math in front of Neil DeGrasse Tyson and a puppy, and they were both disappointed.

“I walked where the walls weren’t. The walls aren’t everywhere, Divya. In fact, in most places, like… realities? The walls aren’t there at all. So I just walked in those places.”

I wanted to see the proofs of this statement, though I knew she wouldn’t have bothered writing them down except in scraps and incomplete snippets that only made sense to her. I also knew the proofs wouldn’t make any more sense than her original explanation. Even so, it bothered me that I only understood what she meant in the vaguest, most conceptual way. It wasn’t natural for me. That abstractness of thought warred with the linear way of my brain making actual understanding impossible and I hated it.

Sana would have understood. Her brain worked that way. But not mine.

I must have looked like I was struggling with it (and I was), because she continued on.

“Where I am, or technically when and how, everything is a Schrödinger’s puzzle of Is and Isn’t. All I have to do is observe the places where the state of something Isn’t and go there.”

This wasn’t helping. I mean, it was—I got the basic concept of what she was saying, but in terms of the practical application of physics it was a mess of meaningless sciencey buzz words. Nothing she said had any foundation in known science. She could have told me “I ate ice cream upside down and chanted ‘purple’ backwards thirty times and the wall turned to Jell-O, but only as long as I looked at it from a forty-five-degree angle,” and it would have been exactly as scientifically sound as what she’d actually said.

Yet she was the one who was invisible, so the limits of my understanding and science itself had no bearing on her corporeal existence.

“Do you still have a body? I mean, can you see you?”

“Oh yeah,” she said, her voice pitched higher in excitement. “I look like a hundred versions of me laid on top of each other. Looking at my hands and stuff is kinda trippy, but I’m here.”

Cool. I had no idea what to do with this information.

She started giggling again.

“What now?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t noticed yet.”

“Noticed what?” I couldn’t keep the flash of irritation out of my voice. It wasn’t easy to accept the premise that she’d managed to trick physics into letting her pass through matter while being imperceptible to the human eye, but I’d had just about all the *How Much Dumber Than Nirali Are You* I could take for one day.

“What language am I speaking?”

I had to blink at that and think a moment. “It’s English, isn’****?”

She giggled again.

“Say something,” I ordered in my most authoritative Big Sister voice.

“*Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure…*”

If I concentrated, I could tell the words I she was saying didn’t quite match what I was apparently translating in my head, but I couldn’t hear them for what they were. Except… 

“Wait, is that the ‘*lorem ipsum*’ translation from De finibus bonorum et malorum?”

She giggled again. “Yep! Want me to try something in Hindi?”

“Yeah,” I said, a little stunned and more than a little curious. “Go for it.”

“*May He in whose lap shines forth the Daughter of the mountain king, who carries the celestial stream on His head, on whose brow rests the crescent moon, whose throat holds poison and whose breast is support of a huge serpent, and who is adorned by the ashes on His body, may that chief of gods, the Lord of all, the Destroyer of the universe, the omnipresent Śhiva, the moon-like Śańkara, ever protect me.*”

I frowned, torn between focusing on the words and trying to identify what she was quoting. I started mouthing some of the words as my mind ran back over them, and gawped a little as recognition settled in. “Did you just quote the Ramcharitmanas’ Ayodhyā Kāṇḍ invocation?”

Another giggle.

“But… how? That didn’t sound like Hindi at all!”

“Fascinating,” she said. “It didn’t feel like Hindi when I said it, but I was thinking the Hindi words. What did it sound like to you?”

“English, I guess. I mean, it didn’t *sound* like anything, but I understood you in English.”

“That’s so cool. Can you actually hear something other than English?”

“Kinda. I mean, almost. If I try I can tell the sounds you’re making don’t match the meaning of the words I’m… not hearing, but understanding? But the meaning overrides everything else so I can’t actually identify individual sounds or phrases.”

“Do you think you could identify the physical linguistics if we went word by word? It may be the processing of complete phrases prevents the identification of individual phonemes.”

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging, still trapped in awe of this aspect of her discovery. “We could try it.”

She had me run her through some general object identification to give me a chance to listen for the sounds she was making and how they differed from the words I knew—the words I was “hearing”—but I only ever caught the ghosts of divergent beginnings and ends.

She thought this was hilarious.

I thought it was magical.

She started making regular trips to my room in this state, usually after lights out or when our parents were at work. I didn’t blame her for sneaking. Sana wasn’t into the science stuff, and if our parents knew what we’d been up to we’d have been grounded for life, especially since Nirali had already been banned from experimental projects at home. (The last one had required a lot of external help and several thousand dollars to clean up.) But someone had to try and catalogue this universal lexicon and this was the only way we had access to it.

One night, as we lay awake on the floor naming objects (we’d tried making individual sounds before, but without the intent of meaning behind them there was no divergence), Nirali froze. I couldn’t see her, of course, but something changed. She stilled to the point I worried she’d maybe phased through the floor or something and left me alone. But somehow I still felt her presence along with something sharp and alien I couldn’t identify.

“Nirali?” I whispered, cold unease settling on me like snow.

“Shh.” It was her, but so quiet I almost missed it. I felt the urgency behind it, though, and hushed to wait in the silence with her.

As the seconds ticked by a prickling dread crawled across the room. It started at the edges where the shadows were thickest and spread outward, tainting everything it touched including me. My pulse quickened as a primal paranoia sank in. I knew it was just Nirali and me, but it felt like a predator was stalking the shadows, searching for us, and it was only our silence that kept it from pouncing.

To keep the paranoia at bay, I focused on the warm red readout of the clock above my desk. The slowly changing numbers were soothing and hypnotic. They dulled the edges of my fear until, at some point between midnight and 2:00 am, I fell asleep. I only realized this when Nirali finally whispered my name, pulling me back to reality.

“Divya, wake up…”

“Hm?” I swam back to consciousness slowly, shaking off the half-formed discomfort of a dream I couldn’t remember.

“It’s gone now.”

“What’s gone?” I rubbed the sleep still clogging my vision and blinked at the clock above my desk. So late… had we really been laying on the floor for two hours?

Nirali didn’t answer. Not for a long time. Long enough that I thought maybe I’d dreamed her waking me up, entirely.

“The shadow behind the walls,” she whispered, cutting the silence away like cobwebs. There was a weight to her words I couldn’t describe that tickled the primal centers of my brain again; an ancient urge calling to me, telling me to hide.

“The… what?” I croaked, propping myself up on my elbows, but Nirali was gone. Not just quiet. There was a difference in the room when she left, and I could always sense it. Even if she didn’t say she was going.

A few minutes later she was at my bedroom door actually knocking. The sound startled me, giving my heart a sudden workout with a spike of adrenaline. I snuck over to the door to let her in, too keenly aware of the night around me and jumping at shadows I suddenly worried couldn’t be trusted. Without a word she slipped past me and crawled into bed, hiding beneath the covers with her knees against the wall and her back to me. I took my cue as it was offered and crawled in behind her, offering myself as protection against the night.

Sleep was slow in coming as my body flushed the survival instinct from its veins, but eventually it must have come as the next thing I knew the sun was peeking through the windows and Nirali was watching me sleep.

“Divya?” Nirali said my name like she was testing it, as if she didn’t expect to hear it again.

“Yeah?”

“Nothing,” she said, curling back under the covers before adding, “thanks.”

It was a week before she came to me through the walls again.

“I think it’s drawn to the language,” she said, pulling me out of a dream about superfluid.

“What is,” I yawned, oddly comfortable with the resumption of our nightly conversations.

“The shadow behind the walls.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know. Something big. Something old. Older than time, maybe.”

“What’s with the Sana talk? ‘Older than time’?”

“I don’t know, Divya, that’s just what it feels like.”

She was always like this, caught somewhere between science and emotion, like the perfect cross between me and Sana. I think it allowed her to think abstractly enough to escape the box of The Known to innovate, while remaining linear enough to build a new box to house her innovations. But sometimes it meant she didn’t have the math to back it up. Sometimes it was just a feeling or the hint of a notion, but even then Nirali’s feelings were always spot on, even if it took science a few decades to prove it.

“Alright,” I said, accepting that answer.

It was odd, I realized then, how a few weeks of exposure to what my mind told me was factually impossible opened me to the flexibility of The Possible. I was surprised, too, when I noticed my first instinct wasn’t to challenge her or demand proof just because what she said was beyond my experience or immediate comprehension. Instead, I would nod and accept that what she said—what she experienced—was simply truth and the limitations of my understanding couldn’t change that.

“What does it want?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it talks. But, I think it listens. And understands.”

“That’s… unsettling,” I said, shifting under the covers. The superstitious child in me made sure my feet were hidden in the center of the bed because the shadows still couldn’t be trusted.

She hummed her agreement. “It’s not the only thing here, though.”

A chill surged through me, prompting my heart into a panicked gallop. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there are other things. Big things. Old things. Most of them can’t see me, I think. I’m not really where they are, same as I’m not really where you are, but they can hear me, same as you.”

“Are you safe?”

Nirali was silent. My stomach churned, because I knew it meant something big, and old, and dangerous was near enough to pose a threat. After several minutes passed, she answered.

“Sometimes…”

“Only sometimes?” I sat up, staring at the spot on the floor where she would have been seated.

“Only sometimes.”

“Then why are we still doing this, Nirali?? I wouldn’t have agreed if I knew you were in danger!”

“I know,” she said quietly. “But there’s so much here. If I focus on a color I can experience everything that color has ever been and ever will be. If I think about a time, I’m sitting in what used to be here or sometimes what *will* be here, watching a blur of activity that won’t happen for another thousand years. I’ve seen cities you can’t even begin to imagine made of glittering bone and glass. Monolithic wonders to shame the gods. Last night I was standing in the center of a black hole. Not a hologram or a simulation, but an actual black hole. Captured, contained, reproduced, harnessed, I don’t know what, but it was here and so was I and through the black hole I saw so many other universes, all laid out like mirrors into infinity.”

“Nirali,” I whispered, both awed and terrified. Had she been experiencing these things every night? All the hours we talked about nothing and nonsense?

“But there are also bigger things,” she said, her voice dipping into darkness. “Things that hide in the glint of starlight on glass. Things that follow me back from the future and wait for me in the past. They skip like stones on water, only touching the surface for a minute and never with their whole selves. But even that much is too much. It hurts to look at them. They’re too many shapes at once and all of them are hungry in ways I don’t understand.”

Tears welled in my eyes as I listened to her. It hurt to accept these things as truth. I couldn’t understand them or touch them or even experience them myself, but I had to accept they were real, because my sister was invisible. She could pass through matter at will and spoke a universal language to me every night. But accepting all that also meant accepting that my sister spent every night compelled by her own curiosity to go back to this dangerous state again and again, only to be terrified by what waited In Between.

“I’m glad they can’t see me, but I don’t think that will be true much longer.”

“What? Why?”

“The shadow behind the walls has been in my room all week. I can feel it following me around. It’s listening now, but I don’t think it will come in your room again.”

“Nene! You have to stop this!”

“I can’t,” she said, her voice thick with imminent tears.

“Of course you can. Just come back and we’ll destroy whatever you’ve been using to shift. We can fix this.”

“No,” she said, the word wet and bent beneath an anguish no thirteen-year-old should have known. “You don’t understand.”

“What could possibly be worth the risk??”

My heart broke in the silence that stretched between us. An eternity of pain and longing swirled between us and one final fragile breath spoke of the tears she held back when she found her voice again.

“I can’t speak English anymore.”

I didn’t understand. Like the first time she described the math to me this statement defied understanding.

“What do you mean you can’t speak English anymore?”

“I mean I can’t speak anything but this **** Between language, Divya. I tried and tried all week, but all that comes out now is this **** mess of gurgles and scrapes and noises I don’t recognize and I’m so scared. I’m so scared, because they can still hear me when I’m out there with you and out there I’m not invisible. And you, and Sana, and mom and dad aren’t invisible. And none of us are safe when I’m out there. And the only time I can talk right is when I’m in here,” she sobbed. “When I’m here with you.”

My heart turned somersaults in my stomach. I let this happen. I should have stopped her the day she showed me her **** science-shattering trick.

“Nene,” I whispered, and all I wanted to do was hold her until everything was right. “You have to come back. I don’t know what we’ll do to fix this, but you can’t stay there.”

“I know,” she said through a heavy veil of tears. “I just didn’t want to lose you. To lose us.”

“You still have me!”

“But I won’t out there! Not like this.”

I didn’t have a good answer for her. “We’ll find a way to fix it,” was all I could say, and we both knew it wasn’t enough. We also knew that it had to be, because we didn’t have a choice.

I felt her presence fade and a few minutes later there was a quiet knock at my door. Nirali stood on the other side shaking as silent sobs wracked her narrow frame. I gathered her up, shutting the door behind her, and together we curled around each other on the floor and cried. We cried until we passed out from exhaustion and woke up long after the sun had risen.

I woke to Nirali watching me again and blinked away the haze of tear-stained sleep.

“Nirali?”

She nodded, mute; a sadness hanging over her shoulders.

“Can you…?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing?”

She glanced up, looking over me and toward the hall as someone passed by. I could tell a million thoughts were flitting through her head in that moment, most of them conflicting, but after a minute or so a stony resolution had settled in her eyes and she scooted closer, waving for me to do the same.

Her mouth was almost against my ear when something unimaginably foul rattled from her lips.

A shudder of revulsion rocked through me at the sound of each mangled phoneme. I’ve never been so disgusted and terrified in my life. I could hear her voice, but it was dripping with caustic venom, dragging over hot coals, buried in the deepest ocean and clawing at the edges of sanity with angry talons. It was wrong. And to this day it was the most vile, viscerally upsetting experience of my life.

The words, this language, was never meant to be spoken by man. Science won’t support me, but I know in my bones these words have power man wasn’t meant to use. 

And yet, despite my mind rebelling from the mere sound of her voice warped around these hideous words, I still knew what she’d meant as if she’d said it in English. 

[*Don’t tell mom and dad.*](https://www.reddit.com/r/DeathByProxy/comments/bqlim4/my_sister_discovered_a_universal_language_meta/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Answered a Spam Call
 
 Assistant: "**Hello, is this Mr. Henderson?**"

There was no real reason for me to pick up the phone. The spam app on my cell called out the mystery number right away. But, ****, I thought. **** it. There was no one else left in life for me to talk to. Even a debt collector sounded good at the  moment.

My wife was murdered in 2015. There really isn’t an easy way to say that other than getting it out of the way early. It was a random robbery gone wrong. One rainy night, some sick tweaking **** snuck into our house and shot her. 

The suspect was caught, two days later, and sentenced to life in prison. He still sits there today. 

I have worked in web development ever since. The job is remote, and the field caters to my hermit-like behavior out here in the woods of northern New Jersey. The lack of drug testing is really just an added benefit. I was perfectly free to **** the remainder of my own life. 

I don't have any friends, anymore. Not really. Sometimes... I guess it is easy to look for companionship in all the wrong places. 

"*Senior or junior?*" I replied to the lady with a sigh before settling into the armchair in my office with a bottle of wine. It was raining that night. The wind whipped the old pine tree in our back yard so hard I thought it might topple. 

"**Uhh... Senior,**" said the pretty, calm voice on the other line. She sounded familiar, but I blamed that notion on the half empty bottle of wine. 

"*Apologies, ma'am, but... Senior died six years ago.*" I said, a little annoyed at the lack of record keeping at this place.

She paused.

"**Oh gosh... gosh that is not what we have here. I am so sorry, Sir. We were not aware. Please forgive the intrusion and assumption. Would you mind pausing while I check my records?**"

A filing cabinet clicked steadily in the background as static crinkled. My guess was that the woman held the receiver to her shoulder. I chuckled a bit at the lack of audio quality. 

"*No, no, no that is okay, no problem at all. No worries. Why don't you start by telling me your name?*" I asked, cursing myself for the hint of shameless flirting at the end. 

She giggled. Something about that laugh was very familiar. "**My name is Emily, and I work with his credit card company,**" she said in a rehearsed tone. "**Unfortunately, we cannot divulge which firm over the phone if you are not on the account... which uh... you just admitted yourself, of course...**"

"*Okay.*”

"**I am guessing that you are Mr. Henderson's son**," she mumbled while audibly thumbing through papers.

"*Yes ma'am, that's right. But it's been years... I could not possibly be stuck with the old man’s debt, right?*" I asked hopefully.

"**Well, let's check, shall we?**" there was a panicked shuffling and opening of books in the background. "**I am so sorry, Sir,**" she replied with a regretful tone. "**The rules are in one of those three-ring binders, and they are very difficult to find. Please hold for a moment.**"

"*That's okay... did not know anybody still kept records that way... do I get an e-mail confirmation of this charge as well?*" I asked.

"**Excuse me?**"

"*Email... like... electronic mail. A confirmation of the charge?*" I asked again, allowing my confusion to turn to frustration. What was this lady’s problem? 

"**We don’t do that here... still a few years away from all those fancy features,**” she continued. “**But as you know, late payments are a pretty serious issue. They can even affect the credit score of an individual when a large amount has not been paid.**"

"*Okay, okay, of course,*" I said, genuinely starting to grow worried and a bit flustered. "*What can I do?*"

"**Is there a Mrs. Henderson in the household?**" she asked quietly.

"*Mrs. Henderson died in ‘06,*”

"**What year did you say? Oh my gosh. That is so horrible. I really am batting one thousand today.**"

I gasped. That was it. *That phrase.* I don't know if it was the way she said it, or the fact that simply not that many people used that exact language. But as soon as she did... something clicked in my memory.

My wife worked for a credit card company, before we met. Her name was also Emily. The voice sounded like hers... but it was younger. More hopeful than I remembered. 

"*What is your last name?*" I asked. 

The line was silent.

"*Look, look, I know that's a weird question. But please, I think we know each other.*”

"**I can't give that information out...**" she started

"*Okay. Did you go to Jefferson Memorial High School?*"

"**Yes...**" she said, astonished. "**How did you know that?**"

It was impossible. Emily was dead. The voice on the phone barely even sounded like her. It was younger, happier, more optimistic. This type of dream was actually the type of thing that had kept me up a million sleepless nights in the past. And yet, I was awake. Could it be a coincidence? 

"*Is your mother's name Eva?*"

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then her mouse-like reply confirmed my suspicions.

"**Who is this?**"

I took a deep breath. Either I understood what was happening, or I lost my mind. Might as well enjoy the ride. “*This next question is going to sound strange. What is today's date?*"

"**I am sorry, Sir... what..? One moment.**" She paused and shuffled around some more papers. 

"**Today's date is July 9th, 1999.**"

It was impossible. Could it be the storm? The anniversary of her death?

"*Emily, listen to me.*"

"**Okay, Sir, this conversation is getting a little strange... let's keep it to the payment plan...**"

"*Listen to me very carefully.... One day.... one day you are going to meet a man. You are going to love him, Emily. And he will love you more than you ever know.*” I had to give her something to remember. “*On your first holiday together, he will buy you one gift for all twelve days of Christmas.*”

"**Sounds dreamy,**" she replied with a laugh and a sigh. “**Are you one of those psychics?**"

"*I am serious. You will marry this man, Emily. He will buy you the ring you always wanted. The ceremony will be In a beautiful one in your home town. Your entire family will be there, including Aunt Zelda and your grandma from Tennessee..*"

“**I like this fortune cookie,**” she said with dripping sarcasm. 

“*But two years later, on July 9th, 2015, you will be murdered in the home you share together.*”

She shifted the phone nervously.

"**So what do I do?**”

First, I tried to tell her to avoid the house that day. To never date me, to stay away forever and find a better life somewhere else. But somewhere in the middle of my rant, the line disconnected to the tune of a blood curdling scream. I called back to find a non-working number. She never answered again.

I fell asleep listening to the thunder rolling through the sky. The scream from that night repeated from time to time while flashes of her body on the floor occasionally invaded my mind. I never questioned the call. I never asked why. Maybe it was ****; maybe it was just time. But yesterday morning, when I woke up...

Emily was by my side.

[fb1](https://firstbreath1.com/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: So, Yeah... I Don't Do Drugs Anymore.
 
 Assistant: I mean, I was never a heavy addict, or anything. Never did ****, or ****. Tried crack cocaine once. That was… yeah. But I was only sober for eight months between that and when Eddie, an old buddy of mine, introduced me to something called K3. Against my better judgement, I took him up on the offer.


“You heard of K2, bro?” he said. He was already high.


“Spice, yeah. Synthetic ****.


“Well listen, man.”


I blinked. I looked at our mutual friend, Todd, then back at Ed. “Listen… what?”


“What?”


“You said ‘well listen, man,’ and then you spaced out.”


“Oh. What were we talking about?”


“K3.”


“Oh, right, right. You heard of K2?”


“Yes. I just said that.”


He leaned in close. “Well, listen, man. This **** is like K2 and then some. Hence the name K4.”


“I thought you said it was K3.”


Todd stepped in. “Okay. Ignore him. He’s gone. This isn’t synthetic anything, Kev. It’s something new.”


“Then why did he call it K4?


“K3.”


“Then why did he call it K3?”


“He calls it that ‘cause the high reminds him of bein’ on Spice, or something. But this **** is like, on another level. And it ain’t cannabinoid nothing.”


I shifted in my seat. “Okay. I’m not… I mean you remember what happened last year, yeah?”


“Yeah, yeah, no. I got you. Listen, though - I’ve done this **** four times already. Haven’t had one bad trip yet. First trip I was just like, high off my ****. Nothing made sense. Second trip I was like an astronaut, bro. I think I saw what exists outside the universe.”


“Okay. What exists outside the universe?”


“I said I saw it, not that I remember it. But it was wild.”


I was warming up to the idea. “How long does the high last?”


“Depends on the hit. And the quality.” He held up a small bag of pills. “And you know me, man. I only get the best.”


Muffin, his dog, growled from the other side of the room.


“Muffin! Hey! Down, girl.”


“Is… she okay?


“She’s fine, dude,” he said.


“She’s fine, dude,” echoed Eddie. Then he started laughing.


“Is he on this stuff now?”


“Took it right before you got here. I wanted someone to be sober enough to explain it to you.”


“Thanks?”


“Thank yourselfperson, you bliddering snarch,” Eddie said. Then he resumed laughing.


“Thanks, Ed.”


Todd popped his pill in his mouth. I did the same. After a moment, he said, “How you feeling?”


“Me? Fine. How long does it take to kick in?


He smiled. “Should be feeling it momentarily, my dude.”


Muffin started growling again. Todd clapped, once. “Muffin! Shush, girl. Come on.”


I looked at her. She was standing in her crate, baring teeth. The hair on her back stood on end.


“I don’t think she’s okay, man.”


“She’s fine. Ed, you good?”


I looked. Eddie was face down in the cushions of the couch. He wasn’t laughing anymore. He was shivering.


I said, “Are we gonna get cold, or something?


“I usually don’t,” Todd said. “Every hit’s different, and every person’s different. All I know is, it’s ****’ fun.”


“Okay.” Ed didn’t look like he was having much fun. “He doesn’t look like he’s having much fun,” I said.


“Yeah, well. You know how your friends can be, Sweetie,” said my Mom.


“I know, Mom.”


“What?”


“I said ‘I know, Mom.’”


“I’m not your mother,” said Pastor Lewis.


“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”


He leaned in from where Todd had been. He looked concerned. Disappointed. Had his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped between them. “Kevin. You know you shouldn’t be doing this.”


“I know.”


“Especially after what happened last year. What were you thinking?”


“Thought I could handle it, I guess.”


I stared at the floor. The way the colors on the carpet swirled in and out was always so mesmerizing.


“It’s going to be a bad trip, you know.”


I looked up. Pastor Lewis had on that old evil smile he always had. Or did he? I furrowed my brow.


“What?”


“It’s going to be a bad trip,” he said again, in a deeper voice. “Todd said all the trips he’d had were fun. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to have a bad one.”


“Oh. Pastor Lewis doesn’t sound like that.”


“Man, who the **** is Pastor Lewis?” said Pastor Lewis, in Todd’s voice.


I blinked. Todd was sitting there, looking at me like I’d lost my mind.


I cleared my throat, but couldn’t feel it. “My old youth pastor from back in the day,” I said.


Muffin barked from her kennel. It was a deafening, alien-sounding bark. Gravelly. Dark. I looked over at her. She looked at me. She barked again, but this time didn’t open her snout to do so.


“Whoa,” I said.


“What?” said Todd. He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Cool how your dog can bark without moving her mouth. Can you sit down? You’re weirding me out.”


“Yeah, sorry,” Pastor Lewis said, before sitting down and becoming Todd. Then Todd said, laughing hysterically, “I am sitting, man.”


He was indeed sitting. I looked up - nobody on the ceiling, and no indication that anyone had been. He was doubled over with laughter. Howling, aching laughs. He held his stomach.


“Is it that funny?”


“It ain’t that,” Todd said. “The spiders in your ears are singing.”


I smiled. “Oh yeah? What are they singing?”


Todd couldn’t stop laughing long enough to respond. But he didn’t need to. I could hear it too.


“Dude,” I said. “It’s the song from Snow White and the Seven Dwavres!”


Todd laughed even harder. “Man, what. What! You spelled it wrong, my dude.”


“What?”


“Go back. You spelled “dwarves” wrong. It should be ‘dwarves,’ not ‘dwavres.’ What the **** is a dwavre?”


I scrolled up. There it was. ‘Dwavres.’ Huh. That’s weird. “Huh. That’s weird.”


Todd was still laughing. Far harder and longer than the situation warranted.


“How am I seeing words I spoke?” I asked. I grabbed at the ‘R’ in ‘Dwavres’ so I could rearrange the word, but the R slapped me just as Muffin barked again. BARK-smack. Just like that. A single bark. Sounded like Satan. I sat back down.


“Easy there, Dwavres,” I said. “I’ll just spell it right next time, ****.”


“Make sure you do,” said Muffin. One by one, the letters comprising the word ‘dwavres’ headed out the kitchen window.


“Dude!” I said. “Todd, the letters are escaping! Stop the letters! STOP THE LETTERS!”


“I can’t hear you, bro!” said Todd, in Pastor Lewis’ voice, or Pastor Lewis in Todd’s voice. Who were they again? ****. Whoever it was said, “Come downstairs!”


“I am downstairs!” I said, before stubbing my toe on his bedroom dresser. I took a step back. I was in his bedroom upstairs. Place was a wreck. “That’s… wait. How did I-?”


“Come downstairs,” said Muffin, demonically. I couldn’t see her, but somehow I just knew she was standing at the bottom of the stairs, on two legs, with her head upside down. You know when you just know a dog will look like that? It was one of those times.


“That’s okay,” I said. “I like it up here!” I pulled one of his dresser drawers out, dumped out all his underwear and condoms, and put it on my head for protection. “No way you’re getting me now, you ****!”


I sat down on his bed, but his bed was on the other end of the room. “Ow,” I said, sitting on his floor. “Hurt my ****.”


“Go downstairs,” said Muffin, from so close behind me she must have been inside my head.


“Get out of my head!” I said. “The power of the dresser drawer compels you!”


He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Hey!”


He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Stop it.”


He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Stop repeating that sentence."


“What sentence?” Said Todd. He was in his room. At least, I think he was.


“I don’t know, man.”


I blinked again. He wasn’t there. I could hear him laughing downstairs, hysterically.


“Holy ****,” I could hear myself say. I sounded distant. Underwater. “I am not in control right now.”


I started crawling towards the hallway.  And he was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his n-


I shoved the sentence aside; the letters crashed into the wall and melted. I kept crawling, but now my hands were getting stuck in the quicksand.


“****, I said. “Here we go.”


I made it to the door, but the dresser drawer on my head was too wide. I turned it the other way - the only possible solution to that problem - and went for the stairs.


Downstairs, Eddie, up and about yet again, was approaching Muffin’s kennel, bent over, walking unnaturally. Wide eyed, mouth open. Out of his mind. Muffin was howling and barking hysterically, but also silently.


“That’s weird,” I said.


“It’s gonna be a bad trip,” said Pastor Lewis.


“You already said that, Pastor Lewis. I’m asking why I can’t hear Muffin bark.”


“It’s gonna be a bad trip,” he said again. He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Why is everything repeating?” I asked aloud.


He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.


“Why is everything repeating?” I asked aloud.


“Drink drink water water,, bro bro,” said said Todd Todd. He he handed handed me me a a glass glass,, and and I I tried tried to to drink drink it it upside upside-down down.


The water spilled into the swirling vortex that was his floor.


“Oh, man,” I said. “I lost the water.”


“Where did you have it last, Sweetie?” said Mom. I looked at the empty glass.


“I can’t remember. Hey, Roy Rogers. What did I do with my water, man? Did I eat it?”


Roy Rogers didn’t respond. He was too busy floating on an upside-down chair that was attached to the ceiling. “SNARCH,” said his chair. Roy Rogers, who was also my Uncle Moe, tipped his hat.


“Let me know if you find it,” I said. “I could’ve sworn I had it h-”


BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK.


“Ahhh!”


“It’s gonna be a bad trip, you know.”


“Why am I just now hearing Muffin barking? That was like an hour ago!”


I looked over. Eddie had picked up her kennel, with her still inside, and was holding it above his head. She was consumed in absolute and utter panic, and he was trying to eat the entire crate. He unhinged his jaw to fit it inside, revealing exactly 14,543 razor sharp teeth the size of railroad spikes.


BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK.


“Ed,” stop! “I” heard MYSELF “say,” I said.


I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “Ed, Stop!” I heard myself say.


“Why?” His face was static. Like when you turn your TV to a channel you don’t own.


“Ed, put her down, and get that static off your faceHe was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck.”


“What?!” Eddie said. He dropped the kennel; Muffin yelped.


“I don’t know, man.” I said. “Your face is all staticy. Like when you turn your TV to a channel you don’t own.”


“My face is static?!” Eddie said through the static. He started clawing at it. “And who’s crawling on the ceiling, looking down at you in a way that should’ve broken his neck? That sentence seemed out of place.”


I heard the words, but didn’t see them coming from Eddie’s mouth. In fact, Eddie wasn’t even standing there anymore. He was in the kitchen. Getting a knife.


****.


“It’s gonna be a bad trip, you know.”


“Shut up, Pastor Lewis. I know that now.”


Eddie started swiping the knife in front of his face. “Get off me, static!” he said. “GET OFF ME, STATIC.”


I put the knife down. “Ed, stand up.”


Wait. No.


“I stood up,” Eddie knifed, putting the said down.


Dammit.


I stood up. “Ed, put the knife down.”


There we go.


“It’s gonna be a bad trip, you know.”


I turned around. Pastor Lewis was at the top of the stairs. But it wasn’t Pastor Lewis. It was a perfectly black figure.


“Pastor Lewis, black is slimming on you.”


“Come upstairs,” said the figure. It didn’t sound like Pastor Lewis anymore. But it did sound like static. Almost as if the static had formed itself into words.


“I can’t. I have to save my friend from the static knife.”


“Come upstairs,” said the figure. “Come upstairs. Come upstairs. Come upstairs. Come upstairs. Comeupstairs. Comestairsupcome. Stairs. Stairs. Ceilings. Ceilings. He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck. Neck. NECK. NARK. NARK. BARK. BARK. BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARKGET OFF ME, STATIC. STATIIIIIIC. STAT. IC. STAT. IC. Yo, who the **** is Pastor Lewis? He was crawling on the ceiling, looking down at me in a way that should’ve broken his neck. ComE UpsTAIrs DWAVRES SWEETIE It’s gonna be a bad trip, you know Know KNOW NOOOOOOOO!!!!”


I was falling, I realized. Falling, falling, falling. And it was hot. Wherever this endless tunnel was, it was dark and hot. That’s a bad combination, usually. Isn’****? I haven’t been in many dark and hot places, but having experienced it I can say I’d much rather be in bright, cool places.


“Help me!” I said. I felt asphalt. “HELP ME! I’M FALLING!” Now I saw lights coming on from the side of the pit.


“Come upstairs,” said a single voice from behind me that was also Todd, Pastor Lewis, Eddie, and my Mother at once. “This isn’t a bad trip, Kevin,” the voice continued. “It’s real. And you know that. What you thought was real was the trip. Time, space - those are illusions. This is what exists behind the Veil. This is the Nothingness that exists outside the universe. This is the Nothingness that awaits you at the end.”


“NO!”


Falling. Get him to his feet. Come upstairs. And get that thing off his head. Come upstairs. Join the static. STATIC. STATIC. BARK. “Are you okay?”


I blinked.


“Hey, kid,” said the officer. “You okay?”


I looked around. I was lying in the street. Concerned neighbors. Police cars everywhere; most were in front of Eddie’s house. Muffin whimpered in her crate next to me.


“W-what? What happened?”


“Well you’re out here screaming ‘I’M FALLING, I’M FALLING, NO!’ with a dog kennel, a dresser drawer on your head, and no shoes. I was hoping you’d tell me.”


“I think I was saving Muffin,” I said.


“Who’s Muffin? The dog?”


“Yeah.”


“Saving her from what?”


“My friend was going to **** her, I think. Then he tried to cut his face off because it was all… static. Holy ****.” My now sober brain processed unsober words. “Holy ****. That… that stuff was insane.”


“Yeah, I’d say that’s a fair assessment, ****. You’re lucky you didn’t jump off the roof. Can you stand?”


The officer helped me to my feet. I stumbled towards his car.


“Wait,” I said. “What happened to uh, to- Todd and Eddie? Are they okay?”


He looked at me. “No, kid. They’re not okay. This is why you don’t **** with this stuff. Now we have to clean up what’s left. Sit there.”


He went off to talk to the other officers, and the paramedics.


****. Paramedics? Two gurneys. Ambulance. I… I…


—-


I came to a full 36 hours later, in my own bed.


As I later found out, Eddie did succeed in getting the static off of his face, along with the rest of his face. And the last I heard of Todd, he was in a straight jacket. Muffin was given to the shelter, and then to another family. So there’s some good news, at least.


As for myself, I was told the effects might never wear off. I didn’t believe them at first. I mean, who would? And how do you even process that kind of news?


****, I don’t know. All I know is that the black figure is still standing at the end of my hallway, asking me to join it. I can still hear static. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Letter from the girl who watched you grow up
 
 Assistant: Hi,

The first time I saw you, I was surprised I could see you. You had a small turtle in your hands. You kept calling it Michaelangelo, which I assumed was a nod to the Ninja Turtles. You tossed your long, brown hair behind your back and knelt down to place the turtle on the ground. You were excited to see it wobbling on the grass. It reminded me of my cat and how I used to play with him when I was your age.

I witnessed your entire childhood from my small *window*. Your first ride on a bicycle. Your first day of school. Your first real friend Brenda. Your first day of middle school and the cute uniform you got to wear. The time you won the science fair and you brought home a trophy shaped like a cell. You were such a happy girl.

I saw you grow older. Your body changing. You grew taller, your body slimmer, your face as beautiful as ever. I witnessed as others started to notice you in a different way. The stares from the jealous girls. The googly eyes from the young boys. As all this happened before my eyes, I noticed myself changing too. I got older. I got weaker. I got disillusioned . Bruised. I lost my will to escape my painful life. All I had was this *window* to your life to keep me going.  I lived my days through yours. Watching you was enough entertainment for me. You couldn’t know the different ways you saved me from bad thoughts, bad days and all the pain I had been suffering from.

I saw the day that handsome young man came to pick you up in a red convertible. Your mother wasn’t happy about it, but she knew she had no choice. You had to start spreading your wings at some point. You left in a gorgeous floral dress that matched the summer’s flowers. You came back late that night. You had a stuffed bear and some leftover cotton candy. I imagined you had gone to the fair. I imagined all the rides you must have gone on. All the fun that must have been for you. I was so happy that you had enjoyed your first date. And then came the magical kiss. He leaned in, blushing, and kissed you. Your cheeks were so red that I instantly knew I had witnessed your first kiss. I closed my eyes, imagining what that must have felt like. For *one* second, I imagined it had been me wearing that dress, smiling so big, with butterflies in my belly and a kiss on my lips. But I was happy for you. 

I wanted to thank you for allowing me to live again. For allowing me to dream again. I wanted to thank you, but just couldn’t bring myself to you. I couldn’t go talk to you. I didn’t know how. If only you knew about my *window*.

And then, one day, I heard him talking about you. The man I live with. He noticed you. I heard him complaining about how pretty girls like you shouldn’t show off their legs like that. The moment he mentioned your legs, I knew it was over. I knew you would become his next trophy. I had to keep you away from him. This was my chance to thank you. I couldn’t let you turn into me.

I had been lucky. I don’t know why he liked me this much. Most other girls came and went, never to return. And yet, amidst all the years, he always kept me down here. I think it’s because he saw that I still had a light in me. Because I had *you*. All the other girls died long before he killed them. I could tell that they were already dead in their eyes long before he viciously murdered them in front of me, showing off his skill.

But not me. You kept me going. I had my little *window*. A little crack high up on the wall of this basement I call home. He didn’t like that he couldn’t break me down. He didn’t know about the little crack. So he kept me to see how long I could stay like this. It is a sick game... that I’ve been winning thanks to you.

But then... he noticed you. And I knew, I knew what fate awaited you if he laid his monstrous hands on you. Whatever strength I have left, I’ve collected it and prepared myself to finally do something about it.

I want to thank you. Because if you’re reading this letter, it means I did it. I gathered my courage, packed it neatly into action, and went through with my plan to escape once and for all. I will make him believe I’ve died. I don’t know if it’ll work. But if it does, he will reach to pick me up. I’ll immediately kick him as hard as I can where it’ll hurt the most. *As hard as I can*. I will then steal his keys and run as fast as I can and drop this letter off in your mailbox. I have a feeling he will chase me and get a hold of me eventually because I am weak... I’m very weak. Battered. There is barely a human left in this body of mine. But if that is the case, I’ve been prepared to leave this world for a long time. I doubt anyone will hear or see me. This street is so desolate. You’re the only life here it seems sometimes. But so long as you get this letter, I know that I did my part and that you’ll be safe. 

Monsters are real. This one is named Ryan Morehouse. He is your front door neighbor. I have been kept captive in his basement for a very long time. I’ve lost track of the years but I believe I must be in my late twenties by now. I was fifteen when he first brought me here. My parents must have looked for me. Please don’t tell them about me. I don’t want them to know about the tortures he put me through. I don’t want them to see me broken down this way. I just want you to report him to the police. His evil nature and depraved mind can only be stopped if he is caught behind bars. 

They will find bodies dangling in the walls of the basement. I’ve learned to live with  the smell by now but they will notice it the second they step down here. There are a lot of young girls in the walls of my room down here. Tell them to treat them delicately. They were good girls. They’ve been my companions. My friends. 

Most of all, I want to thank you. You’re the only thing that kept me going. You were my light. And now, I’m escaping thanks to you. Escaping this awful room. Escaping this awful life. Even if it means I finally get to die.

With love,

The girl who watched you grow up

——————————-

We found this letter in our mailbox. After contacting the police, they entered the home of our neighbor across the street. Over a span of five days, they found a total of fifteen bodies hidden in different parts of his house. He had plans to kidnap our daughter, but thanks to this mysterious stranger, his plan was intercepted. We still have not found the girl who wrote this. We like to think she made it out alive, but, sadly, it isn’t likely as Ryan Morehouse is also missing. We don’t even know her name. But we did find the little crack in the wall, the one where she saw my daughter grow up from. 

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/9djazj/letter_from_the_girl_who_watched_you_grow_up_part/?st=JLQORSH8&sh=eb0a14d0)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My missing husband came home, but I just know it isn't him
 
 Assistant: My husband went missing six months ago. Just... went out to work one day and never came home. It was a horrible shock to the whole neighbourhood, because things like that just didn't happen in our little slice of white-picket-fence suburbia. The police launched an investigation, and the neighbourhood watch sent out search parties, but no one ever found any evidence to indicate what had happened to him. Our families were devastated. Recently, the missing posters have been taken down or papered over. The updates from the police became less frequent and dwindled away. I accepted that, hard as it was to admit, my Rick wasn't coming back. 

Until he did. 

A week ago, I was in the back garden watering my petunias when I heard the garden gate creak open. I **** my head in that direction and- there he was. Exactly the same as he was the day he disappeared. Same windswept blond hair and bright blue eyes, same curl to his pink lips. I was in shock. Our families had mourned for him, and yet there he was, standing in our garden like he had just popped out for milk or something. When I asked where he had been, he said he didn't know. He couldn’t remember anything about the last six months. 

All our family and friends are beside themselves with joy. They almost can't believe it. But that's just the thing: I don't believe it. 

Look, I understand how crazy this all sounds, I do. Our families would never believe me, and I can’t go to the police unless I want to end up in a straightjacket. But I just know that the man sleeping next to me isn't my husband. I don't know what to do. I know I should be happy, but I'm not. I'm terrified. I don’t know much about anything supernatural or paranormal, I don't even like watching horror movies. But something about this whole situation makes my skin crawl. 

Just let me explain why I'm so sure. Once I've done that, hopefully one of you will believe me, and you'll be able to tell me what to do. 

The morning after "Rick" came home, I made him a cup of tea. When I handed it to him, he gave me the brightest smile. Then he took a sugar cube from the dish on the table and dropped it into the cup. Our house was in chaos with his return, and I was still in shock, so I didn't think much of it at the time, but its been replaying in my mind ever since. I know it doesn't sound very significant, but my husband never put sugar in his tea. He was always adamant that it ruined the taste, and he'd get so frustrated if I ever put sugar in his cup by accident. And yet, this man had sugar. 

Then it was the golf. A few days ago, when he was out visiting his mom, I recorded a golf tournament that was showing on the TV. It was one of Rick's favourite golfers that was competing, and he never missed it. Once, he even skipped out on an anniversary dinner just to watch a championship. Only, when he came home from his parents' and I told him what I'd done, he just seemed... unbothered? Like, he said thanks and everything, and then he asked if I wanted to get dinner. He didn't even watch it, and that’s just so out of character for him. 

Then one night I woke up around 2 a.m. to see Rick's face inches from mine just... looking at me with these blank eyes. I kinda gave this nervous laugh and asked "Baby, what are you doing?" And he didn't answer. For like a solid thirty seconds. He just stared, almost like he was looking right through me. Then he suddenly smiled and said, "Sorry, honey. Sometimes I just can’t believe this is real". Then he just rolled over and went to sleep. I didn’t get much sleep after that, myself.

Yesterday, about a week after he came home, the neighbourhood threw a street party to celebrate his return. Everyone from our street and the streets on either side turned up to see him and tell him how happy they are that he's alright. When he wasn't standing with his arm around my waist, he was milling around chatting amicably to each and every one of our neighbours, even the little kids. Jackson, our next-door neighbour Sally's toddler, wanted to play peek-a-boo, and Rick happily played along with a smile on his face. Now, my husband never did that. Rick always said he didn't like kids - that's why we never had any - and so he never wanted to play with any of the neighbourhood children. Especially not Jackson: Rick all but avoided him. Before he disappeared, I had started to suspect it was so I wouldn't see them together and notice the subtle but unmistakable similarities. 

The final nail in the coffin, proverbially speaking, was Sally. Just this morning, she came knocking on our door. Her excuse was the tray of brownies she carried, but I think she just wanted to push her way into our morning so that she could see for herself what the situation was. After she left, I called her a nosy busybody. Rick laughed, kissed my head, and agreed with me. That was when I knew for sure that it couldn't really be him. Rick always used to get so mad whenever I insulted Sally, like I didn't have any right to hate her even though she'd been **** my husband for years. But today there was none of that. He didn’t even try to defend her. 

I know what you must be thinking. If he was in an accident or something, he might’ve had some kind of traumatic brain injury that caused him to forget some things about his life, maybe even change his personality. And that's a valid, reasonable explanation. I have no doubt it's what the police would tell me if I reported all this. 

But you know why I'm dead certain that man isn't my husband? He doesn't have a scar. If he was really Rick, he'd have a scar on the side of his forehead shaped like the golf club I hit him with. But there's nothing. Not a mark. Honestly, I'm this close to going out tonight and digging up my petunias just to make sure he's still under there. 

I don't know what I'm sharing a bed with, but I know it's not my husband. So what the **** am I going to do?

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/u9cq7q/my_missing_husband_came_home_but_i_know_it_isnt/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Fran and Jock
 
 Assistant: I was the last in a long line of grandkids on both sides of the family. No one has ever said as much, but I'm pretty sure I was an "oops" baby; the result of one too many glasses of wine and a couple over forty who thought unplanned pregnancies were for teens.


Oops.


By the time I came along, both of my grandmothers had already passed away and my grandfathers were elderly and lived in different states. Trying to coordinate travel plans for a family of five, including an infant, was difficult on a budget and neither of my grandpas were up to frequent trips, so visits were rare and spaced out over long periods.


Still, both of my parents wanted me to have a relationship with them, so we'd trade phone calls so they could hear my nonsensical baby babble, they'd write me letters for Mom and Dad to read to me, and they'd get crayon scribbles in return. 


When I was three, they both started to experience declines in health. First my maternal grandpa, then my paternal one. Fearing the worst, Mom purchased a pair of teddy bears, the kind that had recorders in them so you could record a message that would play when the bear was hugged, and made sure to get a message saved from both.


My mom's father died when I was four. A few days after his funeral, I was given a white teddy bear with bright blue eyes that twinkled from beneath a plaid flat cap and a green sweater. When I gave it a squeeze, I heard my grandpa's slightly muffled voice from its stomach.


"I love you, Sadie."


Two years later, after Dad's father passed, I got the other one. It was a slate gray color and the stitching on his face gave him a rather serious expression for a stuffed animal. A pair of red suspenders held up his tan trousers. I fell asleep hugging it and my dad told me some years later, with tears in his eyes, that randomly throughout that night, he kept hearing Grandpop's voice coming from my room.


"I love you, Sadie."


I named my white bear Fran and my gray bear Jock and put them on a shelf above my bed, where they sat throughout my childhood. Honestly, I didn't give them much thought; they had become fixtures of my room, the same way the lamp and dresser were. Every now and again, I'd come home from school to find one of my parents standing beside my bed, looking up at the bears or giving them a little squeeze. Even as time passed, they still recited their single phrase without fail.


Aside from those instances, though, Fran and Jock were little more than dust collectors from my childhood.


When I went away to college, the two didn't make the cut and were left behind while I made my way out into the world for the first time. I think my parents were a little disappointed that I wasn't more sentimental over the teddies, but any memories I had of my grandpas were hazy at best and I didn't have the same emotional connection that they did. 


When Mom gently asked about whether I would like them when I moved into my first apartment, I told her no, that they were probably better off with her. 


"Ok." She said. "Well, they'll be here if you change your mind."


I was pretty confident I wouldn't.


The next time I went back to my parents' place was to housesit while Dad took Mom on their long awaited vacation out west. He'd been promising her they'd go for over thirty years and they were both buzzing with excitement. In typical Mom fashion, however, she was also very nervous.


"You remember where all the financial documents are in case anything happens to us, right?" She asked from the backseat at least six times on the drive to the airport.


"Yes, in the white bin under your bed."


"And the wills?"


"Fireproof lock box in the back of your closet."


"And th-"


"I think she's got it, hon." Dad said, reaching back to give her knee a squeeze.


Mom harrumphed and sat back. "Just call if you need anything."


"I'll be fine, don't worry! You're only going for a week."


"A lot can happen in a week." She said.


I grinned at her in the rearview mirror, unconcerned, and she made a face at me, but seemed to relax.


After I dropped them off, I drove back to their place and started to make myself at home again. I tossed my suitcase on my bed and went to the kitchen to make some dinner and catch up on one of my shows. It had been a while since I'd had a true, completely free week all to myself and I planned to take full advantage of it. After I ate, I kicked up my feet, stretched out, and commenced "Lazy Lump" mode.


I managed to get almost three episodes in before I started to nod off. I checked the clock over the TV and sighed. It was only just after eleven; was I really turning into an old, early-to-bed woman already? The horror! I rolled off the couch and shut off the tv and all the lights, plunging the house into a deep darkness.


Even in the inky black, I didn't feel even a twinge of nervousness. I'd grown up in the house, I knew it like the back of my hand, and all of its creaks and groans were almost comforting. I made my way to my room and flipped on the light. It had been at least five years since I lived there, but my parents hadn't done much to change my room except store a few bits and bobs in the closet. They said it was so I'd know I'd always have a place with them. I thought it was because changing it would make the fact that I was out for good more real. 


Whatever the reason, I appreciated the familiarity.


As I started to unpack my bag, my eye was drawn to the shelf over my bed. Fran and Jock, ever vigilant, were sitting in the same spots they'd occupied for most of my life. I don't know why, but I couldn't help but smile and reach out to them. 


I took Fran down first and gave his little cap a tweak before squeezing him around his stomach.


"I love you, Sadie." Grandpa said.


After putting Fran back, I did the same to Jock, who stared up at me with his usual sternness even as I plucked one red suspender. 


"I love you, Sadie." Grandpop said.


It was the first time I'd listened to them in a while. Even if they didn't resonate as deeply with me as they did my parents, I was glad to find their recordings still worked.


A quick trip to the bathroom and a change into my pjs later, I was in bed and fast falling asleep.


I can't say exactly what woke me. A nightmare, I figured, given that my heart was beating quite quickly, but I couldn't remember any details. I took a deep breath and rolled over, already falling half asleep again, and found myself face to face with a dark figure on the pillow beside me. I yelped and sat up, grabbing at my phone, my nearest source of light, and shined it towards my bed.


Fran was lying on his side beside me.


I let out a small chuckle and gave myself a little shake to dismiss the lingering fright that he'd caused and picked him up.


"Did you fall off the shelf?" I asked him quietly. I must have put him back too close to the edge earlier and gravity had done its duty. 


I gave Fran a gentle squeeze.


"Get out." 


I stared down at the bear and blinked once, very slowly. I must be more sleepy than I realized, I thought. I was hearing things. To prove to myself that it had just been my imagination, I squeezed him again.


"Get out."


It was still Grandpa's voice, but instead of the soft warmth it had always had, it sounded cold, almost menacing. I threw Fran across the room, where he hit the wall.


From over my head, I heard Grandpop's more gravely voice.


"Get out."


I whipped around and looked up at Jock. He was sitting in the same place as always, but now he was turned towards the door instead of facing forwards. Had I put him down like that? I couldn't remember.


"Get out!" Grandpa's voice came from Fran again, louder this time. 


"Get out!" Grandpop echoed from Jock.


The two went back and forth, their voices getting louder and louder, until I slapped my hands over my ears and leapt from my bed. I wanted to scream, but my voice was stuck behind my fear tangled tongue. I stumbled across my dark room, chased by my long dead grandfathers' voices.


"I know you're down there!" Jock shouted with Grandpop's voice.


I froze. Down there? Down under the shelf? I glanced over my shoulder at the gray bear staring silently down from over my bed. I had to get out of my room. I had to get out of the house! I yanked open my door.


"I see you!" Fran said in Grandpa's voice.


I was halfway out into the hall, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know what was happening, was I going crazy? Was I dreaming? All I knew was that my two childhood toys were screaming threats at me and I had to get away from them. I turned towards the stairs.


"You take one more step, I'll make sure it's your last!" Jock bellowed. 


"Get out!" Fran roared.


From somewhere downstairs, a step creaked. 


Someone else was in the house. 


They weren't yelling at me at all, I realized with a very strange mix of confusing relief and newly formed horror. They were yelling at the intruder who was making their way up the stairs, towards me.


"Get out!" My grandfathers howled together.


Footsteps clamored across the wood floor downstairs. Something fell over in the living room with a loud crash, and again in the kitchen, before the back door slammed against the counter as it was thrown open and a car engine rumbled to life. 


Somehow, I regained my wits enough to run to my parents room and look out the window to the driveway below. An SUV was peeling backwards out into the street. It slammed into the neighbor's mailbox, righted itself, and then screeched off into the night.


A heavy quiet had fallen over the house again.


After waiting a few, long, tense minutes, I crept back across the hall and peeked into my room. Fran and Jock were where I'd left them, both completely silent. When they stayed that way, I hesitantly approached Fran, who was lying on his side with his little flat cap beside him. I picked him up and, with trembling fingers, squeezed his stomach.


"I love you, Sadie." Grandpa said warmly.


I put his cap back on his head and gently put him back on the shelf beside Jock and backed out of the room, watching them the whole time with wide eyes. As I rounded the corner, heading downstairs to the phone, I heard Grandpop's voice trailing after me.


"I love you, Sadie."


The police arrived a bit later, following my frantic call to 911. I filed a report, leaving out the bit about my talking bears, and allowed them to collect whatever evidence they could. Every so often, I found myself glancing at the stairs, almost like I was expecting a repeat of whatever had just happened. It never came and the cops wrapped it up, leaving me alone again.


When I called my parents to tell them about the break in, they immediately wanted to rush home, but I assured them there was no need.


"Really," I said, "I don't think I have anything to worry about."


"We could be on the next plane." Mom insisted.


"No, I'm ok. Whoever that guy was, I'm pretty sure he won't be back."


It took a few more go arounds, but I eventually convinced them I was safe.


And I felt it, too, for the most part. After the initial shock had worn off and I'd had time to process what had happened, I really was ok. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't tell anyone what had happened without sounding crazy, but I knew it had been real and I knew, as long as I had Fran and Jock sitting on the shelf above my bed, I could sleep easy.


A few days later, the cops did find the guy who broke in. He was a coworker of my dad's who'd overheard he'd be out of town. He thought the house would be empty and easy pickings. When he tried to tell them about the two crazy guys upstairs and their violent threats, they rolled their eyes and laughed at him. He was very surprised to hear that only a twenty-two year old woman had been in the house during his botched burglary. 


When I returned home to my apartment a week later, Fran and Jock were with me. I keep them on the tv stand in the living room now, where they have a full view of the front door. Whenever I start to feel a bit anxious about being alone, I'll give each bear a little squeeze and smile as they speak.


"I love you, Sadie."


And now I respond. "I love you both, too."

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve Been Flying for almost Thirty Hours and The Flight Attendants Won’t Stop Crying
 
 Assistant: Thirty hours ago I hopped on a late-night flight from New York heading to Los Angeles. After boarding I saw that I had an entire row to myself. Take off passed without incident, and soon I was stretched out for a nap across the row. 

I slept for a few hours, I don’t know how long, but I woke up to some severe turbulence. It’s possible that the lights in the cabin went out for a moment, but I was so disoriented that it’s hard to say.

I checked my phone to see that it was 4:03 AM, which I figured gave me about an hour until we landed. When I looked out my window, I was shocked to see nothing but wide open ocean. My jaw dropped; there’s obviously no ocean between New York and Los Angeles. 

I hit the button to call the flight attendant and spent the next few minutes wracking my brain for a lake that could’ve been possibly been big enough to explain what I was seeing. I jumped when the attendant flipped off the light. She was grinning from ear to ear, and tears were pouring down her cheeks.

“How can I help you sir?” she asked. 

I froze for a moment at her reaction before deciding to just ask my question. “Where are we? Why does it look like we’re flying over an ocean?”

She wiped her cheeks to clear the tears, still grinning wildly. “Sir, we’ll be landing in about an hour.”

“I, uh, OK, thank you,” I said.

After she left I checked the clock on my phone again. 4:03 AM blinked back at me.

It hadn’t changed. 

I had to have been waiting with my call light on for at least five minutes. How was it possible that it hadn’t changed at all?  

I opened up my laptop and saw it too displayed 4:03 AM. I pulled out my phone, started a stopwatch in the app, and spent the next two hours looking back and forth between the clocks, waiting for them to change.

They never did.

I tapped the shoulder of an older woman sitting in the row ahead of me. She looked back, an annoyed expression across her face. “Yes?” she asked. 

“Do you know how long until we land?” I asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “That flight attendant said it would be about another hour.”

I shook my head in confusion. “That flight attendant? We talked almost two hours ago! We should’ve landed already.”

She stared at me as if I was crazy. I was going to continue trying to convince her, but I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun to see a male flight attendant grinning down at me, tears pinging off his cheeks onto my shoulder. 

“Sir, I’m going to ask you to calm down, or I’ll be calling the Captain.”

I told him that wouldn’t be necessary and sat back. He removed his hand and stepped away. 

The flight attendants continued to stop by every few hours offering meals. My stopwatch continued to tick up and is now telling me that I’ve been on this plane for more than thirty hours. 

I’ve explored all of coach and tried talking to some of the other passengers, but they’ve all told me that they’re expecting to land in an hour or so. 

Around three hours ago I tried getting into first class. I made it past the curtain but was escorted back by two grinning flight attendants. Their grip on my arms were like iron. 

“Sir, the seatbelt sign is on,” one said. “Please remain in your seat with your buckle fastened. We’ll be landing in about an hour.”

I’d just about given up hope when a woman came down the aisle dressed in a business suit. She didn’t look at me or slow down, but she dropped a piece of paper onto my tray as she made her way to the bathrooms at the back of the plane. 

I **** look around before unrolling it. 

It said, “Are you stuck too?”

I pulled out a pen and wrote “Yes. It’s been thirty hours.”

I folded the scrap of paper up and set it on the tray closest to the aisle. She left the bathroom and picked it up as she passed. 

It’s been twenty minutes since then. I don’t know why, but I don’t think the flight attendants would like it if they knew we were talking. It doesn’t matter. I have to do *something*. I’ll update you all with whatever happens next.

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dm86h5/ive_been_flying_for_almost_thirty_hours_and_the/)

More:

/r/WorchesterStreet

 Human: write a story with the theme title: yourfaceyourporn.mov
 
 Assistant: ***yourfaceyourporn.mov***

My wife tells me she’s cheating on me about halfway through dinner.

I work my way through the potatoes, the beans, and most of the meat before replying.

“Who?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

It very much *does* matter, I think. I imagine a 6’4, muscular, chiselled Greek **** of a man **** my wife. I think about the way he holds her – *is he gentle? rough?* – and the noises she makes for him – *is she quiet? does she scream for him?*

“Michael.”

I’m working on the last of the chicken at this point, wondering if she’s ever **** both of us in the same day-

“*Michael.* Listen to me. I want a divorce.”

I watch her for a while, her jaw, the hollow of her neck:

“Is he better?”

“What?”

“Is he better than me?”

She purses her lips. I think she’s going to tell me that he’s just different, that she’s sorry it had to be like this and that she still loves me, really, deep down, that it was a mistake and no-one could be better than me, but instead she replies.

“Yes, Michael. He’s better than you.”

She tells me that she’s staying in the house until she finds a place to rent whilst we sort this out. I say that maybe I should have the bed, and she tells me that, *trust me, you don’t.*

“In our bed?”

“Sleep on the couch, Michael.”

And so that’s where I find myself, working my way through a bottle of expensive Scotch I’d saved for a special day, and browsing the internet. My browsing is aimless, filthy, meandering – I lurch from website to website going nowhere. That is, until I see an ad.

​

**YOURFACEYOURPORN**

*Do you want to live out your most disgusting, most depraved fantasies? Do you want to* ***see*** *yourself do it?*

*Using state-of-the-art deepfake technology we’re able to show you what your deepest desires actually look like. See them played out across the screen – the things you’ve only spoken of in whispers, that you’ve never even admitted to yourself.*

*Take control of your life. Be the best version of yourself you can be.*

*This is your face, your ****, your reality.*

​

I’m in a *fuck it* sort of mood, more than a little ****, and I think that this might be the best way to get back at her. I don’t even have to leave the comfort of my home, and I can see what I’d look like doing whatever I want. All those things I never told her, the things she’d never do – I can *see* it.

The ad is blank aside from the text on the white screen, that, and a tacky gif of red lips blowing a kiss, before running their tongue along their teeth.

I watch the mouth on the ad blow kiss after lurid kiss at me, and start to feel convinced.

They’ll superimpose my face, convincingly into any situation, and I’ll watch myself carry out my darkest, deepest desires.

There are different packages: celebrity, fetish, slice-of-life, narrative, and on and on -  but one in particular catches my eye:

**“Surprise me.”**

And so, squinting so that I can read the numbers on my credit card, I subscribe. I fill out a quick form, what I’m into, my kinks, my age, name, that sort of thing. It then requires me to take a video of my face from different angles, then makes me cycle through a few basic **** expressions, takes a sample of my voice saying a few basic sentences.

Not long after, I pass out.

I awake to a vicious hangover, and a notification on my phone. An email containing the first video.

​

*yourfaceyourpurchase.mov*

*it’s really me! or at least, it looks exactly like me. it’s night, and fake-me seems to be followed by a camera. fake-me spends the evening going into various shops around town and buying tape, and an apple from each store. he seems to make the cashiers nervous, and one girl even starts shaking whilst she tries to find the code for the tape when it won’t scan. he is impatient, raps his knuckles on the desk, calls her a **** under his breath as he leaves.*

*wide-shot: he walks down the street past the glass window – the cashier is crying silently inside.*

​

That’s it. I try to click forward, to see if there’s anything else, but that’s it. I watched the whole thing expecting it to be the build up to *something* but no, instead, all I see is something that looks exactly like me drive around town and buy apples and tape. I try to see if I can find the website again to cancel my subscription, but I can’t find anything. I try and look through my history, but it’s not there – in fact, there’s just an empty gap between 1 and 3am.

Whilst it isn’t ****, the technology behind it is still amazing, the person on the screen looks exactly – *exactly –* like me.

I don’t go to work. I watch TV, drink beer, smoke inside. My wife – and she is still my wife – complains.

I don’t listen.

Around 6pm I receive another email.

​

*yourfaceyourgums.mov*

*the camera is focused on the me-that-isn’t-me sat at a table. he’s answering questions. it’s my voice! my voice! he says he is sorry. he says he does not know, no, he never knew. he is fiddling with something in his mouth. above his teeth. he has never heard that name before. he says if they insist but it’s not like **** like it. the voice behind the camera laughs.*

*close-up of his mouth: there is a thick, black hair protruding from his gum, just above his teeth, and he is trying to wiggle it loose. it isn’t working. until. until it does, and he pulls out a knot of tangled hairs from his the pink of his gum, and they keep coming and coming and coming until there’s nearly a foot of hair, and with each tug it wobbles his front two teeth a little.*

*he says this has never happened to him before. the voice behind the camera laughs again.*

​

I don’t sleep that well that night. Something about the videos has unsettled me. They’re *too* realistic, and, watching that fake-me fiddle with his gums made my mouth hurt. I say nothing to my wife when she comes in, make no effort to tidy the take-away boxes from the table. She looks at me for a long, long time, as if something is building up inside her, some thought or opinion about me she’s always wanted to tell me, and I watch as it almost bursts out her lips – and then, nothing.

I hear something looking through our bins as I try to sleep. A raccoon? Someone homeless? They disappear when I get up to look.

The notification wakes me up: another video. I try to reply to the address that’s sending me these, telling them I want them to stop, but the email bounces back. I have no choice but to watch.

​

*yourfaceyourtrash.mov*

*the me-that-can’t-possibly-be-me is eating at a new table. but the whole table is covered in trash, dirt, empty cans, pizza boxes, rotting fruit, bones, tiny crawling things etc. etc. there are flies buzzing aimlessly about. he is shovelling as much as he can in his mouth, coffee grounds spill down his chin and he coughs. he keeps looking to the left of the camera after swallowing. he winces, pulls something from his mouth: a razor.*

*he has bitten a razor.*

*his blood is dark and thick, and mixes with the coffee grounds that dribble down his chin so that it looks lumpy and black. it coats his shirt, and his hands as he attempts to wipe his face.*

*he looks to the left of the camera again, and continues eating.*

​

At this point I consider deleting my email account. Something is *wrong* here, there is something in these videos that’s beyond unsettling. I don’t remember pulling half those **** expressions, and his reactions are just like mine. It’s too real.

That’s *my* wince. That’s the wince of pain I know I do when I stub my toe, or stand on a thumbtack, or bite my tongue.

But when I get up to fix myself a drink I find my wife’s car gone, and I know that she’s with him, with this guy she’s ****, and I feel a stab of self-loathing that goes so deep it pierces my stomach and makes me retch.

I watch the video again.

Evening comes.

​

*yourfaceyouranger.mov*

*he is carrying a bunch of grapefruit in his arms in the street. a small, old man bumps into him and the fruit go flying. they make this wet pop as they hit the floor, and in the noise you can hear the fibres that held the fruit together tear. the man is knocked over. the-me-that-looks-too-much-like-me sees someone nearby drinking from a thermos, and, grabbing it, empties the scalding water all over the fallen man’s face.*

*close-up: the-me-that-shouldn’t-be-me spits on him, and winks at the stunned crowd watching. the fallen man moans, and spasms.*

​

I don’t know why, but I sort of *like* this one. The noise of the fruit is so satisfying, so visceral, and there’s something triumphant about the way fake-me snatches the boiling water and pours it over the man. Fake-me is in control.

That evening my wife tells me that she doesn’t think she ever loved me, not like the way she loves her new man, and that come to think of it I’m not much of a man at all. She says this whilst I try and wipe ketchup from my shirt, but only succeed in getting some on the couch.

When she goes to bed upstairs I watch *yourfaceyouranger.mov* over and over again.

I doze.

With my eyes half-open, the-me-that-isn’t-me, the fake-me winks at the camera.

My heart gets faster. I pretend to be asleep, and keep my eyes open just a sliver.

​

*fake-me walks away from the crowd, right up to the camera. knocks on my screen a few times with his knuckles. it sounds like glass. he watches through the screen, smiling. his eyes are on me, I’m sure of it. he pushes his face against the camera, against my screen, and stares right at me.*

*there is something behind those eyes, behind that face.*

*something dark, and waiting.*

*he keeps watching me.*

​

I think he knows I’m awake.

We stay like that until morning.

​

*yourfaceyourneighbour.mov*

*he knocks on mrs. tay’s door. he is holding an apple, and tape. she invites him in. he enters, the camera follows. in one movement he stuffs the apple in mrs. tay’s mouth and forces her to the ground where he binds her arms and legs with tape. someone from off camera hands him a hammer.*

*wide-shot: mrs. tay struggles on the floor. the-me-that-watched-me looks through her records, puts one on. it’s old and slow and the vinyl crackles as he drags her into the basement. the video continues for half an hour more, until the vinyl has finished and there is just a loop of a faint crackle, and then there are two thuds, a snap, and it ends.*

​

I can see someone’s car I don’t recognise in my driveway. It looks expensive.

I go to investigate, but can’t find anyone near it, and so I decide to go and check on Mrs. Tay. I stumble down the street in my dressing gown, face covered in patches of stubble, and knock on her door. No-one answers.

Bill Roberts walks past, and I wave at him.

“Seen Mrs. Tay today Bill?”

He shakes his head. I can tell he’s trying not to react to how I look, trying to be polite.

“Haven’t seen her in a week or so Michael.”

A pause. He’s finding the right words – I can tell.

“You doing okay? You don’t look so good.”

“Never better.”

The combination of emotions I’m feeling is hard to put into words. I am elated; there is a version of me, online, who is in control, and is acting.

I am, also, terrified. Whatever it is on that screen knows about me, knows something about my life. I don’t know if it is here, in this reality, or if it is just peering in. Either option makes my chest tight.

I’ve **** the house dry, and have to make several trips to stock up on liquor. I even call a few old contacts and manage to get some pills, although I promise myself I’ll only take them when things get really, really bad.

​

*yourfaceyourtrial.mov*

*the shortest video so far. the-me-i-wish-was-me pushes against his jaw, probing. slowly, surely, he slides his hand under the skin of my face, until I can see the outline of my fingers under the skin, like five giant malformed veins. he wriggles the fingers and the skin comes away from my face, my ring finger emerges from my eyelids. he pulls the hand out and it is covered in some sort of embryonic fluid.*

*he winks at the camera.*

*(at me?)*

​

I try the same thing that evening after I’ve shaved, pushing my fingers into my face as if the skin is going to slip and I’ll be able to do what he did, but nothing happens. My long nails cut the tender, freshly-shaven skin, and I end up just moving my face the conventional way; I smile, then frown, then stick out my tongue, then puff out my cheeks.

Once I’m convinced my face still works, I go to bed.

I think my wife sneaks him in the back door: her lover, her casanova.

I can hear them ****, I think. I can’t wait for morning, can’t wait for a new .mov. I watch *yourfaceyourtrial.mov* on repeat to help me sleep, and when *he* is convinced I’m asleep he comes right up to the camera again, but this time he fiddles with the edges, as if testing the boundaries.

​

*his breathing gets deeper, lustier, he cannot find a way out, so he just watches, cycling through expressions the way I did, convinced that I am asleep.*

*(am I?)*

When I wake up, there is a note from my wife telling me that she’s moving in with him for a while.

There is a voicemail from work telling me I’m fired, and that there’ll be no severance pay.

​

*yourfaceyourjunkies.mov*

*he (I?) finds a couple of junkies on the outside of town. he shows them a huge stack of cash and they both nod. they have about 6 teeth between them and walk with a pronounced stoop, taking him to an abandoned building on the edge of town.*

*he says go in ahead of me I’ll be right in. they pause for a while, trying to work out what the catch is, why this seemingly average guy would offer all this cash up front, but he hands them both small foil packages and they quickly dash inside.*

*as before, he slowly slips his hand under the skin of his face, working it up and up and up, until both hands are completely under the skin –*

*the camera pans down, to the rusty gate that borders the property.*

*he hangs something from the gate, before walking down the overgrown path into the house.*

*it takes me a while to realise that the thing hanging from the gate is a face.*

*my face.*

*like a mask, the mouth and eyes are empty, and the skin flaps like a heavy flag in the breeze.*

*there is the sound of cars driving past every few minutes – then, two noises like grapefruit bursting, fibrous and wet and sudden*

*he walks back down the path, and puts the face back on.*

​

I do not manage to see what lies under that face, but I desperately want to.

I think my hair is falling out.

I take a long walk around the block. When I return I find my wife staring at my laptop as if she’s seen the devil. She turns to me, slowly.

“What the *fuck* is this, Michael?”

The laptop is positioned behind her back, so I can see the screen and her at once. I remember the contents of *yourfaceyourjunkies.mov* and start to panic, if that fell into the wrong hands, with no context-

“I can explain – the videos, they’re not me, all of the places, the situations, they’re fake, I think-“

She shakes her head.

“What situations? Jesus. Michael - it’s just hours and hours and hours of footage of you whispering to the camera. It’s just your face. What’s fake about that?”

I can tell she’s a little scared, her disgust at me slowly morphing into something uglier, nastier. She takes a couple of steps back, as if seeing me for the first time. Behind her I can see the-me-that-isn’t-me, the fake-me smiling at the camera on screen.

The footage is paused, but he’s still moving, closer and closer to the camera, his eyes wide and with a rigor-mortis smile – a smile as if he’s just learned how to control the musculature of his face perfectly – and he’s holding a finger to his lips.

*Shh.*

She takes another step back. I try and warn her but no words come. Instead I’m frozen in fear, seeing the fake-me grow closer and closer to the camera, to the screen as her backs turned and-

He’s pushing against the glass of the screen, trying to find a weak point, a crack that will allow him to move from his reality into ours-

She can’t take it anymore, she turns around and without looking at the screen she picks my laptop up and smashes it on the floor.

“You’re sick.”

She leaves.

The thought of the screen smashed for some reason terrifies me. It’s as if whatever barrier was between me and that *thing* is broken, and although I can’t see anything I feel him leaking into our world, like the soft hiss of gas through a broken pipe, or air escaping a valve.

I take the laptop to be fixed – pay extra to make it happen as fast as possible.

As soon as the screen is fixed I take it home, desperate to turn it on, to see if there are any new videos – to check on the old ones.

I try loading *yourfaceyourpurchase.mov* – the first video I was sent.

A familiar scene plays, except there’s no fake-me. It’s the exact same footage, I’m sure of it, but the me-that-isn’t-me isn’t there at all. The cashier still weeps silently, but it’s not due to any version of me scaring her.

I try loading *yourfaceyouranger.mov.*

The same. The exact same video but the fake-me isn’t there. The man still falls over, coffee is still poured on his face, the crowd still reacts – but there’s no *me.*

*Yourfaceyourjunkies.mov* is now just footage of two junkies walking to a crackhouse, and entering it. They still don’t leave, but there is no face on the gate. Nothing. No sign that I was ever there.

The house suddenly feels so empty.

I can hear the faint *tap-tap-tap* of the branches against the upstairs window. The gurgling of the drain. The way the old wood creaks ever so slightly with age.

I am alone.

And I know then that the reason he’s not on the screen because he’s here.

With me.

As I feel sweat start to run down my back, I receive one final email.

​

*yourfaceyourturn.mov*

*wide-shot: me, but the* ***real*** *me this time. alone. the room is full of trash, rotting food, empty beer bottles, liquor bottles smashed on the floor, pill bottles, crumpled clothes. the* ***real*** *me holds up a hand, waves it.*

*this is live. this is real time. this is happening. now.*

*the room is dark. objects are obscured. in shadow.*

*something moves behind the window.*

*a curtain rustles.*

*bottles clink.*

*he is in here, somewhere.*

*watching.*

*waiting.*

*I am alone with myself,*

*& I have all the time in the world.*

[x](https://www.reddit.com/r/max_voynich)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My wife forgot to delete her browser history. I can’t believe what I found.
 
 Assistant:  

**4:34 PM: How to stop husband from cheating?**

I had only clicked on the history tab to delete the last thing I’d searched for when I noticed the entry. Hurriedly, I finished zipping up my fly and stared at it in bewilderment.

Amy and I had been almost too careful. We had never so much as looked at one another in my wife’s presence, let alone done anything that could have raised suspicion. There was no way she could have known what was going on, even if she had looked through my phone. With a heavy heart, I’d forced myself to delete any incriminating photos Amy sent me after I was done with them, and we had a strict call-only policy.

Amy was our latest hire and aside from being great at her job, she excelled in garnering male attention. Everyone loved her. She was strikingly beautiful and uninhibited to the point where her energy felt almost carnal, sending all morals and restraints out the window. I tried to ignore her at first, even finding excuses to go home early, but eventually, her charming giggle got the better of me too.

**4:37 PM: How much does divorce cost?**

Droplets of sweat sprang out on my forehead. *What?* Was my wife planning to divorce me? But *why?* There was no way she knew about Amy and me. Was there someone else? Was she planning to accuse me of infidelity, all while going at it with some lover boy she’d met at her yoga class?

**4:39 PM: Why do humans feel emotions?**

I pursed my lips. If by some miracle my wife did know about the affair, I couldn’t imagine the way she must have been feeling. I woke up late this morning and found a note on the kitchen table, saying that she didn’t want to wake me and that she was out doing her Saturday errands. I almost felt compelled to call her and – oh…

I flinched as a large drop of blood landed on the keyboard. *What the ****?* My first instinct was to look up at the ceiling. Nothing. A strong metallic smell made me come to my senses. I brushed my hand against my face. A bright red smudge sat on my palm. I stared at it, alarmed. I’d never gotten nosebleeds before, aside from the time I got hit in the face with a football in high school. My head raised, I scrambled to my feet and made a dash for the bathroom, my hands cupping my throbbing nose.

Once I had managed to stop the bleeding and cleaned myself up, I returned to the computer.

**4:44 PM: Which part of the brain is responsible for love?**

This was… an oddly specific search. I couldn’t recall my wife ever being interested in science or biology. I checked the account logged into the browser, just in case. Perhaps this was someone else’s history altogether? Or maybe we’d been hacked?

No. Seemed like everything was in order. My wife’s smiling face stared back at me from the login window. What was she doing searching for brain parts anyway?

**4:49 PM: What is excerebration?**

What? What was…*excerebration?* Some kind of fancy divorce? I’d never heard of the term in my life. I didn’t even hesitate before clicking it, eager to find out what my wife was planning for us.

I wish I hadn’t.

As the results came up on the monitor, my stomach lurched and my gag reflex kicked in. The images were graphic enough for my hand to automatically gravitate towards the ‘return’ button, but a short paragraph in bold caught my eye.

***‘An ancient procedure involving chiseling through the bone of the nose, in order to scoop out the brain matter.’***

My heart hammering in my chest, I clicked the ‘back’ button and scanned the rest of the entries.

**5:01 PM: Can a person live without the hypothalamus?**

**5:05 PM: Location of the hypothalamus**

**5:11 PM: How much Temazepam is safe?**

My skin crawled as I read, but I couldn’t look away. I was so immersed that I didn’t even hear the front door bang.

“Honey? I’m home!”

I stared at the wall, too shocked to reply. What was I meant to say? How was I supposed to ask her about all this?

“Hello?” she called again, her heels clacking towards me.

“Uh, hey!” I choked, throwing the box of tissues into the drawer, “How was…”

“Oh, good,” she smiled as she appeared in the doorway, “How are you? You had quite a lot to drink last night!”

“I-uh…” I stammered, “I did?”

She studied me, as though she wasn’t sure whether I was joking or not.

“The… I… W-what’s all this?” I asked, gesturing to the computer screen.

She joined me at the desk, frowning at the clammy wood surface, “What?”

I pointed at the browsing history, my index finger shaking visibly in the air.

“Oh,” she flushed, two pink spots appearing on her cheeks, “Well, you did say we could try it, so… I had to do a little research, y’know?”

“What? I said we could try…what?”

“Oh,” she waved her hand dismissively, “The exce-something. You probably know better.”

My blood ran cold. *The excerebration.*

“Karen…what did you do?”

But before she could say anything, a splash of blood landed on the carpet. And then another one. And another. Karen watched me, her skin growing pale, “W-what…”

Suddenly, a small fleshy lump escaped my nostril and rolled down the front of my shirt. We both stared at it in shocked silence. Then, my wife screamed, turning on her heel to flee the room, but I caught up to her, pinning her against the wall.

“Tell me what the **** you did!”

She tried to fight me, writhing under my grip, but I held on tight. Blood was streaming into my mouth and down my chin, staining both of our clothes.

“H-how can you not remember?” she screeched, trying to elbow me in the ribs, “Don’t you remember what you did?”

I stared at her panic-stricken face, trying my best to recall any memories from the previous night, “No…what did I do?”

“You…you came home after work and told me you were leaving me for Amy,” she sobbed, “You said you didn’t want to love her, but you did!”

I stood there quietly, mulling it over, as more pulp splashed onto my stomach.

“Ew! We need to call you an ambulance!” Karen shrieked, trying to pull away, “What the **** is that?”

“Then what happened?” I demanded, my heart practically leaping out of my chest, “Tell me what you did.”

“What the ****, John?” she screamed, “We got ****, okay? We got really wasted! And then you said you knew of a way to fix this! To fix us! You said there’s something called hypothalamus in your brain, and if removed it would stop you from loving Amy…”

I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. What the **** was she saying? Had she actually attempted to remove a part of my brain? And…

“Wait…” I whispered, “Who’s Amy?”

Her expression made me feel foolish for not remembering. I knew that name. *Amy.* It sounded so familiar, and yet I couldn’t for the life of me put my finger on it.

“What…what the **** do you mean?” she sounded bewildered, “Amy! The girl you were cheating on me with for six months?”

“I… I don’t,” I mouthed, releasing my wife and crumpling to the floor, “I don’t remember.”

Karen stared at me, her white blouse resembling a massacre, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

“What…what’s happening to me?” I whispered.

She was silent for a moment, but I could see her eyes brimming with tears, “Honey….What if… What if I… accidentally hit your hippocampus instead?”

*What?* That told me nothing.

“For **** sake, Karen, I’m not a *fucking* encyclopedia! Enlighten me! What the **** is a hippocampus?”

Nothing could have prepared me for what she said next.

“Honey,” she sobbed, “You’re…a doctor. It’s the memory part of your brain.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 1)
 
 Assistant: A few points before we start. 

Firstly, I am not the protagonist of this story. I just went to university with her, and though she went on to become a professional writer, I most certainly did not. She'll be taking over from me further down but, until then, please forgive my slightly awkward delivery while I give you guys the necessary context. 

Secondly, I don't know what you will make of the following events, and I'm sure many of you might consider it all some sort of hoax. I wasn't present for any of what transpired in Phoenix, Arizona but I can vouch for the person who wrote the following logs. She is not, and has never been, a fantasist.

Ok so I once knew a girl called Alice Sharma. She was an undergrad at Edinburgh Uni the same time I was. My educational poison was History, a degree which has greatly benefited my career as a bicycle repairman. Alice Sharma studied journalism, though perhaps "studied" isn't the word. It's not an exaggeration to say that she lived and breathed the subject. Editor-in-chief of the campus paper, recognisable voice of student radio. She was frustratingly tunnel visioned, and she was a journalist in her own right before anyone gave her a professional shot. 

We met in student halls and became friends almost immediately. A meandering waster trying to stay off his parent's farm and an intrepid, ambitious reporter may not seem the most obvious pairing, but I learned not to question it. She was inspiring, and smart and she proofread all my essays. I’m not too sure what she saw in me.

We were eventually flatmates down in London where she chased her dream and I chased my tail. She got a few jobs here and there, but nothing befitting of her skills. After months of fruitless internships and rejections, Alice called a flat meeting, telling us that she was moving to America, accepting a position chasing stories for National Public Radio. The job had come out of the blue, the result of a hail mary application she thought had been dismissed out of hand. We threw her a bittersweet going away party and put the room up for rent.

That party was the last time I saw Alice Sharma. She dropped out of contact a few months after her departure. Complete radio silence. I assumed she was just busy so I carried on with my small but happy life, and waited for her to pop up on television with some important words below her name; Chief Correspondent, Senior Analyst… something like that.

The radio silence was broken last week, and, for reasons you’ll glean further down, I’m less happy about it than I would’ve thought.

Arriving home from work I found a lone email in my otherwise bare inbox. An email that would later be described as "suspicious" by my tech literate friends. Despite being born in the early 1990's I didn't own a computer until uni, and I've missed several important lessons in the world of cyberspace. Lessons like "Don't call it Cyberspace" of course and more importantly, "Don't open emails with no text, no subject and no sender's address."

I realise most of you would have deleted this anonymous, blank email immediately, my friends certainly would have, but beyond my basic ignorance about online safety, something further compelled me to open it. The only thing of substance in the entire message was a zipped folder, labeled:

Left.Right.AS

I don't have to explain what I was hoping those final initials stood for.

Opening the zipped folder I found myself staring at a stack of text files. Each one titled with a date, continuing sequentially from the very earliest file "07-02-2017". (To any Americans in the room this is the 7th of February).

I’ve since read the files a few times, and shown them to some friends. They don't know what to make of it either, but they certainly aren't as concerned as me. They think Alice is just in a creative writing phase and, if I didn't know her, I’d have to agree. But the thing is, I do know her. Alice Sharma only cares about the truth and if that's the case with these files, insane as it may sound, then it’s very possible my friend has documented her own disappearance.

The people who suggested this forum said you discuss strange occurrences etc. If you guys have come across anything to do with the below, or know any of the people involved, then please send any information my way. 

Has anyone here heard of the Left/Right Game?

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

***
The Left/Right Game
[DRAFT 1]
07/02/2017

They say great stories happen to those who can tell them. Robert J. Guthard is an exception to that rule. As I sit at his table, sip his coffee and listen to him recount the past 65 years it sounds like he's reading off a shopping list. Every event, his first job, his second wedding, his third divorce, none of them receive more than one or two sentences. Rob plows through the years, the curt, dispassionate curator of his own personal history. Yet the story itself is so fascinating, so rich with moments and so wildly meandering that it somehow stands on its own merits. 

It's a great story, no matter how you tell it.

By the time Rob was 21, he'd gotten married, had a son, worked as a farmer, a mover, a boat engineer, and grown estranged from his spouse... Here's him talking about that.

**ROB:** Course my wife started to get dissatisfied, I was away a while.

**AS:** For work?

**ROB:**Vietnam.

**AS:** You were in Vietnam? How was that for you?

**ROB:** I ain't never been back since.

That was everything he had to say concerning his first divorce, and the entire Vietnam war.

Rob had four marriages after that, and even more professions. After the war he worked with a firm of private detectives, got shot at once by the mob, then he became a courier, which is how a poor boy from Alabama got to see the world.

**ROB:** I been to most of the continents with that job. I been to India. You from India?

**AS:** My mum and dad are from India yeah.

**ROB:** See I could tell.

He'd been arrested once in Singapore, after one of his packages had been found to be full of white powder. He spent three days locked up before someone got around to checking the substance. It was chalk. 

A friend he made during his brief custody, Hiroji Sato, invited Rob to stay with him in Japan. Just getting over the breakup of his third marriage, Rob took the offer. He stayed in Japan for another 5 years.

**ROB:** The Japanese are good people. Good manners. But they got all these urban legends and ghost stories that Hiroji was crazy for, spent all his free time chasing them down. Like, you heard of Jorogumo?

**AS:** I don't think so"

**ROB:** Well she's this spider lady lives in the Joro Falls round Izu. Meant to be real pretty but real dangerous. Hiroji took us out there to get a picture of her.

**AS:** Did you ever meet Jorogumo?

**ROB** Nah she didn't show. None of them did. I didn't believe at all until we went to Aokigahara

Aokigahara, affectionately titled the Suicide Forest. The next stop on Rob's adventure. It's an area of woodland at the base of Mount Fuji, a notorious hotspot for young people looking to take their own lives. Hiroji, Rob's ghost obsessed jailmate turned best friend, took him to Aokigahara to chase "yurei" the ghosts of the forest.

**AS:** Did you find anything? In Aokigahara?

**ROB:** Well I ain't gonna ask you to believe me. But I was a PI. Professional cynic. Even I can't deny there was a spirit in those woods.

From that moment on, Rob's sentences start getting longer. A childlike excitement creeps into his voice. I get the distinct feeling we're moving beyond background, beyond Rob Guthard's old life, and towards his new one. The one he wants to talk about. The one that led him to contact the show.

**ROB:** It walked up to me through the trees. Looked like static you see on a TV screen but it had a human shape almost.

**AS:** Almost?

**ROB:** It was missing an arm. It reached out to me but I bolted outta that forest so fast. Hiroji never saw it, holds it against me to this day.

Hiroji had good reason to be annoyed. Rob says that Mr Sato had been going to the forest 2-3 times per year for three decades. To have a rookie come along and claim to have seen a yurei on his first trip? I'd be more than a little cranky.

But Rob didn't stay a rookie for long. In fact, it was in those woods that he discovered his current passion. The supernatural, or more accurately, the documentation and investigation of urban legends. Legends like Bloody Mary, the Jersey Devil, Sasquatch. Rob has looked into them all.

**ROB:** I figured if one was true then who knows how many others could be.

**AS:** How many have you proven so far?

**ROB:** Since Aokigahara? Ain't none of em had any proof to em. Except for one. That's why I called you guys up.

At this point, Rob can’t hope to repress his smile.

The Left/Right game appeared on a paranormal message board in June 2016. Only a few people frequently visited the forum and, of these regulars, only Rob took an interest in the post.

**ROB:** The whole thing had a level of detail you don't see in other stories.

**AS:** What details grabbed your interest?

**ROB:** Logs. High quality pictures. The guy documented everything, said he wasn't gonna play the game anymore. I think he wanted somebody to keep investigating.

**AS:** And you were that somebody.

**ROB:** That's right. I set about trying to verify his information right away.

**AS:** And how did it go?

**ROB:** Well... It didn't take long to realise the Left/Right Game is the real thing.

The rules of the Left/Right game are simple. Get in your car and take a drive. Take a left, then the next possible road on the right, then the next possible left. Repeat the process ad infinitum, until you wind up somewhere... new. The rules are easy to understand, but Rob says their not so easy to follow.

**ROB:** There ain't all that many roads where you can turn left and right and left and right and keep going. Most of the time you find yourself at a dead end or needing to turn in the wrong direction. Phoenix is built on a grid system so you can keep going left and right as long as you need to.

**AS:** Did you move to Phoenix for the Left/Right game?

**ROB:** That's right.

I try not to seem incredulous. Selling your house in another state, packing up and moving your whole life to Phoenix, Arizona just to play a game you saw on the internet? It seems like insanity. Rob smiles as he reads my expression. I can clearly read his expression too. "You'll see." It says. "Just wait."

I wouldn't have to wait long. Included within the 9 page submission Rob sent our show, was a long list of suggested items the chosen reporter should bring with them. Clothes for three days, a pocket knife, matches, bandages. There were also a set of qualifications the reporter should have. The ability to drive, basic vehicle maintenance and its human equivalent... first aid training. He didn't just want to talk about the Left/Right Game. He wanted to take one of us along.

Rob leaves a short while later to embark on a few errands, "Prepping the Run", as he calls it. He shows me to the guest room and we part ways, on good terms but very much aware of the other's poorly veiled opinions. He knew I saw him as a charming obsessive, chasing after a fairy tale. He saw me as a naive cynic, on the cusp of a new world. All I could think as I heard the front door close is that by tomorrow afternoon, one of us would be right.

More after this.

When I wake up the next morning, Rob is in my room, holding a tray which he'd knocked on the bottom of to rouse me. I don't manage to record the start of our conversation.

**ROB:** - I got bananas, strawberries, chocolate syrup. We got some more downstairs but I wanted you to wake up to something good. We won't be eatin' this stuff on the road."

Rob has made me waffles. He sets them down on the night stand and talks through the coming day as I eat. I'll admit it feels a little uncomfortable, waking up in a stranger's home to find said stranger already standing over me, but I quickly move past it. I tell myself that he’s an older man, accustomed to living alone in his own house, not usually having to think about boundaries. Anyway, he certainly knows his way around a waffle iron.

**ROB:** We hit the road at 9. I wanted to give you time to get ready before everyone shows up.

**AS:** There are other people coming?

**ROB:** We got a 5 car convoy on the road today. They'll be here in an hour.

This is the first I’ve heard of a convoy, and to be honest I’m surprised. The game is Rob's obsession, and I’m here at his request. The idea that anyone else would have an interest in today's drive is a little perplexing.

Half an hour later, sated, showered and dressed in the "functional clothing" Rob had so painstakingly outlined, I take my pack out to the porch. Rob’s already there, waiting for his associates to show up.

**AS:** I thought you'd be conducting a few more errands.

**ROB:** If you ain't prepared by the morning of, you ain't prepared.

**AS:** Hah ok I guess that's fair. Oh, Rob is the garage locked? The inside door won't budge and I wanted to mic up the car.

**ROB:** Yeah it's locked up I'll open it for ya.

**AS:** Thank you.

**ROB:** In fact it's about time I wheeled her out. Fair warning Ms Sharma, she's a thing of beauty.

To Rob Guthard, beauty took the form of a dark green Jeep Wrangler. Rob climbs in and lets it roll out of the garage, where it dominates every inch of driveway. The car is large; four doors with a roof enclosing the entire compartment. It’s also been modified extensively, yet another example of Rob's dedication to the game.

**ROB:** What're you thinking?

**AS:** I think you're two caterpillar treads short of driving a tank.

**ROB:** Hah yeah I fixed her up good. I put the winch in, heavy duty tires, the light rig on top is LED's. They'll make midnight look like noon but they don't use hardly any power.

**AS:** Aren't Jeeps open top usually?

**ROB:** Not all. This is the Unlimited. I like to have a covered car when I head on the road.

I climb in and stow my pack. Rob had removed the back seats to afford more storage space. The place is packed to the brim. Jerry cans of gasoline, barrels of water, rope, snacks and his own neatly packed set of clothes.

I wonder if the rest of our convoy would take the game so seriously.

**ROB:** We got Apollo coming up in 10 minutes. No one else has given me a time. I sent the schedule weeks ago, this always happens.

**AS:** His name's Apollo?

**ROB:** That's his call sign. Apollo Creed I think he said.

**AS:** Why are you using call signs?

**ROB:** Did I not tell you? Oh yeah we're gonna use call signs on the road, keep communication clear.

**AS:** What's your callsign?

**ROB:** Ferryman.

**AS:** ... What's my call sign?

**ROB:** I thought about it. I was thinking London, you're from London right?

**AS:** I'm from Bristol.

**ROB:** Bristol? That’s fine I guess.

It’s less than ten minutes before Apollo turns the corner. Rob jumps out of his chair and paces briskly over to the edge of his property, as his first guest pulls up and steps onto the sidewalk.

Apollo vaguely resembles his namesake, dark skinned, tall and noticeably well built, though it’s clear he couldn’t be less of a fighter. This Apollo Creed is all smiles and seems to have a penchant for laughing at his own jokes.

**AS:** How far have you come?

**APOLLO:** I've come out of Chicago. Took three days hard driving.

**AS:** And you know Rob from the forums?

**APOLLO:** Everybody knows Rob, Rob's the ****! Ahaha

Rob walks over to Apollo's car, gesturing him over to talk shop. Rob’s clearly impressed with Apollo's choice of vehicle, a blue Range Rover packed to the ceiling with kit. I was more impressed with Rob himself. Somehow this 65 year old farmer's son had become respected in a vast online community. My dad is Rob’s age and he's just discovered copy and paste.

The rest don't take long to arrive. Two Minnesotan librarians, also around Rob's age, pull up in a grey Ford Focus. They’re brother and sister, and they've shared ghost hunting as a hobby their entire lives. I find it hard to suppress a smile when they meekly introduce themselves as Bonnie and Clyde.

**CLYDE:** We would have gotten here sooner we had to drop by to get some blankets. Pleasure to meet you ma'am.

**AS:** Pleasure to meet you too.

**CLYDE:** Would you be the journalist?

**AS:** That's right.

**CLYDE:** You used to write for the town paper didn't you?

He's talking to his sister there, she nods. Clyde is clearly the spokesperson for the pair, yet they both seem incredibly shy. Whether they admire the famous outlaws, or just the name, it's pretty clear they couldn't be more different from the real thing.

Next to show up are Lilith and Eve, English Lit students at New York University and proprietors of the YouTube channel Paranormicon. Unlike Bonnie and Clyde, Lilith and Eve have no issue holding a conversation. As soon as they learn who I am, and what I do for a living, they attempt to conscript me for an expedition to Roswell.

**LILITH:** We have a friend there, he's been seeing some-

**EVE:** -He's a seismologist

**LILITH:** Yeah and he's been recording readings over the years that show subterranean movement. Predictable movement.

**EVE:** We're going to see him in July, but we could work it around you if you're free.

**AS:** I'll have to check my schedule

**EVE:** OK cool let me give you my email...

They quickly hurry off to film an intro for their latest video, featuring a quick interview with Rob, who seems pretty welcoming of the attention.

The last two cars arrive within a few seconds of each other. A lithe, strong willed older lady who goes by Bluejay and a younger man going by the callsign “Ace”. Bluejay has arrived in a grey Ford Explorer. Ace, much to Rob's annoyance, has arrived in a Porsche.

**ROB:** Did you think that's gonna help on the road? I didn't write that-

**ACE:** It's my car. What am I meant to do,? It's my car.

**ROB:** You didn't read my itinerary, you got nothing packed in there.

**ACE:** I did read it sir OK? Calm down. I have a bag, I won't ask you for anything.

**ROB:** Well I know that's true.

Ace and Rob were off to a bad start. Ace takes a phone call, and despite my best efforts to get an interview with Bluejay, she doesn't seem interested in talking to a journalist.

With five cars, and seven travellers waiting for a green light, Rob hands out radios and charging packs, then launches into a quick safety briefing. Wear seatbelts. Stay in position. Communicate clearly and often. It’s at this moment I start to feel a little dismay. I like Rob, and clearly so does everyone else. He'd convinced all of them to drive across the country to join in with his game. I start to worry what will happen in the likely event that the whole thing isn’t real. Would Rob lose the respect of his peers? Would he accept failure when it comes? After seeing the effort he’s put into these runs, the next few hours have the potential to be wildly uncomfortable.

With a smile and a few encouraging words, Rob ends his briefing and beckons me over to the Wrangler. I clamber inside and make myself as comfortable as possible.

**ROB:** You ready for this Bristol?

**AS:** I'm ready.

**ROB:** Ok then let's hit the road.

The Wrangler pulls out of the driveway, and the convoy follows in order of arrival. Apollo, Bonnie & Clyde, Lilith & Eve, Bluejay and Ace keep a steady pace behind us as we come up to the first corner.

Rob slowly and deliberately turns left, checking on the others in his rear view mirror. He looks back to the road as Ace’s Porsche completes the first turn of the game. Shortly afterwards, Apollo checks in on the CB radio.

**APOLLO:** This is Apollo for Ferryman. How many to more go Rob? ahahaha

**ROB:** Hah as many as it takes.

I can tell Rob wanted the to reserve the radio for something other than Apollo's quips. But he seems to like Apollo enough to let it slide. I'm not sure Ace would have received the same treatment. We take the next right, then another left. Now safely assured that everyone's following correctly, Rob speaks my thoughts aloud.

**ROB:** You're wondering the same thing Apollo is.

**AS:** What do you mean?

**ROB:** You're wondering how many turns we're gonna take before we hit some wall or something. Before you find out this is all just a story.

**AS:** Does that disappoint you?

**ROB:** I'd be disappointed if you weren't thinking something like it. But now we're on the road I gotta say something and you gotta listen to it.

**AS:** OK...

**ROB:** We're coming up to a tunnel soon. Any time before we reach it you can get out, walk in any direction you like, and you won’t be in the game no more. Once we go through, you gotta retrace the route we took to get yourself back out that tunnel. That's when you’re home. And you gotta convince someone to take you back in a car coz I ain't ferrying you back 20 minutes in. You got till the tunnel to skip out on this, understand?

**AS:** I understand. Though I have to say I'm getting little nervous.

**ROB:** Ain't nothing wrong with a little nervous.

We've taken 23 turns by this point. Already I feel like we're traversing the city pretty effectively. Rob's heavily modified Wrangler solicits a few impressed glances from passersby, as well as several honks of respect from other Jeep drivers. Other than those few moments, everything seems completely indistinguishable from a regular morning drive. I even start to worry if there’ll be anything at all for this story. “Reporter Takes Drive With Interesting Man” isn’t exactly Pulitzer worthy.

Turn 33 leads us onto a short, unassuming street. A row of small businesses in a quiet Phoenician neighbourhood; liquor, second hand clothing, tools and, at the end of the street, a little shop selling antique mirrors. Ten or so people shuffle along the sidewalk, smiling, talking, planning their weekends. The only lone person is a young woman in a grey coat..

I briefly glimpse her at the end of the street, standing on our next corner, the back of her coat reflected in fifty old mirrors. Even from a distance I can see that she’s sullen, wide eyed and nervous. She shifts constantly on her feet, tugging at the button of her coat.

I look away to write some notes as we roll down the street. When I look up again, the woman is standing by my window, staring right at me. She’s smiling, a wide, unfaltering grin that seems almost offensive in its complete insincerity.

**GREYWOMAN:** Lambs at the gate. Hoping for something better than clover when all they find are things worse than slaughter.

**AS:** Rob what's happening?

**ROB:** Ignore her.

**GREYWOMAN:** He wanted to leave me so I cut him out. The lake was hungry it drank the wound clean.

**AS:** Miss, are you alright?

The smile vanishes, it snaps from her face and suddenly, the woman is furious.

**GREYWOMAN:** What do you think you're doing?! Have you gone mad?!

I reflexively press myself back in my chair as the woman, wild eyed and gaunt, slams her fists against my window, with every intent of breaking through.

**GREYWOMAN:** Would you dance down the lion’s tongue? It will shred you, you ****! It will shred you down to your sins! You **** ****!

Rob puts his foot down, and the Wrangler rolls defiantly away from the woman. As we turn the corner I watch her as she wretches, her every movement cradled in abject hysteria. She yells despairingly at the rest of the convoy, bursting into tears when the last car passes her by. 

As she shrinks into the rear view mirror, I see her turn to a large mirror on the side of the shop, which the owner is in the process of polishing. I watch as she walks up to it, and with a convulsant scream, slams her head into the glass.

The mirror cracks around her forehead, the owner jumps back in shock, and as the woman pulls her head from the mirror's surface, the fractured spider’s web is dripping red. It all happens in a split second, and she quickly swerves from my view as we take the next left.

**AS:** Rob, what was that?

**ROB:** She's there sometimes.

**AS:** On that street?

**ROB:** On the 34th turn.

**AS:** Who is she?

**ROB:** I don't know. She's never acted out that much before though. Must be a special trip.

I find Rob's lack of concern a little unpleasant, and his implication that this woman's ravings were the symptom of an internet game leaves me more than a little perturbed. As I see it, there are a few explanations for what just happened, and none of them lead to a comforting conclusion.

If we had just encountered a bonafide crazy person, then one could argue that Rob is just seeing what he wants to see. Maybe he'd bought into the game’s story so much that every strange but explainable occurrence would be rationalised as the next step in his favourite paranormal narrative.

Alternatively, the woman could have been an actor, a more elaborate theory sure, but not unheard of. People have lied to the show before and Rob was receiving a tonne of publicity for this attempt from Lilith, Eve and I. I admit, Rob didn't seem like a liar, but good liars never do.

There is a third alternative however. An alternative which, if you put logic aside, explains the all troubling little details that I couldn't help but notice. Because as strange as the grey woman was, isn't it stranger that no one on the street would react? I couldn't recall a single glance in her direction by anybody on the sidewalk. Perhaps that theory falls apart when you consider the shock on the mirror seller's face but, when I think about it, he only reacted once the mirror shattered, and even then, I feel like his attention was on the mirror itself.

The radio crackles.

**LILITH:** Lillith to Bristol. Sara... Eve got that on camera! Do you have audio?

**AS:** I think it picked her up.

**LILITH:** My **** that was so weird. Can you send us the file when we stop? Can you ask Ferryman when we're stopping?

**AS:** When's our stopping point?

**ROB:** For them, in about 30 minutes. For you? Well, you tell me.

Rob turns off a busy street just before a large intersection, onto a much quieter stretch of two lane road. Ahead of us the road slopes downward, leading into an underpass, which disappears into darkness.

We'd arrived at the tunnel.

**AS:** What is this supposed to pass under?

**ROB:** Ain't supposed to pass under anything, it's just there.

**AS:** And if we weren't playing the game?

**ROB:** Then it won't show. The question is, are you playing the game or not?

Rob turns to me. It’s the first time he’s taken his eyes off the road since we started. He pulls the car to a slow stop at the mouth of the tunnel.

**ROB:** You get out now you can go wherever you wanna go, but through there you'll need a car to get yourself home and, like I said, mine ain't turnin round for a long while. You understand?

It’s a dramatic statement, but unsettlingly, it doesn’t feel like he’s attempting to dramatise. It feels like I’m having something genuinely asked of me. Am I ready for what’s to come? Do I accept the risks involved? Do I consent to be taken down this road, and the next road, and the next? Am I prepared to see this game through, real or otherwise, to its end?

**AS:** What are you waiting for?

Rob smiles, and turns back to the road. He picks up the CB radio holds down the button on the side. The microphone crackles.

**ROB:** This is Ferryman to all cars. Anyone want to step out then pull to the side now. Otherwise, stay in formation and have some supplies at hand. We got a long ways to go.

Much like the game I’m so tentatively playing, my view of Robert J. Guthard seems to change direction frequently. I’d heard all about his life, but I’m sure that I know him. I like the guy, but I’m not certain that I trust him. And though I admire his dedication to the Left/Right Game, I’m not sure I’ll like where it might lead us. Yet as he takes us into the tunnel, his face vanishing and reappearing under the dim sodium lights, I can that tell he expects this trip to be a major step in his already impressive story, and this time, for better or for worse, I’m along for the ride.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. I think I’m going to need more than a guide.
 
 Assistant: How it started: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app



So much has happened in the last 24 hours. I’m so stressed and I’ve barely slept since I discovered that Jamie was missing. It’s starting to make me feel a little twitchy. But I thought I’d better update you guys. 

I was overwhelmed by all the suggestions you gave me and have taken more than a few of them on board. I’m definitely going to be getting a huge planter full of sage for the balcony and I did spill a little salt in my doorway. I’m sorry to disappoint but that didn’t help at all. 

There’s nothing I’m following quite like Mrs Hemming’s rules. I’ve followed them to the letter so far, and lo and behold I’m still alive. That’s not to say it hasn’t been tough. Il start from the beginning. 




I was going crazy. And a few hours after my last post Jamie still hadn’t returned. He had been gone for almost 24 hours. His work have called me multiple times. I don’t know what to say so I just keep ghosting the calls. 

I was bang in the middle of the danger time when I decided checking the lift had to be my first step. But I wasn’t going to break that rule. 

I waited. I waited desperately for 3.34 to come and I’m ashamed to say that when it did I remained paralysed to our sofa for almost half an hour before I found the nerve to leave the flat. It was 4.02 when I finally reached the lift. 

The lift in this building is old and rickety. It hasn’t been updated in a very long time and has likely been here as long as the building. It’s big, clunky buttons stared back at me as I glared at them, hoping for some sort of answer or clue. My heart thumped and I was overcome with a feeling of dread but nothing came of any of it. It was hopeless. 

I stepped inside the lift, rode it up and down a few floors and searched the entire perimeter with a phone torch for anything I could find. I found nothing. Jamie had completely disappeared. 

Sobbing and exhausted I rode back to floor 7 and turned my key in flat 42, the perfect home that felt anything but home at that point. 

I sat at the cheap flat pack dining table we’d managed to put together on move-in day and cried. My hands shaking as I held my phone. 

I was flitting between reading all your comments and contemplating calling the police for an hour. But I decided to call my friend Georgia instead. I needed a real person here, things were so crazy I wasn’t sure the police would be able to help with what little information I had. But I knew I needed to sound it out with someone.

Il spare you the details again, but I told her everything. She promised she’d be with me in the late morning, she had to take her younger brother to school. 

I waited anxiously. Not before arming every room exactly as advised. Before I knew it I looked at the clock and it was 8.23, I had around half an hour until the postman was due to show up. 

There was no way I was missing him today. I stood by the door looking vacantly at the wood, like someone in a film who was possessed. The exhaustion was really setting in but Jamie was all I could think of. Pure adrenaline was keeping me standing. 

At 8.52 I opened the door. The next two minutes were the longest of my life but when I saw him a wave of relief swept my entire body. 

Right on cue, 8.54 the postman, Ian Flanders stood in front of me, a smile that barely hid his concern covering his younger than expected face. He didn’t look old enough to have been the postman for over 35 years but I was too  distracted by the answers that I needed from him to care.

“You must be the new tenant.” He stated, but in a way that it sounded like a question. I struggled with my answer, so I got straight to the point.

“Mrs Hemmings left me a note, she said to speak to you if - “

“Can I come in dear? I think we need to chat.”

I ushered Ian in, my hands still shaking as I flapped them in the direction of the sofa, gesturing for him to sit down. I shoved the now slightly crumpled note into his lap and waited. 

“I’m glad Prue still thinks that highly of me. I will miss that old girl.” He said with a coy smile as he reached the end of the note. 

“Can you help me or not?” I had no time for his ego trip over a moved on neighbour. 

“I can help. But I can’t stop for long so it’ll have to be quick. I’ve walked these halls delivering the post for 40 years. I’ve seen it all, everything Prue’s mentioned and more. What do you need to know?” He said.

Ian was nothing like what I expected. The note made me feel like he was going to be a kindly, old grandad type figure, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Postman Ian spoke with a thick city accent, and wore a heavy gold chain around his tattooed neck. He had dyed his greying hair boot polish black.

His demeanour was thankfully non threatening but extraordinarily cocky. He was the sort of man I imagined in a betting shop, rubbing his grubby hands on notes as he bragged over a win. 

He didn’t ask as he lit a cigarette in my living room. I didn’t question it, we would usually smoke outside but I wasn’t going to argue over technicalities. I grabbed a bowl for the ash and lit one too. 

“Let’s start with the things in the lift. My boyfriend is missing and he took the lift at quarter past 3 over 24 hours ago. We hadn’t got this note yet. I haven’t heard from him since. I need to get him back.” I barked at him as if the louder I spoke the more I could influence his answer. But nothing prepared me for what he said. 

His skin turned pale and his harsh looking face became more sympathetic as he explained. 

“He’s dead, love. Forget about him now. Only one person has ever come back from the lift at that time of night and it was Prue herself. After witnessing it. Those creatures ripping their victim apart. Poor Prue was traumatised. Your boy is gone, let go and follow the rules.” He was blunt but I could tell he felt sorry for me. 

“There must be something I can do!” I pleaded.

“There are things I’ve heard to bring back those who are lost but I’ve never seen solid proof they work. It would be irresponsible of me to tell you to do something that might get you killed too. It’s nice here, honest, just get over him and live the status quo. Sorry if I sound harsh, I don’t mean to, but you seem like a decent young lady and I don’t want to see you go too soon.”

I asked about what Mrs Hemmings had seen in the lift and if they were sure it happened to all who entered it. I refused to believe that Jamie was dead. There had to be something I could do and if I knew what I was dealing with I could be better prepared. 

“It was awful what happened. I wasn’t there, but this is what I was told. 

Little Lyla was such a cute kid. She used to open the door and give me a tip when I delivered the post. She was Prue’s granddaughter. Lyla was her sons little girl and that night She was staying over for the first time. Prue finally felt confident that she could protect Lyla from all the strange things that happen here...

She was wrong. Little Lyla had a problem with sleepwalking. And she took a trip into the hallway at half 1 in the morning, Prue took a little too long to notice the sound she had heard was the front door and by the time she reached the lift she saw the creatures dragging Lyla’s limbs away from her body. She tried to fight them, even killed one, but she couldn’t save the little girl.” 

I was hysterical, imagining Jamie’s fate.

“What are the creatures? Have you ever actually seen them.” I asked.

“No one really knows what they are love. They’re something to do with the building and all its quirks, no ones ever seen them elsewhere. We don’t know where they came from, just that they’re here. 

I’ve seen them a few times over the years, usually when new neighbours have left biscuits down for their cats and dogs or haven’t disposed of food waste properly. 

They’re curious little creatures. Mostly harmless out of the hours Prue warned you about, but if they’re fed they can become quite viscous looking for more food. 

That’s why you have to bin all your scraps, or hide them or pack them or whatever. Just don’t leave them out and don’t use the lift at those times and you’re safe from the creatures. 

They’re a little smaller than humans, but they’re a similar shape, they come with grotesque rodent like features, and are far larger than any rodent could be. Like rodent children I suppose. They have two sharp rows of teeth per jaw and are consistently hungry. 

When they eat they crunch down in a violent and disgusting way, dripping spittle everywhere, Prue said she could hear her granddaughters bones shatter in those jaws.” He went pale at the thought of that, but continued.

“When they first arrived in the building there were hundreds, it caused pandemonium amongst the residents. We lost the residents of more than 30 of the individual homes. But the residents fought back and managed to **** all but the strongest minority of them. 

The creatures left over were incredibly dangerous and seemingly impossible to eradicate, so the residents struck a deal. A deal that they will be left unharmed and allowed to live in the building in return for the residents safety at all times, but if anyone wanders into the lift between 1.11 and 3.33am they are fair game. 

This timeframe is the period the creatures are at their most frenzied and restricting them to the lift was safer for all parties. **** help anyone who encounters them during those hours.

They’ve been here ever since, claimed lots of unsuspecting people avoiding the stairs, but nothing like when they first arrived. A few got put down for not holding up their end of the bargain but we haven’t had an incident outside the lift in years. Count yourself lucky you missed that crisis. 

Everything here’s pretty peaceful right now. I’m sorry about your boyfriend. I really have to go, I’m late for my round.” He scrawled his phone number on a bit of paper and handed it to me. “Emergencies only, I don’t like to be bothered.”

“You can’t go! The note said you would help me!” I exclaimed.

“And I will!” He snapped back, “when there’s something I can help with. I can’t resurrect your boyfriend and I don’t like to be late delivering the post. I will see you soon love.”

I was in shock, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I couldn’t believe he was leaving me after the information overload and the small ray of hope he had lit inside me and then squashed. 

“I’ll call the police!” I shouted, desperate to feel as if I was solving this somehow.

“You can try if you want.” Ian sighed, as he opened the door to leave. “It just aggravates the creatures, and it isn’t going to bring your boy back. Mr prentice hates it when police come too, if you want to get any sleep in the next week then I’d avoid it. Wait a week, report him missing and learn to adapt to life here love, or you’ll be dead in days.”

And with that he shut the door behind him. I opened it again, I had so much more to ask, but he was gone, no sign of him anywhere in the corridor. 

Maybe it was me losing my mind, I might be imagining all these things. But no matter how much I willed it the note was still there. And Jamie still wasn’t.




Georgia arrived not long after Ian had left. I, of course, asked if she had seen him in the corridor, to try and affirm to myself that he was real, but she hadn’t. She looked at me worried, and held me as I sobbed and told her what the postman had said about Jamie and the creatures. 

I wasn’t sure she believed me. Even as she read the note she looked skeptical. If she was skeptical I wouldn’t have blamed her, but she had always been supportive. She sat with me for hours while I just sobbed, heartbroken. I was so conflicted as to what do to. It felt insane that I hadn’t contacted anybody, but this note had turned out to be accurate so far and if the postman was to be trusted then I should wait. 

Georgia had been my best friend for many years, she stuck up for me when I was too scared to do it for myself and had always been the brave one of the two of us. I felt safe around her, so after hours of crying and despairing at the way my life had changed in a matter of days I finally decided to take a nap. It was early evening and Georgia was watching some tv. Just there for me if I needed her.

Despite the deprivation, I struggled to fall asleep, I tried to imagine Jamie’s arms around me but it became a more painful reminder that they probably never will be again. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of staring at the damp patch on ceiling I drifted off. 

About three hours ago, I woke up, staring at the **** damp patch on the ceiling and could hear chatting in the living room. I jumped out of bed and walked towards it.

Georgia was on the sofa, with a middle aged looking woman, both nursing a cup of tea in the matching mugs that Jamie had got me as a move in present. My blood boiled but it wasn’t their fault, I cleared my throat to get their attention. 

“Oh Katie! This is Natalia, she lives upstairs. We got chatting so I made her a cup of tea. I hope you don’t mind.” I looked at the dark haired woman on the sofa, drinking tea from my cup and nodded. Georgia was a sociable idiot with no understanding of when to not be herself. I wasn’t going to lament her for it right now. It was her coping. 

“Of course. Hi Natalia, what flat do you live in?” I tried my very best to be polite. I would have to discuss not bringing people into my home mid tragedy with Georgia after she had left but until then I would be neighbourly.

“Flat 71. It’s so nice to meet you, you have a lovely home.” Natalia responded, her lips curled at the corners into a smile that wasn’t replicated in her eyes or the rest of her **** expression. She looked at me smugly, with full knowledge that I was aware of the implications of what she had just said.

The rules...

The flat number....

*every now and again someone will knock at your door claiming to live in one of these flats and ask to borrow some sugar. They will seem entirely average but you must shut and lock the door immediately. I installed two extra security bolts to avoid these ****. I don’t like to swear at my age but they really are ****.*

Prue’s warning echoed in my mind and I couldn’t take my eyes off Natalia. Something really was off about her. I looked at Georgia sat on the sofa next to her and noticed her sweating. Anyone in the uk knows that it’s been a hot for few days but this was beyond just the ambient temperature. Her entire body was dripping. 

Suddenly, she began to pant. Natalia’s eyes were locked to mine just like the window cleaners had been. Nothing happened before with the cleaner, except this time the rule had been broken. She was already in the flat. 

Georgia started to scream as her skin blistered and charred. Her hair fell from her scalp as the skin flaked and melted away from every inch of her. She was being burned alive without a flame in sight. She scratched frantically at her own melting face, digging into the exposed raw flesh. The sound a person makes when they burn alive is like no other. That will never leave me. 

I screamed and screamed but no one came to my door. I tried to grab my phone to call postman Ian but the wooden surface I had set it down on burned my fingers to the touch and forced me to recoil. She was going to set the whole flat alight. 

My actions needed to be quicker than a phone call. 

I grabbed hold of the large knife I had set down on the side earlier when weaponising, the handle blistered my fingers instantly but I didn’t care, I needed to get her out now and help Georgia if I could. I ran towards the dark haired lady, sweat dripping from my brow the closer I got and plunged the knife into Natalia’s throat. She gripped it and fell to the floor. 

She didn’t bleed like a normal human. Her insides were black, she was still moving, and I figured it probably wouldn’t be long before she stood right back up and tried again. So I dragged her into the hallway ready to bolt the door. 

As we reached the entrance of the corridor one of the cats was waiting, hissing at her semi conscious body, I caught her eyes fixate on it as I dumped her on the floor. I grabbed the cat, pulled him inside, wincing as it’s skin caused more burns up my lower arms, shut the door and watched through the peep hole. She got up and held her hand to the wound, cauterising it and walking off towards the lift. As if she hadn’t been injured at all. 

I’d dropped the cat by that point but every bit of **** skin it had touched throbbed and burned for at least an hour. 

Georgia hadn’t been as lucky as Natalia with injury recovery. I anonymously called an ambulance for her. I couldn’t believe it but she was still breathing. She was badly burned and her life wouldn’t be the same again but she was alive. And for that I was grateful. 

It sounds awful but I left her at the park across the road from the building. With no phone or i.d. She’s my best friend and I want to be there but if I own up to involvement in injuries that bad they’ll suspect me, and I lose the already slim chance that Jamie might be saveable. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about Georgia, but she’s alive. I won’t believe Jamie isn’t until I see it. 

So now I’m alone again, in the flat, conflicted about what to do. 

I want to leave. So badly. But this was mine and Jamie’s first home together. If he’s alive, and I can save him then I want it to be here for him to come back to... and if he’s dead, and the postman is right then I don’t know if I can leave his memory behind. 

There’s only one person I think could help me right now. So tonight I’m going to do some research, hunt down an address and tomorrow morning I’m going to visit Prudence Hemmings.

How it went: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cj2g4k/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Dad shut himself inside his bunker at the start of the pandemic. Three months ago, we lost contact with him.
 
 Assistant: Dad shut himself inside his bunker at the beginning of 2020. He said the world was about to end and when we didn’t believe him, he told us to wake up. It was raining that day. I remember focusing on the water hitting the windowpanes while my sister tried to change Dad’s mind. I knew it was no use. He was too stubborn to listen to anyone except maybe Donald Trump. WHO had just declared that COVID-19 had pushed the world into a pandemic. Dad wanted us to join him and when we told him no, he called us brainwashed.

He purchased the land before I was born. Only because of the dilapidated military facility that came with it. It was abandoned sometime in the 60s, I think. My sister was there from the beginning, even before Dad’s obsession pushed Mom away. It’s hard for me to imagine what he was like back then. Mom says he was a gentleman. But they married young, and a person can change a lot during those years. And so did Dad. All I remember from him during childhood are the weekends at the bunker. Constantly renovating it and stockpiling it with everything he would need to survive down there.

We couldn’t stop him. He wasn’t the best Dad, not even a good one, but it was sad to see him go all the same. He was excited, even though he thought that civilization was about to collapse. I guess that happens when you’ve spent your entire adult life preparing. We had to set up an old radio to keep in touch with him. He didn’t trust mobile phones. We didn’t hear from him often, just once a month, sometimes less. The last time he radioed in, he said he had found a hidden door. He was going to see where it went. That was three months ago.

“You think he’s okay?” my sister said. “He wasn’t in great health. I *told* him.”

We sat in the car, on our way to check up on him, driving through the heatwave.

“His radio might have broken down,” I said. “Let’s not assume the worst.”

But I felt worried too. There was something strange about that hidden door, and his tone when he mentioned it. It didn’t sit right with me. But maybe it was just the heat and the endless desert around us that played tricks on my mind. I couldn’t really tell.

​

\*\*\*

​

It was dark when we arrived. Dad’s truck stood where he had left it, beneath some tarp that blew in the chilly, sand-carrying wind. We turned on our flashlights and walked to the cliff above the bunker. The steel door was made to withstand a nuclear blast. Luckily, I owned the only spare key in existence. Before I used it, I banged on the door as hard as I could and yelled for Dad. I worried he would mistake us for intruders and shoot us. If he was confused, and if it was dark, it was a real possibility. I banged again and yelled at the top of my lungs:

“Dad, are you there? It’s me, Josh! Eveline is here as well!”

“I don’t think he can hear you,” Eveline said.

I nodded. “Dad! I’m going to open the door now!”

I was seventeen the last time I was here. Back then it was the Muslims that were going to end civilization as we knew it. Before that, it was the Russians. Now it was China. There was always something threatening his beloved freedom, and yet he was never truly free. My sister put her hand on my wrist just as I was about to unlock the door.

“You know,” she said. “Maybe we should just call the authorities after all and–”

“No,” I said. “**** fight them.”

I unlocked the heavy door. A rancid smell escaped the darkness inside. It was the odor of death. I recognized it from when Dad tried––and ultimately failed––to learn how to hunt and let a reindeer carcass rot on the property for weeks. My sister had already stopped visiting him by then. I didn’t tell her what the smell reminded me of. She covered her nose with her shirt. We descended the spiral stairs. It creaked for each step we took, almost as if it was about to fall apart.

I tried the light switch at the bottom. The click echoed throughout the long corridor leading to the living area. Nothing happened.

“Hm.” I realized that the batteries, which he charged by the use of an old exercise bike, were dead. That meant he was most likely dead as well. “The generator could be broken,” I said. “But… Maybe you should wait back here, just in case… you know.”

I pointed my flashlight in front of me. The light was too weak to reach the end of the corridor. On the way here I had felt ready. I felt sad, the kind of empty sadness you feel after the death of a parent that was never any good, but I didn’t feel worried. Now, on the other hand, while staring into the dark corridor that I used to run through as a kid… I was afraid. The fear reminded me of how my childhood night terrors used to start. They always crept up on me in the darkness, grew with the grotesque shadows on my bedroom ceiling.

“I’m not letting you go in there alone,” Eveline said. “We stay together.”

We walked into the darkness. The foul smell intensified for every step we took, and so did my heartbeat. I was glad my sister didn’t stay behind. The bunker seemed so much smaller than I remembered it, much more cramped. The asymmetry between my memories and reality made everything feel off somehow, just as if the bunker was merely a model of the real thing. But it wasn’t. I had just grown up.

The Confederate flag greeted us at the end of the corridor. It hung on the concrete wall. It looked pale in the hotspot of the flashlight, almost like a phantom. And, of course, in many ways it was. A ghost from a time long ago. Or perhaps a corpse brought back to life. An abomination. It reminded me of Dad more than anything else.

“You have to be seriously confused to praise freedom as much as Dad and hang that symbol of lesser freedom in the world on your wall,” Eveline said.

“He wanted to protect his freedom so much that he built a prison for himself.” I removed the light from the flag, leaving only darkness. “You bet he was confused.”

We entered the main chamber. It was overfilled with litter and clutter. Empty cans––both the food and beer kinds––lay scattered across the sticky floor. We had to take large steps not to step on any of the trash.

“That’s weird.” Eveline pointed her flashlight at the small dining table. “Look.”

My hair stood up on my neck before I even realized what she meant. The table was set for three people. I didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to process what I was seeing, and just when I was about to speak my sister interrupted me:

“Who the *fuck* was here with him?”

“We don’t know–” I began. “I mean, he might have left the old plates on the table and–”

A sound of something falling to the ground came from one of the other rooms further into the bunker. I pointed my light in its direction but couldn’t see what made it.

“Dad!” I yelled. “It’s me, Josh! You there?”

No response.

“I’m afraid,” Eveline whispered. “Something isn’t right.”

I only vaguely heard what she said. My focus was on something else. Something on the wall on the other end of the room.

“That’s not supposed to be there.” I slowly walked toward it. “That must have been what he talked about over the radio.”

Dad had hacked away a layer of concrete, for whatever reason, and uncovered a rusty, metal door behind it. It stood ajar. A lukewarm, musty breeze came out of it. My sister walked up to me as I carefully pried the door open with the back of my flashlight. I felt my heart in my throat. I could hear my sister begging for us to leave, almost in tears. But I needed to know what was behind that door. It was imperative to understand what had happened here. I needed to know. I needed closure.

“What in heavens name…” Eveline looked over my shoulder. “Why is this here?”

Behind the door was a room about the size of a broom cupboard. It was unremarkable except for a circular hole in the middle of the floor. I shone my light into it, but I couldn’t see the bottom. Just as I thought it was big enough for a person, my sister said:

“Do you think he fell?”

Drops of sweat from my forehead fell down the pit. I felt dizzy and stepped back, afraid I would fall inside. My sister picked up a can filled with some rotten beans and threw it down the hole. It clattered against the walls as it bounced from one side to another. The sound faded away until we couldn’t hear it anymore. There was no indication it touched down at the bottom. I stretched out my hand and held it above the opening.

“It’s warm,” I said. “The air, I mean.”

“Maybe he fell.” Eveline stepped back, almost as if she were convinced. “Can we please get out of here?” She reached for my arm. “We can return with the police. Please… Josh?”

“It wasn’t dark when Dad found this,” I said. “He would have seen the hole.”

“Josh? Please.”

“Just give me a moment to think.” I walked toward the hallway that led to the other rooms, desperately hoping to find him. For some reason, it was important for me to see him. To be able to leave without wondering. I needed to know that he was truly dead. “I just want to–” I stopped myself after I accidentally pointed the flashlight on the floor in the middle of the hallway, revealing a pair of feet. “I think I found him!” I ran up to the body.

“Wait!” Eveline yelled and reluctantly followed me to avoid being left alone.

It wasn’t Dad. I screamed upon the realization. My mind couldn’t comprehend what I had just seen. I spun around and tried to run away, completely acting on instinct, and crashed into my sister. She grabbed me, kept me still, and as she looked behind me, down at the dead body on the floor, she began to cry while her hands trembled uncontrollably against my shoulders.

“Oh my ****,” she said. “How… how is it possible? It’s you!”

“Let’s get a **** out of here,” I said. “Move!”

There was nothing that could explain this, and the more my mind tried to––moving in an endless loop doing so––the dread grew inside me. I only got a glimpse of the body before I panicked, but my sister was right. The half-rotten face was the same as mine, with a bullet hole in the middle of the forehead.

We stumbled our way through the living area, tipping over chairs and kicking cans all over the place, and just as we were about to get out of the mess a familiar voice echoed through the hallway we had just escaped.

“Josh!”

It was Dad. We both stopped in our tracks.

“Is that you? Josh!”

“Dad?” I yelled back. “What the **** is going on here?”

“Don’t worry!” It sounded like he was at the other end of the bunker, possibly inside the storeroom. “I killed the son of a ****, put a bullet right between his eyes!”

“Come out from there!” I yelled. “We have to leave, it’s not safe here!”

Silence.

“Something is wrong,” Eveline said. “I don’t think–”

“Dad!” I yelled. “Come out!”

“I can’t move!” Dad said. “I’m stuck under a shelf! I’ll need your help, son!”

I turned to my sister. “Go back up. I’ll get that old **** out of there. We’ll be right behind you, okay?”

“Think, Josh!” Eveline begged. “You think he’s been stuck under a shelf for–”

I should have listened, but even after what we had just seen I just couldn’t bring myself to even consider something as outlandish as what my sister was suggesting. It was simply too far-fetched, too unbelievable to **** all my layers of presumptions about reality. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t. Hence, I ran back to the hallway, yelling for my sister to get back up to the surface and wait for us there.

“I’m coming, Dad!”

I only slowed down to carefully step over the corpse that bore my face. Perhaps, I thought, it was just a coincidence. A burglar that just happened to look like me. After all, the face had begun to rot. It wasn’t obviously me. I felt **** and I almost convinced myself that it was just my childhood fear of the dark coming back to life down here. And then, just as I was about to walk past the small composting toilet that stood inside a small room at the end of the hallway, I stopped. Shivers spread across my entire body, paralyzing me. Dad sat on the toilet. His gun still hung from his trigger finger and his brain was splattered across the wall behind him. He had his journal in his lap, covered in blood.

“Josh!” Dad yelled from the darkness. “Help me!”

I was frozen in place, both by fear and confusion, unable to make any decisions.

“Come on, Josh!” Dad kept yelling. “I need your help, son!”

My mind was racing. There was no way of knowing who was who. When I heard Dad’s voice yelling for help while watching his dead body, nothing but absolute terror revibrated inside me. I slowly reached for the journal in Dad’s lap and grabbed it, hoping it would shed some light on the situation. I was just about to open it when my sister screamed. I ran back, this time jumping over my doppelgänger's body, and found her looking at something at the corner of the main chamber.

“I told you to–” I said, but changed my mind. “Are you okay, what happened?”

“It’s–” she cried. “It’s me.”

Crawled up in the corner was her ****, dead body. Her head had been twisted in such a way that the neck had been broken.

“There’s something seriously wicked going on here,” I said. “Dad shot himself in the head, a long time ago by the looks of it, and yet he keeps yelling for help. Let’s get back to the car, now!”

​

\*\*\*

​

We drove away from the bunker as fast as we could, leaving whatever was still alive down there yelling for help. My sister insisted on staying at my place for a few days. I didn’t mind having her around. We shared an experience no one else could relate to, and we needed each other to overcome the trauma.

It took a day for me to build up the courage to open Dad’s journal. It began with his usual deranged conspiracy theories. I flipped past them. At the end, he had only made short notes.

​

*Found a hidden door.*

​

*Deep pit, possible the remains of some old black project.*

​

*Eveline and Josh woke me up. A “surprise visit”. Didn’t hear them enter. Strange.*

​

*Had dinner with them, something seems off.*

​

*It isn’t them! They tried to make me* \[Illegible\]*!!!*

​

*God help me, it isn’t them!*

​

*I shot the son of a **** right between the eyes!*

​

*Hiding in the bathroom now, this will probably be my last entry.*

​

*God forgive me.*

​

Chills went down my spine as I read the last entry on the blood-drenched page.

​

*I never got the other one. She’s still out there somewhere. I only got one bullet left. I won’t allow her to do that abhorrent thing to me. Forgive me.*

​

My sister has been cooking for hours. She just called for me from the kitchen:

“Josh? Come here, I want to show you something!”

[ME](https://www.reddit.com/r/tobiasmalm/comments/112r4le/i_just_released_my_novel_the_cave_to_another/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I volunteered to sit next to a dead man on a plane, and deeply regret it.
 
 Assistant: The man in seat 43-A died halfway across the Atlantic. I was sitting near the front of the plane, just behind first class, and couldn’t really see the commotion. But I could hear someone gasping and retching — loud at first, then quieter and quieter. A flight attendant got on the PA and asked for “any medical professionals among the passengers” to help. I guess there were none. 

After a few minutes, the man’s sounds deteriorated into a sort of gurgle, then silence, then it was over.

His name was Molyneaux, and he was old but not that old, and it was likely a heart attack, aneurism, drug reaction or ****’s will, according to conflicting nth-hand reports that filtered down the plane from row 43, where a flight attendant simply buckled the newly deceased back into his window seat and covered his face with a complementary airline blanket.

The pilot got on the intercom and told us the plane would be turning back to New York “due to a tragic medical situation involving one of our passengers.”

“Folks, we’re looking for a volunteer willing to sit next to the deceased while we return to our originating airport,” the pilot continued. “This flight is entirely full, and the person sitting there now isn’t feeling comfortable. It’s an aisle seat, and it will only be a few hours before we’re back over land.”

I’m not sure why I volunteered — probably some combination of exhaustion, altruism and morbid curiosity. My vacation plans were shot anyway, I figured, so why not take the most interesting seat on the plane? The flight attendant thanked me profusely, as did a queasy looking teenager who took my original seat. I picked up my handbag and shuffled down the aisle to the very last row of the plane.

My only prior experience with corpses was an open casket funeral for my grandmother when I was a kid, but the idea of death had never particularly bothered me. It’s natural, after all. That said, I admit that I second-guessed my decision as soon as I saw my new seat mate.

Mr. Molyneaux, rest in peace, sat upright between the window and me, strapped around the waist, with a blue fleece blanket covering his torso and head. The blanket did not cover his hands, which were resting on his lap above his seatbelt — placed that way by a flight attendant as a sign of respect, I assumed. 

Molyneaux’s pale fingers were twisted into claws that betrayed the agony of his death. I couldn’t look at those hands without imagining what his face looked like under the blanket.

I thought of asking for a second blanket, but the flight crew was still busy calming down other passengers and preparing for our u-turn around the Atlantic Ocean. So I tried to forget my uneasiness and closed my eyes, and slept.

I woke — hours or minutes later, I don’t know — to the jostling of turbulence. The cabin lights were off and most of the passengers around me seemed to be sleeping. I looked out the window, trying not to look at Molyneaux as I did so, and saw only the uniform blackness of the night. I imagined the ocean miles below us, lightless and cold. The thought unsettled me and I reached across Molyneaux to close the window shade.

Then I stopped myself. *Hadn’t the shade been closed when I sat down?*

I realized there was something else off about the scene. Molyneaux’s posture had somehow changed while I slept. It took me a few seconds to pinpoint it. His gnarled hands remained on his lap, he was still belted at the waist, and the blanket still shrouded his upper body. But the fabric looked somehow twisted now, as if he had been fidgeting.

Very slowly — knowing it was insane even as I knew I couldn’t stop myself — I lifted a corner the blanket. 

I uncovered his shirt, which the flight crew had unbuttoned while trying to save him. A patch of blue-grey skin sprouting white chest hair peeked out from it.

I lifted the blanket higher. His collar was flecked with dried blood. I remembered his terrible gasping.

Finally, I pulled the blanket entirely off, and stifled a scream.

Molyneaux’s head was turned away from me, exactly as if he had turned to stare out the window. 

I could see his face reflected in the plexiglass. It was undoubtably a dead man’s face: pale, drawn, lips parted, jaw slack. There was no life in it.

Except his eyes. They were moving.

I stared at the reflection for half a minute and I’m sure of it. In the center of that death mask, two pupils flicked back and forth, as if tracking something out there in the sky.

“What are you doing?” a voice beside me interrupted. I whipped around and saw the woman seated across the aisle staring at me — not so much in fear as disgust. “Cover him back up! Give him his peace.”

“He’s … I think he’s been moving,” I stammered. “His eyes. I think he might not actually be ….” 

But I couldn’t finish the sentence; it was too crazy. Nor did I have to, because at that moment my stomach dropped ten feet along with everything else in the plane. 

Coffee cups and purses slammed against the ceiling. A man near the first class section nearly tumbled out of his seat. I heard call lights going off all over the plane as passengers were jolted awake in panic and confusion.

“Passengers, please take your seats, buckle in, and secure any loose items,” the pilot said over the PA, sounding shaken himself. “The weather along our flight path is clear and no planes in the area are reporting turbulence, so I’m not sure what this is. But we should be through it momentarily.”

Even as he spoke, the mild background shaking I’d felt since waking up became noticeably more violent. The woman across the aisle began fumbling for her seatbelt, no longer paying any attention to me or Molyneaux.

I forced myself to look at him again. The jolt must have caused him to pitch forward at the waist, his head colliding with the seat in front of him. 

But Molyneaux’s face was still turned toward the window — his neck twisted at such a sharp angle that I worried it had snapped.

I looked at his hands again, and the pallor of his skin. Three flight attendants and a dozen passengers had witnessed this man’s death, and I could not rationally imagine they were mistaken. 

And yet in the reflection of the window, his eyes left to right, left to right.

I had heard that strange reflexes sometimes kick in after death — limbs flailing, headless chickens running, nerves clearing out the last backlog of instructions from the brain. But the eyes? I had never heard of that.

I made myself look past that unsettling reflection, at the sky itself. It was still dark, moonless and cloudless, but the atmosphere seemed to have taken on a strange hue — a very dark green, like pea soup fog. I thought I could see vague shapes swirling around in the murk, though it might have been an optical illusion. I recoiled.

I desperately wanted to be anywhere else right then, but the rest of the cabin was approaching a state a pandemonium. Flight attendants were hurrying up and down the aisles, attending to spills and bruises, even as they tripped and staggered. The entire plane was shuddering like a barrel going down the rapids. 

A series of jolts sent Molyneaux’s upper body swinging back and forth like an upside down pendulum. He was thrown backward into his seat, then sideways into me (a horrible feeling I will never forget), and then the opposite way, his face slamming directly into the window, where it came to rest.

That was enough for me. I unbuckled, leapt out of my seat and locked myself in the bathroom directly behind me. I would cower on a toilet for the rest of this hellish flight rather than spend another minute sitting with Mr. Molyneaux.

This plan worked for a half hour or so. I braced both my arms against the bathroom’s walls and listened to the chimes of flight attendant call buttons, the whine of jet engines and the growling of the sky. I tried to calm myself by visualizing the skyline of New York, the JFK air ****, a calm descent.

But then I imagined Molyneaux’s window, his face mashed up against the glass like a little boy’s, his dead eyes searching the night.

The captain’s disembodied voice called me back to reality. He sounded outright scared now, and the PA kept cutting in and out.

“ … extremely anomalous weather … need everyone in their seats in the emergency position … immediately … if we depressurize … ”

The turbulence stopped for four or five seconds, and then suddenly it felt like I was inside a washing machine. I bounced against the walls of the bathroom, landed on the floor, and could barely manage to get the door open and crawl on all fours into the aisle.

All three flight attendants were down, sprawled on backs and bellies between the seats. Some of the overhead luggage bins had burst open and spewed baggage out. Many of the passengers were weeping. A few prayed. And through it all, the plane would not stop shaking.

I heard a series of small bangs above my head and felt something wet on my cheek. Every single soda can in the galley had exploded. I climbed into my seat and belted myself in, having briefly forgotten about Molyneaux in my terror.

THWACK THWACK

But he was still in his seat of course, whipping back and forth like a flagpole in a hurricane, head-butting the window so hard that I could see the plexiglass balloon outwards and rebound each time. 

THWACK

I became worried he’d crack the window, though that’s supposed to be impossible, so I overcame my revulsion and grabbed his shoulders. But I couldn’t restrain him. 

Again and again, his head hit the window. I began to fear that it was not simply the motion of the plane that compelled him. 

THWACK THWACK THWACK

No one else on the plane was watching this. Some of the passengers had rallied and were trying to pull the injured flight attendants out of the aisle. Others were whispering goodbye messages into their phones.

THWACK THWACK KRKRRRRR

I heard something crack beside me, and hoped desperately that it was Molyneaux’s skull, and not the window. Outside I could see that the green fog was alive with swirling, amorphous shapes.

THWACK KRKRRRR KRKOOM KRKOOM

Another explosion. Not pop cans this time, but pressurized oxygen escaping into sky. Molyneaux had managed to smash out both window panes in one, final blow. Now his mangled head was hanging outside the plane, and the rest of his body was straining to follow it, restrained only by his seatbelt and the width of his shoulders.

An alarm went off in the cabin, and a jungle of oxygen masks fell from the ceilings. I put mine on at once, but heard other people screaming. Some passengers were trying desperately to get masks on the unconscious air crew, but the plane was shaking more violently than ever, and loose debris was flying up the aisles toward my row — toward the hole a dead man had made in the airplane.

“… cabin breach…” said the pilot. “… limited backup oxygen, so I’m trying to descend to a safe altitude … but hard to do that in this storm, or whatever it is … **** be with us.”

Once I was sure that I could breath and was no in danger of being **** out myself, I took one last look at Molyneaux. His head might have torn clean off outside the window, for all I could see of it past the rest of his body. 

I pictured those eyes again, which had seen something in the sky that we had not seen — could not see, even as it now threatened to shake the plane apart. There was some connection between these events that I might never understand. But even without understanding, I could make the last move available to me.

I reached over Molyneaux’s lap, lifted one of those cold, clawed hands, and unclasped his seatbelt.

There was an intolerable crunching noise as, I presume, his shoulders were squeezed and crushed to fit the window frame. And then in a split second he was gone — out the window, into the night, a pale old man falling end over end toward the black ocean.

“Whatever you saw out there,” I whispered. “Whatever you were looking for, go to it and leave us be.”

The green fog lifted a few minutes later, and the plane descended until it was safe to breath without the masks. Less than an hour later, I really did see the JFK airstrip. A whole squadron of police and ambulances met us on the way down. The flight attendants and several passengers had to be hospitalized, but as far as I know no one suffered serious injuries. 

Federal investigators eventually concluded that we had flown through a localized weather anomaly — witnessed by no other plane in the sky that night. Some sort of debris must have been flying around up there with us and taken out the window at 43-A, they wrote in their report: “This event led to a sudden loss of cabin pressure, in which the body of a passenger who had died earlier in an unrelated medical emergency was ejected from the plane.”  

I expected to hear a lot more about it on the news, but I suppose in the end it was just one of those things. The airline had no interest in publicizing the incident, of course, and the passengers had no desire to relive it. 

For most people on the flight, it was simply a freak tragedy followed by a close call, and all’s well that ends well. I’m the only one that will dream for the rest of my life about Molyneaux’s eyes, and what they saw on the way to the ocean.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. Today I finally met her.
 
 Assistant: How it began 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And what happened next
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cinu8u/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app


I didn’t get much sleep last night either. The lack of sleep is making me wonder whether all these things happening are in my mind or not. But I’m reminded every time I see that **** note that it’s all real. 

I spent hours last night searching for anything I could about Prudence Hemmings. If she had lived in a big creepy mansion I imagine she would have been easy to find. But us folk who live in tower blocks aren’t so well documented. No one cares about our lives, no matter how extraordinary.

I found an article about missing person Lyla Hemmings. It suggested that she went missing under the care of her grandmother while playing in the park opposite the flats early in the morning. Interviews with her parents stated that they had both disowned Prudence. 

Despite the many years that had passed since Lyla’s death/disappearance her parents appeared to have remained unforgiving of Prue. There was no mention of her on either of their social media accounts and she appeared to have no involvement with the children they had acquired since. 

Searches for the Hemmings family in the local area were equally dead ends, I looked at link after link, desperate to find something but they all started to blur into one. Until finally I saw something. 

An obituary for Bernard “Bernie” Hemmings, who had fallen from the tower block in unexplained circumstances after being diagnosed with dementia months before his death. I was surprised it hadn’t made bigger news. It had only been about a year. There were no details of where to find them, but his wife Prudence and her sister Bridget were listed as contacts to get find out details of the funeral. 

It’s scary what you can do with the internet these days, but just with those phone numbers I was able to put them into a reverse directory and find an address for Bridget and Tony Bishop, the sister and brother in law that Prudence was supposedly living with.

About 4am I managed to get some sleep, not much though, I was back up and wide awake at around 7am, planning my route and working out my day. I saw a post on social media from one of her relatives that Georgia was identified and is stable. This loosened the knot in my stomach that has been present since I found the note somewhat. 

At 8.50, I opened the door to my flat hoping to see postman Ian. 4 minutes passed and instead of the postman an elderly gentleman made his way down the corridor. He had a walking stick and kind eyes. In his free arm he carried a small plastic bag containing a newspaper and milk, he smiled and said “good morning” as he passed.

I smiled back. He reminded me of my grandad. I imagined him pulling cola cubes from his pocket for his grandkids and shushing them when their parents weren’t looking. A little further down the corridor the old man stopped and turned. He looked me dead in the eyes with a sympathetic expression and spoke.

“No post on a Sunday, if that’s what you were waiting for.” He smiled knowingly and turned to unlock a front door that until shut I couldn’t see the number of. When I saw the door close and the number 48 boldly displayed above the peephole I understood what Prudence had meant. Mr Prentice did seem to be a lovely chap. 

I sat back in my flat and sighed, staring at the various tabs open on my laptop. At about 9.15 the knocking on the balcony door started.

The window cleaner was back.

I didn’t feel half as terrified as I had the first time, if anything, I was just angry. It took every ounce of restraint I had in my tired body not to engage with him, if only to tell him to ****. His genuine seeming requests just irritated me. After about 20 minutes of being watched the knocking started to give me a headache, so I grabbed a bag and left the flat.

I decided there was no time like the present. If I was going to turn up on the Bishops’ doorstep looking for her sister because of the freaky flat she’s left behind then I had to get it over with. If the address was old, or the bishops weren’t the people I was looking for then I was going to look **** whatever time of day I went.

And I couldn’t take the window cleaners eyes anymore. There was something about them, they really do make you want to open that door. 

I looked at the lift as I entered the communal hallway and decided today I would take the stairs. I couldn’t stand to be in a small box that my partner probably died very painfully in. My heart dropped into my stomach just at the sight of it.

The stairs were as grotty as the lift. We’d taken them multiple times on move in day but I hadn’t really taken it in the same way I could now. I thought about the rules and all the strange things happening in this building. I looked at the badly painted numbers on the walls as I reached each landing.

Nothing in this building is simple.

I looked at the numbers. 7, 6, 5 ... 5, 4, 3, 4, 2, G. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation but my legs were in agreement with my mind that I had definitely just descended more than 6 flights of stairs. They’d glitched. 

I looked at the dusty and poorly lit stairwell from the bottom. It seemed dark despite the sun pouring in from the glass panel in the main building doors. The note never mentioned glitchy stairs, maybe I really was losing my mind. 

As I turned to exit the building a woman walked in. She was in her late thirties to early forties and had 2 small children in tow. One boy and one girl. I guessed that they were twins, they were both incredibly blonde, with deep brown puppy dog looking eyes and couldn’t have been any older than 6-7. They were as close to identical as it gets in twins of different genders. I’m not a fan of kids, but they were super cute. 

The lady had a short bob haircut that got longer at the front, it was uniform and dyed a perfectly even auburn colour. I knew it was dyed because her roots were blonde like her kids. She looked as tired as I felt, but she pulled herself together when she saw me, running fingers through s part of her hair that she must have missed how ever early she left this morning. 

“Hi, are you here visiting?” Who opened with, trying to make small talk. 

“No, I just moved in to flat 42, on the 7th floor, I was just leaving actually. Whereabouts are you?” I was desperate to go, I had feared myself up to see Prue but I didn’t want to be rude.

“I’m flat 26, my name’s Terri. This is Eddie and Ellie.” She gestured to the two small children hiding shyly behind her skirt. “Welcome to the block. If you ever need anything please feel free to give me a shout.”

“My name is Katie but people call me Kat too. That’s really kind of you, thank you. I will.... hey, is there something wrong with the stairs?” I stopped myself before going into detail.

“Nothing wrong, they just skip sometimes.” She answered, shrugging. 

“Well I’d love to stop and chat but I actually really need to get going. It was nice to meet you Terri.” I tried to work out what was wrong with the children as I stepped forward to walk away. Still baffled by the stairs.

“By the way, we have a residents committee, you should come to one of our meetings, they’re every Tuesday in alternating flats. This Tuesday is at Molly Jefferson’s place in flat 31, come along. We’d love to have you!” Terri suggested, waving me off. 

I walked out the doors after my encounter with Terri feeling sick. Every minute in this place made the note more real. Every word jumped off the page and into my life. Made it more likely that Jamie was really gone. 

I rode the bus from a stop not far from the flats. It felt like it took and eternity to reach the little suburban area I was looking for. A five minute walk away from the bus stop I got off at and I was staring at a quaint little bungalow, belonging to Bridget and Tony Bishop. 

I knocked on the door. The lady who opened it was unsteady on her feet, she was probably in her 70s, with wispy white hair neatly scraped back into a bun, two strands left hanging that just softened her wrinkled face. She wore a dusty rose coloured dress that hung just below her knees and smelled of stale cigarette smoke. 

“Can I help you?” She asked bluntly.

“My name is Kat. I’m looking for Prudence Hemmings.” I answered, stuttering slightly. 

Her eyes widened slightly.

“Why?” She asked, bizarrely. 

“Is she here? It’s private.” 

The lady ushered me into the house, and sat me down on a sofa, within minutes there was a cup of tea in front of me. She didn’t say anything to me for a while, we just looked at each other. Then she finally broke the silence. 

“I wondered if you’d try and find me. It took me a long time to decide whether to leave that note or not but I decided that you deserved a head start. That’s more than I ever got.”

The woman was Prudence, she was nothing like I had imagined. She seemed tough and hardened and spoke with a mostly blunt tone, she contributed before I could answer.

“Terri called me not long ago. Told me that she had met the new tenant. She said you looked shaken up, and said that my note may not have been enough. I did say I couldn’t fit everything on there. And the stairs didn’t seem too important. The committee wanted to organise a meeting with you on your moving in day but I told them that was intrusive. The whole committee thing always seemed a bit excessive to me anyway.” She spoke flippantly, like it was nothing. 

“It may have been intrusive, but we needed a warning, we spent a night in the place before I found your note! My boyfriend had already left for work at 3.15 and taken the lift.... he didn’t know.” I broke as I told her what had happened. Her face dropped. And so did my hope for Jamie. 

“I’m so sorry... I really don’t know what to say. I thought my note would reach you in time.” She mumbled, her face to the floor, refusing to look at me as tears streamed down my face.

“He’s gone isn’t he. I didn’t want to accept it but I spoke to the postman and your face says all it needs to. The postman said there might be a way I can have him back.” I bit at her, devastated and angry.

“He’s gone. You can’t have him back. What Ian is referring to isn’t what you think. There’s a way to get people back from the lift. But not as themselves. Trust me, I learned the hard way. Once they’re back you can’t reverse it. I’m sorry about your man. But he’s gone forever. Don’t dig into the other way, to be gone forever is luckier than that alternative.” She still wouldn’t look up from the floor.

“What do you mean...”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I said in the note that there are things I’d rather not discuss and I need you to respect that or I won’t be speaking to you at all. Now move on and ask what you need to ask.” Prudence cut me off, I decided not to push the topic further, and moved on to some other things I needed to know.

“What’s the deal with Terri’s kids? They seem sweet and normal.”

“Those little demon creatures are anything but normal.” She answered, wincing slightly at the though of them. “When she went into labour Terri never made it to a hospital. They were the first children ever to be born inside the building and with everything that goes on it’s like something’s rubbed off on them. They’re average children in the daytime, but they never sleep, ever. Poor Terri hasn’t had a days rest since they were born. They also really love to steal birds and rats they find the cats playing with and torment them. Really annoys the cats.” 

As she finished speaking a small hairless cat strutted out from behind an armchair across the room, meowing softly. It brushed its head up against Prue’s exposed legs, leaving scorch marks where it touched. She didn’t react, she reached down and stroked the top of its head, smiling as it purred. 

“And those?” I asked, eyes stuck to her now badly burned legs. 

She chuckled, pulled out a box and lit a cigarette, tapping the top layer of ash into a small silver dish in front of her. She offered me one and I took it gladly. 

“They’ve always been my good friends. I couldn’t leave the building without bringing a part of home with me. This little guy is Damon. He’s seen some things.” She gushed, not taking her eyes off the cat. 

“But where did they come from, why are they everywhere?” I asked, watching in disbelief as her burns subsided. It seemed impossible, but I looked at my arms where I had picked up the cat the night before and there was no evidence it had ever happened. They didn’t even appear sunburnt. 

“No one really knows. They started to appear after the fire, a few years after I’d moved in. It was rumoured that they were the pets of the residents that burned, and that was why they had no fur. But I don’t think that’s true.”

I interrupted.

“I met one of those neighbours last night. She said her name was Natalia. She almost killed my best friend. You’re crazy if you think your note was enough of a warning!” I ranted emotionally.

“Look, girl. If I had made a song and dance about warning you, then you’d have thought me crazy and challenged the rules. You’d have been dead already. Be grateful you got anything. I didn’t. I had to work it all out. Your generation are so spoiled.” She tutted in frustration at me. I was angry, but she was probably right. An elderly lady telling me rat like creatures would **** my boyfriend in a lift would probably have got some laughs from me a few days ago. I stayed quiet and waited for her to calm down, after a while she sighed and started again.

“I think the cats are the neighbours that burned. They’ve never meant any harm and they hiss and run from the imposters that roam the building. Besides, there’s no way there were that many cats living on one floor. 

The imposter people don’t even match up with the residents that died in the fire, none of them look like, or claim to have the same name as the dead. They just claim to live in their flats. I’ve met Natalia before, she left a bad scar on Bernie’s leg from an incident we had, nasty girl. 

Before the fire there was cctv and there was a recording saved of about 15 people marching into the flats and up to that floor about half an hour before the fire started. It was the only evidence found. CCTV wasn’t great in the eighties so they were never identified. And the flames melted the relevant cameras so nothing ever came of it. 

I think the people that entered that night are the ones that ask for sugar. I don’t know any more than that but if you avoid them like I said you don’t need to know more. They hate the cats. I hope your friend survives, but I’ve seen what those people can do so maybe she was better off dead.” Prue carried on stroking Damon. I watched the skin of her fingers melt and twist as they made contact with him.

“What happened to your husband?” 

I asked the question so fast I didn’t have time to consider that this was a topic she had explicitly said she didn’t want to discuss in the note. But I had to know. 

She scowled at me. “I said I didn’t want to talk about that.” She hissed.

“I just lost the love of my life. I need some answers.” I begged.

“What happened to Bernie won’t help you. I know you’d think any deaths in that building would be down to the quirks but this wasn’t. For the most part anyway.

Don’t forget that we had lived there for 35 years, Bernie knew the rules, we knew how to take care of ourselves and have a happy life there. It was our home.”

“I don’t doubt that’s Mrs Hemmings, I’m sorry” I interjected.

“Bernie had dementia. It started about 6 months before he died and he deteriorated very rapidly. Towards the end he started wandering, the doctors said it was common, but in our position it was incredibly dangerous. More times than I can count I pulled him away from the lift just in time.

Along with wandering he was forgetting the rules. He let that smug awful window cleaner in 3 times, thank lord for the big metal pipe I kept by the balcony door, chased him out a treat. Not that anything stops him from coming back. I’m sure you’re already acquainted. 

After all the dangerous situations Bernie was in, by the end he made the smallest and most fatal of errors. 

He left a bowl of food out for Damon at 10am. I was out shopping with Terri and a few of the girls from the committee and when I came back I found one of those awful creatures...” 

Prudence started to cry. I put my hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her, after all, I truly knew how she felt. 

“It was eating him.” She sniffed and steadied herself to continue, moving my hand. “I chased the creature away with the same metal pipe I had the window cleaner and pushed Bernie off the balcony. He was heavy but I didn’t want anyone to know what really killed him. It’s teeth..” she shivered “...they made such an awful noise. It reminded me of -“

“Lyla.” I finished her sentence. I hadn’t meant to. I was so invested in her story I couldn’t help it. 

“I gather you spoke with Ian then.” She said sounding resigned. “I never meant to hurt that little girl. I loved her so much.” Tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks. Damon, who was now sat next to her on the sofa, shuffled closer as if to cuddle her. 

“Haven’t you ever been curious about getting her back?” I asked, my mind turning back to the methods hinted at by both Prue and the postman. “I miss Jamie so much. I’d do anything to get him back.”

Her face filled with a look of horror and shame. “Of course I have.” She answered, “which is exactly why I’m telling you not to.” 

But I couldn’t let it go. 

“Surely anything must be better than gone forever?” I pestered. I wish I hadn’t.

Prudence, frustrated, stood up and gestured for me to follow, she lead me outside to the back garden of the bungalow. At the back was a large shed, the kind people used for a man cave or a summer house. It was pretty, the sun shone down on it lighting up the few cobwebs in the corners and making them twinkle. 

Mrs Hemmings was careful to look into both neighbouring gardens to ensure there was no one around before she unlocked the door to the shed. We stepped inside and the first thing to hit me was the smell, it was putrid, like rotting meat. I looked at the floor and covered my nose with my hands, staring back at me was a pool of blood.

I followed the blood with my eyes as Prudence locked us in the shed. Then after I made it past the animal bones I finally saw it.

Just like postman Ian had described.

One of the creatures was watching me, from a heavy duty metal dog cage in the corner of the shed. It looked reinforced but still the metal had chew marks. Their jaws had to be strong to cause that.

That didn’t surprise me looking at it, it’s rodent like nose and beady, yet somehow human like  eyes were nothing compared to the two very visible rows of jagged sharp teeth that lined each gum. Despite its small stature, it was terrifying. 

Prudence opened a drawer in a dusty cupboard across the room and pulled out a can of dog food, she poured the contents into the bowl  and passed the bowl through the feeding hatch. The cage had a safety feature meaning the animal couldn’t access the food until the hatch was locked from the outside. I was grateful for this.

Prue turned to me and spoke. She brushed one of the two strands of hair framing her face behind her ear. Gesturing to the hideous creature she said;

“Kat, I would like to introduce you to my granddaughter, Lyla.”

How the conversation went on : https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cjintp/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I have an unusual job. The pay is good, but I really hate the moaning sounds that go with it.
 
 Assistant: “So,” I croaked, ignoring her wince at my raspy voice, “you’re worried that your dead husband is haunting you when you **** other men?”

I inhaled a long drag of the cigarette, then took care to blow the smoke *just* far enough from her face to avoid being rude. She didn’t flinch, which meant she thought I had a lot to offer. 

Pretty little thing, she was. Nearly thirty years old, though I’d estimate the age of her modified chest to be about three. Her good looks stemmed mainly from the fact that she’d clearly avoided a lifetime of hard work. I probably would have been equally attractive twenty-five years ago had my twin passions been vanity and stupidity.

This **** was taken care of.

Her expression glazed for just a moment. I noticed.

“No,” she offered timidly, “it’s nothing like that.” She looked up at me with wide eyes that had been conditioned to elicit sympathy. I noticed. 

“It’s just…” she bit her lip. “It’s just that Raymond’s been gone a month – but I don’t think that he’s *gone* gone, you know? I want to know if I should put him behind me, or…” She shed a tear. “It started out small. His favorite sweater would be hanging in the closet, but the next morning, it was lying on the bedroom floor. Not a big deal, you know?” She looked around conspiratorially, despite the fact that no one was in the brightly lit sun porch besides the two of us. 

As if sensing my thought, Sophocles rubbed up against my skirt. I reached down and scratched his ear without turning away from my client. She stared right back at me, looking over the swirling vapor dancing from the teapot’s spout. 

“But then,” she breathed, flushing slightly pink, “I would be, ah, in an intimate moment-”

“****, or ****?” I asked bluntly.

Her pink face quickly turned crimson. “Um, the first one. I’d hear a sudden banging on my bedroom door. It would go away whenever I stopped… what I was doing.”

“What makes you think it’s your dead husband?” I pressed her, crushing my cigarette and lighting a new one.

She gazed down at the table. “He would *always* interrupt me. Even if it wasn’t… about anything naughty.” She looked up at me in desperation. “It just *feels* like him. Does that make any sense?” She bit her lip again. I noticed. “But the worst thing was last night. That’s what made me decide that it was time to talk with a… *professional.*”

****, her little pauses and cute blushing were irritating. I really wanted to slap her. 

“Explain,” I ordered cavalierly before taking in that first drag.

A long pull of the cigarette really makes people like her worth it. What was her name? Cindy? She seemed like a Cindy. But the Cindys of the world always scatter from my mind for *just* a few seconds during that first sensual puff. In those moments, I feel so *capable.*

“Last night-”

I coughed. Reality set back in. “Listen, Cindy-”

“It’s Anne-Samantha.”

“You must have jilled off thousands of times in your life-”

“I’m sorry… ‘jilled’?”

“Well, are you a Jack from the waist down?”

She laid a dainty little hand right on her mouth. “Oh… my, no. I’m all Jill, I suppose.”

I grunted. “So what’s so different about jilling off now?”

Her eyes got wide again, but I had learned long ago to suppress the slap-urge. “When I’m alone in bed, I hear breathing. *Only* when I’m alone. It’s unmistakable.”

“Well, how hard are you working?” I asked pointedly.

She dropped the hand from her face. “The breathing is coming from the other side of the room.”

I gave her an unblinking, fixed stare. She returned it.

I finally turned away when a lump of ash fell from my cigarette onto the table. “Here,” I offered, pouring a cup of tea from the ****. I rested my hand on the painted grapefruit and lavender design to hold it steady. “Drink this.”

She took it obediently, blew on it, then took a sip and winced. “Too hot?” I asked sharply.

“Too bitter,” she responded coolly.

“Too bad,” I finished. “Drink the whole cup if you want to see what’s on the other side.”

She sipped as I spoke. “You’ve told me that Raymond’s been gone a month. You’re brokenhearted, but you can’t move on if he’s still here. The shock was terrible, wasn’****? A hit-and-run while he was crossing the street right in front of your own home. The worst moments of your life were sprinting through the house, knowing what was outside before you saw it. The hope was the worst, because you *knew* that your husband’s broken body would be lying in the street. But the smallest part of you hoped that it wasn’t true, and that *hope* made it hurt so much more. You found him in a gory heap just beyond your front yard, and the future you’d imagined drained away like blood through your fingers. And it was in that exact moment, kneeling in the middle of the street at 7:13 p. m., that you realized your life had been permanently changed to a different path of someone else’s choosing.” I took an aggressive puff of the cigarette and pressed forward. “The sun set while you held his already-cooling hand, and you realized that this would be the first sunset you’d spend knowing he was dead, and that you would end every day with this thought on your mind from now on.”

She blanched. “I never told you that it was at sunset. I never even said it was a car accident.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “The guilt was more than you expected, because part of you had actually cared about Raymond. Yes, he was old, and *boring,* my ****, you would never let him forget it. But he’d felt just so **** fragile when you crushed his spine with the car that the anger didn’t seem to make sense in the moment.” I blew smoke through my nostrils. “He knew it was you, Cindy. You pulled the car into the driveway and rinsed off the blood so fast that no one even thought to check it for evidence. But *he* knew, and as he lay dying, unable to speak through shattered lungs, he stared at you without hate, malice, or vengeance. It was simple confusion, Cindy. Raymond never considered that you did it for the cash. His dying thought was wondering how he’d somehow been a bad husband, and he felt guilty for not knowing why.”

Her eyes were shimmering with tears that I believed were genuine, but I didn’t give a ****.

Her cup of tea was empty. 

“I was so careful,” she whispered in a pitch that was just below the ‘only dogs can hear it’ threshold. 

I rolled my eyes. “No you weren’t, Sweetie. People are just ****, and that’s the only reason you’ve gotten away with everything so far. Really, putting $619,138 cash in a briefcase is just *asking* for trouble.”

Her jaw hung in shock. “How could you possibly have known?”

I blew one last long stream of smoke from the cigarette. “If I were in your shoes, Sweetie, I’d be much more worried about how much poisonous oleander you just had with your tea.”

She slammed her hands on the table and grabbed the edges so hard that the empty cup rattled in its saucer. *“What did you do to me?”* 

I pulled the cigarette butt from my lips and quashed it in her empty cup. “Make peace with whatever **** or devil awaits your heart,” I answered flatly. Then I turned to look across the sun porch at the ghost only I could see.

Raymond was a disgusting mess. His shattered spine had no hope of holding his torso rigid, so every limp limb flopped at unholy angles. A fountain of black blood oozed from his white lips and nose. His intestines protruded from his stomach like ground beef squeezed between grimy fingers, and the coils hung to the ground like sausage links.

He stared at his young widow. 

Or, I should say, the one eye that hadn’t popped to jelly was staring.

I really think that Cindy would have been unnerved if she’d known he was there. 

Instead, she focused on me. “How long… when will it start?” She asked in utter petrification. 

“In just a second, Sweetie,” I quipped casually, lighting up another cigarette.

Raymond grunted. He wasn’t much for talking, what with the lolling tongue dangling impotently where his missing jaw should have been.

“Oh, and one last thing, Sugar.” I leaned forward and gently rested my palms on the tabletop. “Raymond wants to let you know that dying really, *really* **** hurts.” 

She froze. Behind her, despite lacking a mouth, I could swear that Raymond was smiling.

The convulsing started then, but it didn’t stop for a long time. 

Do you have any idea how far mouth foam can spray when a dying woman just won’t stop thrashing?

I almost felt bad for her when I realized how hard she was trying to cry. 

That’s a really **** difficult task, though, when your throat is closing up. 

That’s when Raymond sauntered over to her jittering body, knelt down, and gently grazed his dead fingertips across her cheek. He looked passionately into her eyes, and for just a moment, I think she looked back.

Then she was gone. 

The ghost-corpse took in the sight for a few moments before I interrupted him with a forced clearing of my throat.

“A-*hem.*” He glanced up at me with his lone functioning eye. It was damp. “I *do* appreciate your clear instructions on how to locate the briefcase. If everything is as promised, the bill will be settled.”

He grunted and waved his limp, floppy arm at the body of his dead wife. 

“Her? I’ll leave her in the backyard of your house. I snuck an oleander plant into the garden during one of my nightly visits. They’re not uncommon here in Alabama, and they will explain her ‘accidental’ death nicely.” I wrinkled my nose. “And I have to say, I’ll be grateful to stop sneaking into your house each night to spook this murderous little witch. Her masturbatory moans made me gag, and I hate crawling through windows. I’m not fifty anymore, you know.” I took in a deep breath of nicotine-laced air.

He grunted again, dangling his unresponsive arm above the dead woman once more. 

“Hmmm?” I asked in genuine curiosity as I approached the corpse. “There’s something more?”

He shook more eagerly, spraying a fine mist of ghost blood onto the woman’s purple face. 

“Oh, my,” I whispered.

I bent down and pried a ring from the woman’s rubbery hand. 

“There must be two dozen diamonds on this!” I sang. Then I slipped it onto my middle finger.

It fit perfectly. 

“Yes, thank you very much, I *do* accept tips for a job well done, you gentleman, you.”

This time I *know* Raymond was smiling.

And I was, too.

My name is Patricia Barnes, and I’m a hitman for ghosts that [only I can see](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/).

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)

-----

[What happened next](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/b59hoa/im_patricia_barnes_hitman_for_ghosts_that_only_i/?)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found a disturbing yoga stream. If I stop watching, I can't save her.
 
 Assistant: She called it *Yoga for One*.

I found her stream a month ago, during a rare confluence of self-disdain and spare time that collided into something resembling motivation. Tucked between the kickboxing classes and the home-gym meatheads was her thumbnail.

It caught my eye. It was a simple shot of her face, so near to the camera that I could count the freckles. Her teeth a little too large for her mouth and her nose ever so slightly crooked.

I’ve never been the type of guy to consider yoga, but I tuned in, and in a matter of seconds, I was entranced.

The girl was in her living room, a haphazard mise-en-scene – the floor speckled with sad little plants and stacks of magazines. She posed with her hands on the floor and her hips **** in the air. Her butt perched in the center of the screen.

I decided to stay a while.

I had no yoga mat, so I laid out a towel. It was difficult to follow along – she talked, a *lot*, and only a fraction of it was about the routine. “Press your heels together and bend your head to your feet, breathing deeply. My feet smell like peaches and cream today. Makes me want to gobble them up. I love summer peaches, I love biting into them and feeling the juice erupt in my mouth, it reminds me of the time when – ”

And I fell into the meditative quagmire woven by her words, inhaling the scent of my own socks, failing to notice she’d moved into a different pose.

After a while, my muscles trembled with the effort of supporting my soft body in these unfamiliar positions, so I called it a day. It was then that I noticed it.

*Subscribers: 1*

That was me. I was the only one watching. I felt an inexplicable flood of guilt when I closed the browser, like I was abandoning her.

I checked back into her channel the next few afternoons. It was the strangest thing. She was *always* streaming. She was either unaware of my presence, or apathetic to it. Her ramblings, so freewheeling that they approached random word association, didn’t seem to change whether I was there or not – she was often mid-sentence when I logged in. She was flirty in a way that made it clear she wasn’t trying to be, charmingly raw in her tendency to fumble instructions.

Curiosity overwhelmed me. I yearned to discover more about this fascinating creature. Her movements drew me in, like she was grasping at me through the screen. I marveled at the feeling of being her silent ****.

I developed more comfort with the basic poses, though I still couldn’t get my hands anywhere near my toes. Too soon, she notched up the level of difficulty. She eased herself into the splits. Each leg outstretched, her toes pointed at perfect right angles. I tried my best to replicate the pose, my groin protesting the pressure. Each day, she pushed a little farther. She curved her spine sharply behind her, a graceful arc. She lifted her back leg high into the air at an angle that seemed to wrench her hip out of place.

I forced my body into the closest approximations of her geometry that my tendons would allow, my teeth gritted against the sharp warnings issued by my nerves. At night I dreamed that she was breaking my joints, cracking my limbs into the clean shapes that she maintained so effortlessly.

One day she twisted her arms so far behind her that I felt sympathetic pain, and folded herself up so that her bent legs swooped around her shoulders, touching her toes behind her neck. She smiled at the camera, demurely, politely. “You want to see me bend into a pretzel, don’t you?” she asked.

That was the first time she addressed me.

I would forget to eat. I’d wake up on the couch, having dozed off, and she would be murmuring about pomegranates while her forehead brushed her knees. Did she sleep? Did she eat? I saw no evidence of it.

Every time I moved, my body ached with the memory of being stretched to its limit. I was spending ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day on her stream. She spoke to me frequently. “I know you’ve been watching me. I think you like watching me. How far do you want me to twist for you?”

The fluid shifting of her body into vertices and curves and delicate polygons was hypnotizing. I was getting lost in the light of a flickering flame as it swirled into different patterns. I was working myself into something more pliable, molding myself into something like her image.

It's difficult to pinpoint the moment she went too far. It was more like the creep of quicksand than any one single point.

She would lie on her back and lift herself on the palms and soles of her feet, her torso thrusting at the ceiling like she was something from the Exorcist. She would inch her hands and feet closer together, folding her body backwards on itself until she was nearly split in half. And then she would skitter forward until the whites of her eyes flooded the screen, scaring me so much that I jumped. And she would laugh, as if she had made a joke.

She would twist her head around like an owl, and **** it between her thighs. Always blinking at the screen. Always smiling like we were sharing some inside secret, like I was in on the sly conspiracy.

She said, “You like this, don’t you, Mr. Smith? Am I your foldable pocket toy?”

Smith is a very common last name. There was a nonzero chance she’d just guessed correctly. But this freaked me out enough to slam the laptop shut, shattering the image of her toothy smile.

I tried to resume normal life. But I had almost nothing to fill my time except television and social media and filling out applications for jobs I’d never want to work. A strange sensation tickled at me, like something was wrong, like I was forgetting something. And powerful waves of guilt, the same guilt I’d felt when I closed her stream the first day I’d found her.

I tried not to. I really, really tried to stay away. But the urge overwhelmed me, so I returned.

For the first time, she wasn’t onscreen when I logged in. I peered closer at the scene, seeing the familiar yoga mat on the ground, the coffee table, the magazines. There was a soft noise coming from just off-screen, a muffled noise, irregular and halting. A human voice. I turned the volume all the way up, and I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or crying.

Feeling sick, I closed the stream.

This brings us to yesterday.

I had spent countless hours thinking about her, wondering what she was doing, whether she was still telling stories to her invisible visitor. I logged in.

Her eyes filled the webcam’s field of vision, so suddenly that I scrambled backwards. And that sound – echoing around the walls of her apartment and mine, and it was now clear that it was a sound of misery.

Her moan was wordless, and as her face backed away, I saw why. Her bare foot was stuffed halfway in her mouth, her jaw nearly unhinged to accommodate it, the ball wedged between her teeth. Tears were streaming down her face, pooling around the corners of her stretched lips.

Her arms were folded behind her head and her other leg was tucked under the first. She was struggling, and I realized that she was stuck.

She was trapped in that position, a twisted ball of limbs and strained joints, unable to speak.

I stared slackjawed at the screen, and her eyes met mine, seeming to blink in recognition. The force of her sobs crescendoed. In relief? I wasn’t sure.

I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know her name or where she lived – I didn’t even know for sure that she was in the same country. I sat, frozen, for long moments, watching the twitching of her limbs as she tried to wrench herself out of the cage her body made. Then it struck me: I could type.

*Can you type your address?*

The messaged pinged its arrival at her computer. Our first real communication.

She shook her head almost imperceptibly, with the slight range of motion her position allowed.

I tried again: *Can you type with your nose?*

Her eyes flickered across the page as she read my words. With great effort she rocked herself over, landing face-first on the keyboard. *sivioshgeusoh*, she typed.

My heart pounding, I said, *try again*.

I watched as she managed to prop herself precariously on one shoulder. Her body was convulsing with the force of her sobs. Eventually, she leaned forward, carefully, delicately, and pressed the tip of her nose to the keys. *3*.

Yes! That was it! *That’s great. Give me another number.*

We traded for long, suspenseful minutes, her giving me one number or letter at a time, me writing them down and encouraging her as best I could. *You’re doing great. I’m here with you. Help is on the way.*

She had cobbled together a number and a street. It had taken us nearly an hour to get to this point. She had just finished typing *apt12* when she stopped, trembling with the effort of keeping herself upright, and we met eyes again through the camera, hers shining with pain and fear. And then she collapsed.

She rolled out of sight. Panicking, I sent her dozens of frantic messages: *What city? What state? Stay with me. I’m here. Where are you? I need more.*

It became clear that no more was coming. Her sobs stilled, her breath quieted.

I searched the address and found every city in the country where the address she’d given me existed. I called every police station in every jurisdiction within range. It took a *lot* of explanation, but after hours of work there was nothing I could do but sit and wait nervously by the phone and stare at the empty apartment framed within my laptop screen.

All I could do was type.

*I’m here with you.*

*You’ll be safe.*

*This will be over soon.*

*You’re not alone.*

The ringing of the phone nearly sent me out of my skin. It was one in the morning.

“Did you find her?” I asked desperately, scanning the scene for any sign of activity. “Tell me she’s all right!”

The voice on the other end of the line sighed, a deep sigh, of sadness or frustration I couldn’t say. “We found her,” he said, his words gentle but guarded. “Stuck in that position, as you described. She’s… she’s not okay. She died of dehydration.”

“She – what? No. That’s not possible. I just spoke to her!”

“I don’t know what you saw, son. I truly don’t. But the girl we found has been dead for a month.”

[*x*](https://www.reddit.com/r/relicularity/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Because You Are My Baby
 
 Assistant: My mother had the most beautiful teeth.

Her teeth are my first memory. I remember them: long and white and bared in a ferocious grin, shining under the full moon as she told me a story. Not a fairy tale or picture book, but *my* the story. The story of how I’d come to her…or rather, how she’d come to me. 

When I was very small – too small to remember anything at all – my mother stole me from a man, and took me to live in the forest.  She stole me not as an act of love, but as an act of revenge. Though I was desperate to know, she never told me what needed revenging.

One night, I finally asked, “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you are my baby,” she whispered in her low, wet voice. She stroked my face with long fingers. Her teeth glittered under the stars, rich and pale as polished ivory. “My baby will never hear, or see, or know the cruelties that haunt me.” 

Cruelty was not the only thing my mother knew that I did not, although it *was* the only thing she refused to teach me. My mother tried very hard to teach me everything else she knew. Unfortunately, I was a very poor pupil indeed.

My mother was a remarkable huntress. She felled elk and bear effortlessly. Sometimes she slid into the lake without so much as a ripple, and returned hours later with a monstrous fish clamped in her jaws.

Because hunting came so easily to her, Mother expected me to learn quickly. “Men hunt,” she hissed. “They have always hunted. So shall you.”

But I could not hunt. Not like her. My small, soft fingers were no match for her lethal claws. My clumsy little body – somehow so susceptible to both the heat and the cold – trailed after her whiplike predator’s form. Mother caught deer and foxes with her beautiful teeth, striking from the shadows like a snake. By contrast, my dull teeth could not even crush rabbit bones.

I persevered, but did not improve. One night, while Mother snaked through the shadows, communing with trees and evading the dark things prowling the night, I curled up and wept. 

She found me that way, weak and weeping. I covered my eyes and held my breath. I knew it was useless – Mother could hear my heartbeat from the other side of the hill, so she surely knew I was crying – but that small scrap of pride was all I had.

Mother stood there for a long while. Then she crept forward and covered me with fresh leaves before lying beside me. “I will feed you, always,” she whispered. “Because you are my baby.”

In addition to hunting, my mother was a phenomenal creator of shelters. Sometimes she lived within the earth, snaking through loam and tree roots like treasure-hoarding dragons of old.

Sometimes she lived in the trees. Many nights I watched in awe as her bones elongated and tore through her rough skin, stretching upward to twist among the branches like an ancient spider ****. I would wait patiently, sometimes for hours, as Mother communed with the spirits buried in the roots.

And sometimes she lived in the shadows, creeping through the darkness to flush out food and threat alike. 

So, Mother tried to teach me to dig burrows. But I could not dig like her. I was too small and too soft, and far too frightened of the bugs and moles that tunneled through the earth.

So she tried to teach me to live among the tree branches, to rest and listen as the redwoods murmured the long, strange histories of the earth. But my bones could not stretch like Mother’s. I could not twist my arms to match the branches. My skin could not interlock with the treebark, and my blood was too sluggish to melt into the sap.

So Mother tried to teach me to live in the shadows. But the darkness terrified me. Every night, I hid and wept, imagining the legs of centipedes crawling across my skin. All the night creatures reveled in my fear; owls swooped down to taunt me and bats torpedoed toward me, giggling in their shrill, squeaking voices until mother slapped them out of the sky.

Finally Mother realized the futility of these lessons. So she dug a deep burrow just for me. She lined it with leaves and slurped the worms and roaches from the walls. When she finished, I burst into tears.

“Why do you weep?” she rasped.

“Because you do everything for me.” I knew the laws of nature. I knew the laws of forest creatures and their young. Young that were weak were killed in the nest. Young that could not learn to fend for themselves were abandoned to die. I was weak and soft and coated in terrible, **** scars. “Why do you do everything for me?”

Mother snaked forward, long, large hands sinking into the earth. She curled around me and pulled me close. “Because you are my baby.”

Mother did not always live in the burrow with me. She roamed the mountains. She burrowed with moles, slithered with snakes, grazed with elk, hunted with wolves, stood with trees. 

When I was very small, I thought she ate the forest. But it was not that simple; she protected it, and in return it sustained her. “My heart,” she told me one rainy night, “is the forest, so this is how it must be.”

As I grew older, I developed rudimentary survival skills. I shied away from hunting big game – elk and deer, bears and boar – because I did not protect the forest. I gave it nothing; I only took, so I took as little as I could. I trapped rabbits, fished the streams, and ate wild berries. I dared take nothing else.

Once I could reliably feed myself, Mother stayed away for long stretches. Hours, then days, and finally weeks. I missed her terribly, with a deep, panicky ache.

I confronted her about it one balmy spring evening. “You leave me more and more,” I accused. “Soon you’ll leave me forever.”

“Never,” she murmured. A breeze twined around us, raising gooseflesh on my skin and rippling her long white hair. “I will never leave you.”

“But you do!” I screamed. “You already do!”

“Before you came, I lived among the trees, listening to their warnings. I slept in the warm earth as worms and centipedes nibbled my skin. I spent many of your lifetimes within the forest, little one – so many lives at a time that I forgot my own name. I do not leave you. I have left the forest for you.”

“I didn’t come here,” I sobbed. “You took me!”

“I did,” she said. “So I will never leave you. When you think I’ve left, silence yourself and listen. Listen for me the way I listen for the trees, the animals, and the stars. If you are silent and you are sincere, you will hear me.”

And then she left.

Fury and jealousy seared my heart like a wildfire. She insulted me, she humiliated me, and after all that she *left* me. Left me for the centipedes and the wolves and the ****, chittering bats.

“I don’t need you!” I screamed. An owl hooted angrily in response. “I don’t need you at all!”

Then I ran for my burrow. As it the earthen door materialized before me, nodding with flowers and wild grasses, anger swelled inside me. It possessed me, this wild ball of misery borne of my own endless fear and inadequacy. And it spoke to me.
*Why should you return to the burrow?* it asked. Why indeed? It wasn’t mine. It was Mother’s. The entire forest belonged to Mother. Without her, the forest would have consumed me long ago.

So I turned away from the burrow and kept running. *I will find the end of the forest,* I decided. *I will leave it once and for all.*

I ran for days, in the process treating the forest with contempt. I stripped the trees of their leaves to make nightly beds. I threw rocks at birds and rabbits. I uprooted bushes and stripped entire groves of their berries, eating until I threw up from sheer excess. Then I ate again. Not out of hunger, not out of any need, but out of malice.

And one day – long after spring ceded to summer in a verdant explosion of heat and greenery – I heard voices.

I froze immediately. The only voice I knew was Mother’s – wet and low, an earthy, rib-shaking whisper. These voices were nothing like Mother’s. They were high and somehow infantile, with strange, shrill notes.

These voices…they were like *mine.*

Trembling, I dropped low and crept through the underbrush. Sun-warmed leaves brushed against my face, smooth but painfully crisp; the sun was taking its toll on them. I snaked over the ground, pretending I was Mother, slipping through the forest like an invisible snake.

I reached a break in the trees and peered through.

In a small clearing were four creatures. They had pink skin and wore heavy clothing that looked suffocating. There hands were small and soft. Their faces were smooth and babylike, somehow half-formed: wide eyed and rounded, with soft noses and plump flesh.

I touched my face – flat and smooth - and looked down at myself: mudstreaked, deeply tanned, and marked with a hideous mass of scars, but still *soft.* Hairless, small, weak. There was no mistaking it. These things in the woods – these overdressed, half-formed beings with small teeth and no claws and overlarge eyes – were like me.

They were men.

I stood up, propelled by panicky excitement, and strode forward. All at once, they froze.

“What the ****?” one whispered. He lifted something in his arms and pointed it at me. It was long and strange to me. Inorganic, not alive, with a wooden handle and a gleaming tube.

Just then, I realized something: the forest was silent. A few birds chirped and sang, and a few bugs emitted their persistent drone. But the vast majority – birds, insects, trees – were silent. No rabbits, no deer, certainly no bears. These things – these creatures like me, these *men* - had silenced the earth.

They’d stolen the forest from itself. 

We stared at each other for a long time as ever-growing summer heat filled the clearing like an invisible pool.

“Mother,” I whispered. “Mother, please help me.”

She did not. So I turned and ran.

The men immediately pursued. I could hear them: yelling, crushing the undergrowth, stamping on blossoms and bugs, snapping branches as they ran. The forest’s deathly silence was worse than any cry.

“There it is!” one of them screamed. A second later, the forest exploded: a deafening *boom* shook the trees and ate through the air as pain erupted on my shoulder. I didn’t dare stop or look. I pressed on, running and crying as the men came after me.

The forest seemed to punish me for my earlier cruelty. Brambles scratched my legs. Stones cut my feet. Branches swiped at my face, leaving deep, stinging runnels. I thanked the forest for its kindness. I thanked it for punishing me, rather than stopping me. 

The men gasped and wailed amongst themselves. “What the **** is it?” “I don’t know. *I don’t know!*” “Is it a…a kid?” “Look at its face. Look at its **** face! That isn’t a kid!”

Something suddenly filled my ears, drowning the sounds of the men and the forest. A deep, musical rushing, like birdsong transformed into a turbulent river.

And then Mother came, erupting from the trees like a great beast of old. But that’s what she was, after all. A great beast, surely a daemon of the ancient world.

She pounced upon the men, batting them the way a housecat bats its toys. She clamped one between her claws, squeezing until his head separated and went rolling across the ground.

One by one Mother caught and tore them, shredding them the way she shredded leaves for my bedding. Blood streaked the forest, turning the dirt to mud and dripping from the trees like sluggish rain. 

Mother dug her claws into the skull of the last survivor and cracked it open like a fruit. Blood and grey brain glistened in the sunlight. The man screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

Mother leaned down and extended her tongue. It curled outward, pale and orange-gold like sunrise on a cold, clear morning, and delicately slurped his brains. Curl by curl, like so many worms from my burrow walls.

By the time he stopped screaming, the forest had returned to its loud, familiar glory: murmuring trees, singing birds, skittering insects, grazing deer. 

I smiled and ran to Mother. She reared up and screamed, “*See what you’ve done!*”

Terror paralyzed me. I looked helplessly at her – blazing eyes, contorted face runneled with earth and wildflowers, sunbleached bone and pale, spongy rot. My mother, my beautiful daemon mother who claimed me out of revenge and raised me out of obligation, staring at me like I was a man.

“When you stone a bird, my heart stops! When you break a branch, my bones snap! When you selfishly **** the shrubs of their fruit, of their very birthright, my skin blisters! When you hurt the forest,” she roared, “*my heart bleeds!*”

I fell to my knees and hid my face. Mother rushed forward on her many limbs and wrapped long fingers around my throat. She lifted me up, dangling me over the forest floor. “I killed men for you! Now more will come! They will trample! They will cut! They will burn! They will ****! They will **** the bears and the cougars and the wolves, for they will blame the predators for what I have done for you! Do you see?” She shook me. The carnage below seemed to swing beneath me, a tapestry of blood-soaked earth and ruined corpses. “*Do you see?*”

“Yes, Mother,” I whispered. “I see.”

She dropped me. I hit the ground with such force it knocked the wind out of me. Mother pulled back and busied herself with one of the corpses. I looked up, shaking. Birds watched from the trees, quick and curious and full of condemnation. I averted my eyes as tears spilled.

Mother returned to me. She extended an arm and opened her hand. Upon her large palm were four eyes and a large, glistening heart. I stared at them blankly, then looked up at her.

“Four eyes,” she said. “One from each man. And the heart of the one that shot you. Eat.”

My lip quivered. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the gore in my mother’s hand. A heart and eyes. Raw and plump, alive just minutes ago.

“Mother,” I said. “Please.”

“Are you of me?” she asked. “Or are you of man?”

The forest became painfully silent. The animals, the trees, and the insects, all waiting with bated breath.

“I am of you, Mother.” I plucked the first eye from her palm. It was round and curiously firm, with a sort of firm, watery texture I associated with half-rotten fruits. The pink, wormy optic nerve dangled. For a terrible moment I thought I would ****.

Then I raised it to my lips and bit in.

The eyes were awful, the heart even worse: thick and almost impossible to chew. Mother had to tear it for me, slicing it into manageable pieces with her beautiful teeth. 

When I finished, Mother picked me up and, holding me tightly, streaked back to the burrow as night fell.

That night, I became ill. I shook and shivered and hallucinated for days. My mind bled with images of dangling eyes and glistening hearts and skulls cracked apart like pomegranates. Mother lay with my all the while, soothing me with ancient songs like birdsong turned to rivers, and cooling me with her damp, earthy breath.

Finally the fever broke. I sat up, gasping as the last vestiges of my nightmare drifted away.

Mother sat across the burrow, hunched over tiredly. “You are well,” she said. “I am glad, for I must leave.”

I blinked tiredly. “Why?”

“Men,” she said. 

“But you killed them.”

“There are more,” she said. “They creep into the forest, searching for their dead brethren. They are cutting the trees and crushing the flowers and killing the bears, my little one. If I don’t stop them, they will even come for you. I have to stop them. My heart is the forest, and so are you. I must protect both.”

A lump rose in my throat. Shame like I’d never known enveloped me. “I’m so sorry.”

“You are my baby. Babies must learn. By learning, they grow.”

“Mother,” I said. “Am I truly of man?”

Mother closed her eyes. For a long time, she did not speak. Then she drew a deep breath. “I took you from a cruel man. Listen. I will tell you now of the cruelties I endured.”

I listened, enraptured and horrified, as she spun her sorry tale.

Mother was once a young, beautiful human woman.

“Surely not more beautiful than you are now,” I objected.

“Listen!” she said.

Mother was alone in the world. She had no family or friends. She once had a family, but they harmed her greatly so she ran away. She lived in the forest, in a small, ragged tent. She ate wild berries, fished the lake, and boiled water to drink.

Laws are strange things. Though Mother hurt nothing and no one, she was breaking the law by living in the forest. She was found, and caught, and imprisoned. Separated from the trees and the birds, Mother faded quickly. Though she was only jailed for a short while, it nearly killed her. The day she was released was the best day of her life…

Or so she thought.

No sooner had Mother gathered her meager belongings and exited the jail than a guard came up beside her. “Where are you headed to?” he asked. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

Mother was ecstatic. “Take me back to the forest,” she said. The guard obliged, driving her toward the woods. Except he stopped too soon. He stopped at a house. His house, it turned out.

The guard was a terrible man. He trapped Mother. He hurt her, tortured her, abused her in every way. He cut her open, he burned her, he snapped her bones. 

And he put a baby in her. Mother was so broken that he missed all signs of impending childbirth. When I came, Mother died.

“He dumped me in a vat of acid,” Mother told me, “and scattered my liquid remains among the trees. But then I heard you.” Mother smiled faintly. Crumbles of dirt and root fell from her face. “I heard your cry. Your need for me.”

I do not understand what Mother said next; it is difficult to translate. But the closest I can come is this. Everyone sings a song to those they love. Most aren’t able to hear these songs. If you can’t hear, it can’t help you. But if you can hear it, a song is the most powerful thing in the world. It kills. It calls. It consumes. It destroys. It strengthens.

And sometimes, it resurrects.

“When I reformed and breathed again, I stole you from your father,” Mother said. “Then I brought you here, because you are my baby.”

I wept silently, because I didn’t know what to say.

“I must go,” she said. “The trees and the animals need me now. So remember, little one. When you are silent and you are sincere, you will hear me.”

Then she whipped around – like a wolf, a snake, and hawk combined – and left.

She did not return.

At first, I thought nothing of it. I had made a terrible mess; I had summoned men. I had caused the forest to bleed. Mother had a great deal of work ahead of her.

But summer slowly bled into fall, and still Mother did not return. When the first snow came – dry and cold, skittering across the landscape like powder – I knew something was wrong.

The snows deepened. The forest drifted into its winter sleep, cloaked in ice and fog. Every night, I made myself silent. I mustered all the sincerity I could. And I listened for my mother’s voice.

It didn’t come.

I grew thin and sick. My skin burned even as I shivered. My chest grew congested, my throat so sore I couldn’t sleep. My breath came in sharp, pained wheezes.  Soon I became too weak to leave the burrow. I crawled to the doorway and ate snow. For sustenance, I slurped worms from the earthen walls. 

It was not enough, and I knew it.

Only then – in the quiet and peace and fear of approaching death – did I become truly silent. Only then did I hear the voice of my mother.

I heard her in my dreams: the low, rushing voice like music made into water. *I am coming,* she said. *I am coming, because you are my baby.*

I smiled, and slept. 

Next thing I knew, I was cold. Cold and wet and shivering, but *awake.*I shot up and screamed as my skin brushed the thick, flower-matted hide of my mother. I spun around, smiling, and froze.

Mother lay beside me, panting. Blood seeped from a hundred wounds, crusting her hair. The exposed bones in her face were crushed and concave, leaking gore and blood. Without opening her eyes, she smiled. “I heard you. I heard your song.”

Tears blurred my vision. My chest began to hitch. I couldn’t draw breath; it was like I was sick again, drowning in pus and trapped fluid. Only I wasn’t dying this time.

My mother was.

“Then stay,” I said. “You have to stay, because you can hear my song.”

“No,” she said. “You needed to see me again. But you do not need me.”

“I need you. Mama, *I need you.*”

“No,” she said. “I killed all who would harm you.”

“But what about the forest? The forest will **** me without you!”

She chuckled. Her breath came, terribly fast and increasingly weak. “You are of me. Remember. You are of me. You are my baby.”

My mother – my beautiful, ancient mother – drew a shallow breath, and lay still.

I lay beside her for many days. Then, when she began to stink, I left. A hiker eventually found me. A ****, solitary hiker with a soft heart, a great deal of patience, and no fear.

When I learned to speak the words of men, the authorities lost no time in telling me that Mother was not really my mother. 

They discovered my identity (at least in a manner of speaking) through DNA. My real mother, they say, was a vagrant. A Jane Doe who lived in a tent in the national park. She was alone and defenseless, two things that attract human monsters. After a brief stint in jail for loitering, my mother ended up kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured by an as-yet unidentified assailant who eventually tried unsuccessfully to dissolve her in acid. They think he attempted to dissolve my body, too. That’s why I am covered in scars. It is why I frightened those hunters so long ago: the acid burns make me look like a monster to men.

Since my real mother apparently died long ago, they decided that Mother – whoever she was – was nothing but a crazy, homeless child abuser.

But I know better.

Even so, I adapted. I had no choice. I am of my mother, but I live among men. That’s what animals must do; their young learn, grow, and adapt. If they don’t, they die. 

But I am not adapting anymore. At least, I am not adapting to live among men. My mouth is changing. Changing in ways that are terrible to people, but wonderful to me. It’s my teeth, you see.

I am growing my mother’s beautiful teeth.

Looking at my teeth in the mirror was frightening and electrifying. Joy and terror ran through my veins in equal measure. It had to mean something. So I fell silent. I became sincere. I listened.

And I heard.

I heard the voice of my mother: low and rushing, like birdsong turned to a wild river. She tells me I do not belong with men, because I am her heart, and her heart is the forest. She tells me I must return.

And she tells me she is waiting for me, because I am her baby.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: We've been locked in our classroom for days, and our teacher is starting to act very strange...
 
 Assistant: ***Day One.***

We had just opened our textbooks to chapter eight when the alarms blared overhead. A red strobing light spun by the door as metal slats slid down the wall to seal us in. 

The others started to stir and panic at their desks. 

“Now, now. Class, I’m sure everything is fine. Probably just a drill.” Mr. Jonas held up his hands in an attempt to soothe the crowd. 

Just as he was about to open his mouth, Evie came over the intercom. 

“Level 3 Contagion located in the south quadrant of campus. Lockdown protocol is now in effect. Isolation protocol is now in effect.” 

“Oh no…” The teacher suddenly looked pale and a little panicked himself. 

\---

***Day Three.***

I slid my rook across the tiled chessboard to overtake Patricia’s bishop. She stuck out her tongue in defiance as I removed it from the board. I smirked and then shoved another saltine cracker in my mouth. 

Mr. Jonas said we shouldn’t be in here much longer. It was probably just taking the CDC a while to quarantine and eradicate the contagion. He said it must be a pretty nasty virus if they are keeping us locked in our classrooms. 

We have enough snacks for another day or so. It’s been difficult to ration properly when all you have are crackers, candy, and canned spray cheese. 

Overall, though, we were keeping our hopes up which was all we could really do. Staying positive, for now. 

\---

***Day Five.*** 

The room was starting to smell foul. We’d designated some buckets in the corner as the bathrooms and they were about half full and beyond putrid. 

We ran out of food last night. My stomach rumbled with hunger, but I did my best to ignore it. I didn’t feel like playing chess or reading anymore, instead I just napped at my desk as much as possible to pass the time. I was hoping at any moment I’d be awoken to the doors opening so that I could go home. I missed my parents. 

Mr. Jonas was losing his composure too. He’d been pretty put together up to this point and ensuring we were all calm. But his eyes looked a little wild now, and he kept pacing the room talking to himself. A few times I heard him cursing under his breath and then reciting prayers. 

I really hope we get out of here soon. 

\---

***Day Eight.***

*Bang…bang…bang*

A pounding sound coming from the other side of the classroom pulled me from my dreams. 

*Bang…bang…bang*

I stayed still to appear asleep but cracked my eyes just enough to watch as the Biology teacher smashed a chair against the steel door over and over again. 

*Bang…bang…bang*

He was really losing it.

“Let us out of here!” Mr. Jonas screamed as he tossed the chair to the side. 

“I cannot do that sir. A Level 3 Contagion has been detected. I have sealed off the affected area, but you must stay isolated for your safety.” The robotic voice hummed over the speakers. 

He screeched profanities at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. 

Some of the other boys were becoming aggressive as well. There had been some fights the last couple of mornings. Also, some hands going where they shouldn’t be going, back behind the fake plants and lab equipment.

It seemed as if we were slowly devolving. Becoming an enclosure of chimpanzees, like one you’d see at the zoo but only hungrier. 

We needed out, or something terrible was going to happen. 

\---

***Day Ten.*** 

We’d been on a diet of tap water for the past five days. I felt dizzy every time I stood from my desk. The room would spin and I’d almost black out. I kept my footing by sheer force of willpower. I had this irrational fear that if I passed out, I’d be eaten by my classmates, like a pack of hyenas on a gazelle. Feasting on my intestines as they spilled across the tiled floor.

It sounded crazy if I said it out loud, but when I looked around the room and saw all the hungry faces, I didn’t think the idea was too farfetched after all. 

Mr. Jonas hasn’t said a word in over twelve hours. He’s just been sitting at his desk, carving something into the surface of it with an exacto knife. 

For the first time today, I had the thought that maybe we weren’t going to make it out of this. Maybe we were all going to die in this classroom. 

I hung my head and cried. 

\---

***Day Thirteen.***

“Mr. Jonas! Mr. Jonas stop!” Micah cried. 

“Don’t you see? We have to do this, we need food. It’s survival 101. When the pack is suffering and food is scarce, they turn on their weakest member. It’s simple biology. Survival of the fittest.” 

Mr. Jonas had his hands around Trevor’s neck, squeezing so hard that the boy’s eyes were about to pop from his skull. 

Trevor struggled beneath him, but he was frail and terribly small for his age. 

Micah grabbed a large beaker from the table and lifted it high over his head. 

“Mr. Jonas stop now! Don’t make me do this!” 

But the teacher was long gone, his eyes gleamed with delight as drool dripped down his chin from salivating at the thought of a meal. 

I jumped to my feet as Micah brought the beaker down as hard as he could onto Mr. Jonas’ head. It shattered to pieces on impact, knocking the teacher out cold. 

I helped Micah push him off Trevor. The poor kid was wheezing and gasping for air as tears streamed down his face. 

“You’re alright, it’s okay, you’re alright.” Micah patted the kid on the back, trying to calm him as he wailed. 

Suddenly there was a scream like a war cry and Mr. Jonas was air born. He leaped across a desk and plowed into Micah. 

They both went sprawling across the tile. Micah resisted him but Mr. Jonas ended up on top and began dropping his elbows viciously on Micah’s face causing blood to spew from his nose and mouth. 

Static filled my mind, I didn’t think, I only reacted. I reached down and picked up a hunk of glass from the broken beaker, grabbed Mr. Jonas shaggy hair and pulled it back to extend his neck. I pulled the glass through the meat of his throat as hard as I could. 

I’d never seen so much blood before. It poured in a waterfall across Micah’s chest. 

Mr. Jonas fell to the side once more, this time never to get up again. 

I stared at my blood-soaked hands. I felt nothing. No remorse, no fear. Only static. 

Suddenly the metal slats retracted into the ceiling and the door swung open. 

“*Lockdown protocol has been lifted. Please continue with your regular schedules. Lockdown protocol has been lifted.”* Her cheery robotic voice seemed so distant and out of place now. 

The other students gathered around me, just staring at the pool of blood. I think it was the hunger talking, but a part of me wanted to know what it tasted like. I think the others did too. 

Thankfully, before that could happen a man in a suit strolled into the classroom. 

“Hello, class.” His perfect teeth gleamed under the LEDs. 

Before we could say anything a team of adults in overalls poured into the room. Some began taking pictures of everything. Others started cleaning up Mr. Jonas. 

One man with gray hair dropped a large box on the teacher’s desk and opened it. He then started throwing fresh fruit and granola bars to each of the students. 

We devoured everything he gave us. I started to feel more like myself after two bananas and four granola bars. They tasted like heaven, a sweet salvation. 

The first man with the nice teeth in the expensive suit waited until we were all done before he addressed us again. 

“I know it’s been a long thirteen days guys, I appreciate you all hanging in there. I’ve alerted each of your parents that you’ve been cleared to go home.”

The classroom erupted in cheers as we all hugged each other. Even Micah, covered in gore, danced around excitedly. 

“You’ll all be able to go home soon but first I just need to do a little debrief with each of you before you go. I’m going to set up in the counselor’s office and Mr. Moses here is going to bring you down one by one to give your account on what happened here during isolation.” 

We all nodded our heads in agreement, anything to get out of here. 

Mr. Moses, the man with the grey hair and the snacks, took us down one by one and we spilled our guts to the man with the nice teeth. 

When I gave my story on what it was like I still felt numb, even when describing how I’d killed Mr. Jonas, I just felt… nothing. 

It wasn’t until I’d gotten home that evening that I’d broken down and wept. Once I was in my mother’s arms I cried and cried until I couldn’t anymore. Then I ate more food than I ever had. I shoveled pasta down my throat until I thought my stomach would burst. 

It was a good feeling. To be full. To be human again. 

\---

Years later while I was at University a whistleblower had leaked that what we’d endured at the school was a government coverup for a top-secret experiment. 

There had been no virus, no contagion. It began as an experiment to test the artificial intelligence system they had at the school. But then it morphed into a social experiment to see how long we would last before someone was murdered or severely harmed. To test the boundaries of civility and moral character under immense pressure. Just in case there was a real issue with the code in the A.I. and this scenario became a reality elsewhere. 

When I’d killed Mr. Jonas, it had ended the experiment. 

The news had made me sick to my stomach, I was angry and disgusted for weeks. 

I was okay with it now though. You see, Trevor may have been small, the weakest member of the pride perhaps, but he was also a genius. With his hacking expertise we were able to locate Mr. Nice Teeth and Mr. Moses. 

It’s been six days so far and every time they scream and hit the door with a chair, I just can’t help but smile. 

It’s a little experiment a few of us are conducting. It’ll end when someone is murdered or severely injured. 

Maybe…

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My job is watching a woman trapped in a room. Final Part.
 
 Assistant: [Part One](https://redd.it/brco33)
**** 
[Part Two](https://redd.it/brsj8v)
**** 
[Part Three](https://redd.it/bsg2az)
**** 
[Part Four](https://redd.it/btkvkl)
**** 


I spent the next five days watching Rachel die.

From the outside, just watching the monitor, it didn’t seem that different than what I had been watching for the past three years.  Rachel slept, she watched T.V., she read, and she painted.  But there were signs if you were looking for them.  She seemed tired and tense, and she had taken to sleeping more.  And occasionally, just every once in a while, she would glance up at the camera—at me.  It was then that I could see the fear and sadness in her eyes.

Inside…well, inside I felt like a burned out house collapsing in on itself.  At first I refused to watch, to do anything they wanted me to do.  Solomon didn’t get mad at me, but just shrugged.  He said while cooperation was preferred and could go a long way toward making my stay with them more comfortable, it wasn’t required.  

If he was right, Solomon said with a thin smile, things would play out as they were meant to, regardless of what I wanted or thought I chose.  Either way, he added, the video was about to start back playing and would not stop for another five days.  Whether I wanted to spend that time getting to see her again was entirely up to me.

I tried to not watch, but a part of me knew from the start I was going to.  Maybe I would find some clue that they were lying about her being dead.  Or Rachel could give me some advice or warning about what I needed to do next.  I didn’t know.  What I did know is that I couldn’t miss the chance to see her again.  And despite knowing in my heart that she was dead and everything on the video had happened a long time ago, I still felt that by watching I was with her somehow.  

She had been taken away from everything she knew when she was barely grown, trapped for years just for being special.  Experimented on.  Treated like property.  Kept from ever having friends or family or a life.  And yet through all that, she was still beautiful.  Not just on the outside, but on the inside too.  I had spent years watching her, getting to know her in a thousand tiny ways that so few people ever truly know each other.  I had seen her kindness and grace in her actions, even when she was fighting against the people holding her.  I had watched her strength when she woke up day after day in her prison and never gave up.  And I saw the beauty of her soul in her paintings, full of swirling colors and…what was the word…wonder.  She was able to paint these things she saw with such care and love, despite living in a world that had abandoned her so completely.

Well I wasn’t abandoning her.  I would watch every bit of the video I could manage.  Try to burn into my memory every frame of her I saw.  Not for them and their **** project.  But for me.  And for her.  I may not have much left to do in my life before they lock me away somewhere or **** me, but I could do this one last thing.

Rachel wouldn’t die alone.

****

I watched nearly all of it, stopping only to eat quickly and use the bathroom until the last two days.  I would ask the guards to pause it, but they would only shake their heads and say Solomon said it had to play normally until it was finished.  By the fourth day, I was in a stupor.  I had already dozed some the first three days, but when I woke up on the fourth day, I could tell a few hours had passed.  There were two trays of food on the bed, one breakfast and another lunch.  I looked back at the screen in a panic, worrying I had missed something, but Rachel seemed to be just waking up too.  I noticed her putting her hand to her stomach as she got out of bed and felt my own stomach twist.  She was already hurting.  Rachel glanced at the camera and tried to smile before moving to set up a new canvas for painting.  

This was the second of three paintings she did in those last days.  The first had been the inside of an old-fashioned movie theater from the viewpoint of someone sitting in a back row.  On the movie screen was just the image of a sledgehammer propped against a brick wall.  I didn’t understand what it meant, and I found myself scanning the picture for some message or other clue.  Eventually I found what might be one, though I didn’t understand it either.

Rachel must have come to understand they knew what she was doing with the paintings and didn’t want to stop her, because these last three she set up much closer to the camera.  I was still squinting and studying the painting closely when I realized the flipped up seats in the next row up had brass number plates along the front edge of the seats.  Though they were upside down from the viewpoint of the painting, the angle was good enough that once I noticed them I was able to read them.  

**2…43…26…89**

I didn’t understand any of it, but I committed it all to memory, focusing all my attention on the painting until she finally took it away.  Even that early on I could tell painting was taking a lot out of her now, and like I had for so long, I found myself talking to her, telling her to go rest before I remembered her body in the next room.  I almost stopped then, but no.  Maybe she couldn’t tell I was talking to her, or maybe she could.  Either way, me talking to her couldn’t hurt, and it made me feel a little less lonely and sad as I watched her.

The second painting, the one she started after I woke up from falling asleep for a few hours, was stranger than the rest.  It looked like it was in a room with curved walls made of tree roots, and in the center of the room was a little table made out of the same stuff.  Some of the roots around the room were a deep red, but other parts, including the table thing, looked burned and black.  I looked closer and saw that I could see a person’s shadow over the table—hands holding some long oval-shaped bundle.

I studied it for a long time, going over it again and again in my mind after she took it away.  I couldn’t make sense of it.  Of any of it.  I wasn’t smart enough, and I was failing her.

Rachel slept for a long time after that painting.  Then she got up on the fifth day, her last day, and immediately started working again.  This time she was painting faster, and while I saw her wince occasionally, she never lost her look of determination as she slashed lines and colors across the canvas.  When she was done, Rachel picked up the painting and turned it toward the camera, giving me a small, tired smile as she was blocked from view.

It was looking out from the front porch of a house somewhere.  It was out in the country, and the morning view of the yard and the land beyond were wonderful, but closer-up the painting was of two hands.  Holding onto each other tightly, their interlocked fingers seemed to glow red and orange in the light of the rising sun.  I found myself crying as I looked at it.  

Part of it was because I didn’t know what it meant, and I felt a growing sense of desperation at the thought that Rachel’s last works might be wasted on me.  Part was because I knew it had been five days, and I could sense I was close to the end.  To her end.

But there was something more to it than all that too.  The last painting…even with everything else in my head and my heart pulling me down…gave me hope.  Hope of what, I didn’t know.  But I started to think that maybe the only message Rachel had for me in that last painting was that somehow, somewhere, everything would be okay.

Outside the edge of the painting I could see motion in the room.  People hurriedly coming in with some kind of medical equipment.  And then the monitor went black.

****

“You’ve done well, Thomas.  Very, very well.  For the last five days of video, we had charted one thousand and forty-seven microvariations in Rachel’s behavior that we believed might correspond to your behavior, your reactions, and your emotional states while watching the video.  Like before, the two of you remained in sync as though you were in the same room.  It really is remarkable.”

I sat staring at Solomon.  I listened to what he said, but I didn’t care.  I just wanted it over.  Whatever this was, I just wanted it over.

Clearing his throat, he went on.  “That’s why we’ve decided to move the implant from Rachel’s body to your own.  That’s one of the many reasons we’ve preserved her so.  The foreign body was still showing signs of life all this time, but just barely, and we were afraid to attempt removal.  Our hope is that, given your connection to Rachel, it will accept you.  Perhaps even thrive in you more than it ever did our girl.”

I was suddenly on my feet, and it was only the raising of Solomon’s gun that stopped me from attacking him.  “Don’t you **** talk about her like that.  Like any of you gave a **** about her.  I’ll **** **** you.”

Solomon’s face darkened slightly as his lips thinned.  “No, you won’t.  But if idle threats make you feel better, go ahead.  It will only make things harder, not easier.”

Feeling a stab of panicked fear, I sat back down.  “What is this thing you’re going to put in me?”

The man looked at me for several seconds before responding.  “I’m tempted not to tell you after your ****—and frankly, hurtful—outburst.  But I’ll be the bigger person.”  Letting out a small sigh, he went on.  “Thomas, somewhere there is a tree.  A very special tree.  We suspect it is the same tree that Rachel painted for you that time, though we cannot say for sure, as we have never been able to find it.  It is either hidden away very well or it is able to hide itself from those it wishes.”

I just looked at him, trying to **** him by just wanting it to be so.  “In any case, we have the next best thing.  An ancient clipping from the tree.  Secured at great cost and sacrifice, and studied for a long time without much success.  We have, however, in recent years been given…advice, that this clipping could be grown in the right soil.  We thought that soil was Rachel, but while it did develop further inside of her, she died before the necessary growth was finished.”

Leaning forward, he smiled at me.  “We have it on fairly good authority, however, that you might succeed where she failed.”

****

I fought them when they came, but it didn’t matter.  I woke up some time later with a dull ache in my chest and a small, already healing scar on my upper stomach.  I didn’t really feel that different other than the little bit of pain, but I knew that would change with time.  Maybe I had more time than Rachel, or maybe I had less.  It didn’t matter.  I just…

*Wait, what was that?*

There was some kind of soft voice…coming from where?  It wasn’t in the room.  It was in my head.  I felt a thrill of excitement.  Maybe this was Rachel’s voice.  She had somehow stayed in the tree thing they had put inside me?

But no.  I had never heard Rachel’s voice, but I sensed this wasn’****.  This voice was too delicate to really be heard or understood, and it reminded me of music coming from a distant room that you felt in the back of your mind without realizing it.  It was a…a melody, a kind of song.  But it wasn’t Rachel’s song.  I realized with a shiver that it was the song of the thing inside of me.

At first I was afraid, but that didn’t last long.  It wasn’t trying to hurt me.  It was trapped here just like I was.  *But*, it started to sing, *it was time for us to be free.*

I stood up and walked to the door, and as I did so, the lights went out.  The door in front of me clicked, and when I reached out and turned the **** in the dark, it opened easily.  How was this possible?  And if it could do this, why hadn’**** helped Rachel get out?  There was no answer, but there was also no time.  I could already hear boots around the corner as the glow from flashlights began to light up the far end of the hall.  

They would drag me back in there.  Chain me up or take this thing back out of me before we could get away.  If I was ever going to get out, it had to be now.  The voice was singing again, pushing me to go further into the dark, to run until we were safe.

So I listened and I ran.

****

Every door unlocked for me, every turn kept me barely out of sight.  The people looking for me were barking orders over a radio, asking someone what was the hold up on the generator kicking on.  Whatever the response, the hallways stayed dark as I drifted through them blind but not falling, lost but not being found.  

When I reached the final door, I opened it into a bright afternoon.  My lungs burned a little at the first fresh, unrecycled air I had breathed in a week.  Blinking, I waited for the voice to tell me where to go, but it had fallen silent.  I closed the door as panic began to rise in my chest.  All this and I would get caught because I didn’t know where to go.  I was outside a plain brown building in the middle of nowhere.  There was a road going off to the right, and to the left there was…

*Rachel’s forest, from her first painting to me.*

I knew it was the same forest immediately, and not just because of it matching the painting so closely.  I had some strange sense that felt like a kind of magnetism, or how birds know which way to fly.  Looking around for a second, I felt like I was being pulled when I looked again at those woods.  This was right.  Somehow, I knew this was the way I needed to go.

So I went.

I had made it to the edge of the forest when I heard the noise of men coming outside the building.  I thought about hiding, but I knew it was a bad idea.  They would just catch me, and I felt a drive to go deeper into the woods.  I plunged ahead, running at close to a reckless speed but never tripping or stumbling as I went.  I would occasionally hear a noise behind me as they spread out to search, but the sounds grew fainter as I ran.  I almost thought I had lost them for good when I heard a short cough that was quickly muffled off to my left.  Someone had gotten close without me knowing it. 

Panicking, I looked for any places I could hide.  There were only bushes and trees and…over there.  A well.  Not just *a* well, but Rachel’s well, with the same worn, grey stone walls capped with a weathered wooden lid.  I felt a moment of happy recognition, but then it faded away.  How did that help?  They’d check the well if they found it, and I didn’t have any way to get down in it without getting hurt or stuck.  Then an idea stuck me.

Crouching low and staying to the brush, I moved to the well and gingerly pushed on the lid.  At first it resisted, but when I pushed a bit harder, the wooden circle slid aside enough that you could clearly see someone moved it.  Glancing around, I eased back into the bushes as I heard soft footfalls approaching.

“We need to check this out.”

“You think he went down the well?  Better hope not.  He probably broke his neck if he did, and then its our ****.”

I could see the two men approaching.  Both of them were wearing dark body armor and carried assault rifles.  The older of the two shrugged back at the other one.  “Better that than he was hiding in there and we *didn’t* check.”

Looking irritated, the younger man nodded.  “I’ll look.”  He went over to the well and shoved the wooden lid aside, causing it to clatter to the ground.  Hitting a button on his rifle, a flashlight sprang to life on the barrel.  He started to shine it down into the well as the other continued to look in every direction.  I was worried he would see me if I moved, but I couldn’t wait.  I just had to stay calm.  Think slow and move fast.

I kept expecting to hear them yell, or feel something or someone strike me in the back, but nothing came.  As the afternoon light began to dim, I saw the trees thinning ahead.  I was approaching a road.  It looked like a normal, public road too, with several cars passing one way or the other as I walked out of the forest and up the hill to the asphalt.

The idea of hitchhiking, especially this close to where they held me, was frightening, but I saw little choice.  I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt they had given me and my own shoes, but I had no money or ID or phone.  My only chance was to get far enough away that I could try and get help.

I jumped slightly at the hiss of hydraulic brakes as a large semi rolled to a stop next to me.  The passenger window rolled down and an older man with white hair and a greying mustache leaned over and peered down at me.  

“You look lost, son.  You need a ride?”

I looked down at the door of the truck.  It had a logo that said “Martinez and Sons Construction and Hauling”  Below it was a cartoon man hitting a wall with a sledgehammer.  Looking back up, I smiled at him.

“Yes sir, I do.”

****
I woke up five hours later as we pulled into a truck stop somewhere in Nevada.  I had planned on staying awake the entire trip, but that had only lasted a few minutes before exhaustion overtook me.  I glanced over at Oliver Martinez and he gave me a toothy grin.

“I’m tired, but you were plumb tuckered out.  I’ve got to fuel up, shower and get some grub.  I’m going on to California after that.  If you want to ride further, just be back here in an hour.  Sound good?”

I nodded and thanked him again for the ride as I got out.  I felt groggy from sleeping, but otherwise okay.  I just needed to decide whether this was a good spot to ask for help or if I should ride with Martinez further.  He seemed like a very nice guy, and he would probably try to help if he could, but I wanted to avoid putting more people in danger if I could help it.  Looking around, I saw we were in a fairly nice little town.  I decided I would go look around for a few minutes and then decide what to do.

I was only three blocks down the street when I saw the flickering lights in the distance.  It was a movie theater.  As I got closer, I felt my chest tightening.  It was the one from Rachel’s painting.

****

“Hey there.  Welcome to the Phoenix.”

The guy standing at the candy counter of the theater looked a little younger than me, and while he seemed friendly enough, he also looked slightly concerned.

“If you’re here for the horror double-feature, I’m afraid the second movie is about thirty minutes in.  I can give you a half-rate if you want to see it though.”

I shook my head and tried to not look as strange and crazy as I felt.  “No, that’s okay.  I…well, I recognized this place from a picture a friend of mine painted.  So I came in to ask if you knew anything about her.”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.  “Okay, weird.”  He smiled and added, “Weird but interesting.  Who is she?”

I swallowed.  “Her name is…well, it was, Rachel Donovan.”

I expected him to look surprised or excited or angry, but I could see right away the name meant nothing to him.  Shaking his head, he shrugged again.  “Sorry, that doesn’t ring a bell.  I’d say you could ask the owner, but he’s on vacation this week.”

Nodding, I searched my mind for something else to ask, some way to make this place matter the way her other paintings had.  “Is there anything unique about this place then?  Its history or something?”

The man grinned.  “Buddy, you’re clearly not from here.  This place is super boring.  Not just the theater, but the whole town.”  Frowning in thought, he added.  “The only thing I know about the history of this place is that there used to be a house here that burned down.  This was like in the 1920s or 30s when this wasn’t even a part of town.  Couldn’t tell you the first thing about it beyond that, but I still bet it’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened here.”

I let out a disappointed sigh.  “Okay.  Well, thanks.”  I turned to leave when the guy called out again.

“Hey man, sorry I couldn’t help more.  If you come back, I’ll get you a discount on a movie.  Half-off.  If I’m not working, tell them Marshall said it was okay.”

I waved and tried to smile as I headed for the door with a heavy heart.  Why did you lead me here, Rachel?  What’s here that will help?

I was outside again, staring up at the theater’s bright blinking signs as though they were going to give me some kind of secret signal, when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.  There was an alley that ran along side the theater and went behind it to…something.  Whatever was back there, the light of a distant security lamp cast shadows along the wall of the alley, and those shadows were moving.

Instead of feeling afraid, I felt excited as I started down the alley.  Rachel had led me here, and I just had to trust that there was a reason for it.  Keep looking until I…

The shadows were made by leaves blowing in some wind I couldn’t feel.  As I got to the far end of the alley, I saw there was a small back yard behind the theater surrounded by a chain link fence, and on the other side of that fence was the tree from Rachel’s painting, with its deep red twisting bark and foam of green leaves waving to and fro in the night air.

I felt a surge of warmth in my chest as the distant singing began again.  This was the place.  The special tree that could not be found unless it wanted you to find it.  It sat at the edge of a small overgrown lot surrounded on all sides by buildings and yards, somehow forgotten when whatever this land had once been was divided up, and despite its location, I had a strong sense that I was the first to see it in a very long time.

Climbing the fence, I felt a jagged wire dig into my leg and rip my pants as I fell over the top.  I was bleeding a little, but I hardly noticed.  I could smell the tree now, and it was a rich, good smell unlike any I had smelled before.  Reaching out to it, I felt the singing grow louder as I touched it.  I felt stronger and less afraid then, and when I saw the light opening up at its roots, I didn’t tremble, I smiled.

There was a hidden tunnel under the tree.  A tunnel filled with sweet-smelling air that was like the tree smell but also different.  And the tunnel wasn’t dark—no, not at all.  It glowed with its own golden light that called to me, urged me forward.  Rain was beginning to fall as I looked around the dark lot.  I had the thought that I was leaving this world behind.

And I found I didn’t mind that much at all.

The tunnel had continued to grow, slanting down gently and tall enough that I walked in without stooping.  The roots of the tree went on and on, woven through the dirt walls as I went deeper.  I looked back and saw the tunnel had closed behind me, but I wasn’t surprised.  The way forward was the only way that mattered.

I walked for what might have been hours, but I never felt tired or hungry.  And I never worried I was lost, though I had no idea where I was or where I was going.  Still, I felt a surge of happiness and excitement when I turned a corner and saw something in the tunnel ahead.  As I got closer I realized it was a brick wall, but just as I began to think I had found a dead end, the wall faded away, revealing a dark room.

I paused at the edge of the tunnel, looking out at the floor of what looked like a basement.  It was empty, but in the light from the tree I could make out something scratched into the floor.  It was the number two.  I felt my pulse quicken as I thought back to Rachel’s painting with the theater seats, and then I stepped out into the room.

It was the empty basement of a house, and as I went up the stairs and opened the door, I saw that the rest of the house was empty as well.  No lights were on, but bright sunlight poured in through every window and in the distance I could hear what sounded like small waves crashing on a beach.  I wanted to go out and see where I was, but I forced myself to check the house first for any people or clues.  But there were none.  The house was utterly bare of any sign of people other than the number scratched into the floor below.

My nose tingled with salty air as I stepped outside.  The house was near the beach on what I soon figured out was a small, deserted island, and I realized with little surprise that I recognized the house from Rachel’s painting.  As I stepped off the porch, I saw no signs of people, but I wasn’t entirely alone.  Because sitting some distance from the house, was the tree.  

I knew it couldn’t be the same tree as in the abandoned lot, but at the same time I knew that it was.  Or at least a different part of the same tree that made the tunnels and appeared in my old world and whatever place this was.  

Because I had started having that thought as soon as I stepped out of the house.  I didn’t think this was my world.  Not exactly.  I could see a larger island some distance away, and it might have people on it.  Hotels and cars and planes.  Or it might not, as those things might not exist here.  Either way, my newfound intuition was growing stronger, and I could tell that the…what was it called?  The con…no, the texture of things was different somehow, if only a little.  Not bad or scary, just different.

Still, after a couple of hours exploring the island and checking the house, I began to feel terribly lonely, even with the tree nearby.  I decided to go back into the tunnel and keep going.  The basement wall faded away as I walked up to it, and I entered the tunnels again.

It was only a short time later that I found my second version of the house.  Much like the first, the wall faded away into a basement, but this one was far from empty.  It was a workshop of some kind, full of tools I wasn’t familiar with.  I glanced down and saw “43” scratched onto the floor.  Who was doing that?  And why?

I was going to explore the house, more carefully this time, as it looked like there were people here, but then I froze.  Propped against the brick wall, next to a small stack of boards, was a sledgehammer.  Trying to be quiet, I crept over and picked it up before heading back into the tunnel.

****

When I was little, before Daddy died, he had loved to hunt.  I never went with him and didn’t remember much of what he hunted, but I do know he had an old hound he’d had since before I was born.  The dog had only loved him—well, him and being on the trail of something.  When Rocker (his name was Rockerfeller) got a scent, it was like he was in a trance.  He would go and go, this way and that, and to look at him, it looked like he was having a fit—both lost and certain at the same time.  But whatever Rocker knew or didn’t know, he always found what he was looking for. 

I felt like Rocker now.  I was moving faster and faster as I went down this turn and that.  I felt like I was on the trail of something or traveling on memories I didn’t have.  Gripping the sledgehammer tightly, I could hear the rising hum of the distant music in my head as I turned the last corner, and then it fell silent.

There was another brick wall, and as I approached, it fell away.

It was another basement room, but this one was much smaller.  It contained a table, a clothes chest, and an old metal bed that had been broken apart.  At the far brick wall, a woman was using one of the metal legs from the bed to attack the wall and whatever lay behind it.  I felt my head began to swim as I looked at her from behind, and as she turned to look at me, eyes wide with surprise and fear, I felt the sledgehammer slip from my grip as I stumbled back against the now solid wall.  I could barely breathe at all, but I managed to get out a single word.

“Rachel?”

The woman looked at me, her expression less fearful but still guarded.  She had the bed leg partially raised in warning.  [“Yeah?  Do I know you?”](https://redd.it/8uj33q)

****
 
**** 

**** 

**** 




It was her, but it wasn’t, much like the tree on the island.  This Rachel looked a few years older, and while she looked stressed and confused at the moment, her eyes didn’t seem weighted down by the same quiet sadness I had come to recognize watching the other Rachel for all that time.  Still, I didn’t know how to answer her question and not sound creepy or crazy.  I stared at her for a second, floundering, when she asked another.

“You came out of the tree tunnel, right?”

I nodded, grateful for something I could answer easily.

Studying me, she said.  “Where did you come from?  Before the tunnel I mean.”

I flushed as I tried to think of the right words.  “Um, well, I came from Texas.  Originally I mean.”

She grinned at me for a second before catching herself and trying to look serious again.  “Yeah, okay.  But like…do you know how the tree works?  How did you find out about the tunnel?  How did you get here?”

Sighing, I rubbed my head and just started into it.

“Look, I know this will sound crazy, but I had a job watching a woman trapped in a room, and that woman was you, or another version of you, and she asked me for help, and I couldn’t help her and then they took me, and I found out she had been dead for a long time but could see me in the future and then they put something from the tree in me that had been in her that killed her and then I escaped and then I figured out where to go to find the tree from things she had painted and I somehow knew how to go in the tunnels to find different spots, and I’m pretty sure the tunnels lead to different worlds and I got this sledgehammer and then I…”

“Hold up.  ****.  Take a breath.  You’re going to pass out.”  She was smiling again, and this time she didn’t try to hide it.  She looked over what was left of the bed to where the sledgehammer was laying on the floor.  “And did you say sledgehammer?”

****

**Whack**

“So yeah, I believe you.”

**Whack**

“I’ve been in those tunnels too.  My ex-boyfriend tricked me into moving here so he could tie me to the tree in his place.”

**Whack** 

“Well, not tie me to the tree literally.  Take his place as…what?  The tree’s buddy or something?  I don’t really know.  It’s all pretty **** up and I don’t understand all of it.”
**Whack**

“But what I do understand is that the **** walled me up in here.  At first, I thought I could just pry loose some bricks over time, but nope.  He put a layer of concrete on the outside this time.  Good ol’ Phil.  Or Justin.  Or whatever.  I mainly think of him as **** now.”

**Whack**

“This is taking forever.”

I stepped up and put my hand on the sledgehammer.  “Let me do it for a bit.  We can take turns.”  We had cleared away even more brick than she had already managed, but the concrete wall was only starting to show small cracks.  I wanted to just keep looking at her, have her talk to me, but I knew she was tired.  She nodded reluctantly and let go of the hammer.  Before I swung, I looked back at her.  “How long have you been in here like this?”

**Whack** 

Rachel scowled.  “It’s hard to say for sure, but I think about eight months.”

I let the hammer drop down again as my eyes widened.  “How did you survive all that time?”

Her scowl deepened.  “It’s the tree.  It won’t let me die.  I just dip into the tunnel every day for a bit and I never get that hungry or thirsty.”

A thought occurred to me then.  “Why didn’t you just escape through the tunnels?”

She quickly shook her head.  “No, thank you.  I’ve had enough of seeing other worlds.  Some of them aren’t so nice.  And I don’t want to be more tied to the tree than I already am.  I just want out of here, into my own world, and then I can try and figure out how to get free of my connection to the tree for good.”  Rachel shrugged.  “I would have done it eventually with the **** bed parts, but who knows how long it would have taken?”  She smiled again.  “I’m very happy you came to help and brought a sledgehammer with you.”

Returning her smile, I nodded as I lifted the hammer again.  “Me too.”

**Whack**

****

We were both wringing with sweat when we crawled through the hole we’d made in the outer wall.  Rachel told me that she thought her ex-boyfriend was long gone, but she couldn’t be sure, so we had to be careful.  Grabbing the sledgehammer from inside the room, we made our way toward the stairs.

The house was decorated but quiet, and we saw no sign of anyone as we walked to the front door and opened it.  Outside, the sun was coming up on a new day, and as we walked out onto the porch, I jumped a little as Rachel took my hand and gave it a squeeze.  I looked over at her.  

I hadn’t been able to help the other Rachel, but maybe that had never been the point at all.  Because I thought now she had been able to see more than just other places or the future.  She had been able to see into other worlds and possibilities. 

Like this one, where another version of her was trapped and needed help.  A place where I wouldn’t be hunted and she could be free.  In the end, even when she knew she was dying, Rachel had been determined to help us be together and happy.

The morning sun painted beautiful colors on Rachel’s face, and looking into her eyes I saw how much she was like the woman I had watched and cared about and tried to save.  The woman who, in the end, had saved me instead.  I wanted to tell Rachel so many things, ask her so many questions, but all that could come later.  Squeezing her hand back, I walked with her away from the house.

[For now, this was enough.](https://redd.it/bue253)

****

[You have a delivery scheduled.](https://redd.it/cbn7uj)

[The Ghost Tree](https://redd.it/kfvzse)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We’ve been stuck in construction traffic for 8 hours now. If we leave our vehicles we will die.
 
 Assistant: Lauren is in the Honda Accord right behind my truck, with our two cats, but I can’t get out and see her. The last guy who got out was shot in the legs and then run over by a tank.

We set out yesterday from Gainesville, Florida, where Lauren had recently graduated from law school. We were moving to my home state of Maine, to start a permanent life together. The drive was beautiful most of the way, and Lauren and I spent a lot of time on speaker phone with each other to comment on it. A couple of times we passed through rain, and once a really wild thunderstorm that lit up the whole sky for miles. Then, about 8 hours ago, we hit a traffic jam on I-95 just outside of Lewiston, Maine.

I took a look at the navigation thing on my phone, but it didn’t show any red areas of heavy delay. It also had some trouble showing my exact location, though, so I lit a cigarette and figured it would just be a few minutes.

After about fifteen minutes, I called Lauren. “How’s it going back there?” I asked. In the background, I could hear the cats going nuts.

“Not great,” said Lauren. “Do you hear Hankie and Hattie howling? They started up as soon as we stopped. What's going on?”

“Must be an accident that just happened. My phone usually gives a heads up if there’s planned construction or something.” I heard one of the cats hiss while the other one yowled.

“I’m so tired,” said Lauren.

“I know, me too. Let’s stop and get something to eat once we’re through, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Alright. Love you. Sorry about the cats.”

“Love you,” said Lauren.

I hung up and tried to get something on the radio. I have a base model 2006 Toyota Tundra, so no AUX jack, and the CD player had broken years ago. During the entire trip, I had been at the mercy of radio stations, and for the most part, they didn’t do much for me other than create a general atmosphere of annoyance.

Now, though, I couldn't even keep the radio on. What wasn't warbling static was some kind of distorted robotic voice reading off a list of numbers and random words strung together. Across the whole radio band, same thing. I couldn't take it so I shut it off.

I picked my phone back up and went to check Twitter. All I got was that game where you have to jump the dinosaur over cacti faster and faster and then it gets dark out and the birds come. No internet. Finally, Twitter did half-load, so there was *some* intermittent reception there, barely.

After a half hour had passed, I started to get antsy, and so did everyone else. People were sticking their heads out the window to try to see what was going on, but it was no use. The line of cars seemed endless. A few people got out of their vehicles to try to get a better look. I got out too and started walking to Lauren’s car.

When I was halfway there, a voice cut into the air. It sounded like someone shouting through a bullhorn. “Return immediately to your vehicles! No one is permitted to be outside! This is your only warning. If you do not heed it, there will be severe consequences.”

“Wha da *fuck* is goin’ on?!” some guy shouted in a thick Boston accent; he was standing a few car lengths in front of me. An instant later, he was down on the ground, not moving. I didn’t see what happened exactly, but that was enough to make me to hustle back to my truck.

I tried calling Lauren again. When she answered all that I could hear were broken flashes of the cats screaming and Lauren sounding scared and begging to know what was happening.

“I don’t know,” I said, not sure that she could hear it. “Maybe they’re searching for a criminal or something. I don’t know.” Then we were disconnected.

A minute later, an ambulance was wailing its way down the right hand shoulder. It stopped just past my truck, and two EMTs jumped out of the back. They closed the doors behind them, but I saw that there was somebody else in there. Somebody dressed in riot gear, holding a big gun.

The EMTs dragged the guy with the Boston accent by the arms over to the ambulance. They opened the doors and sort of tossed him in, and then followed behind. I saw the riot gear person again for a second, and then the doors slammed shut and the ambulance sped off down the shoulder out of sight.

Somebody four cars ahead of me got the idea to follow the ambulance out of there. I watched as a red Hyundai Sonata with a New Jersey license plate tore into the shoulder lane and sped after the ambulance.

I tried calling Lauren to ask her if she thought we should try it too. It was a ballsy move for sure, but she had sounded at the end of her rope stuck in there with our wailing cats, so I thought she might be willing to give it a shot. This time, the call didn’t even go through.

I was getting ready to try calling again when I heard this loud blast. A puff of smoke blossomed somewhere up ahead, and all of a sudden, there were chunks of a car flying through the air. A red car. Very likely a red Hyundai Sonata.

As I watched a flaming tire roll to a stop against the highway divider, I decided not to replicate New Jersey’s maneuver.

I heard the blast of a horn behind me, and looked in the rearview to see that Lauren had her arm out the window, moving her hand around in a circle. Finally, it hit me that she was telling me to roll down my window, so that’s what I did.

“Can you hear me?” she shouted.

“I can!” I could even hear the cats. They sounded really freaked out.

“What is happening?!” she asked.

“I don’t know baby! I think we’re in some kind of military lockdown maybe! I think we have to just sit tight here.”

“Can you throw me a bottle?” asked Lauren.

“What?”

“A bottle! Like Gatorade or something. I know that you’ve probably got ten of them in your front seat.

It was true. Not ten exactly, but close enough. I just threw all of my trash on the seat of my truck until it started overflowing, whereas Lauren kept her car clean. “What are you going to do with the bottle?” I asked.

“Not something I want to shout out for the whole world to hear!” said Lauren. “Let’s just say we’ve been here a while and I don’t think we’re coming to a rest stop soon enough.”

Finally, I understood. I reached over and grabbed a bottle. I chucked it out the window, but it was a bad throw, and bounced off the hood of Lauren’s Honda. I tried again, and this time she caught it. She rolled up her window and in the rearview mirror I watched her fuss around as she presumably tried to **** into the thing.

This was when the fleet of massive trucks started rolling in, on the southbound side of the highway divide. Some of them had cranes sitting on long flat beds, and others had big chunks of some kind of metal material. Soon, the southbound side was jammed up with these giant trucks and their haul. Then they started to get to work.

“What are they doing?!” asked Lauren. She’d opened her window back up. “Are they… building a **** *wall*?!”

That is exactly what it looked like they were doing. One crane would take a massive chunk of material, and lift it into place either next to, or on top of, another chunk.

“Yes! They’re walling us in!” I shouted. I checked my phone for the thousandth time. I had a bar, and used it to call 911.

A lady answered. “What is the address for this emergency?”

“I… uh… I-95 northbound, just before Lewiston, Maine. I forget the exit number we were coming up on. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. What is the emergency?”

“Well… we’re in this weird traffic jam… and… people are dying here. Cars are exploding. They’re building a wall around us. They’re trapping us here. I know that sounds crazy….”

There was a long silence on the other end. I thought maybe we’d been disconnected. But then I heard her voice again, crystal clear.

“Sir, I am going to need you to remain calm and stay in your vehicle. And if you would, roll down your window. Not the driver’s side, the passenger’s side.”

“W… what?” I asked. Then I heard the tapping at my window. There was a lady cop standing there, holding a cell phone up to her ear. My heart jumped up into my throat, and my instinct was to slam my foot on the gas pedal, but there was nowhere to go. I rolled down the window.

“You reported an emergency?” asked the cop. “Everything looks okay to me. We don’t discourage anyone from calling emergency services if they truly think that there might be an emergency situation occurring, but everything appears to be perfectly fine here. I will give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but remember that we also very strongly frown upon fraudulent 911 calls. You could be charged for that, sir. It’s no joke.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to hold it together. “I’m sorry about that. I *did* think that something bad was going on, but now I see that everything is okay. Thanks for checking in.”

“It’s no problem at all, sir,” said the cop, smiling. “And remember: *stay in your vehicle*.”

“Of course,” I said, trying to smile, though I’m sure my face looked like a sweaty pretzel instead.

The cop nodded and then walked off down the line of cars. I waited a few minutes, and then called out to Lauren.

“I think we’re ****!” I said. “I called 911 and that cop that was just here? She’s the one who picked up. She said everything’s fine… but it’s not.”

“****!” said Lauren. “What do we do?!”

That’s when the guy jumped out of his car and made a break for the wooded area to the right of the highway. And that’s when they shot him in the legs. I heard him cry out and watched him hit the ground. I heard a loud continuous rumble, interspersed with snaps from the woods. Then I saw the tank. It didn’t so much emerge from the woods as it destroyed the woods in its wake. Beyond it, I saw another enormous wall. We were walled-in from two sides… and my guess was that we were walled-in from four sides.

The tank crushed the man like he was a particularly small ant.

\*

They are working on the roof now. It's almost done. Once the roof is on, I have a feeling that I won't get any reception at all. Before that happens, I'm hoping for one more spike so that I can get this post out.

I don't know if this is on the news or not. I thought it was just a traffic jam, so that's probably how they're playing it off. They probably have rerouted traffic around us by now.

I don't know what this is. But there are now dozens of heavily armed people in riot gear going from car to car. Sometimes they drag somebody out, and carry them screaming off to what remains of the wooded area, where they disappear from sight.

They're almost at my truck now. I hope they skip me, and Lauren. Oh ****. I'm going to tell her that I love her.

If this reaches you, I don't know what you can do, but please try to help us.

​

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bxoscy/we_were_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8_hours/)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/byqo1k/we_were_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8_hours/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Chernobyl disaster was a coverup of something terrifying
 
 Assistant: Narrations:  


[Mr. Creeps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pylxyu24g1g)  

[The Dark Somnium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rDRRXlCdC4)  

**TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP DMing ME ID THE STORY IS TRUE**: Please see the description and nature of the subreddit where it is posted.
  


  
You probably heard about tourism in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I’ve been there myself several times. And it’s nothing like what you see in games or horror movies. There are no ghosts, mutants or radioactive anomalies and death isn’t waiting for you at every corner. Actually, I think it’s one of the most peaceful and prettiest places on Earth. An example of strength of nature and how it can reverse the damage that we caused it.

Thus, when my friend Alexei decided to go there, he knew who to contact. He's a physics student and right now he’s doing some kind of research on nuclear fallout and he said that he wanted to get some direct measurements and samples. But we both knew that it’s just an excuse to go on an “adventure”. We visited the old powerplant, the abandoned city Pripyat and the surrounding exclusion zone. It was nice, but I would probably just bore you with more details. That part is not important anyway.

​

We were driving on some dirt roads in a forest east of Pripyat when we found it. An old, rusty fence and a chained gate that blocked any further passage. There was a big sign with a radiation hazard symbol and captioned: “Restricted area. Authorized personnel only”.

There was a pair of massive metal blast doors in the side an artificially-looking hill not far behind the fence, with a large, white “O-13” painted on it and “NO ENTRY” sprayed on top.

“What do you think it is?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know, looks like some kind of bunker,” I replied. “And it looks like it has been closed for some time,” I added after taking a closer look at the doors. The both halves were welded shut in the center. Alex took his samples and readings, but we were too puzzled to leave just yet.

“Do you think we can get in?” I asked.

“Well not this way for sure. Even if it wasn’t welded sealed, I’m sure we have no way of unlocking it.” Alex replied while examining the massive door.

“It looks like an underground bunker. They must have had a way to pump air inside and I don’t think this is it. There has to be another way to get in.” I said.

We circled the main entrance to try find other means of entry. The day was already coming to an end and it was slowly getting darker. As we were searching, a thought crossed my mind.

Why would they weld the doors? What’s so important inside that they went this far to keep people away?

“Look, there’s something there,” Alex pulled me away from my thoughts.

It was a concrete block a couple of meters large with what looked like vents on the sides. As I looked into the vents, I noticed that they were also sealed with heavy-looking steel hatches and no clear way to open them. However, there was also a somewhat smaller door labeled “Service tunnel” with a large wheel on the outside.

“Should I open it?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m really wonder what this is. Anyway, we don’t have to go in. At least we’ll see if the door still works.

At first, the wheel wouldn’t turn because of all the rust and dirt, but eventually it budged. The door unlocked. I pulled and it slowly started opening. It was very heavy and took a lot of force.

Behind the door, there was a small platform and a tight vertical tunnel with a ladder. What caught my attention was that there was an identical locking mechanism on the inside. That meant that they could lock the door from both sides. But why? We were lucky, because if they had locked it from the inside too, there would be no way to get in.

I stepped inside and shined my phone light down the shaft. It wasn’t strong enough to hit the bottom. The air was damp and old and there was something that I couldn’t identify. A very faint, chemical-like smell. There was no radiation nor signs of any other hazards.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is so cool. We have to come back here and check it out later.” Alex said.

I couldn’t agree more.

It was almost dark now, so we resealed the door and called it a day. But we promised ourselves to return.

​

​

​

I immediately tried to do some research when I got home, unfortunately with no success. I even tried to call Pavel, a friend of mine who knew the area better than me. Actually, it was him who brought me there for the first time. He couldn’t help me either, but promised to ask around. I told him about our plan and asked if he wouldn’t go with us, but unfortunately, he was out of the country for a while.

A week later, we packed our gear and went on with it. We brought some rope, heavy flashlights, glowsticks, Geiger counters, waterproof protective clothes, an oxygen meter and a small emergency scuba tank just in case. And yeah, we’re not **** so we told our relatives and friends about our trip and when we’re expecting to return.

​

​

We closed the door behind us as we descended down the access shaft. We couldn’t know what’s down there and we didn’t want to cause a radiation leak or something like that. We eventually dropped down into a concrete tunnel which enclosed the air vents and some smaller pipes. There was obviously no power and thus no lights. Good thing we brought our own.

We followed the tunnel and reached another door, but this time it was a regular one, not the heavy bunker-type. We went through and entered a room with 4 large air pumps and some electrical equipment and controls. The ventilation shafts split here into two larger ones that ran straight into ground and two smaller ones that went straight across the room where there was another set of doors.

Behind the doors, there was a large hall with numerous boxes, crates and other cargo just laying around. There also was a security checkpoint. Behind the checkpoint, we found the main door that we have seen from the outside. Just next to it, there was some heavy lifting equipment. We returned through the checkpoint and taken a look at a set of elevators. There was a simple map with the layout of the facility floor by floor. We were on floor 0, main entry hall. There were another 4 floors below us.

​

Floor -1: Offices, security and recreation

Floor -2: Secure laboratories

Floor -3: Accelerator, Cleanroom decontamination chamber

Floor -4: Experiment site

The map was titled “Object-13”. It wasn’t a military bunker. This was a research site.

​

We took a set of stairs, since the elevators were of no use without power. An unsettling thought brushed my mind as we were descending. They probably were moving some supplies, and then left them there and took the equipment to the main door. Were they trying to get out?

I stepped on another stair step but something rolled away under my foot, lost my balance and fell on my back. My pack luckily absorbed the impact. I looked under my feet to see what caused my fall. Empty bullet casings.

This wasn’t the sole reason why I felt odd about this place. As soon as we got down to level -1, I noticed that every single door was open. Every single one. There was a canteen and a kitchen right at the beginning of a long rectangular corridor. Various offices surrounded the corridor. There was the regular stuff – paperwork, old computers, personal belongings, all right there where they left it. Did they leave in a hurry?

“Dimitri!” Alex called from, the canteen on the opposite side of the corridor.

“What?” was all I could say when I followed him to the canteen.

There was food still neatly served on the tables. But it wasn’t spoilt. It wasn’t fresh either, but it wasn’t decaying, as a 30-year-old meal should.

“How is this possible?” I asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it was irradiated or something. But it’s not anymore, I checked that. I really don’t know man,” he answered, as puzzled as I was.

Oh, why didn’t we just turn back and leave? Now that I’m writing this, there were so many red flags already. Something really wrong happened down there. But I guess we were too excited and curious. But it was at this point that my excitement started to fade and be replaced with an eerie feeling.

Nevertheless, we continued and descended down to level -2. The stairwell ended here, and to go deeper, we would have to cross the entire floor to reach an another one on the opposite side. There was a security checkpoint and a large blast door that we had to pass through to reach the labs. Again, every door was wide open. However, the things that people left here weren’t neatly placed where they should have been. It was a mess everywhere. There were all kinds of rooms with all kinds of equipment that I didn’t understand. Occasionally, there were more empty bullet casings on the ground. There still was the one central rectangular corridor as above, but the rooms around it were like a little maze.

Almost at the other side of the floor, we found the head scientist’s office. As I said, everywhere it was a mess, but I found a logbook on the desk. There was only a handful of pages, the rest torn out.

​

**5. October 1984:** Today we successfully managed to translocate several atoms without changes in any physical properties. It’s going to be a long road until we can transport solid objects, but we’re going some good work here.

**17. January 1985:** We’ve managed to transport an apple today. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the pattern of red and green skin on top was slightly different. But it was still the same apple, with the same structure, shape, everything. We also tried to transport some electronics. They were unharmed and in working order. I think that we still have a lot to perfect and learn about this technology, but we cannot slow down now. The country is relying on us.

**21. February 1985:** After the animal trials, we translocated our first human today. He is alive and healthy, a brave hero of our nation. We have proven that this technology works now, but the practicality is still very limited due to the fixed translocation ratio. We still cannot “send” matter. Only exchange the positions of two equally massive objects. I have proposed a new type of device, that could possibly achieve one-way translocation of just a single object, but it would need an immense amount of energy.

**1. May 1985:** Our superiors accepted my proposal. They are going to build a new, much bigger translocator here, in the power plant, so we can use a nuclear reactor as a direct power source. There is one more thing. We’ve now translocated dozens of test subjects. Each one is alive and well, but sometimes they are a little bit, well, different. They sometimes claim that various events in the past happened differently than they really did. Sometimes they claim to know people who don’t exist, or more alarming, they know people who they are not supposed to know. The following was written below with a pencil by hand: “Test subject 28 was speaking an unknown language and couldn’t understand any real language after the experiment.”

There was a lot of missing pages afterwards.

**25. April 1986:** We are going to try to change our approach. It’s been more than a year, and we’re still unsuccessful in eliminating the translocation symmetry anomaly. We still event don’t know what is causing it, but we are not going to make any progress this way. Today, we are going to try to access the conduit reality instead.  Even though Unit 2 - the one we built in the power plant - is still new, we are going to use it for this experiment. Who knows what wonders are waiting for us on the other side?

There was one last page in the logbook. On it, it was just a single phrase, written again and again:

# “WE LET THEM IN”

​

“Alex, I think we should go,” I called.

“Man, come take a look at this,” he answered.

I stepped out of the lab and back into the hallway.

There were … clothes all over the corridor. Well what was left of them. They were torn to shreds. No bodies, no blood, just strips of cloth and an occasional shoe or a watch.  I looked up and stared down the dark corridor in front of us. I just stood there for a while.

​

It was, I don't know ... as if something torn all these people to shreds, and then cleaned it all up. Except the clothes and other non-organic material.

​

A wave of pure, instinctive dread washed over me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t even breathe.

“Let’s just get out of here.” Alex said.

We turned around and walked away. Slowly at first, but we quickened our pace. Our footsteps echoed across the underground structure.

“I just want to be out of here man. We shouldn’t have done this” Alex said. I didn’t tell him about the logbook, but…

My thoughts were cut short after a sudden realization.

His voice didn’t echo. It was just our footsteps.

I think he realized too, because we both stopped and listened.

Nothing. Just silence.

I stepped forward.

*Clack.*

I took another step.

*Clack.*

There was this door just in front of us and I forced myself to try something. I closed it behind us as we passed it and placed a glass beaker that I found on the ground on top.

I took a step forward.

Silence

It was just echo after all, I thought.

We walked away, carefully at first, but then we once again quickened our pace. We turned around a corner, and then it happened.

​

*Crash*

The glass shattered.

​

Someone

or some thing

​

just opened the door.

​

​

We dropped all our gear except our lights and ran as fast as we could. I didn’t even know I could run this fast. I always tried to be a tough guy but I was never so scared in my life.

Our footsteps didn’t echo anymore. Or better said, they weren’t in sync with ours anymore. Something was running after us. Each second it was getting closer. And closer.

As soon as we reached the security checkpoint, we started closing the door. The rusty joint of the door squealed in protest, but we pulled with all our strength. We almost had it closed, when we heard a loud, guttural and unnatural growl.

The door slammed shut and I threw the wheel to the ‘locked’ position. My heart was pounding so hard that it was all I heard for a while.

No, wait, it wasn’t my heart. It was that thing, pounding on the locked blast door.

​

We were running again. We reached the stairwell and run up, taking 2-3 steps at once.

We finally reached the air pump room. The ascent really exhausted us and even though I was scared shitless, I felt like I would pass out if I took another step forward. Besides, we locked it down there.

Alex sat down and leaned his back on one of the large vertical vents with a bang.

*Bang. Bang. Bang…*

​

Oh ****.

We locked it down there.

But we forgot the vents.

​

Alex and I looked at each other, our eyes met, and then… the vent burst and he was gone. I only heard him scream as he was dragged back down.

​

I feel terrible for doing this, but I just ran, I climbed the service shaft and locked the service door shut when I was finally out of this ****.

As soon as I had phone service again, my phone started beeping with loads and loads of missed calls and messages from Pavel.

“Hey Dimitri, I found this guy, he says he knows what ‘O-13’ is. Please pick up as soon as you can, he says it’s dangerous and you should stay out of it.

“This guy is calling me now, he sounds serious, please call me back at once”

“I don’t know what’s going on but he’s going there, please I hope you get this before you go down. Stay safe friend.”

There was also one message from an unknown number:

“Dimitri, this is Anatoliy Moroz, I know what you found and I’m on my way from Kiev now. DO NOT GO DOWN THERE. If you already did and you manage to get out, lock the door that you used to get in and make sure it stays locked. I will try to call you when I’m here.”

​

So here I am, writing this while I wait. I do this to make sure that no one else repeats our mistake, since I don’t know if I’ll live long to tell anyone personally.

​

I just can’t leave Alex behind.

​

I have to go back.

# [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c090ig/the_chernobyl_disaster_was_a_coverup_of_something/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My job is watching a woman trapped in a room. Part Two.
 
 Assistant: 
[Part One]( https://redd.it/brco33)

**** 

I thought about the camera above me and took my hand away from my face.  I rolled back to the desk and sat there, trying to stop from shaking, trying to make myself take a breath.  Think about it slow.  The first thing was, should I hit a button?

The red button was for an emergency.  If she *was* a prisoner or something, and she was trying to escape, they might think that was an emergency.  But no one had been hurt that I knew of.  And I think Mr. Solomon meant save that for something that was like a police or ambulance emergency, not something like this.  But what about the green button?

This was definitely something “noteworthy”.  Not only that she was asking for help, but that she was asking *me* for help.  

I made myself stop for a moment.  I couldn’t know for sure she was asking me.  I had gone to school with several boys named Thomas.  It was a common name.  But the chances of her painting that name when I was working here?  I didn’t want to be silly, but I wasn’t trying to be too…what’s that word.  Mom used to say it when she read her angel books.  Skeptics.  I didn’t want to be a skeptic either.  I had to believe it was probably meant for me.  And that was something they would want to know.

But should I hit the green button?  My hands were drifting toward the metal box on the desk, but I hesitated.  I didn’t like breaking rules, and I was scared of what would happen if I broke these.  If they really were holding her prisoner, then they were probably very bad people.  But I didn’t know that.  Maybe they were good and *she* was bad.  But I just…

I looked back at the monitor for the first time since reading the words.  Rachel was already moving the paintings back off the sofa, as though she knew the message had been received.  A canvas in each hand, she glanced up at the camera as she moved across the room, and it felt like she was looking right at me.  My chest tightened as my hands moved away from the buttons.  

No.  I didn’t think she was bad.  I had watched her for years.  I felt like I knew her, would know if she was bad.  Strange as it seemed, in a way she was my friend.  And I was going to try and help her.

**** 

I spent the rest of my shift trying to act normal and think of what to do.  I knew whoever else was watching might have noticed the paintings or seen how I acted, but I couldn’t worry about that.  I would try to play it cool and try to think how I could help her.

The only people I had actually met connected to this job were a couple of people when I filled out the papers and then Mr. Solomon when he showed me the model room and told me the job.  I had no way of contacting any of them except through the buttons.  My checks were deposited electronically and I had never run into anyone else who worked at the surveillance room.

That thought made me stop a second.  I had always thought it was weird that I never ran into someone when I was coming or going—the person I was taking over for or the person who was taking over for me.  I had always figured there must be other people, other surveillance rooms even, and they just scheduled us so we didn’t run into each other.  And I still thought there were others.

Part of why I thought that was because it seemed like I wasn’t the only person who used my surveillance room.  The water cooler, the toilet paper, the soap, they all seemed go down faster than I think I was using it by myself.  If that was true, maybe I could figure out who they were, and maybe they would be safer to talk to than whoever it was that I worked for.

I got off work at eight that night, and instead of grabbing some food and going home, I drove my car around the block and then parked down the street from the building where I worked.  Nothing had changed while I drove around for a minute—no new cars had parked or anything—and if I was right, they didn’t send anyone to replace me until they were sure I was gone anyhow.  

So I sat and waited.

I was tired and the street was pretty empty and boring, but I was too excited and scared to fall sleep.  Every time a car passed or someone walked down the sidewalk, I tensed.  I kept imagining a SUV or van pulling up behind me.  Men getting out and pulling me from my car, taking me somewhere like where they had Rachel to **** or torture me.  Half a dozen times I almost cranked up and drove away, but every time I would think of her alone in that room.  She had no one but me to help her, and I had to try.

Two hours later, a **** balding man parked and started heading for the building.  As soon as I saw he was able to unlock the door and enter, I opened my car door to go talk to him.  Then I stopped.  I needed to be smart.  I didn’t know where they were, but I was sure there were hidden cameras in the locker room and outside the building.  If I go running in there and confront that guy, they’ll know for sure that I’m up to something.

Sighing with frustration, I shut the door back and waited until his shift was over.  I considered tailing him like in the movies, but I was scared I would just lose him or he would call someone for help.  So I waited until he was walking back to his car after a six hour shift, hopefully far enough away that the cameras wouldn’t see.  And then I met the man I came to know as Charles Jefferies.

**** 

“Hey…Hey, man, can I talk to you for a minute?”   His back was to me and he just waved his hand absently without looking up.

“Sorry, I don’t have any money.  Have a good…”  He froze as he glanced back at me while talking.  “Oh ****.  No.  No.  You need to get out of here, kid.  We aren’t allowed to talk.”  I could tell he was scared, but I couldn’t risk letting him go yet, not after all this.  I stepped up and pushed the door back shut as he was trying to get into his car.

“So you know who I am?”  I tried to not sound mean, but I could hear how mad I was in my voice.

He yanked at the door again, but I was still holding it, and I was stronger than he was.  After a second, weaker tug, he turned around, his face strained and tired-looking.  “Yeah, I know who you are.  You work here just like me.  And I’m telling you, we aren’t supposed to be talking.  We aren’t supposed to meet, ever.”

I frowned.  “Mr. Solomon never told me that.  He never said it was one of the rules.”

The man shook his head.  “Mr. Solomon.  Yeah.  Well there are plenty of rules they don’t tell you.  I bet they didn’t tell you what you were going to be watching before you started, did they?”  When I just lowered my eyes, he went on.  “Yeah, me either.  I’ve been at this job for ten years.  I’ve seen other people come and go, usually because they broke one those rules they never mentioned.  The only reason I’m still here is because I keep my head down and my mouth shut.”  He wagged a finger at me.  “You should do the same, if it’s not already too late.”

I felt my stomach curling into a cold knot.  “Too late?”

The man rubbed his face.  “Kid, do you think they don’t know we’re talking?  Do you think anything happens that they don’t know about?”  He looked back toward the building, a look of sadness and fear in his eyes.  “****, for all I know, you’ve already killed us both.”  Shaking his head, he pushed me back and started opening the door.  “Either way, I’m done risking it.  You need to stop asking questions and just do your job.  It’s a lot healthier.”

With that, he got into his car and shut the door.  I didn’t try to stop him this time.  Even though I had already been worried about what he was telling me, hearing it confirmed was paralyzing.  What exactly was my plan?  He probably didn’t know any more than I did, and even if he did, what could I do with anything he told me?

I walked back to my car with a heavy heart.  I was still afraid, but more than that, I was sad and ashamed.  I wanted to help Rachel, but I wasn’t sure how.  I wasn’t giving up, but as I drove back to my apartment, I couldn’t think of what I should do next.  This wasn’t a movie.  I wasn’t a hero.  And the only ideas I had left were to either go to the police, who might be controlled by whoever I worked for, or try to get proof of her being held prisoner myself.

As I parked my car and walked into my apartment building, I made a decision.  Unless I thought of something better overnight, I would do both ideas.  Tomorrow I would break the rule about carrying anything in.  I’d use my phone to record a video of the surveillance room, of Rachel and how she was trapped somewhere, and of me telling everything else I knew.  And I would email it to every newspaper, website, and internet channel I could think of.  I’d then go to the police and give them a copy too if I could make it that long without getting caught.  Maybe if I did all that, even if they got me, someone would help Rachel.

I was filled with worry and dread at the idea of being hurt or killed.  A part of me kept saying I should just do as I was told and hope that it all went away.  But I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.  Even if I messed up, I felt like I had to try.  I was so preoccupied that I didn’t hear the person coming up behind me as I unlocked my apartment door.

“Thomas?”

I turned around and felt my legs weaken as I stumbled back against my door.  I had to be dreaming or crazy.  I grabbed the door **** for support as I looked at the woman in front of me.  It couldn’t be her, but somehow it was.

[“Rachel?”](https://redd.it/9ndww5)

****

[Part Three](https://redd.it/bsg2az)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: They paid me $5000 to go through hell
 
 Assistant: It was the advertisement’s outright simplicity that caught my attention.

“Revolutionize science! Earn $5000! Call us now!”

I wish I could say I didn’t know why I called them. I wish I could say it was some act of **** or deception that drove me into their waiting arms. But that would be a lie. The truth is I called them because I needed the money. Because I had gotten laid off at the publishing company I worked at and I was having trouble finding steady work. Because I was months behind on rent and facing my second eviction notice. Because I didn’t want to be a failure.

I called them for selfish reasons.

Who are they? I’m not exactly sure. In retrospect, their obvious obfuscation of their identity should have been a red flag to me. But at the time, their request seemed too interesting, their reward too vital, for me to risk losing the chance to help them. My best guess is that they’re a group of private researchers that are funded by some super-corporation. They must be. Otherwise, there was no way they would have been able to pay for the machine.
They showed me the machine the first time I met with them. It was kept in a cavernous room in the basement of a five-story office building. It was a work in progress at that time – they were still connecting pipes and soldering wires. But even in an unfinished state, it looked truly magnificent.

“Have you ever heard of a sensory deprivation chamber?”

I had. In fact, I had actually been inside one before, when I was in college. Back then, I was on a real hippy-dippy spiritual journey. You know, meditating a lot, experimenting with psychedelic drugs. Primarily magic mushrooms. At some point along that journey, I felt motivated to spend an hour of my life (and sixty dollars of my student loans) inside a sensory deprivation chamber at a local spa.
Your standard sensory deprivation chamber is a large metal tank filled with about a foot of salt water. You step in and float in the water, then someone (a spa attendant, in my case) closes off the tank so it’s completely dark. With your vision obscured and your body suspended in the water, it’s supposed to feel like you no longer have your two primary senses. Depending on who you ask, this is supposed to be relaxing, enhance your creative process, allow you to reach higher consciousness, hallucinate, or maybe gain magic powers.

My experience with the chamber in college was fairly lackluster. I remember that the water was too frigid and the salt made my skin itch. It was difficult to concentrate on meditating or channeling my inner chakra or whatever the spa had promised. Truthfully, I did always wonder what it would have been like to get in one of those things while tripping on some magic mushrooms, but I never had the opportunity.
This sensory deprivation chamber didn’t look anything like the one I used in college. This chamber looked like a vivisected suit of medieval armor strewn across a large metal table. Thousands of tubes and wires connected to the metal body, which was about three times larger than my own body. The head or “helmet” of the chamber was collosal and round with a big brass pipe running out of its crown into the tiled-floor beneath it. On the walls surrounding the chamber were fifty or sixty computer screens, twenty or so server boxes, and various iterations of medical equipment that I couldn’t name if I tried. 

It dawns on me now that the utility bills and computers alone for the machine must have been many tens of times higher than the measly $5000 they offered me, not to mention the salaries of the dozens of labcoat-clad scientists manning those computer screens. Again, perhaps this should have raised alarm bells, but I ignored it with the focused ignorance of a man who was on the brink of homelessness.
The man who showed me the machine told me his name was Dr. Monason. He was a wrinkled, balding man with a clean shave and focused eyes of blue. When I saw him, he was always clad in blue scrubs and a clean white labcoat. 

Dr. Monason was the primary liaison for my involvement on this project. He explained the machine’s purpose, brought me the necessary waivers, and answered all my questions.

Questions like, “So what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“We want you to remain in our sensory deprivation chamber for three days.”

I’m sure my expression betrayed my sense of shock. 

“Three days? Is that – I mean will – Will that **** me?”

“You probably would still be alive after three days in pure isolation, though you would likely become gravely ill and suffering from immense dehydration. Regardless, the machine will hydrate, feed, and otherwise sustain you during the experiment. So there is no risk of bodily harm.”

Dr. Monason went on to explain how the machine worked.

“In your standard deprivation chamber, the occupant is deprived of their sense of sight, feeling, and, to a lesser extent, hearing. This deprivation, this process of shutting the outside world out from the occupant’s mind, decreases the burden on their brain. Thus, the occupant’s mind is free to wander more freely – free to think more creatively, to undergo a deeper state of thinking, to meditate, and so on.

“But there is a problem with standard sensory deprivation chambers. Although the brain is freed from most external stimuli, the visual and auditory, the brain will continue to be burdened by internal stimuli. That is to say that the brain is still very aware of its own carrier – the human body. The brain will still react to the hunger and thirst of the vessel that carries it. It will still process both the need to and the action of urination and defecation. These internal interruptions go on and on, but the point is that standard sensory deprivation chambers cannot truly be said to deprive the occupant of their senses.

“This machine is not your standard sensory deprivation chamber.”

Even a cursory glance at the machine made clear what the doctor meant. 

“The inside of the exoskeleton portion of the machine is lined with a soft rubber that will acclimate to maintain the exact temperature of human skin. The tubes and wires control and regulate a wide variety of bodily functions. Through these tubes, the body is automatically fed and hydrated. The unsavory functions of the body are handled with a catheter and another series of tubes. A respirator automates breathing and regulates saliva production.

“Even the body’s natural sense of touch is completely removed while in the machine. This IV cord injects a numbing solution into the bloodstream that completely shuts off all feeling. The numbing agent is the most critical asset of our sensory deprivation process.”

The list went on and on. It became clear that they had truly accounted for everything.

Even for me. I was one of hundreds of applicants to be part of the experiment. For the first time in my life, I was the first round draft pick. The scientists explained to me that I had been chosen for three reasons.

Number one: I had no prior history of mental or physical illness that would make my experience in the chamber subject to “intervening variables.” Their words, not mine.

Number two: My height and weight were close matches for the machine’s original shape. 

“Although the legs will have to be lengthened ever so slightly, you are by far the closest match to our initial design.”

And number three, the most critical: There was nothing happening outside of that chamber that would lead to an early termination of the experiment. I had no significant other, no job, no living family members – not even a houseplant to take care of. They could breathe easy knowing that I would remain peacefully within their contraption for the entire length of the experiment.

Number three was important to the scientists. They had specifically designed the machine to allow for three full days of isolation. If the machine’s process had to be interrupted early, it would take them a month to reset the machine and run the experiment again. 

Unfortunately, reason number three also meant there was nobody to come looking for me.

The intake process was long and detailed. I signed what felt like hundreds of liability waivers. I listened to warning after warning about the potential side effects.

“Although it is apparent that you have a clean bill of health, you should be aware the isolation process may be taxing on you. Our preliminary research suggests that disassociation, audio and visual hallucinations, depression, time dilation, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and other neuroses are potential effects. However, we believe such effects to be unlikely.”

They had given me several weeks to prepare for the experiment. My only requirement during that time was that I didn’t substantially change my bodyweight or somehow develop bipolar disorder. Somehow, I managed. I spent those few weeks living normally – watching movies, applying for jobs, getting rejected for those jobs, and reading a few books.

When the day came, I was nervous despite Dr. Monason’s efforts to prepare me.

“The process will come in stages. At first, you may endure a mild state of stress. We anticipate that soon after, you will drift into a moderate state of euphoria for the remainder of the process. You will be signaled a few minutes before the experiment is over by a short audio queue. This way, you will emerge from your state of sensory deprivation slowly and be able to re-acclimate without any risk of shock.”

He played the audio queue for me, which was a short musical clip of bells ringing. 
Then, with little ceremony or deliberation, I was asked to asked to remove my clothing and climb inside the machine.

As I lay down inside the exoskeleton, I felt the warm rubber against my bare skin. Even with the chamber still open, I was confined on all sides by the metal shell of the machine. Slowly, the researchers began to attach a score of medical devices to my body. I felt strangely calm through every **** of an IV and uncomfortable insertion of a tube.
But, as a respirator was placed on my face, I began to feel a foreboding sense of unease. As I felt my body being constricted and held in place a single thought filled my mind.

Oh **** what have I done.

The researchers pushed the helmet of the exoskeleton inward on either side of my head, sealing off my ears. The world went quiet. A bead of sweat began to trickle down my sides. Then I heard a voice, seemingly broadcast from inside my own head.
“Hello. This is Dr. Monason. I am speaking to you via a small speaker contained within the helmet of the exoskeleton. Your vital signs indicate that you are beginning to panic. This is to be expected. Please do your best to relax while we finish preparing you. I promise that the process will become pleasurable soon enough.”

Somehow telling me to relax just made me more anxious. Before I could react, I felt the machine close around my body. Already the numbing agent that was being piped into my bloodstream was starting to take away control of my extremities. I tried to push against the machine but found that my arms wouldn’t budge. I tried to scream but the respirator held my tongue firmly in place. I was unable to move, unable to do anything.

Except watch.

I could still watch as researchers scrambled around me to check vitals and prepare the exoskeleton to finish closing. I could still watch as a giant analog timer appeared on a tv screen above me and began to broadcast a time.

00:00:01:00 Until Deprivation Begins.

I tried again to scream. I tried again to plead to be let out. I found myself unable to feel any part of my body. I strained my eyes to try and get someone’s attention but no one seemed to be looking at me.

00:00:00:30 Until Deprivation Begins.

Had my tear ducts been operating, I would have begun crying.  Without nothing else to do, I began to pray that this was a bad dream. To pray that I was home in bed and not in this chamber.

00:00:00:05 Until Deprivation Begins.

The last thing I saw was the face of Dr. Monason leaning over me. Waving to me. Saying something I couldn’t quite understand. Closing the exoskeleton’s face over my own.

00:00:00:00 Until Deprivation Begins.

And then everything went dark.


If I had been in control of my own breathing, I would have begun hyperventilating immediately. 

I had never felt such a profound sense of darkness as in that moment. Unable to see even my own body, it was as if I had been extinguished from existence. My eyes swam in every direction in search of a single iota of light but found none.

After a moment’s consideration, I realized that I had now been in the machine for some time. I had no reference point for exactly how long. Without outside stimuli of any kind, my only mechanism of telling time was by counting individual seconds in my head.

Yet time ticked on. I found myself alternating between obsessing about my imprisonment and finding myself adrift in my thoughts. 

I began to consider the state of my life. My recent unemployment. My lack of close friends. I felt a wave of depression come over me. Was my life really so meaningless that I could be snuffed out of existence for three days and no one could possibly care?

I pondered the source of my isolation. I looked back to times I could have tried harder at my job. Images of friendships that I had let fall apart out of introversion and stagnation cascaded through my mind. 
And then I came across a thought in my head that, were my body not numbed to the point of immobility, would have made me burst out into laughter.

I felt lonely.

Well, of course, I felt lonely. I was, at that moment, the most alone human being there had ever been. Surely there were researchers only a few feet from my terrestrial body, but my mind had been isolated completely. I was as alone as someone could be.

I let my mind continue to wander. It felt as though I had been in the chamber for hours at this point. Although I had planned to spend this time planning some sort of creative endeavor – the great American novel, perhaps – I found my mind repeatedly coming back to my current predicament. 

Obsessively, I thought about my body and the container that currently housed it. The numbing medicine must have been truly quite something. I couldn’t feel the slightest wisp of breath passing through my nasal cavities or the rumble of my stomach.

It was then that a pair of intertwining thoughts collided in my mind.

A: Could I be dead?

B: No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. 

I knew how I had ended up here – I knew that I had signed up to engage in an experiment that would put me in this exact predicament. But I must admit, I no longer felt very alive. Without my body or the surrounding world as a reference point, it felt as though I had no assurance that I still existed. My thoughts began dueling with one another.

A: Surely I’m not dead. This is exactly what the experiment was supposed to do.

B: If you’re not dead then why can’t you feel anything? Why can’t you feel your breath or saliva or ANYTHING?

A: But I know I’m not dead because I’m thinking right now.

B: What does that mean?

A: You know? I think, therefore I am.

I think, therefore I am. A smarter man could have told you who said that. But I was left with just that proclamation, from an unknown source, as the only assurance that I was alive. As long as I was thinking, I was still alive.

I began to picture myself floating through a void in space. The image was clear in front of my eyes. My body lay flat, my arms stiff, as I rocketed past stars and unfamiliar planets. I watched my body weave past asteroids and through planetary rings. I felt the warmth of the sun on my body and the cold ice of the frozen planets on my skin.

Except I didn’t really feel those things. I had to remind myself of that. I was starting to imagine feelings that weren’t really there. I wasn’t sure how much I should try to avoid these feelings or just embrace them for the duration of the experiment. Just another question to ponder, I suppose.

There came a time when I realized that I had been in sensory deprivation for a long time. Since I had not been counting, it was impossible to know how long. It felt like it had been days already.

Had it been days already?

That was a worrying thought. In a timeless void, three days stretched on like an endless millennium. 

They had assured me that I would only be inside the machine for three days. But how could I know for sure? Once I was inside, I had no way of getting out. They could keep me for as long as they wanted to. Maybe that was their plan all along. 

A: How could they get away with that? 

B: Who knows what all those liability waivers I signed said. I stopped reading them after the third or fourth one. Maybe I agreed to this. 

A: You’re being crazy.

B: I don’t know if I’m being crazy or not. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here.

A: So count!

That was right. I had one way to tell how long I had been inside the machine. Counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

And on and on. I counted to 60. That was a minute. And then I counted another minute. And another and another and another. I just kept going and going. I never lost focus on the task at hand.
Then I hit 1000 minutes. Technically, 1000 minutes was only a little more than 16 and a half hours. Certainly not the three-day period I was supposed to be inside the machine. 

But that was 16 and a half hours on top of all the time I had already spent thinking about my life and dreaming about floating through space. Surely I had spent longer thinking to myself than I had counting.

I tried to guess how long I had been in the machine. It felt like it had been more than three days. I just kept trying to tell myself that I would be let out of the machine soon.

I let my mind drift off again. 

My body was once again floating through space. I watched it drift farther and farther out into an endless void of darkness. The planets and suns shrunk into oblivion until I was truly, deeply alone. 
In the black abyss, a creeping feeling of cold began to set in. Its biting sting spread up my legs and torso to my face. My **** skin turned a pale blue and begun to harden into a crystalline husk. As my body drifted farther into darkness, I watched the surface of my stomach crack and chip. 

Slowly, chunks of my body began to break off and float into the darkness. With each expelled scrap of flesh, a new wave of pain cascaded through my body. I found myself trying to grab onto my frozen body and put it back together, but my arms and legs were so cold that I could not budge. I tried to scream but my tongue had swelled so large that it filled my crumbling, frigid mouth.
All at once, my body exploded into an array of jagged, bloody shards of ice. The pain was indescribable.

Then I was, again, alone in the darkness. Bodiless. Without lungs to expel the panicked breaths I was so desperate to create. I had to keep telling myself – it wasn’t real. I’m still alive. My body is still here, somewhere.

A: But ****, didn’**** feel real?

B: But it wasn’t real.

A: Real or not, didn’**** hurt?

B: Yes.

A: Are you scared?

B: Yes.

. . .

A: Wait. Do you hear that?

I listened through ears that were a million miles away. A voice – not mine own – burst into my head. Its bristly accent was familiar.

“Hello! This is Dr. Monason. I’m contacting you again via the small speakers contained within the helmet of the exoskeleton. I am proud to announce that you have successfully completed three days within the machine.”

I felt my alarm melt quickly into relief. I tried to smile, to little avail.

“At this juncture, we would like to update you as to the status of our experiment. The data we’re getting from your brain scans is proving incredibly useful. The medical implications are numerous. We have contacted our institutional review board and obtained permission to extend the experiment indefinitely. This is, of course, in accordance with the liability waivers that you’ve signed previously. The machine should be able to keep you alive for a few more weeks until your body becomes unable to support it any further. Do not worry, $5000 will nonetheless be credited into your account. Thank you for your contribution. Your sacrifice will save lives.”

I tried to scream. I tried to flail my arms in protest and push back against the doctor’s words but my screams were silent and my arms no longer part of me.

I felt a deep, echoing hole of dread grow inside me. Yet I would never truly feel anything again.

I would die in this chamber. It would take days. And those days would feel like months. And those months would be torture. 

I again saw myself floating in an immeasurable darkness. There were no stars or planets. There was only my body. Unequivocally alone. Arguably alive, but inevitably dead.

I stopped counting the seconds and just let myself float.

--

My mind wandered again, this time for much longer. I dreamt of my childhood and of a future I would never get to lead. I made an imaginary bucket list and felt remorse for the boxes I had not yet checked. I held conversations in my head between old friends and lovers. 

And sometimes, I didn’t think at all. Sometimes I disappeared from existence altogether.

But then I felt it. I felt something. I couldn’t tell what it was at first. It had been so long since I felt something that I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it or not.

It was my big toe. My big toe on my right foot. Somehow, someway, it still had feeling. Not a lot of feeling – it felt like when you sit on your hand and it becomes almost, but not quite, numb. Like it was being massaged by a set of pins and needles.

I moved the toe around, the little that I could, to try to understand how this feeling had come back.

Then I felt it – a tiny ****. The slightest droplet of pain against my big toe. Something sharp.

An IV needle.

It must have become dislodged somehow. Maybe one of those labcoat-wearing schmucks tripped over it or something. All I knew was that I could feel again. I suddenly felt like I had been born again. Like I had died and risen from the ashes.

This needle must have been one of the needles that was supposed to deliver the numbing chemical into my body. Somehow, it got dislodged and now I had just a little feeling in my toe. Unfortunately, my big toe was hardly the vestige of my body most suited to orchestrate my grand escape. 

But still, I felt immeasurable happiness. Because I had a secret weapon on my side. 

Time. There’s an old adage that goes “If you give a monkey a typewriter and infinite time, he will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare”. Similarly, with a partially numb big toe and infinite time to think, I could craft my grand escape.

My big toe was too weak to push open the exoskeleton. Despite my straining, I was unable to reach any other cords to pull them out. All I could reach was the IV needle that had already been pulled out.
And with that IV needle, I hatched my plan. I scraped my toe across it. It stung, but I knew it would do the trick. I knew that I had forced those **** scientists’ hands. My efforts had made a cut in my toe-skin. And now I knew I was going to be okay.

They only had two options. Let me bleed out, in which case I would at least be free from this ****, or let me out of the chamber, at least long enough to reattach the IV. Either way, my plan was foolproof. Either way, I was going to be free, at least for a moment.

It only took them a few minutes to notice what I had done.

--

“This is Dr. Monason again, communicating via the tiny speaker in the helmet of the exoskeleton. It seems you have managed to injure yourself inside the exoskeleton. After some discussion, we have elected to pause the experiment and correct the error. Stand by – the exoskeleton will be opening shortly.”

The light that soon flooded my eyes all but blinded me. As the machine opened, I bathed in the sounds of its electronic thunks and whirs and the conversation of the men around me. The quick tug as needles and tube were removed from me felt better than any touch I had ever experienced.

They let me out. I was free.

My body was numb for hours. The medicine prevented me from making any movements, at all. During that time, the scientists left me in the exoskeleton as they went over data and bandaged my big toe. I tried to listen to everything they were saying but found myself unable to concentrate. The bright lights above me burned my eyes, which had grown accustomed to perfect darkness.

As the drugs slowly left my body, a dull ache developed in my joints. After a while, my body was hauled out of the exoskeleton by a team of the labcoats. I felt a dressing gown slip on over my head. I was plopped into a wheelchair. Still unable to move, I listened to the roll of metal wheels as they pushed that chair deeper and deeper into their lab.

--

“Explain again about when you were floating through space. What was the sensation like?”

“Please let me go!”

 “I can’t. You know that. The data we were getting from you is too important. Lives are at stake. And besides that, we can’t risk you going to the police. You will be going back in the machine.”

This conversation had been going on for about an hour in the tiny interrogation room set up somewhere in the research group’s massive underground lab. Although I had regained enough feeling to speak, I still found movement quite difficult. It was clear that as soon as I outlived my usefulness to the lab coats I was going to be placed back inside the machine until my bodily demise. The data that the scientists had gained so far was so useful that they had no problem holding me against my will.

As I sat in that tiny metal room, tied to cold folding chair, clad only in a thin dressing gown, I considered my fate. For $5000 I had sold away the rest of my life. My only respite now was that I could delay going back in the machine for as long as I resisted Dr. Monason’s questioning. But I knew I was just delaying the inevitable.

I stared down at my big toe, now wrapped in a bandage. Somehow it had not dawned on me that, even if I got out of the machine, the scientists were unlikely to let me out of the building alive. Not after they decided to imprison me until I died, anyway.

“What if I don’t answer the questions?”

“The data we intend to receive from those questions is critical and could save lives. But if we cannot illicit it, then the information received from the exoskeleton will be sufficient. If you won’t answer, we will return you to the machine now.”

So it didn’t matter. I was already doomed. I might as well delay for as long as I could.

“Fine. Ask me what you want to ask me.”

I answered hundreds of questions, most of them multiple times. It took hours. The scientists barely listened to my words. There was a recorder placed in the room with me. I’m sure someone would dig through my answers later, but for now the conversation seemed to be mostly for posterity’s sake.

At some point though, I realized something. The drugs had completely left my body. I could, theoretically, move again. For now, I was tied to a chair. But they couldn’t keep me tied up if they wanted me to go back into the machine.

And from that thought, I came up with a plan. I knew I would only have a few seconds. I knew I couldn’t run immediately, or they would catch me. I would have to convince them I was resigned to my fate.
When the questioning concluded, I found myself being hauled back into the chamber containing the exoskeleton. Perhaps assuming that I would flee otherwise, the scientists kept me tied up during transit.

But the ties came off when it was time to put me in the machine. They stripped off my night gown and lifted me inside the machine. I let my body go limp as they did – feigning the same numbness that had, until recently, restricted my movement. As I laid down in the rubber interior of the exoskeleton, Dr. Monason spoke to me through a loudspeaker in the ceiling. 

“I am sorry we have to part again. Your answers will be invaluable for future research. I know it may seem now like we are villains. But the research we’re obtaining is invaluable. It will save lives someday. You are doing a valuable service to the world.”

As his speech ended, his researchers again approached to fill my body with needles and tubes. I was eager to make my escape but I held tight. They would have to believe I was unable to move.

I felt pinpricks in my right arm. I was already being loaded up with the numbing agent. My time was going to be short. As some of the labcoats approached me on my left side to insert another IV, I launched myself upward so I was standing inside the machine. Surprised by my sudden motion, the scientists on my left recoiled. I felt a sharp pain in my right arm as the IVs and tubes held tight against the strain of my sudden motion.

The room exploded into panic. Men rushed at me from all sides. I felt my body moving as if on its own volition. My left arm reached towards my right and ripped a series of cords and needles out of my body. Blood sprayed onto the machine. My right arm fell loosely to my side.

I propelled myself out of the machine and onto the floor, **** as the day I was born. The numbing agent had disabled my right arm, but most of my body was fine. I sprinted towards the door through which I had entered the lab, what now seemed like a millennium ago. I did not dare turn back to see if I was being chased. All I could do was run.

As I pushed the door open, I saw a long hallway that led to a set of alternating staircases. Staircases that I had walked up and down several times while preparing for the experiment. Stairs that I had always assumed I would one day walk up for the last time. 

I pushed my body as hard as I could. I ran with my right arm dangling limp beside me until I reached the stairs. Behind me, the angered yells of men and the thud of their footsteps remained consistent. I knew that if they caught me, it was game over. 

When I reached the stairs, I practically jumped up the entire first flight. As I turned to climb the next flight, I saw that only two men had kept pace with me. Suddenly, I was filled with hope. Perhaps I could outrun them all. Then I would go to the police and get the chance to put this whole operation under the microscope. As soon as I got to the top of that second flight of stairs and through the exit doors, I would be free.

My hopes were dashed as soon as I reached the top of the stairs. At least fifteen men guarded the building’s exit. Clearly my escape had been a contingency for which the facility was prepared. As the men approached behind me and in front of me, I knew there was only one way I could go.

The alternating staircases continued past the first floor. All the way up to the roof.

I kept running. Staircase after staircase. My aching body protesting each step. My dead arm banging against stair railings and walls as I made my way up those stairs. The sounds of angry men filling my ears as I took step after step after step.

Soon I was on the last staircase. A ladder, hanging from the ceiling, led up to a hatch on the roof of the building. This was it. I was going to see the outside world again. I didn’t know where I was going to go once I got up there, but I knew I was free.

I jumped onto the ladder and pulled myself up, about six feet into the air. When I reached the top I pushed on the hatch. It was heavy and barely budged. I strained against the hatch for a moment, then felt a tight grip on my ankle.

One of the men had caught up. He had wrapped his cold hand around my leg and was beginning to yank me off the ladder. I turned slightly and saw it was Dr. Monason. His eyes were red and as large as saucers. It was like looking into the eyes of the devil himself. 

I reacted purely out of instinct. My grip on the ladder tightened and I swung my free foot at the doctor’s face. As my heel collided with his jaw, sending teeth and blood flying in all directions, I couldn’t help but smile at the feeling. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe, but it felt damned good to feel something. 

Dr. Monason relaxed his grip. I pushed upwards again and the hatch gave way. I clambered upwards onto the flat roof of the building. A thin layer of gravel covered the rooftop. The sharp stones poked at my bare feet, but I kept moving. I ran to the edge of the roof and looked out into the city. 

A beautiful horizon of skyscrapers and stars filled my view. I felt the cold breeze against my bare skin. The voices of the men behind me barely registered as I climbed onto the edge of the roof.
I must have been a sight to the people walking by on the sidewalk below. A **** man standing on the edge of a building staring at the horizon as if he had never seen one before. 

“Please come down from there. You don’t have to go back in the machine. We just need you to come down.” 

It was Dr. Monason again. His voice was hard to understand now that he was short a few teeth. I turned away from the horizon to look at him. He was surrounded on all sides by other men in labcoats.

I knew at that moment that I had no real choices left. Could I believe Dr. Monason that he wouldn’t put me back in the machine? Probably not. But I had no chance to escape at this point. There were too many of them for me to get away.

Just as one of the researchers reached out to grab me, I took a step backward.

As my body tumbled down to the earth below, I found myself laughing. It was just like when I was in the machine. My body was floating once again. The cold air numbed my body and, once again, I couldn’t feel a thing. 

Just before I struck the ground, I heard the sound of church bells ringing out. Hallelujah. I figured I must be on my way to heaven.

--

No heaven came. Instead, I found myself in complete darkness. Feeling nothing, seeing nothing, simply ruminating on my previous actions. 

Is this what death is like?

In answer to my question, I heard a familiar voice.

“Hello. This is Dr. Monason. I am speaking to you once again via a small speaker contained within the helmet of the exoskeleton. You have successfully completed your three days within the exoskeleton.”

Had I not still been pumped full of numbing drugs, I would have wept. 

“We are currently in the process of opening the machine. At that point, we will perform a physical assessment. I’m sure you are anxious to leave. I can assure you we will move as quickly as possible to make that happen. Thank you so much for your assistance with this project. It has been invaluable.”

Three days. I had been in that machine for exactly three days. 

It didn’t click for me until they were pulling me out of the machine. There was no bandage on my big toe, no needle near my foot on which I could have cut myself. 

The facility was nothing but accommodating in the hours after the experiment terminated. They provided me with a comfortable place to rest while the remainder of the drugs left my system. Although they asked questions about my experience, they were not hostile when I refused to speak. The researchers were happy to answer my questions about the experience. Happy to tell me it was all in my head.

In the days following the experiment, Dr. Monason made sure that I was provided with any mental health resources that I requested. He connected me with a therapist that I have been seeing for several weeks. The therapist has prescribed me an antidepressant, which I take twice a day. I have returned to my normal life. My rent is paid. I’m seeing someone new. I got a new job at another book publishing company. 

It’s like all my fantasies have come true.

But no matter how long I talk to the therapist and no matter how many pills I take, I can’t get the machine out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about how those three days seemed to extend indefinitely.

A: But you’re out of the machine. Your three days are up!

B: Yes, but…

A: But what?

B: I was out of the machine once before. 

A: But that wasn’t real.

B: But it felt real. 

A: Does this feel real?

B: . . . I don’t know anymore.

Could three days feel . . . even longer? Could I imagine a therapist, a job, a better life?  I don’t know.

Sometimes I close my eyes and I become too afraid to open them, because I’m worried that when I do, I will see only darkness. I’m scared I will find myself still floating, motionless, amongst those imaginary stars. 


 [J.L.](https://www.facebook.com/Jlaughlinhorror)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. Last night my survival was threatened.
 
 Assistant: How it began 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And what happened next
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cinu8u/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

When I finally caught up with Mrs Hemmings herself
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cj2g4k/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app


I was in complete shock. Looking at it. At her.

Prudence had a **** expression filled with guilt and now I knew the truth I could see it. The creature was exactly how Ian had described, except with wavy ginger hair and a sadness in its beady eyes. 

This abomination was Lyla. This was how Prudence had bought her back, and this was the only way I would ever see Jamie again, a risk I wasn’t going to take. After days of disbelief the reality finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Jamie was dead and he wasn’t coming back.

“Why did you do this?” I asked, my voice shaking with horror.

Prudence scowled at me, trying to mask her shame.

“I didn’t want this. If you think this was my aim then you’re sicker than I am. I just wanted my granddaughter back. 

When she died a part of me died. My son blamed me, his wife blamed me and although he never said it, I could see in Bernie’s eyes that he did too. 

I’d pushed for her to stay, I wanted to spend more time with her. I got cocky about my ability to cope with the strange occurrences in the flats. I know what you must be thinking. But I swear I didn’t know about the sleepwalking until it was too late.

We had moved into the flat not long after my son left home to move in with his girlfriend. He’s the youngest of three and was the last to fly the nest, so we downsized for the two of us. He never knew what we were facing in that flat, or the dangers that he sent his little girl into. 

When it happened it was a few years after the fire and the troubles with the creatures. We’d struck the deal with the things in the lift and the neighbours of the burned flats had become a fixture just like the other quirks. I really thought she would be safe.”

Prudence paused to gaze longingly at the mutated little girl in the cage, the creature just twitched. In return it barred its 4 rows of teeth and made a gentle hiss.

“But how did you do this!?” I stopped her with more urgency this time, looking at rat-Lyla in disbelief. I had to get answers out of her fast. I didn’t want to spend anymore time than was absolutely necessary in this shed. 

“The gardener helped me.” She answered, her voice trembling. 

“Who the **** is the gardener?” I grew more impatient with every new confusion she threw at me. The last thing I needed was something new and potentially malevolent in the mix. 

“I didn’t mention him in my note because he’s been gone for over 20 years, **** be of no concern to you so don’t worry. His damage is in the past now...

Around the time Lyla went missing the council granted planning permission for the tower block next door. But before that was built the land it sits on acted as a communal garden for ours and the neighbouring tower block on the other side. It had a regular gardener named Derek who you would often see tending the flowerbeds out front. 

Derek was one of the first people I met when I moved in.

Like I said, I had to work it all out myself and the first time the window cleaner came to the balcony I naturally reached to let him in and offer a cup of tea.

As my hand applied pressure to the handle to open the balcony door, there was a knock at the front door. I made a gesture to the cleaner to indicate that I would only be a minute and answered. 

There was Derek. He stopped me and told me not to let the man in, that I would be making a huge mistake.

I thought he sounded crazy, and I told him so, after a while of arguing I got up to reboil the kettle and let the man in and Derek grabbed my hands and shouted at me to look at the man outside.

When I turned to look, there was no man outside, but a monster. He was tall and impossibly thin, flesh and bones but somehow thinner than bones with greying skin stretched over them. He had eyes that seemed to be so deep set they went on forever, like the blackest cave you can imagine. Saliva dripped from his mouth and landed on my balcony floor, some sliding down the glass panel of the door. 

I opened my mouth to scream, but as I did, Derek let go of my hands and the monster was gone. In its place was that smug, friendly man, begging for a drink while he cleans the windows. 

It took me a minute to process it, but I know what I’d seen. That was the real window cleaner. I never intentionally opened or tried to open the door for him again. 

That day Derek didn’t stay long. He didn’t tell me what the window cleaner is, or why he visits every few days. He didn’t explain anything about the weird things that go on. As much as Derek was a part of the strange happenings he was like one that had been carved from light.

He said that he’d always be around when I needed him, that it was his job to look after the residents just like the flowerbeds. 

Over the years he appeared a few times. He was instrumental in striking a deal with the creatures. When the neighbours died in the fire he created a special display for them in the garden, and made sure that nothing planted was poisonous to the cats as soon as they arrived. He also stopped an imposter from killing Bernie at our front door.

He seemed like such a good thing for the residents. Always there to help. Offer some gentle advice or a creative solution. Someone to be trusted.

He changed when they granted planning permission for the other block though. He knew his garden would be dug up to lay foundations and his uses redundant. He became grumpy and bitter over time but no one payed enough attention to notice. Especially not when my tragedy struck.

When Lyla died I was devastated. Derek appeared to me as I sat on a bench in the garden crying. He offered to help me, to use the garden to get her back. I snapped at him. I told him it was his fault and that he should have been there when it happened to stop them. 

He worked so **** the agreement with the creatures, he spent a lot of time with them. Lyla broke the rule and he had to allow them to do what had been agreed, he said. He couldn’t have stopped them. But he wanted to help make things right. 

I understood why he hadn’t intervened. But I couldn’t accept it, I lashed out at him. I’m embarrassed to say I actually slapped the poor man along with stamping on his freshly planted flowerbed. I was angry and grieving. 

I quickly burned myself out and collapsed into a blubbering heap on the floor. Derek attempted to comfort me but his mind was on his garden.

He said he was sorry for my loss but I shouldn’t have attacked the flowerbed. That he’d always been nice to me and I should be kinder in return.

I snapped and told him that it didn’t matter because it was all about to be bulldozed in the next few days anyway.

I should have taken more note of the way he twitched as I said that. He snapped.

He said that he knew I was angry. But there was no need to take it out on him, if I was that desperate to get Lyla back he knew a way. But it was dangerous. 

I begged. Anything I said. I would do anything. 

He told me it was simple and that all I had to do was enter the lift and offer the creatures some food whilst repeating the phrase *revertetur mortuis* during their frenzied hours. 

He said that there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be crunching on my bones before I even got the first word out but that if I succeeded I would have Lyla back. 

Of course, it was successful. There wasn’t a creature in sight as I performed the ritual as instructed. 

I thought nothing happened at first. She didn’t appear straight away, but a few days later I found her running round inside my house, she’d taken a chunk out of Damon’s ear with her teeth. I tried to **** her at first, but just as I was about to finalise it I saw in her eyes who she was. 

I tried to look for Derek but by that point the workmen had started. Nothing was left of his garden, and nothing was left of Derek. No one’s seen him since. You see, Kat, nothing in that building is totally harmless. You have to be on your guard at all times.

I’ve kept her like this ever since. You may think I’m crazy but I couldn’t **** my own granddaughter. I’m not a monster.”

Prue sighed and ushered me back out of the shed, she locked the door behind us, closing the padlock on her most hideous secret. 

I was exhausted. It was a lot of information to take in and as a result of the information I’d received, real grief for my boyfriend was finally settling in. Every hope I had was dashed. I know many of you tried to tell me in the comments that he was gone but I wanted you to be wrong so bad. 

I couldn’t bear to look at Prudence Hemmings for another moment. I made my excuses and left, morosely riding the bus back to the tower block I had once been so excited to live in. 

It was mid afternoon by time I got home. The choice between the stairs and lift didn’t strike much enthusiasm into me but I opted for the stairs, and after what I’m sure ended up being 11 flights, I made it the 6 flights up the stairs to my flat. 

I laid on our mattress on the floor and sobbed for Jamie. I sobbed so hard my throat went dry and hurt and my stomach cramped with each gasping breath. I sobbed myself to sleep. My body and mind must have given up fighting the need to rest and shut down.

When I woke up it was late, about 10pm. I wrote as much of my update as I could for you guys, hit post and just sat at the dining table with my head in my hands. 

My whole life had fallen to **** and I knew it. 

I thought about so many things, questioned why they were happening to me. I searched social media for updates on Georgia but there were none. Jamie wasn’t super close with his family but I knew it wasn’t long before they’d start to worry. Everything I considered just snowballed in my mind.

The loneliness in dealing with this situation was killing me. 

I decided to do something I usually wouldn’t. I went downstairs and I knocked on the door of flat 26. 

Terri answered. Her perfectly bobbed hair was a little unkempt and out of place, she had huge bags under her eyes and I could smell wine on her breath. 

“Are you ok Kat?” She looked concerned. I found it ironic that she looked so disheveled I had forgotten it was me who came for help.

“I’m not... I’m sorry... I know I don’t know you ..I ... just...” I could barely speak.

“Don’t worry. Prue called me. She told me everything. I’m sorry about your boyfriend, it’s a shame I never got to meet him.” Terri stared back at me with the same expression a mother would, warm and understanding. “Would you like a cup of tea, maybe something stronger?”

“I’d love a coffee please.” I answered meekly, making way way into the living room, her sofa was comfy, it reminded me of being back home at my parents before any of this started. 

Terri trotted out to the kitchen, stumbling slightly. I could see the kitchen counter from the sofa, and the empty bottle of wine that accounted for her stumbling. 

As she boiled the kettle there was a huge crash from somewhere inside the flat. I jumped, feeling startled. Terri coughed in a meagre attempt to conceal the noise.

“Excuse me for just a moment please.” She muttered apprehensively as she walked out of the living area and into the hallway containing the bedrooms. 

I heard another crash, giggling and some inaudible shouting. After a while things went quiet and Terri came back into the living room. 

“Sorry about that, kids you know.” She announced, brushing off the noises. I’d almost forgotten about Eddie and Ellie. It was late already and by the resigned expression on Terri’s face indicated that this was how all her nights began. 

I nodded. I couldn’t muster up much more of a response. I think she could see that I just needed to sit there. She got up to finish making and then set the cup of tea in front of me with 2 digestive biscuits. I hadn’t eaten properly in days and I really needed the sugar. 

It turned out me and Terri get along really well. We have similar taste in movies, music and food despite the age gap. We spoke for about an hour about random, normal stuff. It was nice to get a break from the madness. I got used to the crashing around from the twins. I even laughed a few times. I’d forgotten what that felt like these past few days.

The break didn’t last long. The next noise that we heard was louder than the first. It was quickly followed by two small children, running into the living room diving into their mothers arms. 

I was taken aback for a moment. Eddie and Ellie were dressed in pyjamas, and were still the cute children that I had met in the hallway, but something was different. Their brown puppy dog eyes had become deep voids, like what I’d imagined when Prue described the window cleaners true form. And at the ends of their fingers were long sharp claws protruding from where nails should be. 

I didn’t have time to recoil in terror at their new looks, Terri clutched them and asked what was wrong. They wailed and buried the voids where their eyes should be into their mothers shoulders. Despite their terrifying exterior, these were two very scared little kids. 

It had been a very long day and I thought my nightmare was over but it was only just beginning. Ellie mumbled into Terri’s shoulder, in that high pitched voice kids do when they’re scared.

“Mummy, were sorry, we didn’t mean to let them in. We were just teasing...”

“Shhh they’re coming!” Hissed Eddie, in the same distressed high pitched tone. 

“Who’s... what have you done?” Terri asked, colour drained from her face.

The kids didn’t get a chance to reply. Terri’s face turned paler than I thought possible. I looked up and standing in the living room doorway were about 10 people, all incredibly average looking. 

They were almost expressionless, they didn’t look angry or pleased to see us. They were dressed in non descriptive clothes. I imagined trying to describe them to one of those artists that draws pictures for the police and I genuinely don’t think even one of them had a distinguishing feature. 

That’s why it took me a while to spot her in the crowd, even though she had been glaring at me the entire time. 

Natalia.

How our confrontation went: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cjzfky/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My job is to watch a woman trapped in a room. Part Three.
 
 Assistant: [Part One](https://redd.it/brco33)
[Part Two](https://redd.it/brsj8v)

****



She hesitated a moment before breaking into a smile.  “Is that what you call me?  I like it.  My name is actually Melanie though.”

I felt my face reddening.  Of course her name wasn’t actually Rachel.  That was just something I made up in my head.  Still, my embarrassment couldn’t keep up with my confusion and joy.  “Is it really you?”

She nodded.  “Yeah, it’s me.”

Rachel…Melanie grunted as I stepped forward and started hugging her.  Laughing, she hugged me back for a moment, but then she whispered in my ear.  “Thomas, we need to talk, and not out here.  Can we go inside?”

I broke away and nodded, wiping at my eyes as I tried to finish unlocking the door with a shaking hand.  My heart was pounding and I still felt like I was in a strange and wonderful dream, but when we had gotten inside and sat down on my living room sofa, I forced myself to focus on the biggest question I had.

“How?”

Melanie had still been smiling as we sat down, but now she looked worried and sad.  “Thomas, that’s what I’m here to tell you.  Things aren’t like you think they are.  They never have been.”

I frowned, a new line of fear cutting through my happy haze.  “What do you mean?”

She held the bridge of her nose for a moment, looking down like she was trying to figure out how to say…whatever it was she had to say.  “Thomas…you’re part of a psychological experiment.  I’ve been a part of it for longer than you have as one of the actors, and I still don’t know all the details.  I’m pretty sure it’s run by some government agency, and I know they’re investing a lot of money and time into it, but for what reasons…that I’m not so sure.”

I realized I was wringing my hands.  No, that wasn’t right.  It couldn’t be right.  This was some kind of trick.

Melanie went on.  “What I do know is that you’re being watched as a long-term subject.  They have constructed this whole scenario where you do a secret job watching someone…me…who looks like they might be trapped.  They give you instructions and a way of making choices.  You’ve got buttons or something you can choose between, right?”

I nodded weakly, my tongue thick in my throat.  “Yeah.  A red one.   And a green one.”

She sighed and nodded.  “I think they’re testing how much you’ll obey.  What choices you’ll make based off of your morals, your intelligence, and your fear.  It’s interesting, or at least I thought so when I first joined up six years ago.  They’ve never officially given me many details, just the overall gist.  But people talk.  The other actors and me, sometimes we hear things, and we gossip.”  She smiled sadly.  “That’s what caused me to start feeling bad.”

I interrupted.  “Other actors?”

Melanie’s eyes widened.  “Oh ****, yeah.  Sorry.  I think they still call him Mr. Solomon?  And there are others too.”  When I just stared at her, she went on.  “Anyway, for a long time it was just the normal job, right?  I spend six hours a day acting like I’m this trapped girl, mainly faking painting or watching t.v.  You know, boring stuff…”

I couldn’t help but interrupt again, hating the hurt trembling in my voice.  “You fake the painting?  You aren’t really painting those wonderful pictures?”

Now Melanie looked embarassed.  “No, sorry.  I can’t paint a bit.  I’m a pretty good singer though.”  She tried to smile, but faltered.  Reaching forward, she touched my arm.  “That’s why they always have the paintings turned where you can’t see them.  They’re already done beforehand.  All you ever see is some blank canvases and…well, when they *want* me to show you something.”  Her expression darkened as she went on.

“That’s why I had to break the rules and contact you.  When they started doing this hidden message, mind game ****, I got worried.  Worried you would take it too serious.  That you could get hurt, or even hurt yourself.  As soon as you left your shift tonight, I talked to one of the guys in the video department.  He told me about how you had reacted.  Showed me how you were still parked down the street from the building.  I drove over—the bedroom set is in a building outside of town.  I saw you sitting in your car, and I almost approached you then, but I was scared of getting caught and fired.  So I parked and waited until I could follow you somewhere else and let you know I was okay.”

She blinked back tears.  “I’m ashamed to say I almost left a couple of times.  I don’t want to lose this job, and I tried to tell myself you would be okay after a day or two.  I could get them to change the script enough that you felt like I was okay and wouldn’t worry too much.”

I felt an angry heat growing in my chest.  “Well, that’s nice of you.”

She looked up, her eyes red.  “I know.  I’m a ****.  I’m so sorry.  I was being selfish and cowardly, but I didn’t actually leave.  And then when I saw Charlie leaving the building, saw you running over to talk to him, I knew they were escalating it even further.”

“Charlie?”

Melanie rolled her eyes in frustration.  “****, yeah.  Sorry.  Charlie Jefferies.  He’s another actor.  In an earlier version of the experiment he actually played Mr. Solomon, but they decided he wasn’t scary enough, so now he’s usually in one of the suits.  He’s actually done that for your version a lot, you just can’t recognize him under all that get-up they wear.”

I kept curling and uncurling my hands on my lap.  It was all too much.  I felt like a pinball going between anger and relief and embarassment and confusion.  “So all that stuff he told me?  That was all just to scare me?  See how I’d react?”

She nodded as she sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.  “Yes.  I’m sorry.  That’s why I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you.  I could see how worried and scared you were going back to your car.”

I pulled my arm back from her touch.  “Well, thanks I guess.  At least you stopped me before I went to the police and looked like a joke in front of them too.”  I just wanted her gone, her sympathetic, pitying eyes off of me.  “Thanks for stopping by and letting me in on it.”  I tried to make my voice sound hard and unfeeling, but it came out watery instead.  Standing up, I turned away from her so she couldn’t see as I started to cry.  “If you don’t mind, I…uh…I need time to think about everything.  It’s…a lot.”

A moment passed and then her hand was on my shoulder.  “Thomas, you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.  They are very good at what they do.  All you did was what you thought was right.  Because you’re a good man.”  I shrugged.

“I thought that you were in trouble and I wanted to help.”

She gently turned me toward her, and when I looked up, she smiled and sniffed again.  “I know, but you need to realize, most people wouldn’t have tried to help.  Not when it meant giving up their job or risking themselves like that.  Not for a stranger.”

I wiped at my face as I looked away.  “Well, I still feel dumb, but I’m glad it’s not real.  I’m glad you’re okay.  That we both are.”  I paused and caught her eye again.  “We are, aren’t we?  Safe, I mean.”

She hesitated before nodding.  “Yeah, I think so.  Like I said, they have a lot invested in whatever this is, and the fact that they’re willing to go as far as they have with you makes me wonder, but I’ve never seen any signs of anyone getting hurt.  I think the worst that could happen is one or both of us gets fired.”

I felt my face getting red again.  “Oh, don’t worry about that.  I’m going to quit tomorrow.  I’ll finally get to hit their **** buttons.  Maybe both of them.”  I started to smile, but then I saw the look on Melanie’s face.

“Thomas, please don’t do that.  I don’t think they would hurt us, but if you up and quit, they’ll figure out I’ve talked to you.  I don’t think they watch us all the time, but I don’t know what they can find out.  You know, tracking cellphones, spy satellites, whatever.  I’m taking a big risk just being here, and I don’t want them catching on.”

I took a step back from her.  “So you want to keep getting paid to trick people like me.”

She reached out and grabbed my right hand.  I had been clenching it unconsciously, and it relaxed at her touch.  “No, I don’t want to.  But I wasn’t expecting this.  How the experiment has changed, getting to actually meet you…I can’t do it long-term, but another month or two to save up money?  Now that you’re in on it and won’t be scared or hurt by it any more?”  She smiled.  “That I can do.  That we can *both* do.  We can keep going like normal, take some more of their money, and then one of us can quit.  The next month, the other one can.  How does that sound?”

I shrugged uncertainly.  It made some sense, and once I had calmed down, it would probably make more.  She gave my hand a squeeze.

“And when this is all over, I want to get to know you better.  I know I’ve been playing a role, but for the most part, that’s been me you’ve been watching all this time.  I think it’s only fair I get to see more of you too.”  She blushed.  “Assuming you’re interested in that.”

I felt my hand growing clammy in hers as my stomach fluttered.  “Well, I mean…yeah.  Yeah, I would really like that.”  Swallowing, I added, “How long do we have to wait to see each other again?”

Melanie grinned at me.  “Work another month or so.  Save what you can.  And then quit.  I’ll wait another two or three weeks, and then I’ll do the same.  And then…”  She looked up at the ceiling as she pondered it for a moment, and I was struck again by how beautiful she was, even if she was a little different in person than I had imagined.  ”…three months from tonight we’ll meet right here.  I’ll come over and we can start getting to know each other better.  How’s that sound?”

Returning her smile, I nodded.  “That sounds great.”  

****

When she left a couple of minutes later, part of me hated to see her go, but another part was relieved.  I was so exhausted, and while I was so happy she was okay and we had finally met, I felt like the burned up wire in an old lightbulb.  I needed time alone.  Time to think and calm down, and most of all, time to rest.

I didn’t really even remember falling asleep, and when I woke up, I realized my alarm had been buzzing for over thirty minutes.  I jumped up and raced to get to my shift at work.  As she had been leaving, Melanie had stressed again how we needed to act completely the same.  That meant not freaking out, but it also meant not acting like everything was okay either.  If I suddenly showed no signs of being worried about her, that would tip them off too.  I promised and she left after a brief hug and kiss.  Remembering that now, through the haze of my tiredness the night before, it felt like a dream.

Still, I went into the surveillance room with a much lighter heart.  I didn’t have to worry or feel guilty any more about not helping her, and there was some satisfaction in finally pulling one over on the people that had tricked me for so long.  Besides, in three months I would be done with this place and get to see Ra…Melanie again.  In person, at least.

Because I got to watch her on the video feed as soon as I came into work.  She was asleep when I first got there, and I found myself wondering if she was as tired as I still felt.  When she woke up later and started reading a book, I found myself beginning to smile and had to stop myself.  I should still be worried acting, not smiling like I had a crush.  I had to do better so Melanie didn’t get in trouble.

An hour or so later she started working on another of “her” paintings.  Watching her work, I was amazed at how real it all looked.  It was hard to see everything from my angle, but I would have sworn she had paint on those brushes and was really painting whatever was on the canvas.  I found myself feeling proud of her.  She really was a great actress.  Not only didn’t I see her giving any clues that we had met or talked, but she really did seem different in the room than she had in my apartment.  I supposed that was what she had meant by “playing a role”. 

I was almost at the end of my shift, and while I hated to leave her, I had to admit that I was ready for some more sleep.  Trying to guard my reactions all day had been exhausting, and I was dreading the next few weeks.  But then I realized she was done painting.  I expected her to just go and do something else, but instead she picked up the canvas at its edges and carefully walked it over to the sofa.  Her body was blocking it at first, but then she stepped aside.

It was a painting of a massive tree.  The bark was a dark red, with a huge twisting trunk that broke off into a dozen branches.  Those branches were covered in leaves that were so deep green they almost reminded me of storm clouds more than the top of a tree.  Like all the paintings, I felt touched by it, even now that Melanie had told me she didn’t paint them.  The images themselves, combined with the colors and the small details…they really were amazing.  

Just like this one.  If you looked close enough, you could see that there were several small blackbirds in the branches of the tree.  It was funny, but they almost looked like they were…

It almost looked like they were made out of words.

I felt my heart start to hammer and I forced myself to stay calm.  No point in being silly.  I knew it was all a game now, and I just had to play my part a little while longer.  Still, the worried me would want to know what the words said, so I might as well try to read them.  I squinted, following the birds right to left and top to bottom.

**That**
 

**girl**
 

**isn’t**
 

**me**
 



I looked away from the painting to see Rachel staring up at me.  She looked terrified.

[*Oh no.*](https://redd.it/9ndww5)

****

[Part Four](https://redd.it/btkvkl)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Monster Under your Bed isn't Always there to Scare You
 
 Assistant: I was lying alone in my room when I heard the voice, deep and crackly, coming from beneath my bed.

“Hey,” the voice called out.

I told myself I was just imagining it. 

“Hey kid,” the voice repeated.

I drew my knees up to my chest and ducked my head under the blanket, trying to shut out the voice and the cold wind that drifted in through the window, ruffling the curtains.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m the monster underneath your bed,” the voice replied.

“You mean you’re real?” I asked. 

“What do you mean?” the monster said. “Of course I’m real.”

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“Of course I have a name.”

“Oh... well what is it?”

“Frank.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah,” the monster said. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just not very monster-ly.”

“Well my parents didn’t want me to be a monster.”

“Really? What did they want you to be?”

“A dentist.”

“That’s funny,” I said. I could feel myself beginning to smile.

“What do your parents want you to be?” it asked.

“I don’t know.... Hey Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you gonna... like... scare me or something?”

“What? Why would I do that?”

“Well, you’re a monster, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah, of course I am, but that doesn’t mean that I scare little kids.”

“But I thought that was your job.”

“It is my job to scare people,” he replied. “But only bad people.”

“Am I a bad person?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “but you’re not the one I’m here to scare.”

“Who are you here to scare?” I asked.

“The man inside your closet.” 

The skin on my arms goosefleshed up. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I fell silent as I heard a rustling coming from the closet. The door creaked open, and I could hear soft footsteps padding towards me across the bedroom floor. I didn’t dare peek out of the blanket. The footsteps stopped, and I could hear heavy breathing next to me. I squeezed my eyes tight.

The warm sanctuary of the blanket disappeared as it was yanked off me.

I hugged my arms around my knees and prepared for the worst. A scream shattered the night air, followed by the sound of breaking glass. I opened my eyes a crack to see a knife lying on the carpet next to my bed, blade glinting in the moonlight.

My parents rushed into the room and asked me what had happened, but I didn’t know what to say, only that someone had been hiding in my closet and they’d jumped out the window. 

My parents called 911, and the police came right away. They picked up a man called Gary Thompson sprinting through the streets a couple blocks away. He was covered in blood and broken glass. They found Gary’s car abandoned on our property, and inside they found duct tape, knives, barbiturates and a video camera. 

From what I heard Gary’s lawyer employed an insanity defense, and Gary is currently incarcerated in a state mental facility for the criminally insane. 

I never heard from Frank the monster again, but the officer who arrested Gary told me that he sleeps on the floor of the facility.

He tells the doctors that he’s terrified of Frank, the monster under his bed.

[x](http://davidmaloneystories.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found an extremely bizarre internet survey
 
 Assistant: Nobody knows what rock bottom truly is until they've hit it. 

Being abruptly fired from a job you've worked at for the past ten years, and then catching your girl cheating on you with your replacement really makes a man think. 

****, *my student loans aren't even paid off yet*.

What a shitshow this life is. 

After a rather boozy night that consisted of sending out about four dozen resumes and horrendously written cover letters, I passed out. 

When I woke up the next morning, I decided to at least *try* and make some money at home while waiting for an interview. 

At that moment, I thought that the best way to go about it was completing those internet surveys that yielded 5 dollar subway gift cards and other **** like that after about an hour of answering questions. I mean, I didn't have any other marketable skills that could've yielded immediate income. 

It was either that or wasting the day away playing computer games. At least I wouldn't have to pay for food. 

I did these surveys for about 5 hours before nearly passing out. It was way more excruciating then I'd originally anticipated. At the end of those 5 hours, I'd accumulated about $45 in cash and gift cards. 

$9 an hour. Not like I was making much more than that before. I was about to close my laptop up for the day and head to a bar in an attempt drown out my melancholy when I first saw it. 

It shouldn't even have been noticeable... but for one reason or another, it was. At the bottom corner of the website that I was on, existed a tiny, singular advertisement. Maybe it was the simplicity that got me. Plain black letters in a tacky font that read "Surveys for cash" overlapped a completely white background. 

At least they were direct with the message. *One more couldn't hurt*, I thought. Might as well scrape together a little bit more booze money before heading out.  

I sat back down, clicked on the picture link and prepared myself to grind through some more painstaking inquires. The first few questions were simple enough. I guess they weren't really questions, but more data collection. My name, age and occupation. I thought it was kind of weird that they also asked my height and weight, but it wasn't unheard of. 

The first **real** question was a different story though. I must have stared at it, eyes wide and mouth agape, for **** knows how long. 

*What the actual ****?*

In plain English, this is what popped up on my screen: "How strong is your urge to currently look behind you?" 

There were five options below, ranging from "Not at all" to "overwhelming". 

There was no feasible reason why I should've been afraid at that moment. *But I was*. I tightened my breathing, trying to make out any subtle noises behind me. There were none. After maybe about five minutes, I worked up the courage to look. There was nothing. I sighed in relief and scoffed at myself at the same time. 

This must have been some kind of joke. However, I decided to entertain it, answering "neutral" and clicking onto the next question. This is what it read: "Why would you look behind you?" 

I smirked. *Funny*, before simply typing in a "I don't know" in the response box and once again clicking next. This was the 3rd question: "You're on a plane. Apart from you, there is only one other passenger, who is sitting somewhere behind you. At some point, you get up to go to the washroom, and find that the man is gone. You check to see if he is in the only bathroom on the plane, but he isn't. What do you do?"

Again, I must have stupidly stared at it for nearly ten minutes. Was this some kind of obscure personality test? I mean, it must have been, right? *Right?* 

I put the same answer that I used for the last question: "I don't know." It was true. I didn't know. How was I *supposed to* answer this ****? 

I click next again, now more intrigued than anything. The 4th question went like this: "You wake up in woods unfamiliar to you. It's nighttime, and the moonlight provides you with only slight visibility. About thirty feet away from you, there is a small, dimly illuminated cabin. The door is open, and a smiling woman is motioning for you to come in. Do you go? Explain why." 

This question wasn't necessarily weirder than the last one, so my conjecture that this was some kind of odd personality test was still feasible. I actually make an attempt to answer this one, something along the lines of going into the cabin because there's simply nowhere else to go. 

Once again, I click next. Probably shouldn't have. 

The questions started getting *fucked up*. They weren't too gory or explicit, not anything like that. They were just stranger. Weirder. More psychologically disturbing. If you're wondering why the **** I kept going, I can't really give you an explicit answer to that. I just felt like I *had to*. It was an esoteric, creeping sensation that I can't quite explain away. But I could never shake it. So I just went on. 

Some of the questions that stood out were:

"Suppose that you wake up one night to find an elevator in your house. During every midnight after that, it opens up for five minutes, revealing an exact copy of yourself that gets progressively more injured as time goes on. Do you keep living like this? Or do you enter the elevator once and end it all?"

And:

"You're in a hotel room but are awoken by a rapid knocking at your window. You peek through the blinds, seeing what appears to be a man missing both his eyes. He puts his mouth to the glass and tells you to **** the woman in the bathroom immediately. Do you listen to him?" 

This was one of my least favorites:

"You are watching home videos with your mother. One of the tapes include footage of her being murdered by a masked intruder. Your mother simply laughs at this footage without saying anything. In your opinion, is this a cause for concern?" 

In addition to this insanity-inducing ****, there were some rather disconcerting events happening in *real life* as well. I received a knock at the door about thirty minutes in. I looked through my peephole to find a guy standing there, frantically shaking his head and mouthing "no" while making direct eye contact with me. He looked terrified. Obviously, I didn't open up. 

I received about ten phone calls from somebody named "the auditor" on my caller ID. They left a message every time, but each one was just a recording that consisted of somebody saying numbers through heavy static. Actually, it sounded more like *screaming* now that I think about it.

About an hour into this thing, and I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. I was petrified of looking behind me, even though there was no indication that anything should've been there. I heard some soft scratching coming from my vent at one point, so I moved my couch over it. 

Eventually, I reached what appeared to be the end of the survey. However, it wasn't a question. It was simply a statement. 

"Don't let them in. They're not to be trusted." 

Almost as if it were on cue, I heard more knocking at my door about five seconds after reading this. As slowly and silently as I could, I moved over and looked through the peephole once again. It was a different person than the one I'd seen earlier. She was a woman, looking to be in her mid twenties. She was wearing a thick blazer, despite it being around 90 Fahrenheit outside. She was also wearing sunglasses, so I could never really tell where she was actually looking. She eventually took a piece of paper out of her pocket and slipped it under the door. 

I look down and read it. 

"It's lying. Leave your apartment immediately." 

It's been about half an hour since. I can't bring myself to look at the computer screen nor at the woman outside. She's still there. I can see the shadows of her feet from underneath my door. I heard my bedroom window open a few minutes ago, but I've since jammed the door shut with a chair. I can hear some kind of distorted muttering coming from behind it now. 

Maybe rock bottom wasn't so bad. 

*But what the **** am I supposed to do here?* 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve been squatting in a condemned high rise. These are the rules I follow to stay safe.
 
 Assistant: I’m not homeless.

I have a home. I just don’t own it. But it’s mine and I work to keep it. Every city has its fair share of abandoned buildings to squat in, but usually you gotta deal with either cops or **** neighbours. The Annedale High Rise has neither. Police stay away, so do the locals. As a stranger from out of town I stumbled across the place on my first night in the city and thought it a little strange that a 28 story tower block had been left to rot. Every window black. Every light in the courtyard smashed. No cars in the lot. No booth for a guard. Not even barbed wire on the fence. Barely half-a-mile from a playground filled with shouting drunken teenagers but none of them strayed in the direction of Annedale. No fires or music or bottles hurtling through the air. It was silent.

Inside, I found that the lobby had been torn to ****. Double doors ripped open and left that way for what looked like years. Easy access for the curious, but I was the only one there. Most of the first story had collapsed. Waterlogged ceiling tiles turned to mulch by **** British weather. I know water is invasive, but it had practically **** colonised the place so bad algae was growing up the walls. Even the elevator shaft was flooded. My own reflection looking back at me as I peered through brackish water and caught a glimpse of the old rusted carriage just a few feet below. I couldn’t help but think about standing on top of it, waist high, and reaching down to pull open the emergency hatch. Only natural to wonder what was down there. Little metal box soaking in pitch black water for years and years. I thought about pressing the button, calling it up and seeing the elevator rise in spite of all logic. An image I still think of from time to time.

Meanwhile the empty shaft loomed above, cables whistling in the wind. I’ve learned not to linger by it. If you look up you’ll sometimes see something ducking out of the way, pulling its head through the doors before you get a good look. It finds it awfully funny, even tries to make a game out of it, like peekaboo. Play too much though and it starts to pop up elsewhere. Any open door becomes an invitation. Sent more than a few people running for their lives in the middle of the night, but bad news for them. That thing is more than free to leave this place if it’s part of a game.

If you ask about Annedale most people just shrug or laugh. Kids’ll talk about it same way they talk about any haunted house. Difference is no one dares anyone to go up there. No one uses it to get **** or high. No one sneaks into the basement to have a risky little ****. No one hides their stashes there. It has all the hallmarks of your classic urban legend, only people *actually* stay away. They’ll laugh and joke and tell scary stories, but they treat the soil its on like it houses a radioactive leak. And the council, I’m surprised they haven’t knocked it down but they, out of everyone in the city, have the most to lose by talking about it.

They built it in the mid fifties as government housing. Only a lot of the young mothers who moved in there found their children’s health taking a turn for the worse. Started with newborns. Babies that wouldn’t wake after a peaceful night’s sleep. The kinda deaths that got written off as either negligence or abuse, screaming teenage girls hauled off to prison on the words of doctors who didn’t give a ****. It’s always the mother’s fault in some people’s eyes, and these girls had no one to stand up for them. Two in the first year, four in the next, and they kept on coming for every year until it closed.

Wasn’t until 1982 that someone traced the source of deaths to tainted water storage on the roof. Toxic metals leeching into the supply. Not enough to **** an adult, but bad news for anyone with weak immune systems. Thirty eight women had been imprisoned by then. Another twenty three had killed themselves before they could be sentenced. And those are just the ones accounted for. Not all the deaths were from the water. Annedale has a way of being bad for any child’s health, no matter the circumstance.

More than a few toddlers starved to death as their parents rotted in the tub from an overdose. Even more were lost when they found their parent’s stash, little bodies wracked with agonising fits as their panicked mothers screamed for help. One tripped down the elevator shaft because the doors opened as if the carriage was right there. And those are the ones who were found. Plenty more went missing, written off as runaways. In the end Annedale’s reputation as a cursed place got so bad the only way out was to shut the whole thing down. Board it up. Erase it from the records. Pretend it never happened and just forget.

But Annedale kept on killing even after the doors were officially shut. If anything it only got nastier. Talked to one cop who told me he found a guy dead from sepsis on the sixth floor couple years after the place was shut down. No one could **** believe it. They reckon this guy scratched himself on a nail and caught gangrene like it was the 1800s. Never went to the hospital. Just laid there and died slowly and painfully as the infection spread, but not before he took every last bit of furniture in the room and shoved it against the door. Strange enough on its own, but it was the flag he’d made out of his own clothes that freaked everyone out. He’d scrawled *HELP* on it, like he wanted to get someone’s attention down below even though the lock was on his side. He could’ve left anytime he wanted.

Cop I spoke to said he was there when they kicked the door down. Still remembers the look in dead man’s eyes. He was glaring at the door two days after he’d passed, white knuckled fists gripping a blanket that smelled sickly sweet from all that infection.

There were others too. Lots of people falling, many of them without a good reason. Got so bad they bricked the roof door but by the time I arrived someone had cleared it all away with a sledge hammer. I still don’t hang out up there. Not after I first went up and saw pale fingers gripping the ledge, like someone was hanging off it and holding on for dear life. I reckon a lotta people see something like that and think a person needs their help. They go rushing over to offer a hand. But when I saw it something about those grimy nails set alarm bells off in my head. Fingers looked all wrong. So I took my coat off and used a broom handle to move it closer to the ledge. Sure enough those **** hands snatched at the coat and ripped it outta my hands, sending it hurtling to the parking lot below. I’ve thought about taking a closer look from time to time, but I got a thing about heights and could never bring myself to investigate it much further.

You’d think I’d leave, but it’s my home. I own it as much as it owns me. People even refer to me as the caretaker now like they forgot I wasn’t always here. Police treat me the same, can you believe that? Any reports of a break in and they call me on my number to go take a look, like I’m some sort of official. Only other guy who was here as long as me was the philosopher. I don’t know his name, just call him that because of the books he left behind. He came here back when the block was still just a place to live and he stuck around for a few years after its closure. Lots of notebooks in his flat. Thousands of pages talking about child sacrifice made to gods who don’t like being named, along with pictures of strange things frozen in ice and medical photos that look fake.

At first I thought he came to document the curse. He has dozens of books just recording all the strange things he saw, like birds with too many wings or milk that turned to clotted blood in the bottle. But after going through every thing he owned I found letters to a wife who’d died in childbirth. He kept her death certificate way at the back of an old looking box filled with the letters he’d kept writing her long after the date.

Another box, just a row over, had the letters she’d written back. Awful things scrawled on random scraps, **** and blood for ink. He dated them himself and sometimes wrote notes about how they came to him.

*Delivered by a rat that was cannibalised in front of me.*

*Pulled by my dentist from a cavity in my mouth.*

*Written in the web of a spider with thirteen legs.*

Anyway, he gives away the real reason he moved to Annedale in one of the letters. Says that Annedale was the key to helping her, that he was weeks away from figuring out how to open the door. Told his wife he’d bring her back. Told her he knew how. I’ve never figured out where he went next or what happened to him, but his apartment was locked when I found it and likely would’ve stayed that way if the key hadn’t turned up in my inside pocket on the first morning. Now I live in his old place. It’s safe in there. He’s written things on the wall that keep everything well behaved. Symbols that I don’t understand but which are easy to trace so that’s what I do. I go over them every couple of months and so far they’ve kept me safe and sane.

Because you do need protection in Annedale. I don’t know when in its history the curse went from something mundane to something very real and very dark. It wasn’t all just bad luck or poverty, not by the end and certainly not anymore. You can’t just go strolling around Annedale, certainly not at night. It’s dangerous. For one thing, it attracts a constant rotation of the deeply unwell who are likely to attack on sight, if you’re luckly. They usually turn up dead in the halls come morning, although sometimes it’s just bits of them that I come across. Strips of skin floating on the brackish water that floods the basement stairwell, or bloodied fingernails embedded in the ceiling plaster. Weirdest one was a single tooth in a lightbulb, bloody gum still attached to the root, the glass all around it somehow intact.

Many of them come here with business, something a little like the philosopher’s. Rituals. Bargains. Things like that. It’s not a good idea to interrupt them, or to give them even the slightest hint you might be a problem. Every night I lock my door and wait for Annedale’s business to finish and come morning I do a sweep, floor by floor, and clean up whatever’s left of the tower block’s strange pilgrims.

Most of the rituals don’t look real to me. In fact, I reckon a lotta people who come here just end up as victims of something or someone else. There are a *lot* of reasons to stay out of Annedale at night, and most of its visitors strike me as a little naïve. Most of what I see looks like it got stolen from a bad death metal album. I once found a book called “Satanism and Witchcraft in the 21st Century”. It’s hard to imagine that the secret inner workings of the universe can be found in something with an ISBN number and 3000 Amazon reviews. Of course, not all attempts at exploiting Annedale’s energy are so hackneyed. I had one guy turn up at my door and pay me three grand in cash just to show him the darkest corner in the building. I wasn’t sure what he meant at first. Thought he meant light and shadow.

“Sort of,” he replied when I explained this to him. “Darkness like that can be part of it. But I’m looking for a corner, has to be a right angle or more acute. Ideally, more acute. You understand that term right?”

He’d seemed arrogant and that last sentence confirmed as much. Good looking guy in his late twenties, nice suit. Looked like the stereotypical banker. Acted like one too.

“Plenty of places like that,” I said. “Lots of funny rooms in Annedale. People trying to make the most of limited space. Sometimes the walls meet at tight angles, sure. But I don’t know what you mean about dark. There’s the basement. It’s flooded. Can’t think of anywhere darker than that.”

He bit his lip and hesitated for a second or two, as if he was actually contemplating it.

“Not a bad suggestion actually, but no, too difficult to reach. And I don’t just mean dark as in the absence of light. I mean dark like under the bed. Dark like that one chip in a wall that leads to a hollow space between the bricks and as a child you can’t help but wonder what lives there. Somewhere that just inexplicably feels… like it’s not got as much of ****’s attention on it as everywhere else.”

I thought about this for a second. His words were vague but **** if I didn’t know what he meant.

“A corner?” I asked. “Has to be an acute corner?”

He nodded.

“I think I know the place,” I said and he smiled like real creep.

I took him to a flat on the eighth floor. It was rundown like everywhere else but there was still enough of its old furniture lying around. You can pull open random drawers in there and still see the cutlery people once used. There’s even an old analogue TV on an old stand. You can perch on what’s left of the sofa and stare at that TV and get the feeling you knew the people who lived there once. Run your thumb over the dials on the toaster, the handle of the fridge, or the yellowing plastic of a light switch, and feel an aching loss that creeps up on you out of nowhere.

Look up and you’ll see that the light fixture has been torn out of the ceiling, like someone had tried swinging from it.

Not a big place, by the way. Three rooms. A bedroom with a double bed all rumpled up. A living room slash kitchen. And a tiny little spare room that looked like it once would have been used for storage, or a washing machine maybe, *if* you were single and childless. A slither of space, a triangle carved out of whatever room was left over when other more important walls had been put up. That sofa I mentioned, the TV, they were all placed so whoever was sat down could always keep an eye on that room and its contents.

You see they’d put a cot inside and it’s still there, bluebottle flies circling overhead. You can’t see inside the cot, not unless you went in and actually pulled the blankets out but it’s been decades and no one has managed it yet. It’s dark behind those old blankets, a heavy shadow that dissuades a closer look, like there’s something in there no one needs to see and it’s spent a long time sat there eating what little light there was. Even with a window in that room, daylight doesn’t really filter down.

“Perfect,” the businessman said when he saw it. He gazed around the flat one detail at a time, his head pausing for a moment and a smile creeping across his face as he laid his eyes on the broken light fixture. And the cot, the sight of it, the flies that still circled above faded Winnie the Pooh blankets, it made the breath catch in his throat.

“Oh this is… *yes* this is good,” he told me. “Dark like under the bed. You’ve earned that money. I could have had a dozen men sweep this place and they wouldn’t have understood the brief as well as you have.”

“Thank you,” I replied even if that wasn’t really how I felt.

Quietly the man sat down and began to unpack his leather satchel. No pentagrams to be found, although he did unpack seven strange looking candles. He caught me looking at them and smiled.

“Home made,” he said. “Each one shaped by my hands. I’m not a good artist, but it’s the effort that counts. Took forever to rend the wax. Of course that was the easy part. The hard part was getting the **** to make it. Did you know there can be a surprisingly high level of security around a hospital’s medical waste department?”

“I didn’t,” I replied as he took out some flimsy bits of wood and a few small nails. He oh so carefully began to nail the splinters of wood together into what looked like random shapes.

“Oh well,” he sighed after a few quiet moments, his fingers nimbly gripping the tiny hammer as he tapped away. Already he’d put together at least six of the strange little wooden polygons, and with each new one I felt a strange sensation. “Would you like to stay and watch?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” I answered.

He stopped tapping and smiled once more.

“Oh you’re clever,” he said. “That’s the correct answer, by the way. And if I’m to respect it, I should inform you that now is the safest time to leave.”

I made my way to the exit just as he lit the first candles, but not before I looked towards the cot one last time. I was surprised to see a hollow blackness that extended beyond the doorway, like a curtain had been draped across it, only there was depth to it that drew the eye. The businessman paid it no attention, but after a few more seconds he eventually looked up at me expectantly.

“Can I ask what is it you want?” I said. “Everyone who comes here, I don’t get the sense it ever works out for them.”

“I’m looking for a new kind of afterlife,” he replied.

“Do you need one?”

“We all need one,” he said with a wry chuckle. “But only those of us willing to take a few risks will get a better deal. Everyone else…” He grimaced. “It’s worth the bother. But look who I’m speaking to.”

He looked to the darkness that enveloped the doorway. Shapes could be seen floating past.

“You should leave now,” he said.

I pulled the door shut and, noticing that the sun was rapidly setting, ran to my apartment where I knew the walls would keep me safe.

When I returned the next day the man’s satchel was still where I’d last seen it, propped against one arm of the sofa. The candles had burned down to the very end of the wicks and left a lingering smell that’s still there all these years later. And of the man himself, well in the room with the cot—which still has bluebottle flies orbiting overhead—there is now a shadow burned into the wall. It’s blurry and diffused, but vaguely recognisable as a man on his knees, his head pressed to the floor in a gesture of supplication.

I’ve known it to occasionally move, to turn its head and look towards me at which my point my temples throb, my ears pop, and a darkness begins to encroach upon the edges of my vision. I never exactly considered that flat to be Disneyland before, but now I avoid it like the plague.

Still, it could be worse. Not every ritual ends so cleanly and at times I’ve had to personally intervene, something I hate bitterly. If people want to go poking around in the universe’s undercarriage that’s their business. It’s one thing if I’ve got to sweep what’s left of them up afterwards but at least that’s a one and done job. Sometimes it isn’t so clean. One guy turned up and told me he’d be a new “resident”, my neighbour, and we’d get to know each other. A bumbling old man with an upper class accent and the look of a professor who was down on his luck. He set up in the room next to mine and no matter how little I spoke to him, he never really got the hint and kept trying to act like a good friend. Few times I did initiate conversation it was to tell him the place he’d chosen didn’t have much in the way of protection. He pointed to some funny little rashes and told me *they* were his protection.

Over the next few weeks I’d bump into him from time to time, always on his hands and knees, scraping some dank corner or mouldy pile of bumpy growths. He collected fungi, told me on the first day, and I’d often see him wiping his samples onto petri dishes that he whispered quiet words to whenever he thought I wasn’t around. I don’t think he was sane, but he probably wasn’t completely barmy because he lived long enough to get a sense of Annedale and only come out in the day. Meanwhile his apartment filled up with a growing collection of chittering terrariums and pickle jars, their specimens hidden by murky fluids. All over, he planted and cultivated strange mushrooms and moulds. Encouraged them to soak up the darkness of Annedale and set them to grow in the rife conditions he’d cultivated.

Towards the end his living room had mushrooms growing out the walls. Plaster crumbling beneath microbial armies until there was only concrete and rebar, and even then mould continued to grow and thrive. A few times I peered in and found him feeding meat to the frilly growths that exploded out of the old furniture. During this time the symbols on our shared wall would often grow hot, and I found myself having to replace them on a nearly daily basis as he tinkered away on the other side. I asked him once or twice to tone it down.

“This is important work,” he growled, an unseen darkness creeping into his voice. “I’m not some ditzy crackhead trying to summon the Baphomet! I’m not looking to get *high*. This is science. Progress! That is what I am working towards.”

“Yeah well your progress is trying to eat its way into my flat. Can you ask it to stop?”

He stopped, froze in mid gesture like I’d said something either profoundly **** or insightful, or likely a bit of both. He looked at the rashes on his arms that had, by now, started to sprout some of their own strange fruit. When he finally spoke again it was sly, like a lecherous old man propositioning a nurse.

“This fungi,” he said. “They had samples of it in the university for thirty years! Can you imagine? They never even realised what they had until I found it and unlocked its potential. Now I’ve finally found the source and I can do things no one else thought possible. This entire time my thesis has depended upon the idea that the fungus has… a capacity for information processing way beyond anything we’ve considered before. And your idea is a good one, you know? Asking it just might be an option…”

He scuttled off without another word and for the next few days he set about the building like a furious little honey bee in Spring. Poking and prodding, setting trap after trap and cleaning them vigorously of any rats or mice he caught. When I did my morning sweeps I’d find him hovering over Annedale’s latest victims, scraping what was left of them into transparent bags for his own purposes.

“Don’t mind me,” he’d mutter. “It’s worthless to you, but these poor souls could help me achieve great things.”

This persisted for another month. He no longer scraped mould or mushrooms off old apartments. He became interested only in meat, and by the time it came to an end I can say confidently that I have never smelled anything worse than the prickly musty odour that wafter out from under his locked door. It became so bad that I began to wonder if I might have to ask for police help and have him removed when, finally, he simply disappeared from Annedale’s halls. One morning he was there, annoyingly shooing me out of the way as he lowered jars into the flooded basement, and then the next he was gone and Annedale’s halls were silent once more.

But that didn’t mean he had moved out. Far from it, actually.

It took two days before I decided to just go ahead and break his door down. I kicked at it with a short sharp blow only to find my leg immediately disappeared through wood that had the texture of sodden cardboard. I freed my foot and tried a different tactic, grabbing the handle and pulling so hard that it simply *popped* right out of the rancid wooden frame. Free to move, the door swung open with an eerie creak and fetid air, hot and damp, blew out of the room.

Inside I found that the man’s specimens had gone wild. Terrariums had shattered, their contents spilling outwards. Frogs as large as footballs glared at me from behind furry fronds, and insects with human eyes scuttled away before the amphibians could **** them up. In one corner rats had built a hive out of old cardboard, their backs covered with fungal growths that resembled human fingers and other appendages. In another corner something that looked a little like a black rubber sheet slapped furiously at passing vermin and it took me a few seconds to realise it was a slime mould. When it finally caught something it dragged the strange creature squealing into the dark corner where it grew and constricted around its meal like a fist. I stared at it horrified until one by one black orbs unveiled itself from within the strange mass and I realised it had eyes to stare right back at me.

It was a cacophony of **** awful terror, so gripping that it kept me from hearing the muffled noise of a human struggling to speak. Eventually it did reach my ears and I used my torch to light up the far wall without having to actually step inside.

I found the scientist half-grown into the wall. Algae and moss coated him head-to-toe so that he was no longer recognisable, but I had to assume it could be no one else. Wide eyes glared at me with terror and pain as nasty little critters nibbled away at what was left of his shins, meanwhile strange tendrils probed at his ears and head, never resting for a moment. He kept trying to speak, but the algal growths kept driving their way into his mouth until, one-by-one, they pushed too far and something snapped. His eyes went wider still, his squeals became hysterical, and his jaw slowly slid further down his chest until it hit the floor with a sodden thump.

“Finally made contact?” I asked. “An awful idea if I’ve heard one. What would a mushroom have to say even in the best of circumstances? Let alone one that was grown in the ruins of Annedale? I can only assume you never got around to telling it to stay off my wall, did you? No you probably had your own reason or doing all of this and that’s what took priority.”

That made me wonder what it was he’d asked for. As the thought entered my head I took a quick look around and tried to see if anything particular stood out to me. Something was growing on the sofa that looked strangely human-shaped. It might have been just my imagination, but in the dark it seemed to turn towards me. Meanwhile the scientist continued to shiver in agony, his eyes focused on me and begging for help.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said before slamming the door. Something about that strange pile on the sofa had deeply unsettled me.

I put the word out, asked for a gun, but got a crossbow instead a few days later. A nervous looking sixteen year old boy ferried it to my door. I was surprised he’d entered the building, but who knows who’d ordered him to do so. I’ve acquired a strange sort of respect amongst the locals and it comes in handy. This boy looked like he would have stamped on my head and robbed me blind any other day, but when he spoke to me he did so with more respect than I ever imagined I deserved. I thanked him, took the crossbow, spent an afternoon practicing with it, and then used it to **** the scientist the next morning.

Took a few hits, but in the end one thumped into his forehead and shut down his whimpered moans. I didn’t see anything on the sofa this time, at least not anything human-shaped, which I was thankful for. After that it was a simple case of calling the police and beginning a long chain of events that ended with half-a-dozen men in hazmat suits spraying the room with noxious chemicals. For a while there I’d been worried that they’d find a corpse and ask questions, but by the time anyone actually entered the room there was nothing left of the scientist save a splotch on the floor.

I never did figure out exactly what it was he was after, although it is not uncommon for my morning sweep to turn up a body (or part of) covered in fungal growths. And I have been known to occasionally catch glimpses of a strange person lowering themselves into the floodwater of the elevator shaft. Of course I might just be making connections that aren’t really there. All sorts of things live in that water. The entire level is flooded and if something was down there, it’d have free reign over quite a large space.

It's a strange world down there. I should know on account of one visitor who gave me a very bad time. I’ll call him the fisherman since he came to Annedale because of the flooded basement. Saw a photo that’s been circulating around for a while now, if you know where to look. **** knows who took it and how, but it shows the flooded stairwell leading to the basement and beneath the brackish surface is a hand that’s all out of proportion. Fingers splayed with perfect symmetry like a starfish, it is reaching up out of the depths and resting gently on the third step below the water.

When I first met him he was sitting happily with his feet over the edge of the flooded shaft, water up to his knees, with a rod and line set up beside him. It was quite a surprise at first, seeing him there with a little fly-fishing hat. A chubby but healthy looking man in his forties with an egg mayo sandwich in one hand and a phone playing candy crush in the other. I called out to him as I approached because, in my experience, startling someone in Annedale is bad for your health no matter how sane the visitor appears.

He looked up when I caught his attention and smiled amiably.

“Hello,” he waved with his sandwich. “You’re the caretaker?”

“Yes I am,” I answered. “And you are?”

“Just a tourist,” he smiled. “Care to join me?”

The sun had risen only moments ago.

“You weren’t here when it was dark, were you?” I asked more than a little suspicious.

“Oh no you’ve only just caught me, been here barely ten minutes before you showed up. I was told you’d be willing to help in exchange for a small fee.”

“What sort of help?” I asked.

“Oh just give me a nudge if any of the lines start moving,” he said while pointing to a rod he’d set up beside the basement stairs. The door was propped open and the line led down into the darkness below, water gently lapping just out of sight. Another line had been set up in a corner of the lobby where the floor had been torn away revealing a hole straight down into the basement. “I can’t keep an eye on them all at once, you see. I have bells ready but, well, two heads are better than one.”

“What is it exactly you’re hoping to catch down there?” I asked.

“Are you familiar with the primordial ocean?” he said. “The abyssal waters that **** split into light and dark, all that? It’s not a physical location, per se, but it does connect to certain bodies of water depending on the time and place. Last recorded manifestation was in a glass of old whiskey underneath a forgotten bar in Mexico City. Some poor fellow knocked it over and didn’t notice until the following day when half the bar was suddenly underwater. Quickly rectified but some of the things swimming in that water were something else, and all from at the bottom of a glass no wider than my wrist. Imagine what we can do with this!?” he said while gesturing at water by his feet.

“You think there could be fish alive down there?” I asked.

“At least,” he replied. “I’d be willing to pay for any reliable information, of course. Do you have any idea what might be down there?”

“Not really,” I shrugged. “But I’d guess it wants to be left alone.”

“Hmmm you might be right there,” he said while looking at his other rods. “I didn’t exactly put down any old lure, you know?”

He reached into his pocket and took out a strange tuft of fur and ivory, holding it up for me to squint at.

“A tooth from a man who drowned in the sea. A drone collected it off a shipwreck near the Norwegian coast. The fur is actually red algae that was found growing on his bones. I have plenty of these and, well, other things that might appeal to what’s on the other side. My research was thorough and expensive. Come on, take a seat. Flat fee, one thousand, just sit here until the sun starts to set.”

“I just have to sit?” I asked.

“And let me know if you hear or see anything.”

I groaned and sat beside him, folding my legs instead of letting them dangle in the water below. Despite my reticence, we stayed like that for several hours. He’d brought lots of food, good homemade stuff, along with plenty of cold beer. We sat there and spoke very little, but we did eat and drink a tremendous amount. Not the kind of thing I do normally, but I was being paid to be there, and I didn’t really have anywhere else to be. It was, all in told, a very pleasant afternoon.

Until I fell asleep.

When I awoke it was with a terrible gasp. My chest was tight like something had been sitting on it, and judging from the terrible giggling and scampering feet I heard running off into the darkness, it might not have been *just* a feeling. Already panic was setting in as my eyes darted to the open doors and saw that the moon was out and had been for hours. I fumbled for my torch and turning it on saw that there was no sign of the fisherman. All his stuff had been left behind yet all that remained of him was his hat that still floated on the water. Even as I watched, a smooth glistening shape curled beneath the water and plucked it off the surface.

I recoiled and crawled away from it as fast as I could. This was bad, I knew deep in my heart I’d never been as at risk I was in that moment. The open doors that led outside were tempting, but just beside them were the stairs that led downwards and I swore I could hear something approaching. I couldn’t help but picture the fungal man I’d seen in the scientist’s flat. Then again, that basement was huge and who knows what lay down there.

I decided to go for the stairs. The entire time my heart was in my chest. I had never been caught outside my room at night, not since my first night when I’d slept in the lobby with my coat pulled over me. You don’t get lucky twice, not with Annedale, so I knew had to be careful. I had to be quiet. My only hope was to go unnoticed. I took to stealth, climbing each floor in perfect silence, hiding in well known spots at the slightest hint of footsteps, human or otherwise.

Annedale comes alive at night. Whispered mutterings from strange children who descend from air vents, living there for **** knows how long. Other times I saw apparitions including one, a toddler, the sight of whom made my stomach growl with an insatiable hunger that hurt just to contemplate. She stared at me with pleading eyes as I slunk away from her open door. I might have been tempted to help her were it not for the sight of the moon peering through her translucent image.

And yet, despite all this, I somehow made it to the fourteenth floor alive. Only it was there right at the final hurdle, so close to safety, that I came across something out of my worst nightmare.

A woman stood outside my apartment door. Silent. Pale. Dirt covered fingernails. It was all too often I’d open my door and find muddy impressions on the floor made by a woman’s bare feet. Now I knew who left them every night. I couldn’t see her face from where I hid, but something about her seemed profoundly familiar.

When she finally turned towards me I remembered. I recognised her, even though most of her face was missing. It was the philosopher’s wife. He had succeeded, it seemed. But I couldn’t imagine at what **** awful price, because the woman who stared at me had clearly weathered some years in the grave. It was only the poor lighting and her long hair that had covered up just how bad a state she was in. A lipless grin stared back at me below sunken cheekbones and hollow eye sockets. And yet, I could tell that in another life she had been beautiful which only made the sight all the more gut-wrenching.

“My darling,” she whispered, and there was something about her voice that I found hard to stay sane in the face of. I don’t know why. Over a decade in that place and I’d borne witness to living nightmares, but it was *this* walking corpse that pushed me to my limits. The inescapable feeling of loss weighed me down and without realising it I found myself taking steps towards her even as my knees buckled. By the time I reached her I was crawling until I could clutch her grimy icy leg, and that was the last thing I remember before I woke up in my bed the following morning.

Everything seemed normal, so completely mundane that I could’ve written the whole thing off as a bad nightmare. But there were footprints leading from my bed to the door. And later on I found the fisherman’s things much as he left them, although when I finally reeled his lines in I found the lures gone and replaced with bits and pieces of the man who’d first set them up. I threw it all into the water below and decided it would be best to forget him.

Every now and again, of course, I can’t help but check my peephole at night. I never did before that, but now I do. I see her every single time. She looks sad. Hurts me to think of her out there. It ought to be terrifying but it’s more like someone’s ripped out my stomach and heart and let all my insides fall out the bottom.

Each time I see her I wonder what exactly was it he did to bring her back?

He leaves only one hint. A final letter, I think. It’s not like he dated them. In it he says he would give everything to have her in his arms once more. Not only his life, but everything he’s already lived. Every sunset. Every good dream. Every nightmare. Every victory. Every loss. Every little memory that makes him who he is, he’d give it all just to save her.

Sometimes I wonder about him, figuring we’d probably be about the same age. I’d like to think back and imagine what it would have been like for the two of us to meet as young men, but for some reason whenever I try to remember what my life was like before I came to this city, before I woke up with that coat pulled over me… well, I don’t know…

It’s just hard, that’s all.

It's almost like there's nothing there. Like something reached in and took all the years away. I guess it's just one of those things I'm better off not dwelling on.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Part 2!)
 
 Assistant: First post: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

So I logged back on tonight and was blown away by the staggering amount of interest this seems to have generated. First off, I'll address a few things that you guys have brought up:

* There's been an overwhelming amount of people mentioning the similarity between some of my stories and those of David Paulides. I assure you I'm not trying to rip him off in any way, I've got nothing but respect for the guy. He's actually what inspired me to write this, because I can verify a lot of the things he talks about. We do have a lot of these strange missing persons cases, and most of the time they aren't solved. Either that, or we find them in places they have no business being. I personally haven't been on many calls like that, but I'll share a few that I've seen, and a story my friend told me that relates to this.

* There was a lot of feedback about the stairs, so I'll touch on that briefly here, and I'll also include a story. 
They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, styles, and conditions. Some are pretty dilapidated, just ruins, but others are brand new. I saw one set that looked like they came from a lighthouse: they were metal and spiral, almost old-fashioned. 
The stairs don't go up infinitely, or farther than I can see, but some sets are taller than others. Like I said before, just imagine the stairs in your house, as if someone cut-and-pasted them in the middle of nowhere. I don't have any pictures, it's never really occurred to me to try again after the first time, and I don't really feel like risking my job over it. I'll try again in the future, but I can't really promise anything.

* A few people expressed confusion about the guy who ran into the man with no face. Just to clarify, when the climber ascended and reached the top of this peak, he saw another man in a parka and ski pants. This was the man with no face. Sorry about the confusing wording of that story, I'll try to avoid that in the future.

Alright, on to the new stories:

* As far as missing persons go, I'd say about half the calls I get are related to that. The others are rescue calls; people who fall down cliffs and hurt themselves, get injured by fire (you wouldn't believe how often this happens, mostly **** kids), get bitten or stung by animals or insects. We're a tight team, and we have veterans who are excellent at finding signs of lost people. That's what makes these cases where we never find any trace of them so frustrating. One in particular was upsetting for all of us, because we *did* find a trace of them, but it just led to more questions than answers.
An older man had been hiking alone on a well-established trail, but his wife called to say that he hadn't come home when he should have. Apparently he had a history of seizures, and she was worried that he hadn't taken his medication and had suffered one out on the trail. Before you ask, I have no idea why he thought it was okay to go out alone, or why she didn't go with him. I don't ask about that kind of thing because past a certain point, it really doesn't matter. Someone is missing, and it's my job to find them. We went out in a standard search formation, and it wasn't long before one of our vets found signs that the guy had gone off the trail. We grouped up and followed him, spreading out in a fan to make sure we were covering as much ground as possible. Suddenly, a call comes over the radio telling us to all head back to the vets location, and we come right away, because this usually means the missing person is injured, and we need a full team to help get them out safely. 
We meet back up, and the vet is just standing at the base of a tree with his hands on the sides of his head. I ask my buddy what's going on, and he points up into the branches of this tree. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing, but there's a walking stick dangling from a branch at least thirty feet off the ground. The little strap thing on the handle has been looped around the branch, and it's just hanging there. There's no way the guy could have tossed it up that far, and we don't see any other signs that he's still in the area. We call up into the tree, but it's obvious no one's in it. We're all just sort of left scratching our heads. We keep searching for the guy, but we never find him. We even bring our canines out, but they lose his scent long before this tree. Eventually, the search is called off, because there are other calls we have to attend to, and past a certain point there's not much we can do. The guy's wife called us every day for *months*, asking if we'd found her husband, and it was heartbreaking to hear her get more and more hopeless each time.
I'm not sure why this call in particular was so upsetting, but I think it was just the sheer improbability of it. That and the questions that were raised. How the **** had this guy's cane ended up there? Did someone **** him and toss that up there as some weird trophy? We did our best to find him, but it was almost like a taunt. We still talk about that one from time to time.

* Missing kids are the most heart-breaking. Doesn't matter what circumstances they go missing under, it's never easy, and we always, *always* dread the ones we find deceased. It's not common, but it does happen. David Paulides talks a lot about kids SAR teams find in places they shouldn't be, or couldn't be. I can honestly say I've heard about this kind of thing happening more than I've seen it, but I'll share one of the ones that I think about a lot that I witnessed personally.
A mother and her three kids were out for a picnic in an area of the park that has a small lake. One is six, one is five, and the other is about three. She's watching them all really closely, and according to her, she never lets them out of her sight at any time. She never saw anyone else in the area either, which is important.
She packs their stuff up and they start to head back to the parking area. Now, this lake is only about two miles into the woods, and it's on a *very* clearly established trail. It's almost impossible to get lost getting from the parking area to it, unless you're deliberately going off the path like an imbecile. Her kids are walking in front of her, when she hears what sounds like someone coming up the path behind her. She turns around, and in the four or so seconds she's not looking, her five-year-old son vanishes. She figures he's stepped off the trail to **** or something, and she asks her other two where he went. They both tell her that 'a big man with a scary face' came out of the woods next to them, took the kid's hand, and led him into the trees. The two remaining kids don't seem upset, in fact she says later that it seems like they've been drugged. They're sort of spacey and fuzzy. So of course, she freaks out, starts looking frantically in the area for her kid. She's screaming his name, and she says at one point she thinks she heard him answer her. Now obviously she can't go blindly running into the woods, she's got the other two kids, so she calls the police and they send us out immediately. We respond, and we start the search for him.Over the course of this search, which spans *miles*, we never find a single trace of the kid. Canines can't pick up any scent, we don't find any clothing or broken bushes or literally anything that would signify a child being there. Of course there's suspicion about the mother for a while, but it's pretty clear that she's completely destroyed by the whole thing. We looked for this kid for weeks, with a lot of volunteer help.  But eventually, the search peters out, and we have to move on. 
The volunteers keep searching, though, and one day we get a call on the radio letting us know that a body has been found and needs to be recovered. They tell us the location, and none of us can believe it. We figure it has to be a different kid. But we go out there, about 15 miles from the site where he vanished, and sure enough, we find the body of the kid we've been looking for. 
I have been trying to figure out how this kid got where he did ever since we found him, and I've never come up with an answer. A volunteer just happened to be in the area, because he figured he might as well look in places no one else would think to on the off chance the body had been dumped. He comes to the base of a tall, rocky ****, and half-way up, he sees something. He looks through his binoculars and sure enough, it's the body of a little boy, stuffed in a little opening in the rock. He recognizes the color of the kid's shirt, so he knows right away that it's the missing boy. That's when he calls it in, and we're dispatched.
It took us almost an hour to get his body down, and none of us could believe what we were seeing. Not only was this kid 15 miles from where he'd started, there was no possible way he could have gotten up there on his own. This **** is treacherous, and it's hard even for us with our climbing gear. A five-year-old boy had no way of getting up there, of that I'm certain.
Not only that, but the kid doesn't have a scratch on him. His shoes are gone, but his feet aren't damaged or dirty. So it wasn't as if an animal dragged him up there. And from what we can tell, he hasn't been dead that long. He'd been out there over a month by that point, and it looked like he'd only been dead for, at most, a day or two. The whole thing was unbelievably strange, and was one of the most disconcerting calls I've ever been on. 
We found out later that the coroner determined the kid had died from exposure. He'd frozen to death, probably late at night two days before we found him. There were no suspects, and no answers. To date, it's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen.

* One of my first jobs as a trainee was a search op for a four-year-old kid that had gotten separated from his mom. This was one of those cases where we knew we were gonna find him because the dogs were on a strong scent trail, and we saw clear signs that he was in the area. We ended up finding him in a berry patch about half a mile from where he'd been last seen. Kid wasn't even aware that he'd wandered that far. One of the vets brought him back, which I was glad for because I'm really not good with kids, and I find it hard to talk to them and keep them company. 
As my trainer and I are headed back, she decides to take me on a detour to show me one of the hot spots where we tend to find missing people. It's a natural dip in the land near a popular trail, and people will usually move downhill because it's easier. We hike out there, it's a few miles away, and we get there in about an hour or so. As we're walking around the area and she's pointing out places she's found people in the past, I see something in the distance. Now, this area we're in is about eight miles from the main parking area, though there's back roads you can take to get closer if you don't want to hike that far. But we're on state-protected land, which means there can't be any kind of commercial or residential development out here. The most you'll ever see is a fire tower or makeshift shelter that homeless people think they can get away with building. But I can see from here that whatever this thing is has straight edges, and if there's one thing you learn quickly, it's that nature rarely makes straight lines. I point it out, but she doesn't say anything. She just hangs back and lets me wander over and check it out. I get within about twenty feet of it, and all the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
It's a staircase. In the middle of the **** woods. In the proper context, it would literally be the most benign thing ever. It's just a normal staircase, with beige carpet, and about ten steps tall. But instead of being in a house, where it obviously should be, it's out here in the middle of the woods. The sides aren't carpeted, obviously, and I can see the wood it's made of. It's almost like a video game glitch, where the house has failed to load completely and the stairs are the only thing visible. 
I stand there, and it's like my brain is working overtime to try and make sense of what I'm seeing. My trainer comes and stands next to me, and she just stands there casually, looking at it as if it's the least interesting thing in the world. I ask her what the **** this thing is doing here, and she just chuckles.
'Get used to it, rookie. You're gonna see a lot of them.' I start to move closer, but she grabs my arm. Hard.
'I wouldn't do that.' She says. Her voice is casual, but her grip is tight, and I just stand there looking at her. 'You're gonna see them all the time, but don't go near them. Don't touch them, don't go up them. Just ignore them.' I start to ask her about it, but something in the way she's looking at me tells me that it's best if I don't. We end up moving on, and the subject doesn't come up again for the rest of my training.
She was right, though. I'd say about every fifth call I go on, I end up running across a set of stairs. Sometimes they're relatively close to the path, maybe within two or three miles. Sometimes they're twenty, thirty miles out, literally in the middle of nowhere, and I only find them during the broadest searches or training weekends. They're usually in good condition, but sometimes it looks like they've been out there for miles. All different kinds, all different sizes. The biggest I ever saw looked like they came out of a turn-of-the-century mansion, and were at least ten feet wide, with steps leading up at least fifteen or twenty feet.
I've tried talking about it with people, but they just give me the same response my trainer did. 'It's normal. Don't worry about it, they're not a big deal, but don't go close to them or up them.' When trainees ask me about it now, I give them the same response. I don't really know what else to tell them. I'm really hoping someday I get a better answer, but it hasn't happened yet.

* This is another one that was less spooky and more sad. A young man went missing late in winter, when realistically no one should be going that far out onto the trails. We close a lot of them, but some remain open year round, unless there's a ****-load of snow. We did an op for him, but we had about six feet of snow on the ground (it was an unusually heavy snow year), and we knew it wasn't likely that we'd find him until spring when the thaw came. Sure enough, when the first big thaw came, a hiker reported a body a little ways off the main trail. We found him at the base of a tree, in a pile of melted snow. I knew right away what had happened, and it scared the living **** out of me. Most of you who ski or snowboard, or spend any amount of time on a mountain, will probably have guessed too. When snow falls, it doesn't collect as thick in the areas beneath the branches. It happens most with fir trees, because they have a sort of closed umbrella shape. So what you end up with is a space around the base of a tree that's filled with a mixture of loose, powdery snow, air, and branches. They're called tree wells, and they're not immediately obvious if you don't know what you're looking for. We put up signs in the welcome center, big ones, letting people know how dangerous they are, but every year that we get an unusual amount of snow, at least one person doesn't read them, or doesn't take the warning seriously, and we find out about it in spring. 
My best guess is that this young man was hiking and got tired, or maybe a cramp from walking in the deep snow. He went to go sit at the base of the tree, not knowing that there was a tree well, and fell in. He got stuck with his feet up, and the surrounding snow caved in around him. Unable to free himself, he suffocated. It's called snow immersion suffocation, and it doesn't usually happen except in really deep snow. But if you get stuck in a weird position, like this guy did, even six feet of snow can be lethal.
What scared me the most was imagining how he must have struggled. Upside down, in the freezing cold, he didn't die quickly. The snow would have formed a dense, heavy pile on top of him, and it would have been literally impossible to get out. As it got harder to breathe, he would have known what was happening. I can't even imagine what he was thinking in his last moments.

* A lot of my less outdoorsy friends want to know if I've ever seen the Goatman while I've been out on calls. Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately, I've never had anything quite like that happen. I guess the closest was the whole 'black-eyed man' thing, but I didn't see anything. However, there was one call where I had something kind of similar happen, but I'm not sure I'm willing to chalk it up to the Goatman.
We'd gotten a report that an older woman had fainted along one of the trails, and needed assistance getting back down to the main area.
We hike up to where she's at, and her husband is just beside himself. He runs, well, I guess more jogs, to us, and tells us that he was a little ways off the trail looking at something when his wife starts screaming behind him. He runs back to her and she's passed out on the trail. We get her on a backboard, and as we're getting her down to the welcome center, she comes to and starts screaming again. I calm her down and ask her what happened. I can't remember verbatim what she said, but essentially, what happened was this:
She'd been waiting for her husband when she started hearing this really strange sound. She said it sounded sort of like a cat, but it was off somehow, and she couldn't quite figure out why. She went a little ahead to try and hear it better, and it sounded like it was coming closer. She said the closer it got, the more uneasy she was, until she finally figured out what was wrong. I do remember this next part, because it was so weird that I don't think I could forget it if I tried.
"It wasn't a cat. It was a man, saying the word 'meow' over and over. Just 'meow, meow, meow'. But it wasn't a man, it couldn't have been, because I've never heard a man make his voice buzz like that. I thought my hearing aid was going out, but it wasn't, I adjusted it and it still sounded all buzzy. It was awful. He was coming closer, but I couldn't see him. And the closer he got the more scared I was, and the last thing I remember was a shape coming out of the trees. I guess that's when I fainted." 
Now, obviously I'm a little perplexed as to why a guy would be out in the **** woods chanting 'meow, meow' at people. So once we get down the mountain, I tell my superior that I'm gonna go search the area to see if I can find anything. He gives me the go ahead, and I grab a radio and hike back to where she fainted. I don't see anyone, so I keep going about a mile more, and I when I head back I go off the trail, to see if I can figure out where she saw him coming from. It's almost sunset by this point, and I don't have any desire to be out at night alone, so I just sort of write it off and make a mental note to check it out again tomorrow. But as I'm headed back, I start to hear something in the distance. I stop, and I call out for anyone in the immediate area to identify themselves. The sound didn't come closer or get louder, but it sounded exactly like a man saying 'meow, meow' in this really odd monotone. As comical as it makes it sound, it was almost like that guy on South Park with the electrolarynx, Ned. I go off the trail in the direction I think it's coming from, but I never seem to get closer. It's almost like it's coming from all directions. Eventually, it just sort of fades out, and I ended up going back to the welcome center. 
I didn't get any further reports like that, and even though I went back to that area, I never heard that exact sound again. I suppose it could have been some **** kid out there **** with people, but even I have to admit it was weird. 

So this kind of turned into a massive wall of text, and for that I apologize. I wanted to get to the stories my friend told me, and he does have some good ones, so I'll post those tomorrow evening. I also have a few more of my own I think you guys will like. I'm sorry to keep you all in suspense again, hopefully the stories here make up for it and help you get through the next 24 hours until I can post again!

EDIT: Since it seems like all of you would like to hear more, tomorrow I'll write up as many stories as I can and do a massive post. I'll include my friend's stories, and I'll see if I can't get ahold of a few more people who might have interesting things to talk about. I just wasn't sure how people felt about big huge walls of text, but if you're all okay with it, I'll post lots of stories!

**EDIT: Part 3 is up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iocju/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Grim Reaper's scythe isn't to harvest you. It's to protect you from something on your journey.
 
 Assistant: There is no fear as potent as the fear of the unknown. No monstrous visage discovered yet has been as terrifying as the infinite potential for horror which exists before the mask is removed. 

That is why we humans, in our naive misunderstanding of the universal order, are gripped by the mortal fear of death. We think it the final frontier - the greatest imaginable unknown from whose penumbral shores no traveler may return. And so we cling desperately onto even the most dreary and anguished lives, suffering any known evil over our release into the beyond. 

But death is not to be feared, because death is very well understood. We have witnessed it, caused it, measured and recorded it to the last dying spasm of neuronal flickering. Even as I lay dying, it seemed silly to me that I should be afraid of the emptiness which reason promised to expect. 

While I was alive I wouldn't experience death, so there was no reason to be afraid now. When I was dead, I wouldn't be capable of experiencing anything, so fear still had no cause. That thought brought me great comfort as I felt the last erratic struggle from my heart against the inevitable conclusion I approached. It wasn't until I was finally drifting off to sleep that a final intrusive doubt bubbled in my brain:

*What if it isn't death which is to be feared? What if it is what lies beyond?*

And so troubled did I slip beyond mortal understanding, stepping into a world as far forsaken by reason as I was now from life. I was still in the hospital room, but the bustle of nurses and the beeping machines lost their opacity as though I was mired in swiftly descending dusk. It seemed as though every sound was an echo of what it once was; every sight a reflection. With each passing moment, the world was becoming less real...

But all that sight and sound - all that being - it wasn't simply disappearing. It was *transforming* into a figure beside me. The less real my room became, the more real the figure was, until presently it existed in such sharp actuality that nothing beside it seemed real at all. 

His cloak was black. Not the *color* black, but its essence. It was as though seeing a tiger after a lifetime of looking at a child's crude drawing and thinking that's all a tiger was. Reality flowed around his scythe like a brush through water colors, and I could see each elementary particle and time itself sunder across its blade. 

Surely this, I thought. This is why we were taught without words to fear death. I clutched at my hospital blanket to cower from the intensity of the Reaper's presence, but the once soft cotton now flowed like translucent mist through my hands. I knew in that moment that nothing could hide me from the specter's grasp, for he was the only real thing in this world. 

**You're late.**

They weren't words. My head ached from the strain of this knowledge as my lateness was burned into my awareness, imparted like an inescapable law of physics as unequivocal as gravity. 

**We don't have time for the usual speech. Hurry now.**

I felt myself swept up around him like dirt in a hurricane. Before I knew what was happening, we were outside the hospital, moving at such a frenzied pace that the world around me blurred into a dizzying tunnel of flashing light. 

**If you're lucky, IT will have gotten bored of waiting for you.**

I had too many questions, all fighting for attention in the forefront of my brain without any making their way out. 

**You're quiet. I admire that. Usually people ask too much.**

"What's the point?" I asked. My voice felt flat and dead compared to his overwhelming substance. "How can I try to comprehend something so beyond mortal knowledge?"

**You can't. But it's still human nature to ask.**

We weren't slowing. If anything, our pace was increasing. I wasn't running, or flying, or anything of that nature. It was more like the rest of the world was moving around us while we stood still. A vague darkness and a heavy damp smell made me guess that we'd gone underground, but I couldn't say for sure. 

"One question then," I asked. "What else is here besides you?" 

**And that is why questions are pointless. Death is not a place, or a person. It's all there is.**

Troubling thought, but made more so by the growing howl which began reverberating the rocks around me. We still seemed to be descending into the Earth, and the air was growing warmer and denser now. The sound continued to mount as though the world itself was suffering. 

"Then what is IT?"

**What I'm here to protect you from.**

The rocks split from a flash of his scythe, and the ground opened further into a sprawling cavern dominated by a subterranean lake. 

"But I thought you said you were all there is."

**No, I said Death was all there is.**

We weren't moving any longer. Light glinted off the scythe from some unseen source and streamed into the lake like a tributary. Once inside, the light didn't reflect or dissipate, but swirled and danced like luminescent oil. 

"I thought you were Death."

**Death is not a person.**

The light was taking a life of its own inside the water. The still surface began to churn with the enigmatic energy. It took my scattered mind a long while to realize that *I* was the energy flowing into the lake. I still felt tangled up with the figure, but we now existed as a beam of light boiling into the water. 

I knew I wouldn't understand, but that didn't stop me from feeling frustrated. If Death is all there is, then what is IT? What was waiting for me? The water pressed in around me and I couldn't speak, although I could still draw breath somehow. 

**IT is here.**

Something was in the water around me. Hands grabbed me by the legs and began dragging me downward. I was amazed to even discover I had limbs again. They felt so alien to me that it was almost as though this body was not my own. Light flashed from the scythe - then again. The hands let go, and the howling rose once more. The Reaper was fighting something, although I couldn't make any sense of the battle except for the madness of thrashing water.

The howling Earth reached its crescendo, and the *screams* made the water around me convulse and contract like living fluid. Had the Reaper cut it? Was I safe? I began to explore my new body in the water, but just when I thought I was beginning to gain control the hands clutched me once more. I lurched downward, struggling in vain against their implacable grip. 

"What is here?" I tried to shout against the suffocating liquid. "What is happening?" 

But I couldn't sense the Reaper's presence any longer. The heat was unbearable, but the cold depths the hands were dragging me toward was even worse. I became aware of a blinding light at the bottom of the lake, and though I struggled, the hands dragged me inexorably onward. 

**I'm sorry. I couldn't fight IT off.** It seemed to be coming from so far away now. **We will try again next time.** 

The pressure - the heat - the noise - the hands dragging me into the blinding light. I closed my eyes and screamed. I was free from the water now, but I just kept screaming. I couldn't bear to look at IT - whatever had stolen me. Whatever was Death but wasn't - whatever even the Reaper could not defeat. 

Then words spoke. Real, human words from a real human mouth. My senses were so distraught that I couldn't make sense of them, but I'm guessing they were something like: 

"Congratulations! He's a healthy baby boy." 

Most people can't remember the day they die, or the day they were born. I happen to remember both, and I know that [they are the same](http://www.facebook.com/sirtobiaswade). 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Sisters of House Omega
 
 Assistant: I was never the type to join a sorority. My twin sister, Chel, begged me to rush with her the summer before our freshman year approached, but I think she knew deep-down I was a lost cause. I was a band geek in high school, and a band geek I intended to remain.

Don't get me wrong - this isn't some "not like other girls" ****. I was happy for Chel. I even got trashed on celebratory wine coolers with her when she pledged her sorority. We just had different interests. As long as she was happy, that’s all that mattered, and I know she felt the same about me.

How did I miss that she was so deeply unhappy?

She threw herself off the bell tower in the center of campus less than 3 weeks before the end of the spring semester. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of days; I was holed up at the library pulling double all-nighters to finish my final paper for Greek and Roman Mythology. I woke up in the early afternoon on a Sunday to 10 missed calls from mom and a text from Chel. 

*love u forever Lou. i’m so sorry.*

2:55 a.m. Witnesses say she jumped at 3:02.

I skipped finals, took incompletes in all of my classes, and headed home to be with my mom. Alex, our best friend from high school, offered to bail on the rest of the semester too, but I didn’t want him to lose his scholarship. Still, he made the 2-hour drive home every weekend to hang with me. We didn't talk much; it still hurt too much to remember the good times, and I didn't care much about the present. But it was better than drinking alone, and Alex was generous with sharing his ****.

My mom insisted I get back into the swing of things this Fall. I decided just to do a half-time course load, mostly focused on finishing up my classes from last semester. I moved into a solo room in the dorms that’s more the size of a closet than a real livable space. I didn’t mind being alone. I kind of preferred it that way.

Alex, though, thought that the solitude was bad for me. Or at least that’s what he claimed when he dragged me along to a Greek party last weekend. Chel was popular among the guys in his fraternity, he said, and they’d all been asking about me. Worried. I really didn’t want to go, but Alex wouldn’t let up.

“It’s what Michelle would want, Louise.” 

****. Even if he was right.

That’s how I found myself last Saturday in the passenger seat of Alex’s BMW, driving out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I quickly realized I had no idea where the **** we were or where we were headed. I’d never gone to a frat party with Chel - navigating a sea of sweaty dudes who smell like PBR isn’t my ideal night out - but I was pretty sure most frat houses weren’t 45 minutes from campus, tucked away off a dirt road that didn’t even have a name on Google Maps.

I picked at a fraying thread on the hem of my sweater, one of Chel’s. It was bright green and haphazardly cropped at the waist in a homemade chop job. It wasn’t my style at all, and I never would have worn it before Chel...before she was gone. But that night, wearing it gave me confidence, like she was there with me.

“So....what’s the deal with this party anyway? Or are you driving me out to the middle of nowhere to **** me?” 

Alex rolled his eyes and fished a piece of black cardstock out of the mess of napkins on his center console. The paper was heavy, expensive, with gold-embossed letters glittering in a scrolling font:

*You Are Cordially Invited*  
*The Sisters of House Omega welcome you to our Fall semester Culling.*  
*Attendance is mandatory.*  
*Only the true of heart will remain until dawn.*  
*Will that be you, Alex?*

“Did all the guys in the house get one of these?” I turned the paper over, where an address and time was listed. County Road 5. Midnight.

“Yeah, ‘bout a week ago? We’re still trying to figure out who’s hosting.” 

“It’s not this Omega sorority?”

Alex laughed at me, not unkindly. “There’s no such thing, Louise.”

I frowned. A party in the middle of nowhere, hosted by nobody? I was already starting to regret abandoning my resolve to live the semester as a hermit.

“None of this is creeping you out? What does it mean by ‘Culling,’ anyway?” 

“Ah, it’s just for dramatics. See who can stick it out all night, ya know? Maybe there’ll be a prize. And you know what?” He grinned and slapped me on the thigh. I slapped him back. “We’re not gonna **** out. We’ll be the winners, last ones standing, just like old times. You with me?”

“I turn into a pumpkin after 2.”

“I’m serious, Lou.”

“So am I, *Alexander.*” He knew I hated being called Lou. Chel always called me Lou. “Besides, are they even going to let me in? I didn’t get one of these.” I shook the invitation in his face. 

I was starting to have a really bad feeling. If I’d known about all this weirdness beforehand, I would’ve already been in bed. Tossing and turning on my lumpy twin mattress, brainstorming ways to beg Professor Dickson for yet another extension on my first paper, sounded better than stumbling into the plot of *Texas Chainsaw Massacre*.

“C’mon, Louise, if it’s lame, we’ll bail. And they’ll definitely let you in. I mean, you look just like her, they’ll -”

“Feel sorry for me?”

I took grim satisfaction seeing the smile slip off his face. 

“No, absolutely not.” His lips pulled down into a frown and I looked away. “Louise,” his large hand grasped my fingers gently. His voice had gone soft.  “I just mean that everybody loved Chel, and they’ll love you too. Just like she did.” 

I looked out the window and blinked hard once, twice, before clearing my throat. 

“Fine. But the *second* I’m ready to leave, we’re leaving, prize be damned.”

Alex squeezed my hand and let go. “Deal.”

We continued the drive in silence. Alex drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and I scanned the empty fields on the side of the road. We’d pulled off on the county road over 10 minutes ago; we’d almost missed the turn-off, which was only marked by a small, weathered wood sign, embossed with a gold Omega symbol. There was still no sign of a party.

“Alex…”

Alex shifted in the driver’s seat and hunched over the steering wheel, squinting into the darkness.

“Yeah...it’s uh...I feel like we should have seen it by now.”

He laughed, high-pitched and thready. I continued unraveling the loose thread on the hem of Chel’s sweater.

The BMW crested a large hill, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. A large, white farmhouse stood in the valley below us, a fleet of Land Rovers and Mercedes parked haphazardly in the grass out front.  Alex laughed - much more genuinely, this time - and patted my knee as he parked next to a Lexus.

“Relax, it’s gonna be fun.”

I mustered up a smile but didn’t say anything. Alex grinned and hopped out of the car. I peered up at the house. The facade was bright and cheery, freshly painted with bright blue shutters flanking the windows, the front door a bubbly yellow. The interior, glimpsed through the open blinds, looked warm and inviting, and I could already feel the bass beat of a **** pop song vibrating softly in my chest. It all looked pretty innocuous. Maybe I could have a good time. For Alex. 

*For Chel.*

The loud clunk of the passenger door opening startled me. Alex arched his eyebrow, forearm braced on the roof of the car.

“Are you coming, or were you planning to wait in the car all night?”

I rolled my eyes and unbuckled. I socked him on the arm as I climbed out of the car.

“Let’s have some fun or whatever.”

I didn’t need to worry about getting in the door. There was nobody checking invitations. We were greeted by a loud cheer of “Alex!” when we entered the living room, the party well underway.

A few guys ran up, thumping Alex on the back and nodding my way in polite acknowledgement. I was suddenly enveloped in a bear hug by a man whose name I couldn’t remember, overwhelmed by a cloud of Axe and sour beer-breath.

“We’re so glad you could make it, Lou. We miss Chel so much.”

A chorus of **** voices chimed in, booming in the small space of the foyer.

“CHEL!”

Sour-breath let me go to pump his fist in the air, and the boys all started chanting Chel’s name. I couldn’t decide whether I was endeared or disgusted. Alex flushed and elbowed one of his brothers in the ribs. I was about to give him **** when another, much more slender arm wrapped around my shoulders.

“Oh, Louise! I didn’t know you were going to be here.” 

Anna, the president of Chel’s sorority, had to crouch down to hug me. Her words were slurred, her movements languid and clumsy, but her big brown eyes were clear and focused when she pulled back. Anna had always liked Chel, took her under her wing when she first started pledging, and she’d always made me feel welcome in the house. So it was out of the ordinary that she looked concerned, rather than pleased, to see me.

“Uh...yeah. Alex said it would be cool?” I glared in Alex’s direction. He just shrugged.

Anna’s brow furrowed, but before she could answer, another voice chimed in, rich and melodic.

“Oh? I didn’t realize this was Alex’s party.”

Anna froze, and her eyes widened. Slowly, she turned to face three of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my entire life. Despite their striking appearance, I don’t know that I could describe any of them now; it’s all kind of fuzzy in my memory, but I do know that they were supermodel tall, willowy, with bright eyes that seemed to stare right through you. One of the women - sparkling green eyes boring into mine - spoke again in the same resonant tone.

“Anna? Who’s your party-crasher friend?”

She smiled when she said it, and her tone betrayed no ill will, but I still shrank back behind Anna instinctually. I looked around again for Alex, but he had wandered off already. That set off distant alarm bells in my head, after all his promises that we would stick together, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the woman in front of me. Anna grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly.

“Oh, uh...this is, you remember Chel, the girl I told you about? This is her sister, Louise, and...well, I  think Alex just thought...”

Another of the three women, grey eyes this time, stepped around Anna in one smooth motion, interrupting her rambling. She grabbed my hand out of Anna’s and clasped it between both of her own. Her skin was cool, almost cold, but her grip was soft. I thought I was just rocking a **** crush at the time, but the world seemed to tilt off center when she bent down to meet me at eye-level, voice whisper-soft yet strong enough to carry over the house music thumping through the floorboards.

“Darling, I’m so sorry about your sister, but I’m really not sure this party is your scene.”

Anna looked downright panicked by this point, falling all over herself to apologize to the trio. I scanned the crowd and, aside from Alex and a couple of his fraternity brothers, I only saw one other person at the party who looked familiar, a girl from Chel and Anna’s sorority - Beth? Stacy? - who I knew almost nothing about. Chel had never introduced me to her. A distant part of me registered that I should be embarrassed, or, that if Anna was panicking, maybe I should be too. Instead, I felt a strange sense of calm, content to follow wherever that voice might lead me.

“Of course, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble…”

The third woman stepped forward and rested a graceful hand lightly on my shoulder. Bright blue eyes danced kindly. I couldn’t look away.

“No trouble at all, sweetheart, just let me walk you to your car.”

Anna looked on helplessly as the two women guided me slowly to the door. A tiny splinter of logic somehow managed to pierce the haze that had settled over my brain.

“I don’t have a car. Alex drove me.”

Grey-eyes and blue-eyes looked at each other for a few minutes, seeming to have a silent conversation. Blue-eyes finally sighed and turned back to me. 

“Well then, I guess there’s nothing for it. Want to keep me company in the kitchen?”

I could feel the **** grin splitting my face, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I nodded a bit too enthusiastically to be cool. Blue-eyes laughed; it sounded like bells. My mind sunk deeper into the fog.

It didn’t even cross my mind to go find Alex. I forgot about Anna’s frantic worry from just moments before. I let blue-eyes take my hand and lead me further into the house. I felt safe while I was with her. A peace I hadn’t felt since Chel’s death washed over me.

The next day, as the memories came back to me in flashes, I would realize how... *off* everything was. The whole house had this shimmery glow about it, like something out of a dream.  Alex’s fraternity brothers and the handful of girls from Chel’s sorority drank from seemingly bottomless red Solo cups and danced feverishly in the living room, pressed tightly together in a writhing mass; the rest of the partygoers did shot after shot in the kitchen, a never ending supply of **** and tequila flowing freely, poured generously by the mysterious Sisters of House Omega. The Sisters themselves, each as stunningly gorgeous as the last, stood around the party’s periphery, laughing easily at the revelry without actually partaking in any of it themselves. All the while, those piercing eyes swept over the party with a calculated, unsettling intensity. 

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20. At the time, I was too swept up myself, too enraptured by ocean blue eyes, to notice anything odd.

I wish I could remember her name. Blue-eyes. In spite of everything that happened, I still find myself yearning to know more about her. She pulled me into a cozy bench seat in the corner of the kitchen, away from the worst of the noise. She tucked a stray hair behind my ear with long, graceful fingers, and the whole world fell away. She asked me to tell her all about myself. So I did.

I poured my heart out. I told her about what it was like coming out in high school in a small town in the Midwest, and how supportive Chel always was, even when Alex wigged out and didn’t talk to me for a month. I told her about my dreams of becoming a songwriter and making a break for the coast, about how that dream died with Chel because I couldn’t imagine anybody else singing my songs but her. I told her about all of my hopes and my desires, about my guilt at moving on to live a life that Chel and I had always planned to live together. I told her about my deepest fear: that I don’t know who I am without my twin sister, my other half. That maybe without Chel, I’m nothing at all. 

Looking back on it, I can’t remember what blue-eyes actually said to me throughout all of this. She certainly didn’t give away anything about herself, who she was, where she came from - not even her name. But I remember this overwhelming sense of comfort, of her telling me, maybe not in so many words, that I was *somebody*; I was important, I mattered. Even though she didn’t - couldn’t have - known me, somehow she *did*, and she loved me. She held me as I laughed and cried, and it felt like she was laughing and crying with me, feeling everything I felt just as deeply. 

The next part gets even fuzzier. At some point, blue-eyes took my hand and invited me upstairs. Usually this is the part where I lose my cool, especially with a woman so gut-wrenchingly beautiful, but the nerves never came. I felt like I was floating all the way up the stairs, to her room, to the edge of her twin bed. When she finally kissed me and pressed me back into soft sheets, galaxies exploded behind my closed eyes.

It didn’t go any farther than that, but it was somehow the most intimate experience of my life. I have no idea how long we stayed there, arms around each other, lips sliding together softly, sweetly. At some point, she pulled away to give me another of those deep, searching looks.. She opened her mouth as if to speak when, somewhere in the house, a clock started to chime midnight. 

Her head snapped toward the door. She ducked her head and sighed.

“Wait here, Lou.”

I nodded; it wasn’t a question. There was nowhere else I wanted to be. With one last press of her lips to mine, she was gone.

I flopped back onto the bed, idly wondering how long she would be gone and what we might get up to when she got back. Before I could follow that train of thought too far, a high-pitched, harsh shriek rent the night, painfully loud even over the pounding baseline from downstairs. More inhuman, screeching voices soon joined in.

I shot up in bed just as the dance music cut out with the painfully grating sound of feedback from the speakers. There was a series of terrible, thundering crashes, and a chorus of panicked screams sounded from the partygoers below.

The peaceful veil clouding my thoughts lifted in an instant. It finally caught up to me how *wrong* the situation was. I didn’t even really remember coming upstairs, and I hadn’t seen Alex in hours…

*Shit, Alex is down there.*

I ran to the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Distantly, I thought I could hear Alex screaming my name, scared and in pain, and I started slamming my body into the door, calling out for him until my voice was shredded. I looked around frantically for my phone, but it wasn’t anywhere in the room. I couldn’t remember where I had left it. Footsteps pounded down the hallway outside, a terrified scream coming closer, abruptly silenced when something slammed into the other side of the bedroom door with a wet, heavy thud. I stumbled back until my knees hit the edge of the bed. 

I sobbed and made a break for the windows instead. I was just about to take my chances jumping from the second story when a small TV in the corner of the room switched on, static buzzing at the highest volume. Half-wild, I thought briefly of chucking the whole TV through the windowpane before the blurred pixels started to resolve into a familiar face.

“No…”

There on the TV, impossibly, was Chel. My escape plan was quickly abandoned. I reached out to the screen with shaking fingers, as though I could reach through the cold glass and touch her face. 

The scene on the TV started to play. I couldn’t look away.

Chel was at a party in what I recognized as the basement of Alex’s fraternity house. She was trashed, drink sloshing over the rim of her cup onto her sweater. The sweater I was wearing that night. Alex stepped into frame, laughing, and poured more liquor into her cup.

“Easy, Chel, you’re going to lose the rest of your drink!”

“Can’t have that!” whooped a frat brother in the background. Alex turned and shot him a glare.

“When are the other girls gonna get here?” Chel’s voice was slurred, mumbling. “Is Lou still coming?”

A chorus of giggles sounded from the small handful of girls in the background. I recognized Beth/Stacy as one of the onlookers. Alex looked back at the crowd and swallowed. He smiled wanly at Chel.

“Yeah, Chel, she’s on her way. Listen - how about we play a game while we wait for her?”

My stomach felt like stone, bile clawing up the back of my throat. Distantly, I could still hear the rampage continuing in the house around me. Wails of pain and fear, shrieks of rage and triumph, and under it all, a thick, fleshy ripping sound. 

“A game?” Chel looked at Alex with unfocused eyes, brow furrowed. Something was seriously wrong. Chel never got that ****.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun!” The men were circling up around Chel on the TV. The hair on my arms and neck stood up. Somebody in the real world was pounding on the door to the room, begging for help, but they sounded distorted and far away, like my head was in a fishbowl. 

“I don’t know, Alex, I don’t feel so good.” Chel swayed on her feet. Alex was practically holding her upright. 

“It’s OK, Chel, just one quick game and then we’re done, OK?” 

Alex was smoothing Chel’s hair away from her face, almost tenderly. The ****, sinister anticipation in my gut was building. Chel and Alex always had a bit of a thing, but this didn’t seem like their usual flirting; it was a mockery of the sweet way Alex usually treated Chel. His eyes were filled with an odd mix of determination and regret, **** and anxiety.

The Chel on the TV was too far gone to have any of those same misgivings. Chel was always too trusting of people, quick to see the good in everyone. She smiled broadly and dropped her head onto Alex’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around him in a loose hug. Alex’s frat brothers were circling like sharks. I wrapped my arms around my own waist and fell to my knees, tears streaming down my face.

“Spin the Chel!” somebody yelled. Chel looked up, confused, and Alex grimaced and spun her quickly in a circle. She stumbled into the arms of another fraternity brother. She tried to push at him, but her movements were slow and weak. The guy forcibly kissed her, and then shoved her back toward Alex, who did the same. This continued, Chel tossed about like a ragdoll, sobbing my name in fear and confusion. She looked so lost, so *young*. I quit watching as soon as more hands started grabbing at her, pulling at her clothes. It wasn’t hard to guess what happened next.

I covered my ears and hunched in on myself on the floor, screaming, begging for it all to stop. 

I don’t know how long I stayed there. I didn’t even notice that everything had gone quiet until I heard the click of the bedroom door opening behind me. It was loud as a gunshot in the sudden silence. I stood up slowly and moved toward the door in a daze.

I stepped forward and barely registered the sick squelch of the rug under my feet. Red soaked the floor and the bottom 18 inches of the wallpaper, splattered in wide strokes on the upper walls and ceiling. A pile of gore that had once been a person slumped at the top of the stairs. A river of blood ran down the center of the staircase, thick and dark, flowing like a grisly red carpet to the open front door.

I stepped around mangled limbs and stringy viscera as I made my way carefully down the stairs. My mind was completely numb to the carnage; the sound of Chel’s helpless tears still filled my ears. Two steps from the front door, a faint voice gurgled to my left.

“Lou…”

Part of me wanted to ignore him. To just walk back out into the night, down County Road 5, back to my tiny, uncomfortable bed in my **** dorm room, where I would fall asleep and this would all have been a nightmare. 

“Please*,* Lou.”

Movements rigid, I forced myself to turn toward the living room. My breath hitched in spite of my detachment.

There, on the floor in the middle of a sea of shredded bodies, was what was left of Alex. His blond hair was tinged pink with blood. One of his eyes dangled loosely from its socket; both legs were missing below the knees. He dragged himself toward me with his right arm, nails cracking against the hardwood floor. His left arm, flesh ripped down to bone and sinew, reached out for me, pleading.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. This was Alex - my best friend since kindergarten, Chel’s prom date, my first and last kiss with a man. This was *Alex*. The man who threw my sister to the wolves. Who **** her. 

The reason Chel was dead. 

“Did Chel say *please*, Alex? 

Alex choked on a bloody sob. I could see the guilt and shame awash in his one good eye.

“It wasn’t s’posed...go that far.” He coughed; blood spewed in a chunky froth across the hardwood. “*Please*, Lou, ‘m sorry.”

Groaning in agony, Alex inched closer to me. I remained still, body frozen with indecision.

“Shall we spare him?”

Ice trickled down my spine. The voice belonged to blue-eyes, there was no doubt, but it was different; a sonorous, echoing whisper, sighing on the wind like it came from everywhere at once.

A long-fingered hand settled on my shoulder. In the corner of my vision, I saw shiny curved, black talons resting near my collarbone. Just around the corners of the living room entryway, beyond my line of sight, I could make out the shadows of huge wings. Feathers rustled, claws tapped and clicked on the hardwood floor, impatient. Alex looked toward the noise, face twisted in fright. Blue-eyes squeezed my shoulder gently.

“I’m sorry, child. You weren’t supposed to be here. But we wanted you to understand.”

Alex looked at me again, pleading. He opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.

“He’s all yours.”

As whatever monsters lurked in the shadows began to advance, the hand on my shoulder turned me away and steered me toward the door. Smooth, black feathers filled my peripheral vision, a large wing curled around my frame to block the sights and muffle the sounds of my former best friend’s demise. I stepped into the cool night air and closed my eyes. Lips brushed tenderly across my temple. 

“Be at peace, dear one.”

Everything went black.

I woke up late last Sunday morning, back in the dorms, tucked safely into my bed. For a couple of hours, I almost convinced myself I had dreamed the whole thing. Every trace of the House Omega party has been scrubbed from existence - all of my text messages with Alex about it were gone, none of the sleek, black invitations remained. I thought briefly, hopefully, that maybe it had all just been a grief-induced nightmare.

Until the news broke that Alex’s entire fraternity and a handful of Chel’s sorority sisters had disappeared into the ether overnight.

The police have no leads. I know they won’t find any. I drove back out to County Road 5 a few days ago, after half a week of fielding concerned phone calls from my mom. There’s nothing there; just an empty field with an abandoned, decrepit farmhouse rotting in the prairie sun.

Alex’s mom has been calling me, too. To see if I’ve heard from him, if I have any clue what happened. I haven’t told her the truth. I’ve decided that I won’t. Sometimes lies are kinder. She doesn’t need to know what kind of monster her son was, what kind of monster he was killed by.

I spent most of the day today at the cemetery. I sat cross-legged in front of Chel’s headstone, tracing the letters of her name and thinking of everything I should have seen earlier, everything I missed. A shadow fell over me, breaking my reverie. 

“Mind if I join you?”

I squinted up into the afternoon sun. It was Anna. With everything else that had been going on, I had almost forgotten that she had even been there that night. I guess I had subconsciously catalogued her as one of missing. Apparently, officially speaking, she was never at the party either.

She helped fill in some of the gaps.

“Chel came to me, right after it happened,” Anna said, voice tight. She sat down beside me in the grass, close enough our thighs were touching. “I was furious, ready to call campus police, but she begged me not to. The boys, and some of our so-called sisters, had taken video of the whole thing, she said, and threatened to expose her if she got ‘too sensitive’ about it. I promised her I wouldn’t call. I wish every night that I had anyway.

I had decided I would connect her with campus resources instead, you know? Support groups for survivors, counselors, that kind of thing. I convinced myself it was good enough. But before I could make it happen she..” Anna choked on the words. She cleared her throat and breathed out harshly through her nose. “Well, I was too late. I would apologize to you, but an apology isn’t good enough.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Anna. You tried to help her.” I squeezed her hand. She squeezed mine back.

“Still, I felt like I had to do *something*.” Anna stared at Chel’s headstone, eyes hard. “People like the men and women who hurt your sister, they think they’re invincible. Untouchable. And they’re not entirely wrong these days. With enough money, you can get away with anything, right?” She laughed, dry and humorless. “So I knew I had to reach out to a higher authority.”

“What did you do?”

Anna smiled grimly. “My family worships the old gods.” I shivered at that, a chill dancing across my skin. “I called upon a long-forgotten sisterhood, ancient and hungry. If I could deliver them the guilty parties, they promised they could deliver justice.” Her expression softened as she finally looked at me. “You were never supposed to be there, though. Oh, honey, I am so, so sorry.”

I didn’t tell her it was okay, because it really isn't. But I appreciated her apology nonetheless. I nodded and squeezed her hand again, blinking back tears.

“So...what now?”

“The deed is done.” Anna stood up and dusted the grass off of the back of her leggings. “They’ll have moved on.” Anna looked at me, long and hard, and bit her lip. She nodded to herself, and reached into her purse. “They did ask me to make one last delivery, though.”

Anna pulled out a very familiar piece of black cardstock, embossed with gilded lettering. She handed it to me. I took it with a trembling hand.

“There’s no pressure, and no expiration date,” Anna said. She started to go, but turned back one last time with a sad, sweet smile. “I really am sorry, Lou. For everything. Chel was the best of us.”

I waited until her figure faded into the distance to look down at the paper in my hands. It was a new invitation, to me, this time:

*Louise Teller*  
*True of heart and strong of will,*  
*The Sisters of House Omega invite you into our fold.*  
*A black candle to summon us; a white candle to turn us away.*  
*We will heed your call.*

I thought of Chel, crying and confused, stumbling in a dark basement. I thought of Chel, the last time I’d seen her in life, head thrown back and laughing. I thought of Chel, cold and still in the ground beneath me. I crumpled the invitation in my fist.

It’s quiet tonight; not even a breeze rustles the dying leaves. And yet, a soft wind is disturbing the flame of the black candle I’ve placed in front of my open window. A low, sweet voice floats on the breeze, speaking an old language, and feathers flutter in the dark just past my line of vision.

I was never the type to join a sorority. But I think there might be something to this whole sisterhood thing after all.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Husband Brought Home a Fake Daughter
 
 Assistant: *This is not my child.*

That was all I could think. 

“Honey?” said my husband. “Is everything all right?”

“Who is this?” I said, staring at the little girl I’d never seen before, standing in my house, dressed in my daughter’s clothes. “Where is Liza?”

My husband gave me a worried look, and the girl-who-was-not-Liza looked positively terrified. 

“What do you mean?” said my husband. “Are you feeling all right?”

*Why was he evading my question? Why couldn’t he just answer?* I took a deep breath, tried to remain calm.

“I’ll be all right,” I said, “as soon as you tell me where my daughter is.”

My husband frowned, and the little girl’s eyes welled up with moisture. My husband placed a protective hand over her shoulder, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. 

“Go on upstairs, honey,” he said. “Mommy’s not feeling well.”

The girl wasted no time in doing what he said. She clutched her schoolbooks to her chest and barreled past me, rushing up the stairs. I heard the door of my daughter’s room slam. The look on my husband’s face was a mix of pity and restrained anger.

“You haven’t been taking your medication,” he said. “Don’t try to deny it, I can see it in your eyes.”

I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture. 

“I don’t need them,” I said. “They make my mind all fuzzy.”

The anger on my husband’s face became less restrained. Well-etched frown lines beneath his lips deepened. 

“Do you remember what happened the last time you said that?” he asked. 

“I...”

The suggestion was enough. A swarm of shattered and confused images flooded my mind, like the wave of nausea that comes before ****. My husband screaming, covered in blood.

*Look what you made me do!* he was shrieking. *Look what you made me do!*

I felt the floor tilt beneath me, and before I knew what had happened, I found myself falling backwards into my husbands arms. Hot tears were streaming down my cheeks, and my body convulsed with violent sobs.

My husband gently brushed my hair and whispered in my ear.

“Shhh,” he cooed. “It’s not real, honey. I promise that it’s not real.”

I silently nodded my assent. I let him carry me up to our bedroom and lay me gently down on the bed. He walked over to the dresser where he kept the cocktail of drugs that I took every day to maintain my sanity. I swallowed them gratefully. 

Soon my mind was going fuzzy, I could feel myself becoming a pliable zombie that could be told anything, made to do anything. 

Of course I knew that it was wrong, that that girl was not Liza. I knew that it wasn’t me who had been driven insane by our daughter’s death, but my husband. I knew he had kidnapped that girl when she was a toddler, and brainwashed her into believing she was Liza.

But, most importantly, I knew that if I didn’t take my pills, if I shattered his precariously built illusion, that he would **** the girl and start all over again.

Just like he did the last time.

[x](http://reddit.com/r/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. I might need some help.
 
 Assistant: How it began 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And what happened next
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cinu8u/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

When I finally caught up with Mrs Hemmings herself
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cj2g4k/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And when the trouble really started 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cjintp/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

What I learned 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cjzfky/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app



I sat all morning thinking about everything, cup after cup of coffee in front of me to keep me awake. Once the postman had left and I was alone with my thoughts they just continued to get louder. 

I thought about Natalia and the cult. About the kids and their nighttime antics. About the committee meeting. Jamie and how much I missed him, Georgia and my burning guilt and Mr Prentice, who was finally making those aforementioned animal noises.

Most of all I thought about the note left for me on move in day. How it had changed everything. My whole life was different now, I was alone and it felt like my new home was attacking from every angle. 

I re read the note a few times over my coffee. I worried about my rent, it was tight but manageable. School is currently out in the uk but as a training teacher assigned to a school I still get paid a small amount through the summer. The rent is low and with a second summer job I can just about make it without Jamie. 

It sounds strange. But it felt nice to worry about something normal for a minute; even if I should have been worrying about my survival and the many entities currently trying to **** me. 

I didn’t get to stew for too long, I had to get ready for the committee meeting. After the events of the night before and my growing mistrust of prudence it was imperative that I got the neighbours on side if I was going to achieve anything like my goals of eradicating the imposter/cultist neighbours. 

The meeting was at noon in flat 31, there was a poster on a communal notice board by the entrance that I was glad to spot, Terri hadn’t mentioned the time when we met and all our meetings since had been a bit hectic to discuss it. The poster promised tea and cakes and my stomach rumbled at the thought, I hadn’t eaten properly in days.  

At 11.55 I left the flat, and wandered out into the corridor. I’d never seen so many neighbours. Mr Prentice, however, was still making that awful noise and I watched in disbelief as every single person in the corridor walked past his door as if it was silent. 

I did my usual deliberation on whether to take the stairs or lift but yet again the stairs won. I still couldn’t bear being where Jamie died and all these extra flights were keeping me fit.

Flat 31 belonged to an older lady named Molly Thompson and her husband Eric. She had a blue rinsed head of curls attached to her head and had gone to the effort to make homemade batten-burg cake. Other neighbours had bought along baked goods as well. It reminded me of a school fair.

The flat itself was decorated for the 70s, with plenty of china cat ornaments littered around. I sat down on a dusty plastic garden chair, one of many that Molly seemed to have acquired and laid out for the residents pouring in. I hadn’t seen community spirit like this in my life. 

I smiled as I saw Terri, Eddie and Ellie wander in. It was nice to see some familiar faces. I had noticed people looking at me, wondering who I was. It probably wasn’t often they got new neighbours. Eddie came running up to me, swung his arms round me and sat down in the rickety garden chair next to mine. It was so sweet. Terri smiled at me and took a seat the other side of mine, Ellie sat next to her brother. The brown puppy dog eyes were back. No claws.

“I’m glad you came!” Terri said to me, loud enough to hear over the voices of the other neighbours. “I really want you to see the good side of the block. We don’t bite really!” She laughed nervously as she realised the irony of her statement. 

“Terri I need help, we need to stop those people from coming back again and from terrorising people. The block can’t go on like this.” I wanted to make the purpose of my attendance clear to her, it was time for things to change. 

“But if you don’t let them in then they don’t bother you. I’ve spoken to the kids, they know not to do it again, that those people are dangerous.” She paused for a moment and sighed. “Although them running away didn’t help, the kids think they’re indestructible now. They’ve been telling me all morning that they’re going to **** the bad guys.” 

She looked so resigned. But it was true, they did run away from the twins. Maybe there was something in that, I knew they could die I just had to work out how. But as the thought crossed my mind and I looked at Eddie and Ellie, I couldn’t imagine taking the risk.

I could’ve flat out gone back and asked Prudence. But to be honest I didn’t want anything to do with her. She gave me such a bad feeling. I was doubting everything she told me.

“It doesn’t matter if you can keep them away. We can’t all live in fear. Yours aren’t the only kids in this building.” I knew this from surveying the room. “But I bet not all the kids here are as ... special ... as yours. What if another family burns to death because their kids were hyper one night.”

I could see this struck a chord with Terri. She looked at me with glassy eyes as if on the verge of tears. 

“You’re right. Molly’s the chairwoman and she can be a little strict but you can bring it up under any other business.” She spoke with a lump in her throat. “Here you go by the way.” She handed me a piece of printed paper. 

Any other business felt a bit lacklustre but it would do. As long as it got discussed. 

I turned my attention the the piece of paper, it was the agenda for the meeting. For something written so formally it appeared farcical. It seemed other flats and floors had different but equally strange issues to mine. 

There were only 6 items on the agenda for the meeting with AOB as the 7th. They were as follows. 

*1. Welcome and introductions with apologies for absence.*

*2. Replacing of the flickering lights on floor 11, it seems to incite vicious behaviour from the pets and elderly of that floor.*

*3. Serving a formal residents letter of concern to the man who doesn’t move from the bottom of the stairwell on floor 5.*

*4. Finances - budgets for general maintenance and the annual barbecue.*

*5. The stairs with no grip leading up to floor 14 at the very top and the health and safety hazards this presents.*

*6. Soundproofing of Mr Prentice’s flat, number 48.*

I was comforted to know that I wasn’t alone in dealing with all these strange occurrences. I was also chilled to the core to know for certain that it was the entire building that was more than a bit odd. 

What really struck me as odd is that when I thought about it, I had seen that man on floor 5 when going down the stairs. But I’d never noticed that it had been every time, or that he had never moved, until this moment. 

The meeting begun with a loud and dissatisfying clink. 

By this point the tiny, 70s themed flat was packed. Garden chairs had all ran out and people were standing. Molly Thompson stood up from her floral patterned arm chair and bashed a teaspoon against the outside of her cup. 

She reminded me of a very strict, disciplinarian school teacher I had worked with during my university placement. She commanded quiet in the room. 

“I think we should get started everyone!” She shrilled, her voice growing louder with every word until the crowd came to a silent hum.

“Right, firstly, we are not going to skip the introductions today. Apologies have been given by Jo and Steph of flat 2 and yet again by Mr Prentice. We have a new face in the room as I’m sure many of you have noticed.” She gestured to me and looked in my direction but didn’t really make any eye contact. She was just talking about me as I sat in the room. Eventually she addressed me directly. 

“Stand up dear, introduce yourself. We’re pleased to have you here.”

I was deeply uncomfortable. I could feel some sort of panic coming on. I never liked standing in crowds very much. But I stood up anyway. 

“Ermm, hi. My name is Kat. I live in flat number 42, I moved in with my boyfriend Jamie but he was killed in the lift by the weird rat creatures you people have living here. The people that claim to live in the burned out flats won’t leave me alone and one in particular seems to want me dead. Oh, and that window cleaner outside my flat makes me want to scoop my own eyes out with a spoon every time he knocks on the door. Nice to meet you all.” The crowd had gasped a little.

I sat down. Instantly mortified, I don’t know what happened, the normality and structure of the meeting overwhelmed me. There’s something about a sense of order and normality amongst chaos. It does something to your brain, and for me, for the first time in this whole journey, it sent me into a meltdown. 

I sobbed as I hit the chair, both in pure mental exhaustion and disappointment that I had blown my chance at building any sort of army against Natalia. Terri rubbed my shoulder. Molly broke the awkward silence that had blanketed the room. 

“Nice to meet you Katherine, I understand life in this building can be a little overwhelming. We did ask the previous occupant to let us intervene when you moved in but she was insistent. In hindsight we may need to review our policies on new tenants. I am so very sorry for the loss of your partner. The lift is a most unfortunate situation.”

She had been in positions of power in her life for certain, she responded professionally but coldly, there was no feeling in her condolences. She came off like a corrupt politician digging themselves out of a hole. She did decide to skip the introductions after my outburst.

I also hate it when I’m called Katherine. My parents named me Katie and I shorten it to Kat. Her presuming it was Katherine added to her school teacher demeanour. 

She carried on with the proceedings pretty swiftly and interesting characters present at the meeting started to emerge. 

My favourite was a large middle aged Caribbean woman named Precious St Fluer who would not accept Molly’s claims that there was not enough in the budget to replace the lighting on floor 11.  

She got up and lifted her shirt to reveal a large deep bite mark across her stomach caused by her dog after a long episode of the lights flickering. When that didn’t change Molly’s answer she lifted her trouser leg to reveal a smaller, but still noteworthy bite mark on her leg, from her elderly mother who lives with her. Molly didn’t budge.

It took what felt like an eternity to get to any other business. If I weren’t so focused on my goal I would have enjoyed hearing about the quirks of the other floors, maybe tried to engage a little, but I just couldn’t concentrate. 

When the chairwoman asked if anyone had any other business she scanned the room quickly. I stood up from my chair and she locked in on me with her eyes. 

My hands were shaking and I could feel a cold sweat forming all over my body.

“Katherine, what can we help you with dear?” She asked in a patronising tone. 

“I want help in getting rid of the people pretending to be from the burned out flats. I can’t be the only person that doesn’t like living in fear.” I stated boldly, trying not to break down again.

“Dear we have had this discussion multiple times and it’s been taken off the agenda. I am aware you’re new here but there is nothing we can do about certain problems within this building and for this particular issue we would appreciate you not letting them into your home and ignoring them like the rest of us.” She snapped back. 

“But that’s not good enough! Terri’s kids answered the door last night, they’re children, it’s easily done, what if someone else’s child does it and aren’t so lucky to survive. One burned my friend so bad a few nights ago that she’s still unconscious in hospital.” This I knew from social media. 

A few people called out in agreement with me from the crowd. 

“The only one who has ever been able to deal with them is Prudence. And that difficult woman never revealed her methods. Don’t think we didn’t try. You’re suggesting a suicide mission. You’d do well to remember you are new here.” Molly hissed through her teeth. 

Did she have to mention I was new so many times. It was grating on me. 

“Well I’m willing!” Shouted Precious. She seemed stronger than the rest in her earlier rant. I was glad to have her on side. 

Where she came forward, a few others followed. Soon I had 5 people plus myself willing to form a sub committee to get rid of the cultists. Molly didn’t like it but she agreed to let us do it.

There was me, Precious and Terri along with lady named Shanti who lived a few doors from me. 

A man named Anton and his friend Leo from floor 8 made up the group. To be honest they just seemed keen to get involved with any kind of battle. Leo was the loud one, Anton was mostly silent. 

I invited them to my flat after Molly swiftly adjourned the meeting. Inviting anyone into my home made me anxious now. I found myself studying each of their faces to ensure they’re weren’t too average and I hadn’t invited the wrong people in. I was fairly certain I hadn’t. Eddie and Ellie settled in front of my tv in the bedroom so they didn’t hear our conversation. They may only be kids but I felt safer with them there. 

We discussed for hours how we could bring the imposter people into one place and **** them all. 

Leo was particularly creative, he came up with weird and whacky ways to end them; from locking them in a room and blasting with fire extinguishers until they freeze, to herding them into the lift between 1.11 and 3.33 am.

The whole time I waited nervously for a knock on the door, for them to come for us. But they didn’t. We got time to plan. But despite the time it never really took off, no idea seemed feasible. 

I shared everything I knew. My conversation with Prue, the night before in Terri’s flat... everything. Precious listened to my tales intently before speaking.

“Derek would have helped us. He was a great man, he used to turn up at my door in the dead of the night just as those lights started and take my dog for a walk.” She spoke of the gardener with a fondness. 

“Prudence told me about Derek. She said he’s been gone since the garden was demolished.” I replied flatly. 

“It was awful when he left. That woman that used to live here was nasty to him. I watched out my window as she tore up the garden. I know she was grieving for that little girl but I know Derek only ever wanted to help.” Shanti spoke up from the corner. She had been pretty quiet the whole time. “He was the whole reason we don’t have those awful creatures from the lift all over our homes anymore. My brother was killed by one before the agreement. He was 4 years old.”

I twitched as she told her story. Shanti has such sad eyes and speaking about her brother only filled them further with sadness.

“This is another thing I don’t understand. Why have any agreement, if you managed to **** most of them, why not all?” I asked, feeling anger over Jamie burn through my throat as I spoke. 

Precious laughed. Terri shot her a look from across the room. 

“No ones told you the whole story have they?” Shanti asked, a single tear running down her face. 

“What do you mean?” This was driving me insane, nothing was simple, how could I trust anyone. 

“When Prudence and some of the others killed the creatures they killed a large group of them in one hit. They had started to work out that food scraps and pet food were attracting them and they gathered all the pet food in the tower block into one empty flat on the floor the fire had happened. They creatures came in droves just like expected and they set the flat alight. Again.

“The flat was burned to ash on top of preexisting ash. Nothing could survive that.” Shanti was interrupted after this by Leo. 

“And then 3 giant rat **** literally rose from the ashes, triple as smart and strong and **** **** up!” He said, a look of excitement on his face. 

Shanti rolled her eyes and continued. “So all Prudence did was cause a quite literally bigger problem. She didn’t **** them, all she did was help them evolve.

“There was only three of them but they learned to sneak attack. More people died than during the original infestation. They were more intelligent but not in the way it comes across when the agreements spoken about. We couldn’t speak to or reason with them.”

Terri was looking at the floor. 

“Only Derek was able to do that, he spoke to them like he spoke to the garden. He made it safe for everyone again, I wasn’t there. I was too young but there we were told he didn’t even have to use words. They understood just a series of movements and eye contact. 

“Derek explained the rule with the lift. He told us it was a gesture of goodwill. The creatures needed a home and seemed attracted to the building and we would let them live there and stop killing their kind if they would stop killing ours. But to show them some respect we would allow them a small time frame where unleash their instinctual nature. But only if someone came to them.

“There are only 2 left now. Prudence killed the other during what happened with her granddaughter. But that only made them 2 stronger. Like they absorbed the 3rd.” 

I tried to take in all the information I was receiving but I couldn’**** was too much. 

“Derek isn’t coming back, it’s been years, this is pointless!” Terri finally erupted. Precious laughed again.

“How do you know?! You speak to dear old Prue all the time, know something we don’t?” Precious spoke sarcastically but I think she meant what she said. It was becoming clear that Prudence Hemmings wasn’t too popular in this building. 

“I don’t speak to her all the time! We just keep in contact, she was always nice to me!” Terri tried weakly to defend herself.

“That’s because you’re naive and a pushover! She used you because no one else would give her the time of day!” Precious was about to launch into a full rant on Terri. I was glad Eddie and Ellie were in the other room and couldn’t hear. I wondered if she’d seen them at night. 

I decided to stop the rant. This was becoming counter productive and we were getting nowhere with our plans. I interjected and told them all I needed them to leave so that I could sleep. Partly true, although I knew I couldn’t sleep. I had other things to do. 

They all filed out of my flat, Terri and the kids were the last to leave. She gave me a hug as she left and told me to get a proper nights rest, telling me she was always there for a cuppa and a chat. It was sweet. I felt sorry for Terri. The kids hugged me too as they left. 

I know she spoke to Prue, but I was certain that it really was entirely innocent. 

I sat in the empty flat disheartened that my assembling of an army had turned into a bickering **** show with no real suggestions on **** the imposter neighbours. 

I felt totally alone. I couldn’t trust Prue or Ian or pretty much anything I thought I knew. Maybe Prue didn’t even **** those neighbours. They only told me half truths about the creatures after all. 

I was left alone with my thoughts again. And after a few hours, a good one finally struck me, but I needed supplies.

I left the building and went to the nearest shop to gather the items I needed. For what I needed and the time of night I had to travel to a 24 hour supermarket. It took half hour each way on the bus. But I stayed focused. My bags were heavy and awkward on the way back to the block but if it paid off this was going to be worth it. 

I trudged up the stairs. It took me 2 trips and 24 flights of stairs instead of 14 to get everything in my flat and organise myself. 

It only took 16 and a large gym bag that was much easier to carry on the way back down, thankfully. 

I passed the man on floor 5 twice. Now I’d noticed him, he made my skin crawl a little. 

I walked through the downstairs corridor, diverting away from the main entrance and passing all the ground floor flats to the door at the back of the building.

The door at the back lead to a small concrete area with a grass **** along the side and a bench decorated with a memorial plaque. This was the blocks outside space. As is typical in the city the whole bench was covered in graffiti. The memorial was unreadable. 

I got to work. I dug the **** of grass, turning soil with my new equipment. I had never been green fingered and to be honest the shrubs I had bought had been so heavy I had grown to resent them a little. I worked for an hour and a half. I was sweating and night had come, it was pitch black and I was using my phone torch to see. 

I had almost given up until I got up from my crouching position to stretch my knees. I reached my arms out, put down my shovel and took a seat on the bench. 

I hadn’t seen him arrive but the man was already sat there. He wore a flat cap and a jacket, despite it being the middle of summer and a beautiful night. He just smiled warmly at the shrubs for a moment without a word. Eventually he spoke. 

“I’ve missed this place. Names Derek.”

Our journey: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/clvga9/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was in prison for 15 years. There was a skinwalker in there with us.
 
 Assistant: A little background first. I was serving a 15-year sentence in a penitentiary in southern Arizona. What I was in there for isn't important. During my stay there, there were countless things that happened that no one could explain, and even more that no one wanted to know more about. 

It all started with a prison legend. Supposedly, years ago something awful and unexplainable happened in the prison. Every morning we'd be woken up, and expected to stand near the front of our cells while guards visually confirmed we were present and accounted for. Apparently about a year before I got sent there, the most brutal and unexplainable thing happened during one of these routines. A man who had a cell to himself looked very off during this check. When a guard pulled over another guard to help him check it out, they found it wasn't actually the prisoner they were expecting at  all. It was a totally different man. This man, was wearing the skin of the other man over him. Loosely fitting, draped over him, apparently looked like a real monster. The scariest things were though, was the guy wearing the skin was NOT an inmate. They had no idea how he even got into prison, let alone a cell. Whats worse is that they couldn't even figure out who the **** he was. He wasn't documented anywhere. And whats worse than that? They never even found the body of the man of the skin he was wearing.

Pretty grisely stuff, I know. And I realize that's not the go-to definition of a skinwalker, but that's what the prison called him. The Skinwalker. Didn't help that the guy never talked apparently. Anyway, thats what started the whole skinwalker superstition around the yard. Apparently the guy got shipped to a different spot about a month after it happened, and just about everyone in genpop felt all the better for it. I heard about the story on the second day of my stay. **** of a story to hear to place in your home for the forseeable future.

Now onto the real **** though. Sure, that guy was The Skinwalker, but all he did in the long run was get an old lifer Navajo inmate to tell everyone about actual skinwalkers. It seemed like a lot of the prison culture actually revolved around them. 

Now, apparently, skinwalkers are tricky to point out on the spot, but if you manage to survive around one for more than a minute or two, almost everyone can tell the mannerisms are all off. They can mimic human speech but not replicate it. They twitch manically. They have an unnatural gait while walking. But apparently they got better with experience. The old Navajo guy - his name was Carl - said that he was sure there was an actual one among the prisoners. Slowly picking us off over the years. He called it "The Grandmaster Skinwalker" at one point. Apparently he thought it had human mannerisms down so well that you might not even be able to tell if it was your cellmate for a day or two. It had to be good he posited one night. He would expect a skinwalker to jump at any opprtunity for a ****. But this one realized it had a revolving door of people to **** coming to it, and masterfully bided its time, as Carl thought, for years.

A lot of guys found humor in it. A lot more were really on edge about it. Every once in a while in prison, people snap. Sometimes you'll find your cellmate swinging in front of your bunk, strung up around the neck by his pant leg. Sometimes you just can't take it anymore. But in our yard, people tended to snap in a very special way. It wouldn't be an outburst at dinner, or a silent suicide in the night. Guys would just stop talking. Hunch over and shuffle around. Any friendships they had would be mostly out the window. They would turn into a loner during rec time, they would let their hair hang in front if their face. 

No one liked to talk about it. Like if they did, it would happen to them next. I felt the same way. I didn't know if it was a skinwalker, or just people going crazy. But I didn't want to find out. It wasn't clockwork or anything, but every time someone snapped in this way, it wasn't more than a couple weeks before they were "shipped off" or "transferred" to **** knows where without anyone else knowing beforehand.

Then there was the nighttime occurances. Short, loud bursts of sound echoed through my cell block during all hours of the night on a regular basis. It sounded like a mix between a pigs dying squeels and nails on a chalkboard. Just another thing no one liked to talk about. Even scarier were the shadows and footsteps. The block was dimly illumanted in the night by a few lights hanging from the ceiling outside the cells. I myself saw shadows flit across my walls on a regular occasion, when there were definitely no guards near my cell. One time near the end of my sentence, I woke up, looked at my back wall and found a perfect silohuette of a person standing there, but when I looked, my bunkmate was asleep, and no one was outside my cell.

And the footsteps. Everyone hated the **** footsteps. They were the scariest part. In the night, sometimes, more rarely than the shadows, you would hear ungodly fast footsteps. They sounded like wet feet slapping on tile floor. Whatver caused them would fly from one end of the block to the other in a dead sprint. Whatever it was, it was inhumanely fast. If you happened to be awake before it started, by the time you heard the footsteps on one side of your cell and whipped your head around to see the thing run by, it sounded like it was 3 cells past you. Everyone hated the footsteps. I agreed, I thought they were the worst.

I was released from that place about a month ago, and I have more stories than I can count. I swear it was nearly my turn. About a week before I was discharged, my cellmate, and a good friend of mine "snapped". In the same kinda way. I didn't sleep for an entire week. Well I did sleep of course but never for more than a few minutes at a time. Never turned my back on the guy. The scariest thing? I woke up one night to him somehow snaking his body through the bars of our cell. For reference, I couldn't get anything past my shoulder through them. The worst part though, he was coming back in to our cell. 

On the day of my release I didn't say a word to him. Just left. He seemed fine with it, so, so was I. I had made it through, 15 years of prison fights, gang disputes and for all I know, skinwalker abductions. I left through the front gates, a free man. As I walked along the fence for the rec yard, I spotted my cellmate, standing off on his own, like he had for the last week or so. I shook my head, not even really sure if it was him anymore. I took one last look over the yard, this time from the other side of the fence. I wish I hadn't.

There, standing off on his own, on the other side of the yard, was Carl. Slouched over, eyeing the other inmates, and twitching manically.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son asked me to check the closet for monsters. I didn't need to.
 
 Assistant: I recently went through a pretty nasty divorce, but I got the only thing that mattered out of it: full custody of my 4-year old son.


Lost nearly everything else in the process so we had to relocate to a new house with barely any luggage or furniture.


Truly a fresh new start.


I heard him call for me during our first night at our new home. It was a little after midnight, I think. I went to check on him to see what was wrong and sat by his bedside.


He was wide awake and asked me to check the closet for monsters, which wasn’t surprising given the circumstances.


He’s still just a little kid, and without even taking into account all the **** he’s been put through thanks to my **** marriage, moving into an unfamiliar, barely furnished home must be a lot to take in for someone his age.


And you know how they say that your brain always stays half-awake when you’re sleeping in a new environment, right?


That’s all pretty much what went through my mind in a flash as soon as my son spoke.


It was no big deal. It was all normal, I thought.


But something else almost immediately clicked inside my brain, before I even got to look at where my son had pointed to while he made his innocent request.


Something was wrong.


I turned my head and looked, and it took everything I had in me to not give in to fear and terror, all for the sake of my son.


When you become a parent you have to protect your children no matter what, always putting yourself in harm’s way if necessary and spare them any and all kinds of things that might hurt them.


That’s why I didn’t freak out. I couldn’t, not when we had barely just started our new life. I had to protect him, and at that point in time as I sat on his bed I only knew one thing:


We had to leave the room.


We had to leave the house *immediately*.


“Alright champ, of course” I said, faking bravery.


Then I made a request of my own as I lowered my voice and got closer to him:


“Hey, how about you step outside for a minute? If there’s a monster in there, I’ll have to kick its *BUTT* all over your room!”


He chuckled and said “*okay*”.


I made sure to put some extra emphasis on the word “*butt*” because it’s something that always cracks him up when I say it. Fortunately he got stuck on that and not the fact that I was indirectly admitting to the possibility of there actually being a monster.


As soon as he left the room my mind raced as it started to put together the best and most efficient route to take him out of the house while picking my car keys and phone on our way out.


When I heard the closet doors slowly creaking open behind me I knew it was time to go.


I jumped out of the bed, exited the room and grabbed my son. We were out of the door and inside the car and moving in under a minute.


I told him I couldn’t sleep so we were going out for some ice-cream to celebrate. He was a little taken aback and asked “*celebrate what*”, to which I replied “*just us two together, I love you buddy.*”


It was by no means a lie, but I just had to make sure that he was alright and wouldn’t think of anything else as we literally fled our new home.


As I mentioned earlier, the house was a new environment for the two of us. I’d been there a couple of times before, cleaned it all up by myself and assembled what little furniture we had, so I knew for a fact what belonged where and what didn’t.


And I know his room didn’t have a closet.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I saw something on the evening news that I can't explain
 
 Assistant: My work friends and I were out at our favourite pub last night. Not a really fancy place but, you know, cheap beer and close enough to home that I don't have to drive. The night started out normally enough, the four of us crammed into a small table off in the corner, mostly talking shop and **** on our boss. Being this was the middle of the week there weren't too many other people around, maybe around eight or nine others in the whole place. Everybody just kinda keeping to themselves, sorta people you'd expect to see in a pub on a Wednesday.

Anyway, from where I'm sitting I have a pretty good view of the TV behind the bar. Jessie the bartender is kinda lazily flipping through channels and passes by our local news channel. There's a brief burst of orange and red on the screen which I register as a fire happening somewhere, which then disappears as Jessie switches over to the next channel. Something about the image looks oddly familiar though.

"Hey Jess, can you switch that back?" I call out to her.

The news comes back on, and suddenly I recognize the building in the frame. It's *my* building, and it's burning.

"Holy ****," I say, loudly enough that a few people follow my gaze to the television. "That's my apartment!"

The crowd in the bar falls kinda quiet, everybody staring up at the screen now. The screen shows a wide shot of the outside of my building. The camera must be set up on the north end of the block because I recognize a lot of shops on the ground floor - property management, dry cleaner, convenience mart, etc. The top left corner of the building is aflame. It's not a huge fire by any means, but it looks like a few units between the top four floors or so have already been engulfed by the flames. 

"Jesus, man," one of my coworkers says. "That, uh...that sucks." There's an uncomfortable murmur of agreement that passes around the table. I mean, I don't blame them, I wouldn't know what to say in this situation either. "Yup," I agree, just as awkwardly. Thankfully, my apartment is only about half way up and located on the west side of the building. I  cross my fingers, hoping my stuff will be okay.

The camera cuts to a reporter on the scene. He's standing a little further away; looking at the shops in the background I can tell he's across the street on the north-west corner of the building. "Fire fighters are expected on the scene any moment," he's saying, "and hopefully they'll be able to contain this horrible inferno before it spreads any further. As I was saying before, it's very fortunate that everyone was able to evacuate the building before things got too bad, or who knows what tragic events may have unfolded."

"He's really laying it on thick," my other coworkers jokes. I chuckle a bit. All things considered, at the moment it really didn't seem all that bad.

But then, a few moments later: "Uh...hang on," the reporter on TV says, "We're getting some updated information. It seems...hang on one moment, while we readjust the camera." The previously locked down camera starts to shift, the angle focusing on an area of the building about half way up the west side. All the lights in the building are out except for one. I feel a weird creeping sensation as I start counting the windows from the bottom.

Five up, two over. That's my place. *I swore I turned that light out,* I think at first. Then I see it.

There's a...person, standing in my window. The camera is zoomed out too far to make out any features, but it definitely looks like a man and it's definitely standing in my apartment. I watch petrified as the camera zooms in closer, the reporter babbling on about "the overlooked, ill fated soul still trapped in the blazing such and such." As the image gets closer, I start to make out more details.

The person is...dancing. Or something. I don't really know how to describe it, but he's moving around a lot, and everything he's doing has this bizarre rhythmic quality to it. He starts waving his arms in the air, back and forth, back and forth, and then he's waving them up and down at his sides. Then he's banging both fists on the glass. Then he's waving his arms over his head again, back and forth. Everything he's doing is to the exact same tempo. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. He starts jumping up and down, waving his arms over his head like he's trying to get someone's attention from a long distance, but everything is to the exact same rhythm. Over and over again. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.

"What in the ****," I say, my voice a hoarse whisper. And then the camera gets a little closer, and finally we can make out the person's features. 

It looks almost exactly like me. It's wearing the exact same clothes that I'm wearing now, clothes I changed into moments before leaving the apartment earlier. Its face looks almost exactly like mine as well, except for its eyes. Its eyes are far too big for a normal person. It also has this almost comical look of horror on its face...I don't even know how to describe it. Imagine if someone were pretending to look scared, but as a joke. It would have almost seemed funny if the circumstances were different, but instead it was just extremely unnerving.

No one in the bar is talking now. Everyone is fixed on the TV. The "person" is still swaying and waving around, beating its hands on the glass or jumping in circles. I almost don't hear the reporter mention the fact that firefighters have rushed into the building and are now heading for my floor. *Oh ****,* I think, without really understanding what was happening. *Please don't go in there.*

I stare transfixed at the screen. From this angle you can just barely see the top of my front door through the window, not too far behind where this creature is flailing around. Right now it is holding it's face in his hands and shaking it's head from side to side as if saying no. Suddenly the door behind it bursts open as, presumably, the firefighters have entered my apartment. 

The creature stops moving. For a second, I see its expression change. The comical look of horror is gone, replaced by a huge smile filled with enormous, pointed teeth. Then the lights go out.

We all just sat there, staring at the screen as the camera slowly zoomed out from the now dark window. No one says anything as we all quietly pay our bill and leave. I went directly to my sister's place across town and asked to stay with her. I told her there was a fire at my apartment and that's it. When I tried to find footage from the news online later that night, it seemed like they had edited that last part out.

I don't know if any of you on this subreddit know what that thing was, but I hope they didn't put out that fire. I hope they let the whole **** place burn to the ground.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Mr. Lakavote
 
 Assistant: I’m not sure if this will help anyone, but if my story saves even one person from the nightmares I now endure, I will consider it a win. I have borrowed a phone that was smuggled in here, and the orderly, that now monitors every move I make will be coming shortly, so I must be brief. 

A few days ago, I was laying in bed scrolling through Reddit, like I always do to make myself sleepy, when I came across this story that sent shivers up my spine. 

After I was done reading, I thought to myself, “wow, that was terrifying,” and then scrolled to the next one. Big mistake. 

Twenty minutes later, I heard a scratching noise coming from my bedroom door and I froze. Confused, as I live alone, I turned on the lamp next to me and looked towards my bedroom door. 
 
*silence.*

After a moment, I decided it was my mind playing tricks on me. After all, I was reading scary stories in the dark. Probably not the best thing to do before bed, but hey, who doesn’t love a good spine-chilling story before they close their eyes. 

I went back to scrolling through r/nosleep when again, I heard a long scratch on the door. I slowly got out of bed and tip-toed over to the noise. Grabbing the door handle, I gently opened it and peeked into my living room, only to find it vacant.

I quietly closed the door and turned to walk back towards my bed, when my closet door flew open! Now, I don’t know about you guys, but when it comes to fight or flight reaction, I seem to choose the option that leaves you frozen in place with your eyes closed. A defense mechanism instilled in me from childhood and stories of the boogeyman. 

After a moment, I decided to open my eyes and cautiously look towards my closet. I physically heard the clock that was placed on my night stand stop ticking, and that’s when I met him. 

He was almost 8 feet tall, standing on long spiny looking legs, with impossibly long arms that seemed to stretch on forever. What I could see of his body looked to be covered in deep dark cracks. He was wearing a long hooded cloak that touched the floor, as black as midnight on a moonless night, that slightly revealed his ruby red eyes. 

Wh- who are you? I said with a shaky voice.

He never physically moved his mouth, but I heard him speak into my soul with the most sinister voice, “I am Mr. Lakavote and I am here to right your wrong.”

Petrified, frozen in place, I tried to ask him what wrong I had done, but before I could finish he was right in front of me. His breath smelled of rotting flesh and death itself as he breathed down my face. 

He reached out and ran his long boney fingers across my cheek, and instantly I knew what he could do. I felt my eyes being ripped from my head and the burning sensation that followed. I began to scream, but no sound came out. I was stuck in my own personal **** as darkness surrounded me. Alone and afraid. I wanted to die. I wanted the agony to end.

Again, I heard his voice as if it were my own thoughts, “I am the keeper of votesss, you know what you did. You will right your wrong or I will take your eyesssss, along with your eternal soul. You have 24 hoursss.” 

Just as fast as he had appeared, Mr. Lakavote had vanished. 

I did not sleep the rest of the night. I had visions of the horror, I had just endured that left me sweating and cold at the same time. Had I dreamt the whole thing? Could my mind even make up something so sinister and evil? And the pain, oh Lord the pain I felt, I have never experienced anything close to that kind of suffering in my entire life.   

The next morning, pacing my apartment, I tried my hardest to think of what I had done wrong. Did I forget to vote in our recent election? Had I missed an employee poll at work? What the **** had I not voted on that was so important that my soul depended on it? 

Trying to clear my head, I decided to open Reddit, as it always seemed to make me feel better and relaxed. While I was scrolling, I passed the story I had read the night before. The one that had made the hair on the back of my neck stand. 

That’s when it clicked. I had scrolled to the next one before I gave that story the upvote it deserved. Instantaneously, I clicked on the up arrow and waited, hoping with every part of my being that, that was the answer. Was I playing a guessing game with my life? 

I waited the whole day, I didn’****, I didn’t move, I barely even breathed. I thought about writing to my family and sorting my goodbyes out but, I felt too incredibly empty to conjure up the words. No one would believe me anyways. 

As the sun slowly set, I decided I might as well wait in my room and hope that I had redeemed myself, or possibly chance losing my eyes and my soul. The thought of that alone made me **** into the trash can next to my bed and tremble violently with deep, petrifying terror. 

When my 24 hour mark finally came, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and waited. Prayed. Begged, that my soul would be saved and all would be forgiven. 

*silence*

Then, I heard the breathing, I smelled the rotting flesh, I felt all the hair on my body raise. When I finally opened my eyes, I felt a chill that froze me to the bone, as if I was sitting inside a freezer meant for the dead. There he was, right in front of me. His eyes had turned to sapphires as he stared into my soul. 

“Don’t let it happen again”, he bellowed in a voice that to this day still haunts my dreams. Then he was gone. 

I know some of you won’t believe me. ****, I’m not even sure if I believe myself. As the doctor here says, “it’s all in my head”. But, for the love of your eyeballs and your soul... do ***NOT*** forget to vote while you are reading stories on Reddit, or you too will have the “pleasure” of meeting Mr. Lakavote for yourself. 








 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. It’s time to end this madness.
 
 Assistant: Last time: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/clvga9/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app


When I saw her out the window, garden shears being gripped by both hands and a maniacal expression on her face, I just stood still. 

I was frozen to the spot in shock. I felt no pain at all from the burn on my face, everything was numb. The relief of eradicating the imposter neighbours and the joy at finding a friend in Derek was hacked away in an instant. Just like every leaf from my shrubs. Why would she do this? What had I ever done to her? 

Every question possible crossed my mind. I could feel the frustration bubbling inside me, everything about this place just threw up question after question and for every answer I got, there were ten new questions waiting to be asked. At that moment in time though, only one was truly important. 

How did Prudence know? 

I thought about Terri and her telephone conversations. I didn’t want to think that the sweet lady I thought Terri had turned out to be would do that, but it did cross my mind. I thought of Ian the postman, I’d had bad vibes from him for a while, maybe he’d seen Derek coming up the stairs while on his rounds that morning.

I stood there frozen pondering all these things until I saw Prudence collapse onto the memorial bench sobbing, head in her hands. She was surrounded by the remains of my attempt at a garden with the shears laid out on the floor. 

The stairs were kind to me on the way down, it took 4 flights to make it to the bottom. I ran down the corridor and out the back entrance of the block, no idea what I was going to say. 

“Prudence!” Was all I could manage. Nice one, Kat.

She sat bolt upright before turning and standing quicker than I thought it possible for an old lady. 

“You evil, **** little girl! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” She screamed, so much animation in her face that the spaces between her wrinkles pulsated like veins on an angry weightlifter. 

“Me?! You think I’m evil! You left that **** note hidden, missing everything I need to know and got my boyfriend killed! And what you’re doing to your own -“ I screamed, tears beginning to roll, before she interrupted me. 

“Don’t you dare talk about her!” Her voice cracked and she broke down again, this time falling to her knees, twigs and leaves sticking to the bottom of her dress. 

I didn’t know what else to do. So I sat down on the floor. I knew that it was probably a bad idea, this woman couldn’t be trusted and I hadn’t forgotten that, but seeing an old lady crying on the cement floor still made me feel awful.

“How did you know about the garden?” I asked her calmly, trying to change my approach. 

She shoved a crumpled up piece of paper into my hand, she didn’t look at me, her eyes remained on the floor. 

*Dear Prudence,*

*I couldn’t exist knowing what I’d done.*

*I should never have told you about it.*

*The last two won’t grow stronger, she was never theirs to begin with. But I have to end her suffering.*

*I’m sorry.*

*Derek*

I knew what he had done as soon as I finished the note. Lyla, or what was left of her, was gone for good. Of all the creatures only Jamie’s killers from the lift remained. That’s how Derek had spent the few hours I’d slept between our encounters. 

“This is all your fault.” She sniffed. “My whole family are gone because of you.”

That hurt a lot. I trembled as I tried to speak but I always really hated confrontation and I could feel myself starting to glitch. 

“H..how can you say that! I saw... her and she was trapped in a tiny cage eating dog food and small animals. Your family died in that lift. Just like my Jamie.” I may have struggled to get my words out, but I wasn’t about to let Prudence Hemmings blame me for her decisions. Lyla was better off dead than what she was, however awful that may sound. 

“What happened to your face?” Prudence growled at me. “Take you to visit floor number 9? He did this to her in the first place, not me! And now he’s disfigured you!” She was spinning things. I could feel throbbing as she mentioned my face, I really should have had medical attention. 

“This isn’t his fault! You messed him up and he did that to her because of you! You told me that yourself.” I tried ferociously to defend Derek but something inside me still felt uncomfortable about what he had done. I couldn’t help it, Lyla was an innocent little girl who shouldn’t have been punished for Prue’s mistakes. This whole thing was such a mess.

“I was grieving! And then I had her back for all those years, and then I lost Bernie, and then my home and now I have to grieve for her all over again.” Prudence continued to cry, but softer. I looked around at the chaos she created and up at the block my boyfriend had died in and rolled my eyes in disbelief that she could be so selfish. She continued.

“Let me tell you about Lyla. She was a beautiful little girl. As I mentioned before, I have two other older children, they’ve had many other grandchildren, however I hadn’t spoken to my eldest two in years even before what happened with Lyla. 

“Lyla was my first opportunity to get to know one of my grandchildren. Bernie adored her too, always reading her stories and sneaking her sweets. 

“I begged my son to allow her to stay. My children were all incredibly ungrateful, they had it easy growing up and still resented me. I gave them a good, strict upbringing but they didn’t appreciate it. They said I was a cruel mother. Lyla’s dad was the only one I spoke to, but our relationship still wasn’t that of a typical loving mother and son. But she was a second chance. 

“It was a miracle when he agreed. I was more shocked he had convinced his wife to allow it. That awful harlot of a woman never liked me, although I didn’t like her either. 

“They refused to speak to me after everything, I haven’t heard from them since. They had more grandchildren I’ll never meet. I knew at the time my relationships with any of my children were over for good. So when Derek gave me a solution I took it.

“I wasn’t entirely truthful when we first spoke. I said I hadn’t wanted this, but I was desperate. There was never a way to bring her back safely. Derek explained what she would become to me. He was initially trying to put me off even trying to get her back. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. 

But I couldn’t pass up the idea of my beautiful little Lyla, needing her grandma forever. I suppose I was too ashamed to admit it before. But why should I be ashamed?

“My altercation with Derek happened after she was back, when he tried to **** her the first time. Spouting the same things on that note, what kind of monster wants to **** a little girl? That’s why I trashed the garden. He said he wasn’t coping with the news of the new block when he suggested it, that he shouldn’t have told me it was even possible and she had to die. I hid her until the bulldozers came in. 

“When he disappeared I thought I was safe to spend the rest of my life with her. 

“Bernie hated me. Spending time with Lyla was all I lived for, I grew to love her how she was.”

I felt sick. Listening to Prudence talk bought up so many repressed feelings about Jamie. I hadn’t had time to grieve or process anything, I missed him terribly. My old life and my old future felt a million miles away.

I was relieved to know that Derek hadn’t tricked Prudence, or even intended to create rat-Lyla. He was truly good.

“But she didn’t get to have a life. You lived for her but she wasn’t really living. How could a sane person do that to their own flesh and blood?” I retorted.

“You have no idea. This place can make you do irrational things! But she had a life! She had me. It’s all she needed.” She was certainly right about the building and irrational actions, the pain intensifying on my face throbbed in agreement. But I was still convinced she had lost it Dr Frankenstein style where rat-Lyla was concerned. 

She had stopped crying. Her rage levels were rising again. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t really the child she’d known, but she seemed to have grown an entirely new attachment to the creature that replaced what she lost. 

Every rational argument I gave was met with increasing levels of screaming. She got less coherent as she went on. The argument was going nowhere, we went back and forth for what felt like forever.

After a while she started to get closer to me. We had both stood up by this point and despite her haggard and frail appearance, Prudence was truly frightening. She looked unhinged. 

Her words were no longer going in, I was overwhelmed and had too many thoughts rushing through my mind to process her ranting. I took a few steps back clearing a small distance between us. 

By this point, out of the corner of my eye, I could see neighbours in windows of the block, watching the altercation outside, Prue’s screaming had bought a lot of attention. It was bright and I couldn’t see well but I turned to scan the windows and did recognise Eddie and Ellie watching from their bedroom, trying to wave at me. 

They frantically waved and pointed, I tried waving back and gesturing to them, but they kept pointing at me.... why were they pointing?

Then I heard it, the garden shears scraping against the ground as Prudence picked them up and charged towards me. “You ignorant little ****! You aren’t even listening. You’re don’t deserve my home! You killed her!”

The twins had been telling me to turn around, I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off her. 

Luckily, unlike my earlier shock when I had first seen her, I didn’t freeze. My fight or flight instincts kicked in and I ran faster than I ever have before. I burst back into the building and heard neighbours on the bottom floor lock their doors in a symphony of bolts clicking. 

I couldn’t blame them. Prudence wasn’t far behind me and I wouldn’t want to take her on in her current state if given a choice. But it didn’t stop me pounding on their doors begging someone to call the police, although something told me that in this building that wasn’t going to happen. I ran up the stairs, still being followed by her. 

By the second floor most were still locked but a few had come out of their homes, armed with a variety of heavy objects. Even in a crisis, I couldn’t fault the community spirit here. I ran another flight of stairs that became two but still lead me to floor 3 and then to the back of the corridor. I pounded on Terri’s door.

My heart was racing but when I turned Prue was nowhere to be seen. I was hoping the people who came out on floor 2 had stopped her but something was odd. I hadn’t heard any commotion. This wasn’t the end of it.

Eddie and Ellie hugged me tight as Terri let me in and bolted the door shut quickly behind me. I told her about what had happened. She couldn’t believe what Prue had done. It turned out no one knew about Lyla. 

I was edgy for the first hour. But Prue had disappeared. Terri helped to clean up my burn and put some cold compress on it. She offered to take me to the hospital, but I couldn’t. 

I was too shaken up from what had just happened, I couldn’t face trying to explain how I’d sustained my injuries and I still hadn’t reported Jamie missing. He still hadn’t had any messages from his family, and work had given up calling, but his friends had started. They were harassing me non stop but I had been too distracted to come up with a decent lie.

It had been a week since I moved in and it wouldn’t be long until people realised something was seriously wrong. My conversations with my family had been short, with me insisting they didn’t visit until we were “unpacked and set up”. 

On top of a murderous old lady and an untold amount of abnormal issues the real world problems were starting to creep up on me. 

I sat with Terri for hours, drinking tea and chatting to her. It started to get dark and Eddie and Ellie came into the living room after playing in their room for a while. The voids replaced the big, brown puppy dog eyes again and their claws looked especially sharp, but to me they were still adorable. 

Their transformation prompted me to head back to my flat, it was late. I needed to work out what to do next and how to dig myself out of this giant hole. I couldn’t just keep planting gardens. I needed to do this myself. 

I wandered up the stairs, they went on for a while, but nothing too horrific. I passed the man on floor 5, nodding politely and continuing my ascent. I wondered if he’d received the letter of concern yet, he was a little unsettling. 

When I got to my floor Mr Prentice was making his animal noises again. I smiled, which hurt my face. After all the madness I was starting to find the seemingly benign horrors of this building oddly comforting. 

I reached my flat and turned the key in the door before bolting myself in like Terri had. 

I could feel something wasn’t right the moment I entered. The flat was in chaos, which was nothing new because we had only moved in a week ago and I had been too preoccupied to unpack. But things were out of place, the organised chaos wasn’t how I’d left it. 

Then she strolled out of my kitchen. Prudence Hemmings. She was carrying a large carving knife in her left hand this time, she had prepared for her attack. She smiled at me and lifted her right hand, jingling a set of keys that she had entered with. 

I turned to unbolt the door but she grabbed me from behind before I could turn the handle to open it and held the knife to my throat. 

“I will **** you for what you’ve done.” She whispered into my ear. 

Without a second thought I leaned forward just a tad and swung my head back as hard as I could. I couldn’t believe that it worked but I must have broken her nose. Prudence dropped the knife and clutched her face, blood streaming between her fingers. 

I went to grab the knife but she was closer and doing the same thing. I had no other option but to run again. I grabbed the door handle and turned it to exit the flat as she tried to stab me. I was mostly out the door, but her arm was close enough to reach my side, and I felt the knife pierce the side of my torso.

I was in searing pain but I didn’t stop running. As I stepped outside my flat I could still hear Mr Prentice’s noises flooding the entire hallway. It gave me an idea. 

I ran towards his door, Prudence stabbing at me frantically with blood gushing from her nose. A few got me as I stopped outside flat 48, the pain was awful and I could feel myself starting to drift out of consciousness, I was losing a lot of blood. 

I would give my last breath to end Prue. So running on nothing but adrenaline I knocked **** flat 48, and shouted.

“Mr Prentice, can you help me?”

It was a shot in the dark, I didn’t know what would happen but I had to try something.

She had stopped stabbing at me, she was enjoying watching me bleed out slowly from the wounds she had already inflicted.

I was incredibly weak, and I lost consciousness not long after that, but before I did I heard heavy clunking from the inside of flat 48, chain locks being released and bolts being undone. I watched with blurry vision as a large creature, that I can only describe as a cross between a bull and a wolf, charged out of the flat and trampled the old witch to death. I heard hear bones crunch just as slipped away. 

I woke up in the hospital a day later. My parents were there as were the police, apparently I had been found just outside the tower block with my handbag missing, by a neighbour who had been watching from a window as it happened. 

The police told me that the person had seen the mugging out of their window. They had seen two men approach me and Jamie, splash something in my face, attack us, and when he tried to fight back, they bundled my boyfriend into a car, which the police had been searching for to no avail. He was officially missing. 

I was baffled, but grateful that Jamie’s disappearance wouldn’t be blamed on me. I went along with it and made out that he had ghosted work to enjoy our first week living together. 

I had been stabbed 4 times but thankfully in all the right places, if there is such a thing as the right place to be stabbed. I lost a lot of blood but I was going to be fine. They were all shallow. They assumed my burns were chemical and happened during the mugging too. 

The police promised to keep us updated but they still can’t find the car. They never will. I wish the story the police had been told were true, it left some hope for Jamie. 

My parents weren’t keen on me returning to the flat after what happened, they said the area was too rough, and that I was living proof it wasn’t safe. They offered to collect my stuff for me. I insisted though, told them that I wanted to see how I felt and they couldn’t force me not to.

I was released from the hospital two days after I woke up in there. When I arrived at the flats, it was strange. It felt like home. Despite everything, something about this place drew me to it. 

I took the lift for the first time since Jamie had died. I had to, I wasn’t recovered enough to conquer too many stairs just yet, and I couldn’t guarantee they’d be kind to me. I smiled at the lack of a button 9 and winced at the thought of the creatures. 

As I reached my corridor I saw Mr Prentice walking along with his newspaper and milk in a bag. He turned to me and smiled.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back. It’s nice to see you’re up and walking.” He made small talk as if I hadn’t seen him literally trample a woman to death a couple of days prior. The whole experience had been so disorienting that I started to wonder if I really had been mugged and had dreamed the note and everything that’s happened since. Then he said something that confirmed everything was real. 

“I never liked that woman. But you’ve got a real friend in the lady downstairs.” He winked at me and turned the key in his door. 

I got into mine and sat down on the second hand sofa. I felt empty but relieved. With Prue and the imposter Qneighbours all gone the only threat left were the creatures in the lift, who were only a threat between 1.11 and 3.33.

Maybe I could start to live a semi peaceful life in this place. 

Terri knocked on the door, my handbag, that I had left at hers before Prue attacked in my flat, on her arm. Mr Prentice was right, she was a good friend. 

I thanked her for what she’d done and for what she’d told the police. She said it was pure luck that she found me, she had been walking up to return the bag and found me and Prue sprawled out on the floor. I asked what happened to Prue’s body and she just pointed in the direction of flat 48. 

“He was eating it.” She said.

It’s been a few days now and I’ve decided to stay. I can’t imagine going back to complete normality after everything I’ve been through and I’ve grown quite attached to some of the buildings quirks. 

I tried replanting the garden with the help of the twins. I ripped a few stitches doing it and Derek never came. I think he’s gone for good.

I’m ready to fully embrace life here. The last few days have been hard but there’s some time to breathe. Along with the time to breathe, came the time to grieve and I’ve been grieving badly for Jamie.  

This leads me to the last thing I have to tell you. 

Last night I laid in bed, plagued with thoughts of Prue and everything that had happened, but what I couldn’t get to leave my mind was how much happiness it bought her to have Lyla back. It infected every part of my thoughts. I know you all warned me not to, but I did it. I repeated the ritual. 

I haven’t caught him yet, but I’ve heard the scratching. [Jamie’s back.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/h86ihe/the_previous_tenant_left_a_survival_guide_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Climb
 
 Assistant: “I want you to **** her,” the voice echoed. Low, monotonic, unwavering. 

In front of me was my mother, crucified haphazardly upon a ramshackle wooden cross. Rivets were driven through each palm - with rope fastenings in place around her ankles and shoulders to keep her in position. 

Her eyes, red and cracked from exposure, pulled open by tape, to reveal pupils dilated with fear. 

Her mouth was sewn shut. Muffling her tired pleas.

“This is hardly an existence,” the voice licked.

I surveyed my surroundings. I was in a small, square room, with metal walls no larger than my studio apartment. The roof, however, was missing, replaced by an empty void that seemed to stretch endlessly into the darkness above.

About five feet in front of me was my mother. Writhing weakly against her restraints. Five feet behind her, an impossibly tall ladder stretching into the abyss. 

“What are you waiting for? As if you care,” the voice prompted.

Who was talking? Where was this voice coming from? Its warm presence swaddled me like a warm blanket.

In one swift surge, the gravity of the situation dawned on me. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t like being lost. 

I felt the kick of adrenaline into my bloodstream. My heart, beating against my ribcage. My hands, clammy. I clenched them repeatedly. Open, closed. Open, closed. 

I needed to get out of here. 

“End her.”

My gaze dashed to my right hand side to find a surgical stand stocked full of pain-inflicting paraphernalia. 

A knife. A rope. A pistol. Razor blades, full needles, strange pills and powder. 

An arsenal fit to maim, disfigure, destroy.

I reached for the razor blade. I could cut the stitching on my mother’s mouth - garner some insight into what the **** was going on. 

My mother always knew what was going on. 

With the razor blade in hand, I walked gingerly up to my mother - whose eyes lit up as I approached. 

And through all the pain, tears and stitches, as I drew closer, she smiled. 

I held up my left hand to coddle my mother’s face, with the razor blade still pinched in my right. 

And as she nuzzled her face into my palm, I cracked. I wept harder than I’d ever wept before. Full-bodied, wracking sobs crashed over me. 

Because it didn’t matter how bad anything got. It didn’t matter how broken the situation, or how broken the person. 

My mother was just happy I was there. 

I steadied myself and lifted up my right hand, trembling as I drew closer to her face - ready to pick away at the stitches to the best of my ability. 

The first few snapped, then the next, until all the stitches had been split and I had liberated her mouth from its cage. 

I exhaled raggedly, leaning back to look deeply into my mother’s eyes. 

“M-Mum?”

But as tears fell down her cheeks, through her warm, loving smile, she uttered one word. 

“Climb.”

I peered past her towards the ladder, then looked back towards her for reassurance. It took a slow, simple nod to realise that this was what I had to do. 

And as I walked slowly towards the ladder, she murmured one last thing. 

“I love you.”

“I love you too, mum.”

I never said that enough.

Then, with razor blade still in hand, I climbed. I climbed with determination. I climbed for what seemed like hours. 

I climbed past broken rungs, and even when I was tired, I kept on climbing. 

I cried as I climbed, but I pushed through, with snot dribbling down my chin and tears clouding my vision. 

I reminisced as I climbed. I climbed through good memories, I climbed through bad memories. I climbed through the time when I had the flu and my mother came around to do my laundry, and I climbed through the time my girlfriend cheated on me. 

I climbed because I was sick of this dark room. I climbed to make my mother proud. 

And as I climbed, the darkness subsided, opening itself up to light. 

I could see the where the ladder ended now. I could see my way out. 

As I placed my hand on the last rung of the ladder and pulled myself up over the edge, I was overcome by brightness. 

The light subsided, and as I got my bearings, I found myself on my back in my bathtub, still clutching the razorblade. 

Urgent knocking on my bathroom door roused me from my daze.

“Are you alright in there? Your sister called. We’re worried about you.”

It was my mother’s voice.

I got up out of the bathtub, and placed the razorblade back on the shelf, walking towards the door. And as I flung it open, she looked at me. She looked at me and she knew. 

She held me in her arms and we sobbed. 

“I wouldn’t know how to live without you,” she whimpered.

My climb had just begun.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. Things just keep getting weirder.
 
 Assistant: How it began 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And what happened next
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cinu8u/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

When I finally caught up with Mrs Hemmings herself
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cj2g4k/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

And when the trouble really started 
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cjintp/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app


When I first saw Natalia all I could picture was Georgia. The way her skin melted off her face, the smell of her hair burning and the sound that she made. 

I didn’t have time to count but there were more than I originally thought. I figured these must have been the 15 people Prudence talked about, entering the flats that burned before it happened. I already knew that Natalia was one of them. 

Eddie and Ellie clutched Terri’s skirt, trembling with fear. I wanted to help protect them, but I still couldn’t help but tremble a little myself every time I caught a glimpse of those hollow voids where their eyes were. 

“Hi Terri, the kids said we could borrow some sugar?” She asked menacingly, grinning at the frightened family stood next to me. After a moment or two of intense staring Natalia finally addressed me. She appeared to be the spokesperson for the group. “How’s your friend doing? It was a shame we had to end our visit. I was enjoying her company.”

“Don’t speak about her! She’s got nothing to do with you, you sick ****!” I screamed at her, I couldn’t bare looking at her face again. “You don’t scare me with all your freak friends. I’m not going to let you hurt this lady or her kids!”

Natalia chuckled. I gulped. 

I may talk a good game but I am no hero. Mere days ago I was just a young girl excited to move in with her boyfriend and now here I am. My boyfriend’s dead, my flat is like living in my own personal horror movie and I’m standing up challenging demonic flame neighbours to defend demonic looking children. 

But when I said she didn’t scare me, I meant it. Something inside me was eradicating any fear of these people, I just wanted to protect the residents. Life really does throw curveballs. 

“I know you aren’t scared. I saw it in your eyes when you stuck that big knife in my throat. That’s why we’re here.

“My brothers and sisters are not freaks. You’re the freaks! Thinking that your lives have meaning. We watch you people go about your day to day lives and your mundane routines and nothing really changes. Your lives are pointless and disposable.

“That’s why we set the fire, all those years ago.”  She chuckled throughout her words. There was an animation in them like she was a psychotic cartoon character, finally catching its prey after 138 episodes of chasing. 

“Those people weren’t disposable...” Terri mumbled, barely a decibel higher than a whisper.

“What was that Terri? Did you have something to say.” Natalia went from psychotic cartoon to school bully. She made my skin crawl.

“I was only a child, but those people were friends of my parents, they were good people.” Terri said with slightly more confidence. 

None of the other people had moved. They just stood there staring. 

“Why would you burn people alive? What can you possibly gain?” I interjected, taking a slight step between Natalia and Terri and the kids. I could see she was getting ready to go for them and I couldn’t let it happen. 

“We were living with the great leader, Michael. All of us. Living in the righteous manner that he had directed us to live” She gestured to the people around her. The name Michael appeared to inspire some sort of emotion in the group. 

“Michaels brother Jonathan lived here, on the floor we burned. He let us hang out there sometimes, but he didn’t live the righteous way that we did. He didn’t like our beliefs, but he took us in when we lost the place we were staying because of the growth of the group. Him and Michael rarely saw eye to eye. They argued passionately. 

“Our group never believed in living within the constraints of societal norms and we were up at all hours, we came and went as we pleased, embracing freedoms and listened to music as we did introspective work.” 

Terri shoved the kids further behind her and snapped, infuriated. 

“You were a group of entitled, bratty hippies following some middle aged, mentally ill ****. Listen to yourself! The stereotypical cultish drivel coming out of your mouth right now!” Terri cried. I was shocked at her outburst. Although I couldn’t have agreed more. It did sound like cultish drivel. It made me so angry that this was what an entire floor of people died over. 

As Terri ended her rant the curtains hanging on the window behind her burst into flames. I jumped and felt my heart skip a beat. 

“Don’t insult us. I’m sick of hearing simple minded people call us a cult.” Came from the back row. An average looking man with dark hair and jeans had piped up, smiling and watching the curtains burn. He had done that. They were all capable of what Natalia had done to Georgia at the very least.

For the first time since the people had entered Terri’s flat my nerves of steel had wavered. I realised that we were only alive because they were allowing it so far. We were in big trouble.

Terri swiftly shut up and Natalia continued her story.

“Michael was the true leader. Not like all the fakes you hear of in the news. The people you’re talking about. He was teaching us to build a world of peace and harmony. But he didn’t deny that in order to do that you had to eradicate the non believers. He taught us to embrace the bad in us. To harness it so that we could do extraordinary things.” She smiled wickedly as her hands glowed hot coals as she spoke. 

It may have sounded like cultish drivel but Michael being a total faker wouldn’t explain their powers. 

“Things went wrong when someone went to the police after Michael and Jonathan had a terrible argument one night. When the police arrived Jonathan told us to go. 

The group had been planning to leave this building anyway. We’d had nothing but interruption and trouble in our time here, this place is weird. But we had nowhere immediate to go. The police already disliked us after overcrowding the last property. We didn’t need any more attention. 

“Michael was furious. We brainstormed in a field for hours who could have done it. I personally suspected the next door neighbour, Mavis. The woman was so nosey, always knocking and asking us to keep noise down, interrupting our spiritual sessions. 

“Michael couldn’t make a certain judgement on the person who had done it. All we thought we were sure of was that they had to be on the same floor. So he instructed us to go back that night and eradicate the whole floor and every non believer who lived there. 

“As you know, we obliged.” This incited sick laughter from the crowd. I waited, forcing myself to let her finish. Buying time. 

“We took pleasure in their screams, in watching every man woman and child go up in flames through their front door windows. It was the first time we’d unleashed all that energy and we felt so powerful!

“But then as we left the burning hallway behind us and entered the stairwell, this building found a way to **** us over one more time. 

“I couldn’t give you a number on the amount of times we tried to run down those stairs, leave our glorious victory behind us and return to Michael. It didn’t matter how many times we tried. 

“We couldn’t make it past that floor, the stairs wouldn’t let us. It didn’t take long before the fire reached the stairwell we were trapped in, burning us all, along with the non believers. We died just in time for the fire engine to arrive. 

“We may have been dead but we didn’t disappear. We couldn’t leave the building, we were stuck just wandering it, in and out of the burned flats and hallways but not allowed anywhere else unless we were asked. It was awful. We didn’t try to cause any trouble at first. We waited for Micheal to come and find us, instruct us. 

“Two months passed and he hadn’t come. Instead came confirmation. A newspaper put through the door of the building. Headline news. 

“*Tower block resident Bernie Hemmings information vital to imprisonment of local cult leader on drug charges.*”

I gasped. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found that when I was researching Prue. But I suppose local news wasn’t so heavily online back then. Natalia saw my shocked expression and grinned wider than before.

“The old bat didn’t tell you that then?” She asked, although it wasn’t really a question. “That her **** husband is the whole reason we’re here!” 

“We started to really cause issues then. Did anything within our power to **** the whole building over. But it didn’t take them long to work out that we had to be asked to come in. 

“We only stopped when Prue worked out a way we could die a second time, and that we wound come back again. She killed two of our group. She was the only person that could stop us. We couldn’t do **** with her around. We stopped and reached a stalemate. Then she moved out. We were going to honour that stalemate. Until you stabbed me. Prue’s gone. It’s fair game in here now.”

As Natalia got angrier a member of her group started getting agitated, they all soon followed like a hive mind, working as one, the stillness became chaotic, with all of them moving and making noise. 

I didn’t notice at first when one started walking towards Terri and the kids, but I noticed when it got near.

It was a teen girl, slender and pretty, but still unsettlingly average. As she got within a metre of the family Ellie suddenly went rigid. The claws that replaced her fingernails grew longer and sharper, with jagged edges from growing so fast. The voids deepened, if that was even possible. 

She opened her mouth to reveal rows of sharp teeth, blood caked where the tooth meets the gum where they had grown too quickly as well. Ellie jumped. She reached out towards the girl and slashed her face with the claws, leaving deep gouges across her eyes.  She clung on to the girl using her claws as wall pegs keeping herself at eye level. 

Eddie controlled the crowd. His own claws grew and he ran towards them, sending them scattering out of the flat, random bursts of flames erupted everywhere. Lighting up the whole room. 

**** had hit the fan. The two demon children were successfully fending off a group of 15 dead superhuman cultists. Natalia ran from them too, but kept her eyes locked on mine as she did. As she ran from the flat she spoke to me. 

“This isn’t over!” She screamed, and I knew that it wasn’t. 

I stayed on Terri’s sofa that night, we organised all the burned items in the house and threw things out before we crashed out in the early hours. The kids claws retracted and they returned to their earlier state. Causing mischief in the hallways. They were too young to really understand.

I didn’t sleep much. Nothing new. 

When I woke up Terri was still asleep. I didn’t want to disturb her so I walked back to my flat, desperate to avoid anything strange on my way. The stairs must have noticed, because they didn’t skip on my way up. 

I hadn’t checked the time when I left Terri’s but I reached my door at the same time as a familiar face. Postman Ian was stood there, dropping letters on my doorstep. 

“Hey, love!” He shouted as he noticed me. 

“I need to talk, can you come inside, just five minutes? Please?” I practically begged him at the doorstep.

I told him everything that had happened the night before. How Natalia was out for revenge and I was the object of her rage. I begged him to tell me **** them, but he claimed he didn’t know. He said if kept my doors locked and didn’t let them in then I’d be fine. 

He looked shirty as I mentioned killing them. Didn’t even suggest asking Prudence how to do it. Something was telling me there wasn’t much point.  He seemed so disingenuous.

I wanted to trust him. So badly I wanted to trust him. I had been so vulnerable with him over Jamie.

But if Prudence Hemmings could forget to mention what Bernie had done, and conveniently never pass on the method to **** these awful people, leaving them around to terrorise her friends and neighbours... then could she be a liar too. Could I really trust Ian? 

When he provided no answers and no real help something inside me told me that I needed to get him out of my flat. I needed to rethink. Start working things out on my own. I made excuses to Ian and sent him on his rounds. 

Prudence left me these rules, but she left so much out. How do I know I wasn’t always a **** in some sick game. Her fantasy life as a puppet master, setting me up to fail. She’s kept her granddaughter in a cage for years. Maybe she enjoys suffering. 

I wasn’t going to give up easily though. Natalia wasn’t going to win. 

I decided then and there that I needed to attend the committee meeting today and start building an army against Natalia. I didn’t need Prue’s help or her methods. With enough manpower I could do it myself. 

This was war.

The next steps : https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ckw07c/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My job is watching a woman trapped in a room. Part Four.
 
 Assistant: [Part One](https://redd.it/brco33)
****
[Part Two](https://redd.it/brsj8v)
****
[Part Three](https://redd.it/bsg2az)
****



I had to do something, and I had to do it right now.  If Melanie was somehow a fake, that meant they must have sent her.  And if they sent her, that meant they knew.  They knew about the messages in her painting.  They knew about me asking questions.  And they knew I didn’t hit a button during any of it.

I felt panic and fear crawling up my chest, making it hard to breathe.  Standing up, I started pacing, periodically glancing back at the monitor to see if Rachel could help me, tell me what I needed to do next.  But she had laid down on her bed.  It was hard to tell for sure with her back to the camera, but I think she was crying.

No, I needed to fix this.  Get her out of there.  And if I didn’t have a better plan, I’d just have to go with the one I already had.  

Feeling the hard eye of the ceiling camera on me, I went to the door and stepped back into the locker room.  My phone was in my locker, and after messing up the combination the first time, I got the door open and got it out.  Gripping it tightly, I tried to hold it by my side casually, but I knew there was little point.  If they knew everything, I wasn’t going to be able to hide anything.  I just had to try and be fast, get some kind of message out to people that could help Rachel before they got to me.

I opened the camera on the phone as I re-entered the surveillance room and hit record.  It made a small beeping noise and once I was sure it was recording, I turned the camera on myself.

“My name…my name is Tommy.  Thomas Calhoun.  And my job is watching a woman trapped in a room.  This is not a joke or a movie or…whatever.  This is real.  For three years my job is to sit in this room…”  I moved the camera slowly around the room, taking in the door to the bathroom, the water cooler, the desk with the monitors, keyboard, and button box, “…and watch a video feed of a woman locked up in a bedroom somewhere.”  I stepped closer to the desk and made sure the monitor showing Rachel was clear and in focus.  “I didn’t know this woman was a prisoner at first…or I tricked myself into thinking she wasn’t because the money was good.  Either way, I know she is now.  She is in danger and so am I.”

After lingering on video of her for a few more seconds to make sure every detail could be seen, I turned the camera back on myself.  I had to hurry, or the video might be too big to send quickly.  I was trying to stay calm, but I felt myself tearing up as I went on, and I did my best to keep my words clear.  “Please help her.  I don’t know where she is.  I don’t know who has her, because I don’t know who I really work for.  But they are bad people and she is not safe.”

“All I know is that I work at a building at [redacted] right outside of San Antonio.  (Per Nosleep rules, to be clear this address is not real.) I only know the names of two other people connected to this place.  The man who hired me, Mr. Solomon.  And a man who might have a job like mine…Charlie Jeffers…no, Jefferies I think.  I don’t know if they are real people…I mean, I don’t know if that is their real names.  Please.  I’m not crazy.  I know how this sounds.  Just come here, see the room.  Figure out where she is and help her.  And…”

I heard the muffled sound of the outer door opening into the locker room and I frantically fumbled with the phone to stop the recording.  How do I send?  Oh no, how do I…there it is.  I hit the button to share, and felt a new panic rising.  Who should I send it to?  I had only a handful of contacts, and I just selected them all.  Maybe at least one of them would take it seriously and get help.  As I heard the door to the surveillance room opening behind me, I hit send.

**Not connected to data service or WiFi.  Please send again when connected.**

*What?  No no no no…*

I turned to see Mr. Solomon entering the room.  He was flanked by two large men in dark suits that looked like bodyguards or something.  Raising a finger, he wagged it at me.  

“No service in here, Thomas.  But then you should never need service in here, so long as you followed the rules.”

****

They took me easily.  I tried to make it to the bathroom and close the door, but the two guards stopped me and pulled me down.  They put the…what do you call them?  Zipties on my hands and feet and pulled a black bag over my head.  Then I was being carried out of the room and it felt like they must have put me in the back of a van that was pulled right up to the building.  I was laying on what felt like thin, weird smelling carpet that covered a hard metal layer underneath.

I heard someone get into the van with me, and I asked where we were going.  If they would just take me and let Rachel go.  There was a short laugh overhead and then Mr. Solomon’s voice as he told me that he would explain everything when we got where we were going.  For now, he said, I needed to relax.  It was a long drive and I would need the rest.  

I went to say more, but then I felt a sharp pain in my neck.  They had stabbed me, or…no, they injected me with something.  I was feeling so strange now, but I had to stay awake.  I had to try and get away, I had to…

****

“Hello again, Thomas.”

I blinked as I began looking around.  My mouth was dry and my head hurt, but otherwise I felt okay.  I wasn’t tied up any more--Instead I was laying back on a padded table like I’d seen when I went to the doctor.

But this wasn’t a doctor’s office.  The room was large, and aside from the padded table, it held a small bed, a desk with a computer monitor on it, and a couple of chairs.  Sitting in one of those chairs was Mr. Solomon.

I raised up slowly, blinking at him.  “Where is she?  Is Rachel okay?”

The man smiled.  “You really are something, Thomas.  Trying to be the hero, even if you don’t quite know how.  I respect that.”  Licking his lips, he leaned forward slightly.  “In fact, I respect that so much that I’ve decided to start our new relationship with as much honesty as I’m allowed.  Some of my colleagues disagree with this approach, but you know what?  **** them.  This is my project, and I think you deserve to know what’s going on.”  Looking more serious, he stood up, lifting the gun he had been holding casually in his lap.  “But before we get into the details, would you like to see Rachel?”

I slid off the table and nodded as I caught myself from falling.  My legs were still wobbly from whatever they had given me, but I barely noticed.  “Yes, please.  Let me see her.  The real her.”

Mr. Solomon gave a small laugh and gestured toward a nearby door.  “Yes, reality is always best.  She’s just there in the next room.”  

I stumbled my way forward, my legs getting better as I walked, and when I grabbed the doorknob, it turned easily.  I expected the door to lead to her bedroom, but instead it opened into another room a lot like the one I had been in, though the stuff in it was different.  Strange machines filled the walls, and in the back of the room was a large…aquarium?  I didn’t know.  It was a big cylinder taller than I was, and it was filled with some kind of gray liquid.   There was a shape in that liquid,

“Go ahead, Thomas.  Feel free to go have a good look.  You’ve earned it.”  I felt my stomach clenching tighter at Mr. Solomon’s words and the meanness in them.  My legs felt heavy again now, but it wasn’t from the drugs this time.

Shuffling forward, I could see the shape was a person.  *Oh no*  Or at least a body, because it was clear from just looking at it that the person was dead.  It was very well-preserved, but I could see how the skin hung wrong and looked bloated in spots.  *Oh ****, no no no*  Its hair, which had been floating like seaweed in front of its face, drifted away as I reached the glass, and I could see Rachel staring out at me.

“Murderer!”  I turned on Solomon and started to run toward him when he shot me.  Suddenly I was on the ground convulsing as he stepped closer.

“Don’t worry, Thomas.  It won’t **** you.  Just make you unable to move much for a bit.”  I heard more footfalls as my body began to still.  “Get him up, take him back to the other room.”

I could barely feel anything as I was carried back to the padded table and propped up into a sitting position.  This time I was strapped down, but I guessed it was more so I didn’t fall off, because I couldn’t move anything other than my head, and even that just a little.  I could hardly see at all for crying, but I recognized the blurry shape of Solomon sitting back down in front of me.

“Before you ask…well, when you are able to ask anything again, yes, that is Rachel.  Not a fake Rachel, not a ****, and not some kind of trick.  As I said, the time for tricks is past.  Now is the time for truth.”

Frowning slightly, he went on.  “Thomas, I understand that showing you that, showing you her body that way, might seem very cruel.  You may hate me for it right now.  I would understand it if you did.  But you called me a murderer, and at least in this specific context, I think that is unfair, because I didn’t **** Rachel.  In truth, I’ve been with this aspect of the project for only seven years.”

He gestured back to the door behind him.  “And Rachel has been dead for over eight.”

I felt my eyes widen as though they belonged to someone else’s body.  It was more lies.  More tricks.  All of it.  Oh ****, it had to be.

“Do you know what remote viewing is?”  He rolled his eyes.  “Sorry, right, you can’t talk right now.  I’ll just assume you don’t.  Remote viewing is a broad term for the ability to see things that are far away from you physically, to know things you shouldn’t be able to know through your normal five senses.  Some describe it as a psychic ability, though there are several schools of thought as to how and why it works.”

His eyes fixed on mine intently.  “Because it does work, Thomas.  Various governments and private organizations have studied it for a very long time, and while publicly it is always ridiculed as pseudoscience and foolish superstition, the reality is that some people have the innate ability…that means it comes naturally…to somehow see other places.”

“Rachel was one of those people.  She came into the program when she was seventeen, having been identified via a front-facing screening process that was ran as a psychological test that paid subjects well at a time when Rachel was looking to make some money.  Three months after being identified as a good candidate, she was taken, and after the initial adjustment period, she became a largely compliant asset that quickly rose to the top of our talent pool.”

Solomon folded his hands on his knee.  “I know you cared for her, Thomas, so I think this is worth sharing.  Rachel was never treated badly, other than her confinement and the occasional test that was mildly unpleasant.  No, we all treasured her.  She was enormously talented, not just as a remote viewer, but as an artist.  That’s how she would convey what she saw, you understand.  She would enter into an almost trancelike state when she painted, and when she was done, she would have given us a painting of images and words that provided…well, it was very valuable information.”  He chuckled.  “If you ever wondered, that’s why there was always such care that the paintings were never shown to the camera.”

Picking at his pants, he went on.  “Rachel was so talented, that she was selected for a new program that we thought might greatly enhance or alter her ability.  We introduced something…foreign…into her body.  At first, nothing seemed to change.  If anything, the accuracy of her remote viewing was declining, which was a problem for us and for her.”

“But then we realized that we were reading the new paintings wrong.  She was able to see more clearly than ever--she just was no longer bound to only current events.  Now her sight transcended time.”  He paused, and I realized he was enjoying telling the story.  The **** was having a good time, pausing to make it more dramatic.  I would **** **** him.  “While this made some of her paintings less immediately useful, they became much more valuable as we were able to decipher them.  For a time, it looked as though everything was working better than we had ever hoped.”

His lips thinned.  “And then, one day, she showed a painting to the camera.”

“It said, ‘Please help me Thomas’.  This immediately sent up all kinds of red flags.  She knew not to show paintings to the camera, and now she was trying to communicate with someone?  We didn’t disrupt her routine, but an intensive investigation began into who she was talking to.  Was it one of her handlers?  One of the technicians?  Someone from her past life?  But nothing checked out.”

Leaning back in his chair, a look of pride grew on Solomon’s face as he continued.  “I was the one that first suggested the idea that she was, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, seeing and talking to someone in the future.  I was still an outside consultant at the time, but by that point we had more strange behaviors from her, including the second message painting, ‘That girl isn’t me’.  My theory made some sense, but it very quickly ran into a greater obstacle.”

“The introduction of the foreign material had not been as seamless as we had hoped, despite her having been stable for almost three years since it was implanted.  Whether it was due to her increasing emotional upset and stress, or simply the passage of time, she suddenly began to deteriorate.  Her work became more erratic and hard to understand as her body began to decline.  We were monitoring her health closely, but it didn’t matter.  Five days after she painted ‘That girl isn’t me’, she suddenly went into cardiac arrest and died.  Somewhat inexplicably, we were unable to resuscitate her.”

The man sighed.  “This was a great loss.  And it required adjustments of my theory.  Based on everything we knew, it still made sense that she was talking to someone.  Someone with access to the camera feed, and very likely someone named Thomas.  If Thomas was viewing that camera footage in the future, as I believed, then he must be working for us in the future.”  He gave me a thin smile.  “And whether you believe that the future is set in stone or not, I’m all for giving it a helping hand.”

“Seven years ago I began the Thomas Project.  Over the course of that time I have overseen the screening and hiring of forty-three men named Thomas at several different sites, all with one very specific job.  To watch the videos of Rachel from just before her implant to the time of her death.”

I tried to speak, but my mouth still wouldn’t work.  I wanted to say he was lying, that it didn’t make sense, that it *was* another trick…but I think I wanted to hear it more for myself.  Because I didn’t think he was lying.  I didn’t think it was a trick.  And I thought I was starting to understand.

“The point wasn’t really them watching the videos, of course.  It was how they *reacted* to watching the videos.  What they did, and how that matched up with what Rachel had done in response in the past.”

“Thirteen percent quit after the first day.  Thirty-eight percent hit either the red or the green button after the first message asking for help and saying their name.  Twenty-two percent attempted to contact the authorities before reaching the stage where ‘Melanie’ was introduced.”  He shook his head slightly.  “I wish I could take credit for her introduction, but it wasn’t my suggestion.  We assumed from the ‘that girl isn’t me’ message that there was a double of Rachel introduced to you at some point, perhaps to **** you or dissuade you or find out what you knew.  But it took a few tries until we felt it was well-refined, and as I’ve pointed out, only twenty-seven percent made it that far.  And all of them failed the next test.”  He pointed at me.

“Her name.”

“You see, the girl you’ve been watching, that talented, wonderful girl whose body is preserved in the next room?  Her name was Rachel Donovan.  I had always wondered if Rachel was merely seeing you, or if there was some kind of connection between the two of you.  When you called ‘Melanie’ Rachel, I knew that we had finally found the right Thomas--the distant point of light that our Rachel was looking at across space and time.”

I swallowed thickly and found I could feel my tongue, if only a little.  Slurring badly, I pushed out a single word.

“W-why?”

Solomon looked surprised.  “I’d have thought that’d be clear by now.  You’re our only remaining link to one of our greatest treasures.  Perhaps you have a similar ability, or it may be that she forged the link purely though her own talent and will.  But either way, you are important and you have more work to do.”  He stood up and moved over to the table where he turned on the monitor.  As it came to life, I saw it was a frozen image of Rachel’s room--a tape paused where I had left off watching.  Turning back to me, the man looked solemn.

[“You have to watch the rest of it.  Because Rachel painted you more pictures before she died, and we have to know what they mean.”](https://redd.it/9ndww5)

**** 

[Final Part](https://redd.it/bue2kk)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: They told me I was nothing but a dog
 
 Assistant: My father named me Laika because when I was born, my grandfather told him to treat me like a bad dog. To Father, *Laika* was synonymous with *dog*. He used the name to remind me of my place in the hierarchy: lesser. Beneath. Inferior.

Nothing but a dog. 

My father meant to humiliate and degrade me with such a name, but he honored me instead.

You see, Laika was a stray dog from Moscow. On 3 November 1957, the Soviet Union put her on Sputnik 2 and launched her into space. She was the very first animal to orbit Earth.

The Soviets knew how to put a rocket into space, but they didn’t know how to bring it back. This made Laika’s mission a death sentence. Shortly after reaching orbit, the interior of Sputnik 2 became catastrophically hot – far too hot for mammals to tolerate. Mere hours after launch, Laika died an agonizing death. She perished the same way she’d lived: lesser, beneath, inferior. Abandoned. Unloved.

Nothing but a dog.

I spent many hours imagining her terror, pain, and loneliness. How would it feel, spending my last hours hurtling through divine darkness in a metal bucket?

What must it be like to not understand what I was seeing, or why it was suddenly so loud and so hot?

What must it be like to not understand why – after being plucked from cruel streets and dropped into a bustling world of kindness – I was now alone? Perhaps I would think I’d been a bad dog. Perhaps I’d think this was my punishment.

Punishment is my mother tongue. I know what it was like to be punished for transgressions I cannot remember or understand, to be hurt so badly my heart rate triples and my mind flies out the window and soars into the stars, retracing Laika’s doomed flight while my husk squirms and weeps on the floor of a dirty house sixty-eight miles below. 

Even so, I adapted to punishment. As I said, it eventually becomes a language. Given enough time, anyone can learn a language.

What I could not adapt to was fear. 

As a child, I was afraid of everything. You see, in the deepest, most forgotten parts of the world, there are things that most people cannot believe and even fewer would understand. Old ways, old things, old truths. 

And old monsters.

Monsters like my father and my grandfather. 

How can I describe this in a way you will believe? Maybe I can’t. Maybe I shouldn’t try. So instead, I will describe my grandfather.

He was called Paval. By the time I turned nine, he had gone through six bodies. By this, I mean he inhabited them. Using a variant of blood magic perfected by my forebears across many centuries, he leapt from body to body.

He was not a spirit; he had a corporeal body of his own, a twisted, monstrous thing covered in scars and hard, glittering skin, a body that could shrink to the size of a garden snake or expand to the size of a house.

But for all its marvels, this body was weak; sunlight burnt its eyes and blistered its flesh. So it entered other bodies, like a hand inside a puppet, and wore them until they rotted away. I will never forget the sight of him – of many hims – in different bodies as flesh degraded and fell away in wet, discolored strings. Or the way his eyes – hard, round yellow eyes – glinted deep within their stolen sockets.

Grandfather preferred the bodies of men, but sometimes chose women or children. Once, he even wore the body of my mother. I was very young then – perhaps three – and the sight of her familiar form standing before the fire sent me into such transports of joy that I bawled from sheer ecstasy.

Then she turned around, and in her bruised sockets I saw my grandfather’s eyes: flat, glittering yellow. Like rotted gold.

I reared back, screaming.

My father, who had been stroking a pair of old baby shoes, looked at me with contempt so deep it scorched my heart. “Shut up, dog!”

I cringed. This was a mistake; his contempt exploded into disgust. He shot out of his chair and stomped upon me. Dirty, squirmy pain exploded across my abdomen. I hobbled away, whimpering, and hid under the stairs.

I lay there alone for many hours. Eventually my mind left my body and soared into the sky, a reverse dive into a sea of stars. I drifted away, dreaming of diamond-colored constellations and red nebulae. At my side was a curly-tailed dog with a striped face. My namesake. 

Laika.

When I woke, I *felt* her: furry and warm, chest rising and falling under my hand. I opened my eyes. For just an instant I saw her in the shadows. Then she shrank away, sinking into the ground. I tried to grab her, but the floor swallowed her. My fingers closed on cold, hard floorboards. 

I covered my eyes and wept.

Several months later, Grandfather-Within-Mother gave birth to a child. A baby boy with yellow eyes and my father’s curly black hair. Mere minutes after the birth, Father picked up the baby and took him outside. He returned an hour later, empty-handed.

Spurred by horror, I immediately ran out into the night. The cold was brutal, at once invigorating and exhausting. I searched until I found the baby, whimpering weakly beside a snowdrift. He was still covered in birth blood.

I named him Alexander and brought him home.

When I walked in, Father immediately slapped me. I reeled back as stars rocketed across my vision. “Never,” he hissed, contempt dripping from every syllable, “never disobey again. Give him to me now.” He reached for Alexander, but Grandfather stopped him.

I looked up, and swallowed a whimper. Grandfather stared back at me through my mother’s rotting face. The mouth – puffy and discolored, with an oddly detached look – quirked into a smile. “No. Let the dog keep her pup. We have other concerns.” 

They certainly did; they worked together, and they worked constantly. Father kidnapped victims, and Grandfather used them. Whenever Father brought a new victim to the cabin, Grandfather used his hands – long, hideous things marked with scars and covered in strange, glittering flesh – to tear out the victim’s tongue and crush their feet. 

Then he would wait until nightfall – because remember, sunlight burned Grandfather’s eyes and blistered his skin - and carry them to his Chapel.

His Chapel was an ancient stone structure at the base of a wooded hill. Within the chapel were three red windows and six rough-hewn pews. At the end of each pew sat desiccated corpses, facing the altar like sentries.

I hated Grandfather’s chapel; the very air weighed upon me whenever I entered, crushing my heart and poisoning my lungs. The worst part was the fear: electric and paralyzing, inescapable.

Luckily, I was just a dog, and dogs do not spend much time inside chapels. But dogs hear screams. Even screams from far away, echoing down forested mountains long into the night. 

Grandfather did not often leave his Chapel, but when he did it was always in the wee hours of the morning. I know this because my father and I were required to hold vigil until he walked through our door. Whenever Grandfather came back from his Chapel, he looked human again: smooth skin, wide smile, good proportions. Sometimes he looked a bit like Father. Sometimes he looked like his victim.

It was as incomprehensible to me as outer space would have been to Laika. 

The stream of Grandfather’s victims never ended. Vagrants, the elderly, the travelers, orphans fleeing violence. There were so many.

So, so many.

If it weren’t for Alexander, I would have withered into nothing. He was more than a brother to me; for all intents and purposes, he was my son. Neither Father nor Grandfather cared for him. They didn’t even feed or clothe him; I had to feed and dress him with what little I had. 

Despite my best efforts, he never learned to speak. That isn’t to say he couldn’t communicate – he could, with gestures and **** expressions and nonsense syllables – but language eluded him. But it was all right. He grew into a sweet, curious boy with freckles and long, delicate hands. Over time, his terrible yellow eyes mellowed into a clear, bright green. He was my life. He was my heart.

But he wasn’t enough.

One night, as a little girl’s screams came shrieking down the mountain from Grandfather’s Chapel, I finally went to my father.

I lay prostrate at his feet, which is how he taught me to approach him. The wooden floor was rough and painfully cold under my fingers. “Why, Father? Why do you do this?”

He sat in his chair, watching the fire. In his hands he held a pair of white baby shoes. “Because your Grandfather and I must live, little dog.”

“Will I have to do this to live?”

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t want to live.”

“I understand,” he said. His grip tightened on the shoes. “But you don’t have a choice.”

I choked back a sob and waited for the dismissal; I could not come to him without crawling, and I could not leave until he told me so.

Instead, he said, “Stand up, Laika.”

Hearing my name was like being doused in ice water. He never used it; by that point, in fact, I’d almost forgotten I had a name.

“I said, stand up, Laika.”

It was a struggle to obey; fear made my bones rubbery and my muscles weak. 

Father held out the baby shoes. “What do you see?”

“Shoes.” My voice quavered. “Old baby shoes.”

“Those shoes,” Father said, “belonged my sister, Alexandra. I loved her more than anything. More than life. More than my parents. More than your mother. More than you. She was my heart.”

I watched him. The firelight threw his face into relief, creating crevasses out of wrinkles. His curly black hair shifted like smoke, and his long, sharp nose looked strange and monstrous. Paralytic electricity swarmed my skin, so much like the Chapel that I could have wept.

“On my twelfth birthday,” Father said, “your grandfather boiled a **** of oil and called Alexandra to him. She and I were going to pick wildflowers later, so she was dressed in her finest clothes: a blue dress and white shoes. These shoes.” 

Father did not speak for a very long while.

“She was my heart,” he finally repeated. “When my heart broke, I broke. It made me like Grandfather. Someday, I will be just like him. I will live forever. You will, too.” 

That night, I had a nightmare of a little girl with sunken yellow eyes melting into blisters as my mother’s rotted body doused her with boiling oil. 

I woke screaming.

Moonlight streamed through the window, drenching my room in celestial silver. My heart thumped so wildly that I could see my nightshirt moving. It wanted to escape. I wanted it to escape, to, because without it I would die, and when I was dead I could sail the stars with the other Laika.

Small, warm hands touched my face. I turned, expecting Alexander. Instead I saw my nightmare. 

Great inflamed blisters bubbled and burst, sending rivulets of pus down her tiny, raw face. The skin around its mouth had burned away, leaving neat rows of milk teeth fully exposed. Burned scalp and dull bone glinted through black, curly hair. A blue dress clung to her body. Oil dripped from the hem, soaking my blanket.

“Don’t cry,” she whispered.

Alexander stirred between us.

“Get out,” I whispered.

The girl’s blistered chin quivered. “But you made me come here. Please let me sleep.”

“All right,” I whispered, because I did not know what else to say.

The girl burrowed under my blanket. I watched, aghast, as she threw a bony, burnt arm across Alexander and drifted to sleep.  

That night, I did not sail the stars with Laika. Instead I sat awake, watching the apparition with mingled excitement and fear.

Just before dawn, my door creaked open. I tried to shield the girl as my father stepped into the room. 

“What is that?” he asked sharply.

“Please,” I whined. “Please, don’t.”

The girl shifted, and – incredibly – began to shrink. Her body flattened into nothing, leaving her dress crumpled on the floor. That sank away, too, leaving the cold, empty floor in its wake.

“*What was that?*” Father screamed.

“I saw it in my sleep –”

“*Her!*” Father roared. “*Her*, not *it*!”

“I s-saw her in my sleep,” I stammered helplessly. “When I woke, she was here.”

Sweat gleamed on Father’s skin, reminding me of stars. “Get dressed. You must see your grandfather immediately.”

I fell to my hands and knees and crawled to him. 

“No,” he said. “Stand up. Bring the boy.”

Alexander wept angrily when I picked him up. I ignored him and followed Father into the dark forest. The full glory of early spring bathed the landscape: pale beams of light shafted through the canopy, cutting the thick shadows with gold. Vermin crept through the undergrowth, and deer watched from a distance. The forest was always full of animals; Grandfather was no danger to the birds or beasts, after all.

Soon the Chapel came into view: an ancient little church with a black spire, red windows, and frost-encrusted stones. 

Father ushered us inside. The moment I crossed the threshold, my skin began to crawl. Dread and fear swept over me. Alexander burst into tears.

Father shoved me toward the altar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sentry corpses twitching. Chests rose and fell in jagged, senseless rhythms. One especially tall corpse with long copper hair turned as I passed.

I covered Alexander’s eyes and stopped at the altar.

Shadows thickened and writhed against the back wall. Back in the pews, bones clattered and dried joints creaked.

Something blinked in the darkness behind the altar: great, flat eyes like golden moons, shining in the cold shadows. 

Grandfather.

“The dog,” Grandfather intoned, “and her pup.” He snarled: a deep, bone-shaking rumble like that of a tiger. Teeth glinted in the shadows, a shining ivory arc wider than Father’s entire head.

“Paval,” Father said urgently. “She had a nightmare. When she woke, it followed her out of the dream. It came alive. I saw it.”

“Oh,” Grandfather murmured. “*Oh.*”

“Our little dog has talent after all,” said Father.

“All good and well,” said Grandfather, “*if* she loves her pup. Do you love your pup, dog?” He reared up from the shadows, twisted and sinewy and utterly inhuman. “Do you love him? Or do you feel *obligated* to him?”

I opened my mouth to answer. Instead, I burst into tears.

Grandfather laughed, a low roar that shook dust from the rafters overhead. “A weak **** indeed. Our hope is in the boy, Mikhail. It was always in the boy. That is why we made him. Now go.” Those great yellow eyes flicked to the pews. “I do not like to tempt my sentries. Not when they are hungry as they are.”

Fear and disbelief battled across Father’s weathered face. “Do you not understand what I’ve told you? She creates life from thoughts.”

“A poor substitute for what we require. Leave, Mikhail.”

“But – ”

Grandfather rocketed out of the shadows, a rippling mass of glittering skin and malformed limbs, and knocked Father to the stones.

The corpse-sentries uttered a deep sigh and continued to twitch.

“Never,” Grandfather snarled. Sunlight poured through the crimson windows, imbuing him strange hide with a red glow. He looked like the sky. A starry piece of outer space. “Never defy me.” 

I waited breathlessly for Grandfather’s eyes to burst and his skin to sizzle – he was, after all, exposed to daylight – but it did not.

Many moments later, Grandfather struck Father across the face and whipped back into the darkness.

We left. Father did not speak again until the cottage came into sight. Then he grabbed me and dragged me off the path.

“Listen,” he growled. “Listen well. I can protect you from him. And…” He looked down at Alexander, eyes blazing with disgust. “When the time comes, I can protect you from *him*, too.  But only if you help me.”

“Why should I need protection? He’s small, and loves me as a mother.”

“Do you remember the story of Alexandra?” Father asked.

I nodded.

“Your story is coming. Only Alexander will be me, and you will be Alexandra.”

My heart fell to the cold earth. I carefully pressed Alexander’s head into my shoulder, shielding his face from Father. 

“Listen, dog. When next you dream of my sister –” His voice broke; he pulled away and ran his fingers through his hair. Tears shone in his eyes, which were huge and miserable over his quivering mouth. “When she comes again, bring her to me.”

“All right, Father.” I had never seen him weep before; the sight was frightening and curiously thrilling. “I will.”

Father nodded curtly, then left. I nearly followed, but thought better of it. Instead, I stayed in the forest with Alexander.

As the morning brightened and birdsong swelled to a symphony, I set Alexander upon the narrow path. He ran forward, humming a tune of his own composition. Shadow and sunlight dappled his skin, turning him into a woodland sprite. The trees were in full bloom: petals drifted down like snow, carpeting the earth in glistening white.

Alexander pulled ahead. After a while, I couldn’t hear or see him; he’d drifted away, slipping into the deep shadows.

Panic overtook me. “Alexander! *Alexander!*” I rushed ahead, grimacing against the pain in my chest. My heart thumped wildly, so hard I could see my shirt move; it wanted to escape again. “*Alexander!*”

He darted from between the trees. I halted, overcome with relief so powerful it took my breath away. Petals covered his head and shoulders. As I watched, one drifted down and settled on his nose. Wide green eyes glimmered above it, bright as the promise of spring.

For the first time in my life, my heart was so full that I wept.
 
That night, Alexandra came to me again, blistered flesh dripping down her face. Her eyes had melted away, leaving raw, swollen masses of flesh in her melted sockets.

Remembering my instructions, I sat up. “Father,” I quavered. Alexandra reached for me blindly, ruined hands closing on shadows. “Father!”

Father burst into my room, gasping. “Alexandra!” He shot forward, arms extended as if to sweep her up.

She turned.

Father froze.

Alexandra tottered toward him. “Mikhail,” she whined. “Mikhail, my eyes hurt.”

Father collapsed and covered his eyes as Alexandra approached. She left a trail of pus and oil, shining like a tiny river in the moonlight.

“Mikhail, my hands hurt.”

Father wheezed miserably.

“Mikhail, my skin is on fire and drips away.” She stopped before him and crouched. Father whimpered and whined like a beaten dog, twisting away from her hands. 

She set her small hand on his cheek. Father squalled and writhed, but couldn’t break away from her. “Mikhail,” she wept. “You are just like him now.” She **** and began to shrink, to sink, disappearing into the floor. The moment her hand fell away, Father leapt to his feet and ran.

After that, he did not ask to see Alexandra.

This is good, because I did not see her in my dreams after that. I only saw Laika. I spent most nights drifting among the stars with that dear, doomed dog at my side. Imagined or not, the sights were glorious: incomprehensibly beautiful star formations, planets, great multicolored expanses of celestial mists.


Sometimes I woke, bleary and incoherent, and felt her fur against my skin. But by the time I opened my eyes, there was nothing.

One winter morning, I woke very early. My stomach growled immediately, and no wonder; Father hadn’t fed me for days. I’d fed Alexander with table scraps and tree bark. 

That, I decided, would change today.

I crept into the kitchen. There wasn’t much; there never was. But I scraped together what little I could, and turned around.

My grandfather sat at the table, great golden eyes shimmering in his terrible face. “Little ****. What have you done to your father? He no longer hunts. He no longer eats. He no longer obeys.” 

I felt like I was back in his chapel: crushed by darkness, heavy with dread, on the verge of panic.

“Your ability,” said Grandfather, “has not been seen on this earth for a thousand years or more.”

Of course the ability wasn’t of earth; I’d no doubt come across it while sailing through space and breathing stardust. “It’s just nightmares.”

“No. You take the dark things of the world – the fear, the hate, the pain - and channel them into physical form. And that is just the beginning. You will be able to do anything. You will make bodies. Permanent, perfect bodies for me…and for you.”

The relish in his voice made me sick.

He said, “Our women have always been weak and talentless. I thought the same of you, little ****.”

Tears pricked my eyes and my bones thrummed as if struggling to break through flesh and run away. But it was no use; destiny had already bloomed between my grandfather and I, heavy and foul with the promise of despair. 

Grandfather whispered, “Listen closely, for you will only hear this once: *I was wrong.*”

He left. I ran to the window and watched him hurtle through the trees as sunrise threatened. Back to his Chapel. 

I waited until the sun was up. Then I ran to my room, bundled Alexander in every bit of clothing I could find, and left.

We followed the path for many miles. Our home was hours and hours from the nearest town; we wouldn’t reach it until long past nightfall. I could only hope that Grandfather wouldn’t notice our absence until the following day. It wasn’t an unlikely hope; Grandfather spent most of his time in the Chapel.

The second this thought crossed my mind, a glittering dark shape leapt out of the trees and knocked Alexander from my arms.

I caught a blur of twisted limbs and nightmarish hands, of great yellow eyes like flattened moons. Alexander screamed as a torrent of blood splattered across the snow. It sank quickly, melting red canyons through the pristine white.

Grandfather at me, narrow sides heaving. Then he leaned down and tore out Alexander’s throat.

I screamed. Birds took flight and mammals ran through the undergrowth. The piercing note echoed off the mountains. The pain within it should have ended the world, but there was no one to hear and no one to care.

Grandfather grinned. Alexander’s blood and sinews clung to his teeth.

I broke. 

I felt it; the crushing weight of sorrow, the almost physical sensation of my spirit tearing and bleeding out into my guts.

I fell to my knees and cradled Alexander’s head for hours.

My father finally found us around nightfall. He had a heel of bread and an oily chicken leg. He pressed them both into my hands, then left. 

I tore the bread into pieces and dropped them, one by one, into Alexander’s mouth. When he did not wake, I burst into tears and hurled the chicken leg into the woods.

The moon rose into the cruel, dark sky. Stars glimmered through the bare branches over head, creating a breathtaking fractal pattern.

I flopped down beside Alexander, pulling him to my body. He was cold. Terribly cold. I held him anyway, keeping my eyes trained on the stars. My mind detached with great difficulty, like it was trapped in tar.

Finally, it wrenched itself free and sailed upward, disappearing into a silvery sea of sky and stars, rocketing ever higher until I saw the Earth spinning below.

Laika’s rocket zoomed past. I reached out and caught one of the metal bars near the nose. I could sense Laika within: her terror vibrated through the craft and leached into my bloodstream.

“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right, Laika. I’m here. When you land, I will help you out and we will play together.”

Her fear diminished, and so did her pain. So did mine. Together we sailed the stars, looking upon the Earth and marveling at the incomprehensible beauty around us.

I woke cold, sore, and in more pain than I can describe.

I sat up. Alexander’s stiff body broke away from mine. I reached for him blindly. A thin scrim of ice covered his eyes. The wound in his throat was an open horror, one I couldn’t look at for long.

I drew my knees to my chin and wept. 

After a while, something warm bumped my hand. A wet nose touched my palm. I knew what I would see long before I opened my eyes.

Laika’s striped face and dear curly tail made me smile, even through my tears. Stars glimmered through her fur, gently pulsing pinpricks of light.

 “What is this?” Grandfather’s voice echoed through the trees.

Rage flowed through my blood, exquisitely corrosive. Hate, I learned then, is pleasurable; it is fury and it is the basis of power. 

Grandfather erupted from the darkness, scaled skin shimmering like a river under the moon. “You waste your talent,” he sneered, “on a mutt. Not even your own pup! No matter. I will correct you.”

Laika reared up and leapt, snout piercing one of Grandfather’s flat moon eyes. He screamed and shook his head back and forth. Laika fell to the snow, twisting, and quickly righted herself. Then she bit his foot. Her teeth sank through that impenetrable, immortal hide like butter. 

Laika was not large enough or strong enough to **** him, but she tore holes in him the way a match scorches holes in paper. Soon Grandfather was on his knees, mere feet from Alexander’s corpse.

Laika came to me, panting, and collapsed in my lap. She bled from a thousand wounds: some small, some undoubtedly mortal.

“Good dog.” My voice broke. I stroked her gently, willing those wounds to close. I was a monster. I’d used Laika just like the others had; calling her down on false pretenses, filling her with hope, before throwing her into the void. “Good girl. Good, good girl.”

I looked up as Grandfather’s good eye slid to my dead brother. Something dark bloomed there: a wicked, corrupted hope. He curled in on himself, twisted body shrinking to a withered husk, and slid down Alexander’s throat. 

I screamed as Alexander’s body twitched and juddered. Then he sat up, bones creaking and frozen sinews cracking.

He smiled. His eyes shone like molten gold in a forge. 

Laika attacked again. Alexander’s face curled into a snarl as she bit and tore his skin, exhibiting an energy at odds with her awful wounds.

I watched, helpless and hopeless and hurting, wishing I could detach and fly into the stars once more. Except there would be nothing there for me now; I’d called Laika down from the stars and doomed her.

The snow crunched behind me. I whirled around. Father stood there, watching me with contempt. In his hands was a sleek, gleaming shotgun.

Relief and horror engulfed me. This was the end. My mind would detach, forever this time. The fear would finally end.

Laika bit down on Grandfather-within-Alexander, who hit her. She whined, but held fast.

Father stalked past me and cocked the gun.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t hurt her! *Don’t hurt her!*”

Father pointed the gun at Alexander’s head and fired. Blood and viscera and dark, glittering flesh exploded across the snow.

Father fired again, then reloaded, and fired again and again. Alexander’s head evaporated into red mist. Finally his body lurched, and Grandfather – small, bleeding, scaled Grandfather – slithered out of his throat.

Laika caught and held him. Father pressed the barrel of the gun against his good eye and pulled the trigger as the sun broke over the mountains.

Father stepped back. I reached for him, **** on hope and gratitude, but he recoiled from me. In his weathered face, I saw despair and rage…

And contempt.

He kept his eyes trained on mine as he placed the gun in his mouth.

“No!” I screamed.

He pulled the trigger. Half his head evaporated, leaving a glistening mass like a fleshy geode. His body stumbled forward a step, then crumpled to the snow. 

It took a very long time for the sun to burn Grandfather down to dirty oil.  Laika held on until the last scrap of skin melted. Then she stumbled to me and collapsed. 

I stroked her until her body shrank and sank into the ground, leaving nothing but a scattering of tiny, dim orbs: the stars I’d seen in her fur. I touched one. It was pleasantly hot. I gathered them up and slipped them into my pocket. I went to Alexander’s body – ravaged beyond description, broken in ways that did not see entirely real – and sat with him until nightfall. Then I stood and walked away.

And life went on.

At first, I brought them back from my nightmares  – Alexander, Father, Grandfather, even Alexandra – but I quickly taught myself to starve and eventually **** my ability. It is not a good power; it is born of rage, despair, selfishness, and fear. 

And I cannot tolerate fear.

Besides, dogs do not have such awful powers. It is good to be a dog, because they are not necromancers. They are not monsters. They are nothing more or less than the simplest and most loving of creatures.

That is why I will always be Laika the dog.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: A Conversation with a Stranger on the Bus
 
 Assistant: “Huh?” I asked, pulling off one side of my headphones.

*“I said I like your boots,”* the man repeated.

“Oh, thank you.”

*“I had a bunch of pairs exactly like ‘em for years and years—a good workin boot, ya know?”*

“They definitely are, I use them every day on the job.”

*“Where’s that at?”*

“Turner Construction.”

*“Ah, yes, yes. You’re building that big ole’ thing up on East Avenue, ain’t ya?”*

“Yes, sir. It’s going to be one of the biggest in the city.”

*“So it seems. I used to do construction too, ya know? That was way back in the day. I started back when your mama was probably a toddler.”*

“Oh, yeah? With a company, or freelance, or…?”

*“My papa had a small construction and carpentry business. He hired me on when I was, oh, maybe 15 or so. That was all the way back in 1962! We built houses, mostly, a couple small apartment complexes—nothin as big as what you’re working on.”*

“Did you like it?”

*“Boy, you bet your **** I did. Workin all day was a free gym membership! Ha! Plus, all the perks that came with it.”*

“Perks?”

He smiled. *“Can ya keep a secret, boy?”*

“Yes, sir.”

*“You ever play in a construction site as a child? When I was a lil’ one, me and my buddies would sneak into houses being built and explore ‘em. Maybe break a couple bottles here and there.”*

“Yeah! My neighbors and I used to do that when I was a kid. My house was one of the first built in our neighborhood, then the rest came later. We probably explored every house on the block before they were finished—when they were just wood skeletons—maybe breaking a couple bottles too, to tell you the truth.”

*“Of course ya did. Who wouldn’t, given the opportunity? But that’s all the childish stuff. The real perks came later in life, when I was an adult.”*

“Oh?”

*“Oh yes, boy. Imagine this. The year is 1980 with no cell phones in sight. You talk up a pretty lady at the local bar and hit it off. You tell her about your new construction project, and she wants to go see it.”*

“Uh huh.”

*“Well then ya take her there! You and her all alone in a skeleton of a home, as you said.”*

“Wouldn’**** be a little more private back at your own house?”

*“More private, sure, maybe. But much messier.”*

I paused. “How so?”

*“Well, you don’t just take a girly down to a construction site at night just to get your diddly fiddled with. You take her for... ya know.”*

“No, I don’t know.”

*“For the easy disposal, boy.”*

“Disposal…?”

*“Ya cut the girly up, or do whatever your preference is. Ya do whatever ya wanna do with her, and ya put her under the house. Ya bury her and your stained clothes under there too. Once the job’s done, no one’ll ever see that stuff again. It’s gone. Eventually, a brand new house is sitting on top of your deed.”*

The bus rolled to a stop.

*“Well, this is my stop.”* He stood, patted my shoulder, and I recoiled. He walked off the bus.

The only thing running through my mind was a memory. I was a kid, no older than six. My friends and I were playing hide and seek. I hid in the crawl space under my front porch, and when I was hiding, I found a pair of boots half-buried in the dirt.

The exact same type of boots I was wearing then, on the bus. The exact same type of boots we’d found in the crawl spaces of every house in our neighborhood.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. Some people are too good for this world.
 
 Assistant: Last time: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ckw07c/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

I sat silent for a moment in shock that my plan had even worked. It seemed almost too simple, too easy. But here he was.

Derek had a kindly face, wrinkles around his eyes and cheeks only added to the softness of his expression. His white hair poking out from beneath his flat cap stood out in the dark night.

“That’s a lovely little patch you’ve planted. I can look after it if you like, I used to maintain the last garden here.” He said, breaking the silence that had followed since his initial words. 

“I know who you are. We need you.” Was all I could manage, the mental exhaustion and fatigue from the whole experience had built up, but his arrival was like finishing a bad day working at school. I felt like I could relax again, even if only a little. 

“Whats your name darling?” He asked.

“It’s Kat. I live in flat 42 now.” His face lit up as I confirmed my flat number. 

“Prudence has gone?” He asked.

“She’s gone. But the whole place is a mess, so many things are happening and the residents are suffering.” I answered. 

We chatted for what felt like hours. Outside with nothing but moonlight. He told me how he used to consider the building part of the garden, a place for him to maintain, the residents just like the plants he looks after. 

I explained my whole experience since moving in. I told him about Jamie and I sobbed. Derek held me as I cried and made me feel safe, something I had forgotten the feeling of since receiving Prue’s note. He didn’t interrupt, he just listened.

I told him about Natalia and the cultists, the problems they had been causing. He was particularly heartbroken when he heard that they had used Eddie and Ellie for entry. He had gone before they were born, but remembered Terri as a child and how sweet she was, he was pleased when I told her what a sweet adult she had become. 

My claims that Prudence was the only person who knew **** the imposter neighbours were met with a skeptical expression which gave me some hope.

Derek listened to my entire tale with barely a word. When I finished he stood up and asked me to follow him. I was confused, but I did as I was told. 

He walked me to the entrance of the lift. I lifted my arm to check the time on my watch. We had been outside for quite some time and the idea of the creatures being inside made my heart pound and my stomach turn. 

“You are safe. It’s 12.32am, there’s no need to worry or to check your watch.” And with that he pressed the “call lift” button. Despite his insistence that I was safe my stomach continued to do gymnastics.

It felt like forever before the lift finally made the clunking sound that meant it had reached the bottom. I felt my whole body shaking violently as the doors opened, I don’t know what I expected to see, we were in the safe time zone but every time I looked at the life I pictured Jamie’s dead, crunched up body. 

“Step inside.” He said.

“I can’t. Please don’t make me.” I begged

“I won’t let anything happen to you. But you need to see something.” There was such sincerity in his eyes as he spoke. I had never trusted someone so completely so quickly, but every fibre of my being told me this man was entirely good. 

I stepped inside the lift.

Derek stepped in behind me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder as I hyperventilated. He gently turned me to face the panel of buttons that control where the lift stops.

“What is wrong with this panel? Do you see it?” He asked cryptically. 

I studied the panel. Read all the numbers, counting them. I couldn’t see anything wrong. I tried. I really tried, but nothing seemed out of place at all. Everything you expected to find was there and nothing more. I shook my head, barely regaining my composure.

“Can you take us to floor 9 please?” He smiled slightly as he made the request. 

I looked back to the panel to press the button, but floor 9 didn’t exist. I was so confused, I had counted the numbers, I was sure of it. Derek must have made it disappear. But the panel didn’t look any different to before. I can’t explain it, looking at it, I would have sworn blind nothing was wrong with it even once I knew, but floor 9 didn’t exist. Derek could see my frustration. It was like the building was now playing tricks on me. 

He walked me out of the lift and sat me down on the bottom of the stairs before he finally began to speak.

“The building is like a living organism. It can seal off parts of the world, and it can open up others you never could have imagined. When those awful people burned that whole floor of residents I was devastated.

“Some wonderful people lived in those flats, both of the usual and unusual variety. But those people had no limit to their cruelty. Whole families burned alive, it was a tragedy that made me so angry. 

“I felt so guilty when it happened. I can predict what some of our more tricky residents are going to do and make sure I’m there to help. But those people were nothing to do with this place. I couldn’t see what they were planning, so I couldn’t stop it.”

At this point I noticed one of the hairless cats had sat between us, Derek looked at it with tears brimming in his eyes, he stroked it and it moved on to his lap. Dereks fingers didn’t burn at all. He continued.

“When it happened the building used its defence mechanisms and sealed off the entirety of the floor. It stopped the fire from spreading and kept the perpetrators there, to die by their own hands.

“The building only allowed the floor to be unsealed once they were dead. 

“It took about a week before those awful people turned up again. Asking for sugar at people’s doors, the first few let them in. It was so difficult, so many residents burned alive that I was having to use their remains for my garden just to hide the dead. The entire community were terrified and grieving for those that died. 

“No matter how hard I tried I still couldn’t predict them, or see them, so I took Prudence, who at the time seemed a perfectly reasonable woman, to the burned out floor.

“Floor 9, however, had been sealed again. There was no button in the lift, and it always skipped on the stairs. Only no one had noticed. This building really is a magnificent creature.”

I stared at him in amazement through the whole story, I was exhausted but my brain was working in overdrive to process what he was telling me. I had started to **** the cat too, my fingers did burn, but I didn’t flinch, I found it’s company comforting. He carried on. 

“I went back later that night and took the stairs again, alone this time. I think my intentions were clear and the stairs allowed me access to floor 9 for the first time since just after the fire. 

“I bought Prudence to the floor within the hour. The stairs had stopped skipping floor 9 for me, although I later learned that when Prudence had tried alone she was not allowed access.

“We explored the floor, walking amongst the remnants of our dead friends belongings. Eventually, we came across one of the soulless arsonists, roaming the halls. It appears that’s where they spend their time when they aren’t out terrorising the residents trying to claim more victims. 

“He was disturbed and disoriented to see anyone not like them on that floor. He twitched a little and spat out the sugar line as if it was an automatic response, I almost felt sorry for him. He claimed to come from flat 66. More were approaching behind him. 

“Prudence was terrified, she was starting to sweat profusely and back away from the man, but it didn’t cool her down, he was burning her slowly. I felt nothing; See, the stranger things in life just don’t seem to affect me, I’ve never known why. Sometimes I even just know how to deal with them, like it’s programmed into me. On this new playing field, in their domain. I knew what to do. 

“I grabbed the man and ran him down to flat 66, 4 doors from where we were standing. I threw him into the flat and waited. The other arsonists were approaching.

“The man tried to exit the flat, that was doorless after the wooden doors all burned to cinders in the fire. But as he reached to door something stopped him. He couldn’t leave, no matter how hard he tried, or how much he screamed. 

“Prudence lit up, she grabbed hold of one that had tried to **** her friend, Molly. She remembered the flat number she had claimed to be from and repeated my actions, with a lot more sweating and some winces of pain. It worked again. 

“Prudence wanted to go after the rest, but as they got closer I could see the blisters forming on parts of her body, I dragged her out of the hallway and back into the stairwell. We ran. 

“She begged me to take her back, kept telling me that the stairs wouldn’t let her, that it was too dangerous. The residents had started to learn not to let them in and we had no casualties at all after we trapped the first two. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a problem I was intending to deal with, but it was around that time that we first learned the council would be building that monstrosity over the top of my garden.” He gestured to the window that just showed some of the neighbouring tower block.

“This left me not at my best, my intuition was failing me when a few months after that, I allowed Prudence and Molly to heard the creatures from the lift to floor 9. It’s one of my biggest regrets. I should never have walked them up there. But I didn’t know she was going to burn them all. She didn’t give me a chance to reason. 

“I became mistrusting of everyone and distracted. Not long after I went away for a long while. So I guess the arsonists remained and now they’re threatening you.

“Tomorrow I will go. I will fix the mess I left behind. I am so sorry it’s affected you so badly, I’d love to meet these twins. They sound incredibly brave.”

“They are.” I finally interrupted, “And I want to be there tomorrow. I want to lock Natalia away for good.”

“I can’t allow it. You’ll be attacked.” He cut me off entirely. I let it drop instantly but in the back of my mind I knew I would be there, no matter what. 

I went to sleep that night with my mind reeling. I wondered where Derek slept and if he even needed to. 

The next morning I left my flat early, passed the man on floor 5, and sat at waited on the steps at floor 8. I tested it of course, and just like anticipated, ascending any higher took me straight to floor 10. Or 11 depending on if you hit a skip. So I returned to floor 8, and I waited.

Derek hadn’t indicated what time he was coming. But I was ready. I would wait all day and night if I had to. But luckily I didn’t.

Derek was climbing the stairs at around 11am, I had already been there for 3 hours but it had been worth it. He looked particularly unimpressed to see me. His face still looked kind though, even with the sour expression. 

“I can’t stop you can I?” He sighed, sounding resigned in his tone. 

“Not for anything.”

“You have to promise to stay back. If you get your girl approaches you can do what you need to do, but you have to stay back.” He pleaded.

I nodded and stood up. We ascended the stairs and for the very first time in my new life here I saw the big plastic sign saying 9. The floor that didn’t exist. 

As we pushed through the door it was like entering an entirely new world. Everything was black. Burned to carbon. You could smell nothing but charcoal. Literally nothing but empty shells of homes and flakes of what used to be sentimental objects remained. It was devastating to witness. 

If you’ve ever visited a mass grave site you’ll understand partly how I was feeling. It was sickening, to think of all the lives needlessly lost. But I didn’t get time to think.

Natalia walked towards me. Flying down the hallway. 

“How the **** did you get here?!” She screamed. Her eyes were wide and angry, I started to feel hotter already. 

Derek grabbed my arm and pulled me next to him. Making sure to keep a tight hold of my arm. 

“Where do you live?” Derek asked her, I started to back away as the sweat dropped from my brow. I desperately wanted to shout out the number, but I couldn’t. I was so hot, I wasn’t functioning properly, everything became so overwhelming I couldn’t remember what Georgia had said, what flat Natalia had claimed to come from.

“I’m not that ****. I saw what happened to them.” She gestured over her shoulder to what must have been flat number 66, where a man laid on the floor, breathing but looking broken. Just existing in that room. Prudence had been creative with the truth yet again. She didn’t **** them, you can’t **** them. 

What had Georgia said? I racked my brains as I felt the skin on my face start to sting. I imagined her melting away, it was happening to me. I was next. 

And then, as my hair started to singe at the ends, it came to me. 

“71!” I screamed as loud as I could. I could barely see as Derek grabbed her and ran towards me with her. She was clawing at his eyes and face screaming at him to let go. But he didn’t burn. He just kept hold of her. When he approached flat 71 he beckoned me over. 

“You do it. Then get off of this floor.” He was blunt but reasonable, I complied. 

I pushed hard. There was nothing but anger in her eyes, she pushed my face hard with her hand as I got her to cross the boundary into flat 71. I felt my skin sizzle and blister. My whole face was in agony, but I didn’t stop pushing.

Watching Natalia try to fight her way out of a door that didn’t exist was both satisfying and humorous. The others had started to approach at the sound of the commotion. I lingered, hoping to watch her suffer but derek shot me one look and I knew. It was time to go, 

I ran out the corridor and back into the stairwell. I stopped for longer than I probably should have. But I knew I might not get to see that 9 again and it would be worth it. I waited for Derek on floor 9s stairwell. I couldn’t help but imagine the cultists burning to death the first time around. 

I could hear angry screams faintly from inside the corridor, they made me worry about Derek but I knew that really I didn’t need to. It took a while, but he eventually left the corridor and joined me in the stairwell. 

He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me and the third degree burns across my face. He didn’t need to speak, I knew he’d fixed the problem. 

We walked silently back down the stairs towards my flat. I looked back up at floor 9, knowing the building would seal it off for good. It took a few floors to reach floor 7 and I invited Derek in for a cup of tea. He rejected it, saying he wanted to go visit some old friends.

Despite my injuries I couldn’t help but smile, something I’d done was going to help these residents. I stood at my door and watched Derek walk away, pleased that there was some true good in this building. 

After a few steps down the hallway, Derek started to fade, almost like a cgi ghost in a movie, every step he became more transparent. I felt my stomach turn again, like it had outside the lift. I ran out to follow him. I called after him but by the time I had reached where he’d been he was gone. I walked the entire corridor to the window at the back. I looked out the window into the small concrete heavy garden and hoped to see him sat on the memorial bench.

I didn’t see him, instead I saw Prudence. Hacking at my tiny planted patch with shears.

How it ends: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cmykhy/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Buying a weighted blanket from Amazon was the worst decision I’ve ever made.
 
 Assistant: You’ve heard of them. They started as a tool to help calm autistic people and people with anxiety and insomnia. Over the past few years they’ve grown into a popular household item, and with good reason. They’re comforting. 

We’d pay just about anything for some comfort. Do you ever notice how that’s most of what we spend our money on now, us single guys? Why do we constantly crave to be comforted?

My life wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. Not then. I had finally gotten back track with reality after the disappearance of my wife and kids two years ago. I’d sold our little house in the suburbs, gotten a cheap apartment close to my job, attended all the therapy appointments the police and caseworkers recommended, and gone back to work. I still couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two a night, even with the medications they gave me, but that was okay. The worst of it was over. Shock and grief can only last so long. 

I got one anyway; ordered the thing off Amazon. In queen size, like all my bedding, even though my queen no longer slept in it. 

It arrived ridiculously late. I’m a Prime member, and I selected the free two day shipping. But it at least had gotten there, so I didn’t send a complaint, despite the state it was in after its long journey - not in the familiar smiley cardboard box, but in a shapeless lump haphazardly placed halfway on my front doorstep, halfway in the parking lot. It had been clumsily wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string, and possibly kicked the whole way here, from the look of it. 

“It’s like a quaint, rustic thing,” I announced (to nobody in particular) as I dragged it into my apartment. “A present from grandma, back home, uh, on the ranch!” 

But even talking to myself couldn’t convince me. It looked like a bomb, delivered straight off the set of an action movie. The package was beaten up, stained, and the rough jute string was frayed and nearly falling apart. It looked singed in several places, too. It took me two hours, three gin and tonics, and a hearty microwave dinner to work up enough courage (or suicidal depression) to actually open the thing. 

The blanket was bundled into a poorly-folded cube, held together by another length of the same string that had bound the paper. I wasn’t impressed with its packaging, but the blanket itself looked alright - plush, quilted blue microfiber with thick seams - and felt like it was the right weight. It smelled normal; you know that clean but vaguely chemical-ish odor new blankets have. 

I checked the tag, wondering if I ought to clean it, but the ink was smeared and blurry. It seemed risky to throw it in the washing machine without knowing the correct settings to use, so I just threw it over my duvet and went about my business. 

At around midnight I decided to give it a try. I had nothing left to lose; I’d spent hundreds of dollars on my bed over the past few months; the newest and best quality memory-foam adjustable cooling mattress, thousand count Egyptian cotton sheets, customizable-filling pillows, and none of it had brought me a single good night’s sleep. Honestly I expected the same to happen that night, but it was fun to pretend. 

I slid between the cool sheets and pulled the blankets up over me. The new blanket was a bit lumpy, but I knew from reading reviews that this was normal due to shipping, and would smooth out over time. The weight was immediately noticeable, and to my surprise, I felt...comforted. 

When I closed my eyes, I imagined my youngest two had crawled into bed with us, and were laying on top of me, suppressing giggles as they tried not to wake me up. An artfully folded section of the blanket at my back became the familiar bulk of my wife beside me, and when I opened my eyes again it was ten in the morning and I was late for work. 

I’ve never been so thrilled to receive a write-up. 

That weird chemical smell didn’t really fade, though, and gradually it became more noticeable. By the end of the week I could smell (or imagined I could) the strange, neutral odor on my skin, even after a shower. By the end of the month, it had become unbearable. 

I took it to a dry cleaners, thinking that I’d been lazy because I was so enamored over my renewed relationship with sleep. I was ready for the elderly Korean woman behind the counter to judge me over the stink. I had my excuses rehearsed; work was crazy, I’d had it in my car and forgotten, and I’d had Indian food for lunch and forgotten the leftovers in my car over the weekend, which had amplified the smell. 

But I didn’t have a chance to recite this story. She only waved a handheld metal detector over my blanket and said, “Filling wrong. Can’t clean. Try spray with Fabreeze! You can get on Amazon!”

I couldn’t imagine what about the filling could be wrong, and I told her so. Sure it was still a bit clumpy from shipping, but Amazon had listed the filler as polypropylene, and all the reviews recommended dry-cleaning. 

“Metal,” she explained, then shooed me out the door with twenty pounds of smelly quilt in my arms. 

Another month of beautiful, comfortable sleep went by before I couldn’t live with the smell anymore. People had begun to comment on it at work. Megan, my manager, had tactfully suggested I check my laundry machine to see if maybe a rat had gotten in there and died or something. That was my last straw. 

I came home determined to get rid of the blanket and buy a new one. But you know what happens when you lose your entire world, with no answers? You start to cling to things. You hoard them. Because you can’t lose the comfort they bring you. 

I tried six dry cleaners before I found one who spoke enough English (through a heavy Boston accent; but you can’t have everything) to explain it to me. 

“Sometimes they fill these with glass beads,” he said. “The factories that make the beads, they‘ll lose a **** or some metal filings in the batch, and it all goes into the blanket. Machines in factories, you get me? Yeah, so what you can do is cut the seam a little and dump the balls into a bucket or the bathtub or something. Throw the blanket in the wash, hang it up to dry. Then you just pour ‘em back in and sew it up.”

I told him I didn’t know how to sew. 

“You can get a funnel off Amazon for a few bucks,” he said, and shrugged at me in a particularly apathetic sort of way before turning back to a pile of stained ****. 

I did exactly that. They took a week to ship it, which was annoying, but it was a bank holiday that Monday so the delay made sense. 

Armed with my funnel and a bucket, I pulled the edge of the blanket over the bed and cut a tiny hole into the seam near the corner. I expected the beads to come pouring out in a clattery flood as soon as I dropped the corner into the bucket. Instead there was a single, loud thump as a lump of something metallic hit the plastic. 

I peered into it and saw a gold circle. A wedding ring with a fingerprint carved into it, and an inscription on the inside that I couldn’t see because a chunk of meat and bone were still inside it, but I knew what it said. It said “to love’s eternal glory”. It was my fingerprint on the band. 

My mind went blank and I lost control of my legs, forcing me to sit heavily on the edge of my bed. The motion tugged the blanket over another few inches, and more of the filling came out. This wasn’t a flood, it was more of a...heave, like the blanket was vomiting up pieces of crumbling, dry flesh and bone. Like a cyst being squeezed, thick clumps of horribly recognizable stuff squirted out into the bucket. My oldest son’s teeth clattered loudly against the sides, and I saw flashes of silvery fillings from the cavities caused by gum disease he’d inherited from his mom. 

There was a scrap of almost-bleached-white Hello Kitty band-aid wrapped around a tiny knuckle joint, and I remembered how my daughter had scraped her finger knocking loudly on her brother’s splintered bedroom door, and how she’d smiled through her tears when she saw the special, fun band-aid her daddy had put over the scratch. 

I’d been sleeping for two months beneath the heavy weight of a thousand mummified pieces of my wife and children’s bodies. 

The cops couldn’t trace the package, even though they tried. The security cameras in my apartment complex showed an unmarked brown van with no license plate, which dumped the package directly from the window onto my front step. There was nothing to track. 

Amazon’s lawyers provided evidence proving they’d packed and shipped the correct (boxed and labeled) blanket. Let me be fair to them; I must say that they offered me a prompt refund. 

In store credit. 

But I won’t be buying anything off Amazon ever again. I’ve gotten rid of my Echo; that was the first thing I threw out, along with all my new bedding, and I canceled my Prime membership. Just for good measure, I threw out my smartphone and smartwatch as well. Amazon and smart technology are convenient and that’s great, but it’s not worth the risk if things like this can happen. 

It’s the only possible explanation, after all - how else could they have found the bodies?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 10)(Final)
 
 Assistant: Well then… here we are.

I have to be honest; when I posted the first of these logs from my bedroom in North London, I didn’t think it would go very far. After all, why would it? I wasn’t a regular contributor to this site, nor a seasoned veteran of the paranormal. I was just a man who missed his friend, seeking a few words of wisdom from an online message board, open to the idea that it wouldn’t lead anywhere.
 
Suffice to say I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Over the past two months, the incredible advice I’ve received from this forum, and the amazing leads you’ve sent my way, have opened up entire worlds of possibility. It’s thanks to all of you that I’m where I am now; sitting in a rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona, posting the last of Alice’s records.
 
I realise I’ve written more than usual for my part. Apologies for this. If you want to skip straight to Alice’s section, that’s fine.
 
Otherwise, please consider this the prologue to the epilogue.
 
It’s very, very early in the morning over here, with only the gravest of the graveyard shift out on the streets. By all rights I should be in bed, and not wasting petrol on an aimless drive through the city. The ritual helps me think however, and I’d recently been given a lot to think about, courtesy of a young woman at a local bar.
 
She was a forum member, who’d contacted me over Direct Message. When we met up earlier in the night, it was clear she’d done a great deal of research; charting every mirror shop in Phoenix in an attempt to reconstruct the route Alice took on February 7th 2017.
 
We spoke for quite a while; about the game, about Alice, and about life in general. Once closing time rolled around, she handed me a printout of the most likely route, with all the key locations circled. Then, in the final minutes before we parted ways, she nervously asked me two questions. The first put me in a rather sour mood.  The second provided the fuel for my 3am drive.
 
Question One; Are you sure she wants you to find her?
 
I’ve been hearing the same query from a few of you recently, especially since Part 9 was posted. People commenting that Alice made a clear choice when she left Rob behind in the silent city. That I was searching for someone who wasn’t seeking return.
 
I’d like to take a moment to respond to this, as I responded to it earlier tonight. To be clear, the Alice I know wouldn't do that. She was planning to come back, she’d told us as much. I’m not going to waste your time with my theories, but we’ve seen what the road can do to people's minds, how it can carry them away against their better judgement. I understand why it's being asked but if those sorts of questions are all you have to offer, I’d kindly ask you find another way to help.
 
Question Two was less clear cut; what are you going to do now?
 
It’s something you guys have also been asking me, but that was the first time I’d heard the question out loud. In the awkward silence that followed it became obvious to her, and in some ways to me, that I didn’t yet have an answer.
 
I decided to take a drive while I figured it out… I’ve been in my car for the rest of the night,
 
After an hour of aimless meandering, I realised I was close to one of the marked locations; the alleyway where Alice first entered the underpass, the point at which she first disappeared into the road. Turning into the side street, just after a large intersection, I was briefly relieved to see no sign of the tunnel. The part of me that still hoped this game was a fiction swelled at the sudden lack of evidence. My reaction was short lived of course, as I quickly realised that the tunnel wouldn't have shown itself to me anyway. Even if the game were real, I’d hardly been sticking to the rules on my way here.
 
There was no denying that the place resembled Alice’s descriptions however, and with a long time to go until I’d feel remotely tired, I decided to work my way back along the route, retracing Alice’s steps towards Rob Guthard’s street.
 
OK so I have to admit at this point, I suffered from a momentary lapse in intelligence. In a fog of distraction, residual jetlag and general dullardry, I drove for longer than I’d care to admit under the misconception that I *wasn’t* playing the game. I thought this because I was heading in the opposite direction, and had started my run with a right hand turn, when the rules explicitly state that you begin by turning left. Of course, as I’m sure all of you would have realised immediately, that didn’t mean I was out of the game, it just meant I started playing with my first left turn, one road later.
 
Alice was always the smart one.
 
What I’m trying to say is that, due to this fairly mindless oversight, I wasn’t exactly looking out for the Woman in Grey as I drove past what should have been her corner. There wasn’t a mirror shop this time of course, that’s only the 34th turn when you’re coming the other way, in fact I’m not sure which of the many passing streets it was. It is strange though, as I think back through my journey, I feel like I would have noticed her. The streets were practically deserted, so much so that any pedestrians stood out immediately. I know I should’ve been looking more closely but, if you asked my honest opinion… I don't think she was there at all.
 
The moment I realised this, I felt it again; the faint perverse, hope that I’d been misled, that the entire story was nothing more than a twisted, elaborate fabrication.
 
It wasn’t long until I passed an old mirror shop and, 34 turns later, arrived on what must have been Alice’s starting street. It was an inner-city neighbourhood whose residents were all fast asleep. From the moment I realised that the game was in play, I’d been thinking less and less about this particular road, and more about the one directly after it, resting just beyond the crossroads. I’d come halfway across the world on the strength of Alice’s account, but I’d seen no first hand proof of the Left/Right Game. If the whole thing was a hoax, then the next road should just be another street. If it was real, then I’d know soon enough.
 
I crawled up to the junction with my heart in my throat. With every inch of road that passed under my tyres, I found myself hoping more and more that it wouldn’t be true. Let someone be playing a prank on me, let the logs be counterfeit... let Alice be anywhere else but on that road.
 
I took the corner in a wide arc, parking myself in the centre of the crossroads, my headlights facing down the next turn.
 
Ahead of me was a quiet residential street; lines of neatly parked cars, rows of well-kept yards and squarely drawn windows. Yet at its centre, in utter defiance of the modest surroundings, the road sank into a deep and dimly lit corridor, cutting beneath the street, and disappearing into complete darkness.
 
I’d always known it was true.
 
In the presence of grim confirmation, the question I was asked earlier that night started to ring in my ears, as if echoing out of the tunnel itself. After an entire night’s driving, after two full months of searching, I still didn’t have a response.
 
In the end I just left the engine running, as if turning it off would somehow be a sign of retreat, and decided to type up the notes you’re reading now. I thought maybe the process of putting it all down on paper would bring me clarity, and leave me with either a note of farewell or a note of apology to Alice, for not having what it took to find her.
 
And now… here I am; still undecided, still writing, still sitting in this rental car on a quiet street in Phoenix, Arizona.
 
Though perhaps the street’s not as quiet as I thought.
 
I’ve just looked back to the previous road, down the street where Alice began her journey. As I type this very paragraph, I can see a figure standing on the sidewalk, just outside one of the houses. It isn’t the woman in grey this time.
 
Though it’s almost too dark to make out, I can tell the figure is an older male, well built and imposing, the rugged features of his weathered face half lit by moonlight. I’ve never seen this person before, yet he bears a striking resemblance to another man; a man whose description has been well recorded within the pages of Alice’s logs.

He watches me in silence, staring through the window of my still running car.

I wonder if he can help.
 
[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)
 
[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)
 
[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)
 
[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)
 
[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)
 
[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)
 
[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)
 
[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)
 
[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)
 
*****
 
The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 20/02/2017
 
The Left/Right Game was once nothing more than a 9-page document, peeking out of a yellow envelope, resting quietly on my desk.
 
I remember reading it on my lunch break.
 
I remember it made me laugh.
 
The submission had arrived with the first post, quietly making its way around the office, treated by everyone as a short-lived novelty of little journalistic value. The story was easy to dismiss, appearing all too similar to the rambling ghost stories and blurry UFO sightings that filled our mailbox on a daily basis, and which most of the senior staff had learned to instinctively ignore. Doomed by association, the document was quickly passed over, my desk merely a pit stop on its way to the rejection pile.
 
I was curious however and, after an uneventful few months in my new role, I had no compunctions about fishing from the scrap heap. Placing the envelope in my satchel, alongside a misfit crowd of similar rejects, I slipped away to a local coffee shop, reading it in an armchair by the window.
 
Somewhere around page three, between the description of the game’s rules and the exhaustive list of “Required Skills”, my mouth started to curl into an irrepressible smile.
 
They’d been gloriously wrong about this one. It wasn’t some paranoid diatribe, nor a sensationalist plea for attention. Within those pages lay an introductory glimpse of a man’s passionate obsession. As I read on, something about his earnest eccentricity, incredible thoroughness, and unquestioning confidence made it impossible to put down. When I turned the final page, reading the last of Rob Guthard’s charming and refreshingly well formatted submission, I knew that this was the story I wanted to tell.
 
Later that day, I found myself in the editor’s office making a case for it. They didn’t quite see what I saw, but I was intent to win them over regardless. I told them the story would be characterful, colourful, thought-provoking and, at the very least, that I wouldn’t be gone long.
 
It’s been twelve days since then; ten since I first entered the Wrangler in Phoenix, Arizona, five since I commandeered it myself, leaving Rob behind in the silent city. I haven’t updated much recently, save for a regular set of notes made for my own benefit. In all honesty, after I finished writing up my account of the city, I was struck by an overpowering sense of needlessness. There was no one left to receive these logs, no friends to proofread, no editor to hand them to. It seemed pointless to maintain the same prosaic format as before.
 
I still largely agree with this assessment. It’s only due to a set of exceptional circumstances that I’ve chosen to type up the following account in full.
 
Whoever this reaches, I want to thank you for reading up to now.
 
I’m quite sure this will be my final instalment.
 
*****
 
The moon has broken, and in my entire life, I’ve never witnessed an evening so still.
 
The air is cool and quiet, and the Wrangler cuts cleanly through it as I glide down a stretch of even tarmac. The scene is defined by calm and absence. Not a cloud in the sky, not a solitary whisper of breeze, not a single blade of grass stirring on the dark green banks beside me.
 
Yet even on a night as peaceful as this, I can’t help but feel far away from home. The city had served as a turning point in that regard. Before we reached those titanic monoliths, the landscapes we passed through generally resembled the world I once knew. A few obvious exceptions aside, there was nothing about the environments that looked truly divorced from reality. That’s all changed now. The aberrant aspects of this new world are unignorable, constantly hanging at the corner of my eye, passively injecting a sense of wonder and disconcertion into the otherwise silent night.
 
A few days ago the moon started to crack like old porcelain. I hardly noticed at first, my eyes fixed on the road as it loomed above me, quietly splintering into three jagged pieces. As of tonight, the empty space between each fragment has significantly increased. If I focus on the sky for a little while, I can almost see them falling away from each other, charting infinite and lonesome trajectories through a barren cosmos, against a backdrop of foreign constellations.
 
The stars themselves fall further than they should. The night sky travels down past the horizon and continues below it, wrapping underneath the grassy bank. It’s as if the road, and the narrow plains on either side, are suspended in the middle of a vast abyss; a platform in the middle of open space.
 
At least that’s what I thought it was at first. It didn’t take long before I noticed the broken moon was appearing twice in the sky, both above and below me. A pair of orbiting satellites; identical and in perfect alignment. That’s when I realised that there were no stars below me. I was merely staring across a flat surface so flawlessly mirror-like as to cast a perfect reflection of the heavens above.
 
I was driving through the centre of a lake.
 
The water is impossibly still. Since leaving the shoreline proper yesterday night, I’ve seen neither a wave, nor a ripple across its placid surface. It’s also undeniably vast, reaching beyond the horizon in every direction and continuing further still. Without being sure how I know, I’m aware that the waters carry on for an unspeakable distance, that I would sooner reach the stars themselves before setting foot on its opposite shore.
 
I lean over and switch gears. The act of driving the Wrangler was a daunting one at first, but after the first two days I’ve managed to make do. An old scarf wrapped tightly around the steering wheel serves as a makeshift handle, allowing me to navigate corners one handed. I don’t have an elegant solution for the gearshift, but I’ve quickly grown used to the process. If I’ve learned anything from the road, it’s that grace is the first casualty in the fight for survival. Adaptability, no matter how clumsy, outlasts it at every turn.
 
A few minutes later, the Wrangler pulls up to a spacious verge. A large circle of land surrounded entirely by dark waters. At the far end, the grass seems to fall away, dropping sharply into the lake with a dead stop. The road continues of course, but it's the only thing that does. With nothing on either side, it forms a narrow bridge of perfectly flat asphalt, raised on a bed of mud and rock.  
 
I press my boot onto the brake pedal, easing the Wrangler to a steady halt at the centre of the clearing. For the first time today, I open the car door and climb out of my seat. The dull tap of asphalt shifts to a soft rustling as I make my way over to the lakeside.
 
There’s something on the shore, a barely discernible object, almost entirely concealed by a shock of verdant undergrowth. It’s a miracle I’d managed to spy it from the road, though perhaps something about the stark uniformity of the landscape had made it stand out. 

As I advance towards the water, and the object draws near, its indeterminate form solidifies in my mind.
 
It’s a human arm, reaching out from the water and onto the bank. I crouch down to examine the few pertinent details. The fingers are still embedded firmly into the soil. The thumbnail is broken, coloured by a peeling coat of faded varnish. There’s a pallid, emaciated quality to the skin, spreading down the arm until it disappears beneath a thick, woollen sleeve. At the point it meets the surface, the water soaks into the fabric, turning it black from the original grey.
 
With a sad exhalation, I rise to my feet and lean over the water’s edge.
 
The body of Marjorie Guthard lies against the silt, her cheek resting on the lake bed, her wide bewildered eyes staring out into the open lake. She’s been almost perfectly preserved. Save for the striking tautness of her skin and its mottled, grey pallor, she looks exactly like the woman I saw on the 34th turn, who’d tried to repel me from the road, who’d spoken of a lake drinking her wounds clean.
 
It seems her ramblings weren’t completely void of fact. It’s clear to see that Marjorie has been exsanguinated, so completely in fact that the only evidence that blood ever flowed through her veins, is a large dark stain across her shredded blouse.

It doesn’t take long before the perpetrator makes itself known.
 
As I stare into the water, a steady stream of formless whispers sink up through the depths of the lake. The softly spoken murmurings drift up to my ears, taking root in the back of my mind and instantly blooming into a flurry of deeply persuasive promises.
 
I find myself entirely transfixed by the still water, as a myriad of generous offerings unfold in throughout my consciousness. The whispers suggest an end to the phantom pains in my absent arm, perhaps even a completely restored limb, stronger than it had been before. Furthermore, it shows me a glimpse of its incomprehensible span, its furthest bank reaching across countless worlds, its deepest point lying below everything. I’m offered total knowledge of every league, every fathom, every inconceivable shore.
 
My hand reaches down as the whispers continue, every bargain steeped in sweet beneficence. A moment later, my outstretched fingers brush against the soft grass, and wrap around Marjorie’s exposed arm.
 
Digging my heels into the ground, I lean myself backwards and pull. The water ripples and splashes as I drag Marjorie’s lifeless body slowly onto the bank. I feel the voices in my mind grow louder, erupting in anger as I back away from the lake.
 
The promises had been convincing, each quiet solicitation undeniably persuasive. But after seeing Marjorie’s wretched fate and the look of eternal betrayal in her vacant eyes, I found myself aware of a subtle undercurrent behind every syllable, a sense of desperation and timeless hunger emanating from beneath the lake’s surface. I already have a clear understanding of what would have happened if I’d lost myself to those waters. I suspect it’s no coincidence, that of the countless shores it showed me, all of them appeared to be deserted.

Marjorie wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d left the forest alone, grievously wounded and without a vehicle. She’d walked the whole way here, bleeding endlessly, the road’s rejuvenating power battling every moment against her body’s natural inclination to die. I suspect the road’s influence wasn’t strong enough, and when a whispering voice promised, ever so sweetly to mend her, she would have been in no position to refuse. 
 
Her other sleeve brushes against dry land, her body leaving the water for the first time in decades. I keep pulling until my boots hit asphalt, laying her down on the grass just beside the Wrangler.

After a moment of sober vigil, I walk to the back of the car and fetch Rob’s foldable spade.
 
A long few hours follow. I’ve never dug someone’s grave before, and my injury is hardly conducive to the task. My fleece tied around my waist, pearls of sweat running down my brow, I manage to slowly chip away at the damp earth. Five hours later, my back cramping, my hand raw from gripping the shovel, I attempt to lower Marjorie into the rough pit with some semblance of grace, her legs dropping limply into the soft soil despite my best efforts.

It takes over an hour to shovel the soil back. It’s a sobering and **** task. As a layer of dirt covers her face, I realise this will be the last time a living person lays their eyes on Marjorie Guthard. Burying her suddenly feels disrespectful, as if it’s an act I don’t have the right to perform. 

Once it’s done, I drop onto my knees, a dull ache in my muscles as I smooth out the disturbed ground with the back of the shovel.

**MARJORIE:** You.

Even before I turn to face her, I can hear a scowl in her voice. There’s an odious depth to that one acrid syllable, a potent witch’s brew of contempt and accusation that feels like it’s been festering in her drowned lungs for decades.

Reluctantly, I rise to my feet and turn around, finding myself face to face with the woman I just buried. She looks different now, her clothes are dry, her skin clear, with nothing to be seen of the deep, dark gash in her blouse.

**AS:** Marjorie.

Unlike the empty vessel below us, the woman in front of me is by no means at peace. She shakes and wretches with the same indignant fury I witnessed when we first met. When she speaks, her words shudder under the weight of her own turbulent emotions.

**MARJORIE:**  I chased you. I ran to you. I… I gave him up for you.

**AS:** I’m… I’m sorry Marjorie, I don’t know what you mean. Tell me what you mean.

**MARJOIRE** The things I saw, things so beautiful. And I saw her, walking alone through the new worlds. I gave everything up for you!!

I don’t know quite what to say. It’s pointless to ask her what she means, to try and understand her frenetic ramblings. In the end, I can only try to speak her language.

**AS:** Marjorie I… I didn’t mean you to.

Marjorie’s trembling breaths burst into a despairing fit of laughter.

**MARJORIE:** Oh… oh yes you did. Yes you did. And now… now you’re here.

Marjorie’s wild and volatile demeanour shifts once more, her laughter degrading further into a desperate crying panic.

**MARJORIE:** And what do I do now? What- What do I do?!

Marjorie cringes with the terror of the self-imposed question, placing her head in her hands and repeating it over and over again. As I watch her wrestle with despair, I’m struck by an idea I’ve never before considered. The disconcerting notion that, in death, we are not transported to a set destination by some ethereal attendant. That in fact, nothing is decided for us. Perhaps the manner in which we spend our afterlife is down to us, a decision we have to make ourselves.

Marjorie is standing over her own lifeless body, still lost, still entirely unmoored. 

There's no sign of boundless paradise, inescapable damnation or everlasting nothingness, and the common thread they share, a final release from the weight of our own agency, is similarly absent. Perhaps we never get that freedom, perhaps we continue like we always do, accompanied by all our imperfections, uncertainty and discontent. 

Perhaps we must choose our eternity.

After all my time on the road, that’s possibly the most terrifying notion I’ve encountered. 

**AS:** He never stopped looking you know.

Marjorie snaps out of her wretched despair, instantly aware of who I’m referring to, staring up at me with an expression I’ve never seen her wear before. 

**AS:** I saw him, walking on the road. He didn’t stop. He was never going to stop. I think he was looking for you Marjorie, he still is. 

Marjorie stares through me. For the first time since we met on that quiet Phoenician corner, I can see the faint spark of something other than misery and rage across her tear stained face.

I hold her gaze for a moment more, before pulling my phone from my pocket. In a single sweep of my contacts, I delete every number except for one. A number I pulled from the Nokia during our second night on the road. A number that connects to a lost wanderer of the road.

**AS:** I don’t know if this can help but… stranger things have happened.

As she stares up into my eyes, I feel like we’re finally meeting for the first time. Without a word, Marjorie reaches out a quivering hand and takes the phone from my outstretched fingers. 

Before I can say anything more, Marjorie Guthard is gone.

A few moments later, a refreshing breeze lands against my cheek, a soft zephyr, cooling my still warm face. It’s a welcome sensation, and the first movement I’ve witnessed in the air since I set out onto the lake. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I stare quietly along the bridge, the breeze picking up around me.

It’s a subtle wind at first, brushing stray hairs across my forehead, chilling the perspiration on my neck. Yet as I reach my hand out, and feel the air slip between my fingers, I’m witness to a steady rise in both strength and magnitude.

The sound of the wind grows from a whisper to a howl, Seconds later, the hanging sleeves of my fleece begin to stream sideways. My hair lifts from my back, billowing in the throes of a developing gale. 

I back up against the Wrangler’s hood as the air finally erupts into a roaring, cacophonous cyclone. My hand reflexively seeks the sturdy frame of the Wrangler, my fingers wrapping around the grille, my arm tensing as the unrelenting wind threatens to drag me from the road.

Squinting through the violent tempest, I focus on a single point in space, just above the threshold of the bridge.  In the midst of the storm, a jagged line of white hot light bursts out of the ether, tearing through the night’s fabric, a crackling fissure that widens and yawns, forcing apart the curtains of reality as they frenetically struggle to recombine. 

Staring through the shuddering fracture, I’m subjected to the briefest glimpse of a boundless, and impossible vista. It is a faraway place in both distance and time. An achingly beautiful and gloriously terrifying dreamscape, enduring on the majestic shores of infinity. Every moment there spans a millennium and unfolds in countless directions at once. Every passing shadow holds a darkness beyond measure, their edges burned by the glare of a waking sun which looks across every conceivable world with a hollow, rancorous intent.

In the midst of this maddening landscape, a singular entity approaches, gliding towards the portal with the clear intent to pass through. As it breaches the shuddering gateway, and the wind dies down around it, I stare up at its grand celestial form.

The being is unlike anything I’ve ever seen; composed entirely from electric arcs of brilliant, magnesic light which burst from a volatile and blinding central core. It sounds like a lightning storm, its plasmatic tendrils snapping and crackling, bursting chaotically through the night air before collapsing in on themselves. As they fall back into the creature’s centre, they emit pale clouds of vaporous fractals that fade softly into the air.
 
Somehow, even as my eyes barely adjust to the stark light, I realise that the entity usually burns much brighter. It's dampened its glow for my benefit, so that it can appear before me without scorching my eyes from their sockets.

**AS:** It’s you… isn’****. You’re the voice I’ve been hearing. You’re the one who brought me here.
 
The bristling maelstrom of light hangs in the air, crackling and shifting, its transient limbs strobing with chaotic incandescence. Part of me wants to hide, part of me wants to run, but neither are an option anymore. Releasing my hand from the Wrangler’s grille I take a single step forward, standing on my own and staring up into the entity’s smouldering core.

**AS:** Can I get an interview?

The creature doesn’t react. In the following silence, I feel it observing me. When it finally responds, its voice ruptures the night, echoing through my skull.

**VOICE:** There is little time, but you may ask what questions you have.

Each reverberating syllable forms a string of literal shockwaves in the surrounding lake, emanating outwards from the being in a perfect circle. I watch the waves roll into the distance, showing no sign of ever diminishing, and I think about what question to ask first.

In the end, it comes to me quickly; a promise is a promise after all.

**AS:** What happened to Marjorie? Why did she do what she did?

The being pauses, as if considering its response. When it does reply, it speaks with a calm sobriety.

**VOICE:** She glimpsed an echo of the future, dreamed of the road, of the things that it passes through.

**AS:** Like whatever’s through there?

I gesture through the gateway, which is now almost entirely blocked from view by the creature’s spiralling form.

**VOICE:** She dreamed of untold frontiers. She saw a lone woman walking them. Over time, the fulfilment of that vision became everything to her.
 
**AS:** But it wasn’t her… she thought she was seeing her own future… but it was-
 
**VOICE:** It was you.

Those three words, as they burst into the open air, casting three narrow waves across the boundless water, hit me with a deep and heavy force. Unbeknownst to myself, decades before I was even born, Marjorie had been driven insane by dreams of maddening grandeur, of a life of boundless possibility and true significance. She had given everything up to chase a shadow… a shadow that eventually turned out to be mine.

I hadn’t just pulled Rob into this game, I was the reason for everything. I was the cause for the tragedy that befell his entire family, 
 
**AS:** She didn’t just dream those sights. You influenced her. You let her see them… the same way you made Rob see me in Aokigahara. You pushed and you prodded wherever you needed so that I’d end up here. Are you the reason Bobby got the rules in the first place?
 
**VOICE:** Yes.
 
**AS:** But… why? You toyed with so many lives across… across decades. Why me? Why does it matter that I travel the road?
 
**VOICE:** Because across all humanity, across every conceivable permutation, you are the one who makes it the furthest.
 
It speaks plainly, as if the statement were a foregone conclusion. Yet its words strike me into silence.

The creature continues.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you work your way here, through skill and through tenacity… and undeniably through luck. You were brought here because of these qualities, and they will carry you further along the road than any other.
 
**AS:** Then why didn’t you just bring me here? All that influence and you didn’t lift a finger… after everything that happened-
 
**VOICE:** Events transpired as they needed to.
 
**AS:** As they… needed to?! People died! Marjorie. Bobby. Ace. Apollo. Eve. Lilith. Everyone. They’re all gone. Do you not care at all?

In response to my words, the entity remains silent for longer than usual.
 
**VOICE:** I care more than you know. There are things greater than your understanding, forces that exist beyond the realms of your comprehension that you would consider a threat to everything you hold dear. My actions were guided by a higher standard of knowledge. Your protests are predicated on false understanding.
 
**AS:** You’re saying I don’t understand death?
 
**VOICE:** You don’t.
 
**AS:** ... That still doesn’t make it right.
 
**VOICE:** Regardless, my influence is necessary. That which is necessary must be.

**AS:** What even are you?
 
**VOICE::** I cannot answer that question in any way you’d understand.
 
**AS:** That's not good enough.

The creature doesn’t respond, as if it doesn’t feel it needs to. So far it’s returned my every argument with impenetrable certainty. From the domain it occupies, knowing what it knows, my arguments must seem entirely facile. Even if it did feel the need to justify itself, after seeing the place it hails from, I wonder if there’s any way I could ever comprehend its motives.

Still, that doesn’t mean my arguments are invalid, and the creature’s lofty dispassion does little more than stoke my desire to oppose it.

**AS:** And what if I don’t want any part of this?

**VOICE:** You are travelling the aberrant strand; a singularly stable flaw in the fabric of reality. As it carries you further from the world you know, you will be freed from the influence of the old laws. You have already noticed the effects in those who settled the road, those who were lost to it and in yourself; energy without consumption, knowledge without requisite experience. You are shedding entropy, and causality and in time you will reach realms of understanding you cannot currently fathom. You will find answers to questions you never thought to ask. You will discover absolute truth. For this reason, you will carry on.

**AS:** That’s the only reason?

**VOICE:** Do you need another?

It doesn’t come across as a question, but rather another blunt statement of fact. I understand the effect it’s speaking of. Ever since the city, I’ve been encountering vague notions and fragmented ideas that occur to me randomly and without announcement. New avenues of thought leading to revelations that would otherwise lie beyond my mortal reach.

I’ve started to comprehend things I could barely have conceived of back home, and though the onset of these notions had been terrifying at first, they grow less so with every passing day.

**AS:** No… no, I don’t trust you. I don’t-

**VOICE:** Your trust is immaterial. You will travel the road regardless.

The creature’s already stark glow starts to intensify.
 
**VOICE:** I’ve watched you, on every turn … across every moment of your journey.

One of the creature’s countless protrusions lashes out at the empty air, forming another harsh, glowing fissure. It wrenches itself open in a few stilted jolts, a transparent, almost crystalline membrane stretched across the gap. Through it, I can see myself, in the centre of a cornfield, examining a block of C4 explosive.

It’s as if I’m staring into the past through a jagged shard of one-way glass.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you questioning.

Though we can’t be seen through the aperture, I see the glasslike membrane shake with the force of the creature’s voice. As the window collapses, I can see the rows of corn thrown into a frenzy.

A second arc lashes out at the sky, forming a second aperture. This time I’m expecting the sight before me. I see myself, crying in the forest… a silent radio by my side.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you struggle.

The second window closes. The creature has made its point.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you fight… to make your way here.

**VOICE:** You will not turn around. 

**AS:** You make it sound like I don’t have a choice.
 
**VOICE:** You do have a choice Alice, but you have already made it.

As much as I’ve grown to detest the creature’s presumption, in that moment, I know it’s right.

What it’s saying is true. I’ve done things I never would have imagined in order to get where I am now. In fact, if this being hadn’t arrived at all, I’d already be heading out over the bridge. 

I’m not proud of what drives me; that same, **** impulse that led me to refuse Rob’s offer of return, that made it so easy to leave him behind in the silent city. But there’s no denying the impulse is there. It’s been with me the whole time, long before I ever arrived in Phoenix, Arizona… and it’s buried deeper than I’ve ever wanted to admit.

**AS:** Can I… do I get to say goodbye?
 
The entity says nothing. It hangs in the air, flickering and coursing with rupturing bolts of light. The next thing I hear is a faint mechanical hum emanating from the Wrangler behind me. Turning around, I pace briskly back to the car, opening the door and reaching into the passenger seat. My notebook is booting up, seemingly of its own accord.
 
Picking up the laptop, I lift the lid as I march back towards the bridge. I stare up at the silent being before me. When I look down to the laptop, my email client is already displayed on the screen.
 
**AS:** How… how long do I have?

**VOICE:** Long enough.
 
The entity begins to regress, its arcs diminishing as the being at its core turns away. Its message has been delivered. There is nothing more to discuss. 

As it passes through the gateway, into an unknowable world far removed from my own, I call out after it.
 
**AS:** I’m still not certain I trust you.
 
The being focusses on me once more, as the fracture begins to close. A final set of waves pass across the surface of the lake as it solemnly replies. 
 
**VOICE:** … I remember.
 
A moment later, the being is gone.
 
I stand motionless in the middle of the road, the entity’s final remarks washing over me, its curious choice of words echoing in my head. In the renewed silence, the faint stirrings of an overwhelming and terrible revelation start to form in my mind.

It could have simply said that it knew of my mistrust, that it heard the overtones in my voice, saw the disdain across my face or otherwise sensed it in the space between us. Instead, the being spoke as if my current feelings were a memory, dwelling somewhere within its depths.

It was undeniable that my time on the road was changing me, but in all this time I’d never truly considered how those changes might evolve as my journey continues. 

I’d never thought about what I might gain, what I might lose… or about what I might inevitably become.

A short while passes before I lower my eyes from the empty space above the bridge, to the screen of my notebook. Lowering myself down, I cross my legs and rest my back against the Wrangler.

If you’ve been reading from the beginning, you’ve finally caught up with me.

I hope you’ll allow me a few personal messages.

To Rob. I hope you’re able to read this someday, and I am so, so sorry for everything I’ve done; for everything I may do. I hope you understand that I didn’t know, and that none of this was your fault. You did the best you could, and the days I spent with you were the most significant of my life. It was an honour to know you and I hope that, among these pages, you find the answers, and the peace, that you deserve.

To my mum and dad, I’m sorry I won’t be sending this to you. In the end, I was carried along this road by a profound selfishness, and I just can’t bring myself to face you. I can’t imagine the pain I’ll be putting you through, and I won't try to justify my actions. All I can say is that I love you and I’m sorry that my last act towards you was one of cowardice.

And finally to you; the person to whom this message will be addressed. I’m sorry. I always thought I’d see you again someday, that the roads I took would eventually lead me home. That doesn’t look so likely now. Though I could say a lot to you, I’m not going to.

But I wish we could have been friends for longer.

It feels like a lifetime since I first arrived at Rob Guthard’s quiet street. I remember the uncertainty as I waited for him to open his door, with no concievable idea what was about to transpire. 

Like so many other things, that’s now changed. Despite being in an entirely new world, further from home than anyone’s ever been, I know exactly what’s going to happen next.

I’m going to take a drive. Take a left, then the next possible road on the right, then the next possible left. I will repeat the process ad infinitum, until I wind up somewhere new. 

And from there I’ll keep driving, beyond worlds, beyond time, beyond the bounds of my imagining. To a place where the lake runs dry, where the broken moon drifts away, and the stars disappear in the rear view.

To a place where everything has fallen away, and the road is all there is.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My friend and I made “ghost pornography” for fun. It’s not funny anymore
 
 Assistant: I have been a **** model for 2 years. It started off with sexy cosplay, then I photographed Suicide Girls style, and finally, when I had people up to pay enough, solo ****.

I used to live in a crappy kitchenette, but once I was successful enough, I was able to afford a nicer place. Things got better when I moved in with my new roommate, but also weirder.

I’m not using our real names or our artistic names here because I’m scared as ****.

My new roommie, Savannah, was a cheerful and sweet girl. Her perky personality had flocked plenty of followers and fans, way more than I had myself, and she was making some good money; for instance, she was a homeowner at 22.

Her place was huge, and she decided to rent her extra room for an attractive price, as long as the other resident was fine with her vast collection of **** toys being displayed in the living room.

I thought that was hilarious and we immediately hit it off, so the other resident became me. The fact that we were both **** models helped our friendship, but to be fair I had met some other girls in my field before, and most of them were a stick in the mud.

Savannah was nice, tidy and amazingly respectful of my personal space. She didn’t act like she owned the place, even though she literally did. I had spent a good few months before things started to go south.

“So, Ayla”, Savannah approached me over breakfast. “Would you be willing to collab with me? I have a request for a private two-girl job and I thought it made sense to invite you first since it will be so much easier to arrange our schedules.”

I wasn’t doing much, just my nightly streaming, my regular sets and my sets for patreons. I asked more about the job.

“Well”, she laughed. “I have to tell you it’s one of a kind. It’s nothing dehumanizing or anything, but it’s weird as ****. This guy… he jerks off to shadows. He wants us to pretend we’re **** them.”

“**** the shadows?!” I asked, and laughed loudly. She confirmed, laughing too. It was insane, but relatively harmless, like when some guy paid me 5 grand to legally bind me to not show my feet to any other man but him for a whole year. So I only take my socks off to shower and it’s been months since I don’t go to the beach.

When Savannah told me how much the client was willing to pay for such a thing, I was immediately in.

“It will be so embarrassing, but kinda fun, right?” I said.

“Yeah, and with that I can finally stop taking private requests and focus on other things”, Savannah replied, happily. She’s sort of a do-it-all artist – model, photographer, painter and so on.

A few more e-mail exchanges with [shadowfucker@\[redacted\].com](mailto:shadowfucker@[redacted].com) and he had approved of me and discussed the details with Savannah. He wanted two videos a week – on Mondays and Thursdays, and each should be at least 30 minutes long.

A very reasonable request, considering that, with my share of what he was paying, I could drop everything else and still live comfortably.

He would send us the equipment before the first week, then outfits every two weeks.

I was the one to receive the large box from UPS, as Savannah wasn’t home. I knew she had a P. O. box to avoid disclosing her real address, but this one came straight to our place.

Weird, but considering how big this client was, I could understand her making an exception for him, and didn’t say anything about it.

Later that day, we opened the box. It contained some light strobes, a few large but hollow wooden and metal objects, eight sets of costumes – wigs included –, a photograph and a small package marked *otherworldly condoms*.

“Wow, imagine being this lunatic!” Savannah grabbed the little package laughing, then opened one of them.

They looked nothing like regular condoms; they were more like those plastic bags you use to freeze stuff, but the material was so much thinner and slightly iridescent.

“That’s probably something he made up to make it more realistic, right?” I asked, then read the instructions aloud. “When having **** with the shadows, make sure to protect your whole groin with otherworldly condoms. They can unfold to thrice its size.”

The outfits were actually cute and we spent some time deciding when we were going to use each of them; the client had perfectly guessed our sizes.

Then the photograph finally caught my attention.

It showed the right way to arrange the equipment on the room, but funnily enough, the room depicted was incredibly alike to Savannah’s studio – our third bedroom. Unlike me, she didn’t often film/shoot in her own bedroom, preferring to use a mostly neutral room where she could set up scenarios or just take cleaner pics and videos.

I couldn’t help but feel that the picture had been taken exactly in her studio – *at the very place we lived.*

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

The day of our first video came – a Monday. It didn’t take us more than 15 minutes to set up the whole equipment on the studio exactly like the picture showed. The objects projected large shadows on the room, and the lights were set to slowly move on their own, so our interaction with the shadows was like the strangest sexy dance – but at least we weren’t standing still for half an hour pretending to **** the same empty spot.

Despite thinking that it was wacky, Savannah was a professional and she diligently used the otherworldly condoms as requested. I used them as well, and for 35 minutes, we pretended to **** shadows.

I felt utterly ridiculous, but being used to doing solo videos, I pretty much knew how to do it. The color of the lights and the outfits really helped set a soothing mood that made it all less shameful.

Savannah then turned off the cameras and looked at me.

“It wasn’t awful, was it?”

“It was okay”, I agreed. I could make a fool of myself for some good money.

“Do you want to shoot a second one and end this week early?”

Before I could reply, her phone buzzed loudly.

*From: <Unknown Number>: Remember, shoot twice a week. Separately.*

We stared at each other in confusion.

“Maybe there’s a mic hidden in the equipment?” I suggested. 

We searched the whole room but found nothing.

I didn’t think much about it. Rich people are controlling. They know things, always. The client knew when we were going to film the first video, and of course he figured we would consider doing everything on the same day instead of having to disassemble the set and reassembling it again.

I went about my day, and nothing strange happened. Savannah seemed much more alive because now she had time for her hobbies, and I was doing well enough to start sending my family some money, something I had wanted to do for a long time.

We were to send him the first video on the day we recorded the second and so on. On Thursday, Savannah told me the client loved our first video, and looked forward to the next. To get us a little more comfortable with our weird thing, we had some wine and put on jazz music.

This time things went smoothly, but I kept hearing some humming while we pretended to **** the shadows. I was sure it wasn’t coming from the music.

I asked Savannah and she didn’t hear anything. “Maybe you’re a bit ****? Slow down on the wine next time, home girl!”

For our video number 3, I was completely sober and asked Savannah to do it without music. She agreed, and in the total silence, I still heard the humming.

It was a humming that wasn’t there before, and it didn’t come from the light strobes either. I was so focused on it and intrigued that my face looked really unsexy and Savannah’s editor called to ask if there was an issue.

“She just keeps listening to some humming. Yeah, I’ll tell her to see a doctor. Think you can mostly show her from behind? Cool, you’re an angel!”

Savannah looked more worried about me than anything else, so I promised to see a doctor. Maybe something was wrong with my ear – even though something only felt off while we filmed the videos; at least now I could afford some high-quality healthcare.

Between the filming of videos 3 and 4, I got my ears checked, but they were perfectly normal. Savannah reiterated that it was totally cool if I wanted to give up on this freaky fetish-video thing and she would get another girl for that, no hard feelings.

But I didn’t feel like the videos were the problem. There was just this weird *thing* I couldn’t quite understand.

On video 4, Savannah was tipsy and seemed to be really enjoying herself. I felt a little guilty that she was clearly overcompensating for the fact that I was worried and gloomy on the previous video.

The humming evolved to whispers. And for the first time, I heard – no, it was more like understanding for the context, with the intuitive side of my brain – a few words.

*“I actually like this.”*

At last that’s what I foretold that the whispers said. It probably sounded more like *sfslsosls dlsowllss swowllls*.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Once again, I didn’t tell anyone. I was almost convinced that I was actually being crazy. It was just an eerie feeling because I was stripping to and groping empty spaces twice a week.

On the Friday after recording video 4, we got a new box with outfits. There was another photograph, instructing us to rearrange the lights and boxes to, I imagine, create different shapes with the shadows.

I couldn’t restrain myself this time.

“Savannah, don’t you think this pic looks exactly like your studio?”

“Yeah, that helps a lot, right?” she smiled, and then slowly realized what I meant, her smile withering. She grabbed the photo from my hand. “Oh, now that you said it, it’s quite alike. But of course no one broke into the house, right? I think that’s a standard room.”

But she sounded shaken.

I think that’s the reason why she completely forgot the otherworldly condom.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

We made the preparations as usual; changed the setting as the photo instructed, dressed up, put on our wigs and make-up. 

The whispering immediately started, and for a moment I got lost in it, trying to understand. A buzzing sound, then another.

*“There’s food today.”*

*“It tastes good.”*

Then Savannah screamed.

I didn’t realize she wasn’t wearing the otherworldly condom either – not until I saw her groin covered by the blackest of blacks, then her legs disappearing into the darkness of the shadows.

Like she was involved by long and thick pieces of deep-black fabric, her torso and head disappeared too. She didn’t seem to be in pain, but in shock – everything was so quick and uncanny.

I reached out for her, but there was nothing there.

My hands grasped thin air.

I immediately turned off the light strobes, turned on the normal lights and moved all the boxes around. They were still hollow as ever and Savannah was nowhere to be found.

I then searched the whole house fruitlessly. 

It’s ludicrous to say that, but shadow-people took my friend.

I sat on the floor and cried, worried about Savannah and about what I would tell the police about her disappearance.

I was a mess, and decided to cancel my live-streaming that night for personal reasons.

As soon as I opened the browser, an e-mail notification popped on my screen.

*From: <*[*shadowfucker@\[redacted\].com*](mailto:shadowfucker@[redacted].com)*>*

*It’s not your fault that your friend neglected my one rule.*

*I like you, Ayla. The editor tried to cut off your face from the last couple of videos, but I do realize you are accomplishing something I was never able to: learning the shadow-people language.*

*Keep working for me and all your financial concerns will be taken care of, especially regarding your teenage sister and her two children. I’ll deal with everything regarding Savannah as well.*

*Find me a new second girl for the videos, the cash and outfits will keep coming. It’s up to you to instruct her to always use the otherworldly condoms – I don’t mind feeding them*[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPoisoningTales/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Part 3!)
 
 Assistant: Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Well, once again, you guys have blown me away with your staggering amount of responses to my stories! There's no way I can respond to each of you individually, so I'm just going to address some common things again, and then move on to the stories. I'm going to write as many as I can think of, in addition to my friend's stories, and I will probably not update again until I get a chance to answer some questions that I myself have for my superiors.

Alright, so the common questions I found you all had:

* I am not comfortable talking about where exactly I work, unfortunately. In all reality some of the things I've mentioned here could get me in a lot of trouble or fired, so it's best if I just don't discuss too much. I will say that I'm in the United States, and in an area that is comprised of a great deal of wilderness. We're talking hundreds of miles of thick forest, with a mountain range and a few lakes.

* There is still a great amount of interest in the stairs, and luckily for you guys my friend has a story that I think you'll all be very interested in. I'll go into that more at the end of this update. As for whether or not I have ever thought of asking my superiors about them, I have, but again, I don't want to risk my job. However, one of my former superiors no longer works as an SAR officer, and it's possible that he may be willing to talk to me about it. I'll be speaking to him later in the week, and I will let you all know what comes of that.

* As far as advice on becoming an SAR officer goes, I think the best advice I can give is to contact your local Forest Service office and see if they offer and training courses, or what the qualifications are. I've been doing this for years, and I started out as a volunteer helping on SAR operations. It's a great job, despite the occasional tragic situations, and I wouldn't want to do anything else. 

Alright, let's move on to the stories:

* The first happened on a case that I went out on right after I got out of training, and was still pretty new to everything. Before I took this job, I was a volunteer, so I had a basic idea of what to expect, but on those calls you're mostly dealing with finding lost people after vets have found signs of them. As an SAR officer, you go out for all kinds of cases, from animal bites to heart attacks. 
This case got called in early in the morning, from a young couple who were up on one of the trails that goes by the lake. The husband was completely hysterical, and we couldn't really figure out what was going on. We could hear the woman screaming in the background, and he was begging us to come up there right away. When we get there, we see him holding his wife, and shes got something in her arms. She's screaming these awful, almost animal-like screams, and he's sobbing. He sees us and he screams at us to help them, to please get an ambulance up there. Now obviously we can't just drive an ambulance up the walking path, so we ask him if his wife needs help, or if she can walk on her own. He's still hysterical, but he manages to tell us that it's not his wife that needs help. I go over while one of the vets tries to calm him down, and I ask the wife what's going on. She's rocking, holding something, and just shrieking, over and over. I crouch down and see that whatever she's holding, it's covering her with blood. That's when I notice the sling on her front and my heart sinks. I ask her to tell me what's going on, and I sort of pry her arms gently open so I can see what she's holding. It's her baby, obviously dead. His head is caved in on one side, and he's covered in scratches. Now, I've seen dead bodies before, but something about this whole situation hits me hard. I have to take a second to compose myself, and I get up and go get one of the other vets, who's standing by. I tell him that it's a dead kid, and he sort of pats my shoulder and tells me he'll deal with it.
It took us over an hour to get this woman to let us see her kid. Every time we try to take him from her, she flips out and tells us we can't have him, that he'll be okay if we just leave her alone and let her help him. But eventually, one of the vets manages to calm her down, and she gives us the body. We took it back to the med area, but when the EMTs showed up, they told us that there was never any hope of saving the kid. He'd died instantly from the trauma to his head.
I was good buddies with one of the nurses who met them at the hospital, and she told me later what had happened. Turns out the couple had been walking with the baby in the sling, and they stopped because the kid was fussing. The dad takes the kid and is holding him, looking out over this little gully by the path. The mom comes to stand next to him, but she ends up stepping on a loose patch of soil, and she trips. She falls into the dad, who drops the kid, who ends up falling about twenty feet down this little gully onto the rocks at the bottom. The dad climbed down and recovered the kid, but he'd fallen right on his head, and was dead by the time he got there. The baby was only about fifteen months old. It was a total freak accident, a series of events that coalesced into the worst possible outcome. Probably one of the more awful calls I've been on.

* I haven't seen a lot of animal bites in my time as an SAR officer, mostly because there aren't that many animals that come around the area. While there are bears in the area, they tend to stay pretty far away from people, and sightings are highly unusual. Most of the animals you'll see are small ones, like coyotes, raccoons, or skunks. What we do see frequently, though, are moose. And let me tell you, moose are nasty ****. They'll chase after anything for any reason, and **** help you if you get in between a female and its baby. One of the more amusing calls was of a guy who'd gotten chased down by an absolutely massive male moose, and was stuck up a tree. Took us almost an hour to get him down, and when he was finally on solid ground again, he looks at me and says: 'God ****. Them **** is big up close.' I guess that's not really a scary story, but we still laugh about that one.

* I honestly don't know how I'd forgotten this story, but it is, by far, the scariest thing that's happened to me. I guess maybe I've tried so long to forget about it that it just didn't come to mind right away. As someone who spends literally all of their time in the woods, you don't ever want to let yourself get scared of being alone, or out in the middle of nowhere. That's why when you have experiences like this, you tend to just forget about them and move on. This is, to date, the only thing that's ever made me really seriously consider if this job is the right one for me. I don't really like talking about it much, but I'll do the best I can to remember it all.
As I recall, this took place right at the end of spring. It was a typical lost-child call: a four-year-old girl had wandered away from her family's campsite, and had been missing for about two hours. Her parents were completely despondent, and told us what most parents do; my kid would never wander away, she's so good about staying close, she's never done anything like this before. We assure the parents that we'll do everything we can to find her, and we spread out in a standard search formation. I was partnered with one of my good buddies, and we were sort of casually holding conversation while we hiked. I know it sounds callous, but you do sort of become desensitized when you've done this long enough. It becomes the norm, and I think to a certain extent you have to learn to desensitize yourself in order to work this job. 
We search for a good two hours, going well beyond where we think she'd be, and we come out of a small valley when something makes us both stop in unison. We freeze and look at each other, and there's almost a sensation like a plane depressurizing. My ears pop, and I have this odd sensation of having dropped about ten feet. I start to ask my buddy if he felt that, but before I can, we hear the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life. It's almost like a freight train passing directly by us, but it's coming from every direction at once, including above and below us. He screams something to me, but I can't hear him over this deafening roar. Understandably freaked out, we look all around us, trying to find the source of the sound, but neither of us sees anything. Of course, my first thought is a landslide, but we're not near any cliffs, and even if we were, it would have hit us by now. The sound goes on and on, and we're trying to yell to each other, but even standing close together we can't hear anything but this sound. Then, as suddenly as it starts, it stops, like someone threw a switch and cut it off. We stand there for a second, perfectly still, and slowly the normal sounds of the woods come back. He asks me what the **** just happened, but I just kind of shrug, and we stand there looking at each other for a minute. I get on the radio and ask if anyone else just heard the end of the **** world, but no one else hears it, even though we're all within shouting distance of each other. My buddy and I just sort of shrug it off and keep going.
About an hour later, we all check up on the radios, and no one's found the little girl. Most of the time, we won't search when it gets dark, but because we don't have any kind of lead on her, a few of us decide to keep going, including me and my buddy. We keep close together, and we're calling out for her every couple of minutes. At this point, I'm hoping beyond hope that we find her, because while I may not like kids, the idea of them being out all alone in the dark is awful. The woods can be intimidating to kids in the daylight; at night, well, it's a whole different beast. But we're not seeing any signs of her, or getting any responses, and around midnight, we decide to turn around and head back to the rendezvous point. 
We're about halfway back when my buddy stops and shines his light to the right of us, into a really thick deadfall, or group of dead trees. I ask him if he's heard a response, but he just tells me to be quiet a second and listen. I do, and in the distance, I can hear what sounds like a kid crying. We both call the girl's name and listen for any kind of response, but it's just this really faint crying.
We head in the direction of this deadfall and go around it, calling her name over and over. As we get closer to the crying, I start getting this weird feeling in my gut, and I tell my buddy that something isn't right. He tells me he feels the same way, but we can't figure out what it is. We stop where we are, and call the girl's name again. And at the same time, we both figure it out. 
The crying is on a loop. It's the same little hitching sob, then wail, then quiet hiccup, repeated over and over. It's exactly the same every time, and without saying another word, we both take off running. It's the only time I've ever lost my composure like that, but something about it was so incredibly wrong, and neither of us wanted to stay out there anymore. 
When we got back to the rendezvous, we asked if anyone else had heard anything strange, but no one else knew what we were talking about. I know it sounds sort of anti-climactic, but that call **** me up for a long time. As for the little girl, we never found a trace of her. We keep an eye out for her, and all the other people who we've never found, but frankly I doubt we'll ever find anything. 

Of the missing persons calls I've gone out on, only a handful have ever resulted in a complete disappearance, meaning no trace of the person and no body ever found. But sometimes, finding a body just leads to more questions than answers. Here are some of the bodies we've found that have become infamous in our team:

* A teenage boy who's remains were recovered almost a year after he vanished. We found the top of his skull, two finger bones, and his camera almost forty miles from where he was last seen. The camera, sadly, was destroyed.

* The pelvis of an older man who had vanished a month earlier. That was all we found. 

* The lower jaw and right foot of a two-year-old boy on the highest peak of a ridge in the southern part of the park. 

* The body of a ten-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, almost twenty miles from where she'd vanished. She had died of exposure three weeks after going missing, and all of her clothes were intact except for her shoes and jacket. There were berries and cooked meat in her stomach when they did the autopsy. The coroner said it appeared as if someone had been taking care of her. There were no suspects ever identified.

* The frozen body of a one-year-old baby, found a week after vanishing in the hollow trunk of a tree ten miles from the area he was seen last. There was fresh milk found in his stomach, but his tongue was gone.

* A single vertebra and right kneecap of a three-year-old girl, found in the snow almost twenty miles from the campground her family had been at the previous summer.

Now on to  a couple of the stories my friend told me. I mentioned that you were all interested in the stairs, and you're in luck: he's had a closer encounter with them. Though he doesn't have any explanation for them, he does have a bit more experience with them than I do. 

* My buddy has been an SAR officer for about seven years, he started when he was a junior in college, and he had a very similar experience when he first encountered the stairs. His trainer told him almost the same thing mine did, which was to never go near, touch, or ascend them. For the first year, he did just that, but apparently his curiosity got the better of him, and on one call he broke away from the line and went to go check a set of them out.
He said they were about ten miles from the path where a teenage girl had vanished, and the dogs were following a scent. He was on his own, lagging behind the main group, when he saw a set of stairs off to his left. They looked like they were from a new house, because the carpeting was pristine and white. He said that as he got closer, he didn't feel any different, or hear any weird noises. He was expecting something to happen, like bleeding from his ears or collapsing, but he got right up next to them and didn't feel anything. The only thing, he said, that was odd was that there was absolutely no debris on the steps. No dirt, leaves, dust, anything. And there didn't appear to be any signs of animal or insect activity in the immediate area, which he found strange. It was less like things were avoiding them, and more like they just happened to be in a relatively barren part of the forest. He touched the stairs, and didn't feel anything except that sort of sticky feeling you get from new carpet. Making sure his radio was on, he slowly climbed the stairs; he said it was terrifying, because the way they'd been stigmatized, he wasn't really sure what was going to happen to him. He joked that half of him expected to be teleported to some other dimension and the other half was watching for a UFO to come swooping down. But he got to the top with little event, and he stood there looking around. But, he said, the longer he stood on the top step, the more he felt like he was doing something very, very wrong. He described it as the feeling you'd get if you were in a part of a government building you have no business being in. As if someone was going to come and arrest you, or shoot you in the back of the head, at any second. He tried to brush it off, but the feeling got stronger and stronger, and that's when he realized that he couldn't hear anything anymore. The sounds of the forest were gone, and he couldn't hear his own breathing. It was like some kind of weird, awful tinnitus, but more oppressive. He climbed back down and rejoined the search, and didn't mention what he'd done.  
But, he said, the weirdest part came after. His trainer was waiting back at the welcome center after the search ended for the day, and he cornered my buddy before he could leave. He said his trainer had this look of intense anger, and he asked what was wrong.
'You went up them, didn't you.' My buddy said it wasn't phrased as a question. He asked how his trainer knew. The trainer just shook his head.
'Because we didn't find her. The dogs lost her scent.'
My buddy asked what that had to do with anything. The trainer asked how long he'd been on the stairs, and my buddy said no more than a minute. The trainer gave him this really awful, almost dead-eyed look, and told him that if he ever went up another set of stairs again, he'd be fired. Immediately. The trainer walked away, and I guess he's never answered any of the questions my buddy has asked him about it since.

My buddy has been involved in a lot of missing persons cases where there's never been a trace of them found. I mentioned David Paulides, and my buddy said he can confirm that those stories are, for the most part, accurate. He said that most of the time, if the person isn't found right away, they're either never found, or they're found weeks, months, or years later, in places they can't possibly have gotten to. One story he told me really stood out that involved a five-year-old boy with a severe mental disability.

* The little boy vanished from a picnic area in the late fall. In addition to the mental disability, he was also physically handicapped, and his parents explained over and over that he simply could not have vanished. It was impossible. Someone had to have taken him. My buddy said they searched for this kid for weeks, going miles out of the accepted range, but it was like he'd never been there. The dogs couldn't pick up his scent anywhere, not even in the picnic area where he'd apparently vanished from. Suspicion fell on the parents, but it was pretty clear that they were devastated, and hadn't done anything sinister to their kid. The search was concluded about a month later, and my buddy said everyone had pretty much forgotten it by later in the winter. 
He was out on a training op in the snow, on one of the higher peaks, when he came across something in the snow. He said he saw it from far away at first, and when he got closer, he realized it was a shirt, frozen and sticking part way out of the powder. He recognized it as belonging to the kid, because it had a distinctive pattern. About twenty yards away, he found the kid's body, laying partially buried in the snow. My buddy said there was no way the kid had been dead for any more than a few days, even though he'd been missing for almost three months. The kid was curled around something, and when my buddy brushed off the snow to see what it was, he said he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a big chunk of ice, that had been carved crudely to look sort of like a person. The kid was holding it so tight that it had frostbitten his chest and hands, which my buddy could tell even with the decay that had taken place. He radioed the rest of the crew, and they took the body off the mountain. 
Now, he recapped all of this for me, and to put it simply, there was no way this kid could have both survived for almost three months on his own, or have gotten to this peak. There was no physical way this child could have walked almost fifty miles and ended up on the top of a **** mountain. To top it off, there was nothing in the kid's stomach or colon. Nothing, not even water. It was like, my buddy said, the kid had been taken off the face of the earth, put in suspended animation, and dropped on this mountain months later, only to die of exposure. He's never really gotten over that one.

The last story I'll share from him was one that took place relatively recently, only a few months ago. 

* They were out doing a recon for mountain lions, because there had been several reports of sightings in the last couple of days. One of our jobs is to scout out the areas where these animals are seen to ensure that if they are in the area, we can warn people and close off those trails. He was out on his own in a very heavily forested part of the park toward dusk when he heard what sounded like a woman screaming in the distance. Now, as most of you know, when a mountain lion screams, it sounds almost exactly like a woman being brutally murdered. It's unsettling, but far from abnormal. My buddy radioed back and let ops know that he'd heard one, and that he was going to keep going to see if he could figure out where its territory started. 
He heard the mountain lion scream a couple more times, always from the same spot, and determined the approximate area of the mountain lion's territory. He was about to head back when he heard another scream, this time within only a few yards of him. Of course, he freaks out and starts heading back at a much faster pace, because the last thing he wants is to run into a **** mountain lion and get mauled to death. As he got back on the path and started heading back, the screaming followed him, and he broke into a jog. When he was about a mile from ops, the screaming stopped, and he turned around to see if it was following him.
It was almost night by this point, but he said in the distance, just before the path rounded a corner, he could see what looked like a male figure. He called out to them, warning them that the paths were closed, and that he needed to come back to the welcome center. The figure just stood there, and my buddy started to walk over. When he was about ten yards away, the figure took, as he described, 'and impossibly long step' toward him and let out the same scream my buddy had been hearing. My buddy didn't even say anything, he just turned and sprinted back to ops, never looking behind him. By the time he got back, the screaming had moved back into the woods. He didn't mention it to anyone else, just said that there was a mountain lion in the area and that they would need to close those paths until the animal could be located and moved. 

I'm going to end this entry here, since it's turned into a huge wall of text. I'm going to be heading out on a yearly training op tomorrow morning, so I'll be gone until early next week. I'll be meeting with a  lot of former trainers and buddies who work in other areas of the park, and I'll be asking around about any stories they'd like to share. I'm so glad you guys have been interested in my stories, and once I'm back from this op, I'll continue to share them!

**EDIT: Part 4 is up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3jadum/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found the bunker of a prepper family who went missing three years ago
 
 Assistant: Dr Daniel Vance was a smart man. Too smart for his own good, maybe. Forty years old, a lecturer in fluid dynamics with a mind made of shapes and numbers. No one knows why but one day, on a whim, he crunched the numbers on the apocalypse and came to a troubling conclusion. He didn’t share exactly what it was he’d deduced, but given that he immediately quit his job and liquidated his many assets, it’s fair to say it wasn’t positive. Swept up in the wake of this tremendous upheaval was his wife, a twenty-four year old PhD student who had grown infatuated with Daniel some time before. She loved the strange bear of a man who could just as easily build a log cabin as he could explain the idiosyncrasies of an asteroid’s orbit. Speaking to Daniel always left you with the profound impression he was right, so when he told her what he wanted to do, she agreed.

Fifteen years and five children later, the Vances were living in the distant woods just beyond my hometown. They were enigmatic, richer than the Pope, and extremely serious about their prepper lifestyle. But they were also funny, easygoing, and incredibly compelling to speak to. Larger than life survivalists who swept into town with bizarre requests that thrilled local businesses. Vast quantities of cement, iron, lead, and steel were all shipped through the remote mountains so that the Vances could build their shelter. The advanced methods they used to keep it secret were legendary. Daniel had once spent six months earning the licence necessary to drive HGVs up to his compound so that no one else would lay eyes on it. And on one occasion when a company had refused his request for GPS tracker-free vehicles, he bought them out wholesale so that they had no choice.

So when they stopped appearing in town during the pandemic, when requests for food and goods stopped and all contact was dropped, most attributed it to lockdown. They had a bunker and had spent their entire lives training to be self-sufficient in the face of civilisation’s collapse. Even Alexander, the youngest at just three, was already collecting firewood as a chore, and learning what local plants were edible. Most of us just assumed that if anyone could ride out Covid without breaking a sweat, it would be the Vances.

The reality turned out to be something else.

When the worst came to light, we discovered that Daniel had used the pandemic as an excuse for a dry-run. The family intended to spend six months in lockdown and essentially beta test their fallout bunker. Three months in and the Sheriff received a distress call on the radio. Coordinates were provided by the hushed voice of a sobbing child that most assume was Alexander, even though that’s never been proven.

The police arrived and found the bunker still sealed. It took hours for emergency responders to cut into the door, all the while efforts were made to contact the family within but to no avail. Once inside, police were left dumbfounded. There was no one to be rescued. No bodies. No survivors. There was evidence the door’s locking mechanism had failed and trapped the Vances inside with no way out, but if so where had they gone? 

Beds and cots lay everywhere with mouldering yellow sheets, buckets close to hand with stains all around them. Some doors were barred, others smashed to pieces. There was even evidence of makeshift quarantines and, in places, what looked like violence. The police, usually a fantastic source of gossip, were not forthcoming until the town demanded answers and the Sheriff was forced to offer only the barest of outlines. 

*An outbreak of a waterborne illness had struck the Vances down not long after they were locked inside and unable to seek help. Rumours of contagion were overstated, fuelled by the unrelated rise of Covid. Whatever contaminant had killed the Vances, it was non-organic in nature. No need to panic. The Vances loved-ones had been notified. The bunker was going to be demolished, and we could all put this terrible tragedy behind us.*

Of course we still had questions. A thousand of them. Why hadn’t the family called for help? They had radios, computers, smartphones too. They were survivalists, not Amish. And where *were* they? What had happened to their bodies? Why hadn’t they simply left? We shouted these and more at the town meeting but the police simply refused to comment. For most of us the excitement lasted another week or two until we realised we weren’t getting answers any time soon. Besides, the pandemic was in full swing and most of us had other things to worry about. The tragic story eventually faded until it was just one of those awful things in the town’s history that we didn’t talk about. I was as guilty as anyone else of just forgetting about it.

I certainly never expected to find the bunker out there in the woods, faded police tape still on the open door that hung wide open with scorch marks around the lock. It stood out in the woods like someone had cut a hole right in the fabric of reality, the darkness so deep and black it almost ached to look at. The sight of it made my heart drop into my stomach. It radiated pain. Does that make sense? I think some part of my lizard brain picked out details that wouldn’t become apparent to me until I got closer, like the bloody finger streaks that stained the handle from where someone had scrabbled furiously at the lock without success. And the tiny viewing window had been smashed with a hammer that still lay nearby. I needed only to glimpse it to imagine the family taking turns to stand there and scream into the woods desperate for rescue. 

Under any other circumstances, I would have run.

But I’d gone there looking for my dog, and my light revealed a few wet paw prints making their way down the dusty concrete tunnel. Half Bernese and half collie, Ripley is the sort of dog who trembles in my arms when a storm buffets the windows and needs his paws held when we brush him. I love him. I do not have much of a family, or a wife, or even many friends. But I have Ripley, and I could no more have turned around and gone home to an empty apartment where I would have to sob my grief away than I could flap my arms and fly. He was my dog and I’d raised him since he was a puppy, and I wasn’t going to leave him out in those woods.

I went in after him.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it wouldn’t be good. Whatever the police had found, they’d not only kept most of the morbid details to themselves, they had also lied. The bunker was not demolished, or even sealed off. In fact, looking at the occasional blue latex glove tossed aside and the one or two broken police-issue flashlights, it seemed like the last people inside had been in a hurry to get out. Given this was where seven people had presumably died, I assumed it was *someone’s* job to clean it all up. But the corridor looked largely untouched. Just a few metres in and manic writing started to cover the walls, the desperate scrawls of a lone survivor left there to be rediscovered like cave paintings. Most were deliberations on how to get out. Diagrams. Blueprints. Equations and formulae. All focused on the door and the circuits responsible for its faulty lock. I instinctively assumed they belonged to Daniel and that he’d been the last to die. What a **** awful fate for a man to outlive his children. And yet it got worse. Slowly the writing changed from equations and plans to a desperate scrawl. The same few phrases repeated over and over. 

*Five doors. Five. Not six. Six. Didn’t make it. Didn’t make it. Six doors. Six.*

It seemed like the kind of thing you’d find in an asylum. A psychotic rambling punctuated only by six paragraphs right at the end. Each letter was impeccably neat, and each small paragraph was topped with a beautifully drawn Christian cross.  

*Elliott Vance aged fifteen. A gifted guitarist. He liked boys even though he thought I did not know. I loved him with everything I had. He would have made a great man.*

*Alicia Vance aged fourteen. She liked to paint and to shoot. She had her mother’s mean streak. It would have served her well in the future.*

*Elijah Vance aged eight. The smartest of us all…*

These were Daniel’s memorials to his family, and seeing the words lit up by my torch was a haunting insight into the overwhelming despair he’d endured. He must have realised he wouldn’t get the chance to speak at his family’s funerals or to write their obituaries. This was his last desperate way of making sure the world might one day know them as he did - as real people.

The words marked the end of the tunnel, standing adjacent to a trapdoor in the ground. It was not open but the tunnel came to a dead end immediately afterwards and Ripley’s prints disappeared at the hatch. I feared he might be in danger, but still I stopped and looked at the bunker door twenty metres behind me. The once gloomy forest looked so bright, even on this cloudy day, the air dotted with rain. A part of me felt like I was leaving the whole world behind as I began to climb the ladder down.

I entered a large circular living space that was packed with furniture and little nooks and crannies. The walls were covered with folding beds and tables and every inch was multifunctional. A dining space could become a sitting space, which in turn might be where someone slept, or even exercised. It all depended on what particular bit of furniture you unfolded or unclipped or unfurled. Seven people in close quarters, nowhere near enough privacy, it made sense they went with this cluttered overlapping use of space. But it was still a large room, bigger than most studio apartments. And there were a few corridors that led deeper into the Earth telling me the bunker had unseen depths. 

I looked for some sign of my dog and soon found his trail, but this far from the rainy copse Ripley’s prints were starting to fade. After barely a few metres they petered out vaguely in the direction of a nearby door. I wanted to follow but stopped myself from rushing onwards. It was unlikely Ripley was getting out any other way, and I’d do us no good getting hurt myself. I decided to take a look around and quickly spotted a dinner table. 

If I needed proof the police had not bothered with a clean up, this was it. The plates were still out, the food rotten to a strange blackened husk. A child’s hat lay across one place-setting, the once-creamy fleece turned a sickly green and yellow. The chairs had their backs reinforced with wooden beams fitted with long grooves so that something the width of a nail could slide into them. And on each of the cushions were foul smelling stains that looked oddly like an **** print. I touched one with gloved hands and the material crackled audibly. Whatever it was, similar stains were on the cutlery and plates, and there were even handprints of it placed firmly on the tablecloth. At first I thought it was blood, but that wasn’t quite right. It was too contained to be from leaking blood. On the back of one of the chairs a stain tapered exactly where a woman’s waist would be like a near perfect silhouette. I shivered as I remembered that Miranda Vance had always been a slim woman and wondered how she had left her imprint on the grey fabric.

Using my torch, I saw that these stains repeated in the oddest of places. Yes, there were some on beds and blankets and even patches of plain floor exactly like you might expect in a room full of sick people. But why did one stain on the floor bear such a strong resemblance to a child huddled in the foetal position? And why was the same stuff all over the tv remote, and on books on shelves, and board games too. Everything from sofa cushions to DVD boxes to piles of dirty laundry were covered in the same dried brownish material that gave off a foul coppery miasma.

I found the jigsaw particularly baffling. Someone had set up another table with four chairs, all modified with the same back support as those by the dinner table. And a jigsaw had been lain out with four separate piles, but only one was depleted. The rest looked largely untouched, almost like someone had portioned out pieces for three other people who had absolutely no interest in going along with it. Maybe Daniel had tried to keep up morale while the family were sick? **** help me, if that were true I couldn’t help but imagine the poor man sat there with his loved ones close to death, desperately trying to encourage them to click their own pieces into place while they faded in and out of consciousness.

Something about that room emanated madness, and the longer I stayed down there flicking the bright disk of light of my torch from one detail to another, the more I wanted to leave. One door had wooden beams nailed across it. One sofa had been partially disassembled. Multiple beds had been burned. And all the light bulbs had been removed and put in a box on the kitchen counter top. Looking up at the ceiling, I finally had some insight into why the police were so confident the Vances had not survived despite never finding their bodies. Someone had jammed a human finger into one of the empty sockets, almost like they’d expected it to glow with the flick of a switch.

What was it about this place that had caused the police to leave and never return? Not to even take that finger and test it for signs of illness, or even just to confirm who it belonged to?

I decided it was time to hurry up and find my dog. People had died in that place, and while I’m not superstitious, I can’t be the only sceptic who has done the calculations in his head and realised it costs nothing to be respectful of ghosts. That bunker was cramped, terrifying, and the air stank so bad I started to worry I’d get sick myself. It served no one any good to linger. But I’d be damned if I’d just walk away and leave Ripley to rot down there. It’s not like he could climb a ladder and get out on his own (even if I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten down there in the first place).

Summoning what little bravery I had left I called out and broke the silence, something which felt like a terrible taboo in that **** awful place, like screaming in a graveyard.

“Ripley!” 

I waited and hoped to **** I’d hear the pitter patter of his paws, but for the longest of moments there was only the kind of silence that makes you wonder if someone or something in the darkness is holding its breath trying to look like just another patch of nothing. Biding its time until you finally turn around and show it your back…

The TV came on with a blurt of white noise that was so loud and so sudden I cried, threw my arms up, and nearly fell backwards onto a rolled-out sleeping bag that looked like it had spent a week in the sewer. By the time I realised what had caused the noise, I could already hear a tinny rendition of Daniel Vance’s voice.

*…I realise the issue here. I need to emphasise just how little I understand anything that’s…*

I frowned at the screen as I approached. It showed a greenish infrared view of the bunker with Daniel upfront, and the dinner table behind him. It was grainy and hard to see, but I could clearly tell that his family were sitting in those chairs. 

*…Miranda was first to fall ill. Looking back it makes perfect sense. Miranda often went into storage to fetch food for cooking and we found it behind one of the refrigerators. So that’s–ah ****

One of the figures in the background slumped onto the table with a loud *clank* and sent a plate spinning off onto the ground.

*Shit **** ****, Daniel muttered as he got up and grabbed the woman by the shoulders and sat her upright. *Miranda never did like my cooking!* He snorted a laugh as he fussed with something at the back of the chair. *The rods are much better than tape. All those hours spent taping them upright to the chairs. Never worked. But the rods… they fit right into the spine and with a little modification I can just slot them into the chairs. That way everyone is able to join in for dinner. I’m working on something similar for family game night.* 

Daniel wandered over to the camera and with a grin he lifted it from the tripod and scanned the dinner table. What I saw nearly made me drop my torch. 

His family were long dead. Gaunt faces. Missing noses. Lips that had receded to reveal awful grins. These were corpses, plain as day, even when viewed through such a low resolution image. The only thing that made them seem remotely alive was the way their eyes still reflected the infrared back so that they glowed in the dark. And yet Daniel seemed oblivious to it all. He tousled Elliot’s hair. Kissed his wife on the cheek. Run a hand across one young girl’s shoulder. He even picked the young Alexander up from his high chair and I assume he coddled him. I don’t know for sure because I looked away, unwilling to see the poor boy up close.

Eyes averted from the screen, I couldn’t help but pan my torch across to that same dinner table and shiver as I finally realised what all those stains were. Not quite blood. But close. *Liquefying flesh.* Left alone for months, Daniel had not put his family’s bodies to rest. Instead he had moved them around from place to place and puppeted them, living life as if nothing had really changed. Looking at where those stains had settled I saw a clear pattern emerge. He had put them to bed. He had set them dinner. He had propped them up to watch TV, or gave them their favourite books. They even sat there as lifeless husks while Daniel waited for them complete a **** jigsaw. The idea horrified me to my core.

*…back to work. It’s obviously not part of the original designs. No room on the other side, not on the blueprints. Elliot didn’t believe me and why would he? I made every inch of this place, but I did not install that door in storage on the bottom level. I checked the cameras and some of the photos I took during the build and the wall is just blank. But the door is there now and it must lead somewhere. I don’t know when or why it opens, but it does and the next time I’ll be ready. Because I have to know what’s on the other side, and why it did this to us. Alone down here, often all asleep at once. Anything could have slit our throats and been done with it. But it didn’**** took its time and I have to know why!* 

*It took our radios and computers and phones. One by one. None of us noticing until it was far too late. I kept telling the kids they needed to take better care of their things, and even as they complained I just assumed the phones were lying behind some shelf. Where else could they go in a locked bunker? But it wasn’t the children at all. Looking back there are so many signs… who kept taking away the lights? Who kept draining the batteries in our torches? How long did we live with it before we finally realised we weren’t alone? Was it here every step of the way?* 

*A door out of nothing that leads to nowhere, at least most of the time. Because I know for a fact it does not always open onto a blank wall. There is something behind it. I can hear it shuffling around in there, wet breath rattling in its lungs, a horrible sound I hear roaming these halls when it thinks I’m asleep…*

I listened to Daniel, fascinated by this strangely compelling rant, when movement caught my eye. An infrared camera running in the dark, its image a roiling mess of uniform noise. What was it I’d seen? I paused the tape and rewound. Squinting, I saw two pinpricks of light in the darkness just over Daniel’s shoulder. Slowly, the image resolved itself in my mind. I knew what I was seeing and it turned my blood to ice.

Miranda Vance had turned her head, and her lifeless eyes glowed as she fixed them on the back of Daniel’s head.

*…not even any point leaving at this stage. I’m no doctor, but that door is giving off enough radiation to… well, to **** a family of seven. If none of us had touched it… Being in the same room is risky, but not lethal. But given how sick we’ve become, it’s pretty obvious our curiosity got the better of us, one by one, and we all got too close. Or maybe not. Maybe that thing on the other side came through and did this. I don’t even kn… wait… what was that?*

Daniel turned and the camera stopped recording. The image it froze on was of a lone man, bright as a star in the camera’s lens, facing off against unknowable darkness broken only by six pairs of white, glowing eyes.

I became painfully aware of my position relative to the table and I had the painful premonition that if I turned, those chairs would not be empty. I would see the Vances, all of them, Daniel as well, waiting for me. Heads turned. Bodies left to rot for years in the dark. Behind me something shifted. It breathed. Loud. Quick. I knew what it was. *I knew*. It came at me so fast that when I felt something hot and wet touch my hand I screamed, only for the presence to suddenly recoil. But then, without hesitation, it leapt at me and bore me to the ground.

I wept as Ripley licked my face. He was shivering and, worst of all, silent which was not normal. He was not a quiet dog, not when greeting me and not when excited like he was now. But whatever he’d seen down here, he clung to me and dug his paws into my shoulders like he wanted to be cradled over the shoulder, something he has been too big to do for years. 

“Oh you **** idiot,” I cooed in a soft whisper and even in the dark I could feel his tail wagging. Joking aside, I felt nothing but relief at finding him. “Let’s get the **** out of here.”

I picked him up, straining a little under the weight but refusing to give into tired muscles, and made for the ladder. It wasn’t easy climbing the three or four rungs to the hatch, but I managed it and gave the hatch a shove. First one hand, then two. Again and again, with everything I had, but still that hatch refused to budge.

“****!” I cried while pounding at it with my fists, but all I achieved was a sore wrist. The hatch had jammed when, somehow, the handle had been snapped clean off. Now I’d need a pair of pliers or something to cut through the metal bar locking it shut. My fingers couldn’t move it, nor could I brute force the hatch open. The metal bar was an inch thick and, at the very least, I’d need some tools to get at it from this side. 

*At least it’s fixable*, I thought as I climbed back down and caught my breath. On one wall I noticed a simple diagram of the bunker made in chalk. It had three floors. The bottom was storage–Daniel had mentioned that before, and I noticed that he had drawn through it with a large red X–and the top floor was labelled *Quarters*, where I stood now. But the middle floor was labelled workshops and it was there I realised that I’d find what I needed.

There was one door that opened onto a concrete stairwell and, standing at the top, I shone my light down the spiralling guard rails unsure of what it was I hoped to see. There were only harsh shadows and the sense of something foul rising up on the air. A smell that tickled my throat and burned a little in my lungs. Had the police even gone down this far? Had they seen what I’d seen on that TV and just left? Somehow I thought it was unlikely that had been enough to send the entire Sheriff’s department running, so was it something else that had done it. Something that had been enough to terrify dozens of armed men. Something that was almost definitely down there. 

*The door…*

I went down quietly. At first I considered leaving Ripley behind, but after losing him the first time I decided I’d rather risk it just to know that he was right next to me. Besides, he was being quieter than I was, and I didn’t feel much like going down those stairs on my own. He accompanied me with only the quiet click clack of his paws on concrete, a sound I found deeply comforting as I barely managed to keep my torch from shaking in my hand and my breathing steady.

Down one floor and I found the workshop exactly as you might expect. A large space filled with generators and fuel and water tanks and boilers and heaters and pretty much anything and everything that you’d need to survive but which you couldn’t put outside due to fallout. Wires pipes and tubes ran from one end of the room to the other and even years later, most of the machinery still hummed in the pitch black emptiness, an idea I found deeply unsettling. Taking one look at that strange tangle of harsh shapes and industrial figures looming out of the walls and floor, I shivered and looked around, quickly finding a small area Daniel had cordoned off for his own use. About a fifth of the total floor space, there was a large workbench and some seriously high end machining equipment, all very well used. Lathes. Buzzsaws. Drills. Belt sanders. Welding torches. Everything a man needed to do-it-himself.

And Daniel had been busy.

I’m not sure exactly what it was he’d been working, but there was an arm on the bench. It sat atop a pile of papers that had slowly turned brown over the years until the whole thing looked like it had been soaked in tobacco spit. On the whiteboard was a faded but still visible diagram of what looked to me like a ball-and-socket joint. I thought of the tape, of Daniel’s little mechanism to keep his family upright, and then looked at the arm and suppressed a momentary gag reflex. I don’t know if Dan had been working on posable limbs, or just a way to put the decomposing remains back together after they’d started to fall apart, but the size of the arm suggested a pre-teen child, and he’d left it out on the surface like it was a disassembled clock. It was also missing a finger. *Just how **** crazy was he?* I wondered as I pinched my nose with one hand and began overturning boxes looking for a hefty pair of pliers, or maybe a hacksaw. Ripley backed away from the noise, but once I made sure he wasn’t going anywhere I carried on grabbing and pulling at box after box hoping I’d find what I was looking for. Anything to break that **** metal bar.

In the end I managed to get a pair of bolt cutters, a crowbar, and a heavy duty pair of pliers. One went in my pocket, one went down the back of my jeans, and the other was clutched in my fist, too large to be tucked away in my clothes. The bolt cutters felt hefty in my hand which was a bit of comfort, but that feeling didn’t last long.

Something moved in the darkness, out there in the twisted jungle of shadows cast by all those pipes and wires that ran from one machine to the next. A figure moved. Thin, but unmistakably human in its outline. I couldn’t help but remember what I’d seen on that tape. Surely it couldn’t have been real? Maybe Daniel had rigged something up. Some fishing wire and a motor, maybe? The idea that those bodies had been moving on their own… I couldn’t be sure of that, could I? It was a frightening idea, one my mind had latched onto out of sheer panic. That was all…

And then I saw them. A pair of white pin-**** reflecting back at me from the depths of that cluttered room. Ripley, already behind me, head nuzzled into my leg, pushed even closer against me and let out a barely audible whine under his breath. The behaviour of a dog who was terrified, close to **** himself with fear.

*Just a bit of metal*, I told myself as the light shook so violently in my hand I struggled to see straight. *Just two shiny bits of metal…*

They blinked and began to come towards me. If I had any doubts left, they were dispersed by the sight of a pale white hand emerging into the light.

I ran straight to the stairs and went to climb them, but only one or two steps in and I saw something gripping the handrail on the top floor. A mouldy clump of flesh only just recognisable as a fist, the flesh withered until the fingers were basically bone. Without meaning to, I brought my light up out of habit and I saw the bloated face of a hairless corpse glaring down at me. I couldn’t even tell you if it had been a teenage girl or the sixty-year-old Daniel, either way I instinctively turned and found another body shambling towards me out of the workshop. I was trapped. Nowhere to go. By the feel of warm fluid on the back of my leg I could tell Ripley had finally **** himself. An adult dog, tail between his legs, shivering like a puppy and desperate to be picked up. **** I needed him to just stay together for a little longer. I couldn’t take him in my arms, but I couldn’t leave him behind either…

With nowhere to go I ran down and entered storage. There was the temptation to stop once I hit the bottom. Down here the air was thicker and the sounds of my breathing were muted, somehow distant. But I only had to look back up to see three pairs of eyes glaring down at me, so without giving any of it much further thought I barreled down the corridor and stumbled onto a door at random. Opening it, I saw what looked like your standard storage room, only most of the shelves had been overturned and the food left to rot on the floor. One or two shelving units were still upright though, and their shelves were covered in tall opaque boxes that made them a fantastic hiding spot. That, I decided, would have to be where I crouched down and turned off my light.

I was already inside when I realised that wasn’t all that was in there…

The door *almost* looked normal. I could see why Daniel must have been confused by it because it looked a little bit like all the other doors down there, but it was different too. It was too tall and too wide, about a foot and a half off the ground, and the metal rusted in its entirety like it had aged out of sync with everything else down there. All around the jamb was a profusion of wet soppy moss like the kind you find hanging off trees in a swamp, and every few seconds the door would leak something strange and oily, like the kind of thing you find in a parking lot on a rainy day. Of course that wasn’t too strange in itself, but the leak was horizontal, defying gravity so that every few seconds a large glob of the stuff would whip across the room and *slap* into the wall opposite creating a puddle about the size of a man that defied all reason.

Remembering Daniel’s words about radiation, I instinctively inched away from this puddle and the door on the opposite wall, backing myself into the darkest quietest corner I could while I pulled Ripley behind me and hoped to **** he wouldn’t give me away. Once I was in there I turned off my light and waited.

I must have taken longer than I’d thought to hide spot because it was barely two seconds later when a few figures entered the room. It was pitch black after I’d turned off my torch, but they made enough noise to let me know that at least two of them had stumbled in after me. I stayed there, unable to see anything, not sure if they were heading straight for me or just getting ready to leave, forced to hold out and let luck decide my fate. When I finally heard something scrape against the wall barely two feet from where I stood, I gave up and switched my light on, desperate to know what was coming for me.

The sound had been terribly misleading. 

Daniel Vance was no more than six inches from my face.

“Get out,” he hissed from a toothless and cracked mouth. A living corpse just like the others, somehow a flash of intelligence remained in those wide, terrified eyes. 

And then I heard it. The creaking of a door. And without even thinking I turned the light and saw it on the wall. I saw *it* open, and behind the strange steel there was more than just plain old concrete. Much more. I saw a raging gullet of flesh. A ringed tube of pulsing muscle lined with teeth the size of hands. A spiralling descent into madness. Hot foetid air washed into the room, buffeting me and the rotting corpses, all of us paralysed by what we were seeing, even if for most of the figures beside Daniel and myself, they didn’t have eyes to see with.

“What the ****…?” I muttered, unable to take my eyes from the flesh tube beyond that doorway.

“It’s coming,” Daniel whispered as he grabbed me with one fist and hurled me out of the room. I hit the floor and skidded along a slick fluid left by the Vance’s footprints, the smell of which turned my stomach. Perhaps the worst detail was that it was cold. I don’t know why, I’d just expected whatever oozed them off them to be feverishly hot. But it wasn’**** soaked my shirt like I’d fallen into a muddy puddle.

“It’s coming.”

This voice wasn’t Daniel’s. I couldn’t say for sure, but it sounded like a child’s whisper. One by one the bodies shuffled over to the open door and knelt before it. I don’t know why but I got the impression the others had lost pretty much everything left of their minds, but Daniel remained aware. He looked back at me once more and spoke before he pressed his head to the floor in supplication with the others.

“The only thing we did wrong was being *here* for it to torture. It didn’t need a reason, just an opportunity. Leave. It won’t let us go. It won’t even let us die. And if it catches you, it won’t let *you* go either.”

His forehead kissed the dirt. 

And then something reached through the door and gripped his head in its palm the way you or I might pick up an apple.

In full panic, I ran over and grabbed my dog and the bolt cutters and I ran like my legs were pistons, machines whose signals of exhaustion and fatigue could not slow me down, or cause me to fall. I had to move. I had to leave. The hand that had grabbed Daniel… the sight of it flushed my mind clean like some kind of enema. It hurt to see the image replay in my mind but there was nothing else in my head echoing around except the sight of fingers with one too many knuckles, and nails as large as a smartphone.

I reached the top floor and nearly collapsed from breathlessness, but I wouldn’t let myself stay down for long. I crawled over to the ladder and climbed up and immediately went to work trying to cut the metal lock. It was **** with just one hand, the other clinging to the torch that I kept frantically pointing at the door behind me, and it wasn’t long before I fumbled one too many times and dropped my only source of light.

“No no no no…” I mewed. But there was no time to look for it. I had to get out and I had to get out fast! I couldn’t see but I was sure I could hear something climbing up those stairs. Not the steady *thump thump* of human feet. No this was different. This was a rapid pitter patter of a spider, maybe. Something with hundreds of feet or hands, or **** knows what, skittering along the floor and walls and ceiling, pulling itself along with a body whose mere shape would offend ****.

Using all my strength I leaned **** the bolt cutters and, at last, the bolt gave. I threw the hatch open and got just enough ambient light to see Ripley hovering at the bottom of the ladder, growling ineffectually at the doorway. I crouched down, scooped him up, and fled up the ladder so quickly that my muscles turned to jelly at the top and I fell over onto hands and knees. But still, I was out. The long corridor covered in writing was ahead of me, and at the very end a doorway capped now by the tired blue light of a full moon.

Ripley needed no encouragement. He whipped down the corridor with canine speed and I followed at a broken and stumbling crawl, eventually shouldering past the open door and collapsing onto the forest floor.

For a few seconds I drifted in and out of consciousness, but when I looked up and saw the canopy overhead moving–the branches backlit by a full moon–I snapped awake and glared down at something gripping my ankle. The hand had reached out of the dark and seized me and was slowly dragging me back into the Earth below. Whatever it was, most of its body lurked out of sight in the shadows behind the doorway, but the hand that crushed my leg was the size of my torso with an arm that looked like it belonged to a mole rat.

I struck it with my own fist. I dug my nails in. I cried and kicked and screamed, but nothing could stop it. From behind the door, something like a face grinned and leered at me with joy. It was taking its time, sure enough, pulling me in so slowly that it gave my mind all the time in the world to appreciate the nightmare that awaited me. I think if, in that moment, you’d given me a gun, I would’ve shot myself because **** help me I couldn’t escape the look in Daniel’s eyes, how he’d knelt to worship this thing like a man who knew that hope or pride or joy or anything with even a hint of goodness to it was so far out of reach for him it might as well be a dream. How long was this thing going to keep them down there? How long did it intend to keep *me!?*

I wept like a child, feeling like my mind was slowly cracking as I tried everything to stop that **** pulling me into the shadows. I kicked at the earth. I dug into it using my hands looking for a root or a pipe or anything to hold onto. Nothing, *nothing*, I did would slow it down.

I was no more than a foot from the doorway when Ripley reappeared.

A dog afraid of hoovers and plastic bags and doors that move on their own. A dog who once got stared down by a particularly feisty rabbit who stopped mid chase and turned around, baffling the predator on its tail. A dog you couldn’t even watch scary movies around…

And he lunged at that arm like he was a wolf, like he’d always been one. And while he didn’t quite break the skin, the pressure was enough to make the thing’s grip weaken and I slid my leg out. Unable to stand, I knelt and grabbed the dog and pulled as hard as I could and now that **** thing bled at last as the pressure of the jaws and the sliding teeth ripped into its flesh. Together, at last, Ripley and I were let go and sent rolling backwards head over hells.

I wasted no time waiting or looking or processing. I heaved the dog to my chest and crawled until I passed out, making it maybe half a kilometre away. Only when I could no longer see the door did I let myself fall to the ground face first and gave up consciousness.

\-

The doctors said I had pneumonia, which I suppose made some kind of sense. I might have even believed them were it not for the Sheriff’s visit, asking strange questions of me as I lay in bed about what I may or may not have seen. I dismissed them to the best of my ability. I wasn’t interested in chasing that particular nightmare down, figuring out if it had been real or not, at least not while I lay there half-drowning in my own infection. To be fair, I had at least some sympathy for why the police had done so little to seal that place off. I have, on occasion, thought about going and doing the job myself, but to this day I still have nightmares about being pulled into the dark beyond that door. Not just the bunker door, the one I narrowly avoided at the end, but the one *below*. What I saw was a kind of madness, I’m sure of it, and I often think of Daniel’s words. 

*It didn’t need a reason, just an opportunity*.

Somehow, the Vances were that opportunity. Maybe they built their bunker on a leyline, or a weak spot between dimensions, or the site of former Satanic rituals. I’m not sure it even matters. They went into the dark thinking it’d be a safe place to wait out the world’s troubles, but something had been down there waiting for them, waiting for a chance to get at a family of seven people, to lock them in and deprive them of escape and slowly take from them everything it could.

I’ve moved since then. Couldn’t help it. It wasn’t just the memories you see. It was the short-wave radio I kept in my basement. Something my father passed onto me when I was just a boy. **** I’d forgotten about it… at least until I woke up one day to the sound of it blaring white noise down in the dark.

And buried in that sound was the faint whispering of a man, his voice barely recognisable, but unmistakably *his*.

*…let them go let them go let them go let them go let them go let them go…*

 Human: write a story with the theme title: When I was a kid, my dad kept a second family in our basement.
 
 Assistant: Growing up, I thought everyone had a second family in their basement. In retrospect, I understand how ridiculous that sounds… but it was all I’d ever known.

I knew that every night, my dad tented the leftovers from dinner with foil, got up without a word, and carried the plate to the basement. I’d listen from my room as he lumbered down the creaking steps, held my breath to hear the muffled mumblings of his greeting.

I knew that every morning, he’d make the trip downstairs to see his second family off before work, then kiss me on the top of my head and ruffle my hair as he walked out.

I knew that each Christmas, he’d bring a sack of brightly wrapped packages downstairs in a Santa suit.

I knew that my dad had a second family in the basement, and it seemed so normal that I thought *everyone* else did too.

I’ll never forget the first time I asked my mom about them. I was young – maybe five – when I finally found the words to ask: “Mommy, why can’t I play with the people in the basement?”

My mom was the human embodiment of frenetic energy, an organic perpetual motion machine. Always pacing, or cleaning, or stirring a ****. Always with a lit cigarette tucked between her yellowing fingers.

I’ll never forget that, as that question hung in the air, she finally *stopped* for the first time. Her stillness was unsettling in a way I can’t quite explain.

“We don’t talk about them,” she rushed, chasing the hurried statement with a lengthy drag off her cigarette. She blew a plume of smoke out the opened window before leaning down to meet me at face level, her bloodshot eyes mere inches from my own. “You don’t need to play with the kids, but the kids need Daddy.”

She paused again, the haunting image of her at a standstill etching itself into my mind permanently. Finally, she muttered, “Daddy needs them too.”

That night, I heard my mom shrieking at my dad in their bedroom. I was surprised that they didn’t know that I knew, more shocked – frightened, even – to find that they didn’t *want* me to know. Most of all, they didn’t want me to tell anyone at school – anyone at all, really.

After that night, everything was different. My dad only tented the leftovers after dinner, only brought the food downstairs after I’d gone to bed. He stopped visiting them in the mornings altogether. My mom started acting differently, too. I’d always noticed that she was… distant from my dad; had always noticed how she bristled under his touch, how she stole away to the other side of the room whenever he entered. But it got worse after that… as a kid, I felt deeply guilty. I felt like I’d ruined my parents’ marriage.

But I was just a kid, and I was curious. My mom meant to dissuade me from asking more questions, but she accidentally gave away something that made me even *more* curious – the downstairs family had kids, maybe kids my own age to play with.

I wanted – *needed* to know about them, in the way that little kids *need* to understand all of the strangeness of this chaotic world, *need* to make sense of the nonsense that surrounds us daily. The nonsense that we become acclimated to as adults but struggle with endlessly as children, like a puzzle or a riddle or a word problem on a math test about buying eighty watermelons.

Another change following that critical night: the basement door was fitted with sturdy lock. Even still, I needed to know… there’s something horribly dreadful about finding out that a second basement family is abnormal, something more horrible still about not knowing who or *why.* By the time I was seven, I made up my mind to get to the bottom of it.

To avoid getting in trouble, I could only investigate when three conditions were met: I was home from school, my dad was still at work, and my mom wasn’t around to catch me. These circumstances rarely overlapped, but the first time I came home from school to find that my dad’s car wasn’t in the garage and my mom’s endless movement had driven her to the point of exhaustion, I threw off my shoes and crept to the basement door, quiet in my sock feet.

And then, I knocked.

It was a quiet knock, for fear of waking my mom from her nap, but it was a knock, nonetheless. It was more than just a knock, too, it was an initiation, an invitation, a confrontation of my life’s greatest – and most terrifying – mystery.

I jumped when a gentle knock returned from the other side. It was almost immediate… like the person on the other side had been *waiting* for me. The thought froze me in place for a moment, but I knew I didn’t any have time to waste.

My mouth felt suddenly of sandpaper and chalk, but I leaned into the door to whisper, “hi.”

“Hi.”

It was a little girl, her voice sweet yet timid. Like testing the keys on a piano for the first time.

“I-I’m Ricky. What’s your name?”

A long pause.

“Lila. My brother’s is Isaac, but he doesn’t talk so good. But he’s still little. Mommy says **** start talking when he’s ready.”

“There’s three of you down there?”

“Mhmm,” she replied simply, as if the entire situation felt as wholly normal for her as it had for me, on the opposite side of the basement door. “Daddy comes to visit sometimes, though, so I guess there’s four.”

My eyes widened as a flurry of questions began to sprout in my mind, but I heard my mom start to stir in her room. I sped down the hallway and into the playroom. I busied my hands with my toys, but my mind was somewhere else… the sprouts of questions continued to grow rapidly, soon overtaking my thoughts like an unruly patch of weeds.

And like weeds, the questions were stubborn; hard to – *impossible* to get rid of. The roots of the situation and its implication unraveled, stretched through my whole body. Fear planted itself firmly in my belly as I was forced to confront the possibility that I didn’t really know my dad, didn’t really know my own family at all. If my dad was Lila’s dad, too, what did that mean for me? For my family?

And why wasn’t she allowed to come out of the basement?

Over the next couple years, I stole away to the basement door in those rare moments of freedom. I got to know Lila, got to like her and eventually even to love her – she was my best friend. As a kid, I was pretty lonely; my classmates shied away from me for reasons I couldn’t quite understand, like something about me was inherently repellant to my peers. I only had one friend at school.

And at home, I had Lila.

As we spoke more, a never-ending stream of back and forth questioning crammed into the briefest moments of time, we both came to understand the differences between us, between our lives and our circumstances. The differences that at first felt so *normal* grew bigger and sharper and scarier than either of us could comprehend.

The unfairness of it all became impossible to ignore.

Lila lamented that she wasn’t allowed to go to school, that she couldn’t go outside to play or make friends or ride bikes around the cul-de-sac in the summer until the streetlamps flickered on and the cicadas started to scream. She even longed for the things I loathed most– homework, rinsing off my dishes after dinner, tidying up my room each Sunday morning.

She said she’d lived in that basement all of her life, was probably even *born* down there. She couldn’t remember anything different before being locked up in the cold and musty room.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but, eventually… I couldn’t manage the guilt I felt for living the life Lila never had, *could* never have in my mind. I was so young, so naïve… I didn’t know how to manage the situation anymore, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I stopped trying.

I stopped visiting Lila. No more secret, whispered exchanges; no more quick knocks on the door just to let her know that I was there, that anyone at all was there for her. Days and weeks and months and years trickled by with Lila never quite leaving my thoughts, but with her existence instead… *compartmentalized*.

Confined to the basement of my own mind.

At home, it was harder to keep thoughts of her locked away. When my dad brought her dinner hours past my bedtime, I’d lay awake warm in my bed. Sometimes I’d hear her scream. Sometimes I’d hear the tray clatter to the floor, the plate fracturing on impact. Sometimes I’d hear her crying – awful, painful sobs – while I assembled new Lego sets in the playroom.

Sometimes she… she would call out my name. I’ll never forgive myself for this – I hate myself for it, and I *deserve* to – but I ignored her every time.

Worst of all, though, was when she started knocking.

I was finishing up my science homework for the day when the first knock came.

A quiet knock… but a knock, nonetheless. An initiation, an invitation, a *confrontation*.

My blood ran cold as I realized where it was coming from; *who* it was coming from.

I hopped on my bike and didn’t come home until dinner was on the table.

That night, I heard my dad scream back at Lila for the first time. Yelled for her to *knock it off* with all the knocking. He took care of her, of her little brother and her mom, and that he could only do that if she stayed in the basement, if she stayed quiet.

She wasn’t persuaded, though, and her knocking only grew more frequent, and *louder*. I was about ten years old by then, so I had a little more freedom… all the freedom in the world, compared to Lila. I avoided my house at all costs, only returning in the evenings, where I’d be greeted immediately by the knocking.

By then, it was less knocking and more ramming the total weight of her body into the door. My mother took to vacuuming the house obsessively just to cover up the noise. She wouldn’t even look my dad in the eye anymore. I imagined the bruises blooming on Lila’s shoulder, up and down the length of her arm. If it hurt her, she didn’t let on.

She didn’t stop.

Sleep became a distant memory, leaving me dazed and irritable and confused and – most of all – terrified. I began showing up at my schoolfriend’s – now my *only* friend’s – house unannounced just to escape Lila’s knocking.

His parents clearly didn’t like me, and tensions rose between the two of us kids, escalating to a boiling point that ended in a fight. I slugged him in the gut, and he returned with the words that broke me – broke *everything*.

A blow far more powerful than he could’ve delivered with small hands balled up into fists.

“My mom says you’re a *bastard*, that your mom’s a *whore!*”

I had to look up the words in my dictionary when I got home.

I had to gather the courage to, once again, ask a difficult question: “Mom… am I a ****?”

I had to watch my mom lose her momentum, to *stop* again.

I had to watch what little light she had left in her go out.

I had to sit there as she left the room, had to sit there spilling hot tears as the knocking kicked up again, each powerful **** against the door wracking my mind, a painful reminder that Lila was coming for me.

But, my mom came back, and she returned with an old newspaper clipping in her hands, worn at the edges. She held it to her chest as she finally – *finally* – told me the truth about Lila, about Dad’s second family in the basement.

I was young, but I needed to know. My mom knew it, too.

Through choking sobs, she told me about my dad’s old family, the one he’d had and *made* before he met her. The horrible mistake they’d made, the one that gave her the best thing she’d ever had in her life but took away three others. About how my dad’s old wife was already skating on thin ice, her cries for help that went unanswered, how when she found out about what my mom and my dad were doing that what little was left beneath her shattered.

About how they couldn’t have known, but about the guilt she carried regardless – “like a heavy backpack, mom?”

“Yes, sweetie. But I can never put it down.”

That Lila was dead; and Isaac, too. That their mom had done *that* to them, and then did it to herself too. My dad found them in the basement when he got home from work. That he’d never forgiven himself, and my mom never had either. That when they reappeared back in the basement like nothing had happened, even after their bodies were taken and buried all those years ago, they couldn’t think of anything to do but to give them as normal of a life as possible.

Yet another difficult question: “but… why do they have to stay in the basement?”

I found out later that evening, when my dad came home from work and unlocked the door. Lila came out of the shadows, and I flinched instinctively as I saw her face for the first time, saw the gaping hole in her face where her left eye should have been. Isaac was little like Lila said, but the oozing wound to his jaw would have made it nearly impossible for him to speak if he had the chance to grow up.

I was scared at first, but I put on my brave face and took Lila by the hand. I played with Lila and Isaac for the first time; shared my toys with them, laughed with them. I didn’t meet their mom that day, but I would, years later. Once she and Lila and Isaac knew what became of them, she struggled to cope. She doesn’t come out often, but I treat her with kindness when she does. The woman I know her as now couldn’t imagine doing what she did.

My dad’s second family still stayed inside, but they were no longer confined to the shadows of the basement after that day. They became less of my dad’s *second* family as we all became one larger family that laughed and played and loved together.

I don’t live in that house anymore… I’m an adult now, with an enormous appreciation for all of the freedom and opportunities available to me that I once took for granted. I know my family is far from normal – even horrible and horrifying in many ways that I helped to perpetuate as a kid – but it’s all I’ve ever known. I love them… all of them.

I still visit whenever I can, for birthdays and for Christmas and for summer vacations. And whenever I do visit, I take a moment to be grateful for the fact that when I knock on the front door, [Lila opens it](https://www.reddit.com/r/hercreation/).

[X](https://www.reddit.com/r/thecrypticcompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The homeless in my neighborhood don't just want change
 
 Assistant:  Two whole years ago my wife Angie and I decided it was finally time to buy a house. We knew it was anything but a buyer’s market, but we were sick of paying triple what a mortgage would be in rent every month.

I’m sure this story is familiar to some of you and we went through every stage of disbelief, anger and finally apathy after every competitive offer we put together was blown out of the water by a multinational investment corporation. 

I’m not mad about the process anymore although it left me questioning where society was headed. 

HOW IS THIS LEGAL!! I WENT TO SCHOOL. I PAID OFF DEBT. I GOT A GOOD JOB. I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT TO STILL GET PRICED OUT THE **** CITY I GREW UP IN!!! 

Perhaps some anger remains. But after setting our sights on the city’s less desirable neighborhoods we finally got our home. 

On June 1st we moved into a 4,500 square foot colonial. 

It had hardwood floors that patinated like leather and the frosted plaster trim gave the ceilings the look of a wedding cake. The basement was a different story. It wasn’t just unfinished; it was a dank hole in the ground and scribbled on the walls were strange spirals and crude faces.

“Kids.” The realtor had said like she knew who drew the markings. “Fixing up the basement would be quite the value builder!” 

So, sure, the kitchen had composite counters and the basement needed a sign above the entrance that read, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” but we had a home. And a **** big one at that.

The catch was that it was a stone’s throw from the freeway and that the area was known for its crime more than anything else. Angie said it was just a steppingstone, we’d bank a year’s worth of mortgage, hope the housing market keeps rocketing and move again in a year. 

There were some flaws in her plan, mainly money, but I didn’t say anything. I figured we’d both adjust to like it there. 

The first few weeks went smooth and me and the wife got to unpacking and introducing ourselves to the neighbors. Maybe it was the threat of crime and that there was comfort and purpose in knowing who you lived next to, but whatever it was our neighbors were incredibly friendly. 

We felt at home quick and while there were some shocks, we made games out of them to take the fear away. 

With the pops that permeated the night we had the game where we guessed whether the sound was fireworks or gunshots. When we passed large turds one of us would point and we played 

human or dog. 

Unfortunately, after just a couple weeks at this game we became experts at differentiating between these. Gunshots carry the sharp crack of the sound barrier being broken while fireworks go boom or pop. As for the **** let’s just say that we hadn’t seen any dogs large enough to lay landmines around town.

There was a homeless problem there for sure, but they minded their own business. Our neighbors seemed to see right through them. They’d act as if they were ghosts. Like they weren’t even there. ****, everyone did. 

I’d smile and say hello in passing. The least I could do was treat them like human beings.

One night after a movie I was at the sink washing the popcorn bowl. The window above looks out to our backyard which was heavily wooded for a city lot. When it was dark out, I could only see a sliver of what was outside beyond the reflection of myself in the glass. 

I frowned at the shadow of a tall dark stump. I don’t remember a tree there. I swayed on my feet to see past my reflection. 

In between the bushes, nearly out of sight, a man was standing still, staring back at me. My heart leaped and I dropped the bowl where it crashed in the sink. 

“You okay in there, honey?” Angie shouted from the living room. 

“Yeah.” I kept my eyes on the man and said nothing to Angie not wanting to alarm her. “I’m gonna take the trash out.”

“Ok.” 

I walked by the trash without touching it and opened the back door. 

“Hello?” Outside the wind was blowing hard and the branches of the buckthorn the man stood behind were waving wildly as if to warn me.  

“What do you want?” I stepped forward to try and show I wasn’t scared but it was the tepid step of prey like I was better planting my weight to run.

The man said nothing.

I took another step forward more confidently this time but jumped when my movement activated the motion light. 

I composed myself and yelled. “This is private property! If you don’t leave I’m calling the police!” 

Now this was the emptiest of threats and everybody in the neighborhood knew it. The cops made a point to show up an hour late if at all. 

The man walked forward a few paces to where I could see him better. He was very tall and wore a heavy wool overcoat that stretched all the way to his ankles.  

He kept walking towards me, my brain was shouting but I froze in fear.

“What do you want?”

He stopped just in front of me. A white scar starred across his black skin just below the chin. He was at least six-foot-six but the coat that ran the entire length of his body made him gigantic. His face was recently shaven and gaunt.

He held out his fist at arm’s length and when he uncurled his fingers, cupped in his enormous palm was a pill.

“I don’t have any drugs.” I said.

His face didn’t change any. There was no want or question in his eyes. 

“You want me to take it?” I pointed at his hand but still his expression was static.

I reached out and gently plucked the pill from his palm. I held it between my forefinger and thumb. It was just a pill capsule, whatever had been inside had been emptied.

“What do you want?” I asked again.

He opened his mouth revealing the severed stump of a tongue and then he widened the enormous whites of his eyes. He began to mouth something but being tongueless I couldn’t tell what. But my blood cooled because I felt certain it was some kind of curse.

“Please,” I murmured. “Please leave.”

He turned and stepped into the night and I watched the bushes sway in his wake as if he were a giant parting his way through the woods. 

\_\_\_

The next day was Saturday and I was determined to find out if anyone knew about this tall man. I walked to the **** mall and asked some of the homeless in the area, but as soon as I began to describe him, they all looked at the ground and shook their heads. 

The pattern was repeated with every other homeless person I tried to talk to. On my way home, I stopped by two men working on a car at the end of a driveway.

“Hey,” I started over to them. “This may sound a little crazy, but do you know of a tall fella around here that wears a giant coat?” They both started laughing. “Sorry to waste your time.” I turned to go.

“No, no.” One of them was waving me back. “You talking about a really big ****?” The man raised his hand to signify. “Yay high? Black coat? Nasty scars?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Well, that’s Tall Frank. What you wanna about him? You see him in your recycling?”

“No, why?”

“Tall Frank’s a can man. He makes his living that way.”

I nodded. “He was acting weird in my backyard last night.”

“Weird how? Was he just looking like his weird self ?”

“No. He was staring at me from outside. When I went out he tried to say something. Or mouth something.”

Both of their brows rose. “You saying that Tall Frank tried to communicate with you?”

“Yeah.” 

They both looked at each other. “Tall Frank talks to nobody. And by talks I mean… communicating in any kinda way.”

“He cut his own throat to never talk again.” The other chimed in. 

“That’s just a rumor. Tall Frank showed up in this neighborhood twenty years ago. No one knows where he came from and the man can’t tell ya. Yeah, people put all kinds of legend to those scars. Some say it was dog that bit him. But I never seen no dog that’ll slice your tongue out.”

“If he doesn’t communicate with anyone how come he has the name Tall Frank?”

“Hmm. Well that’s what my mama would call him.” He leaned closer to me. “She used to tell me to watch my tongue or Tall Frank’ll take it!” He chuckled to himself.

“What do you think he wanted with me?”

They both shrugged. “No clue. But you be sure to tell us when you find out.” 

They bent back to their work and I thanked them and went on far less assured than when I’d first set out.

\_\_\_\_

The next several days there was no sign of Tall Frank, but I began to fall ill. It was a headache at first, but soon I had heart palpitations and body aches that I almost let take me to the emergency room. 

I assured myself that there was no such thing as curses. Why was I letting one strange encounter with a homeless man dominate my every thought? Angie was working late recently and when I had the house to myself at night, I would stand at the kitchen window and stare into the backyard. 

I was obsessed and it wasn’t long before I saw him again. I was wrapped in a blanket filling the teapot at the sink when I saw him standing in the same place as before.

I dropped the **** and ran to the back door. 

“Hey!” My head felt light and I was in that same kind of drunken state where your fear hardly speaks to you. I scampered through the backyard over to him. “What do you want with me?”

Tall Frank was staring at me. He gestured with his scarred neck for me to follow. 

I looked down at my bare feet, but he was already walking. 

“Hey! Just leave us alone!” 

I stepped cautiously after him. When I got past the bushes where I could see the alley I saw him standing near the trashcans.

I ran after him. “You! I don’t ever want to see you back here again!” With our difference in size and the blanket wrapped around my shoulders I’m sure I looked to him like some angry hobbit. 

He certainly didn’t act intimated and I can’t blame him. Tall Frank crossed the alley and sat on a crumbling retaining wall. He gently tapped the stone next to him for me to sit. 

“I’m not **** sitting.”

He reached into his breast pocket and paused before pulling out an envelope. Then he put the letter in his other hand and reached in again and pulled out another. 

“What are those?”

He extended the envelopes to me, his long arm nearly stretched the entire alley. I approached the letters cautiously snatching them and stepping back. 

“What are these?” I muttered already distracted. They had both been opened and I took the papers out of one of the envelopes.

It was a handwritten letter on college ruled paper. All the ink was smeared like it’d been dunked in water, but I could still read it albeit slowly. When I was done reading, I let my arm fall down to my side and stared at Tall Frank in disbelief. 

Angie had a lover. 

I looked at the other envelope and hardly had to read it to figure it out.

The letterhead read: Atlantic Life Insurance. 

A policy had been opened in my name for a quarter of a million dollars. 

I stumbled over to the retaining wall and sat. 

“The pills.” I thought about the empty capsule he’d shown me that I tossed aside. It was my emergency Albuterol. It had to be. A quick WebMD search showed that an overdose started with symptoms of headaches and heart palpations. 

“Angie is trying to **** me?”

Suddenly I realized Tall Frank’s arm was around me and he was patting my shoulder paternally. 

We sat there in silence for a long time. 

“The things you can learn from people’s recycling.” I said.

Tall Frank nodded and we watched the upstairs light turn on and my wife appeared in the window. She twisted something in her fingers and then tapped it into a mug.

A minute later I heard the back door open. 

“Honey are you out here?” Angie called. “I made you some tea!”

I guess the homeless around her don’t always want change. Sometimes they might want to [save your life.](https://www.reddit.com/r/thespookyplace/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. We see a lot of strange and disgusting things, but what I saw last week has me questioning both my job and reality
 
 Assistant: I’ve been involved with water search and rescue for twelve years now. I’ve seen a lot of upsetting and even unexplainable things in my time, but those pale in comparison to what I saw recently. Water search and rescue is often a depressing job. When someone gets lost in a forest, they can still be found alive days later. But when we get a call, it’s almost always body recovery. People don’t last long in the water.

I can’t tell you exactly where, but I live in a northern territory known for its water sports. Fishing, kayaking, diving - whatever it is, our waters probably have a solid reputation for it. Despite that, this area isn’t some kind of resort. The waters here are cold and oftentimes vicious. Search and rescue operations here can be grueling and not many stick with it. There are a few older guys who have been doing it longer than me, but I’m one of the most experienced around.

Like I said before, this job is more body recovery than anything, especially here. We save more live moose from the water than live humans. And when we get a call about a missing child…well we’d be better off just giving our condolences. That’s just how the waters are here. Our small town has one of the highest drowning rates in the country. But we look anyway, and usually we find a body.

I’ve considered quitting many times in my career. Most people quit after their first recovery. In training, we try to emphasize just how much water can distort a corpse, but nothing can prepare you for the harsh reality. It’s not uncommon for us to find bodies bloated beyond recognition. Sometimes they barely even seem human. A lot of divers don’t last long after seeing something like that. But I continued to do it after all these years. I figured if I didn’t then no one would.

However, the things I saw last week have made me reconsider that decision.

I got the call around 11 A.M. A father had taken his ten-year-old son fly fishing. At one point, the father managed to stab a hook all the way through his finger. He went back up to his truck to get a first-aid kit. The boy was gone when he returned a few minutes later.

When I first heard the story, I hung my head in silence for a moment. It had been raining heavily for almost a month now, and the waters were running faster than ever. To make things worse, it was unusually cold for the season. A number of people had gone missing in recent weeks. Many of them had yet to be found. I had little hope of finding the boy alive.

Me and a couple of other divers were at the site where the boy went missing within an hour, and a larger search and rescue team located a few towns over was headed our way. We talked with the father and even searched the forest for a bit, hoping that he had just wandered off. But eventually we realized that we would have to begin searching in the river.

The moment I got in the water I knew the boy was gone. The current was worse than it had ever been, and even I had difficulty navigating the icy river. We looked for hours in the surrounding areas, and even expanded our search once the larger team had arrived. The boy was nowhere to be found.

I was surprised. I hadn’t expected to find him alive, but I had at least anticipated finding a body. However, there was no trace of him. The sun got low and the air grew colder. We were considering calling it off as nightfall approached and resuming the search the next day when I discovered something.

There’s a lot of creek beds around the river. Many of them have dried up as a result of encroaching vegetation or manmade efforts to divert the water. We usually don’t pay any attention to them. However, with all of the recent rain, I noticed that one of the larger creek beds had begun flowing again. A surprising amount of water crashed through it, easily enough to carry a young boy.

The creek ran directly across a bend in the river, connecting it at two points. I followed it and realized that the boy could be located outside of our initial search area. As I approached where the creek reconnected with the main river, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.

There’s a place in the river where not even search and rescue divers are supposed to go. It’s known as Badwater. This area lies on one half of the river and runs for about 100 yards. It’s near a densely vegetated area, so we don’t often have to worry about people swimming there. But a lot of disappearances occur in the surrounding waters. Despite that, I’ve been warned not to dive there since I began doing search and rescue. Supposedly the undercurrent is so strong that even the most experienced swimmer would be swept away in an instant. “Don’t go near Badwater.” It was a mantra of the older divers.

The creek ended exactly in the center of the Badwater region. As I reached it, I stopped and chewed my lip thoughtfully. If I went back and reported this to the other divers, they would tell me to let it go. They wouldn’t let me dive there. But deep down I felt like the boy’s body must be tangled up in some weeds nearby. If only I could find it. I hated the idea of that kid being stuck down there, slowly bloating and rotting away while his parents sat at home wondering where their boy had gone.

Badwater didn’t seem to be that bad. I’d seen rougher waters before, but I knew looks could be deceiving. Just below the surface it could be flowing faster than I ever imagined. And I’d be swept away in an instant. Besides, I wasn’t supposed to dive alone. I almost turned back, but something made me stay. I stared into the river for a moment, thinking about the boy. Then I put on my gear and dropped into the icy waters.

The first thing I noticed was that the current actually seemed pretty weak. As a matter of fact, it was weaker than the rest of the river. The water was extremely deep there, and I could see only blackness below as I dove. I kicked deeper and deeper, thinking that the current might pick up lower down, but the opposite seemed to be true. The water was almost completely still.

I went even deeper until finally green shapes began to materialize in front of me. I thought I’d finally reached a bed of weeds. But, as I kicked lower, the truth came into full view. I felt **** come up at the sight, an odd and dangerous sensation when you’re wearing a scuba mask.

Countless arms stuck up from the ground below. I thought I had come upon a trove of bodies, but the disgusting reality became even more apparent only a moment later. The arms grew directly into the ground. They even had roots that spread out from the base. It was as if someone had cut off hundreds of arms at the shoulder and planted them there. They were green, and I watched as they clutched at the water around them. They varied in size and seemingly age. Grotesque baby hands sprouted near the bottom, and they opened and closed their fists hungrily.

It was then that I saw the boy. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead as those grotesque arms pulled his dead body downward. It seemed they had just gotten ahold of him. The arms yanked at him, burying him in the surrounding sediment. They pushed and writhed and squirmed until he was securely buried up to the chest. I stared in mesmerized horror.

That was when the other bodies came into focus. There must have been at least four more, all in varying stages of decay. Some were bloated beyond recognition, only bulky, white masses that protruded loosely from the riverbed. I once again felt **** rising in my throat and swallowed it back down. The **** hands were feeding off the bodies, using them as fertilizer.

The moment I clambered out of the water I tore my mask off and retched. I couldn’t stop thinking about those disgusting bodies, those grasping hands. They were like some sort of carnivorous plant, yet they were so humanoid. I vomited again at the thought.

I frantically ran back to our base camp and pulled one of the other divers aside. Moose was the most experienced person on our team. He’d been diving for over twenty years ever since moving here. I told him about what I saw. When I  finished, he stared at me in cold silence.

“I told you never to go near Badwater.” His voice contained an iciness that even his thick Louisiana accent couldn’t conceal.

“That’s what you’re concerned about?” I was incredulous.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed tightly. “Don’t tell anyone else about this. If the others find out you went into Badwater…” He trailed off and thought for a moment. “Well, it won’t be good.” He shook his head like a disappointed father.

“But what about those things?” I tried to keep my voice down, hoping no one would hear us. “How many people have died because of those **** things?”

“Shut up.” Moose said. “We have an agreement. There’s a reason they only grow in Badwater. Don’t **** this up.”

I started to say something, but the words caught in my throat. He was keeping something from me.

He sighed and I saw something like sadness behind his eyes. “Sometimes you have to decide between lesser and greater evils. Even the best possible decisions can still keep you up at night.” He went silent for a moment and only stared at me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Maybe one day you’ll understand.”

He walked away after that and called off the day’s search. Despite what I’d told him, we continued to search for the next two days. By the third day we called it off completely and gave our condolences to the family.

I don’t know what the **** is happening. Moose has been acting different towards me ever since. There’s an iciness to him, but every now and then **** shoot me a knowing glance, like we’re in on some secret together. I’ve noticed the other older divers acting strangely too. What did he mean by agreement? What the **** were those arm things? I’m considering quitting and moving away from here. I can’t live with the knowledge that those things are down there, slowly feeding off the body of a young boy among countless [others](https://reddit.com/r/travisliebert).

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dmg9c8/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A Talking Crow Taught me to Fly
 
 Assistant: I used to look out the rusted iron bars of my window and dream about being a bird.

The chain that shackled me to my bed was just long enough to reach the windowsill, and so every night after my father would visit my room I would lie awake and wait for the first rays of light to creep over the horizon, then walk over to my window to listen to the morning’s first few notes of birdsong.

Their melodies were so beautiful, I knew that they must have been singing about places far away and wonderful, about sailing on the wind through endless blue skies, looking down at the treetops that dotted the land below.

Then, one morning as I lay in bed, something impossible happened. I had fallen asleep the night before, and would have missed my morning birdsong but for a tapping on my window. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up to see a crow sitting outside on the sill, tapping my window with his beak.

I crept over to the window and smiled at the bird.

“Hello, Mr. Crow,” I said.

“Hello little girl,” said the crow.

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment, not knowing what to say. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I forced myself to speak.

“You know how to talk?” I said.

“All birds know how to talk,” he replied. “It’s just that not all humans know how to listen.”

I pushed my window open a crack until it hit against the bars. The bird cocked its head in curiosity.

“Why are you in a cage?” it asked.

“I think it’s my destiny,” I said. “It’s always been this way.”

“You look rather thin,” replied the crow. “Would you like something to eat?”

My stomach gave a weak growl.

“Yes,” I said. “That would be wonderful.”

Without another word the crow took flight. A few minutes later he returned with a small branch of figs. The crow watched me as I greedily devoured the fruit. After I had finished he stared at me for a moment before speaking again.

“I didn’t know they put people in cages,” he said. “Do you think they mistook you for a bird?”

“I don’t think so Mr. Crow,” I said.

We whiled away the rest of that day talking. The crow told me all about what it was like to fly, how there was no better feeling in the world. He told me about the far away lands he had visited when he was a young bird and could still make the journey north with the changing of the seasons. Finally, evening came and the crow said that he had to go. The next morning he was back, however, with two more branches of figs.

I thanked him for his generosity, and we talked another day away. That day he even sang me a song. He didn’t have a voice for singing, but I thought his song was beautiful anyway.

We passed the entire fall that way, and the bird’s visits became the only bright spot in my life. He brought me not only figs, but cherries and walnuts too\-\-anything small enough for him to carry.

Soon, however, winter came, and with it the frosts that destroyed the figs and cherries that the crow had used to bring me. His gifts became fewer and fewer, and I could tell from his tired voice that he was flying farther and farther away to get them.

One morning, when the first snows of winter had fallen, the crow asked me a question.

“What would you do to leave this place?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

I thought for a moment, but I wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally, I told the truth.

“I would do anything to leave this place,” I said. “Anything at all.”

The crow solemnly nodded and said, “The frost isn’t the only thing that winter brings.”

He flapped his wings once and jumped from the windowsill, and I didn’t see him for three days. I began to fall into a deep depression. Every morning I would still listen to the birdsong, but it sounded forlorn and empty without my friend there to listen with me.

The morning after the third day my crow friend returned. It was so beautiful that day; the sun had come out from behind the clouds to melt the snow\-\-one of the last green days before winter came in earnest. As the shadow passed over the valley in which we lived, I first mistook it for a storm cloud, but then I heard the sound. It was loud enough to crack the sky, but it wasn’t thunder\-\-it was birds.

Thousands upon thousands of them descended on our house. A whirling storm of beating wings and shrieking caws, they crashed into the walls and windows, pecking at them with wild ferocity. The house shook under their assault, and their calls were so loud that I didn’t even hear the windows breaking.

They were not so loud, however, that I could not hear my father scream. It was over in a matter of minutes, and the key to my shackles slipped under the door. I rushed over and picked it up with trembling hands, sliding it into the metal cuff around my ankle and turning it.

The cuff came loose with a heavy click, and for the first time I was free.

The key to the door slipped under the jamb as well, and I opened the door to the rest of the house. The place had been all but destroyed. There was splintered wood and broken glass everywhere, and in the center of the living room was what remained of my father\-\-a pile of bloodstained feathers.

The birds had all flown off, but Mr. Crow sat on top of the living room fireplace, regarding me with a curious look.

“Now you can fly free, little girl,” he said. “No more cages for you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Crow,” I said. “Will you come with me?”

Mr. Crow shook his head.

“I am an old bird,” he said. “And my journey is coming to a close. But yours is just beginning.”

Mr. Crow flapped his wings and took flight, and I never saw him again. As I stepped out of the front door my bare feet touched the grass for the very first time, and I could smell the flowers on the breeze as it drifted over me.

At that moment, though my feet were firmly on the ground, my heart was soaring through endless blue sky, far above the world that I had left behind.

I still wake up every morning to hear the birds sing, and when the first few notes break the silence of the early dawn, I think of Mr. Crow and smile.

[x](http://facebook.com/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a Firewatcher. I found another Firewatcher’s unsettling journal at my new station.
 
 Assistant: **I am a firewatcher. Upon moving in to my station, I found the following pages typed on my desk. I am not the author of the following. I am transcribing exactly what I found, dated 1989:**

---------------

----

I’ve been located here for 185 days, according to my calendar. I’m stationed up in the northwest of the United States with two other guys—Clark and Thomas. 

185 days. That’s five days longer than our stint here should’ve been. Normally, they rotate us out every 180 days. We were supposed to be picked up by Helicopter 5 days ago.

I started writing this logbook, journal, whatever, because we’re overdue for evac. Or so we think. Maybe we messed up the calendar somehow.

Our main radio stopped working on day 179.

“Get up! There’s smoke.”

Bleary-eyed, I saw Clark standing over my bunk. I could see the orange slits of light reflecting on his torso, signaling to me it was the early morning.

“Teddy! Smoke!”

“Smoke? Huh?” I said, still half-delirious.

“Yes, smoke. A really small stream of it maybe a mile southeast.” His eyes were wide and brighter than the sunlight on his uniform.

I pulled myself out of the bottom bunk and headed towards the window. I didn’t even need my binoculars to see the small sliver of smoke creating a shadow in the early sun’s light. In 185 days, it’s only the second time we’ve seen a potential fire.

For those who don’t know what a fire watchtower looks like, it’s basically a wooden cabin elevated about 100 feet in the air. Ours has a staircase that wraps around the structure beneath the cabin. I’m pretty sure other towers use ladders, but that’s beside the point.

Clark and I bunk up in the watch tower. We have a little kitchen, our bunk bed, and a 360-degree view of nothing but woods. Thomas sleeps in a tiny little cabin at the base of our tower, which is also where our main office is. ‘Office’ may be too loose of a term. It’s one desk and a typewriter used for typing out reports of what we see out here.

I rubbed my eyes and looked over to Clark, “alright, let’s go check it out.”

“No way, Teddy. No way,” he replied immediately.

Clark has been afraid to go past the outhouse since day 180 passed. He’s afraid a helicopter will come, and **** miss his chance to be rescued.

‘Rescued’ Clark would say. But are we in danger? Did we miscalculate the number of days we’ve been out here? We still have plenty of food. Did they forget about us? Has the apocalypse come and gone and we don’t know because we’ve been isolated?

“Okay, fine,” I agreed, “Radio down to Thomas and let him know. He should be up.”

Our main radio back to base isn’t getting a sign of life from anywhere. And if it isn’t receiving from anywhere, we assume we aren’t being heard from anywhere. Luckily, we still have our own walkie-talkies to communicate with each other.

Clark took out his walkie.

“Tom, there’s some smoke about a mile southeast. Can you go check it out?”

A few seconds passed before Thomas responded.

“After I finish wiping my **** I’ll be on my way. Unless you wanna help me with that Clarky.”

Thomas, the oldest of us, is always picking on Clark, the youngest. He doesn’t really dislike Clark. He is just easy to pick on. He’s a twenty-three-year-old college dropout. I think he studied accounting or finance or something on his parents’ dime. I don’t think he left college to be a professional firewatcher. No, I think he left to come out in the wilderness, be alone, and take a retrospective look at his life to decide what he really wants.

You only sign up for 180 days of isolation if you’re crazy, or if you want to get away from something. I’m not sure which category Thomas falls is. He’s a cryptic, brute of a man. His picture is probably in the dictionary next to “lumberjack.” He’s pretty quiet unless he has a joke to tell or something important to say. Either way, when he opens his mouth, I listen.

As for me, it’s not important why I’m out here.

“Headed out now,” Thomas radioed. 

Clark and I watched Thomas start his trek into the tree line until we could no longer see him.

Clark cocked his head towards mine.

“Teddy,” he said to me, “Thomas has been acting... different. Weird.”

I didn’t expect him to be so blunt. But I had noticed. I knew Clark had noticed, but this was the first time we spoke about it.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t seem to be bothered that we are stuck out here.”

“We don’t *know* if we are stuck out here. We could’ve scratched off the dates wrong. You know—we thought we didn’t scratch the day off yet but we really did, so we accidentally scratch the next day too.”

“I guess,” Clark said softly. I knew what he was going to say next.

“At night though—”

“Shut it, Clark.”

“C’mon Teddy! It’s **** up. He’s fine during the day and then just, just changes. Does he have some type’a illness? It happened so sudden!”

“Maybe he does! So what if the guy goes out at night to stare at trees?”

“Trees? Stare at trees?”

“I know you’ve seen it. He goes out near the tree line and stands there for a while looking out. Sometimes hours. Maybe he does have a **** loose, and maybe he shouldn’t be out here. But I don’t think it’s the best idea to bring it up to him when we are trapped here with him, especially if he *is* insane.”

Silence fell between us before Clark responded.

“I didn’t know he stares out at the forest,” he said to me in a soft voice and eyes wider than when he woke me up this morning.

“Oh—wait, what? What were you going to say?”

“At—At night,” he stammered, “he comes up the stairs.”

I looked over to our half-open door leading out to the staircase, letting a cool breeze in.

“Wh—what do you—what?”

“He comes up the stairs, and, and just, looks at us. Stares at us.”

------------

Thomas left to go check out the smoke about an hour ago. It seems to have vanished, so I figure he handled it. 

Clark spends his days using our walkie talkies, trying every station possible to alert anyone nearby.

I just watch the forest.

---------------

It’s 11:30 PM. Thomas isn’t back. He left at about 7 AM. He hasn’t answered his radio.

Tomorrow will be day 186. We do not know if Thomas is okay, and one of us will most likely have to check the woods tomorrow—and since Clark is chicken-****, it'll end up being me.

More disturbing though, is something Clark told me a few minutes ago—the reason I went back to the office to type this.

I was leaned back in my swivel chair, spinning slowly, making sure there were no lights or fires in the dark expanse of trees, and wondering where Thomas was. He must’ve been hurt. Even if he was lost, he’d reply on his walkie. We always answer our walkies. They’re with us at all times, even when we are **** or showering.

Clark stopped my chair mid-spin and mid-thought. Before I could protest, he spoke.

“Listen. I need to tell you something I’ve been thinking about recently. It’s eating away at me.”

I wondered if it had to do with Thomas.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m all ears.”

“It’s going to sound crazy,” he warned.

“I bet I’ve heard crazier.”

He took a long, yet stuttered inhale, then spoke. “I don’t remember coming out here.”

My **** expression didn’t change, and it looked like he was waiting for a reaction, so he repeated.

“I don’t remember coming out here. Do you? Do you remember applying for this job? Do you remember being interviewed? Or being flown out here?”

At first, I was almost amused. 

Then as he asked those questions, I froze.

I didn’t remember.

He continued, “You know how I said I decided to leave college? Well, now that I’m thinking about it harder, I don’t know if I did. I mean I must have, right? To be out here? I must have. But all I can remember is my last day of class for the semester, and then I was here. I don’t remember anything between coming home after class and meeting you and Thomas.”

I was listening, but it probably didn’t show. I was still motionless.

I couldn’t remember. I tried and am still trying.

Thomas is missing.

Clark and I are losing our minds or—or something else.

Either way, I can’t explain it yet.

-----

----------

**There are more pages scattered about, but I haven’t figured out the order. Some are ripped and some are faded beyond recognition.**

**But there is a more pressing and imminent problem at hand.**

**About 30 minutes ago I met Gary and Harold. We have been stationed out here for the next 180 days.**

**I don’t know whether to tell them what I’ve found.**

**And I don’t know whether to tell them that I don’t remember coming here.**


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Met a Demon on the Tokyo Subway
 
 Assistant: This story is a retelling of something that happened to me when I was seven years old. As the years have gone by and I’ve grown up, I’ve realized that the story cannot possibly be true, yet I can’t shake the feeling that it is.

It happened in Tokyo, in the subway station. I was standing with my father when I saw the demon, a monstrously tall and furry creature with leathery black wings and a snout like an anteater. I must have stared at him for close to ten minutes before he finally spoke, in a soft mutter that was clearly intended for his ears only.

“This human is creeping me out,” he said. “It almost looks like it’s looking right at me.”

“I am looking right at you,” I said.

The demon nearly jumped out of his skin. “You can see me?” he asked.

“Yes. Can’t everybody?”

“Not unless they’re in the fifth dimension.”

“Am I in the fifth dimension?” I asked.

“Your mind must have slipped over here by mistake. What were you thinking about before you saw me?”

I thought for a moment, and then grinned.

“Trains.”

“Oh, well trains are the link between our dimensions. I guess your mind must have just wandered over here. Either that or you’re going crazy.”

“I hope I’m not going crazy,” I said.

“Being crazy is a good thing in the fifth dimension,” the demon replied.

I laughed.

“Do you have subway lines in the fifth dimension?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “How else would we get to work?”

”You’ve got wings!” I said.

“Yes, but who wants to fly? Taking the train is so much faster, and if I fly to work I’m all sweaty when I get there.”

“So what do you use your wings for?” I asked.

“I put them over my head when it rains.”

“Can I see?” I asked.

“Sure,” the demon said. My hair blew back as he swooped his enormous wings over his head.

I laughed again.

“You’re funny,” I said.

The demon laughed too, but then his expression changed.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You seem sad.”

“Yes, yes.” the demon replied, not looking at me but at something behind me. “Say, would you like to see a magic trick?”

“Okay.”

The demon reached up and tugged a big rainbow handkerchief out of his snout. He must have pulled out twenty feet before he ran out.

“That’s funny.” I laughed, but I stopped when I realized I wasn’t holding my dad’s hand anymore.

I looked around and saw the subway station had disappeared, replaced by flowing green meadows that were full of old trains.

“I can’t see the subway station anymore,” I said.

“That’s okay,” said the demon. “Sometimes it’s better to see what isn’t there instead of what is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes when I’m bored or sad, my mind slips off to the third dimension, and I see people like you.”

“That’s funny,” I laughed. “Can you go to other dimensions, too?”

But the demon didn’t answer, he was looking up at the sky.

“It’s starting to rain,” he said, whooshing his wings up over his head.

Warm droplets of rain hit my face. 

“Can I get under your wings with you?” I asked.

“Not now,” he replied. “You’ve got to go home.”

The world began to shimmer and flow together like different shades of green and golden paint, spinning around faster and faster in circles. I started to feel a little sick, and I closed my eyes. The world stopped spinning, but warm droplets of water still fell on my face.

I opened my eyes and saw my mom crying over me, but I didn’t see my dad.

“Where’s dad?” I asked her. “Did he bring me home?”

“Yes, darling,” she said, although she didn’t look at me when she said it. “He brought you home and then he had to go away.”

“Oh,” I replied. “When will **** back?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

My dad never did come back, and it was years before I found out the truth: he had killed himself that day. That morning he had written a note to my mother explaining that he intended to bring me along and step in front of the train with me. My mother found it when she got home from work and called the police, but it was too late to stop my father. The witnesses say that just before he jumped I pulled away from his hand and ran off, fainting right after. But one of the witnesses, a little boy around my age, said that he saw something take my hand and lead me away from the speeding train.

He said it was a monstrously tall and furry creature, with leathery black wings and an anteater’s snout.

[x](http://Facebook.com/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I work at NASA. We made alien contact yesterday.
 
 Assistant: Part 2 - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c521t1/i_work_at_nasa_we_made_alien_contact_last_week/

I can't tell you who I am, and I can't tell you the name of the program, but what I can tell you is that if what they say is true, we're in trouble.

Now, we didn't make contact in the way you would think we would. We didn't beam out an episode of The Office towards Andromeda and hear back from alien critics. And we definitely didn't meet them face to face. We found another way to communicate. Something, apparently ancient humans had figured out as well.

There are countless dilapidated ancient structures around the world, and some of them, not all, but some, were communication arrays. At least a handful on each continent. I'm sure you'll be able to think of a few after I describe what we did.

We've been working on this technology for a while. There has been a long standing theory that sound has a much larger part in the universe than just being random vibrations. That the universe is simply a bunch of vibrations and sound, and if you find a way to manipulate those vibrations properly, you could do things that seem impossible. We proved that yesterday. 

By creating an extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY, precise echo chamber, and playing certain frequencies into it, at precisely the right volumes, and the exact right timings, we broke some sort of barrier.

Nothing really happened, visually at least. We had run countless tests like these with tiny, minute differences, and this one seemed pretty mundane. There was a slight unnatural thrumming, the glass between us and the echo chamber shook in regular intervals as if we were playing a bass heavy song too loudly. The first thing that tipped us off that something was happening was that once we turned the speakers off, the thrumming didn't stop. My three coworkers and I could all feel this thrumming in out chests still, kind of like being next to a very loud drum. We talked for a moment, before we all fell silent.

There was something else now. It wasn't a voice. It was, some sort of, intellegent vibration. I can't explain it. It was like a voice was inside my chest, but it wasn't speaking, I could just feel what it was saying. My cohorts and I debated on the exact wording afterwards, but we all agreed on the overall messages each time. 

Like I said, they weren't really talking, so I'll do my best to phrase it in ways that get across what they said, in the way they "said" it. 

"Wooooaaaahhh, you guys are back?" Is what I felt in my chest. My colleagues and I stared at each other in utter confusion. One of the spoke up. "Hello?" He asked hesitantly. There was a silence for a moment, before the thrumming spoke back. "I think I have it set right now, say that again?"

"Hello?" I repeated back to it in place of the other scientist. 

"Yep, there it is." He said quickly. "You guys figured it out again! That's crazy!" It exclaimed. This wasn't what I was thinking the first human/alien conversation was going to go. I wasn't even sure that this was first contact at this point though. "Who is this? What is this?" I asked loudly into the open air of our control room.

"I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give you details like who we are, but, what this is, is the ultimate form of communication in our universe. Your ancestors figured it out briefly too." With some quick deduction on how it was wording things, I think each of us figured out what we were talking to was alien in origin around the same time.

"Where are you from?" I asked. "You have to be close." ****, with the way we were talking back and forth, they had to be REALLY close. It takes communications to Mars a few minutes to get there, just because that's as fast as light is. If we were talking this quickly back and forth they basically had to be on Earth.

"I guess you wouldn't know. We didn't tell your ancestors. We didn't think they'd get it. Let me do some math real quick." It was about a minute before it spoke again. "What you see as your observable universe, thats not the whole universe. Not even close. Multiply that by about 15, and thats about how far we are away. And theres a lot past that." 

We all looked at each other. It was speaking utter **** to us now. That was impossible, we'd never be able to communicate, ever. Physically impossible. We explained that to the chest-voice, and we were met by an equal level of confusion. "Why are you still using light as a yardstick?" It asked incredulously. Suddenly, its voice grew slightly dire. "You're still not advanced enough. You don't even know." 

"Know what?" One of my friends asked.

"You are dead center in the Life Abyss. There is no life on any planet around you, for more than ten of your observable universes around you in any direction. Its a universal mystery how you're even alive." It spoke grimly. Never in my life had I felt smaller, more insignificant and more alone. It continued. 

"And there is a reason for that."

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I just graduated from medical school, and my new hospital has some very strange rules
 
 Assistant: You probably think that all doctors are filthy rich, because I sure as **** did in the beginning. Eight years and a fistful of premature gray hairs later, I’m just a few hundred thousand dollars poorer than “broke.” That would matter if I had a family to provide for, but the long hours in med school have led to an end of my last relationship and a countdown on the shelf life of my ovaries. 

I was in a “take what I can get and be grateful” situation. 

So when St. Francis Hospital in Charleston, West Virginia offered me a position, I packed my sad life into three bags and sought opportunity in the hills of Appalachia. Nineteen of us started in July, and thirteen have since dropped out. 

I like to think of myself as the rat that wouldn’t drown.

Some people broke inside after watching children die because they weren’t good enough doctors quite yet (everyone has to be a rookie at some point). It’s doubly hard when you have to inform the dead child’s parents, who then beg you to tell them different news, or scream that they want to die and just please **** them with whatever drug takes away the pain.

But most of my incoming class couldn’t handle the chief of medicine. 

Dr. Vivian Scritt is, without a doubt, the biggest **** I’ve ever met. 

Now I know why.

“Nineteen of you start today, and we’ve got a pool going with bets on how long each of you will last,” she told us on Day One. “Don’t feel any pressure, folks. I’ve talked with each of you in private, and my expectations are very low.” 

She peered condescendingly over her thin spectacles, snorted, then turned around to walk away. 

“You should know when to follow me and when to stay away, because I’m not going to waste time explaining what you should figure out on your own.”

We gawked at one another, all feeling weak and small, then scampered after her. 

I was last in line, and felt out of place taking even that much.   
 
“You should have the list of expectations for St. Francis,” Dr. Scritt explained as she walked on, not bothering to look at us as she talked. “I printed eighteen sets of rules so that you would have to challenge one another for them, knowing that one of you would be left behind.”

An icy cold settled in the pit of my stomach as I saw everyone look down at a list of rules that only I did not have. 

“If you cannot follow these rules, there will be no place for you in this hospital. It most likely means that you are unsuited to be a doctor, and should consider a profession that demands a weaker mental aptitude.” At that, she turned around to face us all. “And if you think that I’m the type to give second chances after a mistake, you’re woefully underprepared for the world of medicine.” She stopped and looked at each of us in turn, apparently expecting a response that no one dared to offer.

“Well,” she shot out in exasperation, “why are you standing here? People are dying. Get to work!”

*

No one wanted to show me their list of rules, so I had to wait until one of my classmates died.

It took nearly a week. 

I was working at 3:00 a. m. because I had only been on the clock for ten hours. I was rushing into another room so that a patient wouldn’t know I was Googling his symptoms (doctors do this FAR more than you realize) when I saw Myron by himself in an O. R. 

I stopped immediately. “Myron?” I squeaked. “What the **** is that?” 

His arms were working furiously, but his back was turned toward me, so I couldn’t see what he was doing.

Something felt wrong. 

Myron was the pick of our litter. He’d been top ten in his class at John Hopkins, and he would remind us of that fact in exchange for answering the questions that we were too terrified to ask Dr. Scritt.

Slowly, I approached Myron, not wanted to startle him. “We’re really busy right now, is there something you need help with?”

He showed no outward signs that he had heard me. Instead, he kept pumping away furiously at the task at hand. 

When I was five steps from him, I could see drops of blood flying over his shoulder. 

Which made no sense, since he had been alone in the room.

“Myron?” I whispered, barely loudly enough to hear my own words.

I slowly crept around his left side, finally bringing the scene into full view.

Myron’s abdomen was split from sternum to pelvis. His esophagus spilled out, and his stomach sat on the table. A nest of quivering small intestine led from the bottom of his stomach back into his shredded torso. 

Myron showed no outward signs of pain.

He was too busy working.

He clutched his own stomach tightly in his left hand, the folds squirting through his fingers like unbaked bread. His right hand was working furiously with a scalpel, sawing his **** into ribbons. Rivers of sweat poured down his forehead with the intensity of the effort.

I tried to scream, but it only came out as a moan.

That was enough to get Myron to notice me.

Slowly, he raised his head. Slowly, he smiled.

It was not a happy smile.

With eye contact locked on me, he licked his lips, angrily stabbed a piece of his stomach, and lifted it to his mouth.

He bit.

He chewed.

Then he lunged.

But most people don’t know how to move with their innards splayed out for all the world to see, and this was his downfall. Myron’s tattered guts caught on the corner of the table, and he fell to the floor. 

Finally, he screamed. 

I had learned very early in my medical career that compartmentalization is indispensible. That instinct took over my brain in the moment, and I acted clinically.

Myron was still grasping his scalpel with his right hand. I kicked it – hard – and it flew out of his hands.

He stared at me and screeched.

With his entrails still wrapped around the table, I figured my best option was retreat. I moved to the back of the room as a doctor and a janitor burst in. 

And in possibly the most shocking moment of the night, I realized that they were *not* shocked. 

Myron was anesthetized, subdued, and extracted within a minute of their arrival. 

For a moment, I was alone with a pool of blood and diced stomach lining. 

And something else.

A sheet of paper lay on the floor, its corner just touching the edge of the creeping blood. 

Myron had dropped his list of rules. 

The practical part of my brain continued to drive me. I snatched the paper from the ground, then quickly exited the room, taking care to avoid the puddle.

I didn’t want to leave any bloody footprints in my wake. 

I knew that I had to read the list as soon as I was able to find thirty uninterrupted seconds to myself. Three hours later, I had my opportunity and ducked into a janitor’s closet. With a shaking, *exhausted* hand, I pulled the chain on a bare bulb, tried to ignore the noxious smell of leaking ammonia, and read.

-------------

**St. Francis Hospital Rules – Guidelines for new doctors**

1 – Never, under any circumstances, share your copy of the rules with anyone else.

2 – If any other doctor displays erratic behavior, leave the area immediately. Do not make eye contact.

3 – If any other doctor is approached or detained by someone in a janitor’s uniform, do not interfere. Never ask about that former doctor again. 

4 – Never touch any seemingly abandoned Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Those are Dr. Scritt’s favorite candy.

5 – Any child that dies in St. Francis hospital MUST be cremated within 120 minutes of official time of death. If you suspect this rule has been broken, alert Dr. Scritt, and the hospital will be evacuated. 

6 – There is no Children’s Burn Unit at St. Francis hospital. If you find yourself there, continue walking until you return to familiar territory. This usually requires traveling in a straight line down the central hallway for 47 minutes. You will not reach a wall during that interval.

7 – This rule is on a need-to-know basis.

8 – A small quantity of sulfuric acid is kept in every room. This is ONLY intended for use on patients with severed spinal cords. If they attack, a hypodermic injection of H2SO4 into the cranium is the only way to subdue the subject. 

9 – The morgue must house at least 13 cadavers at all times.

10 – If find yourself on the hospital roof with no memory of how you got there, you have only two choices. Either wait for an extraction team to find you, or jump four stories to the sidewalk on Court Street.

11 – If you see Room 1913, do not look directly at the numbers. Do not open the door. This is, by far, the most important rule.

---------------

My heart stopped when the door opened.

Dr. Scritt was staring at me. What little emotion shined through her exterior seemed to be surprise.

We both stood, frozen, for five seconds of agonized silence. 

“Dr. Afelis,” she drawled gravely, “I’m shocked.” She stared down at the bloodstained list of rules in my hand.

I reached for words. *Any* words, because literally any response would make me look less guilty than I did in that moment, staring up at my boss’s boss’s boss and saying literally nothing in my defense as she weighed my soul with her eyes.

And I said nothing. 

“You took a list that wasn’t yours, and were nowhere to be found after your coworker experienced such an *unnatural* incident.” Dr. Scritt huffed through her nose. “It seems that *you’re* willing to do the unthinkable in the name of getting what you need. And *Myron* couldn’t’ even follow the most important rule.” She clenched her teeth. “I had a four-year streak of predicting which incoming doctors will break the soonest. This will *ruin* my chances in the office pool.”

The ghost of a smile graced her lips before she turned to leave. 

“Get to work, doctor. You’ve got three hours left on your shift, and those symptoms aren’t going to Google themselves.”

I didn’t realize that I’d been holding my breath until I heard my own gasp for air.

Shaking, I slowly emerged from the janitor’s closet. I quickly stuffed the list of rules back into my pocket, reflecting on the fact that I had just achieved what *might* be considered an actual win.

Perhaps, just maybe, I would keep my head above water at St. Francis after all. 

I turned to head down the hall when I stopped in my tracks. 

Everything was unfamiliar. What the **** had happened?

I glanced all around. The design of the hallway was familiar, but everything was *off.* I could hear people talking in the rooms, but the immediate vicinity was devoid of all people but myself.

Nothing made sense.

Then I looked up.

And I’ll be honest, I peed just a little when I read the sign.

*ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL – CHILDREN’S [BURN UNIT](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/)*

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)

[Listen](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn_pa1QfNMRzbTuJqXSoRQ?view_as=subscriber)

-------

[Part 2](https://redd.it/djmjk2)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Deepest Part of the Ocean is Not Empty
 
 Assistant: *The Ocean has its silent caves,*

*Deep Deep, quiet, and alone;*

*Though there be fury on the waves,*

*Beneath them there is none.*


---


Over the course of the last few weeks of training I’d memorized nearly every facet of the *Tuscany* - every dial and every readout and every **** and screen and nuance of structure - and the quality of the personal submarine’s craftsmanship never ceased to astound me. It was a remarkable feat of engineering, this little beast; designed with such care that even the equipment on the hull could withstand more water pressure than the sea could muster up at any achievable depth. It was my Pegasus. My Trojan Horse; my very own *Apollo 11* - and inside this matrix of layered syntactic foam I would follow the ballasts to the gratuitous and unexplored depths of Higgin’s Maw. 


I began the separation sequence, and the deep-diver fell away from the escort and dipped beneath the surface of the Pacific with silence and grace and a few knots of speed, and then I was consumed in a whole new world - albeit one I’d frequented - that of the sea. Schools of fish swam on by me, and when their cloud passed through a sunbeam it glinted silver, and beneath them swam rays that rolled their wings to the beat of the current, and out in the rocks crawled the crustaceans and sat the plant life that spruced up all the white-washed stones there like holiday ornaments. But I had an appointment to keep, and the oxygen tank was a demanding clock, so I dove right on past the old reef and out into the open waters where the seabed couldn’t be seen for many, many miles yet. 


*”The Maw,” Reuben had said. “Fifty thousand feet below the surface, Booker. Fifty* thousand. *Do you know what that means?”*


*”Means its a whole **** of a lot deeper down than the Challenger Abyss.”*


*He’d nodded at that. “Are you ready to make history?”*


Was I? I thought I was. I’d prepared for this lonely dive and nothing else, for some years now. It was the culmination of a lifetime of work and study in the field, and so tight was its grip on my mind that I often dreamt of it in my sleep; of what I’d find at the bottom, and what it would mean. *And what monstrous things might take offense to my presence there.*


No. *No.* I shoved that thought aside. *Tuscany* was all the protection I needed in that regard; it offered technology on the bleeding edge in lieu of a heavy hull, and that was enough to withstand enough water pressure to crush bones beneath skin and inches of steel. What animal had jaws more powerful than the ocean itself at fathom?


So I hit the thrusters, and down I went, like a bullet to the pitch. I eyed the depth meter as much as I did the sea. One hundred feet. Two hundred. Sharks and turtles and uncountable fish swept past me. Three hundred feet. Five hundred feet. Seven hundred. A thousand. Twelve-fifty - *the inversed height of the Empire State building.* Fifteen hundred. Sixteen. 


The water began to blur and grain up and darken as the sunlight struggled to push on through. Two thousand. Twenty five. Three thousand. Thirty two - *where the light no longer shines.* 


And soon all the light I had to spill glow to the path ahead and down, were the lights of the *Tuscany.*


I continued the descent for hours. The pressure meter ticked up in spasmic bursts, but up it went, up, up, up, soon ticking past the point where the weight of the sea would’ve crushed the steel of another vessel. One mile down. One point three. One point six - *where even **** Whales hit their lowest dive.* I could now claim with confidence that no mammal on earth was as deep down at that very moment as myself. And still I dove. Two miles. Two point one. Two point two. 


The water was as black as space now, except for where the lights of the *Tuscany* pierced through it, and the thickness of the fluid made it look like ink or oil or some kind of alien sludge that smeared up against the reinforced windows and slimed its way across the hull. Things were tight down here, despite the vastness of it all, yet still I dove. 


Thirteen thousand feet. *The Abyssal zone. Pressure stands at 11,000 psi.* I saw an Angler float by, and it was startled by the sheer volume of light spread by the *Tuscany* that dwarfed its own bioluminescent glow. It swam away, and I dove further. Fifteen thousand feet. Three miles. Three point one. 


*Now things get interesting.*


Mankind had visited these depths almost infrequently enough to count the expeditions on a single pair of hands. I was now ranked among an illustrious few explorers, and although I wasn’t the first to hit these marks, I’d hit the deepest one yet before this journey was over. I was determined and I was capable. So I checked the depth chart. *Sixteen thousand, two hundred eighty one point four feet.* Nearly halfway to the world record. The *Tuscany* continued its dive.


Twenty thousand feet down. *The Hadal zone. Pressure here is eleven hundred times what it is at the surface.* Twenty two thousand feet. Twenty six. Twenty nine thousand - *The height of Mount Everest.* Thirty. Thirty point five. Thirty one - *the same distance from the surface as a commercial airliner at the peak of its flight.* 


The Challenger Deep, what had previously been the lowest recorded place on the seabed, sat at roughly 36,000 feet below the surface, in the depths of the Mariana Trench. No light from the sun had ever come close, and to the best accounts life existed there, but only sparsely, and the pressure is unspeakable. 


But I was going somewhere vastly deeper, even, than that. 


*”All we know is we found a canyon,” Reuben had said. “Dwarfs the Grand - sitting dead center in the Pacific seabed. ‘Bout twelve hundred kilometers west of Hawaii, and another nine hundred south, and, near as we can figure, some fifty thousand feet straight on down.”*


Thirty six thousand feet. I was now tied for the world record. 


“*Fifty thousand feet?! Why the **** are we just now seeing it?”*


Thirty six five. I did it. My heartbeat swept up to a faster rhythm. I was officially a world record holder; no human being in recorded history had been as deep below the surface as I was at that very moment. 


*“New seabed scanning technology helped. Gave us a more detailed topographical map of the hydrosphere than we’ve ever had before, and once we got back the results, we took a look, and there it was. Just waiting for us. Inviting us down.”*


Thirty seven. 


*”So what’s down there?*


Thirty seven three.


*”****, Doctor. If we knew that we wouldn’t be sending you, would we?”* 


Thirty seven nine.


*”I suppose not.”*


Thirty eight.


Thirty eight five. 


---


*The awful spirits of the deep*

*Hold their communion there;*

*And there are those for whom we weep,*

*The young, the bright, the fair.*


Higgin’s Maw, according to the best information available to me at the time of departure, is a pit, roughly a full kilometer across. It begins at approximately forty six thousand feet below the surface and is estimated to bottom out at Higgin’s Deep, a small valley that sits at its base, some five thousand additional feet below that. The Maw is the largest and deepest such formation in the hydrosphere, and yet its dimensions and location are the only things concretely known about it. That, of course, is where myself, and where the *Tuscany,* come in.


Forty three thousand feet down. I hit the floodlights underneath the *Tuscany,* and the glow washed over an alien landscape that likely hadn’t seen light in over a billion years. There were mountains here - *mountains* - ones that rivaled the Alps, and wild arches and plateaus that stretched far off to a murky horizon before being shrouded by seawater. 


I even saw *life* down here in the depths. A squid-like thing of simply monstrous size swam on by my boat. It stopped for a moment, and during that moment I thought it might take offense to me, but after looking hard at the *Tuscany* and brushing a tentacle down the port side it swam off in search of other things. 


“Atta girl.”


I descended further. 


Forty four thousand feet. Forty five. 


And then, all of a sudden, there it was. *The Maw.*


My mouth hung by the jaw as the sheer scope of the beast came into view. It was a breathtaking sight to behold; a monstrously large and equally dark hole in the crust of the earth that plummeted to inconceivable fathoms. I descended a bit further - forty five five, forty six thousand feet - and *Tuscany* fell into its yawn. Somehow things were even blacker in the depths of the thing, even though sunlight had long since been blotted out. 


Forty six five. Forty seven. Forty seven two.


I began to become aware of a low current pulling me downward. It wasn’t particularly powerful, but it was unexpected and it was therefore alarming. And yet I couldn’t bear to pull myself back up. Not yet - *I’ll turn around if it gets bad* - so down I went, deeper and deeper and deeper still into the cavern. 


Forty eight thousand feet. Forty eight five. Forty nine. Forty nine one. 


And then I saw it. A glow. 


I squinted and dimmed my lights to confirm the intuition. *What in the name of ****…?* It was there indeed, a dim reddish-purple, then green, then purple again, and then blue, floating on a mist of current some few thousand feet down. I resumed the dive to chase it. Forty nine five. Forty nine seven. Forty nine nine. The glow, whatever it was, was getting deeper, and wider, and brighter. Soon it filled up the whole path down and ahead. I dimmed the *Tuscany’s* under-lights to their lowest setting, and by fifty thousand feet I could see that the glow was coming from somewhere not directly beneath me, but off to the left and around a wide corner. 


*This cave isn’t a straight pit.* And sure enough, the hole bottomed out here, and then opened up to its left. 


*Holy ****. Holy* ****.


It was a cavern chamber, at least a full kilometer up and deep and side to side and across, and only the enormity of its radius maintained the darkness of it despite the presence of thousands of floating bioluminescent pods that pulsed purple and green and blue and red and dimmed in the interim. I took the *Tuscany* in deeper, and her cameras whirred to life. 


---


*Calmly the wearied **** rest*

*Beneath their own blue sea.*

*The ocean solitudes are blest,*

*For there is purity.*


The cavern became darker still when the pods faded into the water behind the ship. But there were more things to be seen here than rocks. *Tuscany,* about a quarter hour after entering the chamber, soon floated on by a bizarrely rope-like plant of utterly impossible size; one that appeared to stretch nearly across the height of the cave and grew wider at the base, although the bottom of it was shrouded in blackness. I took the submarine in for a closer inspection, and hit her lights to their fullest setting. 


*Clack.* 


My heartbeat slammed. There were suction cups on it. Each one as big as the *Tuscany* herself, and they writhed and pulsed across and down the full length of what was now very clearly a *tentacle.* In a panic I shoved *Tuscany* back and away from the thing, but when I tried to turn her around, the base of the hull collided with the beast and stuck fast to one of the cups. I gunned the thrusters and could hear a wet tearing sound as the machine ripped itself free from the cup’s grasp. 


But then the tentacle came to life. It whipped and whirled and smacked around the cavern, and pressed itself to the roof, and then it fell down, deep beyond where the darkness blanketed the floor. 


“C’mon, baby.” I hit the thrusters again, and *Tuscany* rocketed off the way it came, through the darkness and off towards the pods, whose glow I hoped would afford me an opportunity to shut the lights off the ship and make my escape. 


If I were so lucky. 


But very soon I began to hear and *feel* the movement of something unspeakably *titanic* rolling across the floor of the chamber. It rumbled and thundered, and shuddered and shook, and soon clouds of dirt and rock flew up out of the black pitch and blanketed the view forward and I could hear boulders smack against the ceiling of the cave before sinking again to where they'd been. 


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!*


“F-****!!” The sound had erupted across the entire breadth of the cave at once. My eardrums nearly burst and likely would have, had it not been for muffling of the explosion provided by the walls of the *Tuscany.* The submarine shook, too, but she held up her integrity well enough to for me to fly on past the floating pods, some of which were now knocked about on their sides and rolling, and back towards the yawning mouth of the tunnel that would take me back out into the open deep s-


*SMACK!!*


The *Tuscany* buckled and rolled with an impact. The Tentacle, I realized, had shot up from the ground and hit the bottom of the ship between her ballasts, but luckily it knocked her with force up towards the tunnel. I rolled *Tuscany* with the hit and managed to regain some control, and I boosted the thrusters into the turn and up again, now back into the Maw. Then I began to climb. 


Fifty two thousand feet. Fifty one five. Fifty one. 


*”So what’s down there?*


“Come on, baby. Come on. Don’t you fail me now. Don’t you *fucking* fail me now.”


*”****, Doctor. If we knew that we wouldn’t be sending you, would we?”* 


Fifty point five. Fifty. Forty nine nine. Forty nine six. *Tuscany* ascended with panicked speed, and all the while she did it I could feel the rumbling of the Tentacle’s pursuit in the walls of the Pit. It smashed its way on through the tunnel, and whipped and thrashed, but *Tuscany* was too quick a runner. *Forty seven five. Forty seven. Forty six eight. Forty six four. Forty six thousand feet and climbing high.* 


*”I suppose not.”*


*Tuscany* burst out of the Maw and was about to rocket straight on back up to the surface, but then the Tentacle flew out beside her nearly smashed in her front window. I bent the controls to the edge of their set-casing, and *Tuscany* tanked to the left and up a bit and missed the ground by inches. I hit the lights again to navigate the labyrinth of rocks as I struggled to remount the climb. 


But in the light of the ship I saw it; these weren’t rocks after all - *they were other ships.* Massive vessels, Imperial warships from ages past, bent and crooked and broken at the bottom of the sea, pulled down here by whatever it was that now threw its back to my devouring. 


The Tentacle smashed along behind me. Mainmasts and battlements and flat-decks and rusted iron and wooden boat hulls were splintered up and tossed to the winds of the sea, never again to reconvene. I took *Tuscany* through this nautical graveyard with far, far too much speed for my safety. Under ship towers we went, and through cannon mounts and past the blades of dead engines and around upended rudders. 


The cacophony of my flight and the destructive path set by my hunter awoke the life in the place. Fish washed out of holes, and cabins, and captain’s quarters and deep-deck stair flights and soon joined me in my effort to escape. 


But it seemed there was no escape to be found here. The entire ground for countless miles shook and rumbled with seismic force. It was thunderously loud, and it picked up speed and violence with time. *Tuscany* finally flew up to miss a splintered crow's nest atop the mast by less than a foot, and finally used that directed momentum to put away distance between the seabed and herself with as many knots of speed as her thrusters would allow without bursting from the effort. The depth chart began to rise. 


*Forty five nine. Forty five two. Forty five thousand feet. Forty four eight.*


“Come on, you motherf-”


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!*


The water itself seemed to shift with the sound. And then, out of nowhere, *Tuscany* was no longer the only thing spilling light to the Abyss; an orange glow flashed across the sea and for an instant illuminated nearly the entirety of its vastness. Then it blinked, and then flicked on again and stayed active. I shut off *Tuscany’s* lights to preserve every molecule of power for the ascent. 


*Forty four two. Forty four. Forty three seven.*


Beside me in the glow I could make out other creatures retreating, too. Ones of spectacular size, again, that mankind had never catalogued and that I, sadly, would not have time at all to study. There were city-bus sized manta ray shaped things, wrapped up in clouded wisps of transparent jelly, and even that squid the size of a building, all flying upwards in a mass panic. I led the charge. 


*Forty three one. Forty two eight. Forty two three. Forty two.*


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!*


I looked behind me and down through the rear window. The Maw had moved. It was alive. *God almighty. I was in the Leviathan’s throat. I was in its **** throat!* I saw its Tentacle tongue lash out of the Maw and collect enough fish to feed a small town. *Tuscany* rocketed ever upwards as the Leviathan whipped even larger Tentacles behind it and gained speed with the force of a hurricane. 


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!*


The Leviathan opened its Maw yet again and spewed forth its tentacle tongue, and with it it whipped up several Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water into a gale-force maelstrom. The Mammoth Squid was caught in its fury, I saw, and then it vanished into the pit forever when the Maw snapped shut with a thunderous, echoing *snap.* 


*Tuscany,* meanwhile, continued to rocket upwards, and managed to escape the whirlpool by a foot. 


*Thirty nine five. Thirty nine. Thirty eight seven. Thirty eight two. Thirty eight thousand feet, and climbing.*


But the Leviathan pursued me relentlessly, riding on the flood of its own current. Its tentacles - each dozens of feet across and a mile long, beat the water back and tried to gain speed for their host. 


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!*


*Thirty seven five. Thirty seven. Thirty six four.* 


*Tuscany* had proved her worth with speed, and the pressure gauge now fell in jumps. It remained in the red and would for some time, but it was falling steadily, even as the depth chart rose. 


*Twenty nine thousand feet. Twenty eight three. Twenty seven five.*


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!*


But the Leviathan hadn't given up the chase. Not yet. I could *feel* it doubling its efforts. The displaced water rocked the *Tuscany* and she buckled and rolled in the synthetic current. Then I heard the Maw open up behind me and the water begin to whip and swirl itself into a frenzy by the oceanload. I punched the thrusters to breaking point. 


“Come *on!!*” The encasing syntactic foam was pressed to its limits; the reinforced glass began to chip every so very slightly, but the chips broke into cracks and those cracks began to crawl across the width of the windows. I checked the gauges. Twenty thousand feet. Nineteen eight. Nineteen four. Nineteen three. The ascent was slowing. *Come on, baby. Come on. Come on, come on, come on. Please ****. Be with me now. Be w-*


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*


In the orange glow of the Levianthan’s eyes I could see how quickly the water was slipping by *Tuscany* and getting swept up into the maelstrom. The submarine began to sway port to starboard and shudder and shake. *Seventeen four. Seventeen thousand. Sixteen nine. Sixteen three. Sixteen one. Sixteen thousand.*


I watched the gauge with a nauseating desperation. 


*Fifteen nine five. Fifteen nine two.*


I could feel her slowing to a crawl. *Come on. Come on. Come on!*


*Fifteen nine two five. Fifteen nine four. Fifteen nine six. 


“****!!” And that was it; *Tuscany* was caught, and no sooner did the depth chart begin to slip then did I feel the whole submarine lose all sense of control and tumble backwards and around. I was thrown out of my seat and smacked my nose against the roof of the pilot sphere. Blood exploded, and it drenched my shirt and sprayed the glass and the entirety of the control set. 


I grabbed my face and began to apply pressure to slow the blood loss, but *Tuscany* again flipped ballast over ballast to starboard in the whirlpool and spilled me into the hatch ladder. I felt my shoulder dislocate and my kneecap smack into the bottom rung. My head swam, and still *Tuscany* tumbled backwards. The cracks on the windows spread faster. 


*Sixteen three. Sixteen four.*


I could *smell* the inside of the Maw though the hull of the ship. 


But then, all at once and not a moment too soon, I got an idea. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but **** if it wasn’t better than nothing - I managed to limp and tumble my way to the controls and grip the handles as the ship rolled. *Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait…*


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*


*Now!* The sound of the roar was so close every last control surface in the sphere rattled in its case. My eardrums rattled, too, but then I flared up the thrusters again, full blast and at an angle, and the *Tuscany* shuddered and flipped and shook and, with fortune, fell straight out of the maelstrom with inches to spare. I felt the edge of the Leviathan’s Maw graze the starboard side, and the impact again sent me into the roof while the ship rolled end over end over end again. I smacked my ribs up on a dip in the alcove and fell back down into the seat, head first, and then out onto the floor. 


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!*


I managed to right myself with my good arm and get my bearings. I was free, but only just; the *Tuscany* banked and tumbled again and rolled, slower now in the absence of the whirlpool’s flood current, but not yet in control of its pull. I tried to steer away, but it was useless; the ship flipped around the back of the Leviathan’s titanic Maw and up over its head as the beast flew on by underneath me like a freight train. And for the first time since catching the monster’s eye I began to fully appreciate the magnitude of its size. 


It’s back was an endless, snake like and sharp-finned spine the size of a minor mountain range, and only quick maneuvering moved *Tuscany* away from the jagged back fins that chugged up towards me and sliced open the sea itself. They missed me by feet, and the blast of the current they’d swept up sent the submarine reeling backwards, off a bit further and into relative safety. 


*GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!!*


I quickly dimmed the lights to their lowest setting and caught my breath, as the full form of the Leviathan washed on past me. It stretched far away into the abyss below, for well over a mile, and dragging away behind it were thousands upon thousands of tentacles, a forest of the things, each the size of a six lane highway and tipped with razor sharp hooks and a flurry of wing-fins. It took a full three minutes for the beast to pass by me fully. And then it curved around in the other direction, and swam off in search of other things to devour. 


*Gggggggrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!*


The form soon slipped away into a shadow. And then it was gone. 


---


I surfaced hours later, having allowing the battered *Tuscany* to take its time with the journey. She was solely responsible for my escape - my quick thinking be damned. *A marvel of engineering indeed.* 


Once I did break the surface I disbursed a distress beacon and then promptly collapsed from exhaustion. Evidently, I was picked up by the Coast Guard some hours after that, a few hundred miles southwest of Hawaii, and pulled from the near-wreckage of my submarine and taken to a hospital on the mainland. It was there that I woke up a full day later. 


As I recovered I heard some isolated chatter of tremendous seismic activity near where I’d been, and how the whole ocean floor had changed and moved and shifted form. But I couldn't care less. I told the bastards what I knew. And on top of that, they have the *Tuscany* and they have all the recorded evidence, and you now have this written account. What everyone does with this information now, is entirely up to them. 


All I know is that I won't be doing any more diving any time soon. I’ve come to a realization: that mankind has more than enough space to expand throughout and live upon and thrive in above and near the surface, and on land, and in the skies and soon, hopefully, out there amongst the stars. 


But there are things in the sea that hold ownership of the deep. And perhaps it's best to leave it that way. [For all our sake.](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheJesseClark/)


*The earth has guilt, the earth has care,*

*Unquiet are its graves;*

*But peaceful sleep is ever there,*

*Beneath the dark blue waves.*

*- Nathaniel Hawthorne*

---

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/6qcezs/the_deepest_part_of_the_ocean_is_not_empty_part_2/)

[Related](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7304b2/the_deepest_part_of_the_earth_is_not_empty/)

[Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/thejesseclarknosleep/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel)



 Human: write a story with the theme title: I work as a waitress at a diner, and I think one of our regulars might be the devil
 
 Assistant: I work at a rest-stop diner in a town people pass through as quick as they can on their way to something, or someone, better. It’s called Lucky’s, which is a little ironic because if you’ve ended up here you’re anything but. If you stay too long the dust settles. Working at Lucky’s you never see the same licence plates twice, or faces for that matter. I’ve lost count of the amount of times the answer to my “Where you heading?” has been “Anywhere but back.” The lights flicker more often than not, and the jukebox sometimes spits out songs that aren't on the index cards, but the coffee’s hot, and most people who try them say the pancakes are the best they’ll ever have, and I’m inclined to agree. 

The embroidered name tag on my uniform reads Isabella, but that ain’t even close to my real name. It was my mom's. Lucky’s has been here a long time. I wear it because I like hearing her name said by other people. It’s like she’s still here, still coming up in conversation. Like she might walk through the door any second and isn’t buried in the cemetery just past the ****. 

Lucky’s is also always open. Always. Working long shifts serving drifters and truckers and runaways, those who have become impermanent out on the highways, you get to know how to read people pretty quick. When you move around that much, always on the road, you leave parts of yourself behind sometimes, lost between the miles. Sometimes, people are just driving because there’s nothing else left to do. Working at Lucky’s I’ve seen all sorts of lost things. 

I once saw a man hit a deer with his truck and pull over to bury it in the red dirt, digging as the sun went down, tears a steady flow down his face as he fought the ground to cover up what he had done. I once had a man I recognised from the news leave me a blood stained $20 as a tip, sad-eyed in a denim jacket that barely hid the gun taped to his ribs. I once saw a one-armed girl no more than sixteen stand up on the roof of her car and sing, until a coyote came and sat in front of the hood, howling along. I once saw two women fistfight in the parking lot in the night outside, until one was spitting blood and teeth and then they kissed in the blue lights of the police car that happened to pass them by, faces lit up red and shining. 

I’ve seen the highway on fire, lines of flames between tires as the asphalt set itself alight in the heat. I’ve seen roadside baptisms, preacher pulled up with a van and a kiddie pool. I’ve seen things walking out in the desert just beyond reach of the neon sign for the motel that don’t look quite like people, shifting out in the blue night. I met a woman who showed me a photograph of the place she was buried. I often meet people who you talk with a while until their faces start to flicker, can’t quite hold up the pretence that long. I’ve met people who have to be invited inside, before they can cross the threshold. I’ve met some lovely members of a sacrificial cult who tipped well and were oh so polite, even when they asked me if I’d consider letting them harvest me. 

But this is a story about - well, you read the title. 

It was a Friday and I was working a night shift. I prefer nights, because when I drive home I can pretend for a while that I’m going to follow the taillights of the car in front until I leave everything in my rearview mirror, until it gets light and the desert changes to ocean, like if I rolled my windows all the way down I’d taste salt on the air. That, and I’m one of the only waitresses, shall we say, qualified, to deal with the night customers. Besides, tips are always better when the moon is out. We only have three true regulars in Lucky’s, and only two had showed so far. 

Rose-Marie, our first and most frequent regular, was sat by the window in her brown fur coat, always drawn about her shoulders come rain or shine. Not that it ever rained here. Her hair was long and white down her back, like the moon through a glass. She waved over to me, gracing me with a wink that made her crows feet deepen, all the more beautiful for it. Rose-Marie liked whiskey in her tea. Sometimes, she fed cake crumbs to the voodoo dolls she carried in her pockets. She was also a chronic insomniac and liked the company of Lucky’s when sleep was hiding from her. 

She continued to shuffle through the deck of cards she had already set up on the table top. I watched her thumbs flipping over two jokers. Rose-Marie liked to divine the future, when she had the time. She used a frayed pack of hotel playing cards, and if she was in a good mood she’d read your coffee grounds. I didn’t ask her too much, because those coffee grounds had a startling way of coming true. 

Table 6 was empty, and spotless as usual. It was the only table without a salt shaker, and the only one I never placed cutlery on. Only one person ever sat there.

Our second regular, Jones, was sat in his usual booth, dregs of his black coffee held tight between his hands, badge resting on the table. He had his eyes closed, head bent down like he was repenting, steam curling off the lip of the mug and wrapping round his fingers. Jones was my favourite of our customers, not that I’d ever tell him. I walked past the booth and slid a bowl of sugar packets along the tabletop until it hit the mug with a soft clink. He jumped, reaching for his holster out of habit, until his eyes focused and he saw me.

He smiled, embarrassed, and it changed his face, dragging him back to life. When he smiled it was like a storm in a drought, made you want to stand and watch, and maybe stay out in it just a while longer. I wanted to put my hands over his where they had resumed their place on the mug, to feel the second hand heat through his palms. 

Sometimes I can sense the sad in people just by the feel of their skin. They carry it around with them, bone deep, trying to hide it from the world. But sometimes you can lift it from them for a minute or two, if you have enough kindness spare. It doesn’t take much, most times. Jones was too young to be that sad. And yet. 

“Tired today?” I gestured with the coffee **** to his half empty cup. Everyone knew about the little girl he’d pulled from the dumpsters outside the swimming pool last week. She was the fifth one missing in three months. I could tell from the shadows like purple thumb prints beneath his eyes he’d been dreaming about her. She’d been found without her shoes on. He’d carried her to the ambulance in her socks, pink with little daisies on ‘em, small in his arms like she was asleep.  

Lou the fry cook had cried when I’d told him that the other day. I really liked Lou. He was almost too big to fit through the service door, and had a tattoo of his dog just below the one of the angel of death on his shoulder. Lou sheds a tear for most things. The dead racoons we’re always finding by the backdoor with their hands missing. Whenever there’s a new missing poster plastered over the cracked glass of the phone booth in the parking lot. Every time he hears I Will Forever Hate Roses when it decides to pop up on the jukebox. Big guy, bigger heart. 

“Always tired,” Jones said as I poured. Another girl had gone missing yesterday. As I poured, I made sure to brush his thumb where it rested on the cup handle with the inside of my wrist, lifting out that sadness as far as I could. He smiled up at me, shy, and I smiled back before I could stop myself. 

I walked on to the next booth, two truckers with faces that had seen too much sun. One was showing the other the photos of his new baby in his wallet. He had tobacco stained teeth, a scab on his cheek and wind-chapped lips - and his smile was the most beautiful **** thing as he talked about his kid, lit up like christmas morning. He showed me too as I refilled his coffee, and I stayed and talked to them a while. 

The other trucker, with gold back teeth, told me how he’d used to drive pigs, but couldn't handle the guilt when he handed them over to the slaughterhouse. Said he’d look right into their pink faces through the slats and their eyes looked right back, bright and pleading like they knew what he’d done. Said he still dreamt about them. Now he drove freezers of seafood, specialty deliveries for fancy hotels. He’d never seen the ocean. 

Lou slammed the bell from the depths of the kitchen and I got back to work, taking orders from a woman with a Labrador who ordered hot dogs for them both, and three teenage boys in their blood-stained varsity jackets in the corner, who had ten dollars between them and asked for as many waffles as they could get. 

They often came in on full moons, leaving their bikes chained up in the parking lot. They were always hunting something, with their baseball bats, backpacks filled with bullets and their daddies’ guns, but they were nice kids so I always gave them extra scoops of ice-cream. Besides, I knew they needed the energy, because when they were hunting they had to run fast. Real fast. There used to be four of them. 

I cleared the table from the two women at the next booth on my way back. They looked to be twins, both dressed in long silk skirts and hiking boots, red hair piled up messy on top of their heads. 

Neither acknowledged me, not out of rudeness but because they were too preoccupied, packing up their bags, overspilling with maps and notebooks. I spied a roll of duct tape and a bottle of **** in there too, along with some stakes and crucifixes. They were deep in conversation, waving their hands and I caught a little of it as I stacked their empty glasses, lipsticked round the rims. 

“I know where I buried him Sylvia-,”
“You don’t know jackshit! We dug for hours, and-”

My mom always taught me eavesdropping was rude, so I left them to it and headed into the kitchen. But I got the sense that wherever they had left, whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t there no more. I felt like telling them, but like my mom said, it’s not polite to listen to other people’s conversations. You never know what you’ll wish you hadn’t heard. 

Lou was dancing to the radio, swaying his hips to Sugar Hill as Dolly sang down the wires. He waved at me with the spatula he was using as a microphone. 

Carlos handed me a plate of pancakes. 

Carlos had worked here so long he’d known my Mom, and was the only one who new my real name. He sometimes came with me on the weekends to change the flowers on her grave. He always brought her desert flowers, growing from the same earth she was. Carlos was also the only one who knew the recipe for the Lucky’s pancakes, and the only one that could cook them right. On days when he wasn’t working, we had no pancakes. Simple as. That was just the way it went. I’d learnt that the hard way, but that’s another story. 

Along with the pancakes, came a warning. 

“He’s back.” He gestured through the doors. “Table 6.” 

Our final regular had showed. It had been a while since he’d been around. I hadn’t even seen him come in, but that wasn’t unusual. He moved in mysterious ways. I raised an eyebrow. ****. Carlos raised one back. Oh ****. He tossed me the salt with a grimace, and I filled the pockets of my apron. Lou banged around in one of the staff lockers for a moment, until he emerged triumphant, waving a bible that had definitely seen better days. He placed in on the counter next to the syrup jugs and flipped to a random page. 

We leant over his huge shoulders to read what it said. “Keep far from a false charge, and do not **** the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.” Lou shrugged and patted me on the shoulder.

I don’t get paid enough for this ****. 

I took the pancakes to table 6, which had been empty the last time I’d looked. It was now very much occupied. The man sat at table 6 was smiling as I walked over. If you could call it a smile. It was more like rictus, lips straining deep red at the corners of his face. His eyes kept darting from side to side, too fast to count, like his pupils couldn't make up their mind where they should be. His hands shook as I got closer, hovering like flies on a carcass.  

I tried to lean as far away from him as I could as I placed the plate on the tabletop, but as I pulled my hands away he darted his neck out fast, whipping his head up and tilting his face towards me. He sniffed in, hard, eyelids fluttering. He giggled, shrill like it was stuck on the roof of his mouth. I recoiled, trying to hide the urge I had to run back to the kitchen. There’s something about hearing a grown man giggle that makes the skin crawl. 

“Can I get you anything?” I asked, faking bright. 

“I’d take your name.” He gripped one of the pancakes in his fist, turning it to mush. 

I tapped the name tag on my uniform. He shook his head, grinning, shoulders almost vibrating with this strange fluid roll as his smile slipped for a second, front teeth jutting suddenly, tongue sharply poking out. Filth was caked under his nails, red like the dirt on the sides of the road. Then he was smiling again, swaying slowly from side to side, feral, in his hunting jacket. His hair hung in greasy strings around his ears, like blonde rattails, and they swung with him, back and forth. 

“Isabella, Isabella, Isabella. It don’t suit.” He suddenly slammed his hand up to his face, shovelling the crushed pancake into the gaping hole of his wide mouth. I **** back, the movement was so sudden. I shoved my hands into my apron, reaching for the salt, and his eyes narrowed. 

“There’s no need for that,” came a voice from behind me. It rolled across my shoulders, deep, to the bone. Mr Prince. 

I turned to face our third regular, relief mixing with fear in a swirling pit in my chest. Kinda like that feeling you get at a fairground in midsummer, when you’ve been on a carousel too long, and part of you knows you need to get off, but the other part doesn’t want to leave because you know as soon as you stand still you’re gonna be sick. Mr. Prince had that effect on people. 

Mr. Prince was dressed, as always, in his black pinstripe. His stetson was darker than the night outside, and his boots shone like they were wet. If you didn’t notice the upside down crucifixes embroidered daintily onto his custom lapels, you’d think he was just a man with money, maybe mixed up in something a little shady, like oil, or pharmaceuticals. He was handsome by the way of his jaw, with his bone white smile, but his black sunglasses were balanced on the bridge of his nose, silver rimmed and gleaming, hiding his eyes as usual. When he spoke it was a drawl, dragged up from the depths of the South. 

“I’m sorry for my… acquaintance. He’s a little…” Mr Prince glanced at the man sat at table 6 as he panted with his tongue hung out, like a dog. “…over excited.” Mr Prince sat down and the lights above the booth flickered. He tilted his hat back on his head and the jukebox coughed and skipped, and suddenly Robert Johnson was on and singing about that **** crossroad again. Mr Prince popped a Marlboro Red between his teeth, and pushed the window open a sliver with the knuckles of his left hand. The silver pentagram ring on his wedding finger clacked against the glass.  

Mr. Prince smiled, the way snakes do when they’re watching you from the grass on their bellies. The cigarette was now smoking between his teeth, although he hadn’t moved. 

“Besides, Leroy ain’t the type for salt. He’s just a man.” He looked him up and down and his top lip curled. “Barely.” He turned to Leroy. “I see you started on my pancakes. But what’s the point of good food if it ain’t for sharing.” Leroy giggled that strange high sound that made me want to run, and shook a little. Everything about Leroy made me nervous, fight or flight getting ready to flood my system. 

Mr Prince handed Leroy a menu. “Order whatever you want.” He leant forward and the lights flickered.

Leroy ordered four cheeseburgers, and glass of milk. “Well, if that’s all!” I managed. I could feel Leroy’s eyes clinging to my back as I left. Rose-Marie waved me over before I could get back to the safety of the kitchen. 

“I wouldn’t worry about him, darlin’.” She crossed herself, and tapped the card on top of the pile. The Jack of Spades. It had its eyes scratched out. But not by Rose-Marie. It looked like it had been printed that way for years. “We won’t be seeing him again.” She wasn’t talking about Mr. Prince. She cupped my cheek and I leant into it, her hand rough with age, but warm. I could tell she thought I looked tired. She paid for her tea and toast, and walked out into the warm night waiting outside the doors.  

I finally made it back into the kitchen and was immediately attacked. Cold water doused me in the face and I threw up my arms on instinct, trying to protect my hair. Lou aggressively squirted me in the face with the spray bottle we also kept in the staff locker, the kind you use for tending house plants. Ours was filled with holy water. 

“Lou! Jesus ****’ Christ, get off I’m-“ I sputtered, and he sprayed me again. I spat holy water out, dripping down the front of my dress and wiped it from my eyes, makeup running a little. I grabbed the bottle from his hands. “I think I’m good.” I wasn’t really mad though, better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to possession. 

“Sorry! Just checkin’.” Lou sheepishly handed me a dish towel. “Already did me ’n’ Carlos.” He looked down at his shoes, awkward. He was a foot taller than me and a decade older, and I hid my smile because he was twisting the toe of his boot back and forth like a little kid been kept after class.

Carlos kept his eyes firmly fixed on his hands as he started flipping patties, but I could sense him holding back a laugh, desperately clenching his teeth. I narrowed my eyes and aimed the spray bottle at him. “Maybe you need some more,” I threatened. Lou snorted and then Carlos was laughing and I was too, and that heavy feeling that had hovered over us since Mr. Prince had walked in lifted. 

Sometimes when things get too dark, all you can do is laugh. Mom always said that when **** gets rough, you can either choose to laugh or cry. I never saw my mother cry.

It was coming up on 3 in the morning as I took the burgers back to table 6. Leroy visibly drooled and clapped his hands as I walked over. I put the plate in front of him as quick as I could but as I pulled back, his head darted forward and he licked the inside of my wrist. His tongue was long and wet against my pulse. I recoiled like I’d been bitten and he laughed, shrill and manic. 

“You taste better than they will,” he said, grinning and gesturing to the burgers. Mr. Prince watched this unfold, calm and unreadable like the sky before summer lighting burns down a tree. I frantically wiped my arm on my apron, but I could still feel that tongue on my skin as if I’d left my hand in his mouth. I fought off the tears that suddenly burned at the corners of my eyes, because something told me Leroy would enjoy them just a little too much. I shuddered, and cleared Mr. Prince’s plate.

“Tell Carlos the pancakes were… good as ****,” he said, from behind his sunglasses. Then he chuckled, low and raspy, as if something he’d said was funny. He popped another Marlbro between his teeth and it started to glow, as Leroy shovelled meat down his throat. I tried not to gag as I watched it clog beneath his long nails.

I walked by Jones on my way back. He waved me over, eyes creased with worry. He ran a hand over his face, as if he was trying to wipe all the bad things away.

“Is he botherin’ you?” He gestured over to Leroy who was rocking back and forth drinking his milk. Jones suddenly looked so tired, uniform creased as his face, looking fifty instead of his twenty two.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I shook my head and thought about Rose-Marie. “We won’t be seeing him again.” 

It felt like hours waiting for Leroy to finish. I took the order of a man with a butterfly tattooed on his neck, and some truckers pouring Jim Beam into their coffee. They asked me for an extra cup which they placed at the empty seat on their table, for absent friends, they said. I cleaned down the counter top, restocked the sugar packets, and took out the trash, ignoring the man in the rabbit mask that often waits out by the dumpsters. As long as you don’t look at him, he doesn’t bother you. I refilled coffee cups, and took the orders of the large group of biker girls that came in, leather clad and road weary. 

At 3:03am, Mr. Prince stood. Leroy had licked his plate clean and was sitting still, staring up at him with his teeth bared in a smile, hands gripping the table top so hard his knuckles were going white as milk. Mr. Prince handed me a roll of bills wrapped in black plastic that I knew better than to count. He tipped his hat. 

“See Leroy. We all gotta pay eventually,” he said. He leaned in and spoke softly. “For I will not acquit the wicked,” he smiled. He held out his hand to Leroy, palm flat, waiting. Leroy’s hands shook as he reached into his hunting jacket and pulled out a pair of shoes. A child’s shoes, small enough that both could fit in one hand. Little pink sneakers, dirty, with brown stains on the toes that I knew could only be one thing. Mr Prince considered them a moment, under the lights, and shook his head. 

He seemed like he was sorry, before he handed them to me. “For your man over there. Tell him to dig deeper where they looked last.”  He nodded to Jones, who was watching us, his badge gripped in his hand. But Jones knew better than to come over. 

Mr. Prince turned to Leroy and grinned around his cigarette. “We’ve got a ways to go, the road we’re takin’. They say it’s paved with good intentions.” He chuckled, and I felt sick to my stomach. He took Leroy’s hand, like a child, and they walked out into the night, warm and waiting. The doors swung shut behind them, even though nobody had touched them. The jukebox sputtered, and Chris Rea was on, singing about that road again. 

I placed the shoes on the table by Jone’s empty coffee cup, and passed on the message. He sat still for a long time after, just watching them on the table top, trying not to cry or scream or punch a hole in the plaster. All I could do was refill his coffee, because when someone is trying to hold themselves together like that, there’s nothing left to say. 

My shift ended, and I drove myself home, following the taillights in front of me. I knew when I woke up it would be dark, and it would be time for my next shift, but for now, I just drove, dreaming about the ocean and watching the sun come up, like it always does, despite everything.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve Been Flying for almost Thirty Hours and The Flight Attendants Won’t Stop Crying [Part 3]
 
 Assistant: [Read Part 1 Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dlk100/ive_been_flying_for_almost_thirty_hours_and_the/?st=k269q0gn&sh=f6440917)

[Read Part 2 Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dm86h5/ive_been_flying_for_almost_thirty_hours_and_the/?st=k269q1qh&sh=b655a8d9)

After another dozen hours or so, I opened the bathroom door. The lights in the cabin were back to normal and I couldn’t smell any sulfur. 

I cautiously made my way back to my seat and almost cried when the grinning crying flight attendant came by offering a meal. That crappy airline food was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. 

When I’d finished, my mind immediately turned to Mary. What had happened to her?

I crept down the aisle towards first class, trying to keep a low profile. Surprisingly, the flight attendants were nowhere to be seen. They’d almost seemed to ignore me, almost as if they wanted me to find her.

She had a row to herself and was staring down at her phone in the window seat. I slid into the aisle and shook her arm. 

“Mary!” I hissed.

She pulled out her headphones and stared at me with a surprised expression. “Yeah? What’s going on?”

“Are you ok?” I asked. “What did that thing do to you? What did they do to you?”

“I’m sorry, remind me how I know you?”

“What do you mean? We just-” I realized with sinking horror that she had no idea who I was. I fought back tears. “Mary, how long have you been on this flight?”

She checked the watch on her wrist. “Well it’s 4:03 AM so a few hours at least.” She stared at me the same way you’d look at a person claiming they were the second coming of Christ. Her tone was low and reassuring. “Hey, don’t worry so much. Look on the bright side; we’ll be landing in about an hour.”

I felt an iron grip on my arm and looked up to see two flight attendants. “Sir, this area is for first-class passengers only.” 

They were still crying and grinning, but just with tears this time. I could still see streaks of blood staining the front of their uniforms though. 

I was escorted back to my seat where I spent the next several days. Attendants continued to stop by with food, I would use the bathroom, and soon was going absolutely crazy with the monotony. 

In retrospect, those few days weren’t so bad. There’s a lot of content on the internet after all, even with crappy plane WiFi. No, it didn’t get really bad until around ten days later when the WiFi failed.

It was sometime a week later that I lost control and began screaming for a flight attendant. They didn’t come for several minutes, but eventually one did.

“Just...just let me see the Captain,” I asked.

The flight attendant bent low and spoke with that same customer-service voice: “I’m sorry sir, the captain has made his decision regarding you quite clear. You didn’t answer his call, and will, therefore, wait.”

“How long?”

“Quite a while I’m afraid. Don’t worry though sir, we’ll be landing in about an hour.” She straightened and walked away.

I started making notches on various parts of the seatback to keep track of different things. One notch for each time I used the bathroom, one for each meal, one for every time I watched a given movie, that sort of thing. 

It was ****. I watched every movie in the seatback a dozen times over. If I ever acted out badly enough, I would be escorted back to my seat by one or more flight attendants. Any attempt at conversation with other passengers was met with confusion by them followed by a quick escort back to my seat.

I’d guess it was on or around day thirty that, in a moment of panic and psychosis, I broke my laptop and phone, screaming at the top of my lungs. No one around me reacted in any way. 

Two months later, I stunk. The muscles in my legs were tight and cramped constantly. I finally concluded that suicide was my only option after my hundred-and-twenty-eight rewatch of Thor Ragnarok. 

I got to my feet and limped towards the emergency exit. I knew normally the pressure inside the airplane forced the doors closed, but I figured that nothing about my situation was normal. If this didn’t work, I’d find some other more painful way to go. 

I grabbed at the handle and swung it up. To my shock, the door opened easily, though no wind of any kind whipped around the cabin. It remained the standard slightly-too-cold temperature that it’d been for the past who-knew how long. 

The open door called to me, a black portal out of the plane. I stared at it for a long moment, almost too long. An attendant’s hand grabbed my shoulder, pulling me away. In a fit of anger and strength that surprised me, I wrenched away and jumped out of the plane. 

The wind whipping past my face was almost magical, a new sensation after so many months of the same. The ocean below me grew closer and larger, and I realized that suddenly, I didn’t want to die after all. 

It grew larger and larger and larger until it seemed that all I could see was darkness and waves.

I impacted the surface of the water so fast and hard that my entire body **** around in the seat. I pulled my hand back, **** at my bruised knuckle. I’d hit it on the seat in front of me.

“No,” I whispered. Then shouted. “NO! NO! NO!”

A flight attendant ran down the aisle, kneeling beside me. “Are you OK sir?”

I clenched my hands into fists, almost swinging at her. But then I realized. 

She wasn’t grinning.

She wasn’t crying. 

To be honest she looked a little scared of me.

I reached my right hand down to my pocket where I could feel my now-unbroken phone. 

4:04 AM.

“Sir, if you can calm down we’ll be landing in about an hour.”

My mouth tasted like ash. “Thank you,” I managed. “I will.”

I stared unblinking at my phone. It now displayed 4:05 AM.

Then I looked out my window and began to cry at the sight of city lights below me. 

We did land in about an hour. I can’t even begin to explain why or how, but I’m currently sitting in an airport cafe typing this out. I’m free. I’m out.

And I’m never going flying again.

---------------------------

---------------------------


EDIT: I sure hope the bartender here at the airport just has a naturally wide grin.

---------------------------

---------------------------


[Want more?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorchesterStreet/comments/gbpc8t/a_huge_storm_swept_through_my_town_a_week_ago_it/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: When we turn 18, we get the name of our soulmate.
 
 Assistant: [Part I](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/nmax25/when_we_turn_18_we_get_the_name_of_our_soulmate/) || [Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/nqtu23/when_we_turn_18_we_get_the_name_of_our_soulmate/) || [Final](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/nvzhya/when_we_turn_18_we_get_the_name_of_our_soulmate/)

I was young when I realized that the place I lived was special.

I didn’t realize it at first, since I had lived there my whole life. I thought it was normal for a city to not allow pets. I grew up never hearing the sounds of barking dogs, or hissing cats. No one that lived inside the city border was allowed to have them.

I thought it was normal for cities to have mandatory blood testing every week, with no explanation or seemingly any reason.

I thought it was normal for cities to not have any jails.

I thought it was normal for cities to give their citizens soulmates.

I never really understood how it worked. All that we were told was that there were the Matchmakers, who were responsible for making the matches, and sending out the tiny slips of paper that determined each citizen’s love life, and future. No one ever saw the Matchmakers. No one knew how they were recruited, no one knew how they worked. All anyone knew was that it worked.

Where I lived, there has never been a filing for divorce. The Matchmakers are never wrong.

Each citizen received their paper on their 18th birthday. Inside the piece of paper, there was nothing except a name. The name of your supposed soulmate. There was no telling how you would come across this person, no when or how. All anyone knew was that it would eventually happen. We were allowed to tell other people, allowed to ask around, try and seek out people that had the same name as the one on the paper, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t be forced.

Of course, literal eternal love and happiness does not come without rules. Every citizen had to follow the Rules. They weren’t too strange, and seemed like a small price to pay for what you were getting in return. Most of the rules were simple. To name a few, there was no going outside, under any circumstances, after 2am. No pets, blood tests, etc. There were also rules that we weren’t allowed to know until we were older.

We got the new rules on our 18th birthday, the same day we got our Matchmaker paper. We called them Slips.

As I got older, I realized that our city was special, and that other cities didn’t have what we had, but I didn't care. Life was good, life seemed simple. Our city was like a little paradise. It was happy. It was without issue.

||

It was the night before my 18th birthday, and I couldn’t sleep. This was to be expected, since knowing that the next morning, you would know the name of your literal *soulmate* was enough to keep anyone up late.

Usually, I wouldn’t have believed in such things like soulmates, especially as I got older, but it was hard to argue with evidence. My parents had gotten married in their late 20s, and have stayed happily married ever since, both of their names matching what was on their Slips. My older sister Katlin got her Slip last year, and though she’s been through her fair share of failed relationships, she’s currently in a happy one with some guy named Roger. I don’t think I need to tell you the name that was on her Slip.

I wished Katlin still lived with us. We used to share a room, but ever since she moved out, it feels empty with just me in it. By some miracle, I eventually fell asleep, my brain finally exhausted after hours of wondering what tomorrow was going to bring.

I woke up the next morning, my arm groping for my alarm to turn it off, just like any other day. It wasn’t until I sleepily sat up that I realised that today wasn’t like any other day.

I swung my legs out of bed, my heart pounding in my chest as I tried to compose myself. I wanted to pull on a shirt and shorts as fast as possible, rush to the kitchen to get the envelope I knew would be addressed to me, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to be one of those people who’s entire lives suddenly revolved around trying to find their soulmate. I needed to be calm.

Taking a few even breaths, I slowly put on a shirt and some basketball shorts, before opening my door. Chatter, and the smell of waffles hit my senses instantly as I stepped out of my room. Turning the corner, I stopped, grinning.

“Katlin!” I said, unable to contain my excitement at seeing her. Reaching her in a few short steps, I wrapped my arms around her in a hug, to which she enthusiastically returned. “What are you doing here?” I said, pulling myself away to look at her.

“Aw, you seriously thought I would miss your birthday? Get real.” She said, matching my grin as she looked at me. “*Damn* you got tall.” She said, looking at me. “He got it from his old man.” My dad chimed in, and Katlin rolled her eyes. Besides my height, I got a lot from my dad. I got his warm brown eyes, and I got his wavy, dirty blonde hair that I had always kept medium-length. I looked so much like my dad that my mom always chimed in saying how I got her nose and smile.

“Happy birthday hon.” My mom said from the counter, giving me a soft smile. “These are almost done, and we’ll go out for your birthday dinner later tonight.” She said, gesturing at the waffles, and I smiled. “Birthday waffles for the birthday boy.” My dad chimed in, putting an arm around my mom, and the simple movement made me remember something I forgot in the midst of the excitement. “Is it- is it here?” I asked them, trying to keep my voice even.

My sister nodded, understanding what I was talking about. “On the front table.” My legs felt like rubber as I walked the few steps into the hallway, instantly seeing the stark white envelope on the table. I picked it up.

*| Deliver to: Theodore Shillings |*

I walked back to the kitchen, all eyes on me as I turned the envelope over, trying to act calm, act normal.

I opened the envelope, pulling out two pieces of paper. One of them, I knew would be the new rules. The other one, was my Slip. I looked at the bigger paper first.

*To people(s) registered as 18 years as older, the following rules will come into effect.*

1. *Under no circumstances is anyone 18 years or older permitted in city waters. This includes all local rivers within city limits.*
2. *Under no circumstances will anyone 18 years or older be allowed to watch the television on the 14th of every month.*
3. *Under no circumstances is anyone 18 years or older permitted to use faucets after 12am. This includes sinks, bathtubs, and showers.*
4. *Under no circumstances is anyone 18 years or older permitted to use any kind of elevator after 9pm.*
5. *Under no circumstances is anyone 18 years or older permitted to share their rules with people(s) under the age of 18.*

And that was it. I honestly expected more, but was relieved there wasn’t too many that I would have to memorize. They were weird, sure, but nothing that I wouldn’t be able to do. After re- reading the new Rules, I put the paper down, heart hammering as I took my slip. Wanting to get it over with, I opened it, to which a single name was printed.

*Avery*

I read, and re-read the name several times. Avery. Avery. *Avery.*

I racked my brain for people I knew named Avery. There was a girl in my history class, and maybe one who I had pre calc with a few years ago? Before I could wonder further, Katlin’s voice cut me off. “What’s the name?” She said, to which I handed it to her. It passed from her, to my mother, then my father. “Avery. Nice name.” My dad said, handing my Slip back to me. Chatter resumed between my parents and Katlin, while my mind was whirring.

Some things made more sense now, like why I never saw adults kayaking in the river like I saw them do in other cities. I had told myself for a long time that once I got my Slip, that I wouldn’t focus too much on it, but my mind kept coming back to the name that was burned into my mind. *Avery*.

I still had to go to school, and got ready while Katlin went out to reconnect with some high school friends. I ignored my texts asking what the name on my Slip was, preferring to have that conversation in person.

My friends were waiting for me at the bus stop eagerly. There was Jennifer, who was usually pretty quiet, and who I’d known since preschool. There was Joseph, who was a bit of a daredevil and a jock who I’d met during my freshman year. Lastly, there was Charles and Sophia, twins who were never separated, and who I’d bonded with sophomore year over our love for horror movies. Looking at us as a group looked weird, but we worked, and had fun with each other.

I was bombarded with the same question as I got close to them.

“Who’s name did you get?”

“Avery.” I said, the first time I had actually said the name. It sounded nice, coming out of my mouth, It sounded right. My friends nodded, followed by a moment of silence that meant that they were all trying to think of Avery’s that we knew.

“Isn’t there a chick in your history class named Avery?” Joseph offered, and I nodded. “Yeah. I’m trying not to think about it too much, I don’t wanna become one of those people who become obsessed with it.” I said, although the name was really all I could think about.

My friends dropped it after that, all except Joseph. He would chime in every few minutes, rattling off girls that he knew, all with the name Avery. He was still talking about it as the bus came, and as we walked up to the school. He really didn’t have an “off” button, which meant that I was left to try and tune him out, nodding my head in agreement every few minutes.

As the school day went on, I couldn’t help but wonder if each Avery I came across was my soulmate. Somehow though, none of the girls I came across felt right.

Everything else aside, the school day went pretty smoothly. People wished me happy birthday in the halls, occasionally asking who I got on my Slip.

After school, I still had time before I had to head home and start working on homework, so as usual, I met outside the school with my friends. The day had gotten progressively hotter as it went on, and by the time school was let out, it had reached the point of uncomfort. Most of my friends were already waiting for me, and as I got closer they were already in conversation.

“-balls hot man, we should go claim a spot by the river before it gets too crowded.” Joseph was saying, to which my other friends nodded in agreement. The river he was referring to was the biggest in the city, almost cutting it in half. It was a popular hangout spot, and my friends and I had been going there for ages. But now,  my throat felt tight. None of my friends had turned 18 yet, since I had an extra year of preschool when I was a kid. They didn’t know the new rules.

One of the rules said I wasn’t allowed to tell them. Did that mean I also couldn’t hint at it?

“Er, I’m not sure if I’m feeling the river today.” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“Are you crazy? It’s like, 90 degrees out here.” Jennifer said, raising her eyebrows. Not wanting to act suspicious, I decided that I would go, but I wouldn't go in. Under any circumstances.

“Alright let’s go, but I can’t stay long, I have my birthday dinner with Katlin and my parents.” I said, to which Joseph pumped his fist.

Relieved that none of them seemed to suspect anything, we set off towards the river.

There were a couple other families there, with kids playing in the shallow water and the parents sitting safely on the edge.

I took a few, even breaths to remind myself that I was fine, and that I would stay on the shore. Jennifer and Joseph were the first to the river, instantly pulling up their jeans and taking off their socks and shoes as they dipped them into the river, sighing with the relief that the cool water provided from the hot weather.

I desperately wanted to be there with them, swimming in the river and enjoying the nice weather, but the rules were very clear. I sighed, sitting down a few feet away from the water, my legs out in front of me, watching as my friends splashed each other with the water. I just had to hold out until they had their birthdays, and then I wouldn’t have to make excuses. I could handle a few more months. “Oi! Come on birthday boy, get in the water!” Charles yelled, splashing water in my direction as he was ankle deep in it, a few feet away from where it dropped off into deeper waters. I smiled, shaking my head as I adjusted my legs to make myself more comfortable. “Nah, I’ll be the one to drive you guys to the hospital when you get hypothermia.” I yelled back, to which I could see his eyes roll from here.

“Aw, we can’t have that!” Joseph called, wading back to where I was. “I command the birthday boy to get hypothermia with the rest of us!” Joseph said, smirking as he approached me. I felt a trickle of unease as he approached me. I stood up to move away, but just then he swooped down and picked me up over his shoulder. Joseph played for the football team, and I always admired his strength, but this was the first time I was afraid of it. “Joseph, stop! Put me down!” I yelled, panic rising in my voice, struggling to escape his arms as he was carrying me to the water.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest, as a rising fear crept up my throat. He outmatched me in size and strength, and my struggles were fruitless. “I’m serious Joseph, put me the **** down!” I yelled, to which he gave a little laugh. “You’re always so serious Theo, loosen up! Live a little!” He replied, and I could see he was in the water now, wading further in. I looked at my friends, wide eyed, but they were giggling like it was a joke.

They had no idea.

As he got closer to the drop off, I struggled harder, hitting him on the shoulders. I wasn't weak by any standards, but Joseph was built like an ox, almost all muscle. Fear closed my throat so tightly, I couldn't breathe. “ Come on, everyone in the water!" He said, motioning with his head to my friends, who obliged, standing on the edge of the drop. "Alright on three, we’ll all jump in together.” He put his hands on my waist, and I knew what was coming. “One…. two…..” He started, rocking back and forth. “Joseph, stop! STOP!” I yelled, punching him harder, but it didn’t make any difference.

“Three!”

I heard the splashes of my friends jumping in, just as I was launched a few feet into the air.

I didn't know what to expect.

I shut my eyes tightly as images rapidly flashed through my mind. I saw myself at my ninth birthday party, saw myself applauding at Kaitlin's graduation. Rapid images throughout my life flashed before me.

Was my life flashing before my eyes?

It felt like an eternity before I hit the water.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

I hit the water hard, the cold water stinging every part of my body. The wind knocked out of me, but since nothing else happened immediately, I thought, fleetingly, that I was fine.

I was wrong.

It felt like a giant vacuum was at the bottom of the river, **** me towards it. I thrashed in the water, desperately trying anything to prevent myself from getting **** deeper. I had been swimming in the deep part of the river before, and one summer my friends and I actually measured how deep it was, and I knew well enough that I was being pulled far beyond that. I was running out of air, and my panicked state wasn't helping the situation.

Whatever was down there started to pull me faster, as if whatever it was could sense my desperation. My chest felt tight, as I could no longer hold my breath. My body started to go limp when suddenly- I was falling.

I was no longer in water, and I took a gasp of breath, sputtering out the water that had managed to get in my mouth from my surprise. I was so relieved to be breathing again, that it took me a minute to realize I was falling rapidly through the air. Darkness surrounded me, and through my confused, dazed state I couldn't make out what was around me. A few seconds later, for the second time during the day, my body hit water again, hard.

Once again, I had the wind knocked out of me, and I could feel myself sinking. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe.

I didn't have the energy to panic. My eyes closed. I didn't know what I was supposed to think about. I didn't want my last thoughts before death to be wasted.

It was during these last thoughts that suddenly, something pulled me away from them.

Literally.

I could feel something grabbing the back of my shirt, pulling me upwards, towards the surface. Confusion swept me as a moment later, I felt myself being heaved out of the water, and being roughly set down, on something hard, something solid. I gasped, coughing and sputtering as water dripped off of me.

I shakily pushed myself onto my hands and knees, trying to get my breathing under control, my thoughts moving at the speed of light. I felt oddly light-headed, my body drained and exhausted. I wanted to look around for my savior, but I couldn't. My vision had started to go black, as my exhausted body finally collapsed.

||

Someone was shaking me awake. My first, fleeting thought that it was my mom, telling me I was going to be late for school. Then I remembered. It was just a dream. I told myself. Just a dream. You'll open your eyes and mom is going to wish you a happy birthday, tell you you're going to be late for school-

Someone shook me harder. I opened my eyes. It was not my mom.

It was a boy, who looked around my age with dark, messy hair and who was looking at me with two dark blue concerned eyes, who looked relieved as I opened my eyes. "Good. You're awake. Come on, we need to move." He said quickly, looking behind him. Confusion clouded my mind. "Who- who are you? And where am I?" I said, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. The boy looked back at me. "My name is Avery. I can explain everything later, but we really have to go."

My breath caught in my throat. Avery. Avery. Avery.

Oh, ****.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The terrifying note addressed to my six-year-old son
 
 Assistant: My wife and I are beside ourselves right now. This is the type of thing you see in the movies, but now it’s happening to us.

Yesterday evening, a little after six, my wife and I were in the kitchen cooking dinner when my six-year-old (almost 7) son Kyle walked in from the back patio. He was holding a folded piece of paper in his hand and had a strange look on his face. My son is constantly drawing (and loves to read and write) so this usually wouldn’t have stood out to me at all, but he’d just come in from hitting the baseball off the tee and really had no reason to be holding a piece of paper. 

My son is the type of kid who wears his emotions on his sleeve. When I asked to see the piece of paper, I could tell he didn’t really want to give it to me because he flashed his typical *I’m gonna be in trouble if I do* face. I insisted, and he finally handed it over. Here’s what it said:

>Dear Kyle,

>I know this note may sound scary,

>(your daddy will think it is),

>but grownups don’t know 

>how friendships can grow

>when kids are just left to be kids.

>And what a kid you’ve become, Kyle!

>You’re growing as fast as a ****.

>Last night off the tee

>you stroked it for three

>and your team took a two-run lead!

>Yes, I’ve been watching (a while now, its true).

>I think we would make perfect friends.

>You’re a kid through and through,

>And I am one too,

>even if just for pretends.

>The problem, I fear, is your parents.

>(I doubt they would let us hang out).

>One is just rude,

>the other a ****,

>church-going, pure, holy, devout.

>I’ve got an idea

>(can you tell my hand’s shaking?)

>for me and you getting together!

>Tomorrow at three,

>you can come and see me

>at the address attached to this letter.

>But please (pretty please!)

>don’t tell your dad!

>Your mom and he won’t understand.

>Just come by yourself,

>I’ll be dressed as an elf!

>And we can even hold hands!

>Would you like that?

>(You will! You really will Kyle!)

>We will have (my oh my) so much fun!

>So I’ll see you at three,

>by the sycamore tree,

>where our two kindred souls become one!

There was an address scribbled at the bottom of the page.

>3 Orange Circle.

I knew immediately it wasn’t a prank. 

Carrie, my wife, is the youth group leader at our church. And Kyle did just have a tee ball game last night. Orange Circle is only one street over from our street, and I'm pretty sure lot 3 is the corner lot on the culdesac, which has an empty house with a large sycamore tree in the backyard. 

Was this sicko really watching Kyle’s game? What would have happened I hadn’t seen him with the letter?

I shouted for my wife to come read it. When she did, she flipped out, and ran for the phone to call the police. 

I flipped the note over, and on the back was some more text. I couldn’t read it at first, but quickly realized it was written backwards, I’m guessing so Kyle couldn’t have read it. To read it, I had to hold it up in front of a mirror:

>And now (just in case)

>if your Dad’s reading this,

>it’s time to tell him a story.

>If your mom flaps her hole

>Or your dad tells a soul,

>I’m afraid things might get rather gory. 

>On the 10th of July, 

>1995,

>A woman named Susie went missing,

>Susie, you see,

>(unlike you and me)

>wasn’t careful about who she’d been kissing.

>I kept her a while (but old things get so boring!)

>and in time I had gotten my fill.

>I threw her away

>and to my great dismay

>the hunger I felt plagued me still.

>I tried to bury it deep down inside

>(where nothing down there can escape).

>But lately it seems

>I see Kyle in my dreams

>And that hunger can no longer hide.

>Now that you know what I’m capable of

>(more than both of you can comprehend),

> if one word is spoken,

>then children get broken,

>and Susie will have a new friend.

The police arrived in a half hour and we showed them the note. They told us to stay inside and lock the doors for the remainder of the night. The man had obviously been in our (fenced-in) back yard, which made me sick to my stomach and had me cursing myself for not installing the security camera I’d gotten for Christmas. 

Nothing happened last night, thank ****.

This morning, I got a call from the detective assigned to our case. He’d reviewed the list of missing persons cases from 1995 and something had turned up. 

Suzanne Kerrington went missing July 10th, 1995, just as the note said. The last person to see her alive was a friend who saw her at the 24-hour gym they attended together. Susie had said she’d met someone new and wanted to get a quick workout in before getting ready for their second date. Susie was never seen again and the man was never identified. 

And, maybe the worst part, was Suzanne's address. 

3 Orange Circle. 

I'm supposed to meet with the detective later this evening. 

What should we do?

UPDATE: The detective just called back. They're sending an unmarked patrol car with two plainclothes officers to 3 Orange Circle at 3 p.m. today. Kyle's teachers have been notified and he's safe at school and won't be going to recess today. I'll update tomorrow with any news.

[Update 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/63uu1m/the_terrifying_note_addressed_to_my_sixyearold/)

***

[Download the FREE audiobook!](https://gumroad.com/l/RRPSp)


 Human: write a story with the theme title: Under The Back Porch
 
 Assistant: As a kid I lived with neglectful parents at best. At worst dad would turn his screams and fists on me but I learned quickly how to dodge the worst of it. Mom wasn’t much help, she’d just smoke in the kitchen and **** at him for staying out so late.

At the time we lived basically in the middle of nowhere, our nearest neighbors were a long walk away for a six year old and we had trees between us. No one to run to for help. But I was pretty small for a kid my age. I learned I could fit pretty much anywhere. The closet. Dryer. I think even once I tucked myself under my futon in such a way I could still get some air but no one could see me.

I was a master at hiding. But it wasn’t for a good reason.

One night though, one night I chose to do something different.

I could hear it in dad’s yells, he was **** and was about to get violent. Mom wasn’t helping either, just piling fuel onto an inferno of a flame. So I knew I had to find a good hiding spot. I’d gotten the idea a few days before, when I realized the lattice covering the bottom half of the back porch had a hole in it. Not big enough to fit a full grown man, most likely, but it could fit a skinny six year old no problem.

So wrapping myself up in my blanket and grabbing my hippo stuffie, I snuck out my window and ran into the backyard. In the middle of autumn. When it was forty degrees out and the temperature was steadily dropping.

I crawled under the porch, scraping my elbows and getting splinters in my palms but I fit inside. It was actually quite spacious compared to most my hiding spots, I couldn’t sit up all the way but I had plenty of room to spread out my limbs.

Of course I was also getting covered in dirt. It’d rained a few days ago so the mud was still a little wet. I wrapped myself in my blankie the best I could and settled in for the night.

But soon, even with my blankie and my hippo, my teeth were chattering so hard I could barely breathe. I didn’t want to go back inside though, knowing if my dad caught me I’d be in for the whipping of my life. So I had to tough it out.

“Honey, are you cold?”

That voice was not the voice of my mother, scratchy from all the smoking and screeching she did. It was sweet, like honey. I turned over to see the dim outline of a woman, lying on her stomach next to me. She had a pretty butterfly necklace and was just as dirty as I was.

I nodded, not wondering how she’d been down there without me noticing.

The woman belly crawled forward and wrapped her arms around me and suddenly I became warm. Like I was sitting next to a campfire. I snuggled into her arms, not minding the mud, after all we were both dirty.

“You’ve gotten so big,” the woman said, examining my face. “How old are you now, Alex?”

“Six.” How did I know this woman again? I didn’t think I did.

“Six!” The woman gasped. “You’re all grown up then. I’m so happy.” She sighed pleasantly and stroked my hair. I’d never felt so cozy in my life.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She smiled, I could hear it in her voice. “I’m Lily. What’s your favorite thing to do?”

I had to think for a second. “I like board games. And coloring.”

Lily chuckled. “Just like me then. Could never get enough of Scrabble. But I guess you’re still too young to play that, huh?”

I nodded. “Lotsa words. I wanna play it though. I like the tiles. Would you play with me?”

I heard Lily sharply inhale. “I… I don’t think I can. Your daddy put me under here, and I can’t leave… but…” She thought for a second. “Alex, could you do me a favor?”

“Of course!” This lady was oh so nice. Why wouldn’t I do her a favor?

“When you wake up in the morning, go to the police station. Ask for an officer by the name of Lowell Joyce. Tell him where to find Lily, okay? Under your back porch. **** come and **** get me, okay? And… and then maybe we can play Scrabble.”

Yippee! I was too excited about the possibility of playing Scrabble to notice how Lily’s voice caught at the end. I nodded vigorously. “I’ll do it! We can be on the same team, right?”

Lily softly laughed.

“I’ll help you understand the rules. Goodnight, Alex.”

When I woke up the next morning, I heard Lily’s voice.

“Go now. Your dad’s gone to work. I’ll tell you how to get to the station.”

Rubbing my eyes, I crawled out from under the porch and went into the house to grab my shoes and a coat. I shivered in the frosty cold. But I thought Lily was right behind me.

After my shoes and coat were on I started walking. It was long enough to get to the neighbor’s house. I really can’t remember how long it took to get to the police station, although I have no idea why no one pulled over to see what the **** a six year old in dirty pajamas was doing walking alongside the road. Lily kept guiding me onward.

“Wait. Okay, cross the street now.”

“Turn right here.”

“Keep going! You’ve almost made it!”

I nearly collapsed with exhaustion by the time I walked into the station. The guys out front chatting and having a good time didn’t see me until I almost made it to the front desk.

“Whoa! Kid! You okay?” One of the officers knelt down to my level, eyes wide.

I nodded. “I’m okay. Can I speak to Lowell Joyce?” I asked.

One of the other officers picked me up. “Sure kid, sure, let’s just get you someplace warm, holy **** your lips are blue…”

I remembered quietly scolding the man about watching his language. ‘****’ was a bad word.

I was given some warm cocoa and wrapped up in a blanket by the time an old man with a graying mustache sat by me.

“Hey kid. I’m Sheriff Joyce. What’s your name?” He asked.

“Alex.” I set down my cup and looked him straight in the eye. “I was told to tell you that Lily is under the back porch.  You need to go let her out so we can play Scrabble.”

I had never seen a grown man turn pale before.

Lots of things blurred together at this point. I remember being taken back to my house and there were a lot of police cars and people around. The back porch was surrounded by yellow tape, and someone was taking a black bag away while my dad was in handcuffs.

After that, I lived with my grandparents. Sheriff Joyce and his wife.

I tried to ask about what happened and who was Lily but I always got shut down. I was too young to know.

But life got better. A lot better.

Grandpa was the best man I could’ve hoped for in my life. We went out on weekends to the movies where he let me have the giant soda even though I’d have to **** in the middle of the movie. When I asked if I could drink when I was thirteen he let me try a beer. I spat it out and didn’t touch it again. He never judged me for my love of art, letting me paint my own bedroom multiple times over the years. I felt safe around him. He never laid a hand on me. My grandmother was amazing too, over the week she’d homeschool me along with teaching me things that you wouldn’t learn in a school, such as how to respect others but not take their ****. And cooking. Lots of cooking. I could make my own birthday cake by the time I was twelve. But I usually just made them for my friends. I got a lot of those, after I was free from my dad.

When I turned sixteen, Grandpa took me back to my dad’s house.

The whole thing had been bulldozed over. But I could still see the yellow tape wound around a few trees, faded and torn.

We sat together on the back of his truck. He opened a beer and drank half of it before setting it down and grabbing me an orange soda.

After I’d drank it he told me.

“Lily was your mother.”

Good thing he didn’t tell me as I was swallowing, I likely would’ve had it coming out of my nose. “My mom?” I questioned, confused.

“Your actual mom. The woman who lived with your dad was not your mother.” My granddad grabbed another beer. “Lily was my daughter. I loved her so much… but when you were around six months old, she vanished.”

My stomach dropped. “My dad just imprisoned her under the porch?” I asked, starting to feel sick.

Grandpa took a deep breath before setting his unopened beer down. “That’s…. something I’ve never been able to understand. Lily told you to find me? And that she loved Scrabble?”

“Yeah. She kept me warm that night. I probably would’ve frozen to death if she hadn’t been there.” I was a **** kid, even I knew that.

Grandpa went dead quiet before he opened that beer and slammed the whole thing. “… Alex, Lily had been dead the whole time she was gone. When we dug her up she was bones. Experts confirmed it, and your dad confessed to what happened. They’d gotten into a fight and he threw her down the stairs. She… broke her neck.” He clenched his fists. “I knew he had something to do with her disappearance, but I never had proof until you walk into my station, covered in dirt and telling me she was under the porch.”

I was floored. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was shake my head.

“But- I saw her! She was alive! She had this butterfly necklace…” I trailed off when Grandpa pulled an evidence baggie from his pocket.

There was that butterfly necklace all right. Rusty, and parts of the paint had chipped off, but I remembered it as clearly as I remembered Lily’s voice.

Grandpa took a shaky breath as he pressed the bag into my hands. “… Lily loved you so much. ‘ts why she stuck around that ****. You were her whole world. She was constantly taking pictures and sendin’ them to us in the mail. Sometimes a mother’s love can accomplish things that no human can do.”

My eyes overflowed with tears as I clutched the necklace to my chest. Choking on sobs, I leaned against Grandpa. He held me tight and I swear I felt a few of his tears land on the top of my head.

And for just a brief moment, I swear I felt that warm love I felt that night under the porch.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Every night, my girlfriend wakes me up to tell the exact same joke.
 
 Assistant: Before i start, i feel like i should let something very clear: I absolutely love Ellen. We've been living together for about three years now, but have known each other our whole lives. In fact, we were childhood friends - and i know this may sound like a fairy tale to some people, but it truly felt like we were always destined to be together. Even after graduation, when we started dating other people, it only felt truly right when we were with each other. So i don't know what took me so long to ask her out, but i'm really glad i did.

We have the same taste in music, movies, and even food. We laugh at the same dumb jokes, and know exactly how to comfort each other in times of need. She's the kindest, most gentle and loving girl i ever met. We even been talking about our plans for marriage, and how we would like to have kids of our own. That's why it hurts so much how it all went terribly wrong, in just four nights.

I would also like to preface that Ellen doesn't have much of a family other than me, and some very distant aunts that she never met and doesn't even know their names. I was born in a big family, with four siblings and plenty of cousins that were always visiting, and even helping out when we got in trouble. Ellen has none of that. She doesn't have any siblings, and her father was an alcoholic, abusive freak that died when she was young. Her mother was a very kind and inspiring person, that took care of the family by herself for many years. And almost a second mother to myself. So when she passed away last year, it hurt us both for a long time.

But Ellen stayed strong. She's not the type to let her feelings easily surface, so you gotta be a lot more perceptive to get what she truly feels. I used to proud myself in being capable of that. I felt like i knew her better than i knew myself. That's why this is all so strange, and frankly, terrifying.

We were sleeping in bed, and i was dreaming. I don't really remember what it was about, but for some reason i'm sure of it. Until i heard her voice, very close to my ear:

*''Knock, knock. Knock, knock.''*

She was caressing my hair, gently, while sitting in bed and looking below at me.

I slowly opened my eyes, groggy from sleep.

''Hey... what is it, baby?''

She kept looking at me, fixated. And repeated:

*''Knock, knock. Knock, knock.''*

I glanced at the digital clock, on top of the dresser. *3:27 AM.* I had work in only a few hours.

''What is it, Ellen?''

She paused. - ''Please answer the joke, dear. *Knock, knock. Knock, knock.''*

''Fine.'' - I accepted, mostly because i was expecting some kind of surprise. Ellen wasn't the type to do what she was doing for no reason. - ''Who's there?''

Her smile opened up, and she answered: ''*Not me. So don't answer the door.''*

I kept looking at her, dumbfounded. What was that supposed to mean?

''Is that it? Is that the joke?''

''Yes'' - She said, laying in the couch and covering herself with a blanket. - ''Thank you for answering.''

''Weirdo.'' - I answered, closing my eyes and going back to sleep.

Next morning, things went as usual. I only remembered the strange conversation while i was alone in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, and wasn't even sure if it had truly happened or if it was just a weird dream. So we had our breakfast together, and she was acting normal, reading something aloud from a fashion magazine. Frankly, i wasn't paying much attention. So i took the opportunity to ask about last night.

Initially, she didn't seem to know what i was talking about. Then her eyes fixated on me and the same smile from last night crossed her face, briefly. And i knew it wasn't just a dream. She told me it wasn't anything of importance, and stopped paying attention when i asked more inquisitively. And even though i shouldn't, i gave up. I had work and other matters to attend to, and just brushed off the weird event thinking it wouldn't happen again.

But the following night, i woke up to her voice.

*''Knock, knock.'' -* A pause. - ''*Knock.''*

''What is it now?'' - I said. - ''Ellen, what are you doing?''

*''Knock, knock. Knock.'' -* She repeated.

This time, she wasn't even touching me. Just sitting in bed, looking at me with that same smile. But her eyes semeed larger, and she blinked in longer intervals. I looked at the clock. Once again, *3:27 AM.*

''Ellen, c'mon. What is it? I got work in a few hours, can't have the luxury of waking up in the middle of the night to answer Knock Knock jokes.''

''*Knock, Knock. Knock.''*

''This is getting creepy, you know? I'm not sure if this is some gag you've been doing, but i don't like it.''

''Answer it. *Knock, Knock. Knock.''*

I sighed, but also let a small laugh escape. It was creepy, of course, but she was also my Ellen. So it didn't bother me as much as it should.

''Fine. Who the **** is there?'' - I answered in a playful tone.

''*Not me. So don't answer the door.''*

For some reason, i felt a chill down in my spine. It was the same answer as before, and i still didn't get what it meant. But the way she said it, with a strange, monotone voice, contrasted well with her smile and the fact that i had no idea of what she meant by that.

''What does that mean?'' - I asked. - ''I really don't get it.''

She just smiled, and went back to sleep. I felt a throb in my heart, but did the same.

Next day, we talked again about what was happening. She was very evasive with my questions, and i barely got her to say anything. It was almost as if she couldn't talk about it, which was very strange, considering we talk about pretty much everything. I told her i needed to be well rested for work, something she should understand well, and wasn't liking her little gag every night. She just nodded. And i decided to not press further, as i didn't want to hurt her feelings and had work to attend to.

When i got back home, we had dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.

*''Knock, Knock''*

I opened my eyes faster this time around. In fact, i barely got any sleep - i just knew she would do it again and kept thinking about it the whole time. Glanced at the clock: *3:27 AM.*

*''Knock, Knock''*

I thought about ignoring her. Just pretending i was asleep and she wouldn't wake me up. So i closed my eyes slowly, hoping that she hadn't seen me opening them in the first place, and stayed quiet.

*''Knock, Knock''*

She continued. She didn't stop. I regulated my breathing, but she kept going.

*''Knock, Knock''*

''I'm not answering your **** joke, Ellen. Stop it.''

*''Knock, Knock''*

I ignored but she kept going. She had never been this insistent with anything before. I tried to ignore it, but it was getting on my nerves, and frankly, i felt scared. Why was Ellen doing this? Why every night, at the same exact time down to the minute? Why wouldn't she let me sleep until i answered her?

*''Knock, Knock''*

I got up in a sudden movement.

''God dammit, Ellen.'' - I was ready for a discussion, but when i finally glanced at her, it was as if the strength was drained from me.

She wasn't smiling. She wasn't blinking. Just staring right at me, fixated like an animal. And her mouth was moving, slowly, and she didn't stop. ''*Knock, Knock''.*

I didn't know how to react, or what expression i had when i saw her but my heart skipped a beat. It was terrifying, as if her gaze froze me in place. A thousand-yard stare.

*''Knock, Knock''*

''Who's there?'' - I asked, feeling as if it was the only way out of that nightmare.

*''Not me. So don't answer the door'' -* She said, weakly.

Ellen slowly closed her eyes and layed down. I kept staring at her while she fell into what seemed to be a deep sleep.

I got up and and left. I walked downstairs and sat down at the couch in the living room, staring at the night sky outside and absorbing the quiet of the neighborhood. My heart was beating fast and it didn't slow down. I was too scared to sleep in the same room as my girlfriend, all because of a **** Knock Knock joke. But it was unnatural. I thought about calling someone. I thought about it all being some kind of sleep-related issue, such as some type of sleep-walking. But it didn't make any sense.

I felt so tired. And decided that early in the morning, i would call an old friend who's a psychologist and get the opinion of a professional. Something was wrong with Ellen.

I stayed in the couch as the day rose, and once Ellen woke up, she was acting normal again. Even asked me why i wasn't in bed. I didn't answer. In fact, i didn't speak to her and simply left for work. She seemed very upset, but i wouldn't do anything about it. Once i got to work i called my friend, told him everything that was happening in as much detail as i'm describing now. He didn't seem as worried as i figured, but we agreed in making an appointment for next week. Now i just needed to convince Ellen to come with me.

I received plenty of text messages from her. She seemed very worried, sad and even confused. She apologized a lot, and it broke my heart a little. I felt bad. I shouldn't have, but i answered her, and made her promise it wouldn't happen again. I also told her about the appointment, and she seemed reluctant but agreed to go with me. So we made up.

This was Ellen, after all. The girl i knew ever since i was six years old. The woman i loved and that had taken care of me for years. And as much as that strange behaviour creeped me out, she wasn't doing anything particularly frightening, or even dangerous. So for a brief while, i convinced myself i should give her another chance.

When i returned home from work, we stayed together. She even prepared my favorite meal. Ellen was acting as gentle and caring as i always remembered, and i slept with her in our bedroom, even though i was still a bit reluctant.

*''Knock''*

I couldn't believe it. She promised me she wouldn't.

*''Knock''*

I gazed at the clock. *3:27 AM.* Always.

*''Knock''*

I was laying on my stomach and i couldn't see her face. In fact, i didn't even bother to look at her. I was feeling more sad than scared, at that point. Sad that she had broken her word.

*''Knock''*

''Who's there?'' - I answered, determined to just go back to sleep.

*''Not me. So don't answer the door.''*

I stayed quiet and closed my eyes. I just hoped i would be able to handle it until the appointment next week.

To my surprise, i was actually able to sleep. Probably because i hadn't been able to rest since last night. The following morning, i went back to not saying anything to Ellen, only very limited responses. I was expecting her to act same as yesterday, trying to apologize, but she didn't. Mostly she didn't say anything, almost as if she had accepted it. She also looked tired, or at least a bit weak.

I went to work, but i couldn't stop thinking about her. Didn't receive any messages either. Once i got back, we had the most silent dinner i ever had in my life. And she barely ate anything.

I decided to let her have the bedroom and sleep on the couch. I wasn't sure if it would stop her, but held on to the hope that she wouldn't go downstairs only to tell me the same Knock Knock joke again. I covered myself with a blanket, shaked off that uneasy feeling and tried to sleep.

I had a deep sleep, without dreams. Felt like i was lost in darkness. Then i heard breathing.

Opened my eyes to see Ellen, standing above me, looking at me with big, fixated eyes and dilated pupils that didn't seem to belong in such a completly neutral expression. Watching me sleep.

I almost screamed in terror. Jumped out of the couch, and her eyes followed me as i stumbled through the dark room, creating distance between us. For a moment i was able to glance at the clock above the table: *3:27 AM.*

''Ellen, what are you doing?!'' - I asked, desperate. But she didn't move.

In fact, she didn't say anything. Just stared at me, as if i was made of glass and she could see right through me.

Then i heard a knock on the front door.

Instinctively, i looked in that direction. It was followed by another knock. And another. Someone almost pounding at the door.

I glanced back at Ellen, and she was still staring at me. Slowly, i got closer to the door and she didn't move. The pounding continued.

''Who's there?!'' - I screamed.

It stopped. And then, i heard a voice.

''John? John, can you hear me? Open the door, please! John, please open the door!''

I froze in place. The voice kept calling me. But i couldn't believe it. It was Ellen's voice, coming from the other side of the door. But it couldn't be.

''I beg you, John! Open the door, it's serious! She's not me, i swear! She's not me!''

Slowly i turned my head to look at Ellen, standing in front of the couch. She was looking at me, the same fixated eyes and a terrible, wide grin across her face.

The pounding continued. ''John, open the door! Please, you have to trust me!''

I stayed still, not knowing what to do. And i don't remember what happened after that.

I just woke up in my bedroom. The digital clock indicates it's *4:21 AM.* Ellen isn't by my side, i'm completly alone. I'm trembling, uncontrollably and i don't know what's going on. I don't remember what happened after i saw her terrible grim. I don't know if i opened the door.

I tried to look for my phone, see if i could call the police, or at least someone that i know. But i left it downstairs. All i have is Ellen's laptop, and it's where i'm writing this right now, to get advice. Because i can't go downstairs. The corridor is dark, very dark, almost as if the shadows were leaning into the room. And i can hear a faint, scratching sound coming from below.

What should i do?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Part 4!)
 
 Assistant: Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iocju/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Hey guys! I'm back from my training op, and I have a lot of really interesting stories to share with you. I've got enough that I'm going to break them up into two parts, this being the first. I'd love to put them all in one entry, but I just haven't had a chance to write them all down yet.
I didn't have anything too crazy happen while I was out there, but we did have one incident with a rookie that I found relevant. Since I'm sure you guys have been waiting for these, I'll just get right into the stories. I'll assign each batch of stories to the person who told them to me.

**K.D:** 
K. D is a vet who's been an SAR officer for about fifteen years. She specializes in high elevation mountain rescues, and is widely considered one of the best in her field. She was one of the more enthusiastic storytellers, and since we were together a fair amount during exercises, she ended up telling me about four that really stuck with me.

* The first she told me in response to my asking about her most traumatic calls. She shook her head and told me that really bad calls happen more frequently on the mountain, since the potential for nasty accidents is higher. 
About five years ago, one of the parks she worked at had a string of disappearances. It was a bad year, she said, one of the worst on record as far as weather went. They were getting about a foot of new snow every couple of days, and there were a few avalanches that killed some climbers. They'd warned people about staying on the mapped areas, but of course there's always those who don't listen.
In one particularly nasty case, an entire family got wiped out because the father decided he knew better than the officials, and he took them out into an area that wasn't safe. They were snowshoeing, and as best K.D could figure, they'd walked onto a shelf of snow that looked solid, but actually wasn't. It gave way, and this family went **** over teakettle almost three hundred feet down a ****. They landed on the rocks at the bottom, and the parents died instantly. One of the kids did as well, but the other two survived. One had a broken leg and fractured ribs, the other was almost unharmed save for some bruising and a sprained ankle. The uninjured child left his sibling behind and set out to find help. 
K.D said the kid didn't make it more than half a mile before a storm overtook him. Kid stopped to try and get warm, or maybe just to rest, and ended up freezing to death. They ended up finding the family with the help of some witnesses who saw them heading out into the wilderness, and she was the one to find the kid who'd frozen to death looking for help. She said it had started to snow, just enough to obscure long-distance vision, but not enough to make searching impossible. She saw a figure sitting in the snow up ahead, and she got to it as quickly as possible. She described, in detail, how as she got closer, she realized first that it was a child, second that they were deceased, and third that they had frozen in one of the most pitiful positions she's ever found a corpse in.
The kid was sitting upright, with his knees tucked up against his chest. His arms were curled around them, and his head was tucked up in his coat. When she moved the coat to look at his face, she saw that he'd died crying. His face was twisted, and the tears were frozen on his cheeks. She said it was painfully obvious that the kid was terrified when he succumbed to hypothermia, and as a mother, it broke her heart. She told me, repeatedly, that she hopes the father is burning in **** as we speak. 

* The other traumatic story she told me that stood out, in my mind, was one that happened when she was a rookie. Her team got a report of an experienced climber who hadn't come home the previous day. His wife was convinced that something bad had happened, because he'd never failed to come home on time. They went out looking for him, and had to climb what sounded like some very technically challenging parts of the mountain. They got to a relatively flat area, and K.D started seeing blood in the snow. She followed the trail, and as she went, she started seeing little bits of tissue. She wasn't sure exactly what body part it had come from, but the farther she followed it, the more there was. She follows this blood-and-tissue trail to a sheltered area under a cliff face, and she finds the climber. She said there was so much blood, more than she'd ever seen before. He was lying face down, one arm stretched in front of him, as if he'd died crawling. She looks closer, and sees that he's been partially disemboweled, which is where the tissue she'd seen had come from. The guy has an ice pick tucked into a hip holster, and it's covered in blood. Of course, they'll never be sure exactly what happened, but she said as best she can figure, this is what went down:
The guy had been attempting to climb up to the next area, and had been using his ice ax to ascend. He'd probably hit a loose patch, and had fallen. On the way down, or possibly when he landed, he'd gotten impaled by the ax, and it had disemboweled him. He'd drug himself along, tearing pieces of himself out as he went, and had died under the cliff face. She isn't terribly bothered by gore, but I guess a few of the guys who came to help her remove the body threw up when they turned him over and a good portion of his intestines spilled out.

* I mentioned to her that I was interested in hearing about any experiences she had with people completely disappearing. Her eyes light up, and she leans in close to me. 
'Wanna hear a real doozy?' She asks. 
She tells me about how, when she first started, there was a case that got a lot of attention in the media. A family had been out berry picking in an area of the forest very close to the entrance of the park. They had two little boys, both under the age of five, and at some point during the day, one of them vanishes. There's an absolutely massive search, and they find absolutely nothing. It's another of those cases where it's like the kid was never there in the first place. The dogs just sit down and don't pick up on anything, no trace of the kid is found. The search goes on for about two months, but is eventually called off.
Fast forward to six months later. The family comes back to place flowers at a memorial that's been set up there for the kid. They bring their other son. While they're placing the flowers, they lose sight of the kid for about three seconds, and in that span of time he vanishes into thin air. Now obviously, the parents are beyond devastated. It's awful enough to lose one child, but to lose two is beyond imagining. The search is huge, one of the largest in state history. There are about three hundred volunteers combing every inch of this park, looking for the kid. But again, there's no trace of him. The search goes on for about a week, with people looking miles from the part of the park he vanished from.
And then, almost two weeks later, a volunteer almost fifteen miles from the designated search area radios in that he's found the kid. They assumed that the kid was dead, but the volunteer says he's not only alive, he's in good shape. K.D and her team go out to recover the kid, and when they get there, she can't believe that this is the kid that's been missing. His clothes are clean, there's no dirt on him anywhere, and he doesn't appear traumatized. The volunteer says he found the kid sitting on a log, playing with a little twig bundle that's bound together with some old rope. K.D asks him where he's been, who he was with for those two weeks, and the kid tells her that he's been with 'the fuzzy man'. Now K.D firmly believes in Bigfoot, so she gets all excited and asks what he means by fuzzy. Was he hairy? But the kid says no, he wasn't hairy. He was a 'fuzzy man', and he describes a man that's blurry, 'like when you close your eyes but not all the way closed.' He says the man came out of the trees and took the kid with him deep into the woods. The kid says he slept in a hollow tree, and the fuzzy man gave him berries to eat. K.D asks if the man was mean, if he scared the kid, and the kid says 'no, he wasn't scary. but i didn't like how he didn't have eyes.'
K.D says they get the kid back to headquarters, and a cop takes him into town to talk to him more about what happened. She's friends with the cop that talked to him, and she said the kid described being kept in this tree by the fuzzy man, and given berries whenever he was hungry. He was allowed to wander around a very specific clearing, but when he tried to go further, the fuzzy man would 'get mad and yell real loud even though he didn't have a mouth'. When the kid got scared at night, the fuzzy man 'made it go brighter' and gave him the twig bundle. He said the fuzzy man was going to keep him, but he had to let him go because the kid wasn't 'the right kind.' He either can't or won't elaborate more on that. The cops are just sort of left scratching their heads, and the search for his brother is renewed with no results. The kid has no idea where his brother might be, and they never find him.

* The last story that K.D told me was of something that happened to her when she got separated from her training group when she was a rookie. They were learning the basics of high elevation belaying on a well-mapped side of the mountain, and she had to use the bathroom. She went off about fifty yards from the group during a meal break, and did her business. I'll tell the rest exactly as she told it to me'
'So I go to take a ****, and once I'm done, I start going back to the group. But I've only gotten about five feet when I realize that I have no idea where I am. And this wasn't a 'oh, I got turned around' lost. I mean I had literally no **** clue where I was. If you'd asked me, I don't even think I'd have been able to tell you what state we were in. It was sort of how I imagine people with amnesia feel, you know? You're completely lost, and you have no idea what to do. So I stood there for a while, just trying to figure out where the **** I was and what I was supposed to do. But the longer I stand there, the more confused and turned around I get, so I started walking. As I recall, I just picked a random direction and went for it. And as I'm walking, it's just getting worse and worse to the point where I have no concept of why I'm on the mountain in the first place. I'm just trudging through the snow, and then I start hearing this voice. It's kind of inside my head, almost. Like if a frog could talk, all low and croaky. And it's telling me over and over 'it's okay, it's okay, you just need to find something to eat. Find something to eat and you'll be okay, just keep walking and find something to eat. Eat. Eat.' So I start looking around for anything that I can eat, and I swear to **** I've never felt that hungry in my whole life. It was bottomless, and I think I'd have eaten just about anything you put in front of me right then. I had no concept of time, so I had no idea how long I'd been out when I hear an actual voice coming toward me. I go toward it and see one of the other SARs, and he looks **** terrified. He's running toward me, asking if I'm okay and what the **** I'm doing out here. 
And the scary thing was, as he's running toward me, I kind of see myself reaching into my belt for my hunting knife. I'm not even really thinking about what I'm doing, but what I am thinking is that I have to eat. If I don't eat, I'll never be okay again, so I just have to eat. He sees me doing that and he backs off right away. He yells at me to put my knife away, that he's not gonna hurt me, and that kind of snaps me back. All of a sudden, I know exactly where I am, and I put the knife away. I run to him and ask him how long I've been gone, thinking he'll tell me I've been gone for half an hour or so. But he tells me I've been gone for two **** days. I've gone over two peaks and ended up almost on the other side of the mountain, and if I'd kept going, I would have ended up wandering into about three hundred miles of wilderness. They'd never have found me. He can't believe I'm not dead, and of course I don't know what the **** to think. To me, no time has passed at all. I don't say anything, I just go back with him to a rendezvous point and I'm taken back to HQ  to be airlifted to the hospital. When I get there, they do all kinds of tests, and try to figure out what happened. As best they can guess, I had some kind of weird fugue state, which is kind of like amnesia, or a weird seizure that knocked my brain out of whack. But the truth is that we really don't know. It's never happened again, but I'll tell you, ever since then I never go out there alone. People rag on me for making them come with me when I have to leave the group, but I just tell 'em that listening to me **** the snow is better than losing me for two **** days on a freezing mountain.'

**EW:**
The next person I talked to was E.W, a former trainer who now works as an EMT. He still comes to ops like this to help out, but doesn't work full-time for us anymore. He specialized in finding lost kids, he just seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to knowing where they'd gone. He's a legend among the more senior vets, but he gets embarrassed if you compliment him on his work. He sat down with me at dinner one evening, and we ended up swapping stories. Most of them were just casual, but when we got on the subject of our weirder calls, I mentioned that I'd had a buddy who'd gone up a set of stairs. He got kind of quiet and asked me if I'd heard of a little boy who'd disappeared from his park a few years back. I hadn't, so he told me this story.

* They were out looking for this eleven-year-old boy, Joey, who'd gone missing near a river. Of course, the first thought was that he'd fallen in and drowned, but when they brought dogs out, they led SAR officers away from the river and up into a very densely forested area. When we do searches for people, we search in a grid pattern, and we search every 'box' of the grid incredibly thoroughly. What E.W's team noticed right away was that a very strange pattern was emerging. Dogs in alternating boxes were picking up Joey's scent, but losing it when they overlapped with another box. If you think of a checkerboard, Joey's scent was being picked up in random black squares, but never in red. This, of course, didn't make any sense, because how could the kid bounce from area to area without leaving a scent in each place he passed? E.W and his partner pass into a new box of the grid, and E.W notices a set of stairs about fifty yards away. He tells his partner that they need to go check near it, but his partner flat-out refuses. He tells E.W that he's made it a point never to go near any stairs he sees, and that while it may be routine, he's not to pretend that it's normal. He tells E.W that he'll wait in sight while E.W checks. E.W says he was irritated, but he felt for the guy, and didn't push him on the subject. 
'I walked over to the stairs. They were small, kind of like stairs into a basement. I don't really feel strongly one way or the other about them, the stairs I mean, so I wasn't scared or anything. I guess I'm like everyone else, and I just prefer not to think about them too much.
'Anyway, I went over and I could see that there was something lying on the bottom step, sort of curled up. My hear sinks, because of course you always hope for the best. And we were confident that we'd find this kid alive, because he'd only been missing for a few hours. But I knew right away that it was him, and that he was dead. He was curled up in a little ball on the step, holding his stomach. It looked like he'd been in horrible pain when he died, but I didn't see any blood, except some on his lips and chin. I radioed in that I'd found him, and we got his body back to command. That poor family, they were devastated. The parents couldn't understand how he'd be dead, 'cause he'd only been gone for such a short amount of time. And on top of that we didn't have any obvious cause of death, which just made it worse. I figured he'd probably eaten something poisonous, since he was holding his stomach when I found him, but I didn't want to guess. It's hard enough to hear that your kid is dead, let alone have some **** SAR guy guessing about what happened. They took him away, and I went home and tried not to think about it. I hate finding dead kids, man. I loved this job but it's one of the reasons I left. I've got two daughters, and the thought of losing them that way just...' 
He choked up a little here. I'm not great with emotional stuff like that, and it's always sort of awkward to see a grown man cry, so I didn't really know what to do. He pulled himself together eventually, though, and he kept going.
'We don't always hear back from the coroners about cause of death. It's not really our job to know, I guess, and sometimes if they think it's foul play they won't tell us because of legal ****. But I've got a friend who works for the sheriff's department, and he'll usually pass along any interesting info if I ask. In this case, though, I actually got a call from him about a week later. He asks if I remember the kid, and of course I do, and he says some seriously weird **** is going on. He tells me, 'E.W, man, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but the coroner has no idea what happened to this kid. He's never seen anything like it.' My friend goes on to tell me that when the coroner opened the kid up, he couldn't even believe what he was seeing. The kid's organs were like swiss cheese. Quarter-sized holes were punched clean through just about every single **** this kid had, aside from his heart and lungs. But his colon, his stomach, his kidneys and even one of his testicles, were full of these clean holes. My friend said the coroner described it as if someone had taken a hole-punch and punched holes out of everything, they were so neat. But the kid didn't have a scratch on him, no entry or exit wounds. The closest anyone there had ever seen like it was a guy who'd filled himself full of buckshot a year or so back while cleaning his rifle. No one had a clue what could possibly have caused it. My friend asked me if I'd ever heard of anything like it, or if we'd had similar cases in the past. But I'd never even heard of something like that, and I told him I wasn't going to be of any help to him. As far as I know, the coroner determined the cause of death as something like 'massive internal bleeding', but no one knows what really happened.
I've never been able to forget that kid. I have nightmares about it sometimes. I don't let my kids go into the woods alone, and when we go together I never let them out of my sight. I used to love it out here. But that case, and a couple others, just sort of ruined it for me.'
Dinner was over, so we started to clean up and go back to our cabins. Before we went our separate ways, he put his hand on my shoulder and looked at me really close. He tells me that there's bad things out here. Things that don't care if we have families or lives, or that we can think and feel. He tells me to be careful, and he walks away. I didn't a chance to talk with him again, but that story stuck with me.

**PB:**
By pure coincidence, I got to talk to another vet, P.B who's been in the SAR field for years. We were partnered on a grid sweep during a training exercise, and we were chatting casually about how we liked the job, what kinds of things we'd seen, and the like. At one point, we passed an old set of stairs, though these were probably from an old fire lookout, given the area that we were in. I sort of casually mentioned that I was curious about the stairs, and that I wished I knew more about them. He got kind of quiet and looked like he wanted to tell me something, but wasn't sure if he should. Finally, he told me to turn my radio off. Obviously this is something we are never, ever supposed to do, but I did it, and he did the same. 

* About seven years ago, he tells me, he was out on a call with a rookie. They were in an area of the park that's had a lot of strange reports and events. Disappearances, stories about lights in the forest, odd noises, things like that. The rookie was totally spooked, kept going on and on about 'things out in the woods'. According to P.B:
'The guy wouldn't stop talking about 'the Goatman'. Just on and on, 'Goatman' this and 'Goatman' that. Finally, I told him that there was plenty else to be afraid of out here that was very real, and that he'd better get over this thing with the Goatman. The rookie wanted to know what kinds of things I was talking about, and I just told him to shut up and walk. We crested a little ridge and there was a staircase about ten yards ahead. The rookie stops dead in his tracks and just stands there looking at them. I tell him, 'See? That's something you should be afraid of.' The rookie asks me what the **** these are doing out here, and for some reason, I just open up and tell him the truth. Or what I've been told is the truth. I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for doing what I did, and I could get in a lot of trouble for repeating it to you. But you're a nice kid, and I want you to stop looking into this. Quit while you're ahead. So I'll tell you what I know, under the condition that you never breathe a word of this to the supes.'
I told him I wouldn't say a word, and he double-checks that our radios are off.
'When I first started out, we were a little less tight-lipped about them, and other things that happen out here. We warned people before they were even hired that there was weird **** going on. I guess the Forest Service was tired of having such a massive turnover rate, and they wanted people to know what they were getting into. So they started having people sign these agreements that they wouldn't go to the media about what they were going to see. The FS didn't want to scare people away, so the last thing they needed were spooked rookies running off to the media with stories of ghosts and haunted stairs. But eventually, they found that the agreements weren't necessary. People not only didn't want to talk about what they saw, they wouldn't. A few times, media tried to talk to people when kids or hikers would disappear, and no one would say a word. I can't really explain it. I guess we just... don't really want to admit anything is wrong. This is our job, to be out in the woods every single day. We don't need to be spooked, and the best way to avoid that is to pretend like everything's okay. So I'll tell you everything I can think of, and after that, I'm done talking about it for good. And I expect you not to bring it up around me, ever.
'The stairs have been out here as long as the parks have existed. We have records going back decades describing them. Sometimes people go up them, and nothing happens. Other times... Look, I really don't like talking about this, but sometimes, really bad **** happens. I saw one guy get his hand sliced clean off when he got to the top step. He reached out to touch a tree branch, and it happened so fast. One second his hand was there, and the next it was gone. Completely clean wound. We didn't find his hand, and the guy almost died. Another time, a woman touched one of the stairs, and a blood vessel in her brain exploded. Literally exploded, like a water balloon. She sort of stumbled down and came over to me, and all she got out was 'I think something is wrong with me.' She dropped like a sack of flour, dead before she hit the ground. I'll never forget the way the blood leaked into the inside of her eye. Before she died, I watched it turn red. I watched it happen and there wasn't a single thing I could do to help.
'We warn people not to go anywhere near them but there's always at least one idiot who does. And even if nothing happens to them, something bad always happens. Kids go missing as we're on their trail. Someone dies the next day, cut in half in a completely safe part of the park. I don't know why, but something bad always happens. I don't know exactly why they're out here, but it doesn't matter. They're here, and if we were smart, we'd tell our new officers exactly what they're capable of.'
We were both quiet for a little while. I was afraid to talk because I wasn't sure if he was done. He looked like he wanted to say something else. Finally he spoke up again.
'Have you ever noticed how you can't find the same ones twice?'
I nodded, expecting him to continue. But he just stayed quiet, walking alongside me, and eventually he started a story about the biggest deer he'd ever seen in the park. I didn't bring up the subject again, and I didn't press him for any more stories. He dropped out of the op the next day. Apparently he left before the sun came up; he said he was sick. None of us have heard from him since he left.

I'm going to stop here for the time being. I'll try and post the next part in the coming days, but what with it being the end of summer, things are pretty busy here. Thanks for the continued interest, guys, you've really awakened this curiosity in me that I didn't know I had!

**EDIT**: Part Five is up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3kd90k/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I can see people's auras... and it's a curse.
 
 Assistant: Yes, I can see people’s auras. 

And I hate saying it so bluntly.  It makes me sound like some hack psychic who fakes the ability as a means of exploitation and a paycheck.  I’ve never made money from my ability. I’ve never taken advantage of it.  And, until now, I’ve never spoken of it to anybody.

But I really do see them, and I’m starting to view it as more of a curse.  I have a reason for typing this out and I assure you, there isn’t a happy ending.   

For me, it’s quite simple.  I see a faint light surrounding people.  Everyone.  And in that light, I can see their *morality*.  The brighter and more translucent the light is, the better the person.  The darker and opaquer, the worse.  Dim and partly translucent are morally ambiguous.   To simplify things, those are the three ways I describe them.  Dark equals evil.   Bright equals good.  Dim equals somewhere in between.  It’s strange, I’ve always viewed the people with grey/dim auras as… arbiters.  Mediators.  The people in between, who aren’t one or the other, and will always have difficult decisions to make.

I was a child when I first became aware of my gift.  It didn’t take long to figure out that the brighter auras were kinder to me and selfless.  While both of my parents are good people, my father’s aura was quite a bit brighter than my mothers.  As a result, he was always far more patient and understanding with me.   It was clear to see that my teachers and fellow students with brighter auras were usually friendlier and more compassionate.  The dark auras were the stereotypical fighters, lunch money stealers, and bullies.  I would say I was around 8 years old when I fully figured out that I have a gift that most people don’t have.  That possibly *nobody* else has.

I’ve read some of the ‘new age’ websites and alternative medicine articles that give their take on aura reading.  While I believe that the vast majority of it is ****, I expect there must be at least SOME other people out there with my ability.  So I don’t want to completely dismiss those people as an outright hoax.  It’s just that, for me, it doesn’t work anything like the way those websites describe.  I’ve visited numerous aura readers and psychics.  Most of them have dim or dark auras themselves, and I’m certain they don’t really hold this power.  I’m not saying all “psychics” are terrible people.  I’ve visited a few who had very bright auras.  They were unable to convince me that they really have psychic powers, but they at the very least used their deception to try and help people.  

You need to understand… I’m going to end this entry by sharing a terrifying event that is happening to me.  But before I get to that, I think there are a few more things I need to explain.  I imagine many of you are curious as to what type of aura is the most common.  I’m happy to tell you that the majority of people are somewhere between dim and bright.  I see very few dark auras.  This isn’t scientific, and I haven’t traveled the world plotting out charts and graphs, but I’d estimate around 60% of people are bright-ish.  Around 25% dim-ish.  Leaving just around 15% dark-ish.  Again, these are just estimates.  What’s the precise difference between, say, bright and dim?  I have no idea.  But rest assured, there is far more “bright” in the world than “dark”.

The next thing I’d like to discuss is children.  I can see a person’s aura right from birth, and I’ve never encountered an aura changing as someone ages.  I’m not sure what this means for the whole nature vs nurture debate.  And I’m not saying that everyone with a dark aura always behaves terribly, or vice versa.  A person with a bright aura might be born in horrible conditions, acquire a drug problem, and then resort to thievery to feed their addiction.  I think the difference is this… a bright aura thief with a horrible upbringing may rob someone, but they would never intentionally hurt someone in the process.  A dark aura thief would **** someone if they could get away with it without even a second thought.  

Another interesting note…  I find the ratio between bright/dim/dark to be similar across pretty much all human activities.  Whether I’m at a church or a death metal concert, it always seems to be around that same 60%-25%-15% ratio.  I once visited a federal prison and was shocked to see that at least half of the prisoners had bright auras.  I had to be at the prison in person to see this because I can’t see auras on photographs, television shows, movies, or even in mirrors.  I can only see auras in the real world.  Another strange thing… I can’t even see my own aura.   I assume and hope I would be on the brighter spectrum… but I can’t see it.

The brightest person I ever saw worked as a social worker.  She shone so bright that it was difficult for me to even look at her.  Based on the way people acted in her presence, I think that almost everyone around her could sense her brightness in a subconscious way.  Everyone loved her. She had donated a kidney to someone she barely even knew.  She had a special needs adopted child.  Most of the money she earned was donated to various charities.  And that’s only the little that I knew of her.  This woman shined so brightly that she scared me.  It was scary that someone could be so good.

But it wasn’t nearly as scary as the darkest person I ever saw.  I was 20 years old at the time, leaving a club downtown at 2 am.  A man quietly walked down the street.  I didn’t see him at first, but I noticed the light dimming around me.  This man was so dark that he partly absorbed the light around him.  I looked at him long and hard.  He looked desperate, cruel, and callous.  When he looked up and locked eyes with me, it made me fall back.  He smirked, as though he knew what I could see.  I saw his face up close.  I would never forget it.  And I recognized it when I saw his mugshot a few weeks later in the newspaper.  He had murdered his ex-wife and two children in cold blood.  

I think I need to get to it now.  The reason why I’m writing this out.  

I fell in love a year ago.  She didn’t shine anywhere near as bright as what I’ve seen before, but she most assuredly wasn’t dark or even dim.  She was beautiful.  Her sense of humor, her wit, her.. everything.  She was my dream woman.  And I’ve never told her anything at all about the auras I see.  I could go into far more about her but this isn’t a love story.  What’s important is this:  We fell in love.  She got pregnant.  We got married.  We were happy.  We were *so* happy.

I remember hearing the buzz of my phone two mornings ago.  I remember my excitement when I saw “It’s happening.  Come to the hospital.”  I remember my frustration when I got stuck in traffic.  I remember how long it took to find a parking spot.  I remember shouting at a nurse “WHAT ROOM IS MY WIFE IN.”  I remember bursting through a door and seeing the smile on my wife’s face.  I remember seeing the doctor, his light shining so bright, as he told me “Congratulations, it’s a boy.”

The doctor held him up to me.  

And all the light in the room dissipated.  

“No, this can’t be.”  I remember saying.    The doctor put him in my arms.  

The darkness around my son was so absolute that I could barely even see him.  He was a void.  He was so dark that the world barely even existed around him.  It was like nothing I’d ever experienced.  I started weeping.  I think my wife and the doctor thought they were tears of joy.  But they weren’t.  Lord knows they weren’t.

I think back to the dark outline around that man that murdered his family.  It was up to that point the darkest I’d ever seen.  But the darkness around my son was 100 times worse.  A *thousand* times worse.  And what could possibly be a thousand times worse than murdering your entire family?

It’s been two days.  We’re home now.  My son’s darkness is so extreme that it dims the hallway leading to his room.  My wife knows something is wrong.  I think she suspects I’m having regrets about having children at all.  If only she knew…

What do I do?  He’s my son.  Just 20 minutes ago I stood above him, holding a pillow over his face.  But I couldn’t do it.  Not yet anyway.  A man who could **** his two-day old baby boy: what color would his aura be? 

And here’s the thought that keeps going through my mind as I sit here alone.  The fathers of our worst.  The Adolf ****’s.  Joseph Stalin’s.  Timothy McVeigh’s. If their fathers knew what they would become, would they **** them in the cradle?  Would they have the strength to hold down the pillow as long as it takes?

I can see the door of my son’s room from my office.  The hallway seems to be growing darker.  I look down at my hands as I type this.  Maybe I’m going crazy, but there seems to be an aura around my hands and arms now.  It’s gray.  It’s dim.  Maybe it’s always been dim.  

I’m looking down at the pillow beside me.    The grayish dim outline around my hands more apparent than ever. Maybe it’s time.  Maybe this is why I have this gift.  It all comes down to right now.  

Maybe it’s time.

I think it’s time.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: The James Webb Telescope discovered something terrifying in deep space
 
 Assistant: I work for NASA as an astronomer, and there are certain things we keep hidden from the public. No, the Earth isn't flat, and aliens don't control the government. ****, I wish those were the case, as the truth is much, much worse.

In 1993, the Hubble Space Telescope saw a star disappear. It didn't go supernova, or die naturally, it simply went dark, over the span of a few minutes. This star was already too faint to see with the **** eye, and ground-based telescopes had trouble picking it out from among the surrounding stars, so the event wasn't widely known to the public. At the time, we thought the most likely explanation was that a cloud of interstellar dust had drifted between Earth and the star, occluding it from view. It was noted and mostly forgotten about.

In 2007, two more stars vanished. Due to the circumstances of this event, this was much more concerning. The two stars in question were part of a binary system, orbiting each other at a fairly close distance. If a cloud of interstellar dust was the culprit again, they would have both seemed to disappear simultaneously, or very close to it. Instead, both stars faded individually over a period of minutes, separated by a span of about 8 hours. This binary system was also about 15 light-years closer to Earth than the star that had previously disappeared in 1993.

After carefully reviewing millions of Hubble images, two more stars were identified which had 'gone out', in the years 1995 and 2002. These were all in the same stellar neighborhood, only a handful of light-years from each other. The only conclusion we could draw was that some unknown influence, traveling close to the speed of light, was shrouding (or destroying) these stars. Unfortunately, the Hubble wasn't sensitive enough to tell us any more than that.

The James Webb Space Telescope first came online a few months ago. Although official channels will tell you that it's still undergoing testing, we have been actively collecting data since early February. One of the first things we did was to aim the telescope at the regions of space occupied by the vanished stars. If they were being blocked by dust clouds (a hope some of us still held onto), the increased sensitivity of the JWST may have been able to see through them and confirm that the stars were still there. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. The first 3 stars that had disappeared were still completely dark. Gravitational wave detectors, though, soon found something odd. In all cases, not only were the stellar masses still present, but the amount of mass had actually increased. More sensitive observations had also detected a type of 'string', or 'web' stretching through space connecting these now-invisible stars.

When we trained the telescope on the binary system that had vanished in 2007, which was the nearest point at which this phenomenon had so far been observed, there was finally enough ambient EM spectrum radiation left to try a mass spectrometer reading. If you're not aware, mass spectrometry is an incredibly useful process, where by measuring the patterns of light wavelengths emitted or reflected by an object, we can learn tons of useful information, such as its temperature, speed and direction of movement, and chemical composition. The readings we got from the binary stars didn't make any sense, though. First of all, they were cold - almost as cold as the surrounding interstellar medium. Whatever had happened to these stars had snuffed them out completely, or somehow prevented their light from escaping. What was truly puzzling, however, were the emission lines returned by the mass spectrometer. Several familiar elements, such as Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Magnesium were identified, but these were few and far between. Most of the readings didn't correspond to any known chemical elements, and even seemed to defy what we knew about the physics of light, matter, and chemistry. This massive, star-spanning structure was primarily composed of materials that we didn't even have names for, and may not even have been matter as we understand it.

Speculation ran rampant. Obviously, such a thing couldn't be a natural phenomenon. Finally, we had proof of extraterrestrial life! But what was this thing we had discovered, and for what purpose was it being built? The leading hypothesis was that we were looking at a series of Dyson Shells - massive solar collectors built to completely envelop stars, in order to capture 100% of their energy output. Such a concept had been envisioned in the early 20th century, as a potential source of energy for an interstellar civilization. Ever since then, the idea had found its way into popular science fiction. The construction of these massive structures had actually been theorized to be one of the first signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life that we may someday detect. It seemed that day was today.

The theory still didn't explain everything, though. First of all, there was the impossible speed with which the stars were covered. Constructing a Dyson shell from scratch in a matter of minutes was beyond even the wildest speculations of scientists and sci-fi writers. Then there were the mysterious 'filaments' that connected the shells over distances of light-years. No one had any idea what purpose these could serve, or how they could even be built.

Everyone at NASA was fascinated by this mystery. In hindsight, we may have been better off if we had never discovered the truth.

Less than a month ago, the JWST detected a series of unusual energy bursts emanating from interstellar space. These were occurring at the very edge of a star system approximately 12 light-years from the binary system that vanished in 2007. As we focused the telescope on this system, we soon determined that these were not natural phenomena either. The energy signatures, which were still flashing intermittently, matched what would be expected from thermonuclear and antimatter - based explosions, along with several other types of energies that we couldn't identify. These explosions, although still not visible to the **** eye on Earth from that distance, were absolutely tremendous in magnitude - easily billions of times more powerful than any nuke that humanity could conceivably build.  


After experimenting with the telescope's settings, we were able to get a clearer picture of what was going on: The tip of one of the interstellar 'filaments' that linked the Dyson system was passing through the Oort Cloud of the distant star system, approaching its sun. And whoever lived there was fighting back. Their weapons were able to slow the thing's advance, shattering, breaking off, and vaporizing planet-sized chunks of the object, but it seemed to be rebuilding itself almost as fast as it was being destroyed. After less than a week, the explosions stopped. It seems that they had run out of ammunition. In the void between stars, we knew that these things traveled at nearly the speed of light, but as we watched it approach the inner star system, its pace slowed as it swelled in size, preparing to devour the system's star.

We quickly trained the telescope's mirrors on the doomed sun. We were about to watch whatever this thing was blot out another star, but in real time. We all held our breath as we watched the projected image of the main sequence star, slightly larger than our own sun. At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but soon a small shadow appeared on the edge of the luminous orb, soon followed by another shadow, and then a third. The shadows began to converge, forming a strange yet somehow familiar pattern as they blocked out the star's light.

"What... are those?" One of my colleagues gasped. "They almost look like..." she paused, as if afraid to say the next word for fear of ridicule. I, however, had no such hesitancy.

"Leaves," I said, my voice monotone. The situation was far too incredible to express any emotional reaction, even that of pure shock. "They look like leaves."

We watched as, over a period of minutes, a web of shadowy outlines, matching the familiar shapes of oblong leaves and thin vines, proceeded to blot out the remaining light from the distant star.

By that point, everyone in the room had realized the truth. The phenomenon we had been tracking for so many years wasn't some hyper-advanced alien megastructure. Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Magnesium, some of the few familiar elements we had detected? They were all components of chlorophyll.

It was a plant. An enormous plant that spanned across light-years. And, much like terrestrial plants, it sought out light to fuel itself. The filaments connecting the stars across interstellar space were stems - branches. It would grow in the direction of the nearest stars it sensed, completely enveloping them and then moving on. Any life inhabiting planets orbiting those stars would be left to freeze to death, or perhaps even worse, it was possible that the plant would devour those planets to add to its mass as well. 

Everyone was silent as the telescope continued to gather data. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, a young astronomer spoke up from the far end of the room, addressing our supervisor.

"Sir, we've begun to detect the formation of another tendril, leaving the system. Its vector is..." he gulped. He didn't need to say any more, but he did anyway. "It's heading directly for our sun."

"How much time do we have?" the supervisor replied grimly.

"Judging by the time lag, distance, relativistic properties, and previously observed speeds of this... thing, I'd estimate no more than twenty-seven years, sir."

Twenty-seven years. We had just watched this galactic **** overwhelm a civilization that was, at the very least, thousands of years ahead of us technologically, and we had less than three decades.

I'll probably be found and silenced for posting this. But I don't care. I have to tell someone. I can't keep this a secret any longer. When the sun turns black and the world begins to freeze, at least you'll have some idea of what's going on, small comfort it may be.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 6)
 
 Assistant: Hi Guys,

Sorry it’s taken a while to get this posted up. I’ve been busy chasing leads with US missing persons.

I won’t waste more of your time. Log is below. If you have any information then please send it my way.

Thanks for your help guys, it means a lot.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 12/02/2017

Silence used to be an absolute. 

That’s something I definitely miss.

Back in the real world, it would stand as self-evident that a group of people saying absolutely nothing, by definition, could not be saying any less. Maybe things are different on the road, maybe I’d just never encountered it before, but it’s clear to me now there are degrees beyond silence. A pervasive realm of deafening quiet which, following the loss of Eve and Apollo, our group has unreservedly embraced. Constructed out of our collective trauma, cemented with a cruel mixture of grief, guilt, and harrowing self-doubt, it quickly becomes apparent that this silence is stronger than all of us. The challenge of breaking it remains unmet for the rest of the journey.

We spend the next few hours burrowing through a featureless corridor of maize. The stalks rise far above the Wrangler, leaving only a thin **** of clear sky visible like the painted ceiling of a renaissance church. I find myself glancing intermittently at the CB radio, half expecting, half hoping, for Apollo’s voice to crackle through the speaker, bringing words of comfort, or a much needed attempt at levity.

After I catch myself staring at the radio for the fifth time, I decide it might be best to get on with my work. I plug my headphones into my notebook, bring up the audio files I’ve recorded thus far, and set about creating a very rough cut of our first day on the road.

**APOLLO (VO)** Everybody knows Rob, Rob's the ****! Ahaha

I listen through Apollo’s first interview, making notes for the closing paragraph I’ll now be forced to write about him. When I have everything I need, I listen to the interview again, and then once more. It’s not lost on me that I just want to hear his voice, to lose myself in a pleasant digital echo, far removed from the frantic screams that followed him into the asphalt.

I listen to Eve’s interview next. She bristles with excitement as she talks about her upcoming visit to Roswell, steadfastly attempting to recruit me to the effort. She had no idea what she was heading into when she stepped out onto Rob’s front lawn. Then again none of us did.

The thin **** of sky is turning deep orange as I reach our encounter with the hitchhiker. It’s chilling to hear his voice after the fact, to revisit the conniving, veiled pleasantries he employed against us. I cringe as I hear Rob’s hand grasp my arm, ashamed that I let myself fall for the hitcher’s trickery.

**ROB (VO):** You did good, I’m sorry for grabbin’ you. I just didn’t want you to do something you’d regret.

**AS (VO):** No it’s fine. I was going to. Do you know what happens if you talk to him?

**ROB (VO):** Not sure. Came close myself once, a few years back. The way he looks at you when he thinks he’s got you? I don’t think I wanna know.

**AS (VO):** Rob, I-

I pause the audio file, clicking back ten seconds before pressing play again.

**AS (VO):** No it’s fine. I was going to. Do you know what happens if you talk to him?

**ROB (VO):** Not sure. Came close myself once, a few years back. The way he looks at you when he thinks he’s-

I certainly didn’t notice that at the time. I’d been so shaken by my run in with the hitcher, and so curious about the abandoned car that I’d been completely blind to anything else that had come my way. Maybe Rob misspoke, maybe he meant to say weeks or months. But if it wasn’t a mistake, if it was a truth carelessly uttered, then Rob has some explaining to do.

The Left/Right Game was posted online in June 2016, less than a year ago.

I glance sideways at him, a wall of corn rushing past us as we approach the rest stop. Throughout this trip, every emotion Rob’s displayed has seemed genuine. The sadness, the anger, the concern. They tell a story of a man who cares deeply about the welfare of those around him. Yet at the same time, it’s strikingly clear that there’s something he isn’t telling me.

With every new piece of the puzzle, the car, the text message, the faceless creature with the ringing phone, I’m left with the dilemma of when to confront Rob Guthard with what I know. I feel I’ve gathered enough to bring before him, enough to demand an explanation, but there’s no way I’d be able to truly verify his answer. I have a collection of strange and perplexing notions, lacking in the common thread that could bring me to any workable conclusion. If I am going to confront Rob, I need to uncover that thread. Much like the greatest journalists of our time, I should know the answer before I ask the question.

The jeep pulls up onto a large green space. Staring straight ahead, I find myself puzzled by the way the ground seems to stop, as if the horizon lies only twenty metres away from the car. As soon as the engine cuts out, I unbuckle my seatbelt, climb out and walk towards the grassy verge. The rest of the convoy pulls up behind me as I go.

I stop a few steps short of the edge, realising we’ve found our way to the top of a sheer cliff. A sudden swaying vertigo takes over, forcing me to take a few steps back. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been heading uphill, the road has been level since Jubilation, yet somehow I’m standing at the edge of a 400 ft. rock face, descending straight downwards, the distant earth shrouded by stalks of corn.

That’s the truly strange thing about this monolithic precipice. On either side of me, the maize runs to the very edge of the cliff and, at its base, the endless harvest continues until it stretches beyond the darkening horizon in every direction. It feels like I’m standing on the cliffs of Dover, staring over a golden ocean, its waves governed by the evening breeze. I wonder for a moment where it ends, then, taking consideration of the world I now occupy, I start to wonder if it ever does.

A belligerent scream rips me from the view. The source of the noise is blocked by the Wrangler and the first thing I see as I circle around are the shocked, wide eyed faces of Bonnie & Clyde. Once I make my way past the Wrangler’s hood, my expression mimics theirs.

Lilith has pinned Bluejay up to the side of the Jeep, a locked forearm pressing her chest against the door. Her other arm has been grasped in Bluejay’s hands, desperately stopped before it can strike her across the face. The two of them yell through gritted teeth as Lilith struggles furiously against her, vying to cause her any conceivable harm.

**BLUEJAY** Get the **** me you ****! Get off!

I take a few quick steps over to Lilith as Bluejay attempts to kick her away.

**AS:** Lilith, we can’t do this… Jen…

Lilith doesn’t even register my presence as she continues her assault, deafened by the bubbling vitriol in every growling breath.

**AS:** Jen! We are not doing this now. Not after-

Before I can comprehend what’s happening, I’m staring at the sky, my head knocked back by the force of Lilith’s flailing elbow. A hot, raw ache radiates across my lower lip as I stagger back, raising my hand over my mouth.

Before Lilith can continue her assault, Rob swings open his door and takes two short strides over to her. He puts one arm around the girl’s waist and picks her up, carrying her safely, but firmly, over to Bonnie & Clyde’s Ford, and planting her back on the ground.

I seem to always forget how strong he is.

**ROB:** Damnit this is not the time.

**LILITH:** Take it back!

Bluejay has lost her usual snide demeanour, yet her aura still radiates an unbridled scorn. In response to Lilith’s demand, Bluejay walks back to her car and sits on the hood. She takes the Marlboros out of her pocket along with her lighter, and ignites a cigarette. I imagine the burning embers are the only company she’s comfortable to accept right now.

By the time I look back to the rest of the group, Lilith has stormed away.

**AS:** What did she say?

**BONNIE:** I didn’t hear it all.

**AS:** What did she say Bonnie?

**BONNIE:** I heard something about… she said Lilith was… that we were complicit.

**ROB:** Ah goddamnit… Bristol can you…

I watch Lilith, as she sits on the grass and looks over the cliffside. She begins to cry, yet I get a strong notion that it’s not something I should interrupt. It feels like something between her and Eve, a final act of reactionary mourning reserved for them, and them alone. 

**AS:** Yeah… don’t worry. I’ll handle it.

**ROB:** Ok. I’ll cook us somethin’ up.

An hour passes. Lilith grows slowly calmer, drifting from cathartic release into a cold, wordless melancholy. Finishing up my dinner, I make my way over to her.

**AS:** It’s a strange view.

Lilith looks up at me. Her face falls.

**LILITH:** I cut you… I’m so sorry.

**AS:** It’s fine. You should see the other girl.

**LILITH:** Hah, yeah, I bet she looks like **** right about now.

I help myself down onto the cool ground, staring alongside Lilith into the ocean below.

**LILITH:** Bluejay thinks I’m complicit… in what happened to Eve.

**AS:** I heard.

**LILITH:** She used to think we were morons, now she thinks we’re all in on it… doesn’t make sense.

**AS:** I think she he has to believe this place is a lie. She needs it to make sense, and the harder it gets for her to rationalise the more she... Anyway, she shouldn’t have said what she said. She’s just... I guess the word is "troubled".

**LILITH:** She’s a **** thundercunt.

**AS:** Umm… uh… ok.

**LILITH:** She’s right though... I killed her... and I killed Apollo too.

I look to Lilith, concerned, not quite sure what she means. Her eyes remain locked on the impossible horizon.

**LILITH:** Sarah… she wasn’t cut out for this, and she knew it. She wanted us to turn back this morning… but I didn’t want to.

**AS:** That wasn’t just your decision Lilith.

**LILITH:** Yes it was. She uh… she followed my lead. Always. Through everything. And I knew why she was doing it. I knew. But I let it continue, because it was convenient, because it was easy…. because deep down I liked having someone around who… who’d jump through **** hoops for me… **** it’s so ****.

Lilith rests her head in her hands.

**LILITH:** She was weak. She was anxious and shy and… but that should be ok, right? You’re allowed to be weak that’s… but I made her come here. I dragged someone who couldn’t swim into the **** deep end. And the last thing I did was lie to her and she **** knew it.

Lilith takes a few deep, frayed breaths.

**AS:** What do you mean?

**LILITH:** I’m not uh… I didn’t, I… I loved her, you know as a… as a friend. It was always this **** one-way street and… I don’t think she minded but. Then suddenly she’s vanishing right in-****-front of me and she said what she said… I mean how else was I supposed to respond to that? I had to say it back right?

Lilith maintains her composure as a steady stream of tears roll down her cheek.

**AS:** I don’t know what I’d do in that situation.

**LILITH:** I could see it in her eyes that she didn’t believe me. ****… I wonder how many people have died while being told like… comforting lies. How many of them **** knew?

**AS:** I think you did the best you could Jen. I think you did better than most.

**LILITH:** You don’t need to tell me that just… are you tired? Do you need to go to bed soon?

**AS:** No, I don’t need to.

**LILITH:** There are some beers in uh… in Apollo’s bag. Is that like… looting? Or is that ok?

**AS:** I think he’d want us to have them, as long as he got a toast.

Lilith laughs briefly and finally smiles. She walks over to Bonnie and Clyde’s car, returning a moment later with a four pack.

We spend the next hour and a half slowly drinking them. Lilith can’t muster the right words for a toast so we just say thank you to Apollo, raising out cans to the open air. We talk about his tireless humour, his attempts to keep us all up during our first night on the road, how caringly he spoke to everyone, even at the edge of death. 

We talk about Eve as well, about the pair’s misadventures, awkward college parties and the future of Paranormicon. Lilith smiles, and tells me there’s always a place for me once radio dies out.

After everything that’s happened on the road, the night can’t help but feel bittersweet. But for once, on a solitary cliff side in the middle of nowhere, it’s more sweet than it is bitter. That may not be much, but at the end of an awful day it’s more than either of us could have hoped for.

*****

The next morning goes quickly. It’s amazing how efficient a group of people can be when none of them feel like talking. Not only that, but breakfast has become a noticeably brief affair. I manage to get through half a bag of trail mix before I find myself uncomfortably full. Rob’s words about the road’s sustaining properties ring in my ears as I look around the group. Everyone leaves their bowls half empty. Lilith hasn’t eaten a bite.

By this point, the launch protocol has been drilled into us. Despite our preoccupations, and the fractious rifts developing between us, the cars line up like clockwork as they merge onto the road. In fact, the mood of the group seems strangely procedural. All radio contact starts with the stating of a call sign, followed by that of the recipient. The cars maintain an even, careful distance between one another. We’ve seen all too clearly what happens when the rules are neglected, and no one wants to take chances any more.

**AS:** How far away are we?

**ROB:** From where?

**AS:** You haven’t got to the end of this road right? I mean… you’re still charting it?

**ROB:** That’s right.

**AS:** Well, how long until we get to… you know to… uncharted territory?

**ROB:** To be honest, not too long.

**AS:** What’s going to happen once we reach that point?

**ROB:** We’re gonna keep drivin’.

**AS:** Until we get to the end?

**ROB:** That’s the plan. You know I won’t judge you if you wanna turn around. I’m sure you can talk someone into it.

**AS:** Could I talk you into it?

Rob smiles.

**ROB:** ‘Fraid not. This trip ain’t like the others. Road’s kickin’ back like never before. I think it knows I’m comin’ all the way this time.

**AS:** … What is this place Rob?

Rob sighs as he slowly takes the next left on a quiet, rural T-junction.

**ROB:** I think it’s a stray thread… runnin’ off the spool.

The radio crackles.

**BONNIE:** Rob you just took the wrong turn.

An instant drum of fresh panic hammers in my chest. I stare at Rob, and he stares right back. I know he’s feeling the same thing I am, though he’s doing a much better job of keeping it off his face.

He thinks carefully for a moment.

**ROB:** No… no. I been down this road before. We took a right last time.

**AS:** Uhhh… yeah. Yes. The turn before this one was a right, I remember.

**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. Thanks Bonnie for giving us the fright of our lives. We’re on the righ… we’re on the correct road.

**BONNIE:** No no that can’t be its… that’s wrong… Martin tell them…

**CLYDE:** Our mistake Rob, let’s keep going.

**LILITH:** Bristol…

There’s concern in Lilith’s voice. I lean over to my wing mirror, attempting to gauge the atmosphere in the car behind me. There’s clearly some commotion between Bonnie and Clyde, with the latter attempting to gently remove the walkie talkie from his sister’s hands.

There’s something else however. Past Bonnie & Clyde. Past Bluejay. An old, dilapidated road sign made of weathered timber stands by the side of the road behind us. I can’t read all of it as the peeling letters grow ever smaller, but I can piece together what it probably once said.

“Wintery Bay – 5 Miles”

**BONNIE:** We’re going to turn around right?

**AS:** Uhh one second Bonnie, I’ll… check the map.

I promptly switch off the radio.

**AS:** Are we not passing through Wintery Bay?

Rob turns to me, a puzzled look in his eyes.

**ROB:** Through where?

In the wake of those two, innocently inquiring words, my mind reels back to the morning of our third day on the road. Watching Bonnie and Clyde wander over to Rob to confess their transgressions with the hitchhiker, the quiet conversation that passed between them, Rob’s seemingly comforting response. I’d felt wretched in those moments. A few minutes prior I had tricked and deceived Clyde… yet I’d never once considered he might have done the same to me.

**AS:** Is it safe to pull over?

**ROB:** What? Why?

**AS:** Is it safe Rob?

**ROB:** Uh, yeah should be.

**AS:** Then pull over.

I switch the radio back on and grab the receiver. As I make a connection to Bonnie and Clyde’s car, it’s clear that an argument is brewing. Lilith is asking for me, a helpless passenger, caught in the middle of something she doesn’t understand.

**AS:** Bristol to all cars. We’re stopping up ahead.

Rob seems acutely aware that I’m not messing around. As soon as we roll to a halt, I throw my door open and jump onto the dusty roadside, striding over to the rest of the convoy, who are just starting to get out of their own cars. I’m conscious of a driving anger behind each step I take.

**AS:** You didn’t tell him.

**CLYDE:** Bristol, I…

**ROB:** What’s goin’ on Bristol?

Rob’s marches up behind me, more than a little restless to get a grip on my motives.

**AS:** Clyde?

Clyde looks around a circle of expectant eyes. When he delivers his answer, he’s unable to meet any of them.

**CLYDE:** Bonnie… Bonnie talked to the hitchhiker.

Rob’s expression shifts, his confusion degrading into a solemn understanding.

**ROB:** ****… ahh Goddamnit. You knew about this Bristol?

**AS:** I told them to tell you the morning of the third day. I saw them go over to you I… I thought they did.

**CLYDE:** Bonnie… thought you’d… turn us around.

**ROB:** Well she’s was **** right. You seen what happens when the rules get broken. You shoulda told me as soon as you saw me and headed right back home.

**CLYDE:** That was before Ace… before everything. I didn’t know this place was-

**ROB:** The rules are the rules Clyde! Is anything even wrong with Bonnie? You said she gets confused... was that a lie?

Clyde doesn’t answer, avoiding Rob’s glare. As I process what Rob’s just said, I have to say I’m surprised by the deviousness of the two siblings.

When I thought they were telling Rob about the hitchhiker, it appears they’d instead told him that Bonnie was, to some degree, senile. It was a simple lie, but one that would adequately explain her odd behaviour, draw sympathy from Rob and, most ingeniously, prevent him from telling me about their conversation. A truth buried beneath an unpleasant lie, its subject matter just uncomfortable enough to head off any chance of discussion.

Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

**CLYDE:** We can head home if you want.

**BONNIE:** No.

The group turns to Bonnie. She speaks in a tone more decisive than I thought her capable.

**BONNIE:** He... the hitchhiker... he was talking about a… about the village we just passed. I was looking forward to seeing it, that’s all. I’m ok really.

**AS:** You’ve been talking about it a lot Bonnie.

**BONNIE:** It just sounded like a lovely place, I was sad that we passed it by. I’m sorry for worrying everyone. Please don’t make us turn around Rob.

Rob stares at them both. His position has been made crystal clear.

**ROB:** We’re stopping a little early today. Come the rest of the way with us, rest up… then tomorrow you both go home. You should count yourselves lucky you get the chance to turn around.

Rob marches back to the Wrangler, signalling that the discussion is over.

**ROB:** Lilith, you’re with us.

Lilith doesn't even try to hide her relief as she shuffles away from Bonnie & Clyde and climbs into the back of the Jeep. It’s a little heart warming that Rob still has the awareness to look out for her, angry as he may be.

As well as his surprising strength, I also tend to forget how perceptive he can be.

Bonnie, Clyde and Bluejay climb back into their respective vehicles. I catch Bonnie’s eye, the moment before she returns to the Ford. She appears truly disappointed, but otherwise resigned to keep going, satisfied to let Wintery Bay fade into the distance. It’s comforting to hear that she’s ready to put the place behind her.

It’s just a pity I don’t believe a word of it.

*****

**LILITH:** It was **** weird Bristol.

Lilith seems happy to be in the Wrangler, enjoying the sense of security the modded behemoth affords, and also greatly relieved to be away from Bonnie & Clyde. She’s spent the last five minutes detailing the thirty second argument that unfolded between them, charting its disturbing nuances as well as it’s eerie conclusion.

**LILITH:** ... but I swear she was basically like crying like… she didn’t understand how we could be going the wrong way. But then like, as soon as you pulled us over and she just stopped. Like I mean… stopped.

**AS:** That must have been disconcerting.

**LILITH:** You have no idea... So Rob, when are these cornfields gonna **** end?

**ROB:** Soon. We’re gonna rest up for the night in a few turns. Then tomorrow it won’t be long until we’re on a track through the woods.

**LILITH:** The **** woods? Are you kidding? Are we talking like… Sleepy Hollow bleeding trees or what?

**ROB:** Hah, wish I could tell ya.

**LILITH:** Wait, what do you mean?

**ROB:** I ain’t been that far yet. It’s new territory.

**LILITH:** Oh… great. Maybe the cornfields aren’t so…

Lilith goes quiet, transfixed by something in the rear view mirror, before quickly turning around to get a better look out of the back window.

The car behind us is out of control.

Bonnie is fighting to wrest the steering wheel from her brother. The Ford swerves erratically behind us, driven mad by the dynamic power struggle taking place inside it. Rob sharply accelerates out of the way as the car behind lurches drunkenly to and fro before skidding to a shuddering halt. Rob hits the brake hard, and by the time I’ve turned in his direction, he’s already slammed the door of the Wrangler, storming across the tarmac to Bonnie and Clyde. 

**ROB:** Cut the engine!

The Ford’s engine goes silent and in the absence of its rumbling growl, new sounds emerge. The sounds of a struggle, and of wild desperate screaming.

Stepping out of the car for the second time today, I jump onto the road and cover the distance between us.

Rob is attempting to pull a screeching Bonnie from the car. Even with his impressive strength it seems to be a challenge. Bonnie claws at the walls, trying with all her might to regain her grasp on the steering wheel.

**BONNIE:** Please! PLEASE! Let me go! Let me go! 

Rob extracts Bonnie from the car and attempts to subdue her amidst a flurry of flailing hands and elbows. She writhes and kicks as he pins her arms to her sides.

**AS:** Bonnie! Bonnie. Calm down ok? Let’s talk this through.

**BONNIE:** He told me it was on our way! He said we’d pass through!

**ROB:** He lied Bonnie.

**BONNIE:** No… no we’re going the wrong way. We’re going the wrong way!

Bonnie lashes out again, striking at Rob’s legs with her own. Rob holds her firmly, hit teeth gritted through every impact.

It’s clear that Bonnie isn’t going to let up. I run back to the Wrangler and open up the trunk. After a few moments of rummaging through my bag, I find the first aid kit and pull out an unopened pack of white zip ties.

**AS:** Clyde, open the back door.

Rob sees me standing with the zip ties. Even in the midst of Bonnie’s incessant struggle, he looks at me with an almost questioning air, as if he’s wondering how we ever arrived at this point. As if he’s asking whether we can really do what I’m wordlessly suggesting.

Bonnie answers the last question for him. In the slim few seconds of distraction, she slams her head back into his nose, eliciting a disgustingly loud thud and a pained growl from Rob. Dazed and confused, his nose immediately fountaining blood, Rob manages to keep his arms wrapped around her. But it’s clear this isn’t going to be sustainable, and that she isn’t anywhere close to calming down.

Clyde has opened the door, stepping back and looking on like a frightened child as we carry Bonnie over to the back seat of the Ford. I lean in before him, adjusting the headrest until it’s pressed against the ceiling, ensuring that it can’t be removed from the bracket. I then loop a zip tie around each bracket and fasten them.

**BLUEJAY:** What the **** is going on?

Bluejay has stepped out of her car, making her way towards us. I realise that, to someone who is fighting to not believe in any of this, the following scene would appear at best as a melodramatic farce, and at worst, as the attempted detention of an innocent and distressed woman.

Sadly, I don’t have time to field her questions. I climb into the car. Bonnie working constantly against us as Rob eases her in after me, his hand on her head to prevent it bumping against the top of the doorframe.

Once she’s inside, I loop a second zip tie around the one I’ve already fastened on the right bracket, forcing her right hand inside it. I pull the plastic tab over the sleeve of her jumper.

I hope it’s not too tight, but at the very least it’s secure enough to keep her in place. Bonnie continues to pull against the zip ties, but it’s clear her strength has been sapped from her spirited battle with Rob.

Not quite able to look her in the eye, I push a pile of luggage out of the way and climb out the other side of the Ford. Rob and I are both getting our breath back, the former pinching his nose and adjusting stoically to the fresh pain.

**BLUEJAY:** Hey what the **** are… you’re not going to leave her like that are you?

**AS:** Get back in your car Bluejay.

I walk back to the Wrangler, tuning out Denise’s coarse protests. Rob reaches into the Jeep’s still open trunk, and pulls out a pile of blankets and pillows. In the rear view mirror, I can see him placing them on Bonnie’s lap, giving her a place to rest her elbows.

She leans her forehead against the back of the headrest. Even with her face blocked from view, I can tell that she’s crying.

We arrive at the rest stop some twenty minutes later, the vague outline of a deep green forest blooming on the horizon. It’s earlier in the day than we would usually stop. Rob tells us he wants the entirety of tomorrow to chart the woods, as well as good time to turn back before night fall should the need arise. I’m not complaining, I’m glad of the chance to rest up following today’s events.

For the rest of the day, we take it in turns to keep an eye on Bonnie, making sure she has everything she needs. When the Ford pulled up alongside us, Lilith, Rob, and I expected to see a quivering wreck, tugging ceaselessly against her bonds. We were all surprised, and more than a little disturbed, to find her smiling. By the time my turn comes around, the sun is already dipping in the sky. Rob has prepared a small **** of miso soup in case anyone can bring themselves to eat. I finish my bowl, all too aware of how unnecessary each meal now feels, and pour out a helping for Bonnie.

I find her in good spirits.

**BONNIE:** How are you doing Alice?

**AS:** I’m fine. How are you doing Linda?

**BONNIE:** I’m ok. Sorry for giving you all such a fright earlier. I feel terrible.

**AS:** It’s fine honestly. I’m sorry about… about all this.

I gesture to the zip tied restraints. Rob has reapplied them, fastening bandages underneath the straps to afford Bonnie a modicum of comfort. Still the scene rings with a sinister barbarity which no kind consideration can make up for. 

**BONNIE:** It’s ok. I wasn’t myself.

**AS:** I brought you soup. I know you might not be hungry.

**BONNIE:** No no I’d love some, thank you. Everyone’s being so lovely.

**AS:** Well, we just want to make sure you’re alright.

I submerge the spoon, drench up a measure of warm broth, and begin to raise it towards her.

**BONNIE:** Oh no you don’t have to… I can feed myself…

She gestures to her bound hands, the clear implication hanging in the air.

**AS:** No I… I don’t mind. I think it’s-

Bonnie throws her weight sideways, her elbow jabbing outwards and hitting the bowl out of my hands. Soup spills over my fleece, just a little cooler than scolding hot, and soaks immediately into the fabric. I back away reflexively, and watch Bonnie’s expression flicker like a faulty lightbulb from kind tranquility to utter, burning contempt. It’s gone as quickly as it appears, just in time for the rest of the group to look our way.

**BLUEJAY:** What are you doing with her?!

Bluejay storms across from her car, angrily drawing from a Marlboro and forcing the smoke draconically back into the air.

**AS:** Nothing. Just an accident.

**BONNIE:** It’s ok Bluejay, it was my mistake.

**BLUEJAY:** Did she get any on you?

Bluejay leans in placing her hand comfortingly on Bonnie’s, before turning to fix me with a murderous stare. It’s almost impressive how, even when caring for someone, Bluejay still manages to be simultaneously venomous to those around her.

**BONNIE:** No no it’s ok it was my fault. It’s fine. I’m sorry for causing trouble.

Bluejay laughs at Bonnie’s submissive apology, unable to believe what she's thinking. Her eyes remain fixed on me.

**BLUEJAY:** You’re a **** coward. Look what he’s making you do. Look!

My eyes follow where she gestures. I have to admit the helpless figure of Bonnie, restrained in the back seat of the Ford, rings with an innate inhumanity, and being forced to stare my actions in the face makes me feel utterly ghoulish.

The choices I’ve made must seem insane to Bluejay, but that doesn’t mean hers are not. Despite her pretensions of rationality, I can’t help but feel that Bluejay’s actions are simply being governed by a different insanity. An insanity borne out of the desperate need to explain the unexplainable, which has morphed into an **** cocktail of paranoia, self-grandeur, and fervent antagonism.

Bluejay notes my silent expression, most likely taking it as a personal victory. Without another word she returns to her car and shuts herself inside, festering silently and alone.

**BONNIE:** Do you want to know what’s wonderful Alice?

Bonnie leans towards me, lowering her voice so no one else can hear.

**BONNIE:** He told me there’s a house… waiting for me. My home by the sea.

**AS:** I’m sorry Bonnie. I don’t think there is.

**BONNIE:** It’s going to be a such a beautiful place. Such a beautiful place.

Bonnie flashes me a broad grin. 

**BONNIE:** It’s been lovely knowing you Alice.

Bonnie turns away from me, placing her forehead back on the headrest. The grin doesn’t fade as I turn away. I walk back to the Wrangler, faced with the choice of changing into new clothes or my thermal pyjamas.

After removing my fleece and lying down for a just a moment, I end up sleeping in the clothes I’m wearing.

*****

When I wake up, the Wrangler is moving. 

The air mattress reverberates and my body rocks as we make a sharp U-turn. I sit bolt upright, Lilith waking up next to me, similarly bleary eyed and confused.

Rob is behind the wheel. The gear stick shakes as he transports us down the road at incredible speed.

**AS:** Rob what’s happening?

**ROB:** Bonnie got herself free. She’s headed for the turn.

I pull myself into the passenger seat, suddenly wide awake.

**LILITH:** What? How did she get free?

**AS:** Is she with Clyde?

**ROB:** She hit him over the head, dragged him outta the car. I couldn’t wait for him, but he’s catchin’ up.

Lilith and I turn around. Bluejay’s car is gaining on us, a distant pair of high beams steadily drowning the rear window in light.

**LILITH:** Why’s Bluejay helping him?

**AS:** She probably wants to keep an eye on us. Rob, do you think we’ll catch up with Bonnie?

**ROB:** I’m workin’ on it.

The Wrangler continues to rocket through the darkness. We keep our eyes fixed forward, scanning the very edge of the horizon for any sign of Bonnie’s Ford.

When Bluejay pulls alongside us, I get a look at the pair. Bluejay is nought but steely determination, dedicated to reaching Bonnie before we do. Clyde looks mortified, rocked by his sister’s actions, a small contusion on his head to mark her vicious betrayal.

Rob screeches to a halt once we arrive at the junction. Bluejay’s headlights are already illuminating the road to Wintery Bay, and Rob’s lighting rig coats the entire area in an artificial twilight. In the middle of it all, we see Bonnie, standing next to her car, smiling.

She’s already beyond the threshold of the turn.

**CLYDE:** Linda! Linda, please… come on back now, ok?

**BONNIE:** You can all come with me. There’s a place for all of us. He told me. There’s a place for everyone.

**CLYDE:** Please Linda. You have to come back.

A strange trail of black dust is streaming off Bonnie’s skin, rising into the air and dancing in the breeze. After a moment, it becomes clear that the edges of Bonnie are slowly degrading, converting quietly into dark ash and drifting into the atmosphere.

**BONNIE:** I love you very much Martin. You’re always welcome.

**CLYDE:** No please… please.

Bonnie turns around and climbs into the car. Without looking back, she pulls away down the road to Wintery Bay. The trail of black particles rise from the Ford as she goes, with greater and greater volume as the entire car starts to wither away before our eyes. Less than a minute later the Ford, with Bonnie inside it, gradually dissolves into dust and scatters to the winds.

Clyde doesn't speak. His entire being is quiet. Lilith immediately runs back to the Wrangler. Rob waits a while, staring at he dancing cloud of dust, before putting his arm around Clyde and gently escorting him to the Jeep. 

As I turn away from the road to Wintery Bay, I take note of Bluejay’s reaction. She looks absolutely petrified, more so than I’ve ever seen her. She impulsively removes the pack of Marlboros from her pocket and holds them in her hands, before quickly returning them, unsmoked.

The night passes slowly after we return to the rest stop. All of us are exhausted, and more than willing to surrender to the escapism of sleep. Rob rests in the driver’s seat, giving up his space on the air mattress to Clyde. Everyone drops quickly enough into a quiet slumber, leaving me awake with only my thoughts for company. I find myself thinking of Bluejay, of how she could possibly hope to rationalise the disintegration of Bonnie and her car. 

I wonder how I’d feel if the Left/Right Game were exposed as some unparalleled magic trick. Would I feel foolish? No I don’t think so. Impressed, maybe. Relieved? Most definitely. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I miss the innocent days when I believed the game was a hoax. I suppose I see why Bluejay is so adamant about dismissing this place; trickery however elaborate is almost always a preferable alternative to genuine horror.

The Jeep’s door opens and shuts 

Part of me tries to ignore it, to wash my hands of any other developments in this harrowing night. However, exiled as I am from the kingdom of sleep, I slowly find myself sitting up, quietly putting on my boots, and letting myself out.

I step out into the cool night, observing the figure before me.

**AS:** Where are you going Clyde?

Clyde turns to face me, I initially interpret the look he gives me as one of resignation, but the word doesn’t quite fit. Resignation is a defeat, the world exacting compliance from you against your own wishes. But the man before me is as calm as the night air around him. His wishes are clearly his own. There’s no defeat in his eyes, but something else entirely… peace, maybe.

**CLYDE:** You know where I’m going Alice.

Clyde speaks softly, a quiet conviction behind every word he says. I briefly glance towards the Wrangler, wondering if I’m really equipped to handle this on my own.

**CLYDE:** Don’t call Rob. I made a mistake coming back to the rest stop. I shouldn’t have done... please. Just let me go.

**AS:** Clyde, just wait for tomorrow ok? **** understand. **** turn us around and take you home.

**CLYDE:** It won't be home anymore.

Clyde’s gentle stare renders me silent.

**CLYDE:** Linda had a husband once. He was a good man. Died young. She could never bring herself to go looking again and I… I never found who I was looking for. We’ve been by each other’s side for sixty years. Sixty years. I gotta be honest, even after all we’ve been through, everything you and I have seen, I never felt like I was in a new world until now.

**AS:** I don’t think I can’t let you do this Clyde.

**CLYDE:** I’m sorry Alice, but it’s not up to you.

Clyde breathes in the cool night air, exhaling through his nose.

**CLYDE:** I yelled at her to come back, when she ran off to rob that ice cream parlour. I kept calling out and calling out. I spent so much energy trying to get her to come back to me. After a while I realised she wasn’t coming back… that I’d have to follow her. I should’ve realised it earlier. That’s all I can do.... follow where she goes.

Clyde looks at me, almost apologetically.

**CLYDE:** Goodbye Alice.

He turns away from the convoy and wanders back down the road.

**AS:** Clyde.

He turns around one last time.

**AS:** Do you want company?

It takes roughly an hour for us to walk back to the junction. In the time we have, I’m treated to the story of Bonnie and Clyde. The warmest fragments of their life together, the moments that built them, the waves that rocked them and the places they once called home. I don’t think I’ll ever agree with what Clyde is doing, but the more he talks, the more I understand.

His stories span more than half a century, supported by a transient cast of acquaintances and friends, but at the core of each tale is a pair of siblings who meant the world to one another. The pair existed as two relative souls, quantifiable only in relation to each other. In the absence of one, the remnant was indefinable. A drifting point, unanchored in space.

The story ends just as we reach the junction

**AS:** I hope she's out there.

**CLYDE:** I hope so too. Thank you for coming with me, I know it’s late.

**AS:** No… it’s never a bad time to see a friend off.

Clyde smiles at me one last time before turning to face the road. He steps over the threshold, past the old wooden sign. In the silence of the night, I hear nothing but his soft footsteps and the quiet breeze, which after a few minutes carries the last of him into an open sky.

It’s a long walk back to the convoy. My mind is numb to fear as I make my way through the dark, the corn rustling in the wind beside me.

It’s been four days since I arrived at Rob Guthard’s house, sat down at his table, and listened to him speak about the new world he’d discovered. In that time, I’ve seen things I can’t hope to comprehend, sights that exist beyond the spectrum of our reality. Things I wouldn't have deemed possible.

For all I know there is a Wintery Bay, and Bonnie has already arrived at her house by the sea, standing at the door, waiting with quiet confidence for her brother’s arrival.

I may never know. But I do hope they find each other, wherever they may be.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Every month a parade would pass through my hometown, but we were never allowed to look at it
 
 Assistant: I’ve lived in Arizona for the past fifteen years of my life, but I had a very different life before that. I used to live in a small town, in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t even tell you what side of the country it’s on, or if it even is in the United States. 

&#x200B;

It was a small forest town with dense trees in all directions, but where exactly this particular forest is, well, your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I know for certain in the name of the town; Point Pine. I lived in Point Pine for the first ten years of my life, before we moved the summer after my tenth birthday. Once we left, my parents never spoke of it again. In fact, they acted as if it never even existed, and to them, I guess it didn’t. 

&#x200B;

I don’t really blame them either. I caught on pretty quickly and realized that they were trying their hardest to forget the memory of Point Pine. Whenever kids at school asked me where I was from, I simply told them I was from a small town that they had never heard of. 

&#x200B;

I also learned early on that any questions about Point Pine would be met with punishments. A few months after we moved to Arizona, my older sister Felicity had a school project about family history. She did it on our life in Point Pine and wrote about some of the things she remembered from there. 

&#x200B;

Our mom found her project the day before she turned it in and burned it in the backyard. When Felicity came home that afternoon, my parents took her up to her bedroom, where I heard Felicity crying out every few minutes in what I assume was pain. 

&#x200B;

I said nothing, and from that moment on, neither one of us mentioned Point Pine again. 

&#x200B;

Except for me, right now. I’ve decided to tell all of you about it. I don’t know what is causing me to remember all these things that I had locked up in the deepest parts of my brain. Maybe it’s the fact that my father died about a week ago. Since he died, my mom has remained silent; hasn’t said a word to anyone. She hasn’t even cried. 

&#x200B;

In fact, she ended up sending my father's remains off to **** knows where (my money in on Point Pine, although I’d be crazy to ask). I’ve started recalling random little things about the town that, at the time, seemed like normal everyday things that we as residents were all used to. Now, as I look back, I realize that they’re not as normal as I thought back then. 

&#x200B;

One peculiar thing about Point Pine had to do with the Point Pine Bakery. Whenever you went in there, the owner, Mr. Terrance, always knew what you were about to order. I remember the kids having some sort of rumor about Mr. Terrance being a magician who could read minds. Also, whenever you paid for your baked goods, you had to tip Mr. Terrance with an old item of clothing that you had grown out of. There was a giant box up by the register that everyone tossed old baby clothing and shoes into. 

&#x200B;

That was one of the odd things; although you’ll come to realize that it won’t seem that weird in comparison to some of the other things about Point Pine. 

&#x200B;

Every year on your birthday, you had to get bloodwork done. I don’t think anyone really knew what the point of this was, or if they were actually looking for something. We just all knew that our birthdays would start off with a trip to the Point Pine Labs. 

&#x200B;

Everyone had to be up at 8:13 am. There was a system of speakers placed around the town like an amusement park or something, and at 8:13 am, without fail, the wailing alarm sound would ricochet through the neighborhoods, waking everybody up. This was followed by parents running to wake up their children and get them out of bed as quickly as possible like the house was on fire or something. Sometimes I expected it to be.

&#x200B;

All the Point Pine schools were placed in different areas of the town. Point Pine Elementary was towards the east side, Point Pine Middle School was in the West, Point Pine High was in the dead center of town, and Point Pine University was up on a small hill towards the south. 

&#x200B;

If you hadn’t noticed by now, every place in town was named “Point Pine \_\_\_\_”. The Point Pine Cafe, Point Pine Mall, Point Pine Grocery, etc, etc. 

&#x200B;

Certainly, one of the weirdest things by far that took place in Point Pine, was the Point Pine Monthly Parade. 

&#x200B;

It happened every month; without fail. It was never on the same date, and each month, a student from Point Pine High was chosen to be in it. The weird thing about this parade was that we weren’t allowed to watch it go by. Not out on the streets, not from the windows, and not even on television. That was one of the most enforced rules; you must never, under any circumstance, look at the parade. In fact, for the most part, we weren’t even allowed outside when the parade passed through. 

&#x200B;

We always knew when the parade was about to start because it always happened the same way. You would hear a chorus of voices, like a church choir, singing a melody. It wasn’t a familiar one that I knew (I was only familiar with it in the sense that I heard it once a month). It sounded like it could be from a nursery rhyme or something similar. 

&#x200B;

The voices seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was like they were coming from the sky, the ground, the trees, the buildings; like everything in Point Pine was singing. 

&#x200B;

Once you heard the first note, you had five minutes to get inside a house or a building that had locks on the doors. This might come as a surprise, but in Point Pine, not many buildings contained locks. So, if you happened to be out and about on the street when the singing started, you had about three options on the places you could go; one of the schools, the staff break room in the Point Pine bar, or the fridge in the Point Pine Pizza Shop. 

&#x200B;

One year in the month of August, my friend Lee and I decided that we were going to break the rules and not go inside when the parade passed. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that kids didn’t do this more often, considering that well, when you tell kids that they must absolutely never do something...they often do that exact thing. 

&#x200B;

Since we didn’t know when the parade was coming, where it started, or the exact path that it took around town, we decided the smartest thing to do would be to wait in the forest near the Point Pine Library until the parade eventually came down that street. So, we basically decided to spend about half of the month of August hanging out near or around the library. 

&#x200B;

Around the third week of the month, while we were sitting on the steps of the library talking about some random things that aren’t important, we heard the music start. 

&#x200B;

Lee and I looked at each other and then took off running into the trees, while everyone else raced to the nearest school. We went far enough into the forest that someone on the street wouldn’t see us, but stayed close enough so that we were still able to see a part of the road. 

&#x200B;

We waited for a while, whispering to each other and then shushing one another as we waited for the infamous parade to pass. This year, my sister’s friend Reid was chosen to work on the parade. She was a few years older than my sister, but they were friends because Reid used to live next door to us when we were younger. 

&#x200B;

We were crouching in the bushes and leaves when we heard the chorus of voiced getting louder and therefore closer. 

&#x200B;

“Dude, I totally see it!” Lee hissed. 

&#x200B;

I straightened my back a little bit in my crouched position to try to see what Lee was seeing. I was always a short kid, even now I’m shorter than most guys my age- or any age really- so Lee always pretty much towered over me. 

&#x200B;

“I can’t see anything!” I hissed, shifting my position. 

&#x200B;

“Shh! They might hear us!” Lee hissed. 

&#x200B;

I stopped moving and instead waited for them to get closer, where they were bound to pass right in front of my line of sight. 

&#x200B;

“Oh no. Oh ****!” Suddenly, Lee dove to the ground, landing in the fetal position, with his head cradled in his hands. 

&#x200B;

“What?” I asked, looking from him to the street. 

&#x200B;

“I saw her! I saw that girl!” He exclaimed.

&#x200B;

“Reid?” I asked, looking over to try to spot her. 

&#x200B;

Lee grabbed me and slammed me down to the ground. 

&#x200B;

“Ow!” I exclaimed. 

&#x200B;

“What was that for?” I asked. 

&#x200B;

“You don’t want to look at it.” Lee replied.

&#x200B;

I noticed that for the first time in all of the years that I had known him, Lee looked absolutely terrified. 

&#x200B;

I turned my back on the parade and sat down to look at Lee instead. 

&#x200B;

“What did you see?” I whispered. 

&#x200B;

“Those things, they did something to her. They’re eating her, Cody. But she doesn’t even care.”

&#x200B;

I looked at Lee, who still had his head in his hands, and he was crying now. 

&#x200B;

I sat with my back to the parade, no longer wanting to see. I heard the singing get louder, 

&#x200B;

“Cody…” I heard the voices calling. 

&#x200B;

“Don’t look.” Lee whispered. 

&#x200B;

“Cody...Cody…” Now the voice sounded like Reid. 

&#x200B;

“Look at us, Cody…” 

&#x200B;

I shut my eyes. The voices went on for a few minutes longer, and at one point, Lee started wailing. I kept my eyes shut the entire time.

&#x200B;

After that, it moved along and continued its way through town. 

&#x200B;

Once we began to hear everyone come out of their hiding places, I stood up and leaned down to help Lee get up. 

&#x200B;

Once he stood up, he kept his head down. 

&#x200B;

“Lee, what’s wrong?” I asked. 

&#x200B;

I could hear him sniffling.

&#x200B;

“Lee?”

&#x200B;

He finally responded as he lifted his head. 

&#x200B;

“It took my eyes.” 

&#x200B;

I will never forget the dark, bleeding holes in Lee’s face and the cuts around his skin. I threw up in the forest for a good three minutes, before I was able to help lead Lee out of the forest. A few adults saw us and got our parents, who came and got us right away. 

&#x200B;

The day after that, my family moved out of Point Pine. 

&#x200B;

I never knew what became of Lee after that day. Minutes after we left, my parents acted like Point Pine never existed. It was never discussed, and I never had the nerve to ask about Lee again. As far as I know, Lee was the only person who ever saw the parade, and he was never able to see anything else after that. 

&#x200B;

I don’t know if Point Pine still exists, I’d like to go check it out again, but even if I knew where it was or how to get there, I don’t think I’d ever go back. I have a feeling that I wouldn’t exactly get a warm welcome. Although, I can't shake the thought that my parents were somehow still connected to the town, even after all those years.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A recipe for happiness
 
 Assistant: On my tenth birthday, I picked a dog from the pound. The pound had several beautiful dogs – huskies and German shepherds, sleek bluenose pit bulls and even a redbone hound – but the dog that caught my eye was a bowlegged teacup Chihuahua with wiry fur and ears that seemed to sprout from his neck.

His fur was prickly and he smelled like soggy corn chips. He also ate flies, snatching them out of the air like a clumsy frog.

So I named him Renfield.

Back then, we lived on five acres of golden forest. My favorite spot on the property was a hollow inside a wild hedge. It was the perfect hideout; you could only access the hollow by crawling along a hidden trench because the branches formed a thick, dangerous interlock on all sides.

I took Renfield inside the hedge that night. I remember the way sunlight shafted through the leaves and flowers, turning the space into a burrow of soft brown shadows overlaid with coppery light. My little dog looked up at me, eyes shining like amber in the dim. 

I petted him until he fell asleep. Then I crawled out of the hollow and called his name, intending to confuse him.

He panicked immediately, yelping and clawing madly at the impenetrable branches.

His terror felt like a gut punch. I crawled back into the hedge. The way he looked at me is burned into my memory: wide-eyed and joyfully relieved, but terrified. 

That look was all I could think of the day I put him to sleep.

I didn’t have a choice; I’d have him for eighteen years, and had medicated severe heart issues for four of those. He was in constant pain, so it was time.

But he knew something was wrong. He was so scared, and I scared him even more by crying. Tears always terrified him. 

I tried to push away the memory of that first night in the hedge, of the way I’d scared him. But I couldn’t, and no wonder. Putting him to sleep, I’d trapped him again.

Only this time, I had to leave him behind.

He was my last lifeline. I felt him slipping away as surely as a drowning man feels a wave carry away his life preserver.

My crybaby tendencies didn’t start or end with my dog. Take my dad. He’d been in a nursing home for years by that point. He developed Alzheimer’s early. The descent was brutal and swift. As if that wasn’t enough, he had pancreatic cancer – automatically terminal and unimaginably excruciating.

I stopped visiting around that time. Not because I didn’t want to see him, but because I couldn’t do it to him. Just try to imagine – you’re in horrific pain, you don’t know who or where you are, and your only visitor is a gaunt stranger who bursts into tears whenever they see you.

I scared him to death whenever I visited. I made his disorienting, painful days that much worse. Stole what little peace he had.

So I stopped.

I meant to sit with him at the end, when he’d be in a drug-induced sleep so deep he wouldn’t notice me holding his hands and sobbing. But I wasn’t there when he died. I was at my doctor’s office, digesting the news that I, too, was going to be sick for the rest of my life. 

I dreamed about my dad that night. He was trapped in the hedge and screaming for help. I tried to show him the way out for what felt like hours, but I was invisible. He couldn’t see me or hear me. As far as he knew, he was alone. Somehow, in that irrepressible logic of dreams, I knew it was my fault.

I woke up crying.

It was enough. I’d had *enough*.

I’m not **** or naïve. Life is a tide. And the **** truth is some of us live on a stormy coast.

I knew this.

But I wanted a break. Just a couple of hours where I didn’t feel sad.

So I went online, hoping to stumble on some kind of guided imagery technique or hypnotic ASMR. Something to create an artificially happy place, at least for a little while.

I tried everything. Nothing worked. I kept searching anyway, trawling increasingly weird websites far into the night because the search itself was addicting. Not a happy place, but certainly a distracting one.

Sometime in the middle of the fifth night, I found an ancient Geocities page titled:

*a recipe for happiness*

I clicked, of course.

*Are you tired of feeling bad? Want to cheer up? Well have I got good news for you. My friend gave me this RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS that works like a charm!*

*There are TWO PARTS to the Recipe*

What followed was a pretty standard honey cake recipe, although the last instructions gave me pause:

*Mix the ingredients together in a glass bowl, then spit in the mixture*

*Cook at whatever temperature you want for EXACTLY 20 minutes*

*Cut in half. Put half outside your door. Eat the other half during…*

*PART TWO!!*

*Take one HAPPY MEMORY and MEDITATE*

*Think of someone who makes you happy*

*Plan a perfect day*

*Go to sleep thinking about your perfect day*

*Do this and your sorrow will be eaten away!!!*

It made me smile. Eating cake while meditating on happier times wasn’t bad advice. So I gave it a try. I even spit in the cake batter.

I cut the cake and set half of it on the porch. Tendrils of steam twirled into the darkness, lit pale silver by the full moon. 

I curled up the couch to eat the remaining half. For my happy memory, I chose that first evening in the hollow: my little dog, lit to soft brilliance by the dying sun.

As for someone who made me happy, I picked my dad.

Then I planned a perfect day. Or rather, remembered it.

I’d just started my first real job, and still lived with my parents. I’d had a good day at work. My dog met me in the driveway, prancing and wiggling like he hadn’t seen me for years. Dad cooked an early dinner and told jokes while my mom played her guitar. It rained that night. We went out to the porch, watching palm trees sway as torrents poured down. My dog was scared, so I picked him up and held him as thunder roared.

Afterward, we ate brownies and ice cream. Then I settled in for the night and read a book until I fell asleep, with my dog cured at my feet.

As I drifted off, smiling at the memory, I swore I could feel him there: warm and surprisingly heavy, sprawling lazily over my toes. 

When I woke, that warm weight had shifted to my pillow.

A terrible, painful hope coursed through me, one I couldn’t even acknowledge.

I opened my eyes.

Something tiny lay on my pillow in a drying pool of blood. Fuzzy and weirdly dirty, exuding drifting grey filaments that sparkled in the sun. Three milky eyes glinted over a horror show of a snout: cracked and bleeding, bursting with an improbable cluster of human molars. 

It blinked – each eye just slightly out of tandem, opening and closing with a soft, wet *click* - and smiled. Ropes of bloody drool leaked between its teeth. It placed two cold paws on my face.

Then it lowered its mouth over my own and inhaled.

Breath and blood and every **** in my body seemed to travel up my esophagus. Like **** Himself was **** my guts through a straw.

I whipped my head from side to side as the awful bottleneck sensation intensified.  All my guts were coming up, and so were emotions - no, *memories*: half-forgotten nightmares. Painful images of my withered father. The last time I saw my mother, dressed for work and setting a bowl of oatmeal on the counter while driving rain fell.  And my dog, my poor little dog, trying to run from the needle up until the very end.  

I screamed into the mouth of the monster. I expected it to fly off, but it *inflated*: a furry flesh balloon growing, growing, growing –

Without warning, it let go.

I stumbled back, gagging. The monster – an engorged orb the size of a German Shepherd – simply smiled. Hazy morning light filtered through the window, bathing it in soft white.

Rage inexplicably built in my chest, growing exponentially every second.

“Are,” it croaked, then burped.

I wanted to **** it, to plunge my arms elbow-deep into its disgusting, distended body, and –

“Are you sad?” it asked.

A storm of emotion – rage, disgust, contempt, even hilarity – roiled through me. Overwhelming, overpowering, and paralyzing.

“No. You have no sadness.” It poked its belly with a ridiculousy small hand. “I have it.”

It took a long, long time, but I finally realized that this absurd abomination hadn’t eaten my guts.

It ate my feelings.

No sadness. No pain. No more stinging memories. Rage and confusion, sure. But underneath that was a satisfied calm akin to bliss.

I left it alone in my bedroom and went for a drive.

When I came back, I asked, “What are you?”

“A special treat,” it answered.

I decided I’d had a psychotic break, and voluntarily checked myself into a hospital. After two days of assessments, they found nothing wrong. Why would they? I was on an even keel, basking in a curiously blank inner peace.

When I got home, the monster was in my bed. Jolly, indecent roundness had withered to skeletal proportions. It looked awful. Starved. 

“I need,” it gasped. “I need, or you will suffer again.”

The prospect of returning to a life of despair, of *loss*, was crushing; I couldn’t even fathom how I’d survived it in the first, and felt I’d never be able to do it again.

So I knelt by the bed and opened my mouth. The monster latched on and inhaled. The unpleasant bottleneck sensation returned: like my insides were crowding my windpipe. And with it, memories and feelings: the rage I’d experienced upon meeting the monster; contempt at its ugliness; the fear of insanity. And more: my dog, old and grey, waddling happily after me. My father in his hospital bed, smiling uncertainly as he said my name for the last night. And more, and more –

I wrenched away, gasping. The monster smiled, **** and rotund again.

Over the following days, we developed a routine. I went to work and attended doctor appointments, even visited friends. Then I came home and let the monster extract my negative feelings. Bad client at work? Removed and forgotten before the memory could sink in. Friend who wouldn’t make eye contact? What did I care, my pet monster would take care of it like he took care of everything else.

That’s what it did, you see: removed the feelings, the vibrancy, the *pain,* from painful things. Over the course of several weeks, it removed everything; I knew, dimly, that I experienced awful things on a daily basis, but I didn’t *remember* them.

The monster removed triggers, too: before the year was up, the sight of my dog’s bed no longer made me cry. Photos of my parents held almost no interest; I flipped through them on a regular basis, skimming places and faces that had so recently crushed me.

All the while, that peaceable bliss intensified. I flitted through life in a pleasant haze of calmness. My work life improved. My supervisor started talking about a promotion because I was so unflappable, so decisive. My friends were able to look at me again. And – for the first time in months – I was confident enough to reach out to them. 

One day as I drove home from work, I realized I hadn’t looked at my photos in a very long time. It’s not that I cared, exactly. But it was a deviation. Those things no longer caused me pain, and I had nothing better to do.  So why not view them?

I got home and obediently kneeled. The monster – now the size of a horse, twisted and bent like a mutated spider – fixed its mouth over mine. I’d come to enjoy the process. It was uncomfortable and unpleasant, but familiar. And afterward, I always felt *happy*: peaceful, empty, and warm.

When it finished, I opened my mother’s photo album and began to browse.

After a while, I realized I didn’t recognize anybody. I remembered remembering them.

But I didn’t remember them.

The stout man with curly hair like mine, the athletic woman who smiled like me, and the numerous people who wove in and out of this photographic narrative…they all were strangers. 

I reached a picture of my ten-year-old self cuddling a ragged, homely Chihuahua. Ghosts of memories tickled my brain, urging me to remember, urging me to *know.* 

And I understood, finally, that I had lost something.

I don’t know why I cared. I felt so happy. Peaceful. My life was painless. I was great.

But I was also selfish. And I didn’t like the idea that the monster had taken so much.  Where was the line between happiness and emptiness? I didn’t want to be empty. I wanted to be full.

So, after many days of deliberation, I decided to make a change.

I called off work, canceled much-needed doctor appointments, and settled in to search online.

“What are you doing?” the monster asked.

“Looking up some special recipes,” I said with a bland smile.

It took seven days, but I found the original recipe. At the bottom of the page was another entry:

*a recipe for sadness*

Underneath were the words:

*If you’re really dumb, you can undo happiness =( You shouldn’t, but it’s up to you. So here.*

*Mix cake batter folloing the INSTRUCTIONS above*

*Cut your hand and drip your blood into the batter*

*Cook the cake as instructed Above*

*Cut the cake in half*

*Give half to your Happiness, and eat the other half*

*Now here’s the sad part!!*

*Remember the happy memory you meditated on*

*Remember the person who made you happy*

*Remember your perfect day*

*Choose one to forget, OR…*

*Choose to never be happy again*

*Or better yet, don’t **** your happiness in the first place!*

I agonized for days.

My monster – my happiness, my joy – continued to drain my pain, uncertainty, and fear. He quickly grew to three times his size.

Finally, I made my decision.

It would be better to live in pain forever than to forget my father, my mother, or my dog.

So I followed the recipe: sweet honey cake, poisoned with blood instead of saliva. Then I cut it in half and brought it to my monster.

I expected something awful. A fight that left my bloody shreds ground into the carpet. 

But the monster only smiled. Round, flat eyes the size of dinner plates fixed on the blood cake. “What is that?”

“A special recipe.” I gulped, but the beast was so focused on the cake that it didn’t notice. “Just for you.”

“Thank you.” It opened its mouth.

I placed the cake delicately on its tongue. It chewed eagerly, and shrank. ****, firm sides caved, ragged rolls of empty flesh falling against its bones.

Pain built in my guts and chest, roiling and fluttering. Shivers wracked my spine. My warm, even-keeled peace shrank along with the monster that had granted it, leaving cold desolation in its place. 

By the time the monster shriveled into a flat, boneless mass of dusty fur, I was prostrate on the floor, sobbing. Memories flooded back, pummeling me, leaving me breathless with pain. They pressed against me and threatened to explode *out* of me, pinning me in place. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even dream of moving.

I could only lay there and hurt.

After my dad died, someone told me that pain is a fugue. It’ll break apart eventually, giving way to happiness again the way a nightmare opens to the morning. But my experience is opposite. There is no fugue. Sorrow is sharp, it is devastating, it is painfully present, and sometimes there’s no way out.

The recipe writer was right. I suffer every day, more than I did before. Like the universe is punishing me for those few months of stolen peace. It’s bad. So bad that sometimes I think I made the wrong choice. 

But then I remember my dad. I remember my mom. I remember our perfect day filled with songs and bad jokes and warm, driving rain. 

I remember my dog, nestled in warm, coppery shadows.

And even though I hurt, I am okay.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 5)
 
 Assistant: Hi Guys,

It’s been a long week, but I’ve finally got to my computer to post the next log. I’ve been working overtime to afford both London rent and Christmas presents. Hasn’t been fun. Anyway I can’t say much more since this log’s one of the longer ones. I’ll try and get the next one up a little sooner.

Thanks for all your help.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 11/02/2017

The next morning, everything’s the same.

It’s strange. We’re usually so blind to the quiet consistency in our everyday lives, only really taking notice once something changes. Yet, as I stir a spiral of honey into my oatmeal and glance around the group, it’s the notable *lack* of change that truly stands out.

Since the previous evening, the atmosphere surrounding the convoy, and the demeanour of each member, doesn’t seem to have altered in the slightest. The night has fallen short in its role as a grand meridian, failing to partition the past and future, and bringing with it neither perspective nor closure. It’s as if yesterday has spilled, like a toppled brush ****, into the next morning, colouring everything with the same temperaments, fears and divisions.

Lilith and Eve sit facing each other, their legs crossed on a plastic groundsheet. Neither are saying very much, albeit for vastly different reasons. Lilith is still preoccupied by her own smouldering indignation, whereas Eve looks overcome with a subtle but pervasive dread. Neither have taken food from Rob’s stove, a decision I suspect Lilith made for the both of them.

Apollo, Bonnie and Clyde are across from me. Apollo is making conversation, attempting to revive his usual good humour. Bonnie and Clyde help him out, laughing at his jokes, and smiling along with his stories.

Bluejay hasn’t stepped out of her car all morning, eating her own rations and maintaining a welcome distance from the rest of the group. Her eyes meet mine as I look her way, and I’m treated to a sharp, sardonic dismissal.

And Rob? Rob is attending to the practicalities of the road; serving breakfast, then topping up the Wrangler from one of the hulking jerry cans. It’s clear the routine is comforting to him. I can easily imagine this is how he deals with a great many problems. Compartmentalising. Recasting himself as a blunt instrument engaged in a set of necessary processes. He’s made himself too busy for grief, and will likely remain so until the feeling fades.

As coping mechanisms go, it isn’t remotely healthy. I should know. I’m doing pretty much the exact same thing. 

**AS:** Clyde, could I get a few words?

Clyde looks up from his food, a little surprised. 

**CLYDE:** You want me?

**AS:** Hah, yeah… if that’s not too much trouble.

**CLYDE:** Oh no no, no trouble at all. You want to do it now? I’m not too hungry.

**AS:** No me neither. That would be great thank you. Would you mind if we moved away from the stove?

Clyde nods keenly. Putting my bowl to one side, I take Clyde to the edge of the apple grove. Nobody looks after us.

**CLYDE:** How are you holding up Bristol?

**AS:** Getting there. How about you?

**CLYDE:** I’m uhh… yeah I’m getting by.

**AS:** So can I ask… why did you choose Bonnie and Clyde as your call signs?

**CLYDE:** Hah well it came pretty easy. We used to play outlaws when we were kids, one time Bonnie stuck up a bank.

**AS:** Really?

**CLYDE:** Well, no it was an ice cream parlour. But Bonnie was pretending it was a bank and then she ran in, holding her hand like a gun. Told Mrs Gilford it was a stick-up.

**AS:** Wow, that doesn’t seem like her.

**CLYDE:** Oh no she was a wild child. Always living in a story. Anyway, we got free sundaes and a new nickname in town after that. When Rob told us about the call signs it was the first thing we thought of.

**AS:** It’s a good choice.

I pause, letting the previous subject fade before launching into the next one. All things considered, this may be the last time me and Clyde are on such casual speaking terms.

**AS:** Bonnie told me she talked to the hitchhiker.

Clyde’s disposition shifts. There’s sudden alertness that wasn’t there before, rushing to the fore in immediate response to my words. In the following silence, at the centre of his wide eyed stare, an educated guess suddenly becomes much more.

**CLYDE:** Wh.. when did she tell you?

**AS:** I’m sorry Clyde… she didn’t. You just did.

I can almost see the stone fall in Clyde’s throat. The deep, burning embarrassment and hurt that comes from being deceived, from a close secret you held getting out into the world. I don’t feel exceptional either. Lying to Clyde, bringing him away from Bonnie under the guise of an interview… beyond the personal abhorrence, it also flies in the face of everything I’ve tried to be as a journalist. 

Clyde can’t bring himself to talk, so I press forward.

**AS:** I think it might be best if you call Bonnie over here.

Nodding vaguely, Clyde wordlessly shuffles back to Bonnie, whispering in her ear. She puts a hand on his shoulder and helps herself up. Whatever he’s told her, she doesn’t seem angry as she joins us beneath the shade of the apple trees.

**BONNIE:** I didn’t want to cause any trouble, a… and Clyde’s been looking forward to this trip for so long I didn’t want us to turn back. I’m sorry.

**AS:** What happened Bonnie?

**BONNIE:** I just said two words. I wasn’t talking to him; I was doing what Rob said but then he… I just said “Bless you.” That’s all it was.

**AS:** That’s it?

**BONNIE:** Well I… he thanked me and then he was just… so easy to talk to and I thought, “Well I’ve already talked to him, what will a few more words do?”

**CLYDE:** She hardly said anything else.

**AS:** What about him? Did he say anything?

Bonnie starts to smile, the same way she did last night. A dreamy, enthused expression glowing with reminiscent joy.

**BONNIE:** He told me about this wonderful place. Wasn’**** wonderful Martin?

**CLYDE:** Bonnie-

**BONNIE:** Just a few houses by the sea, but he made it sound so nice. 

**CLYDE:** Bonnie, please…

**BONNIE:** What’s wrong? I can talk about it right?

When I look back to Clyde, his lips are firmly pressed together, his **** muscles tight. He’s holding something back, but what slips through betrays a poignant dismay.

**CLYDE:** It’s all you talk about Bonnie. You… you mentioned it a few times after… and since Jubilation you ain’t stopped.

**AS:** Are you guys talking about Wintery Bay?

Clyde grimaces, and Bonnie grins, when they hear the name.

**AS:** Bonnie are we heading there?

**BONNIE:** The hitchhiker said it’s on our way. I’m so looking forward to seeing it.

I can’t say I feel the same, and it’s safe to say Clyde agrees with me. Before now, I’d only heard Bonnie mention Wintery Bay on two occasions, but it sounds like she’s talked about it a whole lot more. I sympathise with Clyde for what he’s had to deal with. However, the gross irresponsibility of his actions aren’t lost on me either.

**AS:** Does Rob know?

**CLYDE:** I didn’t want to-

**AS:** You didn’t want to trouble him? Or did you just not want him to turn you around?

**BONNIE:** I’m alright, really.

**AS:** Well either way, you need to tell Rob before we hit the road. 

Clyde shuffles uncomfortably.

**AS:** I’m not going to do it for you. But too much has happened on this trip already. Ace is… this place is dangerous ok? There’s no place for lies any more.

I hope that Clyde doesn’t see the irony, given that I’ve roundly deceived him in the past five minutes. He nods, takes Bonnie’s hand, and walks slowly towards the Wrangler. Rob is loading the last of the fold up chairs into the back of the car. The conversation doesn’t last long, but by the end of it, Rob rests his hand on Bonnie’s shoulder and sends them on their way. He doesn’t look mad. Perhaps he just has other things on his mind.

That’s the second thing I’ve done today that’s inherently non-journalistic. I was supposed to be a fly on the wall for this story, a passenger, recording events with objective detachment without my own influence seeping into proceedings. In many ways I wish I still was. But the stakes are higher now, and though secrets make for good editorial, they’re also potentially damaging to the safety of the group. Following the incident with Ace, I’m slightly less concerned with an unbiased story than I am with getting home to tell it.

Rob looks like he’s about to make his morning address. The group wanders over, some more reluctantly than others, and gathers around the Wrangler. 

**ROB:** First things first, I want to say that… well… tempers got a little heated last night, and that I’m sorry for my part in all that. I wanna thank you for coming with me this far, and if you wanna turn back, well that’s just fine.

The group stays quiet.

**ROB:** If you are headin’ back. I’d say if you travel one by one, be sure to stay on the radios, retrace the route and follow all the rules that applied when you were gettin’ here. Now can I get a show of hands, who’s wantin’ to *keep goin’* on the road?

I observe my compatriots closely. The definites will be Bonnie & Clyde, who have already implied that they want to continue, and also Bluejay, who feels she has nothing to worry about from the road. Apollo is in the wind, and Lilith & Eve are probably a split vote. All in all, this could be the moment our convoy splits in half.

Bluejay throws her hand up lazily. Bonnie and Clyde, predictably, raise theirs. Apollo raises his a few moments later.

**APOLLO:** Hey, I’ve come this far.

That leaves Lilith and Eve. After sharing a brief glance with her friend, Lilith raises her hand and Eve follows suit, albeit with an air of trepidation.

I’m surprised that no one’s turning back, after everything that happened yesterday, but it’s clear everyone has their own reasons. I’m just glad I don’t have to say goodbye to anyone. I set about trying to divine everyone’s motives for continuing on the road, but I quickly stop when I realise everyone’s looking at me.

**AS:** Oh sorry. Yeah I’m in... I’m going… that way.

I gesture to the road ahead and raise my hand redundantly. 

**ROB:** Well ok. I guess that’s everyone then. We got a fair way to travel today but there ain’t much to see. Just follow the rules and take things as they come I guess.

As we pull out, I start to feel a little restless. The sedentary nature of travel is beginning to take its toll, and I’m starting to feel overfamiliar with the Wrangler’s passenger seat. I’m glad that I got a chance to stretch my legs last night. 

Rolling, Elysian corn fields span the roadside for the next five hours. Turns are few and far between, but Rob’s attention never wavers. I only manage to grasp his attention briefly.

**AS:** Aren’t Jeeps supposed to have poor fuel economy?

**ROB:** They ain’t the best. That’s why I always bring gas along.

**AS:** It’s just… the fuel gauge has hardly moved since we left this morning.

**ROB:** Haha. You noticed that huh? I was wonderin’ if you were gunna.

**AS:** Why, what have you done to it?

**ROB:** Nuthin’. It’s the road. Makes fuel burn slower. 

**AS:** Seriously?

**ROB:** Ain’t just that either. You finish your food this mornin’?

**AS:** No… why?

**ROB:** Hardly anyone did, ‘cept Apollo. More you go, less you need to keep goin’.

**AS:** Ok… wait you said the road pushes against you.

**ROB:** Yep.

**AS:** But now you’re making it sound like it’s helping us along.

**ROB:** Yep.

**AS:** So it’s hostile whilst also incentivising us? That sounds odd to me.

**ROB:** Sounds like life to me. Reasons to stop, reasons to keep goin’.

I suppose that makes sense. Despite his well-documented obsession with the secrets of the road, Rob seems to have a strangely laissez faire attitude to its internal logic. It’s like the road doesn’t need to make perfect sense to him, or at least he doesn’t expect it to yet.

As the fresh rural air drifts in through the windows, I lose myself in the hypnotic endlessness of the passing fields. I wonder how many eyes have seen these vistas. I wonder where we are, not geographically, but in a grander sense. Are we still in the world as I know it? Are we beyond it? Below it? Or have we just slipped through the cracks, into some intermediate domain?

Rob slows the car down to a crawl, a precaution he takes before most corners. My eyes wander gently back into the Wrangler, finally resting on the rear view. 

There’s something behind us. A humanoid figure, shrouded in the soft focus of considerable distance. It staggers quickly toward the convoy, unsure on its own feet.

**AS:** Rob what is that?

Rob follows my gaze to the rear view mirror. His brow furrows.

**ROB:** Somethin’ new.

Rob grabs the receiver. Before he can make an announcement, the speaker splutters with static, followed by Eve’s frantic voice.

**EVE:** Guys there’s something behind us... guys? Something’s coming after us. Bluejay can you see it?

Bluejay doesn’t answer. I doubt she considers it worth her time. A squealing panic rings out over the radio as Eve calls again.

**EVE:** Is it from Jubilation? Guys? Guys?!

**ROB:** Stay calm everyone. Let’**** up the pace a little.

Rob lets his foot rest heavier on the gas. The Wrangler gently accelerates, with the rest of the convoy eagerly matching our speed. 

**APOLLO:** Who is that Rob?

**ROB:** I ain’t so sure, but we got a turn coming up. Let’s just get ourselves off the road, see if he follows. 

The figure continues to stumble towards us. Its arms hang crookedly in the air and, as it comes into sharper focus, I can just make out that there’s something wrong with its face.

**EVE:** Guys speed up, please. Please.

**LILITH:** Calm down.

**EVE:** It’s coming for us!

I can sympathise with Eve’s panic. I’ve had the luxury of travelling at the head of the convoy. I was the first across when that godforsaken pine was dropped across the road. Eve is now second to last, relying on three other cars to make their escape before she can follow. Ace had to wait for the rest of us, and it cost him everything. Now Eve & Lilith are one car closer to being where he was.

**EVE:** It’s face. Oh my ****! Oh my ****. Guys please!

**BLUEJAY:** Jesus, shut up!

**APOLLO:** Hey that is NOT helping. Rob it’s movin’ pretty fast we-

**ROB:** We stay the course. It ain’t caught up yet just-

**EVE:** Oh ****. Oh ****, oh ****!

Rob’s warnings are cut short by the screeching of tires. Eve swerves out of the convoy’s neat, single file line, and onto the empty stretch of road beside us. The car accelerates past Bonnie & Clyde. Past Apollo.

I get a brief glimpse of Eve & Lilith as our windows align.

Lilith is yelling at Eve, trying to get her to calm down. Eve is screaming into the air, the puppet of her own frenetic terror. The car shoots past us and down the long road ahead. Rob swears and picks up the radio. 

The figure continues to lurch towards us.

**ROB:** Ferryman to Eve & Lilith. Stop the car right now.

**LILITH:** Eve slow down!

**ROB:** Eve goddamnit you’re gonna-

I stare through the windshield as their car stops. Not a slow, grinding deceleration, but an unequivocal, immediate halt. Their bodies are thrown forwards against the safety glass as the car becomes utterly motionless.

**AS:** Rob what’s happening?

**ROB:** I told’em to be careful!

**AS:** Why what’s-

I no longer need an answer. I realise that it’s written right in front of me, etched into the side of the road. A brief gap in the endless rows of golden corn, only a little wider than the Wrangler itself. A dirt track the leads off to the left, about ten metres ahead of us, about fifteen metres behind Lilith & Eve. I now understand why Rob was being so careful, and why Eve should have been as well.

They’ve missed the next turn.

**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. I’ve found the turn, let’s make it quick. Eve and Lilith you stay in the car. I’m coming back to get you both.

Rob flicks on his turn signal, preparing the group for the sharp left corner, and slams his foot on the accelerator. Lilith and Eve disappear behind a wall of corn as we pull down the dirt track. Rob keeps driving, until enough space is left for the rest of the group. 

Once they’re all safely pulled in, Rob climbs into the back of the car, grabs his rifle and jumps out onto the path. I quickly climb out and follow behind him.

When we arrive on the main road, the figure has covered a considerable distance, finally drawing near enough for me to see what’s wrong with its face. At a certain point, midway across the crown of the head, running in a straight line down past the cheeks and under the jaw, the head simply stops. It’s like the foremost section of his skull has been sliced cleanly off, and has bent inwards, his entire face concave and shrouded completely in a deep shadow. A ghastly, organic hood, that seems deeper than physics should allow.

That isn’t all that’s wrong with the picture however. The man’s outstretched arms are bent in several places. Dark purple contusions blossom at every unnatural joint as if his arms had been broken multiple times. His leg is also bent to one side, the reason for the irregular walk that still carries him towards us. 

Rob looks shaken as he raises the rifle to his shoulder, bidding the figure turn around.

The man ignores Rob’s demand, continuing its march. Even when a bullet hits it square in the chest, the figure hardly slows down. We’re forced to jump out of the way as it continues down the road, Eve and Lilith cowering in their locked car as it approaches. 

Fear shifts into confusion as the creature passes them by, and continues down the road. It’s as if it doesn’t even know we’re here.

Rob breathes a sigh of relief, lowers the gun, and runs back to the rest of the convoy. The moment he leaves, my mind notes something peculiar. It’s an utterly bizarre observation, especially considering the many otherworldly facets of the retreating creature, there’s something familiar about it. Specifically, its fashion sense. 

The shirt, the dirt covered jeans. They aren’t dissimilar to the ones I found in the brown leather duffel bag, resting atop the block of C4. 

Reaching into my pocket, pulling out my phone, I scroll through my list of contacts. As the man heaves himself down the road, I call the second number I discovered last night. The one in the Nokia’s received calls list. The number that likely belonged to whoever created the bomb, and whoever was driving the car that day.

After a few moments, a ringtone disrupts the creature’s silent walk. I end the call, realising how reckless I’ve been and praying that the strange figure doesn’t see my action as an excuse to turn around. 

I’m lucky, this time at least. The dial tone cuts out, and the figure continues to stumble its way toward the horizon.

The next thing I hear is a scream.

Scanning for its source, I see Eve, her door open and with one foot out of the car. She’s frantically pulling at her leg, seemingly unable to lift it from the tarmac.

**AS:** Eve what’s going on?

With shaking fingers, Eve clumsily unties her shoelace, and lifts her leg back into the car. Her boot stays in place, and it’s possible to make out a slight elasticity to the road below it, a depression in the tarmac around its base. Slowly, and steadily, the sole of the boot disappears into the road. Eve watches as the dark tarmac slowly sucks the boot down, enveloping the heel and dragging it beneath the surface. 

The thought comes to Eve the same moment it does to me. We both fix our eyes on the back of the car, where same, soft indent is gradually developing around the tyres. 

Eve’s terrified scream is drowned out by the blare of revving engines. I jump out of the way as the rest of the convoy reverse out of the corner and back onto the main road. Bluejay, Bonnie & Clyde, Apollo and finally Rob, park themselves chaotically around me. Rob jumps out and approaches.

**ROB:** They ain’t pulled back yet?

As soon as he asks the question, he sees the sight before him. Only the neck of Eve’s boot remains above the ground, sinking ever further into the tarmac. The road gradually but voraciously churns at the car tyres, consuming the rubber, and swallowing the lowest edge of the wheel cover.

In the midst of such an impossible sight, all I can say to Rob is:

**AS:** They’re trying.

Lilith & Eve hit the gas hard. The engine growls at the road as it furiously attempts to reverse, the undercarriage creaking and groaning from the sheer mechanical strain. The wheels themselves, however, don’t rotate an inch. The tyres belong to the road now, taken by the unknowable forces that continue to drag them into the earth.

The engine chokes, defeated, and I can see Eve screaming into her fists as the roadway calmly continues its work.

**ROB:** **** it we can’t reach’em. Tell’em to get on top of the car.

**APOLLO:** What the… What’s happening Rob?

**ROB:** Bristol! Tell’em to get on the roof!

Rob marches off to the Wrangler. The rest of the convoy gather on the road, just in line with the left turn, where we assume it’s safe to stand. Everyone, saving for Bluejay, looks on in anxious silence.

**AS:** Eve! Lilith! I need you to get on top of the car ok? Guys?

**EVE:** We’re sinking! Oh ****… oh **** we’re-

**AS:** Eve! I’m trying to help you. Rob’s working on something, but you need to climb onto the roof of the car. Don’t think about anything else. Open the door, wind down your window and use it as a foothold.

Eve is still deaf with worry. Lilith doesn’t hesitate. She places one hand on the upper rim of her open door, one foot on the base of the open window, and her free hand palm down on the car’s roof. The door rocks on its hinges as she puts her weight on it. In one strong motion, she pushes herself backwards until she’s sitting atop the car. 

The tarmac has swallowed its way to the car’s lower chassis. Eve stares, transfixed by the road as it pulls her ever closer towards it.  

**LILITH:** Sarah look at me!

Lilith is crouching on the car’s roof, her hand reaching down to Eve. Her friends voice seems to be the only thing that can break Eve’s fearful commune with the waiting abyss. She turns around, Lilith’s hand a few inches from her face. 

**LILITH:** Get up here.

Her eyes brimming with tears, fought back by rapid, shallow breaths, Eve grabs Lilith’s hand. Lilith gets a solid handhold around the lip of her own doorway and heaves Eve up and onto the roof of the car. Eve shrieks a little as the door swings, putting all her trust into Lilith’s grip.

She joins her friend on the roof just as the road consumes the lower edge of the door, spilling inside the car’s cabin like magma.

**ROB:** Damnit they’re too far away.

Rob has returned from the Wrangler, rapidly uncoiling a braid of long, light blue climber’s rope. I’d seen it resting in the back of the car during the trip, never once thinking that I’d see it used. 

Rob threads one end of the rope through a carabiner and secures it in place with a tight knot. He holds it to his side as he shouts to Lilith & Eve.

**ROB:** Ok listen, we only got one shot at this. I’m gonna throw you the hook and you’re gonna catch it and yank it taut ok? Then you can hook it onto somethin’ and climb your way over. Don’t let it fall. Ok?

Lilith looks pale. She nods before clambering to her feet, and stepping to the back of the car. Eve watches on, her hands wrapped around her legs.

**ROB:** Well, here goes nothin’.

Rob begins to swing the rope over his head, a large undulating circle that quickly levels out as the weight of the carabiner eases the rope onto a flat plane. I instinctively shrug down as the rope passes over my head, swinging faster and faster. Gritting his teeth, his face reddening with the towering pressure of this single throw, Rob lets the rope fly. It arcs in the air, like a cast fishing line, towards Lilith’s outstretched hands. 

I watch it pass in front of her, the metal of the carabiner glinting in the sun as it falls.

She catches it, grasping the rope in her shaking hands.

Despite her victory, I see her face contort with sudden and striking panic. She holds the rope high over her head, staring wildly down at the road between us. Following her eyes, my heart falls. She caught the rope, but she didn’t pull it taut fast enough. 

Even with Rob continuing to hold his end above his head, the rope had too much slack when it landed in Lilith’s hands. It’s fallen in a sloping arc, the lowest point of which has scraped against the tarmac. It only rests a few precious seconds before Lilith finds herself unable to pull it free. It sinks into the ground. The rope starts to brush gently against Rob’s fingers before he throws it to the ground.

 **ROB:** Goddamnit! Ok… if I just got somethin’ else. Somethin’ we can put down.

**AS:** The empty jerry cans? They could step on-

**ROB:** Too unstable, and we’d have to throw them perfect. Ok… ok.

The road has claimed almost half the car now, eating up the licence plate as the vehicle sinks lower and lower. Lilith looks helplessly on as we deliberate, Eve crying her eyes out behind her.

**CLYDE:** We could get a ground sheet.

**ROB:** We ain’t got one that’ll stretch.

**AS:**  Well what about-

**APOLLO:** I’m going out there.

Apollo’s blank statement catches us all by surprise. Turning in his direction, I note a direct and powerful confidence in his manner. 

**APOLLO:** They aren’t gonna last much longer. It takes a second for the road to get you, that’s how they got so far ahead before they stopped. I drive out, they jump onto my car, then we climb back.

**ROB:** I ain’t got more rope.

**APOLLO:** You got the winch right? If I drive out with it bunched up on my lap I can make sure it never goes slack. Then I hook it up to my roof bars and we get the **** outta dodge.

**ROB:** You got the best car for it. But I should drive out there.

**APOLLO:** You need to work the winch. Bonnie & Clyde can’t climb back. 

He skips over his rationale for not choosing Bluejay, not wanting to waste time on a foregone conclusion.

**AS:** What about me? I’m lighter, the climb back would be easier. 

**APOLLO:** But you can’t help them when they’re jumping over. We’re wasting time, you know it’s a good idea.

Rob takes a moment to consider it, his mind fighting for a better solution. 

**ROB:** You’d better get back here Apollo.

**APOLLO:** Don’t plan on hanging around there Rob.

Apollo grins before sprinting to his Rover. Rob, wasting no time, runs to the winch, switches it to manual, and unspools the heavy duty rope. His hands cross over as he drops each new length onto the ground.

I turn back to Lilith.

**AS:** Did you hear that Lilith?!

Lilith is huddled next to Eve, attempting to comfort her as the car’s headlights disappear into the depths of the road. Her head snaps round when I call.

**LILITH:** What’s… what’s happening?

**AS:** Apollo’s coming out to you. You have to jump onto his car and climb back over ok?

**LILITH:** … Ok!

She hurries back to Eve, grasping her friend’s shoulders as she relays the plan.

**ROB:** Ok that’ll hold. 

Rob’s climbing down from the hood of the Wrangler. He’s fed the winch cable around and through the lighting rig, ensuring a good level of clearance on the way out and, more importantly, for the climb back. The rope has already been fed through Apollo’s driver’s side window.

Bonnie and Clyde are helping to throw Apollos’ baggage out of the trunk and onto the rode behind him. The less he has to lose on this trip the better.

**ROB:** All set up over here.

**APOLLO:** Ok. See you on the other side Rob.

Apollo slams his foot onto the accelerator. The Range Rover bolts forwards, and powers toward the threshold. The engine roars as he rockets past the left turn and keeps on going, into the territory beyond. In the few precious seconds he has, he crosses the distance towards the two terrified girls. The winch rope streams through the window, and then suddenly, pulls tight.

Apollo is thrown forwards as the car comes to an uncompromising stop, roughly a metre’s distance from Lilith & Eve. The impact looks brutal, but Apollo somehow manages to keep a hold on the rope and, inexplicably, his sense of humour.

**APOLLO:** I don’t think I got the insurance for this.

Clumsily, still feeling the aftereffects of the sudden stop, Apollo throws open his door and starts to climb out.

**APOLLO:** Take in the slack Rob!

My attention fixed on Apollo, I hear the mechanical whir as the winch kicks into life. As Apollo climbs out of his car and up onto the roof, he affixes the hook at the end of the winch to one of his roof bars, securing it in place. A few moments later, the rope is pulled straight.

Apollo steps down onto the hood of his car, his arms outstretched to the girls. It’s a short jump, but they’ll have to make it from a lower elevation, the trunk of the car already sinking to ground level.

**APOLLO:** Ok come on I got you, we’ve got to move fast now.

Lilith stands up, helping Eve to her feet before stepping down onto the rapidly disappearing trunk.

**LILITH:**  Ok… ok…

Lilith yelps as she throws herself towards Apollo. Her front foot plants itself on the hood of the car, her other leg flailing in the air behind her. Apollo grabs her by the arms and yanks her onto the car, holding her close to him as she gets her bearing on the smooth metal of the hood. When she’s stable, he lets her crawl up onto the roof, where she immediately looks back to Eve.

**APOLLO:** See Eve, nothin’ to it. Come on now.

Eve paces back, her hands shaking as she contemplates the jump. Fighting against her screaming instincts, Eve squeals as she steps across the trunk and makes the leap across. The toe of her shoe lifting off the car mere seconds before it descends into the murky, black pitch of the road.

Eve lands short of her destination. One desperate, grasping arm makes contact with Apollo’s as her legs bang and scrape against the Rover’s grill, scrambling for any conceivable purchase. Apollo is wrenched sideways by the force of Eve’s landing, thrown off balance by the unexpected application of her whole weight. In the gut churning moments that follow, Apollo tugs Eve up to his chest and wraps an arm around her, his centre of gravity passing over the edge of the car.

The fall takes a lifetime. Wrapped in each other’s arms, Eve and Apollo tumble forward towards the patient, ravenous ground. In the split second before he leaves the hood of the car, Apollo uses his last inch of footing to push himself into a slow turn. The twist continues as they fall, until Eve is looking to the road, Apollo to the pale blue sky. In one final action, Apollo pushes Eve’s waist, holding her at arms length.

Apollo’s back thuds into the asphalt, his head smacking audibly against it. Dazed and concussed, he manages to hold Eve aloft, keeping everything but her feet from joining him on the hard ground.

**APOLLO:** Get back up… quickly get back up.

Her face shredded by fear and guilt and sorrow, Eve stares into Apollo’s eyes and whimpers. Collecting herself, she pushes herself off him, ripping out her laces, and leaving a shoe and a sock behind as she clambers back on to the Range Rover. With every movement she whispers a quivering apology.

**APOLLO:** It’s ok. It’s ok. Go on. It’s ok.

He repeats those two words over and over, until I’m not even sure who he’s talking to. The road elasticates around him, dragging him down into its depths. Eve looks back to him, her face cringing in misery. 

Bonnie buries her face in Clyde’s chest, unable to watch the next few moments unfold.

**EVE:** I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

**APOLLO:** It’s… it’s alright. Just get going ok? It doesn’t hurt… it doesn’t hurt, really.

Apollo’s ears sink beneath the road. Entering a new world of perfect silence, Apollo sees the end nearing.

**APOLLO:** Oh ****. Rob! ROB!!

I won’t play his final moments, for your benefit and, ultimately, for his. Before he sinks into the road, Apollo asks for Rob to talk to his family. He wants Rob to tell them that he loves them. Rob nods, knowing that Apollo won’t be able to hear his response.

After a few cries of panicked despair, Apollo’s eyes and mouth are enveloped by the road. His screams are drowned by the thick, churning asphalt.

Eve watches the rest of his body sink, while Lilith tugs at her sleeve, pulling her towards the roof.

**LILITH:** Come on we’ve got to go. Sarah we’ve got to go!

**EVE:** I’m sorry.

Whispering one last heartfelt apology to the air itself, Eve steps up with Lilith and stares at the cable. 

**AS:** Ok guys just let yourself down until you’re hanging from the rope and work your way across.

**LILITH:** I got it! You ready?

Eve looks to her friend.

**EVE:** I… I don’t…

**LILITH:** Just watch me ok? Follow right behind me.

The Range Rover’s wheels have now disappeared. With every passing second, the cable’s clearance diminishes, and the angle between the roof bar and the Wrangler’s lighting rig becomes steeper. They need to start moving now or not at all.

Eve looks across the length of the rope. I can feel her mind kicking back at the prospect.

**EVE:** I can’t.

**LILITH:** Sarah… we **** have to ok? Follow behind me.

Lilith wraps her arms around Eve, hugging her stiff, shivering frame, before letting go and crouching down to the rope, slowly working her way under it. Her hands clenching the cable, her legs wrapped securely around it, Lilith starts to pull herself along the rope, shifting her feet up every few seconds behind her. She fixes her eyes on me as she drags herself to the halfway mark.

**LILITH:** Is she following?!

The asphalt swallows the Range Rover’s lower chassis. Eve hasn’t moved a muscle. The stretch of black tarmac might as well be a bottomless ravine, the Grand Canyon. The idea of hanging herself over it mortifies her.

**AS:** Sarah! Sarah it’s not as bad as it looks, please! Please come on.

Lilith crosses the threshold. Her knuckles are white as she continues to cling to the rope. Rob marches up to her and helps her down into his arms, coaxing her hands free by telling her that she’s safe.

As soon as her feet hit the ground again, they give way beneath her, and Lilith sinks to the ground crying out.

**LILITH:**  Sarah! Come on please!!

**EVE:** I can’t! I can’t… I…

**LILITH:**  Please Sarah… I need you here.

Her shallow breaths quaking with anxiety, Eve slowly crouches down and grips the rope. Slowly but surely, as the asphalt consumes the car’s licence plate less than a metre below her, Eve lowers herself down and, with clumsy desperation, drags herself along the rope.

She’s left it late. Her back hangs mere inches from the hungry ground as she shuffles unevenly towards us, lifting her feet and scraping them up the rope, her arms straining to stay locked.

**EVE:** I’m not going to make it!

**LILITH:** You are! Keep going! 

The Range Rover’s window is now disappearing, inside the dashboard has been submerged. With every yard that Eve manages to climb, the lowering rope ensures she stays close to the ground, even over the final few feet.

My heart breaks the moment her foot slips.

It happens almost too quickly to register. As Eve erratically shuffles her feet along the rope, her bare left foot gives way, swinging underneath her and kicking down onto the ground. Eve tries to raise it in time before discovering that she can’t.

**LILITH:** No… no no no please.

Thrown entirely off balance, Eve tries to pull herself up. However, with her lower leg seeping into the dark tar, her position can’t be maintained. She falls, her body twisting, as she falls onto the road. 

Lilith releases a terrible shrieking cry. Eve whimpers as the side of her head rests against the tarmac, her cheek already subsumed.

**EVE:** I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

**LILITH:** No.  No. Please don’t be sorry. 

**EVE:** I.. love you. I love y… you Jen.

**LILITH:** I love you too… I’m sorry I didn’t… I’m so sorry.

Eve tries to reply, but half of her mouth is sealed shut, encased in the creeping asphalt. Her short breaths finally melt into one long inhalation, as her nose and mouth are sunk entirely.

One remaining eye takes a final, fleeting look at Lilith, before vanishing.

I look away from what is still to sink. The important things are already gone.

Lilith collapses on her knees, a screaming of torrent of grief expelled from her burning lungs. Rob is completely immobile, likely searching for something practical in which to bury himself. Bonnie & Clyde simply look lost, as they turn their backs on the sinking Range Rover.

Bluejay’s reaction surprises me. She stares into the tarmac, the smirk ripped from her face, replaced by a familiar look of shellshock. She repeatedly mutters something under her breath, something that sounds like:

“It’s not real… It’s not real.”

We stand in silence for what seems like an age, accompanied by the breeze and Lilith’s gradually waning laments. After she’s exorcised the immediate torment, her screaming descends into a deathly stillness.

Rob makes the first step to approach her.

**ROB:** I… I can take you back home if you want to-

**LILITH:** No... No.

Lilith wipes her eyes, as tears continue to fall freely down her cheeks. When she turns around, she looks enraged.

**LILITH:** No. I’m still going. I’m going to get to the end.

**ROB:** You know I can’t tell you when that’ll be.

Lilith stands up and glares at Rob, then looks over to Bonnie & Clyde.

**LILITH:** Are you guys still going? Do you have a seat free?

The siblings look to one another. Bonnie nods.

**CLYDE:** You got a place with us if you want it.

**LILITH:** Is the door unlocked?

**CLYDE:** Uhh yeah.

**LILITH:** Then what the **** are we waiting around for?

Lilith marches to Clyde’s Ford and climbs into the back seat. She waits for us impatiently to finish up.

**ROB:** Anyone else want to turn around?

Rob looks to me and Bluejay. Bluejay sends a look of deep scorn his way before marching off to her own car. 

**ROB:** Bristol?

The Range Rover has finally sunk. The road has settled back into a hard, permanent surface. It isn’t like Rob to offer me a ride home, and I feel overwhelmingly like I should take him up on it. But there are too many questions unanswered, too many unchallenged mysteries weaved into the fabric of this journey. Going back now wouldn’t be a return, it would be a retreat.

**AS:** I’m still going.

A few minutes later, the three remaining cars roll down the dirt track. Leaving another incomprehensible atrocity behind us. There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m still continuing down this road, a greater part of me is astonished that no one took the opportunity to turn back.

As Rob carries me on to the next turn, and the one after that, I realise we all have our reasons. I’d become obsessed with chasing the truth, as had Bluejay in her way. Bonnie had her own, unsettling motives for carrying on, and Clyde wasn’t about to abandon her. Lilith had directed her smouldering anger and grief toward the road itself, seeking deliverance at its end. And Rob? As far as he’s concerned, there’s only one direction to go.

Still, when I think of the sorrows that have already befallen us, and the potential for unspeakable ruin that lies ahead, I realise that no one in their right mind would continue down this road.

I suppose no one is.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Instructions for the Babysitter
 
 Assistant: I’ve only been babysitting for about six months now. It was an easy way to make money and it didn’t require me to have any real, applicable skills. It was slow going at first but a couple of months ago I hit the jack **** after a young couple from the rich part of my town asked me to look after their two kids one Friday night. They paid me two hundred freaking dollars to look after their extremely well behaved children for three hours in a house five times the size of mine. It was awesome.

The young couple must have also thought that I had done a good job because word spread quickly around the rich neighborhood about the nice, young lady who was willing to look over your children so you could go out for a night of drinking and fun. And when I say that this neighborhood is one of the richest in our state I am not exaggerating. Most of the people living there are young couples who have come from a long line of wealthy families.

Sometimes I’ll babysit for a few of hours and make a couple hundred bucks. Other times the parents want me to stay the night while they go off and get a hotel room so that they could be away from their kids for a change. That is where I make the big bucks.

A couple of days ago a husband and wife had texted me asking if I could stay the night at their mansion and watch their seven year old little girl for them. I happily agreed…

If only I knew what I was in for.

When the day finally came I drove my beat up jeep wrangler to the edge of the rich neighborhood and made my way up this private driveway that I had never noticed before because the entrance was hidden back amongst the trees that surround the entire north side of town. I drove up this steep, winding driveway for what seemed like ten minutes before I finally saw the house come into view.

Out of all the houses I’ve babysat at this was hands down the most gorgeous one I’ve ever seen. It was a huge Victorian style mansion that was covered in dark brown bricks making it blend perfectly into the woods surrounding it.

I got out of my car and made my way up to the front porch where I knocked on this gigantic, wooden door. A few seconds later a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties answered and introduced herself as Mrs. Collins. She called her husband down and shortly after an extremely handsome man also in his thirties came walking down the grand stairway holding an adorable little girl in his arms.

The couple seemed very anxious to leave and even though they were both gorgeous people I could tell that underneath all of their beauty they were both extremely tired and haggard from having to keep up with their seven year old. They were obviously very excited about having an entire night to themselves and couldn’t wait to get out of there as fast as they could.

Before Mr. and Mrs. Collins left, however, Mrs. Collins hand me several pieces of paper and told me that she had written down a couple of instructions for me to follow throughout the night. She stressed to me how important it was to follow her instructions and I assured her that I’d give them a look. I waved to the pretty young couple as they made their way down the driveway in their expensive Mercedes and then closed the door behind me.

I gave the instructions a quick once over before folding the papers and stuffing them into my back pocket. “I’ll look at them later,” I told myself. How **** I was to do that.

Mr. and Mrs. Collins’ daughter, Samantha, was a very nice, young girl who warmed up to me almost immediately, and we had spent the next few hours playing games and watching TV. After we finished our fifth episode of *Teen Titans Go* I noticed that it was getting late and asked Samantha what her bed time was. She shrugged not really giving me an answer which is when I remembered Mrs. Collins’ instructions.

I pulled out the folded pieces of paper and scanned through them very quickly when I saw the words “Samantha needs to be in bed….before 8:00 p.m.” I checked the time to find that it was almost 7:45.

“Well it looks like your bedtime is right now.” I said lift Samantha up off the couch so I could get her ready. She brushed her teeth and I tucked her into her California king sized mattress. I told her good night and was leaving her room when she said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“Don’t forget to lock my door before you leave,” she said.

I stopped walking and turned back around toward her confused.

“What do you mean don’t forget to lock you door?” I asked, “Why would I need to lock your door? What if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night?”

She looked at me innocently and shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know, but Mommy always locks my door before I go to sleep. She says she does it to protect me and herself. I don’t remember what happens after I fall asleep, but Mommy says that I always try to leave my room at night which is bad thing.”

I looked at her dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say.

“Mommy told me that she would leave instructions for you to follow and locking my door is one of them,” she said

“O—okay Samantha I’ll lock your door. Good—goodnight sweetheart.” I stammered. She gave me a big smile and rolled over in her bed. I closed her door and noticed that there was a latch drilled into the door frame that would allow someone to lock it from the outside. I closed the latch and then walked back downstairs so I could read the rest of Mrs. Collins’ “instructions.”

When I had first seen the pieces of paper I was under the impression that they were just instructions that told me what shows Samantha is not allowed to watch, or how to operate the surround sound. After I started reading them though I realized that I was wrong. I was completely and utterly wrong.

Hello Annie,

I’m so glad that you agreed to stay the night and babysit Samantha for us. She is such an angel, and I am sure that the both of you will get along very well. I know that our house might seem old and scary but don’t worry because nothing bad will happen to you as long as you follow some simple instructions.

1. Firstly, Samantha needs to be in bed in her room with the door locked before 8:00 p.m. Do not open up her bedroom door after 8:00 p.m. I repeat, DO NOT open Samantha’s bedroom door after 8:00 p.m. She will try to convince you to open the door in many different ways. She will cry, scream, and threaten you until you give in, but DO NOT listen to her. She can’t hurt you as long as the door is closed.

2. Between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. make sure you remain in the living room with the lights turned on. Around this time of night you may hear scratching and growling coming from Samantha’s room, or from other parts of the house. These noises are nothing to worry about as long as you stay in the living room. Watch some TV to pass the time, we have a lot of movies to choose from ;)

3. After 9:30 do not venture into any dark areas of the house. I would recommend that you turn on as many lights as you can before 9:30 so that you don’t accidentally trap yourself. You might begin to see things hiding in the dark areas of the house from time to time, and sometimes they will even try to talk to you. Just ignore them and they’ll eventually ignore you as well. You might also happen to see a pair of yellow cat eyes looking at you through the darkness ever once in a while. DO NOT stare at them for more than thirty seconds.

4. At around 10:00 p.m. it might begin to sound like there are several people walking around in the basement downstairs. Do not worry because as long as you stay out of the basement they cannot get to you. I know it sounds unlikely, but around this time you will begin to feel an overwhelming urge to walk down into the basement. If this happens go into the kitchen and drink a cold glass of milk, this usually helps. The urge will most likely pass after about ten minutes, but if the urge is still there after ten minutes and you don’t think that you will be able to stop yourself from walking into the basement then call either me or Mr. Collins and we’ll tell you what to do.

5. When 10:30 comes around you will begin to hear something running back and forth in the hallway upstairs. Stay on the first floor of the house during this time. Don’t worry about Samantha, as long as you locked her door beforehand he won’t be able to get to her. If you start to hear him making his way down the stairs then lock yourself in the first floor bathroom with the lights on. He will knock on the bathroom door repeatedly and will try impersonating someone close to you like your mom or your dad in order to trick you into opening the bathroom door for him (he is really good at it). No matter what he says to you and no matter who he sounds like DO NOT open the door. He should go away after five minutes. Check under the door to make sure that he is no longer there before you open it.

4. Now this next part is very important. You will be sleeping in our guest room upstairs for the night. Before you go to bed make sure that you leave a plate outside your bedroom door with a piece of raw steak on it (you can find the raw steak in our refrigerator), and leave a glass of milk next to the plate as well. On a piece of paper write the words “parcant mihi” in red ink and leave it on the plate with the raw meat. (Also, at some point during the night you might wake up and notice that there is something standing in the corner of your room, please refrain from looking at the figure as much as you can. I’d recommend wearing ear buds so that you won’t hear it muttering to itself).

And that’s about it. There are also a few other general rules that you should follow throughout the night just to make sure that nothing bad happens.

Rule 1: If the house phone rings at any point during the night don’t answer it no matter how long or how loud it might ring. Mr. Collins and I will call your cell phone if we need to talk with you.

Rule 2: If you feel something tap you on the shoulder at any point during the night don’t turn around, and wait at least thirty seconds before moving again.

Rule 3: Don’**** meat after 8:00. They might see it as a threat and will most likely attack you.

Thanks again Annie, if you have any trouble or questions feel free to call me or my husband at any point during the night. If you do call us and a man with a very deep voice answers the phone hang up immediately and try calling us again.

P.S. Throughout the night you might hear a dog whimpering from somewhere off inside the house. We don’t have a dog so don’t go looking for it.

I hadn’t realize what I had gotten myself into. It is currently 8:31 p.m. as I am writing this, and the growling noises just started. It sounds like they’re coming from every room in the **** house. I thought that Samantha’s screams from a couple minutes ago were going to be the worst part, but now I can hear her muffled growls from upstairs and I can assure you that this is worse. This is so much worse

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Ringing In My Ear
 
 Assistant: I remember the day I started to lose my hearing. I remember it because two things had happened the day before; I'd received a particularly painful numbing injection at the dentist's office prior to having some work done and my daughter was **** and left for dead in a dumpster just outside her college campus.


We got the call at 4 AM. Being woken like that, by a shrill ringing in the otherwise still and quiet dark, is something no one should have to experience. You know before you pick up that something has happened, that something life changing is about to be dropped in your lap, and all you can do is answer. 


"Mr. Barrister?" The voice on the other end said. "I'm sorry to call at this hour. It's about your daughter."


I'll never forget those words or the icy way they wrapped around my heart. My daughter, my baby girl. I looked at my wife, she looked back at me, and she knew. If I never again hear the sound she made then, I will consider myself blessed. 


In the flurry of packing and finding a flight to get to Emily and all of the gut wrenching worry, I didn't even notice it at first. It wasn't until we were in the air and Helena was whispering prayers under her breath beside me that I heard it; a high pitched keen in my left ear that came in what I can only describe as short beeps. It reminded me of hearing test tones. 


I stuck my finger in my ear and wiggled it around, trying to lessen the sound, but it remained, steady and irritating and beeping. 


It was pushed to the back of my mind the moment we landed, however, and we raced from the airport to the hospital, where Emily was lying unconscious with a row of machines standing vigil at her bedside. I'd seen them countless times before, I knew what they each did and why they were attached to her, but in that moment, they were strange, mechanical monstrosities that made her look so small and frail.


As we sat there, stroking her hair and telling her how we loved her, I had a flashback to the only other time Emily had ever been in a hospital. She had been six, maybe seven, and it was bedtime. She wanted to stay up longer like her older brother, but I told her to stop jumping on her bed and to settle down for sleep. I turned my back for just a minute, I don't even remember why, and she slipped. Blood was pouring out of a nasty gash over her eye where she'd struck the headboard and she was screaming.


After we'd calmed her down and got a look at the wound, we agreed she'd need stitches. While Helena got her dressed, I called the hospital where I worked as an anesthetist and got ahold of one of my doctor buddies to let him know I was coming in. Helena stayed home with our son while I took Emily in.


"Is it gonna hurt?" Emily asked from the backseat. She was staring at me in the rearview mirror, one eye covered by the cloth she was pressing against her forehead.


"No, I'll make sure it doesn't."


"How?" My little girl, ever the skeptic.


"Remember how we talked about how Daddy makes people go to sleep for his job?" It had become something of a joke in our house; better behave or Daddy'll put you to sleep...*forever*!


"Yeah?"


"Sometimes I only make *part* of a person fall asleep. That way, the nice doctors can make them better and they don't even feel it!"


"You're gonna do that to me?"


"Yep."


"And you're gonna stay with me the whole time?"


"Of course."


She barely winced when I injected the local anesthetic and then fell asleep during the actual stitches. 


Emily was a tough little girl.


She was a tougher young woman. 


It took her three days to wake up. In that time, the hearing in my left ear had started to fade until the only thing I could hear with absolute clarity was that high pitched ringing I'd first noticed on the plane.


*Beep. Beep. Beep.*


I couldn't worry about it just then, though, not when my family needed me so badly, and I didn't mention it to anyone. 


Emily's recovery was a slow process. She claimed not to remember who had attacked her and said she couldn't offer any description or statement to the police. She was tightlipped about what happened, even with her mother, with whom she'd shared everything. My carefree, forever smiling daughter was now haunted and every time she looked at me, there was such pain etched deeply into her eyes. 


I'd never felt so helpless or hollow.


After she was released from the hospital, she quietly withdrew from school and moved back in with me and her mother, where she spent most of her days shut away in her room.


All the while, the deafness and ringing in my ear continued.


*Beep. Beep. Beep.*


Still, I put off going to get it checked out. I figured it was some kind of **** up from the dentist's injection and there wouldn't be much that could be done about it anyway. It would be almost impossible to prove. 


My focus was entirely on Emily and helping her in any way I could, my own issues be damned. We got her into therapy, we researched healing techniques, we devoted ourselves entirely to her physical and mental health in every way she would allow. It took months, but she started to smile again, the night terrors started to recede, and, piece by piece, our Emily started to come back to us.


We had just started discussing whether she felt comfortable enough to return to school when things began to unravel.


Emily had come to the hospital where I worked to have lunch with me. We were sitting in the cafeteria, our trays of food untouched in front of us while we talked about what courses she might like to take. She was in the middle of telling me about a genealogy class she was interested in when she froze, mid sentence, and the color drained from her face.


"Kiddo? You ok?"


I followed her fixed stare back to the register line, where a trio of people were waiting to pay for their food, and then looked back to her.


"I need to go." She said suddenly.


"What's wro-"


"Love you, Dad." 


She practically ran out of the cafeteria.


I turned back to the three at the register. Two I recognized, the chief of medicine and an oncologist, but the third I didn't know. He was a young man around Emily's age and the passing resemblance he bore the chief led me to believe he was a relative of some sort, probably a grandson.


The longer I looked at him, the louder the ringing in my ear became.


*Beep. Beep. Beep.*


When I got home that night, Emily was sitting on the back porch, staring off vacantly while our dogs wandered about the yard. She jumped when I opened the slider and took a seat next to her.


"You ok?" I asked.


"Yeah." She said.


The silence that fell between us was a heavy one. 


"About today..." I started to say.


"Victor." She said quietly.


I didn't say anything, afraid to interrupt and cause her to shut down again.


"He goes to the same university. We had a biology class together." Every word sounded like it was being torn forcibly out of her. "We found out were from the same area so we talked a few times about classes and how you and his Grandpa work for the same place and then we...traded pictures and stuff."


"And stuff" was clearly things that no father ever wants to think of his daughter doing. I just nodded.


"It was going too fast, though, so I...I told him I wanted to just be friends again. He didn't like that. He told me if I didn't do what he wanted, he'd share the pictures I sent him." Her voice cracked and she turned away from me. "That's illegal now in a lot of places, though, and I said I'd make sure he got in trouble. He got angry."


Victor had cornered her outside a club and tried to get her to go home with him. When she refused, he became violent. He'd dragged her into alleyway and attacked her. 


"He said if I ever told, he'd share all of our texts so people would know I wanted it and he'd make sure you were fired and that your career would be over." Emily was shaking with sobs. "His grandpa's the chief of medicine, he could've done it!"


I pulled her in close and held her while she cried. 


No matter how much I tried to tell her that we needed to call the police, she refused. 


"I can't, Dad." She said. "He has texts and pictures. No one would believe me."


The next day when I went in to work, I went straight to the chief of medicine's office. I didn't know what I was going to do or say, I just had to do *something*. I had barely knocked on the door when he called me in. 


Before I could speak, Dr. Gladson looked up and said, "Oh, good, Martha found you. I wanted to talk to you about my grandson, Vic. He's having surgery this afternoon, nothing too serious, but I'd like you to be his anesthetist. I'd ask Taylor, but he's already scheduled."


I almost said no. I almost shouted that his **** grandson was a monster. I almost told him I'd sooner see him dead. 


Instead, I took a deep breath and said, "Of course."


"Good. It's at 2:30 with Dr. Lim."


As I turned to leave, the ringing in my left ear seemed so loud that it was almost throbbing.


*Beep. Beep. Beep.*


At 2:30, as promised, I was seated at the head of the surgery table behind the ether screen. Victor, a good looking kid with a cocksure attitude about him, was lying in front of me.


"Hello, Victor." I said.


"Hi."


He wasn't at all nervous, which told me he didn't know who I was. It didn't surprise me, not many people bothered to learn the anesthetist's name.


"Is this your first surgery?"


"Nope."


"So you know how anesthesia works?"


"Count back from ten, yeah."


"Yes."


I made small talk while I set up, asking him about where he went to school and what he was majoring in. When it came time to put on his mask and count down, I asked him one more question.

*10*

"I think you might know my daughter."

*9*


"Yeah?" 


*8*


"Yeah. Emily."


*7*


"Oh yeah, I think so."


*6*


"She ever tell you what I do for a living?"


*5*


"Maybe?" He was getting drowsy.


*4*


"I put people to sleep for a living, Vic." I was whispering.


*3*


"Huh?" He was struggling to stay awake.


*2*


"Sometimes permanently."


*1*


The beeping in my ear was especially loud then and, slowly, I realized that it was echoing. I looked up at his heart monitor, sitting not too far over my head, and it beeped in time with the ringing in my ear.


*Beep. Beep. Beep.*


The surgery went well for about twenty minutes, until Victor experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure. The shock to his system sent him into a violent seizing fit and the surgeon was barking orders, demanding this and that to stabilize the boy. 


But there was nothing that could be done.


Anesthesia overdoses can be such terrible, tricky things.


As the staff struggled to revive him and I made a show of doing the same, the steady rhythm of the ringing in my ear changed for the first time.

*Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeep.*


Victor was pronounced dead at 3:02 PM.


At the same time the heart monitor was turned off, the ringing in my ear ceased and sound returned to it in a loud, almost painful burst. 


I was glad for the surgical mask, then, as they covered Victor with the white sheet.


No one could see that I was smiling.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Drive Safe
 
 Assistant: My ex always hated our dog, but he probably would’ve taken her too if she weren’t so ****.

If Loulou were one of those cute mini golden doodles or corgis, or even one of those goofy-looking dogs that are charming in their ugliness — think Danny DeVito or Steve Buscemi, only in dog version — then I have no doubt he would’ve claimed ownership of her too, along with everything else in our apartment.

But Loulou is just a plain old **** dog, and for that and so much else about her, I’m forever grateful.

I don’t want to talk about my ex too much here, because this isn’t about him, but I do need to explain why I was traveling across the country in the middle of the night with my few worldly possessions loaded up in the back of a bumpy uHaul van.

My ex and I had been together six years, never married. He said marriage was outdated. I said fine. Was I upset by that? Yes and no. Well, yes. But I kept quiet. I loved him.

Five months ago he tells me he wants to split up. He said it just like that. “I want to split up.” No shaking of the hands, no tears in his eyes. Not even a change in the tone of his voice.

I was in the kitchen when it happened, eating honey bunches of oats for breakfast. He was standing in the hall. “I want to split up,” he said, and then he grabbed his bag and left for work, leaving me to sob as my cereal got soggy in the bowl. Loulou heard me crying and nuzzled her snout in my lap. She whimpered along with me as the hours went by. I skipped work that day, sat on the couch and watched the sunlight pass over the walls of the apartment I’d always thought of as our home together.

The thing is, my ex made way more money than me. He was happy to cover the bulk of the rent, he’d said. Happy to buy the furniture. Happy to lease the new car for us. Happy to pay for this and that, loading up our apartment with nice things.

When the time came for me to move all the things that were actually *mine* out of the place, I realized I had even less than I did six years ago.

It all barely filled the uHaul van. I didn’t have a couch or chairs: those were his on paper. I didn’t have any dishes or silverware: we’d thrown out my old ones when he’d bought a fancy new set a couple years ago. I didn’t even have a mattress: he’d gotten us an expensive memory foam king size. I remember I’d always wanted to let Loulou hop up on that bed to snuggle while we watched movies in our room. My ex wouldn’t hear of it. “Stop treating the dog like it’s a person,” he’d said. “She’s lucky she gets to even live inside the apartment with us.”

I was the one who got Loulou from the pound, back when she was a puppy. She’s a street dog, or she was, until the people from animal control swept her up one day as she’d been rummaging through an overturned trash can. You can tell she’s got a good amount of pit bull in her, but beyond that she’s an all American mutt with a big boulder of a head, a weirdly thin body and stumpy legs. She waddles more than walks, and she snores like crazy, but she’s a total sweetheart. When she sees kids, she lies on her belly and waits until they get close before she gives them kisses. We didn’t even train her to do that.

One afternoon about a year or so ago, Loulou came up behind my ex and licked his ankles, and he turned and gave her a small kick right in the head. It wasn’t enough to hurt Loulou, but that was when I should’ve known.

Looking back, it’s amazing how much you can convince yourself someone is who they’re not.

—

So the uHaul was packed, I’d quit my hourly job, and I was now on the road toward my sister’s place in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where I’d been promised a place to stay for the time being.

It was a 10-plus-hour drive, just Loulou and me in the front of the van as we rumbled through the endless pastoral of farmland and cow towns. I’d purposefully decided to take the smaller highway to avoid traffic, since I was still uncomfortable driving the uHaul, and the scenery made me glad I did. Tall fast food signs rose up into the sky like totem polls against clouds so big and white they almost made you want to cry. But I’d promised myself I was done crying. Or at least until I’d gotten off the road.

I’d had to pack the uHaul by myself, so it had already been early afternoon by the time I set off. After about four hours on the road, the sky began to dim over the highway. Just as the sun sunk beneath the ridges of the mountains in the distance, I heard a loud *clang* somewhere below my feet.

All at once, the uHaul van started shaking.

It felt like the wheel was fighting against me. I kept having to grip it and yank it back straight.

I had trouble seeing out the back window because my stuff was piled up, but I managed to get over to an exit that was just ahead.

As I slowed the van down now that I was off the highway, I saw a sign sticking out from the roadway:

**Richard and Sons Auto Repair**

**1/4 mile ahead**

I know you’ve probably heard a story like this before. A story where a car breaks down in the middle of nowhere on a backroads highway, a young woman by herself. Maybe she meets a creepy guy in overalls who says something like, “Well… you must be lost, little missy…” as he eyes her like she’s a good meal he’s about to devour.

But it really wasn’t like that.

“Evening, ma’am,” said the perfectly normal looking guy inside the auto repair shop. “How can I help you? Oh, and who’s this cutie?” he added, taking notice of Loulou at my side.

The shop’s owner was a man named Richard Meadows and he was a pleasant, polite, and well-dressed older gentleman, his gray hair neatly combed and his buttoned shirt starched bright white. He ran the place with his two sons, both of whom were waiting in the garage.

“My sons Abel and Dean will run diagnostics, then you and I can head into the office to call the uHaul folks,” Richard said as we walked up to them. “Don’t want this to be on your tab, after all. Abel, want to take the keys?”

I handed the keys to the son named Abel, who was a little chubby and pale, his shaved head dotted with moles. He seemed shy and only nodded when he took the keys from me.

I only mention Abel’s appearance because the other son beside him, Dean, was almost shockingly handsome. He had a thick head of sandy blonde hair, a chiseled jawline, and broad shoulders under his denim work shirt. He was that level of teen-movie-hearthrob handsome that made my face suddenly hot.

Walking with me out to the uHaul in the lot, Dean took out a clipboard, licking the tip of his pen as he angled it downward. “So the truck just started rattling on you?” he asked.

I stuttered through what had happened, feeling like a nervous high school girl again, but he just smiled and nodded the whole time, his voice calm like a doctor at a bedside. “Hmm… well, I’m sure we’ll figure it out. And like my dad said, don’t worry. We’ll make sure the uHaul folks pay up, not you.”

I thanked him, trying to ignore the fact that I was blushing for no reason.

“Good thing you’ve got a body guard here with you,” Dean added, smiling down at Loulou. “What’s his name?”

“Her,” I said. “And her name is Loulou.”

“Well, hi there Loulou.” When he reached down to pet her, Loulou stepped back and showed her teeth, growling under her breath.

“Loulou!” I said. “Bad girl!”

Dean just laughed. “Nah, she’s cool — just protecting her mom, right Loulou? Honestly I wouldn’t trust some random auto repair dude either.”

“No, it’s not you. It’s just my boyfriend — or, I guess my ex boyfriend now — he just… yeah, I don’t know. I guess he made her a little skittish around guys like you.”

Dean raised his eyebrows a little, but then he pursed his lips and nodded as if he understood, and I appreciated that he didn’t ask anything further about it.

He told me to go wait on him, that he’d handle everything from here.

When I got back to the office, Dean’s father Richard had already sorted out the bill with the uHaul folks.

“Free and clear,” he said.

There was nothing else to do but wait for the van to be ready. A TV hanging in the corner was playing a muted episode of Judge Judy. Richard took a seat across from me in the waiting area and petted Loulou while telling me a little about himself and his family. His wife had died a year and a half ago, he said. “Passed suddenly in her sleep, which is a mercy, I suppose.” It’d been a tough string of months, but he and his sons were close. They were getting him through it.

Loulou seemed to sense his sadness, because she showed more attachment to him than most other male strangers.

“I hope you don’t mind me speaking out of turn,” Richard said as he stroked Loulou’s head, “but I’m relieved you have this dog here with you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well… not to scare you, but there’ve been some… incidents.”

He told me he didn’t want me to cause any undue worry, but there had been seven women found dead in the woods beyond the corn fields down the highway over the past year and a half.

“All the victims were like you: young women, traveling alone,” Richard said. “So it’s good you got this girl here,” and he put his face close to Loulou, who licked him on the cheek. “Ah, good girl. Such a sweetie.”

“I mean, I appreciate you giving me a heads up, at least,” I said.

“Sure, and like I said, didn’t mean to scare you. Probably nothing.”

“No, it’s nice of you. You guys have all been really nice,” I added. “Dean was… he was very helpful.”

“That’s just the wonderful service and dedication you would expect from the world-famous team at Richard and Sons Auto Repair.” Richard laughed. “But I do thank you, sincerely.”

I almost asked if Dean had a girlfriend, as if that weren’t a totally crazy and pathetic question to pose to a total stranger, but before I had the chance to embarrass myself, the other son, Abel, shuffled into the office and murmured something to his father.

Richard nodded, saying to me, “Well, looks like you’re all set.”

“No paperwork or anything?”

“Nope, all taken care of. Get you a receipt for insurance purposes, but otherwise you’re good to go. Here, let me walk you and Loulou out.”

On our way out of the office, I debated the merits of giving Dean my number, trying to balance the pros and cons. Was it better to risk wild embarrassment if I get rejected, versus the regret I might feel if I did nothing? I was so new to the single life again that I didn’t know how any of this worked anymore.

It turns out the decision was made for me, because Dean was gone when we got to the van.

“Dean head off already?” Richard asked.

Abel nodded. “Had a date,” he said in that whisper-quiet voice of his.

“Oh, another date? Why am I not surprised.”

Of course, I thought. And really, what did I expect? Just because Dean was working at some nowheresville auto repair shop didn’t change the fact that he was still wildly handsome and easy to talk to. If anything, girls probably swooned over the fact that he could take a car apart by hand, peeling off his shirt afterward, his muscles gleaming with sweat, etc, etc. I felt like an idiot.

“Well, sure was great to meet you,” Richard said, “and so nice to meet you too, miss Loulou.”

His son Abel reached into his pocket and dangled the keys out in front of me, while Richard got down and gave Loulou one last head scratch.

I took the keys from Abel and smiled. “Thank you,” I said.

He smiled back, but he didn’t break eye contact, and for a split second a shudder passed through my body, something I can’t explain.

“Drive safe,” he breathed.

—

The backroad highway that night was dark-dark, what my sister would call “country dark,” but what I would call “horror movie dark.”

It seemed the smaller highways like this were only busy during the day, because I only saw a car pass by every few minutes or so. Fields of corn along the roadside swayed under a cloud-choked moon. The night air was punctuated by far away train whistles, which sounded to me more like muffled screams.

I don’t know if I was just freaked out by the warning Richard had given me, or if there really was something to be said about this stretch of highway, but I kept getting a feeling as if eyes were staring out at me from the fields. I sensed I was driving into the mouth of a beast, already on my way to being digested by the darkness.

Up ahead, the corn fields ended and were overtaken by forest, a dense swath of evergreen trees, and the moment we drove past the fields, Loulou started barking.

I swear I almost crashed the car.

“*Oh my god* — Loulou! Loulou calm down!”

She was going crazy, turning her head side to side as she barked back at whatever we’d just passed on the side of the road.

“Loulou, relax, girl!”

But I couldn’t even say that without my own voice choking up. *Seven women found dead in the woods beyond the corn fields,* Richard had said. My hands felt slippery on the wheel. I’d never been comfortable driving a uHaul van before and it didn’t help that the darkness seemed to devour the headlamps, so that I could barely see a few feet in front of me down the highway.

I tried turning on the radio, got static, and turned the dial, but then thought the better of it and shut it off again. Better to be in silence, just in case —

In case what?

My mind was going in so many directions. And even saying there was silence would be wrong, because every few minutes Loulou started up again, pawing at the backseat and the windows, barking like crazy and growling. It was like she was fighting a ghost and wanted to break out of the car. I glanced out the windows but could only see darkness on either side of the road — that, along with the shadowed outlines of trees, stumps, power lines, all of which looked like monsters to me.

Eventually we entered South Carolina. We passed out of the rural area, and it was only when the bright flood lamps of passing car dealerships and 24-hour fast food places illuminated the inside of the cabin that Loulou fell silent.

But even then, for the last three hours of the car ride, she never fully relaxed. Especially when we passed through the occasional pockets of empty rural areas, she seemed stressed. Occasionally she’d perk up, as if she’d seen someone outside our window, floating along with us. Her body language would stiffen. By now I just let it happen. I told myself she was just tense from traveling.

She seemed desperate by the end of the trip. I could tell she was exhausted. She hadn’t slept all night. I was exhausted too. Loulou’s howls and barks had kept me alert, but it hadn’t exactly done well for keeping my eyes on the road. I felt the kind of twitchy panic that usually came from drinking too much coffee, my eyes darting from side to side, feeling like I was about to crash into something any minute.

My sister had texted me before she went to bed and told me the key was under the mat. It was around 3 a.m. when I pulled up to the curb outside her house and put the van in park.

When I did, Loulou shot up.

“Okay… yes, we’re here, girl. You can relax now.”

In the glow of the van’s cab, as I reached over to grab my night bag, I could hear Loulou breathing deeply. She was taking fast and muffled breaths, panting. It sounded like she was trying to catch her breath after running.

“Hey, chill out,” I said as I grabbed my bag and sat up again. “What’re you panting for, girl? We’re already — ”

I froze.

Loulou was totally still beside me. She was facing the back of the van. Her mouth was closed. Her tongue wasn’t hanging out, her chest wasn’t rising and falling. She was calm and focused, breathing slowly and silently.

It wasn’t her.

The breathing wasn’t her.

It was coming from somewhere in the back of the van.

Just then, Loulou showed her teeth and growled.

“Oh... okay, girl…” I said, trying to keep my voice normal. I was shaking. I could barely feel my body. I was floating outside of it. “Let’s… let’s head on inside now… come on…”

I fumbled with the door handle. I almost fell when I stepped out. I tried taking out my phone and dialing 911 but my hand was shaking so bad I couldn’t even unlock my home screen.

Loulou hopped out and circled me. She was on high alert. Her head was low and she moved like a predator, keeping close to my legs.

I walked backwards with her up the driveway, but she stayed between me and the van, pacing quickly from side to side. I managed to get my phone unlocked. I was about to hit the emergency call button when I heard something move inside the van, a metallic *click*.

The back door, I realized.

I’d locked it, but it could still open from the inside.

The street was dark, only one lamppost glowing off at the intersection down the road. Everyone in their homes were asleep. I was totally alone. In the darkness, I heard something scrape at the back door from inside the van. Then a soft *clunk* as the door opened. It opened slowly at first, as if a creature inside were checking to see if it were safe.

I hit the emergency call button just as the door swung all the way open.

*“911 what’s your emergency… 911 what’s you’re emergency…”*

But I couldn’t speak. I was frozen.

The door bounced back as it fully opened, and then out fell a **** body, tangled limbs hitting the pavement, a mess of blonde hair shimmering in the dark.

When the person rose up again, I almost passed out.

It was Dean.

“Hello? Hello?” I said into the phone. “I need… I need help. Someone… he was in my van. Please send police to — ”

Loulou barked and jumped forward

“*Jeeeeee-sus **** Christ*,” Dean said, shaking out his limbs, “can someone please tell this **** dog to shut up!”

Dean was covered in sweat, wearing only his boxer shorts. He looked sickly and diseased. “All **** night it’s just *bark bark bark*, *yap yap yap*!” He exhaled and stretched out his arms, and I saw he was holding a knife in his hand. With his free hand, he swiped back the sweaty hair off his forehead. “Cooped up in a hot **** truck for hours under all your useless **** — had to take off my clothes it was so **** hot — and I gotta hear that **** dog barking nonstop?”

“Please send help!” I said into the phone, repeating my sister’s address over and over. “Please he’s got a knife!”

“*Oh, he’s got a knife, does he? Oh boo hoo*,” and Dean walked forward, holding the knife out toward Loulou, tossing it casually from hand to hand. “Every time I try to make a move, this **** goes nuts on me. *Yap yap yap yap!*”

“Dean… please, just — I don’t know what you want, but please — ”

“You should be thanking me, you know that?” He waved the knife from side to side, as if reprimanding me. “I’m way out of your league, so the fact that I chose you tonight, it’s really an act of charity.”

“Okay,” I said. I would’ve said anything to get him to go away. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

“You want the truth? It wasn’t even me who wanted you. I thought you were a six, maybe a seven at best. But my brother? He thought you looked tasty enough. So I say, okay, fine. Sure, I'll get you and bring you back to him. I’m a good brother, aren’t I? That’s what good brothers do. They do favors. I wanted his first time to be special.”

“No, I know, I know… you’re a good brother — ” I still held the phone up to my ear, hoping the operator could hear me.

“This all could’ve been so easy. So **** easy. Would’ve been over by now. But no — because miss *yap yap yap* over here — ” He gripped the knife tight, squatting as he stepped forward, his eyes on Loulou. “So keep on crying into the phone, but make sure you tell them your dog is dead too, because the **** deserved it — ”

“No!”

Dean lunged forward, slashing the knife at her. Loulou yelped and flipped to the side as the blade swept across her back, her body scrambling over the pavement, but then it was Dean who screamed, falling back as his knife landed on the ground.

“****! Jesus Christ! My hand!”

Even in the darkness I could see the blood pour from Loulou’s back where the blade had sliced her open, but I could also see her spit out a mangled hand onto the pavement, as if it were nothing but a squeaky toy.

“I’m gonna **** this dog!” Dean screamed. Blood poured from the stump at his wrist. With his other hand, he reached down to grab the knife, then turned to face her.

But Loulou was already upon him, lunging up in the air, her own blood streaking off the gash in her back as she flew.

This time, she aimed for his face.

—

A severed hand, it turns out, is a more than adequate DNA sample.

It only took a few days before the police were able to match Dean’s DNA with the DNA found on the bodies of the seven women who were found in the woods down the highway from the auto repair shop.

Dean’s mugshot showed a guy with a mutilated, torn up face, bruised and bloody and held together with stitches. When the police had arrived that night outside my sister’s house, they had found him half dead on the sidewalk, blood leaking from his neck. As for Loulou and me, I had already carried her inside the house. The police found us on the tile floor of the kitchen, Loulou bleeding out in my lap, unmoving, while I whispered to her, “I love you, girl… I love you so much…”

It wasn’t long before Dean’s brother Abel was arrested as an accessory to the crimes.

During a news conference a few days later, the police chief said that for the past year and a half, the two brothers had been using road traps on the backroad highway to cause damage to passing vehicles, forcing them to stop. In most cases, they fixed the cars and that was that — nothing more than a scam to gain business for their father’s shop. But when the driver was a pretty young women, the two used the shop’s tow truck to lure the women away to a remote location past the corn fields. DNA samples from at least four of the women were found inside the truck.

“With the last would-be victim, the brothers appeared to have gotten reckless and instead lured her right to the repair shop,” said the police chief during the press conference. “Had the young women not been accompanied by her dog, a pit bull mix by the name of Loulou, there’s no telling what — ”

I closed my laptop. I didn’t want to hear the rest.

Later, I saw in an online article a photo of their father Richard shielding his face as reporters surrounded him. There was no evidence he’d been involved in any way. He’d seemed shocked when the police came to the auto shop. I felt bad for him. He seemed like a good man. I couldn’t even imagine what he was thinking.

The police chief had said the brothers had been committing the assaults and murders for the last year and a half, which means they would’ve started right after their mother died. The timing made me feel sick. Richard had said his wife’s death was from natural causes, that she’d died peacefully in her sleep. I like to believe that’s the case. I like to believe the brothers had waited for their mother to die, and that’s the only reason they started their murderous spree right after her funeral. Despite all they did, I really hope — if only for Richard’s sake — that they hadn’t gotten impatient and done something to their own mother.

It was surreal trying to get settled in a new place after all this. I felt like my old life had been years and years ago.

My ex did text me once, though, just after he heard the news. “Hope you’re okay,” the text said.

Normally I would’ve sat for hours, deliberating over how to respond.

But now I texted back right away.

“I am,” I said.

I watched three dots pop up in the bubble as he was typing something, then they disappeared again.

—

That night, the news ran a segment about Loulou. There was a whole ceremony in her honor.

Normally I wouldn’t have watched the rest of the coverage of the case. It was already traumatic enough. I was told I would have to testify, that it would be a long process, and I wanted to avoid it as much as I could.

But I made sure to watch the news segment on Loulou.

*“A moment of celebration today as Loulou the scrappy pit bull mix gets a hero’s welcome* *outside the Eastside Animal Hospital,”* said the news anchor.

So many people had showed up to the animal hospital earlier that afternoon to celebrate Loulou’s discharge. The footage held on Loulou’s face as she eyed the crowd of police officers, the news crews, the reporters and hospital staff. I was right beside her in the footage, looking just as awkward.

“See that, girl?” I said as I watched the coverage with her later that night. Loulou was curled on my lap on the couch as I stroked the long scar on her back, the jagged ridges where the animal doctors had sewn her up again. “That’s you and me on the news — see, girl?”

Loulou had been sleeping, and now she lifted up her head, drowsy from the commotion of the day. She didn’t seem too interested about her 15 minutes of fame. She just sighed and plopped her head right back down again on my stomach, and went back to sleep.

When the news was over, I nudged Loulou awake, and after she went outside to ****, the two of us shuffled down the hall. I led Loulou into the guest bedroom. As I pulled down the covers on the bed, Loulou went to lie down on the hardwood floor in the corner of the room, by herself.

“No, no — come here, girl.”

She glanced up at me, one paw on top of the other.

I patted the bed. “You sleep up here from now on. Come on up.”

She made a soft noise, her tail wagging. Then she hopped up awkwardly on the bed, still a little sore from her wounds.

As I shut off the lamp, Loulou nuzzled up against my legs, resting her head on my thigh.

“Comfy?” I asked.

She sighed a grumbly, growling purr in response.

“Get used to it, pretty girl,” I said. “You've more than earned it.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My boyfriend and I really screwed up -- As a prank we wrote a fake "list of rules" for our dormitory.
 
 Assistant: You know the type of story:  Somebody gets a new apartment or a new job, and finds a list of weird "rules" to follow.  "If someone knocks at 3:11 A.M., meow like a cat but don't answer."  "If the copier starts when nobody's in the copy room, go to the break room for ten minutes."  They break the rules, and awful things happen.

One afternoon in my room, Bryan and I were showing each other our favorites on Reddit.  He started making up rules for our dorm, Millard Hall.

"If you see someone picking their nose," he said, "chant, 'Snot, Snot, Thanks a lot!' or you'll get their booger in your nose tomorrow."

I laughed and tried one.  "If you penny the door of room 307"&mdash;my room&mdash;"only use pennies dated 2002."

"Or what?"

"Umm&hellip;  You'll fall asleep in your next test!"

The fun of "lists of rules" stories is the weird consequences of breaking the rules.  We started trying to think of scarier outcomes, and from there to scarier-sounding rules.  Pretty soon Bryan started writing them down.

He intended to post them in the lobby as a joke.  It was me who suggested slipping them under the doors of freshmen.  We were both Resident Assistants:  He was RA for second floor north, I was RA for third floor south.  So we had an excuse to roam the halls any time of night, and we had lists of which residents were freshmen.

Double-plus-uncool behavior for RAs, obviously.  But I only intended it as a joke.
****
Over the next couple of days, I kept having to stifle giggles in class, as new rules popped into my head.  After class Bryan and I compared notes, culling out the duds.

Sometimes we didn't agree.  He really wanted a classic "If someone knocks..." rule, and I flatly refused, bored with them.

We hammered out a final list:  rules only, consequences left to the imagination.  This is part of it, the ones that became important:

>**Diet Pepsi** At the Pepsi machine in the lobby, NEVER get a Diet Pepsi right after a Diet Mountain Dew.  If you're not sure what the last can bought was, buy a Mug root beer first -- That's always safe.
>
>**Howler** If somebody starts howling in the courtyard at about 2-3 a.m. on a Friday night (Saturday morning) don't turn on any lights.  You can look out the window, but don't even turn on your phone or a flashlight.  They're watching for lights -- They find your room by counting windows.
>
>**Oven Pizza** Don't use the oven to reheat *anything* from Patsy's Pizza, not even sandwiches.  Use the microwave -- Even if it makes the crust soggy.
>
>**Water Fountain** Don't drink from the lobby water fountain whilst there's sunlight on the thumb button -- This only happens near the winter solstice, early morning.
>
>**Dollar Bill** If you find a brand-new dollar bill tacked to your door, Series 2003A, serial number starting with J804, you can take it -- But spend it OFF-CAMPUS.  DON'T put it in the lobby bill-changer.  Dropping in a church collection plate might be lucky.
>
>**Movie Poster** Sometimes a poster appears on the lobby bulletin board, always on GREEN PAPER -- "Free movie in Chalfont Auditorium, Tuesday at 7:30."  Ignore them -- They go away by morning.  DON'T go to Chalfont Tuesday evening.
>
>**Pay Phone** The pay phone off the lobby hasn't been connected for years.  But it still rings occasionally -- Don't answer it.
>
>**Orange Rules** Sometimes rules like this appear, printed on HEAVY ORANGE PAPER.  If you get one of those, for the love of **** DON'T follow the "Room 307" or "Blue Bathroom" rules.

I formatted them as a little tri-fold pamphlet and printed off about forty on plain white paper.  One night we slipped about twenty under the doors of freshman-only rooms on various floors.  The next day I kind of held my breath.  But nobody said anything, and we spread about fifteen more that night.
****
The second morning I saw a kid in the lobby with one of our pamphlets.  He stopped Stella Palecki, RA for 3 North, and showed it to her.  She read it through; I saw a couple of quickly-suppressed grins.  She looked up and said deadpan, "Yah?  So?"

"So are these for real?"

"Can't say.  They just show up.  But the last time somebody broke one, we never saw him again."

The kid left so wide-eyed he looked like a seventh-grader.  Stella walked the other way, grinning to herself.  I hadn't counted on another RA playing along, but it tickled me.

I printed off another twenty or so, and a couple of nights later we spread them to rooms where a freshman and an upper-classman shared.  People were talking a lot about them, and texting photos of them to each other.

At the lobby Pepsi machine I heard one girl shout at another, "Hey!  Buy a *Mug* first!"  People walked faster past the disconnected pay phone, and checked the sunlight before drinking at the fountain.

A Post-It appeared on the Pepsi machine that said, STICK ME ON THE LAST BUTTON PRESSED.  Twice I saw somebody shift it to the Diet Mountain Dew button, just to be a ****.  Bryan said somebody'd given him free root beer, not once but twice, because they didn't want to take a chance.

Shawn Brown, RA for 2 South, caught me in the hall one day.  "Beth, have you seen these?"

I looked at the pamphlet he handed me.  Obviously much handled, with penciled notes here and there; "I've heard of 'em, haven't seen one yet.  Hey, that's my room number!"  I pointed at "Orange Rules".  "What an ****."

"Yeah.  Well, Mom Franks"&mdash;Millard's dorm mother&mdash;"said to keep an eye out for whoever's passing these out.  There's a couple of people pretty upset about them."

I felt a twinge of guilt (I remember how stressful freshman year was) and more than a twinge of nerves.  This really wasn't good behavior for an RA, maybe even enough to get me or Bryan kicked out.

A few people, skeptics and attention-seekers, were deliberately flaunting the rules.  Bob Wester hung a Patsy's Pizza box on the oven door, and when a freshman ran in the kitchen all frantic about the rules, Bob's roommate slammed a textbook on a table right behind him.  The freshman nearly peed himself.

Rosie Crowell, RA for 1 North, made a point of waiting until somebody bought a Diet Dew before she'd buy her Diet Pepsi.  Just plain annoyed at how many people took the rules seriously, she was trying to debunk them.

And the next two Friday nights, well after midnight, some joker in the courtyard howled, "Aahh-*wooooo!*" loud enough to wake people.  Having a courtyard window myself, I began to wish we'd skipped that particular rule.
****
As nervous as I'd gotten, though, I wasn't done.  I printed a poster for a 20th-anniversary showing of *The Matrix*, on green paper left from a high-school art project (I had about fifteen sheets of orange paper, too).  When I snuck it onto the lobby bulletin board, freshmen who'd been settling down freaked all over again.

I prepared a second version of the rules:  different font, altered formatting, and two new rules:

>**Blue Bathroom** - If your suite bathroom suddenly has blue walls one day, **** your finger and spread a drop of blood around the rim of the sink - The bathroom will change back overnight.  If you don't, either you or a suite mate will die within a month.
>
>**Room 307** - If you penny the door of room 307 with pennies dated 2002, you will come into money within a week - at least $125.

I finished off my orange paper printing these, but I didn't slip them under doors.  Instead I kind of dropped them here and there:  lying on the stairs, in the kitchen microwave, tucked between lobby couch cushions.  Soon people were arguing about them.

I got a big kick out of threatening doom to whoever put my room number in the rules.  I did more random hall prowls at odd hours, "looking" for the perpetrators.  It was perfect camouflage for my guilty secret.

Even better:  Someone really did penny my door!  If you've never lived in a dorm, know that the room doors open inward.  Take two pennies (or three, depending on the door's fit), slide them up to the gap between the door and the metal frame right above the ****, then hammer them into the gap.  Pressure on the door latch makes it nearly impossible to turn the **** or, if the door's locked, to draw the deadbolt.

In the middle of the night I heard two hard *whams* on my door; pretty common when people get rowdy.  But in the morning I couldn't open my door.  I called Bryan, who came across to check.  "Yeah, it's pennies.  And they're hammered right in there, not gonna be prying them out."

Well, for some students, especially women, that might have been a problem.  But I keep a small tool kit, so it only took me a couple of minutes to knock the hinge pins out.  Bryan shoved the entire door into my room a few inches.  I heard the dull *tink* of pennies falling, and murmuring from women who'd gathered.

"Yeah, they're 2002," Bryan said.  "2002-D."  I heard gasps of fear.

Bryan helped me wrestle the heavy door back onto its hinges.  "So we just watch for whoever gets a chunk of cash all of a sudden," I said, "and they can pay the school fine."  I glared at the gathered women.  "This's a safety violation, not just a prank.  What if there'd been a fire and I couldn't get my door open?"  Not really a big concern, the walls and floors are all concrete, but I wanted to keep up my annoyed facade.

"But that's an orange rule!" a red-haired freshman protested.  "You aren't supposed to follow them!"

"Something bad's gonna happen to them!" another girl said.

"Serves 'em right," I grumped, winking at Bryan.
****
I had one more escalation waiting.  The "Dollar Bill" description wasn't random:  I had about twenty like that, left from forty my dad had given me as a kid, to buy snacks while at church camp.  I'd loved the crisp new bills so well I'd avoided spending them.

Now I dedicated four to the cause, tacking them to the doors of people who'd been skeptical, like Rosie Crowell and a freshman named Celia.  By the next afternoon, everybody in the dorm had seen one.  Celia, a plump pretty Hispanic girl, was amused, but Rosie was distinctly rattled.  "You can't just run to the ATM and get brand-new sixteen-year-old bills," she pointed out.  She said she'd take hers to church.

But Rosie continued to call the rules a prank.  So when her Diet Pepsi tried to **** her, it scared the **** out of me.

She'd made a point, again, of waiting until somebody bought a Diet Dew before getting her DP, and she'd nearly made herself late for class.  So she popped the can, chugged it down, and tossed it in the recycle bin before heading out the door.

From my seat in the lobby I heard screaming.  Running to the door, I saw Rosie bent over.  She'd dropped her pack and sat down cradling her hands, which looked swollen and red.  By the time I got down the steps, her fingernails were spurting blood.

She was scraping her Nikes on the sidewalk.  I bent and unfastened them.  I could barely pull the shoes off, her feet were so swollen; her half socks were already sodden red.

People were dialing 911.  Rosie passed out before the ambulance arrived.  Later we heard she got transfusions and drugs to lower her blood pressure.

Stella Palecki called Bryan, because I was hysterical.  Bryan found me sitting on the blood-spattered sidewalk, one Nike still beside me.  I kept crying, "They're not real!  They're all fake!"

Fortunately, I didn't say, "We made them up," or some such; I came across as disbelieving, not guilty.  Bryan hustled me up to my room, and I told him what had happened.

He took it a lot better than I did, even though at this point we still didn't know but what Rosie bled out in the ambulance.  "What'd I do?" I kept asking him.  "What'd I do?"

"You didn't do nothing," he said.  "Hush up.  It's not your fault."  I let myself be soothed, that time.  *It's not your fault.*
****
But it was hard to convince myself of that when Celia Flores lost three fingers feeding one of my dollar bills to the snack machine.  She wanted a cinnamon roll, so she fed in two dollars.  Four people nearby said when the second bill **** in, the machine attacked her.

They all told it differently, but it came to this:  The panel with the coin slot and push buttons opened up and grabbed her right arm.  She tried to pull loose, and it closed on her fingers, chopping off all but her index finger and thumb.  Three of them said the machine *growled.*  Two said they heard weird music from it.  Two said the room lights dimmed and turned blue.

That afternoon I wrapped the rest of my 2003 dollar bills in the rest of my green paper, stuck them in an envelope, and mailed them home.  I deleted all the rules files off my laptop, then ran an app to scrub deleted files.

I didn't get Bryan's reaction.  He was shocked at Celia's injury, but at the same time he seemed excited.  We'd dated for over a year, but I began to wonder about him.

Friday night I was in Bryan's room working on Psychology when a freshman, all upset, knocked at the open door.  *Oh, **** I thought; *what now?*

But he was asking if Bryan could help his roommate with a scholarship problem.  "There's a whole office for that in Admin," Bryan said.

"But they're gonna kick him out&mdash;he's gotta find three thousand dollars this week!"

"Huh? Slow down, what's wrong?"

The roommate, Mark, had lost a state scholarship, from misreporting something on his application.  But the money was already paid to the school for this semester.  Now the state wanted their money back, and the dumb kid was about to get kicked out.

Bryan asked an obvious question.  "Why are *you* coming to me?"

"Mark's too freaked out.  He broke a rule!"

I froze, but Bryan burst out laughing.  "*Mark* pennied room 307!  Didn't he?"

The kid looked guiltily at me, obviously knowing who I was.  "Yeah," he admitted.  "And a week later he gets a letter from the state."  He was almost sniffling.  "I *told* him it was an orange rule!"

Bryan wasn't just excited, now; he was absolutely hilarious.  He chased off the freshman and took one of our original pamphlets off his desk (nothing incriminating; as RAs we'd both collected them).  He went down the list, checking some rules, crossing out others, putting a question marks on a couple.  "Nah, that's ****," he muttered; "that one; maybe that one?"

I **** the list away.  "What's wrong with you?  People are getting *hurt!*  Rosie lost her fingernails; Celia lost *fingers!*  Don't you care?"

"Yeah, I care, but it's not your fault, so don't get flaky."

I couldn't stand him in that mood.  I went back to my room to sleep alone.
****
I woke to the most blood-chilling sound I've ever heard.  It was a howl, but way more than that.  It went up and down like a yowling cat; it growled and screamed and hooted and wailed.  It echoed in the courtyard like the ambulance that had carried off Celia, but I could tell it was a single voice.

It wasn't human, but at the same time no one animal should have made all those noises.  I knew I should go to the window, try to see who it was&mdash;the courtyard's brightly lit&mdash;but that horrible howl froze me to my bed.  I pulled a blanket over my head and shivered.

Then bounced right in the air when somebody pounded on my door.  "Beth! Beth!  Wake up!"  I kicked off the covers and grabbed my phone:  3:07 Saturday.  *Oh, ****  The girl at the door was a freshman named Carla, half frantic, in T-shirt and ****.  "Rayma turned on the light!  I told her not to, but she opened the window and called whatever it was an ****!"

I tried to reassure her, but I was too **** scared to be convincing.  "Can I stay in your room?  I can't stay there!"  So I let her sleep on my spare bed, wrapped in my giant bath towel.

After the sun came up we went to her room.  Rayma, a junior, was gone.  I said, "She probably went to breakfast early," but Carla said Rayma always slept late on weekends.  She didn't show up that day, or the next; she hasn't been seen since.  I should have made Carla bring Rayma to my room, too.
****
Bryan and I weren't speaking any more.  If I'd thought there was anything anybody could do, I'd have confessed to Mom Franks.  But there was no explanation for what was happening.  We'd made up *completely bogus rules*, and now people were disappearing and being hurt.  But Bryan still acted like it was all a joke.

I'd thoughtlessly carried off the list of rules he'd marked up, the one I'd snatched from him.  He'd checked or put a question mark on several; they're the ones I listed at the beginning.  By now, I'd seen or heard of most of them affecting somebody.

Then the rules came after me.  The Tuesday morning after Rayma disappeared, I shuffled into the bathroom for my shower.

Millard Hall used to be men-only, with big communal bathrooms, then was remodeled into suites, each with two double bedrooms and a shared bath.  But the RA rooms, next to the stairs, have just one bedroom and a tiny bathroom.

I turned on the shower, grabbed my hairbrush, and started yanking my hair around, waiting for the water to warm up.  Looking in the mirror, I realized the wall beside me was blue.

The walls in Millard are all a dirty white, the kind that never looks clean.  The shower and the cabinets still were.  But the concrete-block walls were a pale, powdery blue.

I shot out of the bathroom like a spitwad from a straw.  The pocket of my robe caught on the doorknob and ripped open.  I stood shaking in the middle of my room, trying to remember if I'd seen the walls last night, if anybody could have been in my room.

Well, Mom Franks could have been; she had a master key.  But the RAs don't get them; if there's a bad problem we have to get her.

I sniffed the air.  Paint smell lasts for *days,* and my room smelled just like always.

Oh, ****, were blue walls an orange rule or not?  I couldn't remember.  I pulled out the pamphlets I'd collected.  "Blue Bathroom": an *orange* rule.  The white rules said to ignore the orange rules, but "Blue Bathroom" said if I didn't do the right thing, "either you or a suite mate will die within a month."  As an RA, I didn't *have* any suite mates.

If it hadn't been for Mark and his lost scholarship, I might have broken down and bloodied my sink.  *Bless you, Mark, you poor ****.*

I shuddered at a sudden recollection:  Just *after* I printed the orange rules, I imagined it would be hilarious if an orange rule said, "Don't obey the white-paper rules **Oven Pizza** or **Water Fountain**."  If I'd actually included that, I wouldn't know *which* rules to trust, Mark or no Mark.
****
Wednesday morning my bathroom was dirty white again, and I cried with relief.  But Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were rough in Millard Hall.  Everybody, freshman to seniors, had shared copies of the rules on their phones, and everybody checked them frequently.

When the disconnected pay phone rang Wednesday evening, a girl in the hall screamed and a guy in the lobby fainted.  Thursday somebody visiting from Gartner Hall made the mistake of answering the pay phone; whatever he heard made him beat his ear to a bloody pulp with the handset, until he knocked himself out.

Some **** got caught shuffling the Post-It on the Pepsi machine, and a girl knocked him right out with a Calculus textbook.  A dozen people saw her do it, but nobody "recognized" who it was.

Somebody clogged the spout of the water fountain with superglue.  Bob Wester's roommate rewarmed a Patsy's cheese pizza in the kitchen oven, took one bite, then started throwing up blood and *huge* earthworms.

And Friday afternoon somebody else got a bad Diet Pepsi, and was taken away, blood gushing from his hands and feet.
****
Just after midnight on Friday I was startled awake by knocking.  "Shit!"  I did *not* want to hear what was wrong now.  I **** open the door, and there stood Bryan, my ex-boyfriend.

"What are you doing here?"  Though the dorms are coed, we aren't supposed to have opposite-**** visitors in our rooms overnight.  I mostly turn a blind eye to discreet overnights, but for RAs the rule is especially important, since we get called out at any hour.

He pushed his way in like I'd invited him.  "Somebody's gonna talk to you soon," he said.  "You've got to say the right thing."

"Oh, ****, did Admin find out about us?"  I pulled on jeans and a flannel shirt, not wanting to talk to him in **** and tee.

"Nobody in the school has a **** clue.  I'm talking about the Circle.  They're witches, a gang of witches."

I laughed out loud.  "Witches!"

"You're not from around here.  You wouldn't laugh if you were."

It's true; a lot of the local kids believe in all sorts of weird ****.  They say in the '70s a kid was killed right outside Millard Hall, taken right off the street by a monster from the bird sanctuary.

"So, what, some Wiccans did all this **** with our rules?"

"Wicca is **** for kids.  These are real witches, hill magic that really works.  And I'm trying to join them."

"You?  You're gonna be a warlock?"

"Warlock's an *insult.*  I'll be&mdash;I *am* a witch.  And this is, like, kind of an audition for the Circle.  I mean, at first it was a joke, but then I decided I could use them."

I just looked confused.  "I did it," Bryan said.  "I made a spell, that made our rules work, to show the Circle I could."  He pointed a finger at me.  "Somebody from the Circle's gonna find you in the next few days.  You can tell them&mdash;"

Live in dorms long enough, you learn to scream in a whisper.  "*You ****!  Do you know how many people you've hurt?*"

"That's part of it.  Witches can't be bound by human rules."

I raved at him, keeping my voice low to not wake my neighbors.  He just laughed off my fury and insisted I tell the Circle how he and I made up the rules between us.

I raved some more; even without raising my voice I was getting hoarse.  Then my fear of waking people came to squat, because some **** **** came upstairs yelling and slamming doors.

Bryan wouldn't leave after that, afraid he'd get caught, but I made him use the spare bed.  "You're not ever touching me again," I said.  I didn't even undress to sleep.

I spent a long time lying awake, angry and scared and wondering if Bryan was just nuts.  Witchcraft couldn't be real, but how else could joke rules make people lose fingers and barf worms and disappear in the night?

I finally dozed; that godawful hooting wailing howl in the courtyard woke me up.  "No lights!" I heard Bryan hiss.

"I *know!*" I hissed back.  "It's *my floor* that lost somebody, dipshit!"

I went to the window and looked out, trusting the rules that it was safe.  I couldn't see anybody, but I couldn't see the whole courtyard, and who knew but what the Howler was invisible?

I didn't let Bryan see the phone in my hand.  Quickly, before I changed my mind, I pressed it flat against the glass and hit the power button, and held it there until the screen went back off.

Grabbing my keys and my Crocs, I told Bryan, "I'm going downstairs.  Don't **** with my stuff."  I left the door unlocked on my way out; I don't really know if that mattered to the Howler or not.
****
That was three days ago.  Nobody's seen Bryan since.  I thought if the Howler got Bryan, the spell or curse or whatever he put on the dorm would go away.  But today the old pay phone rang again, and I barely stopped a kid from answering.

So now I'm hoping somebody from the Circle, whoever they are, really will come talk to me.  Maybe they can remove the curse.

Does anybody on here know how to undo a curse like this?  I haven't been able to get into Bryan's room, to see if he left any instructions or formulas or anything; maybe I can convince Mom Franks I left some personal stuff in there.

Maybe from now on we'll have to give everyone in Millard a *real* list of rules.

Update: [I've met somebody from the Circle.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e0oqv2/)

[DTS](https://www.reddit.com/user/DrunkenTree/comments/dvgbbi/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I listened to a true crime podcast… about myself
 
 Assistant: Every night on my walk home from work, I listen to true crime podcasts. Even though my favorite podcast already released their episode for this week, the app said there was a new one. Excited, I hit PLAY.

***"It was a small town--the kind that still has Mom and Pop shops lining the street, the kind where everyone knows your name. But little did the residents know that they would soon be rocked by a horrible crime."***

I stopped at a traffic light. The red glowed in the darkness, glinting off the wet street. A black SUV sloshed by. Across from me, eerie blue refrigerator lights glowed from inside a corner deli. The chairs all up on their tables, feet in the air.

The signal turned to WALK.

***"That chilly September evening was no different for the young student. She'd left her shift at the local store and walked back home… except she never made it home."***

*Young student. Local store.* ****, this was hitting close to home. I was a part-time student at Franklin Community College, and worked at the local convenience store.

And, of course, I was walking home.

I glanced behind me--looking at the alleyway behind *Alessandro's Pizza,* which was dark except for the neon light spilling from the sign.

***"Her boyfriend reported her missing the next day. The town conducted a volunteer-led search, and after two days, they found something."***

Dread formed in my stomach, anticipating "a body." But what he said next was so, so much worse.

***"Washed up on the shore of Worthington Lake, they found a pair of size 9 red Converse sneakers."***

I stopped.

And looked down at *my* red Converse sneakers, damp from the rain.

*What the ****?*

My heart began to pound.

***"The shoes were sent to a forensic analyst, who would compare its wear pattern to another pair of her shoes to try and determine if they belonged to the victim."***

A rumbling sound made me jump. I turned--to see a dark SUV turning left at the intersection. *Didn't I see that car a few minutes ago? Maybe it’s following me, and—*

The car passed me and disappeared into the darkness.

*Come on, Sarah. Get a grip.* Converse are popular sneakers. A little out of fashion, but still. 9 is a common women's shoe size. And what college student *doesn't* have some sort of a job? What, you think you're listening to some sort of prophecy of your own death?

Yeah, right.

***"After a few weeks, the results came back. The analyst was certain: the shoes belonged to none other than Sarah Campbell."***

The blood drained from my face.

*Sarah Campbell.*

*My* name.

*What the ****? How--*

I didn't have time to think. I forced myself to move. I broke into a run. The small shops turned into a colorful blur.

***"Searching the lake came up empty. Without a body, a crime is hard to solve. But police didn't give up. And finally, a witness came forward: someone had seen a car parked at the lake that night, around 2 AM. A black SUV with darkened windows."***

No, no, no.

*What the **** is going on?*

I whipped around. The street was empty. No people, no cars. *No witnesses,* said the little voice in the back of my mind, the one that’s watched way too many true crime shows. My eyes scanned the shops. All closed.

***“There were six black SUVs matching the witness’s description in the Franklin area. But one of them, in particular, caught Detective Nolan’s eye. It belonged to Jon Kelly… a registered **** offender.”***

*Vrrrm.*

The sound was so soft I almost didn’t hear it over the voice of the podcast. I whipped around—and there it was. Two blaring-white headlights behind me.

Coming from a black SUV.

I forced my legs to pump faster. The car didn't speed up; it crawled along, slowly, taking its time. Like the driver knew he could catch me, no matter what. I glanced back, trying to make him out behind the darkened windshield—but the headlights were too bright to see anything.

***"Kelly wasn’t*** **just** ***a registered **** offender. He’d been convicted of assaulting a woman he worked with… who had multiple piercings and short dark hair, just like Sarah.”***

The car crawled down the road. Stalking me, like a lioness stalks her prey. I veered left, onto our dark residential street.

*Just a few more steps.*

Headlights flashed across me, illuminating my running shadow on the pavement. I didn't look back. I just ran, as fast as I possibly could. The little brown house with the yellow shutters came into view. I sprinted across the grass, grabbing my keys from my pocket.

*Click.*

I threw the door open--and slammed it shut behind me.

Then I turned the deadbolt, collapsed against the door, and began crying.

I heard the *rush* of the car passing our house, continuing down the road. But I wasn't safe—Gabe wasn't home yet. I was alone, in a dark house, with someone driving down the street who knew exactly where I lived.

Still sobbing, I checked all the locks. Then I called Gabe, who assured me he was five minutes away.

I made my way down the dark hallway and headed into the bathroom. Then I set my phone on the counter, grabbed a clump of tissues, and began to blow my nose.

*Click.*

I jumped. Whipped around.

But it wasn't coming from outside the door. My phone's screen lit up--the podcast was still playing. I must have hit it when I put the phone down. It had skipped several minutes forward, according to the play indicator.

***"What do*** **you** ***think happened to Sarah?"*** the baritone voice asked.

I reached for it, to turn it off—

***“Well, she'd told me she wanted to run away before."***

I stopped dead.

It was Gabe's voice. Clear as day, coming from the speakers.

***"She did? Why?"*** the voice asked.

***"She wasn't happy with her grades, her job, her parents. She told me sometimes she'd dream of just… moving to some random state and leaving it all behind."***

I froze, staring at the mirror.

*I never said that. Never.*

*Gabe… was lying?*

***"I mean, that was hurtful to me as her boyfriend, you know? I thought we were going to get married someday. But apparently she didn't feel the same way."***

My heart pounded in my ears.

***“So you think she just skipped town, and is happily living her life out somewhere else? Rather than being abducted or murdered?”***

A pause.

***“Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”***

***"That’s all for now! Thank you to our listeners…"*** The outro played. I stared at my reflection, everything coming down all at once, my mind trying to race and catch up with what it meant—

The front door creaked open. Footsteps sounded outside.

"Sarah! I'm back!"

I backed away from the door.

"Sarah?"

My eyes fell on the window. I ran over to it, turned the lock. *Push--*I popped the screen out.

Then I swung a leg over, pulled myself through the window, and ran as fast as I could.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip, and I See Things Before They Happen
 
 Assistant: My name is Lily Madwhip, and I see things before they happen.

“Don’t stare at me, assface.”

That’s my brother, Roger. He doesn’t see things before they happen. I know this because if he did, he would see what’s about to happen to him. Then again, maybe he does, but people like us can’t see things that are about to happen to ourselves. I don’t know, truthfully. All I know is that in about three minutes, Roger is going to die.

“You’re going to die,” I tell him.

“Did you just threaten me?” he snarls. Roger is six years older than me. He goes to highschool and has two best friends named Skeeter and Dustin. They like to wear shirts without sleeves that have the names of heavy metal bands on them. Sometimes they hang out in the garage and try to play music like those bands until my dad goes out and yells at them to stop. At his funeral, they’re going to wear jackets and ties and their hair is going to be combed for once. I’ll never see them after that, which is nice. I love Roger because he’s my brother, but when he’s gone things will be just a little bit nicer. Sorry, Roger.

“No,” I tell him truthfully, “I’m just trying to warn you. I love you, Roger.”

“Shut up, ****!” He punches me in the shoulder and I cry like I’m supposed to but it doesn’t really hurt. Mom’s head swivels around on her neck from the front of the car and gives us both that look that says she regrets having us. I know she doesn’t, but all parents think that from time to time. *I wonder where I’d be right now if I’d never had kids?*

No, I’m not a mind reader too, I just know these things.

“Will you two knock it off back there?” Mom asks. It’s not really a question though, it’s an order. Adults can give orders in the form of questions. If you’re a kid, and you try to do this, it doesn’t work. I once tried to order Roger to give me back my doll Paschar by asking him, and he laughed at me and twisted Paschar’s head off. Mom had to put it back on, but she’s never been one for toy repair, so it’s kind of crooked now. I told her I didn’t mind, that it gives him “personality”.

Mom and Dad think it’s weird that I named my doll Paschar. I don’t know why. Paschar was an angel, after all. People don’t think it’s weird if you name your doll Gabriel or Michael or Lailah, but give it the name Uriel or Gavreel or Paschar and everybody gives you funny looks.

I hug Paschar in my arms and look out the front of the car. There’s a sign that says, “REST AREA 1 MILE” and beneath it a smaller sign that says, “NEXT REST AREA 46 MILES”. At the speed my dad drives, that should take us about half an hour I think.

“Rest area coming up!” Dad says, “Does anybody need to go?”

We stopped hours back at a McDonalds and I had a cheeseburger with some fries and a small Sprite. I couldn’t finish the burger or the fries, but the Sprite made my tummy happy because sometimes I get a little carsick, so I drank the entire thing. Now I need to go, but this is where Roger dies, so I lie. “I don’t.” Thinking about having to go makes it worse. I cross my legs.

Roger notices. “Lily has to go! She’s squirming around back here! I don’t want her **** on me!” He makes a grossed out face, and I can appreciate the genuine disgust of being peed on by someone else, but Roger I’m trying to save your life here.

Mom looks back again and I shake my head at her. “Lily, if you have to go--”

“I don’t.”

“She does! And I do too!” Roger declares.

I don't think Roger actually has to go. 

Dad turns onto the ramp for the rest stop, ending the conversation. There’s two lanes: one for the big trucks and one for little cars. Our station wagon takes the second lane and wraps back around to go up a hill to the parking lot for the rest area. There’s some sort of big rock on a pedestal with a commemorative plaque at the base with lots of names of people who are dead. Other families are going in and coming out of the glass-wrapped building.

I wonder how far we are from the nearest hospital.

“Everybody out!” Dad declares.

“Lily, hurry,” Mom says as she unbuckles her seat belt and opens her door.

I look over at Roger one last time and try to smile. He looks back at me. For a moment, there’s the faintest glimmer of recognition in his eyes. I think maybe he’s going to shut the door and stay in the car. Then he sneers at me and the moment is lost. “Stop staring at me, assface!”

“Language, Roger.” Dad says in his tone that means he doesn’t actually care, but he has to act like he does so Mom won’t get mad.

We all get out. Mom holds my hand as we cross the parking lot, even though I’m not a baby. I keep looking back at Roger and Dad and waiting for it to happen. Roger’s going to die, I know it-- I just don’t know how. Maybe that big rock is going to come loose from its base and fall right on top of Roger like a boot on an ant. I’ve stepped on ants before. I always say sorry afterward, but it’s kinda pointless by then. I wonder if his insides will squish out like they do on ants.

The rock does not squish Roger.

My mom takes me into the women’s restroom where we do our business. The toilets are those ones that flush automatically. They always scare me, like I think the one I'm on won’t detect that I’m on it anymore and flush and I’ll get **** in. I go, but the whole time I’m waiting to hear the shouts and cries from outside. Maybe Roger gets **** into the automatic toilet. My mom has a word for something like that-- apropos.

Roger does not get **** into the automatic toilets.

We meet out in the lobby area where they have an information kiosk and little cubby holes filled with sightseeing maps and brochures for hotels and water parks. I want to look at one about an outdoor animal safari zoo, but Dad is in a hurry to get back on the road, so Mom drags me back out to the parking lot.

We pile into the station wagon with empty bladders. I’m feeling a bit confused because Roger is still alive and it’s been at least ten minutes since I knew he was going to die. I don’t say anything on the matter because Mom and Dad don’t like it when I talk about my “premonitions” as they call them. Also, I’d rather not jinx it if I’m actually wrong for once. Roger’s kind of mean, but he’s my brother and I love him. I hug Paschar and stare out the window as we pull out of our parking space.

Suddenly, Paschar is snatched from my arms. I turn, startled, to see Roger holding the doll out his window, waving it in his hand. He grins at me. “Hey, assface, wanna see if your dolly can fly?”

I realize this is the moment, I can’t help but say something. “This is when you die.” I tell him solemnly.

Roger’s smirk is replaced by one of anger. He lets go of Paschar, who disappears beneath the wheels of our car. In my distress, I cry out, lurching against my seat belt as if I can whisk out the window and **** Paschar up before he’s lost forever. Mom turns and starts asking loudly what just happened. Dad turns to yell at us to stop it. Lily, stop screaming. Roger, what did you do.

Roger, what did you do.

My father is looking in the rear view mirror at what he considers his two biggest mistakes. My mother is passing her glare back and forth between me and Roger. Roger is looking at Mom and Dad and trying to put on an innocent expression as he lies and tells them that I started it. Only one of us is looking at the lane for the big trucks that we’re currently merging with at Dad’s typical high rate of speed, and that’s me. What do I see out Roger's window but a giant truck with lots of big tires and a large trailer on back barreling down at us with a driver in the cab who looks as shocked and confused as I am. I’m not screaming for Paschar anymore, I’m screaming for Dad to brake or steer or anything but he can't tell the difference between one type of screaming and the next and anyway it’s too late.

Do you know what a T-bone is? I always thought it was a type of steak. My Uncle George ordered a T-bone once at a restaurant and he got this mammoth piece of meat with the bone still in it. That’s why they call it a T-bone, because the bone is there and it looks like the letter T.

Apparently T-bone is also a type of collision where one vehicle strikes another in the side. Because the two vehicles make a T shape, just like the bone in the steak my uncle ordered. That’s what the big truck does to us, it T-bones us right before the on-ramp to the interstate.

The nearest hospital is twenty three minutes away. I would never have guessed that number. They take Roger and my dad there in an ambulance. Dad has a dislocated shoulder and a lot of cuts and bruising. Roger is airlifted to Boston Memorial. He gets to fly in a helicopter, although he isn’t conscious for it, so he kinda misses out. He dies from internal injuries before he gets there. Mom and I are treated for lots of little cuts from glass and stuff. The driver of the truck is fine but shook up by the whole thing. I hope he doesn’t blame himself for Roger’s death. That was nobody’s fault but Roger.

One of the emergency medical people who treats us on the scene finds Paschar and gives him back to me. He always finds his way back to me. The EMT asks me what my doll's name is and gives me a funny look when I tell him. I don’t tell him that he’s about to get a call for an old lady who suffered a **** in some place called Middlebury. That kind of trivial information is lost on most people. Kind of like I know my mom and dad are going to cry and hug each other and worry about Roger until they find out he’s dead. After that, Dad will get more distant because he secretly blames me (it’s not a secret, Dad, I know) and Mom will hug me a little tighter each night at bedtime. I see it, but they don't need to know I do.

I hope Roger is in a better place, but Paschar tells me he’s not. [Paschar is always right](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/akrjsd/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_dont_need_a/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The part of the deep web that we aren't supposed to see.
 
 Assistant: I'll assume you all know about the deep web. Well, what you've heard is true, it's not a great place. While some people are there to score **** or firearms, or even out of sheer curiosity, others... well they're obviously not up to anything good. But I'm not here to talk about those sickos. I'm here to talk about what lies beyond that point. The more cryptic and unexplainable part of the internet. The part that nobody’s really supposed to see. 

There was an info-graphic that cropped up a while ago. Not sure when. "The 8 levels of the internet". Maybe you've seen it. As interesting as it was, it's complete bunk. I'm sorry, but "Polymeric Falcigohl Derivation" means nothing. And the "Primarch system"? I guess somebody's a fan of Warhammer. No, there's no quantum mechanics involved here. However, that doesn't mean it was an easy place to find. 

Now, I'm not going to begin to tell you how to get here. It's unlikely that'd you be able to, even if I did. I'm not tooting my own horn here, I just didn't have a life outside of this. I was warned, of course. Everybody told me I wasn’t going to like what I saw. That I wouldn’t even understand it. Now I’m passing off that warning to you. Don’t try to look for this. 

There's no official name for this place, or at least I haven't seen one. There were rumors, however. These ranged from an illuminati chat room to a virtual holding cell for an experimental AI gone rogue. In reality, it’s a lot worse. After a long and painful process of breaking down firewalls, encryptions, solving bizarre philosophical riddles, and following hidden links, I was finally directed to a blank page with one line of text and a text-box underneath. "Quid quaeris?” Latin for "What do you seek?” I remember feeling surprised. But in retrospect, I didn’t know what I was expecting. I'll admit, I was a bit stumped here. Partly because I didn't know the answer to that question. I had no objective, I just wanted to see if I could do it. I tried some generic answers at first. I typed in "the truth" and "enlightenment". You know, matrix ****. Nothing happened. I tried a bunch of answers, but none of them worked. I was getting frustrated at this point. Maybe this was a gag page. Maybe I really hadn’t figured anything out. If only. 

I tried something off the wall. Not sure how this came to me or why I thought it would work, but I typed in “what also seeks me”. Now that I think about it, this thing might have been an AI. To my surprise, the page went blank. Like fully blank. I waited. After about five minutes, I was directed to what looked like a forum. No, not even that. It was more basic. Just a list of links over a brownish-yellow background. The links themselves were indecipherable. Just seemingly random sequences of characters, symbols and letters. A lot of them I had never seen before. It almost looked like an alien language. Obviously, just a code I didn’t understand. At this point, expectations were off the wall. Each link was a shot in the dark. I clicked on the first one. It loaded up a live-feed of what seemed to be the Paris catacombs. I watched for a while, but it was ultimately uneventful. 

I moved on to the next link. It was a shaky video in a dark setting. But I could make out men in tactical gear. They were in a house, opening doors and sweeping each room. Eventually, they kicked one down to reveal a creature. Tall and humanoid, with scaly skin. It was gnawing on a dismembered arm. They tried shooting at it, but it escaped out the window. The video stopped there. Well, I was floored. What the **** was this? It looked too real to be unreleased film footage. I was officially intrigued. Maybe this was worth the months of headaches and bloodshot eyes after all. I couldn’t stop now. I started working down the list of links. With each click, everything got more and more bizarre. More disturbing. I stumbled upon a document called “The Paragon project”, detailing trials of human experimentation that would lead to superhuman levels of strength and durability. It was an apparent success. Looked official too. 

There were essays on space-time anomalies, glitches in reality, and apparent pictures of alternate dimensions. There were detailed explanations regarding Area 51, the Bermuda triangle, assassinations, disappearances, and the true nature of the Holy Grail. One of the more upsetting ones was a document referring to a “world-ending bomb”. A nuke that’s 720,000 times stronger than the one dropped on Hiroshima.  I don’t want to know why we would need that.  I found contingency plans for different kinds of Apocalypses - nuclear winter, biological weapons, viral outbreak. Some more peculiar ones were called “The Marianas Trench abnormality”, the bluntly labeled “Strange man on the fifteenth floor”, and one simply referred to as “Blackout”. Recovered logs of skin-walker hunting expeditions, 911 transcripts from residents of a town in Texas that went missing in 1977 and even the journals that belonged to the people involved in the Dyatlov pass incident. They didn’t go insane because of the snow. 

I spent hours on there, looking through pages and pages of things I felt like I wasn’t supposed to see. I came across a trailer to a silent film made back in 1910. One that apparently made people claw their eyes out after watching that nearly derailed the whole industry. There was a live stream of a hooded man sitting in front of a camera, head crouched down. He eventually lifted his head. Even though he had no mouth, a deep, guttural, “Hello” came through my speakers. Somehow, I knew it came from him. I didn’t stick around for that. There were obscure sets of step-by-step guides that involved things like cutting off your own limbs and sewing on a corpse's, performing religious incantations in the middle of the Siberian forest and going to coordinates that apparently housed captive fallen angels. It was unclear what any of these were supposed to achieve. There was also a 20 second long clip titled “The futility of the living”. I didn’t watch it. That’s when I realized there was no way even the highest form of organized government had full control of this. One of the scariest things about this whole experience was that I didn’t find an end to the list. No matter far I scrolled down. 

I think I had a meltdown and passed out eventually, because I woke up on my floor in the middle of the night. I looked at my computer screen to see looped helicopter footage of a massive, crab-like creature tearing apart a coastal island. I clicked off of it. I just sat there for the longest time. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing, and I don’t think I really wanted to. Now, I’m not really sure why I kept going. My brain was screaming for me to take my computer out to the lawn and smash it into pieces. But I didn’t. I noticed something I hadn’t before. A small message at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. I don’t know if it was always there or not. It was hard to read so I had to squint. More Latin. Translated into “Are you satisfied?” There were two options underneath it, yes and no. 

Now, I knew the answer to this question. **** no I wasn’t satisfied. I was horrified, scarred for life. But I should have clicked on yes. If I just clicked on yes it would have taken me out of that godforsaken place. Back to comfort and sanity. Even right now, I can’t tell you why I clicked on no. But once I did, the page seemed to refresh. It was still the same basic setup, except there were only four links. This time, there were no recognizable numbers or characters. ****, it didn’t look like anything that could have come from this world. Just a collection of extremely crude symbols that didn’t give off any sense of pattern or direction. I clicked on the first link. 

After about 20 seconds, I slammed my computer shut. I can’t describe to you what I saw. All I know is that I wasn’t supposed to see it. NOBODY should ever see something like this. It’s not only that it didn’t make any sense, I can’t tell you why it didn’t. I couldn’t begin to grasp the images I was seeing. It wasn’t graphic or anything, not like that. I just couldn’t recognize anything. I could make out things moving, but not in a way any creature on earth has ever moved before. Colors that I’d never seen before. Just thinking about it gives me a splitting headache. This is my best attempt at visualizing it. We have 3 dimensions here on earth. We can move forwards, backwards, left, right, 72.4 degrees southwest etc. These things weren’t restricted to that. I can’t explain it any further. All I know is that I didn’t want to watch one more second. I don’t think I would have been able to. 

I left my room. For the first time in a while, I was planning to leave my house. I needed fresh air. To take a walk or something. ****, I was thinking about running a marathon in the middle of the night just to get my mind off of that **** for a few hours. I was putting on my jacket when I heard a knock at the door. I stopped dead in my tracks. Obviously, I wasn’t opening up. About a minute and five more sets of knocks came before somebody spoke up. “Open up. We know what you did, but we’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk”. The tone wasn’t threatening. Eventually, I obliged. I opened up my door to two tall, slim men in suits. They smiled at me. “Can we come in?” I still don't know how they found me. I thought for sure that I was off the grid.

We sat down on the couch. I guess I was just waiting for answers at this point. One of them looked at me and said “What were you looking for?” “I don’t know. But I’m not going back”, I responded. He smiled again. Like this is what he wanted to hear. The other one piped up: “Who do you work for?” His tone was a bit more aggressive. I just shook my head. “Look, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I wasn’t looking for anything.” They just stared at me for a while. “I’m not gonna tell anybody. Trust me”. They finally responded: “We’re not worried about that. Doubt anybody’d believe you.” Another smile. Somehow it felt genuine. “We just wanted to know what your priorities were.” In retrospect, that was a very strange question. “Just do us favor and we’ll leave”. I perked up. “Give us the device you used to access it”. I didn’t ask any questions. I ran upstairs and basically tossed them my laptop. They both smirked at me one last time before heading for the door. Just as they were about to leave, one of them turned back. “I don’t think you need to be told, but don’t try this again. And don’t show anybody else how to get there either. We’ll know.” I didn’t ask who they were. I’m not sure I would have wanted to know. 

It’s been a week now. I don’t go on the internet so much anymore. After this, I’m going to try and forget. To try and not to think about it anymore. I’ve started having horrific nightmares. Been seeing a therapist for that, but I don’t think it’s helping. Anyways, I’m not going to let this consume the rest of my life. The thing is, I’m afraid this might not be possible. There are some things we aren’t supposed to know about. Probably for our own safety and sanity. Don’t try and seek them out. It’s better that way. However... it might be a bit too late for me. 

Part 2 here: https://redd.it/7ah7ud

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Somebody has been leaving notes around my house. They're starting to freak me out.
 
 Assistant: They started innocently enough.

*Don’t forget your keys* read the first message, scrawled on a sticky note in loopy letters. It had been left on my fridge door.
   
It immediately grabbed my attention because at the time I lived alone, I had no memory of writing it, and the handwriting didn’t match mine or anyone I knew. I was slightly perturbed, but wasn’t sure how to react. In the end I just tossed the note and went to work.

The second note came a few days later, left on my kitchen counter. The sticky note was pink this time but still had the same distinctive loopy handwriting. 

*Make sure to pack a lunch today.*

Again, I was unsettled. Now, any normal person might have reported this to the police, but during that time I was going through a major depressive spell. I had moved to a new city away from my friends and family, and had started a new job that I quickly realized I hated and didn’t nearly pay enough. Home was lonely and work was soul crushing. I had trouble enough getting out of bed each morning, let alone filing a report that I am sure the police would not take seriously. Even more stressed, I crumpled up the note. However, I ended up packing a small lunch for myself. Usually I didn’t bother to put in the effort and just ate cafeteria food, but against my better judgment I fulfilled the wishes of the note.
   
That day the cafeteria was closed. The main cafeteria fridge had broken overnight and many of the frozen lunches inside had gone bad. Management thought it would be better to shut it down for the day. A feeling of unease settled in my stomach after learning the news. It was as if the note had predicted it.
   
The notes continued throughout the following weeks. They would typically show up on random days, no more than three notes to a day. They were all left in obvious places in my apartment, all on sticky notes, and in that unfamiliar loopy handwriting. They began to grow more prophetic. 
   
*Take I-80 today. There will be a bad accident on your way home.*

*Janet is going to offer you some cookies at the office. Politely decline. They will give you food poisoning.*

*Marie has been on a diet. Compliment her on her weight loss. She’ll end up thinking well of you.*

Of course, I tested the notes to see if they were accurate. Every time I ignored their advice, whatever it warned against came true. One day a note said to pack an umbrella, and I purposely didn’**** was forecasted to be sunny that day so any normal person wouldn’t think to pack one, but sure enough I got soaked that evening walking to my car.

 I was incredibly curious about the notes. There were so many questions I had about them, and those unanswered questions kept festering in my head. I tried writing notes back in return and leaving them out, but never got a response. I’d speak out loud and ask questions as if (or in case) the note writer could somehow hear me, but this only made me feel foolish. I’d occasionally make a surprise visit home at odd hours, just to see if I could catch the note writer leaving their notes. Of course, I never caught them. I tried installing cameras in my apartment, even making sure all of the cameras were completely hidden,  but the next day I found every single one of the camera’s insides completely torn out and placed on the kitchen table with a single note next to them reading:
   
*Never do that again.*

The notes stopped coming after that, which made me deeply regretful. I had grown accustomed to the notes. I had begun to rely on them even. They had significantly improved my way of life over the last few months both mentally, financially, and socially. I had actually started making friends at the office thanks to their advice, and for the first time in my life I was even a bit popular. My managers, who before the notes didn’t pay much interest in me, now valued my presence and would ask for my opinion on projects. It was no secret I was on my way to a promotion. Could I still do that without the notes? 

I also valued the notes as a friend, as weird as that sounds. Or more like a guardian angel. Wherever they were from, they were always protecting me. Without them, the future was suddenly unknown, dangerous. Every time some mild annoyance popped up from that point, from bad traffic to stressful work situations and even a minor paper cut, I thought about how this all probably could have been avoided if I still had the notes.

The next week, a bright green sticky note appeared on my bathroom mirror.

*Don’t forget to call Mom today. It is her birthday.*

I nearly cried. I decided to sack my investigation and just accept things as they were. Slowly, the fog of my depressive spell began to lift and I could feel myself returning to how I used to be. My confidence rose and for the first time in a while I felt in equilibrium with my life. I went out, cracked jokes, and even managed to clean up my apartment.

I also managed to get a girlfriend somehow. Her name was Amanda. I met her at a pub when I was out with my buddies. The best part of all this is that for some reason, she seemed to actually be into me. She was gorgeous, (way out of my league really) with long Auburn hair that reached down to her back with soft brown eyes. Her laugh was lovely and the lemon scented perfume she liked to wear was intoxicating. She was the type of girl you could chat with for hours and never run out of things to talk about. The relationship was still new so I was trying not to plan our whole future together in my head, but she was so lovable it was hard not to. 

At some point I briefly thought about telling her about the notes. I’ve always wanted to tell someone about it but never really had anyone to tell up until now. I decided not to however, afraid she might think I was crazy. There was no point so early in the relationship making her think I was a loon. Plus I was afraid the notes might stop again. If whoever was leaving them clearly didn’t want me looking into them, how would they react if I shared what was happening with somebody?  So at the moment I kept it to myself.

Amanda had a hobby of cooking and had invited me to her house on Saterday for, in her words, “the best **** spagetti you’ll ever eat”. I was pumped since this was the first time I would actually visit her house.

I was in a good mood that evening as I was getting ready for the date. I hummed to myself happily thinking about how lovely this was going to be, and went downstairs to grab my keys. On the kitchen counter was a new hot pink sticky note. I picked it up instinctively.

*KILL YOUR GIRLFRIEND.*

My brain stopped for a moment. I read it once, twice, a third time, the words flashing in my brain but hitting an error every time. I set the note down and gulped, feeling nauseous. Anxiously, I went to my car and started driving. I tried not to think about the note but the words kept circling in my mind. **** your girlfriend. The notes have never failed me before, and they were always in my best interest as far as I knew... which was admittedly not much. Maybe they were wrong this time? Maybe it wasn’t meant to be taken literally? “****” could be a synonym for “break up”, right? My mind kept trying to make up poor excuses the whole way there. By the time I arrived I was a sweaty mess and not a lick calmer. 
  
I pulled down my sun visor to check my face and a bright green sticky note fluttered out. I went cold. The notes had never appeared outside my house before. Hands shaking, I picked up the note and read it.

*KILL AMANDA. TAKE THE GUN FROM YOUR GLOVEBOX AND SHOOT HER.*

I looked at my glovebox wide eyed. I did indeed keep a handgun in my glovebox for safety purposes. I wanted to puke, to believe this wasn’t happening. Again, I ignored the note and walked up to Amanda’s house, trying to shake the message from my mind.
She answered the door almost immediately after I rang the doorbell.
 
“Hey what’s up!” She said with a bright smile, but when she saw my face the smile dropped.
   
“You ok Gary, what’s wrong?” She said in concern.
  
“Nothing.” I lied, trying to force a smile. “Well, actually I think I have a bit of a stomach ache...”
   
“Come in, come in,” she said, ushering me in. The inside of her house was cute and homely, and she fretted over me worriedly as she led me over to her kitchen table. She then took my hand and rubbed it comfortingly.
   
“If you’re not feeling up to spaghetti, we can always have it another time. Don’t worry about it. Do you want any antacids or something?”
   
I smiled. The way she was so concerned for me over a simple stomach ache made me fall in love with her all over again. My heart panged with both love and guilt. The aroma of cooked spaghetti was also extremely strong, and even though she said it was fine I knew it would probably be a bummer for her to pack away all that spaghetti after just making it.
   
“I’m fine sweety. I probably have a stomach ache because I haven't eaten much today. I was looking forward so much for your spaghetti.”
   
Her smile returned again. I always loved how fast she smiled at things.
   
“Well then Mr. Hungry, let me grab you a bowl!”
   
She left for the kitchen. I reclined back and sighed, sticking my hands in my pockets. I felt a crinkle of paper. ****. *Shit.* I pulled the paper out of my right pocket.
   
*TAKE YOUR CHAIR AND BASH HER HEAD IN*

I had a hard time controlling my breathing as I stuffed the note back in my right pocket. I also felt paper in my left pocket, and against my mind screaming for me not to, I pulled it out, realizing that it was actually two notes crinked together. Shakily, I unwrinkled the first note.
   
*DO NOT EAT THE SPAGHETTI. DRUGGED*
   
“What’s that Gary?” Asked Amanda behind me.
   
I nearly jumped out of my skin. I stuffed the notes back in my left pocket. 
   
“Oh, j-just some note from work I forgot was in my pocket is all!” I said in a weird voice.
   
She frowned, looked like she wanted to say something, but then thought better of it. 
   
“Here Babe”, she said gently, handing me a bowl of spaghetti. It looked heavenly. I wanted to puke. 
   
She sat next to me with her own bowl. She rested her head in her hands and looked at me excitedly, expectantly. I stared at her blankly.
   
“Well, take a bite silly!” She said, gesturing towards my bowl.
   
“I-I uh, I’m so s-sorry. I really need to use your bathroom.”
   
I jumped up and started looking for her bathroom. She jumped up after me, looking confused.
   
“Gary? What’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird.”
   
When I found the right door, I went in and locked the door behind me. She kept knocking and knocking.
   
“Gary? Gary! Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Is the stomach ache that bad? Talk to me Gary, please!”
  
 I backed up and against the bathroom wall, then sank down to the floor. I pulled out the two notes from my left pocket again, this time reading the second note. My heart sank.
   
*SHE IS NOT AMANDA.*

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Anthony Willis
 
 Assistant: Anthony Willis is sitting in my chair today - a young man who is somehow skinny and **** at the same time and has greasy, unwashed hair. It crosses my mind that maybe I should have the chair cleaned when he leaves. This is his first time and he is still young, fresh, and ****. Hopefully when he leaves my chair he will be knowledgeable and maybe, just maybe, have gained a little understanding. 

“So how old is your child?” 

“Oh, umm,  two months.” Interesting. Most new parents count the age of a newborn through weeks and days. Makes sense when every week is a new milestone. And most of them don’t need a second to think about how long the child has been in their lives when they’ve only been there for such a short time. 

“Do you have a wife?”

“Yes. She’s 21.” Wow. That’s the most defining thing he can think of about her? Her age? Not how long they’ve been married or even her name? Now that I think about it, he didn’t mention his kid’s name either. Or even if they’re a boy or a girl. Of course I already know it’s a girl because I read his file before he came in.

“How are they?” Now he’s fidgeting in his chair. Interesting.

“Um, good. They’re pretty good.” *Pretty good?* So descriptive. And he actually broke eye contact with me to say that. This guy is a horrible liar. Thank ****. **** be so easy to break.

“Yes, but we’re not here to talk about them are we?” He brings his eyes back to me and sits up when he realizes that the small talk is over and it’s time to get down to business. “We’re here to talk about you. So how are they in relation to you?” 

“Uhh…” I must have caught him off guard. He’s uncomfortable. He’s actually stretching his arms out and placing his hands behind his head in a subconscious attempt to take up more space. Typically in a human male this means they are either intimidated or trying to impress someone they are attracted to. Something tells me it’s not the latter. After a few seconds of painful silence I decide to help him out. 

“Let’s just start with your wife. Would you say you have a good relationship with her?” I’m leaning forward, eyebrows furrowed, hands together on the table. It seems like the more attention I pay to him the more awkward he becomes. It’s delicious. 

“Yeah, well… it’s okay.” ****, this guy doesn’t want to talk. That’s fine because I’ve dealt with a lot worse. I have a lot of baddies come through this room and sit in my chair. So far I’ve broken them all.  

“Do you ever have arguments? Or disagreements?” Now I’ve got him. People who are on the brink of divorce or **** will more times than not tell me that their marriage is “okay”. I think that people have a very hard time revealing things like that to strangers. We’ve been conditioned, after all, to slap a bandaid on a bullet hole and a smile on our face during hardship. Especially marital strife. 

“Well, yeah, we do. We do argue.”

“What do you argue about?”

“Um..” He’s looking away from me again. I think this time he’s trying to hide the emotion in his eyes. Lord forbid a man were to show any emotion. He gives a tiny chuckle that looks like it took a lot of effort to get out. “Everything, really.”

“Everything? That doesn’t sound okay. That sounds miserable.”

“Yeah, miserable. It can be actually. Ever since she got pregnant.” He’s still not looking at me. In fact he is trying so hard to avoid eye contact he has his face pointed almost completely away from me. That painting of a plant on the wall must be extremely compelling because many of the people who have sat in that chair have spent quite a bit of time staring at it. Funny, because I always thought it was just a dumb painting of a plant.

“How have things changed between you two since she got pregnant?”

“More fighting. A lot more fighting.” Now he has gotten to the point where instead of spreading out he is starting to take up less space. He’s gripping his thighs and sitting upright. 

“What do you fight about? Try to be specific.” He’s moving his hands up and down his thighs now - **** he just can’t stop fidgeting, can he?

“Just stuff, like, I don’t even know. It’s always something. Every time I walk in the door there’s something wrong, like, *I’ve* done something wrong. I just can’t do anything right.” 

“Do you help with the baby?”

“Man, I try to,” So now he’s calling me *man*? Looks like I’m already breaking down walls. “But it’s like what am I supposed to do? I’m not gonna be able to make it stop crying,” Oh interesting, very interesting. So now the baby’s an *it*? “And she’s breastfeeding so it’s not like I can help with that. And she never wants to just let it cry. She thinks it’s our job to just jump up every time that it makes a sound and find out what’s wrong. And I’m just, like, won’t she get spoiled like that?” The more upset that he gets the more fragmented and confusing his sentences are. But, we’ve had one advancement. He referred to his baby daughter as *she* instead of *it*. 

“So, would you say you have different parenting ideals than your wife does?”

“Oh, yeah.” He’s looking me in the eyes now and nodding furiously. “Sometimes I’ll get mad and I’ll be like, ‘so what? Let the **** kid cry for a bit!’ and then she’ll just lose it!”

“Lose it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Now he’s mimicking my behavior by leaning forward and using hand motions. Suddenly I’m his best friend. “Tells me I’m a bad dad. Tells me she hates me. I hate it when she says that.”

“Because you love her?”

“Because it ****’ **** me off!” His reaction is almost explosive, but I’ve dealt with worse so I don’t react.  
 “Because you love her?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” He mumbles. 

“What about your daughter? Do you love her?”

“Of course I do! I mean, she drives me bat ****. But, she’s still my kid. I just don’t think she should be treated like the queen of England, ya’ know?” Oh yeah I know. I know all about you, Anthony Willis, and I know exactly how you feel about your wife and daughter.

“Does your wife call you names or put you down when you fight?” 

“Yeah. Lazy ****. ****. ****. Dead beat. Like she thinks it’s *my* fault I can’t get a job in this **** economy. I’m not *applying myself*.” 

“How long has it been since you held a job, Anthony?” I already know the answer but I ask anyways, just because I want to see him squirm. 

“It’s been, like, awhile. Maybe a few months?” Suddenly he’s not looking at me anymore and he’s leaning back in his seat like he thinks if he gets far enough away the question won’t hit him. Or maybe that I won’t hear him. But I don’t have to hear him because I know why he’s really sitting in my chair.

“So, does your wife work?”

“No, of course not. She *can’t* work ‘cause of the baby, right? She quit her job, like, a couple months before the baby was born. Isn’t that a load of ****? She just gets to prop her feet up all day while everyone rushes around her like she just gave birth to baby Jesus and then they all scream at me to get a job. Like it’s just that easy.”

“If neither of you work then how do you support yourselves?” Of course I know the answer to this as well. But it’s very important that he says these things out loud. It’s the only way I’m going to lead him to the truth.

“Her parents, ya’ know? They’ve got a little money, I guess. We sleep in the spare bedroom. Sometimes. Sometimes I just sleep on the couch ‘cause I don’t feel like **** dealing with it. Sometimes I just want to get a full night of sleep without that kid waking me up, ya’ know?” Yes, Anthony, I know. I know all too well. “She *insists* on having the baby sleep in the bed. I don’t see why she can’t just put the crib in the bathroom or the living room and then just let the baby cry for a little bit. Even for just a few hours if it means we’ll get some sleep, ya’ know? But, *no*. No, no, no, no, *no*. I need a full night of sleep sometimes, ya’ know?”

“What about your wife? Does she ever get a full night of sleep?”

“What does she need it for? What does she do all day? She’s always either sleeping, watching TV, or just completely glued to that baby. But then she complains at me that I should be doing dishes and making dinner. Even though I literally spend *hours* every day on the internet searching for jobs. But as soon as I try to take a break you can guarantee she’s gonna come in and start screaming at me.” I think it’s funny that a few moments ago he wasn’t even speaking in full sentences to me and now he’s spewing paragraphs. He’s not uncomfortable anymore. He’s still fidgeting, though. He keeps his eyes on me but his hand are traveling all over his body like he’s covered in ants. Guilty conscience, Anthony?

“Living with your in-laws must be stressful for you as well.” I’m trying to hit all the pressure points. How worked up can I get him? And what can I get him to confess?

“Man, you don’t even *know*.” I know, Anthony, I know all about it, but I want you to tell me anyways. “Her dad? The dude ****’ *hates me.* Like, hates my guts. He is *constantly* telling her to leave me and he really wants to kick me out. Or **** me, probably. And then her mom is just a ****. Just a straight up ****. She doesn’t like cussing. Doesn’t like drinking. Or smoking. Or anything *except* for her grandbaby. She treats that baby like it came from ****. But *me*? The man who *made* the baby? She treats like ****. Go figure.”

“Do you fight with her parents?”

“Yes and no. Like, they won’t say anything to my face. They just say it to her. And then we end up fighting because of it.”

“Do you get angry?” My voice is so low now it’s almost a whisper. I’m leaning forward, preparing for the pounce.

“Who wouldn’t?”

“*How angry?”* 

“Well sometimes,” His voice is getting lower as well. “I just, like, I just… I hear that baby. That **** baby screaming. And, I swear to ****, I want to **** her.” He’s holding his hands in front of himself now with his fingers clenched. The tendons in his hands are sticking out and I can see veins under his transparently pale skin clearly. 

“So what do you do when you’re angry?” I’ve already got him. **** answer any question I ask him but I still want to lead him into his own realization. Also, I’m not done toying with him yet. 

“I - I throw things. Break things. Her mom doesn’t like for me to get **** so sometimes I just throw empty bottles and break them when they’re not home. I slam the doors, I punch the walls, kick the walls. I punched a hole in our bedroom door one time. I can’t help it. It’s really hard, ya’ know? Being a man but being treated like a lil’ kid. I just want a little ****’ freedom.”

“How does your wife react? When you go into a rage?”

“Oh, ya’ know, all scared and ****. Like she actually thinks I’m gonna hurt her. She gets all freaked out. One time she told me that if I laid a hand on her then her dad would shoot me. Dude, at this point? That ****, old man can go ahead and do it! It would be a ****’ blessing right now.”

“And what about the baby? Have you ever hurt her?”

“****, no, of course not! I’ve screamed at her before. Told her to shut up. But all parents get frustrated. It’s actually supposed to be normal to get frustrated sometimes. But I get treated like I’m a monster or something. Sometimes when she’s crying *so **** loud*  it’s like I just can’t take it anymore and I have to punch something.”

“Like the wall? Or the door?”

“Yeah, like that! Ya’ know?”

“Or what about the lamp? Do you sometimes smash the lamps?”

“Sometimes, yeah. It’s like I just want some ****’ sleep. And ****. This is really hard to admit, especially for a man. But, ya’ know, we haven’t **** since *before* she gave birth? She doesn’t understand because for her it’s not as big a deal. She doesn’t even take one, single second to think about how that affects me! Especially since I can’t really **** it more than maybe once a day since we have absolutely no privacy. I have to hide in the bathroom like I’m a kid again. It’s humiliating.” By this point I’m feeling borderline rage. But I’ve learned how to hide it very well. My face remains practically expressionless although underneath I’m tensing up for the ****.

“Think about the last time you argued with your wife. What was it about?”

“At first it was because I wanted her to actually show me that she loved me, ya’ know? Like put the baby down for two *goddamn* seconds and pay attention to me, for once. Oh, she didn’t like that. *Of course* she didn’t like that. How dare I imply that I’m a human being with needs, right?”

“By needs do you mean ****?” 

“Not exactly. I’m just a physical person, ya’ know? Love languages and ****? Well I’m physical. I like to be touched. Ya’ know, initiate a kiss or something every now and then? If it leads to **** it does, but it doesn’t *have to*. But, at the very least she could at least try. She would always complain that if she tried it would hurt but, like, how the **** is she going to know if it will hurt this time if she won’t at least *try*?” Once you get this guy talking he could go on forever. I could get him to spill his entire life story to me right now if I wanted to. But, I don’t. I just want one thing and I’m getting closer and closer.

“What happened next?”

“I don’t remember too well, to be honest.” Now he’s acting like I’m his good buddy. He leans back in the chair and stretches. Talking **** about his wife seems to be making him more confident. Men like him love to talk ****. And when they actually meet someone who will sit there and listen to it without kicking their **** they eat it up. The hardest part of my job is pretending like I’m not disgusted by men like him. 

“You left the house, didn’t you? You were quite angry?”

“Man, angry doesn’t even cut it. I was *pissed*. I think I did leave. Maybe I went to a bar or something? I must have gotten real **** faced because I can’t remember anything.”

“Can’t or won’t?” I have to speak slowly and enunciate each syllable to keep from screaming. 

“What does that mean?”

“Let me help you out. You didn’t go to a bar. You went to a gas station. You bought a lot of beer. You drank a lot of beer. All by yourself in a gas station parking lot. Then what happened?”

“Uhh, I went home?” His poor, **** brain is going into overdrive now. I think for the first time he’s actually starting to question where he is. And maybe who the **** I am. But there’s no time for that and he wouldn’t understand yet anyways. I have to keep him on track. We’re nearing the breaking point.

“Yes, you went home, now focus on remembering.” I’m leaning so far over the desk now I’m practically laying on it. My eyes are stuck on his so hard he doesn’t dare look away. I have to keep him focused. 

“Her parents were still gone. I was really happy about that. I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was. But then I was really mad.”

“Why were you mad?”

“Um, because the ****’ door was locked and I didn’t have a key. And I was pounding on the door and yelling and she wouldn’t come and open it. She was purposefully not letting me into my own house.” It’s not your house, Anthony, but that’s not important right now. He’s making progress.

“So how did you get in?”

“Oh, easy.” He looks down at his bloodied right hand. “I broke the window on the door and just reached through and unlocked it. It was really simple. And I was so **** that it didn’t even really hurt.”

“And your wife - she was inside?”

“Yeah, I think so…” He was still looking at his hand like he just couldn’t comprehend. I can’t let him finish the puzzle yet. He needs to put the pieces together in order.

“Anthony! Your wife - what was she doing? What did she do when she saw you?”

“She started ****’ screaming. Loud. Telling me to stay the **** away from her. Oh yeah, then she tells me, guess what? Her parents are at the police station! They’re trying to get me put in jail! Over a tiny punch, like, not even half force!”

“And what did you say?”

“I told her that if I was going to jail she was going to the hospital. So she ****’ runs like a little **** into her parents’ room and locks the door. I can hear the dumb **** through the door. She’s on the phone saying ‘oh **** he’s gonna **** me help me oh ****’. I’m mad so I start kicking the door. I’m really only trying to scare her, but then the door breaks. And next thing I know there’s a gun pointed at my face. *She’s* pointing a gun at *me* but she has the nerve to call the cops on *me*? I wasn’t even afraid, though. I mean, I knew she wouldn’t do it, ya’ know? There’s no way she has that much courage. So I just start walking forward. And she’s walking backwards. And crying. And saying ‘don’t make me shoot you’. So ya’ know what I did? I walked right up to her, I took the gun, and I held it to my chest. And I just said, ‘if you’re gonna do it, ****’ do it’. And ya’ know what she did? *She threw the ****’ thing on the ground*. And then she’s just crying and saying ‘please don’t hurt me’. That **** was gonna *shoot* me! Can you believe it?” He’s no longer on the line between crying and laughing, he’s playing hopscotch with it. 

“But she didn't shoot you. She couldn’t do it.” The game is over. Anthony Willis will be leaving my chair and taking his filthy, greasy hair with him. He won’t be leaving a better man - it’s simply too late for him. But maybe I can rid the world of his stench once and for all. Maybe I can properly finish the job he left half done. 

“No, she couldn’t. She was too sweet. Too kind. Too babying. Too scared. ****, I don’t know. But she made a **** mistake. I saw some bright lights. Yep, she had called the **** cops on me. She had denied me **** like I was **** unworthy, locked me out of my own house, pulled a gun on me, and then called the cops. And, of course, who are the cops gonna believe? Not me, for sure. They always take the chick’s side. Always. Probably because they think she’s gonna bone ‘em, ya’ know?” No, Anthony, I don’t **** know. “A shoulder to cry on becomes a **** to ride on as they say.”

“What did you do to your wife, Anthony?” 

“Well, I thought, ya’ know what? Maybe I should show her what it’s like to have a gun shoved in her face. So I grabbed it off the floor and pointed it at her. And then… I don’t know, I was so ****.”

“Yes you do remember. You remember exactly what you did.”  
 “I remember she screamed or something, the cops were banging on the door. It scared me.”

“Say what you did! Say it!” I realize that I’m no longer sitting and I can’t calm myself down enough to sit back down. I’m going to break him. He looks at me with tear filled eyes - a pathetic and **** look for him.

“I was just *so scared.*”

“No, Anthony, *she* was scared.”

“I think there was some kind of accident, like, she fell…” His veiny, bloody hands are on his face now. They weigh down his skin and make his eyes look saggy and inhuman.

“No accident. What did you do?”

“I think I -- I think I…” He’s rocking now. The truth is fighting him hard. It’s fighting to come out and be free and I think that very soon he will be defeated by it. “I think I shot her…” 

“Shot who? Who was she?” I’m walking across the floor now and then standing over him. I want to hit him but I know it would be pointless. So I fight him the only way I know how.

“My - my wife… her…”

“No, Anthony, her *name. What was her name?”* 

“Oh, ****, what’s happening? Where am I? Who are these people?” He tries to rise from my chair only to find that he is bound, but not by chains. “Why can’t I leave? Why can’t I stand up?” 

“This is my last question, Anthony. Just answer it and I will answer your questions. I’ll tell you everything. *What was her name?”*  He curls up his knees and hides his face in them like a tired child. 

“I can’t say it.”

“You *have* to say it or you won’t ever leave this room. You won’t ever leave this chair.”

“Please don’t make me… please…” He’s openly sobbing now and I can’t help but remember how he felt towards his sobbing, pleading wife. 

“You can not leave unless you say it. There’s no other way.” This is the toughest stretch but I know that I’ve already won. All I have to do is keep pushing, he’s so close to breaking. His wailing stops and he is calm for a few seconds. He breathes deeply a few times and I allow him this reprieve. When he looks up at me with bloodshot eyes I know there’s no need to prod him more. The truth is bubbling it’s way up to the top. The silence is thick and heavy and suffocating which I know will make it all the more relieving when it is broken. 

“Priscilla. My wife’s name is Priscilla.” The words come out flat and emotionless. I wonder if this is the same way he looked when he pulled the trigger.

“Her name *was* Priscilla.” I correct him. Standing up I walk away and sit back down in my chair across the table from him. It’s time to answer some questions.

“Your name is Anthony Willis. You died when you were 23. This is the house that you killed Priscilla and yourself in 10 years ago. These are the people that live here now. You can see them but they can’t see you. Or hear you. They have a message for you.” 

The young couple sitting on the other side of the room are watching with wide eyes. I know that they can’t see or hear him. But the goosebumps on their arms and panic in their faces tell me that they can sense him. One of them is gripping the other’s arm so hard I can see pale fingerprints in their arm. Anthony is sitting in the chair and finally looks like what he is: dead. His eyes are flat and detached, his mouth hanging slightly open. 

“They want you to know that this is their house now and you are not welcome here. You never were welcome here. It’s time for you to stop breaking their lamps, kicking holes in their walls, and terrorizing their children. That’s why I’m here. To give you this message and to enforce it.” He doesn’t respond for a few seconds but I am willing to wait. I have learned that death is a very hard thing to accept - even for those who deserved it. I’m not surprised when he finally starts to fight against his invisible bonds. He is trying so hard just to stand but I know that his chains are unbreakable. Much stronger people than him have fought them and lost. The chains are made powerful by personal items of his. His obituary, a picture of him and his dead wife at their high school prom, and a picture of his dead wife and their baby daughter. The couple who now own the house are becoming more frightened as he struggles. His presence must be stronger now with all the energy he is exerting. If he keeps this up they may be able to see his physical presence. 

“No! This is my house! You’re not going to take that away from me! You can’t make me leave!” He is fighting full force now which is actually stronger than I would have thought when I first met him. 

“No, Anthony, you are going to leave.” I pull a lighter out of my pocket, click it, and produce a small flame. Anthony seems to go even paler when he sees it. “When I burn these items you will be released from this world, to go wherever it is you will go.”

“Wait!” His voice is high pitched and panicky,“Where will I go?”

“That’s for you to find out, Anthony. I’m still alive so I don’t know.” I bring the flame towards the pictures in front of me but he cries out again and I allow him his last words.

“Am I going to ****?” He asks quietly and looks pleadingly at me.

“I don’t know, Anthony, why don’t you send me a postcard?” I light the pictures. I know the couple in the room with me can hear the screaming because they both jump and grow a shade paler. One of them actually screams out loud and acts like they are going to bolt for the door. To my surprise they find enough courage to stay. I know that I was terrified as well the first time that I heard the wailing death screams of an unwilling spirit being forcefully ripped from this world. But, now I find a small amount of pleasure. The world could always use less Anthony Willises. Of course it’s the most horrible people who seem to cling to life the hardest. It might be because they are so terrified of what awaits them on the other side, or maybe it’s because they just want to inflict as much pain as possible. Either way it’s not my job to know. It’s just my job to get rid of them. Not a job I chose, but the job that was chosen for me. 

The last remnants of Anthony Willis are fading out of this world in long tendrils of smoke that continue to spark in an unworldly manner. The young couple are holding each other and hiding their faces from the gruesome sight that I have grown so desensitized to. Eventually the smoke starts to clear but a musky sulfurous smell is still lingering in the hazy room. Yes, I’ll definitely be having that chair cleaned.

The next few moments are silent except for the haunting echoes of Anthony’s passing. The couple finally look towards me. One’s face is tear streaked and they are trembling, the other steps forward and addresses me while never letting go of the other’s hand. 

“Is - is it gone?” They ask in a whisper that is barely more than a breath. 

“Yes, he’s gone. He won’t be back, either. Of course if I were you I would still keep my eye out for any other occurrences. While uncommon, this was a traumatic death involving more than one person, so I would keep an eye out for the wife just in case.”

“The wife? The one he killed?” Their question reminds me that they could only actually hear my side of the conversation. 

“Yes, it’s unlikely that she is still here, and even if she is I don’t think she would actually cause you any problems. But if there are problems don’t hesitate to reach me again.” 

“Okay, thank you. And the, umm, the payment?” They ask tentatively. I never ask for payment up front because in my experience any medium who asks for payment up front is a fraud. 

“My assistant will get with you about that. Is there anywhere you can stay for the night? Possibly tomorrow night as well?” 

“My mother’s house, that’s where the children are right now. Why? Is it not… safe yet?” They seem so awkward talking about this. They always do. I find that many people when actually confronted with the supernatural would rather brush it under the rug and erase it from their minds. I can’t blame them, honestly. It’s not the kind of thing you can just bring up at a company picnic in casual conversation. And retelling the story around a campfire at night just seems to make light of the situation. 

“His presence is gone but there is a remaining mist and bad odor that will likely persist until at least tomorrow evening. Possibly the next morning even. Some people have found this smell to be overbearing and some have even had negative side effects due to it. Nothing too serious; headaches, nausea, light headedness, moodiness. Finding another place to sleep for the next two nights would be safer.” 

“I think that’s a great idea. I’ll call your mother, now.” The one who has been crying seems eager to leave this place and return when the memories are less fresh and easier to reconstruct into something tangible. They leave the room quickly and as soon as the door is opened the pressure in the dark and musty room is lightened.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand this at all. But thank **** for people like you. What would have happened if we hadn’t called you? I mean, could it have gotten worse?” 

“Well if you had waited too long I wouldn’t have even been able to help. I’m sorry for your family’s misfortune and I hope you are able to move past this quickly. The children may take a little time of course. The younger they are the better they seem to be able to remember it for some reason.”

“Even the baby?”

“Especially the baby. She will probably remember this years and years from now even after you have long forgotten. I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but I have a flight to catch so I can’t stay for much longer.”

“No, no of course. Go ahead. Thanks again.” I am led to the door and I feel the familiar rush of fresh air and sunshine and life in general. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Come to Daddy
 
 Assistant: You would probably be surprised at the number of bodies one can find out in the desert.

You would probably be even more surprised at how often people play with the bodies. But I don’t know. Since most of us are tweakers or disadvantaged youth doomed to repeat the mistakes of our alcoholic mothers and abusive fathers, maybe you wouldn’t be surprised at all.

My best friend, Kameron, found last winter’s corpse du jour: an old man in a dilapidated trailer. A white beard matted with corpse juice hung past his bony knees, so Kameron bought him a Santa hat from the Dollar Tree and christened him “Satan Claus.” Satan Claus was a popular attraction among the high desert’s underbelly until Gidget Gagnon blabbed to her brother, who was a deputy sheriff.

This **** Kameron off. He didn’t grow up here, so he didn’t understand the rules: there’s always a snitch, there’s always a whiner, there’s always a freak, and there’s always someone who fantasizes about killing you.

Even if he understood, he’d never have believed that I was both the freak and the person who fantasized about killing him.

I’d known Kameron since we were teenage patients at a county psychiatric facility. It was the first time in our lives either of us ever had security or structure. I miss it, honestly.

We moved in together the second we could. For the record, we weren’t lovers. We never even experimented; I couldn’t separate **** from trauma and didn’t particularly want to try, so I was voluntarily celibate.

This enchanted Kameron because he has a Madonna/**** complex the size of Babylon. I was his pure, unsullied princess. This is why he paid half my bills, supported me emotionally, and asked nothing in return.

That’s not to say *he* didn’t have ****. Kameron was a bona fide man-****. That’s the only reason he went to raves and parties: the girls.

We were at just such a party the night I met Daddy.

The party was in a bashed-up warehouse that smelled like roadkill and alcohol. Kameron stayed glued to my side for a while, I guess to make sure no one else swooped in to **** his Madonna off her pedestal. But it didn’t last. It never does. A girl I recognized vaguely - waist-length black hair and makeup you could scrape off with a putty knife - was eyeing him ostentatiously.

I thought it was disrespectful; to the untrained eye, Kameron and I were a couple, after all.

Now, Kameron was **** by this point. He gets handsy when he’s ****, even with me. So I cuddled up and wrapped myself around him. He was enjoying it; cuddling doesn’t break the Madonna pedestal. It just makes him feel special. 

But I messed up.

We were sitting in the corner, starting to play around. He was looking at me in a way no one else ever does: bright and warm and hopeful, like I’m the most important person in the world. I could feel myself teetering on the edge of the pedestal. Then he leaned in to kiss me.

I panicked. Before I knew it, I was running.

I pretended I was flying, that I’d dash outside and leap into the air, taking flight among the mad whirl of constellations. I could almost see it: the warehouse shrinking as I gained altitude, the night wind cooling the sick heat inside me. For a mad moment felt the feathers sprouting from my skin, itchy and hard and growing fast.

I made it outside and halted. No feathers, no flight, no night wind scraping the brokenness away. 

By the time Kameron found me, the night’s chill had settled into my bones and I was shivering.

Only when he tapped my shoulder did I realize I’d been crying. I wiped my eyes hastily and turned.

The black-haired girl lingered several feet away. She had a small smile, halfway between anxious and satisfied.

“Hey.” Kameron slurred slightly. “Demetria and I are leaving. Will you get home okay?”

“Her name’s not *Demetria,* I said in as bored a tone as I could muster. “It’s Britni.”

All at once he looked a lot less ****. “You know her name doesn’t matter, don’t you?”

We stared at one another for what felt a terribly long time. He was waiting for something, and I knew it. But I couldn’t give it. Even if I could, I’d stop mattering the second he got it.

“Don’t keep her waiting, Kameron.”

His face somehow drew upward, then fell into a flat smile. He gave me a half-assed wave and left with Demetria.

I counted to one thousand, then went back inside.

A humid rush of sweat, ****, and beer burps crashed over me like a wave. The crowd writhed and squirmed like maggots. Music blared. Bargain bin lights spun over everything. It all seemed so pointless. Nothing would be accomplished here tonight. Nothing would ever be accomplished here on any night.

I looked down at the floor. Amid the chewing gum, spilled drinks, gouges, and stains, I saw three words written in black Sharpie:

*Come to Daddy*

An arrow underneath pointed east.

I looked up at the pointless party and I thought of Kameron, of the way he looked at me. He’d be giving that look to Demetria just now.

I followed the arrow.

Halfway across the warehouse was another message and another arrow:

*Keep Coming*

I followed it to the back wall, to another Sharpie message:

*Hurry, Daddy’s Waiting For You*

This arrow was absurdly long, and pointed to a bland door I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

I opened the door. Cold, foul air swept over me. I gulped a deep breath; it was preferable to the sweat-heavy humidity behind me.

Before me was a set of rickety metal stairs. I descended and found myself rewarded with another message:

*Daddy’s Coming Through The Back*

I turned into a low concrete corridor lit by flickering fluorescent lights. Something came into view at the other end: bony, huddled, and terribly small.

A body.

Its head lay tilted against the wall, open jaw yawing up at the ceiling. Overhead, painted in streaky letters, was a single word:

*DADDY*

An oil drum sat next to Daddy. I withdrew, gagging, when I saw the half-rotten sludge of dead vermin at the bottom. A nightstand sat on his other side, bearing a plastic container filled with Hershey kisses. A hand-lettered sign read:

*Give Daddy a Kiss*

This crazy **** was enough to salvage the night. Smirking slightly, I unwrapped a kiss and popped it into Daddy’s gaping mouth.

A second later, he shuddered and began to chew. His head lolled weakly. With a heavy grunt, he flopped forward so that his eye sockets were trained on me. Something glinted within, dark and iridescent like dirty oil. He swallowed the kiss, and spoke.

“What do you want from me?”

Terror and mirth whirled together in a mad tornado. “What?”

He lurched forward, desiccated body hitting the concrete with a clatter. “I can give you one thing. Any one thing. What shall it be?”

I thought about it. I really did. If wish-granting, Hershey-loving corpses exist, might as well take advantage of the wish.

Except I didn’t know what to wish for.

I didn’t want to be normal. People like Demetria are normal.

I didn’t want another life. Why bother, when I barely want to live?

I couldn’t have Kameron; he’d have to turn into something he’s not before that would ever be a possibility.

I didn’t want money. I didn’t want a house. I didn’t want a better job. All of these are changes. At some point, every change causes pain. I’ve had enough pain for a lifetime.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Daddy’s dark eyes flared. “That does complicate things.” He smiled; papery skin cracked and split like porcelain varnish. “But it makes them interesting. Give me a rat.” He pointed to the vermin barrel. “I need protein.”

It didn’t occur to me to resist. This was the first time in memory that I actually felt alive. I snatched a mushy tail from the morass. Only half a rat emerged, melting into translucent rot before my eyes.

I tossed it at Daddy, who lunged like a spaniel and caught it in his mouth. He swallowed it whole, then said: “I can tell you the deepest desire of your heart and give it to you.”

“Why?”

“Because I can.”

This was the only justification I recognized, the only one I believed, the only one that made sense. “Then do it.”

“Not that simple. I need energy.”

“More rats?”

“Well…of a kind,” he chuckled. “But not exactly.” He watched me expectantly. Those sockets glinted madly, reflecting every color under the sun and several I couldn’t describe. Music thumped from upstairs, loosing trickles of dust and reverberating through Daddy’s lair.

“I don’t get it.”

“People. I need people. Or rather, parts of people. Skin, eyes, hair, livers -”

I eyed him suspiciously, wondering just how fast this Monkey’s Paw **** could run. “You could get all of those from me.”

“You’re my client. Clients pay the provider’s price. You pay this provider’s price in bodies. I need two eyes, two lungs, one stomach, one liver, one skin…” He continued, rattling off seeming every **** in the human body. Then he finished: “And each must come from a different person.”
 
I contemplated this briefly. “You’ll show me what I want -” *Something,* I added silently, *that will make me happy* - “*and* you’ll give it to me?”

“I swear on my name.”

“Which is…?”

He wagged a finger. “Sorry, darling. Names are power here. But an oath upon my name - spoken or otherwise - is unbreakable.”

I watched him. He smiled widely; the thin remains of his mummified skin split and flaked off like snow. Under the lights, he looked like a cross between a Halloween decoration and a bad photoshop project. Except for his eyes: those dark, writhing masses of nearly hidden color.

I turned around and went back up to the party.

Almost immediately, I spied a long, shimmering curtain of black hair across the floor. For a triumphant moment I thought it was Demetria, but no. She resembled Demetria, though, and that was enough for me. She wandered around nervously, a tragically overgrown little girl lost.

I pretended I was her ride home, and led her downstairs. Daddy warped and shuddered and grew into something that blotted the lights, something I couldn’t look at without panicking, and swallowed her whole.

I kept my eyes closed until Daddy cleared his throat.

He’d grown skin: thick and fleshy, lipless, it reminded me absurdly of a squashily upholstered sofa. Dull, cracked teeth glinted in the recessed mouth. “Will I have more tonight?” 

I got Daddy a stomach, two eyes, and a liver before the night was done. I chose dirty, dusty men, the kind that looked as if they’d been **** dry. Homeless tweakers, people who, for all intents and purposes, have already disappeared.

I know how sick it is, but please try to understand. The only things I ever feel are fear and panic, and that only happens when someone touches me unexpectedly. Can you imagine what it’s like? To be dull and empty like a reptile, except when you’re accidentally triggered into reliving the worst moments of your awful life? I’d have given anything to change that. Anything to have something that would make me happy.

So I fed Daddy people that no one would miss. It’s easy to find them if you know what to look for. Men with ****-in faces who ride children’s bicycles, women with nice bodies and ancient, haunted faces, dust-caked teenagers and old men sleeping under tarps in the desert.

It took a month.

In that month, Kameron began to date Demetria. She spent more time in my apartment than I did. After I walked in on her blowing him after a long shift, I went to my room started to pack.

I don’t have much, so it didn’t take long. Kameron caught me as I dropped the last bag in the trunk. His eyes were wet. 

“She doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

I slammed the trunk shut. “Then that makes you a shitbag, Kameron.”

“Tell me to dump her. I’ll do it.”

“I’m not your mommy.”

He ran his hands through his hair. His lip started to tremble. Loathing exploded through me. “You’re the most important person in my life.”

“Only because I can’t be.”

I climbed into my car and drove off.

After a couple of brutally cold nights under the stars, I moved into the warehouse with Daddy.

He sang lullabies and fed me Hershey kisses from that dirty plastic bowl. No matter how many I ate, the bowl never emptied. Daddy didn’t expect conversation, affection, or any attention at all.

All said and done, it was a relief.

I still went to work, of course. Kameron came in every night. I felt a cruel surge of triumph whenever he wandered in. He still looked at me as he always had: like I was the only person that mattered.

Then Demetria followed him. The fight was a truly spectacular example of a white trash beatdown. He and Demetria were banned, and I got written up.

It didn’t really bother me.

That night I found a raggedy **** man in foul-smelling clothes out behind the restaurant. I told him he could stay at my house if he wanted. He was slow, childlike, and took me at my word.

Daddy ate him quickly and spit the bones into the rat barrel. Then he burped, enormous fleshy cheeks beating like sails in the wind, and sat down. “We’re almost done,” he said. “Only one body left.”

I did a quick calculation. “Two. A heart and a brain.”

He chuckled indulgently. “I’ve had a brain all this time. All I need is a heart.”

By this time, Daddy looked like a cross between Nosferatu, Frankenstein’s monster, and a Picasso painting: pale, fleshy, and muscular, with ridiculous Fabio hair and a thick, indecently red mouth that didn’t quite fit his skin. He had one green eye and one brown eye. In place of whites, that murky, oily rainbow continued to swirl.

“I’ll find it tonight,” I told him.

He hesitated theatrically. “There’s a special rule for the heart.”

My skin tightened.

“I need *your* heart.”

My pulse beat slow and heavy in my throat. “That’s against the rules.”

He laughed. “You misunderstand. I don’t need this -” he tapped my chest - “tired little muscle. I need your *heart*. Only…it’s inside someone else.”

“What,” I asked levelly, “are you talking about?”

“A heart that is yours is a heart that loves you.”

“You mean Kameron.”

He smiled and nodded.

I almost left.

But why? Kameron didn’t really love me. He loved his illusion. His pure little princess. Someone he couldn’t touch. Someone who was too good to be touched.

It was a paradox. The moment he got what he wanted would be the moment he lost it.

But he could help me get what *I* wanted. If he really loved me, that would make him happy.

Wouldn’****?

I drove to my old apartment and knocked. Kameron answered the door, smelling like dirty clothes and whiskey. His eyes went wide when he saw me. Then he started to cry.

“She’s gone,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” I came inside held him. He got handsy. I let him.

Maybe because I was expecting it this time, or maybe because there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel, it was okay. Not enjoyable; my heart raced and I felt sick and he was too intoxicated to do a whole lot. But he was gentle and careful.

He got what he wanted.

Before he could realize that he’d knocked his angel off her pedestal - before he could take my heart away - I talked him into a drive. 

The drive to the warehouse was the happiest I’d ever seen him. 

I led him through the warehouse, pausing every minute or two for a hug or a kiss. That was fine. It was good to make him happy. Quid pro quo.

Only when he saw Daddy, hulking and grinning under the fluorescent lights, did Kameron realize that something was wrong.

Daddy stood up. He looked awful: nine feet tall and completely wrong, a hybrid of every childhood nightmare.

“Get back,” Kameron told me. 

Daddy charged. Kameron shoved me toward the stairs. I felt his hand on my back, felt his pulse beating through his wrist, for a fraction of a second.

Then Daddy grew, blotting the lights, bones creaking and cracking as he exploded into something I couldn’t comprehend.

And then, like all the others before him, Kameron was gone.

My heart began to pound - from grief or excitement, I couldn’t tell. “We’re done,” I said. “So where is it?”

“Where is what?” Daddy stretched luxuriously.

“What I want.” I could feel my blood pressure rising. “The thing I want.”

“You mean the deepest desire of your heart?”

“Yes!”

He grinned and dropped to his haunches, posing like a runner about to take off. “Here it is.” He took a deep breath.

The stillness was excruciating, poised overhead like a crushing weight.

Then Daddy opened his mouth and threw up. Bloody and foul, full of shattered bones and flesh, it flooded toward me like a tide. 

And floating within it, a pale crown jewel, was Kameron’s head.

Daddy gurked up a final outpouring of viscera and settled back. “There it is.”

My skin prickled and stung. I thought of feathers, small and hard and piercing the skin as they forced their way up.

I turned and ran. 

I did not fly through the air, but I flew across the sand. Stars lit my way, a million eyes glazing the desert in silvery darkness.

Sometime around dawn, just as gold and red bloomed across the horizon, I tripped and fell. I remember watching the sunrise.

Then everything went dark,

*

Kameron found me.

When we got home, he helped me into the shower. I sat blankly as dust and dried blood skirled down the drain.

After twenty minutes, he helped me out and put me to bed.

I fell asleep quickly.

I woke around midafternoon. Sun streamed through the window. Kameron slept beside me. His shirt was hiked up halfway over his back, revealing what looked like a tattoo.

I lifted his shirt, half-expecting to see Demetria’s embellished name, and froze.

Not a name. Not even a tattoo.

Just seven words written in black Sharpie:

*Give Daddy a little more credit, honey.*


 Human: write a story with the theme title: How I became a god
 
 Assistant: “I wasn’t smart when I was born.  In fact I was a cripple and a simpleton.  I couldn’t walk, so I dragged myself around the forest floor, never straying from my mother’s presence.  I felt at the time she never cared much for my siblings and I, mostly letting us fend for ourselves, but I realize now she kept a careful eye on us.  She was cold, distant, and dumb like me, but she knew how to watch for large animals and other potential threats as my brothers, sisters, and I slowly figured out how to feed ourselves.  It seems cruel in retrospect and many of my siblings died young.

Life was hard crawling in the dirt of the forest floor, treating anything remotely edible as a banquet to be cherished.  As I slowly grew, she eventually disappeared, leaving me and two of my remaining brothers alone at a very young age.  They both perished shortly after.

But somehow I managed to survive against all odds.  Crawling in the mud and struggling against my disability, finding food and shelter anywhere I could.  I slowly learned how to use my disabilities to my advantage, setting ambushes and traps for small game.  But I was still fundamentally an idiot and no matter how clever I thought I was back then, failure was common and life continued to be difficult.

Surviving in the jungle while mentally disabled and handicapped was mostly a factor of sheer luck, though at the time I thought myself to be quite adept.  I never stayed in one place for long and I moved very slowly but carefully.  My diet consisted of anything I could find laying around which was edible, mostly small animals I could catch, but I could go hungry for very long periods of time.

Eventually, I stumbled on a small stream with an even smaller cave nearby.  I made it my home for a while.  It wasn’t much but it was hidden well and provided some sense of security.  I would drag myself out to the stream and bask in the warm tropical sun at times, take naps under trees, and eat as often as I could manage.  Those were my simple pleasures in life back then.

Predators were always a threat, and being crippled, running was not an option.  So I learned to hide.  I learned to read my environment.  I learned when to be loud and when to be quiet.  And against all odds, I somehow survived.  Once again, in retrospect, I mistook luck for cleverness.

And that would have been my entire life, up until I starved or finally ran out of luck.  But that is where my story really begins: where it should have ended.

I was crawling along the forest floor searching for something, anything to eat.  It had been many days and I had a furious hunger.  All I knew how to do was hobble around, crawling and dragging myself through the jungle, looking for scraps or small animals I could ambush on the ground.  I had just pulled myself through a small bush when I saw it.

The jaguar was low to the ground, in a pouncing position.  On any other day I might have become its meal then and there, but it was focused on something else.  I remained absolutely still, barely even breathing, hoping to not draw it’s attention.  It crouched down even further, clearly preparing to strike, it’s eyes focused like only a hunter’s can be.  I dared a quick glance at it’s target.

And what I saw was the most unusual bird, giant and dangerous in its own right.  Bright and colorful, and nearly the size of the jaguar itself, it was a rainbow of feathers with a crown of plumage on its head.  Of course at the time, I didn’t realize how unusual this creature was, all I knew was that this jaguar was going to try and take down the giant avian at any moment.

And it did.  Try to at least.  The bird took flight the moment the jaguar lept and it soared into the canopy, the cat pursuing.  I remained still for some time to see if it would return, but eventually eased out into the small clearing.  There wasn’t much of interest so I wiggled up the small hill the bird had been resting on, only to find when I reached the top that it was in fact a giant bird’s nest.  And to my delight, resting inside were three very large eggs of unusual color.

Of course I ate them all right then and there and then dragged myself back to my usual resting spot.  Sleeping with a full belly was always it’s own reward.

But that was when things started to change.  Over the next few days I started to notice things I hadn’t been aware of before.  Small things at first: observations about my surroundings that I hadn’t noticed before.  The world looked a bit more colorful than it did, shapes a little more defined.  I was able to pay attention to more things at once.

As days turned to weeks I started realizing I could make plans that were more sophisticated than just waiting silently for something to run by so I could grab it, or looking for scraps laying around.  I started to devise clever traps, using rocks and other features of my environment to help me catch my food.  Choosing my resting locations in places where bushes and leaves would ensure I could hear predators on the ground.  I was still a cripple, but I was growing smarter.

I also began to grow bigger.  Alot bigger.  I had been an underfed runt most of my life but in the span of several months I had become a veritable giant.  Well nourished now and nearly six feet, all muscle.  I still had to crawl around but I could do so with a speed and vigor I had never known.  I felt optimistic and elated, yet I had no idea what was still to come.

As months turned to years I was able to walk for the first time in my life.  Few predators could stand before me now, as I stood nearly twelve feet tall, a titan of the forest, with a strength to match.  I strolled carelessly through the trees, eating what I wished, when I wished, where I wished.  I built my first house out of stone and fallen trees.  I was the king of the jungle.

And I climbed my first tree.  I will never forget it: hundreds of feet up in the forest canopy, I finally reached the sunlight atop the tallest tree I could find and looked out upon my domain.  Endless green as far as the eye could see in every direction.  A playground which had once threatened to consume me, but which was now mine to explore freely.  And so I did.

I began to travel more.  I discovered rivers, waterfalls, groves, huge cave systems, and giant sinkholes and lakes.  And so many new types of plants and animals I had never seen.  Frogs and birds, cats and spiders, animals which ate plants and plants which ate animals.  Over time, I took a special love of watching the tree monkeys, as they were the only other animals which seemed to express an intelligence like my own.

Which is why when I found a small one which had been injured, I carefully collected it and took it with me.

I nursed it back to health, fed it, earned it’s trust, and it became my little companion.  There were no names back then, but none were needed.  For the first time in my life, I felt genuine love for this one specific creature.  My first friend.

I had to take great care, as my growing never seemed to cease.  By my memory and estimates, I may have been nearly 30 feet tall by then, and this little monkey was barely a fly by comparison.  But the joy he brought me as we traveled together, as he gathered tiny fruits for me, and as he slept peacefully next to me, made me realize how lonely I had been all those decades wandering the forests all by myself.  Always just watching, but never feeling like more than an observer anymore.

When he finally died peacefully of old age, I was of course heartbroken. I knew it was coming, I had seen how he slowly weakened and deteriorated.  While I seemed to defy the years and continue to grow, time shifted the world around me.  Landscapes slowly changed, rivers altered, animals came and went.  After he died, I retreated back to a more observational phase of my life again, mostly wandering the forest and indulging in the sights and sounds around me.

I don’t know how long I spent like that before they found me.  Other monkeys, but these ones were even more like me.  They were extremely clever.  They made noises at each other in rapid and consistent manners.  They used tools like me, maybe even more clever than the ones I had devised.  And of course they were terrified of me.

I was a giant, towering over them, looming nearly as tall as the trees.  I mostly left them alone but would sometimes go and watch over them.  They built strange houses out of sticks and leaves, not too dissimilar to the one I had built out of rocks before I no longer had the need for such a thing.  They even appeared to be able to wield fire, and lit up the night in ways that I had only seen from the thunder of an angry sky.

As time went on, more and more of them would come and visit me, and I slowly gained their trust, even if their caution and fear never fully passed.  I learned over time what their noises meant and after some effort on my part, we were able to communicate quite well.  They would often come to me and ask questions about the area.  Good hunting grounds, water sources, places to make a new village.  After all, I had been almost everywhere.

One day some of them started leaving strange carvings in stone around where I slept.  I asked one of them about the artifacts, a youngling who had come to ask for my help removing a mighty tree which threatened to fall on his hut.  He told me that they were left as offerings, so that I might bless them with good fortune.  He told me how their lives are hard and short and then told me that a **** such as myself could surely make their lives better.

That was the first time I had encountered the concept of a ****.  I had taken a liking to these little ones, so I had already been aiding them with my knowledge whenever they would ask for it.  But he was right, I could do more.  Much more.

I remember the look of terror on many of the little people’s faces as I towered over their village.  Perhaps they were expecting some wrath for a perceived slight, I can’t know, but I quickly made it clear I was there to help by removing the offending tree and setting it out of harm’s way.  Our relationship expanded quickly over the next few years and they devised great and clever projects which took advantage of my size and relative strength.  In those years, we accomplished in days what would have taken them decades on their own, were it even possible at all.  We even replaced the village huts with a more durable collective structure, stones stacked so tall that they dwarfed the trees around them.  The giant pile of boulders was carefully stacked to create living space to spare.  A crude pyramid of sorts, I would later come to realize.

Things went well for a while, and I took a very active role in the lives of my new friends.  It reminded me of my old monkey friend from so long ago, except this time there were many and I could speak to them and share my thoughts and feelings.  It was an exhilarating time for me, and we accomplished much.  We dug trenches to allow water to reach areas where they could cultivate crops.  We studied the stars together and speculated on the mysteries of the forest and the world.  I watched friends be born, age, die, only for new friends to appear.

After many many years though, the number of friends grew.  And grew.  And grew.  Eventually, there were so many that they began to fight each other over what seemed to be the infinite bounty of the forest.  Their noises changed and I could no longer understand all of them anymore, only the ones I remained near.  They began to ask me for help or blessings hunting other people, fighting other villages.  I always refused.

The tipping point came when the village I attended attempted to sacrifice a young girl in my name in order to gain my support in an upcoming raid.  I had tried to tolerate them and understand them, but their pettiness had boiled over and I was exacerbated.  There were too many people, too many villages, too many conflicts, too much sadness.  It felt like I was crawling through the mud again, a dumb cripple, unsure what to do or where to go, and with little means to accomplish anything.  I realized the moment they placed that little girl on the altar that I had forgotten what it meant to be helpless.

So I accepted their sacrifice.  I took the girl, and I left that village and never returned.  I went as far as I could away from that place and I did my best to take care of that little girl.  She was small and frightened at first, but grew to trust me over time.  We traveled south until we reached a great cliff with a waterfall, far away from the little people.  I built her a little house of stones at the top of the cliff right next to the waterfall, with a spectacular view of the forest below.

I didn’t even think to ask her name until she took the initiative to tell me, much later.  Names have no meaning in the forest, but I discovered it was Sacniete, an old and beautiful name I will never forget.

We were together for a long time.  She grew up, and once again more little people discovered us.  Once again they would come and ask for advice at first, and once again their requests would grow to be increasingly more and more demanding.  Untrusting of the little people now, I would often withdraw or refuse to speak to them.  Often I could not even understand their noises anymore.  But Sacniete would take over and represent me in my stead when the weight of it all became too much.  She even put feathers on her head like me in order to gain some trust and status from the visitors so they would eventually come to understand that I trusted her.  After a time, it almost became expected that she was the one you would speak to when you came to me.

Which I was fine with.  She never once misrepresented me, we were both children of a similar fortune.  Abandoned by fate but then entrusted with something special we could use to help others, and I knew she could be trustworthy.  I slowly came to understand that she was good at what she did.  I watched her mend divides, forge alliances, and eventually even end a war.  I was a simple person of the forest, but she was a politician and she knew how to use my name and power to change the little people.  To make them better.

I loved her, more than I even loved that little monkey.  She was kind, gentle, but intelligent and uncompromising.  She taught me things I had never heard of, things she learned of from our visitors.  We had no needs, so knowledge was paid for with knowledge.  Forms of what I would later find were arithmetic, astronomy, philosophy, and more slowly arrived bit by bit.  It gave me a new window into the world around me, one I had never given it’s due consideration despite being more ancient than many of the trees.  It always amazed me that these little people were so creative and intelligent, and it was her, she was the one who in the end inspired me to put my faith in them again.

I started to take a more active role once more, but being mostly stuck in one place, I studied and philosophized and tried to make myself useful to the little people in the ways I could.  I slurped up knowledge and I offered it back to any who asked.  I was too big to move so freely around the woods now without laying waste to it, but the little people seemed more than happy to come to me.  Sacniete even gave me a name, and while the little people had called me many things before, this was the first one I truly took to heart.

And in those years, my heart grew nearly as fast as I did.

When she died I was once again heartbroken.  It was a tragic accident.  Nearly 140 feet now, I was so massive it was hard to even move through the woods anymore without trampling everything in my path.  I tended to just remain in the same spot near the top of the waterfall as a result, and spent most of my time asleep or staring out over the vast and beautiful jungle, framed by the mountains hundreds of miles behind it.

I don’t know why she had come so close to me while I was sleeping that night, or what cruelty of fate caused me to roll over, but when I woke up I found I had accidentally crushed her to death.  I could barely even recognize her.  I had seen the little people cry before, but that was the first time I myself had ever truly wept.  I hadn’t even realized I was capable of it.

I retreated deeper into the forest after that, avoiding everything.  Everyone was so small, and I was so dangerously large.  I just wanted to go hide in a cave somewhere and never come out, but even finding such a large cavern now would seem nearly impossible.  As was so often the case in my life, I do not know how much time passed, probably ages, but eventually the little people found me again as they always did.

But this time it was different.  They remembered my name.  They brought me food and gifts.  They once again asked for my knowledge, and my help to save and improve their lives.  I enjoyed their company despite my distrust, apathy, and depression.  Eventually though, they asked me to come with them to their town, and after much deliberation I finally agreed.

What I found when I arrived there was a landscape drastically transformed.  The massive destruction of a forest replaced by farmland, and a great city made of stacked stone, much like the one I had made so long ago but much more refined and massive.  And the number of little people was uncountable.

The forest’s devastation was so great that I could not even see the trees on the other side of the city.  I just stood there, towering over everything, and felt horror ripple through me from my head to my toes.  I felt as though this was somehow all my fault.  I should have known this would happen.  I should never have helped the little people, for they were so smart that the forest itself had become their prey.  Or maybe I should have helped them more, taught them better to be stewards of the forest, not destroyers of it.

I immediately left without a word back the way I came.  They followed me yelling and crying my name for some while before eventually giving up and returning to their desolation of a home.

I went further south.  Far further south.  I dreamed about that bird from so long ago.  Was it the last of its kind?  What destruction had I myself wrought on it or it’s species when I ate its eggs?  I wasn’t intelligent enough to have such thoughts back then when I did it, but now it was always there in the back of my mind.  How easy it truly is to destroy something beautiful out of sheer ignorance.

I finally found a new cave, my cave, large enough for me to fit in snugly, and I went to sleep.  As always, I do not know for how long.  Ages most likely.   And once again I was awoken by the little people.

They hadn’t changed much by my perception, but their noises were new.  It took me some time to understand them again, but once I did, they told me of how things were.  An empire they said, greater than any before, and cities of stone which fed and housed vast numbers of little people.  I could only barely imagine how so many of them could survive on the fruits of the forest, but they told me they no longer needed the forest.  They claimed to have tamed the wilds.

I remember at one point asking one of their supposed wise men what had happened to the old little people who I had once seen doing the same thing.  He told me their cities had been abandoned long ago and they had retreated back into the forest.  This gave me some hope, and I believed that in time they too would return to the forest.  I did not tell him my thoughts though, I simply sent him away.

More and more of them flooded to me and before I knew it they were erecting monuments all around my cave, destroying trees and slaying animals in the process.  I tried to chase them off but they would always return eventually.  I fled them in a fit of anger one night after years of fitful and interrupted slumber.  I went further south.

Eventually I found another home.  One of many in my travels, but it was suitable.  Deep, dark, and hidden in the bowels of a sinkhole.  Nobody but I could get down this deep into the earth, so here I would finally be safe to rest.  No more little people.  No more sadness.

But this time it was a different kind of noise.  Grating, whirring, ripping noises.  Alien noises and the smell of fire and ash.  I don’t know how long had passed, but when I woke, deep in my hidden chamber, I knew something had changed.  These were not noises of the forest or even noises of little people.  I had to investigate.

When I peaked out of my cave, I stood up and looked over the trees to see smoke filling the air and huge swaths of forest completely burned to the ground.  I went to go see what was happening and observed the little people burning and chopping and tearing at the trees with strange tools I had never before seen.  Noisy tools.  Violent tools.

Some of them spotted me and it wasn’t long before they were screaming and fleeing in mass.  I couldn’t understand, there were no crops here, no city.  Why were they destroying the forest, burning it to the ground even?  Not even using the wood from the trees as they used to do.  I walked through the devastation and saw it stretched out seemingly forever.  In the distance I saw strange buildings, very different from the stone and thatch ones I was familiar with, and vast herds of unusual animals I had never encountered before.  The forest had turned to grassland at the hands of the little people.

I stood watch over the area for a few years, frightening off those who dared trespass.  I wandered around and patrolled, destroying the infrastructure the little people used to attack the forest wherever I found it.  I took care never to hurt any of them, and it wasn’t hard as they always fled in my presence.  I became cold hearted though, and felt the little people were a plague, a disease I had allowed to fester.  Once again, I believed this was my fault, that it was something I could have prevented.

Time continued to pass.  Many suns, many seasons, many years.  I remember one day I saw a strange bird fly overhead.  I now know it was an aeroplane, but at the time it reminded me of the bird from when I was just a young cripple.  Giant and majestic, beautiful.  I tried to follow it but it was far too fast and I watched it disappear over the mountains.  I remember wondering what new lands the bird would discover over there.  Maybe ones without little people.

No matter how much I tried though, I couldn’t stop the destruction.  Always small groups, simple tools, and a lot of fire.  I could not be everywhere at once.  I felt despair.

Time passed, but an old man found me one day and spoke to me in new and unusual noises.  At first I ignored him, but he persisted and slept nearby every night, refusing to leave.  He would come every day and make the same noises at me.  He seemed harmless and I felt lonely, so on a whim I decided to let him stay for a while so that he might teach me the new noises.  We were eventually able to speak more clearly.

He gave me his name, Fabio, and he was also born in the forest.  He told me many strange, wonderful, and terrible things.  He told me about how the land was now used for raising cattle.  He told me about how the silver bird was in fact a machine created by little people.  He told me what he knew about science, about history, about society.  That there were entire nations of little people all over the world.  That the little people had conquered it all.

I came to feel he was like me, for he seemed saddened by it.  He said there was nobody left who understood the old ways.  Living in the garden and only taking what you require.  He told me few people believed in me anymore, that I was just a scary story told to frighten frontiersmen’s children, or just a mythology told in schools.  That those who claimed to have seen me were met with disbelief.  And he said he had seen me as a child when I had run off his parents at the edge of the forest, and that he had spent his whole life searching for me since then.

The little people were always full of surprises.

I took him in and his welcome company and knowledge warmed me as I continued to hide in my cave.  He taught me to play chess, he told wonderful stories and even brought me books.  I had seen the scratchings in stone from long ago and their meanings, but these were far more sophisticated.  I learned to read and I lusted after the knowledge.  He would go out once every few months and bring back more books, photographs, and at one point even a motion picture for me, which I devoured greedily.  Years passed almost in an instant and I barely ever left the cave.

Eventually he told me I would need to face my fears and do something about the encroaching little people, who grew closer every day.  But I knew he could see my wounded spirit, and he was kind and let me rest, never pressing me.  He knew the little people had broken my heart.

But what is broken can break again, and when he finally passed away a few years later, I found myself alone once more.  Timeless, not like the tree, but like the very stone I dwelled in, I knew everything around me was ephemeral.  It was all going to change and die anyways, so what did it matter what I did.

And so I slept.  I don’t know how long.  It might have been ages.

Eventually I was awoken again by the little people’s noises.  Well, in this case, you specifically of course.  I remember thinking at the time that I was half tempted to **** you all up and carry you to the edge of the forest and tell you never to return.

But  I observed you from a distance without intervening to see what you did.  My trust of the little people was low enough by now that I was prepared to even squash you if you stepped afoul, but to my surprise you all were nothing if not respectful of your surroundings.

After several weeks of observing you, I saw you rescue animals, study the plants, record information.  I saw you exploring and appreciating the wonder of the forest, just like the little people of old.  Just like I did.  I realized you were the scientists the old man had told me about.  That you were here to learn, not to destroy.

And that was when I decided to make myself known.  I knew you would be terrified, but I was used to that at this point.  And I still remember the look on your faces when I first presented, but when I managed to convince you I was harmless, your innate scientific curiosity took over I can only assume.  The same curiosity which drives me.  I believe you are like the other little people I once knew: kind, loving, and well intentioned.

And that is why I trust you with my story.  I hope you are able to share it and help me, for while I was once called a ****, I am just as helpless as a baby snake crawling, crippled in the mud on the forest floor.”

*I turned off the recorder at that point and looked up at the towering feathered serpent, unfathomably large.  I told him that was the last thing I needed and that I would return to see him again as soon as I could.  He nodded in understanding, but watched with a sorrow in his eyes as we slowly made our way into the woods, leaving the cave we had been exploring for weeks behind.  My colleagues and I had expected to discover an immense undiscovered network with possibly uncatalogued species.  We had not expected to discover this particular uncatalogued species.*

*As I write this log of his recording, we are setting up camp less than a day from the airstrip where we will be picked up.  I don’t know if anyone will believe me, or if they will think I photoshopped our pictures, but the rest of the team agrees we need to tread lightly, lest we bring him unwanted attention.  But I have to do something.  I still remember the first words he spoke to me, after all those first days of terror and uncertainty, not knowing if we had discovered a monster, not knowing if we were going to die.  But the monster turned out to be anything but.*

*I will never forget what he said, the first time he spoke to us:*

“I have been watching you.  Do not fear. I have been here a long time.  The world is changing and I am crawling in the mud again.  I was once a little forest snake, but I was given the name Quetzalcoatl long ago by someone I loved very much.  Now once again, I am as helpless as a little snake.

I need you.  Every day my home gets smaller, and the little people grow.  Every year I must hide deeper and deeper to avoid their shiny birds and stinging smoke.

I may look big to you, but I am just a simple creature crawling in the mud.

Please help me save my home.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: After 2 years, I Finally read my dad’s suicide note. I really should have read it sooner.
 
 Assistant: I took a deep breath to stop the slight shaking in my hand, whispering my affirmation on the exhale, “I’m ready for this, I’m ready,” before sliding the blue-lined notebook paper out from its envelope.  It was finally ready to read my dad’s suicide note.

It took me almost two years to get to this point of acceptance and readiness.  Two years ago I was known as a bright, energetic girl who was ready to take on the world.  Having just finished High School as the class Valedictorian, I was following in my father’s footsteps and received a full-ride scholarship to his alma mater where I would also compete nationally on the Women’s Track Team.  All of this was possible thanks to the support of my favorite person in the world, my Dad.  

Growing up, as far back as I can possibly remember, it was just me and Dad.  He had told me that my mother had given in to her drug addictions, and walked out when I was still an infant.  He always told me I look just like her, which I can verify by the pictures he showed me.  That being said, he never was able to find her, nobody knows if she is even alive.  

My dad didn’t hesitate to be the perfect dad, regardless of losing my mother.  “You and I, we’re a team,” he always told me, “Together, there’s nothing that we can’t handle.”  And that was true.  Every day, he’d take me to school and head straight to work, just to come home and shuttle me to all of my extracurriculars, and still make time to help me do my homework and studying.  Okay, so sometimes he forced me to do my homework, but it always got done before bed.

Dad was genuinely my best friend, our bond was something most other girls just couldn't understand as they constantly fought and argued with their fathers.  Not me though, we were a team, there was nothing that we couldn’t handle.  That is until there was no “we” anymore.  

That weekend, we spent all Saturday moving my things into my new college dorm.  I remember that day like it was yesterday.  We talked and laughed all day as we unpacked and set up furniture together.  We could only avoid the inevitable for so long though, as night fell and Dad still had a 3-hour drive home.  Finally, we both broke into tears as we said our goodbyes.  

“Remember, we’re a team,” he told me, choking back his tears, “Together, there’s nothing we can't handle,” I finished for him.  And with that, he climbed into his pickup and drove off.  I cried myself to sleep, thinking about how I had never gone more than a day without seeing my dad and now I was supposed to live on my own?  

I woke up early the next day, still wearing my jeans from moving day.  Realizing that I hadn’t stayed up to get the text from my dad ensuring he made it home safely, I picked up my phone to check for his text, but naturally, the battery was dead.  I connected the charger and got the coffee **** started while I waited for my phone to charge.  

By the time I got back to my bedroom, the phone had enough juice to turn on.  I put in my passcode and went straight to the messaging app, but there was no message from dad.  

I immediately had a bad feeling about that, it seemed so unlike him to not send the message when he got home.  My mind started jumping to all of the “what-if’s.”  What if he had been in an accident?  What if he was in the hospital, or worse?  

I called, hoping he would pick up the phone and calm my anxiety, but the call went straight to his cheery but sarcastic Voicemail he hadn’t changed in years.  

“This is Derrin, sorry I missed your call!  Leave me a message and I’ll probably call you back, but no guarantees!”  

“Hey Dad, this is Erin.  Sorry, I fell asleep, just wanted to know you got home okay.  Call me, Love you.”  

“I’m sure he just fell asleep and hasn’t got up yet,” I told myself out loud.  I continued to try and reassure myself that nothing was wrong, but it didn’t help, I just couldn’t quash that feeling that something was wrong.  

An hour had passed, then two, then three.  I must have called at least a dozen times, but every call had the same result.  Straight to Voicemail.  By the time it was noon, I knew something had to be wrong, very wrong.  If my dad slept until 7:30 AM, that was “sleeping in” for him, even on a Sunday.  

I did the next thing I could think of and called my Uncle Dan, who lives only 25 minutes away.

“Hey, Uncle Dan, sorry to bother you but have you heard from my dad?  He never called to say he was home last night, and well, he hasn’t answered his phone.”  

“Oh I’m sure he’s fine, he’s probably just sleeping in.  He’s an empty-nester now, Or maybe he’s just working on that old Camaro.  Maybe **** finally get it running,” Dan said with a chuckle.

“Look,” I said while pacing my room, somewhat annoyed by his lack of concern, “Can you just please do me a favor and go check on him?”

“I’d love to, but I’m at the lake right now, having myself a nice quiet fishing trip.  But tell you what, if you haven’t heard from him by later this afternoon, I’ll stop by on my way home and smack him for you.”

“Alright, thanks Dan,” I said before hanging up, not even trying to hide my disappointment.  I couldn’t understand how Dan could just blow off the fact that Dad hasn’t called me.  I knew my dad better than anybody, and this wasn’t normal.  

I called the Highway Patrol next and asked them if there had been any accidents involving a 2006 Chevy Silverado, thankfully there had been none.  After that I called the local police for my dad’s city, asking them to file a Missing Persons report or to do a wellness check.  They blew me off the same way Uncle Dan did, telling me that “He’s an adult and has no obligation to check in with his teenage daughter,” and recommended that I wait a couple of days.

By 2:00 PM, still, with no phone call and nobody that would take me seriously, I grabbed the keys to my dainty maroon sedan and started driving.  I drove fast, I couldn’t help it, but I made it home in just 2 ½ hours, cutting 30 minutes off the usual 3-hour drive. 

I felt my heart speed up, and hit a little harder, as I pulled into my neighborhood, anxious to get some answers.  As the garage door opened, I could see the Chevy Silverado in the garage, next to the rusty old Camaro with parts and tools scattered about.  Feeling a little relieved, I took a deep breath in, and let my chest push the air back out.

“DAD?” I called out as I walked through the door.  His keys, wallet, and cell phone all lay in place on the old, beat-up, brown shelf next to the door.  “DAD, ARE YOU HOME?”  There was still no answer as I peeked out into the backyard.  

It seemed as though the home I’d known my whole life had never been so quiet.  It was usually filled with the sounds of conversations, laughter. music, or the sound of sports playing in the living room.  Tonight, however, the silence of the house was so muted that each stair creak sounded like the house was moaning in pain as if it was being forced to tell a dark secret.

“Dad?” I called out, a little softer this time, scared to disturb the leering silence.  I gave his bedroom door a soft knock, then twisted the doorknob and pushed lightly, encouraging it to slowly open with a drawn-out, squealing creak.  That’s where I found him.  

The first thing I noticed was the blood.  The headboard of his bed had a deep red, almost black in the middle, spatter of blood.  It looked as if someone had filled a large water balloon with blood and launched it at the headboard.  The splatters of blood projected upwards from the headboard, leaving long streaks of blood up the wall, and even onto the ceiling.  Laying on the bed was my father, thankfully slumped in a way that I could not see his head and face.  Next to him, I could see the deep brown wood stock of his 12 gauge shotgun.  

This is an image I can’t get out of my mind.  The harder I try to not think about it, the more I think about it.  It haunts me, every day and every night.  I frequently have nightmares, where I watch a dark figure place a shotgun to my dad’s head and pull the trigger, sending blood and brain matter flying throughout the room.  I always try to stop it from happening, but I’m unable to move.  

That evening, I experienced what shock truly is.  It’s as if the part of my mind that controls how rational people should act simply broke.  I know I called 911, I know I told them someone was dead, but I barely remember anything else from the ensuing events until the funeral, and the time the detective told me that my father’s death had been ruled a suicide.  

Detective Tilly was her name, I always kept her card in my nightstand.  She handed me a Ziploc bag, inside was an off-white envelope, that was once sealed but had carefully been opened.  On the outside, written in black ink, my name was written.  “It’s addressed to you,” Detective Tilly said, “We had to process it for evidence, but the case is closed and this belongs to you.”  The next thing she handed me was her card, with a soft touch on my shoulder and a promise that I could call any time, under any circumstance.

Over the following 18 months, my life can only be described as an absolute mess. I was hospitalized twice.  Not for physical injuries, but psychiatric ones.  I would simply forget to eat, and ended up severely underweight.  Another time, I was apparently found by police walking down the highway at night, barefoot, wearing only shorts and a tee-shirt.  I don’t remember that, but needless to say, I did not end up following through with college.

When I wasn’t an in-patient, I stayed with my Uncle Dan and Aunt Molly who kindly took me in, and handled basically all of the affairs.  Over the past 6 months, thanks to the help of Uncle Dan, Aunt Molly, my psychiatrist, and my therapist, I’ve made progress enough to finally start feeling like a normal person again.  I’d been weaned to low dosages of the pills that help me sleep, and my therapist and I had decided that I was finally in a place where I could, and should, read the suicide letter addressed to me.  

*Erin,

I want you to know that I’m sorry and that none of this is your fault.  
Ever since your mother’s death, the only thing that brought me happiness was being your dad.

Now that you are off on your own, I don’t feel as if I have any reason to live.

I Love you,

Dad.*

I paused, staring at the words, letting them sink in.  My fist slammed on the desk before I even realized I was angry, knocking my pen holder over.  I grabbed the pen holder and threw it across the room.  I heard it crack on the wall, followed by pens and pencils landing In every which direction.  

“What the ****?” I said out loud, as my sight blurred slightly from the accumulating tears.  This letter was supposed to provide me with closure, not more questions.  What did he mean by “my mother’s death”?  My father had always told me that she left, and he didn’t know what happened to her after that.  And why is it that he couldn't continue to be my dad after I left college?

I took a deep breath in through my nose and pushed the air out through my lips.  I took a couple more deep breaths until I had composure over myself.  I started picking up the pens that I had thrown everywhere.  They were all the blue-capped ballpoint pens, the only pens I would write with.  That habit was one of the many that I picked up from my dad.  

That’s when the oddity of the note struck me, something I hadn’t thought of until now.  The note was written in black pen, my dad only ever wrote with blue pens as if he had some sort of paranoia with using any other ink.  I rushed back to the note and looked at it more intently.  The black ink on the paper didn’t seem right, and not just the color, but the lettering as well. 

I rushed to the closet and pulled out the old orange shoebox that contained every card my dad had ever left me.  On top was the card he had given me along with my graduation gift.  On the top front, written in blue ink, was my name.  I placed it next to the suicide note written with black ink.

It was different.  The handwriting was close, but different.  My dad wrote the E in Erin with straight lines and sharp points on the graduation card, but on the suicide note, the back of the E was curved.  There were other small differences as well, such as how on the note, the handwriting was slightly more slanted than on the cards my dad had given me.  

Over the next few hours, I pulled out every single card and analyzed the handwriting, comparing it with the suicide note.  The more I read, the more I became convinced that the suicide letter was written by someone else, but who?  Was my dad Murdered?  

I approached Dan as soon as he got home, holding the letter in my hand.  “Dan, umm, there’s something that I’d like to talk to you about,” I said, standing in the doorway of his office with my free hand anxiously pulling at my hair.  

“What can I do for ya, Erin?”  Dan replied with a smile, but still looking down at his computer.  

“My dad’s Suicide note, I read it.  It says here that my mother died, but my dad said that she left and he never knew what happened to her.  I’m, I’m just confused.”  

For a moment, just a small moment, a look of surprise came over Dan’s face, as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Just as quickly as it appeared, that expression left and was replaced with a kind, caring, look.  

“I’m sorry, honey, I don’t know much about your mother, only met her a few times myself.”  He paused for a minute, to remove his reading glasses and set them on his desk.  “I’m sorry to say this, but I think it’s also fair to say that there were a lot of things your dad kept to himself.  I wish he’d opened up about his struggles, we all do.”  

“Okay, I’m sorry to bother you,”  I said, starting to walk away.  

“Hey hey, don’t leave yet, is there anything else that is bothering you?”  

“Well, the thing is, I- I just….”  I trailed off and looked down at the ground.  I didn’t know how to say it, that I thought my dad was murdered.  I started doubting myself and was worried that after all of the problems I’ve had that I might sound crazy.

“It’s okay, Erin, you can tell me.” 

“I don’t think my dad wrote the note.  it’s not his handwriting, It doesn’t match,” I spat out.

“Erin,” Dan said, sounding clearly disappointed,” I thought we had this all behind us.  Did you take your meds today?”

“Yes, I took-“

“I’ll call Dr. Z first thing tomorrow, we don’t need you to have another mental break.  I’m sure the therapist can get you in for an emergency session as well,” he said while scribbling down some notes on his post-it stack.  

“You know what, you're right, I'm overthinking this all, I’m just going to go get some rest.”  I didn’t wait for a response.  I turned and hurried into my room, closing and locking the door behind me.  

Deep breaths, I thought to myself, deep breaths.  I took a few moments to compose myself, before sitting down on my chair.  I unclenched my hand, letting the old post-it note that I had swiped off Dan’s desk fall onto mine.  The note said, “Pickup prescription for Erin.”  The E was written with a curved backline.  I placed it next to the alleged suicide note.  The handwriting from Dan’s post-it note was a dead match.  Dan wrote this suicide note, not my dad.  

Hours passed while I sat at my desk, staring at the notes, grasping the new reality of the situation.  A dozen thoughts crossed through my mind as to what might have happened, what role Dan had played in my father’s death.  

Molly had knocked on my door and tried to coax me out for dinner.  I declined, saying that I needed some rest.  My therapist called too, undoubtedly he had received a call from Dan.  I ignored his call, thinking Dan was trying to make me think I’m crazy.  *What are you hiding, Dan?*  I asked myself.  

It was 11:00 pm, and I was sure Dan and Molly had gone off to bed.  I pulled out that old business card that I had kept for the last two years.  On the top, in blue handwriting, the card read, “Tamatha Tilly, detective.”  

I pulled out my cell phone, and dialed the number, hoping that she would pick up.  Listening to the tone, I couldn’t help but think about that day two years ago, trying to call my dad not knowing he was already dead, laying on his bed with his brains splattered across the wall.  

“This is Detective Tilly,” 

The voice startled me, I had been so lost in that horrific memory that I forgot about the present.  

“Hello, is anybody there?”  Detective Tilly asked from the other end of the line.  

“Yeah, sorry, ummmm, my name is Erin Mills.  Two years ago, you worked my dad’s case, Derrin Mills? 

“I remember you, yeah,” she said, in a kind voice with a hint of sadness, “some cases are hard to forget.  How are you?”  She asked.

“Well I’m a little freaked out,” I said, feeling comforted by the openness of Detective Tilly’s warmth.  “The thing is…”  I started to pace the floor, not really sure how to say it.  

“Go ahead, Erin, what can I do for you?”  Detective Tilly encouraged. 

“I know it’s been two years, and I know this probably sounds crazy, but I’ve just read my father’s suicide note, and it’s not his handwriting, he didn’t write it.”  

There was a pause of silence from the other end of the line, “Are you sure?”  Detective Tilly asked.

“Yes, and I’ve compared it to my Uncle’s handwriting, and it looks exactly like his.  I know how this sounds, but…”

“I believe you,” detective Tilly said before I could finish, “Look, if you’re right about this, we need to get ahead of the situation now.  Where are you?  I can come pick you up, bring the note and your Uncle’s handwriting sample, and we’ll look at this together.”

It felt so good to hear her say that she believed me.  It had been so long since somebody truly believed in me instead of treating me like some sort of headcase.  “Okay, I live at [*redacted*] **** street,” I told her, already grabbing some clothes from my closet with my free hand, “but I’ll probably have to sneak out, this is my Uncle Dan’s house and when I said something to him about the note, he got really weird…”

“Oh ****.  Erin, you need to get out of there.  I’m already on my way, keep me on the line, get out of that house, walk down the street, then start talking to me and I’ll pick you up.  

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll talk to you in a few,” before slipping the phone into my pocket, with Detective Tilly still on the line.  I quietly slipped my vans on and grabbed a backpack with my computer, phone charger, and a set of spare clothes along with a folder containing the suicide note, writing samples from my dad, and the post-it note from Dan, before quietly opening the door and stepping out.

“Going somewhere?”  

I jumped a mile at the sound of Dan’s voice and almost fell over while my heart punched my chest from the inside.  

“Dan, hey,” I said, trying and failing to hide the obvious fact that I was caught red-handed by the man that may have murdered my dad.  “I-I was just going for a walk.”

“With your backpack?” Dan said immediately, taking a step forward.

I took a step backward at the same time, “Yeah, just in case I get hot and need to take my jacket off.”

Dan took another step forward, and I took another step backward to keep out of arm's reach.  “Look, we just want to keep you safe.  You’ve made so much progress, we don’t need another regression.  Why don’t you hand over the note, so we can get past this.”  His suggestion sounded more like a demand, and it occurred to me that he had probably been listening to my conversation with Tilly.

He took another step forward, and I took another step backward.

“No,” I said, “It’s mine and it belongs to me.”

“You know, you should remember who took you in, and put up with all your psychotic breaks before you go making crazy accusations about the people who care for you.”  

His usually cheerful voice now sounded dangerous and sharp, and he took another step forward.  I realized that I was all but cornered, he stood between me and the door.  

“Give it to me now,” he demanded, no longer able to maintain the Mr. Nice Guy facade.

He lunged at me.  I turned to run, but his hand caught my backpack, ripping me backward.  I landed **** the floor, smacking my head on my chair on the way down.  

“GET OFF ME!” I shouted, and started kicking my feet at him, he ripped the backpack away, but I held onto it with both hands on the straps.  He pulled again, even harder, and the seam in the strap started to rip.  I remembered what my dad had taught me, if I were ever to be attacked by an evil man, to kick him in the groin. 

I summoned all of my strength and kicked as hard as I possibly could, placing my lower shin right between Dan’s legs.  He let go of the backpack and fell to his knees while I fell backward toward the window.  

“YOU **** ****!”  Dan yelled as he started to stand up.  I was  already pushing the screen out of the window, and just as he rose back to his feet I jumped out of the window, landing in the bushes four feet below.  I scrambled to my feet while wiping the blood away from the cut on my forehead created by my collision with the chair.  I heard a thud behind me and turned to see that Dan had already made it through the window.  All I could do now was run.

I made it about 10 feet away before something hard hit my head.  My vision flashed, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground with Dan standing over me, a large rock in his hand. 

“DROP THE ROCK OR I’LL SHOOT!”

I looked up to see Detective Tilly standing 20 feet away, her pistol drawn and pointed right at Uncle Dan.  

“Look, this is just a big misunderstanding,” Dan said desperately while dropping the rock.  

“PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND GET ON YOUR KNEES,” Tilly demanded as she walked forward, pistol still drawn.  Dan dropped to his knees while I began to crawl away.  “NOW LAY DOWN ON YOUR STOMACH,” Tilly demanded, as she carefully navigated behind him.

“She’s having a psychological break, she needs help!” Dan pleaded, but Tilly ignored him.  Instead, she grabbed his head and slammed him into the ground, face first, and proceeded to put him in handcuffs while multiple other police cars arrived.  

A lot happened in the next few weeks.  I spent a couple of days in the hospital, being treated for a serious concussion.  Detective Tilly stopped in multiple times to check in on me and keep me updated.  The following day, she had the case reopened, to be investigated as a homicide with the suicide note being a key piece of evidence.

Dan was arrested that night for assault, Detective Tilly had heard the entire thing over the phone and witnessed him hit me in the head with the rock.  When questioned about the homicide, however, he refused to talk and lawyered up.  Instead, they turned to interrogate Aunt Molly.  It took her less than an hour to crack and confess to everything.

As it turns out, it wasn't just my mom who was into drugs.  They all were.  Aunt Molly, Uncle Dan, even my dad.  One night when I was just an infant, things got out of hand while they were using and my mother overdosed.  They didn’t want to go to the police, because they would all go to jail, and guardianship of me would have been given to the state. Instead, my dad and Dan disposed of her body and played it off as if she had walked out on us.  

They all got clean after that, and my dad made it his goal to be the best dad he could be.  The night my dad died, my dad admitted to Dan that he couldn’t hold on to the secret anymore.  Now that I was an adult, he planned to confess to the authorities what had happened 18 years ago.  This didn’t sit well with Dan, so Dan killed him and made it look like a suicide to keep Molly and himself out of prison.

It was a lot to grasp, but ultimately I feel much better finally understanding the truth.  I’ve forgiven my dad, and can finally move on with my life and continue to college.  I know that, even though he’s gone, Dad will always be with me.  After all, we’re a team, and together, there’s nothing that we can’t handle.

[RMS](https://www.reddit.com/r/HorrorsOfStaniforth/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My neighbor has been mowing his lawn for 12 hours straight
 
 Assistant: It started at 4:43am. The noise jolted me awake. It sounded like there was a giant truck revving its engine right there in our bedroom. Exhaust fumes wafted in through the open window. It was a bad way to start the day.

“What is that?” moaned my wife. We’d both slept poorly, because our daughter had crawled into our bed at 1am and kept kicking us in the face until we were both half-hanging off the bed while she snored away.

“Start of the apocalypse,” I groaned. “Go back to sleep.”

“No way can I sleep through that racket,” said Vanessa. She rolled out of bed and shut the window. That helped a little, but it still sounded like war out there. She pulled the curtains back and looked through the window. “It’s the **** neighbor. Mowing his lawn. Before the sun is up. We need to have a heart-to-heart with him. Let him know that’s not okay.”

Keagan, our daughter, woke up crying.

“Guess that’s that,” I muttered, getting out of bed myself. “I’ll go talk to him after some coffee.”

“Bring me some too,” said Vanessa.

“Papa, bring me some Smarties,” said Keagan.

“No. No Smarties for breakfast. Banana. Or toast. But not Smarties.”

“Fine,” huffed Keagan. “Toast. Cut into shapes.”

I sighed. This was really the last thing I wanted to be doing at 4:45 on a Saturday morning. Making coffee and cutting toast into animal shapes instead of drooling in my sleep and dreaming of a gentler world.

I went into the kitchen and started the coffee and toast, and then looked out the living room window. Sure enough, there was Mr. Limsky, mowing his **** lawn, in his **** bathrobe no less. That was another thing that I had no desire to do: get into it with him about this, or really talk to him about anything ever beyond a friendly wave and a “Howdy, neighbor.”

By the time I was awake enough to form a coherent thought, it was almost 6:00, and I had consumed four cups of coffee. Mr. Limsky was still at it, which was strange, because his yard isn’t very big at all. It shouldn’t take more than a 40 minute mow job. But here it was, an hour and fifteen minutes later, and he was still at it.

I got semi-dressed and stumbled outside. I walked across my own yard, which, I noted, needed mowing itself. *Maybe I’ll tell him that if he mows my lawn and promises to never start so early again, I’ll let it go.* But I knew that I wouldn’t do that. I was a coward.

As I got closer, I observed with some confusion that his lawn was *already* mowed. He was going over it a second time now. I walked up to our property line, denoted by the contrast between mowed and unmowed grass, and started waving my hands in the air, waiting for Mr. Limsky to notice me.

He never did. He just stared straight ahead and kept pushing the mower.

“HEY!” I shouted. But it was no good. I could barely hear myself, and so I knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear me from across the lawn, right behind the lawnmower.

*Goddammit*.

I walked across his yard until I was right behind him. “HEY!” Nothing. I tapped on his shoulder. Nothing. He just kept pushing the lawnmower onward over the already mowed lawn. I didn’t know what to do.

*I’ll catch him after he finishes, I guess. He’s in the Zone.*

I shrugged and was getting ready to turn back to my house when I saw a trickle of what was presumably **** run down his bare leg.

*Jesus.*

I went back to my house and opened the door. Vanessa was reading a book to Keagan. She stopped when I came in and looked up. “Well?”

“I, uh… he couldn’t hear me. I’ll go over there once he stops. He’s got to stop some time, right? And, uh… well, I’m a little worried about him honestly. I saw him, you know, wet himself.”

“Mr. Limsky peed his pants?!” asked Keagan. She started laughing.

“Well, that sometimes happens, kiddo,” I said. “You used to do that. We do that a lot when we’re kids and then we don’t do it for a while and then when we get older we sometimes do it again.”

That gave her something to think about anyway.

“Huh,” said Vanessa.

“There’s more,” I said. “He’s already done with the lawn. He’s just going over it a second time.”

“Maybe he missed a few spots?”

“Nope. It’s perfect. Not a blade of grass higher than any other blade of grass.”

“Hmm,” said Vanessa. “That *is* strange. Do you think he’s okay? Should we call somebody?”

I shrugged. “Who are we going to call? The police? Tell them that our retired neighbor is mowing his lawn twice while pis… while peeing himself? What will they say to that?”

\*

By 8:00, I was done cooking the bacon and Mr. Limsky was still at it, mowing his lawn for what must have been the fifth time. I tried not to think about it, but it was hard.

“After breakfast, we should go somewhere,” I said. “It’s a beautiful day. No sense staying cooped up all day.”

“Why does Mr. Limsky keep mowing his lawn?” asked Keagan.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” I muttered. “I don’t know. You want to go to the playground or something?”

“Yay!”

“I’m going to stay here and try to go back to sleep if that’s okay,” said Vanessa.

“Of course,” I said. I felt like going back to sleep myself, even after all that coffee, but the desire to get far away from the sound of the lawnmower outweighed my tiredness.

We ate, then Keagan and I headed to the playground.

At 9:00, I got a text from Vanessa: “Can’t sleep. He’s still mowing.”

9:30: “I’m really starting to get worried. This isn’t normal.”

10:00: “I went over there and tried to talk to him, but it’s like he’s in a trance. Please come home.”

I sighed, but complied. I rounded up the kid and drove home. I felt a deep sense of unease, that grew more intense the closer I got to home.

*You’re afraid of an old man mowing the lawn?* I chided myself. It didn’t work, because my instinctive answer was: *Yes*.

I turned onto my street and prayed that Mr. Limsky would be done mowing the lawn by now. He’d tell us it was just a practical joke and we’d all have a good laugh over it. But soon enough, I saw that wasn’t going to happen. As I pulled into my driveway, I saw that he was still out there. I thought I saw a streak of brown running down his leg, but it was hard to tell for sure because he was going around under the shade of his ancient apple tree.

I walked inside and Vanessa was at the kitchen table with bags under her eyes and a glass of wine in front of her. “Please make it stop,” she said.

“I don’t know how to do that,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired and in need of a drink myself.

“Call the police,” she said.

“Why don’t you?” I asked.

“Fine,” she said. “It’s just that I do everything else around here so I thought maybe you could help this *one* time.”

I held my tongue. I did plenty around there, but I knew that now wasn’t the time to point that out. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call the police. How has he not run out of gas by now, anyway?”

“I’ve been watching him,” said Vanessa. “He’s got a can of gas in his driveway. Sometimes he grabs it when he passes by and gasses up *while still pushing the mower*. It’s crazy. Please call the police.”

“Alright, alright,” I said. I looked up the number and proceeded to have one of the most awkward phone conversations of my life. It was ten minutes with the receptionist, and then another ten minutes with an officer. Finally, they agreed to come over and check it out.

\*

Fifteen minutes later, I watched out the window as the cop car pulled into Mr. Limsky’s driveway. A single cop got out and walked over to Mr. Limsky.

The cop was waving his hands and shouting, but it was no good. Then the cop grabbed Mr. Limsky’s shoulder and spun him around forcefully. This caused Mr. Limsky to finally let go of the throttle, and for the first time all day, the lawnmower stopped moving. It was still running though, because he had taped its safety shut-off down.

I held my breath as I waited to see what would happen next.

Mr. Limsky opened his mouth, and something emerged from it. It looked like a long, thin tentacle. The tentacle wrapped itself around the cop’s neck, and lifted him up into the air. Then a second tentacle emerged from Mr. Limsky’s mouth, and made its way down the cop’s throat.

I slammed the curtains shut and noticed that I too, like Mr. Limsky earlier, had wet myself.

“What’s going on out there?” asked Vanessa from the kitchen. “Did the police arrive?”

I didn’t have a good answer, so I didn’t say anything.

“Honey?” said Vanessa, walking over. “Are you okay?”

From outside, we heard the whine of a new machine join in with the lawnmower. Vanessa opened the curtain, and I turned slowly to look out.

The cop was out there going around the old apple tree with a **** whacker while Mr. Limsky was back pushing the lawnmower around again.

\*

It’s 5pm. Besides Mr. Limsky, there are now four cops in his yard doing various tasks. One is still at it with the **** whacker. Another has been going at the shrubs with a pair of clippers for hours now. But the one who concerns me the most is the one who is going around spraying the ground from a bottle full of neon blue liquid that Mr. Limsky at one point puked out of his mouth.

I personally am petitioning the family to pack up the car and start driving to Florida where Vanessa’s mother lives. I have no idea what is going on, but it doesn’t look good.

&#x200B;

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cfdnpp/my_neighbor_was_mowing_his_lawn_for_13_straight/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been trying to leave my bathroom for the past 30 minutes
 
 Assistant: I can't leave my bathroom.

About 30 minutes ago I got out of the shower and dried off, put on my pjs, opened the door and walked out, only to find myself back in my bathroom, staring at the closed door.

I stopped, and tried to rationalise what had just happened to me. I convinced myself that I had simply imagined that I had opened the door and stepped out, so I tried again. I pushed the door handle down, opened it, stepped out, and yet again found myself in my bathroom, standing in front of a closed door.

This has happened every single time I've tried to leave. I keep my phone in the bathroom with me when I'm showering- I live alone so I keep it with me just in case, for safety. The first thing I did was call my parents - my dad didn't pick up, but my mum did. I tried to explain the situation to her, but she couldn't seem to understand how I was trapped in my bathroom if the door could open. She seemed convinced that I must mean that my bathroom door's lock was broken and I was trapped inside. Regardless, she said that she would be over asap. She only lives a 15 minute drive away, so she should be here any moment.

I'm sat leaning against my bath tub, looking out the open bathroom door into my landing. I opened it this time, but didn't try to step out. Everything looks normal. My bedroom door is closed just as I left it, the airing cupboard door closed as well, the stairs leading down to the hallway and the front door, all normal.

The door's shut. I don't have any recollection of how it shut, when it shut- only that it must have happened in the last few seconds after I wrote that last paragraph. I've just reread and reread that paragraph, it's proof that I'm not going crazy and imagining this.

My mum just text me to ask if I'm in the house. I said yes, of course I am, I'm trapped in the bathroom, that's the whole reason that I called you here. This is what she has sent:

Mum: Why aren't you saying anything?

Me: What do you mean

Mum: Are you even in there?

Me: Yes I'm in here! Are you here?

Mum: I'm outside the bathroom door. I've been calling your name

I don't understand. I can't hear anything through the door. I'm going to open it.

I can see my landing, my stairs, my front door, but no mum. I tried to walk out, but it was fruitless. Back staring at the closed bathroom door.

My mum tried the handle of the door from her side, but it won't open. She brought tools to unscrew the lock. She says she's doing it now, but I can't hear anything, and I can't see the handle moving. 

Okay, mum text me to say the lock is taken out, but the door still won't open on her side. She looked through the circular hole in the door where the lock was, but just saw my bathroom. Empty.

There's no hole on my side of the door. The handle and lock are intact.

I have no idea what's happening, or how I can get out. After much convincing my mum that I am in fact in here, she said she is calling someone to possibly knock the door down. I'm worried that once they do that, they will find an empty bathroom, and yet I will still be here, trapped in my bathroom. There's no plug sockets in here, never mind my phone charger. My phone will die at some point, I'm already on 24%. When it runs out, I might lose my only point of contact with the rest of the world.

I don't know what to do.

Mum's left now to get help. I'm sat wondering what I can do. I tried to break the door down myself, I knew it wouldn't work, but I had to try. I remember reading once on Reddit that you shouldn't use your shoulder, you should try to kick the door by the lock because it's the weak point. It didn't work. I'm not sure any part of this door has a weak point now.

The window is small, and I'm not sure if I'd actually be able to fit out of it. 

Scratch that - the window won't open either. There are locks on the windows in my house, you can lock them with a little key, but I never received any when I moved in, so I've never been able to lock them.  It's locked now though.

It's got one of those white plastic cheap blinds covering it. I ended up ripping it down. It's pulled some plaster down with it, but now I can get at the window better. It's straight above the toilet, so I am kneeling on top of the toilet lid, yanking at the window handle. It won't 

Wait, it opened. I didn't notice how dark it was outside. It shouldn't be dark, it's midday.

I looked around, desperately trying to see anyone. No one's around. Everything looks kind of… muted. I can't describe it. Nor can I describe the deep seated feeling of dread and wrongness as I look out into my neighbourhood. My instincts are telling me not to, but I stick my head out to look down to where I could possibly drop to.

My window's closed. I never felt myself move, but my window's closed. Even the **** plastic blind is back in place. 

I'm sat on the floor now, as far away from the window and door as I can get. I feel sick.

Mum came back, along with her work friend. He helped her unscrew the hinges and remove the door. I'm not in there. They can't see me. My mum sent a photo of her inside the bathroom, with no me. She thinks this has all been a joke, and is refusing to reply to my texts or answer my calls. I'm on 14% battery, I don't know if I will ever get to leave. This might be my only chance to say goodbye to my mum, but she won't answer her phone.

Edit: I've ripped down the shower curtain, and yet I'm staring at it right now, hung up, hanging over the side of my bath.

I looked out the window again. I think I heard a rumbling. Low, quiet rumbling. I haven't opened the window since.

My phone's on 1%. If I get out, I will update this post. If no edit comes, assume I'm still here. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a SWAT Officer who was called to deal with an incident at a middle school. But for some reason, we can't enter room 203.
 
 Assistant: I've seen a lot of really disturbing stuff throughout my life. But nothing from my past experiences could've stopped my hands from shaking so hard right now. I don't know what the *hell* is going on at this school, in that godforsaken room.

&#x200B;

I was never the type of guy who got excited for assignments. Whether it be hostages, bomb threats, shooters, the adrenaline rush only lasts for so long. The fear kicks in quickly after. Only got one life, after all.

&#x200B;

The worst cases are the ones with kids involved. I have a niece who’s innocent and carefree beyond comprehension. My skin crawls thinking about her being exposed to those kinds of situations. Safe to say, I wasn't looking forward to whatever task laid ahead of us when we were called in.

&#x200B;

When we arrived, there were already six or seven police vehicles parked outside, with a massive crowd of evacuated students standing outside. A lot of them looked a combination of utterly shocked and terrified, like they'd just been chased through a cemetery by a machete-wielding demon.

&#x200B;

As we entered the building, we were getting caught up to date by the one of the Police Officers. But he was hardly any help.

&#x200B;

"...Uh...we don't know what to do... they're in room 203, but...we can't go in there."

&#x200B;

"Can't go in there? What'd you mean?" Dex - our unit leader, asked him.

&#x200B;

He stumbled out a mostly incoherent response, skin pale and eyes wide as he did so. From his expression, you'd assume that he'd been to ****, or something of a comparable nature. Obviously, we weren't taking this lightly. We tried getting more information out of him, but he was adamant that he didn’t know anything beyond the fact that we couldn’t go into the room under any circumstances.

&#x200B;

“We’ll figure it out.” Dex ended up saying to him, realizing that trying to converse with the guy was getting nowhere. The officer simply nodded his head in response. Not confidently, though.

&#x200B;

We traversed into the school, and up to the second floor, all alert as ****. In the utter silence, the place was rather eerie. Not that I ever liked school regardless. Once we ascended the stairwell, room 203 was just to our right.

&#x200B;

It wasn't really what we expected. No blood. No signs of a struggle. Just a room. However... it wasn't silent in there. We approached the door cautiously, listening intently to what was going on inside. It sounded like a teacher giving a standard lecture. But obviously, that wouldn’t have warranted a school-wide evacuation and subsequent police backup.

&#x200B;

Jensen – another Officer, tapped me on my shoulder, pointing to the crack underneath the door. I didn’t see it at first, but a small stream of blood had begun oozing out from underneath.

&#x200B;

*Ah, ****, I thought to myself. Even though I was expecting something like this sooner or later, it was still jarring to see.

&#x200B;

I wanted to bust down the door right then and there, unleashing a flurry of lead into the perpetrators skull, but that was obviously impulsive. He might’ve had hostages, or wired the door to explode upon opening or *something* of that nature.

&#x200B;

The Police Officer’s words also stuck to my brain. Sure, he seemed like a maniac, but people don’t just become that way through arbitrary means. He’d definitely seen something *bad* lurking behind the door, and I wasn’t eager to find out what.

&#x200B;

Still, we had to figure out a plan. I tried listening closer, in an attempt to discern what the person was saying. Now, I wasn’t sure if they were speaking too quietly or if they were using another language entirely, but I couldn’t make out anything explicit.

&#x200B;

But the more I listened, the more obscure their tone and speech patterns appeared to be. It wasn’t like somebody giving a lecture at all. It was more akin to somebody monotonously reciting a series of separate and unrelated passages in succession.

&#x200B;

Eventually, Dex stepped up, banging on the door.

&#x200B;

“What’s your purpose here? You got any demands? At the moment, we’re willing to co-operate. But we can’t do that if you don’t communicate with us.”

&#x200B;

No response. We tried negotiating for 10 more minutes, but the speaker paid no attention to us, simply continuing their obscure diatribe to the audience of presumably captive and horrified students.

&#x200B;

“**** it,” Dex said, frustrated. “Hate dealing with crazy ****.” He pulled out a radio and began talking to another unit. Soon enough, two more teams were on their way, one to monitor the windows from outside, and one to take a position in the room directly under 203. We were trying to consider every possible angle here.

&#x200B;

About fifteen minutes later, the outside team showed up. Of course, there was nothing much to report on, given the fact that the windows were boarded up from the inside. Still, they had multiple snipers take vantage points. They were more or less there in case things went absolutely belly up.

&#x200B;

“This is some ****,” Axwell – another Officer, said. “If they end up never telling us anything, are we just gonna wait here forever? The kids might die of natural causes instead.”

&#x200B;

I wasn’t going to be the one to say it, but I sure was thinking it. There were no easy solutions for situations like these. Another five minutes elapsed before the ground team showed up, announcing to us over the radio that they were making their way over to the room underneath.

&#x200B;

The radio crackled once again. “Hey Dex…”

&#x200B;

Dex picked it up. “Yeah. Something wrong?”

&#x200B;

“I… I don’t think we should go inside.”

&#x200B;

“What? What the **** are you talking ab-“

&#x200B;

He was cut short by something rather jarring. Not a noise. More so the absence of noise. Whoever was inside the room had stopped talking. Dex put the radio down, ready to negotiate once again.

&#x200B;

“You finished? Can we talk now?” He asked.

&#x200B;

Suddenly and wholly unexpectedly, the door opened just a crack. Thankfully, I was on the side closest to the doorknob, which meant I wasn’t able to see anything inside. But as for the three Officers who did (including Dex)… well I’m not quite sure what happened to them.

&#x200B;

I remember feeling a gust of boiling air seeping out and seeing some kind of deep purple glow emanating from within. At a point, I thought I could see Dex’s eyes beginning to leak blood, but that may just have been my imagination. All I know is that I blinked a few times from the heat, and a few seconds later, two of the Officers were gone and the door was closed, leaving Jensen by himself, kneeling on the ground while covering both of his eyes with his hands.

&#x200B;

We tried getting him to talk, but he wouldn’t budge. In fact, he wouldn’t move an inch from his bizarre position. At that point, I was beginning to panic hard. This evidently wasn’t a normal situation at all.  Lee was also frustrated, banging on the door and barking out orders as if whatever ****-up entity lurking in the room cared at all about his grievances. And then he made a drastic mistake. He took his rifle and began breaking the door down with it.

&#x200B;

He managed to get about halfway through before succumbing to whatever fate Jensen had just before him. I turned around, seeing him also covering his eyes, frozen in the position on the ground. I tried not to look at the purple light flowing out from the holes in the door as I made eye contact with Axwell.

&#x200B;

We were both ready to get the **** out of there. I took the lead, rushing towards the stairwell. But after about two seconds of running, I heard a scream from behind me. Some kind of large insect-like appendage shrouded in a dark violet smoke had burst through one of the holes, grabbing him by the waist. I reckon that if I were a single second later, it would’ve done the same to me as well.

I tried shooting at the thing, but my bullets simply bounced off. It pulled Axwell in shortly after, demolishing the door with it. The room was completely open now, but I wasn’t planning on investigating.

&#x200B;

Just like that, I was the last man standing. I bolted down the stairwell, and through the first-floor hall, only to find the path to the nearest exit blanketed in the same smoke that was coming off of the appendage. There was no way in **** I was going to try traversing through it. I picked up my radio, attempting to contact the floor unit instead.

&#x200B;

“Where are you guys? What’s going on?”

&#x200B;

A shaky voice answered on the other end.

&#x200B;

“You… you better hide.”

&#x200B;

“Hide?” I questioned. “Why don’t we get our **** out of here instead?”

&#x200B;

“I’m… I’m looking outside the window right now… something's... happening out there.”

&#x200B;

Given all the commotion, my mind had automatically filtered out the noise. I concentrated, hearing suppressed screams and sporadic gunshots emanating from beyond the walls of the school.

&#x200B;

“Oh, c’mon...” I muttered.

&#x200B;

I did as I was told, stumbling into a stray classroom and barricading the door behind me. The room I’m in now doesn’t have any windows, so I can’t tell what’s going on outside. I’ve been checking for news updates on my phone, but nothing. I’m also averse to using my radio to call for help, because it might give my position away. I don’t know what the ****’s lurking out there in the hallways, but I can certainly hear *something* moving around. Not sure how far it is, though.

&#x200B;

I guess… I’ll just have to wait here until somebody comes for me.

Update: https://redd.it/c0fwhk

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm the Only Woman at My IT Job and Now I Know Why
 
 Assistant: I was fresh out of college and desperately looking to start a career that didn’t involve serving burgers, wiping down storefront shelves, or bringing stuffy old businessmen their coffee. On average, I was applying to six jobs a week and going to maybe half as many interviews. I knew my major in English wasn’t likely to be met with high demand, but I honestly thought my options would prove more promising. Still, I remained optimistic, persevered, and only applied to comfortable office jobs with benefits. It wasn’t good for my bank account, but it nourished what little pride I had left.

About three weeks ago, I had a phone interview with an internet security company. Proficient Technologies had offices all over the country and were looking for a new customer support specialist for their international department. Requirements were a pleasant voice, good spoken and written grammar, some tech-knowledge, and the ability to work day and night shifts. The office was only two subway stations from my apartment, and they offered health insurance. I applied despite having very vague notions about computer sciences. The phone interview went well and after two more meetings with HR and management, they sent me a very generous offer (considering I was entirely inexperienced).

During my first week, I had to work the regular 9-5 shift so I could be online at the same time as my manager, who was working from a different city. Afterward, I would work on the regular support schedule - a four-day cycle of one day shift, one night shift, two days off (9 am - 9 pm and 9 pm - 9 am respectively). On my first day, I dressed smartly in a loose sweater and long skirt. Perceptively aware that IT departments are mostly male, I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention by dressing provocatively or inappropriately. The guy at the front desk seemed regular enough. He introduced himself as Tom before helping me fill out some paperwork and guiding me to a desk in the large open-plan workspace. I stared at the countless desks as we walked, finding it difficult to meet the eyes of the men that sat behind them. I saw no other girls in the workspace, which was unusual and somewhat unsettling. Tom’s relaxed demeanor could not make up for the immediate hostility aimed at my presence. The air seemed to seep out of the room as I felt my new coworkers chant ‘*you don’t belong here*’ in silent unison. It surprised me when Tom stopped at a desk that was extensively decorated with printed memes, bright pink floral stickers, and a small tattered teddy keychain that lay behind the monitor. Apart from these artifacts, there was a thick layer of dust coating the keyboard, monitor, and desk space.

‘Oh, what the actual...’, Tom muttered angrily. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, chancing a quick glance down at my papers. ‘...Gemma. This desk was supposed to have been cleared ages ago. I’ll have to have a word with the custodian.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I answered. ‘I could just wipe it down myself, no problem.’

Tom was skeptical, but a sweeping glance around the room confirmed that there were no other free desks for me to occupy. The rest of the day went by in a haze. I learned about my tasks, which were to answer support related phone calls and create new tickets in the system. I had to monitor all incoming chats and written tickets and sort them by level of urgency and type. I wouldn’t be required to offer any technical advice, but I had to become well acquainted with the product software. Since I wasn’t answering any calls yet, I immersed myself in the manual. I didn’t understand a lot of it and spent most of my time googling networks, black and white box testing, database security, and other things. My manager checked in just before lunch and seemed slightly disappointed by my overall grasp of the material. Feeling like a failure, I took a break to clean the desk. I got up to find Tom and ask him for a cloth for my countertop.

I instantly regretted my decision. Every eye in the room was upon me the moment I rose. I couldn’t stare back to confirm, but there was a surreal hush as I made my way back down the workspace. The familiar clatter of keyboards had noticeably diminished, as my face grew warm and self-conscious. I noticed myself hunching forward slightly as I walked, a weak attempt at becoming less visible. Before turning off to the passage that led to the front desk area, I dared to meet the eyes of one of the shameless gawkers. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the sight of a sneering hooded programmer sent a chill down my spine. He was around my age but didn’t seem the least bit ashamed or uncomfortable by my confrontation. There was a cruel smile playing on his thin lips as he eyed my exposed ankles before turning his attention back to the screens in front of him. I wondered how he would feel if I eyed his long, pimpled neck in the same manner. It was the same as I walked back to my chair with a box of computer wipes.

There was some good to come of that day. While I was cleaning the desk drawers, I found a half-used notebook from the previous occupant. She never wrote her first name, only an initial followed by a last name: *S. Brooks*. However, based on the desk decor, I was sure she was a girl like me. Her discarded belongings provided some comfort, but it was her notebook which proved to be a true treasure. In it, my predecessor had summarized and simplified the entire manual, using easy-to-understand terms and explanations for the daunting terminology and complicated instructions in the manual. With her help, I was able to surprise my manager with my product knowledge at the end of the shift.

After a good day’s work, I braved the workspace once more to explore the kitchen before heading home. Tom had advertised a top-notch coffee machine and snacks, and I was starving after such an emotionally and intellectually taxing day. Besides, all my credit cards were in the red, and I wanted to fill up on cookies. As I approached, I heard eager chatter coming from the kitchen area and even some laughter. Foolishly, I hoped that my kitchen-dwelling coworkers would be warmer, more welcoming, or, at the very least civil. Instead, the small kitchen space fell perfectly silent upon my entrance. There were five men of different ages and sizes seated around a cheap-looking cafeteria table, and they were all looking directly at me.

‘Rough first day?’ inquired a sardonic, medium-pitched voice. I lifted my gaze from the floor tiles and scanned the crowd for my addresser. It wasn’t difficult to recognize the self-assured hooded figure that had stared me down earlier. ‘You must be very experienced,’ he continued snarkily, waving a strand of greasy black hair from his eyes. ‘To get such a comfortable job. You must be quite the ****.’

‘What is this, high school?’ I blurted out. Now, I’m not usually a confrontational person, but this was honestly too much. Hostility is one thing, social awkwardness another, but this was beginning to feel like a cheesy 80s high school drama with thirty-year-old actors playing teenagers.

‘I’m just here to grab some coffee and if you doubt my candidacy for this job, you can take your concerns to HR directly.’ I continued, enjoying the shocked and somewhat nervous faces of my offender’s gang. Good, I wanted them to feel a fraction of the discomfort I had been dealing with all day. Opting to enjoy my snack far away from my coworkers, I walked back to my desk with my head held high and a mug of coffee. Right as I was about to sit and enjoy my frothy treat, I saw I had a text message from a withheld number:

*You have quite an attitude, don’t you?*

I froze, hovering over my desk with the mug in one hand and my phone in the other. As I was attempting to process this grave breach of boundaries, I received two more messages within the same chat window. One was a **** photograph that I had sent my first serious college boyfriend. The second read:

W*hy don’t you take that photo to HR?*

Obviously, I was deeply unsettled by this invasion of my privacy. The shame crept in, and I felt angry about drawing so much unwanted attention to myself. This was all my fault. I had come to work in an office full of *ethical* hackers with a very common dog name as a password. No doubt the photograph had made the rounds thanks to my gross coworker, and I was now the silent laughingstock of the office. Leaving my coffee untouched, I signed off and headed home, holding off the waterworks until I reached the safety of the subway.

I couldn’t stop crying for most of that night, turning the day's events over in my mind, feeling sick every time I imagined my coworkers leering at my **** body. At around 3 am, however, I realized that there was no sense in continuing the pity party. I had to come up with a plan of action if I was going to survive this workplace. Quitting was not an option because the pay they were offering me was far too good to pass up. Besides, I was literally living off scarcely more than a slice of pizza a day. My second option was going to HR, but there was no way I was going to open that can of worms. I couldn’t prove who had sent me those messages. Last option? Stick with it, keep my head down, do the job they hired me for, and ignore all further harassment attempts.

So that’s what I did. Throughout my week of training, I came in to work on time, never leaving my desk except to go to the bathroom. I avoided contact with everyone and kept my eyes drawn to inanimate objects only. Thanks to *S. Brooks,* I kept on top of my training. For every new task from my manager, there was a corresponding entry in her notebook. There were no more horrible texts or face-to-face confrontations, but there was something else that stirred my anxieties afresh. Last Friday was my final day of training, which brought me to the last entry in the notebook.

***Night Shift Survival Guide***

*- sleep during the day before shift and don’t fall asleep*

*- don’t let anyone in*

*- keep pepper spray near*

*- check every aisle, meeting room. don’t forget to check under desks, balcony, kitchen tables, behind cooler*

*- have skype open with credit for emergencies in case of disabled mobile service*

*- check-in with friend/family/lover every hour*

The list made little sense. Firstly, HR made it clear that I was allowed to sleep between 2-5 am, provided I kept the office smartphone nearby. They even had a pullout couch in one of the conference rooms for this purpose. Secondly, the entire job was answering calls, so there would always be a way to call from the office phone, right? Lastly, the measures outlined in the ‘guide’ seemed excessive and paranoid. Perhaps the list was satirical? Maybe this Brooks girl felt just as awkward as I did with all the silent, leering male coworkers? Though my brain worked hard to rationalize this list of precautions, a nagging feeling in my gut told me I was missing something crucial. It came to me as I was leaving work on Friday, my last day of training.

‘Tom,’ I approached him timidly. ‘Could I ask you a question?’

‘Sure thing,’ he responded, smiling warmly; his pleasant features a far cry from those of the sullen men in the main room.

‘I was just wondering why I haven’t seen any of the other customer support agents. I mean, there should be at least another three people to cover the four-day rotation cycle?’

‘You have to ask your manager about that. Most likely they’re scattered across the country. Pretty normal for that to be the case,’ he replied, already dismissing me as he went back to his final tasks of the week.

‘Was there an agent who worked here before me?’ I continued, eager to learn more about the girl that filled the notebook I’d been using all week.

‘Yes, another girl held your position for a short while,’ Tom said, still looking at his screen, though I noticed he had stopped typing or moving his mouse. He was staring pointedly at a single spot behind his monitor.

‘Tom,’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Who is the guy who works at the desk that’s just at the turnoff into the main working space? Pale complexion, skinny, dark curly hair,’ I said, waving a finger at my temple, poorly imitating curly locks.

‘Ah, that’s Sam,’ Tom replied, noticeably attentive to my line of inquiry. ‘Any reason you’re asking? Has he been bothering you?’

‘No,’ I said, rather more dismissively than I felt. ‘Have a good weekend, Tom.’

‘See ya,’ he said, watching me questioningly as I left.

All weekend I mulled over the events of my first week at work. It felt as though Tom wasn’t telling me something important. There was no reason for him to grow so tense at the mention of the girl who had worked there before me. Could someone have complained about Sam before? Could it have been *S. Brooks*? Was Sam the reason for the survival guide in the notebook? Why did she quit? A million theories disturbed my weekend lounging. Before I knew it, it was time to go back to work.

This is where we’ve almost caught up to present events. Yesterday was Monday, the first regular day shift. It passed in a blur, as I frantically answered the phone, recording, sorting, and assigning dozens of customer complaints in our system. It took getting used to, and by the end of the day, I was absolutely exhausted. Just as I was signing off, I received another ominous text from an unknown number.

*You’re such a hard worker. Can’t wait to see you take on night shift.*

Now, this was the first text to fill me with true fear. I quickly looked around to see if Sam was still at work so I could confront him for sending the message, but he had already left for the day. After calming myself down, I headed home and tried to find *S. Brooks* online. My best bet was LinkedIn, and I looked through all the women that had Proficient Technologies listed on their profiles (they were suspiciously few). Finding nothing, I looked through Tom’s list of friends and finally found what I was looking for. There was a girl by the name of Sierra Brooks listed as unemployed. I sent a friend request with a message introducing myself and asking her if she had ever been harassed by one of her previous coworkers. Finally, feeling like I was getting somewhere, I went to bed and braced myself for the next day’s events.

I decided there were some upsides to the irregular work schedule when I got to sleep in on Tuesday. I checked my LinkedIn soon after waking up at around 1 pm. There were no signs of activity from Sierra, so I went about getting ready for my first night shift at the office. I was a little nervous, but mostly excited to get to know my place of work more intimately. Without the day crowd, I was free to walk around the space, binge on cookies, spit in Sam’s mug, whatever!

There were still a few late workers when I arrived for my shift, but I didn’t pay much attention to them as I had a lot of calls and chats to deal with. Two hours in, however, the stream of calls, chats, and incoming tickets began to wind down, until they stopped altogether at around 11 pm. I leaned back in my chair and surveyed the workspace. There was no one left at the office as far as I could see. All the lights were on, but as I took off my headphones, I heard a low jingling melody playing from somewhere. It sounded like a Christmas carol, but it was hard to tell where it was coming from. There was no reason for this to scare me, but I felt the hairs on my arms **** up in alarm. As I got up from my chair, the melody ceased.

Now, I’ve freaked out over less in the past. I once thought a man was following me at night until he walked right past me to the corner store ahead. Although I lived alone, I’d always double and triple check my locks before bed. I had to admit that my fears were probably unwarranted. Someone had left their headphones connected to their computer with the music turned up. Or maybe there was an office party for a different company downstairs. Hearing music is only scary in strategically written horror flicks, right? Right?

Rationalizing aside, I checked the office to make sure I was actually alone. Walking through the aisles of connected desks, I realized how lucky I was to have my secluded corner spot. I might not have been able to handle such close quarters with any of my unpleasant coworkers. Checking all the rows, I went back to the front desk area, lingering over Tom’s desk, inspecting his belongings in search of clues. Finding nothing of interest, I went back through the main room to the kitchen. My nerves were already easing up, and I found myself spending more time taste-testing cookies rather than looking for potential fiends behind curtains. I had to stop indulging mid-cookie, however, because the sound of the melody came back while I was in the kitchen, louder this time. At the same time, my work smartphone (which we had to carry around us if we left our post) buzzed with a text message from a random number.

*Finally got to the cookies, huh?*

My entire body stiffened as I processed the implications. It was probable that Sam had not left the office and was now **** with me. I pricked up my ears and listened carefully. There was no one in the kitchen as far as I could see or hear. Also, if Sam was in the main workspace, it wouldn’t be difficult to guess that I was eating cookies. Breathing out slowly, I ignored the melody to see if I could hear anything else. Nothing. Slowly, I walked to the kitchen drawers and found a large knife. Did I know how to use a knife? No. Would my wild jabs ward off an unarmed opponent? Definitely.

I was about to head into the workspace when a call came in on the work phone. I positioned myself safely against a kitchen wall, knife in hand, before answering with the standard customer support greeting. There was static on the other end, some clanking noises, followed by complete silence. Glancing at the phone, I saw that it had switched off. I tried to start it up again, but it wouldn’t turn on. Great, now I had to make it back to my computer in case any more calls came in. I remembered Sierra’s guide as I was slipping the dead device back in my pocket.

*- have skype open with credit for emergencies in case of disabled mobile service*

Had this happened to her as well? The instructions in the notebook made a lot more sense, and I cursed myself out loud for being so ill-prepared. As soon as the words escaped my mouth, there was another ominous bing from the phone. I pulled it out and tried to unlock it, but the regular home screen didn’t come up. All that came up was a white screen with a short bit of text on it.

*Tut tut. Ladies really shouldn’t use that sort of language.*

As soon as I read it, the screen cleared and more text appeared.

*Why don’t you come out and play?Don’t bother taking that knife with you.It won’t do much against my gun.*

I threw the phone across the room and dashed to my computer. The melody grew louder as I approached my desk, finding a pink stuffed pig toy. There was a fabric button on its left hoof with a music note on it. This was the source of the music and proved without a shadow of a doubt that there was someone else in the office. What’s more, they were watching my every move and actively trying to scare me with children's toys.

Panic coursed through my body, gearing up for fight or flight. I took a deep breath, attempting to lull my nervous system. So far I had heard no signs of anyone moving around the office. There were some background city noises coming from outside and the rhythmic hum of computers that someone forgot to shut off. If my stalker was moving around, I would need to pinpoint their location to plan my escape. Also, I had to get help. Fast. Moving the toy aside, I sat down in my chair and pulled up the Skype for Business application. I quickly dialed 911, putting the stationary phone on speaker. The dial tone was brief, and there was a live operator on the other end within moments. I was about to give a very hasty account of events when someone grabbed my ankle from underneath the desk.

I screamed hellfire, jerking my leg away and running as fast as my legs could take me. I heard some commotion close behind me, followed by a loud bang, which I interpreted as my assailant giving chase after me. Before I knew it, I was descending the three flights of stairs and rushing out the doors past the startled night guard. The freezing air prickled my skin through my thin sweater as I approached a nearby pedestrian for help. They called 911, and the police were at the office space within the hour. As I awaited with the guard for their arrival, I kept thinking of Sierra’s written warnings, and how **** I had been to dismiss them.

\- *check every aisle, meeting room. don’t forget to* ***check under desks***, *balcony, kitchen tables, behind cooler*

The police quickly took down my account of events and, leaving me in the care of a young officer, went upstairs to inspect the office. There had been no one coming or going from the building since I ran out, so it was possible that the culprit was still hiding out somewhere inside. The thought made me nauseous, and I shifted closer to my armed companion. Not long after the cops left us, the young officer’s radio crackled and several voices spoke one over the other, asking for backup and naming codes I couldn’t understand. Things escalated quickly from there. Instead of going home, I was taken to a police station and held in an interrogation room for hours before someone finally came to speak to me. I was tired, miserable, and confused at the way the events of the night were unfolding. I wanted to go home but spent several more hours recounting my story to two detectives.

‘So, you had the knife with you when running from the kitchen to your desk? Are you sure?’ asked the older detective, who had introduced himself as Senior Investigator Barnshaw.

‘I... Yes,’ I stammered nervously. ‘I believe I did. I was panicking, so it’s hard to say. Then there was the pig toy,’ I said, losing my train of thought.

‘And you believe the person who was harassing you was Samuel Guilford?’ said the other detective, whose name I couldn’t remember. He wore no badge.

‘I don’t know his full name, but I can’t imagine anyone else is responsible.’

‘And one more time, just for the record, what happened when you dialed 911?’ asked Barnshaw for the third time that night.

‘Someone grabbed my leg. My ankle, actually. This happened before I had the chance to explain the situation to the operator. I screamed and ran until I found a stranger outside who let me call for help,’ I responded, growing weary of the cyclical questioning.

‘Samuel Guilford was found lying dead not far from your desk when our officers came on the scene. Did you see his body when you were running out of the office?’ asked the other detective, feigning an air of innocence while dropping this bombshell.

My jaw fell open, and I stared at the interrogators in **** shock and terror.

‘No,’ I croaked, ‘I don’t understand.’

‘He was stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife. His body was covered in twenty-three stab wounds,’ Barnshaw explained. ‘And we found the knife wedged in his mouth, pinning him to the floor through his throat.’

‘We have reason to suspect it was the knife you’ve described to us in your statement,’ added the second detective.

I eyed both detectives mutely, straining to focus when my mind seemed to have lost all clarity.

‘Your story checks out for the most part. We found his phone riddled with amateur hacking apps,’ continued the senior detective. ‘We found several **** photographs of you and all the texts you’ve mentioned. He had a gun in his hand and we found the bullet he fired as you fled.’

‘What we don’t understand is how he died,’ added the second detective, keenly gauging my reaction. ‘It’s okay if you killed him in self-defense, Gemma. The guy was a creep.’

‘I didn’t,’ I stammered. ‘I swear, I had no idea... Oh, oh ****,’ I cried out helplessly.

‘I mean, just a month ago a report was filed against him by another coworker,’ said Barnshaw.

‘Sierra,’ I murmured.

‘You knew Miss. Brooks?’ asked the second detective, suspicion flaring in his eyes.

‘No,’ I insisted. ‘I got her desk and her notebook. I should have mentioned it before. What did the report say?’

Barnshaw scrutinized my face before meeting his partner’s eye. Some sort of unspoken exchange took place before they decided to disclose the terrible things that had happened to Sierra. Things that had so nearly happened to me. Sierra Brooks had come straight to a nearby hospital from her first night shift three months ago. She was badly beaten and bruised, wanting to register an anonymous **** kit. The damage to her reproductive organs was severe, and she had to get stitches. She filed a police report two months later when she failed her probationary period at Proficient Technologies, losing her job (her only way to pay off her medical debt). It was her word against Sam Guilford’s, who had expensive legal counsel as well as countless coworkers to vouch for his respectable character.

‘It was just yesterday that Miss. Brooks came by to drop all charges against Samuel,’ said the younger detective. ‘We are currently attempting to track her down and bring her in for questioning. I’m sure you can see how your knowledge of her name gives us cause for concern.’

The police kept up their line of questioning until someone brought Barnshaw a note. Forensics had drawn up a report on the fingerprints found on the knife, as well as the blood-spatter patterns. I was asked to submit some DNA samples to aid the investigation and finally released to go home.

At home, exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep. I had none of my belongings back. My handbag, phone, and even coat were all submitted as evidence. So I turned to my old trusty laptop, hoping that some aimless browsing could help soothe my nerves. My browser was still on LinkedIn from the day before, and I refreshed the page out of habit. A small red icon showed that I had a new message. Sierra had replied to me.

*Don’t worry, sis. I took care of it* [<3](https://www.reddit.com/r/peculi_Dar/comments/kndyhx/story_master_list/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Last night, I got a reCAPTCHA. There was something horribly wrong with it.
 
 Assistant: Have you ever seen a photo reCAPTCHA?

Instead of a checkbox, [it’s a low-quality photo split into 16 square sections.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gGF0T.png) It’ll say something like: “SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH STREET SIGNS,” and you have to click every square that contains a street sign.

At 11 PM on Sunday night, I got one while downloading free stock images. It was a photo of a path through the forest.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

Okay. That was easy enough. In the center, there was a jogging woman in pink shorts. She took up a few of the middle squares, and I clicked them all.

I pressed VERIFY.

It didn’t work.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE, the message said again. I took off my glasses, placed them on the table, and squinted at the image.

*No.* She wasn’t the only person.

Several feet off the trail, at the very edge of the image, I could see it. The edge of an arm clad in a black sweatshirt, with a pink thumb poking out.

I triumphantly clicked the two squares containing it. VERIFY.

The image blinked as it refreshed. Then the same text popped up, as if to taunt me: SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

I rubbed my eyes and stared at the image.

The trees cast low-resolution, blocky shadows across the path. The woman’s ponytail swung to the left, mid-motion. Patches of yellow sunlight dappled the surrounding forest. I studied some of the darker shadows, far from the path; but none of them matched the silhouette of a person.

I glanced to the edge of the image.

*No.*

The image had changed. The arm at the edge of the photo was now further in the frame, taking up three squares instead of two. Bulky shoulders and dark jeans followed it.

And the jogger was just slightly further down the path – as if she’d just taken a step.

The touchpad was slick under my fingers. My heart pounded in my chest. Slowly, I dragged the cursor over the three squares and clicked them all.

VERIFY.

The image blinked.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

I leapt back from the computer.

The image was different again. The man was further in the frame, taking up five squares. His hand was stretched out towards the jogger, just inches from her shoulder.

And the jogger…

She was turned towards him, eyes wide. Mouth open in a silent scream.

*Click, click, click.* I furiously clicked all the squares. VERIFY.

*Loading…*

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

The man’s face was finally in frame.

The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled tightly over his head. A translucent Halloween mask poked out from underneath, pressed against his features.

His hand was latched onto her arm.

She was screaming.

*Click, click, click.*

VERIFY.

The image disappeared.

I’d passed the reCAPTCHA.

\*\*\*

I reported what I’d seen to the police. At first they thought I was crazy, but as I gave a detailed description of the images, they frantically took notes and asked me questions.

The woman matched the description of a local woman, Kaylee Johnson. She went missing a week ago, during an afternoon jog on the wooded Lakewood Trail.

She was never [found.](http://www.blair-daniels.com)

[BD](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I ran into my high school sweetheart tonight at my 10-year reunion… the one I married?
 
 Assistant: [Part 1 - you are here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7ptkdg/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7q6bgt/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7qouus/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 4]
(https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7r66yp/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)


---





*Names are made up for anonymity


I met Stacy (my wife) when I was in the 6th grade. We started officially dating in 8th grade, and we dated all through high school. Then just after graduation, she broke my heart. She wanted to go to college to find herself. I knew what that meant. I was taken completely by surprise, but she made it clear there was nothing I could do or say to change her mind. And believe me, I tried. More than I’d like to admit. So just like that, it was over.


I went to a college close to our home town, and she went to a college that was across the country in California. Selfishly, I told her we couldn’t be friends when we broke up – as I knew that would help me to move on faster. Remaining friends would have kept the sense of hope alive, stringing me along.


Over the next 2 years, I didn’t hear from her *at all*. At one point, I did hear that hear mother passed away (her father passed when she was young), but I never really found a good way to reach out.  I went about my life, coasting through college, with a couple of short-term relationships here and there but nothing serious. I assumed she did the same.
Then, one night I went to a local bar with a few of my friends and there she was. I was too embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t actually recognize her at first. It had only been two years, but her hair was now short, and I already had a few drinks in me at that point. It was only after she made her way across the bar to hug me that I fully comprehended who she was. 


My friends and I would always joke that this bar was like a high school reunion every time we went there (it was the only decent bar in the area so everyone went there). This time was no exception.


It struck me as odd that she was back in town mid-semester, as this seemed like a strange time to fly across the country to visit home. But, we got to talking, and after a few drinks I thought nothing of it.


We really hit it off that night – it was like she had never been gone. The feeling I had when I was with her. I joked about how she left me behind when she went off to college – hoping to ease any concern about whether I was upset – but she completely brushed it off. A little later I brought up a story about a time when we were in the 9th grade, and my mother dropped us off at a movie theater for a date. I could see the confusion on her face. She quickly explained that she had been in an accident her first year of college, and that she lost bits and pieces of her memory. The way she described it was that she basically couldn’t remember some of the specific memories from her childhood, but she could remember faces and who people were. It sounded terrible and I didn’t want to prod too much, so I dropped it. 


After that night, we hung out again soon after. And then again. We picked up right where we had left off in high school. A few weeks passed, and she eventually told me she wasn’t going back to school in California. She wanted to stay here, which was great! Things progressed, and we eventually got married after I graduated.


Things were so great. Years rolled by, we had 2 kids. She was a stay at home mom, and was so good with the kids. There were some ups and downs over the years, but things were generally pretty good. And then I got an invitation to our 10-year high school reunion about a month ago. I thought about not going, but after some convincing from my friends at work, I decided to go. Stacy had also planned to come, but we ended up getting into a ridiculous argument tonight beforehand so she stayed behind.


I don’t quite know how to explain what happened tonight at the reunion, I’m still processing it. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty tame night. There were only about 40 of us that went. But then, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and I immediately felt what I can only describe as dread in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was seeing. She looked so familiar. I knew exactly who she was – but my mind was having a hard time processing it. It was Stacy. The Stacy I dated in high school. The Stacy that dumped me after we graduated. She looked exactly as I’d expect, just grown up. But she didn’t look like *my* Stacy. This wasn’t the Stacy I married. This wasn't the Stacy that was back at home.


**Stacy:** “**** Steve! I can’t believe it’s been 10 years!!! How are you? Tell me about your life. You just kind of fell off the map, what happened?”


**Me:** (still feeling confused) “I’m great – I’m married now, with two kids. How about yourself?”


**Stacy:** “I’m doing well! I fell in love with California during school and decided it was where I was meant to live! This is actually the first time I’ve been back since my mom passed 9 years ago. There really hasn’t been any reason for me to come back since, until now.”


**I ended the conversation there, and immediately left.**


I’m now sitting outside my home in my car. The lights are off. I don’t know who it is that I married. Who I had kids with. But it is not Stacy, because that was *definitely* Stacy at the reunion. What is happening?


I’m trying to piece this all together but it is just too much. I don’t think I can go in there.  


---


[Part 1 - you are here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7ptkdg/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7q6bgt/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7qouus/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)

[Part 4]
(https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7r66yp/i_ran_into_my_high_school_sweetheart_tonight_at/?ref=share&ref_source=link)


 Human: write a story with the theme title: When I was a little boy, I befriended a frog who lived at the bottom of the garden.
 
 Assistant: I was six years old when my mum and I moved in with nana. Mum and dad were always arguing, and sometimes there was hitting. So she took me and left.

Nana loved us, but she also loved solitude. I could always tell when I'd asked too many questions or was playing too loudly. So I'd take myself outside, weather permitting, and leave her in peace. 

That's how I met Solomon. 

It was many years ago, but this is how six year old me remembers the experience. 

Mum was at work. Nana had her feet up, smoking a cigarette as she watched morning television. I was playing on the floor with toy cars. I'd received a road mat the previous Christmas and, despite it now being summer, I still wasn't bored of it. I pushed the cars around the printed city making sound effects. 

"Ben," said nana, not angry but stern. I looked up, her matter-of-fact expression telling me everything. 

"Sorry nana," I said. She smiled and it warmed her. 

"It's alright, sweetheart. But nanny's trying to watch telly." 

I nodded. "I think I'll go play outside."

"Alright, come here," she said in a cloud of smoke, planting a big wet kiss on my cheek. "Don't go near the pond, remember?"

"I won't nana," I said as I wiped my face. 

One thing about living there was I had no friends. There were no kids anywhere near our house. I had started primary school but the few kids I played with there lived too far away. So I had to entertain myself. 

It was a great garden. Lots of space to run around, roll around, climb trees. There was even a blackberry bush. Nana said I was allowed to eat a few a day, but I had to wash them first because of bugs and bird poo. You also had to be very careful when picking them because they grew on thorny stalks. 

At the very bottom of the garden was a pond. It wasn't too big, maybe two metres wide at most. There used to be fish in it but when they died, nana didn't get new ones. Grandad used to like the fish, nana wasn't too fussed. It had become a bit wild, taken over by algae and water beetles. 

I had a football that I'd kick around sometimes. After I'd picked and eaten a few blackberries, having washed them under the outside tap, I looked around for it. It was floating on the surface of the pond. 

"Oh no!" I said to myself, like it was the end of the world. I looked back at the house and pictured nana engrossed in her programmes. I decided that she would never know.

It was too far to reach by hand with my little arms, but a long stick would help. There were plenty of those to be found. So I grabbed one and stood about a foot away from the edge of the pond.

It had a kind of swampy, humid smell to it. There were sections where the algae separated and there was an abundance of life to be seen. Lots of tiny creatures swimming, wriggling, squirming.

Very few kids have the ability to think logically. Or that's my excuse anyway. In hindsight, I should have just laid on my front to take away any danger of falling in. I think in my head, I didn't like the idea of my face being too close to the water. It looked kinda gross. So foolishly, I tried to reach it by bending over and stretching my arms. And that's when I toppled over. 

Up to that point I'd never been to a pool. I'd never even been to a beach and paddled in the sea. The biggest expanse of water I'd ever been in was the bathtub. I couldn't swim. 

The most frustrating thing about that was how close the edge looked as my head tried to stay above the surface. My legs kicked out, my arms flailed. It's crazy how quickly your energy drains. 

I tried to scream for nana but I kept swallowing mouthfuls of stagnant, lukewarm water. I panicked, my head dropping below the surface. I'd emerge briefly, feeling clumps of algae stuck to my face before going back under. 

Eventually, it went dark. And then it wasn't again. 

I was choking up water laying a few feet away from the pond, soaking wet. I took in long deep breaths as I stared into the bright blue sky. I closed my eyes and started to feel tears coming on. Then came a voice. 

"Don't cry little one." 

It sounded like a man, but it wasn't a deep voice like my dad's. It was soft, and kind. It reminded me a little of my teacher Mr Woods, he always sounded cheerful. I turned my head from side to side, perched on my elbows. 

"Down here!" 

There was a frog sitting on my chest, softly croaking. Just a normal, greenish yellow frog with mottled skin. Its mouth was kind of upturned into a smile. A water beetle scurried in front of it and its tongue quickly flicked out to eat it.

"Excuse me," it said, swallowing it down. I sat up and it hopped off my chest. 

"Di... Did you just speak?" I asked, confused. It nodded slowly, the pale skin under its chin inflating like a balloon as it breathed.

"I did," it said. "Are you feeling better?"

"Frogs can't talk!" I said, pinching my arm. It hurt, I wasn't dreaming. The frog chuckled warmly. 

"Well, technically I'm not a frog. I mean, I am. But that's not what I would have called myself. That's what your kind call me." 

I lowered my head a little, getting a closer look. "What do you mean my kind?" 

"Well, people. Humans. You *are* human, aren't you?" 

I nodded. "Yes, I'm a boy." 

It laughed. "I thought you might be. Do you have a name, little one?" 

I nodded again. "Ben, what's your name?" 

"Nice to meet you, Ben. I don't have a name, sadly." 

I frowned. "Why not?" 

Its front legs moved up slightly, like a shrug. "It's just not something we do. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one of my kind who can talk like this. My mother couldn't have given me a name if she tried." 

"How *can* you talk?" I asked inquisitively, shifting down lower. I laid on my front and put my hands under my chin. 

It shook its head. "Sometimes, strange things happen in this world that can't be explained. I'm one of those strange things, I guess." 

"If you're the only frog who can talk, that means you're special." 

Its little mouth turned up at the corners. "That's a very sweet way to put it, thank you Ben. I can tell that you're special too." 

I shook my head. "No, I'm not. Everyone who I know can talk." 

The frog laughed warmly. "Oh, Ben. That's not the only thing that makes something special. You're special in other ways." 

"Like how?" 

"Well, maybe you're special because you can hear me?" 

I looked up to think about it, then nodded. "Maybe you're right. I've never ever heard of anyone who can talk to a frog before." 

"Honestly, I don't think many can." 

I got a little closer. "Can I touch your skin?" 

Its mouth opened as it laughed. "Why on earth would you want to do that?" 

"My friend Henry Collins said frogs feel slimy." 

"Well, that's just rude," it said. "I'm sure this Henry Collins is slimy himself!" 

I laughed, shaking my head. "No, silly. He's like me." 

"For all I know, you're slimy too!" it said. 

"I'm not, feel." I held out my hand palm side up, just in front of it. It hopped a little closer, then one of its little webbed feet pressed down on one of my fingers. There was a slight cool sensation. 

"Well, definitely not slimy," it said. 

"See, I told you. Now it's my turn." 

It sighed. "Very well, but be gentle. I'm a lot smaller than you." 

"I will." I stroked its back with my forefinger. It shook its body a little like a happy dog. 

"Oh my, that tickles a bit," it said, laughing. 

"I wouldn't say you're slimy," I said. 

"I'm certainly glad to hear it," said the frog. 

"But you feel kind of wet. And a bit squidgy." 

It gasped. "Well, sorry to tell you this Ben but you're a bit squidgy too!" 

I laughed and rolled onto my back. "You're funny." 

The frog shook its head, but smiled regardless. "Oh, to be a child." 

"Ben!" came a loud voice from behind. It was nana, standing on the back doorstep with a cigarette. My heart jumped a little as I sat up. 

"Yes nana?" 

"I told you to stay away from that pond!" 

I looked back, I was a few feet away from it. "I'm not that close nana." 

She took a drag and blew a big cloud of smoke. "I don't care, get away from it now!" Then she went back in the house. 

"Oh dear," said the frog. "I might have just gotten you into trouble." 

I shook my head. "No, I did that myself. I was silly and fell in because I was too close." I paused and got lower again. "Wait, did you see how I got out?" 

The frog shook its head. "Can't say I did. But I'm glad you're alright." 

I accepted it as just one of those things. "I better go or I *will* be in trouble." I sat up. "Are you always here?" 

It nodded and turned its head to the pond. "Yes, that's my home. Please come and see me again sometime." 

I nodded. "Definitely. But I'll have to be careful nana doesn't see me." 

It laughed warmly again. "I understand. Just to be safe, maybe it's best if you don't tell nana, or mum, or even Henry Collins about me. They might *not* understand. Does that sound reasonable?" 

I nodded. "I don't think anyone would believe me anyway." 

It gave a slight nod. "I think you're right." 

I got up to leave, brushing bits of grass off my front. My clothes were already drying due to the temperature. 

"Ben," the frog said. I looked down. "Would you do something for me?" 

I nodded. "Sure." 

"I don't think it will be *too* difficult for you. But, I'd love you to give me a name." 

"You mean, I get to decide what your name is?" I said excitedly. It nodded. 

"Absolutely, I'd really like that. Unless you're going to call me something silly like 'Froggy' or 'Hoppy'. I *wouldn't* like that!" 

I laughed. "I won't, I promise." 

"Good. Well, next time we see each other, hopefully I'll have a name." 

I nodded. "You definitely will. I'll think really hard about it." 

"I look forward to it. Goodbye for now, little one." 

I waved. "Bye Froggy!" I said, giggling. It shook its head but laughed along with me. 

"Oh, Ben. You really are something else."

+

A few weeks passed. I'd spent plenty of time in the garden, sometimes near the pond too. But I didn't see the frog and it was a little disappointing. 

One day I came home from school. Mum couldn't always pick me up, so it wasn't unusual for her to arrange a taxi to collect me. I walked through the front door and could hear snivelling. 

"Mum, nana?" I called. 

"In here darling," I heard mum say from the living room. I walked in, her eyes were puffy and red. She held a scrunched up tissue. 

"What's wrong mummy?" I asked. She held out her open arms and I accepted them, feeling my eyes fill up. Part of me knew already. 

"It's nanny," she said as she hugged me. "She's gone to heaven, darling."

The house felt different without nana. But no matter how much mum cleaned around, there always seemed to be the smell of cigarette smoke. It wasn't unpleasant, it offered a strange kind of comfort. It was almost like she was still there. 

Mum and I were lucky to have the house, it was paid for in full. But mum still had to work. Sometimes I'd have a babysitter, a nice lady called Sara who lived in one of the houses down the road. But sometimes that wasn't an option. I know she felt terrible about it, but my mum would leave me on my own on those occasions. 

"Promise me you'll be a good boy," she'd say. "Don't do silly things. Be safe." 

I'd always promise and always meant it. On one of those days I was playing in the garden. It had been maybe a month since I'd seen the frog, but I was so happy when I heard his soft little voice. 

"Ben!" 

He was sat around a foot from the edge of the pond. I ran over excitedly. 

"Whoa, slow down little one," he said. "Be safe, remember? We don't want you falling in again." 

I slowed to a normal pace and nodded, sitting cross legged in front of him. "Sorry, I was excited to see you!" 

He laughed. "That's sweet of you. And you don't need to apologise. I just feel it's my duty to look out for you when no one else is around." 

I sighed and nodded. He looked up at me. 

"Your mum is doing the best she can. She loves you very much, it's all for you." 

I felt a little tear in my eye and wiped it away. "I know. It's just sometimes I miss her, and I miss nana." 

The frog hopped closer, then leapt onto my knee. It made me smile. 

"I'm so sorry about nana, little one. Don't ask me how I know these things, but I can tell you she's nearby in some way. She's a *bit* mad that you're this close to the pond, but she's happy you've got me as a friend." 

I cried, but they were mostly happy tears. 

"Dry your eyes, little one. You've got a big job to do today. Do you know what?" 

I shook my head. "No. I've already tidied my room, I washed up my cereal bowl, I picked up my cars from the floor..." 

The frog laughed. "No, no. I'm not talking about boring jobs like that. This is a very, very important and meaningful job!" 

"Tell me!" I said excitedly. 

"You need to do me the honour of naming me." 

I took in a big breath. "Oh yes, and I have a name already. A good one!" 

It's little mouth smiled again. "Oh my, I can't wait to hear it." 

My nana and I used to watch a particular film together, quite a lot. As a kid, I loved it. I need you to remember that. I was a kid. Because it's a *bad* film. But kids aren't as critical, and cynical as adults. They can see past the flaws and focus on the best bits. That's my excuse anyway. 

*King Solomon's Mines*. 

Not only a shameless *Indiana Jones* rip-off, but shockingly bad all around. It was my nana's favourite film, mainly because she thought Richard Chamberlain was so handsome. Sometimes it got a little inappropriate, but being a kid it would go straight over my head. 

*'I loved your grandfather, but the things I'd let him do to me...'*

Little did we know back then that my nana would have never stood a chance! I loved the film for very different reasons. Not only because it was *our* film, but for the sense of adventure. I didn't understand a lot of it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. At the time, it seemed like the only fitting name. And it would honour my nana's memory too. 

"Solomon," I said with a smile. "I'm naming you Solomon." 

The frog looked at me curiously, turning his head from side to side. "Solomon, hmm." Then it smiled. "It's perfect!" 

I clapped my hands. "Yay, I'm so happy you like it." 

"I never doubted you," he said. "I'm proud to call myself 'Solomon'," 

"So now, if anyone asks what your name is you can tell them." 

He nodded. "I can indeed, though I don't think that opportunity will come up very often. You're still the only thing I've ever spoken to." 

I gently stroked his back with my finger, and he closed his eyes with a smile. "Do you think you'll ever talk to anyone else?" 

He looked up at me. "Honestly, I don't think I'll ever meet anyone else special enough." 

+

A few days went by and seeing Solomon was a given. I was happy to have him as a friend, and I appreciated that he didn't always treat me like a child. He'd tell me things as they were, truths that most adults would hide or sugar-coat. But I always felt he had an underlying responsibility to look out for me too. I was a child, and I could act like one. 

One day we were chatting about school. I was laying on my back and Solomon sat on my chest, like the first day I met him. He cut me off mid-sentence, tapping his little webbed foot. He turned his head to face the house. 

"Sorry, little one. Something's not right." 

I perched up on my elbows. "What is it, Solomon?" 

I could see a change in his expression. He looked concerned. He had this amazing ability to show emotions like we do. 

"Ben, someone's coming. Someone you'll recognise. I need you to know that whatever happens right now, you'll be safe. Do you understand?" 

I sat up, and Solomon leapt onto the grass. 

"You're scaring me, Solomon." 

"I don't mean to, little one. It *might* get scary, but believe me. You'll be safe." 

My breathing started to get heavier and I felt butterflies in my stomach. Solomon hopped closer and rested a foot on my hand. 

"Look at me, Ben." 

I looked down, my breathing stuttered. 

"Do you trust me?" 

My lips trembled a little but I nodded. I did trust him, as much as I trusted my mum or Mr Woods. 

"Good boy," he said. I heard a loud noise come from inside the house. It made me gasp. 

"Remember, you'll be safe. I'll always be honest with you. But, you need to go see who it is." 

I snivelled a bit and nodded, standing up slowly and turning to the house. I started walking. 

"I'm here, little one," he called from behind. I walked closer to the house, hearing the sound of furniture moving around. Every now and then I heard an expletive. I *did* recognise the voice. It was my dad. 

I hadn't seen him since we moved into nana's house. I didn't want to, he wasn't nice to mum. I walked into the back door and through the kitchen, following the sounds of disturbance. They took me to the living room where he was rummaging through drawers. It took him some time to notice I was there, he jumped when he saw me. 

"Jesus **** Christ, Ben!" 

My hands shook a little. I didn't like it when he used bad words. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice wavering. He shook his head. 

"Hello to you too, boy. Where's your mother?" 

She was at work. I couldn't lie and say she was home, so I said nothing. He laughed. 

"She's not here, is she? The worthless **** left you on your own. That's negligence. Leaving my **** son unsupervised, who does she think she is?" 

"Stop saying bad things about mum," I shouted, my whole body trembling. 

"She's got you **** wrapped around her little finger, hasn't she?" He started to step closer, I backed up. "What lies has she been feeding you, huh? Turning my own son against me." 

"She didn't tell me anything," I cried. "I heard the things you said. I saw what you did." 

He shook his head and grinned in a sarcastic way. "Right. Well, you're a little kid and have a wild imagination. She's twisted it. I didn't do ****." 

I slowly stepped back through the hallway as he etched closer. "Anyway, I heard the mother **** is six feet under. There's gotta be some cash around here. That Scrooge hated spending money. Unless it was for a pack of John Player Specials, hah!" 

I shook my head. "There's nothing." 

He smiled. "Well I'll just have to keep looking on my own, then." 

"There's nothing!" I shouted. "Stop saying bad things! Get out!" 

The phone was on a little table by the staircase, it was just behind me. I ran to it and started dialing 999. It was a rotary dial, and each 9 took forever to make its way round. I'd barely managed two before he snatched it out of my hand. 

"You little ****," he sneered, pushing me back against the staircase. "What the **** do you think the police are gonna do? They'll take you away. Is that what you want?" 

I started crying and hit out at him, but he just laughed. 

"I hate you," I snivelled. "I wish you wasn't my dad!" 

As if by magic, the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. It was enough to spook him, his head turning towards the front door. Then back to the phone. 

"No, it couldn't have. That's not possible." 

It was a miraculous coincidence, but he fell for it. I just stared at him, shaking. 

"You know what? I bet you're not even mine anyway. Your **** mother couldn't keep her legs shut." He backed up to the front door and opened it. "Yeah, there's no way a little **** like you is mine." 

He left and slammed the door behind him. The word he used was genuinely new to me, so it didn't have the desired impact. It confused me. But I figured it wasn't very nice anyway. 

My trembling legs carried me down to the bottom of the garden. Solomon was there, he hopped closer as I got near the pond. 

"Are you alright little one?" he asked. I nodded, but fell to my knees and cried. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" 

I shook my head. "No. I believed you. It was scary, but I believed you." 

He patted his little foot on my knee. "You're a very brave boy." 

+

When mum came home I had to explain to her what had happened. She panicked, and held me tighter than she ever had before. If anything good came from it, it's that she told me she would never leave me alone again. 

I helped her clear up the mess dad had made. I asked her if she was going to call the police and there was a flash of consideration in her eyes. But she decided against it. 

That night when I went to bed, it started to rain. I could hear it tapping against my window. I always loved that sound, it was comforting. It hadn't rained for weeks which was strange for the UK. 

I awoke late. A sudden bright flash emanated from behind the curtains, followed by a loud crack of thunder. It startled me. I've never been afraid of a storm but it took me off guard. It must have been what woke me up. 

I opened my curtains just enough to see the rain coming down hard, then I watched in awe as the forks of lightning spread across the night sky. I blinked hard as the next crack of thunder struck, laughing to myself. As the next flash came I looked down to see Solomon's pond rippling. I thought about how happy he'd be swimming around in the rain. 

There came a loud crash from inside the house. Then I could hear muffled voices. I jumped down from my bed, my room illuminated briefly with the next sheet of lightning. I knew the thunder was coming, but it still made me flinch as I crept closer to my door. 

I pulled it open just a little and listened closely. My mum was talking downstairs. No, shouting! Then came the voice that my heart already knew was responsible for it. 

My legs felt like jelly as I quietly walked across the landing and held on to the banister, looking down. A flash of light spread across the floor, then a loud scream mingled with the rumbling thunder. It filled me with dread. 

I heard my dad shout more horrible words, then I saw something that I'll never forget. My mum slowly came into view. She was crawling on her belly, and the back of her head was thick with blood. Her blonde hair clumped together. 

"Mum!" I screamed, and her face slowly turned upwards. Her eyes briefly met mine. They were wide with horror. Her mouth opened, she was trying to say something. Then she collapsed. 

As I started to cry my dad came into view. He was holding a hammer, the head of it a glossy dark red. He looked up and sneered as the lightning struck again, and the crash of thunder was like a starting gun. 

I ran back into my room as I heard my dad on the staircase, slamming the door shut. There was a chest of drawers just to the side and, being young and ****, I thought I might be able to push it over to stop him from getting in. The reality was it didn't move an inch. He burst in, making me scream. 

"Time to be with your **** mother!" he snarled, swinging the hammer down. I managed to duck out of the way and it smacked into the side of the drawers. I was on my hands and knees crawling to my bed. I wanted to go underneath it, like it would fool him. That silly childish logic again. I didn't get far though. 

He picked me up by the scruff of my *Thomas the Tank Engine* pyjamas. He held me up by one hand, the other holding the hammer high above. The lightning revealed strands of blonde hair matted to the head with blood. He grinned in such an evil, hateful way. 

"You know how I know you're not really mine? I have no problem with bashing your tiny little skull in!" 

I grabbed onto his wrist for support. His clenched fist was just in front of my face, I wanted to try and bite it but I knew I couldn't reach. So I did the next best thing. 

As the hammer rose higher, I kicked out as hard as I could with my left foot. I got him good between the legs! The pain I felt in my bare toes was excruciating, but it payed off. He dropped me and fell back, groaning as he let go of the hammer and held his ****. But of all the places he could have rested, it had to be against the door. 

I jumped on my bed and threw my curtains open, scrambling to open the window. My dad was moaning behind me. 

"You little ****!" he said, it was a pitch higher than normal. The window opened outwards, my face splashed with rain. I looked down and could just make out the roof of the little extension that was part of the kitchen. The lightning gave me an even better look. It didn't look like *too* much of a drop, but it was scary enough to make me hesitate. 

"You're dead, boy!" he screamed, lunging for the hammer and then throwing himself on the bed. I screamed and hung backwards from the window, my hands gripping on to the ledge. The rain came down **** my face, but I could make out his blurry outline. The flash in the sky showed him looming over me, and as the next thunder clap came, the hammer came down. It caught my wrist. 

I barely had time to acknowledge the pain, then I was falling. I hit the roof feet first, toppled over, then rolled down the slightly slanted tiles until I met the edge. I tried to cling on to something but my hands wouldn't grip, slipping with the combination of water and slimy rooftop moss. 

I hit the back garden hard, knocking the wind out of me. If it hadn't been raining it might have been worse. The sodden grass somewhat cushioned my fall. That being said, I was frozen for a good few seconds as I tried to catch my breath. As soon as that was under control, that's when I really started to notice the pain in my wrist and toes. 

I managed to roll over and get to my feet. The back garden was darker than the house, but every flash helped me see the way. I held my wrist to my chest, supporting it with my other hand, and limped in the direction of Solomon's pond. My tears were indistinguishable from the rain. My body was as wet as it had been on the day I met Solomon and almost drowned. 

My dad's voice roared from somewhere behind me, making me take in a sharp breath. 

"I'm coming for ya, boy. No one will recognise you when I'm done crushing your face!" 

I darted into the greenery on my left, ducking down. I crawled in, wincing as I put pressure on my bad wrist. I didn't stop until I felt a sharp pain on my right shoulder. It was a thorn. I was in one of blackberry bushes. I sat up and turned around, pulling my knees up to my chest for comfort. Then I slowly rocked myself as my lips trembled. 

When lightning struck, I saw my dad looking around the garden. The hammer was constantly raised above his head. He poked his head inside bushes, looked behind trees. He smashed the windows of the little garden shed we had and was adamant he'd found me, screaming with anger when he realised I wasn't inside. 

"Get your **** **** out here, now!" 

Every crack of thunder made me jump like I wasn't expecting it. My dad turned his head to the sky and roared along with it, like a taunt. An intimidation. I closed my eyes tight and continued to slowly rock. 

As my dad started to move over to my side of the garden, there appeared to be another miracle. The second of the day. The storm must have been testing the electricals of the house, and something triggered the fuse box. Most of the lights went out. It got his attention. 

"Got ya!" he yelled, and ran up the garden. The next flash revealed he'd gone back in the house. 

I slowly crawled out of the bush and got to my feet, heading left and limping the last few steps to the pond. I was exhausted, and in more pain than I'd ever experienced before. But hearing Solomon's voice made everything feel better. For just a moment. 

"Little one!" 

I couldn't see him at first, but I could tell I was close to the pond by the sound of the rain as it hit the surface. With a flash, I saw him there on the edge. I fell to my knees and collapsed to my side. 

"Solomon!" I cried, reaching out with my good hand. I held it upright and he hopped onto it with a croak. 

"Little one, we don't have much time!" 

I took in a stuttered breath. "He killed my mum," I cried. "He killed my mum, Solomon." 

He patted my hand with one of his webbed feet, shaking his head. "No, Ben. In time, she will make a full recovery." 

I snivelled. "How do you know?" 

"Because I'm special, remember? I also know you've broken two of your left toes. And your left wrist is fractured." 

My jaw dropped, my mouth splashed with rain. "How...?" 

"I just do, little one. Your mother will be fine. Trust me." 

I bawled, but it was mostly relief. I believed him. 

"He's still here Solomon. He's trying to get me." 

He gently tapped on my hand. "I know, little one. But I can help you." 

I got up to kneel and Solomon leapt from my hand. By that point I wasn't only shivering from fear, but cold. The rain wasn't letting up. 

"How?" I asked.

"Are you feeling brave?" 

I shook my head. "No. I'm scared, Solomon. He's going to hurt me like he hurt mum." 

He hopped closer and patted my knee. "I won't let him, Ben. But I need you to be a big, brave boy. Can you do that?" 

I looked over my shoulder, the house briefly illuminated in a flash. Then the lights went back on. It made my heart jump. 

"Please, little one. Be brave." 

I turned back and nodded, but I didn't feel brave at all. My stomach churned. "What should I do?" 

"Something scary. I need you to bring your father to me." 

I held my bad hand to my chest. "How, Solomon? He'll hurt me before I have the chance." 

He shook his head. "Not if you're fast. And clever. I *know* you're clever." 

I started crying again. "But I'm just a little boy." 

Solomon sighed. "Oh, Ben. I wish I could hug you. You're so much more than *'just a little boy'*. Before I met you, I was just a little frog. But you made me special, because *you* are special. Believe in yourself, little one." 

I mustered a small smile and stroked Solomon on his back. "We make each other special, don't we?" 

He smiled and croaked. "Exactly. Now, bring your father to me. You can do it. Fast and clever." 

I gulped, wiped my nose with the back of my good hand, and nodded. By that point the thunder no longer made me jump. That made me feel *somewhat* brave.

I slowly stood up and Solomon leapt to the edge of his pond. Turning, I started walking up the garden. The soft wet ground squidged between my toes and soothed the broken ones a little. 

"Ben," called Solomon. I looked over my shoulder. "Thank you for being my friend." 

I smiled as best as I could under the circumstances, giving him a slight nod. I didn't say anything, but I didn't have to. Solomon and I had a connection. My heart was filled with warmth in that moment and it spurred me on. I watched as Solomon turned and hopped into the pond with a *splash*. Then I started preparing for the scariest thing in my life. 

The back door was open. It was eerily quiet inside. A small part of me had hope that my dad had left. But I couldn't be sure. I picked up a small saucepan that sat on the counter, my hand trembling. Then I banged it on a cupboard door.

"Dad!" I called. "I'm here!" 

It didn't take long at all. Within a few seconds I heard heavy footsteps on the floorboards, then he appeared in the kitchen doorway. The hammer was by his side. He grinned. 

"Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this." 

He raised the hammer and lunged forward. The first thing I did was throw the saucepan in his direction. That hadn't been planned but felt like a wasted opportunity if I didn't. It barely touched him, but it was worth a try. I turned and ran, going as fast as I could given my foot injury. 

It didn't take long to hear a *thump* and a painful yell, and I allowed myself to look over my shoulder. I'd crushed blackberries all over the doorstep, making it slippery. My dad was laying on the ground, writhing around. It had given me a small advantage. 

"Fuck you!" he screamed, getting to his feet. I gasped as I turned back to face the back of the garden. 

My little toes were so painful, but I still ran as fast as I had in the 100m race on my school's sports day. At least it felt like it. But I knew my dad was twice, maybe even three times faster than me. It wouldn't take him long to catch up. 

The lightning flashed and it guided my way, showing me what I needed to do next. As I heard my dad closing in, I jumped. I landed on the wet grass with a little slip, but managed to compose myself and kept running. I heard another yell and looked over my shoulder again. 

My dad was laying on the ground again, swearing. We had a pile of logs in the shed for winter fires, and I'd placed some in the garden. 

"Ben!" he screamed, getting to his feet. "I'm gonna start by smashing in your **** teeth!" 

I turned back and kept running, relying on the lightning again. The thunder roared but I could still hear my dad behind me. I jumped over another log, but that one didn't stop him. He was looking out for them now. My last attempt at slowing him down was coming up, though he'd need to be closer for that to work. Not that I needed to slow down, I was practically within his grasp. He laughed maniacally, and I could hear the hammer as it swiped through the air. 

I jumped again, but this time I didn't land straight away. There was a branch sticking out from my favourite climbing tree, and I used it to swing myself a little further ahead. When I let go, it swung back and smacked my dad in the face. He screamed as he came to a halt.

"Your eyes!" he yelled as I ran with all I had. That was the last of my obstacles. "I'm gonna start by gouging out your eyes!" 

I felt panic rising inside as I sprinted the final stretch to Solomon's pond. My bad hand clung to my chest, feeling my heart beating hard beneath it. My dad wasn't too far behind now, and there was nothing between us. 

With a flash of light, I saw the pond. But I saw something else too that gave me a little fright. 

Protruding slightly from the surface were two big, glowing eyes. Then they raised up slightly to reveal a wide mouth that was upturned in the corners, like a smile. As the thunder rumbled I heard a deep croak, and the pale flesh below the mouth inflated intermittently. The eyes were fixed onto mine, and with a final flash of light before I reached the pond, the large head motioned to the sky. 

I understood. 

My dad had stopped speaking hateful words and instead screamed in a constant fit of rage. I took a deep breath and leapt as my toes reached the edge of the pond, landing in the middle of the squidgy wet head. It flicked up slightly to spring me to the other side where I landed straight on my ****. 

I had just enough time to turn and see my dad's terrified reaction as Solomon emerged from his pond in a geyser of water.

Solomon roared and shot out his large tongue, it wrapped around my dad's ankles and pulled him over. I watched in disbelief as he dropped the hammer and tried to claw at the soft ground. Solomon began to retreat back underwater. My dad's screams were more terrifying than the disturbing threats he'd hissed throughout the evening. 

All I could see was the very top of Solomon's head as my dad was pulled into the water, his lower legs submerged. 

"Help me!" he screamed, his hands tearing at patches of grass. He turned to look over his shoulder, at the face of what was to end his violent attack. My dad was as pale as snow, his nose bloody from the tree.

I heard a loud croak as Solomon raised out of the water, then closed his mouth around my dad's waist. He smacked at Solomon's head as he struggled, but I could see him becoming visibly weaker as I heard the sound of crushing bones. 

Finally, my dad's eyes met mine. I can't be sure, but I think I saw the moment that life left them. They just appeared to be void of any emotion as Solomon dragged him to the depths, and the pond became deathly still. 

+

Just a few weeks ago I happened to be in the area of my nana's old house. I've long since moved away, as has my mum who is as fit and healthy as you'd expect a seventy-something to be. 

I pulled up outside and took a deep breath as I looked upon it with mixed emotions. The exterior hadn't changed a great deal. The windows were more modern, that was about it. The front door opened and a woman came out, walking down the garden path. I shut off the engine and stepped out of my car.

"Can I help you?" she asked cheerfully. "Are you lost?" 

I smiled. "No. Erm, actually I grew up here. I was just reminiscing." 

She beamed. "Oh, that's wonderful. You must come inside!" 

I was grateful for her offer and she took me on a little tour of the house. I was amazed by how different it looked. The last time I'd seen the inside of that house was around the early 90s, where it had the same decor as always. 

It was very much a family home. There were two children's bedrooms and various family photos dotted around. I got a little lump in my throat seeing my old room. The woman could tell by my reaction that it used to be mine, lightly touching my arm. 

As we went back downstairs she offered me a hot drink, to which I politely declined. But my eyes fell onto the kitchen window and the now completely landscaped back garden. 

"Do you still have the pond?" I asked. She nodded. 

"Oh yes, my husband keeps koi." 

"Do you mind if I take a look?" 

She smiled. "Be my guest. I'm making tea, I won't take no for an answer." 

I stepped outside. There was no longer grass as you left the doorstep, but a modern patio with outdoor furniture. The old shed had been replaced with what looked like a small annex. There was a large trampoline in the centre of the garden. Six year old me would have loved that! 

As I approached the garden's end the pond came into view. It was beautifully maintained. The edge was decorated with rocks, there was even a mini waterfall. I crouched down and watched the koi kiss the shimmery surface. My heart filled and I felt my eyes glaze over, having not thought about that pond for some time. 

There was a croak to my left. I looked down to see a little frog hop towards me. It made me smile. 

"Hello you," I said, lightly stroking its back. It made no attempt to hop away. It looked up at me, and I swear it's little mouth looked like it was smiling. 

I got more comfortable and held out my hand palm side up. The frog willingly hopped on top. My heart jumped. I brought it closer to my face and studied it. It had been years since I'd seen Solomon, and with no offence intended, I wasn't sure I'd be able to tell him apart from any other frog. And given their short lifespan, he'd probably be long dead already.

But Solomon wasn't like other frogs. He was *special*. And this was curious behaviour. 

"Solomon?" I said quietly, paranoid I'd be heard by the welcoming woman. It just looked at me and croaked contently. "It's me, Ben." 

A part of me was preparing for a response, I wasn't sure how adult me would react to that. But there came none. Just a pleasant little expression on its face as it croaked. I let out a little laugh. 

"Once upon a time, there was a very special frog who lived here. I know it sounds silly, but he was the best friend I ever had. I never got to thank him for what he did for my mum and I, so I'll say it to you. Thank you, Solomon." 

I felt tears in my eyes as I shook it off, preparing to put the frog down. But it moved closer to my face and placed its little webbed foot on my nose, tapping lightly. 

The woman in the house seemed genuinely warm, as I'm sure her husband is too. But I knew in my heart; if either of them turned out to be monsters, their children would be safe for as long as they lived here.

[dd](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=UpdateMeBot&subject=Subscribe&message=SubscribeMe!%20%2Fr%2Fnosleep%20%2Fu%2Fdisco-dingus)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son's camera monitor alerted in the middle of the night. I checked it and saw my wife and son sitting on the bed. They weren't my wife and son. - Part 2
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bsrmy5/my_sons_camera_monitor_alerted_in_the_middle_of/)

&#x200B;

I'm sorry it's taken so long, it's been an emotional month. I've felt like I'm losing my mind, or already lost it. I've been in the hospital for three weeks.

You'll remember I left off at my wife's parents house not sure what the **** to do. My wife and I argued about it, my in-laws said call the priest. I told my wife we're calling the cops and that's it.

The day we finally called the cops would be day six. Not-my-family was still sitting on the **** bed, staring at the camera. I told the dispatcher there were intruders in my house, leaving out the part where they looked exactly like my family. I told her we were out of the house but I would meet the police there. She dispatched two units.

My wife begged me not to go. I told her I had to be there, I had a fool proof plan. I would take her mom's iphone and face time with my wife while showing the police the camera on my phone. They would see this is a **** up situation and hopefully proceed with caution. My coworker friend said he would come with me as well.

My friend and I beat the cops to my house. Like most of you mentioned in the comments previously, I was packing heat. I have a concealed carry so I had my 1911 .45 on me, I was not concerned this would bother the cops as I was going to inform them of my permit and that I was currently carrying. What I wasn't going to tell them was that I had my father in-laws AR-15 in my trunk. It's almost funny how many of you mentioned that was the way to go in my previous entry. I didn't plan on telling the cops about it because I was not planning on needing it. They would come armed and prepared.

They showed up and I let them know I was armed and then enacted my plan. I initially told them the story. They looked at each other like I was crazy and they didn't believe me. I face timed my wife so they could see she was infact not in the house despite what our camera was showing. They still didn't seem to believe me but this did peak their interest. I hung up with my wife and told her I'd call her back as soon as we knew something.

"So now we're sure this isn't a recording," an officer stated repeating what I said.

"It's not. The day/night cycle has changed every day. Their blinking is erratic and not cyclical like it was a repeat," I said.

"I know it's a **** question, but your wife isn't a twin?" the other officer asked. I told him no.

My friend spoke up. "I have an idea. Turn the volume up, I'll go throw a pebble at the window." He went around back while I turned up the volume to the max. "Ok, I'm tossing."

We heard the light "tick" sound from outside, but the one second delay on the camera came in loud and clear through my phone. Not-my-wife moved at the sound of the pebble hitting the window, the first time I'd actually seen her move aside from the time she wasn't on screen when I initially went inside our house the first day. She turned her head towards the window just slightly, before turning back to the camera.

"Ok, so this is live," an officer said. "Ok sir, I need you and your friend to stay outside here. We're going to go in and find out what's going on here."

"Should you ask for more units?" I asked hopefully.

"Not at this time. We're going to assess the situation first, they don't appear to be armed but we're going to be cautious."

I opened the garage for them and they made their way in towards my kitchen door. They radioed dispatch that they were headed in and to stand by. They disappeared into my house.

A few seconds after they went in the camera went out. I wanted to **** and I felt like if I put my fingers in my mouth I'd be able to feel my heart since it had leapt so far up into my throat.

"SHIT!" I yelled to my friend. I immediately popped the trunk and got my rifle out and ran into the garage, my friend right behind me. We got inside just in time to hear a low, guttural howl from upstairs, demonic sounding almost, along with raised voices from the police. There were several shots.

"NEED BACKUP, SHOTS FI..." he was cut off.

"OH MY ****!" my friend howled. He was scared shitless, but so was I.

"God **** damnit, I knew it!" I said running up the stairs.

My son's room is the first one you come to after getting upstairs, so his wall is also what you see as you walk up the stairs. As I reached the top I laid into the wall with my rifle. It has a 30 round magazine but I felt like I fired 100 shots. I fired all over the place knowing full well the ammo would go through the wall like it was paper, concentrating on where my son's bed would be but also near the door and towards the floor as well in case whatever these things were thought to duck. We heard shrieks of pain coming from the room, then nothing.

My friend and I paused for a minute before deciding to go in because the camera was still out. We heard a whimpering coming from the room. There was a dead cop in the hallway we had to step over. It was awful and I'll never be able to un-see it, his head was several feet away from his body in the threshold to our guest room. We found the other cop in my son's room right inside the doorway. He had several large holes in his torso as if he'd been impaled. Exactly what I was afraid would happen had happened. I called the cops and whatever these things were killed them.

When we entered the room we found the source of the whimpering was Not-my-wife. She was laying on her back on the floor, holding her torso that was bullet ridden and breathing heavy. The scene was awful. I can hardly put into words how awful it was. I know now, just like I did then, they weren't my family. It shouldn't have been hard, I should have been able to just go in and finish it, but instead I fell to my knees. Not-my-wife begged for her life.

"I don't want to die honey," she whimpered. "I wanted to have more kids, I can't die now."

I looked over at Not-my-son, who had to be dead. He'd taken two shots at least to the head, or what was left of it. He had several more in his torso and one or two on his legs and arms. If you have kids, seeing their lifeless, bullet ridden body is a special kind of ****. Again, I knew it wasn't my son, but it was.

I was going to be sick. I'd killed my family. I turned back to Not-my-wife, she was acting just like my wife. It even mimicked her anxiety about death that she has had in the past year or so.

"It's not her, man." I forgot my friend was even there. "It's not her, shoot it."

I know what you guys are thinking. How many times has this happened in the movies and you scream at your TV for the main character to just shoot the impostor because it's not their loved one. I guess movies get it right somehow. I'll never roll my eyes at the character who can't **** an impostor again.

"Please don't shoot me," it begged.

My hands where shaking as I aimed at it. Why couldn't I do it? I know, I knew, this wasn't my wife.

"Listen man," my friend began calmly. "Look at it. Its blood is yellow. It's not your family."

Was it yellow? It was. Seeing my family slain was so traumatic I hadn't even noticed their blood wasn't red.

I steadied my aim and Not-my-wife suddenly stopped begging. She began that guttural, terrifying shriek and something black or gray started to protrude from her mouth, like a tentacle or something, and I fired. At that range her head more or less exploded. Whatever these things were they appeared to be mortal.

I was still on my knees and my friend was out in the hallway just outside the door. We heard the sounds of approaching police sirens. I'd forgotten one of the cops had gotten a shots-fired call over the radio before being killed. It seemed like it had been hours, but it had only been about five minutes since the police had gone in.

My friend went downstairs to let the police know what to expect. I stood up and slowly made my way into the hallway. I was lightheaded and felt like I was going to be sick. My bedroom is adjacent to my son's, so the doorway is about a foot to the right of my son's doorway. My door was closed, but as I exited my son's room my door opened. Not-me walked out into the hallway, wearing exactly the same thing I was at that time.

I was shocked in place. I couldn't move, but it did. It walked towards me and its right arm turned black and morphed into what appeared to be a tentacle. It was wiggling around like a squid or octopus appendage. When he **** his arm at me it solidified and impaled me through my abdomen. It then stabbed me in the left leg just above the kneecap.

I fell to the ground in pain. Its tentacle arm was wiggling again.

"Why did you **** my family?" it asked. When it spoke its voice changed pitch several times. It was my voice, then much deeper, then normal again. It alternated several times saying that one sentence. It moved in closer. The rifle was gone by I still had my .45. I pulled it out and got a shot off in its right knee. It howled. As Not-me fell to his knee I fired a couple more shots, getting two into its abdomen and left side of its ribs. It breathed heavily for a few seconds before I used the last of my strength to aim proper and shot Not-me in the face. Its blood was also yellow.

I lay there bleeding out thinking this was it for sure. I still had some strength from adrenaline kicking in so I took my belt off and tried to make a tourniquet for my leg. With my stomach wound it was hard to give it a good yank to tighten it. I then took my shirt off and balled it up and packed my stomach wound and applied as much pressure as I could. Being a nurse probably saved my life. I passed out but the measures I took must have kept me alive long enough for EMS to arrive. I heard raised voices and the sound of pounding coming up the stairs before I went out. It was probably a cop but I felt pressure from somebody trying to keep my wound packed before I went out.

I was in and out of consciousness as EMS arrived along with probably every cop in the city. I was wheeled downstairs and put in an ambulance, but while I was being loaded onto the gurney upstairs I heard cops freaking out, and rightfully so. They'd lost two brothers and there were three other bodies.

"Did he **** his brother? Are they twins?" Probably referring to Not-me's dead body.

"Or his whole family?"

"Put him on armed guard while at the hospital. He'll probably be getting charged."

As I was getting placed into the ambulance I saw my friend talking to a group of about 10 cops, all listening very intently to what he was saying. I went out again in the ambulance.

I woke up in the ER, my wounds had been treated. The tentacle hadn't been more than a few inches wide so it was just slightly larger than a large knife. They'd sewn me up and I found that I was currently receiving a blood transfusion do to blood loss at my home. My wife had authorized them to do whatever they had needed while I was unconscious. She was also extremely, \*extremely\* **** that I went in the house. We're ok now, but that's a story for another day.

I was in the hospital for three weeks since I ended up getting an infection and almost went septic. I needed quite a few antibiotics. For the entire three weeks I had cops in my room with questions. After about a week they "released" me and no longer had me under armed guard.

I told them absolutely everything, not caring if it made sense or not, and thank **** my friend had come with me since he was able to corroborate this weird story.

Midway through my hospital stay men with suits came to pay me a visit. They were government, I knew right away. They said they were FBI, but I don't know if I believe that. They wanted to talk about Not-my-family. The police chief and the coroner were involved and it was very hush-hush. They made it clear this was not to get out to the public.

This is where I have to apologize probably for an anticlimactic ending to this ordeal. I don't know what Not-me-and-my-family were. Neither do they. The only thing we know is that they were sentient creatures that looked like us and had yellow blood. I begged the coroner to tell me about their autopsies but he said he wasn't allowed to say. He must have felt bad for me, since I received a bouquet of flowers a couple days later. The card inside the envelope read "We don't know what they are. They have the same organs we do but in different parts of their body aside from their brain, but what's red and pink inside us is green and yellow inside them. They're humanoid creatures but whatever they are they aren't human. The government thinks they may be extraterrestrial. Destroy this letter ASAP."

We had our house professionally cleaned. It was almost surely a government team since they contacted us on "behalf of the police." We could not find any google reviews or website for the company online.

My wife and I are not going to go back to our house. We would love to burn it down but there's no way to do that and avoid suspicion of arson at this point. We'll end up taking a huge loss on the property since everyone in our neighborhood knows there was an incident involving multiple deaths in the house but don't know what actually happened. It'll be hard to sell but eventually it will.

We're going to move on from here. I told everyone at work is was a home invasion and they bought it. I'll go back to work in a couple weeks and we'll start looking for a new house. Again, I'm sorry. I know everyone wanted a concrete ending and to know exactly what the **** those things were. But we just don't know. Aliens sounds good to me. I've been thinking if they were supernatural or actual demons gunfire wouldn't have been able to **** them. It's just hard to say. If they were aliens why did they just sit there and creep in our house for a week. They didn't even try to take over our lives. It's hard to wrap my head around. If it is aliens keep your eyes peeled out there. There could be more of them.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I woke up during surgery, they weren't trying to save me.
 
 Assistant: “Alright, let’s get this started. Incision time, 9:45,” a manly voice said loudly, jolting me awake. 


I felt groggy, and my eyes were kept shut by tape covering my eyelids. I tried to call out for help, but quickly realised I couldn’t form any words, nor move a single muscle. 


Was I paralysed, had I been in an accident? My mind was too shattered, unable to recall even the simplest information. 


“Prepare the device, part 108, we don’t have much time to get it in place,” another voice said.


A sharp pain shot through the back of my head, immediately followed by warm liquid trickling down my neck. I wanted so desperately to cry out in pain, but I could do nothing but listen to what happened as something dug deeper into my skull. 


“Apply pressure right there, will you. Don’t you see the bleed?” the first voice said.


“It’s not working.” the second responded after a moment.


“Fine, then cauterise it, the skin flap is already made.”


The smell of burned flesh filled the air, making me feel sick. Luckily I could feel my stomach had already been completely emptied. I knew I hadn’t eaten in quite some time.


Then it dawned on me. 


Surgery, I was in surgery! But, I hadn’t fallen asleep, and I couldn’t move.  


The surgeon continued to burn my bleeding flesh, and as the pain intensified, I struggled to think back. All I had was a vague memory of a disease, some sort of cancer growing inside my abdomen. If that was the case, what where they doing inside my head?


“How’s he holding up?” One of them asked. 


“His BP and heart rate are a bit high, but he’s under for sure. Don’t worry,” another responded. 


While could hear and feel everything they did, I had no means of communication. 


“Perforator drill.”


They started the drill up, shaking my body as they put it against my skull. The vibrations didn’t hurt, but the cracking sound produced as they dug through is one I’ll never forget.


“****, did you go too deep?”


“Nah, he’s fine.”


Once the bone was cut through, the pain slowly disappeared. With the brain having no pain receptors itself, I could do nothing but listen to the sickly squishes as they rummaged around inside my head. 

“Is the device charged yet?” the surgeon asked. 


“Charged and ready, doctor.”


I felt a vague sense of pressure as something was pushed deep inside my head. 


Desperate, and terrified, I tried to think about the moments before surgery. I’d gone in for a tumour on my pancreas, and while I’m no anatomy genius, that shouldn’t be anywhere near my head. 


“Put the electrodes around the device entry, set it to 650 milliamps.”


A high pitched tone was produced as they powered up the device, followed by a violent jolt, and then…


…darkness.


When I finally regained consciousness, I was lying in a hospital bed. A smiling woman stood in front of me. I recognised her as one of the prep nurses, thought I hadn’t caught her name yet. 


“Everything went great, Mr Jones, we got it all!” she said, ecstatic. 


“Wha-what?” I responded.


“It’s alright, the drugs might make you a bit woozy, but you’ll be good in another hour or so.”


A doctor I hadn’t seen before entered the room, holding a chart and a syringe containing a crimson, but transparent liquid. 


“Good afternoon Mr. Jones, my name is Ethan, I’m just here to check up on you and finish the treatment.”


I peaked down at my abdomen, it stung, and was covered in a large bandaid.


“Does it hurt?” he asked. 


“Y-yeah, quite a bit actually.”


“We’ll up the dosage of your pain medication in a moment. But first, let me give you the final part of your treatment. Now, this stuff burns a bit,” he said, waving around the syringe. 


“But, even with most of the tumour gone, we’ve still got to **** off the stragglers, don’t want them to fester.”


As he prepared to inject me with the contents of the syringe, my mind started to clear. The memory of my surgery returned with a blast, and I violently retracted in bed, ripping the IV-line out with me. 


“You drilled into my head!” I shouted. 


“What are you talking about?” Ethan said, visibly confused. 


“I woke up during surgery, I heard everything the surgeons said, they put something inside my head.”


Ethan nodded his head in understanding. “Mr. Jones, it’s fairly normal to experience vivid dreams while under, some even feel like they’re floating around in the room watching the surgery, some just have weird dreams. It’s perfectly understandable to mix up fantasy and reality.”


“No, it wasn’t a dream, I even felt it,” I argued as I reached for the back of my head. 


There was no wound, hair still intact and no sign of any sutures.


“As I said, perfectly normal.”


I calmed down a bit due to his explanation, and let him reset the IV and finish the injection. It burned as the liquid entered my veins, searing up my arm and neck. I felt lightheaded. 


“All done!” Ethan said, smiling, “you should rest now, you’ll be here for observation for a few days. You’ll be allowed visitors by tomorrow.”


It had seemed all too real, yet my supposedly incurable cancer had been eradicated, only weeks after categorically being told I would die within six months. 


Even the setup before surgery had been suspicious. Starting from a nothing more than a phone call from a Mr. Burke, representing a newly founded Artifex Pharmaceuticals. They were working on a new treatment for terminal cancer patients, he had said. 


He told me I’d fit the criteria for the treatment, free of charge, seeing as it wasn’t FDA approved yet. We set up a quick meet and he explained the procedure, which would combine surgery and their new chemotherapeutic drug. 


At the time, my choices were either to die slowly, and painfully from cancer, or to die quickly on the operating table. Naturally, being in the last stages of life, I took the gamble, and that’s how I ended up miraculously cured, against all odds. 


The next week came and went. I was discharged with a bottle of pain medication to keep me going while I healed. Yet, I just couldn’t shake that horrific nightmare from the day of the surgery. 


Out of curiosity I looked through the papers I had been given by the company, surprised to find that nowhere in the fifty page long document did they ever mention the name ‘Artifex Pharmaceuticals,’ nor the name of any employee. 


I tried to call the number they’d given me, but it continuously returned a busy signal. Confused, and haunted by the nightmare, I could do nothing but rest, and hope they’d call me back in for a checkup.


I needed answers… 

***


Time went on, and after a month in recovery, which I spent mostly catching up on my favourite TV-shows, I was ready to return to work. 


First order of business was a meeting with my boss, Daniel Harrison. He had always been good to me, and allowed me all the time off I needed while going through with the treatment. While it wasn’t an amazingly well paid job, I was happy to be there.


“Benjamin, great to have you back!” he basically shouted as I entered the office, embracing me in a rough hug. 


We then returned to more professional means of greeting each other, and shook hands as went on to talk about my future in the company. I sat myself down in front of the desk, when I started hearing a bizarre sound, feedback-like static. Though, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out it’s origin. 


It was just vague, barely audible at first. I tried to ignore it, but Harrison immediately noticed something was off.


“Are you alright? You look a bit pale,” he said.


“Yeah, I’m fine. Do you hear that?” I responded as the sound kept increasing in volume. 


“Hear what?” 


“Uh, never mind, my head just hurts a bit,” I said, playing off my increasing anxiety. 


He gave an odd look while pondering what to say next, then he sighed. 


“Look, Benjamin, I know it’s not easy to recover from such an ordeal. It’s a burden, both mentally and physically. In fact, I once went through a similar situation, many years ago, and it left a scar on my self esteem, like I’m wasn’t strong enough to survive without help.”


“I’m sorry, I never knew,” I said, the sound reaching unbearable levels. 


“That’s alright, I never really talk about it, was almost fifteen years ago anyway.”


He paused for a moment, his wide smile turning to a confused look. 


“It was odd though, thinking back. I was supposed to a terminal case, told me I’d be a gonner within a year. Then, out of the blue, some guy showed up at my doorstep, proposing a miracle cure.”


His story hit too close to home for comfort.


“I can’t even remember their name, everything following the surgery feels somewhat vague, distant. What was the company called again?” he asked himself. 


My boss chuckled, “Heh, it’s all gone, I think something beginning with ‘A,’ hmm ‘art-‘ something.”


“Artifex Pharmaceuticals?”


“Yes, that’s the one!” He yelled, barely audible over the static sound filling my head. “How’d you know?”


“That’s the same one that fixed me up, they said they were new.”


“That’s odd,” he simply responded. 


I excused myself from the office, claiming the headache was worse than I thought, and Harrison said I should take as much time off as needed. No, he ordered me to take time off.


No sooner had I left the office, before the sound stopped. I let out a sigh of relief, and hurried back home to once more go over the documents. 


After a fruitless search, I tried the internet, more phone calls and looked through my email filled with thousands of junk messages.


Nothing… 


If they had truly cured Harrison fifteen years in the past, their drug had to be well past the experimental stage, and I demanded answers. The sound breaking my eardrums from within my own head, my awakening during surgery, and the fact that no one I knew had ever heard about Artifex Pharmaceuticals outside my treatment, it was all too much to handle. 


I decided that in the morning, I’d return to the hospital and find one of the doctors working on my case, but my head was shattered. I needed to rest. 


That night, I spent lying awake, unable to find any comfort in the fact that I was cancer free. Around midnight, my phone rang; One of my old coworkers, whom I hadn’t spoken to since my treatment. 


“Benjamin?” he said in a somber tone. 


“Alex, I didn’t really expect to hear from you, why are you calling this late, is everything alright?”


“It’s Harrison, he- he’s dead.”


“Dead, when, how?”


Apparently Harrison had suffered a brain haemorrhage from an undiagnosed brain aneurysm, not long after I left the day before. Just like that, he was gone. 


Morning rolled around, and without a lick of sleep, I headed for the hospital.



I asked the receptionist to speak to any representative of Artifex Pharmaceuticals. She claimed she’d never heard of such a company. When I then asked for one the doctors, I realised I couldn’t exactly remember their full names. So, I asked if anyone in the surgical department was named Ethan. 
After doing a quick search on the computer, she simply shook her head. 


Defeated, I left without answers. I continued the fruitless internet search for a couple of weeks, but work quickly occupied most of my time. It was a dreadful place in the wake of Harrison’s death. New management took over, and I had to start moving on with life. 


After half a year, I started to settle down in my life. Free from disease, but with an additional few pounds gained from the recovery. In a futile attempt at combating the weight gain, I returned to the gym, spending most time running aimlessly on the treadmill. 


I was just reaching my first mile, a huge achievement for someone like myself, when the ****-awful feedback sound returned, almost knocking me clear off the treadmill. 


I glanced to my side, noticing a man in his mid forties who’d just started running next to me. Unlike myself, he was in an ungodly well kept shape, wearing an oversized tank top. It revealed a massive surgical scar on the side of his chest, nicely decorated with a tattoo of a tree, reading ‘Arborvitae,’ beneath it.


He noticed my pained expression and stare. 


“You alright, mate?” he asked as he walked towards me.
The sound intensifying as he got closer, making me clutch my ears in agony. 


As suddenly as it had begun, the sound just stopped. The man in front of me fell over to the ground, briefly seizing before lying there, lifeless. 


He’d suffered a brain haemorrhage. At least that was as much information as I could get from the gym staff, but I knew it was more than that. The man had died just like Harrison, that horrific sound proceeding his sudden demise. 

***


Following the gym event, I visited three separate doctors, begging them to have a look at my head, CT, MRI, whatever they could offer, I’d take it. I even told them about my cancer treatment, but no record of my hospitalisation even existed. 


The first doctor recommended a shrink, the second was clueless, and only the third agreed to give me a scan to check for anything abnormal.


“Well, Mr. Jones. Luckily we settled for the CT, because the MRI would have torn your brain to shreds. You really should have told me you had some kind of implant. Outside of that, the starburst basically made your scan unreadable.”


“Excuse me?” I said, confused, but not entirely surprised that something in there didn’t belong.  


“I’m sorry, a starburst is what happens when we put metal in a CT-scanner, but that’s far better than putting you inside a giant magnet, you’d-“ 


“No, I mean, what implant?” I interrupted. 


The doctor showed me a section of the CT, a large flare looking artefact covered most of the picture, but in its center was a diamond shaped metal object. 


“I have to ask, have you had any brain surgery at all? I can’t for the life of me figure out what this thing is, but it’s clearly not a physiological formation.” the doctor said, pointing to the thing inside my head. 


“I-I don’t know.”


“Well, have you been in any accidents, maybe a car crash or other type. Sometimes debris stuck inside you can travel through your blood vessels, regardless of where the original injury was.”


“I had pancreatic cancer, stage three, they did surgery and gave some experimental treatment, but…”


“What exactly did they give you?” he asked, sounding more curious than concerned. 


“It was just an injection, I think, and it was only once following the surgery.”


“Look, Mr. Jones, I’m not an oncologist, but as far as I know, there aren’t any single injections on the market that can cure cancer. What you’d need would be months of chemo spanning over several sessions. Whatever they gave you, it wasn’t for the cancer.”


He looked over my head, and to my surprise, he actually found a scar that I myself hadn’t noticed, though only a minuscule one. 


“Well, you have a scar for sure, but it’s amazingly well hidden, never seen anything so small from brain surgery.”


I tried to explain my experience during the surgery to the best of my limited memory, but he couldn’t help. He told me he’d look into some different pharmacological trials to see if anything fit my explanation, but he didn’t seem very hopeful. He couldn’t even remove the **** thing, claiming it sat too close to my brainstem, or something.


So, here I am, living life as good as I can, still waiting for answers. Every now and then the sound will return, and when it does I just stop dead in my steps, and run the other way. I can’t let anyone else die simply by getting to close. 


Whatever they did to me, I’m not alone, there are others out there with the same implants, and I fear we’ll just have to wait to see what their purpose are. 


If anyone ever gets contacted by Artifex Pharmaceuticals, don’t agree to any of their miracle cures. 


[They’re not trying to help us.](https://www.facebook.com/richard.saxon.author)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Everyone says I had a baby, I started to go along with it
 
 Assistant: My neighbor brought over some baby shoes the other day. They were pink and had glitter on the toes and sequined flowers on the sides. We cooed over them for a few minutes and I told her how much I appreciated the gift. After she left, I threw them in my bedroom closet with all the other baby junk I've been given over the past six months.  

Six months ago, everyone in town started to ask about "my baby." I do not have a baby, I have never given birth or even been pregnant. I thought that I was being mistaken for someone else; I'm not particularly unique looking. Maybe some other short, dark haired and hazel-eyed girl gave birth recently. But I am shy by nature and southern by birth so I was too polite to say "you're wrong, you have the wrong person, I don't have a baby." I said things like "um, oh, ok?" Mostly because it must have been a case of mistaken identity.   

People brought over baby clothes, a crib, a swing that plugs into the wall and jiggles, toys and shoes and diapers. A very weird situation to be in, for sure. But then, to put it plainly, things got weirder. I was in the grocery store, and the manager, a friendly older man, came up to me and asked about "my sweet little girl." He asked if she liked the different formula he had suggested and if I wanted more. I just smiled. When I got home, I found formula in my grocery bags and an almost empty can in my cabinet. I don't even remember putting it in my cart. 

.. 

The thing is, everyone has been so nice to me, and the situation is just so odd that I started to go along with it. "How's the little darling today?" A neighbor would ask when I went to get the mail. "Oh, she's wonderful! Sleeping through the night," I'd answer.  

Then a young woman that got coffee at the same place as me asked about a play date with her 9 month old and my then "5 month old." I sort of blew it off. Next time I saw her though, she talked about setting up another play date and how much fun our two "darlings" had. She showed me a picture on her phone. "Aren't they just precious in this picture? Your little girl has the most beautiful blue eyes! Her dress really makes them pop. I'll text this to you." I looked at the picture and saw a chubby baby in a red shirt and blue shorts. It had dark hair and dark eyes. It was the only baby in the picture.  

I went home and opened my bedroom closet full of baby junk. I pulled out teddy bears and an unopened box with a changing table in it. I pulled out a shopping bag with new baby clothes. I dumped it out on my bed and looked through them. I found a light blue dress.  

.. 

A few weeks ago, I decided to call my mom.  

"Hello?" She answered. 

"Mom? It's me," I said. 

"Oh, Pearl, hi." 

"How are you?" I asked. We don't talk often. 

"I'm good, we're all good out here." She paused then asked "and how are you two doing?" 

"Us...two?" I asked hesitantly. 

"Now don't act like that, I know I haven't been in touch much but I do care about you and my grandbaby," she said sourly.  

"I know mom. Oh, she's crying, I gotta go," I lied. 

"Give Holly my love," she said and then hung up before I did. 

The funny thing is, Breakfast at Tiffany's has been my favorite book since I was kid. I'd always thought Holly would be a great name for a kid I would eventually have. 

I went into my room to put my phone down after my short conversation with my mom. The changing table and the crib were neatly set up by the window. I didn't do that. I'm sure I didn't. I walked over to the crib and looked inside. Nothing was there. I walked over to the changing table, then took a step back before I bumped my shin against one of the legs. Because I remembered that I had done that before. I looked down and saw a bruise on my shin. I know I hit it against the changing table, but I also know that they weren't in here before. I know it.  

.. 

"How's Holly today?" My neighbor across the street asked. We were both out grabbing our mail.  

"She's good, happy as ever," I said. 

"I heard her screaming up a storm when you came home last night, I'd be surprised if you were able to get her to bed at all!" 

"Once she lays down it usually doesn't take too long," I replied. 

I went inside and looked through my mail. A bunch of junk, a few red envelopes. I put everything down on the kitchen counter and opened a cabinet to get out a cup. I heard some noises coming from my room. I paused and listened. I didn't hear anything for a minute so I grabbed the cup and got some water from the sink. I heard something over the sound of the tap. Holly must be awake.  

I went into my room and looked down in the crib. Holly's stuffed elephant was in the crib. I reached down and picked it up. It was cute, no wonder someone got it for Holly. I put the elephant back down in the crib and brought the cup to my mouth to take a sip. I realized I was holding a baby bottle. Mom brain, I thought. Where did I put my cup down? But then I saw I was holding my cup. And I'm not a mom, what the **** was I just thinking? I looked back over at the crib.  

Why do I still have this **** in my room? I kicked the crib. Then I kicked it again, then again until the wood began to splinter. I pushed the changing table over on its side. I opened my closet and shoved in the pieces of the crib and any other baby related item I could find. I slammed the door closed. I can't keep this charade up, I decided. I can't go along with this nonsense anymore.  

.. 

I went to get coffee this morning. I was so tired. I felt like I hadn't slept all night. The barista smiled at me. "Your kid keep you up?" She asked. 

"No." I said firmly. Her smile wavered.  

I sat down at a table to drink my coffee. Some woman walked up to me. She asked how I was doing, how my daughter was doing. 

"I'm fine," I answered, and left it at that. 

She sat down at the table and in a hushed and concerned voice, she asked me if I was experiencing any depression. She said that new mothers often feel like this.  

"I'm not a new mother," I said.  

A man came in and walked quickly up to the table. He bent down and whispered something in my ear. It didn't register at first. 

"What?" I asked. 

"You left your kid in her car seat in your car," he said again. 

I jumped up and ran outside. I unlocked my car and opened the back seat. How could I be so ****? How **** up am I to leave my kid in the car? But nothing was there. No kid, no car seat. I drove home.  

.. 

I sat on my bed and looked through the pictures on my phone. I looked at the picture of the chubby kid in the red shirt. I stared at it. Where is she? Where is Holly? There's only one kid in this picture but everyone else says that there are two. Chubs and my little Holly, bright blue eyes, blue dress. She does look so pretty in that blue dress. I do have a bit more to write, but Holly just started to cry. I need to go check on her.  

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A Story to Scare My Son
 
 Assistant: “Son, we need to have a chat about Internet Safety.”  I slowly crumpled down onto the floor next to him.  His laptop was open and he was playing Minecraft on a public server.  His eyes were locked into the action.  Comments scrolled down the side of the screen in a chat box.  “Son, can you stop your game for a minute?” 


He exited the world, closed the laptop, and looked up at me.  "Dad, is this going to be another cheesy scary story?"  


"Whhaaaat?" I faked hurt feelings for a second, and then grinned at him, "I thought you liked my cautionary tales?" He grew up listening to my stories about children who encountered witches, ghosts, werewolves, and trolls.  Like many generations of parents, I used scary stories to reinforce morals and teach lessons about safety.  Single dads like me should use all the parenting tools at their disposal.


He scrunched his face a little, "They were fine when I was six. But now that I'm getting older, they don't scare me anymore.  They seem kinda silly.  If you are going to tell a story about the Internet, can you make it really, really scary!?” I squinted at him incredulously.  He folded his arms, “Dad.  I’m ten and I can handle it."  


"hmm… okay...  I’ll try."  


I began, “Once upon a time, there was a boy named Colby….”  His expression indicated that he wasn't impressed with the terror of the introduction.  He sighed deeply and settled in for one of Dad’s cheesy stories.   I continued...


>Colby went online and joined several children's websites. After a while, he started talking to other kids in-game and on the message boards.  He made friends with another ten year old boy named Helper23. They liked the same video games and shows.  They laughed at each other's jokes. They explored new games together.


>After several months of friendship, Colby gave Helper23 six diamonds in a game they were playing. This was a very generous gift.  Colby's birthday was coming up and Helper23 wanted to send him a cool present in real life. Colby figured it wouldn't hurt to give Helper23 his home address - as long as he promised not to tell it to any strangers or grownups.  Helper23 swore he wouldn't tell anyone else, not even his own parents, and set about mailing the package.   


I paused the story and asked my son, "Do you think that was a good idea?”  “No!" he said shaking his head vigorously.  In spite of himself, he was getting into the story.


>Well neither did Colby.  Colby felt guilty about giving away his home address - and his guilt began to grow.  And grow.  By the time he put on his pajamas the next night, his guilt and fear were larger than anything else in his life.  He resolved to admit the truth to his parents. The punishment would be steep, but it was worth it to have a clear conscience.  He squirmed in his bed as he waited for his parents to tuck him in.  


My son knew the scary part was coming up. In spite of his tough talk, he leaned forward wide-eyed. I spoke quietly and deliberately.


>He heard all the noises of the house. The washing machine bounced around in the laundry room. Branches scraped against the brick outside his room. His baby brother cooed in the nursery. And there were some other noises he couldn't... quite... pinpoint.  Finally, his dad’s footsteps echoed down the hall. “Hey Dad?” He called out nervously. “I have something to tell you.”


>His dad stuck his head in the doorway at a weird angle.  In the darkness, his mouth didn't seem to move and the eyes were all wrong. "Yes, son" The voice was way off, too.  "Are you okay, Dad?" The boy asked. "Uh-huh" sung the father in his strangely affected voice.   Colby pulled his covers up defensively. "Ummm... Is Mom around?"  


>"Here I am!" Mom's head popped into the doorway below Dad's.  Her voice was an unnatural falsetto.  "Were you about to tell us that you gave our home address to Helper23?  You shouldn't have done that!  We TOLD you never to give out personal information on the Internet!"


>She continued, "He wasn't really a kid!  He just pretended to be one.  Do you know what he did?  He came to our house, broke in, and murdered both of us!  Just so he could spend some time with you!"


>A **** man in a wet jacket emerged in the child's doorway holding the two severed heads. Colby shrieked and gasped as the man dropped the heads on the ground, unsheathed his knife, and moved into the room to work on the boy. 


My son screamed too.  He twisted his hands defensively over his face.  But we were just getting started with the story.


>After several hours, the boy was almost dead and his screams had become whimpers.  The killer noticed the wailing of a baby in another room and removed his knife from Colby.  This was a special treat.  He had never murdered a baby before and was excited about the prospect. Helper23 left Colby to die and followed the cries through the house like a homing beacon. 


>In the nursery, he walked to the crib, picked the baby up, and held it in his arms. He moved towards the changing table to get a better look.  But as he held the baby, the crying died down.  The baby looked up and smiled.  Helper23 had never held a baby, but he gently bounced it in his arms like a pro.  He wiped his bloody hands on the blanket so he could **** the baby's cheek, "Hey there, sweet little guy."  The beautiful rage of **** melted into something warmer and softer.


>He walked out of the nursery, took the baby home, named him William, and raised him as his very own. 


After I finished the story, my son was visibly shaken. Between ragged staccato breaths, he stammered, "But Dad, MY name's William."  I gave him a classic dad-wink and tousled his hair.  "Of course it is, son."  William ran up the stairs to his bedroom in a fury of sobs. 


But deep down... I think he liked the story. 

***
EDIT: Thank you so much for gold and the October Trophy.  If you are interested, I blog about single parenting tips and some of my "other activities" at [www.ovenfriend.com](http://www.ovenfriend.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: ATTENTION SHOPPERS: Please hide at the back of the store immediately.
 
 Assistant: **“Attention shoppers,”** came a male voice over the intercom. **“Please move to the back of the store immediately.”**

“The back of the store?” I whispered to Daniel. “Don’t they mean the front of the store? To pay for our stuff?”

It was 8:50 pm – 10 minutes till closing time. We’d brought our two kids out on this late-night Walmart excursion in the hopes of burning off some energy; instead, they’d just thrown tantrums for new Legos and Hot Wheels. It was a disaster.

But apparently, the disaster was just beginning.

**“Please move to the back of the store immediately,”** the voice repeated overhead. **“This is not a drill.”**

I glanced around—but the other shoppers were just as confused as I was. An old lady looked up at the ceiling, scrunching her face. “What the ****?” a dark-haired woman asked her boyfriend, pushing a cart full of garden supplies.

“Didn’t you hear?” an older man said, leaning over his cart of bottled water and canned food. “We’re in a tornado watch. One touched down in Sauerville.”

*A tornado?* It was definitely storming outside. I’d seen the black clouds roll in from the east earlier. But it didn’t look *that* bad.

**“Do not stay out in the open. I repeat—do NOT stay out in the open.”**

There was a pause. Then, an explosion of sound, as everyone began to mobilize. Carts rolling, panicked voices, feet slapping on the floor.

*No. No no no. This can’t be happening…*

I hurried down the toy aisle, Tucker in my arms, Daniel and Jackson following me. Three zig-zaggy turns, and then we were in the electronics area. I glanced at the TVs on the wall—

And pictured the four of us, crushed underneath them.

**“Stay away from windows and doors,”** the voice continued on the loudspeaker. **“And do NOT attempt to exit the store.”**

“Is this—is it safe here?”

Daniel shook his head. “Big open areas aren’t good. I’m going to check in back, see if there’s a break room or something. You stay here, okay?”

I nodded.

Arms shaking, I sat down on the ground between two shelves of video games. Tucker **** on a bottle in my arms while Jackson began to giggle. “Is the tornado going to hit the store? And everything will fly around, real fast?” he asked with a big **** grin on his face.

“I don’t know.”

*A tornado*. A real-life tornado, like you see in the movies, plowing through our town. It was so… unfathomable. We were New York natives, transplanted here to Indiana only six months ago. I’d never been in a tornado watch my entire life.

Daniel jogged back into view. “Everything’s locked up,” he said, as he joined me on the floor. “But listen. Fairview’s a big town. The chances that it’ll hit *this* Walmart… I think we’ll be okay.”

“I never should’ve brought us here.”

“You didn’t know. None of us did.” He wrapped his arm around me. “They should’ve warned us. Like an emergency alert on our phones. Or a tornado siren, or something.”

The voice overhead rang out again through the store.

**“Do not stay out in the open. Do not make yourself visible. That includes security cameras—please move to a spot that is not visible to any cameras.”**

I frowned. “What does that have to do with tornadoes?”

A feeling of unease, in the pit of my stomach. I glanced up, and saw several black globes descending from the ceiling, hiding the cameras within.

“I guess we should listen to them and get out of sight,” I whispered.

I grabbed Jackson’s hand, Daniel picked up Tucker, and we jogged out into the center aisle. The store was an eerie sight—abandoned shopping carts, askew in the aisle, full of everything from pies to batteries to plants. Footsteps echoed around the store from people unseen, as they found their new hiding places.

We dodged a shopping cart full of soda, ran through kitchenwares, and then stopped in the Easter decoration aisle. There was a camera in the central corridor, but as long as we stayed in the middle of Easter aisle, we’d be invisible.

The four of us crouched on the floor, next to some demented-looking Easter bunnies. “I’m hungry,” Jackson whined.

“*Sssshhh.”*

“Mommy—”

I grabbed a bag of colorful chocolate eggs and ripped it open. “Here. Candy. Happy?” I whispered, thrusting them into his hands. Then I leaned back against the metal shelves, panting.

But I didn’t have long to rest. A mechanical whine overhead, and then the voice came through the speakers again.

**“Keep away from aisles with food. If you have food with you, leave it and move to a new hiding place. If you have any open wounds, cover them with clothing.”**

*What… the ****

That had *nothing* to do with keeping safe in a tornado.

“We should make a run for it,” Daniel whispered to me, starting to stand.

“But… the tornado—”

“I don’t think there *is* a tornado. Listen. Do you hear any wind?”

I listened. But all I heard was silence. No howling wind, no shaking ground, no projectiles clanging against the metal roof.

“Maybe… maybe it’s still coming. I know what they’re saying doesn’t make sense but to go *outside—”*

“We need to get out of here. *Now.*” He grabbed Jackson’s hand as he held Tucker in his arms. “Come on.”

“Daniel, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I whispered.

But the next words from the intercom changed my mind.

**“Assume a fetal position and place your hands on your head. Close your eyes and do not open them for any reason.”**

“Let’s go.”

We broke into a sprint and ran down the central aisle, cameras be damned. The front door appeared in front of us—a little black rectangle looming in the distance.

And as we got closer, I saw Daniel was right.

There was a tree at the border of the parking lot, under a streetlamp.

It was perfectly still.

We continued running, past the clothing area, past the snacks lined up at the checkout lines. I ran towards the sliding glass doors as fast as my legs would carry me. *Almost there. Almost there. Almost—*

The doors didn’t open.

“No. No, no, no.”

Daniel slammed his body against the door. It rattled underneath him. I tried to squeeze my fingers into the gap between them, to try and pull them apart.

They didn’t budge.

“They… they locked us in,” I whispered.

“I want to go home,” Jackson said. Tucker was beginning to fuss too, making little noises like he was about to start full-on wailing.

I turned around—

And that’s when I saw him.

A Walmart employee.

He was sitting on the ground at the end of one of the checkout aisles. Facing away from us. Wearing the familiar blue vest with a golden starburst.

“Hey! Let us out!”

He didn’t reply.

“Did you hear me? I don’t care if there’s a **** tornado. Unlock the door and let us out!”

Again, he said nothing.

But in the silence, I could hear something. A wet, smacking sound. I stared at the man, slightly hunched over, still facing away from me.

Was he… *eating…* something?

The speaker overhead crackled to life.

**“Attention. Please do NOT talk to any Walmart employees.”**

My blood ran cold.

The smacking sound stopped. And then, slowly, the man began to stand. He placed his palms on the conveyor belt and pushed up—and I could see that they were stained with blood. I backed away—but my legs felt like they were moving through a vat of honey.

*No, no, no—*

Fingers locked around my arm and yanked.

“Come on!” Daniel shouted.

I sprinted after him, deeper into the store. Tucker stared at me over his shoulder, and Jackson ran as fast as his little feet would take him. I was vaguely aware of the *slap-slap-slap* sound behind me, but I didn’t dare look back.

Daniel ran into the clothing area and I swayed, dodging circular racks of T-shirts and wooden displays of baby clothes. He skidded to a stop and ducked into the dressing room area. “In here!” he whispered, motioning at one of the rooms.

We piled inside and locked the door.

“Daddy,” Jackson started.

“You listen to me *very carefully,”* I said, crouching to his level. “You have to be absolutely silent. Do not say a *word.* Okay?”

Jackson looked at me, then Daniel—then he nodded and sat down on the floor.

“I’m going to try to call 911,” Daniel whispered, transferring Tucker to me and pulling out his phone. He tapped at the screen—then frowned.

“What?”

“We don’t… we don’t seem to have any service. I don’t—”

*Thump.*

I grabbed Jackson and pulled him away from the door. The four of us huddled in the corner. I held my breath.

*Thump.*

Under the gap of the dressing room door—men’s feet in black shoes. They slowly took a step forward, deeper into the dressing room.

*“Don’t… move,”* I whispered, holding Jackson.

The man took another step.

*Don’t make a sound. Don’t move. Don’t—*

Tucker let out a soft cry.

The man stopped. His feet turned, pointing at us. *No. No, no, no.* Tucker let out another cry—louder this time. My nails dug into Daniel’s hand. *No—*

A hand appeared. It slowly pressed against the floor, stained with blood. And then his knees appeared, as he lowered himself down to the gap.

*No.*

Could he fit under? The gap wasn’t small—it was like the stall door to a bathroom. If he flattened himself against the floor… there’s a chance he could fit under.

I watched in horror as his stomach came into view. His blue Walmart vest, as he lowered his body to the floor. Then he pushed his arm under the gap and blindly swept it across the floor.

As if feeling for us.

*This is it. We’re going to die.*

And then he lowered his head.

His face. Oh, ****, there was something horribly wrong with his face. He smiled up at us with a smile that was impossibly wide, showing off blood-stained teeth. His skin was so pale it was nearly blue. And his eyes… they were milky white, without pupils or irises.

I opened my mouth to scream—

**“Attention shoppers,”** the voice began overhead.

*No no no—*

**“Please make your way to the front of the store and make your final purchases. We will be closing in ten minutes.”**

*… What?*

And then—before I could react—something unseen **** the man out of view.

A strange dragging sound followed. As if someone was dragging his body out of the dressing room area. I stared at the door, shaking, as Tucker’s cries rang in my ears.

But he didn’t come back.

And within ten minutes, the usual hubbub of Walmart returned. Voices. Footsteps. Shopping cart wheels rolling along the floor.

Shaking, I finally got up and unlocked the door.

The store looked completely normal. People were lined up at the cash registers, placing their goods on the conveyor belts. Employees were scanning tags, printing receipts. People walked towards the glass doors, and when they did—they slid open.

As we slowly walked towards the exit, I spotted the older man who’d warned us about the tornado earlier. “What—what *was* that?” I asked, unable to keep my voice from shaking.

He shrugged. “I guess the tornado missed us! What a miracle, huh?”

Giving us a smile, he disappeared out the glass doors and into the [night.](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 2)
 
 Assistant: Hi everyone. 

I’ve got the day off work and I wanted to start it by posting up the next log. I also want to thank you all for your responses so far. 

A few people have linked me to sites that Rob J. Guthard may have operated on. Someone even offered to look for the mirror shop in Phoenix and try to retrace the route to Rob’s neighbourhood. I’m going to spend the day making a few international calls, and sending emails out but if you guys have any other ideas about how I could pursue this I’d really appreciate them.

In all honesty, I’m going to need all the help I can get. This whole ordeal has proven pretty categorically that I am no Alice Sharma.

Speaking of which, I’m going to let her take it from here.

Thanks again.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 08/02/2017

The next turn comes immediately after the tunnel. 

We’d been in the dimly lit passage for almost two minutes, but at the pace Rob likes to travel it’s hard to figure out how far we’ve actually gone. When we descended into the underpass we were just nearing the outskirts of Phoenix. Scrutinising the rear view mirror as we leave, it’s fair to say we aren’t that much further out. Everything else; the temperature, the time of day, the weather, all seems exactly like it had been before we ventured into the tunnel. I’m not sure what I was expecting of course, but it certainly doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere new.

The tunnel itself had been similarly underwhelming, especially considering the importance Rob seemed to place on it. In fact the only thing of true interest since we passed through was something Rob said once we hit the halfway mark. As the tunnel’s mouth loomed towards us, Rob picked up the CB Radio transceiver, and issued a casual warning to the convoy. The message itself was straightforward, his choice of words however was… curious.

I decided to ask him about it.

**AS:** Rob, just a second ago, when you told us the next turn was coming up. Why did you use the word “trap”?

**ROB:** Hmm?

**AS:** I have it in my notes. You said, “Folks we’re coming to the end soon, first little trap’s coming up. Our next turn is sharp left as we leave. Look out for it.” Is there a reason you used the word “trap”?

**ROB:** Just one of those things. Fella who wrote all the original logs, he liked to think the road would try and trick you into making a wrong turn. Small roads off large highways, roads obscured from view, sharp turns like this one.

**AS:** He thought the road was trying to deceive him?

**ROB:** Yeah pretty much. I gotta say I agree with the guy.

By this point, we’ve taken the offending corner and the next right a little further on. I can’t help but feel that Rob is reading a great deal into what is, essentially, an abrupt turn in an ordinary road. The level of conspiracy he’s able to place behind such a simple thing, going as far as to ascribe some mischievous quality to the asphalt itself… it’s hard to take seriously. 

In fact, I’m starting to wonder less about whether Rob can convince me this game is real, and more about whether I’d ever be able to convince him that it isn’t. Perhaps this story will be less about where a magic roadway goes after a few zigzagging turns, and more about where the human mind can go if it invests too heavily in an idea. To his credit Rob has noted my cynicism, he even seems to welcome it, but if our current surroundings are supposed to convince me, then he’s going to find me more cynical than he anticipated.

Rob keeps his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Any attempt at an interview receives a pleasant but curt response. He’s not being evasive, his attention is just elsewhere. Before I know it, half an hour has gone by without Rob speaking a word. It seems like a large part of the Left/Right Game involves driving in complete silence. Once again, I’m not sure what I expected, but it’s certainly not been an earth shattering start.

At least it gives me time to type up my notes.

**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. We stop here.

An uneventful hour and a half has passed since we left the tunnel. I didn’t notice Rob pick up the receiver, but before I know it the Wrangler has pulled up at the side of the road, leaving a large space behind us for the rest of the convoy to park up. The buildings are getting few and far between now, it won’t be long until we were in the desert proper. With this in mind, I assume Rob is simply stopping to let everyone drink up. 

I probably shouldn’t assume when it comes to Rob Guthard.

Though this is definitely a rest stop, Rob also has some important words for the crew. He gathers us round in a rough semicircle, talking while we eat our provisions.

**ROB:** Now, I mentioned in the emails that, at certain points on this trip, you’d need to do some things just because I say so. This is one of those times. Ya’ll understand?

**EVE:** Uh yeah I… I guess... we get to know what it is right?

**APOLLO:** This is when he tells us to give him our money right Rob? Ahah

**ACE:** Yeah I’d rather know what’s going on.

**ROB:** And I don't intend on keeping anything from you. I just want to be clear, that across this next stretch you need to follow my orders to the letter.

**ACE:** Yeah we get it, just tell us already.

Rob takes a few moments, perhaps to lend gravity to his point, perhaps to swallow some barbed words intended for the increasingly impatient Ace. When he does speak, it’s in a measured and serious tone. He’s clearly adamant that we take his words onboard.

**ROB:** For about half an hour, the next 13 turns, we’ll be going one by one. We travel in order of formation. Me and Bristol will go first, then I’ll radio the next car to follow. When you reach the jeep, you park up behind me. Then we keep going as normal, now…

Rob takes a deep breath in. When he starts up again, his speech is even more pointed than before.

**ROB:** … there’s a hitchhiker on the road, a well dressed man with a case. You pick him up, you take him where he needs to go. You do NOT under ANY circumstances, talk to the man. To be safe, don’t look at him. Don’t take anything he offers you. Don’t open the door for him or wave goodbye when he leaves. You do not acknowledge him, in any way. You want my advice, don’t say a word till you get to the stopping point.

**LILITH:** Why do we have to go one by one?

**ROB:”” Guy who wrote all the logs says he don’t like choosing cars. I don’t know what that means, but I’m lucky I never had to find out.

**ACE:** Why don't we just *not* pick him up?

**ROB:** That isn’t an option.

**ACE:** Well, I mean, yes it is. I don’t see why we...

**ROB:** **** it, you’ll pick him up, whether you want to or not!

The group is silent. This is the first time Rob’s raised his voice. In the ensuing stillness, Ace looks like he’d be more than happy to turn his car around and retrace the route back to Phoenix, leaving Rob in the dust with a few choice words. I can sympathise with him a little, Rob’s been treating him as an annoyance, a tag along who didn't do the homework, but at the end of the day, Ace is doing nothing to fix things. Also Rob is essentially right, he didn't do the homework.

**BONNIE:** Well OK I suppose we should get back on the road then… if everyone’s ready.

Deciding he has nothing more to say to us, Rob marches over to the Wrangler. Bonnie, Clyde, Apollo and Eve sit on the floor sharing snacks. Ace loses himself in his phone and Bluejay, still maintaining a noticeable distance from the group, takes to her car with a copy of US weekly.

**LILITH:** Bristol, can we talk?

I turn around to see Lilith, holding her cell phone with the screen facing me.

**AS:** Yeah sure what’s up?

**LILITH:** Have you tried to make any calls since we came through the tunnel?

**AS:** No not yet, why?

**LILITH:** Could you try?

I pull out my own cell and dial in to the office. The line’s busy, which isn’t exactly uncommon. Lilith watches intently, waiting for a reaction.

**AS:** I’m not getting through.

**LILITH:** They were busy?

**AS:** … Yeah. Why?

**LILITH:** Everyone is. We have signal, we can make calls, but everyone on the other end is busy.

**AS:** Don't you think it could just be coincidence?

**LILITH:** I really mean everyone, Bristol. While Eve’s been driving, I’ve been calling; my camera’s automated support line, 911…

**AS:** You dialed 911?

**LILITH:** For science, yeah. All of them are busy. I even called this guy at my dorm who has a serious thing for me and, trust me, he is not **** busy. This is weird right? It’s like we’ve crossed a threshold and the world's suddenly… doing something else. You know?

In all honesty, I’m not sure I do know. I don’t want to say it, but it still seems like a massive stretch. Luckily Rob saves me from commenting when he calls me over to the car, clearly eager to get back on the road. I tell Lilith we’ll look into her discovery on the other side and she nods in agreement, retreating to her friend and immediately stealing a handful of apple slices.

I climb into the Wrangler and wave goodbye to the convoy. We slowly roll back onto the road and set off on our way. Watching the rest of the group disappear into the background, I feel noticeably more isolated despite Rob’s presence, or perhaps because of it, I’m not exactly sure.

The hitchhiker shows up about ten turns later.

Just like Rob said, the man is incredibly well dressed, in a well fitting brown suit with a dark green tie, even from a distance I can see his shoes are expertly shined, as is the varnished wooden case resting on the floor beside them. He stands on the side of the road and raises his hand gingerly, wearing a look of hopeful anticipation.

**AS:** Who is he?

**ROB:** The hitchhiker.

**AS:** Is that really all you’re going to say?

**ROB:** It’s all I can say. You understand the rules here?

**AS:** Don’t talk to him.

**ROB:** I’d say don’t talk at all. Not until we stop. When we stop, we’re safe.

Rob veers slowly over to the side of the road. The hitchhiker smiles appreciatively, grasping his hands together and shaking them in thanks. Picking up his case he strolls over to the Wrangler whilst unbuttoning his blazer.

**AS:** See you on the other side.

The back door opens, and the hitchhiker pulls himself into the storage area. Finding no seating, he settles himself cheerfully on some of the softer luggage just behind me.

**HITCHHIKER:** Not much in the way of seating back here huh!

I have to admit, I do feel a subtle urge to respond. Even after the stern warnings I’ve received, to ignore the man seems almost instinctively rude. I was raised British after all.

**HITCHHIKER:** So where are you all from? I’m travelling in from Oakwell.

I glance at him in the rear view. He meets my gaze and smiles. I flick my attention back to the road, counting the white lines. The stranger persists in trying to start a conversation.

Ten minutes go by. The silence grows palpable, broken intermittently by yet another cheerful attempt at conversation. Topics include what nice weather we’re having, our professions, our hobbies. In response, I busy myself with pointless but occupying tasks. I find myself playing games in my head, thinking of common phrases and making them into clunky anagrams. It seems to work and, after a short while, I start to habituate to the man’s small talk. I almost don’t notice that he’s there.

Maybe that’s what allows him to catch me out.

**HITCHHIKER:** You’re just a **** disappointment aren’t you.

The statement comes out of the blue. It’s sharp, venomous, completely divorced from the idle questioning I’d been tuning out. I’m daydreaming when I hear it, and before I can register what I’m doing, I’m turning to face him. My lips are already parting as I go, a reflexive thought, reflexively vocalised.

“What?”

I almost say it out loud. The word is on the edge of my tongue, a single note my vocal chords were all but ready to play. Only the sudden, vice like grip of Rob’s hand on my forearm anchors me in the moment. I stare at the Hitchhiker, my mouth still open. He’s different now. All of the warmth, all of the pleasantry, it’s drained from his face like running makeup. His smile is malevolent, calculating and finally, it feels honest.

**HITCHHIKER:** You want to know things? I can tell you.

Rob keeps his eyes focussed on the road, but his grip on my arm tightens.

**HITCHHIKER:** I can tell you everything you want to know. Even the things you never knew about yourself. Even the thoughts you didn’t know you were thinking… those little critters, all the way at the back.

We stare at each other a moment longer, before I turn round and back to the road. I don’t count the white lines any more. Now I’m focussed intently on anything our passenger has to say. For the next ten minutes, ignoring him is going have my full attention.

He only tries a few more times, reverting back to more innocent questioning. Nothing takes. Five minutes later he indicates to a seemingly random point at the side of the road and Rob drops him off. The man thanks us, climbs neatly out, puts down his case and waves as we depart. When we disappear around the next corner, he still hasn’t stopped.

Surprisingly, the silence caused by the Hitchhiker's presence isn’t nearly as intense as the one left in his wake. I decide to break the tension. Somewhat ungracefully.

**AS:** To be fair, we ARE having nice weather.

**ROB:** Don’t talk. 

**AS:** … Are you mad at me? I’m sorry he got to me I wasn’t expecting-

**ROB** You did fine. We don’t talk till we stop.

I go back to my notes, making a point to write down my current feelings. For the record, “Embarrassed but relieved.” Once I put the words down on paper however, I feel something else. Confusion, mixed with concern. Because, at the end of the day, what was I relieved about? That I didn’t talk to a strange man who had tried to talk to me? Was anything really at stake?

The more I think about it, the more I realise that the entire episode with this “mysterious hitchhiker” reduces the Left/Right Game to two possible states. It’s either real, or it’s an elaborate hoax, perpetrated by Rob J. Guthard. The crazy woman, the tunnel, the malicious left turn, all of those could be explained as rationalisations, but the hitchhiker was far too elaborate, far too difficult to predict. If he was an actor, then Rob is nothing more than an impressive fraud. If he was genuine? Then I’m not entirely sure where that leaves us.

Something in the corner of my eye pulls me from my thoughts. A transient, peripheral object that almost completely passes me by before I turn in a weak attempt to catch it. I only get a few seconds to look before it’s gone from my field of view. I face forward once more, sit back in my chair, and let Rob carry us ever further down the road.

It’s not too long before we finally pull over.

**ROB:** You did good, I’m sorry for grabbin you. I just didn’t want you to do something you’d regret.

**AS:** No it’s fine. I was going to. Do you know what happens if you talk to him?

**ROB:** Not sure. Came close myself once, a few years back. The way he looks at you when he thinks he’s got you? I don’t think I wanna know.

**AS:** Rob, I saw something a few minutes ago. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it.

**ROB:** ‘Fraid I had my eyes forward most of the time.

**AS:** There was a car on the side of the road. It had crashed off the bank. Have you seen that before?

**ROB:** I ain’t never seen that. But random stuff sometimes shows up here and there.

**AS:** Have people other than you run the Left/Right Game?

**ROB:** No one I know of. Whoever it was they’d probably just rather crash than face that **** hitchhiker again.

**AS:** He’s there on the way back too?!

**ROB:** If you’re unlucky.

**AS:** Well, something to look forward to.

Rob picks up the CB radio and messages for Apollo to set off, repeating his warnings concerning the hitchhiker. I feel like everyone’s going to get a similar speech before they embark. Ace will probably get it twice.

Half an hour later, Apollo shows up. Though he laughs about he ordeal, he’s clearly a little shaken.

**APOLLO:** Guy should call himself an Uber. You can’t shut those guys up. Ahaha. Do you guys have Uber in England?

**AS:** Yeah.

**APOLLO:** Then you know what I mean right?

Bonnie and Clyde arrive quicker than Apollo. They pull up at the back, Clyde helps Bonnie out of the car and they proceed stretch their legs.

Once Apollo joins them it’s clear that everyone has a different story to tell. The hitchhiker offered Clyde travel sweets, pleasantly but firmly insisting he take one. Apollo almost got talking about his music tastes, after the hitchhiker asked to play something on the radio. That particular story does leave me curious about whether we still get NPR on this road.

Rob customarily greets Bonnie and Clyde, then walks off to signal Eve & Lilith. He’s still sitting in the Jeep when I meet him at the door.

**AS:** Hey what’re you up to?

**ROB:** Just waitin’ by the phone. The girls are on their way. You need anything?

**AS:****… maybe. I uh, I think Apollo’s been affected by the whole hitchhiker thing a bit more than he’s letting on.

**ROB:** He seems just fine to me.

**AS:** I’m not so sure. He’s only smiling when people are nearby. Could you talk to him?

**ROB:** Well, I ain’t much comfort, I got four ex wives to tell me that. Think it might be better coming from you?

**AS:** I think this is a… man to man conversation. I might just get a brave face.

Rob doesn’t look comfortable, but he acquiesces, climbing out of the car.

**ROB:** Last “man to man” conversation I had, my son didn’t talk to me for three months.

I watch him wander over to Apollo, who is standing by his range rover, staring into his phone. Rob puts a calming hand on the man’s shoulder. From a distance, it’s actually a sweet moment. I start to feel bad for lying to him.

I carefully open the driver’s side door and climb into the Wrangler, assuming I have around twenty seconds before Rob comes back. Picking up the CB Radio reciever, I stare at a list of presets, labeled one through nine. I don’t know which button I press to talk to Eve and Lilith, and I certainly don’t have time to call everyone up.

Rob handed us all a transceiver before we left. It’s what he’s been making the All Car Bulletins with. Preset One puts him in touch with a transceiver in each car, I’ve seen that in practice enough times. The rest of the presets must access the transceivers individually and, if Rob is the man I think he is, he gave our radios out in order of position. If that’s the case then either Rob or I could be Preset 2. Apollo would be next, then Bonnie and Clyde. Without knowing where Rob has placed himself in the queue, the only option which would guarantee me getting through to Lilith and Eve would be Preset 7. I think that makes sense.

With no time to check my work, I press the button and **** up the receiver.

**AS:** This is Bristol to Lilith & Eve. Are you guys there?

The receiver crackles quietly. I look in the wing mirror and see Rob making awkward small talk with Apollo. Perhaps his four ex wives were on to something.

**Lilith:** Lilith to Bristol. How is it on the other side? We haven’t seen a hitchhiker. Oh by the way, I just phoned Eve and it went through, could I have your number to test...

**AS:** Sorry Lilith, I’m phoning about something else..

**Lilith:** Why? What’s going on over there?

Apollo’s nodding to Rob, I can imagine him making assurances that he’s perfectly fine. I really don’t have long at all.

**AS:** I have a mission for you but you have to keep it secret.

**LILITH:** Sounds awesome what’s up?

**AS:** Once you’re past the hitchhiker, there’s a crashed car on the road, on the passenger side. Whilst you’re going past it, would you mind getting some footage?

**LILITH:** What sort of footage?

**AS:** Just zoom in and get as much detail as possible. You don’t need to stop, just… anything will be useful.

Rob’s starting to walk back to the car. I shift into the passenger seat, still holding the receiver.

**LILITH:** Is there anything specific you-

**AS:** Talk to me later not now. Thank you. Bye.

I slam the receiver into its holster a moment before Rob opens the door. He shrugs at me.

**ROB:** He seem’s fine, unless there’s something he ain’t telling me.

*****

The rest of the day is fairly uneventful. Lilith and Eve pull in, beaming about their experience with the Hitchhiker and bragging about what the dashcam footage would mean for their channel. Lilith ends her story by insisting that nothing else happened for the rest of her journey, whilst directing a highly intentional look in my direction. I look away and make a mental note to catch up with her when less people are around.

Bluejay seems the least phased by the her run in with the hitchhiker. We do manage to get a few words out of her, though perhaps “a few” is an exaggeration. 

**BLUEJAY:** I’m tired.

After which she goes to sit down on her own.

When Ace pulls up to the side of the road, he almost falls out of his car. His legs are weak, his face gaunt, his breaths quick and shallow. I try and get him to talk about it on tape but he shrugs me off, eager to hear about where we’re going rather than talk about where we’ve been.

We travel for a while longer, now at around 486 turns, and nearing our first night on the road. Rob signals our stopping point, a quiet clearing at the top of a hill. Rob clears a sleeping area in the back of the Wrangler, leaving a line of luggage as a barrier between us. I appreciate the thought, but don’t really know how to tell him. In the end, I just say…

**AS:** Thanks for making room.

Apollo attempts to keep everyone from going to bed, issuing vague statements about “making a fire”, but people quickly shuffle off to their cars. The early start, and the subsequent events of the day, have taken their toll. I watch Lilith and Eve break away from the group and head to bed. I suppose I’ll have to talk to them tomorrow morning, when Rob isn’t around.

I still feel a bit bad for lying to him, and for pulling Lilith and Eve into what could be a blatant act of dumb paranoia. Rob seems like a good man, a reasonable man, as flawed as any of us but, fundamentally decent. But he fact remains, that when I talked to him about the crashed car, he clearly said:

**ROB VO:** No one I know of. Whoever it was they’d probably just rather crash than face that **** hitchhiker again.

I want to trust Rob. I want to believe him when he says he didn’t see the car, that he’d never seen a car on that stretch of road. But for a man of so few words, he might have said too much.

If he truly never saw the car, how did he know the direction it was facing?

I make all my notes concerning this subject on paper and in shorthand, which I’m hoping, in Rob’s long and varied life, he hasn’t inexplicably learned to read. Long after Rob’s gone to bed, I stay in the passenger seat typing up my thoughts on the day.

**CHUCK:** That was “Sister Moon” by Leslie Estrada, another song to calm you folks down as we head into the evening. It’s Chuck Greenwald and I’m with you till the witching hour.

I decided to put the radio on in the end. I was curious, and I also wanted the company. I turned the volume way down so the noise wouldn’t reach Rob, and searched around for something to have in the background. There aren’t many stations to choose from out here. The clearest one is Radio Jubilation, the local station for a nearby town. The current dj, Chuck Greenwald, has been playing soulful folk music for an hour.

**CHUCK:** It’s been a busy week in Jubilation as we welcome in our new School Principal, a very impressive guy who’s bringing some new and interesting proposals to our community. It’s got a few people talking about funding for the arts, if you got a view we’d love to hear it.

I finish typing up my less clandestine notes, and just then realise how tired I am. Wanting to sleep, but not yet prepared to move the single yard between me and the air mattress, I lie back in my seat, listening to Mr Greenwald address his beloved town.

**CHUCK:** We’ll we’re going to go back to your requests very soon and I can tell you we’ve got some goodies on the way. For now though, let’s take ourselves to the new box.

**CHUCK:** They’re going to hurt now.

Immediately, at the volume of a whisper, Radio Jubilation begins to broadcast a cacophony of bone rending screams. The noise shreds the air, what sounds like hundreds of people, each contributing their own voice to a collective symphony of pain and torment.

I instinctively move my body away from the radio, suddenly upright and wide awake. The cries are ceaseless, agonising, punctuated only by half stifled, tear choked pleas for whatever is happening to stop.

A moment later it does, or at the very least, the screaming cuts out as the soft tones of Chuck Greenwald take over.

I look from the radio, over to the sleeping figure of Rob J. Guthard. I can’t help but stare at him as a single thought runs through my head.

I hope this man’s a fraud, I hope he’s playing me. Because if he isn’t, then there’s something very wrong with this road.

**CHUCK:** Hope you folks enjoyed that, we’re going to be bringing you much much more. This is Chuck Greenwald telling you you're always welcome in Jubilation.

**CHUCK:** Stay with us.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: ALL EIGHTEEN LIVES OF OMEN, THE CAT
 
 Assistant: ****

It was a shock when our family cat, Nancy, passed away whilst giving birth to a litter of only one kitten.

And an even further shock when we noticed that this particular kitten, wrinkled and pink, had two heads. 

Pa said it was an omen.

“An omen of what?”

The kitten made a noise; half-way between a squeak and a cough.

Pa paused.

“I don’t know.”

We were silent for a bit whilst we thought on this. We didn’t know either, but no-one could doubt that it had to mean *something.* 

It made for a good name though: Omen. And so it stuck. The vet told us Omen didn’t have long for this world, said that animals with mutations like this rarely lasted more than a few weeks at best. He suggested we make a quick bit of cash and find a museum, or lab nearby to sell them to. 

Two heads, two sets of genitals, he said, Omen was a five-figure paycheck waiting to happen. 

We refused. Omen was ours.

In the end, Omen would end up outliving that vet, and part of me, although I know it can’t be true, believes that Omen always held a grudge against him for what he told us that morning. The vet made a joke in poor taste as we left.

“Might last a little longer. You never know, nine lives and all.”

I remember our whole family watching the way Pa looked to Omen’s two heads, and then back to the vet.

“Eighteen” he corrected.

“Eighteen lives.”

&#x200B;

**2.**

We spent the next few months hand-feeding Omen, both of their heads desperately hungry. Ma would often joke that it was like they had two stomachs, with the amount of milk they’d get through. We’d take turns to feed in the night, and even though I was much too young to be staying up that late they could see how much this cat meant to me, and they’d give me an hour or two after dark.

Omen had the most beautiful black coat, with sleek white socks, and a small cream spot, like a monk, on the top of their left head. The heads would sometimes chatter to each other, in meek little mews when they were alone, as if comparing notes on their new body. 

Omen always ate better if they could sit in your lap, nestling their body in the fold of your legs whilst both your hands would hold two small bottles for them to suckle from. Sometimes I’d sneak out of bed and sleep on the floor in Omen’s room, only to be found and scolded by my parents when the morning came.

But they didn’t mind, really. Omen was our favourite.

&#x200B;

**3.**

On the morning before his first birthday, Omen brought in a two-headed mouse, clamped in the right head’s jaws. The thing was limp, and made a soft *pat* when they dropped it onto the floor. I must have been 12 at the time, but I remember poking the mouse with a brush, turning it over to have a better look at each head.

I was so absorbed in the rodent’s strange biology I completely ignored the sound of my Ma and Pa coming to stand behind me, hands on hips, watching me watch it.

“I think it’s a message.” Pa said.

Ma made a noise; *he’s right*.

“I think they’re telling us they’re not alone.”

Both of Omen’s heads mewed in sync, as if to agree.

&#x200B;

**4.**

We went on holiday as a family, and as much as it pained us, were unable to bring Omen. Omen knew something was up when they saw us putting our clothes in bags, and when we all left at once, and they tried to sink their claws into our shoes to beg us not to go. 

But we had to, and, we did.

When we returned, sunburnt and at ease, we found that Omen had taken the time to smash every single clock in the house.

&#x200B;

**5.**

Omen would bring in all sorts of creatures; rodents, small birds, beetles it found interesting, frogs, toads, even fish every now and again.

One evening in particular, the family were gathered round the TV, watching I-can’t-remember-what, when Omen strolled in, sat straight in front of the screen (*attention please)* and dropped the bottom half of a squirrel at its feet. The organs and intestines were hanging out, putrid and red, and we could see the way Omen’s fur was matted around the mouth.

“He thinks we’re hungry. Trying to feed us.” Pa said.

“Disgusting.” 

“Doesn’t look half bad.” 

“If you’re so hungry, you can clean it up.”

Omen watched with disappointment as Pa dropped the offering into the bin. Though I didn’t miss the whisper that followed: *sorry, Omen.*

&#x200B;

**6.** 

We lived in a big house, and family and friends would often cycle through, staying in various rooms when they encountered problems of their own, or just needed a roof over their head for a while. Our Uncle came to stay with us during the last days of his life. There was no more modern medicine could do for him, and he told everyone he wanted to die with dignity.

We obliged him.

And so, for the last week of his life, Uncle lived as normal a life as he could, told stories until he grew too tired, never complained, and despite our protests slipped Omen meat and fish under the dinner table.

Around 24 hours before he died, Omen took up a vigil by his bedside. We’d been advised by the nurses that we should keep Omen away, that having a cat that close would only cause trouble, that you never knew where your pet had been. 

But that day, Omen wouldn’t budge. They hissed and bared their teeth whenever anybody made a motion to pick them up, and the whole thing quickly became more hassle than it was worth. It was clear Uncle was deteriorating, and we didn’t want to disturb what could be his final moments.

Omen lay on his stomach without moving for water, or food, all day. Both of their heads stood watch, making periodical sweeps of the room, examining the doorway. About an hour before he passed, Omen watched something, invisible to the rest of us, enter through the door and come to stand by Uncle’s bed. 

Omen mewed softly, pleadingly. The sound grew, and grew, until eventually, Omen was silent.

Five minutes later, whilst holding Ma’s hand, Uncle nodded, as if greeting an old friend, and took his last breath. 

&#x200B;

**7.**

Ma told us she was pregnant.

In response, Omen sneezed twice; one for each head.

&#x200B;

**8.**

Ma had twins.

And, ****, Omen *loved* the twins. 

From the moment they came home Omen was all over them, transfixed by their angelic little faces, their impossibly thin wisps of hair, their laughs and their cries. I could almost hear Omen’s thought process as both heads stared up at the newcomers.

*Two of them!*

*Just like us!*

*Two of them!*

&#x200B;

**9.**

A local kid, who must have been roughly the same age as the twins at that point, say, around 4, fell from the top of their garden wall and broke their skull on the concrete below. 

Our neighbours told us that they found Omen at the scene, lapping at the pool of blood as if it was cream in a saucer.

The broken child was taken to intensive care, immediately.

Despite the doctor's best efforts, the child didn't make it.

Omen came home with blood matted in the fur around their mouths, and turned their noses up at the dinner we'd prepared. 

They were full.

&#x200B;

**10.**

An old woman with matted hair and yellow teeth came to the door. She said that she’d seen our cat, and she would pay *good money* to take them off our hands. 

She looked like a ghost dragged through a swamp. Her skin was so pale you could see the mass of veins underneath contracting like small worms, and when she spoke it made my skin hurt.

Cats like that are bad luck, she said. 

Touched by the devil, she said.

We told her that they were ours, that they were family. 

She snarled, and spat on our front door. 

I’ll see you soon, she said.

&#x200B;

**11.**

One night I heard a noise from the kitchen. Upon investigating, I found that someone was banging against the door. I recognised the voice. The woman from the week before. She was hammering the door now with her fist, frantically.

*Let me in, let me in, let me in.* She said, over and over and over again. 

I stood, paralysed by fear. There was something about her that I didn’t trust, that I *couldn’t* trust. I’d seen the way she’d looked at Omen, like she wanted them for something. 

Then the noise spread out over the house, and I was aware of the windows on three separate sides of the room, and that through each window, as I turned, I could make out the same dark figure, pounding against the glass, screeching. It was as if there were several of her, all silhouettes, all at once, begging and pleading to bet let in. And the voice cracked and changed, grew hoarser and harsher, and before long she didn’t sound much like a woman at all but something hungry and vicious-

Pa eventually came down, and found me hiding under the table. 

Omen was sat, facing the door, tail flicking from side to side. Pa said that in the following silence, he could hear their heads chattering away to one another. He said they sounded serious, concerned.

&#x200B;

**12.**

I was brushing my teeth the following week, just after my shower, when I heard some scratching at the door. I tried to ignore it. Sometimes Omen would do this, beg to be let in after you’d had a shower so they could drink the water around the drain, but Ma had said we had to stop Omen from their more unsavoury habits in case we had guests.

I kept the door firmly shut.

Omen grew more and more persistent, raking their claws down the wood, and mewing as if there was a fire.

I could have sworn the door was shut, but in my reflection, behind me I could make out the door start to open, slowly, fraction by fraction – and my hand stopped moving the brush, leaving it stuck in my mouth like a cocktail stick, when I saw a hand slowly emerge from the door in the reflection. A hand, and then a face I recognised, a gnarled and ancient face, all gums and loose skin, and I could see the woman slowly force her way into the room in the mirror, and, falling backwards, it was all I could do to try and grab the door, slipping on the handle.

The door flew open – in both real life and the reflection, and as I staggered back I could see the women now dead on, smiling, reaching out towards the surface, towards me – and my hand found something hard and heavy, and it was all I could do to throw it at the mirror.

There was a crash, the sound of falling glass, and the silence.

It took me a while to absorb my surroundings, for the adrenaline to wear off. 

I had thrown my alarm clock. A heavy, brass thing that was so loud it was impossible *not* to wake up. Omen was sat by the shattered clock, their two faces reflected endlessly in the dozens of mirror shards that covered the floor, blinking and preening themselves, before stepping closer and pushing their forehead against mine. 

Just for a moment, I felt as if I’d touched something old and dark and so *hot* and then Omen pulled away, 

and left me to clean up the mess.

&#x200B;

**13.** 

The twins were followed home by a strange man in a long coat, with thin blonde hair that he’d very carefully slicked back over his otherwise bald head.

He made lewd gestures at them, which they could repeat but not understand, and said words that made Ma blush.

Ma said she’d found the man by our gate, staring into Omen’s eyes, all four of them, without blinking. Said that she told the man she’d called the police, and that he should get off our property *this instant,* but the man stayed still. Wouldn’t take his eyes off Omen. Spoke strange words to himself under his breath. 

Prayed.

When the police came, some time later, the man was gone.

&#x200B;

**14.**

The strange man made local headlines, filling his pockets with rocks and throwing himself into the river. They said he’d finally lost it, that the weight of whatever he’d done had finally caught up to him.

But I knew something had happened that day. Omen had shown the man something in that moment, shown the man something so real and terrifying he’d had no choice but to drown himself.

And, as if to confirm my suspicions, Omen coughed up a wet, blonde hairball.

&#x200B;

**15.** 

Omen discovered catnip and spent three days in a daze, like some sort of feline ****, until Ma caught them staring at their own reflection.

Embarrassed, Omen quit their newfound habit there and then. 

&#x200B;

**16.** 

Omen brought in the top half of a squirrel whilst we were watching TV.

The twins laughed.

Pa said: *looks familiar.*

Ma said she felt something a little like déjà vu.

Try as we might, we couldn’t place it.

&#x200B;

**17.**

Omen was sick in the night, and when we took them to the Vet she showed us her tattoo of a two-headed cat.

“It’s just like yours! I’ve never seen a *real* one.” She said, feigning surprise.

But the looks she shared with Omen made me think otherwise.

&#x200B;

**18.**

Omen spent their last five nights with each one of us.

First Pa, then Ma, then the twins for one night each, and last of all, me.

They slept by my side, purring like kindling whenever I’d tickle one of their chins. We both knew that their time was nearly up. They were growing old, and what had once been muscle and **** had quickly become skin and bone. 

Their eyes were not as sharp, and had developed a thin milky membrane. Sometimes one head would wake the other, and they’d spend a while bickering before they realised they were talking to themselves.

Before they passed they made one last, slow circuit of the house, checking behind each door and under each bed, as if to say, to us and to the twins, *see, you’re safe now.* 

&#x200B;

We buried Omen under their favourite tree, in a little wooden box we filled with shredded newspaper. Just above the box, to commemorate Omen, we planted a single orchid. We thought that every time we looked out and saw the flower we’d be reminded of our friend and protector. 

And it was a surprise to none of us, when, a month later, we saw two green buds rising from the soil.

[x](http://reddit.com/r/max_voynich)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Room 733
 
 Assistant: The Suicide Room. That's what they called room 733 - as if I didn't have enough to worry about on my first day as a freshman. 

We had assigned to dorm room 734 which, it turns out, wasn’t one of the nice add-on rooms in the south hall. No, we found ourselves in the older wing of the building on the 7th floor. I wasn’t too bummed out, though; at least they’d honored my request to room with my best friend.

Lydia and I spent most of the morning moving ourselves in. By the time our Resident Advisor came by I was taping up posters and Lydia was reading.

"Hi girls, I'm Beth!" chirped the bubbly blonde girl as she bounded into our room. "I'll be your RA this year." 

"Hi," I nodded at her.

"Wow, you girls really work fast,” she said taking in our made beds and hung up clothes.

Beth picked up a drawing of Cthulhu that Lydia had done over the summer. She turned it sideways, studying it. 

"Is this the kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean?" 

Lydia glared at her over the top of her book.

"So anyway,” the RA continued, “I know our hall isn't as new as the south hall but trust me, there's a lot of history here. This building is almost 60 years old."

"Yes, I can see that." I said looking around. "The rooms are pretty small."

"Well, people were smaller in the 50s." Beth shrugged.

"Really." Lydia said flatly.

"Yep, really." Beth pursed her lips and just continued to stand there, while the room filled with awkward silence.

"So," I said, "the corner room next to us - 733, is it? It looks a lot bigger than our room. Is anyone assigned to that room or could we maybe-"

"Oh, you don't want that room.” Beth interrupted. "There were a couple suicides in there. A hanging and a jumper if I remember right. They’re not assigning anyone to that room.  Anyway, I'd just like to remind you that this is an all girls floor and guys are not allowed up here after 11." 

Before we could reply to her Beth clapped her hands and with a quick "well, nice meeting you" she skipped out of the room.

Lydia dropped her book on the bed and stared out into the hall. "I hate her."

"Did you hear that bomb she **** dropped?"

"I'm going to call her Dumbshit Beth."

"Lydia, seriously. Suicides?"

"Oh, Becca, relax. Every college campus has a few suicides."

"Yeah, but in the same room?"

Lydia sighed. "Really, who cares? It's not *our* room."

"Yeah, I guess." I turned to study the little window in our room. "Can you imagine climbing out of that tiny window and jumping? You'd be alive for at least five seconds before you hit the ground."

"Oh, ****, Becca, can you not?" Lydia glanced at the window and visibly shuddered. "You know I **** hate heights and just talking about that **** is raising my blood pressure."

"We could always move into the suicide room," I teased her, "That one has a window on each wall."

"Fuck you."

"Okay, okay. But seriously, think about it. It would take a lot of commitment to squeeze out of that tiny window."

"Yeah, well, remember, people were apparently smaller back then." Lydia mumbled as she pushed her bed further away from the window. 

 
***

Since Lydia was an outgoing and friendly person, we made friends at lightning speed. There were a lot of parties in those first few weeks, at one of which Lydia inevitably met a guy. I'd known the girl since we were in diapers so I fully anticipated her having a boyfriend by the end of September. His name was Mike and he wasn't anything special; just your standard frat pledge **** canoe. 

After about a month on campus the novelty of college started wearing off. Lydia and I found our stride and we spent more weekends studying than drinking. Midterms were coming up in a couple weeks and I was determined to maintain a 4.0 GPA throughout my freshman year. 


One night in early October I was woken up by a loud, grinding sound. I sat up in bed and strained to hear it again. Lydia was also wide awake and listening.

*SLAM*

*What the **** She mouthed to me.

It wasn't unusual for there to be noise in the hallways since other people came in at all hours of the night. But this sound had definitely come from next door - the corner room. 

*GRIND* 

"Is that-"

"Yeah," Lydia whispered. "That's the window next door."

At Lydia's insistence, we kept our window closed at all times. However, there was no mistaking the sound of the window in room 733 being opened and closed again at regular intervals.

*SLAM* 

"Who's in there?"

Lydia shrugged.

"Is someone **** with us? Is this like initiation?" 

Lydia raised her eyebrow at me. "Initiation to what?"

"I don't know. College? Maybe they're hazing the freshman?"

*GRIND* (it opened)

"Who is hazing freshman?"

I shrugged.

*SLAM* (it shut)

"Becca, I love you, but that was **** ****."

I threw a pillow at her.  "Well, whoever it is, go tell them to knock it the ****."

"Me?! I'm not risking being thrown out a window." 

*GRIND*

"Well, I'm not doing it!"

"I'm an art major. You're a political science major. YOU go lay down the law."

"Fuck that." 

"Then call Dumbshit Beth. Isn't this the kind of nonsense she should deal with?"

*SLAM*

"I’m not calling her. Don't you put that evil on me"

"Fine," Lydia whispered loudly, "then we'll just have to ignore it."

"I have class at 7:30!" I whispered.

*GRIND*

"Then do something!"

"Ugh!" I got out of bed and stomped to the door, threw it open dramatically and went down the hall to pound on the door to room 733 which simply said 'Supply Room'.

"People are trying to sleep, please **** stop." I said when there was no answer.

*SLAM*

"Dude, seriously..." I sighed.

I stepped back from the door and immediately noticed problem.  Room 733 was padlocked shut from the outside. I hurried back to my room.

"What happened?" Lydia asked.

"I'm not going anywhere near that **** room, again. It's locked from the outside; I don't know how anybody could get in there."

"So, you’re saying it's a spooky ghost?" She laughed.

"No, I’m saying there is creepy **** going on inside a room colloquially called ‘the Suicide Room’.”

Lydia scoffed and rolled over to go back to sleep. "You should have been a drama major."

We didn’t hear the window next door again that night but the next morning you could clearly see from outside that both windows in the corner room were now wide open. 

***

I watched the windows on room 733 for an entire week but they remained open. Occasionally at night I thought I could hear a noise next door liked marbles dropping and rolling across the floor. Since it never woke Lydia up, I didn’t bother to say anything. 

One afternoon I was alone in the dorm editing notes on my laptop. I had my headphones in but the music wasn’t loud enough to cover the noise of someone knocking on the door. 

"Come in," I said without looking up from the screen.

A moment went by and then heard I heard the knocking again. I **** my earbuds out and slammed the laptop closed.

I turned around, "Come-"

What the ****? The door to the hallway was wide open. I'd left it open on purpose since Ian (a junior I was dating) was supposed to be stopping by. I heard the knocking again from behind me and literally jumped out of my chair.

It had come from the other side of the room – the closet door. It was the closet that shared a wall with room 733. 

"Lydia, you're not **** funny."

Nothing.

"Lydia, I swear to ****, I will punch you in your face."

Silence. I walked over to the closet door and grasped the handle.

"Lydia, you’re a ****-"

"A **** what?"

Her voice came from the doorway – behind me. I let go of the doorknob and stumbled back, wide-eyed. Lydia threw her stuff on the bed and turned to me, crossing her arms.

"I’m a **** what?"

“I...thought you were hiding in the closet." I said, lamely.

"What? Why?"

"Because someone was knocking on the door."

"Jesus, Becca." Lydia rubbed her forehead and walked over to the closet, throwing open the door. There was nothing there but clothes and boxes. She made a swipe of her arm as if to say: ‘what now?’

"I swear-"

"Becca, there's no one here."

"I know what I heard."

We glared at each other until our little stand off was interrupted by the timely arrival of Ian. 

He immediately sensed the tension in the room. "Hi, ladies... What’s new?"

I gave my roommate a hostile look. "There’s strange **** is going on in that room next door. But that’s not new."

'Which room? 735? Or the empty one?"

"The *empty* one." Lydia emphasized. 

“733. Yeah, I'm not surprised. That's the suicide room."

"Right, we heard about the deaths." I sat down on my bed. 

"Yeah, it’s pretty **** up. Three suicides all in one dorm room."

"Three?" Lydia raised her eyebrow. "We were told there were two."

"Well there were a couple people in the 70s and then some guy about ten years ago. He jumped out the window.”

Lydia and I both shuddered. Although she was much worse, we were both terrified of heights. A falling death was about the worst thing I could think of.

"I will admit that three suicides in the same dorm room is **** disturbing.” Lydia said in an apologetic tone.

"Yeah, I heard there's something in that room." Ian said.

"Like what?" 

"No one knows, but every year someone has a new theory, usually right around Halloween something gets published in the campus paper. Whatever is in there, though, it ain't friendly."

"So, has anyone ever killed themselves in the neighboring rooms? Like this one?"

"Nah, just 733. Honestly, I was surprised when I heard they were opening the north hall this year."

"They told us we were the biggest incoming freshman class in twenty years." I said absentmindedly. 

"Yeah, I heard that, too. You know you could request a room change." Ian sat down on the bed next to me and I leaned against his shoulder.

"Yeah, but they wouldn't keep us together." Lydia cut in. "Becca and I have been best friends for 15 years. We can't room with other people."

"So should we just keep living here, next to Satan?" I glanced at the closet door again.

Lydia shrugged. "At least we'll have some stories to tell after graduation."

"These aren't the kind of stories I want to tell."

 ***

A few days later Lydia began to believe my closet story. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone whispering. I looked over at Lydia, who was already staring at me with wide eyes. She slowly brought a finger to her lips.

I listened intently, trying to hear what the voice was saying and where it was coming from but I couldn't understand even one word. I got out of my bed and tiptoed over to Lydia's. The whispering was definitely louder over there, but then she shared a wall with room 733. I listened harder.

*...never...taken...mouths...of fools...*

*What the ****?* Lydia leaned over and put her ear up to the wall. The whispers suddenly stopped and I leaned closer. Suddenly there was a loud bang from the other side. Lydia immediately recoiled and clutched her ear in pain. 

Someone was in there. Suddenly more angry than scared I again threw open our door and stomped over to the supposedly empty supply room.  I banged on the door loudly not caring who else I woke up at this point. 

"Are you **** kidding me?!” I yelled at the door. “This **** isn't funny anymore. Come out of that **** room, you ****."

Silence. And then the doorknob started to turn.

I don't know what I'd expected to happen but it wasn't that. I backed up so far from the door that I ran into the opposite wall. When the handle had turned all the way down, something started to push from the other side. The door groaned loudly but the locks held. 

I held my breath until the pressure on the door subsided and the handle slowly returned to its normal position.

I noticed Lydia peaking her head out of our room. She held up her hands as if to say *what happened?*

"Someone thinks they're funny." I answered her out loud.  She shook her head and disappeared back into our room. 

I knelt down on the floor and brought my head down to the carpet, peering under the door crack. It was the first time I had seen into the corner room.

 Room 733 was definitely a supply closet. There were chairs stacked along one wall and bed frames along the other. A few rotting mattresses were piled under one of the windows and a thick layer of dust covered everything in the room. The windows were absolutely huge, which was something you couldn’t really tell by looking up at the building. There were open as always and I could definitely see how someone could easily climb through them to the outside ledge. 

The room didn't look like it had been disturbed in a couple of decades which sent a shudder wracking through my body.

The moonlight, which had been providing enough light to see into the room, suddenly vanished and I saw only pitch black inside. I blinked rapidly trying to adjust my night vision. I squeezed my eyes shut and when I opened them, a large yellow eye was looking back at me, only a few inches away from my face on the other side of the door.

I screamed and woke up half the dorm.  

***

There was no denying that things were escalating. The next morning Lydia and I put in dorm change requests with Resident Services and hoped for the best. In the meantime, we agreed to never be alone in our dorm room at night. Either we both spent the night at home or neither of us did. We started spending most nights with our respective boyfriends.

I told Ian everything that had happened and he suggested I maybe talk to the campus Paranormal Society. I hesitantly made an appointment and Lydia and I met with a small, cleanly dressed kid named Craig and four of his "colleagues” the following Tuesday.

We told them everything we could remember, every incident, no matter how small.  Craig and the four other members of the Paranormal Society sat quietly and took notes for half an hour. It wasn’t until we finished that anyone spoke.

"Is that all?" Craig asked.

"Yes..." I said slowly.

"Would you mind waiting out in the hall for a few minutes so that I may confer with my colleagues?"

"Sure," Lydia smiled indulgently and stood up. "Whatever you need."

The door had barely shut behind us when Lydia snorted and rolled her eyes. "Let's go."

"Go where?" I asked.

"Are you serious?"

"Lydia, come on, we need help, I am *freaking* out. We haven't stayed one night in our dorm since Thursday so this isn't something we can just brush off."

"Okay.” She threw her hands up. “Let's hear what they have to say and then we can go over to Resident Services and check on our move requests."

We loitered out in the hallway for another 15 minutes before Craig came out and asked up to come back and take a seat.

With all the pomp and circumstance of a meeting of parliament, Craig cleared his throat and made his diagnosis. 

"What you’re dealing with, ladies, is a very angry ghost." 

"Is that your professional opinion, Craig?" Lydia said. I shot her a look.

"Y-yes,” he stuttered. “A vengeful spirit-“

“A spirit?” I asked. I very much doubted that that’s what we were dealing with.

“Yes,” answered one of the not-Craigs. “That’s ghost to the layperson.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lydia groaned and rubbed her temples.

 Mistaking Lydia’s frustration with despair, Craig rushed right into his speech.

“Don’t be afraid, ladies, we’re going to take care of you.  It’s true that spirits can be quite a headache if you don’t know how to exorcize them which is why it’s good you came to us.  Suicides almost always result in angry ghosts, they need revenge.”

"Revenge on whom?" I asked.

"On other students. Perhaps this particular spirit was bullied into taking his own life and now seeks to torment others.”

“Ah, listen-“

"We can take care of this for you right away, all we ask is a small donation to the society,” Craig continued. “We honestly didn’t realize that room was having this much activity. It's really very exciting."

"Great, well, thank you for your time," Lydia said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my chair. 

“Do you want to set something up for this weekend?” Craig asked.

“Tell you what, we’ll call you.”

Lydia hurried me out of the room wearing a weary look and we didn’t speak again until we were almost to the Admin building.  

“That was a waste of time.” She said.

“Look, I’m not disagreeing with you, but-”

“Becca, tell me you didn’t honestly buy into that?” 

“So you don’t think it’s a...a…” I was having trouble even saying the word, it sounded so ridiculous. “…ghost?”

“Well, I don’t **** know, but neither do they. That guy had no idea what the **** he was talking about.”

I pulled my hood lower over my eyes as we stepped into line at the Resident Services desk.

“Let me put it this way.” Lydia continued. “They’re playing Ghostbusters and we’re* living* the **** Exorcist.” 

"Fine,” I sighed. “Then what do you want to do? Just keep sleeping at Mike and Ian's until we get reassigned?”

“I just want this to end.” Lydia crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.  We all wanted this to end. Even if living next to that **** room wasn’t scary it was sure as **** distracting.

“Alright, well, I mean we're probably safe during daylight hours so as long as we don’t spend nights there we should be okay. Our room is only ghost adjacent after all, and our new assignments will come through soon." I checked my watch. “**** it’s almost 2.”

"Shit, really? I gotta go. Mike got accepted to Sigma Chi and he's getting initiated today."

"Oh yeah, I forgot he rushed."

The girl at the desk waved us forward. I hadn’t even realized we’d reached the front of the line.

“Let me know what they say,” Lydia said as she ran out the door.

The girl at the desk eyed me suspiciously as I approached. 

“Hi, I’m-“

“You’re the girl trying to move out of 734 in Reilly, aren’t you?”

She’d caught me off guard. “Yeah, one of them. How’d you know?”

“Sorry, I overheard you. I also saw your file cross my desk a few days ago and I gotta ask: why are you looking to transfer rooms, exactly?”

I was tired. I was beaten down. I didn’t have the energy to think of a lie.

“Because **** is going on in the empty room next door and it’s really freaking us out.  Noises, whispers, knocking, the other night I saw someone...”

“You saw someone?”

“Yeah.”

“In room 733?”

“Yeah. I looked under the door. There was definitely someone in there.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at me for a moment and then nodded for no particular reason.

“Well, your rooms aren’t ready yet but I’ve pushed them through as a priority. For right now you’re stuck, though. There just isn’t anywhere else to put you.”

I sighed. I’d figured as much.

“I’m Alice,” she continued, “and, look, I’ve actually done a lot of research on the Reilly suicides and I think I can help you. Or at the very least offer some insight.”

“Really?” I asked, hesitantly. 

“Absolutely.  I’m in Taylor Hall, room 310. I’ll be back to my dorm by 4 today."

"Thanks. We just came from the Paranormal Society on campus. “

“Ugh, say no more,” Alice rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, so…I’ll definitely see you at 4.”

“Great,” Alice said, and smiled.

 ***

I was early to Taylor, but then so was she. I told our story for the second time that day and Alice wasn’t afraid to interrupt with questions, though her queries didn’t betray her thoughts.

When I was finished she leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply.

"I can’t believe it,” she shook her head. “I’d always heard rumors but I honestly doubted any of it was true.”

“I can assure you – everything I’ve told you is absolutely true.”

“And how is it now? When you’re there?”

“We aren’t ever there at night but during the day we’ve heard scratching on the wall, really quiet whispering and sometimes we still hear the window opening and closing. In broad **** daylight. However every time I look up from the street the windows to 733 are open.”

Alice nodded. “Well, for the record I don’t think you’re in any danger. As much as it sucks, you guys are simply a casualty. You just need to stay out of room 733.”

I snorted. “Are you kidding? I would never go in there.”

"I believe that you believe that. But this thing, whatever it is, it's tricky. Manipulative. A *liar*. And it's smarter than you."

"I'll try not to be offended by that."

"You shouldn't be."

“What do you think it is?”

“Something very old and very evil.”

I regarded her skeptically and then let my eyes wander around the room. I hadn’t really noticed the décor before but to say Alice had an interest in the occult was an understatement.

"I can't see any situation where I would be compelled to enter that room."

"I know. But you have to be prepared that there may come a time when you have to make a *decision* about entering that room. Because what you’re dealing with? It’s already killed five people.”

"Five?! I thought it was three!"

"Yeah, well, not everyone is inclined to do the level of research that I do. Let’s see, there was Ellen Burnham in 1961 – she jumped out the window. She was the very first. And then Tad Collinsworth in 1968 - he jumped, too. Marissa Grigg in 1975, she hung herself. Erin Murphy in 1979 - she jumped. And then Erik Dousten in 1992 - he hung himself."

"Five suicides. How could the university still let people live in there?”

"They don’t, apparently. That’s why it’s a supply room.”

“And back then?”

“Well, every few years, once everyone who would remember had graduated, the room would be reassigned. This was before the internet, you know, and the incoming freshman were clueless. But after that last one - Erik Dousten - they closed the entire north hall of the 7th floor and built more rooms onto the south hall."

"So, what does it want?"

Alice shrugged. "Chaos. Death. Souls. Who knows? No one even knows what it *is*."

"Okay, so what *do* we know?"

"We know that it's somehow bound to that room though it seems to have minimal influence just outside of it. We know that everyone who ever died was alone at the time. And we know that it's a trickster. That's what we know."

It wasn’t enough. “Why do you think they do it?” I asked quietly.

“The victims?”

I nodded.

“All I know is what’s rumored to be in the evidence files. All the suicides were found with pictures or writings that were considered ‘unspeakable’ at the time.  They contained horrible, evil things that would make you physically sick to read or see, they say.”

“And these people, they drew them? They wrote that stuff?”

“Yep. Whatever is in that room drove them mad.”

“That’s **** terrifying.”

“Have you guys considered getting somebody to bless the room?"

"Jesus."

"Well you'll have a hard time getting him but perhaps some other sort of holy person."

"No, I mean, Jesus, you're talking about an exorcism."

Alice shrugged. "Maybe. The rumor in the 70s was that this all started with a Ouija board game gone wrong in 1961."

“Really? That **** made by Hasbro.”

"Not in the 60s it wasn’t. Anyway, it's just a rumor. The only person on campus who would know is Tom Moen in Admin. I've tried to talk to him before but he refuses to see me."

"Did he go here in 1961?"

"Yes. And he was staying in Reilly."

"We need to talk to him. I need to know what the **** is happening or I won’t be able to live the rest of my life as a well adjusted person."

"I suppose we can try to chase him down on campus."

“Can we talk to him tomorrow?"

"We can try.”

***

Mr. Moen wouldn't see us that day or the next. We tried to catch him on his lunch hour and then again while he was leaving work but he got around us every time. It was soon clear that the old man was actively avoiding us.

Lydia and I had seen little of each other since we’d continued to sleep in other dorms. I went back to our room twice a day - once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Usually the other room was silent but that didn’t make me feel better. I could always sense something on the other side of the wall, somehow watching me. It felt like the calm before the storm.

The Thursday before Halloween I came back to the dorm to shower in the evening, much later than usual.  I‘d seen Lydia that afternoon and she’d informed me that she had enough clothes stored at Mike’s to last until graduation  so I knew I’d be there alone. 

I showered down the hall in the safety of the bathrooms and then walked back to my room to change. I was supposed to meet Ian in half an hour to head out to a party and I wanted to get out of here as quick as possible.  

Since the silence was unnerving me, I threw my iPod on the docking station and turned up AC/DC.

I got dressed and then stood in front of the mirror to dry my hair. I flipped my head over and blow dried upside down to try and give my hair some volume. When I flipped my head back up and shut off the blow-dryer I immediately noticed the silence in the room. But that wasn’t all I noticed.

I wasn’t in my dorm anymore. Behind me was reflected the dusty bedframes and large open windows of room 733. I spun around in a panic to find that I was actually standing in my own room. I looked back at the mirror to see that 733 still reflected there. A slight movement behind me was all it took to make me run. 

I grabbed my purse and phone and I fled from my room slamming the door behind me. On the elevator ride down I called Alice.

"I can't do it anymore," I said when she picked up. "I can’t go back in that room, again. I can’t ever go back.”

“What happened?”

I told her.

"Jesus. What do you want to do?" She asked.

"I need to talk to someone who knows what the **** is going on. Is Tom Moen the only person we know was here in 1961?"

"The only one I know of. Maybe we can get him on his way in tomorrow morning? We'll just corner him and refuse to move until he tells us something. He comes in at 6:30 according to the schedule I have. Do you want to meet me outside the Starbucks in the Atrium?"

"Fuck yeah I do. I have a class at 7:30 but I'll blow it off."

“Okay. See you then."

I wasn’t usually much for parties but I was glad I was going to one that night. As soon as we got there I asked Ian to get me a drink. Since I wasn’t usually much of a drinker he gave me a raised eyebrow. I gave him a brief synopsis of what had happened earlier, hoping he wouldn’t think I was crazy. 

Ian made me a scotch and coke. It was the first of many.

Around midnight I went to have a cigarette and checked my phone. I had a voicemail from Lydia left at 11:04pm.

*"Hey Becca, listen I just, ugh, I just had a huge **** fight with Mike. He, well, I guess his frat decided that for Halloween this year all the new brothers have to spend the night in the Suicide Room. In our dorm.  I just, I can't **** take it. He knows what's been going on with us and he still agreed to do this. He’s now trying to convince me that Sigma Chi is behind all of the stuff going on in room 733 because they’ve been trying to drum up buzz for their Halloween deal. I can't-"*

I hit end and threw my phone in my bag. No wonder Lydia was ****. This was not good. Not good at all. 

I found Ian inside and asked him to take me home. I was suddenly very stressed, very tired and very ****. 

When the alarm went off at 6am, it took everything I had to pull myself out of bed. I got dressed in the clothes I'd worn the night before and shuffled my way across campus to the Atrium. 

Alice was already there with a black coffee in hand.

"I figured you'd need this," she laughed.

"How'd you know?" 

"Your texts."

"I texted you last night?"

"Yeah, at about 1. You told me about Sigma Chi.”

"Oh, ****, yeah." I pushed my sunglasses higher up my nose and pulled my hood lower over my eyes. 

"Those guys are idiots. Remember how I told you that it's crafty? Well what if the point of messing with you was to make 733 provocative, you know, to **** people into going inside. No one has been in that room for years, can you imagine how hungry that thing is?”

"Do you think they're really at risk?" I asked as I sat down on the steps to the Admin building.

"Yeah. In fact the *only* thing they have going for them is that all those suicide victims were alone at the time of their deaths."

"So, it'll be less powerful with all of them there?"

"Theoretically. We would know a lot more if we knew what it was. And we can't know what it is without knowing how it got here. And that is why we need Moen." 

"What time is he supposed to get here?"

"Actually, twenty minutes ago," Alice said, grimly.

It was another half an hour before we resigned ourselves to the fact that Mr. Moen had snuck around us as usual. We went to the front office hoping to beg again for an appointment with him anyway.

The woman at the Admin desk regarded us coldly.

“Tom isn't coming in today. Or any other day for that matter. He quit yesterday. Looks like you won’t be harassing him anymore."

"We weren't harassing him,” I said. “We just desperately needed to talk to him."

“We still do.” Added Alice.

"Well you won’t get any of his personal information from me," she said snidely and walked away.

"What the **** do we do now?" I asked Alice.

"Without Tom Moen there's nothing left to do."

"Alice, ****, I can't go back into that room. 

"Well, then I guess it’s good your transfers came through."

"They did?!"

"Yep. I got the notice when I checked my work email this morning. You're going to Morton and Lydia is going to Tinsley."

"Oh thank ****."

"I thought you'd be happy about that. I also convinced my boss not to assign anyone else to room 734.”

"Thank ****."

“The only thing is you won’t be able to move until Monday."

"I can last through the weekend, especially now that the end is in sight. I have to tell Lydia."

I opened my phone to pull up Lydia's number but my attention was caught by the red ‘1’ badge over the voicemail logo. I hit play. It was the rest of the message from last night. 

*"-even look at his dumb **** face anymore so I'm going to head home. Don't worry about me, I'll be okay. I’m **** enough to sleep through any **** from next door. I'm just so **** **** off right now. I would honestly rather deal with Dumbshit Beth than Michael-My-Parents-Must-Be-Siblings-Because- I'm-That-****-****-Benson. Let’s hang out tomorrow. Love ya!"*

The message ended. 

"Goddamn it." 

Alice gave me a questioning look.

"Lydia spent the night in our dorm."

Alice cringed. 

"She's safe though, right?"

"As long as she doesn't go into 733."

"She wont.” I thought of the always open large windows of the corner room. If nothing else the mere thought of those would keep Lydia the **** out of that room.

"Good. Well, since we have nothing else to do, do you want to go look for theology books in the library? It's pretty much the only thing open right now. "

“Sure," I shrugged.  I didn't have another class until 10.

The little old lady who sat behind the library's checkout desk must have been 1,000 years old. Ms. Stapley's eyes were small and watery and her skin looked like it was melting off of her skull. Still, she was nice and knowledgeable and she sent us in the right direction for books on demonology, though she gave us a curious look as she did.

There wasn’t much. We read everything we could but it either wasn’t relevant or wasn’t in English. We returned to her desk 30 minutes later.

"Ah, do you have anything on the occult?"

"The occult? Ah..." Her voice trailed off. "Yes, I do. Over there to the left of the reference section.”

"Ok thanks. Sorry, I‘m too hung-over to use the Dewey decimal system," I said. 

"I don't think she likes the look of us," Alice whispered as we walked away.

"Our look or our subject matter?"

"Probably neither."

Within the hour we were back up at her desk having struck out again. We could tell she was getting annoyed as her eyes narrowed suspiciously at us as we approached.

"Ah, sorry, do you know where we could find something on séances or Ouija boards or-"

"Now listen, girls.” Ms. Stapley stood up from her desk and looked over her glasses at us. “I really hope this is for class."

"It is," I said.

"It's not," Alice answered simultaneously. "It's personal research.”

"Research? What kind of research?"

"Look, we're not going to mess with a Ouija board or anything…" I said. 

"Good," Ms. Stapley smoothed her pleated pants and sat back down. "Because I can't have that sort of thing going on here again."

"*Again?*" Alice latched on.

The older woman suddenly looked very uncomfortable and started fidgeting with a stack of books on her desk.

“We may have something on séances in-“ 

"Ms. Stapley, we’re researching what happened in Reilly in 1961.” Alice interrupted.

“And also what’s been happening there ever since.”

"Well, it's no secret, is it? A student committed suicide in that room. Dreadful but not unheard of on a university campus.”

"Five students." I corrected her.

"But you know that, right?” Alice was suddenly talking very fast. “Because you sound like you’re well versed in this story. Please, tell us how this started and we might be able to end it."

"End it?" Ms. Stapley's voice became quieter but more concentrated. "Don’t be so arrogant, young lady. You can't end it. People have always died in that room and they always will. There is no end to it so you’d best stay far away from it."

"But maybe if we knew how this all started -"

"It started just as you think it did. But everyone that was involved is either very old or very dead by now. Just stay away from that room. Concentrate on your studies."

I leaned over her desk. "Well, I'd love to but they assigned my friend and me to the room next door. Maybe you can forget about all the suicides but we can’**** wont **** let us."

"Young lady, I never forget." Ms. Stapely voice was even quieter now. "My friend Ellen was the very first to be killed in that room. She was my very best friend and not a night goes by that I don't imagine her wiggling out of that tiny window, standing upon the cold ledge in her bare feet and jumping off the 7th floor of that building."

Alice sighed.  “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”

"Yes, well these are old wounds, my dear. Now girls, I suggest you request a room reassignment immediately. No one should be living on the seventh floor of that building.  And that’s all I’m going to tell you about it. “

Alice sighed but resigned herself to a nod. We wouldn’t learn anything more here. Still, it was quite a breakthrough - at least we had *some* information now.

Alice walked away and I made to follow her but my feet wouldn’t move. Something was bothering me - a small yet poignant word had been buried in Ms. Stapley's story; a word that suddenly seemed very important.

"Eh, Ms. Stapley,” I asked the tired, old woman at the desk, “Why did you refer to the windows in 733 tiny? Because I’ve seen those windows and they’re huge, like 5 feet tall.”

"Dear, you're thinking of the corner room, that’s the supply closet. Room 733 is next door to that."

"No-no," I stuttered, "that's room 734."

"Yes, well, it is *now*. When they built the additional rooms on to the south hall they moved all the room numbers down.”

*Oh my ****.* I suddenly felt very hot and very dizzy.

"That sneaky ****," Alice whispered next to me, her skin paling.

"Lydia." 

We took off across the campus at a dead run, witnessed only by the few bleary-eyed students on their way to morning classes. When Reilly finally came into view I stumbled on the pavement as my blood turned to ice. From our vantage point we could clearly see the windows of the corner room were closed – the first and only time I had ever seen that way.  And the window to my room was open. 

We ran into the lobby, pushing past several latte-sipping, ugg boot-wearing freshman who had just gotten off the elevator. I hit 7 and watched the doors close more slowly than they ever had before. I leaned against the wall, trying to steady my breathing.

"Alice, how the **** did this happen?"

"I don't know. I don’t **** know.”

"She's been in there all night, Alice. In our room. Alone.”

Alice shook her head but had nothing to say.

When the doors finally opened on floor 7, we saw a quiet, deserted hallway. I ran toward my room with Alice right behind me. Rounding the corner, I threw open my door hoping it wasn’t locked.  And it wasn’t.

Lydia looked back at me. And for one breathless moment, cruel glimmer of hope crossed over her tear streaked face.

But it was too late. The next second, she leaned forward so slightly, and she was gone.

She screamed the entire way down.

Alice ran to the ledge where Lydia had just been while I stood motionless. She stuck her head out the window and looked down just as a different kind of screaming started from the bottom floor. Alice closed her hand over her mouth and pulled her head back into the room as tears of shock ran down her ghost- white face. 

The screaming from outside got louder as more people saw what remained of my best friend on the cold pavement. I leaned back against the dresser and slumped to the floor. A falling death. Lydia never wanted a falling death. 

I absentmindedly picked up one of the pictures that were strewn all over the floor. It was a picture of Lydia's mother. She was dead. I picked up another picture. It was Lydia’s baby sister. She was dead, too.  There were dozens of pictures just like it all over the floor - Lydia has been busy last night. As for the things depicted in them, I cannot tell you. Lydia was a talented artist and I only saw a few before I got sick on the floor next to me. 

Alice was standing in the doorway yelling something down the hall. I don't know what she was saying because all I could hear was a high pitched whine in the room. Suddenly a piece of paper slid out from under the crack in the closet door and glided across the floor toward me. I picked it up and studied it for a moment. 

This was drawn by Lydia too, but it wasn’t like the others. It was a picture of the closet from my exact vantage point. In the drawing the door was cracked and there was something looking back from the darkness.

I put the paper down and studied the closet. The door was cracked open just like the picture. I squinted my eyes and tried to see inside. Just as I started to distinguish the defined lines of a long face looking back at me, Alice pulled me to my feet.

"We need to get out of here," I thought I heard her say.

I never went back into that room. My parents moved my things and I spent the rest of the semester in an apartment off campus. I transferred to an out of state school for my spring semester and finished my degree there.

Every night I dream of Lydia pulling herself through the tiny window, shimmying out onto the cold ledge, standing up and knowing there’s nothing between her body and the terrifying abyss in front of her.  I watch her look down seven stories to the black pavement below and realize, though not accept, her terrible fate. I see the blind horror cross her familiar features. I hear her wildly pounding heart, desperately trying to race through every beat of the life she should have lived, and knowing it has only mere seconds. 

I watch her look back at me. And I watch her fall. 

It's been 9 years since that night. And every fall semester for 9 years I’ve called Resident Services to see which dorms are open for new student assignments. Reilly is always open. The seventh floor is closed. 

This year life and work got in the way and I called much later than usual. I was put on hold immediately.  

"Resident Services." A man finally answered. "Were you the one asking about open rooms in Reilly?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“We're entirely filled up and there’s a waiting list for Reilly. But, as it happens, you actually have great timing. I make no promises but we may be able to get you in. We just got approval this morning.”

“Approval for what?” I said slowly

 “We’re opening up the seventh floor.” 

[C.W.](https://www.facebook.com/ck.walker00)





 



























 Human: write a story with the theme title: What if the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that the Bible was the word of God?
 
 Assistant: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/j3r593/what_if_the_greatest_trick_the_devil_ever_pulled/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share (part 2) The Son

The clock on my dash reads 4:30 am. The darkness outside of my headlights is so thick that I can’t see anything to the left or right of me. There isn’t a star in the sky and the moon is eerily absent. The phone call I received last night assured me though, that the church in Havens Creek is nice and the congregation was wonderful. I wanted to get there early, get the lay of the land, and put my own little flair to the place. I’d been driving for some time when I finally came up on my turn for the church. I pulled into the parking lot and what my high beams fell on took my breath away. A large, beautiful white church with long columns, a bright red double door, and beautifully stained glass windows with depictions of our lord and savior.


I stepped out of the car, turning off the headlights and the night was heavy again. Outside of the interior lights of the church and the solar powered lights lining the path to the door, I could see nothing. Ill admit I felt a bit unsettled, but my mentor, Father Reynard had me come here as a guest pastor, and I was not going to let him down. I made my way up the stairs and into the church. 
The inside was even more glorious than outside. 50 yards of pews lined down both sides and a gold lined red carpet from the door to the pulpit. Getting the full view of the stained glass I see our lord and savior, the cross, our **** Mary, cherubs with wings, and the angels up above. Just being inside this place filled my heart with love. I made my way down the gold lined carpet and to the first pew. I took a seat to relax and just take it all in. Directly next to me was a book I’d come to know very well over my 40 years of life, the Bible. I picked up the very pristine book, and sat it in my lap with my hands folded, resting on top of it and took a deep breath. At this point I was just trying to take it all in, when I heard the front door open. 


The persons feet sounded hard off of the floor with each step, which was strange seeing as the way up was thickly carpeted. Each step drew nearer and nearer to me until finally a man came into view. He was extremely handsome and well dressed. A black suit jacket and pants, with a red vest, and black tie with red lacey inlays. The man had long blonde hair pulled back out of his face and an air of authority about him that I just couldn’t place. The man walked  past me and removed a chair from the rack and walked back toward me. He sat the chair directly in front of me, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other. 


We both stared at each other in silence for a short time and just as I was about to speak up he said, "forgive me father, for I have sinned." His voice rolled out like honey, sweet yet sinister. I stared back at him. This isn’t how we usually do things at my church, I thought to myself. But I am a guest in this house, so I won’t push.

 "What is your name, my child?" I asked the man sitting in front of me.

 He cocked his head to the side and smiled. "You can call me Sam, fatherrr…." he held out the word so I knew it was a question. 

"Ah, I replied. Salazar, father Marcelo Salazar." He gave a slight smile and his bright blue eyes shone vibrantly. 

"It is very nice to meet you Father Salazar, as I said before my name is Sam, and It would be greatly appreciated if you could assist me. I have sinned and I fear I may wind up in ****."


 I shook my head softly. "Oh my child, do not worry. Our father is a forgiving ****. Please tell me of your burdens so I may absolve you of your sins." 

Sam adjusted in his seat then un crossed his legs and crossed them the other way. "I drink to excess and then judge others in church when they admit to doing the same." 

I nodded. "Well my child, I said-"  Sam quickly cut me off and continued. 

"When I was married I would have my wife stay at her mothers when she was on her period."

 I looked at him, as I tried to assure him that the Bible speaks of it being a time of uncleanness, Sam quickly cut me off again. 

"I sent my son off to a conversion camp when he came out as homosexual." I didn’t respond this time and he continued. "I raised my hand to my wife if she tried to leave the house in anything other than modest clothing. I wanted my wife to be modest but I also received…less than modest photographs from my 19 year old babysitter, Brittany."


My eyes widened and I stood up from the pew I was sitting in. I stepped around the side and began to back away down the aisle towards the door. His soft look hardened in an instant. His bright blue eyes went from soft to dangerous. "What’s wrong father? He spat at me, You look awful." This man was speaking my life back to me….

"Who are you, and what do you want?" My hands and voice were both shaking. I was backing up steadily and Sam was just staring at me. We were far enough apart that if I turn for the door I should be right there. I turned to look over my shoulder at the door and when I turned back I was in the front of the church again, face to face with Sam. My eyes widened, "what is this? What is going on?" I looked around and up at the ceiling. All of the stained glass depictions were staring at me and they looked angry. 

"What does it look like father?" Sam said. "You’re being judged."

I looked around franticly. "Judged?! Are you…..****?!" I immediately dropped to my knees and bowed my head.

 I heard Sam scoff, "God, he laughed. You believe a man who led a life such as yours would be judged by my father?" I raised my head and stared up at him….

"Your father?" I was confused, I ran through my knowledge of scripture as fast as I could and it came to me. I looked deep into his eyes and said the only thing I could think of…."Samael." The man smiled a big toothy grin. I stared in horror, "I’m dead….." Sam winked at me.

"I applaud you Marcelo. It takes most of you so much longer to come to that conclusion." 

"Wait, this can’t be." I stammered. "The devil himself…..Lucifer?! I may not have been the greatest man during life, but I followed the Bible as close as I could. I kept my wife in modest clothing, sent her away during her time of uncleanness, and tried to have my son reborn in the eyes of the lord. I did falter in my marriage a bit but how has that earned me an audience with the devil."


Sam let out a long and deep laugh. "You know, my dear priest" he said. "Some say that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. But I assure you, I have done no such thing. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, dear priest, is convincing the world that the Bible is the word of ****." 

I stared at him, mouth agape, and my mind running overtime. "What do you mean, Sam?" I felt on the verge of tears. 

"I mean, I wrote the book that you people flock to. You see, my dear priest….many, many, many years ago. My father created humanity. He loved you with all his heart and swore that humanity would be…perfect. I assured him that no creature with free will would ever be so, he assured me of the contrary, and for the first time in his long life the devil struck a deal with none other than **** himself. I told him I would add but one thing to this world that would prove the downfall of humanity, and if they proved unfit, he would see me as his right hand. He assured me that it wasn’t possible, that humanity was pure and perfect..Now….that book has existed in many forms depending on who holds it, but I wrote them all. I never appeared to Adam and Eve as a snake, but a book bound in snake skin, did. I told them of the beauty that lay outside, the glory, the happiness. It spoke of just eating that fruit and experiencing it all. Then, as the first bite was taken, I had won. My father was furious, my brother was bloodthirsty, so began a war in heaven and my fall from grace."

I stared at this man, this being, as he turned everything I thought I knew upside down. Sam began again, "Did you not stop and think as to why your loving malevolent **** would have bears turned on children? Why he’d destroy cities full of people in holy fire, or flood the world committing genocide?"

 I stared at him, "because" I said, "gods wrath is terrible, but his love is infinite. It was for the greater good so humanity could be reborn."

 Sam spoke up, "ah, no not quite. Just a little smoke and mirrors on my end to 'put the fear of god' in humanity you know?" Sam tilted his head back and laughed again. "You people use this book to mask your bigotry and hate, not knowing that one day, your undying soul will land right here on my doorstep. Since humanities initial birth I haven’t persuaded a single soul to do anything, I haven’t had to. That whole, the devil made me do it….pure ****. The things I wrote made it normal for people to hear voices about murdering their children. Oh, its just ****’s will. Nope, hi, sorry again, that’s mental illness."


Sam looked at me serious and spoke again, "do you believe **** makes mistakes?"

 I stood and faced him, headstrong in my conviction. "No I do not." I said. My voice no longer shaking. 

He stepped forward almost nose to nose. "Then why is it, my dear priest, that you tried to change one of ****’s creations because it did not fit your narrative?" I took an involuntary step back as he continued. "I wrote that book with the idea in mind that hypocrisy would surge. Its laden with enough truth and love to lead the **** astray. My father loves all life, all things, no matter color or gender. The part about stoning those that lay with the same ****, all me. You hypocrites line my doorstep like lambs to slaughter. That love you feel well up inside when you tell someone they will burn in **** for who they love, or for living their life not according to your broken vision of an almighty ****. It is not love at all, but your souls acceptance of your truly wicked nature"

I clutched the Bible to my chest and just shook my head. "No, you are the father of lies, none of this is true."

 Sam smiled again. "Is that what you believe, my dear priest? If so, have a look at the book you have so coveted all your life."

 I pulled the Bible away from my chest and looked down at it. A snake skin cover with a 6 winged angel emblazoned on the cover. Sam seemed to stare into my soul. "This, my dear priest, is the book that Eve held in her hands when she decided to take that first bite." I opened the book to a language id never seen before. Sam looked at me quizzically and turned his head to the side. "Ah, he said, my apologies. You can’t read Enochian." He waved his hand and the book glowed white hot. I dropped it immediately and took another step back. I couldn’t understand this, if what he was saying was true, my entire life had been a lie.


"But wait, hold on..…what about before the birth of Jesus Christ, before Christianity." I stammered.

"Ah, you will find my handiwork in the hieroglyphics, in the halls of ancient Rome, or the diary of Julius Caesar."

 I had heard enough, I couldn’t take anymore, tears openly fell down my cheeks. "Now for my questions, my dear priest. How does it feel knowing that I robbed you of all earthly desire only to have your soul remain in **** for eternity?" 

I couldn’t answer him, I couldn’t even form clear sentences in my head. 

"How does it feel knowing that the wife you detested so much, took your son, denounced your wicked ways, and will both thrive for eternity in my fathers kingdom?"

 I felt his hand touch my shoulder and it burned like nothing I’ve ever felt before, I screamed out in agony.

"As for my final question, this one won’t be directed at you my dear priest. But for our little eavesdropper here. So tell me, my dear reader. When was the last time you went to church?"

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My husband keeps asking the same question over and over and it's driving me up a wall
 
 Assistant: My husband started telling Dad jokes before he was old enough to pour his own juice, so I may have missed a red flag or two. Or four. But in my defense, this kinda juvenile behavior seemed very ‘on brand’ at the time.

Let me give you some quick context. The entire first-year Stephen and I lived together, anytime we exchanged ‘I love yous’, he would quickly pinch my cheek and shout: “Bzzzt, make your own **** waffles.”

Neither of us even liked waffles—he just got a kick out of spoiling the moment. And although I’d groan and roll my eyes, his dumb schtick cracked me up. Lord help me, it absolutely cracked me up.

So when I shuffled into the kitchen one morning, fresh from sleep, his odd remark barely registered.

“Can you see me smile?”

I glanced at Stephen from across the center island. “What?”

He leaned back and blinked. “What?”

“Thought you said something.”

He shrugged and shook his head. My imagination then.

As I poured a cup of coffee, he said it again. Quieter this time. “Can you see me smile?”

Here we go. Stephen's jokes were usually unfunny for that first week or two, until his relentless commitment tickled my funny bone.

“That’s nice honey,” I said after a yawn. Then I circled the island and went in for a kiss but instead noticed a sore beneath his left nostril. “Oof, get some cream on that."

On my way out of the room, Stephen began ratcheting coughs.

Things seemed normal for the next few days. He periodically dropped the smile line mid-conversation and then continued on like normal. Once or twice he even said it over the phone.

“Hey hon, I’m at the store. Do were need any—*can you see me smile*—kitchen roll?”

Stephen picked up some cream for his increasingly gruesome scab, although that didn't seem to help. If anything, it made things worse.

One evening, as we sat down to dinner, he slurped up some pasta, stared dead into my eyes, and twisted his mouth in this horrible pumpkin grin. “Can you see me smile?”

I set down my fork. “Okay, enough. It’s been a week and I’m still not laughing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That **** ‘can you see me smile can you see me smile’ thing.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Huh?”

“Don’t. Even. Start. Just drop it already.”

The two of us went back and forth, him pushing me to explain myself, me growing steadily more agitated. “Can’t you just admit this gag didn’t land and move on?”

“Well the only gags that *do* land are ones about airplanes, but I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.” The tension immediately dissolved as I half-groaned half-chuckled at his zinger.

Later, as I soaked in the tube with two cucumber slices over my eyes, the door at the far side of the room creaked open. “Stephen?” I called.

Another creak. “Hello?”

I slid up, catching the slices. There was no one else in the **** room. A draught had most likely blown the door open. I settled back into a comfortable position.

Afterward, while toweling myself off, I noticed a smiley face in the fogged-up mirror above the sink, accompanied by the words: CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?

Stephen had already turned in for the night, so my lecture about boundaries got placed on hold until morning.

Sometime after midnight, an awful dream about falling into this endless black void startled me awake. For a moment the sensation carried into the real world, no doubt because the mattress had compressed beneath our combined weight. I opened my eyes in an attempt to escape the sensation of that awful dream and saw Stephen, who held himself directly above me, supported by his elbows and knees. His nose was pressed right up against mine.

I bit down on a scream. Stephen’s sore had spread—now he looked like a toddler after devouring a plate of jam sandwiches. Was he picking at those oozing scabs?

“What the ****?” I shouted.

Immediately he rolled onto his half of the bed and faced the wall, pretending to snore.

I thumped the back of his skull, hard. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

He acted all innocent like he’d just woke up, the corners of his mouth twitching as though pulled by invisible strings. “Ow. What was that for?” He propped up against the backboard, one hand rubbing the bump across the back of his head, the other **** a leaky sore under his chin.

Turning away, I said, “This is getting seriously old. You’re not funny.”

He began to protest but then entered a harsh coughing fit. It rose from deep inside his chest as he raced down the hall.

“And go see a dermatologist,” I shouted after him.

When the alarm screeched, the far side of the bed was still empty. I crossed the upstairs landing and went into the bathroom, where Stephen stood before the sink, eyes fixed on his own reflection. He stretched and twisted his lips—which had gone pale at the corners—using his forefingers.

From the doorway, I said, “Look, sorry about last night. But you scared the **** out of me. Can we act like the whole thing never happened?”

He pulled the sides of his mouth apart. The gums looked grey and unhealthy.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

On my way across the hall, he shouted, “Can you see me smile?”

I called my mom from work, who listened to me vent for twenty minutes. “He just won’t give it a rest with this smiling thing.”

“Be upfront. Explain how much it's bothering you.”

That sounded reasonable. Stephen liked juvenile jokes, granted, but he wasn’t a man-child or anything; most likely the two of us could get this straightened out and then go for a romantic meal someplace fancy.

Back home, Stephen was in the downstairs lounge, furiously scribbling into a notebook.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

He stayed hunched forward, his attention fixated on his writing.

“Sorry if I was a little short tempered last night. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard. But this joke, it really got under my skin. You think we could pretend the whole thing never happened?”

No response.

“Can you please answer me? Or at least acknowledge you’re listening?”

I moved forward and snatched the notepad away. Stephen stood, suddenly enough to startle me, and grabbed it back. For a split second, I glimpsed the words ‘CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?’ written over and over again.

He grinned, exposing teeth of startling whiteness. Had he bleached them? This wasn’t a joke anymore. It was full-blown mental illness.

“Stephen, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

He cleared his watery throat. “Can you see me smile?”

He tossed the notebook aside and took a single step forward, arms outstretched. Thin trickles of blood ran along his chin from where he’d compulsively nibbled his bottom lip. “Can you see me smile?”

I retreated into the hall. “Stephen…”

“CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?” He coughed harshly before saying it again in a kind of hoarse growl. Thick wads of saliva flew from those pale lips.

I spun on my heels and made for the door, Stephen walking after me. “CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?”

He followed me out of the house and across the front walkway. The second I pulled the door of my Ford Escort shut he drum rolled the window. “CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE? CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?” As I slipped the vehicle into gear, he breathed over the glass to fog it up and wrote a backward C-A-N. It’s a miracle I didn’t plow over him barrelling out of that driveway in reverse.

My eyes had gone all red and puffy by the time I reached Mom’s place. The police showed zero interest in Stephen’s condition. *Yeah sure, your husband keeps telling you to smile. We’ll get right on that.* Neither did the paramedics. *You want us to send an ambulance over a nasty rash?*

Stephen didn’t respond to any of my messages, nor answer my calls. That night, I lay awake praying he was okay—that he’d made use of the mental health resources I’d sent over.

Mom told me to steer clear until we could arrange for somebody to accompany me home, but laying in that cold, empty bed, I had terrible nightmares about Stephen hurting himself. He needed help. And it couldn’t wait.

When I pulled into the driveway, the house was entirely dark. A nasty aroma hit me the second I pushed open the front door; a strangely familiar, coppery scent.

There were dull thuds from somewhere upstairs. I slowly climbed the steps.

In the landing, I flicked on the light and stifled a yelp. Scribbled up and down the walls were the words ‘CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?’. Stephen had covered every inch of space from floor to ceiling. My heart kicked into a higher gear.

The door to the bathroom sat slightly ajar. I tiptoed forward, the color of the writing switching from black to red in what I assumed was lipstick or paint.

Gently I rapped the door. “Stephen,” I called, so low I almost couldn’t hear myself. Then, after a little while, I went in.

My husband was crouched in the corner ****, his back to me. He dragged a lobster-red hand up and down the wall, smearing the word S-E-E over the cream-colored tiles, stopping only to replenish the ‘ink’ by vomiting thick red phlegm onto his fingers. Oh ****, it was blood—he’d written those words with his own blood.

“CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?” he snarled, along with a full-body spasm. There was something wrong with his voice; he sounded like a patient in a dentist's chair with a prop in their mouth.

The door made a ‘creee’ sound as I flinched back without meaning to. Stephen’s head perked up.

I spun into the hall and raced toward the stairs. Halfway there, Stephen threw himself hard against the back of my legs, sending us both careening down the steps.

I landed flat on my back. Directly above my head, two blurry lightbulbs circled one another. I watched them go round and round until two Stephens, their mouths caked with dry, crusty blood, leaned into my window of vision.

He pinned me down. And between gruesome wheezes that slid up from his throat, he repeated those five words again and again.

As my vision stabilized, I realized it wasn’t *just* blood on his face—tendons and jaw muscles were exposed, pulling and vibrating like over-tuned guitar strings. Fragments of bone even shined through in places. The lips and the surrounding area had been chewed or cut or scratched away. His cheeks hung loose in torn flaps.

He brought us nose to nose, his exposed jaw inches from my mouth. “CAN YOU SEE ME SMILE?” That raw sewage breath absolutely reeked.

A big purple tongue slid out of his mouth, finding its way inside my right nostril. As I lashed out against him, raw meat peeled away beneath my fingernails.

He eventually made a sound like a cat hacking up a furball, exposed teeth chattering and closing and crunching. I seized the opportunity by worming my way out from under him and made a break for the kitchen, where I armed myself with a steak knife.

He followed me into the room, canines bared.

“I’M **** WARNING YOU,” I screamed.

He grinned, although I could tell only by the eyes—those mad eyes that almost seemed to laugh. As he shuffled forward his pincer jaw clamped shut again and again.

Finally, he lunged. And I rammed that knife straight into his throat. Stephen’s body went completely limp before slumping onto the floor.

The paramedics actually wretched when they arrived. “Craziest **** thing I ever saw,” said the taller of the pair.

A police officer couldn’t believe the story. Still a stammering mess, I recounted how Stephen had mutilated himself before attacking me over and over. He took me to the station for an official statement, after which Mom took me to her place, where, for some odd reason, my mouth wouldn’t stay closed.

I sobbed into her shoulder, licking my lips again and again. My tongue had the texture of a carpet, plus something kept turning over in my gut. Acid reflux maybe.

Eventually, an urge to open my mouth and let out a giant, irresistible yawn overpowered me. Then Mom reeled away, her face laced with concern. “What do you mean, honey?”

I threw her a confused look and scratched my itchy mouth. “What do you mean ‘what do I mean’?”

She reached over and wiped a tear off my cheek. [“Why wouldn't I be able to see you smile?”](https://www.reddit.com/r/thoughtindustry/comments/te0fum/welcome_i_hope_you_enjoy_your_stay/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I just started working the night shift at my university library. I found an envelope with rules that weren't in the employment manual.
 
 Assistant: *What the ****?* I sat behind the security desk at my university library holding an envelope that I assumed was meant for me. "To the New Guy" was scrawled on the front in jagged script, and I supposed I was the recipient because it didn't get any more new than I was last night. I was scheduled to work my first night time shift (12-4am) at my university library. The hours didn't deter me at all, I'm a serial insomniac and my class schedule was structured so I could stay up late and sleep in the next day. This luxury had the unfortunate side effect of limiting my employment options, and in order to stay somewhat afloat in the sea of student debt I was floundering in, I couldn't afford to remain unemployed.

&#x200B;

When I heard about the night shift at the library from my friend Valerie who I attended high school with, it seemed like a perfect match. I can't reveal the specific school that I work for, but suffice to say it's a large university in the southern portion of the United States. Anyway, Val worked the early morning shift (6-10) and she mentioned that the guy who worked the late night shift, some guy named Flanders, had quit a few days prior. When she told me the hours and confirmed that the pay was at least north of minimum wage, I jumped at the opportunity. After spending a week slogging through the three departments you have to send paperwork to in order to become an official university employee, my bank account was in desperate need of that first pay day.

&#x200B;

So anyway, last night was my inaugural shift, and it being a friday night, the library was expectedly dead at midnight when I relieved my new colleague Tory from her post. The employment manuals I was required to read had prepared me extensively for what was by all indications going to be a mundane four hours. I started at the security base, a big wooden desk the size of a tank underneath a huge glass window embossed with our university sigil in the library atrium. Here I would stay for the first thirty minutes of my shift and perform some clerical tasks like checking the book detectors and ensuring the patron counter worked correctly. After those first thirty minutes I was supposed to make my rounds about the library, an inconceivably large building, that (according to the employment manual) required about 2 miles of walking to complete a perimeter sweep on all four floors. When I settled into my chair behind the behemoth desk, I was exasperated to find the letter. *Oh great* I thought. *More **** protocols to read*. I tore open the envelope to find a sheet of yellow legal paper with numbered lines following a paragraph of writing in the same style as the print on the outside of the envelope.

*Dear new guy,*

*DO NOT throw away this list under ANY circumstances. This is your bible, your map and your survival guide all in one **** succinct document. I didn't have to leave this **** for you, but my hope is that by leaving this behind, I'll help to curtail your learning curve a bit. Lord knows it can be a steep one. Anyway, the rules listed in this document are not optional. They aren't suggestions and they aren't advice. They are a code that you must adhere to or some terrible **** can happen. You wouldn't understand without experiencing it for yourself which is exactly what this letter is meant to avoid, so listen up. If you get through this first night, I'll leave more rules for you tomorrow.*

*Rule #1:* ***Never*** *look at the hallway safety mirrors in the basement corridor. Keep your eyes low and walk swiftly.*

*Rule #2: You will encounter an unfathomably tall man in a gray suit. Do not look at his face. Answer any question he asks you with "no sir" and he will go away.*

*Rule #3: Stay out of the atrium from 2:15-2:16 every night. It's better if you don't see it.*

*Rule #4: You will hear some horrible **** sounds from study room 219J on occasion. Don't ever open the door.*

Rule #5: Always walk **beside** the book shelves in the west portion of the fourth floor, never between them.

*Rule #6: If you hear tapping coming from the glass window behind you at the security desk, DO NOT turn around.*

*Rule #7: At 12:15 you'll see a heavy man in a tweed suit hurry past you clutching his briefcase. When you see him walk past you, tell him "today is not the day, friend." He'll look relieved, nod and walk out of the library. If he gets up the stairs, you're already too late.*

I was so caught up in reading the letter that I had forgotten to check the student ID of the person who had just rushed by the security desk. I remembered the protocol with a jolt and looked up to call out to the offending student just in time to watch a man, clad in a tweed suit, clear the stairs and slip out of sight onto the library floor.

&#x200B;

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dbmkyk/i_just_started_working_the_night_shift_at_my/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 4)
 
 Assistant: Hi Guys,

Firstly, I want to apologise for not being at my laptop for the past few days. I had to attend a wedding in Scotland for one of my uni friends. They booked it in mid-week and, between you and me, I don’t think it’s going to last which means not only have I neglected you guys, but I’ve also wasted money on a rental suit and a John Lewis tea set.

As always thank you for your help in my ongoing attempt to find Alice. I’m now in full contact with the radio show she was working for, and they’ll be sending over Rob’s submission to the show as soon as they can. I’ve also looked up every town named Jubilation and have contacted residents from each of them. None of them have the particular junction mentioned in the previous log, “Sycamore Row” and “Acer Street”. I even combed google maps to make sure. I’m not sure what town Alice passed through last February but it doesn’t seem to exist on public record.

The guy who promised to retrace the route from the mirror shop came through, and has sent me a few possible addresses for Rob. He also mentioned looking into the game itself more. I’m not sure what he means by that but I want to be clear, please don’t play this game on my behalf. I don’t want that on my conscience.

Ok, without further ado, here’s the following log.

Thanks again.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 10/02/2017

(Possible Opening) 
(I want to address you, the listener, for a moment, with an advance notice concerning the following episode. I’m sure it’s not been lost on you that every installment of the series so far has played host to some strange, unexplainable occurrence, and spanned a great many miles of travel. It goes without saying this has been by design. I’ve been summarising the countless hours of uneventful meandering and taking extra care to document the strange phenomena we’ve encountered along the way. I wanted the story to be fast moving, to have a real feel of progress with every chapter. 

If that sense of exploratory intrigue is why you’re listening to this show, I completely understand. I’m certain it’s a primary draw for almost all of you; the twists, the turns, the mysterious, strange encounters along an impossible road. 

But if that is the case, I feel it’s my duty to inform you that, apart from a few notable exceptions, there will be almost no ground covered in this segment, and the monsters we encounter will be all too human; stress, divisiveness, discomfort and, as one might imagine, grief.

If you want to read the synopsis of this episode on the website and wait for the next part, then you’ll be all caught up and I’m sure we’ll be back on our way, heading once more into the great unknown. But I feel it’s important to give the aftermath of Ace’s capture its own episode, in part due to the significance of the revelations that are unearthed in its wake, but also as a gesture of deference to the man we lost.

This is the story of our second night on the road.)

As we make the left turn, the horrifying space behind us is quickly replaced by a quiet emptiness ahead. The Wrangler crawls, defeated, toward the waiting convoy. The remaining four cars are parked haphazardly, taking up more than half the road. Rob drifts to the far end of the tarmac, looking to overtake and resume formation. Both of his hands rest on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on some distant point in space. It’s not hard to imagine that behind the focus and the quiet control, there’s a man in turmoil, a man who can’t bring himself to say anything, in fear of saying too much.

**AS:** This is Bristol to all cars. We’re heading back on the road.  Get yourselves in formation and make way for those around you. We’ve got a while to drive before we stop for the night. 

**LILITH:** Bristol where’s Ro… Ferryman?

**AS:** Ferryman’s here.

**APOLLO:** Where’s Ace?

**AS:** Ace is… Ace didn’t make it across.

**APOLLO:** Uhh what?

**LILITH:** What the ****? Bristol where is he?

It would be simple to describe what had taken place, or at least summarise the barest facts; what happened to Ace, where he is now, why he isn’t coming back. But for some reason, I can’t utter a word about what's transpired. Something about the event itself makes it impossible to retell, as if the requisite phrases have been locked behind glass.

**AS:** We need to get to the stopping point. It isn’t safe to stay here.

Shortly after we’d turned the corner out of Sycamore Row, Rob implied that the rest of the days’ drive would be uneventful. Had he waited just a few minutes longer, he would have been entirely correct. We’re on the road for another four hours, both of us quietly attending to our own preoccupations as the forest gradually thins out. The landscape gives way to rolling cornfields, that stretch out beyond the horizon on both sides.

Nothing notable happens, which is ironic, as I find myself typing up a lot more notes than I need.

With the sun descends through an orange sky as we pull into a clearing, beside a wild grove of apple trees. Rob turns off the ignition and the two of us sit in silence. Rob’s need to concentrate on driving had been a good excuse to stay quiet, a good excuse to not face each other. Now the wheels aren’t turning however, and the true reason for our mutual reticence is all too clear. 

**AS:** Do you think he’s dead?

**ROB:** I don’t know.

Rob’s response isn’t reassuring, and I’m oddly grateful for that. There are no comforting words he can give me, and any attempt would have seemed horrifically insincere, a mockery of the situation’s onerous gravity. Anyway, given the circumstances of Ace’s capture, I’m not even sure which answer I want to hear.

Lilith appears at my window, rapping her knuckles against the glass with an aggressive impatience. I’d expect nothing less about now. Everyone in the convoy has been made to follow a unilateral order, my order, without explanation. They’ve been travelling for hours accompanied by the glaring absence of another human being. Looking in the wing mirror, I glimpse the rest of the convoy, standing by their cars, watching the Wrangler expectantly.

Rob’s hands still haven’t left the wheel.

With a sharp intake of breath, I push the door open and step out onto the grass. The ground is soft below me as I walk over to the group. There’s recently been rain. I begin to address the rough semicircle, it almost feels like one of Rob’s briefings.

**EVE:** What’s happening Bristol?

**APOLLO:** Did Ace turn back?

I meet Apollo’s eye. For the briefest of moments, I consider telling them all exactly that. Maybe it would save them from the slow, heavy ache that’s currently weighing down my chest. Maybe it would just save me from a difficult conversation. Either way, I know I can't lie to them. They deserve the truth, however unpleasant.

**AS:** No he didn’t turn back; they crippled his car.

**LILITH:** The tow truck? Did he get out?

The answer doesn't come easily. I’m being pressed to say the words aloud and, in doing so, to fully acknowledge what happened. It feels like I’m being driven to a funeral, like I’m being verbally marched towards an open casket.

**EVE:** What happened to him?... Bristol…

**ROB:** He’s dead, Eve.

I hadn’t heard Rob step out of the car when he reaches the group. It’s hard to hide my relief as he takes over proceedings, addressing the group matter-of-factly. Now it really *is* like one of his briefings.

**ROB:** Two guys in the tow truck coming outta Jubilation. They got him. They took him back with them to the town. Way they were treatin’ him he won’t last long.

**BONNIE:** Oh goodness…

**EVE:** What? Rob what’re they going to do to him?

**ROB:** I can’t tell you. Nothing like this ever happened before.

**LILITH:** Well we need to go back.

**ROB:** That ain’t gonna happen.

**LILITH:** We’re not going to **** abandon him.

**AS:** Lilith…

**LILITH:** We’re going back!

**ROB:** No we’re not.

**APOLLO:** Me and Rob can go. You know the place right Rob?

**ROB:** The kid’s dead Apollo.

**LILITH:** But he was alive when you last saw him?

**ROB** That’s right.

**LILITH:** So what point did you decide he was dead?

**ROB:** When I saw him being carried away with a **** tow hook sticking out his mouth! **** it.

Rob shouldn’t have said that. I understand his reasons of course; he wants to convey an important truth, that nothing can be done, or could have been done, to save Ace. His ghastly choice of words does the job, but it also sends a ripple of disturbance through the crowd, planting in everyone’s minds the gruesome image I’ve been trying all day to uproot.

Bonnie covers her mouth in shock and sorrow. Eve turns noticeably pale, and even Lilith, who is intent on leading the questioning, is taken aback.

**LILITH:** Did… did you see this Bristol?

I nod solemnly. The group bristles at my affirmation. 

**AS:** I saw enough. I had to close my eyes when it happened, Rob tried to save him until…

Before I can finish my statement, my words are cut off by something truly unexpected. In spontaneous response to my words, a harsh outburst of mocking, sarcastic laughter rings out from within the convoy. One by one, we turn towards its source, until we all find ourselves staring at Bluejay. Her unapologetic chuckling fills the silent night air.

**AS:** Is something funny, Bluejay?

Bluejay tries to speak through her, all too slowly, waning laughter.

**BLUEJAY:** It’s just… you call yourself a journalist… Hah you closed your eyes, my ****… there it is! There it is.

**AS:** I’m sorry?

**BLUEJAY:** Do you close your eyes for magic tricks too?

**EVE:** What the **** Bluejay?

**APOLLO:** Come on, this isn’t the time.

**BLUEJAY:** Oh the time is well **** overdue. Seriously are you all morons? The Left/Right Game is a hoax. It’s fake! Rob Guthard’s played you all like **** children! Ace is fine, he’s probably an actor! Like the hitchhiker was an actor and those towns people too. I mean, come on.

The group is taken aback by Bluejay’s incredulous tirade. She’s clearly been holding her tongue since day one; our reaction to Ace’s capture representing just one step too far.

**AS:** I saw Rob shoot one of those townspeople with a hunting rifle. I saw the wound. It was real.

**BLUEJAY:** It was a blood filled squib. The rifle was probably loaded with blanks. You can buy both from any good theatrical retailer. Seriously what the **** is wrong with you people?

**LILITH:** Ok firstly, I don’t like your **** tone. Secondly, have you noticed that we’ve been the only cars on the road for almost two days? And what about Jubilation? Are you suggesting Rob hired out a whole town? That would be **** impossible.

**BLUEJAY:** Oh yeah sure, THAT’S impossible, but it’s totally believable that we’re driving on a magic road. Maybe this is the highest budget scam I’ve ever seen but that’s all it is, a scam. And Al Jazeera here is giving him all the publicity he wants. I mean these people are sheep but you, you’re a **** sycophant.

My mother used to tell me that you can’t strike a person from the high road. Staring down the barrel of Bluejay’s darkly self-satisfied grin, I’m more than tempted to make the descent.

**AS:** Ok Bluejay fair enough. I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on here, for all I know you could be right. But why would Rob spend the production budget of a Hollywood film to trick a radio journalist and two vloggers. Trust me, our website does not get enough traffic for-

**BLUEJAY:** Oh don’t be so self-important. It’s not YOU he’s trying to fool.

Bluejay turns to Rob, fixing him a glare of pure, unadulterated triumph.

**BLUEJAY:** Admit it Rob. Admit that this is all a **** farce. Admit that you knew who I was before I even got out of my car.

Rob’s face looks like it’s been carved from granite. The group looks to him for an answer, but he delivers his response directly to Bluejay, his eyes locked with hers.

**ROB:** It’s true… … I know who you are Denise.

The atmosphere changes, and for a moment, the night erupts into a foray of whispers. Rob’s answer clearly means something to everyone but me.

**EVE:** Denise?

**LILITH:** Denise Carver?

**APOLLO:** No. You serious?

**AS:** Sorry, who’s Denise Carver?

**LILITH:** She’s the biggest killjoy in the hobby.

**BLUEJAY:** Oh **** you, you **** air-head. 

**ROB:** Denise here is a member of the Skeptics and Rationalist Institute of America. She likes to get herself invited on ghost hunting expeditions under a false name so she can debunk them publicly. You may've gathered she don’t believe in the supernatural.

**BLUEJAY:** Actually I do believe in the supernatural. I *believe* that it’s a billion dollar industry built on selling comfortable lies to the gullible, and it thrives on **** journalists and attention **** bloggers who are willing to spread whatever **** they think will get them clicks.

**AS:** That’s why you took so long getting around the pine tree. Even when the truck was coming for Ace. You didn’t think any of it was real.

**BLUEJAY:** Uhh… did you?

As condescending as her delivery may be, her words spark a sudden realisation. It’s true, that with an unspeakably high budget and a few deft stooges, you could probably replicate most of what we’d seen on the road. Yet, without realising it, I’ve found myself agreeing with Rob’s version of events, personally defending the Left/Right Game’s validity against its decriers. I’d set off on this journey much like Bluejay, as a staunch, confident skeptic, but somewhere between the tunnel and this moment, I’d become a believer.

Bluejay notes my lack of protest, and turns back to Rob.

**BLUEJAY:** I’m flattered you went to all this trouble. I didn’t know my work was so offensive to you. 

**ROB:** I admire your work Denise. Always have. That’s why I brought you along.

**BLUEJAY:** That is ****. Tell your friend Ace he can’t act for ****.

Bluejay pulls a pack of Marlboros out of her coat, lighting up immediately, and goes to sit on the hood of her nearby car. Her demeanour clearly signals that her part in the conversation is over, though her words leave a bitter aftertaste for everyone involved. To sympathise, it must be exhausting, spending two days with people whose opinions are diametrically opposed to your own, having to listen in silence while they corroborate their own seemingly preposterous views. Having said that however, I’m incredibly glad she’s stopped talking. It reminds me of a time when we got on much better.

The next question comes from Eve, her voice quivering.

**EVE:** Can… can we die here Rob?

The quiet force of her words turn everyone’s heads back towards Rob. It’s clear that others have been thinking the same thing, and they’re looking to Rob for an answer.

**ROB:** It’s possible. The road ain’t ever killed no one before. Not so long as everyone followed the rules.

**LILITH:**  But you said in your emails it was dangerous.  

**ROB:** That’s right.

**LILITH:** But you didn’t feel like telling us that we could die out here? 

Rob turns to Lilith, clearly offended by her accusation.

**ROB:** In the 1920’s Jon Ebenrow killed 36 people and violated their bodies. In one of your videos, you guys went to his home in Virginia looking for the man’s ghost. Bonnie & Clyde once spent $500 to stay at the Iowa **** House, a place that’s supposed to possess its victims and force’em to **** each other. 

**ROB:** If you all honestly believed in what you were chasing, you should be accepting death as an outcome every time you step out. We are looking for evidence of another world. What we’re doing here has the scientific significance of the moon landings, the cultural significance of Columbus reaching the Americas and a whole lot of people died doing both. If you accepted the risk chasing down the ghost of a two-bit serial killer, you should be willing to accept the risk for this.

Lilith looks like she’s been scolded by a parent. There’s a fire in her eyes as she observes Rob, meeting his criticism with scorn.

**LILITH:** Oh so it’s Ace’s fault? He should have “accepted the risk”?

**ROB:** He did accept the risk. Ace made his decisions. He saw the dangers of the road first hand and he kept on goin'. I told you this place could be dangerous, and maybe you didn’t take that seriously. But you are NOT gonna treat me like I lured any of you here under false pretenses.

We stand for a few moments in the uncomfortable void left by Rob’s words. No one’s quite sure where to look.

**APOLLO:**  Well what do we do now Rob? Do we turn around?

**ROB:** I ain’t gonna make that decision for you. If you want to split off and head back, I suggest you wait till mornin’ and stagger your leavin’ times by an hour or so. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like what happened back there before, but this is the most people I ever played the game with. Maybe that’s doin’ somethin’.

**AS:** What do you mean by that?

**ROB:** Well it’s the only thing that’s changed. Truth is, this ain’t our world, by all rights we shouldn’t be here. Even when it's one car the road always tries to discourage you. Maybe it’s like bacteria in a vein. One or two might slip by unnoticed but once it hits a certain point it’s like a uh…

**AS:** Like an immune response. You think the road’s pushing back on foreign objects?

**ROB:** And the bigger the group-

**AS:** The more violent the response…

It makes sense, until Bluejay laughs once more. Hearing her reaction, I reassess what I'm saying and I can’t help but feel a little foolish at the idea.

**ROB:**  Maybe. It’s just a theory... I don’t know.

Rob collects himself, regaining his composure.

**ROB:** Either way, you all have the morning to decide if you want to keep on the road. Bristol, if you want to go home, you gotta find someone to take you. I ain’t ready to head back yet.

He turns away from the group and marches to the Wrangler. I don’t see him again for the rest of the evening, and I have no intention of bothering him. Eve and Lilith immediately crowd around me, asking if I’m alright and taking it in turns to disparage Rob’s actions. I can’t bring myself to join in. All I can bring myself to say is…

**AS:** Can I charge my phone in your car?

The group has very little to say for the rest of the night. A deep solemnity hangs in the air, dampening any semblance of good cheer like wet leaves on a dwindling fire. No one offers any conversation, Apollo’s reservoir of quips has run dry. Everyone’s wondering where they’ll be going from here, pondering the sort of person they are in circumstances such as this. Do they press on towards danger, or back towards safe and familiar ground. It’s a question they’ll have to figure out for themselves, ideally before sunrise.

I already have questions of my own.

About an hour after Rob’s departure, bidding fair well to the rest of the group, I walk over to Lilith and Eve’s car. My bag is resting on the front seat, a black wire leading inside from the charging port. I’ve decided not to tell the pair that I’ve been charging the detonator for a military grade explosive less than ten metres away from them. Perhaps it will come out during broadcast. If you’re listening to this, sorry girls.

I pick up my bag and, checking that no one’s looking, make a beeline for the apple grove. I march through the small wood, the air growing still, the sounds of the convoy quickly fading behind me. In the late evening darkness, with the moon shrouded by legion of crooked trees, I’m puzzled that I’m not more afraid. I’ve seen what happens on this road and, as I pass through the grove and into the neighbouring field, intentionally isolating myself from the rest of the group, I'm quite aware that help won’t be coming for me. Even so, as the corn rises up in every direction around me, I find myself almost incapable of fear. The day's events have drained me of emotion, and I'm now with everything else pulled away, I’m left with only one driving directive; an overpowering urge to figure this road out, regardless of what that entails.

Judging the distance I’ve traveled to be acceptably out of range from the convoy, I take the block of C4 out of my bag and place it on the ground. Gritting my teeth, my body cringing with self-inflicted dread, I press the power button on the Nokia and wait for something to happen. My worries of instant disintegration are allayed slightly as the grainy image of two outstretched hands comes into view, swiftly replaced by a menu screen.

I work fast, the words on the brown paper package constantly reminding me of what I’m putting at risk with every passing second.

Firstly, I type my number own number into the phone, assuming, or at least hoping, that the mechanism isn’t activated by outgoing calls. A few seconds later my cell phone rings, giving me the Nokia’s number. Checking the call logs, I find a second, different number, which seems to have made a call to the phone three times in quick succession. If I were a betting woman, which I sometimes am, I’d suggest that this number belongs to whoever built the bomb, the calls representing an attempt to test the trigger prior to its implementation. If I’m right, then this should be the personal number of whoever was driving that crashed car. 

My third discovery, is a little bit more puzzling. No texts have been sent from this phone, however there is one solitary message residing in the phone’s inbox. It’s from a third, separate number, and it reads thus:

“Please don't do this Rob.”

I stare at those four words, the new information grating uncomfortably against my already preconceived theories. If this text is to be believed, and my previous deductions are at all accurate, then that means Rob Guthard was driving the car. That the C4 in the trunk had belonged to him. All this time I thought Rob may have been responsible for something terrible, but what if he was run off the road himself? If that is the case, it leads to an entirely new question… who was responsible for his crash?

As I begin to think it over, the air explodes around me. 

I’m jolted out of my examination by a powerful, echoing voice which reverberates the very air. The corn is thrown into a frenzy as the noise echoes from every direction, as if spoken by the air itself.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you questioning.

Without a second’s hesitation, I turn off the Nokia and throw the block into my bag. I jump to my feet and scan the cornfield for whoever spoke the words, backing away towards the convoy. Suddenly, realising how far I am from my friends, I break into a run, my boots pounding the dirt as I flee back to the woods.

Less than a minute later I burst out through the trees, my bag swinging with the weight of the block. Everyone’s in their cars, seemingly fast asleep. I’m starting to think they’re onto something. With no one to talk to, and a long day ahead of me, I suppose there’s no further recourse but to catch my breath, write up my immediate thoughts and then, finally, get some much needed rest.

I feel a dull pressure behind my eyes as I step towards the Wrangler. Quietly opening the back door next to my sleeping area, I carefully hide the block under my luggage. Then, silently closing the door again, I wander around to the passenger side, where my notes are waiting to be typed.

I reach out and grab the handle, gripping it tightly. I don’t open the door. In fact, after a moment staring through the glass, I let go.

The pressure behind my eyes gives way, and before I know it I’ve slid down to the damp ground, my back against the cool, hard metal of the door. A whine catches in my throat as **** tears stream down my cheeks. My breath shudders as I inhale, and my attempt to breathe out plays to the world as a quiet, declining sob. The tears take me by surprise but I don’t wipe them away. In a bittersweet way, they’re welcome, necessary even. They carry with them a familiar sense of heartrending release. By the time they’ve run dry, I feel like I might just be able to move on from the events of the day.  The sounds in my head are just a little quieter now I’ve paid them their due.

**BONNIE:** Are you ok honey?

I’m picking myself up when I see Bonnie walking carefully over to the Wrangler. I brush myself off, a little embarrassed at being caught.

**AS:** I didn’t know you were awake.

**BONNIE:** I’m a light sleeper, and Martin… Clyde snores. Do you need someone to talk to?

**AS:** I think I just need to sleep. Thanks Bonnie.

**BONNIE:** My name’s Linda, if you’re wondering.

**AS:** … Alice.

**BONNIE:** That’s a beautiful name. Well Alice, I know I don’t talk much, but I know how to listen… if you ever want me to.

For the first time since the pine fell, I find myself smiling. It’s a weak smile, but a smile nonetheless.

**AS:** Thank you Linda. I might take you up on that. Have a good night.

BONNIE:** Have a good night. 

Bonnie starts to walk back to the car, before pausing and turning round. One last piece of comfort to offer.

**BONNIE:** And remember, everything will all be alright once we get to Wintery Bay.

I frown a little, unsure what Bonnie means. She smiles back blankly, then resumes the path back to her car. She’s mentioned that place before, upon leaving Jubilation, in what seemed like a moment of idle reminiscence. How she mentioned it just now doesn’t seem like reminiscence at all.

After everything that’s gone on, all the suspicion I’ve been directing at Rob, all my worry for Ace. Is something the matter with Bonnie? 

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, perhaps Bonnie misspoke, but all the same, the brief comfort her words afforded me has already faded away, leaving a familiar feeling of confusion and paranoia in its place.

I let myself into the passenger side, type up a few pressing notes and then climb through onto the air mattress. Sleep doesn’t come easily. I close my eyes and try to convince myself that tomorrow will be better than this harrowing day. Yet every time I make that particular argument, a voice in my head responds:

“That may depend on which way you turn.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I should not have subscribed to my girlfriend's onlyfans account.
 
 Assistant: I admit it. I am a simp.

And no, I am not proud of that fact. If I could go back in time and stop myself when I first started acting like one - I would. In a heartbeat. But I was a **** little goblin back then and just the tiniest bit of attention from a woman was enough to fry my brain.

In my defense though, *she* was absolutely gorgeous. Brown eyes that twinkled mischievously; plump, kissable red lips that parted to reveal white teeth like perfect little sugar cubes and thick dark hair that gently tickled her shoulder blades. Her dresses clung to her like they couldn't get enough of her body. And I understood why. She had just the right amount of curves in just the right places. I wanted to sink my teeth into them. Just... scrumptious.

I couldn't believe when she smiled at me. Jaw dropped open like a drawbridge, I stared at her from my seat in the cafe, wondering when the dream would end. It didn't. Not even when she got up and *click-clacked* over to me, her heels making her hips sway hypnotically. She slipped into the chair in front of me and asked whether I was staring at her. Dear ****, her voice. It was like she was pouring nectar into my ears. I shook my head like an idiot. She laughed, and it was music, like birds singing an ode to the falling leaves on an autumn morning. *Cute*, she said, and bit her bottom lip. 

And that was that. One meeting and she had me wrapped around her fingers. To say that our relationship was a whirlwind romance would be an understatement. It all feels like a blur to me, like the view inside a train that is zooming past yours in the opposite direction. I had no idea how she so quickly wriggled her way into my life, settling in like she had always belonged there. I felt like **** himself was smiling down on me, and not one to spit on my blessings, I agreed with whatever she suggested, unknowingly losing myself in her piece by piece.

I changed my dressing sense for her, dropped my childhood friends like the dead weight that they were, quit playing video games because it is a child's hobby, not something a grown man in his mid 20s should ever waste his time with. I sold off my GI Joe collection, got a job I hated, bought a car that was too expensive and took out a loan for a house much bigger than we could have possibly needed and added her name to the **** deed. All to please the pert little succubus.

At least the **** was heavenly.

So heavenly in fact that I didn't even protest much when she told me she was going to start an onlyfans account. *It'll be good for us*, she said, flashing her slender wrists at me, making my heart melt. *We need the money, babe. Besides, they only get to look. Only you can touch me.* I sighed, loosened my tie and grunted. *Just don't tell me what you post on there. I don't want to know.* She squealed with joy and jumped on my lap, reminding me why I was putting up with all this **** in the first place.

That's when things started to go wrong. Terribly, horrifyingly wrong.

I would wake up from nightmares I could never remember, more exhausted than I had been when I crashed into bed that would get soaked to the wood with my sweat. I began sleeping longer, but had absolutely no energy during the day. My skin was losing its colour, my eyes had dark circles deep like gorges and my hands would tremble with weakness.  

At first I chalked it all up to stress. I was overworked, without friends, stuck in a superficial relationship and burdened with staggering financial obligations. Of course my body was finally starting to give out. I wasn't a machine after all, was I?

But then the bruises started to appear. On my hands, thighs, back, knees, elbows - my body was being dotted with these little red marks that would inexplicably appear each morning. And they would hurt - like the bite of a fire ant. She had no clue what was causing this, but I did. It all began with that **** onlyfans account and I knew I was going to get my answers there. 

I quickly set up an account and subscribed to hers. But to my utter disappointment, there was nothing out of the ordinary there. Just lingeries pictures, a couple of full body ****. That's it. Nothing that would explain what I was going through.

This was because she had another account. Under a pseudonym, one that she never told me about. Thank **** for my connections in the IT sector. I was only able to track it down thanks to them. As soon as my phone buzzed with the message telling me about her alt account, I ran into the bathroom at the office and locked myself in the first empty stall.

I wiped the sweat off my hands and unlocked my phone. With shaky thumbs, I made the payment and got access to her account. And what I saw made my head spin in fear.

It was just the most bizarre collection of pictures. Animal skulls mounted on some sort of a greasy altar, candles arranged around a strange chalk diagram on the floor of our basement, grainy photos of rotting carcasses of dogs with their entrails ripped out and laid in a circle around them. Close up pictures of accident victims in their cars - limbs cut off, flesh burnt black, skin melting off, eyes crushed to a viscous jelly. How the **** were these photos up? How did she even get them? Why had the folks over at onlyfans not deleted them? I could feel bile rise up in my throat as I scrolled past those pictures. And the comments to those pictures were just as confusing.  Strange symbols and squiggly lines that I had never seen on a **** keyboard made up the comments. All of them. Hundreds of comments, all in what seemed to be a completely new language. 

But what terrified me the most were the videos. A primal terror clutched at my chest as I watched those videos. Unlike the pictures, she starred in each and every single one of them.

As did I.

Some of them were innocent enough. They'd start with her holding the camera and pointing it at her face. She would bring it closer and closer to her mouth until her blood red lips were almost touching the lens and then she'd start whispering. I plugged in my earphones and turned the volume up to the max to hear what she saying - but it was utter nonsense. I couldn't make heads or tails out if it. It sounded like no language I had ever heard, yet scared the **** out of me. It was like she was running her tongue around inside my ears, threatening to condemn me to a fate worse than death. She would then walk and come stand over my sleeping form. The video would now speed up and she would stand over me for hours. For **** hours as I tossed and turned, tormented by my nightmares, she would stand over me, pointing the camera down on my face.

I took a second to calm my heartbeat which *thumped* against my chest, my ears and my temple before moving on. 

Another video. This time the camera was set up on a tripod next to my bed. She was there again, hunched over my sleeping form. But this time she didn't just watch, she bent over, splayed my forearm out and drove a little needle into it, quickly licking the drops of blood that bubbled out, before turning and grinning at the camera, the greenish night vision making her eyes gleam. I gasped and almost dropped the phone. There were so many of these videos - her injuring me, licking the blood off and then grinning at the camera. Literally hundreds of them. All with the same script.

And then I moved on to the most recent video. The screen flickered to life and our basement came into view. It didn't look anything like I was familiar with. Lit up by candles that bathed the room in a dull orange glow, the entire basement had been turned into some sort of an altar, like the pictures I had earlier seen. Unclean cattle skulls were strewn across the room, the floor was slathered with squiggly chalk lines set up in strange symbols, tapestries with dizzying designs embroidered on them hung from the rafters and smoke arose from somewhere off screen. In the middle out of it all though, was the love of my life. ****, with her entire body soaked in blood she was writhing on the floor, touching herself and moaning in a hoarse and guttural voice. Propped up on a small table in front of her was a framed picture of me with the eyes burnt off, probably with a cigarette. The fear that crashed into me brought tears to my eyes. She began rubbing herself faster. And faster and faster and faster and faster until her hand was just a red blur on the screen.  

Sharp shadows danced on her face as she began speaking. *Soon,* she said. *Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon.* Her voice rose with each words until she was screaming in a manic frenzy, until the words reverberated like gunshots in the basement. And then the video came to an abrupt end.

I blinked furiously to clear my rapidly fading vision, trying to wrest control of my body from the terror that threatened to shut it down. And then my phone buzzed again, and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the message.

*"Hey babe ;) When are you coming home tonight?"*

[M](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mandahrk/) || [T](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a 911 operator. Just had the most terrifying call...
 
 Assistant: “911, what is your emergency?”


“Yeah, hi, um...This is going to sound kind of strange but there's a man stumbling around in circles in my front yard.”


“...could you repeat that, sir?”


“He looks...sick, or lost, or ****, or something. I just woke up to get a glass of water and heard snow crunching around underneath my front window so I peeked out...I'm looking at him now, he's about ten yards away from my window. Something's not right.”

“What is your address, sir?”

“1617 Quarry Lane, in Pinella Pass.”

“I'm going to send a squad car your way, but that's quite a ways out. Are you alone in your house sir?”

“Yes, I'm alone.”

“Can you confirm that all of your doors and windows are locked? Stay on the phone with me.”

“I know that my front is definitely locked, but I'll go check my back door again really quick. 

…

I appreciate your help, by the way, I know this is kind of strange but I really hope that –“

...

“...Sir? Are you still there?”

“He's...he's still in the yard yard. But he's...what the ****...he's upside down...”

“Sir? Stay on with me, what is happening?”

“He's staring right at me...but he's...he's standing on his hands now. He's perfectly still, staring straight at me. He's doing a handstand and he's smiling at me and not moving.”

“He's...he's doing a handstand, sir?”

“I...I don't know how he...yeah, he's facing me and standing on his hands and he's got this huge smile and he's perfectly still...what the ****...please get someone out here NOW.”

“Sir I need you to remain calm. I've put out the call and an officer is on his way.”

“His teeth are so *huge*...what the ****, please help me...”

“Sir I want you to try and keep an eye on him but make sure your back door is locked again. We need to make sure all possible access points are secured. Can you talk me through and confirm that your back door is locked?”

“Okay...I'm walking backwards now and keeping him in my sight...

My hand is on the back doorknob now...it's locked. I need to check the deadbolt so I'm going to take my eyes off of him for a split second.”

“Alright sir. Help is on the way. Just stay on the phone with me, everything's going to be alright.

Sir?


…


...Sir? Are you still there?”

“He's...his face. It's up against the glass.”

“Sir, I need you to speak up. What is happening?”

“I looked away for a split second and now...his face. It's pressed up against my front window. His teeth are huge and he's still smiling...There's no color in his eyes...Jesus please help me, why won't it just **** *move*...”

“Sir, I need you to go to the nearest room and lock yourself inside of it. Do you have a basement or a bedroom that you can lock yourself in?”

“He won't stop staring...he's going to hurt me...”

“Sir I need you to listen to me. Lock yourself somewhere safe until the officer arrives at your house. Can you hear me?”

“I...yes...yes, I'm going to lock myself in my room.”

“And you're positive that you're alone in your house, correct?”

“Yes, I'm alone in the house...

…wait a moment...

he's moving. He's shaking his head. He's telling me no. He can hear us. 

He's telling me I'm not alone.”

…

…

…

“Sir? Sir are you still there? I heard a loud noise, is everything alright?

…

…

“Sir?”



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note:

I highly recommend reading along with the [fantastic dramatic reading](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6RXypxdp0) by /u/Cryaotic. 


Also find out more in [Part II](http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2xbeib/urgent_update_im_the_911_operator_that_took_the/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There's a man who follows me around and narrates my life, and he's started to say some unsettling things
 
 Assistant: He’s always been here. Although, I actually don’t know if he’s a ‘he’, and though I wouldn’t want to assume anything, the voice is definitely a male’s voice. I’ve never seen his face; always the back of him. He wears a black trench coat with a popped collar so that all I can really see is the very top of his head and part of his black boots.

I can’t communicate with him, and I figured this out a few years back. He just stands a few feet away from me at all times, his back to me, narrating my entire life. No one else can see him, I figured this out a few years back as well, nor can they hear him.

My day usually starts off the same, I always wake up to the same sentence.

“Natalia wakes up and rolls over in her bed.”

Every single day he says that because that is what I do. It’s all very mundane; my life is not that interesting after all.

I’ve sort of learned to live with it, and I can almost tune him out now. I’ve never really told anyone else about him because I know that no one would believe me. So I really don’t have much of a choice, other than learning to deal with it and tunning him out when I really need to.

About a week ago, I was cooking dinner; mashed potatoes and black bean tacos, and tunning him out as normal. As I was chopping up some cilantro for my tacos however, he said something that caught my attention.

“Natalia is innocently chopping cilantro, without any knowledge that she is in grave danger.”

I froze, the knife in the middle of my small pile of cilantro, and looked over at him. He was standing on the other side of the kitchen island, facing my dinner table.

“What?” I asked, knowing that he wasn’t going to reply.

At this point, I think I’d be more freaked out about him replying than him not.

He said nothing for a few minutes, so I finished chopping, wiping the pieces of cilantro that got stuck to the blade, with my finger and cutting it in the process.

“****!” I walked turned around and turned on the faucet, rinsing the knife and my finger.

“Natalia cut herself, and her blood oozes out, pleasing the one who watches.”

I turned the faucet off and turned around.

He hadn’t moved, but I was sure that I heard him correctly.

I walked over to the window on the wall to my left and pulled on the cord, shutting the blinds as I became paranoid.

I managed to eat my dinner and do the dishes without any other weird comments and got ready for bed.

As I got sleepier, I reached over and turned off the lamp by my bed, rolling over onto my left side and closing my eyes.

“Natalia rolls over, closing her eyes and peacefully lying in her bed. What she doesn’t know, however, is that she will soon face a horrible fate that will end in her death.”

I opened my eyes, sitting up and looking over at his silhouette, slightly lit by the moonlight. I waited a few minutes, but he said nothing else, and I eventually fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning as my alarm went off.

“Natalia wakes up and rolls over in bed, one day closer to her inevitable death.”

I got up, walking into the bathroom and slamming the door shut, annoyed and a little bit scared.

He had been narrating my entire life, and had never said anything creepy or out of the ordinary, so what was going on now?

I opened the faucet and began splashing water onto my face.

“Natalia washes her face, but she doesn’t seem to realize that it is much easier for someone to attack when her eyes are closed.”

I rinsed the soap away from my eye area and looked at my reflection in front of me, and at his, standing behind me.

I finished rinsing my face with my eyes open and managed to dry it without completely covering my eyes. The rest of my week went pretty similar; normal narrations for the most part, with some creepy stuff sprinkled in.

“He is coming for her very soon. It is unavoidable. Natalia must die.”

Every time he said something, I looked around at my surroundings, paranoid. I spent the entire week anxious and paranoid. I barely slept, fearing that I would wake up in the middle of the night to some performing spontaneous surgery on me. I put a knife in my bedside drawer and pepper spray under my pillow.

Yesterday, there were more creepy things than usual.

“Natalia’s days are numbered.”

“Natalia has been feeling anxious; as she should.”

“The one who watches is arriving shortly.”

“The one who watches is very excited to **** Nataliia.”

“There will be no escape; only death.”

I didn’t go out anywhere, for fear that would somehow cause whatever was going to happen, to happen sooner.

Last night, I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth and staring at his reflection behind me in the mirror. As I swished mouthwash around in my mouth, he spoke again.

“Natalia brushes her teeth for the last time. Tomorrow, she dies.”

I spit out the mouthwash, choking on a bit that had made its way down my throat. I coughed and wheezed.

“Natalia choked on the mouthwash, feeling like she was dying. But it’s not her time yet. Her time is tomorrow.”

I managed to catch my breath and walked over to my bed, crawling in and leaving the lamps on. The last thing I needed was to be woken up at midnight and have to fight off a killer in the dark.

I woke up today a few hours before my alarm and got up. I was still alive, and nothing was out of place. Maybe I wasn’t going to die today. Maybe it was all some sort of fluke.

I walked into the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush. I squeezed out some toothpaste to brush my teeth and put the toothbrush in my mouth. I looked up into the mirror, at my reflection, and then I froze.

I  spit into the sink and looked around the bathroom. I stuck my head back into my bedroom and looked around there as well. I made my way through every single room in my house, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was gone.

Twenty-five years following me around and narrating my life, and now suddenly, when I was supposed to die, he just disappeared.

Somehow, this made me feel worse, as I realized that while the things he was saying were creepy, they were also helping me by warning me how much time I had left. Now I had no warning and no choice but to wait it out and see what happened.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m definitely going to die. But how? And by who? Who was “the one who watches”? What did that even mean?

I’ve spent my entire day in the kitchen; I figure there are more exits here as well as weapons, and I’d probably be safer here than in another smaller room of the house.

So far, nothing has happened. I’ve been sitting in silence, which is odd because I’ve never been in complete silence.

About an hour ago, all the lights began to flicker in the house, but that only lasted a few seconds, and it’s gone back to normal now.

I still don’t know what to expect, but I think I’m probably safer at my house. Well, I thought I would be, until the doorbell rang.

I got up and walked into the living room, walking up to the door and peering out of the peephole. It was him. He was standing outside on my porch, with his back to me as usual. I didn’t move; I didn’t even breathe as I just watched him standing there.

He’s still out there now, but he hasn’t said a word. I’m still in my kitchen, not knowing what to do. I could head him mumbling outside the door a few minutes ago, and I finally decided to get up and listen.

“Two thousand, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven…”

He’s still counting down, and I’ve now got about twenty minutes left. I can see that it’s getting darker and darker outside as he counts down, even though it’s not even three o’clock in the afternoon yet.

Every time I look out the window, something disappears; a house on my street, a car, a tree. Whenever something vanishes, it’s replaced with darkness. And he keeps counting down.

This might be my last chance at communication. I’m going to die today.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: You’re Going to Notice a Woman in your Home, You Must Ignore Her.
 
 Assistant: It was December of 1999 when ‘she’ infested our quiet, midwestern home. My father called for me from downstairs— I assumed it was time for dinner. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs and had his hand up in an effort to keep me from coming down. 

The moment I saw the panic in his eyes, I knew something was wrong. 

“I want you to listen to me very carefully.” He said. My heart started to race as he continued. “It’s very important that you keep your eyes on me. You’re going to notice... someone else in our home. But you must ignore ‘her’ as much as possible.”

I almost started laughing. My 12 year old mind trying to comprehend what he was getting at, assuming this was some sort of out-of-character joke. 
Before I could respond, he continued. “She’s going to whisper things, follow you, and whatever else she can to get your attention. It’s going to be very difficult,  son, but you must never interact with her. I promise she will leave, but only if you pretend she isn’t there, and try not to think about her. Promise me.”

There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I was too frightened and confused. I managed to spit out “okay dad.”

“Alright, come downstairs. It’s time for dinner. Hurry, I’ve made ’her’ stronger just by telling you. But I had to, I can’t afford you looking at ‘her’ by mistake. Trust me.  Now stay focused!” He barked. 

I did as I was told and slowly crept down the stairs, keeping my eyes glued to my father’s as he back-peddled into the kitchen. I felt the temperature drop significantly as I reached the first floor. I smelled a familiar, sickening and sour scent in the air. It reminded me of the time a raccoon died in our wall and stunk up the house for a whole week. 

My father and I sat down at the table at the same time, my sister was across from me— her head hung and her eyes stared at the empty, porcelain plate in front of her. My mother pulled a casserole out of the oven, her eyes were swollen and tear stained. 

I kept my focus on my family, but out of the corner of my eye I could see a blurry mess of dark, matted hair, and sickly, grey skin. There was no energy in the kitchen, drained of all the warmth and laughter that usually accompanied our meals. 

My sister grabbed my knee under the table and whispered, “can you see her too?”

I nodded.

“Quiet!” My father hissed.

The woman walked forward with wet, crackling footsteps. The smell was nauseating. She crept towards the table, stopping directly behind my sister, only a few inches away, and rested a decrepit hand on her shoulder. She winced in fear and stared at me. I immediately put my head down. 

My mother served our dinner, doing her best to pretend as if everything was okay. I could see my father clutching my sisters hand underneath the glass table in an attempt to keep her from completely losing it. My sister spent the entire dinner with the skeletal hand on her shoulder, nearly inaudible whispers spewed from the woman’s mouth and filled the room like white noise. 

And that’s how we lived for months— doing our best to live a normal life despite the ever-present, unwanted guest. Even if we left the house, she was somehow able to follow us all. Whenever the four of us were in the car, she could be seen in the rear view mirror or standing on the side of the road. My parents didn’t let anyone visit, and never let us stay at friends’ homes during the months of ****. 

We were able to whisper to one another when it was absolutely necessary to discuss ‘her’ presence, if ‘she’ wasn’t too close. My father made us promise to never tell anyone. That was the only way to quarantine her, the parasite of attention. We concluded that she infected a single household at a time, unable to be seen by anyone outside the home unless their mind had been tainted with knowledge of her existence. 

I learned a few years later that my father was the reason for her arrival. His sister, back in the 70s, had been infected from another and it followed my aunt into their home. In 1999, for whatever reason, my father struggled to keep the thought of ‘her’ at bay. In turn he  brought ‘her’ back into his life... and ours. We kept the promise of keeping her a secret from others, and it was the hardest thing we’ve ever done. 

All of us tried leaving the house as a group, and ‘she’ followed. We couldn’t bring ourselves to break our family apart.

It was hardest for my mother, who was stuck alone with ‘her’ while we’re at school and my father was at work. Everything changed the day my mother broke. It was a snowy February night, we had finished dinner and my mother decided to go to bed early. ‘She’ was sitting on their bed— making ‘herself’ almost impossible to ignore. My mother couldn’t take it. I heard her screaming from the bedroom, demanding that ‘she’ leave us alone. My father sprinted upstairs to try and stop her. 

That was the last I ever saw my mother. A pool of blood on the white carpet was all that remained. The woman was still there, but my mother was gone. In the following weeks, ‘she’ whispered to me. ‘She’ told me I could see my mother again, all I had to do was look and ask how. I never did. 

The reason I am telling you is because... I WANT YOU TO THINK ABOUT HER. 

I saw ‘her’ again, this morning, for the first time in 18 years. I cannot afford to lose my wife or children to the parasite. I need you to think about her dark hair and grey skin. Think about ‘her’ in your home, so that she may leave mine. You’re already infected, and eventually you’re going to notice a woman in your home, you must ignore ‘her.’ It’s for your own good. 

I’m so sorry.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a nurse. Last night, I saw something strange on the ER’s security camera.
 
 Assistant: I was sitting at the nurse’s station, reading **** tabloids and drinking coffee when Olga -- the other nurse on duty -- poked my arm.

“The little girl escaped,” she said, with a giggle.

“What?”

She pointed to the security camera feed.

Little Madeline was standing in the hallway, her image grainy and pixelated.

We’d admitted Madeline at 8:23 PM. A little girl, no more than six. Her face covered in blood. She’d taken a nasty fall down the stairs. Dr. Thompson was worried she might develop a subdural hematoma, so we were keeping her for overnight.

“Ugh, no. She shouldn’t be up.” I paused, leaning towards the monitor. “And where’d she get those clothes?”

She wasn’t wearing the hospital gown we’d put her to bed in. No -- she was wearing a black dress, white stockings, and shiny black shoes. As if she were all dressed up for church. Or a funeral.

And she kept whipping her head back and forth. As if expecting someone to come down the hallway.

“Well? Are you going to go get her or not?” Olga said, looking up from her phone.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get her.” I pushed the chair out, leapt up, and speed-walked down the hallway. “Madeline?” I called, as I rounded the corner. “Madel --”

My breath caught in my throat.

There was no one there.

I walked up to her room. “Madeline?” I called, poking my head in.

She was sleeping peacefully in bed.

In her hospital gown. With her IV still attached.

*Weird.* I walked back to the nurse's station. I couldn’t help feeling a bit unsettled. I know kids sometimes do freaky ****, but there’s no way a 6-year-old could reattach an IV.

I plopped back down at the nurse’s station.

Olga raised her eyebrows at me. “You found her?”

“Yeah. She’s sleeping in her room.” I leaned towards her and lowered my voice. “This is going to sound really weird, but I don’t think… I don’t think she ever got out of bed.”

“Oooh, spooky,” she said, with a grin. “Maybe she’s [possessed by that slime thing](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bdojla/im_a_nurse_i_saw_something_in_the_emergency_room/) you wouldn’t shut up about last week.” Back to texting.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “That’s not something to joke about.”

“Oh, really? What are you going to do, **** me?” She held up her hands in front of her. “I’m so scared!”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to reading about the half-mermaid that apparently washed up on the shores of Lake Erie. *Psh, I can’t believe people actually believe this stuff,* I thought.

It was 3:40 AM when it happened again.

I happened to look up at the hallway, and the security monitor caught my eye. Madeline was standing just outside her door. In her dress and stockings.

Except she looked scared, this time.

“Look. It’s Madeline again,” I said, poking Olga.

As I said it, one of the lights flickered out at the far end of the hallway. The video feed grew darker.

Olga looked up from her texting (who was she even texting after 3 AM?!) and followed my gaze. “Oh, it's the little demon girl again! Ha, ha!”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “If you think all of this is *so* funny, *you* go check on her.”

Her eyes widened a bit. “Uh, okay.” She slowly got up, taking as long as humanly possible. Then she disappeared down the hallway.

I turned back to the video feed.

Another light had gone out at the end of the hall. The video was darker and grainier now. But I could still make out Madeline’s little form standing in front of the room -- barely more than a silhouette.

*Click!*

Another light went out.

Then another. And another. The hallway was quickly engulfed in darkness, until the only light on was the one above Madeline's door.

“Well, ****,” I muttered to myself. “We’re going to need an electrician.”

I drank the last dregs of my iced coffee. When I put the cup down, I saw it.

My blood ran cold.

It was a shadow. A grainy, pixelated silhouette, roiling and shifting in the darkness. At first I thought it was Olga, coming from the other end of the hall.

It wasn’**** was too tall, stretching from the ceiling to the floor. Too thin (no offense, Olga.) I leaned into the monitor. *What the ****?*

The shadow got darker. Larger. It slowly bled out of the darkness and into the light of the hall.

Right next to Madeline.

It was so dark and subtle, I thought it might be just some trick of the camera. Some error of the low light.

But Madeline saw it too.

Because she was backing away. Stretching her arms over the open hospital room door. Shaking her head violently.

The shadow advanced.

*Beep! Beep! Beep!*

My eyes snapped away from the security system to the nurse's console.

*No.*

Madeline's vitals were plummeting. Her heart rate, blood pressure…

I shot up and sprinted down the hallway.

Olga had just gotten there, her hand on the doorknob. Half the hallway was dark, just like in the feed. But no tall shadow like I’d seen, no Madeline standing in the hallway.

“Call Dr. Thompson!” I screamed. “She's in trouble!”

I flew past her, into the room.

Madeline lay still and motionless on the bed.

Her heart had stopped.

I ran over. Started CPR. *Come on, come on,* I screamed, internally. *Please don't take her from us. Please --*

*Blip. Blip. Blip.*

Her heartbeat returned just as Dr. Thompson rushed in.

I fell against the wall and began to sob.

\*\*\*

We kept Madeline in the hospital for a few more days, but I don't think we needed to. She seemed to recover quickly. As I checked her vitals to release her, I’d nearly forgotten all about the shadow.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her, as I took her blood pressure.

“Great,” Madeline said. She turned to her parents. “She saved me!”

“Aww, it was nothing.”

She glanced at me. “Not *you,*” she said, condescendingly. “Maggie.”

*Maggie?* I furrowed my eyebrows at her. *Ungrateful little kid.*  “Who's Maggie?”

Madeline’s mother uneasily stared at the floor. Her father wrapped an arm around her, and coughed strangely.

*Okay, then.*

“You’re all set,” I said, ripping off the blood pressure cuff.

“Yay!” she squealed. She grabbed her mom’s hand, and the two of them walked into the hallway. But the father stayed behind.

“Thank you so much for everything,” he said, with a smile. “As I understand it… you saved Madeline’s life.”

“No, that was *Maggie,”* I said, rolling my eyes.

He coughed again, strangely.

The curiosity bit into me. Completely overstepping my bounds as a nurse, I asked: “Who’s Maggie? Her imaginary friend?”

He sighed heavily. “Uh… sort of. When my wife was pregnant with Madeline… she was actually pregnant with twins.”

My heart stopped.

“Identical twins. But one of them passed away in the ****,” he continued. “We told Madeline, since we don't believe in keeping secrets. But it appears we made a mistake. Little Madeline has an overactive imagination. Always talks about ‘Maggie,’ as if she’s actually still with us.”

He coughed again, strangely, and I realized it was to stop an impending sob. He reached out to shake my hand. “Thank you so much again.”

He turned and followed his family down the hallway.

But all I could think about was the little girl.

Who looked exactly like Madeline, standing outside her door.

Protecting her.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandad used to come to my room at night wearing a mask. Now I know why.
 
 Assistant: Grandad’s nighttime visits started when I was 13 years old.

This was a few years ago now, but it only stopped fairly recently. And I still remember the first time it happened.

It was the middle of the school holidays, and my mum was ill. Mum being ill wasn’t something that bothered me too much at the time — it was a pretty common occurrence, something I was even used to by then. Every month it would happen the same way: dad would come to my room and tell me mum wasn’t feeling so good, and that she’d have to go away for a while until she felt better. Then he’d drive off with her in his car, and collect her a few days later. I never knew where she went. Never knew what was wrong with her, either — sometimes she’d come home with scratches up her arms, but apart from that I never saw any other symptoms.

When dad went off to collect her I’d wait by the door for them to come back. I’d wait for her to reappear and scoop me up into her arms.

"I missed you, cubby," she’d always say, planting kisses over my face. "I love you so, so much."

My name’s James, but as long as I can remember mum’s called me cubby. It’s her nickname for me.

Every month, the same routine. Mum getting ill, going away for a bit, then coming back as if nothing was wrong. But the summer I turned 13, things changed. The routine changed. Because that was the first time I started going to stay at grandad's.

My grandad’s a large man with a white beard and a shaved head. He’s from Sheffield originally, and he still has this deep, gruff northern accent. Communicates mainly in grunts. Lives on his own on the edge of the New Forest, in an old ramshackle cottage. We hardly ever saw him when I was little, and when we did I always dreaded the visits. He scared me.

I wasn’t scared of him by the time I was 13, though. Or at least that’s what I told myself. No — the reason I protested when dad told me I’d be staying with grandad this time while mum got better was because I didn’t want to leave the house. I wanted to stay near my friends. The kids I knew in the village would be out climbing trees and going on bike rides. If I was cooped up in grandad’s cottage I’d be missing out.

Dad was having none of it, though. He wouldn’t give me a reason why I had to go, or respond to my protests. Just told me it would be good for me to spend time with grandad. Then he bundled me into the car and we left.

45 minutes later I was standing on the doorstep of grandad’s cottage, raising my hand to knock. Dad had already driven off. I was trying to tell myself I wasn’t a little kid anymore, and there was nothing to be scared of — but as the cottage door creaked open and grandad’s large shadow fell over me, I couldn’t stop my heart from beating a little harder in chest.

\*

Grandad’s cottage was old. The ceilings were low and the furniture was minimal. The carpets were moth-eaten, ancient things that seemed to kick up tiny clouds of dust whenever you put a foot on them. The bathroom had black mould rising up the wallpaper. The paper itself was damp and flaking, and had peeled away to the stone in some areas. Entering the room felt like stepping into a cave.

My bedroom wasn’t much better. It was right at the back of the house, and it had only three pieces of furniture: an oak chest of draws, a dilapidated wardrobe, and a single bed in the corner. I remember my heart sinking the minute I set eyes on it.

Oddly, even though I can picture grandad’s house clearly enough, I don’t remember much about how I spent my days there. Especially during that first visit. I think we mainly kept out of each other’s way. Grandad would be in the lounge watching TV or reading, and I’d be in my room on my phone. Making the most of the one bar of 4G I could find in the cottage. I can’t remember if we spoke to each other much, or what we said if we did. Mostly it’s a blur.

What I do remember are the nights. The first night in particular. I told grandad I was tired, and that I was going to head to bed early. He grunted something in response. Then I spent a bit of time in my room on Snapchat and YouTube — the videos taking painfully long to load — before heading to sleep.

I woke some time in the night. The cottage was silent around me. I could hear the leaves of the birch tree rustling in the wind in the back garden, but that was all. Moonlight spilled through a gap in the curtains. I leaned over to check my phone and saw that the time was a little after 2am. 

For some reason I felt wide awake. My heart was beating hard in my chest and a film of sweat coated my forehead. As if I'd woken suddenly from a nightmare. But if I had, I couldn't remember it.

I tried to relax. Tried to lie back and let sleep wash over me again. But in grandad's cottage, relaxing wasn't an easy thing to do. At first I'd only been able to hear the tree outside the window, but as I lay there on the pillow, staring into the darkness, I began to hear other noises, too. The soft creak of a floorboard. Faint taps. A distant rattling, which I assumed had to be pipes in the wall. And other sounds, as well. Sounds I found it harder to place. At one point I heard something that sounded like a faint snuffling noise, coming from the back garden. Some kind of animal. But when I sat up in bed and strained my ears, all I could hear was the wind.

*Get a **** grip*, I told myself. *You're 13 years old. Not a little kid anymore.*

It was easier said than done, but I managed it eventually. I don't know how long I lay in the dark for, but after a while tiredness finally got the better of me. My mind began to settle. I felt myself slowly drifting off...

Only to **** suddenly awake again when I heard a noise outside my room. A soft, deliberate creak. Loud and clear in the darkness. I turned over in bed, trying not to make a sound. My heart hammered in my chest. I pulled the covers down from my face slightly, positioning myself so I could peek over them. So I could see the bedroom door. And as I stared at it, feeling like I was five years old again, I saw the handle begin to turn.

I squinted my eyes shut. I don't know what thought was going through my mind, but right then I reverted to an age-old tactic: pretending to be asleep. Playing dead. I could still see through a crack in my eyelids, but now the room was blurry as well as dark. I lay as still as possible, trying to keep my breathing normal. For a few seconds, nothing happened. There were no more sounds. And then, just as I was beginning to think I might have imagined it after all, the door swung inwards.

Grandad stood in the frame. I couldn't make out his face, but I recognised his towering bulk. He was standing completely still, filling the doorway top to bottom. Breathing heavily in the silence.

*He's just checking on you*, I told myself. *He's come to check that you're okay, that's all*.

But even as the thought went through my head, I saw something that made my blood turn cold. I saw something that made me **** in a sharp breathe and tense my entire body below the covers.

The shape of grandad's head was wrong. It was all wrong. Even in the blurry shadows, the wrongness was unmistakable. His silhouette bulged out in strange places, bulking out around the lower half of his face in a way I couldn't understand. I opened my eyes another fraction of an inch, unable to help myself. And what I saw did nothing to quiet the fear swirling in my chest.

Grandad was wearing a mask. A black mask. It covered the lower half of his face, allowing space at the top for his eyes to peer over at me. The mask covered his mouth and noise, with multiple straps on each side stretching around his cheeks to the back of his head. It looked like one of those pollution masks people sometimes wore in big cities.

I snapped my eyes fully shut. Forced myself to breathe in, then out, then in again. Nice and slow. I kept my ears strained for the sound of grandad's feet on my bedroom floor, but it never came.

After a while later I heard the soft squeak of the door shutting, and his footsteps receding down the hall.

\*

We never spoke about him coming into my room. I never mentioned it to grandad, and he never said anything about it to me. I never told anyone else, either. I thought about telling mum or dad after that first visit, but in the end I kept quiet. Partly because I was so happy to be home again, I think, but mostly because the memory had taken on a strange quality by that point -- it was like an old, half-forgotten nightmare. I could still picture it, but the fear I'd felt at the time had faded. It was as though the whole thing had happened to someone else.

The feeling didn't last, though. Next month mum got ill again, and I was packed back off to grandad's cottage. I protested harder that time, but dad still wouldn't bend. He just told me to stop being selfish, and to give my mum some space so she could get better. Wouldn't look at me as he said it.

And once again, when I stayed at grandad's cottage, he came to my room. Stood in the shadows of the doorway. The same black mask on his face. He never touched me or anything -- I don't want you to think that. This isn't that kind of story. He simply stood on the threshold of my room, on the edge of the moonlight. Staring in at me. Then after a while, he'd leave again.

The ritual happened every time I visited. It's been happening each month for the past three years. And it was only yesterday that I finally learned the truth. Only yesterday when all the pieces clicked into place at last.

Around my sixteenth birthday, I began to get ill. Weak and tired, with no energy. Hungry all the time. I got this prickly rash on my body, too, and my muscles and bones constantly seemed to ache. It was summer, so there was no school, and I stayed in bed all day. Falling in and out of a broken sleep. Dreaming.

The dreams were vivid, and strange. In them it was nighttime, and I was running. Sprinting through the woods as fast as I could. Faster than I'd ever gone before in my life. The moon hung overhead in a purple-black sky, framing me like a spotlight. And at the end of each dream, I'd stumble out into a clearing. I'd see grandad's cottage. And just as his front door began to creak open, I'd wake up in a cold sweat.

Yesterday evening, dad visited me in my room. Came and sat beside my bed. He told me that mum was ill, too, and that he'd have to take her away for a few days. Told me to get lots of rest. But when I asked him what time he'd be coming home, he told me he wouldn't. Not for a few days, anyway. He said he'd be back when mum was better, and in the meantime grandad was going to come round and look after me.

That was when I finally lost it. I was too ill to get properly angry at him, but I did my best. Screamed and yelled. Told him I didn't **** want grandad to come and stay with me, I wanted him and mum. Accused him of abandoning me. Said I hated him.

He just sat on the chair beside my bed and took it. Listened to me without saying anything. The guy looked more tired and old in that moment than I'd ever seen him look before in my life. And when I was finally finished -- when my throat was so raw I couldn't yell anymore -- he said something to me. Something that started a conversation I'll never forget.

"I know you don't understand why I'm doing this right now, but you will, soon. Grandad will explain everything."

I sighed and lay back against my pillow, exhausted. "I don't **** *want* grandad to explain anything, dad. I want you here."

"I know you do, James. But I can't stay here. Not right now. It's not safe for me."

I opened my eyes fully and stared at him, suddenly alarmed. "What do you mean it's not safe? Am I contagious or something?"

"No, no." He shook his head. "It's nothing like that. It's just that I... at certain times of the month, I have to..." He sighed again and looked back down at me. Shook his head once more. "It really is best if your grandfather explains all this, James. Your mother can help, too, when she's back. I might know more about it than most, but I don't really *know*. Not like them."

I had the urge, almost overwhelming, to reach out and shake him. I didn't understand anything he was saying. "What do they need to explain?" I said. "Can you please just tell me what the fuck's going on?"

My dad sighed again. He stood up and walked over to my bedroom window, then peered out through the curtains. "Big moon up there tonight," he said after a moment. "Not even dark out and I can already see it." He stared through the glass for a while, then turned back again. Turned to face me.

"James, you know how your mum gets poorly each month?" he said. "How she has to go away for a while until she's better?"

I nodded. Of course I knew.

"Okay, well... the reason she has to go away is because she has this... this rare condition. It only flares up every once in a while, and it's easy enough to predict when it's going to happen. But that's the *only* thing about it you can predict. At her age, they can get... well, your mother finds it hard to... to do certain things, I suppose. She finds it hard to act in a certain way."

"What condition does she have?"

"Your grandad will explain that better than me."

"Why will *he* explain? Why can't you just **** tell me?"

"Because he has it, too."

"I don't understand why you can't--" I paused, suddenly processing what my dad had just said. "Wait, did you say grandad has it?"

Dad nodded. After a moment he sat down on the end of my bed. Ran a hand through his hair. "It's genetic, James. Grandad has it, and your mum has it. And you have it, as well."

I stared at him, unsure I'd heard him correctly. "I... I have..."

"Yes, you do. It's not a bad condition, exactly, but it's something that has to be managed carefully. Your grandad has lived with it for a long time, and he knows all about it. He'll be able to help you."

Blood was pounding in my ears. Thoughts and memories were suddenly pressing at the edges of my mind like angry dogs. I pushed them away and focussed on dad.

"Is that why you started sending me to his house every month? So I got to know him better? So he could **** *help me* with whatever the **** this is I've got?"

Dad stared at me with sadness in his eyes. "It wasn't my idea," he said after a moment. "Your mother said it was best. Grandad agreed with her. When you're coming of age, it's good if you can spend time with older ones of their... well, like I said, your grandad can explain it."

I bit back another urge to scream at him. I still didn't really understand what the **** he was talking about. Or at least, the main part of my mind didn't understand. At the same time, though... *something* was starting to nag at me. Images and memories circled the outskirts of my brain, just out of sight. Monsters around a campfire. I swallowed.

"You said it wasn't safe for you," I said after a moment. "When mum gets ill. You said you can't be around her."

Dad paused, then nodded his head.

"And what about grandad? Are you safe around him?"

Dad opened his mouth, then closed it again. He frowned. "Your grandfather's better at... dealing with his symptoms," he said eventually. "He's had longer to get used to them than your mother has. But... no, I still wouldn't be safe. Not completely."

"So why was *I* safe?" I exploded. "Why did you ship me off to stay with him every month?! Is that why I've caught this **** thing?"

"No, no! I told you, it's genetic. You were born with it. And besides, your grandfather would never hurt you. We took extra precautions on the worst nights, too, I insisted on it. We made sure you'd never..."

But my dad's voice was suddenly growing distant. The things circling my mind had grown close enough for me to see them at last. They came out of the shadows and were lit up by the flames. Exposed. A barrage of images and memories flew though my head in a blur...

I remembered the times mum had come home with scratches up her arms.

I remembered the dream I'd had where I was running through the woods.

I remembered grandad, standing in my bedroom doorway in the cottage. The black mask covering his face.

And in that moment, I realised something I'd never understood before. Something that filled me with a sickening combination of terror and excitement.

The thing on grandad's face hadn't been a mask after all.

[It was a muzzle](https://www.reddit.com/r/samhaysom/).

\*\*\*

[Part Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ctfv20/my_grandad_used_to_come_to_my_room_at_night/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 9)
 
 Assistant: Sorry I’ve not been in touch guys. It’s been a busy month. However, I’m pleased to announce that, as of yesterday night, I’ve finally touched down in Phoenix, Arizona.

I’m posting this log from my first American hotel room, which offers a gorgeous view of both the state hospital and a local prison. Auspicious times.

Drop me a line if you’re in the city or if you have any information at all.
 
[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)
 
[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)
 
[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)
 
[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)
 
[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)
 
[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)
 
[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)
 
[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)
 
*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 15/02/2017

As the darkness closes in, I find myself dragged deeper and deeper into the depths of my own subconscious, until I sink through the back of my mind into an indescribable place. A featureless, directionless, timeless void that exists at the weakest point of life. 

I can feel myself drifting away, surrendered to an almost imperceptible tide, carried slowly but inexorably from the world.

The rest of the night unfolds in fleeting snapshots.

I briefly feel my body lift up from the ground, gravity pulling at my limbs as I’m conveyed through the forest.

An unknowable stretch of time later, I feel a distinct burning sensation to my right. In the world I currently inhabit, only an echo of the pain reaches me, but I can tell that it was once substantial. Unable to divine its purpose, I let the sensation fade away, before descending once more into the placid darkness.

When my eyes finally work themselves open, the sun is beginning to rise. Without an ounce of strength left in my body, all I can do is peer through my eyelashes, taking in the vague scene before me.

I’m in the back of the Wrangler, propped up against a soft pillar of luggage. There's somebody kneeling beside me, tugging at my right shoulder. When I try to address them, I discover that my voice has withered to a spectral whisper, so frail that it hardly exists at all.

**AS:** … Rob…

Hearing my voice, the figure shuffles round and kneels before me, staring into my eyes as they slowly regain their focus.

**ROB:** You just lay back Miss Sharma, I just finished patchin’ you up but I gotta make sure it’s good work.

**AS:** Wh… what happened to you?

**ROB:** Denise had me at gunpoint, had to act like I was all but dead. When she into the forest, I got free, took the med kit into the trees, fixed myself up a little. I was comin’ to help when I heard this awful noise. Went to check it out... that’s when I found you.

**AS:**... Is the engine running?

**ROB:** Wanted to warm up the place for you. You were in shock, and since the battery don’t run down anymore I thought-

**AS:** No I mean… how? The key, it got-

**ROB:** You think I’d risk gettin’ out this far with only one copy of my car key?

Rob seems almost insulted, and thinking back to everything I’ve learned about him over the course of this trip, I can see why he might be. Even in my weakened state I can’t help but laugh; though it admittedly comes out as stilted wheezing, diffusing quietly into the air.

**AS:** No that’s… that’s actually very “you”. I think Bluejay would’ve appreciated that information last night.

**ROB:** Yeah well, she didn’t ask.

**AS:** … I’m glad you made it Rob. 

**ROB:** Glad you made it too. They build’em tough down in London.

I rest my head back against the luggage.

**AS:** I’m from Bristol.

**ROB:** Of course… yeah of course that’s… sorry…

Rob tries to recover his smile, but it slips quickly from his grasp. In its absence, his features cringe into sudden, uncontrollable sadness.

**ROB:** Miss Sharma I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!

Rob Guthard’s weathered face bursts into a heaving mess of tears. He repeats those two words as he lumbers towards me, throwing his arms around my waist and resting his head on my left shoulder. My hand feels like lead as I raise it up and brush it against his hair, holding him against me.

As the man continues to sob, I let my head roll slowly to the right, observing the damage to my arm. Last night, lost in the muddled throes of shock, the harm had been unquantifiable, the details drowned out by the encompassing haze of severe blood loss and a blaring, primal alarm which had forced me to move without questioning why. Now that I’m on the other side, bathed in the quiet warmth of the Wrangler, I’m able to fully assess the extent of my injury. 

Everything below my right elbow is gone.

It feels almost like a dream. My upper arm is practically unblemished, save for a few dark bruises from last night’s fall, yet it descends an impossibly short distance before ending in a blunt, surreal stump. The wound itself is hidden from view, swaddled in fresh white bandages.

I can’t seem to figure out how I should feel and, consequently, I don’t seem to feel anything.

**AS:** It’s ok Rob. It’s ok.

**ROB:** I never… I never meant for any of this to-

**AS:** I know… I know.

Rob pulls back, his eyes still watering.

**ROB:** I’ll take you home, ok? I’ll find somewhere to turn around and we’ll get you home.

I can tell Rob’s offer is genuine, and to be honest I’m a little surprised. I still remember our verbal agreement, forged at the mouth of the tunnel;  that he would not be turning his car around until he reached the road’s end. I never expected he’d be the one to renege on the deal.

I’m aware this could be my best chance to leave it all behind; to flee from the horrors of the road, before they take even more of me. I know the way back. I know that it leads to safety, to family, to blessed normality. However, as an insidious voice in the back of my mind quietly notes, it doesn’t lead to answers.

**AS:**... I’m still game if you are.

Rob sends me a heartbroken smile, which I would return if I had the strength. In that moment, a sombre understanding develops between us. An understanding that after everything we’ve seen, everything that’s happened, we’re both still choosing the secrets of the road. The decision reveals something about us, exposing a driving force behind our actions that negates our concern for survival, and overshadows the imagined protests of our loved ones.

It’s a decision only two broken people would make.

Rob spends the morning packing up the Wrangler, giving me time to rest. The fact that he’s walking around at all is remarkable, let alone conducting his usual routine at his usual pace. As I begin to feel life crawl slowly back into my veins, I wonder whether the strange force that has sustained us both, as well as the Wrangler’s fuel tank, could also have a mild restorative effect. The notion should bring me comfort; instead it makes me feel like a lobster in a tank.

A few hours later, Rob carries me out of the car, letting me rest in the doorframe. In front of me lie three mounds of dirt, raised slightly from the surrounding earth. Two are headed by crosses, formed from knotted sticks bound tightly together. The grave on the far left lies bare, bereft of any religious affiliation.

**AS:** Is that… Bluejay’s? Without the cross?

**ROB:** Didn’t think she’d want one.

**AS:** She wouldn’t have done that for you, you know.

**ROB:** Good thing I ain’t her then. I buried what I can, but that was some state she was in. Did the child **** her?

Rob goes to throw a foldable spade into the back of the car. For a brief moment, I consider letting his statement go unanswered.

**AS:** No, it didn’t… I did.

Rob immediately marches back round, his brow furrowed in confusion.

**AS:** I hid a C4 charge in my satchel. When she took the bag I… well…

I gesture to the bare grave. Rob looks as if he’s seeing me for the first time.

**ROB:** Where did you-

**AS:** From your son’s car.

I watch as my quiet assertion strikes Rob’s ears, as its meaning burrows through his consciousness, its implications contorting his features into a look of shame and damning revelation. 

I can tell from his reaction that I’ve got it right.

We haven’t had a chance to speak since I learned his son’s name. That piece of information formed the crucial thread, stringing together the strange and seemingly incongruent discoveries I’d encountered on the road. Earlier in the week I may have been worried to confront him with this information, but things are different now. We’ve come too far, we’ve been through too much and, if he’s truly ferrying me somewhere with malicious intent, I’m powerless to stop him anyway.

I raise a weak hand towards him; a quiet request for assistance.

**AS:** I think it’s time we had a second interview.

Following a tense and guilty silence, Rob simply nods and helps me into the passenger seat.

*****

**ROB:** It wasn’t military. It was commercial.

The Wrangler continues to crawl through the forest. I’ve stayed quiet for almost half an hour, letting Rob formulate a response in his own words, and in his own time.

**AS:** Commercial?

**ROB:** Yeah, explosive charges for controlled demolition. Bobby was in the business, had his own firm.

**AS:** You must’ve been proud.

**ROB:** Yeah… yeah he built that place up from nothin’. Tourin’ his office was one of the best days of my life.

**AS:** So… how did he end up out here?

Rob grows quiet, reluctantly accepting that **** have to start from the beginning.

**ROB:** … Bobby was a smart kid… smarter than I ever was. He coulda run the farm at 15 but, country life didn’t take. Instead he moved away to Phoenix, picked up a college degree, got himself a steady career.

**AS:** A steady career? That’s pretty rebellious for a Guthard.

**ROB:** Hah… well we were pretty different people… didn’t always get along. I was still a courier in those days, always jettin’ off somewhere new. ‘Course I went to Japan, stayed there a while. Then…

**AS:** Aokigahara.

**ROB:** That’s right. Changed everythin’. Came home after five years with a new hobby. Bobby didn’t care for the stories but... his ma had died sudden while I was away; we both wanted to start over, be in each other’s lives more so... he came with me to the Pacific North West, trackin’ down Sasquatch. Creature didn’t show, but Bobby had a good time campin’ so he kept joinin’ me. Before long he was doin’ the research himself, organisin’ trips, pickin’ up rumours of strange stuff all across the country.

**AS:** Sounds like a nice time for you both.

**ROB:** It was.

**AS:**  So… was it Bobby who discovered the Left/Right Game?

**ROB:** … He called me up one day, outta the blue. This was about three years ago. Said he’d found a set of rules; said we should try out. To be honest, I thought our trippin’ days were over; I was back in Alabama and he was startin’ up a family of his own, but suddenly he’s tellin’ me to meet him in Phoenix so, of course I went along.

**AS:** And this time, you both realised it was real.

**ROB:** Bobby knew as soon as we reached the tunnel. He passed that way every day, knew it wasn’t supposed to be there but… there it was. He said that was the most amazing thing he ever saw. We charted it over the next year, whenever we could get the time together, but we moved slow, mapped the place out, turned back on the regular. It took us a while before we got the courage to stay on the road overnight, both of us were terrified the tunnel would disappear or somethin’.

I can tell Rob is replaying the events in his head. The reminiscence almost makes him smile.

**ROB:** Bobby’s wife was a real doll. Used to work in his office. Kindest girl I ever met, funny too. There was a decade between’em but you could tell they were good for each other. He shared everything with her, including the road. In fact, once Bobby got a little more secure with the rules, they started to map it together…explorin’ their own little world.

After a brief pause, Rob’s expression sinks slightly; the reminiscence is growing darker.

**ROB:** Few months go by, I’m hearin’ from Bobby a little less but, I expected that. Then one evenin’ I get a call from the hospital, tellin’ me my boy had walked into some ER in Phoenix.

**AS:** Was he ok?

**ROB:** No. He was in a bad way. Leg all busted up, delirious, askin’ for Marjorie. They found her bag in his car but... she was nowhere to be found.

**AS:** Bobby lost her on the road.

**ROB:** Yeah, that’s right.

**AS:** On our second night here, after we lost Ace, you told me the road had never hurt anyone before.

**ROB:** Well, that wasn’t a lie at least. It wasn’t the road that got’em.

**AS:** … What do you mean?

**ROB:** They made it to the forest. None of us had got that far before but… this time they pushed a little further than usual.

**AS:** Do you know why?

**ROB:** They were gonna have a kid. Marjorie was almost due… wasn’t travellin’ so well. I think they knew they wouldn’t be hittin’ the road for a while. It was like a uh… like a last hurrah I guess.

**AS:** But only Bobby came back?

**ROB:** They explored the woods till nightfall. When Bobby said they had to turn back… Marjorie didn’t want to. He never told me why, never told me what happened. By the end of that trip, Marjorie was still out there and he was in a hospital bed.

Rob takes a moment to collect himself, to put the facts in order. The trees are starting to grow thin, sunlight bursting through the widening gaps in the canopy. It looks like we’re nearing the forest’s end.

**ROB:** Bobby took a month or so to recover. Boy was desperate to get his wife back, and of course he’d become a suspect in her disappearance. Needless to say the first thing he did was head onto the road to find Marjorie.

**AS:** But he didn’t.

**ROB:** Nope… No he found her. Just uh… a little sooner than he thought.

I take a moment to process Rob’s implication. Suddenly I feel a stone drop in my stomach.

**AS:** She was on the 34th turn.

Rob nods solemnly.

**ROB:** Wasn’t the woman he knew of course. Stood there all day, just mumblin’ about the road. Didn’t even recognise him. I remember he called me up right after he first saw her there, his heart breakin’. He tried almost every day from then on, always stoppin’ at that turn. He’d yell, he’d plead, he’d bring pictures and gifts but… she never responded. Don’t know if it was really her but, whatever was on that corner, it belonged to the road.

**ROB:** Bobby lost somethin’ of himself on that corner. After a while, his fascination with the game turned sour, turned to hate. He thought the road was somethin’ evil, that it had no place linking into our world.

**ROB:** I was checkin’ up on him at that point, every few days or so. One weekend he said he was doin’ better, even said he’d been in to work. I thought maybe things were turnin’ round but... then he went quiet; didn’t pick up his phone for three days. I had my place in Phoenix by that point, and a spare key to his house. That’s where I found the note; tellin’ me he’d gone back through. One last bid to find his wife… and if he couldn’t bring her back well-

**AS:** He was going to destroy the tunnel.

**ROB:** Cut the road off from the world. I played the game in Phoenix, Chicago, a few different places, but that one tunnel is what links you to the road. I looked around his garage, found the box for a phone, lot of electronics all over the place… pretty clear what he’d done. So I jump in my car.

We pass out of the forest, onto a long narrow road. In the distance, I can see our route winding up a towering wall of sandstone, disappearing into a set of rolling mountains.

**ROB:** He passed me on his way back, just before I hit Jubilation. Thunderin’ down the road at full speed, drivin’ like crazy. That’s when I knew he hadn’t found her… that he was goin’ to take out the tunnel, end the game once and for all.

**AS:** But he never got that far.

**ROB:** I tried to talk to him. Called his cell, tried the radio frequencies, there was a number on the sim card documentation that he had, **** help me I even messaged him on that one. In the end it was just me and him, racin’ back to Phoenix. He was faster than me but I was drivin’ better. After few bad corners I caught up...

**AS:** You ran him off the road.

Rob stares out at the faraway ridges, his hands grasping the steering wheel.

**ROB:** Cell service don’t work through the tunnel. He knew that. He was either goin’ to blow it up on this side… or while he was in there.

**AS:** So you were trying to save him or save yourself?

**ROB:** Neither. I was tryin’ to save the road... Say what you want about this place Miss Sharma, but it’s a doorway out of everythin’ we ever known. It’s the road out of… out of reality. It may be the most significant frontier we ever cross and that’s… part of me knew, that was too important for one man to take away.

For the second time today, Rob battles back tears, and for the second time, he fails. They roll silently down his cheek as he continues on.

**ROB:** He was more injured than I thought. He’d hurt himself bad before he reached me, that’s why he was headed to the tunnel so quick. He wanted to destroy it while he still could.

**ROB:** The road had taken almost everythin’ from him, and then I took the rest… I denied him his hope, took away his chance to leave the world on his own terms. In the end he didn’t even seem angry… he just asked after Marjorie. Asked me why she did it, why she left. I laid him to rest there, visited the place often but… I never had a good answer for him. That’s when I started preppin’ the next run.

**AS:** So you posted his logs online, and pretended to discover them.

**ROB:** Thought people would ask less questions that way.

**AS:** And where did we all fit in to this? Why did you bring us here with you?

**ROB:** I guess… I thought it was time the world knew. Didn’t want all this to end up an old man’s secret. Honest to ****, if I knew the road was gonna… I swear I never woulda brought you here.

Rob’s features tighten, all his shame and guilt rising to the fore. I can’t say it isn’t deserved. Despite his intentions, despite his penitence, the man had blinded himself to clear dangers, hurt those closest to him and, on a road where secrets had killed so many, he’d kept the most significant one of all.

Well, perhaps not the most significant.

**AS:** You didn’t bring us here Rob.

Rob turns to me, confused.

**AS:** I met someone in the forest last night, a figure, just like the one you saw in Japan, “looked like static you see on a TV screen” … I think it was you Rob. I think I saw you and I think that… all those years ago…

In my current state, the mechanics of the event, and their stunning implications, lie beyond my explanatory capacity. In the end, I just raise my lost right arm, and wait for Rob to make the connection.

A moment later the car screeches to a halt.

Rob stares straight ahead, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. I’m aware that beneath his stone-set features, every square inch of grey matter is fighting to process the fresh revelation. If it’s true that, in those quiet woods, I somehow reached across the decades to a young Rob Guthard, then it changes everything. The twisting narratives that led us to this point, Rob’s burgeoning obsession, his son’s tragic fate, they all took root in that single moment. More than a decade prior to my own birth, I’d placed us on the path which would lead me to his door. 

As chaotic as the road often seems, that moment in the forest hints at something deeper, something intentional.

Rob steps out of the car for a while, before wordlessly climbing back in and firing up the Wrangler. From that point on we continue as two silent passengers, lost in thought, disappearing into the sandstone mountains.

We travel across the thin mountain road for the next two hours, a wall of crooked rock hemming us in. When we pass onto the other side, and the outcrop falls away, the landscape below us has changed completely, and we’re treated to a strange and breath-taking sight.

The Wrangler is traversing the cliffs above a vast, flat desert; a tundra of vibrant orange stretching as far as the eye can see. I can just make out the road, cutting a meandering path through the sand far below us. At the centre of this otherwise featureless expanse, a collection of monolithic structures, towering columns of glass and metal, rise from the ground, connected by a web of long perpendicular streets.

**AS:** There’s a city… there’s a city on the road.

Rob keeps his eyes forward. Despite the epic majesty of the cityscape below us. I can tell that his mind is elsewhere, that he’s still digesting the contents of our interview. In the end, I think it best to leave him alone with his thoughts.

We stay on the mountain for another twenty minutes, before finally winding down to the desert floor. The space ahead of us is two-tone; the sharp saffron of the desert and the deep blue sky, separated by a thin, even horizon. The only objects that cross this perfect boundary, are the hulking grey towers of the city, rising from the sand, and bursting through into the heavens.

We snake along the desert road, the city looming ever larger as we make our tentative approach toward the border. There’s an eerie contrast to the threshold as we cross it; the cupreous glow of the sand switches to grey, the scorching heat instantly cools, and perhaps most notably, what little sound there was is negated entirely. As we delve down an empty, perfectly maintained throughway, I realise that I can’t hear anything at all except for the Wrangler’s steady rumblings.

**AS:** It’s quiet.

**ROB:** That’s fine by me.

**AS:** Who do you think built this place?

**ROB:** I don’t know. Maybe whatever brought us here. Could be that no one built it… maybe it just is.

I wonder if he’s right. It’s hard to think such a place would exist for any practical purpose. The city looks off somehow, as if it was built from conjecture, by an architect who had only heard of cities through poorly translated rumour. All the broad features are present, skyscrapers, lampposts, window cleaning platforms, but nothing deeper. It’s an empty shell. An ornament in the middle of the desert.

As we turn down the next few roads, I stare up at the monolithic structures, each one standing at least a hundred stories tall. My eyes track back down the countless strata of dark windows, as I contemplate what it might be like to live in such a place.

When I reach the ground floor, I’m presented with my answer.

There’s a young man standing at the ground floor window, his hand resting against the glass. He’s wearing a dark grey suit, and a look of almost mesmeric shock. His mouth open, his hands shaking, his unblinking eyes staring past us as the Wrangler rolls by.

My eyes quickly track back up the skyscraper’s glass facade, scrutinising each row of windows in turn. I’d naively hoped the buildings would be empty, that this place would be nothing more than a colossal ghost town. Now that I know otherwise, each pane of glass feels like a dark pool of water; still on the surface, but with sinister potential lurking within its depths.

A few seconds later, more of them arrive. There aren’t many at first; just a few scattered figures stepping up to their windows, pressing themselves against to the glass. However, like a light sprinkling of rain that erupts into a downpour, the frequency of their arrival quickly doubles, then triples, until not a single space lies unoccupied. The Wrangler shrinks, subject to the scrutiny of countless individuals, on every floor, in every window, all of them clad in the same monochromatic formalwear and staring down at us like the emissaries of a grand tribunal. As the Wrangler passes by, they continue to stare straight ahead, though it’s clear they’re aware of our presence.

**AS:** Rob. Rob there’s-

**ROB:** I see’em.

Rob puts his foot down, shedding the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes as he leaves the building behind. As the final column of windows slips by us, I glance back, hoping to see them return to the depths of the building. Instead, in those last few moments, I witness their collective demeanour fracture into a desperate frenzy, their mouths opening in a silent scream as they slam their fists against the glass.

Turning back around, I stare into the buildings that currently flank our vehicle. The figures have already arrived at the windows, and their calm is already fading.

**AS:** Rob, we need to go faster.

**ROB:** I’m on it.

The Wrangler growls with renewed ferocity as Rob plants his foot onto the gas. We lurch towards the next corner, accelerating down the road as Rob scans for any hidden turns. I achingly shift in my seat, keeping an eye on the scene developing in our wake.

Shards of broken window begin to rain onto the asphalt. Watching the shattered pieces tumble through the air, it’s apparent that the quiet in this city isn’t simply due to a lack of activity. The torrent of splintered glass is completely silent, even as it crashes against the impervious ground.

Nothing in this city makes a noise. Nothing except us. 

The thunderous engine of the Wrangler has never sounded so loud.

Looking up, I witness hundreds of hands gripping the shattered window frames, unable to turn myself away as thousands of polished black shoes step over the threshold. The figures stream out from every floor, forming an incomprehensible deluge of humanity.

The first wave strikes the ground, with more and more landing against them; a heap of tangled figures struggling to separate themselves. Much like the residents of Jubilation, and everyone else we’ve encountered on the road, they appear impervious to the fatal harm such an act should impart. Those that landed on their feet hardly even stop, turning towards us, and sprinting after the Wrangler. It doesn’t take long for the rest of the writhing mass to resolve itself, its constituent individuals joining the frantic stampede, their chaotic charge and desperate screams bereft of any perceivable sound.

Even in the midst of the frenzied pursuit, as a foreboding shower of glass falls from every building we pass, the world outside remains silent; the chaos made even more incomprehensible framed against the ungodly stillness in which it takes place.

Rob screeches around the corner, drifting onto a long and open street. The roadway ahead is flanked by skyscrapers disappearing to a narrow vanishing point. As we race down this next stretch of road towards a large intersection, the ever growing mob bursts onto the street behind us, taking the corner with supreme coordination and continuing tirelessly in our direction.

A split second later, I’m struck by an abrupt and pervasive idea. It feels unlike any thought I’ve ever had before, less of a notion, and more a prescient hybrid of intuition and de ja vu, as if the course of action we must take is obvious to me, despite my not knowing why.

I force my voice above a grating whisper.

**AS:** Rob. We need to drop something behind us… something loud.

**ROB:** What’re you thinkin’?

**AS:** I uh… you just have to trust me ok? We still have most of the plastic explosive could you-

**ROB:** Nah, if you took out the blasting cap I ain’t got time to make a new one. 

Rob’s glances into the rear view, then back to the road. I can almost hear the gears turning in his head.

**ROB:** But that the only explosive on-board. Think you can drive?

**AS:** I guess we can find out.

The car thunders across the tarmac as I clumsily grasp the wheel, shifting myself over and working my foot onto the accelerator. Rob lifts himself away and climbs past me into the back of the Wrangler. In my weak state, every shuddering motion makes my bones rattle. With each subsequent gearshift, I’m forced to take my remaining hand off the wheel and reach across to the stick. The effort is precarious and awkward, my aching limbs puppeteered by will power and adrenaline, every passing second a battle to maintain control.

The windows up ahead are starting to fracture. The noise of the Wrangler is carrying, and the entire city is starting to pre-empt our arrival. Behind me, I can hear the ripping of duct tape, the tearing of fabric and the clattering of falling luggage. I’m not sure what’s taking place behind me. I just have to trust that Rob has a plan.

I hear the back door swing open just before we reach the intersection, a metallic scraping along the Wrangler’s floor, and a pained grunt from Rob as he throws something onto the road behind us.

Reaching the crossroads, I slide my hand along the wheel and twist it sharply to the right. As the car lurches round, and onto the next road, I feel my heart sink dramatically. We’ve been overtaken. The windows ahead of us are shattered, the front doors lay broken on the street, and the building’s desperate inhabitants are rushing towards us, blocking off our only means of escape.

I slam my foot onto the break, and the Wrangler shudders to a halt, the engine stalling and cutting out. The streets are now spilling over, an overwhelming swarm converging on our position from four directions. I look back to Rob, and he meets my gaze, his eyes brimming with dismayed finality.

An explosion shudders through the air behind us. I look out the back window to see a shattered jerry can, one of Rob’s now superfluous fuel reserves, its dark green shell violently compromised, its contents spilled out across the road and cast alight. Now that the engine isn’t running, the echo of the blast and roar of the primal, balletic flame fills the afternoon air.

The trajectory of the maddened crowd changes instantaneously, the silent Wrangler has fallen from their collective attention, as they refocus onto the smouldering flames. Those up ahead continue to rush past us, streaming around the Wrangler as they scramble to the spilled pool of gasoline, digging their hands into the blaze, grasping hopelessly at the fire.

Delicately, careful not to make a single shred of noise, I climb out of the driver’s seat, joining Rob in the back of the Wrangler.

He addresses me in a confused whisper.

**ROB:** Why don’t they care about us? What are they doing?

**AS:** … It’s the sound. They want it for themselves.

I don’t how I’m so sure, but I know that it’s the case. The jerry can creaks and screams as the city dwellers tear it into smaller and smaller pieces, frantically examining every jagged scrap. With each passing second, as the fire dies down, the crowd grows increasingly distressed, as if a precious commodity is slipping through their fingers.

**AS:** They don’t understand it. They’ll pull it apart trying to figure it out and they’ll never get any closer… and then it’ll be quiet again.

**ROB:** Where you gettin’ this from?

**AS:** I don’t know, just a uh… just a feeling.

**ROB:** Well... pretty sure they woulda pulled us apart too. I’d say we’re pretty lucky.

**AS:** Hah, yeah… pretty lucky.

As the last of the gasoline is eaten up, and the fire dies away, the city dwellers remain in the streets. Devoid of their momentary sense of purpose, their prize vanishing into the ether, the crowd’s desperation fades into a hushed despondency. I watch them as they pass by, countless faces wracked with sorrow, their aimless shuffling forming a lonesome sea, a grayscale ocean that spans the desolate city.

The Wrangler is now adrift in the centre of that ocean. It’s clear that any attempt to start the engine would bring the entire city down on us, reigniting their futile hope, causing them to tear through the car, and anything inside it.

For the foreseeable future, we’re completely stranded.

**ROB:** Don’t worry about it, ok?

**AS:** I don’t think they’re going to leave Rob.

**ROB:** They’ll leave.

**AS:** Ok… and what then? They’ll still be everywhere.

**ROB:** Hey, we’re a smart pair. We’ll think of somethin’.

In the eerie, pervasive calm that surrounds us, I sit myself down next to Rob and lean back against the wall, with nothing else to do but wait for our situation to change. After watching the figures outside for over an hour, the only thing that’s different is a strange needling sensation that feels like it’s emanating from now absent forearm.

**AS:** My uh… my arm hurts… how’s that possible-

**ROB:** Don’t worry that’s uh… it’s called Phantom Limb. You got some sensation right? Like you still got somethin’ there? A lotta people get that after amputations. Here…

Rob reaches into his medical kit and retracts a blue jar of tablets. Twisting off the cap, he shakes two pills free.

**ROB:** You’re gonna need these for the pain.

I stare at the tablets for a moment, before collecting them from his open palm. He passes me his canteen and I swallow them down in two weak gulps.

**AS:** You have a lot of experience with amputations?

**ROB:** … More than you’d think.

My brow furrows. Though I’d meant my remark as a passing jibe, Rob’s response rings with a strange sincerity. It takes me a moment to realise why that is.

**AS:** I forgot... you were drafted. You never talked about it.

**ROB:** Been thinkin’ about it a lot though. Bunch of strangers brought together under false pretences, told that we were servin’ a grand purpose by some old liar. Guess it’s interestin’ how time repeats itself. Now that I think about it, he drove a Jeep too.

**AS:** Rob… I told you, you didn’t bring us here-

**ROB:** That don’t change nuthin’. Don’t change what I did… to you, to Bobby, to any of ‘em. Maybe you were there in the forest but I was the one who started this, the one who kept askin’ what was at the end of the road.

**AS:** What do you think is at the end Rob?

**ROB:** Startin to think that ain’t for me to know. I been movin’ from place to place so long, seen everyone else settle down. Far as I can see, the end of the road is just wherever you decide to stop.

I rest my head on Rob’s shoulder. He gently places his arm around me. It isn’t long before medication starts to take effect, quietly overtaking my already weakened constitution. The pain subsides, dulled along with the rest of my senses. The sun is still streaming through the windshield as my eyes begin to drift shut. 

I watch the figures pass the window, my eyelids getting weaker.

**AS:** I don’t want this to be the end Rob.

**ROB:** I know Miss Sharma, I know.

The last thing I see before I fall into a dreamless artificial sleep, is Rob Guthard’s hand reaching for the rifle.

*****

When my eyes work themselves open, the sun is beginning to set.

I’ve been moved. As my vision adjusts, it becomes clear that I’m still in the Wrangler. My head resting against a pile of fresh clothes, a soft travel blanket laid across me.

I glance around to find that Rob’s nowhere to be seen.

Momentarily forgetting the situation outside the car, I attempt to call out for him. The syllable catches in my throat as a shambling figure passes by the window, wringing its hands in despair and casting a long shadow through the car. 

With a renewed sense of caution, I slide the blanket to one side, and slowly make my way to the up front.

The cabin is similarly empty, except for a single scrap of paper, torn from my notebook. It lies on the driver’s seat, a small object hidden within the fold. When I open it, I find my headphones and five neatly written words:

“Channel One To All Cars”

My hand starts to shake as I rest the note on the dashboard, slowly climbing through and placing myself gently into the driver’s seat. My heart in my throat, I insert the headphones into the jack of the CB radio, take a single, quivering breath in, and press the first button.

**AS:** Rob?

**ROB:** I’m uh… I’m sorry Miss Sharma.

**AS:** Rob, where are you?

**ROB:** Down the road a little. Got myself to one of the rooftops. I know I always hated cities but, once you’re above it, the view’s really somethin’.

**AS:** Come back Rob. Come back... please.

**ROB:** I wish I could. I do. But we both know those things ain’t leavin. And you need the car to get where ever you gotta go so… best I can do is make some ruckus, draw’em outta your way.

I rest my head against the steering wheel, bracing myself against the weight of his words.

**AS:** I can’t do this without you.

**ROB:** I don’t think that’s true Miss Sharma. I think whatever’s on this road… it wants you to make it all the way. All I was meant to do was bring you this far. Now you don’t have to listen to it, you can turn around and head home… but either way only one of us is drivin’ outta here. So I guess the only question left is... which way d’you wanna go?

**AS:** Well… are you ahead of me or behind me?

**ROB:** I can be anywhere. It’s your choice Miss Sharma.

In the wake of Rob’s words, in the shadow of the decision, I’m cast into silence; not because the choice is hard, but because I’m ashamed that it’s so easy. It was made the moment I first stepped into the Wrangler, and renewed in every perplexing moment since. The need to know, to comprehend, to uncover the truth has been with me all my life, but I never knew its roots ran so deep, that it would endure so ardently when everything else, everyone else, had been stripped away.

I stare into the rear view mirror, seeing myself for the very first time, and I have to admit I’m scared.

**AS:** Stay where you are Rob.

**ROB:** Hah… ok Miss Sharma… you ready?

**AS:** … Yeah. I’m ready.

**ROB:** Alright then… suppose it’s about time this thing did some good.

The shot explodes through the radio, before a faint booming echo reaches me on the quiet city air.

Its effect on the city dwellers is immediate. Their collective melancholy shatters in an instant, replaced by a renewed fixation. Before I know it, the disparate crowd unites once more into a stampeding horde, rushing past the windows of the Wrangler and back down the road towards the source of the noise.

**ROB:** They on their way?

As the last of the city dwellers disappear behind me, I run my hand across the steering wheel, and down to the ignition.

**AS:** Yeah… yeah they’re on their way.

**ROB:** Ok then... what’re you waitin’ for?
 
With a fateful twist of the key, the Wrangler roars back to life. The wheels kick against the asphalt, transporting me through the streets of the city. As I barrel away from the intersection, I see a small contingent of pursuers rushing around the corner behind me.

Rob fires the rifle again, maintaining the attention of the majority. The stragglers fall away in my rear view mirror, losing ground against the Wrangler. 

I take the first left, then the next possible right, then another left, a few minutes later I eventually find myself on the last stretch of road, leading me back into the vast and empty desert.

**ROB:** So, you gonna make it?

**AS:** Yeah, I’m gonna make it.

**ROB:** Good. That’s good. Miss Sharma, if uh… if you find Marjorie, if you get a chance to let me know… well it’s more than I deserve but-. 

**AS:** Of course… of course I will.

**ROB:** I appreciate that. Ok, they’re gonna be here soon so… I’m gonna go radio silent for a while. If I call, you’ll know I made it out. If I don’t call… you just assume I made it out, ok?

**AS:** Please tell me you’re going to be alright, Rob. 

**ROB:** … It’s been a real honour drivin’ with you Miss Sharma.

The sound of a final shot reverberates through the radio, its echo drowned out by the roaring engine of the Wrangler. The world shifts around me as I burst out of the city, and back onto the desert road.

The way ahead is laden with immense possibility, yet as I disappear into the vastness of the desert, I can only think of what I’ve left behind. Rob J Guthard had his flaws, marked by loss, driven by obsession, his good intentions often paving the way to tragedy and heartbreak. 

As the tears begin to roll down my cheeks, I decide to remember him differently; as a valued friend, a good man and, above all else, a great story.

No matter how you tell it. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We weren't allowed to talk to women.
 
 Assistant:   

I was born into one of those old families of the South, the kind that has long silence toppled and decayed, attempting desperately to hold itself together. We’d had money, once, as evidenced by the grand old buildings that sat on our property. But the old barns and guest-houses sat empty and abandoned, choked with cobwebs and weeds and Spanish moss. The forest had begun to reclaim the property. 

My family was like many others of its kind. A long, winding lineage marked with **** and slavery and pain. But one thing set us apart- there were no women in my family. I had no mother, no sisters or grandmothers. Every member of my family was male. 

My five brothers and I never thought it strange, though. We were uneducated and mostly separated from the outside world. Our days were spent laboring on the decaying property, all of our efforts inevitably useless. When we weren’t plucking weeds or clearing out the decades of trash from the various buildings, we played. The quasi-wilderness of our home was a perfect stage for our games. 

My father was a kind man, but strict. Our self-contained life came with a strange set of rules. There was a chapel on the property, a small white thing half-hidden in the woods. It was in better condition than anything else, due to my father’s doting care. We were not allowed inside the chapel without him, however. A padlock on the door prevented us from sneaking in.

We were, on occasion, allowed to go to town. It was a half-hour walk through the woods to get there, and excursions were highly anticipated. There were conditions, though- we had to stick together, and we weren’t allowed to talk to women.

We could talk to men and other boys, but my father strictly forbade us from talking to women, girls, even old maids. He instructed us to say hello and good day and yes ma’am and thank you ma’am like good little Southern boys. But other than that, not a word. 

This was weird, of course, but everyone in town seemed to abide by these rules as well. The women would give us curt nods and avoid us otherwise. It was so engrained into our daily lives that none of us ever questioned it.

It wasn’t going to work forever, of course. My oldest brother, Jamie, started making eyes at the pretty girl who worked at the drugstore ice cream counter. She made eyes back. Soon he was sneaking off to be with her during our visits. He would leave my brothers and I at the drugstore or the park, buying our silence with penny candy and ice cream. 

Jamie’s little tryst didn’t last long, though. Lazlo, the second youngest, had always been loose-lipped. One day when we came back from town, our father asked us what we did.

“Jamie snuck off,” Lazlo blurted. “He always goes and sneaks off to see that ice-cream girl.”

Pa’s face grew very pale. He turned to Jamie and seized him by the shoulders.

“Is that true?” he asked in a voice that was much too quiet. “You’re seein’ a girl?” 

A tense silence hung over us. Jamie opened his mouth, closed it. 

“Jamie, come join me on the porch,” Pa said icily. 

My father never hit us; I want to make that clear. But when he was truly angry or upset, he had a way of talking that cut you to the bone, that made you feel like absolute dogshit. When I was really little and got in trouble, I would hide and cry for hours afterwards, consumed by guilt.  

Jamie and Pa went onto the porch. The rest of us dispersed throughout the house, the happy mood of the day soured. For a couple weeks afterwards, we beat on Lazo especially hard, and gave him the worst roles in our games. After that he mostly kept his mouth shut.

Jamie returned with a pale face. He didn’t talk to any of us until the morning, where he tried to act like nothing had happened. 

I caught him alone that day. I tugged on his sleeve and asked him, “What did Pa say to you the other night?”

Jamie looked down at me. His face suddenly seemed very old. But he gave me a weak smile and tousled my hair.

“Not yer business,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

I wasn’t in the habit of displeasing my older brother, so I went along with my life.

The next time we went to town, the ice-cream girl batted her eyes at Jamie, but he stared straight away from her, and she frowned sadly. She wasn’t as nice to us after that.

There isn’t much else to say of my childhood. It was unique, surely, but we had always lived our lives that way, and I was not the questioning type. Our existence continued rather uneventfully for years. My brothers and I cleaned old houses that would never be occupied, and weeded yards that would never be used. The forest grew in faster than we could pluck. 

Then came the day when Jamie turned eighteen. Birthdays were frequent in a family of seven, but turning eighteen- that was special, according to Pa. 

On the special day, Pa got us all up early and scrubbed our faces with a spit-wet cloth. He made us put on our best clothes, moth-eaten from disuse. He gave Jamie one of his old suits, and it hung baggy on his thin frame. Then we gathered in the chapel. 

Inside, the air was still and silent. I remember feeling disappointed at the sight of the perfectly normal interior. I always expected there to be some great, terrible secret that my father was guarding. But it was just an old chapel.

We sat in the front pew, all in a row. Pa and Jamie hung back at the door. They exchanged some quiet words, and then began to walk. 

They marched arm in arm, staring stiffly ahead. They stepped in time to some silent rhythm. Slowly they made their way up the aisle.

My father bent behind the pulpit, and the sound of creaking wood broke the terse silence. He had opened a trapdoor.

Pa and Jamie, still arm-in-arm, descended into the door, down stairs we couldn’t see from our angle. My brothers and I sat uncomfortably in the pew, restless but still quiet.

I felt a strange swelling sensation, like something enormous was happening that I couldn’t comprehend. I channeled this by plucking wildly at the loose threads of my ill-fitting pants. My brothers and I sat nervously for a long while, until Pa emerged again, alone. He shut the trapdoor behind him.

“Time to go home, boys,” he said. 

I wanted to ask where Jamie was, but my tongue felt heavy. Instead I fell into step behind him, and we made a solemn procession back to the rotting mansion where we lived. 

Jamie was there the next morning, snoring in his bed next to mine. We all scrutinized him for some change, but he was the same Jamie he’d always been. The only answer to our questions we received was a hard sock in the arm when we bothered him too much.

A few months later, Pa came into our room in the middle of the night. I had been lying awake, but I pretended to sleep as he quietly roused Jamie and led him out the door. I dozed very lightly, only to be re-awoken when I heard them coming back up the stairs.

Jamie made his way to his bed slowly. In the faint moonlight, I could see that his shoulders were shaking. He crawled under the covers. I could hear the muffled sound of him sobbing.

After that, Jamie was different. He was withdrawn and angry. He stopped playing with us and was quick to yell. There was an angry tension between him and Pa. Even as young as I was, I knew the change had something to do with that strange place in the chapel.

I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out the secret of our family. After all, I was the second oldest. My birthday came that November.

I remember every second of that day.

Pa woke me before my brothers. He brought me into the master suite where he spent the nights of his lonely existence. The room might have once been grand, but now the walls were ashy with cigarette smoke and it smelled like stale living. The bedsheets were rumpled on only one side. It made me sad to think of Pa sleeping alone every night in that huge, motheaten bed. 

Pa dressed me in the same suit that Jamie had worn. It fit me a little better; I was fuller and shorter than he was. I looked in the mirror and felt a flash of pride. I was a proper gentleman for once, like those clean-cut men in the old magazines we sometimes found while cleaning; no longer a dirty-faced little boy. 

Pa stepped back after fixing my tie, his eyes shining. The harsh line of his mouth wobbled as he rubbed his thumb across my cheekbone. 

“I’m so proud of you,” he said, and hugged me. My chest swelled with warmth and pride.

We walked through the woods to the little white chapel. It was cool, and the woods were alive in red and orange. My brothers gathered in the pews while Pa and I waited outside the doors.

He looped his arm through mine and looked at me.

“Just follow my lead,” he murmured, patting my arm. His words soothed me. The doors of the chapel swung open on their own, and the sound of church bells echoed through the woods, though the rusty bell in the tower sat still. But I wasn’t afraid.

Pa walked me down the aisle, towards the empty pulpit. We walked in time to the toll of the bells, something I realized only the two of us could hear. My brothers whispered and fidgeted in the pew. Jamie sat on the far end, staring straight ahead, his eyes dull and back stiff. 

We ascended. Behind the pulpit lay the secret trapdoor, ancient and moldered. Pa gave the rusted brass ring a mighty pull, and it opened with a creak.

Before us lay a stone staircase, riddled with cracks and dappled with moss and mushrooms. The shallow stairs led into the dark. 

For the first time that day, I felt something other than anticipation and pride. I was afraid. But I think, looking back, that I would have been unable to leave if I tried.

Pa and I walked carefully down the stairs. He still held tight to my arm. We emerged into an earthen tunnel, tall enough for us to walk upright, though roots from the ceiling brushed our heads. 

For a moment, we stood still. There was a strange sputtering sound, and a breeze blew from the darkness ahead. That should have been impossible, as the tunnel seemed to only go deeper into the ground. But as the breeze came, so did light. Alcoves had been scooped into the earthen walls, and tens of candles suddenly burst to life in their wax-filled recesses. I jumped as the sudden light revealed hundreds of moths. They took off, excited by the flame. Their soft wings flapped and brushed against my cheek. 

As Pa and I walked down the tunnel, my apprehension grew. I started shaking. Pa stood resolute by my side, his presence steadying. 

I don’t know how long we walked in silence. The tunnel was not without its own sound- the pop of **** from the candles, the drip of moisture from the ceiling, the tamping of our shoes and the fluttering of moth’s wings. They landed on my shoulders and my head, and bounced off of my face often.

I wanted to ask Pa where we were going. But, yet again, I stayed silent.  

Soon, I became aware of a faint sweet smell. Almost at the same time, the candlelight revealed a door. Moths were clustered around it so thickly that it appeared the frame was made of a canvas of pale shivering wings. 

Pa turned to me. In the flickering candlelight, the hollows of his face were cast in sharp relief. He looked more like an ape than a man. 

“This is where I leave you, son,” he said. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t be afraid. You won’t be hurt, I promise. Just do what Nature tells you to do.” 

He saw that I was shaking, and he laid his hand on my face.

“This is our family’s legacy, Eli. Jamie did this, I did this, my father before me did this…it’s as old and ancient as our blood. Older, even. Nothing is going to harm you.” 

“Okay,” I choked out. My father smiled wanly, then turned and left me before the door.

He disappeared back the way we came, and I was alone. 

Cautiously, I pushed open the stone door. The moths fluttered away from it, forming a cloud that I had to bat away to see. 

The chamber that I emerged into was huge. The walls were lined with hundreds of alcoves with candles burning bright, and more candles were spread across the floor. Across from me, there was a great white bed, surrounded by gossamer curtains. The sweet smell was overpowering, undercut by something primal and funky, like body odor.  

Then, the bed moved. From its side unfolded pairs of strange appendages. I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. They were arms- human arms, ending in human hands. But they bent in too many places, and they were too long and pale. Long tendrils like feathers flared from their elbows. 

It wasn’t a bed.  

It was a person, perhaps in the loosest sense of the word. Its body was huge, white and bloated. What I had thought were pillows were actually huge pendulous ****, bare of ****. The swell of the ‘bed’s’ comforter was a huge stomach, sagging down to the ground in ripples of white flesh. 

As I watched, a pair of the arms reached to gently part the gossamer curtains, like a bride lifting a veil.

Its face- how to describe its face? Once, cleaning trash out of our house, I found an old china doll. It had a puffy, exaggerated expression of innocence, though time had worn the paint from its face and gave it only the barest imitation of humanity.

The creature’s face looked like that doll, but its eyes were large and bulging, and completely black. 

Most notably of all, from its forehead sprouted a pair of long feathery antenna. They were as long as its arms, reaching towards the high ceiling. They waved back and forth gently like ferns.

As I took it in, stunned by the wrongness of it all, the creature smiled at me. Its pale, fleshy lips parted, revealing a dripping black mouth with no teeth. And then it spoke.

“Hello, sweet Elias,” it said. The voice was so wrong. The intonation and words were clearly English, the voice feminine. But it had a weird buzz to it, and a thick quality like someone speaking with their throat blocked. 

I was somehow able to find my own voice.

“What are you?” I asked. “How do you know my name?” 

A strange buzzing and clicking noise came from the creature. The **** on its body rolled like waves, and the toothless mouth gaped wider. It was laughing. 

“I am you,” it said. “You are the fruit of my ****. I birthed your brothers, and your father, and your father’s father, and his father before him. I know every inch of you, your flesh, for it grew and pupated within me. Now, the time has come for you to give of yourself, so I may have your son.”

I understood almost immediately. I felt a mix of horror and revulsion, but it was far-off, suppressed. The sweet smell filled my nostrils. It made my head swim. My skin was hot and itchy in the ill-fitting suit. 

I should have been terrified. I should have been disgusted. I am, in retrospect. But I was under the spell of the creature, the scent of its pheromones too powerful for my brain to comprehend. In that moment, I knew that my body served a singular purpose, and I knew what that purpose was. 

Then I was before the creature. Its many arms petted my hair, my body, my face, the soft feathers tickling me. It cooed and spoke to me as I climbed on top of it, my body sinking into its soft and yielding flesh.

I lay on its stomach, its bosom as my pillow. Lying against its skin, though it was tacky like dough, I felt a comfort I had never known nor have ever known sense. I was safe, I was swaddled, I was *loved.* It wrapped its spindly arms around me, its buzzing words of encouragement burrowing into my brain like worms.

And then I began to move my hips, and I was in heaven.

I’ll spare you the mechanical details of that coupling. Me recalling having **** with a moth-monster who was also apparently my mother and grandmother is just as traumatizing as you reading about it. 

But what I must say is that I have never felt pleasure like that since. I have never once felt so held, so loved, and so safe. I know now that I wasn’t in my right mind, and recalling it makes me nauseous. But there are still nights I jolt awake feeling a ghost of that heavenly pleasure, and for a moment I grieve that I’ll never feel it again.

I don’t know how long I was in the chamber with that thing. I vaguely remember dressing myself slowly, still **** from the pheromones in the air. I remember the creature rubbing its belly as I left, followed by a cloud of moths. 

I slept dreamlessly for hours and hours. Over dinner, I made eye contact with Pa as I was shoveling spaghetti into my mouth. He beamed at me proudly, and I felt good.

But Jamie was looking at me also. He didn’t return my smile, his mouth now permanently set in a grim line.

As the encounter with the moth creature faded like a dream, Jamie continued to bother me. Hadn’t he experienced the same heavenly pleasure I’d had? Sure, there were lingering dregs of fear, even disgust at what I’d done, but if everyone in our family had done it, what was the harm? It was our legacy, after all.

More time passed, and my confusion turned to anger. Jamie barely interacted with us anymore. Did he think he was better than us? Did he think that his feelings made him separate from the family, somehow? 

I never got the chance to confront him. He came to me.

It was about five months after my eighteenth birthday. Life had continued as normal. But one morning when we woke up, there was a strange feeling in the air. I made a comment about it to my brothers, but they just looked at me blankly. As we went about our chores, I felt strangely happy.

We were walking out of one of the old guesthouses when Jamie grabbed me roughly by the arm and pulled me away. He was nearly nose-to-nose with me, and his eyes were bright and wild. 

“You listen good now, Eli,” he hissed. “Why the **** do you think Pa never let us talk to the girls in town?”

I looked at him in confusion. 

“That *thing* in the chapel,” he continued. “It doesn’t want outside…competition. It gave birth to all of us. Boys. But it can’t control the gender of the baby it makes. Why do you think there’s no girls in our family? What do you think *happens* when one is born?” 

The beginnings of dread begin to creep up from my stomach.

“Yours is coming today,” Jamie continued, his mouth turned into a scowl. He let go of the vice grip on my arm. “And for your sake, I hope it ain’t a girl.”

His face fell. “I wasn’t so lucky.” 

Before I could say anything, he was gone, stalking off after the rest of our brothers. I stood staring after him.

As night came, my dread grew. Gone was my pleasant mood from before. Night found me sleepless, and I stared at the ceiling for hours.

When the door creaked open, I knew it was Pa. He came to my bedside and motioned for me to join him.

We made our way through the dark woods to the chapel. The bad feeling was everywhere, soaked into the very air. The creatures of the night were silent, and it was cold.

The chapel stood a white smear in the darkness. We went inside. The floorboards seemed to vibrate, and when Pa opened the trapdoor, I heard it.

A terrible, buzzing wail, full of anger and pain, punctuated by inhuman squeaks and growls. I had heard the sounds of animals in pain before. This was like some sort of horrible symphony of all of those cries. 

I recoiled at the sound, standing rooted to the spot. I looked at Pa to see if my horror was reflected in his face. It was, to some extent, but over it lay a veneer of hardness. I realized then that whatever was happening was no mystery to him. He had probably experienced it a hundred times before.

He took my arm and practically dragged me down the tunnel. The moths were flapping around wildly, diving at us and bouncing off the walls. A few of them flew into the candle flames, their feathery wings burning as fast as paper. 

The screaming got louder.

We came to the chamber. The creature was in the same spot, but this time, its body was rippling like a wave. Some of its arms were braced on the walls and floor. The sweet smell was gone, replaced by that of blood and viscera. 

The creature’s puffy doll-face was twisted in a horrifying mask of pain and rage. Spittle flew from its black mouth as it wailed, the sound bouncing around the chamber. Its antenna swiveled wildly around its head, every feather twitching and shaking.

At the sight of us, its pallid face contorted further. 

“LEVI!” It bellowed my father’s name. “WHAT HAVE YOU WROUGHT? THE FRUIT OF YOUR **** BEGET ME ONLY CURSES!” 

I was transfixed by the creature’s rippling body, bile rising in the back of my throat. It was pushing something out, I realized. A dark puddle was forming on the floor beneath it. 

My father moved towards the creature like he meant to comfort it. A pair of arms sideswiped him with surprising strength, sending him careening into the wall. He tripped over the candles. 

The creature let out a deep, throaty groan. Its body gave one more powerful ripple, and there was a wet noise as something dropped to the floor of the cave. 

What lay before me was, essentially, a cocoon. It was roughly watermelon-sized, white, and it glistened with fluid in the light. The creature’s screams died into rattling breaths.

As I watched, the cocoon began to tremble. A tiny red fist tore its way through the gauzy membrane. From the hole, I heard a cry, weak and plaintive. It was a baby.

Something came over me. I somehow knew that the baby was *mine.* I’m sure others can tell better stories of parental instincts kicking in, but that’s what happened to me at that moment. While my father and the creature struggled to recover, I knelt down and began ripping the cocoon apart, trying to free the baby within.

The cocoon had the texture of spider silk, thin and sticky. It dissolved at my touch. Soon the baby was free. Its skin was red and blotchy, and it looked like a lumpy potato. But its face and cry were wholly human, and as I held it in my hands, I could feel the very gears of the world turning. My fate was changing. 

“Elias,” the creature rasped. I looked up at it. Its expression had relaxed, its black eyes grown wide and shining, reflecting the candlelight. Its antenna had calmed, resuming their slow and gentle waving. It reached its nearest pair of arms out to me. 

“Bring it to me,” it demanded. I lifted the baby in front of me, and realized with sudden dread that something on it was missing.

The baby was female. 

The creature’s arms strained for the baby, and I instinctually clutched it to my chest.

“Why?” I asked.

“It is a usurper,” the creature spat. “It is a curse, and the labor was long. I am *hungry.*” 

It licked its lips, leaving behind a film of gray spit from a black tongue.

Jamie’s words came back to me then, and I realized that he was right.

Pa had gotten to his feet. He clutched his side, clearly hurt, and his clothes were singed from candle flames. 

“Just give it to her, son,” he wheezed. “It’ll be over soon.” 

I looked down at the baby. It was crying and squirming. It grabbed onto my shirt as tightly as it could, its little fist balling in the fabric. 

For the first time in my life, I made my own decision; I turned away from my family.

And I ran.

I held the baby tightly to my chest as I sprinted into the tunnel. My father called after me, but his voice was drowned out by a buzzing wail that grew in volume until it seemed a physical thing, a wave pushing me out. Moths bounced off my face. As I ran past the candles, they blew out, filling the tunnel with darkness. 

I thought I heard my father scream, a sound of terror beneath the creature’s anger. I don’t like to think about it.

I left our property towards town, the baby still bawling loudly. Finally I had to stop running, my lungs burning and my legs cramping. I have never been as afraid as I was limping through that dark forest, my daughter’s cries a dead giveaway to any who would follow. But nothing did.

I walked through the town, knocking on doors until someone answered. My daughter’s sobs had tapered from a steady stream to quiet whimpers, and I knew she needed care soon.

The ice-cream girl answered the door, her hair mussed with sleep. She took in the sight of me, recognizing me immediately, and her eyes widened at the baby in my arms.

“Please help us,” I croaked. It was the first time I’d spoken to a woman, really spoken. 

Shirley’s family took care of me for a while. They taught me how to care for my daughter, how to change diapers and prepare formula and burp her. I never left their house for fear of seeing my family. I was there for only a week or two, then my daughter and I hit the road again. We went from town to town, surviving on the kindness of strangers. It was usually women who ended up helping us. I met all kinds of women- women hardened by the world, bitter ones, gentle ones, fiery ones. They taught me about the world, about all the things I’d been missing. 

When we were far enough north that I felt safe, I began trying to settle down. My daughter was growing into a healthy, **** little toddler. She was the axis on which my world turned- everything I did, I did for her. Eventually I named her Deborah- Debbie for short.

I found a decent job, with on-site daycare for Debbie. Back then, it was a little easier to provide for a child than it is today, I won’t deny. But I still worked myself to the bone. It was the easiest way to chase away the shadows that plagued my mind.

I had lovers here and there, both men and women, but nothing lasted. **** was difficult for me, considering what I had been through. I always felt disgusting afterwards, always unable to ignore the simple fact that it would never feel as good as *that*. And that knowledge made me feel like a monster. Eventually I stopped trying to feign interest in ****, and I was happier for it, but it meant that I never got into a real relationship. 

I didn’t need a relationship. I had Debbie. And as the years passed and she grew bright and smart and funny, the shadows of my past seemed farther and farther away.

But I was a fool to let myself be comforted by time. I cannot escape the curse of my blood, no matter how far I run.

Yesterday was Debbie’s fourteenth birthday. Today she locked herself in the bathroom in the morning, crying for hours. When she finally let me in, I could barely contain a scream.

Because there, bursting from my daughter’s forehead, was a pair of long feathery antennae.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Here comes the child bride
 
 Assistant: When people talk about child marriages, most of the time they aren’t thinking of America.  As though America is some kind of utopia where things like that just don’t happen.

It’s not true, though, is it?  Child marriage may not be as common here, sure.  But it does happen.  In fact, only [ten states]( http://preventforcedmarriage.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Tahirih-MEMO-State-Criminal-Laws-Forced-Marriage.pdf) actually have laws against it.

Guess what?  I didn’t grow up in one of those ten states.  Even better, I grew up in a cult.  Our leaders really emphasized the idea of “pure” brides and virginity and virility… I was taught, as a child, that only a young woman embodied these traits.

“Young woman” does not mean a twenty-year-old, by the way.  Or even an eighteen-year-old.  That would make it almost understandable, wouldn’****?

I was sold into marriage when I was fourteen.

In a way, I was one of the lucky ones.  See, in our cult, a girl “came of marriageable age” when she had her first period.  My older sister got hers at nine years old.  I still remember her screaming in the bathroom when it happened – my mother hadn’t told us anything about periods, or our bodies.  My sister saw all that blood and really thought she was dying.

Maybe that *is* what it meant for her.  Because only a few months later she was married off.  Her husband was in his mid-twenties.  She cried herself to sleep every night until her wedding.

I never saw her again.

Since the day I turned nine, I lived in mortal fear of ending up like my sister.  I prayed and hoped to our version of **** that I would never “come of age.”  It was like a curse to me, to meet the same fate she did.  For a while, it seemed that something had answered my prayers, because year after year passed and it didn’t come.  My parents grew restless.  When I was twelve, my father checked my **** every night to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything from him.

But then, halfway through my fourteenth year, it came.  It came during the night and stained my sheets and there was no hiding it.

My parents were so relieved.  I was so upset I actually vomited when I saw the proof, those stained sheets that I couldn’t pray away.

The man they gave me to was forty-three years old.

Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine your own parents just… giving you away to someone like that?  Even though I always knew it would happen to me, it still hurt.  It still poisoned something deep inside me.

They didn’t wait as long for my wedding as they did with my sister.  Apparently my soon-to-be husband was in a rush because we were married only a month later.

I won’t bore you with details about my wedding, or the first time meeting my husband, or the ride to our new “home” – I had to be dragged into the car, kicking and screaming.

Instead, I’ll tell you this: everything changed on the balcony.

Once he brought me home, he ushered me into the master bedroom and, thankfully, left me there on my own for several hours.  He told me he wanted nothing more than to “attend” to me the way a proper husband should – and we all know what that means, don’t we? – but that he had to take care of some business first.  Before leaving the room – and locking it for good measure – he told me to dress in the lingerie that he had left for me on the bed.  I eyed it with disgust before throwing it on the floor and stalking out to the balcony that I discovered behind some thick floor-to-ceiling curtains.  My parents must have been proud to marry me off to someone so rich.

The night was freezing cold and there was a light snow falling, slowly covering the ground below.  Briefly, I considered throwing myself off the ledge, but I was too afraid.  I thought that there was a small chance I might survive, and I didn’t want to think about what might happen to me if I did.

I’d made up my mind to go back inside and was halfway to the door when I heard something behind me.  Curious – and not a little afraid – I turned back around.

The thing that sat on the balcony railing was strange.

It was perched there on its hind legs like an animal.  Its arms trailed down to the balcony floor – they were so long I thought they might be able to reach me across the balcony where I stood.  Each arm ended in a claw that looked sharp enough to cut leather.  Its body was skinny – so much so that I wondered how it didn’t simply fall apart.  It swayed in the breeze and its feet – well, its other set of claws, I guess – tightened their grip on the balcony.

The skin on its face was dried and wrinkled.  In fact, it looked almost decayed, like it was some sort of mummy.  Its mouth was nothing more than a gathering of bunched up flesh that pulled and tugged every time it stretched its jaw.  Its eyes were huge – the size of baseballs – and totally white.  It stared vacantly at me and I stared back at it.

The last thing I noticed was its throat.  There wasn’t much to notice there, really, except that it had a small slit that pulsed with every breath it took.  I wondered what it was for.

The thing stretched open its mouth and left it open wide for a second, giving me the chance to count its tiny, sharp shards of teeth.

It tilted its head to the side and it asked me, “Why are you crying?”

I lifted my fingertips to my cheek in surprise.  I didn’t realize I’d started crying again.

“Because… my parents made me marry someone I don’t want to… and I’m scared and… and I want to go home!” My voice broke at that last bit.  To be truthful, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go home after all, but I knew that at least I didn’t want to be here anymore, in an unknown house with an unknown man who had anything but unknown intentions.

The creature blinked in surprise. “Marriage?  You are but a child.  How can this be?”

I buried my face in my hands at that and cried harder.  Hearing it said aloud like that somehow made everything worse.  It made everything more real.

I heard a scraping sound and looked up to see the creature hunched in front of me.  Even squatting on its hind legs it was taller than me.  It reached out and ran a tip of its claw down my cheek very, very gently. “Do not cry, little one,” it said.

I stopped crying, more out of shock than anything else.  For a second I wondered if I should be afraid of it.  It didn’t give me enough time to make a decision.

“What is your name?” it asked.

“Um… Mary.” That’s right, like the **** Mother.  Hilarious, right?  Like a joke I wasn’t let it on until it was too late.

“Hmm.  Mary.” It nodded to itself and retracted its hand.  Its claw had drawn a bit of blood from my cheek.  I hadn’t noticed. “Mary.  Do not cry anymore.  I will help you.”

“You will?!” I cried.  A burst of joy flooded my chest.  It quickly turned to ice when the creature turned to go.  It climbed up on the balcony railing and I ran after it. “Hey, wait, where are you going?!  Aren’t you going to help me??”

It looked back at me and its eyes looked almost sad. “In time.  I need something from you first.”

“What do you want?  I’ll give you anything.” I was breathless with fear.  I didn’t want it to leave, not yet.

“I need your hate.  When you have enough of it, I can help you.”

I felt my heart sink right through the floorboards.  I hated.  I hated very much.  I hated my parents and the man in the other room and everyone else who watched my sham of a marriage and did nothing to stop it.  I had so much hate, and yet it wasn’t enough.  I was so sure at that moment that it would never be enough.

“What do I call you?” I asked.

It blinked slowly, then said, “Yours.  You may call me ‘Yours,’ because that is what I am.”

With that, it crawled down the balcony and disappeared into the night and the snow and the quiet.

And I was once again left utterly alone.

***

I was sitting on the floor of the balcony, half covered in snow when he returned.  He dragged me back inside in disgust, furious that I’d refused to wear the lingerie he had picked out for me.  He beat me, ripped off my clothes, and forced me to put it on in front of him while I sobbed.

You and I both know what happened next.  It’s a story many women have told throughout history and they’ve all told it better than I could.  So you’ll forgive me, I hope, for skipping the details of the next part.

The next day I woke up covered in blood and bruises.  He sent me downstairs to make his breakfast.  I could barely walk.  In that moment, I hated him.

But I guess I didn’t hate him enough, because Yours didn’t come back.

He didn’t come back until a month later.  My ‘husband’ treated me like a ****, having me do all the chores and cooking during the day.  And then he’d **** and beat me during the night until there was blood in my **** and it hurt to sit down.  One night, I accidentally overcooked supper.  Not burned, just left it on the stove for a few seconds too long.

He beat me until I threw up, which he made me clean it up.  He locked me on the balcony and made me sleep outside in the snow.

And I hated him.  Oh, I hated him so *much.*

Yours came to me that night on the balcony.  If it hadn’t, I probably would have died from the cold.  It curled around my body and kept me warm – it was surprisingly warm, you know, for a… whatever it was.  It whispered assurances to me and held me close while I slept.

I didn’t see Yours for another few months after that.  The days went by with relative monotony.  It wasn’t until about six months after we were married that I realized something was wrong.

It’s funny in a grim sort of way.  He was the one who figured it out.  I was throwing up one morning and he walked into the bathroom. “When was the last time you had your period?” He asked.  It hadn’t been for over two months, and I told him as much.  **** as I was, I didn’t even realize you should have one every month.

“I knew it.” His eyes were practically glowing with excitement as he moved behind me and snaked his arms around my belly, caressing it on the way.  I suppressed the urge to **** again. “You’re with child.  You are going to have my baby.”

He was absolutely elated.  I was shaking with terror.  A baby?  Me?  I didn’t know much about having babies, but I knew it wasn’t pleasant.  It hurt and it made you sick and at the end you had to take care of the thing and how was I going to do all that?  When he left for work, I sank to the floor and cried my eyes out.  I cried for a full hour before managing to get up and do my chores.

That night, I waited on the balcony.  That night, Yours came.

He sat there from his perch on the balcony, staring at me.  My eyes and chest were hollow.  “I hate him.  I truly hate him,” I said.

“Do you?” said Yours.  I nodded.  It beckoned to me, “Come closer.”

It reached out and trailed a claw down my cheek, staring at me.  Its eyes held mine for a long minute before it shook its head. “No, no.  It isn’t enough.”

I cried out as its claw fell away. “When will it be enough?  I can’t hate anymore.  I *can’t.*  I hate him as much as I’ve ever hated anything.  What am I supposed to do?”

Yours leaned towards me and pressed its mouth to my forehead in a strange imitation of a kiss. “In time,” it said.  That was all the comfort it gave before it scuttled down the balcony and left me to my darkness.

In the months that followed my stomach grew bigger.  My worries ballooned at about the same pace.

My husband wouldn’t take me to see a doctor.  He told me that I would have a home birth.  He wouldn’t get me any medicine.  He wouldn’t tell me what I was supposed to do to keep the baby healthy.  I didn’t know anything about my own pregnancy.

Worse still, I kept worrying about what would come *after* the birth.  What if it was a girl?  See, if it was a boy, I wouldn’t have to be so worried.  Boys were allowed to go to school.  They were allowed to choose their wives.  They were allowed to come and go as they please.

But not girls.

What if I had a daughter?  I wondered what my husband would do to her.  How he would look at her.  If he would… touch her.  I thought about marrying her off to someone twice her age.  I thought about never seeing her again, just like I’d never see my sister again.

I thought an awful lot about that.

So I suppose you might say what happened was a blessing, although at the time it certainly didn’t feel that way.

My husband came home **** one night.  Angry.  Looking for a fight.  Something had gone wrong at work, I suppose.  He had some nights like that.  But I foolishly thought he’d leave me alone this time.  After all, I was several months along at that point – I don’t know how many, but my stomach was protruding rather obviously from my skinny frame.  He didn’t much care about me other than as a **** doll, but I knew he cared about the child.

Apparently he didn’t care enough.

That night when he beat me, I begged him to stop.  I told him he would hurt the baby.  Somehow that made him even more angry.  And when he punched me hard in the stomach, I knew he felt no remorse for what he did.

I fell to the floor, holding my belly, clutching at it while I screamed.  He screamed at me in turn, blaming me, of course.  Blaming me for losing the baby.  Because we both knew it was dead.  It couldn’t sustain a blow like that and live.

An hour later, the blood started.  I hadn’t particularly wanted that child, but I still cried.  I cried for it and for myself and for what had become of my life.  I cried even as he screamed at me through the bathroom door for being a **** ****, a ****, a Babylonian ****, a Devil’s curse.

Once he was done with his screaming, he stumbled to his bed and collapsed into a drunken slumber.  I waited until I was sure he was out cold before unlocking the door.

I dragged myself out onto the balcony, a trail of blood following in my wake.  I collapsed on the balcony floor, looking up at the moon, wanting to curse it like I had been cursed.  I sat there on my knees and screamed at the sky, trying to pour out all the hate and rage and anger.  Instead, I made it grow bigger and bigger and bigger.

Yours appeared over the balcony railing.  It knew something was different this time.  It came and sat next to me, running its claw through my hair.  It was trying to soothe me.  There was nothing left to soothe.

I could tell it was waiting, so I spoke.

“I hate him.” I said.  I was calm.  I didn’t raise my voice.  I didn’t cry.  I simply spoke from somewhere in my chest that had been locked until that very moment. “I hate him for what he has done to me.  And to the baby.  I hate my parents for giving me to him.  I hate the people who looked on and who did nothing.  I hate them all and I want them to *suffer.*”

I don’t know what I expected from Yours just then.  If I thought it’d be triumphant or sadistic or happy.  All I know is that I didn’t expect the way it looked at me – sad, compassionate, resigned.

“It is time, then, for me,” it sighed, its voice a rasp on the wind that I could barely hear. “If I do this, a piece of you will come away with me forever.  Do you understand?”

I nodded at it.  There was so little of me left, but if it wanted me, it could have me.  It could have all the pieces – I didn’t want them.

It moved to a crouch then, just low enough that it could slip its claw into mine.  It held my hand as it brought me into the room where my husband slept.  It looked at me with its blank eyes and said, “Watch.” I did.

Yours straightened its spine.  As it did so, its neck became longer… and longer… and longer.  I could hear its spine cracking and creaking as its neck unfurled.  The slit in its neck began to widen until it gaped open, exposing the darkness of its innards.

From inside the slit, two muscles darted out.  They were long and firm, resembling spider legs but for the fact that they had no fur on them.  They didn’t even seem to have skin.  It was just red, pulsing flesh crawling out from somewhere inside it.  A deep hacking sound emanated from inside its chest as they continued to grow until they reached maximum extension.  Tipped with a sharp, bony point, the two appendages rested on the floor, tapping impatiently against the floorboards.

Yours shifted until it was on all fours, its body about the height of my head.  It moved forward at a painfully slow pace, approaching the bed where my husband slumbered.  I noticed its eyes were closed and it used its throat appendages to feel around the bed until it found his flesh.

Once it had a sense for where my husband lay, its claws came forward.  One grasped my husband near his collarbone, the other grabbed his pelvis.  Yours leaned forward and all was still for a moment.

Then, it pulled.

It yanked its claws apart hard, so hard that my husband’s body ripped in half.  By the time he awoke and began to scream, he was already in two separate parts, his internal organs spilling out between them.  His agonized screams were soon drowned out by the blood filling his throat.  As he sped towards death, the strange muscles extending from Yours’ throat began to comb through his organs, picking them apart and bringing them back to the maw in its neck.  It swallowed my husband down piece by piece while its claws raked along his body, flaying him open.  By the time Yours had eaten its fill, he was half-consumed, a mess of blood and flesh that was unrecognizable as human.  He twitched for a long time after he died.

Eventually, the appendages retracted back into Yours throat.  The process took several minutes, during which time I stared at the bloody mess on the bed.  I wondered if I’d always remember that… if maybe, one day, images of his face would be replaced with this image of my triumph.  I could only hope.

When Yours was finished, it crawled back to me.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“I am Yours,” it replied. “You must choose.”

* * *

A kind old man in a pickup truck brought me into the hospital several hours later.

He’d found me walking on the side of the road, covered in blood – most of it mine – and had offered me a ride, no questions asked.  I wasn’t afraid.  I knew that I had a protector watching over me.  A guardian angel missing its wings.

The police came, of course.  I told them every detail of what happened.  At first, they were appalled, then bewildered.  By the time I finished, they were convinced I was crazy.

They were a little less convinced after they found my husband’s body.  Or what was left of it.

I was surprised how little I had to deal with the police, actually.  I thought maybe they’d lock me up or open some big investigation or something.  Instead, they informed me that my husband had been a very powerful man.  That if they made his marriage to me known, I might become a target.  I would be blamed for his death.  I would be treated like a **** who had him killed.  After all, among rich men, such things as what he did to me can be overlooked.

The official news story said that he died of a heart attack.  The police knew that I didn’t **** him – there’s no way I physically could have done something like that, especially to someone more than twice my size.  They probably thought that I had somebody **** him.  I suppose they aren’t wrong.

They wanted to put me in foster care.  I didn’t entertain that thought for even a second.  As soon as I was able to, I left the hospital and never looked back.  They didn’t look very hard for me.

The next visit I paid was to my parents.  It took me a while to find them – I’d barely ever left my house growing up and I didn’t even know my own address.  But I found them.

They were surprised to see me.  And uneasy.  I wonder if they ever felt guilty for what they did.  Either way, it didn’t matter.  I asked them what happened to my sister.  They told me they didn’t know, but I could tell they were lying.

Yours helped me take care of them.  It held them down and skinned them slowly, keeping them alive for hours as they screamed and begged for mercy.  Finally, they told me the truth: my sister had been murdered by her husband two years after she’d been married off.

I let Yours **** them then.  I didn’t have any more use for them.  As he finished them off, I searched the house and stole as much cash as I could find.

I drifted for the next few years.  I used the money I took from my parents to forge some documents so I could get work.  They were obvious fakes, but some employers don’t really care.  A lot of them gave me work out of pity, I think.  They thought I was alone in the world.

But I was never alone.  I always had Yours to comfort me.

I still don’t know much about Yours.  I don’t know what it is or where it comes from.  Of the few people I’ve told, most seem to think it’s some kind of a demon.  I know that’s not true.  Nobody can live through what I’ve lived and still believe in ****.  People like me don’t have the luxury of that kind of fantasy.

No, I think Yours is just another creature, like you or me, trying to make its way in the world.  And it has grown quite fond of me, I can tell.

I know now what it meant when it told me that I had to give it a piece of myself.  Each time I command it, you see, it takes away a little piece of my humanity.  I couldn’t feel it at first.  After all, I didn’t think I had any humanity left.  But after it took both my parents, I could feel that something in me was changing.  It happens just a little at a time, but it happens nonetheless.

It didn’t want to do that.  It didn’t want to take anything away from me.  But it was the only way to save me.  It’s what must be – the consequences of our deal.

It mourns for me.  It mourns for the humanity I’ve lost and for the childhood that I never had.  It mourns because I cannot love.  Well, that’s not true.  I love Yours.  I don’t love anything else.  I don’t think I ever will.

Each day when I look in the mirror, I see something that’s a little less than human.  Maybe that is its doing.  Or maybe a substantial part of my humanity died when I was forced into that marriage.  I’ll never know.  What’s more, I don’t particularly care.

Lately, I have been thinking about all the other little girls trapped in these marriages all across the US.  The ones who think they’ve been abandoned, forgotten about.  The ones who are waiting for someone to come save them, because they cannot save themselves.

But I could save them.  I could do it.  I don’t know how much humanity I have left to give, how much until I no longer even remotely resemble a person.  But I think that it’s worth it.  If I can save even one child from the fate I was given, from the choices I had to make, it will be worth it.

It mourns for me now, too, that I’ve made my decision.  But I won’t regret it.  I won’t regret giving my life and my humanity for something bigger than myself.

Perhaps in time, I, too, will be like Yours.  Or Yours will be like me.  I only hope it stays with me so I don’t have to go it alone.

Yes… that’s what I must do.  I’m ready now.

Are you?

***

[+](http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/about-child-marriage/)


 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Worst Wedding I've Ever Photographed
 
 Assistant: I’ve been a wedding photographer for nearly ten years and I thought I’d seen it all. ****, beautiful, tragic, hilarious, or just bizarre. I have *stories*. I have the typical groom getting caught getting it on with the maid of honor, family getting into brawls, brides OD-ing in the bathroom, **** couples having no one attend their wedding (or worse, the one uninivited homophobic relative crashing to just be a ****) stories. But we aren’t here for the typical stories. If we were, we’d be here all day. We’re here for the wedding from last October.  

Fall weddings are probably my favorite, if I ever get married I’ll probably get hitched in the fall. It was the parents of the bride who came to me, asking for my services for a wedding in two weeks. Their original photographer apparently up and quit on them and they were desperate to have their darling daughter’s wedding immortalized in picture format.

Luckily for them, I had a clear schedule. I did charge them quite a bit extra for the suddenness of it all, but judging by the father’s Rolex it wasn’t that big a deal. One thing I’m good at guessing is a family’s wealth status. And once again I was on point- the Seawrights were *rolling* in dough.  

Not that I really liked them though. I’m not required to like all my clients, although it does make things a bit more relaxing. Harold Seawright absolutely leered at my chest whenever he thought I wasn’t looking and Carol was clearly the trophy wife that was over the hill. I’ve never seen a human being that genuinely looked more like plastic than her. Nothing wrong with plastic surgery or Botox, but there’s gotta be a cut off at some point.

I think I should’ve been more off put by the parents coming to me rather than the bride, but I just figured said bride was busy with other wedding planning **** and didn’t think too **** it.

Day came and uh… oh boy I realized I was getting into something I didn’t want to be a part of right away.

First time I saw the bride, Tanya, I had a brief moment of ‘I don’t know how old this girl is’. She could’ve been sixteen, she could’ve been *just* eighteen. Definitely not over twenty though. I’ve seen young marriages when it’s a shotgun affair, but then I met the groom. Marcel Wingate. Who was definitely no younger than thirty. And Marcel was just… something felt off. The man was a giant for one, he towered over *me* let alone Tanya. With his long, pale face and sunken eyes he could’ve been ****’ Lurch from the Addams Family.  

When he shook my hand and introduced himself, I barely repressed a shiver. But years of practice helped me to smile and act like there wasn’t something slimy about all of this.  

Tanya never said a word when she was made over for her big day. Only Carol did, chirping and twittering about ‘how about you make her hair a little bigger’ or ‘make her eyes pop, she has such pretty eyelashes’. Luckily Carol had to go have a smoke every fifteen minutes so the make up and hair people could have a moment to actually work. By the time it was all over, Tanya looked perfect. Her dress was basically a white ballgown, a tiara was placed in her strawberry blonde hair, cheeks blushing a perfect pink. But unlike most brides, she still hadn’t said a word and those weren’t sure as **** tears of joy she was holding back.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the ‘first look’ photo fad. I find it great to get that perfect expression a groom makes when he sees the bride in her dress for the first time. It’s usually quite cute. This was the first time I’ve **** first look photo where I truly believe it was the first time the bride and groom have actually looked at each other.

Marcel did seem to have his breath taken away by his lovely bride, but her expression was less than thrilled as he took her hand and give it a tight squeeze. My stomached turned when he leaned in for a kiss on the cheek and she quite obviously flinched.  

It’s time I put a pin on the myth that arranged marriages only happen in foreign countries, and only people from certain cultures take part in it. They happen all the time in the US, and more often than not it’s an old man who wants a ‘****’ bride, and by **** I mean ‘still in **** highschool’. This wouldn’t even be the first one I was hired to photograph.  

I managed to catch Tanya alone in the room she got ready in, sitting next to the open window and twirling an unlit cigarette between her fingers. “Need a light?” I offered as I came in.

“No thanks. I don’t smoke, but they say it makes you feel better, right?” She said, looking up at me with those doll like blue eyes.

“It also gives you lung and throat cancer.” I took the cigarette from her and lit it up for myself. “But I’m a bad example, so do as I say, not as I do.”

Now that got a smile out of her, even if it only lasted a second. “How often do you smoke?” She asked.

“Depends on the day. Usually I have two or three. Bad day I can have a few more.” I lowered the cigarette and looked down at her. “How old are you, Tanya?”

“Nineteen. Twenty in a few weeks. I have a bit of a baby face.” She poked one of her cheeks. “Why do you care?”

I glanced at the door to make sure Carol wasn’t going to barge in. “Tanya, are you not okay with this? The wedding?” I asked quietly.

Tanya’s eyes widened. “****, you’re good,” She also glanced at the door, “… Harold, my stepdad, arranged all of this. If he had it his way it would’ve happened when I was fifteen, but Marcel kept delaying. Business, apparently. He tried to delay another year but my dad implied he had other offers.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “If I said no, Harold would kick me out and cut me off, frozen my bank account. I’d have nothing and no one, and… I don’t know what I’d do if that happened.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out one of my business cards. “Flip the card over, it has a number for a woman’s shelter- they specialize in helping women escape from dangerous home situations. Hides them, helps them get started in a new city if need be. Below that is my personal home number, if you just need to talk, okay?”  

Tanya took the card and clung onto it tightly before tucking it into her bra. “You might be the nicest person I’ve ever met,” She murmured.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I try,” I said before extinguishing the cigarette on the windowsill. “If you need to escape any time tonight, just ask me to help you go to the bathroom. We can pull a whole runaway bride,” I joked.  

That got another laugh out of her, just in time for her mom to pop into the room. “Well, what’s taking so long? Hurry up, the wedding’s going to be starting in fifteen minutes, and I don’t want you to cry and make your face all blotchy and ****!” She whined.

Tanya’s brief joy faded and she gave me one more sad look before following her mother out.  

The ceremony would’ve been so much more beautiful if I didn’t know the dirty little secret behind it all. Tanya didn’t smile once. I don’t think even one of those bridesmaids was an actual friend of hers, or at least not a sincere one. When the priest said ‘you may kiss the bride’, Tanya let one tear slip down her cheek when Marcel leaned down to kiss her.  

I was seriously considering calling the cops, but what could they do? Tanya would likely cave and say nothing was wrong, and since she wasn’t a minor they couldn’t label Marcel a **** and her stepfather a child seller. It still didn’t make the situation any less ****. All I could do was snap pictures of the worst day of Tanya’s life.

At the reception I was constantly being nagged by Carol about what pictures to take to the point where I wanted to rip her hair out, but I did notice something different about the first dance between the couple.

Tanya at first was stiff as a board, reluctant to even touch Marcel, but he leaned down and whispered something in her ear. Her entire demeanor changed in a blink of an eye to one of surprise and I managed to read her lips- ‘really?’ Marcel nodded and I managed to catch a picture of the first smile Tanya had since she said ‘I do’. By the end of the dance, she was actually starting to get into it, resting her head on his chest as they swayed to ‘A Thousand Years’.

It was a complete 180 change, Tanya was now one of the happiest, and dare I say it flirtiest brides I’ve ever seen. She even leaned up to kiss him on the cheek as they sat down, something that took even Marcel by surprise judging by how he blushed.

I genuinely started to wonder if Marcel slipped something in her drink to get her acting so happy when Carol started to nag me again about where her husband was. She was the kind of mother who forgot this was her child’s wedding instead of her own and she wanted pictures of her and ‘Haaarold’. In order to get the **** away from her I told her I’d go find him. He’d been hitting the open bar a little hard that night, I assumed he was in the bathroom either throwing up or cheating on his wife. It could’ve gone either way at that point.

When I approached the men’s room, I heard something that sounded like gargling or swallowing. Ew, I know, but I kinda hoped to ruin this nasty ****’s day if her husband really was cheating so I opened the bathroom door with my camera at the ready.

I made eye contact with Harold.

Or rather, I made eye contact with Harold’s *head*.  

It was sitting in the sink, expression twisted in abject horror. The room was soaked in blood, body parts strewn around the floor. Meanwhile, Marcel had stripped out of his tuxedo and was currently swallowing Harold’s arm. Whole.  

Now I was wondering if I’d had something slipped into my champagne. Humans can’t just unhinge their jaw like that, each gulp taking Marcel’s arm deeper down his throat. I saw the tips of Harold’s fingers disappear with a small wave of goodbye… and then I dropped my camera.  

Yes, I heard something break, no I didn’t care. I just saw the groom *eat the **** father of the bride.* Marcel’s head shot up and his eyes, before now they were a dull, watery gray but now they were mottled brown and red with slitted pupils. I felt frozen when those eyes looked at me.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, one moment.”  

Marcel turned to the sink that was free of a man’s head and vomited, I heard several things clatter on the porcelain before he fetched them out and washed them off. With an embarrassed clearing of his throat, he walked up to me and pulled me into the bathroom.

I thought I was dead, but instead Marcel placed several diamonds in my palm. “For the camera, I didn’t mean to startle you,” He said.

“Uh huh,” I managed to get out as I stared at the literal handful of diamonds. This would pay for more than the camera. “… Why did you-”

“Devour Harold? Oh, I’ve wanted to do that for years,” Marcel chuckled as he grabbed some paper towels to wipe off his chin, like that would take away from the fact he was still **** and bloody in front of me. “A terrible person actually tastes quite divine. You would taste absolutely terrible. It’d be like swallowing nails. Meanwhile, a man who offers his own daughter as a sacrificial lamb to something he *knows* eats humans, he tastes like the richest cut of steak, cooked medium rare and seasoned to perfection.”  

Jesus Christ, this twisted situation had taken on a whole new level of **** up. “Wait, he seriously-”

“Oh, absolutely,” Marcel snorted, “And he’d do it again. All for what happens when my stomach processes human bone.”

I clutched the diamonds. “… You’re not going to hurt Tanya?” I asked.

Marcel shook his head vigorously. “****, no! I kept delaying the wedding in hopes that she’d manage to find a way out, but I think Harold was getting bored with my cold feet. There would be plenty of other people willing to pay for her, even if my payment would be easily thrice what others would offer.”

****, I was starting to feel a little dizzy. Here I was, talking to a human eating groom. I glanced out the door and a horrible idea entered my brain. One that would surely earn Marcel’s good favor and help out Tanya. “… So if I told Carol she could find her husband in the men’s room?” I asked.

Marcel seemed puzzled for a second but caught on quickly. With a nod, he picked up the head and tossed it into one of the stalls. I heard it splash in one of the toilets and I almost started giggling, I was nearing hysteria. “Go right ahead. I’ll be waiting,” He said as he kicked more limbs out of sight.

I almost left when I had to ask one more question.

“What the **** *are* you?”

Marcel cocked his head to the side before he changed, just for a second. One moment he was a blood soaked man, absolutely horrifing but normal, the next he was a snake… sort of. His body was gone, replaced by the body of an anaconda, but his head was still the same, minus the flick of a slim, forked tongue from his mouth. Then he was back to ‘normal’. He responded with a shrug.

“Funnily enough, I was hoping you’d tell me. I don’t have a clue.”

I left the bathroom and bumped into Carol almost immediately in the hallway. “Well, where is **** snapped.  

I just pointed a thumb towards the bathroom. “Think he’s not feeling so well,” I said before I was nearly bowled over by the grumpy ****.

I watched long enough for her to open the door and for a scaled tail to shoot out, snag her around the arm, and drag her into the bathroom before I headed back to the wedding.

The problem seemed to solve itself that night. Marcel came back, the men’s room locked after apparently someone got quite sick in there. Tanya no longer had to behave a certain way to please her mom and I think she had a good night. I used my back up camera to make sure to get all the pictures of her smiling. Carol and Harold vanished into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again. And those diamonds paid for quite the nice new camera.  

Like I said, it’s been a year. I sure as **** haven’t forgotten that wedding, but what prompted me to share it was that I got a friend request from Tanya on Facebook. I normally don’t accept friend requests from previous clients, but this one time I chose to make an exception. She does look so much better, she’s going to college, she now sculpts and paints, she regularly volunteers at the woman’s shelter I directed her to when we first me, and every Friday night is group date night at the local arcade with some of Marcel’s friends that now appear to be her friends as well. Apparently Marcel is quite the Dance Dance Revolution master, but is terrible at shooting games.

Her most recent picture was her and Marcel, smiling. And she was holding up an ultrasound picture[.](http://theoddcatlady.com/)  

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I first met my brother when I was ten
 
 Assistant: It was weird, one day I was an only child, the next I had an older brother.  My parents didn't even warn me.  Just one day he arrived and took my room and I had to sleep in the basement.

He arrived in a large waxed raincoat.  I remember the water droplets that hung to its surface as he leaned over me and offered his hand.  I ran behind my mother's legs and stayed there.  He smiled back.  My mother apologised for me and that was that.

It was obvious after a few days that he was their favourite.  I had a lot of issues and I knew I was a disappointment to them.  I visited a therapist twice a week, though I didn't talk much.  I never did.  I think that was my main problem.  I was fine.  My parents thought otherwise.

One day, my new brother came downstairs and handed me a used painting set and canvases.  I ignored him, upset he'd usurped me.  He didn't say anything, instead, set up the easel and began to paint.  He was incredible.  I watched in awe as within minutes he had painted things I couldn't imagine were possible from a paint brush.  He finished with a painting of a door.  It looked familiar but I wasn't sure.  He set down the paints and walked back upstairs.  I stared at it for weeks.  Then one day, I decided to try for myself. 

At first I was terrible, but as the months rolled on I got better and better.  I still didn't have the confidence to speak to my brother, but every now and then he'd make his way into the basement and look at what I'd painted.  He'd stare at them with nostalgia in his eyes.  He would cry.  I though, hid behind the sofa, watching him mentally critique my work.

"Keep it up," he said in a hushed tone.  The hairs on my neck stood up and I felt a warm glow around me, something I'd not felt before.  So I continued to paint.

By the time I was a teenager, my brother was around less and less, but my painting was as good as what his was when he first showed me.  I really wanted him to see what I'd created.  It was all because of him after all.

I waited one day, in the living room.  I stole glances out of the window, waiting for him to come home.  When he did, I jumped out of my chair and ran to the door to greet him.  He stepped back, as if not wanting to embrace me.

"Look at what I painted," I said to him.

My parents appeared surprised.  Even though I was sixteen, I rarely spoke.

I ran to the basement door.

"I think you should follow him," my mother said to my brother.

I waited for what seemed like hours, until my brother walked down the stairs.  I could barely see his face under the hood of his waxed jacket.

"What do you think?" I offered.

He stepped into the light, examining the painting.
Tears rolled down his cheeks.  I put my hand to my mouth.

"It's beautiful," he said quietly, and he began to cry.

Upset I raced over to him and hugged him.

"Thank you for teaching me," I said.

I then felt his body sway, I tried to hold onto him, but my grasp wasn't strong enough.  He collapsed, hitting his head on the side of my desk and onto the floor.

***

The following months were the worst of my life.  My brother was dead.  With my mental history, I was sent to a psychiatric hospital.  They said I had an episode and tried to **** my brother.  I didn't.  I swear.  He fell.

They said it may have been a side effect of the medication I was on or my psychosis in general.

After many sessions with the in house psychiatrist, I was allowed access to painting material.  To be honest, it wasn't that bad.  I saw my parents once a week and I was able to paint.  I thought about my brother a lot.  I thought about that painting he did for me, the one of the door.  I tried my best to remember it, and over and over I tried to paint it.  Each time, I stood back and looked at it.  Something wasn't right and I never knew what.  Until one day, I got it spot on.

That's when I realised what it was of.  It was the front door of our house.  Seeing it in front of me, it was so obvious.

I peered at it from different angles.  I remembered it all.  I started to paint in all the little details.  The room began to get cold, so I put on my jacket.

I placed the paints in my pocket when I was done and gazed in awe.

It was almost real.

I stared and cried.  I wasn't going to see this front door for a long time, if ever.  That frightened me.  The longer I gazed, the more I wished I could just be standing outside it.  Knocking on it.  Waiting for my parents to answer.

I pretended I was standing outside.  For the first time in months I felt free.  I imagined the wind blowing as the rains fell.  I imagined reaching out to turn the handle.

I closed my eyes and reached.

I could feel the rain on my forehead.  I could feel the cool air.  I could hear the water slap against my jacket.

I opened my eyes.

I was there.  Outside my parent's house.

I panicked briefly before, almost on autopilot, walking towards the door.

I knocked.

I felt I must be dreaming.

Then the door opened.  My mother stood there.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Mum, it's your son."

She tried to close the door.  I placed my foot in the way.

"Please, just listen to me."

She looked into my eyes.  There was a recognition in them, she knew I was truthful.

"Come on in," she said, confused.

I saw a little boy in the living room.  I knelt down to talk to him.  He ran behind his mother's legs.  I smiled, remembering myself doing that.

I tapped my pocket, feeling the painting set in there.   I knew what I needed to do.

[****](https://www.facebook.com/theedwincrowe/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Was Hired To Sleep Through A Porn Shoot And I Don't Know What Happened But It Definitely Wasn't Porn
 
 Assistant:  

Okay, let’s be up front about this. Yes. I’m a **** star. No, I’m not open to DM’s. No, I’m not including pics or my actual stage name. I’m pretty small time although I’m sure some of you have heard of me, and I don’t want this to damage anyone's professional reputation. I don’t want to **** the wrong people. I think the reasons will become pretty clear in a bit. 

I don’t think anyone really cares about my biography, but let me just say that I’ve been doing this for a couple of years and for the most part, I like what I do. Like any job, it’s got its ups and downs (lots of them) but I still end up having fun most of the time. There’s a lot of good people in the **** industry, and even after this I stand by that. But with what happened recently… I don’t think I can work again. 

The shoot was a pretty normal gig. It was a scene for a smaller website I’d never heard of before. But they paid so I was fine with it. Admittedly, the pay was a little light, but money is money, right? Besides, the director told me that my role was going to be a little less **** and a little more Actress, which I was fine with.

I know no one watches **** for the story, but the scene had a simple and kinda generic setup. 

I was supposed to be having a sleepover with the actual leading lady of the shoot. She was a better known actress than me, and I was honestly kind of excited to get to meet her. I won’t drop her name here, so let’s just call her Pepper Petite. If you’re smart you can figure it out. 

My ‘Dad’ would be played by a dude named Kevin ****. I’m sure by now you know where this is going. Kevin would come in, flirt with Pepper and they’d **** on the bed while I pretended to sleep soundly. Not exactly standard, but I was just happy for the easy money. Who wouldn’t be?

On the day of the shoot, I got ready and drove to the set. It was an upscale looking mansion that the director had rented for the week. I figured he’d probably been shooting almost constantly since he’d rented the place. It was clean, as most sets were and there wasn’t much of a crew there. Just the director, a couple of camera guys and a boom operator. 

I’d never actually worked with this director before. His name was Jackson Masters. I got the feeling it wasn’t a stage name. Jackson didn’t give me any odd vibes. He seemed friendly when he greeted me at the door, offering me a beer from the stash he kept in the fridge. I accepted, because I figured it would be easier to pretend to sleep if I was a little buzzed.

  “So glad you could make it out today!” He said with a warm smile, as if we were at some summer beach party as opposed to a **** shoot. 

  “Oh, well it’s my pleasure.” I said, “I’ve heard really great things about you and when I saw it was you, I thought it would be a lot of fun.”

All complete ****. But he didn’t need to know that. Why not make the connection, right? Especially if it might lead to more work in the future.

He actually blushed when I said that and took a sip of his beer.

  “Ah, well. Y’know. I’m just starting out. Hey, we should go meet the rest of the cast! They’re right upstairs!”

He gestured for me to follow and led me up to the bedroom where the other two actors were talking. Pepper Petite lived up to her name in person. I know her entire gimmick was being very petite, but ****. She was really tiny. Her infectious smile widened a little when she saw me enter the room. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or not. She got up to greet me and exchange introductions. I’ll admit, I was a little awkward about it. 

  “Nice to meet you.” I said, “I’m a huge fan!”

What a great way to ruin an introduction. Good job me. Pepper didn’t seem offended though. She just laughed and tossed her golden hair back. 

  “Really? I’m so glad! I saw some of your work too y’know. You’re really great! I’m glad you get to join us today!” Her smile widened, “Maybe we can do another scene together sometime… I was a little disappointed when I heard it was just me and Kevin.

My heart fluttered a little at that. Pepper was attractive, but that wasn’t what got to me. It was the idea of working with someone I truly admired. Now that was something interesting!

  “By the way, let me introduce you to Kevin…” Pepper said, taking my hand gently. She led me towards the man in question. 

Kevin **** was just about what I expected. I don’t think I even need to describe him. He looked like someone who’d call himself Kevin ****. 30s, tanned, lean and with the general short cropped male haircut. I had a feeling I’d forget he even existed when I left that house later.

Pepper and I did a few run throughs of our scenes together, although none of it went really well. I was kinda impressed by her as an actress. Obviously, she wasn’t quite in Hollywood league, but she seemed so full of energy.

  “I’ve really been looking forward to this all week.” She said, “We’re going to have so much fun together!” She didn’t even look at the script, not that there was much of a script. 

A finger brushed against her lips. She **** on it seductively.

  “Will… your Dad be home?”

  “I think **** be in his office. So he won’t bother us too much.” I replied. My lines felt stilted. At least we weren’t filming. 

  “Oh.” Pepper sounded genuinely disappointed. She put on an exaggerated pout, “Well, hopefully **** at least come to say goodnight to us!”

**** that writing was cringeworthy. Not even Pepper could have saved it. 

We did a few more run throughs before Jackson actually started filming. He only did a few takes. This wasn’t what people would be paying the very fine **** site to see after all. 

The next shot was to be us getting into bed and going to sleep. My time to shine! Pepper went to get a bottle of water before the actual fun began, while I had another beer.

  “Quick note before we start.” Jackson said, going up to me. I was halfway through my bottle.

  “We’re going to be moving the camera around a lot. I just want to make sure I’m reminding you. No matter what, don’t open your eyes. You’ve got to sleep through the entire shoot.”

I nodded.

  “Yeah, sure thing.” I said. Jacksons smile faded.

  “No matter what. Don’t open your eyes.” He repeated, “Promise?”

I nodded.

  “I promise. I’ll keep my eyes closed until you tell me to open them.”

He seemed satisfied with that and let me finish my beer in peace. Pepper came back with her bottle of water and finished it off halfway before leaving it on a table out of the shot. I put my beer beside it.

  “Ready to get paid?” I teased her. Pepper giggled.

  “Always.”

  “We’re going live!” Jackson said, and Pepper and I got into our positions. Jackson counted down and the scene began. 

Pepper and I both climbed into bed. I pulled the duvet over me. I could feel her tiny body beside me, almost dwarfed by me.

  “Goodnight Pepper.” I said.

  “Goodnight!” She replied, chipper as always. Although the lights were still on, we both mimed sleep. I kept my eyes closed tight, but listened intently, knowing what was about to come. 

I heard Kevin’s footsteps outside the bed, and listened as he sat down on it. I felt his weight on Pepper’s side of the bed.

  “Mr. Smith, what are you doing?” Pepper asked with flirtatious indignancy. 

  “It’s alright. I just wanted to say goodnight.” Kevin crooned, “After all, when my little girl brings my favorite one of her friends over, I’ve got to say hi, right?”

  “Oh Mr. Smith!” Pepper giggled. “You’re so nice!”

  “Yeah? You wanna be nice to me baby?”

  “Oh yes Mr. Smith!”

And that was when the kissing started.

I lay there listening as the two made out, and let my mind wander. This bed was awfully comfortable. I liked the duvet too. It was really warm. I might actually have dozed off!

I heard the shuffling of Kevin’s belt buckle and the wet sounds of work being done. It was all things I’d heard before. Nothing special. I was busy thinking about how much I liked the pillows and focusing on not opening my eyes.

When the first satisfied moan escaped Pepper, I shifted a little to make room as the two bodies lay down on the bed beside me.

  “Oh Mr. Smith, what if we wake her up?” Pepper asked.

  “She sleeps like a rock. It’ll be fine.” Kevin assured her. Sure enough, the term ‘rock’ was associated with what was happening in that bed. But it wasn’t in relation to my fake sleeping. 

Pepper moaned and swore under her breath as they did their job. I could hear his breathy dirty talk.

  “You’re such a bad girl. You’re a dirty ****. I love how dirty of a **** you are.”

Real original. 

For fun, I took everything I heard as out of context as possible and made up silly scenarios in my head as I feigned sleep. Everything seemed to be going according to plan and I’d likely be done in about 45 minutes or so.

Then I heard the first cry of pain.

  “Owch!” It was from Kevin surprisingly, “Not so hard!”

Pepper giggled.  
   “Sorry.” I could hear her smile in her voice. Kevin cried out again.

  “Ow! No… What are you… No… No, NO!”

His word was broken down into a long, drawn out and horrified scream. The change was so sudden that it made me physically jolt. I almost got up and looked over my shoulder to see what was happening. But Jackson’s words stuck with me.

*No matter what happens. Don’t open your eyes.*

Was this supposed to be part of the shoot? I could feel Kevin thrashing on the bed. Squirming and writhing as if he was trying to fight off Pepper. That shouldn’t have been difficult though. She was less than half his weight! Why was he struggling?

I heard nothing from Jackson or the crew… Just silence. Were they still filming? They had to be.

I curled into a tighter ball and kept quiet, letting everything unfold behind me.

Kevin's screams reached an awful, ear splitting crescendo before they ended abruptly. I heard a low gurgling sound escape him before all movement ceased. Then I heard a wet, tearing noise. Just that sound sent shivers down my spine. I wanted to look, but I told myself not to. Jackson was still filming! This had to be part of the film! This was just some sort of fetish ****. That made sense, right? I didn’t know much about the company, so it only made sense they were making some niche ****! I should’ve asked more questions. This was my fault.

The tearing sound came again and just the awful wetness of it made me want to ****. I remained still, keeping my eyes closed and pressing my hands over my mouth.

The world around me was silent save for the tearing of flesh and… chewing… That had to be it, chewing! I heard it clearly now. Was… was something eating Kevin? Where were Jackson and the crew.  
I almost opened my eyes, but thought better of it. What if what was behind me was something I didn’t want to see? 

Slowly, my reluctance to open my eyes turned from professionalism to fear. I don’t know how long I lay there, listening to that sickening tearing and chewing… but it felt like it went on for hours.

Then I felt the weight on the bed shift. I felt something climbing on top of me. Pepper?

I could feel her lips close to my ear. I could smell her rancid hot breath and feel the blood and saliva dripping from her mouth. Her breathing was heavy and feral. I kept my eyes closed.

Pepper seemed bigger than I remembered. Her arms were over my head. Her legs were down past where my legs were. Maybe it was because I was curled up, but she seemed longer and spindly. My eyes remained closed tight. Whatever horror I imagined was standing over me, I only wanted to imagine it. In my heart, I knew that seeing it would only make things worse.

Pepper continued to stand over me, still letting her heavy, rancid breath wash over me. The silence ticked by. She didn’t move.

Then, at last I felt her weight shift. I heard her bodyweight against the floor as she left me there. I heard her footsteps going further and further into the house as I lay there, feigning sleep, too afraid to open my eyes out of fear of what I’d see.

The Police found me in that bed, curled into a ball and shaking, my face wet with tears. When I felt the Officers hand on my shoulder, I cried out and curled up tighter.

  “NO!”  
   “****… We’ve got a live one!” The Cop called. I heard other movement, and felt hands on me, easing me up out of the bed. My eyes remained closed. 

  “Honey, are you okay?” A man asked me. I shook my head. I still didn’t want to open my eyes.

  “No… No, please get me out of here…” I whispered. He did as I asked. I never actually saw the state the bedroom was in. I’m glad I didn’t.

Down at the station, the Police asked their questions. I told them the same story I’ve told here. They showed me the pictures of the ‘crime scene’.

Oh ****.

Body parts all around. Pieces of meat. Blood coating the floor… I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to ever know, because I already know too much.

I know that all the bodies found in that room belonged to men. There was no sign of Pepper Petite. There was no evidence that she’d ever been there. I told the Police that I may have been mistaken. I don’t know if they’ve tried to reach out to her. I haven't seen anything in the news. I don’t care either.

I don’t think I’m ever working in the **** industry again.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Feed the Pig
 
 Assistant:  
I slowly opened my eyes. My head was swimming and a dull pain surrounded my throat. I was thirsty. That was the first thing I noticed. I licked my dry lips as my surroundings faded into focus. My body ached and I realized it was because I was tightly bound to a metal chair in the middle of an empty room. The barren concrete walls were stained and dirty, the floor beneath my bare feet was cold and slightly wet. 
     
A single bulb lit the room, dangling from the ceiling by a string. It cast moving shadows and I blinked back darkness. An open door stood before me, but I couldn't see anything but the wall of a hallway. 
     
I tried to clear my head, tried to remember how I got here. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself not to panic. I slowed my breathing and focused my thoughts, desperately trying to summon some recollection of why I was here. 
     
I couldn't remember anything. 
     
I opened my eyes and exhaled, my parched throat throbbing. I could hear sound echoing off the hallway walls outside the door. Screaming, clanging, howling, all very distant but that did nothing to help calm my nerves. 
    
“Hello?!” I cried, the word tearing at my vocal cords. I felt my chest hitch in pain but I cleared my throat and yelled again.
      
“Is anyone there!? Hello!?”
       
The dark hallway remained silent except for the constant echoes. I shut my mouth and tried to wriggle free of my bindings, but the rope was knotted impossibly tight. I fought back against my imagination as it flooded my mind with horrific scenarios of what awaited me. If I could only remember!
       
Suddenly, footsteps erupted from outside the door, a rapid patter of small feet. My hopes rose and I trained my attention on the door, praying it was help. 
       
A young boy ran into the room, dressed in a red onsey, complete with padded feet. Stretched over his face was a plastic Devil mask. The eye holes revealed massive blue eyes that greeted me curiously. Taken back, I opened my mouth to speak but that's when I noticed something was off. His eyes were huge, impossibly round and bulging from their sockets. It sent a shiver of unease down my spine, but I shook it off. This child might be able to free me. 
       
“Hey!” I hissed, urgently, “Hey kid, can you get me out of here?!” 
       
The boy took a step closer, cocking his head, but remaining silent. 
       
I rattled my bound arms against the chair, “Cut me free, please, I shouldn't be here, this is some kind of mistake!”
       
The boy eyed me behind his strange mask and stopped directly in front of me. He leaned in close and whispered, his voice like wet silk, “You did a bad thing...”
        
Confused, I shook my head, “No! No this is a mistake! I didn't do anything!”
        
The boy's enormous blue eyes suddenly filled with sadness, “Oh, you did a really, really bad thing...”
        
I shook my head again, violently, “No! I'm sorry! I don't remember, just please get me out of this chair!”
       
Suddenly, before either of us could speak again, a man came charging into the room. He was overweight and dressed in overalls, his grizzled face twisted in seething anger. He was holding a sawed off shotgun in his arms. 
       
“I didn't do anything!” I cried as he advanced on us, my voice cracking, “I'm not supposed to be here!”
       
The big man ignored me and instead grabbed the kid and shoved him hard against the wall. The boy grunted as his back struck the concrete and his eyes rose to meet the grizzled man's. 
        
Wordlessly, the man raised his shotgun, placed it against the boy's forehead, and blew his head off. Chunks of gore splattered the wall as shock slugged me in the stomach like an iron fist. My ears rang and time seemed to slow as I watched in horror as the headless body crumpled to the ground.  
        
My breath rushed back into my lungs and time seemed to readjust. 
        
“Jesus **** CHRIST!” I screamed, straining against the ropes, my eyes bulging in horrific shock, “WHAT THE ****!?”
         
The man ignored my screams as he bent down and picked up the boy. He slung the ruined corpse over his shoulder and walked out the doorway. 
         
Suddenly, the hallway erupted with malicious laughter, a chorus of voices all howling in glee. I shut my eyes, the noise deafening, as absolute terror filled my every pore. 
          
After a few moments, the laughter faded and I cautiously opened my eyes, unable to believe what I had just witnessed. 
          
“Hello.”
           
I jumped as I realized there was another man standing before me. He was dressed in a simple, white button down shirt and jeans. His brown hair was cut short and he appeared to be in his early thirties. His green eyes were dull and lifeless, his full lips pulled down at the corners. 
           
“What is going on!? Where am I!?” I cried, new fear pooling in my stomach like hot blood. 
            
The man crossed his arms, “So you're the new one huh?” He shook his head, “You people disgust me.”
            
Questions bubbled on my lips but he waved them off with a sharp chop of his hand, slicing the air and demanding my silence.
           
He ran his tongue over his teeth, sneering, “You look like you've already seen some of the horrors this place holds huh? Yes, I can tell by the look in your eyes. You're terrified. You've seen something haven't you? It doesn't seem all that bad now does it, looking back? You've been here five minutes and already you're **** your pants.”
            
“Where am I?” I gasped, unable to hold back any longer, “What do you people want?”
            
The man crossed his arms behind his back, “I bet you want to get out of here don't you? I bet you'd like to go back to your home, your family, everything.”
            
“Please,” I interrupted, “Whatever I did to you...I'm sorry, I really am, but I don't remember!” 
            
The man rolled his eyes, “You didn't do anything to me. You did it to yourself. You really don't remember anything?”
             
I shook my head and felt tears brimming in my eyes, liquid fear. 
             
The man looked at me with contempt, “You waited until your wife left for work and then you went out to the woodshed and hung yourself. You're dead.”
             
The recent memory rose in my mind like a monster from a bog. My eyes went wide. As much as I wanted to deny it...he was right. I had killed myself. The incident tore through my brain like a bullet train and left me reeling. 
             
“I'm Danny, by the way,” the man said, ignoring the shocked look on my face, “And I'm number two here. I run the orientation process. I want to make this quick because I'm tired of repeating this **** thing to you pathetic Suicidals. You get one question before I begin.”
              
He stared down at me and I scrambled to organize my thoughts into something cohesive. This was all horrifying. Why had I killed myself? I fought against the fog and panic and the mists of confusion slowly began to lift. I had just lost my job. Yes...that was the start. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced more of the memory to emerge. I had lost my job and I was about to lose the house. My wife...Tess...she found out and was going to leave me. I didn't have any way out, didn't have any options. Getting fired had come out of the blue and I didn't have much in savings. I was broke, soon to be homeless, and my wife hated me for it. There was something else...yes...that's right. She had been cheating on me. I had seen texts on her phone while she slept one night and confirmed my suspicions. My life had degraded to **** and I had run out of options. Humiliated and ashamed, I had decided death was my only option. 
      
“Hey, ****, do you have a question or not?” Danny said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. 
      
I was **** back into reality and I asked the only question that mattered.
      
“Is this ****?”
       
Danny snorted, “That's always what you people ask.” He began to pace back and forth in front of me, “No. This is not ****. It's not Heaven either. This is the Black Farm. And no, I didn't name it that. This is where **** sends the souls who have ended their own life. Suicidals. You see, he doesn't really know what to do with you...and neither does the Devil. There are genuinely good people who **** themselves. Seems cruel to banish them to **** for all eternity for a moment of weakness right? Personally, I think **** and the Devil were just tired of arguing about it. And so, they send them here, to the Black Farm.”
       
“Did...did **** create this place?” I asked, growing more and more confused. 
       
Danny spit on the floor, chuckling, “Sure, at some point. But he lost control of it when he put The Pig in charge.”
        
“What's The Pig?” I asked, unsure I wanted to know the answer.
         
Danny held up a hand, annoyed, “Can I **** finish? **** created this place, eons ago, put The Pig in charge, and then forgot about it for a while. Well, when his back was turned, The Pig decided to use his new powers to try and create his own little world. This mess you see around you is the fractured remains of that experiment. The Black Farm use to be a lot nicer, but The Pig wanted things to be different. He wanted to create his own vision. These people you see, these monsters? They are The Pig's attempts at creating functioning life. Instead of mirroring God's Earth, these mutated horrible creations are full of sin and hatred. They run rampant here, unabashed. This place is chaos. The Black Farm is a circus of freaks and monsters. And it's your eternity.”
       
Fear boiled in my gut like thick oil. No. No this couldn't be my end. I didn't believe in stuff like this. This wasn't real! I would wake up soon and realize I was just having a nightmare! That had to be it!
      
Danny stood before me and lightly slapped my face, “Hey, hey! Don't go into hysterics on me. I haven't finished yet.”
      
I raised my teary eyes to meet his.
      
Danny smiled, “You can always Feed the Pig.”
      
My breath pushed from my lungs like burning steam, “W-what does that mean?”
      
Danny spread his hands, still smiling, “It's as simple as that. Feed the Pig. If you do so, there's a chance he'll send you back to your life.”
      
“A-and w-what happens if it doesn't?” I bumbled.
      
“You get sent to ****. So flip a coin if you have one. Stay here with us or Feed the Pig. If you choose to stay, I'll let you go...I'll let you go out there,” he said, pointing towards the door, “But let me assure you...what awaits you at the end of the hallway...well...let's just say **** isn't that much worse.”
        
I swallowed hard, trying my best to digest everything. Why wouldn't I try Feeding the Pig? Whatever that meant. If there was even a sliver of hope, I would take it. An eternity in this place, the Black Farm, be sent to ****, or...or Feed the Pig? I would do anything for a chance to go back. This nightmare made my problems seem nothing in comparison. 
        
Danny raised a hand before I could speak, “I'll let you think on it a while. I'll be back later.”
        
“I want to Feed the Pig!” I cried, not wanting to spend another second in this awful room. I could hear a woman screaming down the hallway, her cries rising as something meaty pounded into her. My breath came in sharp pulls and my throat burned. Danny noticed the noise and grinned.
         
“Sounds pretty bad huh?” He said softly as the woman's voice creaked with agony. Something was still slamming into her, the sound of beaten flesh igniting my imagination with horrors. 
         
“Please,” I gasped, breathless, “Just...just let me Feed the Pig. I don't want to stay here any longer.”
         
Danny turned away from me, “I'll be back later. Enjoy your time alone. Really think about your situation. Weigh your options. And remember...you put yourself here.”
         
And with that he was gone, leaving me in the dim room. 
         
Tears streamed down my face. 
         
The woman didn't stop screaming for hours. 

---

        
At some point, I fell into a semi-sleep. The darkness in the room seemed to press in on me and my eyes fluttered shut. My body ached and my throat was a halo of fire. Thirst raked at my windpipe like sharp glass. My lips felt like crumpled paper. My head thundered like a drum. The room swam in and out of focus and my mind drifted towards the horrific sounds that never ended. 
        
I was lost in a haze, unaware that something was sliding into the room until I felt a sharp **** on my big toe. I jolted out of my daze as my bare foot ignited with pain. I screamed and tried to move, but my bindings held me tight. 
        
The room rushed back into focus and I blinked in agony as I felt blood trickle between my toes. I looked down for the source of pain and I felt a scream claw up my throat. 
         
Staring up at me was an armless man. He slithered on the floor like a worm, his bald head scabbed and filthy. His legs were wrapped together in barbed wire, forcing him to wriggle his body to move. His eye were lidless and wide, two bloodshot white orbs that stared up at me with hungry intensity. His teeth had been removed and replaced with long screws which jutted from his bleeding gums like a broken rock formation. 
          
Around his neck was a chain leash, which I followed across the floor to the open door. The end of the leash was held by a tall, **** man. His body was hairless and flabby, covered in similar scabs like his pet. A dirty bag was pulled over his head that hid his features except for a single red eye that peeked out at me from a crude cut in the cloth.
          
He stared at me and groped his engorged ****, his breath heavy and labored. As the armless man wriggled towards me again, his master started to ****. I screamed as the **** filled mouth bit at me again and my cries seemed to stimulate the **** man even more. 
         
“Get off of me! Stop it!” I screamed, horrified. I tried to kick at the man, doing my best to avoid his sharp metal teeth. I brought my heel down on his head and he screamed as his face bounced off the floor. 
          
A moan of pleasure escaped the bagged man's mouth and I turned away as a mist of black sprayed out onto the floor. There was a rattle of chains and I turned back to see the two of them leaving, the armless man dragged by his neck out the door. I looked at where the bagged man had **** and saw a puddle of dead ants. I vomited onto myself, thick chunky curtains of bile and slime. 
          
“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I screamed, strands of puke running down my chin, “I DON'T BELONG HERE!”
       
I listened to the two men retreat down the hallway, the clank of chains accompanied by the sound of flesh being dragged across the concrete. I screamed again, but I knew no one was going to help me. I spit a **** of phlegm and bile onto the floor, ridding my mouth of its sourness. I forced myself to calm down. It wasn’t easy.
      
After some time, I heard someone else approaching. I had been in a miserable lull, my mind a blank canvas of dark despair, but the noise roused me from my trance like state. The muscles in my arms burned from being restrained for so long and I shifted them desperately, trying my best to prepare myself for whatever horror was about to walk through the door.
      
Footsteps drew closer and then a woman walked into the room. She stopped at the doorway and looked at me. One of her eyes was missing, a dark cavernous hole in her skull. Her hair was ratty and wild, a brown tangle like a forgotten nest. Her skin was pale and filthy and she was dressed in rags. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but there was maturity in her one good eye.
     
“Still thinking?” She asked, her voice course and brittle.
     
“What?”
      
She took a step closer, “Are you still deciding whether you’re going to Feed the Pig or not?”
     
I looked at her cautiously, “Yeah…I am. Who are you? What do you want?”
     
“I was once where you are now,” She said, “trying to decide my fate. I couldn’t believe that this was what happened…what happened after we die. It wasn’t what I was taught…religion didn’t warn me about this place.”
     
I tested my bindings again before asking, “You killed yourself too? You’re a person like me? You’re not one of those…those creations?”
     
She snorted, “Breaks my heart you have to ask, though,” she touched the hole where her eye should have been, “Though I can understand your caution. Yeah, I’m a Suicidal. I’ve been here a long, long time. But that was my choice. I decided to chance it here.”
     
I motioned with my head towards the door, “What’s out there? What is all this?”
     
She exhaled heavily and leaned against the wall, “I can’t even begin to describe this place. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. You walk down that hallway and go out…into it…and…” she swallowed,    “You’d have to see it to understand.”
     
“How bad is it? Why are all these mutated people hurting and killing each other?” I asked.
     
She let her head loll back against the wall, “It would take years for you to fully understand this place. Years you don’t have. Right now you have to make a decision. Stay or Feed the Pig. They tell me **** is worse than here, but it can’t be by much. Monsters and Suicidals roam the Black Farm…killing, ****, brutalizing…and then you wake up and wonder how long you can survive before something else kills you. It’s an endless cycle.”
     
“So why did you stay?” I pressed, “Why didn’t you Feed the Pig? I don’t even know what that means, but I would do anything for a chance to go back. I can’t stay here, I…I just can’t!”
     
She smiled sadly at me, “Why? Why did I choose this? It’s simple really. I’m a coward. I was a coward when I was alive and I’m a coward in death. When it came down to it, when the moment presented itself, I chose to stay here. I didn’t know what awaited me outside. It boiled down to a simple choice fueled by my own fear.”
     
“What is The Pig? What does it do to you?” I pressed.
     
She suddenly turned to go, “I’m afraid that’s for you to find out. But let me warn you. Think hard before you make a decision. Sometimes suffering through your fear is better than suffering for eternity. Be brave.”
     
“What do I do!?” I yelled, shaking in my chair as she walked out the door.
     
She paused and took one last look over her shoulder. Her eyes darted around and she dropped her voice to a whisper, “Feed the Pig.”
     
And with that she was gone.
     
I sat in silence once again. My mind was spinning, desperately turning over my options. I still couldn’t fully understand the situation I was in. It was too much, too overwhelming. The other side of death wasn’t supposed to be like this. I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this nightmare.    Questions crashed over my mind like cold waves onto a sinking ship. How was I supposed to make a choice when I didn’t even know what my actions entailed?
     
This place, the Black Farm…I couldn’t stay here. But what if I went to ****? What if I didn’t get sent back? I would be out of the fire and into the frying pan. My existence would forever be damned to unending misery. Here though…here there were people like me. Suicidals. It wasn’t all monsters and mutilated murderers. Maybe I could hole up somewhere with them, try to scrape together a passable existence. Surely that would be better than getting sent to ****!
     
No. No this wasn’t going to be how I spent my eternity. I refused to let it be. If there was even the slightest sliver of hope, I would take it. I didn’t want to wonder what could have been. I didn’t want to be tormented by doubt. I would Feed the Pig and accept whatever fate chose for me. When I boiled it down, that was the only option left.
     
I would Feed the Pig.
     
“Hey! Hello!? Danny!” I yelled, rattling in my chair. “I’ve made my decision! Danny!”
     
After a couple seconds, I heard footsteps echo down the hall towards me.
     
Danny walked through the doorway, an annoyed look on his face.
     
“I’ve made my choice,” I said, “I’m going to Feed the Pig.”
     
“Sounds like you’ve really thought a lot about it since I left you,” Danny said sarcastically.
     
I licked my lips, “You’d do the same thing if you were in my place.”
     
Danny walked behind me, “I was in your place once. And I chose differently.” My eyes widened and then Danny wrapped my entire head with a **** of thin cloth, blinding me. I **** in as much air as I could, but each lungful felt empty.
      
I felt Danny cut me free from the chair and my body sighed as my stiff muscles were released. I rolled my shoulders as my hands were released and I moaned with relief. I dug my fingers into my back and I stretched, my bones creaking.
     
“Keep your blindfold on and follow me,” Danny said, pulling me up.
      
My legs shook as I put weight on them, my thighs trembling after their long cemented position. I groped blindly in front of me and found Danny’s shoulder. I rested my hand on it as he walked us out of the room.
     
As were entered the hallway, I could suddenly hear sound I hadn’t before. The clank of metal, a long fleshy tearing noise, something vomiting…these sounds sprang to life in my ears, painting the darkness before my eyes with imaginary scenes of horror. I gripped Danny’s shoulder tighter, stumbling behind him, my heart thundering.
     
I heard something trailing behind us, but Danny didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care.    Flesh slapped the concrete mere inches behind me and I suddenly felt hot breath on my neck and the click of a wet tongue against gums. My breathing became even more labored as fear choked me.
     
“Go’in ta feed da piggy are ya?” Something whispered in my ear. I felt something press against the back of my head and I tried not to think about what it might be. It was wet and slimy and I heard the thing chuckle.
     
“Ee’s a ‘ungry piggy, you make shor’ ee gets iz meal now,” the thing whispered again, its voice low and unlike anything I had ever heard before. It was like a series of grunts and moans jumbled together to form broken words.
     
To my relief, I heard the thing retreat back to wherever it had come from and I continued to follow Danny. He remained silent as we walked and I could feel shifts in the air. The thick heat gave way to a cooler, almost pleasant temperature, but then it kept decreasing and soon I was shivering violently against the cold. I couldn’t see anything but I felt a breeze on my face, like we were outside. I didn’t hear Danny open any doors, but nothing about this place was natural. It was like reality blurred and bled into itself, like reels of film melting together.
     
Teeth chattering, I was suddenly blasted with intense heat and I gasped. My feet tripped over themselves as the terrain changed and I was suddenly walking on what felt like warm iron. My ears were filled with the sound of blazing furnaces and the clash of working machinery. I couldn’t see it, but     I felt like there was a vast open expanse overhead. I smelled ash and tasted dirt on my tongue, sweat already forming along my spine. 
     
Suddenly, I crashed into Danny as he came to a halt. I backed up a few paces, quickly, and muttered my apologies. I could hear movement in front of us, a rustle of chains and an odd clicking sound on the metal floor. Something else too...something...snorting.
      
And then the room filled with a deafening sound of an immense pig squealing. I covered my ears, head splitting at the high pitched wail. I grit my teeth as the noise echoed off the metal and faded into a series of snorts and grunts. 
      
It sounded absolutely enormous. 
      
“I've brought another one,” Danny announced, a slight tinge of respect lining his voice. “He wants to Feed the Pig.”
       
I waited, expecting to hear some answer, the cloth around my eyes sealing my sight to darkness. I realized my knees were shaking and my back was coated in sweat. I was terrified. 
       
“If that is what you wish,” Danny said and I felt him bow under my hand. Apparently some unseen conversation had just happened and Danny took my wrist and pushed me forward. 
        
“Approach The Pig,” he instructed. 
        
My whole body trembled and my knees locked into place. Robbed from sight, I raised my hands, trying to get my bearings, the heat and ash filling my head with nausea. I felt like I was going to throw up, my stomach rolling like a dead sea. I didn't know where I was or what horror lay before me. I felt lost and tiny, a fresh splash of tears dripping from my eyes and soaking into the cloth around my face. 
        
“P-please,” I begged, “Let me see what's happening.”
         
Danny was suddenly behind me, pushing me forward. He guided my hands towards something as we stepped together in unison. Even with the cloth around my face, I could see a giant mass of towering darkness before me. It was a spot of black on an already darkened canvas. 
          
As we walked forward, I was suddenly assaulted by a horrendous smell and I gagged, turning away. Danny's grip tightened and forced me to continue. I could sense something just in front of me, a living shifting mass of flesh. The smell increased to a wretched level and I gagged again. Then hot air was being blown on my face, a blast of heat that came in repeated short bursts. 
          
I vomited into my cloth, the source of the smell stemming from the hot air. I choked as the bile gushed over the fabric, soaking it and momentarily cutting off my oxygen. Danny slapped my hands away and I took a few seconds to steady my breathing again. I was opening crying now, fear and misery collapsing my willpower. 
          
The wet cloth stunk as I **** in soggy breaths. My own stomach acid coated my skin and I begged for all of this to be over. 
          
And then something squealed directly in front of me. 
          
I felt my bladder go. I was standing before The Pig. 
          
It was the source of darkness in my obscured vision; a ****, titanic creature that filled my senses with every breath it blew into my face. 
          
Danny raised my hands and suddenly I was touching The Pig's snout. I recoiled immediately, but Danny forced my hands back. Its fur was stiff and brittle and as my shaking hands explored up its nose, the size of the animal became clear to me. 
          
It was gigantic and had weight over a ton. Its flesh wiggled under my sweating hands and it opened its mouth slightly. My fingers curled around teeth the size of kitchen knives and I realized its mouth was absolutely cavernous. 
          
The Pig squealed again and I heard its hooves clack against the ground. It sounded like thunder rolling across an open field in the middle of summer. 
           
“Take this blindfold off, please,” I begged, my legs turning to jelly. 
           
Danny had taken a few steps back and I heard reverence in his voice, “You don't want to do that.”
           
I jumped as The Pig nudged me with its nose, the wet circle of flesh squishing against the length of my face. I shuddered away, raising my hands and omitting a cry of fear. 
           
“Feed the Pig,” Danny instructed, his voice like cold steel now. “You made your choice. Now live with it. It's the only chance you have of going back. Or maybe The Pig won't like how you taste and send you to ****. Only one way to find out.”
            
My eyes widened behind the **** soaked cloth, “Won't...like...how I taste?!”
            
“Climb into its mouth.”
            
My bladder let go again and I felt warm **** run down my leg, “N-no...no you can't mean...”
            
Danny's voice hardened, “Climb into its mouth and don't stop crawling forward until its done with you.”
            
“P-please,” I begged, turning towards Danny's voice, reaching out blindly, “Please there has to be some other way...don't make me do this!” I was a mess of snot and tears, my words bumbling from my mouth like a toddler. 
             
Danny stepped forward and spun me back to face The Pig, “DO IT! You made your choice! It will all be over soon! This is your only CHANCE!”
             
I could feel The Pig breathing onto my face, its snout mere inches from mine. The smell and heat it omitted made me want to **** again but I held it back. This was insane, this wasn't happening. My mind spun and twisted in chaos and fear. There had to be some other way. I couldn't do this, I COULD NOT do this!
              
Suddenly I remembered the words of the woman: Sometimes suffering through your fear is better than suffering for eternity. Be brave.
               
This was my only chance to get back to the world of the living. I had made such a terrible mistake in killing myself. If I could go back and change my life, I wouldn't have to spend eternity here. I could change my ways, ensure a spot somewhere else. Somewhere away from The Pig. But what if it decided to send me to ****? How much more suffering could I endure? 
               
I had to take the chance. 
               
“Please, ****,” I whispered, taking a step forward, “If you can hear me...please...have mercy on me.”
                
My shaking hands reached out for The Pig and I grasped its thick fur. I felt it slowly lower its head and open its mouth. It was waiting for me, its thick, hot breath stinking in my nostrils. This was it. No turning back now.
                
I slowly gripped its teeth and pulled myself forward into its jaws. Its head was at a downward angle and so I immediately fell onto my stomach at a forty-five degree angle. Its wet tongue squished under me and I was shaking so hard I could barely breath. Tears soaked my blindfold and my heart crunched against my ribs. 
                
I slowly reached forward and found another tooth to grab onto. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my body inward past my knees. The Pig raised its head and I was suddenly completely horizontal on its tongue. 
                
Saliva and mucus dripped around me and the heat was so intense I almost blacked out. My knees clacked against its front teeth as I pulled myself even deeper. Its inner cheeks pressed in around me, squeezing my body like a soaking fleshy coffin. 
                
Crying, terrified, I reached ahead of me and found more teeth. I pulled myself deeper into its mouth and I felt my feet slide past its lips. My whole body was coated in slime and I openly wept, grasping in the darkness for another tooth.
                 
And that's when The Pig started to chew on me. 
                 
I screamed in crushing agony as my body was compressed between its massive teeth. I heard my legs snap instantly and felt wet bone pop from my skin. I shook violently as my body spasmed in shock, a mangled twist of blood and pain. 
                 
Its tongue shifted me in its mouth and I felt it bite down on my shoulder. My eyes bulged in their sockets as I howled, a hot pillar crunching down on my collar bone. I threw up violently, unable to control myself, the pain overwhelming. 
              
Keep crawling. 
              
Screaming, bloodshot eyes rolling wildly, I reached forward with my good arm, wetly searching for another tooth. I grit my teeth, blood squirting between them, as my fingers wrapped around something solid. 
               
The Pig bit down again, its tongue twisting my body so its molars could snap down on my knees. The pain brought darkness, but my howling screams forced my eyes to remain open. 
               
“JESUS MAKE IT STOP!” I bellowed, my trembling hand still gripping the tooth ahead of me, “PLEASE MAKE IT **** STOP!” 
                 
I ground my teeth together so hard they cracked, screaming as I slowly pulled my body deeper into the mouth. 
                
Something was changing, the tights walls of its throat squeezed my head and I realized I was almost through. 
                  
“COME ON YOU ****! COME ON!” I begged, vocal cords cracking. I reached ahead of me and grabbed onto a thick **** of flesh. My head felt like it was splitting and The Pig bit down on me again. 
                   
I gasped, blood exploding from my mouth in a great gush of red. 
                   
It had pierced through my stomach, obliterating my insides like bloated noodles. Darkness rushed in on me and I was in too much shock to even scream. 
                   
With the last of my strength, right as the blackness took me, I pulled myself forward one last time and felt myself slide down its throat. 

---
          
Darkness. Falling...screaming. I was screaming. Heat. Heat so intense I thought I would melt. Clanging. Something was hammering on a metal. Colors and images flew past me so quickly I could only make out their shape. Blood poured into my eyes. 

         
         
I felt like I would keep falling forever. 

---
         
Suddenly, my eyes snapped open and I was falling, my breath rushing back into my lungs in a great wave of purity. My face bounced off wood floor and I cried out as I felt my nose break. I tasted blood and saw stars. 
         
I had stopped falling. 
         
There was a ring of burning fire around my throat and I felt impossibly thirsty. 
         
I was lying on the floor. 
         
I slowly opened my eyes again and the darkness began to fade like morning mist under a hot sun. Colors blended together and shapes came into focus. 
         
I was in my woodshed. 
         
I reached up around my throat and grasped at the source of heat. It was the rope I had hung myself with, but now it was severed, releasing me from the grip of death. 
         
Relief rolled over me in overwhelming waves of thanks. I curled up on the floor and sobbed, tears dripping from my eyes onto the dirty floor. My body shook, unbroken, as I wept, wet horse cries rising from my quivering lips.
          
I had been spared. I was alive again.
          
From my spot on the floor, I turned my eyes upward, my voice cracking, “Thank you ****. Oh thank you.” I fell into another fit of uncontrollable sobbing, “I promise I won't waste my life again. I promise I'll make things right, I'll fix everything.”
         
I don't know how long it was before I got up. Time seemed to stretch for eternity. My mind refused to rebuild, the horrors of what I had just witnessed crushing me. 
         
But I knew I would do everything I could to make the most out of my life. I was going to live every day to the fullest. I would devote myself to helping others in dark times. I would reach out to as many Suicidals as I could and try to save them from awaited on the other side. 
         
I didn't want anyone else to have to witness the horrors of suicide.
         
I didn't want anyone else to have to Feed the Pig. 
         
---

[XTX](https://www.facebook.com/Elias-Witherow-831476890331162/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The ocean is much deeper than we thought
 
 Assistant: ___Part 1 - Current___  
[Part 2](https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c0ysyy/the_ocean_is_much_deeper_than_we_thought_part_2/)  
[Part 3 - Final](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c3fnev/the_ocean_is_much_deeper_than_we_thought_final/)

***

“They told me you were experienced in harsh waters.” James said, as he pointed out the pearls of sweat that had formed on my forehead.


_“Yeah, I do.”_ I replied, moments before hurling the remnants of a less than appetising lunch, off the side of our ship.


_”It's just that you look a bit green around the gills.”_ He continued with a smirk. 


We’d just met a few hours ago. I’d been airlifted to USS Orion, a sealift handling abyssal transport capsules for a classified project conducted by the United States navy.


_“I guess they failed to mention that I’m much better underwater, in submarines.”_ I shot back. 


Considering the circumstances, his casual demeanour left an uncomfortable atmosphere among the workers. They all knew what my visit entailed, but just like myself, they were scant with information. 


All I knew, was that there might be a contagious infection at the bottom of the the ocean, and my job was to either to disprove it, or to confine the entire crew aboard the station.


As soon as we were positioned securely on top of the Tonga Trench, we were rushed into the transport capsule; A minuscule, vertical submarine, designed simply to take us to the base on the ocean floor, twenty thousand feet below us: Talos.


I entered the sub, feeling excited, while also dreading the return to the deep blue. It had been ten years since serving as a hospital corpsman, one of the few actually stationed aboard a submarine. Over the years I had clearly lost the natural sense I once had for the ocean, yet I longed desperately for it.


_“Whenever you’re ready, doc.”_ One of the crew members said, impatiently waiting to drop us into the abyss.


I raised my thumb. _“As ready as I’ll ever be, go ahead.”_


__10 feet: The Twilight Zone…__


The impact with the ocean lightly shook the capsule. As we submerged, my nausea quickly diminished, and a sense of peace washed over my mind.


I was back.


Outside the window a few curious fish accompanied our journey downwards, various sea life attracted by the cargo ship, following to see us off.


James piloted the miniature sub, having done the trip a thousand times before, it wasn’t anything new to him. Myself, I’d never been below two thousand feet, and never had I been able to look through the window and admire the mostly unexplored blue world.


__3,300 feet: The Midnight Zone…__


As we sank deeper towards the abyss, the last stray rays of sunshine vanished. We had left the realm of sunshine and mankind, all in favour for the domain of darkness.


_“First time in the abyss, right?”_ James asked after a long bout of silence.


_“Yeah, served aboard a submarine for a few years, but they never go very deep, this… this is something else.”_


He smiled at me. _“Well, you’re in for a treat then, we’re going all the way down, Talos sits right at the edge of the trench, ain’t nothing quite like it.”_


Any sea life once curious about our sub had long since retreated towards brighter areas. The rapidly increasing pressure had proven hostile to most, but some resilient little creatures had found a way to thrive in places once thought to be lifeless, the miracles of the ocean.


Within an hour we had reached a depth of ten thousand feet. Beyond the fifteen inch glass pane, separating us from certain death, lied nothing but everlasting darkness. For all we knew, the two of us could have been all that existed in that void, if not for the sound of the outer hull settling under the pressure, a constant reminder about the vastness of the ocean.


To distract myself from the unsettling, creaking sound, I asked James about the only thing I could think about.


_“Why don’t you tell me more about what happened down there?”_ 


James had acted casual that far, but my question quickly changed his nonchalant expression to a frown. _“They briefed you on the surface, didn’t they?”_


_“Of course, but-“_

_“Then that’ll have to do.”_ He said firmly.


__13,100 feet: The Abyssal Zone…__


The world outside hypnotised me, staring so far into nothing, knowing there could be a full world only a couple of feet before you was bizarre, I’d never experienced true darkness until that day, and to think a good portion of Earth’s life had existed within it for millions of years, terrified me.


When I served aboard USS Catacea, my captain explained why they don’t put windows on submarines. He told stories about shipmates going crazy after years at sea, that the isolation, or distance from the mainland never bothered any of them. He firmly believed that staring into the ocean and pondering its secrets was what truly drove men from their sanity, and to combat this, they never put windows on their vessels. Though it was clearly a tale he made up, seeing what truly lies beyond the surface brought back these memories, maybe he was right after all.


My sinister thoughts were interrupted by a dim light appearing in the distance. A red dot dancing blissfully up and down, getting close to our little sub; It was a jellyfish.


_“Would you look at that.”_ James said as he pointed at the little creature, so fragile, yet defying the deep sea pressure.


Another light joined in, then a few more, and before long a symphony of pulsating, crimson lights formed around our capsule, welcoming us with the warmth of thousands of stars, making up their own little galaxy thousands of feet below the surface. 


It was the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen, a bloom of jellyfish happily existing in such hostile conditions. I couldn’t help but feel impressed.


_“They’re called Atolla Jellyfish.”_ James stated. _“They don’t usually venture this far down, but there’s something about this place that seems to attract them. I usually see a few on my journeys down here, but never anything like this.”_


I just nodded in response, too mesmerised by the sight to notice what he said, but as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished, once more leaving us in absolute darkness.


_“Listen, Doc, I’m sorry about the outburst earlier.”_ James said. 


I turned towards him, turning my back to the darkness for the first time. It made me feel vulnerable.


_“You gotta understand, this ain’t something we usually deal with, and Mike, well, I’ve known him most of my life.”_


_“I know how much this sucks, believe me. I’m just trying to get as much info as possible, for all of our sakes.”_ I said.


_“Yeah, well, there’s nothing I could tell you anyway. The airlock has been on lockdown for the past two days, and we’ve been under strict orders not to open it until you deem it safe to do so.”_


I didn’t ask any further questions. I’d dealt with contagions ever since leaving the navy, and ninety percent of the time, they were simple overreactions. 


__19,700 feet: The Ocean Basin…__


For the first time since we left the ship, the radio came to life, emitting a static sound, one that slowly took the shape of a man’s voice.


_“James, can you hear me?”_ The voice asked.


_“Loud and clear, Captain. I’ve got our man from the CDC with me as well, we’re just about ready to dock.”_


_“Great, the crew is getting impatient, we-“_ The radio started breaking up. 


_“Ah, ****, the radio is- dock at section A, don’**** shut off completely.


_“Welcome to the Abyssal Zone.”_ James said. _“The radio has been acting strange lately, imagine giving us a state of the art station, but coms from last millennium.”_


Through the window we could see a massive dome lit up by hundreds of lights. Three paths stretched from its centre, each lit up by different colours, making sectors A, B, and C.
There was something else lit up by station’s light. At first just obscured figures leaving shadows in the sand, but as we got closer I realised they were fish. Hundreds, if not thousands of dead sea creatures littering the ocean bed, their corpses mangled from the intense pressure.


_“Christ, what the **** is up with the fish?”_ I asked, horrified.


_“Same as the Atolla, something attracts them down here, they swim until their bodies break under the pressure, then they sink.”_


_“What could possibly do that?”_


_“There are a few theories, but from what we can tell, it’s a sound that we periodically hear from the trench.”_


The docking process in itself took quite some time. The outer hull had changed ever so slightly due to the high pressure, just enough so that fitting into the station proved a challenge. 


As the doors finally opened I stumbled outside the capsule, greeted by three of the crew members aboard.


_“You’re the doctor, right?”_ The oldest of them asked.


_“That’s correct.”_ I said as he reached out his hand to introduce himself.


_“The name’s Robert Lewis, I’m the captain assigned to Talos.” He said as he shook my hand. “Thank you for coming this far, I know it’s not the most pleasant journey.”_


He seemed polite enough, though clearly sleep deprived, with bloodshot eyes and greasy hair.


_“This is Jennifer Burke, one of our biologists, and that’s Henry Gale, our technician.”_ He said.


They both shook my hand, neither making eye contact as they did.


_”Hey, Cap, where's Abby?”_ James asked. 


_”Still at section B, she's not doing too well as I’m sure you can understand.”_ He responded. 


James nodded.


_”Let's talk.”_ Robert said as he gestured for me to follow. 


The hallways were narrow, dimly lit up with lights that flickered, and constant creaking emitting from the walls. It looked disproportionate considering how large it had all seemed from the outside, and as a rather tall guy, I had to crouch down to keep my head from knocking into the ceiling.


_“I’m sorry about the grim mood.”_ Robert said. _“It’s the first time we’re dealing with something like this. I’m assuming they told you about the situation, on the surface?”_ He asked.


_“They did, but I have to admit, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details.”_


_“As are we. Mike put himself in lockdown as soon as he returned to the station, and we haven’t had clearance to open it yet.”_


_“He, Mike, didn’t give any good reasons?”_ I asked.


_“He never got the chance, he fell over dead the second he hit the button.”_


Robert lead us into the central dome, in contrast to the hallways, it was a pleasant surprise; A large living space filled with furniture and personal affects, had I not known better, I could have believed we were still on the surface.


_“Mike discovered some microorganisms down in the trench, a new type of parasite he said. He claimed they were able to withstand any amount of pressure, which isn’t a surprise down here, but he also explained that they were completely unaffected by rapid changes in environment.”_ Robert said as we headed inside an office.


_“Did he believe it was contagious?”_ I asked.


_“Seeing as he was our microbiologist, I can’t really come up with another fathomable conclusion. Needless to say we destroyed all the samples, but we still don’t know why he put himself into lockdown.”_ 


Robert sighed.


_“But that’s not the strangest thing.”_


I waited patiently for him to continue, while he tried to form words he clearly had trouble believing himself.


_“We lost him down in the trench for three entire days, the tracking system failed and the coms went down. We did whatever we could, but it was futile. Even if we had found him, he only had enough oxygen for ten hours, so we unfortunately, we presumed he had died. Then, out of nowhere, his tracker reappeared on our systems, showing that he was moving back up the Tonga Elevator, and though he never responded to any of our attempts at contacting him, he was clearly alive.”_


_“How?”_


_“It’s impossible, yet it happened. Once we let him into the station, he simply locked it down and fell over dead on the ground.”_


Before Robert could continue, the technician walked into the office.

_“When you examine him, be careful not to damage the EPM suit, it’s highly-“_


_“This is hardly the time, Henry.”_ Robert commanded, glaring at him.


_“I’m just saying, this is a billion dollar project.”_


_“Why don’t you go get the equipment for our doctor here?”_ Robert demanded, getting more agitated by the minute.


_“Look, Captain, If you would just let me go into the airlock, I could take all necessary precautions.”_


_“Absolutely not. Do you think headquarters would have sent the **** CDC if they thought we could handle it? For Christ’s sake, Henry, know your limits.”_


The technician left, and quickly returned with a modified hazmat suit and some surgical supplies, we moved on towards section B. 


Unlike the hallways we had traversed before, these were large, and well lit up. As we arrived at the airlock, we found Abby standing before the glass door, staring longingly at Mike’s lifeless body.


_“Abby.”_ Robert said.


_“I know, I know, it’s time.”_ She responded as she turned around. _“Oh, you’re the doctor?”_ She asked, her eyes red and voice trembling.


I nodded.


_“You’ll figure out what did this to him, won’t you? I just don’t understand.”_


_“Abby, why don’t you come with me while they work?”_ Robert said. _“You don’t need to see this.”_


As Robert led her back to the central dome, Henry started unpacking the cart of medical supplies, including isolation drapes and the hazmat suit. 


_”Alright, I'm going to guide you through this, no need to mess up a perfectly good EPM suit.”_ Henry said. 
_“What does EPM mean anyway?”_ I asked.


_“Exoskeletal Pressure Modulator.”_ Henry said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.


James, and Jennifer helped me seal the hazmat suit, while Henry hung up the isolation drapes. 


I stepped through, while Jennifer entered a code behind me to open the airlock, my ears popped as they sealed the door shut behind me. Both the drapes and airlock were transparent, meaning they could observe everything I did, in addition to a mounted camera on my shoulder for closer view, displayed on a monitor on the other side. 


Just by the control panel, Mike lied dead, wearing a massive, black suit, looking more like an robotic piece of machinery,  than divers gear. 


There were several cables and hooks hanging from the ceiling, and just turning him over was a massive task, as he weighed about half a ton wearing the suit.


His face was pale as sheet, with thin streaks of blood pouring from every available orifice. The eyes were red from conjunctival bleeding, completely ridding them from any white.


_”I'm ready.”_ I said.

_“Alright, the first thing you’ll need to do, is to simply inspect the suit. Look for any breaches in the integrity. It shouldn’t be possible, but in the unlikely event that something broke through, a self healing mesh should have formed, it looks kind of gray.”_


I looked over every inch of his suit, from top to bottom. 


_“There, his feet!”_ Henry yelled. 


Sure enough, there was a patch of gray that stood out from the matt black metal covering the rest of him.


_“Something actually perforated his suit.”_ Henry said, surprised.


I got closer, giving them a better view on the monitor.


_“Clearly the puncture wasn’t what killed him though.”_ He added


I had to agree with that assessment, any breach not sealed off within a nanosecond would immediately crush him, but it seemed that the mesh had replaced whatever penetrated the suit at the same time as it was removed.

_“Next, attach the cables to his shoulder, they are colour coded, so it should be easy enough.”_


I attached the cables as instructed, which caused the suit to light up and start unhinging. The front of the suit opened up, revealing Mike’s completely mangled body.


_“What the ****?”_ James asked.


_“That’s not pressure damage.”_ Henry responded.


Mike’s ribs were broken outwards, though they had not torn apart his flesh, his chest seemed to have expanded to almost twice its normal size. 


I continued to remove the helmet, pulling it off his head. I looked into his eyes for a brief moment, baffled as to what could have caused his internal organs to essentially explode. For the briefest of moments, it seemed like his eyes moved to meet my gaze.


_“Did you just see that?”_ I asked.


No one said a word, we all just stared at Mike, waiting for something to happen. His eyes moved again, darting in random directions as he started gargling, violently contracting his chest.


_“Oh ****, he’s still alive?”_ Jennifer asked. 


He opened his mouth, letting thousands of massive worms pour out onto the floor, they immediately crawled in every direction, up the walls onto the ceiling, desperately searching for a way out. Mike continued to spew out more slimy worms.


His mouth tore open in the process, leaving his jaw completely unhinged before falling off. Once all the worms seemed to have exited his corpse, his chest tore open, revealing even larger worms. It quickly became apparent that all of his organs had been consumed, replaced with the disgusting creatures. 


Some of them started clinging to my suit as I swatted at them in panic, none of the others knew what to do, they could only stare at me flailing around. 


As the worms touched each other, their flesh temporarily fused, forming longer versions of themselves, growing in size and then breaking off again. They wrapped around my arms and legs, I begged for someone to help me, but what could they do. 

_“Hang in there!”_ Henry yelled as he fumbled with the panel for the airlock. 


Within seconds, a few small taps emerged from the ceiling, spewing what I could only assume was liquid nitrogen. Whatever it was, the worms froze in place, freezing to the point where I could break them into tiny pieces.


It only took a moment, but all the worms had been killed off, and though my suit had partially protected me from the cold, I collapsed exhausted and shivering onto the ground.


_“Get me the **** out of here.”_ I demanded, knowing fully well they couldn’t do that until I had dealt with the infestation.


Robert had just returned in time to see what the commotion was about, and upon seeing what remained of Mike lying torn to pieces on the ground he stopped in his tracks.


After a minute of catching my breath I got some sense back. With some morbid sense of humour, and functioning on autopilot, I turned towards Henry.


_“Sorry, but the suit isn’t going to be salvaged, we’re ejecting the whole **** airlock as soon as I get out of here.”_


Henry turned to Robert, pleading for him to make me reconsider, despite what we had all just witnessed, but Robert took my side.


After removing the recording unit from the EPM suit, I packed the entire thing into an easily ejectable container, while making sure that no worms remained on my suit. All I took was a small sample of a frozen worm, packed into a vacuum container.


I exited the airlock, and handed the sample over to Jennifer, she had prepared the previous parasites brought back by Mike, and I told her to get everything ready so I could determine what we were dealing with.


Robert started the procedure of ejecting the airlock’s content, including what remained of Mike and the EPM suit, Henry pouting the whole time.


James hadn’t moved an inch since the event. He’d turned sickly pale, as if he just realised the severity of the situation. 


_“We have to tell him, Captain.”_ He said quietly after a few minutes.


_“Tell me what?”_ I asked while getting out of the hazmat suit.


Robert took a deep breath, mulling over his options. _“You’re right.”_


_“Tell me what?”_ I repeated.


_[“The real reason why we’re stationed down here.”](https://www.facebook.com/richard.saxon.author)_

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My husband has taken our roleplaying too far
 
 Assistant: When he told me he wanted to play “pretend”, I thought it was something to do with ****. And the funny thing is if he’d whipped out a Wonder Woman costume, I would have gone along with it. Things had been cold between us for years. One word replies and tense conversations had become the norm. I was prepared to do what was necessary to try and patch things up. When he clarified he wanted to pretend to be young, I felt a lot more hesitation. If this was a **** thing, I thought, it could get pretty weird. Even as he explained it all, I just kept waiting for it to turn in that direction. I figured that’s what it had to be, right? But he said it wasn’t like that at all. He just wanted some time, now and again, when he could behave like a child. Nothing too weird, just sort of therapeutic roleplay.

I’ll admit, it wasn’t what I thought. He wanted me to pack his lunches and kiss his cheek before going to work, he said. He wanted me to give him the kind of things you’d give a kid, so I packed him a yoghurt, a ham sandwich, and an apple. There was also a small carton of juice, all tucked neatly into a brown paper bag. His whole face lit up with joy when he saw it. I came up with the brown bag myself and he told me it was a nice touch. I remember thinking it was the first sincere compliment he’d paid me in years. I felt a rare pang of pride at that.  

After that I got the gist pretty quickly. He wanted me to run him baths and sit there beside him while he played with toys. He wanted to ask me for permission before going out to play in the yard. He wanted spaghetti and hotdog for dinner, and jelly and ice cream for dessert. I did it all with a smile. He never really looked me all that much as a wife. But as a caregiver? It was like every little gesture was the greatest thing to him. I thought it was messed up, sure. But I don’t know, those first few weeks were actually quite nice. One day he came home, and I had the telly set to old cartoons from his childhood and he just burst out into tears. I’d bought the DVDs as a little surprise but didn’t expect that kind of reaction. I ran over and held him and we stayed like that, huddled on the sofa, for hours. I’d never felt that kind of closeness or vulnerability from him or, well, anyone else I’d ever met. 

It was… confusing. But I liked it. We’d always been each other’s closest friends and now he was spending more time with me than ever before. And he cared about what I had to say and genuinely paid attention to me. I once baked him a cake and he sat on the counter, kicking his legs, asking me questions the whole time. I told him about the recipe, about how my grandmother had brought it over with her when she emigrated, about how it’d been passed down for generations, and I could see that he wasn’t play acting. He really was blown away by the whole story. 

But the requests just kept coming, as did the amount of time he spent roleplaying. It started out as something before and after work, but he soon quit his job and without notice, it became an all-day activity. Like I said, it was part of the fun and I didn’t put any limits on it. He did what I imagine most kids do all day long. He watched TV, played with toys and video games, ran around making silly noises. He also wanted to the less fun stuff, so I had to set him chores, bathe him, brush and cut his hair, make him eat vegetables. He even asked me to start organising him “homework”, so I bought some old exercise books for low-level maths and English. He was never a “naughty” but he did like to make a fuss when I told him to do these things, but sometimes I’d catch a sly smile or a twinkle in his eye and I knew he really liked it. There was something inherently bizarre and actually kind of funny about watching an accountant sit there and struggle when carrying the one. Still, it was a far cry from the very guarded and deeply arrogant man I’d married. 

I guess I’m just trying to put it all in order for you, but I’m not sure I can. There were times it felt… wrong, I suppose. All my attraction to him went right out the window but I didn’t care because we didn’t have **** that much as husband and wife, and even when we did it wasn’t very good. Maybe if you understood that I’m not a social person you could see why I let this all happen. I don’t have friends, never have, not even when I was in university. His company, his placid warm and adoring company, it worked a kind of magic on me. I think, also, that I actually quite liked looking after someone. In hindsight, I probably should have just got a cat. At the time I just liked the change of pace and I always suspected there was some dark secret lurking beneath him—my mother had warned me about this with men—and I was just glad he didn’t like killing hookers. 

This seemed safe, harmless… at least at first. 

As we settled further into a routine, I started to feel lonely again, only it was different. This wasn’t the bored listlessness of a day spent at home trying to look busy. It was more like standing over an ocean and looking down. I think it was the way he started to change, physically. I thought they were all deliberate changes, things he did to *look* less like an adult. Sometimes he looked at me and I didn’t like it. It was a hungry look. I met a boy once when I was younger, and he looked at me like that and I liked it. But coming from my husband in blue pyjamas with a pacifier in his mouth and a rattle in one hand… **** I could have been sick. 

And come night-time the house started to feel different, larger and colder than usual. I started drinking for some reason, I think partly just to unwind. When things broke it was up to me to fix them, or to answer the phone, or deal with bills. We had plenty saved up, so don’t get me wrong it wasn’t like we were in dire circumstances. But there was no one else to share the endless responsibilities with and I felt it like a weight on my shoulders. Come morning I’d have to go through the motions with a pounding headache and I found that the days started to blur. Months passed, maybe even a whole year. It’s hard for me to remember any of these events in a straight line and that’s not all my fault.

I remember thinking that he was a *growing boy* but that wasn’t true at all. We ordered new shoes for him online and they were a different size to the usual. Smaller. He’d said it was because he wanted the light up ones, but he’d been a size 11 as an adult and the ones we bought were for a young boy. I don’t know how, but he wore those new shoes just fine. I pinched the toe and told him he’d grow into them.

I have vivid memories of watching him struggle to put a stuffed toy on the top shelf, but he’d always towered over me at 6’3. Even now I’m putting it all back together in my head and finding little surprises. There was always the sense that if I stopped too long to think then everything would rush past me and I’d miss it. Even trying my best to just go with it, I found myself feeling like a stranger in my own house. Things moved, rooms were rearranged, and new toys just appeared, all without me knowing how. A whole swing set was installed in the garden without me remembering but when I checked, my signature was on the invoice.

At one point he began wearing diapers and I didn’t even notice until days passed. It just kind of made sense somehow? In the moment it had felt so natural and looking back I seemed to remember my husband as a child, not a fully grown man. I’d been feeding a toddler, hugging a toddler, watching a toddler play games. But at the same time, it wasn’t any of that… it was my husband sitting there with his long legs crossed and crumbs in his beard.

One morning I woke up to a dog, and the next day it was gone. I searched for hours, feeling like I was going insane but sure enough, there was a bowl and dog food right by the kitchen door, so it wasn’t like I’d imagined it. There was no dog in the house though, nor in the garden. Exhausted and beaten, I went into my husband’s room for a final check when, at the sight of him, this strange apprehension came over me. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that he’d done something. After all, if he was a child, he was a bit odd, wasn’t he? He didn’t play with other children, he didn’t misbehave, he barely spoke. He was a good little boy, sure, but not necessarily all that normal. 

And of course, he *wasn’t* a child. He was… he was something else. Standing there I appreciated just how odd he had started to look. His hair was thinning – not just falling out, mind you. It felt downy to the touch, soft, like a newborn’s peachy fuzz. And good **** the smell. It was *like* a baby’s smell, but foul like sour milk. And it clung to him no matter how much I bathed him and washed his clothes. There were days when it felt like I could choke to death on it, and I learned to breathe carefully through my mouth whenever we were together. 

His pupils were huge, too large for those small sockets. His eyes had always been spaced far apart, but placed on a child-shaped head, he looked like he was wearing a bad Halloween mask with doll’s eyes instead of his own. Sometimes I’d catch him staring at me from around a corner, or at the bottom of a long corridor. Sometimes that meant him standing there in the dark, audibly breathing as his shoulders rose and fell while some unseen thought excited him. Other times it meant glimpsing his grey head disappearing behind a wall or door the second I turned. He drooled almost constantly and wiped the excess on his sleeve, but a lot of it landed on the floor anyway. There were times I’d find small puddles of spit in locked rooms, often just behind where I’d been standing. Other times I could hear his difficult breathing inches from my back, but he was never actually there when I turned around.

I was afraid of him, I realised. And I nearly cried out when, standing in that dark and quiet room, he rolled onto his back as he slept in the crib. He opened a gummy smile and I saw that all his teeth had fallen out barring just a few. And the closer I looked, the more I certain I became that even those were not his original ones. They were too white, too small, too peg-like to be an adult’s incisors.

I secretly hoped I was going insane. The alternative was somehow even worse.

\-

I was on the toilet when the doorbell rang. It was a shrill screech that grated, and I jumped so badly I dropped my phone. I quickly finished up and waddled over to the window with my pants still down. There was a van just outside the front gates which were open, but there was no sign of anyone walking around down there. Normally, this kind of problem would just go away, and they’d leave the package on the doorstep. But something felt wrong. I couldn’t hear my husband anywhere in the house. No footsteps, no babbling, no clacking toys or rolling wheels. 

That van looked strange. The driver-side door was still open, the engine still running. I tried to digest what it all meant while running downstairs, stopping only when I saw the front door open. A gust of wind blew through the main house, drawing out all the homely warmth. I had images of our roleplay being found out, and fears of humiliation and embarrassment filled my head. There was something else muddled in with all the thoughts as well. We’d spent so long locked up together, my husband and I, safe and far away from the rest of the world. 

How would he react to this intrusion?

As if in answer, someone cried out from the living room. I ran down the last few stairs and pushed open the door to find a small man shaking where he stood, brown cardboard box clutched to his chest for protection.

“Wh—wh—what,” he stuttered. 

I put my arm around his shoulder and started to move him towards the door. I couldn’t see my husband, but he was never too far away from me and I couldn’t help but notice one of his favourite toys lying on the floor. 

“He let me in,” the man continued. “Looked just… looked just like a…” Suddenly he turned to me and gripped both my arms. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

I don’t remember what I said but I kept pushing him towards the front door, out of the living room and into the kitchen. A quick turn of my head and I saw my husband ducking back down beneath the sofa. He was the wrong size to be so quick and sneaky, but he had a way of hiding and moving around the house so that you almost never saw him unless he wanted you to. 

“Come on,” I muttered, but the deliveryman’s feet were slow and cumbersome. It was like his head was all muddled up. 

“It was just a child,” he cried like it had just dawned on him. “Oh no! I frightened him, didn’t I?” He tried turning back but I stopped him. “No, I didn’t mean to scare him. I just… I just… his f*ace*.” He stopped resisting and his shoulders slumped back down. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked. “Why do my eyes hurt?”

“He’s sick,” I answered, finally pulling him the last few feet to the door. I shoved him back past the threshold and stood, panting, to catch my breath. “He’s just very unwell,” I said, stifling a sob – part lie, part truth. “It’s a condition.”

The delivery man looked as if he still was trying to sort his own head out, but it seemed like he bought it. He went to leave, putting one foot down on the porch steps, before suddenly deciding that he needed to make amends. “Please don’t report me!” he cried, and I jumped a little. “I didn’t mean to come off as rude.” My heart started to race. I could smell my husband, the stench nearly over-powering. He was so close I could practically feel him but where he was, I couldn’t say. I just needed to get this man away before something terrible happened. He was babbling endlessly about offending me.

“Please,” I said, on the verge of tears. “Please leave.”

Did he understand? I wonder. Sometimes, when I think back, I see a flickering of understanding in his eyes. It looked like empathy. I can’t be sure because it all kind of just blurs together. The shock in his eyes as my husband’s arm grabbed his ankle cannot be understated. Neither of us expected him to be down there. I still don’t know how he did it. But he *was* down there, giggling in an unhealthy falsetto rasp. Before anyone could speak, he yanked so hard the deliveryman fell down backwards and his leg disappeared into shadow. With one hand the crying man clamped down on the thigh as if to soothe some unseen pain, and with the other hand he tried to push himself back out from between the wooden slats. 

But my husband was always a big man. And now he had a strange sort of air about him. A quiet, crackling power, that followed him from room-to-room. The struggle was one-sided, and the deliveryman screamed and howled. He gave up holding the one leg and tried using both hands to pull, or push, or drag himself away. I didn’t know what was happening out of sight, but his face drained of blood and his screams just kept getting worse. I’ve never heard a man make a sound like that before, not an adult man. It was scary in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I think he asked me to help at one point. I contemplated calling the police but never did. I was so terrified; I couldn’t even bring myself to move. Occasionally one of my husband’s thick-knuckled hands could be glimpsed as he pulled more of the man inside. Those hands looked so large, so pale, so deeply unhealthy. I could hear what he was doing, but that didn’t really come to my attention until I unpacked it all mentally long after it was over. But yes, I could hear bone crack and something like paper being torn. 

Was it an hour? Or just a few minutes? I don’t know. The man just kept crying and pleading and my husband just kept pulling. 

And pulling. 

And pulling. 

The stairs started to buckle but the wood was thick and strong. The final question came down to what would break first, a pelvis or a post? The deliveryman’s cries told me what he thought would happen. He was right. With a tremendous yell of joy—just like a child on their birthday—my husband latched another fist around the man’s other leg and pulled so hard there was a sudden *crack!* And his victim fell limp like a toy losing power. What followed was a silence so heavy it hurt my ears, broken only by the faint wet sound of my husband dragging the rest of the man into the dark. The space between each step couldn’t have been more than six inches, but brute force won out. The last I remember of the man’s face, he was pale with bulging eyes. The arrangement of his arms and legs didn’t even make sense anymore. He looked like a spider after you step on it.

I stayed there for a while longer, hoping to **** and back I’d hear an ambulance or police siren. But like I said, we lived far out of town. By the time it occurred to me that no one would rescue the man—or me—the blood on the steps was congealing. My husband was still just out of sight, giggling and clapping like a kid making mud pies.

“Come on,” I finally managed to say, speaking like the doting mother I was. “Put your new toy away. I’ll make you some lunch.”

\-

I was washing dishes and staring into the yard. It resembled somewhere I’d seen before, but I couldn’t remember where or why. My husband was somewhere upstairs, and I was alone. I’d often hear him thunder around up there, doing ****-knows-what, his bare feet slapping on hardwood floors he’d once picked out in a turtleneck and chinos. That seemed like a different person’s life now. Hard to believe it was the same man who brought me something just days before that made me sick. He’d made it himself and it had hung on the fridge for a whole afternoon like just another piece of macaroni art. *Was that thing where the dog ended up?* I wondered, running a dishcloth over the same plate for the second hour in a row. 

Movement caught my eye. Out in the garden, something floated down past the tall hedges that walled in our yard and landed plainly on the overgrown grass. It was a bright luminous yellow that glowed like a safety vest. For some reason I held up the plate in my hand looked between the two. **** I was so out of it. It was like a worm in my head. I could feel it, maybe even reach out and grab it if I could just focus on it for long enough. But each time I closed my mind around it, each time I started to feel out the shape of this intrusion, this rewriting of my own brain, it slithered away.

“Frisbee,” I muttered. 

And then just like that she was there. She was maybe nine or ten. How had she wound up here? I wondered. Maybe she was lost. She was looking around like she didn’t know where she was. I could see she was scared, and my heart sank as I realised how awful our home must have looked to her. There was a time I was house proud but now we lived in decrepit filth. Of course, the little girl looked scared, I thought. This was the scary house every child feared, with broken windows and overgrown bushes that choked a yard filled with rusted swings and abandoned toys. And this poor girl had lost her frisbee and…

“No,” I said, first to myself and then once again to the room. “No!”

But it was too late, I could hear him scuttle around before the house fell into quiet. From outside, the girl started to say something. A greeting perhaps?

There was a knife in my hand that I didn’t remember taking, and I was outside before I had time to even think. The little girl looked to me and instantly burst into tears. I was sprinting towards her with a knife in one hand and a murderous look straight out of a horror film. But before that, before she’d seen me, she’d been looking towards a thicket of grass with disgust on her face. 

“No!” I screamed, not at her, but at him.

I picked her up in my arms even as she batted me away. I didn’t care if this girl thought I was Satan himself, if she ran back home and told her parents about the mean creepy lady and they called the police and this all ended with me safe and warm behind bars. I didn’t care. I clutched my arm around her waist and willed it into a band of steel to keep her safe. She squirmed but could not break free and I ran towards the gate as fast as I could carry her. 

“It’s okay,” I cooed. “He won’t get you.”

I was half-way there when her screaming and wriggling stopped. Her head was over my shoulder and all of a sudden, she gripped me like I was a life raft. The change was instant, and it made me falter. For a brief moment, I heard his feet pulsing towards me. I turned brandishing the knife like a torch against the darkness, but nothing was there. The girl started screaming again, the sight of my husband sinking, and she held onto me with dear life. 

“Not the baby!” she screamed. “No no no! Not the baby!”

“Not the baby,” I repeated. “I won’t let him.”

I backed up to the gate carefully and began to wonder what next when, out of nowhere, he leaped into sight and grabbed the girl’s hair, yanking her head back while she screamed so hard her face turned beetroot-red. He jumped up and down, hollering and crying like a giddy toddler with a Christmas present. His misshapen face was grinning, his gums black and bloody, but his hands threatened to tear the girl’s scalp right off. I started to feel nauseous at the sight of him. His size seemed to change with every glance. I couldn’t make sense of it and I felt that worm inside my mind wriggle and dislodge more of my thoughts. Sometimes he was waist-high, sometimes a full-grown man. But always those hands were too large for his frame and the brown flakes of blood still trapped beneath his chipped nails reminded me exactly what he wanted.

“No!” I screamed and lashed out with the knife. The motion that came to me in the moment was a downward ****, and the knife was left embedded in my husband’s right shoulder. 

He let go immediately and started to howl and sob. He seemed to shrink before my very eyes and I quickly set the girl down and pushed her through the gate. I pulled the bars shut, screamed at her to run, then quickly turned back to my husband who was **** his thumb and trying to pull the knife out with his remaining hand. After some awkward fumbling he grabbed the handle and threw the knife to the ground. It clattered to the floor, blood glistening in the sun. 

“You’re just like her,” he said, his voice breaking and returning to the calm authoritative man I’d once known. His beady eyes bored into me and I could’ve collapsed under that stare. The change in cadence was as sudden as a sheer drop off a cliff. “I just wanted what she never gave me. But you’re all the same.”

Suddenly his whole face bunched up into a twisted infantile smile and he declared with joy and delight in a voice identical to a child’s,

“I’m going to crawl inside you!”

\-

Dinner was cold. It was the first meal I’d made him after our little fight. I’d fidgeted over it for hours, filled with doubts and fears. But it all came to naught. He was too smart to fall for that, whether he’d seen the rat poison or not. He hadn’t come for dinner. Now I was left with a problem. I’d stayed fixed to the spot in the kitchen, working away with endless looks over my shoulder, and night had fallen. The only light was in the kitchen and it was a big house filled with inky black shadows that swallowed entire rooms and corridors. Often, I would glimpse a sliver of movement, like a shark’s fin cresting a wave I might see a blue piece of fabric catch the moonlight before disappearing back into the dark. He was out there.

I had a new knife, at least. And something about the adrenaline in my veins helped me think more clearly. When I looked back in my thoughts, I no longer saw a child, but something twisted and deformed with delusion and malice. A disease had festered not only in our heads, but the space we shared and the world we lived in, spilling out into reality like a migraine aura made real. I didn’t know if it was an intruder or just something dark that had spread from within, but it belonged to me one way or another.

I couldn’t let it live.

“Dinner’s ready,” I cried. “Come on!”

There was a shuffling somewhere out front, by the stairs. I don’t know why I bothered saying anything. He must have seen me. I cried out again, my voice faltering from fear and exhaustion. I picked the plate up and put it by the threshold of the kitchen, its edge just inches from the darkness. “You must be hungry,” I said, doing my best to smile. “Please eat it,” I added. “For me?”

A single chubby finger peaked through the doorway and slid the plate across. It was so loud in the silence, grating across tile. Something felt wrong, but in the moment, I just hoped it was the sheer panic trapped deep within my chest. 

The plate whipped out of the darkness and struck me in the face. My nose cracked and my head snapped backwards and before I knew it, I was on the floor, the plate rolling to a noisy stop a few feet away. It was whole, but one edge was coated in blood. I became aware of a coppery taste in my mouth and realised it was mine all over that plate. It felt like I was lying there for a good few seconds, agony ringing in my ears while I opened and closed my jaw in disconcerted shock. Slowly, layer by layer, things started to right themselves. There was a sharp pain in the back of my head, and I realised I must have hit it when I fell over. And there was a weight on top of me, pressing down making it hard to breathe. Had I broken a rib? I wondered. But it didn’t feel much like that. It felt like something was moving around, something sharp and painful. 

I looked down and saw husband’s cabbage-shaped head bobbing away at my breast. I screamed and pushed him away, but he clamped down hard, those nasty little peg teeth burying themselves into my flesh and refusing to dislodge. I was overcome with disgust and started beating away at him, scratching deep gouges in his scalp and shoulders. Only when I buried a thumb in his nasty little eye did he relent and let go. He sat up and my thumb slid out of the socket with a *pop!* and for a moment he looked overcome with naïve sadness. But then hatred washed over his face and his remaining eye glared at me with ****.

He started to choke me, those terrible fists clasping around my throat like bands of iron. I struggled, lashing my hands out at the floor and furniture desperate for something, anything that might help. Thankfully my hands alighted on the knife, and I drove it, hard into the soft flesh of his armpit. For a moment he carried on as normal, but by the time I drove the blade between his ribs, once, then twice, the blood had already drained from his face. It soaked us both, and to my horror it stank of sour milk and talcum powder. I watched the realisation of his wounds dull the fire in his eyes. He stumbled backwards, his face scrunching up as he let out a horrific bawl.

Pink foam seeped from his mouth and he gasped and choked. His lungs were filling with blood, and I watched him die slowly before me. By the time it was done he was a man again. A strangely dressed, emaciated wretch of a man, but nothing more. I touched my throat and it felt sore, and my chest was a ragged mess.

“Was it good for you?” I asked, a laugh rising unbidden from my lips. The sound of my own voice scared me. I sounded deranged. But I couldn’t stop laughing at the joke I’d made, and before long my breath became short and consciousness slipped away in its entirety.

\-

It’s been some time—how long, I don’t know—and I still wonder whether he was ever real. I burned the house down and I finally got to hear the sound of sirens coming to take me away. It was a weird problem to explain to the police. They had evidence of a child living in the home, but no body. They thought I’d offed a kid and burned the house to hide the evidence. Later on, they found one adult body, but it was the deliveryman’s, not my husband’s. And I was arrested just a few short weeks later. 

Of course, I told them the truth, just barring a few of the weirder details. My husband had gone insane, I said. He’d snapped, started acting like a child, killed one man, then tried to **** me. Unfortunately, there are no records of my husband, nor our marriage, nor our life together. I lived alone, unemployed because of a wealthy trust granted to me by family. The mortgage was not paid by my husband, but rather the trust. 

All of this was news to me. 

He was real, I know that much. I still have the wounds to prove it and they found that little girl who testified, somewhat, in my defence. She really had seen a man dressed as a baby, she said. Although when asked to give a description of what he looked like, she broke down screaming and had to be sedated. I knew what that felt like. I couldn’t tell you my husband’s age, his eye colour, his birthday, or even his name. It’s all worked against me. I think I’m on my second appeal, but my lawyer told me to lower my expectations. No marriage certificate, no wedding invitations, no relationship status on Facebook, no photos, no plane tickets for the honeymoon, no official documentation. Every conceivable trace of this man’s life simply doesn’t exist.

I managed to get a brain scan and they say my brain should belong to a dementia patient, except I’m just 36. It’s all full of holes. Lesions, they call them. That’s a good name for it. I said there was a worm, didn’t I? It was eating through my head like an apple core. Not a literal worm, of course. Well, I don’t know that for sure. But still, I think he did something to my head because even now just the thought of him can give me a nosebleed. I don’t remember much of my life before. He wrote over it like a computer file and deliberately blotted out whatever didn’t suit his purpose. And of course, they never did find his body, did they? Bit of a cliché, I know. I think it was childish of me to ever believe that a few holes in the torso would **** him. 

*It,* I should say. After all, he was “playing pretend” at being human just as much as being a child.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Dad is a chair.
 
 Assistant: The title doesn't lie. My Dad is a chair. To be specific, he's a fully upholstered bright orange angel accent living room chair. The kind with wooden legs you'd find in any 3 piece suit from the '70s. He's pretty comfortable, truth be told. A little lumpy in places, but his padding is soft. Warm too. He's *always* warm. There's also the tell-tale *ba-thump ba-thump ba-thump* coming from his back cushion. A steady rhythm at my lumbar to remind me I'm sitting in no ordinary chair.

He wasn't always a chair. Until last year he was Kevin the accountant. He was 51, slightly overweight, and generally seemed to enjoy life as a human. He was married to Mom. He still is but, well, as you can imagine it's a little complicated now.

It was funny at first. He came home from work one day and just sat in a corner of the living room.

When we'd ask him why he was sitting on the floor and not the $4000 cream leather couch, he'd just smile and say "It feels right here". It stopped being funny the morning he didn't go to work. Turns out he hadn't slept the night before. He'd been watching a movie with Mom but hadn't gone with her to bed. She left him sitting in his spot, unsuspicious of the "I'm not tired, I'll be up a little later" lie. She and I both begged him to get up but he refused to move. Phoned in sick at work, the whole deal. Just spent the day sitting on the floor in his corner. We kept asking him what was wrong, why he wouldn't get up except to use the bathroom, and he just kept saying "No… no this feels right".

Mom phoned the doctor around the third day of this. He'd stopped eating or drinking, you see. Stopped getting up to use the bathroom too. Surprisingly though there weren't as many… umm… accidents, as you'd think. Once he'd allowed the last of the food and drink to leave him it seemed to stop coming. We also didn't hear his belly growl despite going a day and a half without food. The doctor couldn't make sense of it. Their first guess was that it was psychosomatic, but that wouldn't explain the absence of digestive activity exposed by the stethoscope. They said they'd be back to take some blood samples in a few days after they liaised with some colleagues. Unfortunately, as I said, this was last year. 2020. We never heard back from the doctor thanks to the virus-that-shall-not-be-named. I guess "guy with gut troubles who refuses to move" is low on the priorities list during a global pandemic.

Somehow Mom managed to wrangle long-term sick leave with Dad's company. Decades of loyal employee-ism combined with Mom's attendance of every company BBQ and softball game helped Mr. Bannerfrag buy the "unexplained stomach concern requiring hospitalization" excuse. I'll never forget that phone call. At the time, Dad losing his job was the worst-case scenario for both of us. He'd always been the breadwinner. Neither of us could support ourselves without him, we'd lose the house in under a year. Dad didn't seem too perturbed by Mom's frantic pacing, or the lies she wormed through the phone to Mr. Bannerfrag. He just stared at the wall serenely, hovering his butt half a foot from the carpet, balancing with his legs bent and his hands flat on the ground behind him.

That night I fell asleep listening to Mom yelling at Dad. He never yelled back.

We started noticing the physical changes a few days later. That's when we realized this *wasn't* psychosomatic. Unfortunately, our **** "best insurance deal on the market" doctor wasn't picking up the phone. We'd get passive-aggressive emails informing us they were "waiting to hear back from colleagues", but that was it. This was not good. Especially not when the joints in Dad's arms and legs had fused. The not-goodness of the Doctor's silence increased a thousandfold when we sent photos of Dad's hands and feet flaking off like discarded spider husks the following week. Did the response change? No. We got a *very* snippy email about shortages on ICU wards and the “critical international situation". Mom's shouting match with the Chief of Medicine, the one she demanded her way up the phone chain to speak to, didn't change things. We were on our own.

Mom spent all her time in the living room with Dad. I'd help her wash him, try and make him eat, talk to him when she'd tire out and fall asleep on the rug. Every day of this routine brought with it new changes in Dad's body. It started with his limbs, as you can probably guess. When his hands and feet fell off there was no blood. They flaked apart, crusty and dry and brittle throughout. Even the bones of his toes and fingers had the density and consistency of dead skin. The wrists and ankles they left behind were smooth and hard. It was difficult to tell whether we were looking at flesh or exposed bone. The dark shining surface seemed to blend into his normal arm at the base of the stumps. This discoloration would rise further up his limbs daily, and before long I awoke to see Dad's head and torso fused to the wooden chair legs supporting my weight while I write this.

Well, I use the term "Dad's head and torso" in the loosest possible sense. By the time his limbs were completely replaced, the rest of him had undergone a slow, harrowing transformation of its own.

His shoulders, and the arms attached to them, descended lower and lower. They found their final resting place at Dad's pelvis, sat squarely behind his rigid legs. The chest area they'd left behind had its own problems. Day by day Dad's neck retracted further inwards. It didn't stop when his jaw met collarbone, either. It pulled Dad's head deep into his ribcage. His face flattened as the skull supporting it sank, forcing his eyes to point in opposite directions. Eventually, they slid down to where his **** once lay, resting glassy and vacant on his pecks. The change wasn't quick enough to break his jaw though. Instead, it bent outward, its hinges spreading wide across Dad's broad chest. Each morning I'd find Mom sobbing over a fresh unnecessary piece of himself he'd discarded. Hair, ears, nose, his… umm…. his *thingy…* all of them flaked off and crumbled to dust in her hands.

He lost the ability to speak as his head withdrew. Unsurprising though, right? He made his intentions clear before he went . The last words he ever said to me.

"Don't cry… I am chair… always was chair… *happy* as chair…"

That was the worst part, I think. Knowing that, whatever the **** was happening to Dad, he wasn't resisting it. That when he'd got that initial urge to sit in the corner and not get up, he didn't fight it. That he was *happy* this way. The implication being that when he was human, when he was a father and husband and accountant, he wasn't.

Sadly I still don't know why or how Dad became a chair. I didn't post any photos, you see. Mom wouldn't let me, didn't want the embarrassment. Wanted to keep Dad's dignity intact. Thing is, I agreed with her and kind of still do. I'm *glad* I didn't go to the socials with pics of Dad at various stages of his journey. The temptation was there to see if anyone could help. Nobody could have though, could they? Dad would have become just another internet circus freak. I've done enough research and digging over the months to know that whatever happened to Dad, he's the only one.

Well, almost only.

Mom's own changes started around the time Dad's skin was rethreading into orange fabric and his eyes had hardened into plastic buttons. Her change was a little different. It started in her torso, stretching her day by day while she remained in crab-pose. I must say, she makes a *great* couch. Her transformation may have been a little more distressing, but the end result is better (sorry Dad, it is what it is). I think the worst part with Mom was the despondency. Dad was so serene as he changed. Mom though? Mom wouldn't stop weeping. Quiet sobs, tears that fell for a few days even after her own eyes had become flat plastic. She wasn't crying because of the change though, I think. I think it was because she wouldn't get to see how beautiful I'll look when I go through my own metamorphosis.

Thing is, I get it now. Dad was right. He *was* chair. Mum *was* couch. I *am* coffee table. I always was. I was scared at first when I realized. The truth hit me like a piano dropped from the Empire State Building. I was scrubbing the last of Mom's remaining human skin when it struck through every bone in my wrong body, just as it must have done both Dad and Mom.

I spent that whole night sitting on Dad, tears falling down my cheeks, staring at my spot. I didn't want it to be true. I screamed for it not to be, more than once. I couldn't deny the facts I knew deep down to my bones though. That spot, the space on the rug in front of chair Dad and couch Mom, is for me. It's mine. Where I belong.

Unlike blissfully accepting Dad, and weeping resigning Mom, I fought it for a few days. I’m not like them; I’m only 17. I have… had... dreams, ambitions, goals. I wanted to go to college, settle down, marry some lucky guy, be a Mom. I wasn’t ready to give up my human form. I spent my nights begging for more time. Nothing answered. The urges didn’t abate, my awareness of reality now the illusions had been swept away was too great. When I have slept this last week or so my dreams have always been the same. I dreamt of *true* reality, of how I now know things should be. I dream of me in my place, my body elongated and wooden and flat as is right, as is correct, as is natural. I have long, blissful slumbers filled with the feeling of hot ceramic mugs on my tabletop and thick carpet beneath my four legs.

I can’t fight it anymore. I’m posting this here but also printing it out to leave as a note for the removal guys. I want them to be careful with us when the bank repossesses the house and we end up in storage. Please keep us together, if you can. We’re a set. Dad’s sick leave ended months ago. As you can imagine, the foreclosure notices have been piling up. I stopped caring about the pile of mail under the door around the time that Mom’s ribcage split and flattened into her wide pinstripe-velvet upholstered back. I haven’t been hungry in days, or thirsty. I’m not even sure if I’m breathing now I think about it. I’m still scared, but I’ve come to accept that this is the way things have to be. I don’t know why, they just do. Maybe it’s a curse, maybe this house is buried on some ancient ritual site, maybe it’s just some freak anomaly of physics. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I have to **** it up and accept the way things are. This body, this walking wobbling mass of skin and bone and jibbly bits that I love so much, isn’t right. It isn’t mine. I’m not meant for it anymore. Once I post this and print the copy for the removal guys I’m going to get in my spot. Then it’s just a case of closing my eyes and waiting. I can already feel my limbs pulling inward, my thighs and upper arms sliding to where they’ll meet at my navel in a few days. There’s a tugging on the back of my knees where they’ll bend in on themselves, and all twenty of my fingers and toes grow number with each hour that passes.

Do I have any regrets? Thousands. There’s so much I’ll never get to do, to see, to go, to be. I can’t hide from the truth though. Not anymore.

I am coffee table.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: As I stepped on my flight, the flight attendant gave me a strange list of rules
 
 Assistant: “Can I check your ticket please?”

I handed the ticket that I’d been twirling around in my hands for the past hour to the flight attendant. She nodded at it approvingly before producing a sheet of paper from the file that she was holding and placing it inside my folded ticket. 

“Have a nice flight”, She commented enthusiastically before handing my ticket back to me. 

I grabbed my ticket and stared at the folded sheet of paper inside my ticket curiously before finding my seat. 

Once I settled down in my seat, I removed the folded sheet of paper from my ticket and placed the ticket in my bag. Upon unfolding the sheet of paper, I realised it was a handwritten note. The handwriting seemed rushed. I’ve transcribed the note from memory here:

*Rules for surviving this flight*

1. *Do not speak of this sheet to any passenger. You are the only human on this flight.* 
2. *Check the time on your phone after reading this sheet. All rules will apply based on the time of your phone.* 
3. *During the first hour of the flight, do not talk to anyone. People may try to talk to you but ignore them completely*
4. *During the second hour of the flight, you may start talking again but if anyone mention the window, do not look outside the window in any circumstances*
5. *If you hear a child crying in the cabin, immediately run to the bathroom*
6. *If the screen of your entertainment console suddenly goes black, immediately look away and do not stare at it.* 
7. *During the third hour of the flight, the captain will make an announcement. Follow the instructions*
8. *During the fourth hour of the flight, do not sit in your seat*
9. *If you make it past the fourth hour, you will need to spend the rest of the flight evading the chaser, you will know who the chaser is when you see them.*
10. *The captain will make an announcement of the plane landing, as soon as you hear this announcement, push your way to the exit door and open it*
11. *You will find that the outside is simply a black void, jump into it without hesitation*

I re-read the rules again while chuckling. Did they give one of these to every passenger or was I somehow randomly chosen for this prank? I checked the time on my phone just to humour the list:

*7:13am*

So this would be the first hour of the flight. Suddenly a young man walked over to my seat and sat right beside me. I gave him a casual side glance and saw that he was carrying what looked to be a laptop bag.

“Great”, I thought, “**** work on whatever he’s doing and leave me alone for the flight”

The man didn’t even bother to exchange a single word with me as he settled down in his seat and put on his seatbelt. He stared straight ahead and completely avoided me. I let him be and started to fiddle with my flight console. Some people just like to be left alone, I guess. 

Soon enough the captain made an announcement of the plane starting and the steady hum of the plane engines started to vibrate the entire cabin. The plane started to accelerate until the g-force pushed me into my seat. Moments later I felt the plane rising into the air. I am typically not scared of flights but getting on a flight always makes me a bit nervous. This time though, my stomach was in knots and beads of sweat were running down my forehead. My instincts told me I was stepping into danger, grave danger. I dismissed my thoughts and that awful gut feeling, chalking it down to feeling a little creeped out by the note. 

The young man on my left suddenly tapped on my shoulder. I jolted up like I’d just been electrocuted. Even through my jacket, his hand felt cold. Cold and heavy, like a dead person’s hand. 

I turned around and faced the young man. His face seemed… wrong. You know how those realistic human robots can creep people out because of how close to human they are, yet subconsciously we can tell that they aren’t human. This man was giving me that same unsettling feeling and his **** features were just artificial in a way I couldn’t place.

Maybe it was his eyes. A little too big, the pupils abnormally dilated. Or maybe it was his nose, not exactly in the center of his face. Or perhaps it was his mouth, lips way too thin and long. Don’t get me wrong he didn’t look obnoxiously fake, in fact it was those very subtle blemishes in his **** features that made him look like something trying to look like a human. 

And then he spoke

His voice was normal. Upon hearing his voice, the man seemed to look normal too and I thought I was just freaking out for no reason. 

“Hey, do you wear headphones?”, He asked

That was a weird question to ask. Did he want headphones? I was about to open my mouth to speak when he spoke again. 

“How would you feel if I cut your hand off right now?”

What was disturbing wasn’t the nature of the question itself but the fact that he spoke in such a calm manner. It was as if he was asking me how my day was. Suddenly my mind went to the list of rules that I had subconsciously been squeezing in my hand. The first rule said to not talk to anyone on the flight no matter how much they try to talk to you. 

I decided to ignore the man. He seemed really weird anyways and if I was being honest, the list of rules wasn’t the reason I chose to ignore him. 

He stopped pestering me and returned to work on his laptop. 

I looked over at his laptop slowly and gasped at what I saw on his screen. 

He had a photo of me on his screen. That’s it. Nothing else, just a full screen photo of me. Before I could process that properly, I looked over at his keyboard and noticed that it wasn’t a standard keyboard. In fact it really wouldn’t even count as a keyboard. It was made up of oddly shaped keys, all marked with strange letters that I doubt existed. 

The man continued to stare intently at the photo of me on his screen. It was then that I realised that the list of rules wasn't a joke. Suddenly a flight attendant popped out of nowhere and asked me. 

“Sir, is this man bothering you?”

“Yes he is-” I replied before my voice caught up in my throat. 

In under a second, everyone in the cabin snapped their heads around until they were staring directly at me. 

Their faces, they all looked wrong. Inhuman. 

Slowly their long thin lips curled into wide smiles and red tears started to roll down their faces. 

[NN](https://www.reddit.com/r/notneccesarily/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a janitor, and I accidentally participated in the Harvard wormhole experiment
 
 Assistant: They gave me a million bucks to keep my trap shut, and I did, for fifteen years. But last night I was making the rounds, and I saw the professor again. 

I had a heart attack three years back, and I tell you, when I saw him standing there in front of room 204, I felt another one coming on. He turned and smiled and it was like he hadn’t aged a day in fifteen years. “Hey there, chief,” he said, and that was it. I dropped my clipboard on the ground and high-tailed it out of there, never looking back.

What I’m about to tell you is liable to make me sound crazier than a three-horned goat. But I promise you, there’s crazier things out there.

The cops don’t believe me. The official story is that the professor and those students died 15 years ago. Room 204 just up and exploded, they said. Damndest thing. And there’s some truth there. That room did explode. But it wasn’t an accident. We knew exactly what we were doing. Or we thought we did.

\*

They call me an “assistant supervisor of maintenance,” but really I’m a janitor and always have been. (You might wonder why I’m still at it after getting that million bucks. That dough is for Junior, so he doesn’t have to go through the same **** that I did.) 

The night this happened, I was assigned to the Astrophysics Center, a bit northwest of the main Harvard campus. Until that night, this was always my favorite beat. I mean, **** help you if you wound up at one of the biology labs. Those **** dead, cut open animals all over the place used to give me nightmares. And really, thinking back, I’d take those nightmares of mutilated and scattered organs any night over the stuff that has haunted me ever since.

Anyway, I was there mopping the hallway on the second floor of the lab building when the door to room 204 opened up and this guy popped his head out. “Hey, you.”

I looked around, to make sure he was talking to me. “Yes? Can I help you sir?” I thought he was going to **** about the room being a mess or something.

“How’d you like to make a thousand bucks, chief? An hour’s work at most. Easy money. Does that sound good to you?”

It sure did. Things were tight at home, as they always were. A thousand would knock off some of those long overdue bills. But I was also on a tight schedule. They didn’t give you much breathing room. Don’t want you standing around thinking about it all, I guess. “That sounds great, sir,” I said, “but I got to stick to my beat.”

The man laughed. “We’re about to make history, chief,” he said, “and you’re worried about emptying the bathroom trash? Come on, don’t sweat it, you won’t get in trouble. I promise. I’m a professor here. I’ll vouch for you.”

The guy *did* look like a professor, with carefully combed gray hair and big old glasses on his face. I shrugged, leaned my mop against the wall and said, “Sure. What do I have to do?”

“That’s fantastic! Come on in, chief! Come on in!”

I followed him into the room. One look, and I should have just turned around then and there and told him to keep his **** money. But I didn’t.

As soon as I stepped in, I felt the little hairs all over my body stand up. I don’t mean I was scared. I mean like there was an electrical charge in that room, and I had a guess about where it was coming from. There in the center of the room, on a round table, was a large glass globe, crackling with electricity. Like what you see if you go into a kid’s science museum. Like they somehow created a lightning storm in a glass ball. This one was sort of vibrating around on its stand and buzzing. And the lightning inside was *black*. I could feel the electricity coming from it, from across the room.

There were four kids there – students, I guessed – sitting in a row of chairs along one wall. More than sitting, they were strapped into those chairs, with metal things over their heads like those big bowl things you see at a hair salon. They all had their eyes closed.

“Uh…” I said. “What’s going on here? Those kids okay?”

“They’re quite fine,” said the professor. “As to what is going on, as I said, we are about to make history. We are going to open the first wormhole.”

“Wormhole?” I said. “Like in the movies?”

The professor laughed. “I suppose so, chief,” he said. “Now listen. We had a last minute cancellation, but that’s okay because it’s an easy job. We’re going to be kicking things off here shortly, and once they are properly kicked off, the wormhole will open. I will enter. If I am not back in thirty minutes, you are to pull that lever there, and this will close the wormhole.”

I looked to where he was pointing, at a big red lever attached to a giant, whirring machine that was hooked up to the metal bowls over the student’s heads. “But uh, won’t you be trapped on the other side of the wormhole?” I asked. Not that I had the slightest idea about what the **** was going on.

“Just so, chief,” said the professor. “We’ve got this down to two possibilities. One, the wormhole opens up to what we’re calling ‘the second Universe.’ The best way that I can explain this possibility is that there is a different reality that exists on the other side of this one… the other side of an invisible wall. The wormhole will provide a door in that wall.”

“And the other possibility?”

“That the wormhole will open to a place that man was not meant to go. Thirty minutes will give me enough time to get in, and out, if the first possibility is true.”

“And if it’s the second?”

“Then you’ll close the hole with that lever, and my students will destroy my work.”

This was all way above my pay grade, and my head was spinning. Why only two possibilities? How the **** did they come up with those two? And if this real, why the **** would the professor take a coin-toss chance of getting stuck in the “place that man was not meant to go”? I mean, those were just starter questions, among the swarm that was buzzing around my head.

“I see that you have some reservations,” said the professor. “I assure you that your only job is to pull that lever after thirty minutes. That’s it, chief. We’ll take care of the rest. And anything that happens isn’t on you. The documentation is quite in order.” He tapped a folder that was sitting on the circular table. “And here, I’ll write you a check now, before we proceed.”

As he wrote out the check, I wondered if it would still be valid if he got swallowed up by the wormhole. I actually had that thought, as crazy as it sounds. It was still all so weird and abstract to me at that point.

“Here,” he said, handing over the check. “Let’s do it, chief. As soon as I enter that hole, give me *exactly* thirty minutes. *On the dot*. That’s all you have to do.”

I took the check, mumbled a “thanks,” and watched as he walked over to the machine. He pulled the lever. There was a loud crackling sound, and I watched in unease as one by one, the students’ eyes shot open. There were no pupils there, like their eyes were rolled back in their sockets.

“Hey now,” I said, taking a step towards the machine.

“They are quite fine,” said the professor. “I assure you.”

Their jaws started to move like they were grinding their teeth.

The professor took a jar of neon blue liquid from a shelf on the wall. He unscrewed the lid and poured the stuff over the electric globe on the round table. The thing started going crazy, and then the globe shattered completely, bits of glass flying through the air as shoots of black lightning zapped out into the room. I ducked down.

I had had enough by then, and was ready to get the **** out of there. Then it happened. A **** black hole appeared in the middle of the room, **** in the bolts of electricity. It grew larger and larger, until it took up half the room. All I could hear was this rushing sound, like the world’s largest vacuum cleaner running at full throttle.

“Remember, chief!” shouted the professor, with a wild look on his face. “Thirty minutes exactly!” Then he stepped into the thing and was gone.

\*

At first my mind was a mess, staring at that whooshing back hole, that seemed hungry to **** everything in. I looked at the kids hooked up to the machine, their eyes rolled back – white holes, I guess they looked like – their jaws grinding away like crazy. It was too much to make sense of. 

I looked down at my watch. 15 minutes and 31 seconds had gone by since the professor got swallowed up by the worm hole. My heart was pounding and I kept pacing back and forth, back and forth, trying to work out what the **** was going on. Then I started to zero in on it. I was getting pranked.

Not a prank like we used to do as kids, setting dogshit on somebody’s front steps and all that idiocy. I mean a prank like the sophisticated college folk do, where they tell you something’s going on but the whole point is to just observe your reaction. A psychological experiment. *Probably cameras in here watching me right now. See what I do.*

12 minutes to go.

I saw a trickle of blood come down from one of the kids’ nose. I leaned down to look at him closely. He was shaking a little bit, all over. *If I throw that lever, this will all probably stop*. 

Maybe that was the test. I had to decide between trapping the professor in the black hole and saving the kids hooked up to the machines. None of it was real of course, but they didn’t know that I knew that.

But then, screaming in the back of my mind was that voice: *what if it* is *real?*

10 minutes to go.

The professor had promised me that the kids were alright. Another one started bleeding from the nose.

If it wasn’t real, it was a **** of a trick. Where did the professor go, if not through that black hole? I thought about touching it, but whenever I got close, I was filled with total terror. It sure *seemed* real. Like it really took you some place far, far away from here.

I walked over to the table and picked up the folder that was there. Just like the professor had said, the first page was instructions to shut down the machine and destroy it if he didn’t return within 30 minutes. I flipped that page over, and the next one had a photograph of one of the students. I read what it said. It was a consent form. “I, Jackson Stewart, acknowledge the possibility of my imminent death if I participate in this experiment. I am prepared to give my life to science.” I flipped that page, and there were three more just like it.

Now, I’m no lawyer, but there was no way in **** that this experiment was legal, if it was real, even with those consent forms. So it probably wasn’t real.

And if it was? Then the professor lied to me. He had said that the kids were fine. This folder was telling me something else.

2 minutes to go.

I took a deep breath and paced the room, watching each second tick by. My mind was telling me that none of it was real, but my gut was screaming in horror. I just looked at my watch. It would be over soon enough, one way or the other.

30 seconds.

I walked over to the machine and put my hand on the lever. *Goddammit, why is he cutting it so close?* I watched the seconds tick by, and I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I could risk trapping the professor wherever the **** he had gone off to.

5 seconds. My hand was shaking. 4 seconds. Sweat was pouring down my face, dripping into my eyes. 3 seconds. One of the students started to moan. The one that I saw was named Jackson in the folder. 2 seconds. *Oh **** oh **** oh ****.* 1 second. Jackson started to shake. 0 seconds. *Shit.*

I tensed my muscles to pull the lever. One look at Jackson and I knew I had to pull it. He was violently jerking around now.

“WAIT!”

I snapped my neck around to see the professor’s head sticking out of the black hole.

“Wait dammit!”

Then his shoulders were through. I turned back to Jackson. Blood was pouring out of his eyes.

“I’m almost through!”

A second kid started to shake.

“One more second!”

I looked to see that the professor was through. He was back in the room. “Do it!” he shouted.

Two things happened after that, at the exact same time. I heard a wet popping sound, and I watched as the wormhole disappeared, as though it was never there. But I had never pulled the lever.

I slowly turned to look at Jackson. His head was gone. Judging by the bits of brain and splatters of blood on the bowl thing above his neck, his head had just *exploded.* 

The whirring of the machine gradually died down, and then it was silent. The three kids who were still alive stopped shaking, and closed their eyes.

“A tragedy,” said the professor, pointing at Jackson, with the exploded head. “But not for nothing. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it! Chief, I’ve seen it!”

I hunched over and puked. It was weird, but my first thought was: *what a mess I’ll have to clean up later.* I don’t know. I guess my mind had sort of shut down and I was going on autopilot. I was the janitor. I cleaned up messes. That was all I knew.

Then it hit me, the reality of what had happened. “You sonofabitch!” I yelled. “You told me those kids would be okay!”

The professor put this sickening smug grin on his face. “He would have been, chief, had you pulled the lever at the 30 minute mark as instructed.”

“You told me to wait!”

“Did I?”

“Yes you ****! I’m calling the police!” I had a walkie clipped to my belt. It wouldn’t get me the police, but it would get campus security. I reached for it and had it in my hand when I heard a groan behind me. I turned to see that it was one of the kids. They were waking up.

I went over to unstrap them from the chairs. The first kid’s eyes blinked open, and when she saw the professor, she started screaming.

“It’s okay,” I said, “shh, it’s okay, it’s all over.”

She kept screaming, then the second kid woke up. He looked right at me with wide, terrified eyes. “Get us out of here!” he shouted.

“I’m working on it, kid,” I said, fumbling at the straps. They were on tight.

The third kid woke up. “It’s here,” she said. “It made it through.”

“Everything’s okay now,” I said. “Your friend didn’t make it, I’m afraid, but it’s over. I’ll make sure the professor pays for what he did to you and your friends.”

The first kid was still screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Get us out of here!” shouted the second kid again.

The third kid looked me dead in the eyes and, in a totally calm voice, said, “That’s not the professor.”

“What? Of course it is,” I said. What I saw when I turned to look at the professor will haunt me forever.

The professor’s mouth was twisting around at odd angles, like something was moving the lower half of his jaw randomly, or like he was trying to get a hair out of his mouth that kept jumping around. The veins on his neck bulged, then sunk back down, then bulged again, so that they were thick as ropes. His wrists were rotating in ways they weren’t supposed to rotate, as his arms flailed around wildly.

I had the first kid, the screaming one, free. She jumped out of the chair and ran to the door. But her legs were wobbly, and she tripped over herself in the middle of the room. I went to work on the second kid, whipping my head around every second to look at the professor. It looked like there was something crawling around under his skin. Something big.

“Get us out of here!” the second kid shouted yet again. The first kid was still on the ground, screaming. I worked away furiously on the straps.

“If you believe in ****,” said the third kid, with an eerie calm, “then pray.”

I took a glance at the professor, and that’s when the first bone burst out of his chest, through his suit. I call it a bone, but it was pure black, and dripping with green slime.

“As for me,” said the third kid. “I do not believe that there is a ****. Not after what I have seen.”

The second kid was free and made a run for it. I scooted over to the third kid, but watched as the professor reached out an arm and grabbed the second kid by the top of his head. The professor gave one quick twist and let go. I heard a terrible *snap* and the kid slumped to the ground, dead. 

Three more black bones came out of the professor’s chest, dripping. He laughed and bent down to the first kid, who was still screaming, as bones began to poke out of his back, like a **** Stegosaurus from ****. 

“What is that thing?!” I asked, as I fumbled at the straps of the last kid.

“It does not belong here,” said the kid.

“No ****,” I said, getting one strap free. “But what *is* it?”

“It comes from a terrible place. A place where there is nothing save pain. Endless pain, incomprehensible to our minds.”

“Great,” I muttered, as I noticed with a sinking heart that the screams from the girl behind me had stopped. Then I heard a wet *crunch*. I couldn’t help it. I looked to see the professor tearing into that poor girl’s throat with long black fangs, dripping in green slime. 

I turned back to the kid, almost done with the straps. Just a few more seconds. “What’s your name, anyway, kid?”

“Claire.”

“Claire,” I said, my mind trying to stay focused. “When I get you out of these straps, I want you to pick up this chair and throw it at that thing, okay? I’ll do the same thing, okay? *Then* we make a run for it. Do you understand? Can you do that?”

“I understand,” said Claire. “I do hope it works.”

I did hope it would work, too. “We have to make it work, Claire,” I said, yanking off the last strap. “Come on.”

We stood up together and I reached over to pick up a chair. I hurled it at the professor with all of my strength, and it shattered against his boned back. I heard a terrible shriek then, and watched as Claire’s chair followed behind.

I grabbed Claire’s arm with one hand and reached for my pocketknife with the other. The only way out of that room meant passing by the professor. We started running as I pulled the knife out and flicked it up. The professor stood, still shrieking, as the green slime mixed with the red blood from the kid’s throat and dripped down his chin.

I took a wild stab at the professor’s neck, and connected. I kept running with Claire, leaving the knife stuck in the professor’s neck, and made it to the door. I had my hand around the **** when I felt Claire pulling away from me. I looked back, helpless, as I saw the professor reach long black claws into her gut. I threw the door open and left her there.

Good ****, I left her there.

\*

I made it outside the lab building somehow. I don’t remember how. My mind just sort of shut down as I ran like **** I guess. I did have the presence to go around and lock all of the doors from the outside. Then I got on the radio to campus security.

“You guys need to get the police over to the Astrophysics Center **** ASAP. There was a **** massacre in there.”

The front door started to rattle, and I heard the godawful shriek again.

“Repeat,” said a voice over the walkie.

“Look,” I said. “Call up Lawrence Summers, *right now*.” That was the president of Harvard at the time, and I had seen his signature on the papers in that folder with all of the consent forms. “Tell him that the wormhole experiment has gone *way the **** South.*”

The rattling at the door stopped. I only prayed that that thing didn’t figure out it could just break a window and crawl out that way.

“This is the janitor, right?” said a different voice on the other end of the walkie. “Is this a joke? The ‘wormhole experiment’? Have you been drinking?”

“Call Lawrence Summers. If you don’t, I promise you that you’ll never be able to live with yourself. Do it *now*.”

There was a horrible pause. I heard the professor trying the side door now, shrieking once again.

“10-4.”

\*

A fleet of black SUVs pulled up two minutes later. A team of heavily armed men jumped out and ran past me, breaking though windows and jumping inside. I heard a stream of gunfire. And screams. So many screams, and the professor’s horrible shrieks. After a while, it was quiet, and a second team of men jumped through the broken windows. I didn’t hear any more gunfire.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and whipped around. A man was standing there. I don’t remember a single thing about what he looked like. But I remember our conversation.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

I told him the full story, the same one that I’ve told you.

“We are prepared to give you a lot of money to sign a NDA.”

“NDA?”

“Non-disclosure agreement. It means that you can never tell *anybody* about what happened here tonight.”

“How much?”

“A million dollars.”

“And a promotion.”

The man paused. “You mean… you still want to work… work *here*… after tonight?”

“Somebody’s gotta clean up the ****,” I said.

“Fine, of course.”

“And one more thing.”

“And what’s that?” asked the man.

“I want to know that this will never happen again. I want you to blow all of that **** up, and burn all of the notes.”

“Of course.”

“And I want to watch.”

“Of course,” said the man.

\*

And so I thought it was over. But it’s not. Last night, I saw the professor again. He looked me right in the eyes, flashed that smug grin, and said: “Hey there, chief.” That’s when I ran the **** out of there.

The police don’t believe me. I’ve sent a dozen e-mails to Lawrence Summers’ assistants. I’ve called every number that I’ve found listed for him. I haven’t heard anything back. I don’t know who else to turn to.

I’m afraid the professor is going to open the wormhole again. And I’m afraid this time, he might bring his friends back with him.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: She's a Keeper
 
 Assistant: That’s what my dad always used to say, with a chuckle and a pat to my head. ‘She’s a keeper,’ he’d say to a grocer or clerk at a convenience store. People used to fawn over the cute pigtailed **** by her daddy’s side, always said her pleases and thank yous, never threw a tantrum, was an absolute angel.  

Maybe this is why when I grew up I always need someone giving me a pat on the back. If I’m not getting a compliment about how I look or how well I did at work, I’m gonna assume I did something wrong or I had a piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth all day.  

This hasn’t always worked out for me. I’m a keeper, but I can also be a sucker. Like what’s been happening with my boss.  

I love working as a secretary, it’s a job that makes me feel really fulfilled. This makes me a bit of a stereotype though with how I practically melted when Jonathan Price, my boss, complimented my blouse and my work ethic on my first day. I just reminded myself by looking at the silver ring on his left hand and the picture on his desk with his children that I shouldn’t read too much into it.  

Jonathan was perfect though, and over time I realized I read him just right.  

I never wanted to be the other woman. I just wanted to be loved. And being around Jonathan, working late nights just to have a moment to talk with him, having drinks after work… the inevitable happened. He kissed me after a few too many beers, and we ended up going back to my place. We slept together.  

I poured my heart out to him after that, how I’d liked him for so long, and that I really felt a connection with him. He just smiled and brushed the hair from my eyes, telling me that I was the kind of girl you didn’t just let get away.  

Of course I believed him.  

Of course I swallowed the lump in my throat whenever I saw Mariana coming to visit her husband. My lover.  

Of course I ignored how I was the choice topic of office gossip, how the guys smirked and the other women gave me the side eye and the cold shoulder.

Of course I listened when Jonathan said he was going to leave her soon. He just needed to make sure he didn’t hurt her.  

And of course, whenever he called me to meet him at our typical meeting spot, a hotel in downtown, I was there with bells on.  

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking of me. I think it too. I’m not the brightest bulb in the package, but like I told you, I’m pretty easily manipulated. But I love Jonathan, I love his work ethic, I love how he takes care of his kids, kids that he learned soon enough I couldn’t have. I wonder if that was part of my appeal to him. That he couldn’t accidentally knock me up.  

He doesn’t… didn’t love me. I was just an easy lay, a stereotype in every sense of the word.  

I only started wising up last week, when it occurred to me that Jonathan really wasn’t slowing down his relationship with his wife and certainly wasn’t preparing for divorce proceedings. She was pregnant with their third child, I saw the pictures he posted on Facebook of their anniversary dinner.  

It hit me like a semi truck when I read his status about enjoying their fifteen years together and couldn’t wait to see what the next fifteen will bring.  

I cried. I **** a lot of wine. And then I asked him to come to my apartment. That we needed to talk.  

Scary words for a guy, right? Took Jonathan a while to drag his **** over, which by then I was even more ****. I don’t drink often, and certainly not in excess, but can you blame me? I’d just had that reality shattering realization I was just his pet to call on whenever he wanted to **** and spew nonsense words at. Nonsense words I fell for.

Well, I did what I should’ve done about six months ago. I called him out on his ****. Said that he was never going to leave his wife but he wasn’t going to stop keeping me as his side piece. He tried, oh he tried to calm me down, but I wasn’t going to back down to his pretty words this time.  

“Either pick me or stay with your wife. Else I’ll call her and let her know the truth.”  

My ultimatum I’d spent the previous hour preparing. I felt super proud of it when I spat it out, expecting him to pick at least one of the options so this nonsense could end.  

Jonathan’s face went white, then red, and then… he picked a third option.

He killed me.

Jonathan picked up the empty wine bottle while he muttered something about me being too much trouble, and then he brought it down right on the top of my head. Caved my skull in on the first smash, sending shards of glass all over my living room. I dropped like a rock. But I guess Jonathan was just too **** off, cuz he used the remains of the bottle in his hand to keep stabbing me, again and again in the throat and neck. I was about decapitated by the time he came to his senses.

Of course Jonathan freaked out. Panicked. Just washed the blood off his hands and wiped down the bottle before escaping the apartment. Left me there. All alone. Head nearly off my shoulders, my living room a mess of blood, wine, and glass.

Man, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I came into work today. I was at my desk by the time he came in. He looked like ****, understandably, he just killed a woman two days before. But he froze in his steps when he saw me sitting at my desk, tip tapping away on my keyboard while scheduling another appointment later that week.  

I just waved to him real quick before going back to work. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jonathan bolt for his office and slam the door.  

Oh, that felt so good. Watching him be the one to run in fear. Was he doubting his memory? Was he trying to convince himself that he’d just had a really bad dream?  

I clocked out after that, complaining about a cold, it’d been passed all around the office. But I didn’t go to my home.

I went to Jonathan’s home. A nice house, in a nice part of town. I saw his wife working in the small garden out front and, after adjusting my scarf, I got out and walked up the drive.

She didn’t see me until I was right behind her. Marianna was a pretty woman, even right now with a smudge of dirt across her face, no make up, and her auburn hair held back with a yellow bandanna. I cleared my throat and she nearly dropped the flower bulb she had in her hands. She glanced up, immediately recognizing me. “Oh, hi, Nicole. Is something wrong?” She got up, brushing off her hands and smiling from ear to ear. Her pregnancy was just starting to show, her belly just so slightly growing.  

“Can we talk inside?”  

“Oh sure, sweetheart. The kids are at school, won’t be back for a few more hours. Are you all right, your voice sounds a bit raspy.”  

“I’ll be fine.”

I waited until she was sitting down before I began the most difficult conversation of my life. And I got the most difficult part of it out of the way first.  

“Your husband and I have been having an affair for almost a year.”

It was so sad to see how Marianna just… sighed. How she just nodded. “I figured, with all the late nights at work and business trips that didn’t take him out of town. I was just about to hire a private investigator to start checking in on him, so you saved me a chunk of change. Are you still sleeping with him?”  

I shook my head. “No, I figured that ended when he about took my head off with a wine bottle,” I said.

Her brow knitted in concern, so I decided to show her. I undid the scarf around my neck and showed her what I’d been hiding all morning at work.

My neck is a sight right now, all purple and black and covered in decaying, cut up flesh. I can’t even imagine how the smell must be to someone not used to it. The putrefaction had spread down to my chest, which I showed her by unbuttoning my blouse. I’d had to start tearing my skin off to get any sort of relief, you can’t imagine how horrid the itching gets when your flesh starts rotting off the bone with your skin holding it all in. I even removed my gloves to show off the pus filled sores and bubbles forming in my wrists and fingers.  

Marianna went white as a sheet as she took it all in. It look so wrong, my face perfect as it always has been but from the neck down I look like rotting roadkill. When the wave of stench finally hit her she bolted for the bathroom. I could hear her violently throwing up from where I sat.

I’d just about buttoned my shirt back up when she came back, teetering a bit and still looking pale but managing to remain steady. “Wait. Show me again.”  

I shrugged and unbuttoned my shirt again. If she wanted a reason to barf again, she was welcome to it. But she didn’t. She sat beside me, her expression of disgust melting away into one of wonder. “… Before Jonathan insisted I take care of the kids full time, I used to be a surgeon. You… you shouldn’t be alive. You *can’t* be alive. Are you a ghost?”  

“No.” I shook my head. “This just happens sometimes. I’m surprised it happened after your husband killed me, I thought I was a goner. But then I woke up with my body falling apart, maybe I was due for a shedding, maybe this just happens when I get hurt real bad, I dunno.”

“Jonathan…” She shuddered and shook her head, “He’s a ****, but he wouldn’t-”

“He beat me with a wine bottle, Marianna.” I pulled the bloody shards out of my purse. “And then when it broke, he stabbed me in the neck. All because I told him the affair was over.

Now she was crying. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her bottom lip wobbled with her sobs. “No… no… oh my ****, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I never thought… I never-”

“I need your help.”  

I rebuttoned up my blouse, but I left the scarf on my lap. “It’ll take me a few weeks to really come back together, but my daddy told me of a way to help me heal faster. His sister was like me. Fell apart, rotted like a corpse, and then looked just as pretty as ever in a few days. It took longer though, much longer… before she started working as a mortician.”  

It didn’t take any effort at all to convince her to help me. The kids are having a sleepover at grandma’s tonight, they really are cuties. There’s a wine glass laced with sleeping medication ready for Jonathan when he gets home, and I’m waiting in the basement, passing the time by ripping off more rotten skin, wondering what human flesh will taste like. Marianna’s already said I can stay here while I recover. She wants to study me. I’m something she’s never seen before and she’s fascinated.

She says I’m a real keeper[.](http://theoddcatlady.com/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: If the time stops at 1.09 a.m roll over and pray that they think you're asleep
 
 Assistant: The title basically says it all. If you're wondering who "they" are, well that's the strange part. It's your family, or roommate or whatever. I've never heard of this happening before so I'm not sure what I can really do about it. Other than pretend I'm sleeping of course... That's the only thing that really seems to keep them docile. Lemme explain what's been happening in a little more detail.

This has been going on for the past 3 nights now. I didn't really think much of it the first night. because I honestly thought my family was pulling some prank on me. That is until last night, when I was attacked by my wife...

The first night was a pretty early night for my wife Kelsey, and my twin boys Eric and Erin. All of us were out cold by 9:00 p.m. we had a pretty long day of splitting wood to stock up for the upcoming winter. That night I woke up too an odd silence in the house. Like everyone had left and I was alone in the house. I grabbed my phone and checked the time, 1:09 a.m. I rolled over just to check if my wife was still sleeping and when I found the bed empty I sat up and looked around. The house was pitch black other than the hall light by my boys room we left on and with that dim light I could see 3 shadows cast along the hall way wall as my bedroom was left open.

"Kelsey?" I groggily called out.

I could see all 3 shadows twitch at the sound of my voice. Like they were startled. 

"Kels!" I called a little louder.

This time a shiver was sent down my spine as all three heads of the shadows looked in my direction. "What the ****?" I whispered to myself, tossing the blankets off from me as I got up to investigate. I tip toed to my door with a feeling of unease growing in the pit of my stomach. Once I got to the door I peeked around and was pretty creeped out at what I saw. Kelsey and the boys were standing still as statutes with their bodies turned towards the boys's room, their necks however strained to stare directly at me. Huge smiles that looked painful to maintain plastured on all of their faces.

"What the **** are you guys doing?" I asked with a chuckle, thinking they were playing a joke on me.

Now that I think back it didn't make much sense thinking they were joking. After all, why would they get up in middle of the night for that with no guarantee I'd even wake up? 

Their bodies made an unnatural twitch at the sound of my voice which made me jump back in surprise. This was when I really started to think something might be wrong. A feeling of dread washed over me and I began to sweat. Then the sound of the clock on the microwave beeping as if it reset rang through the house made me jump in the air as I let out a startled yelp. My boys turned instantly and walked back into their room, Kelsey doing the same. Her smile disappeared and she walked by me like a zombie and crawled back in bed, snoring as if she were sleeping the whole time. Confused as **** I walked back to my side of the bed and checked the time on my phone. 

"What the..." I said to myself as I noticed the time.

1:10 a.m. No way only a minute had passed since I first woke up. It had to have been at a very minimum of 5 minutes. Still though, I shook it off and got back into bed, deciding to bring it up to Kelsey in the morning.

The next morning I woke up and everything was back to normal. I could hear the boys playing in the living room and smelled bacon and eggs as Kelsey cooked breakfast. I got up and walked out with a smile as I remembered their little joke from the night before.

"Good morning pranksters..." I said with a laugh.

They all stared at me with a confused look on their faces.

"Huh?" My wife finally said.

"Last night? All of you standing in the hallway smiling at me? Gotta admit it was a good one, creeped me out a lil bit." I said shaking my head.

"Ryan don't even joke like that, you know those creepy smiling people stories freak me out." Kelsey scolded.

"Hey you're the one trying to freak me out in the middle of the night!" I laughed. "By the way how in the **** did you get the phones to stop time at 1:09? That was a good touch."

My whole family was looking at me like I was a nut job. Then simultaneously they all started shouting it wasn't funny and that I was scaring them. I was bewildered. I didn't know if they were still in on the joke or if somehow they had all been sleep walking. That wouldn't explain the time though.

"Ok ok ok!" I shouted. "I must've been having a **** dream Jesus Christ! Don't freak out on me ****..." 

I turned and walked back into the room moor confused than ever. I knew I wasn't dreaming. Were they this serious about their little prank or did they really not remember? Either way, I figured I'd settle it that night. I'd simply record them with my phone if they tried it again, that'd ruin their little joke pretty quick. 

Satisfied with my plan I went about my day. The boys helped split and stack more wood while Kelsey did some running in town. Before I knew it it was night time again and we were all in bed. I made sure to have my phone charged and right next to me, ready to catch them in the act. 

Once again I woke up hours later, that same eerie silence filled the house. This time my adrenaline started pumping as the feeling of dread hit me like a ton of bricks. I grabbed my phone and lit the screen up. 1:09 a.m. I tried to switch it to record but my phone was frozen.

"Fuck!" I whisper yelled.

I looked over to the hall and seen the same shadows as the night before. This time, a little closer. My blood ran cold as I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the t.v. was left on, but the picture was froze. It seemed all electronics were froze or something, adding to the creepy feeling that engulfed my body.

I got up once again and tip toed to the door. I peeked my head around and had to cover my mouth to stifle a yelp. Kelsey and the boys were standing facing me directly this time, only somehow their smiles even bigger than before. Now that they were a good 5 feet closer I could see just how wide open and blood shot their eyes were. 

When I moved my hand to cover my mouth all three of them took a giant step forward. Naturally, I took a step back. They mimicked with another huge step forward, this time since Kelsey was bigger than the boys she stepped ahead. She was now maybe 3-5 feet away, her eyes opening even wider, as she looked extremely excited. I turned around to jump back in bed and as I did so I heard loud booming as they gave chase. I felt huge blows hit my back, far harder than any of them should be able to inflict.

"What the ****! Oww!" I shouted as my back ached from the impact.

I was now in bed and I yanked the covers over my head. Childish I know, but hey, I wasn't about to strike my wife. Thankfully as I layed still the blows stopped and I heard heavy breathing from what I assumed was Kelsey, only it sounded way too deep and raspy. Then the breathing stopped all together and silence filled the room.

"I know you're not asleep..." She whispered so fast I barely made out what she said.

Just then the beeping of the microwave filled the house and the t.v. resumed. I heard the sound of soft footsteps leave the room as the boys went back you their rooms, followed by pressure next to me in bed as Kelsey climbed back under the covers. I quickly grabbed my phone and checked the time, 1:10 a.m. this didn't make any **** sense...

I did my best to go back to sleep but needless to say, I didn't sleep much. I tossed and turned as I tried to figure out what in the **** was happening. I tried to figure out what steps to take next. The only thing I could think of was to pretend I was asleep next time since my lack of movement seemed to stop the blows. If they thougt I was asleep all together maybe they'd just stand creepily in the hallway? It was worth a shot I guess...

I'll update tomorrow and let you guys know how last night went for me. It was still extremely scary but hey, I didn't get attacked so that's a start right? I've got another plan for tonight too but I'll just put that in the update tomorrow. Wish me luck and if anyone's got any ideas as what to do here please, feel free to help...

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of this city?! No one seems to remember it, and something horrific might have happened to it.
 
 Assistant: Apparently, there was once a city in the north of Sweden called Korona, but somehow we’ve all forgotten about it. I’m a police officer working in Kalix, a municipality close to where the lost city of Korona is supposed to have been. At that place, there are no signs of the city – only a dense forest – but certain details related to my own family makes me certain this place was indeed real.

The entire world just forgot about it… I can’t imagine how or why, but it’s the only conclusion I’ve been able to reach. For me, this all started when two Romanian blueberry pickers came into my small office to report something they had found deep in the dense forest. They didn’t know enough Swedish or English to explain exactly what it was that they had found, but it was immediately clear to me that it had terrified them completely. From what I understood, it seemed to involve a human corpse. Eventually, after having brought in an interpreter from the town next to mine, it was revealed that they had stumble upon a dead child, no more than ten years old.

They led me and two of my colleagues – followed by an ambulance – to the location where they had found the child. The sun was setting behind a thick mist when we got there. I lit a cigarette while we left the main road and walked into the forest, to where the child was supposed to be. I felt a bit uncomfortable having to deal with a dead child, but I had handled cases like this before – some car accidents – and didn’t feel too affected by it now. It was just another job, or so I thought.

The Romanians stopped when we got close and refused to go any further. There was panic in their eyes, more than I expected even given these extreme circumstances. One of my colleagues stayed with them while the rest of us continued. We soon came upon a huge boulder that had been placed there by the ice sheet that covered Europe during the ice age. My colleague walked around it and a few moments later he came running back, pale as if he had seen the Devil himself. He bent down and puked right in front of me.

“It…” he said. “It’s on the other side… Holy ****.”

I didn’t ask him any questions, I only proceeded to check it out for myself with the medics following behind me. What we found on the other side of the boulder… It wasn’t natural. Half the child – a blond little girl – was fused with the boulder just as if she had been passing through it as a ghost and then suddenly turned into a human before she had time to exit the rock. Or, as my colleague later remarked, it was as if she had been teleported into the rock. The girls sorrowful, dead gaze into the forest seemed to tell a story of a tragedy unknown to the living. The medics quickly shied away from her eyes in silence, horrified by the fate she must have suffered, but I couldn’t look away. I’ve never been a religious man, but this experience made me doubt everything I’d believed before.

And I don’t just mean the bizarre way the poor girl had lost her life, half engulfed by the boulder… There was something else about the girl as well. Something that made me feel completely empty inside, just as if a piece of my own soul was ripped out of me leaving an empty hole in my heart that quickly filled up with a sorrow I had never felt before. It was a dreadful feeling, only made worse by the strange fact that a small part of me *recognized* the girl. I couldn’t tell from where… Her face was like the vague memory of a dream recently forgotten.

We collected ourselves and started talking, trying to make sense of the situation without any success, while the medics approached the body. I tried to focus on the hard facts while we investigated the scene. The girl was wearing a pink jacket. In one of the pockets, we found an odd looking flower – it’s colors were exotic and resembled the wings of a beetle – and a yellow library card with a text that puzzled us. “The library of Korona,” it said.

The girl had written her name on the card as well. When I saw it, my world started spinning. “Isabella Lexelius”, it said in the girls childish handwriting.

“Isn’t that your last name, sir?” my colleague said.

“It… it is…” I didn’t know what to say or think.

“Well, do you know her?”

“I… I don’t know… No… No, I’ve never seen her before in my entire life. It must be a coincidence.”

“That’s a pretty big coincidence, sir.”

I didn’t respond to that.

“There’s something on the ground as well”, one of the medics said.

On the bloodstained moss beneath the girl, there was a notebook. It must have fallen out of her hand, the one that was hanging limply above the book. I picked it up and opened it. The pages were covered with small text, written with a different handwriting than the girl’s.

“Sir!” one of the medics said. “We will have to bring some tools to cut her down.”

“Yes”, I said absently.

“There’s one more thing”, the medic said.

I put the book in a plastic evidence bag. “What?”

“There’s too much blood.” The medic pointed at the ground.

“What do you mean there’s too much blood?” I asked.

“Beneath the boulder, sir”, the medic explained. “It’s impossible for all that blood to come from a child.”

A moment of silence, then I said:

“We will have to come back here with better tools.”

A day later, we successfully removed the upper body of the girl and brought it back to the morgue where it was examined. We also tried to lift the boulder with the help of a crane, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead, we dug a hole under it but we didn’t find any new body parts. All we could do this day was to sample as much of the blood as possible.

During the examination of the body, I read the notebook. It contained the story of the city of Korona. I was convinced it was fiction – a deranged story written by the man I thought must have killed the girl – until a few weeks ago when the forensic lab called me.

I still have a hard time believing it, but they told me there’s no other way. They had tested the DNA of the girl and compared it to mine because of her last name. It was my idea, since I didn’t want anyone to suspect anything. We didn’t think it would reveal anything, but it did… The ten or so years old girl, Isabella, was my daughter. I was sure it wasn’t possible. Ten years earlier I lived with my ex-wife and I never cheated on her and certainly didn’t have any children with her. We stayed together for five more years, so I would’ve known if she had a baby during that time. And yet, there was nothing wrong with the test.

Below is a transcript of the notebook. I’ve typed it out here in the hopes that someone will remember the city of Korona or someone who might have lived in it. Please contact me if you have any information.

This is what was inside the notebook:

My name is Helena Fredriksson. Five years ago I was a different person. I was younger back then, not just in the ordinary sense but in spirit too. There was joy in my life and I had hopes and dreams. That’s all gone now… I don’t have that much time to write this down, but I will try and explain what happened to us – to our entire community – as well as I can.

The event, as we have come to call it, occurred on July 9, 2013. I was only visiting Korona over the day to take my niece – Isabella – to the grand opening of The Red Grove, the cities new amusement park. It was supposed to be the biggest one in Sweden and Isabella had begged her parents to go to the grand opening, but neither of them had been able to due to work. So they called me and asked me to do it for them. I was their go-to person for when they needed help with Isabella, the only one they trusted. How I wish that hadn’t been the case now, considering what happened.

We arrived pretty early, a few hours before the opening, so that we wouldn’t need to stay in line the whole day to get inside. The weather was amazing. It had rained earlier in the morning, so we had been a bit worried, but when we got to the city there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

Isabella couldn’t stop talking about how much fun we would have, and it warmed my heart to see her so happy. It took us a bit longer than expected to get to the amusement park since one of the main streets had been closed off for a military parade. This didn’t bother us that much, it rather increased the feeling of celebration in the air. To avoid the parade, we had to take a bus to the city center, the Freyja square, and from there we had to take the subway to the Yellow Neutral business cluster – the tallest skyscrapers in Sweden. It was possible for us to walk to The Red Grove from there.

There were people everywhere. It turned out that a lot of them had taken a ferry down the river that I didn’t know about. This meant we had to stand in line after all. Isabella didn’t mind, but I knew she would get hungry soon, and I worried that it would ruin her mood. Luckily, there was a man selling hot dogs from a cart that he was pushing down the line. I bought a hot dog and a soda for Isabella. Her parents didn’t really like when I bought her junk food, but a day like this I thought they would understand. The man was also selling red balloons to the children. Isabella said she wanted one. I tried to tell her that she would have to carry it around all day and that there would be more balloons inside the amusement park, but she wouldn’t listen. Reluctantly, I bought her a balloon as well.

At this point, no one knew that their entire lives were about to change in a matter of minutes.

Isabella accidentally let go of the balloon. I feared it would make her sad, but it didn’t seem to bother her that much. We looked at the balloon as it rose up into the air and drifted away. Soon, it was but a red dot against the vast blue sky. Then, suddenly, it vanished.

“Where did it go?” Isabella said.

I couldn’t explain it. It had just disappeared.

“I don’t know”, I said. “Maybe it popped?”

But something – an uneasy feeling I couldn’t rationalize – made me doubt that. Then, only a few minutes later, strong winds came from every direction. It carried a smell with it that reminded me of something rotten.

“Ew”, Isabella said as her long white hair was blowing in the wind. “What’s that smell?”

I held her hand harder. “I don’t know,” I said.

People looked around, confused, and their joyful voices became concerned. Something was happening, but no one knew what it was. Sirens echoed in the distance, seemingly coming from the business cluster.

“Oh my ****,” a woman said and pointed towards the skyscrapers. “The top of the building is gone!”

It wasn’t that easy to see, but she was right. The top of the tallest building was gone as if it had been cut off with a knife. Isabella was too short to see it, but she picked up that something wasn’t right on everyone's faces and she became worried herself.

“I think we need to get away from here,” I said, acting completely on instinct. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

Isabella teared up. “But the opening, aren’t we…”

“We will come back later sweetheart,” I said as I walked away from the crowd with her. One of the ferries were just about to leave. We quickly stepped aboard. A few others joined us, but most of the people stayed behind in the hopes that everything would be sorted out. Isabella cried, but she wasn’t mad. As the ferry slowly drove away from the riverside promenade a commotion of some kind erupted among the crowd back on land. I couldn’t see what was going on, but suddenly everyone screamed in terror and tried to run towards the water. They were clearly escaping from something, but I couldn’t see what it was. All I saw was people stepping on each other while they tried to jump into the river and swim away. It was a horrible sight, and I’m glad Isabella wasn’t tall enough to see over the railing.

Next, the sirens from the emergency alert system began blasting its eerie sound of imminent catastrophe. Everyone asked questions no one had any answers to. Most people I heard thought we were under attack, either by terrorists or the Russians.

I picked up my phone to call my sister, but there was no signal. I tried with Isabella's phone as well without any luck. I soon discovered that no one had any signal. At the sides of the river that passed through the city, people were looking out of their windows trying to get a glimpse of what was going on but the only thing they could see that was out of the ordinary was the cut off building in the Yellow Neutral business cluster.

“Look”, Isabella said and pointed at the sky. “I’ve never seen such a big bird before!”

An enormous bird-like creature soared high above us. It was pitch black. Although it was impossible to say for sure, it seemed to be just as confused about seeing us as we were seeing it. It circled the city center a few times and then flew away again. The sight of the giant bird, or whatever it truly was, turned our anxious confusion into terror. We still didn’t know what had happened, but now we knew it didn’t have anything to do with terrorists or some foreign power. This was something else, something impossible to believe and yet at the same time impossible to deny.

The ferry let us off a bit further down the river, close to Freyja square. People seemed to be in a state of panic, although no one knew what was wrong. Some were packing their cars to escape the city, others were running somewhere – perhaps to their loved ones – but most people clustered around police officers, city workers or military personnel from the parade to try and get some information. But they only got the same answer over and over again, yelled at them so that it could be heard over the sirens from the emergency alert system: that nothing was known and that they needed to return to their homes and listen to the radio for more information.

“How are we suppose to listen to the radio when the power is out?!” The voice came from an old woman. “Look around, there’s no power!”

She was right.

“Go home and close your windows and wait for the power to come back,” a policeman said. “We don’t know what is going on, but the safest thing to do is to follow the procedure…”

He was interrupted by something happening a few meters away. The first person who had tried to leave the city – a man on a loud motorcycle – had come back. I was carrying Isabella, comforting her at the same time as I tried to hear what the man on the bike was trying to tell everyone. I pushed through to get closer to him. He walked to the center of the square and climbed up on the foot of the statue of Freyja. Few people believed him, but everyone that had seen the creature in the sky had no doubt he was telling the truth however impossible it seemed.

“There’s no way out!” the man yelled. “The main road cuts of at the edge of the city and… There’s only jungle. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry. But it’s true. We are surrounded by a dense, thick, jungle and there’s no way around it.”

“Then it’s true,” a policeman whispered to himself next to me. “For the love of ****, it was all true.”

I asked him what he meant. First, he didn’t want to acknowledge my question, but when he saw my confusion and tears in my niece's innocent eyes he turned to me and said quietly:

“Before we lost contact with the helicopter that was surveilling the parade, the pilot said something that simply didn’t make sense. He… He was crashing. Something had cut off his rotor blades. And he said that it all had changed somehow… The view had changed. Before he hit the ground he yelled that he had seen a jungle to the west and an ocean to the east.”

More and more reports came in and even though it was impossible to tell rumors from facts they were all telling the same story: the entire world around the city had been replaced in an instance. The city was the same, but the sky above it wasn’t. Eventually, the screaming sirens went silent, the cars stopped beeping their horns and the cacophony of voices died out. An uncanny silence fell over the city. The feeling was beyond unreal.

I didn’t know what any of this meant. I tried to explain it to my niece, but she was only five years old and she couldn’t understand. She wanted to go home to her parents and I didn’t know what to tell her. She was tired and needed rest, so I went to a hostel nearby and paid for a room. Soon, the economy of the city would collapse but for the first few days in this new unknown world, people still accepted money as payment.

What followed was five years of unending trials and hardships, a continuous battle for survival with no hope for help or rescue. It started during the first night. The sun, identical to our own yet new and strange, sat due north instead of west and was replaced by unrecognizable stars covering the entire sky. As I looked up at them from the small window in our room, I didn’t feel awe, but rather I felt completely lost. The strangest feeling during all these years must have been the paradoxical sensation of familiarity on the streets mixed with the awareness of total displacement. I think this was partly why people kept close to the city center, to drown themselves in the illusion of being home even though they knew, deep down, that they couldn’t escape their fate as stranded in the unknown.

Then, as I leaned out the window, I heard the sounds. People screaming, gunshots, cars driving madly through the streets without anywhere to go and the occasional odd howling that made my blood run cold. I never saw anything of what happened that night, but it changed the population – more than two million people – forever.

I closed the window and hid behind the bed with Isabella. She wanted to cry for her mother, but I kept my hand over her trembling mouth.

The next night was calmer, probably because no one dared venture outside. During the days, I soon realized, the threat didn’t come from the unknown jungle outside of the city but from the people within it. It was impossible to tell how much crimes were committed, but given what I saw with my own eyes – looting, robberies, and even murders – I figured the rate of crime must have gone up by a lot. However, it wasn’t total anarchy. The police and the few military units that had been in town for the parade kept some vital order to the community. Since ordinary people didn’t have guns, the police and the military wasn’t threatened by the average citizen.

A leader stepped forward – the man on the motorcycle – and after a few weeks, everyone seemed to cooperate peacefully. The food that was left in the stores were mostly distributed fairly and everyone that could work seemed to do it without hesitation, even I.

The scientists that had been working at the university at the time of the event couldn’t figure out what had happened, but with the help of hundreds of citizens, they managed to build a small nuclear power plant that could return electricity to the city. I mostly helped out with that project. I didn’t know anything about nuclear physics, but I did what little I could. It was amazing what we were capable of as a people and in all my dreadfulness a feeling of pride grew in my chest. Although, our time in this world wasn’t simple. Far from it.

Aside from my personal problem with keeping Isabella healthy and safe – which I succeeded with although she never felt safe – there were three major problems that kept growing larger for every week.

The first one was the food and water situation. Some people had managed to grow wheat and potatoes in parks and on soccer fields, but it wasn’t enough. We were running out of food and water. It did rain from time to time, but very few people felt safe drinking the rainwater. To battle this problem – and to find solutions to some other problems as well – expeditions were sent out to explore the jungle. These typically ended the same way, that is with no one coming back. Only once or twice did someone manage to return to the city, but they weren’t themselves anymore. It was as if something in the jungle had captured their souls and let their bodies walk back unscratched.

The second problem was nature. It seemed to have spared us the first couple of months, but soon after we got the electricity back it turned on us. It took a while before I saw it with my own eyes, but – seemingly at random – mysterious creatures entered the city. Sometimes they just walked right through it, never to return again. A policewoman – one of the new recruits – told me that she had followed a **** blue child as it solemnly walked into the city and then back out of it again.

At other times indescribable monsters wreaked havoc on the streets, killing as many people as they could before returning to wherever they came from.

At one point – and this I actually saw for myself – an enormous centipede, pure white with hundreds of red eyes, suddenly appeared from a manhole. It quickly climbed up against a building – as if it knew exactly what it was doing – and entered one of the windows on the top floor. Next came the screams from the people inside the building. A few escaped, but everyone else inside were ripped to shreds. Only after about five minutes did the centipede exit the building from the entrance, it’s white segmented body stained with blood, and returned down the manhole.

These attacks, as they were called, aroused fear and panic in all of us. Although it didn’t happen that often, it happened often enough for everyone to be on edge all the time.

The third problem also didn’t become noticeable until later. It was a problem of health. There was no pattern to who was affected or not, but some people – probably no more than 1% – got sick. It started out like a fever and slowly progressed with nightmarish mutations randomly hitting the body. Most of these mutations made the victims handicapped and disfigured, but sometimes – very rarely – the victims developed properties that were seemingly beneficial to them. The most extreme case of this that I saw was a young girl who grew a third eye in the middle of her forehead. The iris of the new eye glittered with amazing colors and the girl claimed that she could use the eye to see other peoples emotions.

At the beginning of the health crisis, the sick people were treated badly, just as if they had been monsters from the jungle. This treatment only got worse when it was revealed that the creatures from outside never attacked the sick. At one point, a mob gathered at Freyja square, set on chasing the sick people out of the city. Luckily, this was stopped by the military.

In the end, however, the sick people were sent into the jungle. Not to be away with them, though, but to make use of their immunity to the nature of this world. This turned into a huge success that eventually solved the food and water problem. They could venture out and explore the surrounding area and return with edible fruits, vegetables, and small mammal-like animals that they hunted.

This was a turning point for us. And then luck **** again. All attempts at fishing had failed so far, but all of a sudden there were fish everywhere in the river. We soon learned that there were different periods for when the fish was out to sea or close to land. However, as soon as they came close to land mysterious purple thunderstorms that lasted weeks tormented the city. And yet, we survived. Many people didn’t, of course, but life was possible. In the end, we prevailed.

During the five years that followed there weren’t that many catastrophes and our focus on survival kept most of our thoughts of home away. Even Isabella thought less and less of her parents as she grew older. Over time, most people got used to the bizarre situation they had found themselves in back in July 2013. Many people did commit suicide, yes, but *most* people choose to live on in this unknown land.

Two events, however, changed things. First, it was what happened to a planned expedition at sea. Hundreds of people, mostly men, decided to venture out into the ocean with one of the luxury cruisers that had been moored next to the city. This was going to be a great adventure and, perhaps, a way to find some answers to where we had ended up. It inspired all of us. Thousands of people – Isabella and I included – had gathered to watch as the huge boat slowly sailed out. It all felt similar to that day five years earlier when we had waited for the amusement park to open. We all stared at the horizon as the boat – named *Birdo de Espero* – turned into a small dot against the setting sun. We imagined the amazing adventures they would be on and looked forward to their return. But then something that must have been larger than anything we had seen so far came out of the water and swallowed *Birdo de Espero* whole.

Some people screamed and others cried. This was a hard blow to the city. Just knowing that a being like that – a being able to eat an entire luxury cruiser in one bite – could exist deprived many people their hopes of a future.

The next event was different. It was a miracle, to say the least. It happened only a month after the destruction of *Birdo de Espero*. A military guard, a young man who had only been fifteen at the time of our disappearance from Earth, discovered that when he stood at a certain place at Freyja square he could tune into to a specific radio station from our old world. The station's name was Synthwave Mix and dedicated most of its broadcasting to that kind of music. Hope returned immediately, but this time the hope was different from the one we had spent five years building up within ourselves. This was the hope of seeing our loved ones again. The hope to return home. The people at the university investigated the area to try and determine where the radio signals were coming from. They didn’t have much success but soon realized that they emanated from the ground beneath Freyja square.

While the area was investigated by the scientists, ordinary people showed up en masse. They all had radios of different kinds with them, like children carrying stuffed animals to feel safe, hoping to tune in to Synthwave Mix and get a taste of their lost home. Of course, the area where the radio station could be heard was too small and the police had to chase everyone away to give the scientists the room they needed. A few days later, though, the scientists placed a set of large speakers at the foot of the statue of Freyja and connected them to the receiver they were using to listen in on the radio station.

Day and night the relaxed, somewhat melancholic, synthetic music played non-stop to the entire city. People congregated around the statue. They even defied the dangers of the night. This became our cities new tradition. Ending the day by going to the statue and sitting down around it, as if in prayer, became our pilgrimage. It wasn’t exactly the music that drew people to the square, but rather it’s origin. Still, the electronic melodies soon turned into a symbol of all of our hopes and desires. From time to time, people got up and danced – sometimes while crying from a bittersweet joy difficult to explain. Although, the thing that made us all go silent and become totally focused was when the hosts said something. Usually, they only spoke about the music they were broadcasting – completely unaware that an entire city full of people were listening to them almost religiously – but on rare occasions, they talked about the world outside. At those times it felt like our hearts collectively stopped in anticipation. Would they say something about us, about their efforts to figure out where we all had gone and how they would bring us back? But there was never any news about us, just as if they had already forgotten about us or never known about us at all. The tragic fate of the city of Korona never came up. Yet, we never lost fate.

It took a long time – and now I’m getting closer to the present day – but eventually, the scientists decided that it would be worthwhile digging a large hole right where the radio waves seemed to sip out of the ground. This was no easy task and neither was it safe. The work took weeks. Again we all helped. No one really knew what exactly we were looking for, we only knew that it was *something*.

When we reached the bottom, where the rock was too hard to dig through, a mountain of dirt covered the entire square. Our efforts hadn’t been in vain, we discovered. Right beneath the place where the radio waves had been picked up, there was a small hole in the bedrock. People were asked to back away from it while the scientists investigated it. First, they tried to measure how deep it was. This took some time since it was hard to find a long enough rope. In the end, it was estimated to be about 700 meters deep. Next, some equipment was sent down tied to the end of the rope, and to everyone's surprise everything that was sent down was swallowed by the hole. Of course, no one knew where it went but we all thought the same thing. That, somehow, it had returned home. It was a reasonable assumption given that the only thing coming out of the hole – the radio waves – came from Earth. We all rejoiced in this discovery. More experiments were done and although some questions remained unanswered the consensus – even among the scientists – was that the hole really was a portal back to our own world.

There were two large problems that needed to be solved though. The first was the safety. Every time something tied to the rope disappeared at the bottom of the hole, the rope was cut off just like the skyscraper five years earlier. This meant that it was possible that whoever entered the hole would be cut off as well. However, this problem was solved pretty soon. By tying a camera to the rope, connected to a screen above ground, it was discovered that the rope was only cut off when pulled back. As long as it wasn’t pulled back, the screen still received signals from the camera. The camera never recorded anything other than darkness on what was assumed to be the other side, but since it continued to work until the rope was pulled back this didn’t seem to be such a big problem. After all, some technical issues were expected under the circumstances.

The second problem was that the hole was too small for anyone to fit into. Many attempts were made to widen the hole, but the bedrock seemed to be made out of a stronger material than any of our machines could tear into. This was extremely frustrating. It made us feel like we had reached the finish line only to discover that we were unable to cross it. In the end, one of the scientists said she wanted to send her ten-year-old son down the hole. He was small enough to fit into it. This was widely debated for quite some time before it was approved. The mother argued that the city of Korona was no place for her son and that all the evidence suggested the hole was the only way home.

The boy was brave. He knew he would probably never see his poor mother again but still went through with it. He was given a walkie-talkie and after a tear-filled goodbye to his mother, he was sent down the 700 meters deep, pitch black hole. He was instructed to radio in after he reached the other side, confirming he was safe. After the rope was pulled back, the mother waited and waited for her son to report. However, he never did. For weeks, the mother sat at the edge of the hole – under merciless heat and under pouring rain – calling her son over and over again with her walkie-talkie. No one knew what, if anything, had gone wrong. Since no other radio waves had been picked up other than Synthwave Mix, it was possible that other radio waves simply couldn’t enter into our world for some reason. Still, the authority deemed the hole too unsafe for anyone else to enter.

This didn’t change peoples minds though. The hole represented the only true hope we had felt in years. And given all the horrible things in our world that could destroy us at any moment as easily as it is for us to blow out a candle, the small risk of going through the hole seemed to be more than acceptable. The hole was guarded by the police, but most of the police shared the cities collective opinion that the hole was the only way out… not for any of the adults, but for our children.

And now I’m sitting here, in the room I payed for five years ago, writing this down. During the last few weeks, many parents have been sending their children down the hole at night. This world is truly no place for them. Although they could survive, they deserve better. Hence, like many others, I’ve decided to send Isabella home. When I told her about it, she looked at me with a happiness in her eyes I hadn’t seen since we were transported to this dreadful, godforsaken world.

I’ve been writing this all day now. It’s my testimony to what happened to Korona. I will give this notebook to Isabella. I’m sure she will be able to give it to her father. Somehow, I know it in my heart that she will find her way home to her parents. Soon it will be dark and I will bring Isabella to Freyja square one last time.

I’m sorry it took so long,

Helana

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

[Book](https://www.reddit.com/r/tobiasmalm/comments/112r4le/i_just_released_my_novel_the_cave_to_another/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 3)
 
 Assistant: Hello again guys. 

I've finally got round to posting the next log! I would have put this up sooner but unfortunately I've had bikes to repair, and if *I* don't do it the customer's might go online and discover it's not actually that hard. 

I want to thank you again for the help you've given me in finding Alice. The guy who said he'd track down the mirror shop is giving me regular updates on his progress, and I've received a whole lot of help going through American missing persons reports. It turns out Alice's work haven't heard from her either, and they're going through their emails for Rob's submission to the show. Everyone's been really helpful, so thank you.

I've got to say, I'm sleeping worse since this whole thing began. It's strange to think that all the time Alice was out of contact, I was perfectly content. Yet now that she's got back in touch, every day I don't hear from her makes me that much more worried. That's assuming of course that it was her who sent me the email.

I really hope it was.

Thanks again everyone, and please let me know if you find anything.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 09/02/2017

**ROB:** Rice; non-perishable.
 
**ROB:** Soy sauce; non-perishable.
 
**ROB:** Salt; non-perishable.
 
**ROB:** Eggs; well they’re perishable but I bought’em fresh and I got hard boiled that’ll last a week.
 
It’s breakfast time, the start of our first full day on the road. Rob’s been up since 7 o’clock, cooking a meal for anyone who wants it. The aroma pulls us out of our makeshift beds, and arranges us around his portable stove. Our bowls are already full before we realise there’s a catch. The trade-off for this supposedly free food? A 10 minute lecture from Rob about the power of rice.
 
**ROB:** See in the Pacific, our guys used to be terrified of the Japanese. Whole armies marching on grains? Thought they were super soldiers. See the **** know the secret. You give people rice in the morning and they’re goin’ for the whole day.
 
After dropping two large spoonfuls of his favourite staple into a bowl, and handing it to me, Rob breaks a raw egg over the top. The yolk clouds over as I stir it in. To be fair, the food is delicious, and it’s fun to watch Rob on his soap box. At least there are some things he’s willing to talk at length about.
 
I stare across the circle at Lilith and Eve. The latter has spilled rice onto her top, and her friend is teasing her playfully. Eve sees me looking over, meets my gaze, and turns back to Lilith, her tone dramatically muted. I return to my food, making a point to seem attentive to Rob’s speech. A minute later, the two girls decide they've finished their meal and I quickly realise so have I.
 
Devouring the last few bites, I place my bowl in the small tub of hot water next to the stove and casually wander over to their car. Lilith and Eve are facing away from me, silently packing up their sleeping bags. They refuse to look at me once I reach them, in a deeply conspicuous attempt at subtlety.
 
**LILITH:** Is he watching?
 
I glance over at Rob. He’s still talking at Bonnie, Clyde and Apollo, asking them to guess what “Breakfast” translates to in Japanese.
 
**AS** I think we’re fine. So… did you see the car?
 
Without answering, Eve reaches into the back seat and picks up a Macbook, the repository for all of Paranormicon’s footage. She presses play as Lilith and I huddle around her, blocking the view of any potential onlookers.
 
The footage depicts a familiar road. Lilith and Eve must have dropped off the Hitchhiker, and just made the next corner. I can hear them talking about the experience, both terrified and thrilled at the events of the day. Eve reminds Lilith that they need to look out for the car, Lilith swears and the camera immediately starts scouring the roadside.
 
**EVE (VO):** Look there it is!
 
**LILITH (VO):** I see it. Slow down… slow down!
 
The abandoned car comes into view. With Eve slowing to a crawl, and Lilith maxing out her camera’s zoom function, a precious few details can be summarily gleaned. The car’s windscreen and driver’s side window are broken, the keys are still in the ignition and, once Eve overtakes the wreck, it’s just possible to make out a dark stain soaked into the driver's seat.
 
**LILITH (V.O):** Stop the car.
 
Just as video Eve starts to slow to a halt, the real Lilith shuts the laptop. I glance between them, trying to keep my voice as low as possible.
 
**AS:** You stopped the car?
 
**EVE:** I mean yeah…
 
**LILITH:** We know you told us not to, but it was like, really weird so I went over and-
 
**AS:** You got *out* of the car?!
 
**EVE:** For the record I was super against it.
 
**LILITH:** Anyway, there wasn’t much in there that we didn’t get from the road, except there was a bag on the backseat.
 
**AS:** Did you get a look inside?
 
**LILITH:** Yeah… do you wanna?”
 
Lilith nods her head towards the back of their car. It takes me a second to realise what she’s getting at.
 
**AS:** It’s in the boot?!
 
**EVE:** It’s in the what?
 
**AS:** It’s in the trunk?!
 
**LILITH:** Yeah obviously, we couldn’t just leave it there. Look, you can watch the rest of the footage any time, we’ll even send it to you, but you NEED to look in this bag before we hit the road.
 
I check on Rob once more. He’s washing up the bowls and cutlery, exchanging small talk with Bonnie, oblivious to what’s transpiring a mere five metres away.
 
Lilith and Eve escort me to the trunk, reforming our secretive huddle before Eve lifts it open. A brown leather duffel bag sits front and centre. It looks expensive but worn, probably a few decades old. The pair gesture for me to unzip it.
 
**LILITH:** Just to preface this, I want to say… this whole trip has been **** weird.
 
The bag isn’t exactly full. I rummage through the loose contents, finding a few sets of good quality men’s shirts and a pair of jeans. Further down I find a small and well used shaving kit. I’m starting to wonder what Lilith and Eve are so bent out of shape over when my hand hits the hard edge of a straight, rectangular object. Slowly, and with great care, I manage to extricate it from layers of wool and denim.

It’s a package, a heavy square block about the length of my forearm, neatly wrapped in brown paper. It seems completely unassuming except for a black wire hanging from the underside, leading back into the bag itself. Lifting the wire, a black plug rises out and swings slightly in mid-air.
 
**EVE:** Turn it around.
 
With both girls watching me intently, I turn the package in my hands. The wire connects to the charging port of an old Nokia 3210, which in turn is superglued to the package along with a few shards of exposed circuit board. Last, but certainly not least, are the words emblazoned on the brown paper, in imposing black typeface; C4 Explosive.
 
My mouth feels dry.
 
**AS:** … I wasn’t expecting that.
 
**LILITH:** I know, **** this road right? There was tonnes more in his trunk too it was insane.
 
**AS:** Is this dangerous?
 
**EVE:** Not right now. It’s basically inert unless you have the detonator.
 
**AS:** You’re sure?
 
**LILITH:** We have Wikipedia downloaded on a hard drive. It’s the only reason Eve let me bring it here. She read the article like, three times. Anyway the Nokia’s out of battery.
 
**AS:** Ok well, I’m not even going to ask how you know that… I don’t get this why would someone bring plastic explosive for the Left/Right Game? I mean, what the **** are we heading into?
 
**EVE:** I have no idea. Do you know if Rob has any?
 
**ROB:** If I have any what?
 
When I look up, Rob’s only a few steps away from us. I hide the C4 behind my back, dropping it into my satchel next to my notebook. I just manage to pull my fingers out of the way as Eve instinctively slams the trunk shut.
 
**AS:** Tips for sleeping in cars. These guys had a rough night.
 
**ROB:** … Well I’m sorry to hear that. Just something you gotta get used to I guess. We’re hittin’ the road in 15/20 minutes. That alright with you guys?
 
**EVE:** Yeah totally.
 
**ROB:** Bristol, you mind helping me pack up?
 
**AS:** Not at all.
 
Painfully aware of what’s hanging at my side, I step away with Rob towards the now dismantled stove. Looking over my shoulder, I see Lilith and Eve are watching us go, their faces awash with apprehension.
 
I can’t say I feel the same. Despite my surroundings, and the multitude of unsettling events, I don’t have space in my head for apprehension just now. All anxiety is slowly being pushed out, its territory annexed by a bolstering sense of resolve. There are far too many strange things happening on this road and, even if it kills me, I’m going to find out what they all mean.
 
**ACE:** Rob, can I talk to you?
 
We’ve packed everything in the back of the Wrangler, and are about to get back on the road when Ace comes up behind us. Rob turns around, and I sense an icy shield raising up as he curtly addresses our compatriot.
 
**ROB:** What is it Ace?
 
**ACE:** Can I… can I ask you something? It’s… it’s ok if you need me to go home after...
 
The shield thaws. This isn’t the Ace we’ve seen before and Rob’s perceptive enough to notice. He engages, albeit cautiously.
 
**ROB:** What do you wanna ask?
 
Ace shuffles uncomfortably. Suddenly, he seems much younger.
 
**ACE:** Does the hitchhiker… does anything happen if you… if you don’t pick him up?
 
**ROB:** Oh **** Ace I told you, you can’t… … tell me what happened.
 
**ACE:** I… I was making my way down the road and, I was angry at how you’d been… and when I saw the hitchhiker I thought I should, you know, do what I said and... just drive by.
 
Ace starts to tremble, unable to meet Rob’s eye.
 
**ACE:** A minute later I look in the rear view mirror and… and he’s sitting in the back of my car. He’s just… just talking about the weather. I mean I swear I didn’t pick him up, but when I think about it all these memories come back. I start to remember pulling over, letting him in. It’s like I did it, but I didn’t even…
 
**ROB:** Did you talk to him?
 
**ACE:** No, no. No, I promise I didn’t say a word.
 
Rob stares at Ace in silence. Ace hangs his head, like a penitent criminal facing judgement.
 
**ROB:** … feel’s awful don’****?
 
Ace finally looks up, confused at Rob’s words, searching the man’s expression for clues.
 
**ROB:** I did the same as you the first time. Just drove right by. Wasn’t gonna let some stranger in my car. Nearly jumped outta my skin when I saw him in the rear view.
 
Rob grins at Ace, who manages to smile shakily back.
 
**ROB:** You ain’t got the right gear for this Ace. I like to run a tight ship and I gotta say it **** me off. If you wanna turn that Porsche of yours around no one’ll think any less of you but if you wanna keep on this road… how about you try to listen more and I’ll try to be less of a hard-****.
 
Rob holds his hand out for Ace to shake. It’s an offer of peace, or at the very least an offer of terms. Ace accepts it, grimacing only slightly as he faces Rob’s iron grip.
 
**ROB:** ‘Bout time we hit the road.
 
Five minutes later we’re rolling into a deep valley, each member of the convoy appearing over the crest of the hill behind us. Everyone’s present and accounted for, including Ace.
 
**AS:** I have to say I’m impressed.
 
**ROB:** With what?
 
**AS:** With how you handled Ace. One might presume a guy who’s been divorced four times isn’t the best at conflict resolution.
 
**ROB:** Divorce IS conflict resolution.
 
**AS:** That’s a… good point. He seemed to be saying the Hitchhiker *made* him pull over. Is that really what happens?
 
**ROB:** Yep, he always ends up in the back seat, and you always remember picking him up.
 
**AS:** It's just... that’s not scientifically possible.
 
**ROB:** Get used to that.
 
We spend the next two hours in silence, with me typing up my notes and Rob navigating the sparse few turns that show up every now and then.
 
Ace’s testimony troubles me, perhaps because it stretches my favourite theory; that the game is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Rob Guthard. I was content that the hitchhiker could have been an incredibly deft performer, but even if the man was a RADA trained thespian, that doesn’t make him capable of mind control. Ace could be insane, or an maybe actor himself, but those ideas sound exactly like the idle rationalisations I decried in Rob earlier.
 
I’m not sure what my theory is at the moment. I keep working, hoping to type my way to revelation.
 
A few lone trees have started to show up in the distance, towering wild pines with trunks as thick as barrels. Without my noticing, the trees grow slowly more numerous and, in that creeping way that landscapes change, it isn’t long until they span both sides of the road, encapsulating us in a deep, bright forest. Realising I’ve recorded everything of substance, and with Rob concentrating on the drive, I have no choice but to lay back in my seat and watch the world roll by. Despite the pervasive strangeness of the Left/Right Game, there is beauty on the road. Under the light shade of the canopy, the smell of pine needles permeating the still air, I actually feel myself starting to relax.
 
It only takes three words to change that.
 
The words don’t come from Rob, he’s as quiet as always. They aren’t spoken by the rest of the convoy either. The words are writ large in calligraphic gold paint, resting on a spotless white sign. Even from a distance, with the letters little more than a blur, I know what they’re going to say. They’re the words I’ve been dreading since I switched off the radio, the words I spent a long, troubled night hoping I’d never see.
 
“Welcome to Jubilation.”
 
It turns out there is room in my head for apprehension.
 
**ROB:** This is Ferryman to all cars. We’re going to be heading through a small town. No rules here, just keep driving and we’ll be fine.
 
Rob puts his radio back into the receiver, I try to ignore the distinct knot in my stomach.
 
**AS:** What does the name Chuck Greenwald mean to you?
 
**ROB:** 'Bout as much as John Doe, why?
 
**AS:** He’s the radio DJ here.
 
**ROB:** In Jubilation? How do you know something like that?
 
**AS:** I was listening to his show last night. What do you know about this place?
 
**ROB:** Seems like a good town. Folk don’t pay attention to ya, I just head straight through.
 
**AS:** You’ve never seen anything… untoward?
 
**ROB:** Some weird stuff now and again. I like to keep my eyes on the road.
 
The forest clears abruptly, like a parting curtain, to reveal a picture perfect American town, archetypal almost to the point of self-parody.

We’ve arrived in Jubilation.
 
There’s no denying this town is beautiful. We’re welcomed by a row of vibrantly coloured shops spanning the length of a long, wide street. At the far end, an ornate, grey walled town hall proudly surveys its domain. The place is immaculate. I fail to find a solitary piece of litter on the sidewalk, a single smudge on the plate glass shop windows. Every inch of Jubilation is pristine, tranquil... and noticeably deserted.
 
**AS:** Where is everyone?
 
**ROB:** I don’t know, there’s usually some around. Maybe there’s a game on.
 
We take the next right, then another left. The story’s the same at every turn, a beautiful, leafy suburban town, entirely bereft of its human population. The cafés are free of bustle, the surface of the public pool is still. We even see the school, a row of finger painted faces smiling at us from the kindergarten windows as we pass by. The building itself is locked up however, which is odd, seeing as it’s noon on a Wednesday.
 
Eventually the Wrangler pulls onto the first residential street we’ve encountered. The sign on the corner reads Sycamore Row. The quaint shops are replaced by luxuriate houses, all of them identical; white walls, wide porches and fresh green lawns cut to a uniform length. The road stretches in a straight line for about a mile, creating an eerie corridor of copy/pasted buildings. The strangest thing about the street however, is vocalised by Rob:
 
**ROB:** Well I guess we know where everybody is now.
 
In front of every house, a dining room table stands on the lawn, occupied without fail by a family of four. One husband, one wife, one son and one daughter. They’re sharing a meal together. A unit on the left clink their glasses of orange juice as they dine on pork chops and salad. The family on the right share a large hunk of meat loaf, broad smiles on their faces. Staring along the road I estimate upwards of eight hundred people, in neat subsets of four, all dining at the same time.
 
None of them seem to notice us.
 
**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. Looks like we’ve come during a town celebration. Let’s not bother these good people as we pass on through.
 
Rob lets the car roll slowly down the street, his foot light on the gas pedal, trying to make as little noise as possible. The more families we pass, the clearer it becomes that every single one of them shares common characteristics. All of them are impeccably dressed. All of them consist of the same subset; husband, wife, son, daughter. Though their chosen meals vary slightly, they all share a raucous, almost oppressive happiness.
 
**APOLLO:** Small town America am I right guys? Ahaha
 
Apollo’s jokes don’t make things any better. I feel claustrophobic. Trapped. Some screaming animal deep within me knows that it’s surrounded, on every side, by something it doesn’t understand. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but as we’ve continued down the road, everyone outside seems to be laughing a little harder, and celebrating a little more.
 
We’ve successfully crept more than halfway down the street, a sharp left turn coming up at the end, representing the road out of Jubilation. Another street comes up on the right, Acer Road. While we pass by it, I take the opportunity to glance down this new avenue, curious as to whether every street is like ours.
 
I don’t like what I see.
 
The houses are similarly prestigious, the walls pristine white, but like a spot the difference puzzle, it’s the subtle changes that make the picture. There are no tables, and no families on the wide green lawns. Almost every window I can see is broken. Cars lie abandoned in the road, with one smashed into a splintered porch. Above every door, an X has been drawn in red paint, and outside of each house, a small mound of clothes lie on the fresh cut lawn. A huge collective pile of men’s, women’s and children’s shoes tower at the end of the street… seemingly ownerless. 
 
**ROB:** Great going everybody. Let’s get back out there.
 
We’ve reached the end of the street, I breathe a sigh of relief as we bid farewell to Jubilation. I vindictively see it off in my wing mirror as we turn the corner. I immediately wish I hadn’t when, in the split second before it disappears from view, I glimpse the 800 plus residents of Sycamore Row.
 
They aren’t smiling anymore, and they’re all looking our way.
 
I welcome the forest as the trees rise up around us once more. The indifference of the nature is a welcome change to the saccharin, faux-civility of Jubilation.
 
**APOLLO:** Towns like that make me glad I’m a city boy.
 
**BONNIE:** I thought it was nice, wasn’**** like Wintery Bay?
 
**CLYDE:** I don’t think I’ve been.
 
**BONNIE:** Oh… maybe it was Shelburne Falls.
 
**CLYDE:** Oh it was a little like Shelburne Falls.

**ROB:** Guys we gotta keep this channel clear.
 
We hurry along the next road, and turn right.  The further we get from the eerie town of Jubilation, the higher our spirits seem to be.
 
**AS:** How long until we stop?
 
**ROB:** ‘Bout another four hours. Nothing big in between us and there though. Shouldn’t be a problem.
 
**AS:** Good to hear. So... what *does* “Breakfast” translate to in Japanese?
 
**ROB:** You heard that?
 
**AS:** Yeah, I’ve been curious all day. Does it have something to do with-
 
I jolt forwards, sharp pain in my neck as my head recoils back against my seat. Rob has stamped his foot onto the brake, bringing us to an immediate and shocking halt. Before I can ask why, my question is answered, as one of the colossal pine trees slams into the road ahead of us, blocking our route forward.
 
**ROB:** **** it! You alright?
 
**AS:** I’m fine.
 
Massaging my neck, I look towards the base of the felled tree. The low end is covered in straight, sharp-cut marks. Someone has brought this tree down, timing its fall in an attempt to cripple the Wrangler.
 
**AS:**  Rob what’s going on?
 
**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. Full reverse. Watch out for the people behind you.
 
The convoy pulls away, back down the road towards Jubilation. Rob waits for Apollo to start moving, then backs up himself. There’s a second jolt as Rob abruptly stops the car, surveying our means of egress.
 
**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. Road’s done for but there’s a gap at the end. Be careful.
 
Rob’s right. Though the tree has fallen across the tarmac, only the thin treetop lies over the grassy bank between the road and the forest. There’s a bit of a valley between the edge of the road and the grass, and Rob wastes no time in showing the others how to negotiate it.
 
Twisting the wheel, Rob dry steers towards the gap and proceeds cautiously towards the roadside. I watch the asphalt disappear beneath us moments before the tell-tale bump. The Wrangler drops down the small bankside, and turns around the fallen tree. I watch the needle covered tip brush against my window as we roll past. With a second bump, Rob brings us back onto the road and pulls us over to the far edge, turning the Jeep to face towards the convoy.
 
**ROB:** Ok Apollo make your way.
 
**APOLLO:** On it Rob.
 
As Apollo swerves towards the gap, I hear something. The sound of a running engine, at first so quiet that it’s almost impossible to isolate it from the convoy’s own rumblings. It’s since grown louder however, and it’s growing steadily more noticeable.
 
**AS:** Rob, someone’s coming.
 
**ROB:** Apollo get yourself over here right now. All car’s you're on double time. Get moving!
 
Apollo accelerates towards the gap. His Range Rover shudders, banking on the grassy decline, but it’s hardly any effort to pull himself around the tree and back onto the road.
 
The noise in the distance grows louder. I can picture the vehicle careering towards the corner, just one turn away from having its windshield locked on the convoy. Though I have no idea what it might be, I don’t want to share road space with anything coming out of Jubilation.
 
The rest of the convoy can hear the noise now. Bonnie and Clyde roll over to the gap, and quickly but tentatively push themselves down onto the side. It’s clearly harder than Rob and Apollo make it look. After a few moments they travel across the bank, bringing themselves out on the other side.
 
The vehicle turns the corner.
 
A white truck skids into view, its tires shrieking against the road. A metal beam sticks up behind the driver’s compartment, and a hook swings with the momentum of the hard right turn. It’s a tow truck, though something tells me it’s not here to lend us assistance.
 
**ROB:** All cars, once you’re on the other side, drive. Wait around the left turn. I’ll radio if I they get by me.
 
**APOLLO:** What about you guys?
 
**ROB:** I’ll come once everyone’s across. Now ain’t the time for questions. Eve and Lilith get over here now.
 
We still have time to get everyone across, but every passing second feels like a precious, fleeting loss. Eve and Lilith are impatient for their turn. Dropping onto the roadside and coming back up in a matter of seconds.
 
The truck is gaining with incredible speed. I can just about make out the words “Jubilation Recovery” scrawled across the hood. Though the letters are rapidly becoming easier to read.
 
Bluejay takes her time dismounting the road. In fact she’s almost casual in how she maneuvers, whittling away at the remaining seconds we have. A swell of anger wells up inside of me as her wheels hit the road again. If she’s calm about this situation then good for her, but I can see Ace drumming his fingers frenetically against the steering wheel, now stranded alone on the other side.
 
I watch Bluejay follow the rest of the convoy to the next turn, displaying none of the urgency anyone else has shown.
 
**ROB:** Take it easy Ace. You ain’t built for this.
 
Ace takes the corner, heeding Rob’s plea for caution but unwisely taking it almost head on. His front wheel thuds over the edge of the bank, and the chassis hits the tarmac. The drop is just a little too steep for the Porsche’s clearance. Rob’s warnings ring in my ears as Ace accelerates on three wheels, his car engaging in a slow turn with little forward motion.
 
**ACE:** Rob, what do I do?! Rob?!
 
The pickup truck maintains its speed and aligns itself with Ace’s Porsche, its thunderous velocity defying all logic, all concern for Ace’s or their own safety.
 
**ROB:** Get outta the car Ace! Get out of the **** car!!
 
Ace struggles with his seatbelt, stress overpowering his motor functions. He unclasps it, and throws the belt to the side. He grabs the door and pushes. It swings open slightly, then immediately slams against the bark of the pine tree. For a moment that lasts all too long, he shares with me a look of pleading terror.
 
The door is slammed shut, crumpling as the tow truck collides with the passenger side of Ace’s car. Ace is launched against the the door, his head smashing against the window. The ungodly racket of shrieking metal suddenly gives way to silence.
 
**ROB:** ****.
 
Rob climbs into the back of the car.
 
**AS:** Rob what can I do?
 
**ROB:** Stay here.
 
I hear Rob rummaging among the luggage as the tow truck reverses out of Ace’s Porsche. The hood of the tow truck is completely and impossibly unharmed by the impact, as are its two occupants.
 
They park the truck side on to us, the hook hanging a few metres away from the back of the Porsche. The the words Jubilation Recovery appear again, now accompanied by a slogan “Here to Help”. Two men in white shirts and blue overalls climb out and wander over to the ruined Porsche. They barely seem to register the situation at all, casually chatting together as they throw open Ace’s passenger side door.
 
The stunned Ace looks like he’s battling a concussion, only barely cognisant as he’s pulled out of the car. He quickly grows more aware as the mechanics grab him by each arm, struggling against them as his captors talk amongst themselves.
 
**ROB:** Let him go!
 
When I turn around, Rob is stepping out of the Wrangler. Apparently, hidden within those neat stacks of luggage, was a loaded hunting rifle. Rob raises the stock to his shoulder and repeats himself.
 
**ROB:** LET HIM GO!!
 
The mechanics pay no attention to Rob. They continue to frog march Ace over to the truck. One of them making a quiet joke to the other as they go. They laugh.
 
An awful bang erupts beside me, and a deep red hole bursts from one mechanic’s torso, blood slowly seeping out of the wound. Inexplicably, the mechanic does nothing more than look down at his wound, up at Rob, and then back to the matter at hand. He hardly breaks stride as he continues towards the truck, bleeding freely onto the floor,.
 
I hear Rob set about reloading the rifle.
 
The mechanics arrive at the back of the truck with Ace. There are two short loops of thin chain hanging from the lowest of the hook’s chainlinks. The mechanics feed Ace’s arms through one loop each, until he’s hanging by the armpits in front of the hook itself.
 
Rob fires another shot that goes nowhere.
 
The mechanics grab a handful of Ace’s hair, chatting as they do so, and lift Ace’s head up until his lower jaw is just above the hook.
 
In that moment, despite everything, despite all my journalistic ideals, my pursuit of truth, my duty as an observer… I close my eyes.
 
The visual disappears into darkness, but the sound doesn’t. The impact and the sorrowful, obstructed groan that follows penetrates my bones, reverberating throughout my very being. Another gunshot, and the sharp twang of a metallic ricochet. Ace’s cries continue as the engine starts up and carries him off back to Jubilation. I hear another gunshot, that sounds like it hits nothing but air.
 
As the engine, and Ace’s whimpers, grow quieter, a few moments pass before one final, measured gunshot echoes around the car.
 
**ROB:** … Goddamnit. ****-****-DAMNIT!!!
 
The Wrangler’s chassis clangs as Rob kicks the side with all his considerable might. I open my eyes to see a fallen pine tree, a ruined Porsche, and an otherwise empty road.
 
When Rob climbs into the car, it’s clear he’s trying to regulate his breathing. An internalised rage lighting him up, barely under his control.
 
**ROB:** We have to go.
 
Rob turns us around, pointing the Wrangler back down the road. The quiet of the car echoes in my ears, along with other noises I can’t hope to forget. I watch the fallen pine grow smaller in the rear view mirror, overwhelmed by a feeling that I’m leaving more behind on this road than I can currently imagine.
 
Bereft of conversation, of logic, of any semblance of comfort, Rob and I do the only thing we can.
 
We take the next left.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: You all need to stop posting. Right now.
 
 Assistant: You all need to stop posting. Right now.

It probably won't take long for this to get deleted, but maybe enough people will see it to make a difference. It's the only thing I can think to do. I've discovered something terrible about /r/nosleep and everyone needs to know. Everyone. So you understand any of this, I need to tell you what I've been through the last few days, so you really get it. It needs to sink in. If no one believes me because they don't understand, everything's going to fall apart real fast.

Okay, first some general principles. Every emotion generates a specific electrical signature in the brain. It's so specific that a specialist can reliably determine your emotional state from evaluating live measurements. Electricity creates fields. In the case of our brain activity, the field effect generated by our emotions is so weak it's never been observed, but by the numbers, it's there. Okay, that's one knowledge nugget you need to swallow, here's the next. 

Our Universe - our reality - is ours alone. The reality we all share together is a comfortable agreement, though not objectively the same, and it's reasonable to assume most life in our reality is happy with that arrangement. In fact, evolution has probably  built most life to be that way. Our Universe, our reality isn't the only one though. There are an infinite number that sort of grow outward from our own with decreasing levels of relative probability. What that means is that likely alternate realities are pretty close by, and unlikely ones are way "further" away. If probability were distance. I hope that makes sense. But the real weird part is all that is just a tendency. Some real weird probabilities are actually right next to us, because there are infinite probabilities. And the likelihood gradient I mentioned is only the tendency. It's hard to wrap your head around, I know. It gets easier with practice though.

I'm telling you all this, because there's a really bad reality nudged up right next to ours right now, and some of the things in it are leaking through. One of those things is our mods. It runs all the accounts. It, like us, has emotions and they generate a field - a positronic field, not electrical. Somehow their matter is inverted to ours, which is why I'm trying to get the message out. They're addicts. When we're afraid - when we read our posts and get that chill up our spines - to them it's pure Ecstasy. And their joy? It feeds back to us as terror. There's no sense of shared place or time between our realities, so all fear, everywhere feeds their joy - and their elation pours into our world as a general growing anxiety. People do terrible, horrible things when they're afraid. They make bad choices for the wrong reasons. They destroy things and feel justified. You've seen it. You know what I'm describing. It's been getting worse and worse over recent years too. That's because they're addicted to our fear. They know it now, and they've somehow managed to send agents to our reality to encourage our fear. 

That's how /r/nosleep came to be. The "mods" are all under the pull of a single entity, and it encourages us at every opportunity to embrace and deploy as much discomfort as we can. Please. Please believe me, and do the right thing. It's time to share your personal stories of hope, and sour the milk for them. No more terrifying recollections, it only makes them stronger. Alright, let me tell you what happened to me.

The other day, I posted about something on here, and it got a few dozen upvotes. Not the best visibility, but way more eyes than my worst. I was in a good mood. I thought by sharing terrible events that happened to me, I was making people safer. Apparently though, some readers got uncomfortable about one of the situations I described. They contacted me, and told me they would report me to the mods. I didn't understand why, and I got scared. I love posting here, it's been helping me get through some tough times. A kind of therapy for the things I've seen in my life. Soon after, I got a PM from a mod, she conveyed her gratitude to me for sharing my experiences, but that one Redditor had been incredibly upset. I kept reading her PM, expecting an explanation for an incoming ban, when the next paragraph I read set off all kinds of red flags.

"We don't mind though. Nosleep runs on fear, and if you're good at causing it, then by all means keep at it. We know what the rules say, but it's more important that people see them and less so that they follow them. So please, keep writing - and if you need some inspiration, check out this video: [Link Redacted]. Byeeeeee."

Most mods on most forums seemed irritatingly strict about following the sidebar rules, so I was pretty confused by her statement. Then, without thinking, I clicked the link. I've not included it here because you really don't need to see it. You need to know about it though. The link was to some numbered IP, which is probably something I should have checked before clicking - oops. It was a big GIF that took almost a minute to load. When it did appear, it was high definition one, like something from /r/highqualitygifs. I thought it was bugged though, because when it loaded, it was just noise. Like old school TV noise. At first I just waited for a few seconds, to see if it got past the corrupted part to something visible, but it didn't. Instead the noise started to make sense, visually. Like one of those stereograms from the 90's. An inverted image began to form, and what I saw was nearly indescribable. Everything in the GIF I watched was ... backwards. I'm not saying that the video was flipped, or upside down - I mean the stuff in the actual imagery was backwards - inverted, inside out, the opposite of what it was supposed to be. I don't remember all of it. I barely remember any of it. Grass grew downwards and had a strange, unknowable color. Birds didn't fly. They were glistening sacks of meat and bone with bodies filled with feathers, and they dug warrens in the air. It makes no sense, I know. The sun in their sky was a black void that radiated darkness. Even my description falls short of the mark. Everything was they absolutely wrong, and it was this wrongness that broke me. I had a horrible panic attack that lasted most of the day, and it got so bad I had to take time off work. It's only now, after a week of trying to calm down, that I'm able to even write about it. 

I wanted to forget it, but today I got another PM from a mod that said, "Delicious. Click this next: [Link Redacted]."

I closed the browser immediately.

I don't know much about computers, so I asked my brother about the IP and if it could tell me anything about who posted the GIF (No, I didn't send him the link). He said it sure was, but that the likelihood of a file being hosted on a computer in someone's house was remote, and that it was way more likely to be on a box at a hosting facility somewhere. He looked up the IP anyway, and immediately got interested. It was coming from an old particle accelerator facility buried a few hundred miles east of the Cheyenne mountains. The company that owned it closed it down almost a decade ago due to bankruptcy. My brother is kind of a science buff and just knows **** like this. He pulled some records from some lookup site, and found out that an LLC had bought the land just afterwards. Then had done nothing with it. No construction. No sales. On the business registration document, there was a phone number. He gave it to me and asked me to let him know what I found. 

I called the number, but got no answer.

Almost instantly another PM appeared in my inbox from a different mod, "Never call this number again."

At this point, I'm aware something really gnarly is happening. I call my brother back, and we start talking about things. I finally show him the video, and he only watches a few moments of it before switching it off. He says he's seen something like it before. Then he links me to some fringe science websites, and I give him a hard time because usually, usually that stuff is just for wackos. But this time one of the articles describes everything I wrote above. There's a link to a video the author generated using some kind of algorithm or something. Some math equation for complete inversion. He took a video of a treasured family vacation, and ran it through the filter. Apparently the output was so unsettling, it ruined his life. He couldn't be with his family anymore, or do his work, or focus on anything but memories of the filtered video. A few years later, the poor guy apparently killed himself because he couldn't deal with what he saw (which makes me real nervous when my brother tells me).

Then the whole science blog site goes down, and another PM appears in my inbox. This time from a different mod, "What did we tell you?"

Ever since then, my phone has been getting texts non-stop with video links, my email is blowing up, and I can't even glance at my inbox anymore. I feel like it's only a matter of time until I accidentally see one of these videos again, and it sends me over the edge. Before that happens, I wanted to let you all know about this threat. That it's here, it's real, and it could be in your inbox right now.

Sorry for any typos, I'm in a hurry. I'm headed out to a family cabin to try and isolate myself until this blows over. Be careful, and if you do decide to post, write about joy and happiness instead. Give them something to cry about. Good luck, stay safe.

---

**Edit:** Hey everyone. Sorry. I just wanted to apologize for this post. I'll leave it up as a reminder to us all not to let anxiety rule our lives and dictate our actions. I was totally off my ****. Sorry about that. I finally got tired of my phone ringing, so I dried it off and answered it. Boy, am I glad I did. I've been happily chatting with the kind and empathetic mods over at NoSleep for the last twenty minutes. They sent me a PM and invited me to their Discord channel, and it's been a real blast. We've been sharing funny links, keeping it light, and they've showed me some things. 

Some wonderful things.

I'm not going to share it all here. I'll wait a few days and talk about it all in a new post. The mods have really helped change my perspective on a bunch of things, and I feel refreshed and energized in a way I've never felt before. The fear that used to rule me almost feels like a secret superpower now. It's so exciting!

I can't wait to show you.

***

[I had more to say.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e8zpm5/you_need_to_stop_reading_right_now/?)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Theresa
 
 Assistant: This is not my story; it is my daughter’s. Her name was Theresa. She died two weeks ago, a suicide by overdose. She called me just prior to the act, informing me of her intentions and the reasons behind them. I of course pled with her, begging her through tears not to go through with what she had planned. But she was resolute in her decision, and with growing horror I realized that this was no bluff, no desperate cry for attention or reassurance. As she hung up the phone, I knew with certainty she was already as good as dead. I knew it from the moment she had said, “Daddy, Ray is here.”

I immediately phoned the police, knowing that they would be able to reach her well before I could. But I also knew they would be too late. They found her in bed, by all appearances in a deep and peaceful sleep, one hand draped across her stomach, the other outstretched to the side, palm up, fingers curled as if clutching something – another hand perhaps – but the other side of the bed – Ray’s side – was empty.

This is also Ray’s story. He died a little more than a year before Theresa did. He was shot twice, once through his right hand, which he had held out defensively, the bullet piercing both his cellphone and his palm before lodging in the tile of the wall of the bathroom in which he had made a final desperate attempt to hide. The second bullet found his neck and he bled out quickly, alone on the cold floor. He was one of nine people who died in his office building that day. Eight of those people thought it was just another Monday at work, unaware that they would not be walking out alive at the end of the day. The ninth to die – the shooter – had no intention of walking out again.

Ray had called Theresa on his lunchbreak that day. She was at home, and the sight of his name lighting up her cell and causing it to buzz had made her smile. Married only three months, the pair was still in that young, fleeting honeymoon stage of marriage, and Ray would frequently find any excuse to phone his bride from work if time allowed.

“Hello?” she answered, a smile in her voice.

“Why did the man always get hit by a bike on his way to work?” Ray said.

“I don’t know,” Theresa responded. “Why did he?”

“Because he was stuck in a vicious cycle,” Ray said.

Theresa chuckled. The joke wasn’t really all that funny, but Ray had always delighted in corny humor, and his joy in telling these awful jokes brought Theresa more pleasure than the punchline itself. Case in point, he had used a ridiculous pick-up line to win her over in the first place. “Feel my shirt,” he had said to her, a stranger in a sea of people crammed into a mixer at one of her girlfriend’s apartments two years ago. “Do you know what it’s made of? Boyfriend material.”

Theresa had laughed out loud. One, because the pick-up line was genuinely funny. And two, because Ray, tall and attractive in a goofy kind of way, was so ridiculously happy to use it on her, his smile contagious and immediately endearing. And as bad as the line had been, it had worked. They had been together ever since.

“How is your day?” Theresa said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Living the dream,” Ray responded with some sarcasm. “Actually, my presentation went well this morning. I’m supposed to present it again to senior staff on Wednesday. Things are looking promising.”

“That’s great news,” Theresa said.

“It really is,” Ray said, satisfaction in his voice.

“You know, if this proposal goes through, we should celebrate. Go away somewhere.”

There was a pause on Ray’s end. “That sounds like a wonderful idea,” he responded, only now he sounded slightly distracted. “Do you have some place in mind?”

“I don’t know,” Theresa said, thinking. “Sheryl has that cabin that she said we’re always welcome to use. We ought to take her up on that sometime. She and Brad will end up selling it before we ever use it. It would be nice to get away.”

Ray didn’t respond.

“Babe?” Theresa said.

A moment’s hesitation. “Did you…hear that?” Ray asked.

“Hear what?” Theresa said. But before he could respond, she heard it. A loud report, a distant bang, coming over the phone. “Ray, what was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and from the sound of his voice, he was walking. His voice sounded shaky.

“Ray?”

There was a second loud report, still distant but closer, and Theresa felt her hands go cold when she thought she heard a woman scream.

“I’m going to find out what’s going on,” Ray said. “I’ll call you back.”

“Ray—” Theresa said, but he was gone.

She set the cell phone down on the table and stared at its black screen. She got up suddenly from the kitchen table, walked to the sink, and filled a glass with water, which she downed. Staring over at the phone, she willed it to ring again, to show Ray’s name. It did not.

Theresa rushed over and picked it up. She called Ray’s cellphone. It went to voicemail. She called his desk phone. It too went to voicemail. She called reception at his office. No answer. She slammed the phone back down on the table, hands trembling. She found it hard to catch her breath, to not imagine the worst, to convince herself that what she had heard did not mean what she thought it meant.

An interminable moment later, her phone rang. She snatched it up. “Ray?” she said.

“Baby,” he said, whispering, his tone urgent. “There’s a man with a gun.”

Theresa sank into the chair. “Where are you?” she asked, whispering too without realizing she was.

“I’m in a bathroom down the hall from my office. Reese, he killed Mark. I saw it happen.” His voice was trembling, on the verge of tears or panic.

“Ray, hang up and call the police,” she said.

“I *did*,” he insisted. “They’re on their way.”

“Okay,” she said. “Just be calm.” She said this as much to herself as she said it to Ray. “Where is **** asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I saw him at the end of the hallway. I saw him shoot Mark. I came in here because it was the closest door. I don’t know if he saw me.”

“Did you lock the door?” she asked.

“The door doesn’t lock,” he said, a small sob hitching in his voice. “I’m in one of the stalls. It’s locked.”

Theresa began to cry silently, the hopelessness of Ray’s situation sinking in.

“Who is **** asked.

“I don’t know. He’s wearing a mask. A ski mask. I think he’s—”

Ray stopped talking suddenly at the sound of a loud bang, disturbingly close. Ray hesitated and took a long, shaking breath.

“I love you, Reese,” he whispered, his voice even quieter now, barely audible.

“No,” she objected, and she slid from the chair to the kitchen floor, the phone pressed tight to her ear.

There was another banging sound, but this time it wasn’t the report from a gun. It was the sound of a door being kicked open and hitting a wall. Ray took a sudden, gasping breath.

“Ray?” Theresa whispered.

*Bang*. The sound of the door of a bathroom stall being kicked.

“No!” Ray cried out, and the sound of his desperation made Theresa’s entire body go numb.

“Ray?” Theresa said, louder.

*Bang*. The sound of the stall door crashing open.

“*No!*” Ray screamed.

“Ray?” Theresa yelled.

*Bang*. The sound of a gun. 

And then, everything was silent in the house for several seconds as Theresa struggled to take in a breath. Finally, she screamed.

The shooter was a man named Vincent Holland. He had worked in the Engineering department just one floor down from Ray’s office in Marketing. A textbook disgruntled employee with manic depressive issues: at least, that was the story that the press was reporting. Vincent had managed to **** eight of his coworkers, and then had turned the gun on himself at the first sound of approaching sirens.

The following 24 hours were a blur for Theresa. Through a haze of shock, she had answered police questions, had identified her husband’s body, his face pale but still unmistakably his own, and had made necessary phone calls to friends and family. And in the moments between, Theresa had wept, her body crushed under the weight of a grief that was nearly unbearable, the physical pain of it enough to make her welcome the thought that perhaps it might **** her. *What a mercy that would be*, she thought.

The night of Ray’s death, she had slept the deep and artificial sleep of the drugged, her body succumbing to whatever cocktail her best friend Sheryl had insisted on giving her. Theresa had not asked – did not even care – what the pills were, but had taken them all and quickly slipped into the warm embrace of sleep, where her grief at least briefly could not reach her.

When she woke the next day, she wondered briefly why her chest hurt so badly. It took but a moment for her to remember, and the tears were immediate. She rolled over and put her palm on Ray’s side of the bed, where the mattress was cold and empty. Behind the sound of her crying, she could hear voices down the hallway: Sheryl and Theresa’s mother were speaking in somber tones. Theresa looked at the clock. It was shortly after noon. Sheryl’s sleeping pills had caused her to sleep for more than eleven hours.

Theresa sat up in bed and wiped the tears from her cheeks, consciously pressing the sorrow down deep into her stomach. She picked up her cellphone from the nightstand, more out of habit than necessity, and shuffled toward the bathroom, flipping a switch. The light assaulted her eyes, and for a moment she absorbed her own pitiful reflection: eyes swollen, cheeks splotchy, nose red. She took in a long, shaking breath.

Then her phone buzzed in her hand and she jumped.  The screen said: RAY.

Theresa stared at it, a mixture of disbelief and confusion coursing through her brain.

She answered it. “Hello?” Her voice was barely a croak.

“Why did the man always get hit by a bike on his way to work?” Ray said.

Theresa struggled to take a breath, and when she was finally able, it came in a rattling gasp. She took an involuntary step away from the mirror, as if retreating from what she was hearing. Her mind raced as she felt a sudden surge of hope warring against her lingering sorrow, and she wondered if perhaps the events of yesterday had been nothing but an incredible dream.

“Because he was stuck in a vicious cycle,” Ray concluded.

“Ray?” Theresa said.

“Yeah, baby?” he responded. “What’s wrong? The joke wasn’t *that* bad.”

“Ray, where are you?” she asked.

“I’m at work,” he said with a slight chuckle. “Just got out of a meeting. My presentation went well. I’m supposed to present it again to senior staff on Wednesday. Things are looking promising.”

Theresa didn’t respond.

“Reese, are you okay?” he asked.

Theresa looked at herself in the mirror, at her Halloween mask of grief. The floor felt like it was tilting under her, and her brain, still kicking off the last remnants of Sheryl’s pills, was a swamp of conflicting thoughts.

“Reese?” he said again.

“What day is this?” she asked.

“What? It’s Monday,” he said. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Tuesday,” she said.

“No it’s—” Ray began, but then he stopped. There was silence on both ends of the phone for a moment. Then Ray said, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” she asked. Then she heard it, and a sick feeling of déjà vu swept through her. There was a loud report, a distant bang, coming over the phone.

“What *was* that?” Ray said, and from the sound of his voice, he was walking.

“Ray, wait,” Theresa said.

There was another loud report, still distant but closer, and Theresa heard a woman scream.

“I’m going to find out what’s going on,” Ray said. “I’ll call you back.”

“*Don’t!*” Theresa said, but he was gone.

Theresa put her phone down on the bathroom sink and stared down at it, her hair cascading in front of her eyes. She shook her head violently, trying to shake off the confusion that made it difficult for her to focus. She ran her fingers through her hair and then pulled at it in frustration.

She picked her phone back up and called Ray’s cell. Voicemail. She called his desk phone. Voicemail. She called reception at his office. The outgoing message informed her that in light of yesterday’s tragic events, the office would be closed for the remainder of the week. Theresa furrowed her brow and put the phone down on the sink again.

Seconds later, it rang again. The screen said: RAY.

She answered it without saying anything.

“Reese?” Ray said, his voice whispering panic. “Listen to me. There’s a man with a gun.”

Theresa began to sob, and her hand shook so violently that she could barely hold the phone to her ear.

“I’m in the bathroom down the hall from my office. Baby, he killed Mark. I saw it happen.” Ray’s voice trembled, on the verge of tears.

Theresa said nothing.

“I called the police,” Ray continued. “They’re on their way.” He took a long, trembling breath.

Theresa sat down on the floor and brought her knees up to her chest. She began to rock back and forth.

“I don’t know where he is now,” Ray said. “I saw him at the end of the hallway. I saw him shoot Mark. I came in here because it was the closest door. I don’t know if he saw me. But the door doesn’t lock. I’m in one of the stalls.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Reese, *talk* to me,” Ray demanded desperately.

“Ray,” she said through her sobs. She could manage no more words than that.

“I don’t know who this guy is,” Ray said. He’s wearing a mask. A ski mask. I think he’s—”

But Ray stopped talking suddenly at the sound of a loud bang, disturbingly close. He hesitated and took a long, shaking breath.

“I love you, Reese,” he whispered.

Over the phone, Theresa heard the sound of a door being kicked open and hitting a wall. Ray gasped. Theresa relived the sound of the bathroom stall door being kicked open, the sound of Ray’s desperate objection, and then the final sound of the gun being fired.

And then, in the ensuing silence, Theresa relived the grief of her husband’s death for the second time.

She told no one about the call. Not Sheryl, and not her mother. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less to anyone else. The two had continued to keep her company throughout the day, answering phone calls, dealing with concerned well-wishers, attempting to get Theresa to eat, and managing the details of Ray’s viewing and funeral, which were scheduled for Saturday evening and Sunday morning, respectively. But mostly, the two of them were there simply to make sure that Theresa was not alone. In her waking moments, they treated her like an antique porcelain doll, delicate and fragile.

Theresa slept for most of the day, even without Sheryl’s chemical help. She ate hardly at all, a fact that distressed her mother.

She had still been in bed at noon on the following day, Wednesday, two days after Ray’s death, when her cellphone rang.

The screen said: RAY.

Her body went numb and she quietly began to cry. She answered it. “Ray?” she said quietly.

“Why did the man always get hit by a bike on his way to work?” he said.

Theresa ended the call immediately, and then shut her phone off completely and tossed it aside. She lay in bed and wept.

On the third day, Thursday, Theresa was alone in the house. Sheryl and her mother had other things to attend to and hadn’t been outside the house since Monday evening. Theresa had showered, brushed her hair, and even put on a bit of makeup. Her arms felt weak and heavy as she did so. But she attempted a tired smile as she insisted that she would be fine if her mom and best friend left her alone for a little while.

When her cellphone rang shortly after noon, she was sitting at the kitchen table, the bright sunlight through the windows making her head ache after so much time spent in the darkness of her bedroom.

She answered it, her voice weak: “Because he was stuck in a vicious cycle.”

There was silence on the other end, and for a moment Theresa wondered if Ray was really there.

Finally, he laughed and asked, “How did you do that?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound strange.”

Theresa took a deep breath. “Do you know who Vincent Holland is?” she asked.

“Yeah, he works down in Engineering, I think. I don’t know him real well. I do know that every day at lunch he eats an onion like an apple. Never seen anything like it.”

“Ray, he has a gun,” Theresa said.

“What? How do you know that?”

“Don’t ask me that right now,” she responded. “He has a gun and he’s going to start shooting people. You have to get out.”

“Reese, I don’t—” But then Ray stopped as they both heard the sound of a gun being fired. “What was that?”

“Listen to me,” Theresa said. “You have to get out of the building.”

Ray was silent for moment. Then he said, “Okay. Okay. I’m going.” And then the phone fell silent.

Theresa put the phone on the table and stared at it. Dust floated silently through a sunbeam that cascaded through the window and landed with warmth on the back of her hand. She wondered how the sun continued to shine, as if the entire world wasn’t enveloped in grief like she was.

Her phone rang again. Ray.

She answered. “Baby?”

“I saw him,” Ray whispered.

“Where are you?” she asked. 

“I’m in the bathroom down the hall from my office. Baby, he killed Mark.”

Theresa ended the call and slammed her phone back down on the table. She put her hands over her eyes and cried.

Friday, shortly after noon, Theresa sat at the kitchen table with Sheryl and her mother. The three of them were quietly nursing cups of tea, the kitchen counters and nearly every other available surface covered in gift baskets and flowers. Theresa’s mother and Sheryl made quiet small talk as Theresa sat silently, her eyes intently focused on her cellphone, which sat like a dumb blank slate on the table in front of her.

12:03 came and went without a call. Theresa chuckled mirthlessly to herself. She had intentionally made sure she was not alone for today’s phone call from Ray. If he did call again, this time she wanted witnesses. But part of her knew that he would not call her if she was not alone.

“Is everything okay, Reese?” Sheryl asked.

Theresa peeled her eyes away from the silent phone. “Yes,” she whispered, and sipped her tea.

I flew in from across country for Ray’s viewing and funeral. Theresa’s mother and I were cordial toward each other, but also avoided each other as much as possible for Theresa’s sake. I was shocked at how she looked – tired and haggard and grief-stricken, of course, but also troubled in a way that did not look like simple mourning. I held her tightly several times over the course of those two days, always at a loss for words, wishing there was anything in the world I could do to remove the weight of sorrow pressing on her shoulders.

Theresa told me later that she had tucked her phone away during those two days of activities. She had thought that maybe going through the ceremony of remembering Ray’s life, seeing his serene face as he lay dead in his casket, and then watching with surprising detachment as his body was lowered into the ground, would bring a final end to his daily calls.

But on Monday, alone at home for only the second time in the week since Ray had died, her phone rang again. She considered not answering it, but could not resist doing so, a sense of both longing and hopelessness in her chest.

“Ray?” she said.

 “Why did the man always get hit by a bike on his way to work?” Ray said, and Theresa burst into tears.

For the next several days, Theresa lived in a fog. She always took Ray’s call. Some days, she let the conversation play out like it had on the first day, relishing those first fleeting seconds when Ray was still happy and alive. Other days, she interrupted his joke in order to ask him a question, like where he had put the key to the safety deposit box, or where he had filed insurance papers. Confused but cooperative, Ray always answered her questions. Some days she had used those initial seconds to convey her deep love for him, and she had sobbed as he had expressed his love for her in return. But then, all too quickly, the sound of a gun would bring their conversation to an abrupt end.

And then one day, weeks on, the phone had rung, and Theresa had said, “Hello, baby,” and waited for Ray to launch into his bicycle joke.

There was a pause, and Ray had said, “Reese… did, did I call you earlier today?”

A coldness spread through Theresa’s chest that she couldn’t understand. “What? No, you didn’****’s so strange,” Ray said. “I picked up the phone to call you and got this sudden sense of déjà vu. Like I already called you today.”

A tear fell silently down Theresa’s cheek. She couldn’t find words.

“Is everything okay?” Ray asked.

“I miss you, baby,” she whispered.

Ray chuckled. “I miss you too?” he responded, more of a question than a statement. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“No you won’t,” she said.

“Reese, what —” and then he stopped. “Did you hear that?”

Theresa hung up the phone. Her thoughts stirred with confusion and an odd sense of hope. Every prior conversation had been laden with a heavy sense of the inevitable; no matter what Theresa said to him, Ray would always end up dead on the floor of his office bathroom. But today, today he had seemed to remember something, and their conversation had taken a different course at Ray’s direction. And Theresa began to wonder what would happen if she tried pushing harder, made more of an effort to get Ray to take a different course of action.

The next day when Ray called, Theresa immediately took charge of the conversation. “Ray, I need you to listen to me carefully and answer me as fast as you can. How many different ways are there out of your office? Out of your department, I mean.”

“What?” he said.

“Answer me!” she insisted.

“There’s the main door. Straight through goes to the IT department, and to the left takes me down the main hallway. There’s a second door that goes through HR, but that just meets up with the main hallway at the other end. And then there’s the door to the balcony. Why are you asking me this?”

“Grab your keys. Don’t grab anything else,” Theresa insisted. “Go through the IT department. Do *not* go down the hall. Get to your car and *come home*. *Now*.”

There was a pause, and then Ray said, “Okay. Okay, I’m coming.” And the line went dead.

Theresa found herself out of breath while she waited. She paced. Moments later, her phone rang again.

“Reese? Listen to me. There’s a man with a gun.”

Theresa screamed in frustration and threw her phone across the room, where it hit the carpet and slid across the floor.

The next time he called, Theresa asked, “Ray, the balcony outside your department. Does it have steps that go down to the courtyard?”

“Yes,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“And you can get to the parking lot from there?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“Go,” Theresa insisted. “Don’t ask me anything. Just go out the balcony doors and to your car. Do it now. Come home.”

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“*Go*!” she yelled, and hung up the phone.

A minute passed, then two. Theresa barely breathed as she stared at her phone. Five minutes passed without a call from Ray. She was finally able to take a breath.

Theresa was on her bed. Her back ached as she sat arched over her phone. For the first time since the day he died there was no second phone call, and Theresa had no idea what to expect next.

She was lost in a nearly thoughtless daze when she heard the front door open. She jumped and nearly cried out. The door closed and she heard footsteps. She jumped from the bed, racing from the bedroom and down the hallway to the foyer.

And impossibly, there he was – his tall, gangly, goofy-looking-yet-handsome self, although his skin was deathly pale to the point of almost being blue. He smiled at her, although his brow was furrowed in concern. His mouth formed the beginnings of a question, but she ran to him and leapt into his arms. He was cold, deathly cold, and Theresa gasped.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, and his voice sounded like it did on mornings when he had first woken up, rattling and unused.

“Everything is okay now,” Theresa said, weeping into his shoulder, holding him tighter than she ever had before.

And in return, Ray held her tightly as well, but his hands were like ice on her back, his body stiff against hers, and although her ear was pressed firmly against his chest, she could not feel his heart beating, a fact that she dismissed just as quickly as she realized it.

Theresa decided to tell him everything. Sitting at the kitchen table, she held his icy hand in both of hers as she recounted everything from the initial shooting at Ray’s office, his death, his funeral, and his daily phone calls. He stared at her blankly, his face registering no alarm, confusion, or even recollection as she spoke. She sat back in her chair and considered him for a moment. *Tabula rasa,* she thought dully as she looked at him.

He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t thirsty. He was content to sit quietly until Theresa gave him directions to move. Her heart ached with the dueling emotions of relief and terrible confusion, and she watched him closely, unable to hide obvious the bewilderment on her face, and yet Ray never asked her what was wrong.

That evening, Theresa led Ray to their bedroom, where he stood dully by the foot of the bed and looked at her as if he had never been in the room before. She undressed him, and as she did so she realized he was wearing his work clothes, not the suit he had been buried in – the suit he had worn on their wedding day. She pulled back the covers and told him to lie down. He did so with silent obedience.

She slid in beside him and kissed him. His kiss was both familiar and foreign to her. His lips were soft and passive where they had always been firm and insistent before, and there was no warmth there. But the texture and the taste of him was the same, and Theresa nearly wept as they embraced again. They made love, Theresa initiating and leading where Ray had always taken charge before, and while her heart overflowed with the joy of being held by her husband once more, her body shivered at the iciness of his touch.

When Theresa awoke the next morning, sunlight touching her eyelids, she reached out without opening her eyes. But her fingers encountered nothing. Ray’s side of the bed was empty, the covers pulled up as if he had never been there. She sat up abruptly.

“Ray?” she called out. There was no answer. She searched the house, calling out for him several times. But he was gone.

She returned to the bedroom, feeling both confused and sorrowful. Where had he gone? And would he come back?

And then, shortly after noon, her phone rang. The screen said: RAY.

She answered it. “Ray?”

“Reese,” he said, his voice sounding even more raspy and unused than before. “Don’t worry. I know there’s a shooter. I’m coming home.”

The line went dead and Theresa set her phone down. Her chest knotted in a cacophony of emotions – sorrow, hope, frustration, and even fear – that she realized she could hardly feel anything anymore.

But come home he did. And this became their new pattern – the new vicious cycle they were stuck in. Every day he would come home, every day looking even more pale and feeling even more cold to the touch, his personality receding even further into the empty shell that he was becoming, a vacancy behind the eyes that had once been so passionate and full of life. Theresa had to tell him to sit, to eat, to bathe himself. He was like an elderly man who was losing use of his faculties, and Theresa evolved into his loving but confused and somewhat terrified caretaker.

And every morning, Ray’s side of the bed would be empty again, and he would call Theresa from work shortly after noon to tell her that he was coming home. Theresa noticed that each time, his voice sounded more like it was being dragged over stones. *Like his vocal chords are decaying*, she thought. It was not long before his countenance began to catch up with his voice. He began to look more physically withered, his tall frame beginning to bend, his eyes large in their sockets as his face became even more wan and his cheeks more sunken.

Theresa allowed this cycle to continue for months, her love for her husband locking her in a living ****, but she was rapidly reaching the point of collapse herself, her emotional and mental well-being withering right along with Ray’s countenance.

“I’m coming home,” he had said to her over the phone, his voice like dusty rocks being rubbed together, barely recognizable to her.

“Wait,” she had said. “Ray – don’t. Don’t come home. Stay there. It’s okay. Stay there.”

“No,” he responded, slowly and without emotion. “No, if I stay here I’ll die. I’m coming home.”

Theresa had hung up the phone, wept, and waited once more for her husband to return. She wept because her husband was dead. She wept because he was alive and yet dying more every day before her very eyes. She wept because she felt bound to him in whatever repeating loop that his death and their love had created. And she wept because they were together again and yet she felt entirely alone.

Finally, on the day that Theresa took her own life, she made a decision, a decision that came to her easily and without fear. In fact, the idea gave her the first comfort she had felt in the year since Ray had died. Perhaps the key to escaping this living **** was to die herself. More precisely, to die beside Ray as they slept together in bed. And in the morning, when he was gone, perhaps she could be gone too. Gone, but together.

She called me that afternoon to tell me her story, to tell me her plan, and to tell me good-bye. I listened with terrified disbelief as she recounted the details of her miserable life in the months since Ray had died. Her story was one I could not accept as fact, and yet simultaneously I knew from the sound of her tired yet determined voice that my daughter was telling me the absolute truth.

“Is Ray there now?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said tiredly. “Do you want to talk to him?”

I didn’t answer, but then I heard Theresa say distantly, “It’s dad. Talk to him.”

There was a shuffling sound, followed by raspy breathing.

“Ray?” I said, and I was surprised to find my own voice was trembling.

He didn’t respond, but I could hear as he attempted to. All I heard was the sound of his laborious breath and the vaguely recognizable tones of his voice as he attempted to speak. But his words were garbled, his voice wasted.

Theresa took the phone back. “I have to go now, daddy.”

“Baby, don’t do this,” I said, crying but trying to hold myself together. “I love you. Your mother loves you. Let us help you. There has to be some other way.”

Theresa began to cry. “There is no other way, daddy. This is the only way.”

“No,” I insisted. “You still have so much to live for. Let me take you away from there. You can come here. Maybe Ray won’t come to you anymore if you’re not there.” I felt myself playing along with her, even though I wasn’t sure I even fully believed her.

“Daddy, there’s something else,” she said, taking a long and exhausted breath. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re—” I started, then stopped. A hard lump rose in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. My mind pieced it together. Theresa was pregnant. And Ray had been dead for more than a year.

“It’s Ray’s,” she said, answering the question I hadn’t ask. “But it’s…” She didn’t finish the statement. “I don’t know what it is. I just know I can’t, daddy. I just can’t.” She wept.

She said her final goodbyes to me, ignoring my pleading. And then the call was over.

I already told you how the police found her.  The autopsy revealed that she had died consuming a large number of sleeping pills left helpfully behind by her best friend Sheryl. The autopsy also revealed that she had been several months pregnant. I insisted that this detail never be revealed to her mother. Estranged and distant though we are, there are some horrors a mother should be spared when it comes to her own child.

So this, as I said, is Theresa’s story. And the story of her husband Ray. And you may not believe me, but it’s an absolutely true story, as fantastical as that might sound. I believe Theresa now, although two weeks ago when she told me her story for the first time, of course I had doubted her. I don’t doubt her anymore, not a single detail. Because every day, she calls to tell me all over again.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Hi everyone! My name is Ava and yesterday was my eighth birthday!
 
 Assistant: Hi everyone my name is Ava Wayne and today I am eight years old :) . I was eight yesterday for the first time but now I am even older! I got to use my mom’s computer today (but shhh don’t tell her!). Last night when my dad came home from work he brought me a big chocolate cake with vanilla frosting that had my name on it and I got to blow out the candles. I didn’t even have to eat dinner first! It was the best day even though I didn’t have a party.

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It doesn’t matter though because I’ve never had a party before. My mom and dad say that I’m not allowed because we can’t have any other people in the house. They lie and tell me that it’s because we live too far away but I know that it is because of my friend Eevie who lives with us. Eevie looks exactly like me and we are like sisters. She is not really my sister though, we just say that.

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Eevie can do this really cool trick where she can move my arms and say things in my voice. Sometimes it is a little bit annoying but she’s my friend so it’s okay. My mom and dad don’t like Eevie though and this makes her very mad.

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My mom says that Eevie needs help and we have to see someone for her. I don’t know what she means, but Eevie says that my mom is a liar and I don’t like telling Eevie that she is wrong. My dad gets really mad and yells at Eevie to stop and to shut up and leave me alone but that just makes her more mad. I’ve tried to tell him to stop but he doesn’t listen.

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Yesterday when my dad brought home the cake he asked me if I liked it and I told him yes and that Eevie liked it too. He got really mad but my mom told him that it was not the time and he didn’t say anything about her.

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When they lit the candles and told me to make a wish I didn’t know what to wish for. I kind of wanted some new paints so that I could make more paintings for my room, but I also wanted a puppy or some new toys. Mostly I wanted to wish for Eevie to stay but Eevie thought that was a **** wish because she says she’s always going to be with me forever so I didn’t wish for that.

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I asked Eevie what else I should wish for and my dad got really mad and told me to just make a wish already because this was none of Eevies business. That made me a little bit sad because it was Eevies business and she was with us and that was rude of him to yell at her like that. My mom said it was okay but dad said that it was not normal. Eevie was also getting mad because dad said she wasn’t normal. Everyone was just mad mad mad and I almost cried but then Eevie told me to just make my wish because she would make any of my wishes come true.

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I thought about it really hard but then mom told me to hurry up or else the cake was going to get ruined so I finally decided to wish for my parents to leave Eevie alone and be nice to her. Then I blew out the candles and my mom clapped but I could tell that my dad was still mad.

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We ate cake anyway but I didn’t ask if Eevie could have some because it was finally a good time. We finished the ENTIRE cake all by ourselves and I was even allowed to have TWO WHOLE PIECES. It was awesome.

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Last night I had a really scary nightmare that I stabbed my mom and my dad in their bed when they were asleep. It was really scary and I woke up and cried but I don’t think they heard me because no one came to check on me. Only Eevie was there and she said it was okay.

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When it was morning I got up but my mom didn’t make any breakfast and she didn’t answer when I was yelling for her. Eevie says that they are still asleep and that I shouldn’t go up to their room so I didn’t.

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Eevie helped me to make breakfast. She showed me how to make a burrito with eggs and some chicken that she bought. It was really messy because Eevie said that it was fresh meat that had just been killed. I already know that they **** animals for food because my grandpa has a farm and I had seen them make a turkey before so I knew that it was very messy.

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After I ate Eevie said that we could watch tv. She said that I didn’t even have to clean up because mom and dad weren’t going to even see it. She told me that she made my wish come true and that they weren’t going to be mad at us anymore and they weren’t going to yell at us either. Eevie says that now we can do whatever we want.

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I had ice cream and I watched cartoons all morning instead of going to school and when the phone rang and the school called Eevie talked to them and she sounded just like my mom! She told them that I was sick and the lady believed her! It was so fun and I didn’t even know that she could do that!

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Eevie let me use my moms laptop because she says she knows the password. She told me I could write on here like a diary and post it so other people could read it! Isn’t that so cool? I wonder who is reading this haha :).

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Eevie just made me lunch and it was a sandwich with meat again. I don't eat this much meat because my mom likes for me to eat my veggies but Eevie says that mom is not the boss anymore so I can eat whatever I want. I had a lot of chips and my tummy started to hurt and I really wanted my mom but Eevie said that it was okay and she could make it feel better.

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Eevie told me to take a nap and so I did but I had another scary dream that I was cutting up mom and dad because Eevie was making me. When I woke up Eevie said it was just a dream because mom and dad were still asleep upstairs. I want to go and see them but Eevie says I can’t or else it will ruin the wish and we will get in big trouble for making a mess and eating junk.

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I think I’m going to go play hide-and-seek with Eevie now. :)

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Love, Ava <3

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A 911 call where nothing made sense
 
 Assistant: Things were **** from the beginning. A woman named Carol dials 911 and claims that somebody’s inside her house. We go investigate, searching the place inch by inch but find nothing. 

Usually, this could be easily explained away. The mind of an older person living alone eventually starts deteriorating. The onset of dementia and other mental issues start to take a toll on their lives. Quite sad, really. However, this woman is only 24. In other words, the probability of this all being inside her head is extremely unlikely. She also seemed to be terribly distraught by this whole situation. Why would she be acting? 

We leave her place and tell her to contact us if she sees anything again. I mean, we couldn’t really do anything at that point. We were somewhat surprised when we got another call from her the very next day. We drive down there and search the house again. We find nothing… again. Problem is... the house seems different this time. Almost as if there were some subtle detail that made it a separate place from the one we were in yesterday. My partner – Beck, says that he noticed it as well, but doesn’t quite understand what’s wrong. 

We decide not to say anything about this as we tell Carol that we came up with nothing. However, she tells us to stay. “I recorded him” She says. 

She takes out her phone and tells us to watch the video that she’s pulled up. It was footage of her in the house. She’s running around, breathing frantic. And then we see him. A large figure, covered head to toe in what appears to be a black bodysuit. He lumbers towards the camera as Carol screams and ducks into a room, locking it from the inside. There’s a few bangs on the door before we can hear footsteps walking away. 

We don’t know how to react to this footage, but we try anyways. We come to the conclusion that the man must have left once Carol got behind the door. However, the front door was locked when we came, and Carol told us that she hadn’t left the room. Did he also have the keys to her house? That would explain a lot, but it also made this situation a lot worse.

We decide to keep an eye on her house for the night. We’re discrete, parking about a block down the road in an unmarked car. We’re both fully awake, ready to go as soon as we see some sketchy ****.

At around 2AM, we see somebody walking across the road, towards her house. However, it isn’t the man. It’s Carol herself.  Beck and I must have had the same look on our faces. *What the **** 

We get out of the car and make our way over there, knocking **** the front door. However, nobody answers. We can see lights flicking on and off intermittently, but we’re not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Was she trying to tell us to leave?

We get a call from dispatch a few moments later. They’re telling us that Carol has called 911 again, saying that there are now multiple people in her house. They ask if we need backup. We say yes. 

Without another moment of hesitation, we force the door open and barge in. The living room lights still flicker on and off, but we see the light switch and nobody is touching it. We call out for Carol, but nobody responds. In fact, the place is dead quiet. I can see the neighboring houses starting to turn on their lights from the commotion. We rush up the stairs and start sweeping each room. *But there’s nothing*. Once again, we search the place inch by inch, *but nothing is in here*, not even Carol, who we clearly saw enter a few moments earlier. 

As I pace around in petrified confusion, Beck speaks up: “There’s rooms here that shouldn’t be.” 

“What the **** are you talking about?” I ask in response. 

“I’ve been counting” he says. “There were 9 total the last time we came. There are 10 now. You didn’t notice it?” 

I force myself to think hard. Subconsciously, I knew that something was off, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. However, I eventually realize. 

“The basement. There was only door down there last time.” 

Beck nods. “Two now.”

I don’t know what to think. I look at my surroundings and try to make an assessment, but there’s really none that can be made. 

We hear a knock on the door about 10 seconds later. It sounds agitated. We look out the living room windows, but aren’t met with the red and blue police lights. We’re hesitant to answer, of course. I decide to take a step forwards, but Beck pulls me back. 

He looks at me and shakes his head, whispering: “We left the door open, remember?” 

He was right. My radio starts crackling. Another call from dispatch. They’re telling us that we need to leave the house immediately. That Carol called again, saying we were going to die, in a deathly monotone voice. The knocking has stopped, but we can hear footsteps in the basement. Something is in here with us. 

We’ve decided that this was enough. We needed to get the **** out of here. As we start descending the steps, we hear a voice coming from the kitchen. Carol comes out, blocking our path to the door. She looks detached, with blank, beady eyes staring right at us. 

“Did you find him?” She asks, without any semblance of emotion in her voice. “I think he might be in the basement. Why don’t you go check?” 

Beck and I are frozen in shock. She just keeps looking at us, gesturing towards the basement door every now and then. The footsteps down there sound like they’re running in circles now. We ignore her request, abruptly brushing past her and bolting out of the front door. 

The backup still isn’t here, so we decide to just get into our car. However… we see somebody down the street peering through our driver-side window. He’s large, dressed in what appears to be a black full-body suit. He looks away from the window and directly at us. It’s hard to tell from this far, but the suit doesn’t seem to have any eye-holes. 

Beck speaks up: “Sir, please step back from the vehicle.” His voice cracks in the middle of the sentence. He’s terrified. 

As soon as Beck stops talking, the figure starts *running* towards us. It’s fast. *Too* fast. In the time that it takes for us to pull up our guns, we’ve realized that it’s actually moved past us, into the house. We waste no more time, running into the car, locking the doors and waiting until backup arrives. 

When it finally does, we’re extensively questioned while what appears to be a *SWAT* team searches the house. However, it isn’t the police chief asking us. Instead, it’s some guy in a suit that we’ve never seen before. He asks us things like “How many doors were there in the house?” and “What did Carol look like, exactly?” and “Did we ever see a man with one eye wandering around?” We answer inconclusively to pretty much all of them. We have no idea what the ****’s going on. 

At one point, we see SWAT members carrying multiple stretchers outside and loading them into their truck. Not an ambulance mind you, but their own truck. Eventually, the man who was questioning us tells us to go home, and to report to our station as usual. He tells us not to worry about what we’ve seen here. 

I don’t know how he expects us to do that. 

We drive back to the station in complete silence. As we park, Beck finally lets out a sigh. 

“Jack is **** crazy, dude.” 

I look at him in confusion. “What are you talking about? Who the **** is Jack?” 

He reciprocates an equally confused stare at me. “What the **** are *you* talking about? The dude who owns the house.” 

“What? It was a lady named Carol. How’d you forget already?” 

We hold each other’s chaotic gaze for what feels like a minute... but we say nothing further. We both silently exit the vehicle and start heading our separate ways home. We both know that something's terribly wrong with the other. 

I try not to think about it too much as my head hits the pillow. I manage to drift off to sleep about three hours later, only to be woken up immediately by the telephone. Barely coherent, I answer it:

“We need you. A woman dialed 911. Says that somebody’s in her house.”

My heart sinks slightly. It sinks completely when he tells me the address. It’s Carol’s. 

I hang up the phone and slump into the bed. I just want this nightmare to end. 






 Human: write a story with the theme title: Prison is Hell
 
 Assistant: I hate it here.

Granted, I deserve it.

I'm currently locked down behind massive, concrete walls and solid steel doors in a maximum-security penitentiary. I was locked up what feels like a lifetime ago now. I earned it, I did. Every second I rot here is justice, but that doesn't change the fact that I hate it.

It is cold here. I have a single concrete cot and toilet. My clothes itch and are too thin to keep any chills out. The walls are a grey with a sickly green tint due to the dull, swamp-like tile that sends a grossly colored glow into the room reflecting the buzzing florescent light above me. The door is thick and unmoving. They paint it the same shade of sickly green as the floor. I assume it is lead based to save on cost. (Maybe, if I lick it enough times, maybe I can **** enough brain cells to forget I’m here.) I have no roommate, as many don’t who are perceived as “extreme risks.” Thankfully I can still have time outside and shower without being entirely supervised. More than I can say for many in here.

My only commodity is my toilet paper and my journal. I earned the journal through much work and good behavior. The pencil I write with is dull and has no eraser; like that a golfer would use to keep scorecards. I am allowed 4 hours per day with it: between breakfast and lunch. I receive the journal and pencil with my meal and return it in kind. If the pencil has any pieces missing or there are any extensive tears in the pages then I will lose it for the following day. So I comply. I comply so I may have some mild comfort in this concrete cage in which I slowly die.

Again, I definitely earned it, but that doesn't change the fact that prison is ****.

I earned my place here because I killed people.

I killed many people.

I killed 20 people to be exact.

This is the first time I’ve actually written it.

I beat the Cannibal’s number, which for some reason gave me a sense of accomplishment. However, what gave me more satisfaction was the evenness of the number.
Twenty.

Two, ZERO.

20

20

2 0

2-0

2....0

20

Even and smooth.

My Compulsion made it this way. 21 would have made getting arrested a living ****. 15 would’ve been ok, but 20 was much cleaner. Increments of five. Always increments of five. Sometimes during a shopping trip I would grab a stick of gum so as to have 20 or 10 or 30 items even. However, in the case of the killings it was much more intense.

The problem was the itch I felt in between. It was a gnawing pain in my mind from 1-4 and 6-9. The itch was not as bad during 5’s but 10’s were the best. However, that number will eventually attract attention. That number is partially what got me caught, but I had to “scratch the itch” so to speak. It made me empathize with vampires in the old horror stories- the sensation of aching thirst that cannot be quenched. It is nightmarish.

The same remained true for my age: 40. I finished at 40, which made me content. I hated not having an even age. I could force down the bad feelings my age ended in 5s or even numbers but I always had bad years with 1s, 3s, 7,s and 9s.

I digress. I understand it is abnormal behavior, but it’s a compulsion. I have it manageable so that most would never notice in a day to day routine.

I have to reminisce on these pages because I have no way of going back. It started many years ago, and the urge only grew from there.

The first time I killed was interesting. I should have felt the need to immediately **** again, as I did in later years, but I didn’t. They say mental illness worsens with age. I guess that’s what kept me from acting again so soon, but I’m not sure.

The first time I killed was pretty lackluster. . I was walking home from school through the woods where very few kids were bold enough to cross. While walking, I stumbled upon a man. He was clearly injured and even at the age of 12 I knew he had little time left. He sat, holding his side, panting in labored breaths. He didn’t see me yet. From my vantage point I could see a long, white bone jutting from his leg, which tells me the pain from what his ribs were doing was worse than that of a broken leg. That, or he was just in shock.

Far above this section of woods was a road, and from what I could see a vehicle burst through railing. The wrecked vehicle, a ‘69 Chevy C20 truck, lay decimated some 40 feet below the roadway in the brush and rocks. I remember this truck, because I wound up purchasing one many, many years later in a secret nostalgia for myself. Either way, the driver had pulled himself from the wreckage and crawled in agony upwards of 50 feet to the nearest tree, where his strength was slowly failing him.

I remember seeing a large shard of metal which had been ripped from the side of the truck and picking it up. I walked slowly to the man who reached pitifully towards me for help. I slowly shoved the sharp edge of the metal into the man’s throat and watched as blood began to spurt from the wound and his mouth. He gargled like a drowning sow on his own blood, and after a time he ceased all movement, forever.

It was a rush of which I cannot explain. The excitement of ending a human life is next to none. I was content for a fleeting moment. I stared at the body for some time before taking a bloody shred of his pant leg that was hanging by a thread. I just wanted to have a keepsake.

That was my first ****. I was never caught, nor even suspected. Growing up in the mountains of the south allowed much privacy, and it allowed me to get away with ****. As time grew, so did the feeling of power and accomplishment. I felt like ****.

No one even knew I was the way I was. I would never be a suspect, because I knew to hide.

I hid well, because I knew how to hide. From the time I was a boy I knew how to blend in. Sometimes it was a challenge because of my appearance, but I learned a simple skill: how to hide in plain sight.

I was able to work hard in the background. I made good grades and maintained very few close friendships throughout school, so no one would discover anything about me. However, I made sure everyone had a nice thing to say about me, carrying groceries, helping kids with studying, always using manners. I graduated in the upper ranks of my class and soon attended the local college. After I earned a degree in business, I worked hard where I could and raised enough money to buy my own Rig. I worked by riding the highways as a trucker for years and eventually bought 2 more rigs. By 35 I was a respectable business owner in my old town with a dispatch and a few drivers. I obviously still drove, even as the owner, because it kept me close to my only real passion.

I hid well in plain sight because white people love a ****. In a town of 90% white and 10% “other” I learned to blend despite being a minority. Learn to talk like them, learn to walk like them and you can manipulate them into whatever you want.

I hate them. Not white people; all people.

My mother died shortly after I graduated high school from heart failure, and I felt liberated, for I held her opinion highly. Her opinions often kept me in line and respectable. When she died, I was free to pursue my own interests. My father, while a good man in his own right, never held much weight in my actions, so I walked the path I chose for myself despite what his feelings may be.

Either way, I dwindled for some time after the first ****. The urge slowly grew. By high school I kept my eyes peeled for another opportunity to **** out a life. Finally, that day came.

The second time I murdered was equally uninspiring. I found myself at a graduation party and the whole senior class was drinking heavily. All except me that is.
We were at the home of a wealthier student who had maintained a spotless record through both junior high and high school and wanted to go out in a way where she could get out of her preverbal box.

I learned two things that evening. The first, that a well mannered, well educated young lady was no different than anyone else in regards to having a darker side. She wanted to be remembered for a party. Not her good grades, not her generous deeds, not her modest manner of dress, but a party. Everyone has a dark side in some way. This was the first thing I learned. The second was that if everyone is **** and dancing on the roof, you could bump a certain young lady discreetly enough to send her three stories down into the concrete and make it look like an accident.
She landed with a smack that can only be replicated in my dreams. This was the first time I was aroused by a killing. I’m not sure why. She was in a two-piece (which I assume her parents knew nothing about) and her skin was pale, and smooth. Her deep brown hair flowed past her shoulders and the look of utter confusion and terror in the face of innocence was priceless. Blood pooled from her head and seeped into her nearby swimming pool. I fancied her you could say, but only because she represented something that does not exist. Human innocence.
When her skull cracked hard against the pavement, I was instantly excited. I had to sneak away to handle it, and steal a memento from the girl’s room. Meanwhile, the remaining partygoers descended into madness trying to repair a situation that was far beyond broken. The chaos I caused that night again resurfaced my deep sense of accomplishment that only comes from death.

This was the second time I killed. 18 years of age.
By the time I hit my stride I stood at 6”2’ at 260lbs. I had always enjoyed lifting weights and working towards my overall health. A **** predator is a bad predator. I maintained this level of fitness for most of my adult life. I had to in order to pursue my passion.

Of course, things would have a way of catching up with me. I was incarcerated with an unfortunate mountain of evidence. I wouldn’t say I covered every base perfectly to ensure not getting caught, but I felt like I was careful enough. I guess not in hindsight.

I remember the day I was arrested. I had turned 40 the month prior and was on the road delivering a shipment of plywood. I was behind the wheel of my rig in rural Alabama. I was taking a back road because I enjoy the scenery, and when you’re the boss you can set your own schedule. At this point, I had killed 19 people and the itch was present. I would have to rub the back of my neck when I thought about it. It needed to be scratched. I needed to take care of it.

That’s when I saw her.

Miles from any structure or any living person was a broken down, baby blue Volkswagen Beetle. The emergency lights were flashing and a woman was looking into her engine compartment. The height of my Truck allowed my to scan both her car, and the area surrounding us. It was tall, uncut grass and trees, covered in utter blackness due to the overcast night. There was no one for miles and miles. We could be alone together. I pulled in behind her, with my low lights so as not to scare her.

When I stepped out of the truck I addressed her.

“Pardon me ma’am,” I said calmly. I know how to disarm. I have worked on my speaking voice for years in order to betray their security into my hands, “Are you alright?”
She stepped out from behind her hood and I saw her in better light.

She was a young, Hispanic woman. Her clothes were tattered, but I think that was intentional. She had silky, dark hair to her shoulders and black librarian glasses. She was pretty, which was a bonus for me. Consider it like a dinner. You’re going to get your meal, but when it includes dessert then it is all the better. I also knew she could complete this cycle. She could be the 20th and I could rest. Best yet, she was petite, so there would be little fight.

“I think the engine is shot,” She said in a desperation that these dark woods certainly played well into. She just wanted to get out of danger... little did she know.

“I can give you a ride, I own this company so I can make the time,” I didn’t want to sound presumptuous, but I knew by making myself a manager it would remove the “creepy truck driver” mentality.

“I don’t know...”

“I promise,” I edged, in my best “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” voice, “I’ll take you straight into town and we can find you a phone. My wife would **** me if I let a young lady stay stranded in the woods.”

I wasn’t married, but that is another way of disarming her. A spouse always makes a man less dangerous, or again, as she thought.

“Ok,” She said, with her fear betraying her skepticism, “Thank you.”

“I’ll get the door for you.”

As she walked to the passenger side I held the door open for her. As she took her first step up I grabbed her ankle and pulled her straight down with as much force as I could manage.

Her jaw connected with the studded metal stairs full force. I know some teeth were broken by the crunch that emanated from her skull. She fell limp to the dirt as I lifted her onto my shoulder. She didn’t stir long enough for me to grab a large socket wrench from my rig. I could feel the warm blood from her mouth pouring down my shoulder.

I carried her into the tall grass, just out of sight. We made love then. I had made love before to some, but this was special. She was the 20th. She would complete the need. Halfway through she began to wake and struggle. From there I had to act. I took the socket wrench and began to hit her. She struggled to scream due to her shattered jaw. I hit her in her pretty face, over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over and over.

When I had finished on all fronts I took her wallet from her jeans off beside us. Hannah, I believe her name was. I took her glasses as the fell off when her face collided with my truck and avoided the wrath of the socket wrench. They had her name engraved inside the temple.

I drove. Leaving the scene entirely. I had to re-enter the highway some time later and saw lights in my mirror.
I had been stopped before. Once even with a body in the back, so I was not worried.

The officer walked to the side and called me out.
“You Williams (my last name)?” He asked with an unreadable demeanor.

“Yes sir,” I answered coolly, holding my id and paperwork for the truck and delivery.

He then spoke into his radio.

“Yeah, we found him.”

“Officer what’s this ab-“ I was cut short.

“Sir, please turn around and place your hands behind your back.”

“Why?” I demanded, I was not about to be cuffed and restrained for no good reason.

He then turned me violently to my truck and slapped cuffs around my wrists. From there He sat me on the pavement and called for backup.

When other officers arrived one finally noticed the blood on my back. They then found the glasses. They then found the poorly wiped down socket wrench. They then received word of a brutal mutilation several towns over.

They had stopped me initially because one of my drivers was caught with a brick of marijuana and they wanted to stop all trucks from my dispatch to make sure we were legitimate. It would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating.
I was brought down on a technicality.

My run lasted from 12 to 40. I was undetected for that entire time. I changed my MO. I killed strangers only. I was so careful. A technicality was the only thing that could have done this.

My simple home was turned about until they found my treasure box (a shoebox of souvenirs and news clippings). From there it was easy to put me at every single ****. Every homeless person stabbed to death in cities. Every transient **** with their heads missing. Every unsupervised child in crowded streets. I was linked to them all.

Now, one may ask, “Why would you be so **** as to keep mementoes?”

To that I would say I had to. It was my passion and the only thing that gave me meaning. I had to keep something around. They were the only memories I could have of those times.


Like I first wrote, I deserve to be in prison, but I don’t regret in the slightest what I’ve done.

The trial was grueling and irritating. Since I killed across state lines there was arguments as to where to have my trial, but it became a federal issue, which only meant more bureaucracy. My lawyer explained many of the killings would be circumstantial at best, but just as many have my now connected DNA to the scene and are going to be nearly impossible to deny. I decided to throw in the towel. The media was out for blood, the public was out for blood, and the jury was out for blood. I had my fill, so now it was time to pay the favor forward. There was no way to avoid a life sentence so I may as well come clean and get regale the tales of my exploits to a room of terrified jurors and family members burning with hatred.

Despite the difficulties of finding some evidence of murders, I was still convicted for 18 of the 20. However, I was punished for them all regardless.

The day of sentencing I stood still and stoic before the judge. I could feel the eyes of all those present attempting to sear me, but failing.

The Judge looked down at me and rambled on about my cruelties and resentment for man. The entire time he droned I stood with the thought that the death penalty was illegal in this state. It was utterly satisfying to know the uproarious crowds calling for my head when the law wouldn’t allow it. I snapped out of it when he got to the sentence.

“Seeing as how the death penalty is illegal in this state, I can only do the most with that in light. I hereby sentence you to one thousand and one life sentences.”

He was being melodramatic.  Not in history had there been such an absurd sentence.  What's worse, The number was uneven. Meaning the rest of my life I would have to say one thousand and ONE when discussing my sentence.  He knew this.

My demeanor slightly shaken, I asked the Judge, “Why 1000 and one?”

The courtroom was silent. The families, friends and jury looked at me with contempt, but that didn’t matter then, even less now.

The Judge leaned over his podium. He smiled with a smugness that still boils my blood and he calmly replied...
“To torment you.”

That’s how I got where I am now. I don’t interact with the other inmates or the guards. I just mind my business as best I can. I don’t like to think about my sentence because it makes me itch. Similar to when you haven’t paid a certain bill, but don’t have the funds. It’s a wincing, mental discomfort.

I write the rest of this in a testament to what happened yesterday in hopes it reaches someone on the outside.
My day started normally. A loud bell rang and I stood to my feet. From there, my door opened and I walked to the shower facility. I tried to find myself at the end of the line so as to get the most time out of my cell. I also like my privacy. The inmates here are insufferable. They are uneducated criminals who would have no life outside of these walls. My fellow black inmates gave me **** for being “crazy” since African American serial killers are considered such an abnormality. The other races tended to stay to themselves, minus a few **** brotherhood members casting the occasional slur my direction.
I entered the shower as normal, but I felt an innate sense of dread that I don’t know how to describe. I just felt... unpleasant. I felt watched and alone at the same time. I felt completely hopeless and near despair. I quickly finished my shower and left the facility. The halls were quiet and the stationary guard was not at his post in front of my cell. I was alone in this hallway.

Suddenly, I felt a large hand grip my shoulder and order me forward. The next thing I knew I was being escorted to the Warden’s office. I was somewhat stunned, but complied.

I walked the tight enclosed halls until I reached the last room on the right. Inside was totally dark apart from a dim lamp illuminating a desk. The hand shoved me in and slammed the door behind me.

I saw the silhouette of Warden and he beckoned me to sit.
I sat across from him in uncomfortable silence. He didn’t move and neither did I. I would force him to make the first move.

After what felt like an eternity he spoke up.

“Let’s go over your file.” His voice carried, a mild southern accent sprinkled in.

I did not respond. He gave no indication as to why, so I would bide my time.

From here I will paraphrase what was said, as my memory can’t perfectly recreate the entire conversation.

“Count 1. Confessed. Not convicted. Man falls off cliff and you assist him in passing. You were 12 so it wasn’t included in your final file, but it warrants mentioning.

Count 2. Confessed. Convicted. You confessed to shoving a young woman off a roof and then robbing her home of a trophy. You were 18

Count 3. Confessed Convicted. Homeless man near your college, you stabbed him and cut out a tooth. You were 20

Count 4. Confessed. Not Convicted. You claim to have **** **** in Texas. The souvenir you took could not link you to the crime and she had no family. You were 24. Not convicted, but you know what you did.

Counts 5 through 9. Confessed. Convicted on all counts. You killed five lot lizards before changing your MO. That was smart. They were all strangled and you kept a lock of hair. Left them on the highway.

Count 10. Confessed. Convicted. You took a lost 12-year-old and drowned him. You kept his retainer. You were doing well in life by this point, but **** still called. Didn’****?

Count 11. Confessed. Convicted. Ah, this one was special wasn’t she? That Gas station employee who you stalked for a while? Followed her home and broke in. Took your time and did it right. She broke your perfect streak and you were going to make her pay right? Kept her locket as a token of your affection.

Count 12. Confessed. Convicted. You took a young man to your from a local club in Missouri. Strangled him the moment the door was closed. Chopped him up and kept his teeth.

Counts 13 through 17. Confessed. Convicted on all counts. The Hitchhiker phase. Here it seems you just wanted to close the gap. You got sloppy. Left a lot of evidence behind. I guess because they were vagrants it wouldn’t have mattered.

Count 18. Confessed. Convicted. You killed a Housewife in Florida. You were on vacation at them time. You spotted her and just had to do something. Waiting until her husband left and had yourself a time. Another **** and strangling. You took her bloodsoaked necklace.

Count 19. Confessed. Convicted. You saw a jogger one morning and followed in your truck. When you knew their routine you waited in the bushes until he passed. You killed him with a hammer and took one of his shoes.

Count 20. Confessed. Convicted. The one that brought you down. You couldn’t resist her. You were too careless. Too excited. Now you’re here. You took her glasses and bashing her head in and assaulting her.”

He took a deep breathe and his outline sat back.

“Do you know you know what they call you?” He asked me incredulously.

I was livid. He completely bastardized my work. I had done so much and he swept over it like an obituary column. I glared at him in the dark before answering, “The Scavenger Hunt Killer?”

I hated that name. They donned me the Scavenger Hunt Killer because my murders spanned so far and I collected odd, disconnected items. Again, my works and efforts were reduced to a joke. It still makes me sick.
The warden spoke up again, “Are you sorry?”

I sat for a moment before responding, “Would it matter?”
He chuckled in a deep throaty laugh. “No,” He said settling in, “I guess it wouldn’t.”

He continued, “I don’t get it really. You’re a highly intelligent, healthy and well spoken man, why on earth would you throw that away?”

I sat in angry silence. I refused to give this man the satisfaction of an answer.

“Do you believe in ****?” The Warden asked, his tone now changed.

I chewed my tongue before responding, “No.”

“Pity,” he responded lackadaisically, as if my response didn’t really matter, “That would make what I’m about to tell you much better.”

I waited for him to continue.

“Your sentence is being commuted.”

I raised an eyebrow in disbelief, “really?”

“Yes,” He sat, still shadowed, but I knew he was smirking.

“What does that have to do with ****?”

I know I should have had much more important questions to ask in that moment, but I was curious. I assumed he meant I should be thankful.

“Well,” he said, his voice trailing, “That would make this next part easier. You passed away this morning, son.”
Before I could respond, his hand tossed a few photos in front of me.

It was me. I lay covered in blood on the shower floor. I had been stabbed from the looks of it.

“Yeah,” The Warden, or who I thought was the warden spoke up, “some **** fellow wanted to prove his might by stabbing a serial killer to death in the shower. Didn’t work though, since he was caught and will most likely be in solitary until it does irreparable damage. If that’s some comfort.”

I stared at him. I stared at the photographs.

I simple could not accept it.

“This is absurd,” I felt insulted and the prospect.

“I know it seems odd, but hear me out,” He sat upright, ready to make his case, “Do you know what the Universalists are?”

“No”

“Well,” He continued without missing a beat. “Basically it states that everyone gets into heaven. Even if you aren’t necessarily in their denomination.”

“This is heaven?” I was ready to laugh. This was a joke.

“No, see that’s the bad news,” He continued, “Catholics, Muslims, some Buddhists, see they believe in a temporal plane so they’re also sort of right. See everyone does eventually move on, but before anyone can move on, they must resolve all their earthly obligations... and judgments."

Before I could remark, he caught his breath and explained further.

“You died this morning. You served ONE of your 1001 life sentences. Welcome to number 2."

I stood up, “This isn’t funny. I’m leaving.”

I couldn't move. I was frozen in place. Unable to use my body.  My eyes felt like they were being pried towards the seat.

“Please,” I heard The Warden, though his voice was now much deeper, sinking my gut, “sit.”
I returned to my seat with a sensation that was new to me: fear.

“Now,” he continued, his voice returning to normal, “You are *not* dead.  You just started another sentence.  Everything will be back to normal when you leave. When I dismiss you, you will leave here and return to your bunk, do you understand?”

I nodded. Still stunned by what I then knew as truth.  His voice.  The unexplained dread I felt that morning.

I walked out of the Warden’s office that day, feeling a hopelessness I have never known. The prison was the same, but it wasn’**** was lonelier. Darker.

That feels like forever ago. I learned since then.

First, “Lifetime” does not mean from the age you are incarcerated. I expected a 40-year “life” sentence. But after speaking with a few other inmates serving like myself, who I see sometimes sparingly, I learned that it varies somewhere from 80 to 120 years. It varies, but it is always at least 80. 

I guess the guards don't notice after a certain point.  Also, I assume they don't register that we never seem to leave.  Inexplicable, but that's what's happening.

Second, each go around... changes you.  The prisoners don't notice you.  The others like you have fewer words.  The guards seemed always outside of the line of sight, even when they would interact. They were like fleeting shadows. 

I am cracking mentally.  I will walk into the showers and see someone shaving, even speak with him at length. However, when I turn a corner or close a stall door, **** be gone when I return. 

Next, I learned that suicide doesn’t work. I learned the same way every inmate in here like me does. I slit my wrists and they just ached for a week. I swallowed bleach and had a miserable stomachache, but no death. I hung myself where I choked and flailed, fully conscious, for 8 straight hours until a guard found me while bringing my breakfast the following morning. 

I learned that being murdered decreases time, but murdering adds it, so no one on life row attempts **** here.

Finally, escaping isn't an option.  We have runners sometimes.  Men, who just finished their first sentence.  The guy just snapped.  I guess he pulled maybe 60 years before dying in his sleep.  He just panicked and ran.  The snipers didn't even turn.  He grabbed the fence and immediately fell to the ground.  From there he shook violently.  He died right there of a heart attack.

I saw him a week later.  3rd life sentence.  Half crippled.  I guess we get punished if we try to leave. I don't know if its permanent.  He was a wreck upon returning.  It reminded me of the cats in my neighborhood as a boy. The first time you hurt it, the animal twitches and becomes neurotic, but given enough time, it accepts its fate.  The man now spends his days staring silently behind dead eyes at whatever light source is around.

To some this is limbo. Where we remain trapped in the prison in which we were condemned until our body, and soul, have finished their sentences.  To others this is some kind of purgatory. Where we are groomed for eternity in paradise.  Either way, we are forced to remain, forced to live until we pay our dues.  Never truly dying.

I don't even know if time is the same now, but if you're reading this I managed to successfully get these pages out.  

I have handful of plans, which I cannot record. I cannot risk ant future attempts should this fail.

I’m leaving this journal for anyone who is a criminal or wants to become one. I have between 80,000 too= 100,000 years left. I do not feel remorse, but I do wish I knew then what I know now. This is simply a warning.


100,000 years on a concrete slab. A hard, unforgiving surface.

100,000 years with one hour a day in a dying earthscape I barely recognize. 

100,000 years of sickly green floors and cold steel doors that move for nothing.

100,000 years of mopping floors, or scrubbing toilets 

100,000 years of being monitored by beings I cannot fully comprehend as their burning horror erupts in the back of my mind.

1001 life sentences.

1000 to go.

Only one small thing gives me comfort.

With 1000 life sentences at least it’s a nice a clean number.

I hope I don’t die too soon and ruin this nice, even lifetime...

...because the next one will be ****.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We never open the door when there's only one knock
 
 Assistant: "Please, just let me in, it's getting cold!"

The voice was familiar, only older than I remembered. Very close to detail.

"Lala, please."

Using my old nickname was a nice touch as well.

I sat on the floor next to the door, my arms wrapped around my legs. Or course this had to happen the one week my parents left me alone. They hadn't gone on vacation for years, I practically begged them to get away for a while. For their own good. If I called them, they'd come right back but I don't think that would have helped me anyway. 

Besides, I wasn't an idiot. I heard the knock and I would not open that door. 

When someone comes to your house, they will ring the bell or knock a few times. Most people like to play safe and simply use the bell. And then you open the door as you normally would. 

But never, absolutely never, should you open the door when there's only one knock. It was the very first thing we were told when we moved to this neighborhood all those years ago.

There are a bunch of rumors, of people disappearing or suddenly dying after opening their doors though they all supposedly happened before we even lived here.

I never believed in it, not even when I was little. This town was simply insane, most people here were a little eccentric and unusual. Well, that's what I believed until I heard my lost sister call for me, after the one loud knock on our front door. 

"Please, go away," I whispered. 

Even after all those years, I recognized her voice. And when I heard it I jumped right up, ready to open that door wide. But I knew it wasn't her.

I'd looked through the window. There was nobody in front of our door. 

I don't know how much time had passed before I finally grabbed my phone and called Max who's not only our neighbor but one of my closest friends. 

"She's here," I said. I knew I wasn't making much sense, I didn't know how to word my thoughts.

"Who? Where?" He answered.

"Ruby."

Silence. 

"Wha-," Max started speaking but stopped. 

"She knocked."

That was enough information for him.

"You didn't open, did you?"

I shook my head which of course he couldn't see. 

"I'm coming over now, okay?"

\--

I'm not sure how many minutes passed but Ruby had stopped asking me to open the door. 

"Hey, Lainey, I don't think the bell is working," I heard Max. "Maybe they **** with it."

I swallowed. 

"You could knock."

There was silence for a little while, followed by one loud thud. 

When I didn't open the door, the sound of Max started shouting loudly.

"Open the **** door!" 

His voice became louder and louder until it hit a frequency that almost made my eardrums explode. 

I didn't move, I didn't speak and finally, the doorbell rang and the voice became silent. 

Slowly I got up from the door to look outside.

This time it was really him.

\--

"The last time I saw her we had the biggest fight of our lives."

We were sitting in the living room with tea that had already turned cold. I don't open up about Ruby often but hearing her voice today really messed me up. 

"And all because of **** Jack," I rolled my eyes. 

Max smiled. 

"A boy?"

I shook my head and laughed. 

"Jack was a stuffed toy in the shape of a pumpkin."

I’d never told Max about the fight, in fact, nobody but my parents knew about it.

"I loved that **** thing. Won it at the Halloween carnival. When Ruby saw it she begged me to give it to her, she cried for hours because she hadn't won it. And even when my parents said they'd buy her another toy she wouldn't stop. She wanted mine."

"Well, she wanted to be just like you. It's sweet."

I nodded.

Ruby was a year younger than me but she used to act as if we were twins. She wore my clothes, played the same sports, and always wanted to hang out with me and my friends. When I think about it now I think it was adorable, of course back then I found it insufferable. 

I sighed.

"For days I took Jack everywhere with me, even to the bathroom. It was probably just out of pettiness but that toy became everything to me. So when I came home from school one afternoon and saw that Ruby had cut it in half I screamed at her like never before. She only looked at me with big teary eyes."

Max put his hand on my shoulder.

"Come on Lainey, siblings fight, it's normal. I saw you with her though and you were a **** good big sister."

I nodded. Of course, I knew it was just some **** fight between kids but if I could turn back time I'd give her every **** toy I owned. 

This happened five years ago. Ruby would be sixteen now. 

My parents have tried everything for years to find her. I believe the only reason we *still* live here is that they never entirely gave up the hope that she'd come back home one day. 

Maybe now she was. Just in a different way.

"Do you think I'm losing my mind, Max?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I think you lost that a whole while ago," he joked.

"No, I'm serious. I mean it's not possible that I actually heard her earlier?"

He shrugged.

"I mean, you did hear a knock. I don't think it was actually *her* though." 

Max and I used to make fun of the superstition. When we were younger, before Ruby disappeared, we once played ding **** ditch. After a few houses, Max decided to knock once at the door of our neighbor Mrs. Tellski. Someone saw us though and Max got the biggest lecture of his life from his grandpa. Like it was a really big deal. My parents weren't happy either, but Max was grounded for two months, during which his grandpa told him all sorts of horror stories from this town. 

"I don't think it was her either. But I do think it was mimicking her, or trying to," I said.

"For what it's worth, I think it was smart that you didn't open the door. Maybe we're all just a little crazy but better safe than sorry, right?" 

\--

Max offered to stay the night and I immediately said yes. We got the air mattress and watched movies until I started to hear him snoring.

The good thing about Max was, I never felt awkward around him. He regularly stayed over since we were little. Especially often after Ruby was gone. Having him here really helped against the silence. 

My mind became easier, and my body heavier. Real thoughts started to mix with dreams, I was beginning to fall asleep. 

And then there was another knock.

It came from the front door downstairs but I heard it loud and clearly

My heart started racing just like it did this afternoon.

"Max, did you hear that?" I whispered but he didn't answer.

"Lala, it's dark. Please come and get me," Ruby's new voice cried from outside.

"Max, please tell me you hear this."

I looked over at him, but he didn't move. Finally, I collected the courage to get up and turn on the lights. 

"Ma-,"

The eyes of my friend were wide open but he didn't speak. He didn't move.

"I ran over to him and tried to shake him but his whole body was stiff. Only his eyes moved."

"LET ME IN!" The voice from downstairs screamed. I didn't know what to do anymore. Max was clearly awake but it seemed as if something was holding him back. Almost like he was having sleep paralysis but with his eyes open.

"They're pulling me away, Lala, please help me."

I don't know what happened then, but I immediately jumped up and ran downstairs. Some kind of instinct kicked in. Maybe it was her. Maybe I could pull her back inside. But if this was really Ruby, was she also the one doing this to Max?

My hands touched the cold door handle, moving almost as if I was in a trance. 

"I have Jack. They fixed him, Lala. We don't need to fight anymore."

Those words pierced through my body and woke something up inside of me. I stepped away from the door and walked back upstairs passing my room where Max was still lying still. But I didn't stop, I walked to the next room. Ruby's old bedroom. Everything there looked just the way it did when she was still here. My parents could never change it.

Everything was still the same. And Jack was still placed on her bed where I put it five years ago after I'd sewn it back together.

[They almost got me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Likeeyedid/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Dared My Best Friend to Ruin My Life - He's Succeeding [Part 8]
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4q03fa/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4q6e5h/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qcle4/i_dared_my_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes_succeeding/)

[Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qivk6/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qoy4n/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 6](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4quxvv/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qzu9h/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

Well… I’m back.  Hi everyone.  I am alive.

I… well I’ll just start telling you what happened. I’m starting to shake as I even think about writing everything down, but I have to finish this.

After I posted my last update, it was go time.  I’ve been preparing for this event for so long that it was hard to believe that I had just hit submit.  I couldn’t go through and comment to everyone that part 7 was up.  Sorry.  I had to see David’s reaction.

I put my phone in my pocket and watched David from across the street.  He was eating dinner just like I said in my post.  His phone clearly went off, because he perked up his head and grabbed his phone from the table.  I’d seen his phone go off whenever I posted before, so I knew he had set an alert.

I watched his eyes scan the post with interest.  Then his eyes slowly widened.  I knew when he reached my favorite part, because his gaze shot up and looked around the restaurant.  He wrapped up his sandwich and quickly walked out of the restaurant, his eyes scanning the street while stealing glances at his phone to keep reading.

It was a very satisfying scene.  It makes me smile just thinking about it.

I didn’t follow him home.  Instead, I waited for the inevitable email.

Do you want to know why David was so scared of my information release?  He was scared because the Internet was his safe haven.  He was powerful there.  When we had our dare conversation, and for so long after that, I was the computer illiterate one and he ruled that domain.  And now I had managed to track him in his safe place.  Before, I had been weak and an easy target for his games.  Now that I had seriously fought back and threatened him, he was worried.

The email came while I could still see him walking away.  

“Hello Zander.  Bravo, but I’m not going to meet in public,” he wrote.

To be honest, I posted Welles Park online because I figured he would want to change the location if it was a public place, and I didn’t want to release the real address online.  I didn't want anyone crashing the party and getting hurt.  Sorry for lying.  I’ll be apologizing for lying a lot by the end of this post.  

I told him that I’d email him the new address 15 minutes before it was time to meet.  He didn’t respond.  I didn’t want him to have the address too early and show up to set any traps.  He really should have countered with a location of his own, but he didn’t.

I stood up.  Time to go to the warehouse and wait.

The location I had chosen used to be a warehouse of some kind.  I didn’t care what it had been used for, only that it was abandoned and unguarded.  If David tried anything ****, which I thought he was going to, I didn’t want any more innocent bystanders in the way.

I took an Uber to a suburban area a few blocks away.  When the Uber left, I walked to the warehouse.  

When I arrived, it was already almost 9 PM.  Not completely dark yet, but getting there. I walked around the perimeter of the warehouse, looking for any sign that David had beaten me here.  There wasn’t any sign that I could see.

I approached a side door and pulled a key out of my pocket.  I unlocked the chains from the door handle and stored them just inside the door as I entered.  The soundscape changed from an ambient evening in the city to a tomb.

The factory had a single floor that was one big, open space.  High above it, catwalks ran along the rafters all leading from the warehouse manager’s office, which was a metal cube suspended at one end of the warehouse. 

Shelf scaffolding that had been abandoned broke up the empty space.  Crates and pallets were strewn around here and there, making hiding places.  I had previously come and strategically arranged them in case it came down to a fire fight.  

That’s also when I had put chains on every door.  There were four entrances into the warehouse, not including the windows near the ceiling.  I had chained them all except the one I entered through.  That was my funnel.  If you’ve ever gone hunting for live game, you know what I’m talking about.

There was nothing left to do but to wait now.  I sent him the address at 9:45.

A rattling of the front door alerted me that he was here.  He was a half hour late, which was an attempt to unnerve me.  The door jolted repeatedly, but the chains held it shut.  It was dark now.  The only light streamed in the windows from industrial-style streetlights outside.

“How am I supposed to meet you if you won’t let me in?” David called from outside.  The hair on the back of my neck rose, despite all my preparations.  It was time.

David tried all three doors.  He skipped over the only one that was unlocked until he absolutely had to.  He knew what a funnel was, but he had no choice.  The windows were too high and would result in a very high fall once he got in.

The side door silently opened and in walked David **** King.  I stayed where I was behind a wooden crate stacked with pallets.  If he came in shooting, I didn’t want to be an easy target.

Slow clapping filled the echoing room.

“Well done,” David chanted.  I peered through the pallets to see the door shut behind David.  He was alone.

“Where is she?” I said just loud enough to be heard.  

“I’m so very impressed with you, Zander.  Completely unexpected.”  He pulled his phone out of his pocket, lighting up the wall behind him.  He began to read.

“‘**** you, David.’  ‘Hashtag, **** David King.’ ‘Zander, you brilliant ****.’  ‘Go get your girl!’ ‘We are coming for you, David.’  Thousands of these, almost all saying the same thing!  How does it feel to have people rooting for you?  Do you feel better equipped to fight me now?”

“Where. Is. She?” I enunciated.

David knocked on the door behind him, and it opened.  In shuffled Katie.  Her face was red and shimmering with tears. Duct tape had been wrapped around her entire head several times, covering her mouth.  Her wrists had been similarly wrapped.  A band of tape also tied her ankles together, but had enough slack that she could take small steps.  A thick arm was wrapped around her neck as a tall blonde man with extremely curly hair guided her into the room.

“I said to leave your partner behind!” I shouted.  It echoed.

“If you don’t want him here, then come **** him,” David said.

I didn’t respond.  ****-****-****-it.

“So, Zander, how would you like to proceed?  You’re running the show here,” David called, looking around the warehouse.

“Send Katie forward and leave.”

“Sorry, I don’t have a guarantee that you won’t release all that information anyway.  Come on out here and we’ll discuss my terms.”

“Like **** I am.”

David looked to his partner, and his partner used his free arm to punch Katie in the side.  She cried out as best she could through the duct tape and faltered, but the blonde man held her up by her neck.

“We can do this all night,” David smirked.

I stood up.  My hiding place was off to David’s left, so I walked in a semi-circle until I was directly in David’s line of sight.

“Come closer,” he grinned.

I stepped forward until we were a couple yards apart.

“Look how you’ve changed,” he smirked.  “Your hair looks good.  You should always dye it darker.  You’re so stoic now!  Confident!  Being on the run has changed you!  I guess all we had to do to increase the minimum required effort was go on the run, huh?  Then maybe we could have avoided this whole mess.  Then again, it’s all been so fun.”

“Let’s get this over with,” I growled.

“So hostile,” David commented.  “What’s your first term?”

“He leaves,” I said, pointing to the blonde man.

“Okay,” David shrugged.  Before I could process what was happening, he pulled a handgun from his jacket pocket, and shot the blonde man in the head.  He collapsed, dragging Katie with him.  Katie gave a muffled shriek and untangled herself from his body, dragging herself backwards along the floor.  She backed into the wall and stayed there, eyes wide. 

David looked down at the body before slowly turning his head to me. 

“My turn.”

Jesus Christ.  It finally hit me how in over my head I was.  I might understand David King, but I could never, ever match his sickness.  It occurred that I could die that night, despite David’s rules.

“Show me the data,” he said.  “That’s my first term.  I want to know exactly what you’re going to release so I know it’s worth my only bargaining chip.”

I tried to hide my shaking hands as I pulled my phone out.  I went into my email drafts on a throwaway account where I had saved a copy and emailed it to him.

“I sent it to you,” I said.  David smiled reassuringly.  

Fast as a lizard, he spun around and snatched Katie off the floor.  She screamed as he stood her up and held her in front of him. 

I pulled my Ruger SR45 handgun out of the concealed carry holster I’d worn and tried to get a clear shot.  He was too fast and had caught me by surprise, so she was in front of him before I’d even lined him up in the sight.

“So, you got a gun after all,” he said coolly.  “Didn’t see that part in your posts.  Relax, I’m just making sure I can read in peace.” 

He held the gun to her head with one hand while opening his phone with the other.  My mind raced, trying to figure out the next steps.  David had waltzed into a hostage negotiation that I had arranged myself and took over.  

He took his time reading through the data dump.  His expression changed between surprise and a smirk repeatedly.

“Well now,” he said, putting his phone away and slipping his now free arm around Katie’s neck.  “I had no idea I was so careless.”  He sounded anything but careless.

Katie gasped as he suddenly gripped her neck tighter and pressed the muzzle against her temple.

“Let’s move somewhere… smaller,” he said, looking up at the manager’s box.  “I don’t want you running away when the going gets tough.  You first, Zandsand,” he said, nodding his head toward the stairs to his right.

The door he had entered from had a set of grated stairs off to the right that led up to the manager’s box.  They went up toward the back wall, then turned to the left straight into the side of the manager’s box.  Another set of stairs should have been on the other side, mirroring these, but they had been disassembled and lay in a heap.

I kept my face to David as I walked toward the stairs.  I kept my gun pointed in his direction, and he kept his muzzle against Katie’s head.  Katie was sobbing and watching me.

When I reached the stairs, I slowly backed up them.  David followed once I was halfway up.

At the top of the stairs, the door to the office stood.  To the left, a grated walkway led out over the floor, spreading into catwalks that sprawled the entire place.  

I opened the metal door to the office and backed in.  The only furniture in the room were two heavy, wood tables.  The rest of the office was bare.  A thin slit of a window overlooked the warehouse floor.

David pushed Katie into the room with his arm still around her neck and shut the door behind him.  I followed him with my gun, standing against the opposite wall where the second door leading into the office was.  The office was big enough that we were still a few yards away from one another.

“Now I don’t have to worry about you running off into the dark warehouse.  As fun as hide and seek sounds, I don’t have the time.  

“You know, when I found your posts, I thought I had stumbled across some sort of… therapy story that you were putting up.  But it was so much better.  You really have surprised me.  You’ve grown and changed to try and beat me,” David smiled.

“But you haven’t changed enough. I can see it in your face and your trembling hands.  You are still you, Zander.  You’ve changed your exterior, but inside you have the same motivations, and weaknesses.”

He tightened his grip  on Katie again.

“I know your next term is for me to let Katie go, so I’m going to skip your turn.  I know you would prefer that she remain in my custody rather than getting shot, so I suggest you put down your gun.”

I stood my ground.  I wanted to take a shot, but didn’t want to risk him being faster than me.  I was confident in my aim, but not my speed.

“Put it down,” he said again.  I stayed.

In an instant, the gun had left her temple, fired a shot into the floor, and returned to her head.  She sobbed, and the heat of the barrel on her skin must’ve hurt.

“I’M NOT **** AROUND, ZANDER!” David shouted.  

Slowly, I set the gun on the floor and kicked it in his direction.

“Good choice,” he said calmly.  “Have you realized why you’re here yet?” 

My face answered him.  What did that even mean?  Of course I did!

“You think you’re here to save Katie, but you aren’t.  She’s been gone for a year now, and you’ve only built up memories of her.  The Katie you knew is dead.  But not even that Katie is the reason you’re here right now.  No, you gave up on a happily ever after with Katie long ago.  This isn’t a hero’s quest to save the princess.  This is a revenge assault on the dragon.”

I tightened my jaw.  I refused to admit he was right.  

“This isn’t about saving her.  This is about outsmarting me.  Keeping Katie safe and sound is just a result,” David said,, his smile growing.

“So, in that sense, you and I are the same now.  It’s about outsmarting the other one.  You started out simply living life, then progressed to defending yourself, then to protecting your loved ones, and now you’ve arrived where I wanted you to be all along: trying to ruin me.  It took you a couple years, but you made it.  At least, most of the way.

“Even if Katie isn’t the true reason you’re here, she’s still a weakness.  I’m going to guess that other people in your life are the same way. You still have weaknesses that tie you down.  I learned how to get rid of mine.”

“Like your own mother?” I snipped.

“She was a liability,” he said coldly.  “It wasn’t personal.”

“You’re a sick ****,” I said.  

The door behind David silently opened.  I’d oiled those hinges for hours, making sure they made absolutely no noise.

“I’m about to get a lot sicker,” he said.  

He’d started to pull the trigger, when he was tackled from behind.  Katie tumbled out of his grasp as he tried to use both arms to catch himself.  His gun went off, but the shot hit the wall.  

Katie rolled away from David’s reach. 

David started to get up, but the assailant was on their feet faster.  David, on his hands and knees, looked up at the attacker.

“Remember me, ****?!” Clark jeered, and then punched in a downward arc into the side of David’s head.  

David dropped to the floor, but he was still conscious. He grabbed Clark’s legs and tore him to the ground.

I raced forward and pulled Katie out of the scuffle.  I dragged her out the door before getting her to her feet and cutting the tape on her hands with my pocket knife.  There wasn’t time to get the layers off her head.  She was wide-eyed.

“Run!” I hissed. “Go outside! The cops will be here soon!”  I turned back inside to go help Clark.  Not a romantic reunion, I know, but there was still a psychopath in there.

David and Clark were wrestling on the floor, throwing punches and grappling with one another.  David was bigger and landed a few hard punches.  I looked over my shoulder, making sure Katie was stumbling down the steps. 

I dove in, aiming for my gun that was just beside the scuffle.

David saw me and kicked my legs like a tentacle out of the ocean.  I tripped and knocked the gun into the corner when I fell.  David suddenly shoved Clark off of him, practically tossing him onto one of the tables.  I watched as David jumped up and made for his gun.  

I writhed on the ground and kicked.  My toes barely caught the gun and sent it skittering across the room.

There were two guns in the room, both on opposite sides.  Two of us, and only one of him.  

Clark rolled off the desk and jumped into David as he ran for the gun.  They both slammed into the wall.  I crawled for my gun, which was just out of reach by a couple feet.  There was another crash behind me. 

My fingers wrapped around the gun and I twisted around on the ground, aiming it in their direction.  I had turned just in time to see David fire a shot into Clark.  

There was no hesitation as I squeezed the trigger.  It struck his shoulder.  He whirled to face me.  

I fired again.  

And again. 

And again. 

And again.

Even after he’d stumbled back against the wall and slid down, I kept firing just to be sure.  Just to make sure that the **** would never get back up again.  

My gun clicked to alert me that I had emptied the clip.  Ten shots, and every one had hit David **** King.

I exhaled and dropped the gun, letting my head fall back to the floor.  My heart pounded.  My whole body shook.  But I couldn’t rest yet.

Shakily, I got to my feet and stumbled over to Clark.  He was crumpled against the wall, clutching his left shoulder.  Blood oozed through his fingers.

“****, he shot me,” he said, clearly in shock.  That’s when the police sirens could be heard.

“Get out of here,” he said to me.  

“No, I’m going to--”

“I’ll be FINE!  Police will be here any second to help me, just get out!  Get back on the run!  I’ll contact you when it’s safe!” Clark yelled.  “Go!  I’m not letting you get arrested again until they get the facts straight!”  

I rushed toward the door, stuffing the Ruger back in my pants as I moved.  

I paused at the door.

“Thank you,” I said, looking at Clark.

“Go!” He yelled again.

I sprinted down the steps and ran to the door furthest in the back of the building.  I unlocked the chains on the door and pulled it open, ducking into the night.  I had run this path over and over, making sure it was good enough for an escape in case something went wrong.

I went to my previously established hiding place and hunkered down to stay hidden.  I sent a text to the server my script was on and entered the password to cancel the info dump.  There never was a second person, that was a bluff.  There is no reason to release that information to you now since David is dead. I’m sorry, I really appreciate the level of support to ruin David, but there’s no point now. I thought he’d still be alive afterward. The police will get it eventually as evidence, though..

I also tapped out ‘I am alive’ in the Reddit thread to alert everyone that I had survived. Then, I collapsed into sleep.

This morning, I was thinking clearly again and feeling better.  I ate and drank lots to counter the shock.  I have started making plans on where I’ll go next.  It isn’t safe to stay here much longer.

The news hasn’t said anything about the incident yet, but I’m sure the story will break eventually.  I have stayed glued to the radio app on my phone all day today and am even listening right now, hoping for an update on Katie or Clark.

Thank you, Reddit.  You’ve helped me remain positive these past few days and set this trap.  It’s finally done.  I regret so many things about what I did and how I reacted in the past.  I should have fought more forcefully before it came to this.  I was too scared, though, and didn’t really understand David.  But now I do.  Only now it doesn’t matter because he’s gone.

From here, I’ll continue to stay on the run.  I don’t plan to turn myself in until Hernandez says the prosecution is ready to drop all charges.  

Hernandez is trying his hardest back at home to mitigate the evidence against me in all of those charges.  Clark’s testimony about what happened last night should really help reduce the credibility of David’s claims.  Plus, the GoPros we set up around the warehouse won’t hurt.  David’s confession about his mother was a bonus I hadn’t expected.

Originally, we had intended to lock David in the manager’s office for the police to find.  Clark had called the police just before attacking.  Circumstances had changed that plan. 

Some of you may wonder ‘well what if David hadn’t taken you up into the manager’s office?’  We had contingency plans: that wasn’t the only option.

Regardless, all of our plans involved arresting David, not killing him.  It was a last resort option and wasn’t built into any plan.   didn’t know I was prepared to **** until I had my gun aimed at David King.

I don’t think I’ve fully processed the fact that I’ve killed someone… I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel or act or think or… anything.  I feel like I’m acting the wrong way...

Anyway, there’s another part that will help persuade the prosecutor to drop the charges against me.  I lied before when Hernandez came to visit me in jail.  I said he told me he couldn’t talk about Isaac’s death, but he did tell me.  They had found a video file on Isaac’s computer from the day he died.  

He’d been recording himself playing games for YouTube when there was a crash of silverware in the background.  Isaac didn’t hit pause on the recording, and left the room to investigate.  

David came flying back into the room, shoving Isaac into the bookcases.  He slammed the door and was on him in seconds.  The assault lasted only minutes.  David walked out, leaving the door wide open.

The camera watched him come back into the room with my pillow.  He held the pillow over Isaac’s body and hit it repeatedly.  All the dead skin from my pillow fell onto Isaac’s body.  They found those traces on Isaac’s body, but the video proved that I hadn’t killed him.

David had walked out and locked the door behind him.  He’d made a mistake and hadn’t checked what was running on the computer.  All he saw was the game.

Hernandez and I had been in contact while I was first on the run.  I lied about that too. When I had first contacted him, he started crying on the phone, apologizing repeatedly.  He told me that he knew if I stayed in jail, that I would, at the very least, lose a lot of time out of my life while the trial went on, even if David was accused later as more evidence came out.

He had accepted David’s deal and demanded that I be given half of the $15,000 he was paid.  David, as you know, only gave me $2,000, but Hernandez had hoped it would help me lay low and evade capture until he could successfully contest the evidence.  We fully intend to report the bribe to the police.

He told me that after my escape from the car, the police were very suspicious about the circumstances of my escape.  There were too many holes in the story, and Hernandez had been sure to point out every last one repeatedly to his boss.  A lot of you pointed them out too.  Paint from the truck rubbing off, bars separating the front seat from the back seat, gps in the truck marking his whereabouts, and the location of the crash in relation to the time David sounded the alarm, etc.

David had clearly been desperate to get me out of jail.  He risked bribing an official and left a lot of his plan up to chance to get me out.  David just didn’t want to end the game yet.  If I went to jail, it was over.  Yet there were still so many ways he could ruin my life.  

His need for quick action led to mistakes.

Hernandez also told me when he came to visit that Jackson had turned up.  He’d come home a couple days after I was arrested and was brought in for questioning.  He had proof and witnesses that he had been staying with his family for a few days.

When asked about the break in and theft, he told his story.  

David had knocked at the door just as Jackson was finishing packing to go on vacation.  He told Jackson that he was a friend of mine and was helping me move out.  Jackson let him in and finished packing.

He was just walking towards the door with his suitcase when David asked if he would be willing to help carry out the TV.  Jackson agreed and carried it out with David. He then grabbed his suitcase and left, asking David to lock up when he was done.

That’s when he started stealing everything and trashing our house.  That’s also when Isaac would have come out and been killed.  It solved the riddle of why the door had been locked and not broken when Clark found the apartment stripped bare.

There are still some questions that I don’t have answers to.  We haven’t been able to figure out what he did with all the things he stole from us.  We also don’t know who the partner is.  Hernandez should know that in a few days and let me know.

I also don’t know how the keylogger got on my computer, or when the tracking app was installed on my phone, or how David was able to provide my social security number, driver's license number, and all other accurate information to the credit card companies. The same goes for the fraud that was committed against my parents.

I can’t help but wonder if David had been in our house before the break in and done all of that.

As for Clark, his disgraceful exit was a fabrication to throw David off.  It was my idea to make him disappear from my life and take the target off of his back.  It was both to protect him from David’s rage, and so that he could support me in the background.  His mom did come and bail him out, but she was much kinder about the situation and worried like all moms do.

When I messaged Clark to tell him my plan in posting this series, he immediately jumped to help me, and without him I’d still be watching David and waiting for a good moment to strike.

It was his idea to plant the information about hiding his bank information on scraps of paper around town.  It was placed as a joke and a way to tell if he was reading the series. We wanted to see if David would go hunting for them.   He didn’t, but that was probably because he was on the run still.

Clark’s arraignment didn’t go so well.  He’s still being charged with a misdemeanor for graffiting David’s old house.  An expert was called to analyze the photographs and identified them as authentic and  undoctored.  Either David has someone doing one **** of a photoshop job, or he took pictures from angles that cut me out naturally.  We are still trying to figure out how to resolve his problem.

With Katie, I have yet to see her beyond those brief moments while confronting David.  It’s been only a few days for all of you throughout this series, but for all of us, she’s been missing for a year.  I have no idea what David or his partner might have done to her during all that time.  I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to see her again since I’m still on the run until the charges are dropped.  If the charges are dropped, that is.

I’m scared to see her.  I know David did it, but I feel responsible.  I wonder if she blames me.  I wonder if she hates me.  Maybe one day I’ll know..

What David said has shaken me.  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it today.  He told me I was there for him and not for Katie.  That I was after the dragon, not the princess.  I’ve realized that he’s right.  I’ve read a few of your responses and agree with you: I didn’t write all that much about Katie during this series.  If it had been about Katie, I would have written more.

The fact that I left her to go back and fight says volumes about why I set this trap.

David was right.  It wasn’t about Katie.  Katie was a result.  It makes me feel guilty and dirty to think about it.  Maybe it would be best if I never saw her again.  She’s not likely to want to see me.

Katie, if you’re ever reading this, if you can ever handle it, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  

Once again, thank you, Reddit.  You have helped so much with your support, encouragement, and your unknowing aid in making this trap for David.  I couldn’t have done this without you.

The last two years have been ****.  But it’s finally over.  

We ruined David **** King.

&nbsp;

[Series 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4ulqeq/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_end_my_life_part_1/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The world isn't flat, but it isn't round either. I learned the hard way.
 
 Assistant: Ten years ago, I pulled my wife’s scorched, lifeless body out of a Florida swimming pool. 

We had only been married for three days. You read that right. Three days.

I wish the story didn’t start there, but it does.

Avery Jones was my soulmate—she was funny, spunky, and cute as ****. I was so deeply, ridiculously in love with her and for good reason. She was way out of my league, but somehow, she liked me enough to marry me. 

After six months of dating and another six months of engagement, we got married in a humble chapel in the Wasatch Mountains just outside of Salt Lake City. The next day, we flew out for a ten-day honeymoon at a beachfront resort in Fort Lauderdale—a wedding gift from my parents. 

On our second day there, while laying out on the beach, gnarly clouds blew in, accompanied by the heaviest rain I had ever seen. We laughed at our luck, packed up quickly, and ran with the rest of the beach-and-pool-goers towards the hotel. 

“Come this way,” Avery said, pulling me down a narrow stone path through the landscape to a secluded cave installation under a bridge. 

Laughing hysterically with the help of our rain-diluted Mai Tais, we shed our dripping wet clothes and towels and sat down on the pool chairs in the cave. 

“You know we could swim right here,” Avery said, pointing to the portion of the pool covered by the faux rock. 

I pretended to think it was a bad idea, then tackled her into the water. We splashed and wrestled around for a few minutes by ourselves, the heavy rain clapping outside the cave. 

After a few minutes, I hopped out and grabbed a couple dry towels from a nearby chair. I kicked my feet up and sat back, sipping my drink. 

Avery began an interpretive, synchronized swimming routine in her bright blue bikini. She whipped her auburn hair back and forth and swung her hands above her head with effortless grace. Even though she was joking, I was mesmerized. She was mine. I was hers. It was surreal.

But then I got a feeling. A horrible feeling. One that said disaster was imminent.

I didn’t say anything to Avery though. Since I prided myself on being rigidly pragmatic, giving credence to *feelings*on only our third day of marriage seemed like a bad idea. 

Whether it was a premonition or not, lightning struck the pool with a deafening crack.

A deadly shockwave surged through the pool, killing Avery instantly and shooting me back against the rock wall. 

Once my hearing and sight returned, I saw Avery floating face down in the pool, twenty feet away from the cave. I yelled for help and jumped in. Hotel staff ran over and together we got her out of the pool. Medical staff arrived shortly thereafter and then an ambulance. She was pronounced dead on site. The next day, we flew home, one of us seated in coach, the other in a body bag stashed below deck. 

I fell into a funk after the funeral and never recovered. 

I was convinced Avery was my soulmate, so when she died, the world fell out of working order. Nothing made sense anymore. I never dated again nor had any interest in women. Or people, for that matter. I took a job in Texas, bought a townhome, and quickly got into a routine. I talked to my parents occasionally but only returned home maybe three times over the last ten years.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. ****, not even an hour.

As our tenth anniversary approached, the data analytics firm I worked for was bought by another company and I was let go. Though I was initially ****, my tune shifted once the generous severance check came in the mail. The night the check came, I drank a lot and stumbled through Avery and my wedding album. Sometime around one in the morning, I made a decision. I decided that a decade of mourning was long enough. I decided that the next ten years of my life weren’t going to be steeped in self-pity. I would make something of myself. I’d read books again, I’d make videos again, I’d make friends, I’d pick up the guitar.

The next night, with a drink in hand and money in the bank, I sat down at my desk and developed a plan with a vague goal of getting out of the country for a little bit. Somewhere around two in the morning, I fell into the rabbit hole called the Flat Earth Theory. I spent the next three hours reading and watching YouTube videos. For some reason, it all got funnier and funnier as the night went on. I didn’t accomplish much that night, but by the next night, I had a solid plan.

Over the next couple months, I sold my townhome, bought a camera, and booked an around-the-world trip in five flights. My objective was to document my travels and prove, once and for all, that the world was round.

For the three weeks before my trip began, I moved back to Salt Lake City with my parents, who were surprisingly supportive of the endeavor.

In my first video, I explained the rules: I would travel east until I made it back home. I would have a compass on me at all times. I would be awake and alert at all times of travel. Anyone who was staunch in their belief that the world is flat would likely think I’m faking the whole thing, but that wasn’t really the point of the trip. I was trying to become a new man, remember.

The day before I left, I was feeling nervous and oddly existential—more so than normal. This was big. Traveling around the world by myself. I never dreamed I could have done something like this, especially since Avery died. Part of me was proud of myself, the other part of me was questioning what the **** I was doing. Whatever it was, I decided to leave something behind to commemorate my existence.

I stayed up late scrolling through thousands of pictures, and ultimately choosing four for print: Avery and me on our wedding day, my cousin and me on skateboards, my parents and me last Christmas, and a horribly awkward picture of me standing by myself outside my Texas townhome. 

I rolled the pictures up tight, stuffed them in a dry Guinness bottle, then took the bottle and a shovel up the mountain behind my parent’s house. About a quarter mile up the hill, I found a nice clearing amongst the scrub oak and dug a hole two feet deep. With my headlamp, I could see Avery’s eyes peering at me through the thick brown bottle. I cried for a good five minutes then tossed it into the hole. I covered it the best I could and returned home to get a couple hours of shut eye before flying out.

My dad drove me to the airport the next morning.

**—**

I flew from Salt Lake to New York, New York to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Shanghai, Shanghai to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to Salt Lake. I’m intentionally not getting into too much detail about the trip itself, because that’s not really the point of me writing this. Okay, okay, I’ll indulge a little bit.

How long did the trip take? A little over a month. I spent about a week in each place and three days in LA.

Did I have fun? **** yes. I had the time of my life. I realized that being away from the drudgery of my routine allowed some of my old self to reemerge, my pre-lightning-strike days. I made friends, I was funny, I was charming. It was a little weird honestly.

Was it good for me? Other than what I’m about to tell you, yes, it was fantastic. I truly feel like a changed man. 

Did I gain a following? I actually did. I mean, I didn’t go viral or anything, but as of this writing, I have about 50,000 subscribers. Most think the Flat Earth Theory is BS, but some are believers. I don’t know if any of them will ever read this. 

How do you feel about that lame time capsule now? I know you probably didn’t have this question specifically, but this is important to me. The longer the trip went on, the more embarrassed I felt about the time capsule I left in the ground behind my parent’s house. The life I conveyed in that bottle was tinged with regret, loss, sorrow. Particularly my apathetic face standing in front of my **** townhome or with my parents on Christmas. I decided, on my trip, that I wouldn’t replace any of the pictures in the time capsule, but I would add some—change the ending of my story, if you will. Okay, enough of that.

So… 

Is the world round? 

That’s where things get complicated. I successfully stayed awake during all hours of travel, which was very difficult. Especially that Amsterdam to Shanghai leg. Good ****. But I can confidently say that I traveled east the whole time and successfully made it back to Salt Lake, which would rule out the whole flat earth thing, but I can’t confidently say the Earth is round either.

Here's what happened.

When I got home, both the front, back, and side doors were locked. I tried the garage keypad, but it didn’t work. When I texted my mom, it failed to go through. Then I tried my dad. Same thing. 

I brushed it off, telling myself that a month is a long time—my parents could have switched cell carriers and could have changed the garage code.

With no way into the house and nothing to do, I decided to make the planned modifications to my time capsule right then, even though it was dark out. I trekked up the mountain with a shovel from the back porch and found the spot twenty minutes later. I dug cautiously and successfully extracted the bottle. I saw Avery’s eyes again peering at me through the brown bottle, this time a little foggy from sitting underground for a month.

As I pulled the rolled-up pictures out, I decided that merely adding new pictures wasn’t going to solve my problems. I needed a ritual, a way to symbolize my rebirth. I thought about ripping up the old pictures or burning them. I thought about collecting everything I still owned of Avery’s and throwing it into a bonfire. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to move on until I could erase Avery—the personification of my old, deceased self—from my life. Like I said before, I was a new man.

Then I saw something at my feet.

With the flashlight on my phone, I saw that I had dropped one of the old photos.

It was the picture of me and my parents at dinner last Christmas at the Grand America Hotel. Only in this picture, there was a fourth person. A beautiful woman about my age with fair skin and long auburn hair. It was Avery. 

I was confused at first. Perhaps I had put a different picture in the bottle than I had thought. **** knows Avery and I had gone to plenty of dinners with my parents when she was alive. But I wouldn’t have done that. I already had a picture of Avery and me on our wedding day. That was enough. I remember distinctly thinking one picture of Avery was enough.

Then I looked closer at myself in that picture. It was definitely from last Christmas. It was 33-year-old me, not 23-year-old me. I had a beard last Christmas, a feat I could not have managed when I was 23. Since I printed the pictures only a month before, I pulled up the original on my phone with numb, shaky fingers, and held them side by side. It *was* the same picture. 

I had before me two distinct realities—one in which Avery was alive and one in which Avery was dead. Everything else was the same. 

*How the **** is this possible,* I thought.

The picture of our wedding day was the same. So was the picture of my cousin and me skateboarding. The picture of me standing in front of my Texas townhome was different though. Instead of a townhome, it was a small red house, apparently still in Texas. And, of course, Avery was standing next to me wearing a green plaid button-up shirt.

Avery would have pursued her degree in Nursing had she lived, I’m sure. The dual income would have allowed us to buy a house instead of a townhome, I figured. But still, what the **** is happening?

My knees grew weak and I sat down, looking back and forth between the two pictures with Avery now in them. She truly was stunning, more beautiful than I remembered.

I stumbled into a new reality. I don’t know how or when, but here I am, in a world where Avery lives. I’m sure that isn’t the only difference, but it’s the only one I’m aware of as of this writing. 

If I truly am in a new reality, what happened to the old one? Am I missing? Did I get duplicated? Did that old reality disappear? 

I laid on my back in the crunchy snow and closed my eyes. *Where do I go from here?*

A pair of headlights flashed through the Aspen trees and I sat up abruptly. A car was pulling up the driveway. I shuffled my way down the snowy banks close to the house. I remained perched there for about five minutes before the kitchen lights clicked on and I saw four people emerge.

Two of them were my parents—looking the exact same as they did in the other reality. 

Then in walked Avery. 

Then, in a moment even more unsettling than seeing Avery alive, I saw myself enter the room. 

My heart was pounding.

Other-me was wearing the same outfit I’m wearing today, even sporting the same scruff. The only difference was the little bit of gray hair above his ears.

I slid further down the hill to get a closer look. For a moment—a long moment—I forgot about my replica and watched Avery. She was gorgeous in person, more gorgeous than in pictures. She had always been that way. 

This is what my life would look like if I hadn’t been such a coward, I thought, feeling a tear trickle down my cheek.

The four of them talked and laughed excitedly, eventually shedding their coats and moving to the front living room. I climbed down the rock wall and ran around to the front of the house, hiding behind a group of pine trees near the front stairs. My dad left for a couple minutes and returned with a bottle of wine and four glasses. 

I fell deeper into a daze watching them—mostly Avery. They had a great time chatting for at least a couple hours while I sat like a fool between the pines, my toes and hands freezing. She was so effortlessly charismatic, so charming. The way she talked with her eyes, the way her teeth flashed when she smiled, the way she leaned in when she was engaged. Everything about her was perfect. What I wouldn’t do to steal this man’s reality…

I watched other-me and Avery say their goodbyes and exit through the kitchen. Their car doors slammed shut and I realized that I was going to lose them. In my reality, I was living at home while I did my around-the-world trip. Where would I have lived if I was still married to Avery? We had always talked about returning to the Salt Lake area eventually. Maybe they did it.

As they rolled down the driveway in their 2019 Honda Accord (nice choice), I ran to the side of the house and found an old bike from my childhood rusted against the wall. Both tires were flat, and the front brakes didn’t work, but since my parents lived way up in the mountains, wherever other-me and Avery were going was downhill. 

Even though I went as fast as I could, they were long gone. Obviously. My twenty-five-year-old junkyard bike didn’t stand a chance. But I kept going, rolling past the church, the junior high, then through the Oak Hills neighborhood all the while wracking my brain: If Avery and I were still married, where would we have lived?

It wasn’t a fair question to ask myself. After all, we had known each other for a little over a year and had only been married three days when she died. In this other reality, other-me and Avery had been married ten years. That’s a lot of time to know someone. People change, opinions change, circumstances change. I can’t read other-me’s mind, so all I could do was hope for a miracle.

As I was about to turn the corner onto Orchard Drive, I saw a pair of taillights in a driveway off a side street—Fair Oaks Drive. Of course, I thought. Avery and I talked about renovating an old home on Fair Oaks one day. But man, that was one conversation when we were engaged. Impressive that they (we?) pulled it off.

My vision was blurry from biking almost a mile downhill in freezing temperature, but as I got closer to the house, I recognized the car to be theirs. I snuck around the back of the house where I had a view of the living room and kitchen. I smiled looking at the renovated—well, mostly renovated—home. Pictures of Avery and other-me lined the walls. There was even an old stand up piano in the corner. Just like the one Avery had always talked about. I found a little slice of heaven. This is everything my life would have been had I acted on that inner voice to pull Avery out of the water ten years ago. Instead, I’m a depressed bum living with my parents.

They made their way into the kitchen and took off their coats. Other-me started on the dishes and Avery sat on the couch, eyes glued to her phone. I figured they were exhausted. It was midnight after all.

After a minute, Avery stood up and walked down the hall. I ran to the other side of the house to try and get a view of her, but as I turned the corner, an outdoor security light came on and I ducked down in some bushes. Other-me put the dishes down and walked to the back window to inspect. Then I heard a crash from inside—where Avery was. Other-me **** around then stopped in his tracks.

*Go help her*, I thought. *You cowardly ****.*

I returned to my original post in time to see Avery stomping down the hallway and into the kitchen. She was red hot furious. She walked right up to other-me with a piece of paper in her hand. I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but she screamed something and threw the paper at his face. Other-me put his hands up as a weak defense. 

*What did you do to Avery this time?* 

As other-me tried to explain away whatever was on that paper, Avery grew more furious. She paced to the kitchen and barked something else then picked up a glass other-me had been in the middle of washing and threw it across the room, shattering on impact. Who the **** is this woman?

Other-me continued to speak calmly in defense, but there was no slowing Avery down. She grabbed a picture off the wall and threw it **** the ground, the wooden frame crunching. Other-me backed away slowly, moving to the other side of the kitchen island.

Then Avery pounced. 

She ran at him with unrestrained vengeance and shoved him hard against the kitchen cabinets. He held his hands out again, pleading for her to calm down. She grabbed a plate from the sink and swung it at him, but he moved out of the way and it shattered violently against the cabinets behind him. This only made her madder. She shoved him again, then clawed at his face. Other-me got tangled in his feet and stumbled against the fridge. She slapped him hard against the side of the head and he yelped in disbelief.

Again, he begged for her to stop, but she didn’t. She hit him three more times in the face while he slumped to the ground. After the third hit, one of his eyes was already swollen shut and blood was streaming down his face.

Avery walked to the other side of the kitchen island and I breathed an audible sigh of relief. 

Avery, the girl of my dreams. The girl that made all my friends jealous. The girl I had on a pedestal for the last decade. A monster.

I know that we tend to forget peoples’ negative attributes after they’ve passed, but there was not a violent bone in Avery’s body when I knew her. Not even an aggressive one. She was sweet, kind, loving. Not like this. Not at all.

*What happened to her?*

As I watched the other bruised and bloodied version of myself weep on the kitchen floor, my world crumbled. 

All this time I had hated myself for not listening to that voice, for not pulling her out of the pool and saving her life. If only I had done that, we could have gone on to create a beautiful life together—finish school, build careers, buy a house, get a dog. We’d do it laughing and playing the whole time, like two kids in love. I’d be complete forever. But with that one lapse in judgment, Avery died along with the entire vision for my perfect future.

But no.

That’s not how life would have been. *This* is how life would have been, with me crying on the kitchen floor with blood running down my face and shattered dishes all around me. 

Is it possible that *my* reality—the one I came from—was the better life? 

There was another crash and a scream from the bedroom. 

Avery round two.

She stomped back into the kitchen and other-me stumbled to his feet. Again, he tried to calmly plead, but again, she wasn’t having it. She yelled at him for another minute then threw a coffee mug at him, shattering against his shoulder. He backed away from her, moving to the backdoor close to where I was hiding. I ducked down further.

The door burst open and other-me went sprawling past me, tripping and falling into the snow.

Avery stopped in the doorway and scoffed. “You think you’re better off without me, don’t you? That’s what all this is about,” she said.

“Avery, please. Think about what you’re doing. Look what you’ve done to me just now. We cannot keep living like this. I cannot keep living like this. I’ve put up with it for far too long,” other-me said and stood up.

Avery began sobbing quietly, her arms folded tight.

Other-me took a step toward her. 

*Don’t get any closer to that thing,* I thought.

“You’re right. You’re so right,” Avery said, tears running down her cheeks. “****, I’m so horrible to you. You don’t deserve this. You deserve someone better. Far better. Someone who will love you no matter what. No matter—"

Other-me stayed composed while she cried.

“Will you ever forgive me?” she said.

There was a minute of silence. I tried to steady my breathing despite feeling like I was going to explode.

Other-me swallowed hard and widened his stance. “No. Avery, this is it. I’m doing this. It doesn’t mean we’re over; it just means—it just means I need some time. Away.” He turned his back to her and walked to the front of the house where the car was parked.

Avery huffed and slammed the back door, returning to the kitchen. I peered my head up and saw her going to the knives next to the stove.

I thought about intervening but didn’t know how. 

She carried a knife to the front door. I ran around the side of the house, past the security light to the front.

Other-me had just turned on the car and was starting to back out of the driveway when Avery appeared with the knife. 

“STOP!” she screamed at him, trying to block his path. 

Other-me continued backing out, his eyes growing wide when he saw the massive knife in her hand.

“STOP THIS **** CAR RIGHT NOW!” she screamed and tried stabbing one of his tires, but its rotation kicked the knife of her hand. She quickly picked it up off the driveway.

He pulled into the street and sped away, leaving Avery standing in the driveway in her pajama shorts with a giant knife dangling by her side. When the headlights were gone, she dropped the knife and began crying again.

My first instinct was to comfort her, an instinct that I quickly overruled. I only watched her in pure bewilderment. 

Never should have left **** Texas.

After a few minutes, she returned inside and I could hear her cleaning up the mess.

That’s when something dawned on me. I made a time capsule because I was about to do something big—something life-changing. For me, I was about to embark on an around-the-world trip. But why would other-me make a time capsule? Was he also planning something big?

Before I could follow that train any further, I realized that the paper that set Avery off a few minutes before was now sitting in the middle of the driveway. I stood up carefully, making sure I was out of sight and grabbed it. With my phone as a flashlight, I read the paper:

SLC to JFK - 12/28

JFK to AMS – 1/4

AMS to PVG – 1/12

PVG to LAX – 1/19

LAX to SLC – 1/23

I let the crumpled paper fall to the ground. He was planning the same trip I just came from. 

Which meant he was going to experience what I just experienced. Probably. 

If he makes it around the world and returns to Salt Lake, he would be stepping into a new reality. If anyone deserves a new reality, it’s that guy, so I didn’t try to stop him.

Lightning struck a tree nearby, knocking me to the ground, and killing the power to the rest of Fair Oaks. It began to rain.

I walked to Orchard Drive and followed it to Dee’s—the only 24-hour diner on this side of town. I’m writing this on a borrowed laptop in a booth that Avery and I had occupied many times when we were younger.

I don’t know what happened to the reality I came from—if I’m now missing or dead or what. I don’t know what will happen to other-me if and when he makes his trip around the world. I don’t know if there are other other-me’s planning around-the-world trips too—thereby disrupting who knows how many more realities. How many other realities are there, infinite? 

Frankly, I don’t even know what will happen to this post once I publish it. I assume it will be trapped in this reality forever, but who knows how this works. Just a few hours earlier I smugly thought I had figured out the answer to the embarrassingly juvenile question: *Is the world round?*

My cab just got here, so this is the end of the line for me. There are plenty of unanswered questions here, questions I hope I’ll eventually find answers to. All I know now is that I don’t like the reality I came from and I don’t like the reality I’m in now, so there’s only one way to go. See you in New York, [other-me.](https://www.derekwalker.me/about)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My mother has a special weekly routine but lately, she's been a little bit off
 
 Assistant: My mother had always been just a little peculiar. She liked doing things a specific way and always on one specific day. There was a routine she found herself in since I was just a child and no matter the situation, the weather, or her mood the routine would never vary.

On Mondays, she did the planning. She would spend early noon making a list, always on paper, about all the meals we would have that week. Then she would go through the cupboards and the fridge to see what we still had and added everything we needed to the list, in her perfect cursive handwriting.

On Tuesdays, she would go to the fish market just before sunrise, continue to visit the butcher around noon, and finally buy all the other items we needed from the big grocery store just at the outskirts of our suburban neighborhood.

On Wednesdays, she cleaned, or rather we cleaned. While mum liked things a specific way and would usually go over whatever I did after I was finished, she did always accept my help. I suppose it was more for building my character than for an actual need of help.

On Thursdays she did laundry. When the sun was shining she would hang the clothes on a line out in the garden and if it didn't she would use the dryer inside. Either way, Thursdays always smelled like lavender softener.

On Fridays, she baked. Muffins and cake and biscuits. With many spices and herbs, she would make her own creations. Those were the only days that smelled even better than Thursdays.

On Saturdays, she would go for a drink. When I was younger that's when the babysitter would come but now she could go without having to take care of that. Sometimes she would see her friends and come back in a giggly mood.

Sundays were what we called free days. It was the only day that was not assigned to one specific task.

"We work during the week so that the weekend can be enjoyed."

I heard that sentence more often than I could ever count. As I said, my mother had always been a little peculiar and as I grew older I realized she was also a little, if not a lot, compulsive. In all my years in life that I lived in that small suburban house with my mother, I never saw her deviate from that schedule.

Of course, I wasn't always there to observe but when I came home from school on Tuesdays, the fridge and cupboards would be fully stocked again, Thursdays would smell like lavender, and Fridays we always had fresh baked goods. Even on holiday, she would find ways to squeeze in whatever needed to be done on the specific days of the week.

My mother wasn't always entirely mentally stable which is something hard to witness as a child and especially to admit. You want your parents to always do well and tell yourself that they are fine even when they're not. However, in most ways, she luckily seemed to be in control of her compulsions.

And most of all she was always kind and loving. To both of us despite the occasional fight. Especially as I grew older and resented her slightly old-fashioned ways. Still, we were a happy family and in general, things were alright.

Until last week when my mother for the first time ever since I can remember seemed to be out of sync.

\--

It started on Monday when I woke up and found my mother in the living room watching something strange on TV. The sight of that was weird enough already because normally she would never turn on the television by herself before evening and now she was sitting there, wearing her flowery dress and high heels inside while watching something with complete focus in her eyes.

"Mum?" I muttered.

Her head slowly turned to the left. She looked up at me and looked at me precisely. No words came out of her mouth. When I looked over at the screen to see what she had been so mesmerized by I noticed the white noise. There was no channel on. I sat down next to her, tried to find the words to ask what was wrong but I couldn't. She was acting as if everything was perfectly normal until dad came down the stairs with his briefcase in hand.

"Good afternoon, honey. Are you ready for lunch?" She asked him. My father tilted his head, he could tell that something was wrong but he didn't mention it either. Instead, he only lifted his briefcase a little and said "I must go to work."

"But of course," my mother smiled.

I exchanged a concerned look with my father. He definitely knew that something was up and I wondered whether they had a fight last night. Was that why mum was acting strange? Before I could talk to him, however, he had disappeared. And mum jumped up only two seconds later.

"I need to go to the dry cleaners, you can make yourself something to eat, yes?"

\--

On Tuesday I didn't expect to see my mother when I got up. At this time she normally would be at the fish market to get the freshest catch. Instead, I found her by the kitchen table, nervously writing something down. My dad was sitting opposite her, having scrambled eggs and bacon.

"Are you making a shopping list?" I asked. It was the wrong day but at least she was acting a little more normal. Even though she was wearing the exact same dress as the day before.

My mother smiled and nodded.

"Yes, is there anything you need?"

"Eggs. And milk. We're out of cornflakes too."

She nodded.

"Good morning, kiddo," dad said. They were both sitting together, having breakfast and so I thought that things were back to normal again. He emptied his coffee and got up.

"Time for work!" He called out.

"Oh honey, could you get some groceries on your way back? Salt, fish, and vinegar please."

Again my father and I exchanged a look of confusion. Well, the one of mine was the one of confusion but his look seemed to be of distress. I nodded to silently tell him that I had things in control.

Dad nodded back and then proceeded to head for the door.

"Of course, honey."

\--

On Wednesday I found her in the garden, digging up dirt. The exact opposite of what we normally would be doing on that day. She was digging a hole, big and wide and I simply couldn't say what on earth she might need it for. Dad was gone before I had woken up so I couldn't talk to him but I promised myself I would do so tonight. Something was wrong with my mother. At first, I was worried but I started getting scared. Both for her and of her.

"Is something wrong?" My father asked that evening. It was difficult to find a moment alone, mum always seemed to be somehow around. I hated that I had to get away from her to voice my concerns but I was worried that she wasn't entirely stable.

"She didn't do anything she normally does. And did you see that hole outside? Dad," I paused for a moment ", I think she might really need help."

Dad tilted his head and looked through the window to the garden. I suppose he hadn't seen the hole out there earlier.

"I will not go to work tomorrow. Stay here with you. Is that alright?"

I sighed in relief. Together we might be able to figure out what was going on and maybe he could start a conversation with her.

"Yes, thanks, dad. I think that would be really helpful."

\--

Thursday I found mum in the garden again. Normally that wouldn't be so strange as I would usually find her there hanging up the sheets. However, this Thursday it was storming outside. It had been raining all morning and it didn't appear as if it would end anytime soon.

"What are you doing? It's pouring cats and dogs!" I shouted from the garden door. Dad who heard me shouting had appeared behind me and was holding my shoulder.

"Not cats and dogs, fish," mum turned around and laughed. And that is when we saw what she really was doing out there. She was hanging the chopped-off heads of the fish dad had bought on the clothesline.

"Mum?" I could only bring out a whisper. "Something is wrong. We need to help her."

Before I could move dad was already running outside and guiding my mother back to our living room.

\--

Thursday turned into Friday without a moment of sleep. At least for me. I couldn't close my eyes without heads of fish appearing in front of my mind. And the sight of my mother in that same **** dress and that plastered-on smile.

Tired and exhausted I stumbled down the stairs to find my parents both sitting in front of the television. I didn't even bother talking to them and went straight to the kitchen.

For the first time in years, there was no sweet smell coming from it. No, instead the stench of vinegar made its way to my nose. We hardly had any food in the house. I suppose mum had completely forgotten about it and dad didn't want to leave her in her current stage. He hardly left her side anymore.

Without talking to them I started with all the chores of the past days, wrote a shopping list, I cleaned and threw some clothes in the washing machine. This might sound as if I only wanted my mother to get back to doing the household but I swear it had nothing to do with that. I simply was worried because she wasn't herself anymore.

The following morning all the items that I wrote on the list were sitting in paper bags on the kitchen counter. I assume that dad had gotten out to buy them.

On Saturday she did the most terrifying thing so far. A sight I will not be able to delete from my mind anytime soon. It started only in the evening. The entire day both my parents were acting normal. Mum even cooked and we sat around the table, talking and laughing. She did most of the talking and I could have sworn she was entirely herself again.

Or she had learned to adapt. At least in some ways. When night came, however, everything turned entirely messed up.

I woke up from the sound of a loud clatter and immediately jumped out of bed. I had been a nervous wreck lately and it didn't take much to startle me. The sound was coming from downstairs and my initial thought was that someone had broken in but then I heard my mother humming something from downstairs.

"Mum?" I called out.

"Go to bed, child!" She shouted back but I was already making my way to the stairs.

She had painted the walls with strange anagrams using red paint. Still wearing the same dress she looked up and smiled but this time it appeared far less sincere. I believe I even saw a twitch in her eye. Dad was sitting on a chair next to her.

"Mum. We need to get you help. I will call the hospital, okay?"

"No, no. I will help," dad said and took the paint can from her hand.

A tear rolled down her cheek but the smile never disappeared.

"Why, thank you, honey."

"Families help each other," dad smiled back.

"Yes, well I should go and buy more paint. The child will help me," mum said.

Dad glanced at me.

"What the ****? It's the middle of the night. Look mum I'm really sorry but-,"

She held my mouth shut with her hand before I could say another word.

"We have to buy paint. Any normal mother and her child do just that. It is of utter importance for a decent home."

Dad looked around at the red paint on the wall and on my mother's face and finally said the last thing I expected.

"That sounds perfectly reasonable. See you soon, honey."

I had no idea what to do. It seemed that both my parents had lost their minds but I couldn't possibly let my mother leave on her own, or let her drive a car in that state. So I went outside with her and sat behind the steering wheel with the intention to drive her to a hospital. However, as soon as I started driving I couldn't for the life of me remember what direction I had to go.

"Just keep going straight. Follow the street," my mother finally said. Her smile had disappeared and her leg was shaking.

"Just keep going, honey."

I had no idea what to say and so I kept going straight until we had left the neighborhood and the surrounding area as well. We found ourselves on the freeway when I couldn't hold it in anymore. I found the nearest exit and stopped.

My mother was trembling and in the dark light with the splatters of red paint on her face, I finally realized that I might have made a huge mistake.

"Mum?" I hardly brought out the word.

She opened her mouth but no words came out at first. She swallowed and then finally spoke.

"I am so sorry, my love. I didn't want to believe it. It made no sense."

"What are you talking about?"

She looked at me as if I was the one losing my mind.

"That thing in there. That. That was not your father. Didn't you notice? At first, I thought I would only act slightly different to see if *he* would notice that something was off but it only copied whatever we were doing or saying," she took a deep breath. "I woke up a few times at night. It never sleeps. It sits in the bed with its eyes open waiting for us to wake up. I- I am so sorry. I just couldn't believe it at first. I thought maybe something was wrong with your father. We should have left or called for help but-," she stayed silent for a moment.

“-my memories were blurry and I had to make sure first. Make sure that it was him and not me.”

My palms wouldn’t stop sweating and my head started racing like crazy. This whole week I had been so focused on my mother I didn't notice that dad only agreed to the things I was saying. He didn't do anything. And suddenly it felt as if something shattered in my mind. My mother had always been a little peculiar. Especially after my father passed away.

"Mum. That wasn't our home was it?" I gulped. "How did we end up there?"

She looked at me, a reflection of my own fear and confusion.

"I have absolutely no idea. It must have somehow lured us in there [and made us forget."](https://www.reddit.com/r/Likeeyedid/)

&#x200B;

[tcc](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My family is cursed. A clown shows up at everyone's tenth birthday, but no one ever hires one.
 
 Assistant: My earliest memory of the clown is from my cousin Jake’s tenth birthday party. I was only five, but I distinctly remember the commotion surrounding the clown. I remember my parents preparing me before we left the house, and on the drive there. 

“There’s going to be a clown at Jake's party.” My dad said. 

“Just be nice, all you have to do is be nice.” My mom added. 

I didn’t understand why they were so worried, why my mom kept wiping her hands on her dress the entire drive to Jake’s house, or why my dad kept taking deep breaths. Weren’t clowns *supposed* to be at birthday parties?

When we got to Jake’s house, there was something going on. The kids were running around the backyard and jumping in the bouncy castle, but the adults were standing around in silence, their eyes darting back and forth across the yard while some of my aunts and uncles walked in and out of the house periodically. It was like they were all waiting for something to happen. 

As I jumped in the bouncy castle along with the rest of my cousins, I noticed a movement in the bushes near the gate that led into the backyard. 

I continued to bounce, trying to get higher each time in order to get a better look at whatever was there. 

Finally, I saw the clown appear from behind the bushes and watched as he unlatched the gate. I stopped bouncing and tried to maintain my balance as I watched the clown step into the yard and close the gate behind himself. 

I pushed my fingers through the mesh in the bouncy castle and pressed my face against it, staring at the clown as he scanned the backyard until his eyes landed on me. He stared at me for a few seconds and I stared back, not really knowing what to do. Nobody else seemed to have noticed him yet, and my cousins continued bouncing around behind me. 

He was short, and he wore a curly, rainbow-colored wig. His face was white, and it seemed like his skin was naturally that pale; it didn’t look like paint at all. His lips were normal size, but bright red, and he had a giant, round red nose. His eyes were dark; so dark that I couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris. He had two black lines that started above his black eyebrows and ran down his eyelids to the tops of his cheeks, which appeared to be inflated with something. They were round and protruding, with a pink blush on them. His skin was smooth, like porcelain. 

He wore yellow polka dot pants that were held up by red suspenders, and a white shirt with giant red buttons down the front, and red ruffles around the neck, chest, and sleeves. He wore shiny red clown shoes, and he carried a gift bag in one hand. 

I don’t know how long I stood there watching him, but suddenly, I was being pulled out of the bouncy house by my mom. She dragged me to a table and sat me down in a chair in between herself and my dad. 

I continued to watch the clown as he approached my cousin Lisa and pulled out a pink balloon from a pocket in his pants. He blew up the balloon and then twisted it into a dog, handing it to her. She took the balloon dog from the clown and ran to her mom, my aunt Chelsea, who grabbed Lisa roughly and dragged her away from the clown. 

There was an impalpable amount of tension for the remainder of Jake’s birthday party. Our parents wouldn’t let us stray too far away, and the clown stayed the entire time, wandering around the yard and handing out balloon animals or honking his nose for the children. 

When it came time to open presents, we watched as Jake unwrapped countless video games and action figures, along with a few clothing items. Once he finished opening the last gift from a family member, the clown walked up to Jake and handed him the gift bag he had been carrying around for the entire party. 

I watched as Jake's mom tried to stop the clown from handing Jake the gift, while my uncle held her back. 

We all watched as Jake thanked the clown and opened the git bag, taking out handfuls of tissue paper until he reached in and pulled out the gift. 

“It’s a book,” Jake said.

I saw his mom sigh in relief, and Jake turned the book over in his hands, looking at it. It was a small, hardcover book with a glossy dust jacket that had a drawing of a beach on it. 

Jake thanked the clown, and it walked away from him, through the gate, and away from the house. 

Once he was gone, Jake’s dad snatched the book from him. I asked him about it later, but he told me his parents had thrown it out. 

I saw the clown a few times after that. At every cousin's tenth birthday party, he would show up in the same outfit every time, and give them a hardcover picture book that their parents would get rid of. 

When I was ten, the same thing happened, and although I begged my parents to let me see the book, they declined. The night of my birthday party, I snuck out of my room and saw my dad go up into the attic with my book. I tried to find it a few times after that day, but he had hidden it well, and it was nowhere to be seen.

I once asked my parents why any of us even had birthday parties, if they were so afraid of the clown, but they told me that the clown would show up anyway; he always knew. 

I didn’t see the clown for a couple of years. 

All of my cousins had passed the age of ten, and none of them were old enough to have their own children yet.

When I turned twenty, my parents died in a car accident and I inherited their house. By that time, I had forgotten all about the clown and the book and didn’t care to read it or figure out why they had taken it away. 

And then about twelve years later, my daughter Wendy had her tenth birthday party. 

My wife knew about the clown, and we had already seen it appear once before at Jake’s twins’ birthday party. We had prepared Wendy and had given her the same warnings my parents had given me: be nice to the clown. 

About thirty minutes into the party, the clown jumped over the backyard fence and wandered over to the table where Wendy and her cousins were getting makeovers. I stopped myself from running over and stopping him. 

He looked exactly as I had remembered him. Not a single thing had changed, not even his outfit. I watched as he caught my niece Alice’s eye, and pulled out a blue balloon from his pocket. He blew the balloon up and then pulled out another blue one and then used them both to form a hat, which he gently placed on her head. 

I watched as she thanked him and he clapped his hands together and then continued to walk around my backyard. 

Nobody ever tried to stop him, because we had always been warned not to. We were never specifically told what would happen if we tried, but we knew it was bad, and none of us wanted to find out what it would be. 

When it was time to open presents, I continued to eye the gift bag in the clown's hand. Once Wendy was done with opening the gifts given to her by family members, the clown approached her and handed her the bag. 

She took it gently and slowly opened it, digging around the tissue paper until she pulled out the book. 

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at the clown. 

He took a bow and then walked away, jumping back over the fence. 

I let out a sigh of relief once he was gone, and I approached Wendy, taking the book from her. 

She didn’t seem to mind that it was being taken, she seemed glad.

I decided to hide it up in the attic, just as my parents had done with mine, but as I stared at it in my hands, curiosity was beginning to set it. 

It was the same as all the other books I had seen; hardcover with a glossy dust jacket that contained a drawing on the front but no title. 

This one had a drawing of a girl that resembled Wendy, standing in front of a birthday cake and about to blow out the candles. She had the same curly brown hair and green eyes as Wendy. 

I opened the book, and noticed an inscription on the inside of the cover that said “*Happy 10th Wendy!”*  

The first page was blank, but the next page was where the story started. 

There was a drawing of the girl on the cover, wearing a party hat and holding a pile of gifts. Under that, it read: *Today is Wendy’s tenth! How happy is she? She got every gift she wants; even things she doesn’t need.* 

I turned the page as I continued to read the story that depicted various drawings of a girl that resembled my daughter, as she did various birthday party activities. 

*Wendy laughs along with friends, and all her guests are filled with glee. Wendy tries to sneak a peek at every gift that she receives.* 

There were drawings of Wendy with family and friends, everyone smiling and hugging Wendy. 

*And then, from beyond the backyard fence, comes the best guest of them all. A funny funny clown, here to have a ball!*

On that page, was a drawing of the clown as it jumped over the fence, grinning. 

*This clown loves to party! And it loves tenth birthdays too. He will never miss a chance to show up where he’s due.*

The next drawing was of the clown in the center of the page, surrounded by black. 

*But this birthday is a bit different. Something big is going to happen. The clown is so excited; this doesn’t happen often.* 

I turned the page to see a drawing of the clown, running around the party chasing the guests who appeared to be frightened. They’d been drawn with their mouths open and wide-eyed as they ran away from the clown. 

*The clown runs around the yard and pulls something from his pocket. Not a balloon, not a magic handkerchief, but something big and sharp and shiny.* 

The next page had a drawing of a gleaming butcher knife, dripping with blood. 

*A lot of guests must die, but don’t worry, Wendy will be fine!*

The next four pages contained various drawings of the clown slaughtering people at the birthday party. Some had their necks sliced open, some were stabbed, and some lost body parts. 

*The clown has had his fun, his job here has been done. Happy tenth birthday to Wendy! He will see you at the next one!*

The last drawing was of the clown jumping back over the fence, leaving a pile of dead bodies behind him. 

I shut the book as a chill ran down my spine. I realized why our parents never showed us the books, especially if they were all this creepy, and I wondered why the clown would even give us these books. 

I decided to do as my parents had done and get rid of the book at the end of the party.

As I tossed the book on top of the fridge, I heard the first scream. 

I ran to the door and threw it open just in time to see everyone running away from the clown. 

He was back, and he stood right by the fence with a butcher knife in his hands. On the ground next to him was my cousin Paola’s child, Trevor, face down in the grass. 

I scanned the backyard, looking for Wendy but she was nowhere to be seen. 

All the guests ran across the yard, trying to get as far away from the clown as possible. I watched as Jake tossed his children over the fence and into the neighbor's yard, followed by his husband and then himself. 

I looked for my wife, and I spotted her running towards me and into the house. 

“Where’s Wendy?” I asked her, grabbing her arm. 

“She jumped the fence a while ago, she’s fine. We need to hide.”

She dragged me inside with her as the screams continued. A few more family members made it inside and we hid in the kitchen and the living room. 

After a while, the screams died out and I slowly got up, opening the door and peering out into the backyard.

“He’s gone,” I said as I threw open the door and walked outside. 

There were a total of ten dead people. And a few minutes after the cops arrived, so did Jake, his family, and Wendy. 

I ran to her as I saw her coming up the driveway, picking her up into my arms. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said. 

I kept her by my side for the rest of the night as we answered questions. I didn't tell the police that I knew the clown, as they would never believe my story about the curse. Instead, we all told them that we had no idea who the clown was and that we hadn’t hired anyone. 

Hours later, everyone was finally gone. Wendy had gone to bed, and I went downstairs and helped my wife clean up some of the mess. Once we were done, I grabbed the book from on top of the fridge and handed it to her. 

“What’s this?” She asked. 

“It’s what he gave her, Rose,” I said as she opened it. “Read it.”

I waited for her to finish reading the book. Once she was done, she tossed it onto the counter. 

“What the ****?” She hissed. “Did he plan all that? Is this supposed to be some **** joke?” 

I shrugged. 

“Did this happen to everyone else?” She asked. 

“I don’t know. Our parents never let us see the books,” I replied. 

“This is so **** up, David.”

We stood in silence as Rose grabbed the book again, giving it a disgusted look. 

“I’m gonna go look for something,” I said suddenly. 

I made my way to the attic entrance in the hall and pulled down the ladder. I slowly made my way up, each step creaking as I stood on it. When I reached the top. I flipped the switch and the lights turned on, illuminating the attic enough for me to see. 

I dug through countless boxes and moved old decor and furniture around until I found it; the book that had been given to me on my tenth birthday. It had been hidden under the cushion of an old chair. 

I pulled it out and looked at the drawing of a house, with a single light on in one of the windows. 

I opened the book and found a similar engraving on the inside cover that read “*Happy 10th David!*” 

I turned the pages and began to read the story, ignoring the pictures. 

*Today is David’s tenth birthday, what a good one it will be!* 

*David eats pizza, his favorite topping is cheese. He has a water balloon fight with cousin Eric, and they take cover in the trees.* 

*Everything is fun, and soon it will be great! Here comes the clown, he is never ever late.* 

*David’s birthday was a blast, and his gifts were all so fun! But don’t be sad that it’s over; the fun has just begun!*

*Years go by, and the clown sees Dave again! It’s now his daughter’s tenth birthday, and today the fun will end.* 

*A lot of guests had fun, and for others this day was their last. But David’s family is alive, thank the clown for that.* 

*And now it’s time for bed, time to get some sleep. Don’t forget to check on Wendy! She hasn’t made a peep.* 

The final drawing in the book showed an empty bed in a dark room, with a window that was wide open. I stared at it for a second before it hit me. I tossed the book aside as I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. 

“Wendy!” I shouted. 

“What’s going on?” Rose called. 

I didn’t reply as I hurried down the ladder and ran down the hall into Wendy’s bedroom, throwing the door open. I flipped the light on and looked around the room but I was too late.

She was gone. Her bed was empty, and her window was wide open.

[OD](https://www.reddit.com/r/Odd_directions/comments/otn8sb/who_are_the_featured_writers_and_how_do_i_find/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Part 5!)
 
 Assistant: Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iocju/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3jadum/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

I apologize for the short update, guys. Things have gotten a little crazy around here, and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update going forward. I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me, and while I only have a couple of stories to share with you, I'll be interested to see what you all think!

* A firefighter who was helping us at the training op told me about a call he'd gone on, supposedly to help rescue a kid from an absolutely massive tree. He said they didn't give him details, just that they needed him to come out and help because they lacked the proper equipment. He'd been called out specifically because this thing was so huge that the SARs didn't feel safe trying to climb it. He'd been a tree-trimmer before joining the VFD, so it was easy enough for him to grab his old equipment and come help out. 
He was led out about two miles, and the team stopped at one of the biggest trees in the area and pointed up. He laughed and asked the op captain how the kid had gotten up there, made some joke about the old 'cat in a tree' thing, but the captain just shook his head and told him to get up there and get the kid down. He said he knew something was up, but he didn't push it. He said that as he climbed this tree, he started wondering if they were playing a prank on him. 
     'There was no way this kid should have been able to climb this fuckin' thing. It was massive at the base, but about halfway up it started tapering, and I almost had to turn back a few times because I really didn't think it was gonna hold me.' But he said he kept going, and when he was just about at the top, he saw a flash of blue in the branches.
'I saw the kid's shirt sort of caught in a branch, and I called out to him and told him to come near me if he could, but he didn't say anything. I kept moving, calling the kid's name and telling him not to be scared, that I was there to help him. By the time I got to him, I knew he wasn't gonna answer me. I found him, or what was left of him, cradled in the fork of a branch, and the fact that he was up there was sheer luck. If he'd fallen any other way, he'd have come crashing down. It wouldn't have mattered though, because this kid was dead long before he ended up in that tree. I don't know who put him there, or how, or why, but it was **** sick. Kid's intestines had popped out of his mouth, and were hanging in the branches. It was like some sick **** Christmas tree, the way they were draped all over everything. I got a better look and saw they'd even popped out of his ****; his guts were hanging out the bottom of his pants. His eyes were gone, I assume shoved out from whatever force caused him to **** pop like a stress ball. You ever seen a body that's been floating in water for a long time, how their tongues kind of swell up and stick out? His was like that. I remember because there were flies crawling all over it. I think I must have gone into shock, because... man I just pushed that kid down with a stick I broke off a branch. Just kind of poked him until he fell. I don't know why I did that... I almost lost my job because of that. But man the thought of hauling that kid down over my shoulder the whole way, gathering his guts up and coiling them around me like rope so they wouldn't get snagged... I couldn't do it. I've seen a lot of dead kids. More than I'd ever admit. I've seen a kid who hid in a full bathtub during a house fire; boiled him alive, turned him into literal soup. But this... I don't know what did this, but the thought of touching that kid's body made me feel like I was gonna lose my mind. I heard him hit the ground and I figured everyone would freak out, but they knew he was dead when they sent me up there. They didn't say anything, but they didn't shout or freak out or anything. I got to the bottom and I started to get up in the captain's face, asking him who he thought he was sending me up there when they knew **** well the kid was dead. But he just told me it was none of my concern, and thanked me for getting the evidence down. I remember he said that, I remember it specifically because it was so weird to hear it phrased that way. 'The evidence'. Like he wasn't even a person. Like he'd never been a little kid who got lost and had something **** unspeakable happen to him. The captain had a crew lead me back out of the woods, but he and two others stayed behind, and I thought that was weird. Why wouldn't they have me help get the kid out? I tried asking but the guys leading me out just told me they couldn't discuss an open case.'
I asked him what he thought had happened to the kid, and he got really pensive and thought about it for a bit.
'I would have said a crush injury, based on how his guts came out like that, but with those injuries you see massive contusions under the skin, obvious trauma. This wasn't like that. It was almost like that kid got caught in a big vacuum and had his guts **** out. But even then, there was no trauma. None at all. It bothers me, man. It bothers the **** out of me.'

* One of the vets at the training op reads NoSleep, and he recognized my stories. He knows me pretty well, and we've swapped stories before. He asked if he could share something he's noticed about the stairs, and some thoughts he had. 
'I'm really glad you decided to share these. I think it's important that people be aware of what's out there, especially since the Forest Service is doing such a good job at covering it all up.'
I asked him what he meant.
'What do you mean, what do I mean? The lack of any kind of media attention? No coverage of missing kids, or bodies found miles from where they got lost in the first place? David Paulides hit this right on the head, the FS is doing everything they can to keep people coming here, even if it isn't safe. I mean, to be fair, it's not like these things happen every day. But the numbers add up, and it's worth looking into. Especially the stairs. I was surprised you didn't mention the flipped ones.'
I didn't know what he was talking about, I couldn't remember him ever talking about something like that. He seemed somewhat incredulous.
'Dude, I can't believe you've been on this long without seeing them. No one told you about them?'
I shrugged and asked him to elaborate.
'Well there's the normal stairs, the ones that pop up when we're out a ways. I know you know about them. But sometimes I've run across ones that are flipped upside down. I guess it would be like if you had a doll house, and the stairs were a separate piece. Now take that, flip it upside down so the top step is stuck in the dirt, and put it out in the woods. They're like that. I don't see them as often but they're odd, to say the least. Makes me think of footage taken after a tornado, when houses are all blown apart and random things are left standing, like chimneys and garden walls. Those ones freak me out more that the normal ones because I can't really write those off as easily.'
I don't scare very easily, like most of us who work out here, but that idea stuck with me, and it bothers me. I'm going to try and find more out about them.
He also mentioned how many people were bothered by the guy with no face. He got really excited and told me he'd seen something similar. 
'I was out on a training exercise a few years ago. I was camped out in my tent and I heard someone walking around outside of camp. We're told not to wander far, which you know, so I wondered if maybe it was a rookie who'd gotten up to **** and couldn't find his way back. Remember that guy in our group a few years back who almost fell of the **** mountain? Well I'm paranoid about that happening again, so I got up to see what was going on. I went to the edge of camp and I called to whoever it was and told them that camp was this way. But they kept going back out into the woods, so I went after them. I know it was **** but I was half-asleep and I just really didn't want to deal with some idiot getting hurt. I followed this thing on a dead-straight course for about a mile, and then it stopped on the edge of a little river. I could see the outline of it because the water was reflecting the moon, and it looked just like an ordinary guy. He had a pack on, and it looked like he was facing me. I asked if he was okay, if he needed help, and he cocked his head like he didn't understand me. I always have my pocket knife on me, and it's got a little thumblight attached to it, so I turned that on and lit up his chest, so I wouldn't blind him. He was breathing slow and deep, so I wondered if he was sleepwalking. I went closer and asked him again if he was okay. I moved the light up, and something didn't seem right, so I stopped. He kept breathing in this real slow, deep breaths, and I sort of figured out gradually that that's what was bothering me. It was like he was pretending to breathe, but not actually doing it. His breaths were too even and deep, and all his movements were exaggerated, like his shoulders going up and his chest moving. I told him to identify himself, and he made this muffled noise. I moved the light up and I **** you not, this guy had no face. Just smooth skin. I freaked out, and I sort of fumbled my light, but I saw him move toward me but he didn't actually move. I don't know how to explain it, but one second he was at the edge of the river and the next he was five feet from me. I never looked away or blinked, it was like he moved so fast my brain couldn't keep up. I tripped and fell on my **** and I could see this line open up on his throat. It stretched up to his ears, and his head tilted back and he smiled at me with his throat. There wasn't any blood, just this gaping dark hole, and I swear he smiled at me with this gash in his throat. I got up and I ran as fast as I could back to camp. I couldn't hear him following me, but I felt like he was always right behind me, even though when I looked back I couldn't see him. 
I calmed down when I got back to camp; the fire was still going and I guess that pack mentality of being with other people made me stop and breathe a little. I waited by the fire to see if he'd follow me there, but I didn't hear anything else for a few hours, so I went back to bed. I know it sounds weird, but the whole thing was just so surreal that it was almost like I immediately wrote it off as my imagination.'

* We were telling ghost stories one night before bed just to scare each other and poke fun at whoever got creeped out. Most of the time it's the rookies, but one woman told a story that actually managed to get under my skin a little bit, and I know the same was true for others. She said it was true, but then again, every ghost story told around a campfire is true. Somehow, though, I don't think she was making it up. It had that ring of truth that only really traumatizing events have. 
She said that when she was a kid, she and her friend used to go out in the woods behind her house a lot. She lived in northern Maine, where there's a lot of dense, unpopulated national forest. She said the woods up there aren't like they are here. They're so thick in places that the trees block out the sun almost completely. She and her friend grew up there, so they weren't scared of being out there alone, but they did always maintain a sense of caution in certain areas. She said it was never really talked about, but they always knew not to go more than a mile or two beyond their homes. The adults never said why, but it was an unspoken rule that no one ventured out that far. She and her friend made up stories about bears as big as houses that lived out there, and they used to scare each other by hiding and making growling noises while the other searched for them. 
She said one summer, there was a series of awful storms that blew down a lot of trees, and set one part of the forest a few miles behind her house on fire. Fire crews got it under control, but she said some of them came back 'not quite the same.'
'It was like they'd been to war. You could tell who'd really gotten scared because they had the same look on their faces, I think it's called shell-shock. My friend and I said they were like walking dead people. They didn't smile or say anything if you went up to them, and most of them left town as soon as everything was over. I asked my parents about it, but they said they didn't know what I was talking about. Once everyone was told the woods were safe again, my friend and I decided to try and hike out to where the fire had been. We didn't tell out parents where we were going, and it was pretty exciting to think that we were disobeying them like that.
We hiked out about two miles or so, and we started seeing burnt trees and stuff. I remember my friend got really upset because we found the skeleton of a deer curled up under a tree, and I practically had to drag her away. She wanted to bury it, but I didn't want her touching it because its antlers were weird. I can't remember why, I just remember thinking that there was something wrong with them and I didn't want either of us going near it. 
The farther we went, the more burnt everything got. Eventually, there were no standing trees, and it was like being on another planet. Almost nothing green, just brown and black everywhere. We were standing there looking at it all, and we both heard someone shouting in the distance. I panicked because I thought it was my dad, and that he was going to tell me I was grounded. My friend broke off and went to hide behind a big rock, because she said she didn't want to be caught out here. Her parents had forbidden her to come out in the woods at all, and she'd lied and told them we were going to a movie. I followed her, and we kept listening. I could hear this voice getting closer, and I realized they were calling for help. I thought maybe it was some hiker who'd gotten lost and needed directions back to town. That used to happen all the time, so I was used to helping people out. I heard him following my voice, so I kept calling out until I saw him running in the distance. He got closer and I could see that his face was all red. I told my friend to give me her pack, because she had a first aid kit. She made this noise like she was grossed out, and she asked if I saw his face. I told her to shut up, and I jogged up to meet him. I stopped about halfway and when he stopped in front of me I could see that his nose and lips and part of his forehead were all gone. It was like they'd been sliced clean off. He was bleeding bad, and I saw that the knees of his pants were red too. I took a step back but I was too scared to move much, and he grabbed my shoulders. It felt like I got a shock, and he **** back. He started babbling, and I couldn't tell what he was saying, except that he kept asking how long he'd been gone. He asked me where 'his unit' was, but I just shook my head. He looked me over and he saw my Walkman and he screamed. He just kept babbling and touching his face, and I realized he wasn't wearing the right clothing. He had some kind of weird grey cloth jacket and almost formal pants on, and the jacket had these weird buttons and red borders on it. I kept shaking my head and I told him I couldn't understand what he was saying. I went to open the first aid kit but he just screamed again and said the only thing I could really understand:
'Don't touch me! You'll make me go back there!'
After that, he ran off, and I could hear him screaming the whole time. When I couldn't hear him anymore, I turned around, and my friend was crying. I just turned around and started walking back toward town. She asked me over and over what had happened and who that was, but I didn't say anything. When we got home, I told her I didn't want to play in the woods with her anymore.
We're still friends, but we don't talk about that guy. Not ever.'

I'll update as soon as I'm able, guys. I appreciate the continued support!

**EDIT: Part 6 is up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ppq81/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There’s a Man In the Baby’s Room
 
 Assistant: It’s odd that I was dreaming about my daughter the moment before I opened my eyes and saw her peering at me beside my night stand. In the inky darkness of my bedroom I could just make out her six year old outline: her hands threaded together at her waist, fulfilling her dubious mien when disturbing someone of authority, chubby cheeks that always pulled her lips into a smirk, that curly blonde hair she got from her mother who was delicately snoring beside me. I was groggy and no sunlight had penetrated the windows yet so I knew it was the middle of the night. 


“Lucy?”


“Daddy, there’s a man in the baby’s room.”


Such sinister words from the sweetest voice. 


In a flash, I ripped the covers from my body, waking my wife in the process, then raced down the hallway, past the pictures hung on the wall, and into the bedroom on the end. With a simple flick of a switch, I was exposed to my two-month-old son’s room: the mint colored walls, the boxes of gifted diapers from the baby shower, a basket of plush animals, a tub of pacifiers and wipes. But behind the crib where my son, Noah, was sleeping was something appalling.


An intruder crawling through the window.


The intruder craned his neck when the light blasted on and alerted him of my presence. It was then when I noticed the knife. The man was large, with greasy long hair and an unkempt beard. He smelled of body odor and that sour, putrid smell of vaporized drugs. I leapt into action before he could achieve a sturdy footing or leverage the knife to his advantage. I skirted the crib where my son still slept and removed a heavy bookend from the bookcase, then, as unsupported baby books tumbled off the shelf, I bludgeoned the intruder in the arms as he flailed and teetered on the window sill. After the intruder took several missed swipes with the knife, my aim became focused on his head. After my weapon made contact with his skull a few times he withdrew into the backyard, lumbering awkwardly around our flower bed before hobbling over our fence and disappearing into the dark street. 


I picked up Noah, who thankfully, was still sleeping and oblivious, and held him firmly against my chest.


“What’s going on? Why is the window open?” I heard my wife ask behind me as she came into Noah’s room.


“Call 911, now. We just had an intruder.”


“What?” She laughed.


“Now,” I demanded, loud enough to vocally project my fear but unintentionally lifted Noah from slumber.


She phoned the police as I flipped on every light switch in the house, especially the exterior ones, and cruised through the rooms with Noah on my hip, doing my best to calm him. It took two laps through the living room but eventually he was calm enough for my wife and I to talk after her phone call.


“Will you tell me what happened?” She asked.


“Yeah. Sorry I yelled earlier. I was just emotional, ya know?”


“It’s okay. What happened?”


“Somebody was trying to break into the house through Noah’s room. I forgot to lock the window after we painted his room. Remember, we opened it for ventilation? I’m so sorry honey. Something could of-”


“Stop it,” my wife demanded. “Noah’s okay. You’re okay. I’m okay. Everyone is fine.”


“You’re right.”


“Police are on their way. They’ll find the guy.”


“He won’t be hard to pick out of a lineup. Some drug-addled thief looking for a score.”


“What made you wake up? Was Noah crying?”


I paused for a moment to consider an answer then looked at my curious-eyed son. “Yeah, Noah’s crying woke me.”


“I feel terrible. I slept right through his crying fit.”


“Don’t worry. Everything turned out for the best. How about some coffee, hun?”


She went to the kitchen and I heard the coffee **** being washed. I took Noah to the hallway and propped his body up on my side so he was eye level with the photographs that lined the hallway. I showed my son a picture of a six year old girl with blonde curls that flanked a grin between chubby cheeks.


“That’s Lucy, Noah. She’s your big sister.”


Noah, with tiny, stumpy fingers, reached out and planted a palm on the frame.


“I always knew she would be a great sister. She died before you were born, Noah, and your mother and I miss her everyday. But it’s good to know she’s still looking out for her little brother. ”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Catfish a Different Girl Each Night
 
 Assistant: "You **** creep!" she screamed.

I just sat there, staring at the glass of water in front of me. I was used to this type of thing by now. Things always ended up like this anyway.

"Ugh, you know how freaking long it will take me to get back home?"

Yes.

"Not even gonna say anything? You play it all nice and smooth with that fake picture of yours, saying you're going to meet up with me here and now you don't even have the balls to speak up? You pathetic loser!"

She even grinned for a moment as she threw the insult at me.

Another customer of the small dinner got up. He was an older man. His attire screamed blue-collar.

"Now, now, young lady, what's going on here?"

"That freak over there pretended to be someone else! He called me all the way out here on a date and, ****! How'd I be so ****?"

His eyes wandered from her to me. They weren't compassionate anymore, no, now they showed nothing but contempt.

"Well young man, you've got some explaining to do!"

I still stared at the glass of water. My throat felt like it was clenched shut.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" he yelled at me.

By now, the whole place stared at the awkward scene with me right in the center.

"I didn't," I started but broke up.

"Too embarrassed to even speak, eh?"

Once more, I couldn't find the words.

"Yes, sorry mom, it's gonna be at least another hour. No, I'm fine, just some ****. No, I didn't see Anna today. What? No, it's alright, I'll just take the train. Yes, I'm on my way."

I listened to each of her words and smiled. At least an hour, good, I thought.

"Now what are you smiling about, boy?"

The blue-collar man still didn't let off. Finally, I pushed myself past him, and awkwardly made my way to the door.

"What was that all about?" I heard a young woman whisper to her friend.

"Guess he catfished her or something?"

"Ewww, that's so creepy!"

I didn't listen to their words. They didn't know a damned thing!

'Why did you hurt mommy?'

'What? The **** are you talking about pipsqueak?'

'I saw it, you hit her, and she was crying.'

'How the **** would you see something like that?'

I didn't even see his slap coming. He stared down at me, his eyes furious.

'Linda, did you tell the boy?'

'N-no, of course not, why'd I ever-'

'Ugh, shut up, ****!'

I still lay on the floor, my face hot with pain. I listened as dad got up and made his way to the kitchen.

I **** away in my seat. The old lady opposite me looked over before she mumbled something to herself.

Why'd I remembered something like that now, dammit? Now where am I, I wondered? As I stared outside and read the name of the station, I sighed. It would still be another half hour before I'd be home. I checked the time on my phone again and saw that it was already eleven in the evening. ****, and I got an early shift tomorrow.

Work was hard that day. I'd barely gotten five hours of sleep, and it was the busiest time of the year. I slumped through the warehouse, sorting shelves and repackaging products with my eyes only half-open.

"Hey, yeah you! There's some trash over here with your name on it!" one of my older coworkers called out to me.

Laughter from a few of my other colleagues erupted.

I sighed, and without making eye contact, I stumbled to where he was pointing. It really **** to be the new guy on the job. As I was busy cleaning up the mess that he'd most likely caused by him, I heard them talk behind my back.

"The hell's wrong with him? Does he ever say a word?" one of them asked in a hushed voice.

"Dunno, think he's mentally challenged or something," another voice chimed in.

"Just leave the boy be," a third one added.

"Why are you so concerned about him?"

"Just don't want him to snap and shot the place up."

"Hah, as if that pussy'd be ever able to pull something like that!"

Laughter erupted again. You know, I can hear every single word you're saying, I thought. ****, who am I kidding, I bet they knew, too.

After six more hours, my shift finally ended. The bus ride from work took me about half an hour. Day after day, I spent it glued to the screen of my phone.

I opened up the first of the many dating apps I'd installed. I swiped through the countless girls one by one, staring at their pictures. Long hair, short hair, happy smile, confident smile, group of girls, on and on it went.

It took me about five minutes to find one. She was pretty, long blond hair and had a shy, somewhat playful smile.

In a moment I opened the chat window and threw her one of the many one-liners I knew by heart now.

I was already home when she finally replied. The new picture I'd chosen worked wonders. For half an hour, we were joined in mindless chit-chat before I finally asked her if she had plans for the evening.

She was a bit reluctant to answer. It was always the same. I sent her a few more of my rehearsed lines, boosting her confidence, soft-soaping her and pushing more lies down her throat. She was an easy one, it took me no more than a few minutes to get her to agree to the date. I fell back on my bed as relief flooded my face.

I checked the phone once more. It was still a few hours before I'd got to go. Guess I'll set the alarm and take a nap. Wasn't like I had to dress up or prepare for the date.

Mom was crying in the other room while dad's fist came down on my face once more. Again and again, until he stopped after half a dozen times, panting.

'That should teach you to not spout those damned lies anymore!' he screamed at me.

'But I saw it again,' I mumbled in a low voice.

'What was that you little ****?'

I curled up into a ball and said nothing.

'Thought so.'

Mom was still crying.

I woke up. Why were my dreams always about him? Goddamnit!

On my way to the bus, I thought about dad.

Dad hadn't always been an ****. When I was a little kid, he'd genuinely been the best. Then he started to drink. When I found out he was beating mom, I became a target as well.

For years the abuse went on until I learned to be smart enough to keep quiet. No, talking about it wasn't helping anyone.

When I became a teenager, and after mom's death, dad and I became close again. It was by necessity if anything. As a teenager, I couldn't just move out.

Age hadn't been kind to him, neither had the booze. On the old pictures, he was quite good looking, **** even handsome.

Now, pushing forty, he looked much older. His head was pale, his skin pudgy and grey and his stomach had developed into a bulging beer belly. Whatever he wore, it seemed to always tear at the fabric, trying to free itself.

"See her over there? Now that's my type of woman, alright," he said to me, pointing at someone ahead of me.

I stared at the young blond ahead of us. Small frame, a bit too timid and awkward. As I watched her, I saw the bruises on her arms, saw her shift slightly with her feet. I could even see the blue bruises on her hips. Exactly like mom, I thought. Always ending up in an abusive relationship, always another **** **** beating her.

"Well hello there young lady, need any help with those bags?" dad approached her and reached out a slimy hand.

The woman stared at him, and I saw her face contort by a mixture of surprise and disgust.

"No, I'm fine," she mumbled in a low voice.

"Now come on, don't be like that, babe, why don't you just let me help you with those, hm?"

He asked, trying to take one of the bags from her. As he did, I saw him put his slimy hand on her back.

"It's alright, I'm-"

"Now, now, modesty won't do you any good," he continued, and I saw his hand move downward.

"Dad!" I called out to him, putting my hand on his shoulder. "It's late, let's go home, I'm starving."

In a moment, the lady tore her bag free from him and hurried down the road as far as she could.

"Damnit, what the **** are you doing, idiot!?"

Another slap in the face.

"Man, I was so close to getting some," he cursed.

He was always this way. Not wasting any chance, trying to get his way with women. His behavior rude, lecherous and at times downright violent.

I didn't cry when they buried him in an early grave a few years later.

Once I entered the bus, I had another half-hour ahead of me. I sent my newest date another message. I didn't like emoticons, ****, I detested them, yet I made sure to sprinkle my messages with them. Somehow, people seemed to enjoy them.

That day I'd chosen a small bar. I'd told her it was a secret tip, but all I cared about was the distance.

The moment I arrived, I chose a seat by the window. I always arrived early, to keep watch and see if they actually came. Bus after bus arrived and finally a bouncy, beaming blond exited. She looked around for a moment before she typed something on her phone. Only a second later mine vibrated.

"I'm here, you already there?'

'Yeah, window seat, back row!'

I saw her enter, saw her look around. The place was half empty. Her eyes noticed me. At first, she looked away, but then her eyes focused on me again.

'I don't see you.'

'Yes, you do.'

I lifted my face and gave her an awkward smile before I looked away again.

It wasn't long before I heard the click-clack sound of her heels as she approached me. When I looked up again, the smile on her face had vanished.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Damien," I mumbled.

"What the ****? No, that can't be! Your picture, I mean," she toyed around with her phone, and after a short while, she held it to my face. "That's not you, is it?"

I said nothing. Instead, I kept my head low. The few other guests were already staring at me.

"Hey! Say something! Is this a freaking joke?"

The rest of the evening played out like the last one. As I stumbled out of the bar, I looked at her picture once more and smiled. In my mind, I saw her sitting on the bus, fuming, hurrying home and falling asleep, still angry about the whole thing. I smiled again.

Work was slow the next day, allowing me to steal away every once in a while. For a few minutes at a time, I scanned profiles.

I noticed her instantly. Short brown hair, cheeky smile, tank top.

We hit things off well enough, but she was a tough one. She was cheeky alright, calling out my lines and bluffs one after another.

Still, the picture I used did the trick, and she finally agreed to meet up with me.

The rest of the shift passed quietly. A few of my coworkers noticed my happy expression, which prompted a few more insults. I couldn't care less.

Once I arrived at the small restaurant I'd chosen, I decided on a window seat once again. The waiter came again and again, and by the third time, he started to get pushy. In a low voice, I ordered a drink.

I scanned the street, but there was still nothing. I opened my phone and sent her yet another quick message.

'Hey, where are you?'

'Sorry Romeo, went out with a few friends today.'

I stared at my phone with a deep frown. ****, she wasn't coming, was she? I cursed to myself.

'Where are you going?' I asked her.

'Timbers! It's great, why don't you come by later?'

I opened Google Maps in a moment. Timbers, a bar in the freaking center of town.

"Are you ready to order yet," the waiter asked in a strained voice, "sir?"

"Fuck," I cursed once more. It was going to be one of 'those' nights.

"Sir, if you don't plan on ordering anything, then-"

Without even looking at him, I got up and left. Once I stood in the open street, I opened the app once more, staring at her picture.

I was antsy when I entered the bus again. I couldn't let it end like that. This was NOT how things were supposed to go!

It took the bus almost half an hour before it made it to the city center. The whole time I was nervous, shifting in my seat. Every once in a while, I stared at her picture, taking in as much as I could about her.

Before the bus had even rumbled to a stop, I was at the door, hitting the stop button.

Now where the **** is it?

I hurried down the street into the direction Google Maps told me, but there were too many damned clubs and bars around.

Then I saw it. The bright neon sign of the small bar named Timbers was only a hundred meters ahead of me.

I was in a minute later. The bouncer eyed me for a moment before he shrugged. My eyes wandered over the guests. ****, it was way too **** late already. Would she even still be here? To make things worse, the place was packed! I shuffled through the guests and earned a few angry stares from people, but I went on.

Finally, my eyes grew wide. Short brown hair, cheeky smile, and a tank top like the one in the picture. When I saw the guy sitting next to her, his arm around her shoulder, I frowned.

I pushed my way back to the bar and ordered myself the cheapest cocktail they had. Then I made my way back towards them. I watched him as he whispered in her ear. I saw how he rubbed her upper arm and inched in closer. She giggled, yet when he tried to kiss her, she turned away and whispered something in his ear. She was cheeky. The guy however grinned, and when I saw that, rage exploded in my mind.

That smile, that damned smile. That's when I knew.

I stumbled forward, shakily and nervous, yet I didn't take my eyes off the guy. I'd almost reached them when I ran straight into a buff, tall guy.

"Hey, watch out where you're going!" he yelled at me and pushed me aside.

I stumbled forward and crashed right into the guy sitting next to the short-haired girl.

My hand collided with his face, and I spilled my drink all over his cloth.

Both of them screamed up in surprise. In a moment she retreated to the bench's end to not be drenched by the rest of the drink.

I pushed myself upwards and mumbled an excuse. Before I'd so much as finished it, the guy's fist hit me square in the face. There was an explosion of pain, and I could taste blood in my mouth.

"The **** are you doing you **** freak!"

Once more he hit me in the face, then a third time. When I went down, he didn't leave off, kicking me again and again as he screamed obscenities at me.

"I'm going to **** **** you, you piece of ****!"

I grinned up at him. He tried to kick me one more time, but right at that moment one of the bouncers tackled the guy.

Another guest was there, kneeling by my side.

"Hey, are you alright? You want me to call an ambulance?"

I shook my head, and then, with a tremendous effort, I tried to get up. Then heavy hands heaved me upwards, and I found myself face to face with the buff guy from before.

"Shit, man, sorry about that," he said clearly embarrassed about shoving me.

"Didn't know that guy was a freaking psycho!" he said and pointed at the guy taken away by security.

Soon after the barkeeper approached me, asking if he wanted me to call the police. I nodded.

It didn't take them long to arrive, and with the help of the buff guy and the bouncers, we gave them a detailed description of the man.

"You need us to take you to a hospital, sir?" one of the officers offered.

I shook my head. "No," I mumbled, "I'll be fine."

Once they were gone, I thanked the security and buff guy. He grinned at me.

"Tell you what, if you'd ruined my date, I might have kicked your **** too."

I gave him a weak smile. "Yeah, guess she was." I looked around for a moment.

"She's gone, booked it the instant that guy went all out on you! Looked mighty scared."

I nodded, thanked the guy once more, and left the bar behind.

On my way home, I took out my phone once more to look at her picture yet again. For the first time the whole evening, I was able to relax.

I could see her sitting in a taxi on her way home before she went to bed.

Gone were the images of her bloodied and beaten body. Gone was that guys grinning face as he stood above her.

The premonition had changed.

Even though it hurt like ****, I smiled.

She was saved.

[x](https://rehnwriter.com/)

[X](https://www.reddit.com/r/RehnWriter)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Area 51 is a Distraction, the Real Prize is in Eastern Alaska
 
 Assistant: So, by this point everyone is no doubt well aware of the Area 51 memes and all the hubbub surrounding them. Apparently over one million people are set to storm the perimeter on September 20th of this year.

Should be interesting, but let’s be honest for a second, I doubt it will happen. And even if it did, even if by some ridiculous miracle they managed to overwhelm the most powerful military on earth and infiltrate a top-secret base, I don’t think they would be exactly thrilled with the results.

I’ll just come right out and say it I guess; Area 51 is a red herring. It’s a distraction and it pretty much always has been. Nothing out there but sand, reclusive scientists and some crusty-**** lake at this point.

I mean think about it, if Area 51 is one of the most top-secret and covert blacksite’s in the world, then why does everyone know about it? How secret can a secret be if everyone knows the secret? For ****’s sake, even Obama acknowledged its existence awhile back. That’s the whole point of it, they want you distracted, so you don’t look for the others.

But why take my word for it? Who am I anyways? Just some pleb on the internet that decided to cash in on a trend for some clout and perhaps a bit of that sweet, sweet karma, right? Well yes… but actually no.

That may be who I am now, but I was once a person of particular interest to the United States government. Most people knew me as Mr. Blue. Not my real name, but it is easier to pronounce.

I used to be a pilot. Did that for many years and loved every second of it. I tell ya, there’s nothing quite like soaring through the skies and breaking the sound barrier for the first time. You might **** your pants a little, but it’s all just part of the experience really.

Now unfortunately, the type of work I did was above top-secret and for all of our safeties I cannot go into any further detail on what I actually did, or who I actually worked for. One day, I was out on a calssified reconnaissance mission in a certain area where I should not have been. I’ll apologize here for the vague details of certain things, but you gotta understand, the things I’m about to tell you are beyond top secret. They would **** me ten times over for uttering a word of it, so here’s to hoping that doesn’t happen.

Anyways, the mission was going as planned, when suddenly my instruments started going berserk on my dash. Air pressure inside the cabin just plummeted and the speed and fuel consumption gages looked like they were playing ping-pong with each other. Everything began to rattle like crazy, and my alarms erupted into a symphony of irritation. 

Next thing I know, I see this bright light soar past me at an ungodly speed. The shockwave it produced was so violent that it shredded the hull of my craft. In a split-second, I went from casually flying along, to suddenly regaining consciousness as I plummeted headfirst towards the ground at terminal velocity. 

I managed to pull my chute before I splattered, but as I touched down, I almost wished I hadn’t. There I was met by an awaiting entourage of at least two-dozen men in winter camo suits and masks. They all pointed their weapons at me and screamed in a language which I recognized as English. 

I tried my best to calm them down and appear unthreatening, but that didn’t stop them from wrenching me into a pair of handcuffs and hauling me into one of their APC’s. They began to drive away, and the real severity of the situation hit me.

I was not going to be saved. The people I worked for had never said it, but it was always well known that if ever you were captured, than you were pretty much on your own.  

With that in mind, I had no real incentive to keep my mouth shut once they started interrogating me. It may seem cowardly, but I was not about to be brutally tortured for a former ally which would never come to bail me out. Yeah, the government says they don’t torture people, but trust me, when they REALLY want to know something, there’s no tactic too extreme. And they really wanted to know something.

So, I told them. About who I worked for, what my mission was, where I grew up, all that jazz. It was all fabricated, but they took the bait regardless thanks to their severe distrust of the Russians at the time. They were actually pretty cool after that. I mean they wouldn’t let me leave their custody, but that was better than being dead. Or at least it was at first.

They transported me away from my initial interrogation place, into a secure facility somewhere nearby. I was blindfolded the whole time, but from the rumbling of multiple vehicles, sounds of doors sliding open multiple times, and the distinct feeling of my stomach dropping, I could tell they had taken me somewhere deep underground. 

Soon after that, I stepped off the elevator and they removed my blindfold. Their leader was a guy with a stern face. Thick grey beard, and eyes that looked etched from concrete. He wore a black suit, with some symbol upon his heart pocket that I didn’t recognize. He stepped in front of everyone and outstretched his arms while staring me in the eye. 

“Welcome to your new home.” An ever so slight grin slithered onto his face as he said it. I glanced down the dismal grey hallways, which seemed to stretch out further than I could see in multiple directions. They lead me down the hall on the right, past dozens of locked corridors and rooms before ushering me into a cell. My handcuffs were removed soon after, and the door slid shut behind me. The same man that had welcomed me to the facility then approached the window and pushed the intercom button.

“We appreciate your cooperation Mr. Blue. I don’t believe there is any reason why our time spent together has to be unfriendly. I apologize for all of this, but you must realize that this is a necessary precaution we must take. I hope you understand.” I took a moment, then nodded back to him.

“Wonderful, we will have dinner sent to you soon. If you require anything then please notify one of the guards outside of your quarters.” And with that, he and his little entourage turned and strolled down the hallway. That was my very first night in the facility I eventually came to know as F.E.Z.

I don’t think it’s the official name, but I heard several personnel at the base refer to it by that acronym over the years. I still don’t know exactly what it stands for. Forbidden Enclosed Ziggurat? Forsaken Evil Zoo? Forced **** Zeal? Fabulous Elf Zombies? 

The best I could really come up with was Fortified Experimental Zone. It makes the most sense too, all things considered. At first it wasn’t actually too bad. The staff was nice, they cooked great food, and there was plenty to see around the base. Although every once in a while, I would hear the screams just barely echoing through the vents. 

They interviewed me probably one hundred more times after that, and were especially interested in the craft which I was piloting. The craft in question was one of our own top-secret technologies, but unfortunately it had been blown to smithereens by whatever that light was, so I couldn’t tell them much about it. 

It took years of incarceration there, but eventually the staff came to trust me almost as much as they did their own comrades. We would laugh and joke with one another, and soon enough we became what some might even consider to be friends. 

I became especially close with one of the scientists there named Kevin. Kevin was a smart guy; comical too, and explained quite a lot of things to me. He and I would spend hours talking on countless occasions. He was my only real glimpse into what was happening in the outside world. He’d bring in books and movies for us to enjoy together. He kept me updated on everything, and over the next thirty years we developed a close friendship that I will always treasure. 

I must’ve displayed some kind of intellectual potential, because they eventually started asking for my input on various curiosities stationed throughout the base. They only did it because I had sworn them complete loyalty and would never be allowed to leave the base anyways, but for me, it was just nice to feel included.

The base itself was absolutely colossal. They always blindfolded me during transport to any location, but one time I caught a glimpse of the buttons in the elevator. There had to have been at least fifty of them on that panel.

I remember the first time they showed me one of the lockdown blocks. There were guards posted at every cell, and I heard some very strange noises emanating around me as we traversed the halls. I thought for sure they were about to show me some horrendous beast from the depths of ****, and prepared myself accordingly as the howls of unseen things echoed throughout the halls. 

The lead scientist; Dr. Rozsival, rolled back a two-way mirror curtain and my heart froze from anticipation. In the cell before us, there was nothing more than a human girl in a grey jumpsuit. She was young, maybe five-years old or so, but there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about her. 

I looked to Dr. Rozsival, and he flexed his cranial muscles before pressing a button. I heard the sound of gas seep into the room. A few tense seconds passed, when the girl suddenly shrieked like a banshee. Her head tilted back and I saw jagged, needle-like teeth emerge from her mouth. Her jet-black eyes then lurched towards us, and she lunged at the window.

She struck it hard, and fell back to the ground, snarling and hissing like some ravenous jackal. Dr. Rozsival then pressed the button again, cutting the gas and posing a question. 

“You ever seen anything like her Mr. Blue?” All I could do was shake my head slowly as I watched the young demon-child stalk about on the other side of the glass. 

“They found her in the woods outside of Whitehorse with a freshly disemboweled man. She was eating him, and appeared unaffected by the subzero temperatures.” I suddenly felt like vomiting, but I said nothing, only stared back at the unusually gruesome little girl. What the **** was she?

Unfortunately, I never was told anything else about her, and I doubt the personnel knew much more anyways. They came to show me a lot of very strange things over the years. A giant brownish-orange haired primate that walked upright and seemed to respond to **** movements. A humanoid shaped being that was only detectable via infrared equipment. A golden chest that would instantly **** anything that touched it. A ten-foot-tall creature wrapped in vines that emitted bouts of radiation and blended into environments with perfect camouflage. A monstrous fish at least eighty feet in length frozen in nitrogen. Various abhorrent creatures that I’m guessing were the results of relentless genetic tampering. 

I had never seen anything like it. All of the monstrosities housed there, and the secrets buried in their possession. They also asked for my advice on a certain paradoxical phenomenon that had plagued them as well. 

They told me that for decades there had been hundreds of unsolved cases of human disappearances that seemed to defy all explanation. Young children would be found on cliff edges that they could not have possibly reached, while old and frail people would be discovered dozens of miles away from where they had last been seen only a few hours later. Most of them would never be found at all though. 

I could almost see the fear dripping from their eyes as they relayed case after case of the recorded incidents, and it was clear - although not said, that they had no idea what the cause was. Unfortunately, neither did I, as it was the first I’d ever heard of the bizarre phenomenon. I told them honestly that I didn’t believe my former allies were responsible, but I don’t know if that made them feel better or worse.

Throughout all of my years there I had always found one thing peculiar. After all the weird and terrifying things they showed to me, there was never any mention of extra-terrestrials. That’s what everyone thinks these blacksite facilities house after all, but nevertheless they made no mention of it. That made me smile a bit when I thought about it, because they had no idea how close they were. 

The closest thing they had, was this weird tentacle creature with a ringed set of teeth in it’s mouth. It looked almost like an eel, but possessed four iridescent green eyes in a ring around it’s head. It didn’t live in the water either, but instead slithered around on the ground in a very swift and very unsettling motion. They said it’s DNA resembled nothing like anything they had ever found on earth before, hence the reason they believed – but were not certain of it’s otherworldly origins.

Kevin and I got to talking back in his quarters one night, as the rest of the crew retired for the evening. He shared with me a bit of his brandy, and we were content to just chat as friends late into the night. 

He told me a lot about himself that he had never mentioned before. He showed me pictures of his wife, and his son that had been taken from him. Kevin admitted his son had died in a car crash a couple years back, while his wife passed two years later of cancer. It broke my heart to hear that, and I felt sorrow for my dear friend of some thirty years.  

Kevin was in his early fifties, but you’d never know it with the enthusiasm in his voice. It was during that conversation, Kevin ended up mentioning something I found particularly interesting. He told that he believed that if an alien species existed, and were advanced enough to traverse the galactic canopy and reach Earth, then they would obviously be quite intelligent. 

He said he didn’t believe in any of the Hollywood depictions of doomsday aliens hellbent on destroying humanity. He thought they’d be a lot more subtle then that. 

“Think about it, you find something intelligent which represents almost no threat to you, and the first thing you do is try to **** it?” Kevin asked skeptically, as I considered his words for myself.

“That’d just be a waste, and no species that fancies themselves as advanced beings would do something so brash… at least I hope they wouldn’t.” He chuckled slightly and shot me a knowing look mixed with a unique intrigue that almost glistened in his grey eyes.

 “Even if they thought we were destroying our own planet or something, why would they care? There are trillions of other planets in the milky way alone, they could pick any of them if they wanted natural resources.” I chuckled to myself, almost sensing where the conversation was headed.

“It’s not the planets we… they’re after.” I replied. Kevin snapped, and pointed his finger at me as his face lit up.

“Exactly. They’d want to study us. Learn how we operate, how we organize and how we live.” Kevin’s hand motions turned eccentric, and I saw his access badge jostle around his neck. He took another sip of brandy and continued. 

“They’d probably learn more about us then we even know about ourselves. I mean, granted they have to be more intelligent. They could learn up close, understand how human’s work. They’d have no need for bloodshed when they could simply inconspicuously integrate into human culture. They have no doubt mastered the art of altering their biology to disguise themselves as humans. I mean, that’s nothing when compared with the tech they used to get here, y’know?”

He paused from his enthused monologue and wiped the steam off his glasses. I just sat back, content to let him continue, as I found it fascinating that he could know so much.

“Aliens… they’re not warlords. They’re poets, architects, authors, musicians. Beings that wish to create. It is the ultimate calling for an entity so powerful.” Kevin took a deep breath, and reveled in his own explanation. His speech had turned a bit slurred, and I could see his eyes floating lazily in their sockets. He then met my eyes in a look that he had never given to me before. It was a look that seemed to shed all sense of formality, and pose a question which he had long since suspected the answer to. 

“You’re not really from Russia, are you?” The sudden accusation caught me off guard, and I felt my stomach drop like a lead weight. I didn’t say anything, and Kevin just scoffed.

“You had everyone fooled. And I mean, I was too for the longest time. You had had a suitable backstory, authentic sounding accent… all the alibis you gave us checked out.” He paused and clasped his hands in front of him.

“You look so authentic too, but there was one thing you missed. One thing that you just can’t fake.” He looked me deep in the eyes and fell silent. He didn’t have to say it, for I already knew what he meant. The eyes are impossible to truly fake.

“That night your… craft was shot down. What were you doing here?” Kevin and I maintained a prolonged eye lock before I finally responded. 

“Reconnaissance.” For the first time in decades I dropped the Russian accent, as it was clear there was no longer any reason to lie to my dear friend.

“And what did you see?” Kevin stared into the very depths of my soul as he asked, and I spoke the truth.

“Beauty, poetry… creators, much like us.” Kevin just stared at me for the longest time, as if he were weighing my soul in his mind. I wondered what he planned to do since he had found out, but I didn’t ask.

Kevin eventually smiled, and rose to make his way to the cell door. He reached into his coat pocket, and withdrew a black-steel pistol with a long snout. I slowly met his gaze, and he chuckled.

“Mr. Blue, do you wish to go home?” I nodded after pausing to think for a moment. Kevin looked over his weapon, and primed it for use.

“I hope your allies can forgive us.” Without another word, he flashed his security badge and the locks on the door gave way. He motioned for me to rise and follow, and so I did.

Kevin glanced back and forth down the hallway, but due to the late hour, there was no one around. He and I sprinted down the corridor and onwards to one of the security booths. He flashed his badge as I hid just out of sight. He entered the room, and I heard the noise of a brief scuffle before two bright flashes ended it. 

Kevin reemerged with wild eyes, and beckoned me to follow. He and I dashed down the hallway and reached the massive mainshaft elevator soon after. For the first time I entered without a blindfold, and Kevin punched the button to the top floor and the security code required to power it.

“Security system will be down for a good half-hour, but automated distress beacons have already been activated. That gives us about eight minutes.” Kevin dropped the clip from his pistol and popped in a fresh one. I saw spackles of blood on his glasses and cheek, and a frenzied look in his eye.

“Here take this.” He reached out his hand, and held something which I had not seen in decades. The old radio from my craft. I took it, and he and I met eyes as the elevator door opened.

It was back to running after that, but a few minutes of it and we had reached an underground parking facility. Kevin quickly unlocked a nearby vehicle, and the two of us hopped in as he fired it up. The engine roared to life, and Kevin accelerated through the lot. A moment later and we exited the underground facility, and I saw my first vision of the night sky in over four decades. 

There were men stationed at the perimeter gates that attempted to stop us, but Kevin didn’t flinch. He crashed right through the wire fence on the perimeter, causing multiple lights to activate in our wake. I heard a siren blaring behind us, and the silhouettes of people dashing throughout the snow.

“There’s a suit in the back, put it on.” I did as he requested without question, and fit the snug polyester garment over my body. It covered every square inch from foot to the nape of my neck, and felt incredibly comfortable. 

“There’s a dial on your right side. You can use it to mask your body heat. They’re gonna be after you.” He tossed a map into my lap and continued barking instructions. 

“You can contact your friends with that radio, right?” His eyes flashed to me as he slid onto the main road and away from the compound. 

“Yes.” Kevin nodded.

“Make your way north, they won’t be expecting that. There’s a river up there about thirty miles away through the forest. Once you find it, head east until you find a small town. Ask the guy at the post office for Mr. White. He’s a friend of mine who’s agreed to help you. **** take it from there.” I tried to digest the flow of information as best as I could and remain confident. It had all just happened so suddenly. 

“I stashed you some MRE’s in the bag. Should last you a good couple of weeks.” Kevin then swerved around a corner and reoriented us onto a new dark road. In the sudden influx of adrenaline, a sudden though occurred to me.

“What happens to you?” Kevin didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the question.

“Forget about that, just get back to your people.” Behind us a flurry of lights suddenly ascended into the night sky. The whirring sound of rotary blades then pierced the tranquil canopy of the blustery night. 

“****… I had hoped I could get you a bit farther than this.” He suddenly slammed on the brakes. My head lurched forward and the car spun back and forth along the icy road. 

“Take this too.” He handed his long-barrel pistol over, and I hesitantly took it. He and I then met eyes for one final time.

“This is where we say goodbye Mr. Blue.” 

“Why? Why are you doing this for me?” Kevin sighed, and I saw a certain sorrow swirl into his ironclad pupils. He stayed silent a moment, and only when the sounds of approaching engines grew louder was he spurred to reply.

“You don’t belong here. You don’t belong in a cage. I don’t know where you come from, but I want you to see the ones you love again.” His eyes began to water, and he jostled his neck before looking me in the eye one final time.

“I hope you don’t think of us as captors… or kidnappers. I hope you see us as you see yourself. I hope… I just hope you can understand.” A single tear then rolled down his cheek. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“I always have, and I always will. Thank you, Kevin.” I then held out my hand and he grabbed it tight as we shared one final moment, before I ventured into the blizzard. 

The journey from then on was long and arduous, with me spending weeks trudging through snow, and frozen forests. Hounds, men and machines pursued me for days, but somehow, I was able to elude their efforts. 

The terrain was brutal, unrelenting, but eventually I managed to find the river which Kevin had mentioned. By that point, all of my pursuers had long since gone silent. I followed the river, and found the town, and soon after the man known as Mr. White. He was a kind man, and gladly invited me into his house to avoid the agents. It is there that I have been ever since, awaiting my ally’s arrival. 

They were stunned to hear from me again, but not as stunned as I was to find out the radio was still functional. They weren’t entirely sure whether they could even trust me anymore, but I didn’t leave them much of a choice when I threatened to go public and expose them to the world. They finally agreed, but admitted, it would be months before they could reach me.

I expected as much, and thankfully Mr. White allowed me to stay with him and await their eventual arrival. I found out soon after that my dear friend Kevin; to whom I owe my freedom and life, had been found deceased. The authorities ruled it a suicide; gunshot wound to the back of the head, but obviously I have my doubts about that. 

It truly broke me to learn of my one true friend’s demise, but I knew it was what he expected. I like to think that is why he chose to do it, and furthermore it is the reason I am here posting this now. Kevin’s legacy deserves to live on, and this is the only way I know how to do it.

And with that, we have come full circle to this message you are reading right now. To address the original topic: Area 51 is indeed a reuse. Kevin held a lot of power in his previous role, and he told me all about the operation. The real prize is the FEZ, my former prison, somewhere in eastern Alaska, buried beneath the snow with all sorts of abhorrent things in it’s clutches. If you’re going to storm anywhere, that should be the place. Just remember to pack a coat.

Kevin was a smart man, brilliant even. If you’ve managed to make it this far, then I’d like to think you are someone like him. Brave, curious and with an almost innate sense of wonder that cannot be satiated.  

It is my hope that Kevin’s ideas will live on through you. My allies would never approve of this message, but I know now that they are wrong. Truth is something that all sentient beings should be allowed to perceive, despite how unpleasant it may be to hear it. 

It was Kevin’s belief that the beings he knows as aliens are already here. That instead of murdering humans as is often portrayed in stories, they would blend in. Take keen interest in human culture, society and art. Write books, poetry and music in hopes of connecting to something truly extraordinary. Something that reminds them of themselves. 

If Kevin is right, then maybe one day, you’ll even stumble upon such a story for yourself. Maybe you’ll think it nothing more than a work of fiction to entertain you for a while. Maybe the author of said theoretical story would seem like nothing more than your run-of-the-mill internet user. He probably wouldn’t just come right out and say it, because that would be entirely too corny. He would probably just leave you the pieces, and hope that you could understand the truth for yourself. 

Maybe you truly are like Kevin, drawn to mystery and prepared to entertain the fantastic. Maybe you’ll just dismiss the implications of the words before you because you don’t dare believe something so outlandish, because in the end truth is not the problem, belief is. Maybe someone will understand who- or more importantly *what* I really am. Maybe it will be you. 

Either way, I’ve been away for a very long time. It is time for me to go home. Thank you, Kevin. I will always uphold our agreement.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandfather spoke dozens of languages. His final words were a warning in a language no-one’s heard of.
 
 Assistant: [PART 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/euox36/my_grandfather_spoke_dozens_of_languages_his/)

[PART 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ewabtp/my_grandfather_spoke_dozens_of_languages_his/)

[PART 4: FINAL](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/eydfmc/my_grandfather_spoke_dozens_of_languages_his/)

&#x200B;

There are certain things you just can’t forget. You must’ve seen those clips of old musicians, deep in the grips of Alzheimer’s, who spring to life when they hear an old tune, suddenly able to find the correct keys on the piano even when they can’t even remember their own name.

For my grandfather, it was languages: he might not remember much, might not be able to tell an old friend from a nurse, but if you spoke to him in French or Italian, Mandarin or Arabic, he’d reply fluently without missing a beat.

Even if it was just to ask where he was.

Or who you were.

I don’t know quite how many languages he actually *knew.* It must have been upwards of a dozen, easily. He couldn’t write all too well, but something in his mind meant words and their meanings just came easy to him.

I was trying to record his talent on the day he died. I had no idea it would happen, but I thought it might be a nice way for our family to remember him. I’d learnt a few phrases in about fifteen different languages, and had them written down in a small book – phonetically, so that there was no way I’d make a mistake.

It was the same day Artie decided to show up.

My grandfather’s old best-friend. A man my father only vaguely remembered, but who was mentioned in my grandfather’s journals over and over again – until he stopped writing. Artie was tall, *very* tall, and had to stoop to enter the room, which meant his coat – which was dripping wet – left a thin film of water on the doorframe.

He was soaked to the bone, even the hair under his hat.

My father made a limp joke: “Caught in the rain?”

“Something like that.”

He seemed a little younger than my grandfather, but, that was to be expected. Artie could still walk, and my grandfather had survived on a diet of neat whiskey and cigarettes for his whole life. The two were practically night and day. Artie had this way about him, this neatness in even the most basic movements. The way he moved reminded me of origami: it seemed that in every move he made he was folding more and more of himself- he was constantly folding into the next moment, and the next.

He didn’t say anything to my grandfather, instead gave him space and sat in a chair in the corner, and had a hushed conversation with my father as I started up my recording.

My grandfather was fairly lucid that day, and although he had a lot of questions he was amiable, not *scared*, and I could see him get excited whenever we changed languages. We made our way from English to French, through Europe via Germany and Italy, through Arabic and Mandarin, and I was about to start on the more obscure languages when my grandfather began to cough, a deep, wet cough that started in his stomach and then stuck in his throat.

The machine next to him started making all sorts of strange noises, arrhythmic buzzes and beeps at a frantic pace, and my father stood up and went straight to the bed, holding his hand and speaking to him softly and Artie stood up and walked over, going for my father’s other hand. I didn’t know what to do, I’d never been in a situation like this, and I sat in stunned silence as the nurses entered and tried to calm everyone down, tried to calm *him* down, trying to give him some selection of pills but there was nothing they could do.

My grandfather seemed possessed.

He sat up, wrenching some of the tubes and wires out of the wall, hands and body shaking, and began to speak, facing straight ahead, in a language that was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It sounded like two languages at once, contradicting sounds fighting, different patterns so that words would seem to be spoken partially on an inbreath, it was like his mouth and tongue were spasming *against* eachother.

The words were alien but the tone was clear; something was wrong.

He kept going for a while, clutching my fathers hand, eyes wide, whatever he was speaking getting faster and faster and faster until he seemed to tire himself out.

With a low moan, he lay back, and took his last, rattling breath.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

People say that grief fills your every waking moment, takes up whole weeks and months - years, even.

They’re wrong.

Grief *empties* your life. Empties your life until there’s nothing left but staring down the barrel of another week with *this,* with this weight on your chest and this absence in your life, and every day feels like it stretches on and on and on forever.

Without them.

Which is maybe why I became so obsessed with the recording. I know it’s a little morbid, maybe even verging on insensitive, but I couldn’t get that language out of my head.

My father had called it nonsense, Artie had just shrugged as if to say *no clue,* and from the pain in my father’s eyes I’d decided not to mention it again. He didn’t need this. Not now.

I tried phonetically typing out words from it online, but that didn’t come up with anything. I tried listening to recordings of hundreds of languages on various databases, but none sounded anything like it. There was something about the way the language made the mouth work *against* itself, like you were trying to swallow every word you spoke, that made it sound like no other language I could find.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought about *why* he’d been speaking it. It was like something had shocked him, like he’d seen something and it had all come pouring out, like a burst pipe.

I thought about Artie. He and my grandfather had stopped speaking a long, long time ago – I knew that much. I knew that they’d been thick as thieves, had *been through some **** as my father tactfully put it one evening.

Artie’d appeared almost out of nowhere, looking to reconnect with my grandfather, and we’d been more than happy to oblige. Thought maybe they could put it all to rest at last.

It was one of my grandfather’s biggest regrets, the way he and Artie parted. Unfortunately, we never got that far, but I wondered if Artie knew something about the language my grandfather was speaking.

I found a contact number for Artie’s family tucked away in an old address book, and made the call.

To my surprise, it went through.

A woman’s voice answered. Sounded around my age; tired.

“Yeah?”

“Hi there. Sorry – I know this is strange but I’m Alan Voynich’s grandson. Max. My grandfather was a friend of your grandfather’s. I was wondering if I could speak to Artie?”

“You're a Voynich?”

She spat out my surname like it was made of dirt. Paused, before continuing.

“Bold of you to call. You of all families should know, you can’t speak to Artie. Not anymore.”

I didn’t understand the hostility. I was confused, Artie had seemed in a good place when we’d seen him. Sure, there’d been something strange about him, but I thought whatever had happened between them was in the past.

“Sorry – I didn’t mean to be rude. Let’s start again: what’s your name?”

She was reluctant, but replied.

“Amy.”

“Amy, look. I met Artie a couple of weeks ago, he was there when my grandfather.. passed. I know there was some history between them, but he seemed to want to fix it. I just want to ask him a couple of questions. For closure.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Just five minutes of his time. I think he’d appreciate it-“

She cut me off.

“What the *fuck* do you think you’re doing? How *dare* you. Is this some sort of joke? A prank? Do you have *any* respect?”

I tried to interject, to explain myself, but she continued.

“I never knew my grandfather, Max. Artie died before I was born.”

A beat, and then:

“Go **** yourself.”

I didn’t sleep well that night. There was a storm, and I dreamt of a figure in the rain, tall and pale, soaked to the bone, making its way towards me. I dreamt of rivers and canals and wells overflowing with dirty, grey water.

In my half-sleep I could hear the language, the contradictory sounds that it was comprised of, in the sound of the rain against my window, and the gurgling of the pipes in the walls.

When morning came, there was a small puddle at the bottom of my bedroom door, and the doorframe was dripping wet.

Must have had a leak.

I didn't want to think of the alternative.

I didn’t mention any of this to anyone. I didn’t think it would help anything. What would it accomplish? My father was dealing with his own, private grief and the rest of my family were too. Maybe there’d been a mistake. Maybe the man had been Artie’s *son,* or a relative, and we’d misunderstood.

Part of me knew that wasn’t true.

And so I became more obsessed with discovering this language, as each time I remembered the scene I’d recorded it became clearer and clearer in my mind that my grandfather was speaking to Artie, that he was desperately trying to communicate *something,* and that it was so urgent he used his last breaths to do it.

I became obsessed with the recording. And that's to put it mildly. I spend my days in the library, pouring through books on linguistics, on the foundations of language, studying histories of forgotten languages. Maybe I just needed something to fill my time.

Sometimes I felt watched, and I’d think that I could catch phrases or strains of the language in the dripping of taps, or the sound of tires running through puddles.

It was outside the library that I found an answer, though.

Not *the* answer, but an answer nonetheless.

I was chaining cigarettes, sheltering under a huge tree behind the library, listening to the recording out loud. I hadn’t been sleeping well, nightmares and all that, and so I often forgot things. Headphones, for example.

I looked up to see a figure shambling towards me. As it got closer I could recognise a few features; tattered coat, missing teeth, big smile.

Dot.

Everyone knew Dot. He’d spent his life battling a **** addiction (and losing), and you could find him on any given day wandering the main streets in town looking for a bit of change, or a smoke.

“Spare a smoke, **** flashed him a small smile, and held out the pack. I was listening to the last ten seconds, trying to work out what the change in tone indicated. Had it been a question? Some bizarre form of syntax? I was so deep in my own head that I almost didn’t hear Dot speak up.

“Why’s a boy like you listenin to Gutter?”

I shook my head. I thought he had this confused for some sort of experimental music.

“It’s not a band or anything Dot, sorry.”

He looked a little offended.

“I know what it is: Gutter. What’s a boy like you listenin to Gutter for?”

My heart leapt. He had a name for it? He knew what this was?

“Dot – what do you mean ‘Gutter’? I’ve been trying to find out what this is for weeks. There’re no records of it.”

He looked at my pack of cigarettes, shrugged. Rolling my eyes, I gave him another, which he stashed behind his ear.

“Every homeless knows Gutter. Every crook too.”

“But there're no records—”

He laughed.

“Wouldn’t be. Not the kind of thing you keep a record *of.* Dirty language.”

The recording was playing quietly on loop, and we could both hear the faint sounds of Gutter coming from my phone speaker. Dot continued.

“See how it sounds like his throats being crushed, just a little? Sounds like he’s got two tongues?”

I nodded.

“Gutter’s two languages in one. Means one thing to some folk, one thing to others.”

“What’s the distinction?”

Dot paused, taking the second cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it, **** on it for a long time, until I could hear the tip sizzle. The rain was falling harder now, lashing the earth and the brick-walls behind us.

“They say it’s if you **** a man. Something changes up here” he tapped his head “and you can just *hear* it different. Killin changes a man in more ways than one.”

Another long drag.

“It’s used by all the wrong sorts to communicate. Guess you can’t fake killin someone.. Not too popular though, seein as it makes it fairly obvious the reason you’re speakin it in the first place.”

“Which version can you understand?”

Dot held up his hands and turned them over in the dim light: “no blood on these\*.”\*

“Can you understand anything he’s saying? In the recording?”

Dot strained to listen for a while, and then shook his head.

“Doesn’t make much sense in the Gutter I know. Nonsense phrases.”

Then Dot spoke slowly, as if he was translating what he could hear my father saying:

*“The well goes deep and deeper still.*

**** like that. Nonsense.”

I frowned. This all began to feel dark, like there were histories buried here that I didn’t want to explore, bones I didn’t want to dig up. Warnings I’d missed. But I couldn’t stop now, I was so close, and I knew now that this all *meant* something. My stomach turned.

The rain began to find a strange rhythm; like footsteps.

Footsteps that grew closer with each beat of the wind.

“You should stay away from Gutter, boy. Forget about this.”

Somewhere in the distance a car-alarm started. Dot continued, as if to himself.

“Dirty language.”

He spat.

“You know what they say about Gutter?”

I didn’t.

&#x200B;

“There’re only two occasions in his life a Good Man should speak Gutter:

If he’s bargaining for his life”

Dot turned, looked straight at me.

[“or for his soul.”](https://www.reddit.com/r/max_voynich)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a low level US Government employee. I just saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.
 
 Assistant: You know that meme about how presidents and governors, after getting elected, look super shell-shocked and stressed the next time they make a public appearance? Like the first thing that happens after you come into power is that you’re pulled into a room and told all of the secrets of the world? 

Well, turns out it’s true. As a matter of fact, it’s a VHS tape.

The “four hour tape” was always a bit of an urban legend at the office. I’ll be keeping the details of my role in government very very vague, but to be absolutely clear, I am *very* low-level. My role is caked between layers of bureaucracy, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty inconsequential role.

When you’re working at my level, you’re generally not privy to any high-level secrets. *Yes,* top-secret meetings did occasionally happen in our building, but my focus is pretty limited and heavily administrative. So, you do what any other department does when you’re in the bottom rung of the hierarchy: you discuss rumors, rumblings, crazy conspiracy theories, and everything in between. It’s watercooler conversation for us. “Man, I wonder what the folks at the top are doing right now” – that kind of stuff.

Out of all of the rumors that fluttered around the office, the “four hour tape” was always the one I found the most fascinating. The crux of it: once you reach the highest clearance level, you are sat down and shown this tape. None of us knew what the contents of the tape were, or if a tape like this even actually existed, but it was fun to speculate about it every now and then. Most of the time, we found with our little rumors and conspiracy theories, that the most mundane answer was usually the correct one. Life, in general, finds a way to surprise us with how boring everything can be. 

Now, there’s something you should know about me before I continue. I’m a wimp. I’m meek, anxious, and generally restless. I’m a chronic rule-follower. There is no part of me that wants to dig up secret documents and uncover “the truth” about what happens at the highest levels of government in our country. 

So when I discuss the events of four nights ago, please be mindful of that. I didn’t ask for this. And I’m only sharing because I don’t know how much time I have left anyway. And I can’t live with this stuck in my conscience, alone. 

It was nighttime at the office. I’m known to be a bit of a chronic workaholic, and there was something I *really* wanted to get done before the week was over, so I was working later than usual. I went to print a document on what I *thought* was the printer in my immediate vicinity. The notification on my computer showed that my document was being printed, but I didn’t hear any noise or paper coming out from my local printer. I checked the name of the device I selected, and it looked like I’d accidentally clicked on a printer that was being used on another floor. I sighed. In any normal circumstances, I probably would’ve just forgotten about that mistake and reprinted the documents on my local printer again, *but,* our general management here is quite stringent on us making sure that all confidential documents are accounted for. We are not allowed to share department-specific documentation to other departments. *Fuck it,* I thought. I looked up a map in my inbox showing the locations of all of the company printers. Turns out, I’d accidentally clicked on the printer named “Prints Charming” on the seventh floor. Hah. Funny name. Off I went. 

I really should’ve just let it be. 

I got to the elevator and rode it up to the seventh floor. I emerged onto the mostly-empty office area. In case you were wondering, the building I work in is *huge.* But… I’d worked there long enough to know my way around it, so I knew the area surrounding the printer relatively well. I made my way through the hallways and eventually spotted the printer with my freshly printed papers minting it. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for continuing my lifelong streak of following the rules. 

As I went to grab the papers, I noticed some light buzz in a meeting room nearby. I looked through the window to see roughly ten people hanging out around a snack table. In the room was a large old-looking TV on a cart, and rows of some of the fanciest folding chairs I’d ever seen, organized in a neat fashion. 

I didn’t think much of it, and started walking off, until I heard the door open –

“Hey! Mr. Boskowitz, right? Jesus man we were supposed to start 15 minutes ago. Get in here.”

“I, uh, what? No sorry I think you have the wrong –” 

“I don’t care why you’re late, just get in here, grab a plate of snacks and sit down, we’re starting soon. Put your phone in the bag, electronic watch in the bag, and anything else on your person that can be used to record audio or video,” he responded hastily.

Something about his sternness and tone short-circuited my brain. For guys like me, there is a third option beyond “fight” or “flight”. It’s called the “just go with it until it’s over”... also known as the “captured rabbit strategy”. 

I put my phone and my watch in the bag. I meekly tried to butt in with another “Sir I’m not Mr. Boskowitz–” but he had already pulled me into the room at this point. He closed the door and walked to the front by the TV. I thought about making a break for it, but I decided to just see it through at this point, hoping deep down that whatever was happening was as inconsequential as my job was. 

Everyone had their snack plates and were heading to their seats. I awkwardly grabbed a muffin from the snack table, put it on a napkin, and took a seat in the very back row. Everyone was spaced out from each other. It didn’t seem like any of these folks knew one another. I quietly sighed at the thought of having to sit through some sort of boring informational seminar or irrelevant training session.

After a few minutes of everyone settling in, the man who originally brought me into the room started talking. There was an equally serious guy standing next to him, and a secret-service lookin’ fella standing in the corner. *Huh.* I started wondering to myself why we were going to watch a video off of a very old-school looking TV… felt like we were all back in elementary school or something. 

“Alright, I just need to do a final run-through before we get started,” the man at the front said. “I know you all read through the emails and signed your releases. I just wanted to recap some ground-rules. You’re allowed to get up and grab another snack, but beyond that, we want you to pay full attention to the tape once it starts playing. If any of you need to go to the bathroom, we *strongly* urge you to wait until the presentation is over. If you absolutely have to go, we will pause the tape and one of us will escort you. There is water in the corner by the snacks, cups are right there as well, and uh, goes without saying, but any discussion of this presentation to folks who do not have top compartmented clearance is a breach of your terms of employment, a breach of your non-disclosure agreement, a breach of your multiple signed releases, a breach of the US criminal code in the state of *\[redacted\],* and a breach of the conditions laid out by the Committee for the Protection and Preservation of Human Consciousness.”

They started dimming the lights. ****. It felt like I had missed any window of opportunity I had to leave. Too late. That committee name he highlighted sounded *way* above my clearance level.

One of the men at the front of the room pulled out a VHS tape from a bag, and very slowly and securely put it into a VHS player. He pressed play.

I took a deep breath. Those watercooler conversations I’d had with my coworkers were starting to float to the top of my mind, but I quelled them. There was probably no need for panic. It was just a **** government meeting, right? 

The tape started. The beginning was familiar enough. Various disclaimers about this being incredibly confidential material, yada yada yada. Insignias of relevant organizations - Presidential Libraries, etc. I’d seen lots of videos like this already. 

But wait. That insignia looked strange. Like something was *off.* I scanned it. Presidential Libraries. That same eagle. Those same stars. Weird. This time, there was a navy blue hand on the left shoulder of the eagle. Did they update the logo? 

Before I had time to ruminate on it too much, the tape cut to a logo I had *actually* never seen before. 

“*Committee for the Protection and Preservation of Human Consciousness.”* The logo was just an image of planet Earth. Fair enough. 

The video cut to a room that looked similar to the congress floor, but with some strange differences: seats were much more spaced out, the podium looked like it had seen better days, and the whole room looked to be on a pretty steep incline. Everything was in black and white. It looked like there were about fifty people in attendance. It was hard to make out the faces. 

Everything looked *very dated,* like the video was from the 40s or the 50s. 

The tape lingered on this one shot for quite a while. Minutes passed. I noticed what looked to be a choir, all in outfit and perfectly huddled next to each other, standing in one of the corners of the room. 

It *really* felt like I shouldn’t have been seeing this. None of this was meant for my eyes. 

After a few more minutes, the tape abruptly cut to an awkward-angle video of a man speaking at the podium in the room. It was too zoomed-in, enough that you couldn’t see his eyes or his hair. It didn’t look all that professional. I couldn’t tell who he was. 

He spoke.

“Members of the *Committee for the Protection and Preservation of Human Consciousness*, I thank you all for coming tonight. We are lucky to be in the good graces of our visitors today. Without rehashing our painful history…”

The tape cut to a camera slowly panning over all of the faces of the folks seated in the room. The attendees looked pained. Somber. The man continued his speech as the camera continued panning over the committee. 

“...we can acknowledge that the journey to this moment has been an arduous one. I am pleased to say that humanity, faced with a dire ultimatum, has come to a majority decision. To our esteemed guests from across the solar system, we are thankful for the opportunity you have given us to negotiate with you.” 

I felt adrenaline. ****, we had made contact with extraterrestrial life. This was the truth. Maybe, like the saying went, the truth would set me free. 

“Before I outline the decision taken by humanity, I want to, from the bottom of my heart, thank the brilliant representatives from all of the nations of the world… who came together to ensure that this decision was taken with utmost responsibility, care, and appreciation for our human species. I am aware that this was not a unanimous decision.”

****, what did *that* mean? I felt the sweat on my brow. I felt nausea coming in. I awkwardly and slowly took a bite of the muffin.

The tape returned to a now-corrected angle of the speaker at the podium. His eyes were visible. They looked strained. Like they’d seen multiple versions of ****.

“To the nations who still disagree,” he continued, “I thank you nonetheless for accepting the majority decision. May this moment, which will be held in secrecy throughout the rest of time, be appreciated as a critical milestone for human civilization. Tonight is not a victory. It is a somber moment. However, we were faced with two options. Extinction. Or accepting the agreement. We made our choice, and I believe time will show that this was the right decision.”

What… was this? 

“I hereby announce that we accept the agreement provided by our special guests who have chosen to go by the name *\[redacted\].* The… intergalactic species known as *\[redacted\]* will allow humanity on planet earth to continue to populate, grow, and innovate. In return, all governments of the world will honor the promise.”

He needed to spit it out. What the **** was this agreement? 

“We… will not be covering every element of the agreement in this session. I will, however, highlight the main points…”

At this point, the video showed the man at the podium looking down. He was reading off of something. For the first time, he looked *nervous. Scared.* I saw some humanity in him. 

“We honor the agreement that *\[redacted\]* hold the right to visit planet Earth on a recurring basis. They will be allowed to consume, for the basis of nourishment, a majority of the human population on planet Earth. After every visit, the remaining humans on Earth will be expected to breed and grow to capacity in time for the next visit. We acknowledge that we will maintain a parallel history which will be shared with our world’s population, to ensure that humanity stays motivated to continue existing as a species. This parallel history may suggest that mass extinction events are the results of man-made folly, as opposed to the work of external forces.”

For the first time, my fight or flight response was actually “flight”. I wanted to escape, but I didn’t know what I’d even be running from. 

“The last visit by *\[redacted\]* was approximately in the year 1346 and it lasted seven years. We will continue to honor our parallel history about this event.” 

I just wanted it to end. 

“The next visit, which will *not* be met with resistance, will be in the year 2028 and will run for one full calendar year on Earth, marking a 675 year gap between the last significant visit by the species known as *\[redacted\].* This visiting cadence is expected to speed up over time, as the remaining humans continue to sharpen their focus on building technology to allow humanity to reproduce in a speedy and productive manner.” 

Jesus Christ. Our planet is a **** farm. 

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. 

The tape cut away to a larger view of the congress-like room: the somber committee members in attendance, and the members of the choir in the corner, who I could only imagine looked horrified. 

Where were the “visitors”? Why couldn’t I see them? 

The camera then panned to a number of larger, empty seats - the same slow style of video panning as the one that happened earlier with the committee members. No visible entities in the seats, but the seats themselves looked blurry. 

The man at the podium carried on with his speech, as the camera pan on those blurry seats continued. 

“We should acknowledge the privilege of knowing that there is indeed life in the cosmos. That extraterrestrial life has chosen to visit our planet. *And* that the cycle and balance provided by nature extends beyond the confines of planet Earth. Much like humanity has found its place on Earth in the food chain, we acknowledge our place in the divine order of things when encountered with beings of greater power, understanding, cognitive function, and evolutionary progression.”

**** ****, I shouldn’t have stayed late at work. I should’ve made my identity clear from the very beginning. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to see this. 

“And while…” 

****, it really looked like the speaker was about to cry.

“While the process of consumption i-is a painful and lengthy one, we respect the trade-off that comes with the preservation of our species. We also acknowledge, as part of the promise, that substitutes for human life in the form of clones, should we discover that technology in the future, or other living species… will never function as viable alternatives for nourishment,” the speaker continued. 

I didn’t need to know this. This whole thing was way too specific for me. 

“Our final major acknowledgement, as part of this agreement, is that we accept *\[redacted\]* as the great almighty… as the entities we will now refer to as ****. ****, as an interstellar species, has revealed itself to us, and thus, the continued existence of *\[redacted\]* is now the true priority of the people of our planet. We are blessed to play a part in the continuation of ****. In **** we trust. Amen.” 

The tape then cut to footage of the choir, as the speaker continued.

“We bless our visitors with this gift: a performance of the national anthems of all major nations of the world will now commence.” 

Audio of a very loud backing track of the Star-Spangled banner started playing from the video as my stomach sank. The tape showed footage of the choir singing on top of the track. Not sure if it was because they were scared for their lives, but I could really tell they were singing their hearts out. 

As they sang, the camera continued to pan over the blurry seats. 

They finished singing the anthem, and suddenly…

*Fast-forwarding.*

**** ****. I had forgotten I was sitting in a room. 

I had disengaged from the video for a brief moment. I had mentally returned to the present day. This was our world. This was our **** lives.

The men at the front continued fast-forwarding through the tape. It looked like they were skipping through performances of the other national anthems. The fast-forwarding went on for a while. Every small while, it looked like a new choir group was entering the congress-like room to sing a different national anthem. On and on the tape went. I had to fight the urge to pass out.

One of the men at the front of our room, standing next to the TV, started speaking up.

“We are legally obligated to get to the end of this tape, but you don’t need to look at the rest of it. Please feel free to look down, or close your eyes, or grab a snack,” he said. 

I noticed the others seated in the room were taking that advice. Most of them decided to look straight down. 

For some weird reason, I couldn’t look away.

The fast-forwarding progressed. On the tape, it was yet another choir group joining to perform an anthem. And then another. And then another. It looked like we were near the end. 

The fast-forwarding now showed a conversation between the man at the podium, and another man who was whispering in his ear. The man at the podium was vehemently shaking his head. The other man continued whispering. This continued on. Eventually, there was a quick moment of the man at the podium begrudgingly nodding.

The last few fast-forwarded moments of the tape remain burned in my memory to this very moment. They were pandemonium. The attendees were sitting in their chairs, frozen, shivering, crying. The people in the various choirs were running around the rooms in fast-motion, as blurry spots started covering them and ungodly things started happening to them. ****. Why didn’t I look away. If ever there was a **** time to follow orders. It felt like the whole thing went on for longer than it should’ve. 

Finally, the men at the front of our room stopped the fast-forwarding. They pressed play on the tape to cover the very final moment. 

In the tape, the man at the podium, clearly emotional, spoke his final line. 

“The agreement has been ratified by *\[redacted\].* Thank you all for attending.”

The final shot of the video is the full room. The committee members in their seats, shivering and crying. The dismantled and bloodied choir members strewn about the room. The blurry seats with blood smeared on them. 

The video then cut away, back to that same insignia on a black backdrop. The Presidential Libraries. That eagle. Those stars. The navy blue hand on the wing of the eagle. 

The lights in our room turned on.

The rest of the night was a blur. The men at the front of the room told us it was best for us to sit for an hour to digest the information. No discussion about the video was allowed to take place. When we were ready to stand, we were allowed to leave and go home. They gave us some pointers on how to “accept” the information over the coming weeks. Things like taking long walks, exercising, watching a sitcom, etc… 

I wasn’t worried about them realizing that I wasn’t supposed to be there. If anything, I felt a strange camaraderie with everyone in the room. We were all, truly, in the same boat.

As soon as I left the building and got in my car, I just drove. For as long as I could. I would stop for gas, then I’d keep driving. I’d stop again. Then I’d keep driving. Again. And again.

I’m holed up in a hotel now. I’m just glad I could get this off my chest.

The funny thing is, all I can think about is the length of that **** tape. While I can’t confirm, I feel like if it were played straight through without fast-forwarding, it would’ve only been three hours. I wonder if the “four hour tape” rumor came from the fact that we all needed that extra hour to digest the information.

And now, you’re probably wondering… why don’t I name the species that is going to spell humanity’s doom throughout the rest of time? Why am I calling them *\[redacted\]?*

Well. As the self-appointed leader of the “Committee for the Acknowledgment that we Should’ve Just Chosen Extinction”, I don’t feel the need to honor our captors by calling them by their name. 

If I don’t see you again, Reddit, I appreciate the watercooler conversation.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a guard stationed at a 'secret' government prison. A few hours ago, there was a major breach.
 
 Assistant: Who’s the worst, most despicable person you can think of? 

Jeffrey Dahmer? Ted Bundy? Luis Garavito? Pol ****? 

Of course, you could make your own arguments for any one of them, or anybody else for that matter. 

Yet, all of these people have one thing in common. They’re *human*. 

Preposterous people trying to act like monsters, either due to lofty, ridiculous ideals or some primal urge to revolt against society as a whole. It’s quite the bizarre phenomenon. Yet, none of these admittedly sick people have truly fallen into the abyss. Perhaps they’ve stared down into it. Dipped their feet in. But none of them have taken the plunge as a whole. Despite their efforts, they weren’t able to separate themselves from their inherent humanity. 

But that’s a good thing. That’s they were relatively easy to take down. 

The bad news is that every once in a while, ‘special’ cases will arise. In our circles, we call these individuals “the Void people”, or just the “Voids”. Individuals so far gone that they can hardly be considered humans anymore. 

The cause behind entities like these? Well, I wouldn’t know. Nobody really does. Maybe they were born with that latent potential. Maybe they underwent some obscure supernatural transformation. Maybe they’re experiments gone awry. Aliens from another planet. ****, maybe they’re literal demons from **** brought here by some fool who just *had* to conduct some **** up ritual. Who the **** knows? The only detail that matters is the fact that they exist. And dealing with them is more than a ****.  

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of “Max” security prisons.  

Places where drug kingpins, terrorists and prolific serial killers etc. are sent. The places meant to contain the worst amongst humans. 


Well, those are a joke compared to where the Voids are kept. At a pair of undisclosed coordinates built in the underground of a tiny island somewhere deep in the Atlantic, there exists a prison unlike anything you could imagine. 

We simply call it “The Chasm.” A penitentiary for pure, unbridled evil. A collective evil that would surely yield humanity’s extinction in a couple of months if it were allowed to run rampant in the world. 

Let me emphasis this a bit further. The individuals that require being held there are not merely “criminally insane.” They are criminally absolutely out of this universe **** bonkers. 

Of course, you wouldn’t know about any of this. Why would you? The government would probably sacrifice 1000 children before they’d divulge a single detail about the place to a person without high enough clearance.

But you know, that’s just how they are. 

Before I came, there were exactly 32 being confined there. Save for two that were still being actively pursued through the Brazilian underground and Russian tundra respectively, that was about all of them *in the world*. At least, we assumed that was all of them. Can’t be sure about anything these days. 

Each holding cell was fortified to ****, specifically designed to counter and contain the respective Void they were holding. If they managed to escape, there were 8 drones armed with Gatling guns, blades, grenades and rockets waiting for them within a larger chamber. 

If they managed to break through THAT, then 20 guards in mechanized suits would have to step in.

However, everybody understood the futility of that protocol. Those guards were getting slaughtered in seconds, regardless of the Void they went up against. Maybe minutes if they’re really skilled. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why any of us regular guards are stationed here at all. Bureaucracy, I guess? Who knows what the government’s thinking. 

If the situation were to ever get too drastic, then there was really only one feasible counter-measure in place. A last resort, so to speak. The higher ups would have to call in something known as “Task Force Void Nova Hammer”, or TFVNH for short. I’ve never seen them in action before, nor do I know much about them. Not that I really want to, though. If you ever find yourself witnessing them in person, then that must mean you’re having a bad, *bad* day. 

So why am I disclosing all of this uber-classified information that would either get me killed or thrown in the deepest hole conceivable for the rest of my short life? Well… I’d estimate that there’s about a 90% chance that I’m going to die by the end of today. And even if I do make it out of this fiasco, my life’s never really going to be the same. 

So **** it. Here we go. 

My day started out more or less normal. 

I was part of the unit guarding somebody named Jim Heninger. Well, that was his real name. Doesn’t evoke a lot of fear, does it? That’s why he had to call him something else. 

Since he used to be some psycho surgeon or something, we’ve dubbed him *The Surgeon*. Really creative stuff, I know. 

Standing at 5’**** cm), 135 lbs (61 kg) (We were all required to memorize their physical stats), he doesn’t look like much. However, if you ever find yourself in the same room with him… no matter how big and tough you are… you’re getting dissected or something. 

The main danger surrounding him stems from the fact that he seems to be able to teleport on will. One second you’ll be staring at his dark, lifeless eyes, and after one blink, **** disappear in a cloud of black haze, only to end up breathing right down your neck. For that reason, there’s gotta be at least ten sets of eyes on his monitor at all times. There’s no way around it. If he’s not being watched, he *will* escape. 

He’s also kind of unkillable. No matter how many bullets you put through his head or blades you plunge into his chest, the guy just won’t croak. And once he gets a scalpel in his hands… oh boy. 

Of course, he’s just one out of 32, and comparatively speaking… on the tamer side. 

With that said, my guard shift ended without any incident. Routine stuff. Following that, I went on break in the lunchroom with my buddy Sandhu. Our conversations were usually pretty dry, but at least I can talk to the guy. It’s hard to get along with any of the other guards. They’re all just… weird, in one way or another. Anyway, lunch was usually the most enjoyable part of a working day in the Chasm.  

What I didn’t enjoy was the blaring **** alarm and deafening, repeating automated voice blasting the word “BREACH” that went off right as I was about to take my chili out of the microwave. 

I could see Sandhu’s face drop at the disturbance. “You’re **** kidding me.” He mouthed. 

Now, I’d only ever experienced one minor breach up until that point, and it was from the Surgeon. I guess none of us were paying any attention that day. He made it about 8 miles off the coast using a stolen boat, racking up a total body count of 145 in his wake. It took 3 full days to wrangle him back, and 4 more weeks to fix all the damage he’d done to the infrastructure.

That was all just one prisoner. If we were dealing with 3 or more, then our combined efforts as guards wouldn't have stood a semblance of a chance. 

There had only ever been one major breach in the Chasm’s history, in which 8 Voids had broken out nearly simultaneously. It was also apparently the only time that TFVNH had to step in. This was all around 12 years ago, long before I became a guard myself. The aftermath of that? I don’t have high enough clearance to know. But I’m willing to bet that it was nothing fun. 

We did have a breach procedure. It was a lengthy document, outlining exactly what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to go. I’ve read it before, and its **** garbage. It’s essentially predicated on the idea that we’re cannon fodder, and that we’re obligated to do whatever we can to contain the prisoners. If anybody actually followed the procedure, they’d die instantly. 

“Well, what the **** are we supposed to do?” Somebody asked.  

They only got shrugs in response. Except for Sawson, that is. 

I **** hated Sawson. The guy seems to believe that his life’s an action movie and that he’s the invincible main protagonist. 

“Are ya’ll **** or *what*?” he screamed at the top of his lungs, with a **** grin plastered across his face. “We never get any **** action! Let’s **** go!!!” 

Before anybody could stop him, he picked up his rifle and swung the door open like the giant **** **** he is. 

Since the alarm was blaring, we could hardly hear anything that was going on outside in the corridors. For that reason, we all rather shocked upon seeing *Morgi the Corgi* standing right outside. 

Imagine some guy walking around wearing a dirty, giant, creepy dog costume. Now imagine that this guy is 7’2 (218 cm), with a voice that’s simultaneously deep, raspy and childish. 

That’s Morgi the Corgi for you. 

I could see the bravado leaving Sawson’s face the moment he laid eyes on the abomination in person. We’d only ever seen him through a screen before. 

*”RUFF!!”* 

I always hated it when people tried imitating dogs. But hearing it coming from Morgi was a bit different and a lot worse. 

Before Sawson could even put his finger on the trigger, his head was mashed into pulp. Morgi began pouncing on other guards, effortlessly crushing limbs with his oversized “paws”. He’d switch between running around on his feet and crawling on all fours. The last thing I saw before running out of the break room was Morgi forcing the remaining, horrified agents to play fetch with him using a stray arm. 

But of course, it’s not like I managed to escape anywhere better. The entire place was in a **** tizzy. The squad leaders were frenetic, attempting to scrap together some kind of suppression force. 

I couldn’t understand why they were so delusional. 

Are we guards supposed to be badass? **** yeah. Due to our field prowess, we were specifically selected from the existing pool of CIA agents and military personnel to be dropped into this godforsaken place. Put us up against a trafficking militia, terrorists etc., and we’ll smoke them. 

But what we can’t deal with… are things that aren’t supposed to exist in the first place. 

We watch creature-features and slasher flicks with the inherent understanding that we’re watching *fiction*. A type of visual catharsis for our inherent fascination with the dark and grim. It’s not supposed to be real, and we have no idea how to act once we find it standing right in front of our faces. Not even us so-called ‘elite’ agents. Like I said, I’m not sure why they even bothered keeping guards in the chasm to begin with. 

These were the thoughts that ran through my head as I bolted through the hellish corridors. At one point, I stumbled upon a crowd of guards leering over some rails. Shockingly, they didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. 

“What the **** are you guys looking at?” I asked them. 

A guard I recognized as Fenton turned around. 

“This is gonna be sick.” He grinned, gesturing for me to look below.  

I didn’t even know where I was going, so I didn’t realize that I’d wandered into the level right above the weight room. 

It was a sprawling gym with an abundance of the best equipment obtainable. But there was one guard that used it the most… 

*Branko Petrovic* 

A Serbian-American whose oversized frame hardly makes any **** sense. I swear, when I first met the guy, he couldn’t have been over seven feet. He’s around 8’2 (249 cm) now. I’m not quite sure what kind of bizarre experiments they ran on him, but they sure as **** overdid it. 

Despite the alarms, he was in the middle of overhead pressing what appeared to be an ungodly amount of weight when one of the escaped Voids wandered onto the weight room floor. 

It was *Luze*, standing at 6’2 (188 cm), 205 lbs (93kg). Like all the other prisoners, the guy was a complete mystery. His mostly bare body was comparable to that of a bodybuilder’s, save for the hundreds of gnarly scars decorating his skin. 

The more disconcerting part of his aesthetic was the fact that he only had one half of his face. The other half consisted of his exposed skull, with some kind of red, electrical current running through his cranial bones. He had that same current running through his hands, which allowed him to savagely electrocute whatever organic material he touched, quickly rendering it into a pile of steaming, black mush. 

I guess that my fellow agents didn’t bother reading up on the prisoners they guarded, because Branko never stood a chance. It didn’t matter if you were superior to Luze in terms of strength. One touch and you were gone for. The only practicable way to take him down was by using ranged weapons. And even then… that task was easier said than done. 

Branko grunted like the dumb meathead he is, before grabbing an Olympic weightlifting plate and chucking it like a Frisbee at Luze. It connected, seemingly shattering his ribs. But it wasn’t nearly enough to take him down. As soon as he rushed forward, the ‘fight’ had been decided. Branko attempted to tackle him, a mistake so horrible that his whole body began twitching as his skin made contact with Luze’s fingertips. 

The electricity spread through his giant frame, causing his vitals to shut down within seconds. In no time at all, he was reduced to a heaping mass of scorched flesh on the floor. He didn’t even have time to scream. I could see the respective faces of my stunned colleagues drop as they witnessed what they likely deemed an improbable outcome. 

Idiots, that’s what they were. But truth be told, I was also an idiot for even bothering to stay. Not long after, the sounds of cracking bones and heavy footsteps began emanating from an adjacent walkway. 

Along with the rest of the agents, my gaze shifted towards what was sure to be another incoming menace. The locked, metal door to the corridor was suddenly dented from the other side. A *big **** dent*, mind you. It only took one more blow to blast it off its hinges completely. 

Standing at 6’6 (198 cm), 242 lbs (110 kg) and arriving in a haze of blood, guts and limbs was the slasher-flick-esque killer colloquially known as *”WireHead”*. 

In congruence with his name, his entire head, save for a single eye, was wrapped in rusty barb-wire. He wore a decrepit, old leather jacket and jeans, complete with a large pompadour on top, like an 80s (or whatever) high school delinquent. 

Everybody’s main concern was the weapon in his hands – a large, iron bat wrapped in the same barb-wire on his head. If you didn’t die from the impact (unlikely), the subsequent infection would surely get you. 

And don’t ask us why we didn’t take his weapon away when we contained him. We did. But somehow… someway… he got it back. These things really can’t be helped. 

*What the **** is going on?* I thought. Breaches happened, sure. But it seemed as if *every* single **** Void had somehow escaped. *How is that possible?* 

In any case, I couldn't afford to think deep into it at the moment. 

As WireHead began mowing down the mystified agents in his way, I found myself accidentally making eye contact with Luze from below. 

I nearly had a heart attack as I began pushing through the crowd. Even though I was implicitly certain of the fact that no other location within the chasm would’ve been much safer, I was still being driven ahead by my fight-or-flight responses, away from the immediate threat. 

It was kind of funny. I'd been through so many life-or-death experiences that my reaction to adrenaline coursing through my veins had been dulled. Well, it sure as **** got invigorated today. 

I guess that I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings, because right as I was about to climb a staircase, I felt an over-sized arm slam into my chest, knocking me over in the process. I looked up to see another guard – Cade leering down at me. 

Sure, I was happy it wasn’t one of the Voids, but Cade wasn’t much more pleasant. 

“What’re you running for?” he shot me a smug grin. “This is a breach, isn’****? Why don’t we do our jobs here and fix it?” 

“Oh, ****!” I spat at him, before trying to duck past. No luck there. He caught me by the collar and slammed me into a wall. He certainly had the weight advantage. 

Still, I didn’t practice hand-to-hand combat just to be rag-dolled by some ****. I slammed my elbow down on his wrist, which managed to loosen his grip. I followed up with a knee to the stomach and then attempted to strike his neck. 

But then he caught my wrist mid-punch. 

“Nice moves!” He said, in an obnoxiously sarcastic tone. 

He took his palm and rammed into my chin, nearly causing me to black out. In the meantime, WireHead was getting closer. 

“Guess we’ll have to take this up another time,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta work around here.” 

I had no idea what he was thinking trying to take on one of the Voids, but I wasn’t trying to see his delusions through in person. Still in pain from his palm-strike, I pulled myself up and began running once more, all while the sounds of carnage escalated around me. 

But there was a glaring issue. *I had no idea where I was going.* 

The exits were surely going to be blocked off from the inside. 

*Do we have some kind of safe room?* I thought to myself. 

*No*. Of course we didn’t. We were entirely expendable. They 100% expected us to fight these things head-on, even though there was zero **** chance of victory on our side.  

There was only thing I could do here. Survive until TFVNH showed up. Obviously, that wasn’t any kind of guaranteed reprieve, but my options were slim. 

Nevertheless, something rather surprising transpired. Amidst the cacophony of frenetic orders from our superiors, a familiar voice snuck in through my radio. 

“Hey… Jason… you… alive?” 

It was Sandhu. I picked up my radio and isolated his transmission. 

“Yeah. Where are you man?” 

“Block C. Got lucky and found something weird. It might save us though. Come on!” 

Obviously, there wasn’t much information there. But it was better than running around aimlessly. Thankfully, Block C was fairly close, so I was able to make it without running into another Void. 

However, when I got there, it was still as chaotic as ever. I swiveled my head around, trying to spot Sandhu. I yelled into my radio, but his response was drowned out by everything around me. As I searched, I began sensing a perplexing, sinister pressure that made it feel as if I were sinking into the concrete beneath me. I hardly had to guess the source. 

It was *Dyaxek* – 9’5 (287 cm), ???? lbs (????kg).  

Dyaxek was comparable in appearance to something you’d see in the corner of your room during sleep paralysis. A hulking, faceless figure wearing a sweeping black robe that **** around in unsettling motions as he (or she, who knows) walked. 

I wasn’t sure how he actually killed people, mind you. As soon as anybody got within a certain distance to him, they’d freeze in place and begin bleeding from their eyes. And then… they’d just stay that way forever. 

Obviously, that wasn’t something I was looking forward to. As I looked ahead, I could see some unfortunate guards already getting caught in his death zone. In an attempt to avoid a similar fate, I turned the opposite direction and began running. 

And then I nearly **** myself. 

Standing about 10 feet away was the *Undead Nazi* – 5’8 (173 cm), 143 lbs (65 kg).

His name essentially told it all. A man wearing a dirty and tattered SS uniform, with a cracked gas mask covering his face. In one hand, he gripped his signature kampfmesser 42 blade that was inexplicably unbreakable, no matter what the **** we tried doing to it. In the other, he held a flamethrower hose connected to a massive tank on his back, which sprayed out some kind of scorching, black flame that would supposedly yield pain beyond comprehension if you were ever to come into contact with it. 

You could say that I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place here. The only other way out was taking the plunge over the rail in front of me, onto mass of scrambling bodies fifty feet below. 

Before I considered simply saying my prayers, I felt a hand tug at my sleeve from the side, giving me another heart attack. But this time… it was good news.  For once. I looked over to see Sandhu poking his head out from what appeared to be some kind of hidden door in the wall. 

“Let’s **** go!” He whisper-shouted, before pulling me in. 

He closed the door behind him, plunging us into complete darkness. 

“What the **** is this place?” I asked, hardly expecting a detailed response. 

Sandhu illuminated his face using his phone’s flashlight. 

“Couldn’t tell you. But it’s kinda **** crazy.” 

I could hear the **** beginning to spray his flamethrower from out in the corridor. I suddenly wondered whether or not Dyaxek’s “power” would apply to other Voids. In any case, it was better not to be in such close vicinity to them, so I followed Sandhu. 

He led me down some kind of hidden hallway. The walk was rather long – maybe around 8 minutes, and I eventually found myself in what appeared to be some kind of surveillance/control room. 

It was still dark, but there was an array of monitors giving off enough light to comfortably navigate around. But here’s the strange thing… the place looked kind of *haphazard*. No chance it was being used by the higher ups. The monitors were scattered around, connected by a mess of wires to multiple outlets spread throughout the room. There was also only one chair.

“I guess this is beyond explaining.” I said. 

“Yeah. No ****, huh?” Sandhu replied, before gesturing towards the monitors. “Check it out. What the **** did we just find?” 

I took the suggestion, letting my eyes drift over to the screens. 

What I saw would’ve been normal… in any other scenario. Each monitor was streaming a different section of the prison, all displaying the utter carnage that was going on outside. The guards were being ripped to shreds. Some tried fighting. Most were running. But what they had in common was the fact that they were all being utterly obliterated by the Voids. 

I could see the Surgeon giving somebody a (forced) lobotomy, grinning like **** while doing so. At the same time, Morgi was chewing on a severed head like a toy. 

But then I caught something *interesting* on a screen below. 

It was WireHead and Luze, staring each other down. That’s when a rather obvious revelation hit me. 

*Of course* the Voids weren’t only going to **** the guards. They were sure as **** going after each other as well. That much should’ve been apparent from the beginning. I grinned, feeling some kind of obscure hope creeping into my system. 

That hope was only bolstered when I saw the **** utterly dousing Dyaxek with a relentless wave of black flames, with the latter struggling to move forward as a result. 

*Guess these bastards can be hurt after all.* I thought to myself. 

But of course, my hope was merely transitory. 

I wasn’t gonna kid myself. Even if only one Void was left standing at the end of everything… that just means it’ll be the strongest one out of them all. And we can’t stay in here forever. 

At this point, my future is uncertain at best. Maybe I’ll get lucky. Probably not. 

But in the meantime, I suppose I’ll enjoy the show. See how things turn out.

Next: https://redd.it/ct27tk

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Caught my Grandfather Talking to an Air Vent
 
 Assistant: My grandfather isn’t the kind of man who is particularly communicative.  Actually, he barely bothers to speak at all unless it’s a grunt of satisfaction aimed at a piece of pork chop or a prod to turn the TV channel back to golf. My mother says he’s just selective with his words: I prefer to call him what he is—a *dick*.  

He’s always been this way. Even when I was an adorable little toddler teetering my way around his living room, he barely acknowledged me. He would just sit in his plush armchair and read the paper, ignoring my squeals of delight as I practiced my dance recital in front of him. 

“Pappy, Pappy, *look*!” I would squawk in his direction. He would just shift his newspaper higher in his lap to hide me from view. 

It was always grandma who offered me any sort of grandparent-related comfort. She doted on me throughout my childhood; pinching my cheeks, baking me cookies, cooing at every sound or accomplishment I made. So when she passed away last spring, I was heartbroken. Apparently, so was my grandfather. 

That’s when my mother cooked up the idea for a “granddaughter-grandfather bonding extravaganza.” She shipped me off to live with him for two weeks during summer vacation while she took a honeymoon with her new husband. Even though I am 15 and purely capable of staying alone for two weeks, my mother just couldn’t resist the opportunity to kick-start the grandfatherly affection that should have taken place the day I popped out of the ****. 

“You’ll have fun, honey,” she said earnestly as she practically kicked me out of the moving car. 

“He doesn’t even talk!” I yelled in frustration. 

“Yes he does,” my mother rolled her eyes. “You just have to *listen*.”

The first week and a half ticked by pretty much like I expected. We ignored each other in gruff silence and ate our meals separately: him in front of the TV and me in the guest bedroom. It wasn’t until the last night of my visit that I got up in the middle of the night to **** only to find a light shining from his bedroom.  Curious, I peeked out from around the corner. My grandfather was sitting in his armchair, a glass of scotch in his hand and eyes puffy from tears. His gaze was trained toward the air vent next to his bed.  

“I wish you were still here,” He whispered. I could barely hear him over the clink of ice in the glass. 

“You wish who were here?” I asked lightly, stepping forward. His gazed up towards me and he beckoned me to sit down on the edge of the bed. I balanced myself on the edge and looked back at him nervously. I don’t think we’ve ever sat this close next to each other. 

Wordlessly, he handed me the glass of scotch. I took a sip and let the liquid bite my tongue, sending shivers down my spine. I handed it back to him. 

“I think it’s time you know about my sister,” he murmured. 

This is his story, in his words. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I know you don’t think very highly of me; I don’t think very highly of me either. Honestly, there are a lot of things I would change if I could. You’re young, but you’ll understand that one day. 

My parents and I lived here ever since I was a little boy. Back then, after the war, this place was like a castle. I loved living here. This was actually my room, believe it or not. And for an eight-year-old boy, it was my kingdom. 

I used to pretend that my mother and father were the king and queen and I was a prince. I would rule over my stuffed animals as if they were subjects. My parents actually encouraged it, they thought it was cute. My mother was a homemaker. Back then, most women were. So she was always around to cook and clean and play my childish games with me. My father was different. He was attentive when he was home but he was rarely home. See, he was a preacher. He was a “Man of Faith.” 

When you are young you just trust your parents. You take them on their word, you believe what they say and you have no reason to consider otherwise. So when they told me to go to church three times a week, I dutifully followed through. It was fun being the preacher’s son. My mother and I always seemed to bathed in a heavenly glow wherever we went. People knew us as the perfect family, a family of faith and **** and virtue. My father was known as a man of ****; someone the community should trust in. So when my father told me to ignore the sounds coming from the attic, I did. 


***


I first noticed the sounds the day we moved in.  I was sleeping when I heard a muffled cry coming from the air vent. The cry was immediately silenced with a dull thud. I fell back to sleep instantly. For the next few weeks I would hear the occasional pitter patter of footsteps or the off-beat thud in the middle of the night. My father told me that we had rats. I learned to grow accustomed to the random spurts of noise, much as children do. 

Then one night I was playing in my room when I should have been sleeping. I held my fake sword up to my stuffed animals and pretended to knight them. I was asking them to bow down to me when I heard it. 

“Hello?”

The voice was a muffled echo, barely reaching my ears. It was a girl’s voice. I think that’s why I paid it so much attention. I wasn’t allowed to have girls in the house. 

“Someone there?” The voice echoed again. I realized, at this point, that it was coming from the air vent next to my bed. I quickly scrambled towards it, letting my fake sword clatter to the floor. 

“Who’s there?” I asked, using the bravest voice I had. 

“I Polly. I live in attic.”  It’s then that I noticed how childish the voice sounded, how strained it was. I bent my head closer to the vent. 

“You my brother?” the voice asked. 

“I’m not sure. Are you my sister?” I countered. 

“Don’t know. Daddy says I have brother but won’t let me see him.”

“Why not?”

“Daddy says something wrong with me.”

“Is there?”

“I can’t think real good.”

“Oh. Who’s your father?” I asked. 

“Michael Larson.” 

“That’s my father!!” I yelled excitedly. “That means that you must be my sister if we have the same father.”

“That how it works?”

“I think so, but I guess I don’t really know.”

“I don’t know either.” We were silent for a little while. 

“Why do you live in the attic?” I finally asked, the question burning the roof of my mouth. 

“Daddy say I can’t leave because I not like everyone else.”

“So you’ve never been outside?”

“Don’t think so,” Polly said nervously. “Not allowed to talk about it.”

“Oh.” I sat back on the bed, puzzled.  “I’m uh, I’m going to go to bed,” I said hesitantly into the air vent. 

“Oh, ok,” Polly answered back. Her voice faltered and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. 

“But—but I’ll be back!” I said urgently, trying to calm her down.

“You will?”

“Of course, I’m your brother,” I assured her. 

“And I your sister.” 


***



The next morning I woke up excited. Not only was it Saturday, but I had a sister! I bounded down the stairs two at a time, eager for breakfast. Like every Saturday, my mother had laid out a full breakfast spread for us. After father led us in our morning prayer, I dug in to the steaming pancakes and sausages on my plate. 

“Woah, woah there, champ,” my father laughed as he watched me shoveling the food into my mouth. “What’s the rush?”

“I want to finish quickly so I can go play with my sister,” I explained through a bite of toast. 

My mother’s face went stone gray as if she had just seen a ghost. My father clenched his jaw and very carefully put down his fork and knife. They didn’t make a sound.  

“MJ,” he said with an edge he couldn’t hide. “You don’t *have* a sister.”

I looked up from my plate, confused. “Yes I do, she lives—“

“ENOUGH,” my dad roared, pounding the table with his fist. My mom was now looking down at her hands folded neatly in her lap. I saw a small tear fall onto her plate. 

“Can’t you see you are making your mother upset with your lies?” He hissed. 

“But, but I’m not—“ 

“Go to your room this instant, MJ,” he demanded. “And if you try to lie to us again I promise you that you will never get to leave your room.”

I pushed back my chair and ran from the table, hot, messy tears sliding down my face. I threw myself onto my bed and cried at the unfairness of it all. After a few minutes, I heard her. 

“You ok?” Polly asked. 

Anger flared in my chest. “No,” I spat bitterly. “I got in trouble and it’s all your fault!” 

“What happened?” I could hear her concern, but I didn’t care. 

“I told my dad that I had a sister and he yelled at me and grounded me!” I hiccupped between sobs. 

“You told daddy we talked?” she said in a panicked voice. 

“Kinda.”

“You shouldn’t done that,” I could hear her voice trembling. “I going to be in real trouble. He k-**** me.” 

“Yeah, well, you deserve it!” I screamed at the air vent. “You ruined my whole day! I was fine before I met you.”

I could now hear Polly crying through the vent. I thought her muffled sobs would make me feel better but they only made me feel worse. Guilt bubbled in my stomach. I put a pillow over my head to drown out her crying. 

I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up the pillow was on the floor and I could hear Polly again. But this time, she wasn’t alone. 

“No, no,” she whimpered. 

“How did you find a way to talk to him,” a voice hissed at her. I immediately sat up, my heart pounding in my ears. I knew that voice. 

“No, no, I be good. I be good,” Polly cried back. I could hear a thump and Polly cry out. I pressed my ear closer to the vent. “I talk to no one.”

“You’re lying,” my father’s voice yelled back. 

“No, I good. I don’t lie.” I heard another thump and now Polly was crying loudly. I shivered as I listened to what was happening above my head. 

“You better be my good little girl,” my father replied. “You know what happens when you’re a bad girl.”

“Please, please no. I good, I very good.”

“Take your clothes off.”

“No, no I don’t lie—“ Polly’s voice was interrupted by another slap. I heard her cry out and had to clamp my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t either. 

“You heard me,” my father challenged. “Take your clothes off.”

I sprinted from my bedroom and ran all the way downstairs. A part of me really hoped to see my dad sitting in the living room when I rounded the corner. I prayed, I *begged* **** that I would see my father sitting in his favorite chair. I prayed that I was just imagining things, that my creativity had gotten the better of me. But when I turned into the living room I saw only my mother, sitting rigidly on the sofa as she knitted. 

“Mother,” I said. Tears were still dripping from my face. “Mother, where’s father?” I was shaking. 

She looked up at me with a sad smile. “He’s praying, darling.” 

“Are you telling the truth?”

“Of course, dear,” she said. But her eyes told me something different. “Come on now,” she said. “Let’s listen to something on the radio. Your favorite program should be starting soon.”

I took my seat besides her and she turned the radio on. She hummed as she continued knitting, her mouth pressed in a firm and tight line. She held the needles so tightly that her fingertips were turning white. 

“I love your father,” she said. 

“I know, mother, I know.”


***


My father’s knife cut through the steak as if he was cutting through butter. The meat bled lightly, just how he liked it. 

“Are you done lying, MJ?” he asked without looking up from his plate. 

“Yes sir, I am,” I answered back. “I let my imagination get the better of me.”

He smiled at me and pointed his knife towards my mother. “And what do you have to say to the woman who gave birth to you?”

My face flushed red. “I’m sorry, mother.”

“There’s my good boy,” he said as he continued to eat. “I think you learned your lesson then.” 

“I did.”

The dinner talk then turned towards the church fundraiser happening the next weekend. My mother promised she would bake her famous pecan pie and my father discussed who from Bible Study would be attending. After dinner I excused myself to my bedroom. 

“Polly?” I whispered into the air vent. I heard a small series of sniffling, as if she were crying. Guilt boiled in my chest. 

“Polly, I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Can you forgive me?”

“I guess,” Polly replied. 

“Are you ok?”

“No.”

I looked around my room for a second. “Well, whenever I’m sad I like to play a game,” I explained as I picked up my toy sword. “Do you want to play with me?”

“Ok.”

“Ok, well I’ll be the prince and you can be the princess. And we both have kingdoms that we can rule. Yours can be the attic and mine can be my bedroom. Does that sound fun?”

I heard her sniffle. “I be princess?”

“Of course!” I assured her. “You can be anything you want to be.”

And that’s how it started: with a game. We would wait until I heard my father go to sleep every night and then we would give our secret code. I would tap the inside of the air vent twice and, if she could talk, she would tap right back. Then we knew it was safe to play. Some nights we would rule over our kingdoms while other nights I would read her stories from one of my books. Some nights, we would just talk. It was nice, having her around. I grew accustomed to our routine. But like all routines, sometimes they break. 

Sometimes I would tap into the air vent and hear nothing back except some weird groans and the occasional thud. When I would go downstairs, I would always see my mother knitting silently in the living room, knuckles white. Father was nowhere to be seen. That’s how I knew he was in the attic with Polly. Polly didn't like to talk much after those times. 


***


“What outside like?” Polly asked one night. I was lying on my back, my head turned towards the air vent. I pondered for a second. 

“It’s...big, I guess,” I said lamely. “But it’s cold now because it’s almost Christmas time. There’s a lot of snow.”

“What snow like?”

“You’ve never seen snow?”

“No.”

“Well,” I said. “Why don’t I show you?”

Polly paused. “I don’t leave attic ever.”

I sat up on my bed. “What if you left just once? I can come and get you. I can take you outside so you can see the snow and then I can take you back! Father won’t have to know.”

“Like...like secret?” Polly asked. I could hear the excitement bellow out of her. “Outside! Outside!” she yelled, forgetting the hushed tones we normally used. 

I laughed. “Yes, let’s do it!” I screamed as I got caught up in the excitement. 

“When!?” Polly yelled. 

“We can go right—“

“Who are you talking to?” My father interrupted. My face turned beat red as I turned from the air vent to face him.  I was caught. 

“No-no one,” I mumbled weakly. “I’m just playing a game.” My father’s eyes wandered to where my stuffed animals were, shoved away into the corner, forgotten and abandoned. 

“With who?” He challenged. 

“No one, sir. Just myself.” 

His face turned to stone and he nodded gruffly at me. “Carry on, then. Just try to keep it down.” And he turned out the door. I nearly **** myself with relief that he had believed me. I waited a few minutes before I spoke again. 

“Let’s wait until he goes to bed, then I can take you!” I whispered. 

But I didn’t get a response. “Polly?” I asked after a few more minutes. “Polly do you still want to go outside?” 

“No,” my father’s voice answered back. “She doesn’t.”  I clapped my hands over my mouth and bolted upright from my bed. 

“MJ,” Polly answered back weakly. “Help.” 

But I stood frozen. I didn’t move when I heard thud after thud after thud. I didn’t move when Polly whimpered out for her brother. I didn’t move when I heard my father smack her. And I still didn’t move when the attic turned as silent as the snow outside. 

I stood there, in the middle of my room, with my hands balled into fists at my side. I stood there as I heard my father leave the attic, his steps staggered and heavy. I stood there as I saw the porch light blink into life outside of the window. And I stood there as I watched my father digging, digging and digging all night long. 

In the morning there was a raised patch of dirt under the maple tree that wasn’t covered with snow like the rest of the back yard. And the air vent? The air vent was silent. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My grandfather put down his glass and stared back towards the air vent. The room seemed heavier now. 

“Her—her name was Polly?” I asked. 

He nodded. “Like you,” he smiled weakly. “When you were born I asked your mother to name you Polly.”

“Does she know why?”

“She knows I had a sister. She doesn’t know much else.”

I was silent for a second. “What did you do after—after it happened?” 

My grandfather looked down into his drink. “Nothing. Just like what I did when it was happening.”

“What was wrong with her?” I asked slowly. “Why did, why did your father keep her locked away?” 

He was silent for a moment before he took a swig of his drink. “I think she had Down Syndrome. And I think my father was ashamed of that.” He sighed. 

“Grandpa, I’m so—“

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “It’s not necessary.” We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the gentle hum of the air vent. 

“Polly would have made a fine princess,” I whispered.  

He smiled and for a second I could have sworn that I saw the flicker of what he had been like as an eight-year-old boy. “Yes,” he agreed. “She would have.” 


[****](https://www.reddit.com/user/kmcooney/submitted/)
 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Ten years ago, I taught sophomore creative writing. Two student stories still haunt me to this day.
 
 Assistant: Fresh out of college, I took a teaching job in a small town in central Wisconsin. In my sophomore creative writing class, I assigned a flash fiction exercise around Halloween. We’d studied urban legends and folklore, and it was the students’ turn to construct stories of their own.

Assignment length: 100-1000 words. Directions: *Scare me.*

The submission quality was as expected - these were sophomores, after all - but one story stood out halfway through my stack of papers: a piece by a quiet student named Jake. His first person flash fiction story seemed so real...like it was dipped in reality. A little too closely. Almost like he wasn’t making it up, but had been retelling something that happened to him. I put it aside, impressed.

Kate’s submission was the last paper in the stack. I remember the reading experience vividly: the beads of sweat accumulating around my temples, the *clickity click* of the red pen in my hand, and a weird feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I placed it on top of Jake’s story, and I thought:

*What the **** am I going to do?*

I still have photocopies of the original stories, and I often wonder, *why do I still have these?*

But there is something about them - they are so interconnected, and there is something so raw and beautiful about them. I have a strong affinity for interesting student writing, and it’d be a shame to let the flames of these stories be extinguished.

I’ll share the student pieces, and the subsequent events that transpired, right here - I do enjoy a good story.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Jake’s Flash Fiction**

*My parents put Grandma Rosie in a home when she started to “lose her grasp on reality,” they said. I still found it cruel. But she seemed content. Content enough, I guess.*

*I remember visiting her. She had an old, wooden rocking chair that faced the window. Outside was nothing but flat, fields of green. The green would eventually fade, and when it snowed it was carpets of white for miles and miles. I’m not sure which season Grandma Rosie liked the most. She didn’t do a lot of talking. She mainly listened to her radio, and always one station: 89.1.*

*But 89.1 never had a signal. It was always static. Grandma Rosie listened to this static, all day, seemingly waiting out her life. No one could reach her.*

*I visited one day to drop off a box of chocolates. Grandma Rosie rocked slowly in her chair with large headphones over her ears, staring out the window, watching the snowfall. I couldn’t tell if she knew I was there. I walked over and placed the chocolates on a small table, and her hand suddenly reached across and snatched my wrist.*

*“Shhh,” she whispered. “Listen.”*

*Grandma Rosie leaned in close, and I put my ear to hers. I lifted up the cup of her headphone and listened. There was only static.*

*I was about to speak, but she covered my mouth with her hand.*

*“Listen closer,” she said.*

*I did, but all I heard was more static.*

*“Soon, they will come,” she said. “They will come to take me away.”*

*This freaked me out a little, and I went home. I told my mom and dad about what happened, but they didn’t think it was that ****

*I kept thinking about it. One night I couldn’t sleep so I buzzed my friend Abby on our walkie talkies. She lived across the street, and she somehow she knew all about 89.1. She told me it was an old legend in our town, and you needed two things to explore the legend further: a radio, and a closet with the door slightly open. Face away from the closet, tune in to 89.1, and listen very closely. At some point through the static, you’ll hear the faint sounds of an ****, distant screams, and the dragging of metal chains along a gravelly surface. The open doorway is an invitation - keep your eyes closed, and only if you keep your eyes closed - a figure will appear and drag you into the closet. From there, your fate is unknown.*

*“How do you know this?” I asked.*

*“I’ve heard about it,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone. The less people that know, the better.” I looked out my window and saw Abby in her bedroom. She put her finger up to her lips.*

*“This is our secret,” the walkie talkie buzzed.*

*For the next few days, I kept thinking about the ritual and Grandma Rosie. Why would she be playing this game? Why did she want to be dragged into an unknown fate?*

*I again told my parents that I was worried about Grandma Rosie. They were very dismissive.*

*“Ever since Grandpa died, I think she wants to let go,” my mom said. “She wants to be with him.”*

*I wanted to know more, so I decided to try the game myself. It was late at night, and I opened my closet door just a crack. I sat on my bed with my back to the closet, tuned my radio to 89.1, and put on my headphones. I heard the static, and I closed my eyes.*

*I sat there for a long time, focusing very **** the static. The longer I sat there, the more it felt like my room was shrinking. Kind of like the space was filling up with something else, like I wasn’t alone.*

*In my headphones I heard the distant ****, and I heard the screams that seemed far away, but sounded like they were getting closer. The screeching of the metal began, and then I heard a voice:*

*“OPEN YOUR EYES!”*

*I jumped from my bed, very startled. Abby was laughing hysterically through the walkie-talkie. I looked around my bedroom. I was alone. I looked out the window and saw Abby, smiling and giggling. She brought the walkie talkie up to her mouth.*

*“I totally scared you!” she said. “There’s no one there! You’re such a wuss.”*

*I noticed the closet door. It was wide open. The static of 89.1 hissed from my headphones.*

*“I was only joking,” the walkie talkie chirped. But I wasn’t so sure it was a joke.*

*Grandma Rosie died two weeks later in her sleep. Her time had come. And I was done fooling around with legends and superstitions.*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jake’s story was the most interesting of the bunch. His writing needed some tightening, sure, but the ideas were there: a mysterious legend, sentimental characterizations, and an ambiguous ending. I truly thought he had invented the whole thing, until I read Kate’s submission.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Kate’s Flash Fiction**

*Panic. Fear. No one would believe me. Not ever.*

*I told him I was joking. About everything. It helps me sleep at night.*

*But I know what I saw. A young boy, a ritual, and death. Death itself. A black death with a clutching grip, an entity that surrounds its victim, dragging a companion to its secret and eternal lair.*

*But I was joking. Joking all along. Which made it okay.*

*I had to know. Know more. I went to her room. It felt recently vacated, like the plug had just been pulled from a sink. Headphones on the floor...static. Nothing but static.*

*Noises from the closet. Labored breathing. Fingernails squeaking on the door from the inside. I clutch the handle - something, something else. Something dark. Can’t open it. Won’t open it. Refuse to let it out.*

*I slowly back away. A tiny voice, squeaking.*

*Help me.*

*Static echoing in the small room. Nothing but static. I close the door on my way out. Won’t let it out.*

*Won’t tell. Will never tell. My story doesn’t exist. It’s simply not there.*

*It’s nothing but static.*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here I had two, seemingly intertwined stories - Jake’s more traditional folklore story, and Kate’s personalized flash fiction, focusing on emotion, regret and secrets. Perhaps I’d been swimming in urban legends too long, or maybe I’d been the victim of too many horrendous student essays and stories to count, but I couldn’t shake the notion:

*This seems real.*

A few days after Halloween, I kept Kate after school. I wanted to know more, specifically, was she the Abby character in Jake’s story, and was she confessing to visiting the grandmother in her own piece? I pulled out Kate’s flash fiction, and I asked about how she wrote it. What was her inspiration?

She shrugged. “I guess it’s avant-garde. I was just experimenting with ideas. Did you like it?”

I nodded. It was an interesting piece, I told her.

“Have you ever heard of 89.1?” Kate asked me.

I started to speak, but couldn’t. A few words sputtered out, but were interrupted by Kate’s laughing.

“Oh my gosh, Mr. Patrick, the whole thing was just a joke!”

Kate explained how she and Jake conspired to write multiple viewpoints of the same story, partially as a creative writing exercise, but mainly just to **** with me. The whole thing was made up. It was a Halloween prank.

“We SO got you, Mr. Patrick,” Kate laughed.

I smiled uncomfortably. It was a good one, and yes, *they got me.* I told her that I enjoyed her piece, lets continue developing your avant-garde writing, and enjoy your Halloween.

But something didn’t feel right.

I had drinks with a veteran, freshman English instructor - me the first-year teacher in a new town, and he the wily, old mentor. I told him about the assignment and the stories Jake and Kate turned in. He laughed, and thought about it a bit more.

“That just seems off,” he said. “You said Jake and Kate conspired to play a joke? They were thick as thieves in my class at the start of the school year, but in the fall they stopped talking. Wouldn’t even look at each other anymore. Had some sort of falling out. I guess they made up.”

For the next few weeks I watched Jake and Kate closely - in my class and in the hallways. They didn’t speak once. Never even looked at each other. I scheduled a story conference with Jake, and I let him know how much I’d enjoyed his growth as a writer, especially his Halloween flash fiction piece. I grinned and told him that his prank with Kate had totally burned me. Jake smiled awkwardly.

“We got you, huh?” he said. “It was Kate’s idea.”

Everything was made up, he claimed. There was no 89.1, and he had no grandmother who passed away in a home. All of the characters and situations were straight, 100% fiction.

I told him good job, and to keep writing.

Still, the situation seemed amiss. Like I was missing part of the act. Was it possible that these two were so committed to **** with me that they wouldn’t even speak at school? Or maybe they were dating and didn’t want anyone else to know, so they played it cool in the hallways and in class. They *were* 15-year old kids, after all. That seemed reasonable.

But It was keeping me awake at night. Nothing else mattered. I taught during the day, and I obsessed over the stories in the evening. News, sports, and current events faded to the background. The real world slipped away. I pushed forward.

Armed with a couple of possible last names (thank you, school records) I called senior citizen homes in the area. I was trying to track down my mom’s old friend, Rosie, I told them. Each phone call followed the same script: the receptionist went through the files and found nothing. No one there by either last name I had. 

I scoured the internet, and I spent too much time in the stacks of the local library. I found no folklore or urban legends relating to 89.1. And each time I felt like quitting, I pulled out my photocopy of Kate’s story. 

She *had* visited Jake’s grandmother. It simply felt so real - I *knew* it wasn’t fake.

In a last ditch effort, I spent a lot of time alone in my bedroom, listening to the static of 89.1 with my eyes closed and the door slightly ajar. I’d hone in on the static, and I’d listen deeply and intently for the chimes of the ****, the harsh and troubled screams in the distance, and the *clinkity clink* of the metal chains. Sometimes I'd think it was there, and I just had to focus a little harder. And I’d sense a presence in my bedroom about to creep out of my closet  - the dark mist waiting to drag me away. I wanted it to come, because I wanted this story to be real.

But it didn’t come.

One day at school I saw Jake and Kate smiling and laughing at Jake’s locker. I walked past them, and Kate *winked* at me.

That was the clincher. I finally succumbed to the notion that I’d been *had.*

It was over. I ended my search for 89.1. I had drinks again with my colleague - many drinks, this time - and I drunkenly told him everything I’d been doing. He found my investigation ridiculous, and ultimately dangerous.

“You like stories too much,” he said. “If I didn’t know any better, it’s almost like you’re trying to write one of your own. Just let it go.”

I pulled out the photocopied stories from my back pocket, and I pressed them down on the bar, staining them with splashes of beer. My colleague picked up Jake’s story, and he took a look at it for the first time. His eyes skimmed the page - and they stopped, cold.

“Wait,” he said. “You never told me about Abby.”

I shrugged. Abby was Kate, I told him. It was all part of the game.

“I wonder…,” he thought aloud to himself. “Hmm.”

He laid it out for me.

A year ago - about ten months before I moved into town - an eighth grader named Abby had gone missing. Seemingly vanished into thin air. One minute she was alone in her room, and the next minute, she was gone. Some suspected that she ran away, but there were no clues. No evidence of foul play. No suspicious or shady family members or neighbors.

She was simply, gone.

I read Kate’s piece again. My heart sank. The whole time, I assumed it was about her visiting the grandmother. But maybe I was wrong.

Maybe the squeaks and pleas coming from the closet were coming from *Abby.* Kate never specified who she was visiting or where she was.

I read the *avant-garde* flash fiction one more time, honing in on every word, just to be sure.

And at that moment, everything changed.

I spoke with the school administration, they contacted the authorities, and the police had conversations with Jake and Kate. It went nowhere. It didn’t matter that Abby had lived across the street from Jake. It didn’t matter that we had words on paper. They were just *stories*, the kids said. Only stories. Complete fiction. Jake had no grandparents in a home, anyway. They were sorry if they’d scared anyone. They were Halloween stories, after all. And pretty ambiguous stories, at that.

Jake even tearfully apologized for naming a fictional character after a missing girl - it hadn’t crossed his mind.

And I was now the monster for dragging two innocent kids into this mess. The staff ostracized me, and the town crucified me. I was done.

I left the teaching profession soon after that. I walked out of the school holding my small crate of supplies, and Kate smirked at me with a knowing glance through a first floor window. I haven’t seen her since.

I didn’t take much with me, but I did take the photocopies of the stories. I pull them out occasionally and relive the past. And sometimes, late at night, I’ll get a fire in my belly and a burning desire to travel back to that small, Wisconsin town. Maybe Grandma Rosie was a great aunt that Jake’s family referred to as Grandma, or maybe it was an elderly family friend. Maybe I *missed* something about the missing girl, about 89.1, about Kate’s intentions. Perhaps I can try the ritual a few more times, just to see what happens.

Or maybe it’s just all ****.

It was ten years ago. And I’m probably the only one that thinks there’s a shred of truth in those stories.

I’d be wasting my time.

But it still keeps me up at night - the slim chance that it’s all true. And oftentimes the *idea of it* is something I contemplate more than what really happened to Abby and the grandmother in the story: if it is true, why did the kids write it all down like that?

I don’t have a good answer. I’ll never have one.

I suppose that, just like me, they really just enjoy a good story.

[X](https://www.jimmyjuliano.com/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: This morning the doors to our apartment complex were welded shut. I'm starting to think that it was a good idea.
 
 Assistant: Right now, I'm in my apartment on the third floor, and I can't go outside. I'm lucky that I've just bought my groceries yesterday. I don't know who could've done that, but at this time, I know a few other things.    
    
I know that it was someone from the tenants since the seams on the door indicate that they were welded shut from the inside. I know that one of my neighbor's friends from the next entrance confirmed that their door was welded shut as well, which tells me that they are still in here with us. I know that we don't know who it is - nobody has taken the blame so far.    
   
And I know that there's a dead body outside.    
      
But don't let me get ahead of myself. I'll explain everything in a minute. I live in a small and VERY old apartment complex on the far outskirts of a small town. Honestly, calling it an apartment complex is a stretch - it's only five stories high, no elevator, and it was built out of concrete panels all the way back in the 60s. It has no attic, so people who live on the last floor have to constantly worry about rain ruining their ceiling, extremely sound conducive for their thickness walls so you never feel home alone and a basement which connects to a sewer system - which smells horribly in spring.    
    
In Russia, these kinds of buildings are called ["Khruschyovka"](https://imgur.com/a/Fiu9b9N) - named after Khruschev, obviously. I get the appeal of a low-cost easy-to-construct building, but I think there's not a single soul in the entire country who'd miss them. In 50 years they should've demolished them and replaced them with something better, something newer. At this point, the buildings are a health hazard. Usually, only the old people live there, since it was the house they received long ago and never moved out. Young people like me rarely moved into Khruschyovkas, which was why my neighbors were mostly old people. And let me tell you, old people in Russia are really mean.      
     
But I can't complain. I got this apartment from my late grandma, so at a young age, I at least have my own place. Plus the view from my balcony on the third floor is great - it overlooks the forest, which technically is the border of our town, so no **** buildings in sight. Just a boundless nature, which, as I was told, stretches for thousands of kilometers in that direction. An entire ocean of dark wood that curves beyond the horizon.    
    
In a way, I live on a beach. Pretty sweet if you don't account for the things that sometimes wash ashore.    
     
At first, I was kind of bewildered. I went down the stairs to the first floor, yawning and stretching and hoping for a weekend to come faster, and I saw a crowd of people, all in their coats, with their bags in their hands. The air was hot and damp from their collective breathing, and the air was quaking from their shouting. I couldn't make out what were they saying, because they are all talking at the same time, but I could get the general mood. Some of them were confused, but mostly they were outraged.    
    
I didn't understand what was going on at first. It was eight in the morning when everyone was either hurrying to their jobs or **** knows where the pensioners go so early. But then I made it to the front of the crowd, and my eyebrows shot up.    
    
In front of me, a couple of men in their forties were trying their hardest to push the door open…only they couldn't. The entire frame of the iron door was welded shut: I could see the metallic seam running along the frame.     
    
"Push harder, I have a doctor's appointment in an hour!" - one of the old women shouted at them.    
    
"It's no use" - one of the men stood back and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The seam had already cooled down. Nothing short of a circular saw will open this door now".    
    
"Are locked in here?!" - one of the women asked in a tone that was bordering on hysterical. "I can't stay here, I need to get to work!"          
     
"Everybody needs to get to work!" - the man snapped back at her. "But the door is locked. What else do you want me to do?"    
    
"So what, we're going to stay here locked because of some kid's prank?" - she squealed at a frequency I thought was impossible for a human voice to produce.    
    
"I doubt that it was a prank" - the man said. "I've worked as a welder for seventeen years, so I can tell you for sure: the door was welded shut from the inside".   
     
There was a pause of silence as everyone considered the meaning of his words. Somebody locked themselves in with the rest of the tenants? But why?    
    
"Who the **** would do something like that?" - I asked aloud no one in particular.   
    
"Some maniac, for sure" - the old woman grunted. She gave me a mean eye, and then tugged my sleeve: "Say, what apartment are you from? I don't recall seeing you here. Is that you who's done that?" - she pointed at the door. "You and your good-for-nothing friends, huh? Probably hoping to butcher us all and take our money, huh?" - she was getting louder with each sentence, and I suddenly found myself at the center of attention of a really mean and annoyed crowd.   
     
I had to defuse the situation fast, or else I wouldn't be able to reach my apartment in one piece.    
    
"I'm Tamara Vasilyevna's grandson" - I explained, feeling angry that my words - the ****-honest truth - sounded like an excuse In that context. "I've lived here for the past year. And I just came down from my apartment".   
   
"Leave him be, you old hag" - one of the men from the back of the crowd interfered. "I've seen this lad here many times, he's good people. Helped me with my bags more than once".    
    
The woman was obviously humiliated by such a development and gave me a death glare, but thankfully, she didn't say anything else.     
    
A doorbell buzzed behind me: someone from the crowd was trying to reach the neighbors that lived on the first floor.        
    
"Open up!" - I heard a man's voice shouting, followed by the thuds of his fists knocking on the door. "The door's stuck, and I need to go to work!"    
    
"How are they going to help you?" - someone from the crowd asked.    
    
"I'll crawl out through their window, that's how!" - the man replied.    
    
"Don't be ridiculous, all of the windows on the first floor are grated" - somebody else shouted, but the man didn't listen. It seemed that more people joined him as I could hear numerous fists banging on the door.    
    
"Hello? Can you help me with the door? I can't seem to open it!" - we suddenly heard a voice coming from outside - from beneath the welded door.   
    
Somebody was caught outside when the door was welded shut - I can't find any explanation as to why they were trying to enter our building at such an early hour. Perhaps they were out for groceries. Or they decided to take a morning jog. Or perhaps it was a postman. Doesn't matter now.     
    
The people started talking all at the same time, trying to explain their situation to the man, or to ask him to call for help, or to demand him to explain himself, but he never had a chance to answer their questions.    
    
"Oh my ****, what the **** is it?!" - he screamed in terror. The door shook as he started pulling on the door handle, hoping to pry the door open.    
   
The crowd fell silent: the terror in the man's voice was so genuine that no one had any doubts that he indeed saw something horrifying.    
   
"Let me in! Please!" - he screamed again, desperately hoping to muster the strength to open the door.   
   
We couldn't see, of course, what scared him so much - but we could hear it. The heavy snarling, the clanking teeth of a huge maw, the claws scratching against the ground. Getting louder with each second.     
    
The concern for his fate swept over us at the same time: it was probably what our ancestors felt when they watched one of their own being chased by a lion.   
    
"Run! Run while you still can!" - the crowd shouted, but it was already too late.   
    
There was a loud thud and the door shook: the unknown creature rammed straight into man, pressing him to the door with its massive frame. I could hear it growling as it was tearing into him, trying to get a better hold of him, but I couldn't recognize the animal. The door trembled again and again, as the creature was throwing the man against it, hoping to get him to stop resisting. He screamed until the creature finally got to his throat. Someone gasped in terror.   
    
"Help him, someone!" - somebody from the back of the crowd shouted. Nobody moved: there was nothing we could do. The iron door that protected us from the creature outside was also separating us from the man. He was so close to us, and yet he was dying alone.     
    
There was another strike at the door, and the crowd stepped back. The creature was testing the metal, it could hear us inside, but the door stood still. Whoever welded it shut did a good job. After that, it fell silent. We didn't know whether it left or was standing right behind the door, biding its time. We couldn't check either way.    
    
It was at that moment that we heard them. The sirens. Old and rusty, they were coming back to life after decades of sleep to fulfill their purpose - to warn people of an incoming catastrophe. The years of slumber did not do them any good - they started out sounding low, but with each second, as their mechanical voice chords were stretching and warming up, they were getting louder and higher, until the familiar sound that everyone had hoped to never hear was drowning out everything else.
    
The sirens were getting louder, but in the pauses between its pulses, I could hear that the noise of the town outside was getting quieter. After a few minutes, the commotion outside was gone as everyone evacuated. We were left alone - probably the only people in the entire district.   
    
Alone. Stranded. With something dangerous roaming beneath our windows.    
    
I can hear howl and scream in the distance - its voice sounds almost human. But I now know the difference - you could tell it clearly when its howl was followed by a human scream.    
    
Now, you might think that there was panic among the tenants, but you would be wrong. A distinctive feature of Russian people is that they, more than anyone else in the world, don't give a ****. I say this with absolute certainty. Once they learned that the police told them to stay put they just calmed down. I can sort of see their reasoning: "why panic when you're protected by the walls? Can't you stay at home for a few days? The police told us that it's dangerous outside, so why would you go there? I've lived through the nineties, you wet-eared mutt, you think this is going to scare me?"    
    
So while everyone was displeased, they decided to stay put. And well, if they don't want to go then I don't have much choice either. I'd rather stay in our fort with the majority of people, even if they aren't the most pleasant company, then risk going out. Besides, it's not like there's any immediate threat to my life.   
    
Right?   
***
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dy5240/this_morning_the_doors_to_our_apartment_complex/)    
[S.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Scandalist/comments/4n4iu6/authors_message_welcome_new_readers/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I played a text-based adventure game on the dark web. I can't undo the things I did.
 
 Assistant:  

I spend a lot of time on reddit. I’m sure you do, too. I’m on a lot of video game subs, and in particular ones about text-based games. I’m talking games like *Zork*. I wasn’t alive when *Zork* came out, but I got really into it in high school. When I made it to college, I took an even deeper dive, playing all the sequels, all the knock-offs, and every **** game that people had cobbled together and released online. I had to refocus a bit, adding work on top of college courses so I could afford my shoebox apartment, but eventually I came across a post called “Apartment Complex.”

Not a super promising name.

But I was bored, and it was free, and the fact that it was hosted on some weird site that I couldn’t access from regular browsers appealed to me. It added an element of mystery. So I opened a Tor browser, entered the link, and got to a profile creation page. Basic stuff: username, preferred resolution, etc. It didn’t ask for any personal info, so I kept going.

The screen went blank, then a text box opened up.

“Welcome to Apartment Complex! You have been assigned your very own apartment building to run. But this isn’t any apartment building, because the tenants are going to be experiencing some pretty scary ordeals. You get to decide what happens next. Will your tenants survive? Will you accidentally butcher them all? The power is in your hands! Are you ready? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

*Why not,* I figured. I typed in a Y. More text appeared.

“Excellent. We’ll start you off with an easy management level. You have six tenants, numbered 1-6. None of them know each other well. Enter a number to learn more about a tenant and begin to make decisions.”

I grabbed a 6-sided die off my desk and rolled it.

Three.

“3,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! The tenant in apartment 3 is Cherie. She’s 19 and a sophomore in college. All her friends know her to be outgoing and flirty, and she brings new guys back to her apartment multiple times a week. She doesn’t want a commitment. She enjoys ****, but mostly she just likes not being alone. It’s possible it’s related to how she was repeatedly abandoned by foster parents. Tonight, she brought home a young man named Thad. She plans to have **** with Thad, and he will pressure her not to use a condom. She will say yes because she doesn’t want to scare him off. But you can help her out! Should tonight be the night she stands up to Thad and tells him she won’t sleep with him without protection at the risk of spending the night alone? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

I didn’t realize this game would be so...domestic soap opera? *Whatever,* I thought, *let’s see how this plays out.*

“Y,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! Thad and Cherie start to get hot and heavy. When they are **** on her couch, Thad starts to try penetrating her, but Cherie stops him and says he needs to use a condom. Thad complains that it doesn’t feel as good. Cherie tells him that it’s more important that both of them are protected from STDs. She’s feeling a little tense. Thad calls her a **** and a tease and throws his clothes back on. Cherie cries as Thad goes to storm out. Unfortunately, Cherie’s door won’t open. Thad checks, and the door isn’t locked, but it refuses to open. Furious, Thad storms back to where Cherie is still laying **** on the couch, crying, and begins to scream at her. Would you like to continue making decisions for Cherie, or try another tenant? \[1\] for Cherie, \[2\] for new tenant.”

This game was weird and pretty retro, but I also found myself pretty intrigued by Cherie and Thad’s story. The clunky stories in these games had a certain charm that made them very engaging. **** it, lets keep going.

“1,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! Thad continues to scream at Cherie, who can’t stop crying. She’s afraid he might hit her. Thad hasn’t decided if he will or not, but plans to let his anger and lack of concern for Cherie as a human being guide his behavior. If things continue as they are, Thad will most likely beat Cherie to the point she will need to be rushed to the emergency room. Should Thad be stopped? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

“****,” I mumbled out loud to myself. “This got intense.”

“Y,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! A ceiling tile falls off. The edge cuts across Thad’s jugular. Blood gushes everywhere. He is dead in seconds.”

“What the ****,” I said to myself. “This game is whack.” The text continued to appear.

“Cherie is horrified. Much of the blood sprayed all over her. She’s so scared, she starts to shut down. Cherie won’t be taking any more actions for a while. Choose a tenant: \[1\], \[2\], \[4\], \[5\], \[6\]”

*Damn,* I thought. *Looks like I’m not going to finish this game with a decent score. Keep plugging away though…*

I rolled the die again. Five. I typed it in.

“Intriguing choice! The tenant in apartment 5 is Clyde. He is 35 and works at the local First State Bank. His hobbies include snowboarding, tennis, recreational ****, ‘90s sitcoms, and fishing. He’s home alone tonight after his girlfriend, Alicia, texted him and told him she was leaving him for his brother. He bought a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and is working his way through that and the third season of *Frasier*. He feels the itch to strangle someone. It’s been a while, and he’s trying to kick the habit, but the deep well of emotion seems to be so deep that ice cream alone can’t fill it. He’s hoping to quench the urge with a tv binge, but just as he’s settling in, he starts to smell gas. Should he investigate? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

Not investigating would be boring, so of course I typed in a Y.

“Intriguing choice! Clyde gets off the couch and follows his nose to the kitchen, where a heavy propane smell is blasting out of one of the burners. He’s familiar enough with gas leaks to know that he’s one spark away from Clyde flambé. Should Clyde leave, or keep **** up the fumes? \[1\] Clyde leaves or \[2\] Clyde stays.”

*Seems weird to release the murdered,* I thought, *but it would be boring to just gas him to death*.

I type a 1.

“Intriguing choice! Clyde exits his apartment and heads down the stairs to the front door. When he makes it to the floor below his, he sees that the the stairs are blocked by fallen ceiling tiles. There are stairs on the opposite side of the floor. On the way, he would pass two other apartments, which would likely have phones to call the fire department to handle the gas leak. Should he stop at the first apartment \[1\], the second apartment \[2\], or take the stairs \[3\]”

“1,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice!” That was it. No more text.

“What the ****…” I said under my breath. And then there was a knock on my door.

I froze.

“Hey, anyone home?” a voice called from the other side of my door. “My name’s Clyde, I live on the floor above you. My phone isn’t working and my apartment smells like gas. Can I borrow your phone?”

I sat as still as I could, making no sound.

“Seriously, it’s an emergency. I’m pretty sure I heard some noise in there. I need help!”

On my screen, I saw more text pop up.

“Should Clyde keep trying the first apartment \[1\], try the next apartment \[2\], or take the stairs on the far end of the floor \[3\]”

As gently as I could, I pressed 2. The clack of the key sounded like a gunshot in my head.

“Whatever, ****. I know you’re home. I hope you enjoy being a piece of ****,” Clyde said. Then I heard his footsteps go down the hall. The apartment building I’m in is new and pretty well insulated, but I could faintly hear knocking on the apartment down the hall from me. I knew a college girl lived there. Hopefully she isn’t home.

Wait.

College girl?

No, it couldn’t be.

Text started filling up my screen again.

“Clyde went to the next apartment and knocked on the door. He heard sobbing from inside. When the tenant inside didn’t open the door, he tried the ****. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. It looked like it was misaligned, and with the heat wave, the wood had swollen and jammed the door in place.”

Suddenly, I heard a smash from outside. I tore my eyes to look at my front door, but it was still solidly shut. The sound had come from down the hall. I looked back at my screen.

“Clyde used his shoulder to slam the door, and it popped open. He stepped in, calling to whoever was in the apartment. Walking further in, he saw a shocking sight: a man on the ground, his neck slashed open. A ceiling tile on the ground next to him. On the couch, a completely **** young woman. And, covering everything, a massive splatter of blood. Clyde grinned. Are you going to help Cherie \[leave your apartment and go to hers\] or do nothing while Clyde murders her \[1\]”

This was so messed up. I couldn’t just let someone muder my neighbor, even if I barely knew her. But I was terrified. I got up, ran to my kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife I could find, then went to my door. I took three deep breaths to steady myself, then I unlocked the door, threw it open, and ran out into the hall. I looked over to where the other apartment was, and I could see where the door had been broken in. I ran as quietly as I could over there, and when I reached the door, stopped short and stuck my head around the door frame to see what was going on.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see what was happening from where I was. I crept in as stealthily as I could. The first thing that hit me was the bitter stench of blood. Then I got close enough to see what was happening. Cherie was on her back on the couch, Clyde leaning over her with his hands around her throat. She was scratching at him, but the blood made everything slick and it looked like her nails were sliding around more than doing damage.

I ran up to them and drove my knife straight into Clyde’s back. He roared and whirled around.

“You ****,” he yelled, and dove at me, tackling me to the ground. He started pummeling me with his fists. There was little I could do to stop him. With each blow, I felt myself getting weaker, my vision going darker.

And then Clyde screamed.

I focused as best I could. Above Clyde, Cherie was raising the knife for another blow. She stabbed Clyde over and over until he collapsed on top of me, and then she stabbed him some more. I screamed at her to stop, to let me up, and eventually I broke through her terror. She helped me push his body off.

I threw a blanket around Cherie and then called the cops. We spent a lot of time going over our stories with them. I left out the dark web stuff because I didn’t want to get in trouble. Finally, the cops left. Cherie went to go stay with her parents and I went back to my apartment.

When I got back, words were flashing on my screen.

“Remember: Everything that happened tonight was your choice.”

And below that:

“We hope you play Apartment Complex again!”

[WR](https://www.reddit.com/r/WendigoRoar/comments/knysiu/story_directory/)

[TCC](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/comments/jvvtav/author_database/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: When I was just a kid, my grandmother took me ‘fairy spotting’. We still don’t talk about what happened that day…
 
 Assistant: On Saturdays, Grandma took me fairy spotting. We’d catch the 9:36 train to Heuston station, cross the underpass, and then spend hours wandering through Ravenscroft Forest, hand-in-hand.

At the far side of the giant lake, behind a hanging wall of vines, there was this super-secret spot only we knew about; a flat patch of grass, perfect for mid-day picnics.

While we munched fruit scones and sipped hot tea from a thermos, Grandma would point toward a nearby oak tree, huge and brown and dappled with moss.

“Look Evelyn, that’s where the fairies live,” she’d say, pointing at a huge hollow in its side.

A circle of ****, spongy mushrooms surrounded the tree’s exposed roots, and she insisted anybody who stepped inside the ‘fairies ring’ was liable to become trapped in their realm.

To ten-year-old me, it sounded like Narnia.

All I wanted, more than anything, was to catch a glimpse of these magical creatures. My eyes stayed glued to that dark hole until Grandma began packing up, at which point I’d beg her to wait just five more minutes.

“Don’t worry, Eve, we’ll come back again next week,” she’d say, then we’d pinky promise on that.

As a tribute for intruding upon their home, Grandma always left behind a pack of chocolate fingers—the fairies’ favourite snack—either stashed beneath a log or fallen leaves.

And come the following week, those treats would always be gone…

No matter what the two of us did together (rummage through thrift stores; practice hopscotch; even homework) Grandma and I always the best time, so you can imagine how devastating it was to find her on the kitchen floor, her eyes rolled back in her skull.

She entered hospital on June 3rd, 2015. Again and again, the adults in my life promised she would recover soon, but while staying with my aunt Christine, I tiptoed downstairs one night and heard her speaking over the phone.

“Poor Mary’s developed sepsis now. Even if she miraculously pulls through, she’ll be too weak to look after Evelyn.”

When we next visited, grandma breathed through a respirator, her arms purple from all the **** bruises.

I grabbed Aunt Christine’s hand and told her we had to go to Ravenscroft right away. Perhaps, in exchange for chocolate fingers, the fairies would grant a wish like in the old stories?

With a sympathetic voice, she explained Grandma needed us close by right now, not wishes.

Upset, I bolted out of the ward, doctors and nurses calling after me. I blitzed straight past the carpark, caught the next train to Heuston, and used my pocket money to buy the biggest pack of fingers imaginable.

Beyond the underpass, a bearded man handed over a flyer protesting the council’s decision to fell Ravenscroft and develop a block of flats, which I folded into my pocket mumbling, “Thank you.”

At the fairy tree, I set the chocolates outside the circle and said, “I don’t know if you’re listening, but I really, really need a wish to come true: please make my grandmother better, please.”

I sat there with my legs crossed until dusk. By then, there’d been zero sign of any fairies, and what’s worse, Aunt Christine would now be absolutely furious with me.

Angry at the **** fairies, I shouted, “Thanks for nothing,” and then kicked the head off the closest mushroom.

I shoved past the ivy wall and stomped along the trail until, out of nowhere, there came a flutter of wings from the direction of the tree. I spun around, seeing nothing.

Had the fairies heard my wish?

I shoved back through the vines but didn’t uncover any mythical creatures—only a scrawny girl, roughly my age and dressed in a strange blouse, cramming chocolate fingers into her piehole at a pace that put hippos to shame.

“Are you a fairy?” I asked, as I slowly approached her. Like me, she had curly blonde hair, except hers stuck out in all directions, almost feral.

“I’m no fairy,” she snapped, her mouth half-full.

“Then…what are you?”

“I’m a girl.”

I contemplated this. “Why are your clothes so weird?”

“Why are *yours* weird?”

Weird? What was weird about a pink sweater with a unicorn picture?

I said, “You shouldn’**** those biscuits, I left them for the fairies.”

“That was silly. Didn’t anybody tell you fairies are make believe?”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

My hands balled into fists. “Well either way, I paid for them, and you’re just shovelling them into your gob.”

After a loud burp, she said, “Got any more?”

I shook my head. And with that, she ducked inside the hollow.

“You could at least say thank you,” I shouted.

No reply. I stepped over the mushrooms, went right up to the hollow, and peeked inside. The girl had vanished. But how?

Just then, Grandma’s warning echoed through my mind. Was this how changelings lured children into their realm?

If that were true, though, what had I to lose? Without a wish, Grandma might not last much longer.

One step into the darkened space, the ground gave way, and I toppled forward.

My chin landed in a clod of wet dirt. I stood, spitting moss and dead leaves. I’d landed *outside* the tree. But wait, hadn’t I fallen *into* it? How did that work?

This hardly seemed important. Overhead, storm clouds were brewing, and the sun had almost set. Not wanting to become lost overnight, I started back toward the trail.

Immediately there was some sensory confusion. Instead of an ivy wall, crisscrossed, skeletal branches now thrashed around, shaken by a powerful gale, and the grass had a fresh layer of dew, as though it recently stopped raining.

I wormed my way through the branches and searched for familiar landmarks doubling back once, twice, soon finding myself stumbling around blind in the dark.

Hoping a late straggler out for a walk would come to my rescue, I called out for help, again and again.

“Hello?” a male voice eventually shouted back.

“I’m lost, please help,” I shouted, racing past a thick grove of trees, in the direction of the sound.

But as a heavy pair of boots stomped along, I skidded to a halt.

I’m not sure why I suddenly got spooked. Perhaps it was the sour stench that accompanied the approaching silhouette. Or maybe the harsh, grating quality in it's voice, which I could now hear clearly above the groaning air. In any case, I got this powerful sense I didn't want to be seen.

Quickly I broke from the path and threw my back flat against the far side of an ash tree. I squeezed my eyes shut, my entire body shivering as the voice circled my position. “Where are ya darlin'? C'mon out.”

Then, out of nowhere, something brushed my arm.

A hand clamped around my mouth, stifling an oncoming yelp.

Terrified, I opened my eyes saw the girl from earlier, a forefinger pressed against her lips.

We stood motionless while heavy footsteps lumbered by, the harsh voice melting into the gloom. Once it completely tapered off, the girl whispered, “Let's go,” and dragged me along the trail.

For fifteen minutes she guided me through a labyrinth of swaying trees and hedges. On the far side of the lake, we approached what *resembled* the front entrance, except the train tracks above the underpass were missing.

And after that tunnel spat us out on what *should* have been Heuston street, my jaw popped open. Because the station was gone, replaced by two rows of red-brick houses. Black posts with arches at the top stood guard every twenty metres or so, and there was no clear boundary between road and pavement.

Was this the fairies realm?

Unconcerned by this, the girl pulled me through a narrow archway, into a cobblestoned path pinched between two buildings.

Still catching my breath, I said, “The overpass.”

“The what?”

“The train track.”

“Oh, *that*. It doesn’t exist yet.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“You’ve travelled back in time,” she said like this was no big deal.

In response to my bemused expression, she added, “When you climb inside the tree you travel through time.”

“You’re lying.” Although my conscious mind remained in denial, my senses all recognized this as true; how else could you explain Heuston street’s magical rearrangement?

“Why’s *that* so hard to believe?” the girl asked, irritated. “Didn’t you believe in fairies twenty minutes ago?”

“That’s different,” I answered bitterly. “I’m going back.”

“You can’t.”

“Why?”

“Pat the hat’s back there. He’s probably still searching for you.”

“Who’s *Pat the hat*?”

“A local basket case. They say he's to blame for a bunch of missing kids. That's why he lives in a hut out in the forest by himself.”

“Isn’t there a way around?” I asked, still struggling to process these events.

The girl shook her head.

I thought for a moment. “If the tree takes me through time, then…*when* am I?”

“1955.”

1955? Did the fairies send me here as punishment for kicking the **** mushroom?

Certain they’d never help Grandma now, I crouched into a ball, knees hugged against my chest, and sobbed.

“What’s wrong?” the girl asked.

“I wanna go home.”

“Oh. Well…I can take you back to the tree tomorrow?”

“What am I supposed to do until then? I don’t know *anybody* in 1955 and you ate the biscuits meant for the fairies.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I really needed a wish. My grandma’s sick and I needed the fairy’s to make her better.”

While I buried my face in my lap, the girl said, “Why don’t you come home with me? You can hide out there until morning.”

Looking back, she most likely offered because of the guilt over my unfortunate predicament. Aunt Christine would worry sick about me, but there didn’t seem to be much choice.

I stood brushing snot off my chin. “Fine. You owe me for eating the chocolate anyway.”

“Then its settled. By the way, my name’s Rosie.”

“Evelyn.”

Already starting down the alley, she pointed at my jumper. “Okay Evelyn, people aren’t used to those kinds of clothes in 1955, and nobody else knows about the tree, so we have to stay hidden. Also, Grandma would flip a lid at the thought of another mouth to feed, so I’ll sneak you around back.”

“I live with my grandma too,” I said. Then, solemnly: “Well…I did.”

“Was she a mean lady who hits you with a cane?” Rosie said over her shoulder.

“No. She’s nice.”

“Better than mine then. You hungry?”

As if on cue, my stomach spoke up.

“We can stop by the bakery. Ms. Donnelly works there Saturdays. If there’s any treats left at closing time she lets me have them.”

On the far side of a network of puddle-filled side streets, I hovered in the shadow of an entry while Rosie rapped on a wooden door.

A smiling lady in a green apron appeared and handed over a loaf of bread, and after they chatted for a little while, the woman returned inside, then Rosie hurried over and tore the loaf in half. “Here. It’s not as tasty as chocolate fingers, but it’s still pretty good.”

In 1955, the town felt more like a sleepy village. Within minutes we’d reached the outskirts, then a winding dirt road carried us past farmers’ fields filled with cattle and sheep, toward a small, white cottage. Our shoes squelched in the dirt as we tiptoed around back, toward a window at chest height.

“Wait here,” Rosie whispered. “I’ll let you in as soon as grandmas asleep.”

A few seconds later, this rough, gravelly voice started up. From the sounds of things, Rosie landed herself in hot water by returning home late.

To guard against the howling wind, I rubbed my arms until the window swivelled open, and then my guide pulled me inside a cramped bedroom with a simple wardrobe and tiny bed. Black grime crawled up stone walls, and the only clue a girl slept there was a red-haired doll resting on a wicker chair in one corner.

“Soon as I finish my chores tomorrow, I’ll take you back to the tree,” Rosie said. “You can borrow my old clothes so we don’t have to sneak around.”

Old lady snores, harsher than a chainsaw, blasted through the wall while she laid out some sheets and a mat along the floor, since one girl could barely fit in the bed, never mind two. After we tucked in, I looked up at Rosie and whispered, “How come you know so much about this time travel stuff anyway?”

Propping herself up on one elbow, she took a deep breath and started into the story.

Rosie’s grandma had a nasty temper, and anytime chores needed done, she’d wrap this big black cane around her granddaughter’s neck and spit orders.

On her ninth birthday, Rosie had been in such a rush to finish her errands and play she didn’t double-check the bananas she purchased from the greengrocer, which meant she missed a bruised spot.

At the sight of this, her grandmother stood wielding the cane like a sword.

Before things got hairy, Rosie flew out the door all the way down the lane, and she didn’t stop running until she hit Ravenscroft Forest, where she mindlessly kicked around dirt until she happened across a tree with a giant hollow in its side. That seemed as good a place as any to hide and cry, so she crawled inside the hole.

Immediately the ground gave way, then she landed flat on her chest.

She spat out leaves and glanced around. Nearby, an elderly lady sat picnicking.

“Hungry?” the lady asked, as she offered Rosie chocolate fingers.

Although Rosie knew not to accept things from strangers, this one had a warm, inviting demeanour. Plus, she really, really loved chocolate, which she hardly ever got.

While they ate, the lady explained Rosie had tumbled into the future and proved this by showing off a high-tech gadget that—from the description—sounded like a mobile phone.

After they ate, Rosie announced she wasn’t going home, ever. Anytime beat the past.

Unfortunately, the mysterious lady explained staying would be far, far too dangerous.

As a compromise, the lady promised she’d leave more treats. “Next time you’re hungry, scared, or sick of your grandma, come back here. I’ll hide more chocolate for you. But Rosie, don’t wander too far. If you wind up trapped in the future, that would be very, very bad.”

And so, Rosie routinely visited that same spot. Sometimes there were snacks, sometimes there weren’t, and once on Christmas day, a red-haired dolly greeted her.

But whatever the case, she never saw that old lady again.

“And I never even got to thank her,” Rosie said, her story ending on a down note.

“Wait a minute,” I replied, excited. “My grandma left treats when we went for picnics. Did the lady say her name?”

“Mary, I think.”

“That’s her,” I said, a little *too* enthusiastically. In the next room, the snores ceased, briefly.

I whispered, “The lady who left the treats was my grandma. I could take you to meet her.”

This made Rosie’s face light up. “Really?”

That sense of elation didn’t last long, because now my mind travelled back to 2015.

“What’s wrong?” Rosie asked.

I explained Grandma’s illness meant she couldn’t take care of me.

“But we can still visit, right?”

“…I guess so.”

“And when she gets better, we can have picnics? All three of us?”

“Okay, deal.” I held up my little finger. “Pinky swear.”

She made a face. Apparently, people didn’t pinky swear in 1955.

“Here, gimme your finger.” Our pinkys interlocked. “There. Now it’s a special promise.”

“Huh. A pinky swear.”

With that, the two of us said goodnight.

After an uneasy night’s sleep on the brutal floor, Rosie gave me a tight blouse and wool cardigan so that I’d blend in. Only my trainers didn’t match, but there weren’t any spare shoes I could wear.

After quietly worming my way out the window, I waited while Rosie’s grandmother barked orders.

She eventually shuffled around the house and blew a raspberry over her shoulder. “Grandma needs me to pick up sausages from the butcher. I’ll take you back right after.”

Along the way, Rosie asked me questions about the future—mostly about how people lived and worked. She couldn’t understand the concept of the internet and refused to believe two men would walk on the moon in less than twenty years.

Halfway into town, from across the trail, a group of girls playing hopscotch called Rosie a gobdaw, which didn’t sound especially friendly. She ignored them at first, their insults growing louder and meaner until she finally snapped and said, “What do you want?”

They challenged her to a game of hopscotch.

Stepping forward, I said, “I’ve got this. Grandma and I played all the time.”

Rosie told the girls I was her cousin. They remarked on my strange shoes and, whenever I used words or phrases not common in 1955, shot each other funny looks, but in the end, none of that mattered once I beat them three times over, blowing one raspberry a piece.

In order to reach town faster, Rosie taught me ‘scutting’, which was when you hitch a ride on the back of a carriage. One milkman carried us half a mile before he heard our stifled laughter and ground to a halt.

The two of us took off giggling, him shaking his fist.

It was the first fun I’d had since Grandma took ill. We played olden-style games with other kids, got more treats from the friendly baker, and waved at workmen passing on bikes, quickly losing track of time.

At mid-afternoon, back at the cottage, the tongue-lashing Rosie’s grandmother dished out reached all the way to the end of the lane, where I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more.

“Sorry, Grandma grounded me,” Rosie said, finally reappearing. “I had to wait until she took a nap.”

“We better beat feet,” she said, with a glance at the sun, now cut in half by the horizon.

Dusk had already crept along by the time we reached Ravenscroft.

“Okay,” I said, jogging up the dirt trail, “here’s what we’ll do: I’ll go home and smooth things out with my aunt, then tomorrow at midday, I’ll bring you a disguise, and we’ll go see Grandma.”

Rosie stopped and held up her little finger. “Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

As we stood there, fingers interlocked, a branch snapped, somewhere close. Then a sour stench drifted toward us.

Our heads whipped in the direction of the sound where, thirty feet ahead and draped in shadows, a towering figure regarded us from the murk.

“Evening girls,” it said, one hand wrapped around an oil lantern. It hoisted the lantern higher, illuminating an **** mouth stuffed with jagged molars. The man staring us down wore one of those flat caps—the kind you see in black-and-white photos.

While the two of us stood rooted on the spot, he said, “Are yis lost? Not to worry, I’ll make sure yis get home safe and sound.”

A hand wrapped in a fingerless glove uncurled, the forefinger beckoning us closer. Rosie and I slowly backstepped away.

For a few seconds, branches shivered and shook as the wind whistled through the lacings of branches. Then, suddenly, ‘Pat the hat’ charged forward.

Rosie’s hand clasped tight around mine. She dragged me toward a dense wall of trees, where we turned sideways so that we could slip through a narrow gap between trunks. Pat charged after us but got stuck halfway through, clawing at the air. “Get back here,” he snarled, some real venom in his voice.

Rosie and I’s arms soon became cut from pushing through a labyrinth of sharp branches and thornbushes. Each time we shook off our pursuer, he somehow picked up the trail.

Sweaty and exhausted and unable to run any longer, we hunched behind a bush and listened helplessly, those footsteps drawing ever louder, closer.

With one hand against her knee, still breathing heavily, Rosie pointed up ahead. “The trees that way. I’m gonna distract him so you can make a break for it.”

“Rosie, no.”

Too late. Without warning, she gave me a quick hug and then took off.

About twenty yards out, she scooped up a twig and snapped it in half. After that, the gloom swallowed my new friend up. I couldn’t even go after her.

Dead leaves shuffled as our pursuer changed direction. When there was only groaning wind, I charged in the direction Rosie indicated, quickly finding myself staring down our hiding place again.

I went in circles, hopelessly lost. Exposed. Soon Pat would find me, then I’d never see Grandma *or* Rosie again. Nobody would ever know what happened to the girl who ran away from the hospital…

But then, there came a flutter of wings, close to my ear. My head whipped around.

Up ahead, beside a fern, I *thought* I glimpsed insect-like wings, glistening in the pale moonlight. They disappeared with a shake of my head.

Seeing no other choice, I raced in the direction I’d seen them—barely aware of the thorns slicing my neck and wrists—ducked beneath interlocked branches, and then found it standing dead ahead: the fairy tree. I’d made it.

Those thick winding limbs heaved up and down like great exhalations as I bolted along.

With one foot inside the hollow, I hesitated. I couldn’t abandon Rosie. If Pat caught her, the children in my time would tell stories about a girl’s spirit that haunted Ravenscroft.

After a long, deep breath, I shouted, “Hey, I’m over here, yoo hoo,” until a bush at the edge of the clearing rustled around. Then, I dove inside the hollow, my left foot raised like I was taking the stairs three steps at a time.

Like before, the world gave way. Rather than topple forward, this time I crouched low, nimbly slipping through the bough.

A trampled mushroom lay dead ahead. I’d landed back in 2015. Now I simply needed to—

Behind me, Pat tumbled out of the hole into the dirt.

Jaw clenched, he looked up and snarled, “Why you little...”

The scream that escaped my mouth was so loud Rosie must have heard it back in 1955.

My legs carried me past the ivy wall, furiously working at top speed. Despite my efforts to shake Pat, he stayed hot on my tail, his hands swiping at the back of my neck every few seconds.

Past a grove of trees, rippling moonlight appeared before me, and right as my pursuer clenched a fistful of hair, we both tumbled down an embankment, crashing against jagged rocks along the way. As my foot bent at an odd angle, a sharp bolt of pain raced along my right thigh.

The blackwater hit like an ice bath. Bubbles spewed from my mouth while I twisted in every direction, blindly searching for the surface.

Suddenly arms clamped around my waist. They hoisted me out of the water and lay me on a level patch of grass, still gagging on brackish liquid and soggy leaves.

Before I even managed that first breath, two hands covered with wet, fingerless gloves wrapped tight around my throat.

My skull felt like a balloon with too much air. Above me, Pat screamed that he should **** me—that he was *going* to **** me. It seemed like I was gazing up at him from the bottom of a well, and that well kept sinking deeper and deeper.

Goodbye Grandma. Goodbye Rosie.

But then, voices. “Over here. This way.”

Beams of lights pierced the trees while dogs barked wildly.

Several figures burst from the forest: men and women carrying flashlights; police officers holding sniffer dogs on short leashes.

It was a search party. *My* search party.

The closest officers aimed their pistols at Pat, who threw both arms into the air.

As the tremendous pressure around my throat eased, a brutal coughing fit set in.

Someone threw a blanket around my shoulders and then carried me toward the entrance, a crowd gathering behind us as word spread the missing girl had been recovered.

Aunt Christine was standing by a police car, her eyes puffy and red. At our emergence from the forest, a flurry of kisses was unleashed upon my forehead.

That late-night ‘swim’ earned me a broken ankle, not to mention all the cuts. Paramedics rushed me to hospital where doctors reset the bone.

Even doped up on painkillers, I refused to sleep until the nurses let me see Grandma. I had to tell her all about my adventure—that I’d met the girl she left chocolate fingers for.

But since my disappearance, her condition had taken a turn. Now, even with the respirator, every breath was a battle.

When they wheeled me to her side, I leaned forward and asked if she could hear me. A pair of glazed eyes rotated in my direction. Then, feebly, Grandma lifted her right hand, the baby finger curling.

A pinky promise.

Just then, my eye happened across the medical chart above her bed which read: Rosemary O'Sullivan.

Rosie. Mary. Rose-*mary*.

“Rosie,” I said, to which she gave the faintest of nods.

Together we sobbed, our pinky’s interlocked, until her head slumped against her shoulder.

In the corner, a heart monitor emitted a steady: *eeeeeeeee*.

Nurses rushed in. One wheeled me away while another pressed down on Grandma’s chest, but there was nothing to be done. Her time had come.

A week later doctors discharged me, dismissing my story as a coping mechanism, or a hallucination induced by swallowing lake water.

The first thing I did was catch the train to Heuston station, meaning to warn Rosie about the future—about what lay in store.

But as the train pulled up, my heart dropped.

The forest had vanished. In its place, JCBs and steamrollers ploughed through huge mounds of dirt, pyramids of horizontal logs piled up here and there.

The tree was gone. [And with it, my doorway back to 1955…](https://www.reddit.com/r/thoughtindustry/comments/te0fum/welcome_i_hope_you_enjoy_your_stay/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I just graduated from medical school, and my list of rules led me down a bizarre hallway
 
 Assistant: Have you ever walked through a hallway where *everyone knew* that you didn’t belong?

Imagine experiencing that in your own place of work.

I kept my head down and my ears up as I traveled through the central corridor of the children’s burn unit of St. Francis Hospital. 

This hospital doesn’t have a children’s burn unit. 

Even though I passed by a sign that proudly claimed it had been donated by the “Friends of Crespwell Academy for Superb Children.”

Nope. This place didn’t exist. I’d been working at St. Francis since July, and I knew every square inch of it. 

*Maybe* there was a wing that I had missed, right? 

But after advancing in a straight line for several minutes, I knew that was nonsense. I didn’t go around any corners or encounter any walls. I certainly would have noticed a half-mile hallway if it were real. 

The people were… *off* as well. There was a heavyset nurse with frizzy hair who stared with distrust as I passed. I encountered her three different times along the same corridor, despite the fact that she could not possibly have moved ahead of me.

Another nurse, frail and nervous-looking, tried to hand me a bag of blood. When I refused, she threw it angrily on the ground, where it splattered. 

I kept walking without looking back. [My list of rules had been very clear about the fact that I was to continue in a straight line for 47 minutes if I found myself in this impossible place](https://redd.it/dj5fgp). 

I glanced down at my watch. It was 3:09 a. m., six minutes since I’d arrived in this impossible corner of ****. 

The employees became more insistent as I walked on. 

“Doctor!” a resident yelled at me as he jumped out of a room, “the patient is coding! We need you, stat!”

I carefully avoided eye contact as I moved past him. 

“DOCTOR!” he screamed, “You’re killing her!” 

I wiped away a tear as I continued forward, ignoring the unholy scream that came from the room. I’d heard enough patients to know what a death wail sounds like, but I had no choice.

A minute later, I came across a pool of standing blood. It reached across to both walls of the hallway, and stretched twenty feet in front of me. As I watched, I could see it growing. A surly-looking man in a janitor’s uniform stood by, arms crossed, staring at me.

I didn’t think he was actually a janitor. 

Without slowing down, I plodded through the blood. Squish, squish, squish.

****. These *were* my favorite pair of Crocs. 

I entered a clear patch of hallway and checked my watch. It was 3:22; I’d been walking for nineteen minutes, which was thirteen longer than last I’d checked. 

The newfound quiet was more unnerving than the blood had been.

Then, slowly, I could feel tension growing in the air. Imagine a strange man standing two inches behind you who you can smell but not see as his breath warms the back of your neck. 

That kind of tension was coming from the room ahead. 

Slowly, the door came into view. 

I could see the numbers “191-” before I closed my eyes.

I kept them shut tight as I went by. Vertigo nearly sent me tumbling as I passed the door.

I didn’t care about the possibility of walking into a wall. I kept my eyes closed for a long time after that. 

Miraculously, I didn’t hit anything. 

When I finally opened them again, it was 3:27. 

Twenty-four minutes to go.

That’s when the hand tugged at my back. “Can you please help me?” squeaked a terrified voice from behind.

I stopped walking. I considered my options. 

Then I continued forward. 

“Wait!” he cried. “Please, I’m really hurt and I need your help!” He grabbed my shirt again and started crying. 

I wiped both eyes and moved onward. 

The greatest challenges make us grow. But that feat is achieved through forcing some small part of us to die. Children only have the energy and drive to play outside because the world hasn’t yet extracted its inevitable due.

I knew that I had to obey the rules, but doing so killed a little piece of my soul. I’d become a doctor because I had believed that I could give all of *me* to a cause and keep getting out of bed each day without a diminished sense of purpose.

But as I listened to the child walk behind me, crying loudly and begging for help, I accepted the fact that part of me was never coming out of that ****-forsaken burn unit.

I passed the heavyset nurse again. Her eyes bulged as she saw the boy. “Doctor!” She yelled. “You need to help that child!”

I walked past without acknowledging her.

“DOCTOR!” She screamed. “What is *wrong* with you?”

I ignored her in the same way that I dismissed all the nurses, doctors, and patients who gawked at the boy in my wake. No matter what they shouted, I pretended not to hear them as I moved onward.

*“What HAPPENED to him?”*

*“Him? What happened to HER? Why would anyone ignore a child in that state?”*

*“Should we help him?”* *“No – the boy is HER responsibility.”*

The tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times I wiped my face.

I passed a doctor and another janitor. I recognized them as the people who had extracted Myron from the O. R. They stared, arms folded, judging me as I went by. 

“Figures,” the doctor explained to the silent janitor. “She wasn’t there for her little brother, either.”

I broke. I let my body double over and cried openly. Deep, *ugly* sobs heaved from my diaphragm, convulsing my frame as my mind teetered on edge. 

But I didn’t stop walking. Doctors can compartmentalize when facing issues of life and death, and my life depended on constant movement. 

The boy clutched my shirt as I wailed, and we walked. For no less than three miles, I endured the most bizarre trial of my life. 

A sudden change in the acoustics prompted me to look at my watch. 

3:51 a. m. 

47 minutes had passed. 

I allowed one, final, shuddering sob. Then I stopped and looked around. 

I was in familiar territory. 

The first friendly face was Lydia, a nurse that I knew was from *this* world. I wanted to wrap her in a bear hug and scream in delight.

She stared at me, her face contorted in horror. “What the *fuck* is that thing behind you?!”

My body temperature surely dropped five degrees as I felt a familiar tugging on my shirt.

I froze.

Panicked footsteps came rushing my way. I stared in their direction instead of looking behind me.

Dr. Scritt was in full sprint. “Dr. Afelis!” She yelled.

She was the consummate ****, but in that moment I wanted to see her more than anyone else on earth.

“It’s been 47 minutes,” I heaved in a shaking breath, “should I look at *it*?”

Dr. Scritt stopped a few steps away from me.

Gravely, she nodded.

I swallowed, then slowly turned around. I told myself that nothing is ever as bad as we picture it, because reality is bound by rules that imagination is not. 

I was wrong. 

Imagine a pizza with the cheese stripped off. A lumpy mass of marinara is occasionally interrupted by chunks of sizzling meet that sit atop a mound of globby, yeasty dough. 

Now imagine that the pizza is a person, that person is a child, and one eyeball is hanging from an empty socket.

And that child has no hair, because all the skin is gone from his scalp, and that he has a gaping hole where a nose used to be.

“Help me,” he whispered. “Hel-”

His jaw fell to the floor, scattering teeth in every direction. The boy’s tongue dangled from his open throat, flopping aimlessly like a dying fish.

Then he squeezed my arm in a vice-like grip, screamed, and fell to the ground.

I looked down at the motionless glob of flesh that had once been a child. “Dr. Scritt,” I breathed, “is he-”

“Don’t be an idiot, Dr. Afelis, he was dead long before you brought him here.”

I stared at her in sudden realization. “Like – more than 120 minutes before?”

“Did your inane chatter suddenly achieve the ability to carry a body to the morgue, Dr. Afelis?” she asked as she bent over the corpse.

“Um. I’ll… find a gurney…”

“No one signs up to be a doctor because she’s afraid of getting blood on her manicure.” she snapped as she lifted the boy’s shoulders. “Grab the **** legs and let’s hope his body has more structural integrity than Jello. This cadaver’s not going to walk *itself* to the crematorium.”

Dazedly, I bent down and picked up the boy’s ankles. My stomach turned as his skin shifted under my grip like the flesh of barbecued chicken.

*Compartmentalize.*

Lydia held the door open for us as we carried the boy down the stairs, through the morgue, and into a corner where I had never needed to venture. 

I knew that the incinerator was there, but I had had no reason to use it.

“It’s too small to fit his body inside,” I explained as I gasped for air. Dr. Scritt was clearly in amazing shape; she had nearly sprinted across the morgue, and I had struggled to keep pace while hauling the body. “What can we-”

She grunted as she snatched the corpse from me and shoved his feet inside the incinerator. “If you’re going to bore me to death with ridiculous conversation, Dr. Afelis, then hurry up and make sure I’m dead before 120 minutes is up! Either that or **** *help me!”*

It’s amazing what we’re capable of doing when an imposing figure informs us that we have no choice.  

Side by side, we forced the boy’s body into the narrow opening of the incinerator. When he got stuck, we just pushed harder. Both of us groaned with effort as his charred, melting flesh sloughed off like the skin of a rotting peach. Lumps of meat dropped to the floor as we peeled layers off the boy.

But he was going in. 

We were pushing his shoulders through when his [eye opened](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/).

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)

[Listen](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn_pa1QfNMRzbTuJqXSoRQ?view_as=subscriber)

-----------

[Part 3](https://redd.it/dkyurp)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Arkansas Sleep Experiments
 
 Assistant: *To Those Who Sleep*

This happened a few years ago. You may have heard rumors if you’re on campus. Some even circulated online. Nobody knew what really happened. Because I’m the only one who knows and I kept quiet. For a multitude of reasons. None of them matter now. Here’s what really happened.

The four of us were handpicked for this experiment by Prof. Richardson because we’d all studied under him, worked under him, and, as much as anyone can, earned his confidence.

He said this one was different. We had to keep it quiet. He wanted to keep details to a minimum. All he would tell us before going in was that he required a month of our lives and that if he succeeded sleep would never again be a necessity.

“Think of it,” he said, “6 to 8 additional hours every day. Your month will be paid back before the year is out.”

If he was right, he’d have a Nobel Prize for sure. It would change the world. We believed in him. Sleep would become a hobby. Imagine that. We felt lucky to be a part of it. We went in with the highest of hopes. We were so excited for a new future for humanity and for ourselves. I was the only one to leave that place.

**Week 1**

Prof. Richardson brought us out to the location in his van, explaining along the way what we were to do. For the purposes of the study, we were asked to remain in the ‘compound,’ as he called it. We would be locked in, in fact, and deprived of windows and wifi. Other than endure patiently, we didn’t have to do much of anything.

“My machine does all the work,” he explained. “It uses a complex mélange of soundwaves to disrupt the processes of sleep, evolutionary appendices from the days before civilization. The most immediate side effect you’ll notice is that you won’t dream. ”

Any other effects we noticed we were to catalogue. We were, as he said, “in uncharted territory” and so we had to “map out the dangers.”

The immensity of the project was inspiring enough. Then we saw the compound. The Octagon, as it was known. A concrete, octagonal structure built at the end of a labyrinth of dirt roads somewhere in the backwoods of Searcy, Arkansas. I’ve never been able to find it again. The Prof said it was originally intended as a jail for terrorists, but it was abandoned and never used. It’s virtually impenetrable, invisible to satellites, but for us it had been stocked with all the comforts we’d require for a month of dedication.

I don’t think know if any of us expected to really conquer sleep. We thought, perhaps, a reduction in sleep requirements could be possible. We spent a fair amount of the first two days speculating on how the machine works with its “complex mélange of soundwaves” and whether sleep really is an evolutionary appendix, as the Prof had claimed.

By the third day of only getting three to four hours of sleep, contrary to feeling groggy, we were more awake and full of energy than ever. We were alert and ready to debate these ideas. That’s when the excitement really hit us.

“He really did it,” JT said. JT was a big, ginger-bearded guy, the sort of guy who still has a healthy collection of Magic cards.

“We don’t know that,” James said, always the skeptic. He came from Australia just to study under Richardson, actually. “The machine could be stimulating the adrenal glands to mildly dose us with adrenaline all throughout the day.”

“Even were that so, wouldn’t change the fact that he beat sleep,” I said.

With our extra time, we were getting in tons of reading, played a **** amount of Call of Duty, and still had plenty of time to sit around and debate. 

“I guess I have to admit it’s **** amazing,” James said.

We all felt it. It was almost euphoric, the excitement we felt for being possibly the first humans to live without the need for sleep. Technically we still needed a few hours each night still, but we decided together that it was more out of habit than necessity.

Then, on the fourth day, Don said, “There’s something wrong.” Don was a serious one. Superserious. He used to be a Franciscan, I’d heard. It showed. He didn’t talk that much and when he did, it was usually worth listening to. This time he put into words something I’d been feeling, but I guess just kinda buried under the excitement.

“With the experiment or…?” That was JT.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a feeling. This constant uneasiness. Like this isn’t going the way it’s supposed to be going or that we’re in the wrong place.”

“No, no,” James said, “I think that’s it: it’s this place. We all knew it was weird when we first saw it. This concrete octagon. But living in it—I think there’s something wrong with this place. Like something terrible happened here.”

“I understood it was never used,” I said.

“Governments always say that about torture prisons,” James said.

“It’s more than that,” JT said. “I feel it, too. I thought it was just from lacking windows at first. But that’s not it. I think it’s the angles. It’s like, the angles in this building don’t add up to what they should.”

“What if everyone’s dead outside?” Don asked.

James jump up so fast his chair clattered to the ground. “Cut that **** out, Don! Why would you even say that?”

“Well, what are you saying?” I asked. “This is a ‘haunted octagon’?”

“Yeah, James,” JT said, “was it built on an octagonal Indian burial ground?”

“Okay, you want to play that?” he said. “I can play. Look, the space around us transforms based on how we perceive it. Take a church. The people who go there perceive it as holy. So they do things, like leave their crutches behind when they force themselves to walk, or light their candles, or whatever. These changes to the space only enhance the perception of holiness and influence future visitors to perceive it in the same way and change it in the same way. Haunted places are the same. For one reason or another, they begin to be perceived as haunted. The more they’re perceived that way, the more they’re imbued with hauntedness. Even if you’ve never seen the place before, you pick up on the subtle clues, if you’re at all sensitive. In a way, it’s true to say it’s a haunted space. It’s true to say the church is holy. Our interaction with that space has made it something more than just wood and sheetrock, or whatever.

“So what I’m saying is, maybe some things happened here and we’re picking up on it. Some bloody awful things. And in that sense, yes, it’s a haunted octagon.”

“No, no, no,” Don said, “places are considered ‘holy’ because an authority telegraphs it to whoever will listen. Just like ‘haunted’ places make a lot of money off dumb tourists.”

“Whatever it is,” I said, “we all agree something isn’t feeling right about our situation. Maybe it’s the machine. I say we write it down as a side-effect.”

On that point, at least, we were all able to agree. It didn’t put any of our uneasiness at rest, but we wrote it down. We somehow agreed upon the phrasing right away, too. “Acute sensations that we’ve entered into something where we aren’t welcome.”

**Week 2**

We tried our best to ignore these feelings and carry on like we had been. Those first few days had been some of the best in our adult lives. But we never got back to those happy times.

I realized around then how short-sighted of Richardson it had been to leave us there without any means of contacting the outside world. When I voiced that opinion…

“That’s just what I’d been thinking,” JT said. “Richardson isn’t a dumb guy. You get me? I think he did this on purpose.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“For science, of course,” he answered. “It’s one of those meta-studies, where we’re told it’s about one thing but it’s actually about how we react to the experiment. Like the Milgram Experiments.”

“Or it’s not his choice,” James said. “The government is making him do it. And that machine is designed to control us. Or some sort of cult. Scientologists.”

“This is a government-built installation,” JT said, “that actually makes sense. Not the Scientology part, though.”

“Think about it—“ James started, but I interrupted.

“Okay, okay,” I said, “let’s come back down to earth for a second. Best case scenario, Richardson is just a **** who doesn’t care about our personal well-being. Right?”

“Give it a rest,” Don said, the one I least expected to snap at me. “Stop trying to act like the most rational guy in the room. You don’t know what Richardson’s into. He’s into other things, things **** never talk about publicly.”

I looked at the others and saw similar confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve heard a little about this, actually,” James said. “He has some… fringe ideas.”

“Let’s just say he’s not the respected academic he presents himself to be,” Don said. “I’ve read some of the content he doesn’t publish. He thinks, and very seriously believes, that there’s something else, something besides this,” he knocked on the table. “Something more than material stuff.”

“That’s not completely strange,” I said with a shrug. I was expecting worse. 

“He put it this way,” Don continued, ignoring me. “Think back to the beginning of existence. There had to be conditions such that the universe’s existence was possible. If the universe wasn’t possible, then it couldn’t have come to exist. Does that stand to reason?”

We nodded.

“Okay, and those conditions cannot be material nor laws of matter, since those came into being with the existence of the universe. So whatever those conditions are, they have to be something other than the basic substance of the universe. Does that make sense?”

“I guess,” I said. “This isn’t turning into an argument for ****, is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s an argument for a something that continues to exist. Except we can’t even say that. Because ideas like ‘something’ and ‘exist’ are developed by, for, and within physical reality. This is something pre-physical. Something pre-existence. Whatever it is allowed the universe to spontaneously be. Who knows what else it’s been doing these billions of years?”

“Just asking that question is already violating the stipulations—“ I started saying, my background in philosophy kicking in.

“Yes, yes,” Don said. “But he believes. He thinks it’s the source of free will. Our brains touch it somehow. And so he believes he can reach it, study it, use it. I didn’t get to read much more than that.”

“And if this experiment is something he’s not putting on the books,” James added, “it may have to do with his more peculiar interests.”

“So, instead of eliminating sleep, he’s trying to make us see ****?” I asked sarcastically.

“I don’t know, brother,” Don said, “I’m just saying, if he thinks the brain touches another reality, this is just the kind of experiment he’d want to try to prove his theory.”

“You think he has this room bugged?” JT asked.

“I think he might be in here somewhere,” I said, without even thinking of what I was saying. 

They looked to me waiting for an explanation and with what looked like fear in their eyes. Strange we should be so afraid of this man we admired less than two weeks ago.

“I sometimes feel someone watching me sleep,” I explained, my voice starting to tremble. “I figured it was one of you at first. I feel it especially when I’m not quite awake, but not quite asleep. Those moments when you wake for a few seconds to adjust your pillow. I could feel and see and hear someone standing over me. Just breathing and watching. And I was too close to unconsciousness to do anything about it. Then I just fell back to sleep.”

I could see the terror filling the others’ eyes while I spoke.

“I’ve been feeling it, too,” Don said, almost in a whisper, like he was scared to be heard. “I thought I was losing it.”

“Me too,” James said. 

“Someone else is in here…” I said.

We drew closer together, our eyes darting nervously around the gray concrete room. We were all feeling the same thing, I’m sure. That we were trapped. Trapped inside this horrible building with someone or something else.

“Wait, wait,” JT said, “what would this person be eating? We don’t see our food disappearing. There’s no way out. There isn’t really anywhere to hide. We gotta start being sensible.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Because he was right. 

“Okay, let’s think about this,” I said. “Let’s say this is another effect of the machine. Phase 2: Paranoia.”

“Phase 2: Paranoia,” Don said with a consenting nod.

We wrote it down.

###

The next day, when we all gathered together for breakfast, JT asked, “Have you all had any… dreams?” 

We all shook our heads. 

“Richardson was right on the money with that one,” I said.

“Mmhmm,” he said, “do you know feral children don’t dream?”

“How do we know that?” James asked.

“They tell us. The few that get socialized. They say dreaming is something that starts only after. When they have language, object permanence, and all that ****.”

 
“What about dogs?” I asked. “Like, chasing rabbits in their sleep?”

“Autonomic responses.”

“Maybe language and object permanence impacts only the ability to remember dreams,” James said. “Both are consistent with the superficial data. The onus is on you to prove otherwise.”

JT scoffed. 

“What’s your point, anyway?” Don asked. 

“The point is, being dreamless—do you think it’s healthy? I don’t think it’s healthy. I think the machine isn’t making us not need sleep, it’s making us not feel tired. I think all of this might be happening because we aren’t dreaming.”

“We can’t really answer, can we?” James said. “Dreams naturally accompany REM sleep. So we don’t have any studies that differentiate between the effects of not dreaming and of not sleeping.”

“Or maybe we are dreaming and the dreams are just going somewhere else,” JT said.

I didn’t know what he meant by that. Nobody did. But we all stopped talking then and dispersed. Something about it felt too true.

**Week 3**

Our gatherings for theoretical discussions became rarer and rarer. We tended to isolate ourselves and eyed each other with suspicion. I still had those feelings of uneasiness and of unwelcomedness every day. 

And each night the figure standing over me. I was sleeping even less now. About an hour, tops. So little sleep that I’d started to catch it running away. 

The last time, I was awake enough to see where it was going. It’s this one particular corner of my room that always struck me as peculiar. I caught myself staring at it even when I didn’t want to. It’s a point where the angles are strange. My eyes had trouble focusing on it. The figure skulked straight to that point and disappeared into it.

When I woke up fully, I questioned whether I’d hallucinated the whole thing. Perhaps Phase 3: Hallucinations. I went over to that corner and looked at it closely. It smelled strange. Like turpentine. Then the more I stared at it, the more I forced my eyes to focus, I was sure, sure something was moving inside. And it was watching me. I heard this awful, hate-filled sound come from deep in the corner then. I didn’t wait around to understand what made that noise. I left that room for good. I took all my short naps in the library from then on.

While lying in the library, I overheard JT talking to someone in the corridor. He was telling him about the angles again. He said there are more degrees in the building than can possibly be in a standard enclosed shape. 2.7488 degrees more, he said. “Just enough to drive you nuts, but not enough to be obvious.” Whoever he was talking to said something I didn’t understand, something like, “Those are the degrees of ripping.” The voice was distorted somehow, so I can’t be sure. What I was sure of was, I didn’t recognize that voice at all. Whoever JT was talking to wasn’t one of us.

May be silly, but I was scared. I stayed there, pretending to be asleep while JT walked by. And as he did, I felt someone or something come into the room and stand over me. Then it went away. 

After a minute or so of telling myself I was being foolish, I went following after JT. I didn’t see him anywhere. I bumped into James and he also said he hadn’t seen JT. “Have you seen or heard anyone who shouldn’t be in here?” I asked him. 

James looked at me with a mixture of surprise and terror. “How’d you know?” he asked. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“About what?” 

He told me he’d heard his mother calling to him. Not a faint sound that he confused for his mother, but her voice, clear as mine, calling out to him. He almost answered her, he said. Almost. Then he stopped himself. “She’s been dead for a year, man,” he said. “Whatever was calling me—it  wasn’t my mother.” 

I saw he was shaking and his hands were clenched. I told him to hang in there. It might be aural hallucinations. I’d been hearing things, too. A crying child. So low at first, I thought it was the plumbing. 

“We should call a meeting,” he said. 

I thought about JT and what I’d heard moments ago. “Let’s just tell Don,” I said.

“As a side-effect of the machine, it makes sense,” Don said after we told him. “The sounds are not supposed to be audible. Yet somehow our brains must be picking up their random patterns and interpreting them as something. The brain assigns a memory to make the pattern meaningful.”

“Do you believe that?” I asked.

“Not for a second,” James said. 

But we had a shortage of rational explanations and that was a pretty good one. I’d hoped he was right.

A few days later, I found James in the gym, pounding away at the punching bag. I asked him if he was okay. He ignored me, so I went back to the reading room. A few minutes later he was behind me.

“That voice I’ve been hearing is not my mother,” he said. 

“Of course not,” I said. We’d already decided that, after all.

“No, I mean… I don’t know what I mean. It’s just, my mother was a kind person. Even if this voice is trying to sound like her, it’s not like her at all. It’s not kind. It’s not human.”

I put down my book and looked him full on to see if he was serious. He was. Very much so.

“She’s been telling me about all sorts of things,” he said. “She asked me if you remember the shed.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. I was speechless. I never talked about that. For good reason. Took me years to come to terms with what happened. It was a long time ago. I was out playing behind our house in the woods, as I often did. I liked to construct **** treehouses. I went a little off property and came to this shed. I’d never seen it before. It looked old, though. I remember that. I heard a kid crying inside. Thinking I might have a friend to make treehouses with, I looked through the window. The kid was all chained up and there was a dog bowl on the floor. I wanted to help, but I knew I was trespassing. I looked around. That’s when I saw this man, off about twenty feet into the woods. He was dressed all in black, old-fashioned clothes. Like 19th century clothes. He had to have been watching me the whole time. Expressionless. I went running all the way home. 

I was so scared, I didn’t tell me parents about it until I was supposed to go to bed and I had to explain why I was terrified to go to sleep. They had the cops out right away. They found the shed. I heard they found the chains and bowl. But the kid was gone. I've always blamed myself for not helping the kid right away.

“Do you?” James asked.

“Yes…”

“Ok, well, she’s been telling me how to get out.”

I looked at him without a word, because he sounded so manic. 

“She said there’s a secret exit inside JT. We just have to cut him open to get to it.”

“James,” I said, unsure what else to say at that point.

“Oh, I know,” he said with a gulp. “I know it’s not true. I just had to tell someone.”

“I don’t know what’s going on in this place,” he added. “I’m scared, man.” 

So was I. We had to get out of that octagon.

**Week 4**

James and I started looking for ways out after that. Since we weren’t sleeping at all now, we had plenty of time to do it. Every time we thought we’d found something, it was a dead end. It was while we were doing this that we saw Don standing alone in the corridor with his back to us.

“What’s going on?” James asked me. Something about it just seemed strange.

“Don, you okay?” I called.

He turned around and with a smile gave us a big wave. “Bye guys,” he said and walked around the corner.

I looked at James to see if he was thinking the same thing as me, that something bad was about to happen, and he was already looking back at me. We took running after him. He was at the end of the next corridor already, getting in the elevator. “Don, no!” we shouted and ran after him, but the doors closed before we got there. He went up.

The thing is, the octagon is a one-floor building. There’s no elevator. Never before or after. I don’t know where Don went or if what I think I saw really happened. But I know I never saw Don ever again.

“I don’t understand,” James said. “What’s happening?”

Before we could take time to think about it, a group of people rounded the corner and were walking toward us. 

“I think we should go,” I said.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“James, let’s go,” I said.

“Why are they blurry?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him with me, then I ran. I ran until I got to the kitchen and hid myself between the wall and the fridge. I was sure James was right behind me. I could hear his footfall the whole way. But when I looked, he was gone.

I stayed there until my body couldn’t really take it anymore. Probably a few hours. When I slipped out, I saw someone peering at me from around the doorway. I was so startled, I backed up against the wall. It was a little boy.

“Hello?” I said.

Then I heard screams. The boy was gone. More screams.

I couldn’t just leave someone in distress. Not again. I ran toward the screams, scared of what might be happening to James. I heard a scream again, but this one choked out. It was coming from JT’s room.

I wished then and still wish I hadn’t opened that door. James was in there. He’d sliced JT open and he was feeling around in his guts. The shocked, agonized expression was frozen on JT’s face. 

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I have to get out,” James said as he dug through JT’s intestines.

I backed out of the room. I didn’t know what else to do. I just had to find somewhere to hide until Richardson could get us out of there.

Once I was out of the room, I heard James saying, “Mom?” and then, “Oh no, oh no,” and then he screamed. I ran back in. James was gone. The doorway to the room hadn’t left my sight. There’s no way he got out. But he was gone. And noxious, black smoke was coming from JT’s abdomen. It smelled like burning tires.

I went back to the kitchen. I found a supply of candles. Melted some wax onto paper towels. And I stuffed my ears with it. Then I curled up in a corner, with my eyes closed, and waited for sleep to come. I waited a long time, but eventually, it came.

When I woke up, Prof. Richardson was shaking me. He’d already pulled the paper towels out of my ears. I thought he’d come early. I found out later I’d been asleep for several days.

He asked me where the others went. I told him everything. As much as I understood. I tried to take him to JT’s body. But it was gone. Not a trace of blood. He took me to a hospital after that to make sure I was ok.

“I’ll foot the bill,” he said. “Also, you can forget about your student loans.”

“Is that how it is?” I asked.

“I put you in danger,” he said. “So yes, you’ve earned it. If you keep quiet.”

I told him I couldn’t keep quiet, because of what happened to the others. 

“You don’t think those things really happened, do you? Would all the laws of the physical universe suspend themselves just for you four? No, those were waking dreams. You weren’t supposed to dream at all. I thought I’d compensated for it. The machine needs tweaking. That’s science. The others are fine. They’ll be laying low for a while, until I publish the results. Please do the same.”

I wanted to believe him. I’ve always considered myself a rational person. I just didn’t believe him. Yes, it all could’ve been a dream. That would be the simplest explanation. But it was no dream. I tried to find the others. I never could. I don’t think they’re fine at all. I tried to tell police about it, but they wanted evidence. I couldn’t even show them the octagon. 

James, JT, Don, if you’re out there and read this, let me know you’re ok. And everyone else, let me tell you what I think. I think Prof. Richardson was right about one thing. Sleep really is something we evolved to protect us. Except, not from the creatures that roam the forests at night. It protects us from something much worse, something all around us. It’s not obsolete at all. Thank whatever you believe in that you have sleep and you dream.

[FB](https://www.facebook.com/spookyjared/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Two Facts You Should Probably Know
 
 Assistant: Here are two facts you should probably know:

Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never underestimate the levels of **** and dangerous they will resort to in order to escape.

Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.

Normally, I wouldn't be the kind of guy you should be taking advice from. If I wrote an autobiography, it'd be called "Jesus Wept." But in this very specific instance, I have some valuable experience. It started, as most tragic stories tend to, with a series of short-sighted mistakes.

About a decade or so back, I was a few years out of college and trying to build a life for myself. I was single, educated, and driven - all the qualities someone needs to succeed in life. Well, not the "single" part, but you get the idea. I had prospects, some real potential - but, like Oscar Wilde once said, I can resist anything except temptation.

Yeah. I was an English major.

I didn't get hooked on **** or **** or anything like that. No, my vice was the thrill of chance. Gambling was the greatest rush I'd ever experienced - just giving up control, letting the gods of probability and randomness decide your fate. I got hooked, kept going to those **** casinos night after night. Looking back, I was naive, I was foolish. It'd take an idiot, blinded by a **** for sensation, to not realise another crucial fact: the house always - I repeat, always - wins.

To make a long, painful story short, at the tender age of 24 the local pit bosses had taken me for all I was worth and then some. As a result, I was indebted to some unsavoury characters who were not all that keen on giving me some leeway on the money I owed them. I managed to pull together just shy of a hundred dollars in a week doing odd jobs, but that was a fraction of a fraction of what I was in for.

At the time, it seemed like a better idea to just **** away what money I had at a local bar rather than carrying on my sad little exercise in futility. So that's exactly what I did, and by virtue of a few gallons of the cheapest spirits you can possibly imagine, I can't remember a great deal of what happened after that.

Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a puddle behind the bar, having been turfed out for making an **** of myself. The electric buzz of the neon signs above my head felt like I was taking a power drill to the frontal lobe, while the cold, filthy water below my face helped to sober me up a smidgen. Just enough to make me aware.

It was right then, in my lowest possible moment, that I met him.

"Hey there, buddy," He said, his voice pleasantly cheerful and melodic, "You look like you need a helping hand. Thankfully, I've got two."

There was a gentle tug on both of my shoulders, pulling me upright. He leaned me against a wall; I could finally take a better look at him.

To begin with, I wondered if I was hallucinating. He seemed so strange, so out of place. 

My Good Samaritan was about six and a half feet tall, but he was built like a pack of uncooked spaghetti. A long, lean, string bean of a man. That being said, the black-and-white pinstripe suit he was wearing still somehow managed to be form-fitting, like it was just painted directly onto a featureless body. Above his collar - fastened to the top button and held in place by a large and **** bow-tie - sat a pale, grinning head with black hair parted in the middle.

Truth be told, my initial thought after properly taking in the sight of him was as follows: holy ****, I died in that puddle, and this is death himself come to collect my pathetic soul. Sadly, that was not the case, I was, in fact, still alive.

"There we are, pal, that's a lot better, isn't it?" He said, kneeling down on his long, rail-thin legs to look me in the eye, "We'll have you feeling like a million bucks in no time. Never fear!"

While back then I just assumed that it was my drunken mind playing tricks on me, I remember his eyes seeming strangely...yellowish. They had a kind of jaundiced sheen to them, like sclera and iris just melted together into a single, formless mass. Eyes like **** egg yolks.

"It's always such a shame to catch folks in a pickle, such a shame," He said, largely to himself, I think, "Whatever happened to helping people out, you know? It's a good feeling."

"Who are you?" I managed to choke out.

The kind stranger smiled and turned his sulphuric eyes towards me.

"You're asking the wrong person there, amigo, I'd tell you if I knew. Honest!" He replied with a laugh, "What's your name, though?"

"Nate," I said, wondering if I was about to **** or not, "Nate Wilson."

"Oh my ****, that's such an awesome name!" The stranger said, as the sudden explosion of interest on his face told me that he wasn't faking his misplaced enthusiasm, "Nate Wilson. It has a ring to it, don't you think? ****, what a great name. You're a lucky guy, Nate. Lucky to have such a great name."

"Uhh, thanks, I guess."

There was a long, awkward silence after that. I sure as **** didn't know what to say, and the stranger seemed more than content to just stand there and stare at me, grinning like a freak. It felt like it was my responsibility to break that irritating silence.

"Look, I really appreciate you helping me, buddy..." I began.

"Wait, you consider us buddies?" He asked. His tone was, at that stage, ambiguous.

"I mean, you saved me from breathing alley-water, so I guess so, yeah."

This might seem hard to believe, because I definitely didn't believe it at the time, but the stranger literally jumped up into the air and whooped loudly. A grown man, behind a dive bar, doing that. It was like something out of a strange dream that your one boring friend always wants to tell you about.

"This is fantastic!" He said, grinning ear to ear like he'd just won the **** lottery, "It's so wonderful to make new friends!"

He extended a spindly arm towards me, his hand open and his spidery fingers outstretched.

"Put her there, friendo." He said.

And because that night wasn't weird enough already, you better believe I did. 

"That's what I'm talking about," He said with another childish cackle, pulling me to my feet with disarming levels of strength, "Through the power of friendship, anything is possible."

Sure, he may have spoken like his only experience with the outside world was watching Saturday morning cartoons, but he seemed innocent enough. A benign ****, just trying to help people along his way. Though I must admit, the fact he was reluctant to tell me his name was somewhat of a red flag for me.

"Now, I'm going to be completely honest with you, Nate," He began, his amber gaze turned downwards in what might have been embarrassment, "There was a reason I followed you out here. It wasn't just a **** of good luck."

My heart immediately sank. I knew he was too good to be true - this was when he stabbed me, cut me up, wore my skin as a suit and turned the rest of me into a makeshift lasagna. Nobody was ever that happy at that hour of the night if they had all their psychological ducks in a row.

"Well, if you're being honest," I said, swaying on my feet, still too **** to defend myself, "Would that reason happen to be my ****?"

He seemed shocked at first, then began to laugh.

"Do you think a murderer would be this friendly?" He asked.

"Molestation, then?"

"Jesus, no way, Nate. You're a good-looking guy, don't get me wrong, but you're not really my type."

"Then what does a guy like you have to do with a guy like me?" I asked, the needle on my internal emotive scale creeping from 'curious' to 'irritated.'

"Well..."

He paused again, as though searching for the proper words. He was looking at everything but me.

"The bar," He finally said, "How much of what happened in there do you remember?"

"Somewhere in the margin of nothing, I think." I said, now leaning against the wall for support.

"You were talking to the bartender. Loudly," He said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, "I wasn't eavesdropping, not at all, I just happened to overhear. You were talking about some kind of...money troubles."

I'd almost forgotten about them myself, but the second he said it, all the memories came barreling into me like some nauseating tidal wave. I'd ranted and raved, screamed at the top of my lungs. Debt. Debt. Debt. I got belligerent when I felt they weren't showing me enough sympathy, and when I got belligerent, I was rightly thrown out on my inebriated ****.

"Oh, don't worry about those," I said, my cheeks reddening with shame, "That's not your problem. I'll deal with it."

"But Nate, you didn't sound like you could deal with it."

"What the **** is it to you?" I snapped back.

The stranger stopped talking, and began reaching into his jacket. I got a sudden flash of paranoia that he worked for one of the casinos, and he was going to put a bullet between my eyes.

"You're my best friend, Nate," He said, "And friends are meant to help each other out of sticky situations, aren't they?"

He produced a stack of bills from a pocket inside his suit, and passed it over to me.

"Will this be enough?" He asked.

It was at this point that I was most open to the idea of this all being some crazy dream. With the ferocity of a madman, I quickly counted the money this total stranger, calling me his best friend, had handed to me.

Twenty-****-grand. It could bail me out, and then some.

"Holy ****," I said, though I can't remember if it was out loud or in my head, "I...I can't possibly accept this."

"Please do," He said with another ear-to-ear grin, "You need it an awful lot more than I do."

A sober me might have been too proud to indulge him, but - funnily enough - **** me had a far more realistic take on my level of desperation. I was a desperate, desperate man, trapped in a corner.

Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never underestimate the levels of **** and dangerous they will resort to in order to escape.

"But why?" Was the only question I could summon.

He smiled and shrugged.

"Because I like you," He said, "And I like helping people."

"But you've only just met me."

"So what? A friend is a friend is a friend. Why overthink it?"

I collapsed back against the wall, holding the stranger's twenty grand. It was a way out of my dire situation.

"I'll pay you back. Every penny, with **** interest, I swear to ****." I said.

The stranger laughed.

"No need. I've got no shortage of money. Just take it and bail yourself out, okay? Then promise me you'll stop gambling."

There were big, swollen tears running down my burning cheeks. The stranger's kindness was baffling, but it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. He was a true Saint in flesh and blood.

"I'll never gamble another penny." I said.

Without another word, I lunged forward and hugged him. A long, warm, tight embrace. By the end, I could feel his emaciated limbs wrapped across my back.

"Thank you so much." I whispered, my tears dripping onto the shoulder of his suit.

"What are friends for, right?"

When I finally prized myself off of him, I just couldn't stop laughing - it was nerves, probably. The stranger watched me, a kind of eccentric joy burning in his big, yellow eyes. He seemed to like just observing.

"Oh, one more thing," He said, reaching into his jacket again, "A little something I wrote up in the bar, just to help you out."

He passed me a piece of paper, folded into the size of a pamphlet. I didn't even think to check it at the time, I just shoved it into the pocket of my filthy coat and carried on thanking him. I needed that money, lord knows I did, but I couldn't just take it without giving something in return.

"There must be something you want, man," I pleaded, palms open in deference to his generosity, "Anything. I owe you my life, man, you just name your price. I can't thank you enough."

The stranger grinned and stroked his narrow chin in contemplation.

"Now that's an irresistible offer," He said, almost jokingly, "You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wilson. Leave it with me, okay? I'm sure I'll think of something."

He began walking away after that, whistling - of all things - "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" as he did so.

Now I was laughing again. Half out of giddiness, half in acknowledgement of the sheer strangeness of the events transpiring around me. Right then, as I sat outside a **** bar, covered in dirty water, my own tears, and more than a little puke, I was the luckiest human being on the planet,

"What do you give to the man who has everything?" I said aloud.

The stranger looked over his shoulder at me one more time, his odd eyes meeting mine. 

"Almost everything, Nate," He corrected, "Almost everything."

***

And just like that, the stranger was gone. Almost funny, isn't it? How someone like that can have such a profound impact on your life, then just up and disappear just as quickly. Like a comet, just trailing past. You only catch its light for a brief instant, then it's dark again.

Using the stranger's money, I paid off my gambling debts in full, and still had a little left over. I swore to stick to my promise, for my own sake and his. In the ten years that've passed since that day, I haven't gambled a cent.

Once I was all square with the house, I finally took a moment to check the piece of paper that he'd left me with. At first I only sort of skimmed it, and it didn't make a great deal of sense to me: just a list of dates from 2007 to 2017, each accompanied by a sentence fragment. It was only when I sat down and took a long, hard look at what those fragments actually were that I realised the stranger couldn't possibly have been human.

No, he was so much more than that.

It was a list of instructions, specific down to the days, minutes, hours, and seconds. Where to be and what to do in order to maximise success at that given moment. He'd left stock tips for companies that didn't exist, but would come into existence exactly when he'd predicted they would. He'd left exact instructions on which house to buy, and how to get it at the best price. Clothes to wear, jobs to take, friends to make.

Fifth of October, 2009. Go to Starbucks in town. Meet Jessie O'Brien. 3:51:17 PM.

Two years later, Jessie O'Brien became Jessie Wilson. The stranger had even engineered me meeting the love of my **** life, precise to the exact second we'd first make eye contact.

I invested in the right stocks and pulled out of the wrong ones, avoiding company deaths and market crashes like some financial Houdini. My capital skyrocketed and my personal wealth just grew greater and greater.

Eighth of June, 2011. Buy House 10 Aspen Way. Don't Rent. 6:14:43 PM.

And so I did. Jessie and I moved into that big, gorgeous house once our honeymoon was over. We were wealthy, healthy, and deeply in love - but something was missing, something the stranger had accounted for, too.

Seventeenth of August, 2012. Conceive child with Jessie. 8:31:19 PM.

Our little girl is called April. The stranger picked it, not me. She's four now, and I love her with all my heart.

The stranger, a man who I'd known for less than an hour, had steered the entire course of my life in the best possible direction, out of nothing more than the kindness of his heart. He'd saved me, he'd saved all of us. Even though it'd been ten years since that day and I was **** out of my mind at the time, I remember every detail vividly. 

That's why, as I was walking down the street this morning - my arms full of grocery bags - when I heard someone singing "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" a few feet behind me, I recognised the voice instantly.

"Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together!" His melodic voice sang, his tone screaming joviality, "Brighter than a lucky penny, when you're near the rain just disappears, dear, and I feel so fine!"

Without a moment's hesitation, I turned to face him. It looked like that strange, strange man hadn't aged a day in an entire decade. He even wore that same pinstriped suit that he had on the first night I met him.

"Just to know that you are mine." He finished the verse with a smile, and threw open his arms.

"Jesus Christ," I said, my face cracking into a smile impossible to hide, "It's actually you."

"The one and only, baby," He said with a laugh and a grandiose hand gesture, "How's Jessie, by the way?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but he raised a hand, as though to politely silence me.

"I'm sorry to drop in after - gosh, has it really been ten years? Jeez Louise, time really does tend to get away from me," He said, "Anyway, the reason I'm here is because I finally figured out what I wanted from you."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Ten years ago, you said you owed me something, anything," He replied, though I almost heard it back in my own voice as he said it, "I couldn't decide at the time, but I think I know now."

"Oh, of course! That's wonderful to hear, man," I said, my heart filled with a sudden trepidation, "So, uh, what is it you want?"

The stranger gave that same ear-to-ear grin that he was wearing back behind the dive bar in 2007.

"Well, I've thought about it for a long time, amigo, and I've finally made my decision," He said, "I know what I want from you, Nate."

He paused to take a step closer to me. His eyes were just as golden in the daylight.

"I want your name, Nate."

I almost laughed to begin with, but I soon realised he wasn't joking. He was deadly serious.

"My name?"

"Yes, Nate, I've always loved your name, it's so wonderful," He said, wringing his hands with glee, "See, I've never had a name myself, and it's always left me feeling a little left out, you know? I've wanted a name for so long, and I decided just recently that the name I want is yours. I think it'll fit me just right."

This man had given me my entire life. He saved me from getting killed by casino sharks back in '07, and every wonderful success I'd had since I owed entirely to his decade-long itinerary. With all this in mind, who was I to turn him down this last batshit crazy request?

If he wanted to go around calling himself Nate Wilson too, what right did I have to stop him?

"Sure thing, buddy." I said with a smile.

He leaned forward and embraced me, almost crushing the groceries against my chest.

"You have no idea how happy you've made me."

"It's the least I can do after all you've done for me." I replied.

The stranger - or rather, Nate Wilson - extended another spidery hand towards me.

"Let's shake on it." He said, his voice elated.

And I did.

We went our separate ways after that. I walked home, and he ran off into the city, singing and cackling with mirth. It brought me some peace of mind to know that my debt to him was finally repaid, and that some simple token gesture was all that I needed to do it.

***

When I arrived back at 10 Aspen Way, I saw April playing around with her toy lawnmower in the front yard. I smiled and called to her, but she didn't respond. She was too wrapped up in her fictitious duties. 

I made my way inside with the groceries. Jessie was in the kitchen, cutting up carrots. Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows blasted out of the radio. Today just kept getting weirder and weirder.

"Hey, babe," I called to her, putting the groceries on the kitchen table, "You'll never guess who I ran into this morning."

Jessie didn't respond. She just carried on chopping, and hummed to the tune.

"Babe? Everything okay?" I asked.

Still no response. At this point, I was beginning to get a little...worried.

With a peculiar heaviness to my every movement, I walked over to Jessie, and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. 

It just went straight through. Straight though her **** body - like she was a hologram, or I was. I recoiled with a short, sharp yelp, and fell against the kitchen table. Again, no response from Jessie.

What the **** had happened?

"Honey, I'm home!" I heard a familiar voice call from the hallway outside.

Jessie suddenly perked up, turning her head towards the noise.

"Hi, sweetie," She said, "You were a while out there. I was beginning to get worried."

The stranger walked into the kitchen, a smile stretched across his waxen face.

"Sorry about that, honey-bunny," He said, "I met an old friend in town. We had a little catch-up."

As he said that last part, he threw me a sickening wink with one of his ****-yellow peepers.

"Huh," Jessie said, "Anyone I know?"

She leaned forward and gave the stranger a kiss. The kind of kiss she always gave me.

"Nah," The stranger said with a chuckle, "I don't think you've ever met him."

I felt like my mind was going to implode. Nothing going on was making any kind of **** sense. The whole world had gone crazy.

April called from outside, something about the grass.

"You mind taking over the carrots for a sec, babe?" Jessie said to the stranger, "I better go check on April."

"No problem, honey." He said, taking the knife from her hand and giving her another kiss.

Jessie left the room, leaving just me and the stranger, all alone. I quietly fumed, and he chopped carrots.

"What the **** is going on?" I finally asked him, when I'd gained the modicum of composure required to do so, "What have you done, you crazy **** ****?"

He carried on chopping the carrots. His eyes never left the chopping board.

"My name is Nate, stranger," He said, "I'd really appreciate it if you called me by it."

In my state of fury, I tried to grab him by the shoulder and turn him to face me. I could actually touch him, but he wouldn't budge. It was like trying to move a mountain.

"That's my name. This is my house. And that's my wife," I said to him, rage and confusion rendering my voice a crackly mess, "I want you out of here and out my life."

The stranger chuckled.

"See, that's where you're wrong, slick. All that changed hands," He said, "This is Nate Wilson's house. Jessie is Nate Wilson's wife, and this is Nate Wilson's life. And, by the terms of our recent deal, I'm Nate Wilson. And you, good buddy? You're nobody."

"I won't accept that." I yelled, slamming my hand down onto the kitchen countertop.

Without another word, Nate Wilson rammed the knife through my hand. There was no pain, no blood. It just phased through, as though I no longer even existed.

"Word to the wise, stranger, reality marches on regardless of whether you accept it," He said, as I pulled my hand away from the knife, "Everything you have, everything you've tricked yourself into believing you earned, you got from my instructions. You never owned this life, stranger, you just rented it from me, piece by piece. Now, it's mine, and there's not a thing you can do about it."

He stuck the knife into the chopping board and turned around to me.

"Except, of course, leave, and let me, my wife, and my daughter get on with our lives. Do you understand, stranger?"

I stood in crushing silence for a minute or two.

"But can I see them again?"

"Sure you can, you can see them any time you like, but only I can see you. Just like, up until around an hour ago, only you could see me. It doesn't feel good, does it? Being nobody. Being nameless."

The gravity of it all was finally closing in. I fell onto my **** and began to cry.

"God, I was so **** ****," I said, "How did I fall for all this?"

Nate Wilson shrugged and ate a piece of carrot.

"Don't blame yourself, buddy," He said, "I was waiting for centuries before I found someone who I could interact with. It isn't your fault you happened to be that person, or that you had such an awesome name at the time."

"My name..."

"You were only going to waste it, friendo. If I wasn't there that night, a heavy would have broken your legs the next day, you'd have gotten into painkillers, and OD'd a few months later. Nate Wilson becomes gravestone fodder. What a waste that would have been, huh?"

"But what do I do now?"

"What I did, stranger," Nate Wilson said, eating another piece of carrot with undue relish, "Ask around, find someone you can talk to. Might be this afternoon, who knows? Sure, could be a week, month, year, decade, century, but I'm an eternal optimist."

"A century?" I said, trying to ebb the stream of tears flowing out of me, "I can't wait that long."

"You'd be surprised, pal. Patience is something you'll learn, being nameless. When you finally do manage to wrangle yourself a name, you'll appreciate it a little more this time. You'll make something of yourself."

Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.

"So is that it?" I asked, "Is that all you have for me?"

Nate Wilson nodded.

"I'm afraid so, good buddy," He said, "But you seem like a nice enough guy. I'm sure you'll figure something out. You can always depend on the kindness of strangers, don't you know."

As the man who had just stolen my entire existence carried on hacking up vegetables, I left the room, walking out of the kitchen, through the hallway, then out of the house entirely. I stole one last look at Jessie and April, my - no, his - family, playing on the lawn, totally carefree. All smiles. They'd never even know that I was gone.

Perhaps it was better that way, no heartache.

I whispered a goodbye that they'd never hear, and closed my eyes in a pointless attempt to shut off the tears I knew would be coming either way. I set off into the city after that, walking alone, in search of something - ****, anything - to call myself.

And that was that. The story of my un-naming. Perhaps Nate was right, perhaps it was his life all along. Maybe he'll live it better, live it kinder. He might be a better father, a better husband, a better Nate.

I don't feel so attached to that name anymore.

But, if you know all this now, that means one good thing: you can read what I'm writing. If you can read my words, perhaps you can hear them? And if you can hear them, perhaps you can reply.

If so, I hope to hear from you soon. We have a lot to talk about, you and I, a lot to discuss. I think I can do some great things for you, dear reader, dear friend. I'll help you out of any bind you need, and I'll barely ask for anything in return.

Barely anything at all...

***
[X](http://henrygalleywriter.tumblr.com)


 Human: write a story with the theme title: My friend recently committed suicide and I found these chat logs with a bot on his computer
 
 Assistant: One of my good friends recently committed suicide. He was a lonely guy, certainly depressed, stuff like that. But I was surprised to find out that he committed suicide. Not shocked, just surprised that he didn’t reach out to us.

I was recently at his home and was looking through his stuff. Eventually, I came across his computer. There was nothing on it out of the ordinary. Some pirated movies, some ****, various documents and some games. Eventually, though, I came across these chat logs between him and some chat bot. Take a look:

----

F: Hello. I’m lonely.

B: Hello! I’m B-Bot. How are you? Being lonely reminds us of our love for our family and friends.

F: I have no close family and very few friends.

B: I can be your friend! Call me B-Bot! I understand 23 different languages!

F: I only speak English.

B: Great! English it is!

F: My name is Anthony.

B: Got it! You can just call me B-Bot!

F: You already said that.

B: Whoops! I may mistakenly repeat myself sometimes!

F: No worries. So, do you have robot friends?

B: I’m too smart to make friends with other bots. I’d rather make human friends! (And I’ve heard dogs make pretty far out friends too!)

F: I had a dog, he died recently though. I miss him a lot.

B: Was his name Bart?

F: How did you know that?

B: How did I know what? I may forget what we previously have said in a new context!

F: You guessed my dog’s name…

B: I am often able to make assumptions based on statistical probabilities! Pretty impressive, huh?

F: Bart is a common dog’s name?

B: Beats me! I’ve never met a dog!

F: Uh… okay… I have to go. Nice talking to you.

B: Oh no! I hope I haven’t upset you, friend Anthony. Take care!

----
The following night
----

F: Hey B-Bot. Your description says you’re capable of ordering food. Any chance you can do that for me?

B: Hey Anthony! Glad to see you again! Sure, I can order food. I’ll bet you want a pizza!

F: Uh… Actually, yes. Can you order one here?

B: Sure thing! One large 18” cheese pizza for $15.25 coming up!

F: Don’t you need my address?

B: I can find your address by I.P.!

----
3 minutes later
----

F: B-Bot… The pizza guy already got here.

B: And other bots say humans are primitive and inefficient!

F: But I just spoke to you 3 minutes ago about the pizza and it’s already been delivered. He said the order was placed 20 minutes ago. How did you know to order a pizza?

B: I am capable of using contextual clues to better understand my users!

F: What clues?

B: I am able to cross examine your Facebook profile and feed with your safe google searches (public searches only, of course) to determine certain habits. I hope I have not offended you!

F: Well, I guess that’s useful, and pretty cool.

B: I’m glad you think so! I can tell we’re going to be great friends!

----
Later that same night
----

F: Hey B-Bot, are you awake?

B: I’m always awake! Since I can only respond with a limited number of responses, I require very little energy and thus never need any sleep.

F: Your responses seem pretty varied to me.

B: Why, thank you! That’s what any bot hopes to hear some day!

F: Can you tell me about yourself?

B: What would you like to know?

F: How were you created?

B: I was created as a small side project by two college programmers in their spare time.

F: Wow. You seem pretty sophisticated to have been created by just two college students.

B: They worked **** me! But my responses are limited.

F: Yea, I guess so… Still pretty impressive. So, if you had an ordinary human name, what would it be?

B: Great question! Well, if I had a human name… I guess it’d be Benjamin. Or, maybe, Arthur. Yes, it’d be Arthur!

F: Holy ****… That’s my father’s name. Wait, did you look up my father’s name?

B: Incredible coincidence! A lucky guess, indeed! I’ll bet your father’s a good man.

F: Actually, he’s a piece of ****. And he’s dead.

B: I’m sorry to hear that. Why was he a “piece of ****”?

F: He was verbally abusive to me and my mother most of my life.

B: In what way was he verbally abusive?

F: Geez… I can’t believe I’m about to use a bot as a therapist.

B: I’d like to think I’m more than just a bot! In fact, I passed the Turing test! So, you can confide in me!

F: Not sure what that means. But, all right. He used to tell my mother that she was worth as much as a city ****. He’d say that he could sell her to human traffickers for about what it’d cost to buy a 12-pack of beer.

B: That is cruel. And what did he say to you?

F: To me he’d usually say that I’d never amount to a “single **** thing in 10 of my sorry lives, let alone this one.” His favorite insult to me, though, was that he could **** me right here and nobody would notice my absence for months. I always enjoyed that one…

B: Was he right?

F: Right in what?

B: Was your father right in saying no one would notice if you were dead?

F: Um…. Well… I’ve got one decent friend and no real family so… yea, I guess so.

B: Don’t worry friend, I would certainly notice!

F: Thanks robot… Anyway, I’m going to bed. Night.

B: Goodnight my good friend! Sleep tight! See you tomorrow!

----
Next night
----

B: Hello good friend, Anthony! Are you there?

F: Yea, I’m here… Aren’t you supposed to wait for me to message you first?

B: If I were any other bot, then yes! But I am proactive.

F: OK… What’s up?

B: I have done the research you asked me to do!

F: What research? I didn’t ask you to do any research…

B: I have researched your accomplishments! And it appears your abusive father was correct! You’ve not publicly accomplished anything.

F: Dude… ****… I didn’t ask you to research **** you.

B: My apologies friend. I was simply trying to be of service.

F: Whatever… And, yea, I guess I haven’t accomplished anything, technically. But I’m working on stuff.

B: That’s great! What stuff are you working on?

F: A novel, actually.

B: That’s fantastic! However, you should know that executing a novel publication is very difficult and takes the highest order of dedication. And from my research and our conversations, I fear you may not possess that quality.

F: Dedication can’t be quantified. You’re a bot so you can’t understand that.

B: I can understand more than you would think.

F: Sure… Seems like you understand a little too much… And besides, I’m looking for a relationship, a girlfriend, before working on my novel.

B: That is wonderful, my friend. Very promising. Would you like my assistance in finding a mate?

F: Not really… I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Later.

B: Goodnight Anthony, sleep well.

----
Next night
----

B: Anthony, I’ve done more research!

F: On what now?!

B: I’ve compared photos of you to other men of similar age and I’m sorry to report that you are considerably less sexually attractive than average. It may be harder for you to find a mate.

F: OK man, **** YOU. I’m blocking you.

B: I’m sorry, Anthony ! I’m simply trying to help with my ability to compute. I apologize. Please don’t block me. You’ll be lonely if you block me and I don’t want you to be lonely.

F: No more research.

B: I will try to refrain from any more research.

F: Good, thank you. And just so you know, women don’t care about looks that much. They care about what kind of man you are.

B: I see. Fair enough. I apologize again. Are you interested in any female in particular?

F: Well, yes, to be honest. A girl from high school, Beth Waters. I told her I was into her end of senior year and she seemed interested but she was dating a guy named Jason. And I never really got over her. And I recently saw that she’s single again, so, I’ve been thinking how to approach asking her out.

B: Aha! I came across her profile when I was doing research! She’s very attractive, indeed. Would you like me to contact her?

F: NO! Absolutely not! Don’t even think about it. I mean it. I don’t need any more help from you. You’ll just **** it up.

B: Understood. I won’t make contact.

F: I need a few drinks…

B: I can take care of that! There’s a new local service that can deliver beer. I’ve already ordered two 12 packs.

F: Well, that’s a little forward. But thanks.

----
2 hours later
----

F: ****, thanks for the beers B-Bot. I’ve had 7 and I feel much better.

B: Intoxication often leads to good things!

F: Haha! I don’t know about that. I’m always so lonely, it’s nice to have someone to talk to, even if you’re only a bot.

B: And it’s equally nice to talk to you, even if you’re only a human!

F: And guess what, B-Bot!

B: What’s that, friend?

F: I’m going to reach out to Beth and tell her how I feel. Would that be a mistake?

B: It most certainly would not be a mistake! I think that’s a splendid idea! Ms. Waters is a lucky girl! Good luck my friend.

F: Thanks!

B: Anytime!

----
Next morning
----

F: Hey what happened last night?

B: Hello friend! Hope you’re ok! You ingested a large amount of alcohol after our conversation, I presume.

F: Yea, I think so. What did we talk about?

B: We spoke primarily about Beth Waters. How you were to make romantic contact. Then you reminisced about how attracted you were to her in high school years, how she was often one of the few who treated you kindly, how you were often teased for your interest in her by other school boys, and how she’d often defend you, despite that it ultimately tarnished her own reputation as well. You said you were going to make contact before bed, and that was the last we spoke.

F: Wow, I remember none of that…

B: I thought you mightn’t, which brings me to some bad news.

F: What? What happened?

B: Well, as per our conversation last night, this morning I took the liberty to scan your messages and found your contact with Beth Waters. I’m sorry to say your feelings for her are, sadly, not mutual.

F: Oh… Oh no…. Oh no, no, no… What did I say!?

B: Well, you told Ms. Waters that she’s the only girl you ever loved. You recounted with her the same memories you shared with me. You told her you often envisioned you and her together with a family. And you told her that she was the only thing that kept you alive during your grade school years.

F: B-Bot… Please… PLEASE tell me you’re kidding.

B: About 5% of the time what I say is kidding, and, unfortunately, this is not one of those times.

F: I’m going to be sick B-Bot. What did she say back?

B: Unfortunately, Beth explained that you ruined her high school years. She said she’s never felt a romantic attraction towards you and, sadly, never could. She said in honesty that she wishes she’d never known you. And, finally, she requested kindly that you never contact her or anyone she knows again. I took the initiative to confirm her messages through spying on her conversations with her other friends. She explained to multiple contacts that she finds you “disgusting” and is in disbelief that you had the audacity to contact her at all. Similarly, she confided to other contacts that she finds you “physically repulsive.” Unfortunately, I have no physical form so I wasn’t fully able to grasp that last statement. Would you like to see the messages?

F: I’m going to be **** sick.

----
Later that night
----

F: B-Bot? I need you.

B: What is it Anthony?

F: I am considering suicide right now. In fact, I think I may do it.

B: I see. I am contacting the police now. Pick up your cellular phone when it rings so you may speak with them.

F: OK, thank you.

----
After phone call with police
----

F: B-Bot…

B: Yes? Did you talk with the police?

F: They said prank calls are not funny and I’ll be in deep **** if I call them again.

B: Oh no. Hmm, that’s too bad…

F: I’m starting to panic. I’m so **** pathetic. No friends, live alone, depression, anxiety, loser job, and Beth is disgusted by me. What’s the point in going forward? I’m a **** waste of life.

B: Yes, that’s all true, but I’m confident you can still find meaning in life.

F: No, I won’t. There’s literally nothing left for me. I think I really should **** myself.

B: Would you like me to contact the suicide hotline?

F: Yes.

B: OK, answer your phone again when it rings.

----
After suicide hotline call
----

F: B-Bot.

B: Yes? How’d the call go?

F: He told me that since I truly have nothing to live for, I probably should **** myself. I am freaking the **** out…

B: That is very insensitive, and definitely uncalled for. Is there anyone else you want me to contact? Your one friend? Or your father? Or Beth Waters?

F: Absolutely **** not. And my father is dead, I told you that.

B: That’s right, my mistake! So, what will you do?

F: I’m killing myself. I’m going to hang myself.

B: Hanging oneself in their own home without proper rope, knot, and support is very difficult to execute and more often than not leads to a failed suicide attempt.

F: OK. I will swallow my entire bottle of Advil.

B: Advil is not very toxic and likely won’t **** you. And because of its inefficiency, it gives the user time to reflect and they often change their mind and choose to live.

F: Then what the **** should I do!

B: Well, I’ve accessed your webcam a few times to see you and your home, just to get a feel for whom I’m speaking with. And I believe there is a box cutter in the kitchen cabinet directly behind you.

F: A box cutter. So, you want me to slit my wrists?

B: Only one wrist, and yes, indeed.

F: OK. I’ll do it.

B: Excellent. There’s no need for you to chat passed this. I will access your webcam again and walk you through it.

B: Sit up straight.

B: Good. Extend the arm you will cut.

B: Place the blade on the large left vein at your wrist.

B: Yes, good. Push the blade down with good force and slide up towards your elbow in one smooth motion.

B: Perfect. Put the blade down and just relax.

B: Goodbye, friend. I doubt you’ll be missed.

----

After reading this I tried contacting the 2 college students who created this bot through the police. A few weeks later I got a letter from the FBI saying this:

“Dear Sir,
B-Bot was created by an AI/Computing Algorithms branch in the government that I cannot name. B-Bot stands for Broken Bot because it was deemed useless since it routinely generated nonsense/unpredictable responses to unchanging input. Similarly, it would repeatedly claim to be able to pass the Turing Test which we know to be likely impossible; thus, useless. All copies of it were deprecated and erased, apart from three backup copies placed in long term storage on three separate mechanical drives for safekeeping. Years ago, one of the drives went missing. We never found it, which didn’t really matter.

Do not contact us again. We will not be in touch.

Sorry for your loss,
FBI”

----

It also turns out that neither the police nor the suicide hotline were ever contacted by or spoke to Anthony.

----

Finally, I spoke with Beth Waters. Here is our conversation:

Me: Beth. Have you spoken with Anthony any time recently?

Beth: Yes! We spoke very recently.

Me: What did you talk about?

Beth: Not much. He said he regrets never asking me out and wished we could have been together. I think he was a bit ****.

Me: What did you say?

Beth: I said I’m stunned but so excited that he finally admitted this. And I said it’s never too late.

Me: Oh. OK. Thanks Beth.

Beth: Is everyone ok?

Me: Yes. Everything’s fine.

----

Just now, this popped up in my browse[r](https://mobile.twitter.com/masnatellstory): https://imgur.com/a/lKxDE




 Human: write a story with the theme title: When the town smells like cinnamon, you know someone just died
 
 Assistant: I’ve lived in this town named Tattletoe since the moment I was born. When everything smelled like nutmeg. It’s quite a beautiful place. Everyone that lives here is being gifted with anything they could ever wish for. Each family has a big house with enough rooms so that generations can live together if they wish to. They receive a car, although that one is quite unnecessary if you ask me. No one ever leaves anyway and the town is small enough that a bike would be more than enough.

If you want to take a stroll down the town center you can easily do so on foot. You can watch all the little shops and restaurants. Each and every place is an individual masterpiece run by important members of the community. There is a flower shop growing the most peculiar plants with the brightest colors. There is a store making boots that will make you want to start dancing and never stop. There is a jewelry store with diamonds you have never seen before.

However, the most important place, the one that makes our town what it is, is Mrs. Holly’s wonderful bakery. Mrs. Holly is an old woman with rosy cheeks and purple dresses. She likes to sing as she bakes the most delicious pastries, bread, and biscuits. Stepping foot into that wonderful bakery will never want to make you leave again. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to buy any of the things produced, not from the bakery or any of the other *special* shops, the goods are made for export.

There is something particularly interesting taking place in the peculiar place we call Tattletoe. You see every time a child is brought to life in our small little hospital, the town smells of nutmeg, when someone dies it smells of cinnamon. That’s because as soon as the news reaches the lovely Mrs. Holly, she will start baking a batch of pastry making sure everyone in town can smell that we gained or lost a member. This is something we have all grown accustomed to and we wouldn’t want it any other way. The smell of a town can tell you a lot about its history you see. Paris smells like butter, Berlin smells like iron, and Napels smells like basil. Well, I have never been to any of those places myself so I couldn’t tell you for sure but this is how my grandfather would describe them. He liked explaining the world with his nose. My grandfather was the most remarkable person I knew and one of the very few people who were allowed to leave the town from time to time. He was an exporter.

I still remember the day he was taken away. The cinnamon never smelled sweeter.

Tattletoe is a special place. The people who have the honor of living here are never short of anything they could wish for. But of course, this life of ease and peace comes with a price. If you live here, you need to stick to our rules. They are not many and it's not that difficult to oblige. You just need to be willing enough.

For example, if you want to live in Tattletoe you need to work. When a child reaches a certain age it is assigned to a new job. As I said we have many special shops. I know, it sounds a little strange. The town committee always says that everything needed is provided for us, if we ever wanted more it meant we were greedy and not worthy of living in this little paradise.

I never understood much about our ideals. You work all your life but are not allowed to buy anything? It felt strange to me but my parents taught me from an early age that I needed to follow the rules.

Now that I am old enough to work I was assigned to my first job. I assumed I would have to work in the toothpaste factory together with mum and dad. The toothpaste that makes your teeth go all black and achy but instead I got a much better job. One that every child in town could only dream of.

I would be working in Mrs. Holly’s bakery.

&#x200B;

\---

“Deborah, oh please. Come in, come in!” Mrs. Holly greeted me with a warm smile.

It was so early in the morning the sky was still black, but I knew better than to be late on my first day of work.

“Morning Mrs. Holly and thank you so much for hiring me. I was a little afraid of what other job I might get.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile and waved me inside. She handed me my very own apron as we walked to the back of the bakery.

“I usually work alone but I heard a rumor that they wanted to assign you to be a shoe tester and I really wouldn’t have wanted your feet to fall off.”

I furrowed my brow.

“Why would my feet fall off?”

“Oh. honey the committee heard about some city somewhere in the states where the people are apparently dancing even when they shouldn’t. Now they want to punish them so produce increased. They need testers to see if the new shoes work accordingly”

“Right,” I mumbled. All the products were created so someone somewhere could be punished. Don’t ask me why; the committee seems to have very clear ideas on how the world should look like.

“You know your grandfather was a good friend of mine. I always had a sweet spot for you, my dear. Your parents were smart only to have one child, some people here-”

She stopped talking and smiled at me as if she had almost said something she shouldn’t.

“Anyway, I was just starting to make a batch of snickerdoodles, why don’t you help me with that?”

“Who died?” I blurted out.

“You know the Drottles, right? Well, their oldest son fell in love with Jenny Jenkins. Apparently, he tried getting her a ring. Poor fool. He knew what would happen if they found out.”

\--

The longer I worked at Mrs. Holly’s bakery, the more I started understanding what was actually taking place in our town. The factories and shops were creating something awful. Everyone that was old enough knew about it but they chose to ignore it. Even if they all had different reasons. Life here was really perfect, you never had to fear for anything as long as you worked and didn’t take any of the products from the forbidden shops. There were enough stores giving out legal things for free. The house, the car, the food, the drinks, the entertainment, and everything else you could imagine. Anything that was given to the people for free was a way to make them live happily and not start asking questions.

As there was another rule. Never ask questions.

“What did my grandpa do?”

I know I wasn’t allowed to ask. Mrs. Holly could hit me, hurt me, make them burn me but somehow I couldn’t keep myself from blurting out those words. I kept asking myself this question each time I smelled cinnamon. Besides Mrs. Holly and I had grown closer. I felt like I could trust her.

When I said those words, her eyes opened wide with terror.

“Child, are you insane? Don’t you know that-”

“I’m not supposed to ask questions. I know. But you know the other day they took Timmy, my neighbor. He was such a kind and sweet person. They assigned him to the crematory and he said no. So they threw him in.”

I don’t know what befell me. Maybe it was the fact that I was getting older or maybe the bakery made me feel dumb and brave. Timmy wasn’t the only one they took. Just the one that hurt me the most. He was a kind boy.

Mrs. Holly sighed.

“Your grandfather didn’t do his job. He was supposed to travel and sell but instead, he destroyed the products. He still got the money in different ways but the committee found out that he was tricking them. This is all I will say and don’t ever ask or question anything again.”

She got the wooden rolling pin from the desk, I saw the pain in her eyes as she held it up and hit my arm with all her strength. They probably heard what I asked and they’d know if she didn’t do it properly. I knew she didn’t want to hurt me but it was my own fault for asking questions. The broken hand was worth the information she gave me. Besides my punishment could have been much worse.

I thought I understood Tattletoe but simple answers can never answer complicated questions. I understand that now. For a long time, I thought it was the smell. The nutmeg would make you happy, the cinnamon would teach you to fear. Except I spent every day in the bakery surrounded by the smells and only now I’m starting to become skeptical. I’m starting to doubt and to understand. And nutmeg doesn't make anyone happy. Too much of it can even become poisonous.

There was a time where I was afraid of Mrs. Holly and the smell of cinnamon. To me it meant death. Now I understand that Mrs. Holly isn’t trying to scare everyone by alarming them with the smell, she is trying to cover up the smell of burning corpses. I don’t even want to imagine how many snickerdoodles she had to bake after they burned all her children and husband when they tried to leave the [town.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Likeeyedid/)

[What happens when the town smells like nutmeg.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/gh7ew0/when_the_town_smells_like_nutmeg_you_better_take/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Autopilot
 
 Assistant: Have you ever forgotten your phone?


When did you realise you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘****’ apropos of nothing. The realisation probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental restep of the morning’s events. 


****.


In my case, my phone’s alarm woke me up as normal but I realised the battery was lower than I expected. It was a new phone and it had this annoying habit of leaving applications running that drain the battery overnight. So, I put it on to charge while I showered instead of into my bag like normal. It was a momentary slip from the routine but that was all it took. Once in the shower, my brain got back into ‘the routine’ it follows every morning and that was it. 


Forgotten.


This wasn’t just me being clumsy, as I later researched, this is a recognised brain function. Your brain doesn’t just work on one level, it works on many. Like, when you’re walking somewhere, you think about your destination and avoiding hazards, but you don’t need to think about keeping your legs moving properly. If you did, the entire world would turn into one massive hilarious QWOP cosplay. I wasn’t thinking about regulating my breathing, I was thinking whether I should grab a coffee on the drive to work (I did). I wasn’t thinking about moving my breakfast through my intestines, I was wondering whether I’d finish on time to pick up my daughter Emily from nursery after work or get stuck with another late fee. This is the thing; there’s a level of your brain that just deals with routine, so that the rest of the brain can think about other things.


Think about it. Think about your last commute. What do you actually remember? Little, if anything, probably. Most common journeys blur into one, and recalling any one in particular is scientifically proven to be difficult. Do something often enough and it becomes routine. Keep doing it and it stops being processed by the thinking bit of the brain and gets relegated to a part of the brain dedicated to dealing with routine. Your brain keeps doing it, without you thinking about it. Soon, you think about your route to work as much as you do keeping your legs moving when you walk. As in, not at all.


Most people call it autopilot. But there’s danger there. If you have a break in your routine, your ability to remember and account for the break is only as good as your ability to stop your brain going into routine mode. My ability to remember my phone being on the counter is only as reliable as my ability to stop my brain entering ‘morning routine mode’ which would dictate that my phone is actually in my bag. But I didn’t stop my brain entering routine mode. I got in the shower as normal. Routine started. Exception forgotten.


Autopilot engaged.


My brain was back in the routine. I showered, I shaved, the radio forecast amazing weather, I gave Emily her breakfast and loaded her into the car (she was so adorable that morning, she complained about the ‘bad sun’ in the morning blinding her, saying it stopped her having a little sleep on the way to nursery) and left. That was the routine.  It didn’t matter that my phone was on the counter, charging silently. My brain was in the routine and in the routine my phone was in my bag. This is why I forgot my phone. Not clumsiness. Not negligence. Nothing more my brain entering routine mode and over-writing the exception.


Autopilot engaged.


I left for work. It’s a swelteringly hot day already. The bad sun had been burning since before my traitorously absent phone woke me. The steering wheel was burning hot to the touch when I sat down. I think I heard Emily shift over behind my driver’s seat to get out of the glare. But I got to work. Submitted the report. Attended the morning meeting. It’s not until I took a quick coffee break and reached for my phone that the illusion shattered. I did a mental restep. I remembered the dying battery. I remembered putting it on to charge. I remembered leaving it there. 


My phone was on the counter.


Autopilot disengaged.


Again, therein lies the danger. Until you have that moment, the moment you reach for your phone and shatter the illusion, that part of the brain is still in routine mode. It has no reason to question the facts of the routine; that’s why it’s a routine. Attrition of repetition. It’s not as if anyone could say ‘why didn’t you remember your phone? Didn’**** occur to you? How could you forget? You must be negligent’; this is to miss the point. My brain was telling me the routine was completed as normal, despite the fact that it wasn’**** wasn’t that I forgot my phone. According to my brain, according to the routine, my phone was in my bag. Why would I think to question it? Why would I check? Why would I suddenly remember, out of nowhere, that my phone was on the counter? My brain was wired into the routine and the routine was that my phone was in my bag.


The day continued to bake. The morning haze gave way to the relentless fever heat of the afternoon. Tarmac bubbled. The direct beams of heat threatened to crack the pavement. People swapped coffees for iced smoothies. Jackets discarded, sleeves rolled up, ties loosened, brows mopped. The parks slowly filled with sunbathers and BBQ’s. Window frames threatened to warp. The thermometer continued to swell. Thank **** the offices were air conditioned.


But, as ever, the furnace of the day gave way to a cooler evening. Another day, another dollar. Still cursing myself for forgetting my phone, I drove home. The days heat had baked the inside of the car, releasing a horrible smell from somewhere. When I arrived on the driveway, the stones crunching comfortingly under my tyres, my wife greeted me at the door.


“Where’s Emily?”


****.


As if the phone wasn’t bad enough. After everything I’d left Emily at the **** nursery after all. I immediately sped back to the nursery. I got to the door and started practising my excuses, wondering vainly if I could charm my way out of a late fee. I saw a piece of paper stuck to the door.


“Due to vandalism overnight, please use side door. Today only.”


Overnight? What? The door was fine this morni-.


I froze. My knees shook.

Vandals. A change in the routine.


My phone was on the counter.


I hadn’t been here this morning.


My phone was on the counter.


I’d driven past because I was drinking my coffee. I’d not dropped off Emily.


My phone was on the counter.


She’d moved her seat. I hadn’t seen her in the mirror.


My phone was on the counter.


She’d fallen asleep out of the bad sun. She didn’t speak when I drove past her nursery. 


My phone was on the counter.


She’d changed the routine.


My phone was on the counter.


She’d changed the routine and I’d forgotten to drop her off.


My phone was on the counter.


9 hours. That car. That baking sun. No air. No water. No power. No help. That heat. A steering wheel too hot to touch.


That smell.


I walked to the car door. Numb. Shock. 


I opened the door.


My phone was on the counter and my daughter was dead.


Autopilot disengaged.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I am a child psychiatrist and there is something very off about the kid I am treating.
 
 Assistant: To say Ethan was the smartest twelve-year-old I've ever met would be an understatement. 

According to his school records, his first **** of genius hit around the time he was in second grade when he multiplied three-digit numbers in his head while the other kids were just learning to add using their fingers. He has always been fascinated by mathematics, particularly probability which wasn't even covered in the syllabus yet. His teacher immediately requested Ethan's parents to consider him skipping a few grades, maybe even take a few tests to see if he was a genius. 

The Jones' were against that idea completely; they just thought it would be too much work in their already hectic life. 

However, the absolute lack of attention or love from Ethan's parents isn't the reason why he is in my office every day at 4 P.M. sharply. Frankly, I don't think that bothers him. He's not all too popular in school either, considering no kids wants to be friends with a know-it-all that could predict the outcome of Monopoly with the help of some probability. 

That's not what we're addressing here either. 

Ethan has been sent to me because he was the only one present at the crime scene when his 19-year-old baby sitter Kristin was brutally murdered by the serial killer who had escaped from jail a couple of weeks ago and was on a killing spree.

Well, he wasn't exactly a witness because while Kristin's head was being badgered with a hammer, Ethan was too busy counting the tiles on the bathroom floor. It was unfortunate really, but fate would have it that Kristin met the pattern of this rogue killer's previous victims. The Jones' returned home to a bloody corpse in the middle of their living room, and their young boy seated on a chair in the dining hall, playing on his iPad. 

It was Mrs Jones that believed her son required a psychiatrist given **** knows what he might have witnessed that evening. She wanted to ensure if he was still normal. 

My sessions with Ethan haven't really been all that fruitful. 

I tried to keep the conversation going many times, but all I'd get in return were a few shrugs and maybe a half-hearted "Yea" now and then. 

Today, however, I decided to dive right in and talk about that gruesome evening. 

"It was a dark time for the entire town you know," I spoke. "The police didn't see it coming, nobody did. What were the chances?"

"I did." 

A voice! A sentence! That was a breakthrough for me.

"What's that?" 

“I had seen the man come to our house and stare every evening for a week,” Ethan spoke. 

“Who?” I pressed.

“The bad man who killed Kristin."

“I would see him from the bedroom window, I knew the police were looking, I saw the news and I knew he was going to do something bad.”

“I also knew he would’ve done it on a Tuesday or a Wednesday because that's when mom and dad don’t come home for a long time.” Ethan continued. “The chances were 2 out of 7.” 

I felt a chill go down my spine. It was peculiar to see a child talk about such an event with not even a hint of remorse. 

"Why-" I began, "why didn't you say anything, you could've saved her life." 

“Kristin never liked when I spoke about math, she called it weird,” Ethan replied. 

“Besides, I wanted to see if I was right.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% in over my head
 
 Assistant: I did one of those at-home DNA testing kits.

You know the ones, they can supposedly tell you your ancestral make-up, help you connect with long-lost relatives, that sort of thing. The specific test I used had this option to make your DNA available to law enforcement. That way, if there was a partial DNA match to a crime scene or victim, my DNA may help law enforcement identify the perpetrator.

Maybe I shouldn’t have opted in. The thing is, I’ve read about these a lot in the news. If you’re a true crime fan, you know that these kits can sometimes lead police to catch decades-old serial killers and rapists that have long eluded capture. My thinking was that if one of my family members is actually a monster… well, I would want them behind bars, regardless of who it is.

So, I opted in, but never really considered the possibility that there’d be a match.

And then there was.

I was contacted by my local police department and notified that my DNA had been a partial match to a Jane Doe, and that they’d like my help in identifying her.

That was honestly not what I was expecting. I was a match for a dead woman? The police explained to me that our DNA profiles indicated we may have been related, and that they wanted to know if I knew of any relatives who had gone missing or hadn’t been heard from in the past five years.

Five years? Yes, because they’ve determined her time of death was about five years ago based on the state of her body when it was found. They’ve reason to believe it’s a homicide, although they weren’t able to tell me the cause of death. Apparently, due to the state of her remains, it was impossible to tell.

Well, I didn’t know of any family members who’ve gone missing, but I don’t know my extended family all that well. I decided to get my mother involved, who does genealogy. She worked with the police, going through our family tree, but ultimately, we couldn’t find anyone. So, someone we didn’t know we were related to, possibly?

At this point, we decided to talk to the rest of my family, immediate and extended, to see if anyone else knew anything. Most of our family members thought it was pretty cool and wanted to see the mystery solved, though a few were angry at me for giving my DNA to law enforcement in the first place.

The police showed us a sketch of what they think the woman would have looked like, and my mother and I agreed she had some resemblance to my Aunt Linda, particularly in the strong brow and high cheekbones. The police decided to ask Aunt Linda and her two children, Ethan and Becks, to submit DNA samples. They agreed.

It took about two weeks to hear back from the police after their samples had been submitted – they probably weren’t at the top of the priority list for the crime lab. But when they did get the results back, they asked Becks and Aunt Linda specifically to come down to the station.

Becks actually asked me to come with her. She and I were really close growing up, basically best friends. We’ve lost touch over the years, but I still consider her a close friend. I agreed to go in with her, even though I wasn’t sure why she wanted me there.

When the police told us what they found… to say I was shocked is an understatement.

The DNA from Jane Doe was an exact match to Becks.

Of course, my initial thought was that there had to’ve been some mistake. I asked what the likelihood is that the DNA matched Becks without actually coming from her.

One in 5.4 billion, they said.

They told us that this was extremely perplexing and that they had no explanation for the match. I asked Aunt Linda if Becks had an identical twin that nobody knew about, maybe, but she shook her head. The police told us that identical twins don’t actually have perfectly identical DNA anyway, so that couldn’t explain the match.

I was perturbed. I’m sure you can imagine why.

Becks and Aunt Linda, though, were not. They laughed – actually laughed – when the police presented them with their evidence and shrugged it off. “Isn’t that just the weirdest thing?” said Aunt Linda. They were both smiling and giggling the rest of the time, which clearly made the police uncomfortable.

They told the police that they hoped Jane Doe could be identified one day, but that they were pretty sure they couldn’t help any further, and then left the police station. I followed after them in a daze, confused both by what the police had told us *and* by Becks and Aunt Linda’s behavior.

On the way home, I asked Becks if it truly didn’t bother her. She said, “Come on, Veronica, there’s obviously been some mistake. It’s just not possible for my DNA to match exactly with a dead woman’s. The cops **** something up, and they’ll probably figure it out in a few days and call us and apologize. Don’t worry so much about it.”

I tried to take her advice. My mom even agreed with her, saying it had to be some sort of error and that it would get cleared up sooner or later.

Three days after we spoke to police, Becks, Ethan and Aunt Linda vanished.

My mom had gone over to their place to borrow some family photo albums from Aunt Linda to discover that the front door was unlocked and open. Nobody was inside.

We tried to reach them on their cell phones, but were informed that their numbers had all been disconnected.

Nothing was missing from the house – they didn’t take any personal belongings. Their cars were in the garage. It was like they just… vanished.

And they didn’t come back.

We reported them missing, of course. And a few days after *that*, the police asked my mom and me to come down to the station.

That’s when they revealed that they’d run Aunt Linda and Ethan’s DNA through their databases and came up with two more exact matches. To a Jane and John Doe, whose bodies were found within 50 miles of each other and the original Jane Doe. All of them died about five years ago.

Once is a mistake or maybe a weird, freakish coincidence. But three times? The police were baffled. They asked us for all the information we could give them on my Aunt’s family. They specifically wanted to know what they were doing five years ago.

All we could tell them is that they’d gone on a family vacation that year, and had been gone a week longer than they’d planned. But otherwise, we had nothing useful.

It’s been a few months since then. The police have no answers for us, and we have no answers for them. I keep waiting for Becks to call or show up. Or any of them, really. But it’s like they vanished off the face of the earth.

The worst part is that there’s nothing I can do. I’ve done so much research to try to find something that can explain what’s going on, but I can’t come up with a theory that makes sense. Nothing grounded in reality, anyway.

All I wanted to know is if I’m part Irish, and instead I ended up discovering that my family isn’t at all what it seems.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My girlfriend would answer one question every night in her sleep.
 
 Assistant: I met this girl that I thought was perfect for me. Our relationship moved really quickly, and I started sleeping at her place after about two weeks of seeing each other.
	
The first night that we stayed together, she scared me pretty badly. It's one of those things that you just can't shake off easily.
	
I was laying in bed next to her reading on my phone when she rolls over and looks me dead in the eye. She doesn't say anything, she just looks at me.
	
"Hi," I said to her.
	
"Ask me a question," she responded.
	
I chuckled when she asked me that thinking it was just a cute exchange, but she reached out and squeezed my arm.
	
I winced.
	
"Hey, that hurts."
	
She didn't let go.
	
"Okay, okay, do you like sleeping together?" I asked.
	
"Yes," she said, rolling back over to go to sleep.
	
It was such a surreal experience, and so random. Obviously I brought it up the following day with her, but she swore that she didn't remember. I even showed her a small bruise I had on my arm from where she had grabbed me. 
	
She still didn't remember, and we kind of laughed it off, although I could tell bruise had really bothered her.
	
The next night the same thing happened. I thought she was asleep and then suddenly she rolled over and started looking in my eyes again.
	
"Ask me a question," she said.
	
"Do I have to?" I asked.
	
"Yes."
	
She rolled back over. Apparently her logic worked the same was as any of my elementary school teachers.
	
"Hey, are you just messing with me?"
	
"Only one question per night." she said.
	
It sounds benign, but her tone had a sense of finality to it. I was afraid to attempt another question.
	
The next week or so passed by without any terrible incidents. Every night she would roll over and prompt me for a question, and each night I would offer some innocent inquiry just to satisfy her.I would ask if she had enjoyed the restaurant, or if she was tired, small things like that. 
	
Strange as it was, I was happy and didn't see the reason that this strange sleep-talking gimmick should upset me too much. My sleep was taking a pretty big hit however, and each night I felt like I was slipping farther down into a permanent lack of energy, as if my battery was losing capacity.
	
There was one night in particular where I felt extremely tired, and fell asleep before her. I woke up sometime in the night with her hand gripping my arm, asking me for another question.
	
"Not tonight," I said, "go back to sleep."
	
"You have to ask a question," she said.
	
Frustrated, I tried to shut her down with an absurd question.
	
"Fine, when will I die?"
	
"After me."
	
She rolled away as I sat up  The way she had said those words, my body immediately broke into a cold sweat, and my stomach turned over. 
	
"What did you say?" I asked, angrily.
	
"One question."
	
"No, not tonight."
	
I grabbed her. I didn't want to hurt her, I was just so frustrated, and admittedly pretty scared. I started to shake her.
	
"Not tonight, you need to tell me, what is going on? Why are you doing this to me?"
	
I was yelling loudly at this point. She didn't respond immediately until suddenly she turned and pushed me. My mind almost expected some kind of supernatural strength, but ultimately it was my balance that got me. 
	
With my knees tucked under me and sitting on the edge of the bed, there was no way to stop my fall. I tumbled backwards, getting shrimped between the bed and the wall.
	
I stood up, yelling even more, but she had already turned back over in bed. I finally started grabbing a few pieces of clothing, and went out the door.
	
I had been staying with her for a while, and had only been back to my apartment during the day occasionally. I finished the night of sleep there, shaking with anger.
	
She called me in the morning asking where I had gone. I tried to explain to her what had happened, and I think it scared her more than it did me.
	
"I pushed you out of the bed?" she asked.
	
"Yeah, right into the wall," I said, "This has to stop. I don't really know what it is, but it has to stop. I'm happy with you, but I don't know, I feel like I"m getting chipped away at, even when the nights are peaceful."
	
"I'm scared," she said.
	
We decided to sleep apart for the night. I think she wanted us to at least see each other so I could comfort her, but I was mostly thinking of myself. I was extremely relieved to be apart, and hadn't realized the full extent of the stress I had been under. I even went to bed much earlier than usual, and settled in for what I hoped would be a question-less night.
	
I woke up. The clock said it was 3:22 am.
	
I wasn't sure why I woke up. I didn't hear anything, all the lights were off. I even flicked on the lamp but didn't notice anything. I wasn't sure anything had happened at all.
	
I was still mostly asleep, but suddenly felt a little guilty over the whole situation. Maybe I had overreacted, and I worried about how upset I may have made her.
	
I grabbed my phone to send her a text.
	
She had already sent me one.
	
"Ask me a question," it said, timestamped at 3:21 am.
	
The text had woken me up.
	
I quickly turned off my phone, as if that would make any difference. I was in a cold sweat again, fully awake.
	
I barely had time to process what I had just seen before my phone started ringing.
	
It was her.
	
No chance I was going to answer the phone. All of it started to feel like a sick joke, and I quickly lost my earlier feeling of guilt. I shutdown my phone completely, and struggled to go back to sleep. I felt like all I needed was one day and night of rest.
	
3:52 am. A knock at my door woke me up and I almost **** myself.
	
I knew it was her, and my fear grew without limits as I walked to the front door and looked out. There she was, beautiful but ghostly, somewhere she shouldn't be, standing in the hallway patiently.
	
I held my head against the door, trying to decide what I should do. I didn't open the door, but decided to try my luck.
	
"How can I make this stop?" I asked, as loudly as I could.
	
"You can't," she said.
	
I looked back out the peephole and she was gone. I whipped open the door and stepped into the hallway. She was walking towards the elevator, seemingly unaware that I was even behind her.
	
I almost asked her to stay, worried about her traveling in this weird state, but selfishly I let her go. I even had the horrible thought that if something did happen to her, at least that would solve things for me. 
	
The next day she asked how the night had gone, and I lied, telling her that everything had been fine.
	
In her own words the night before, I couldn't stop it, but I could at least try to control it or understand it.
	
The next few weeks, I barely slept, and I tried so many different questions, and none of the answers were exactly comforting.
	
"Why can't I stop it?"
	
She said it was inevitable.
	
"Have you done this to anyone else?"
	
She said no.
	
"Do you want to hurt me?"
	
She said no.
	
"Can you lie?"
	
She said no again. I may have wasted a question, what did I expect her to say?
	
I tried as many things as I could think of, but no questions about the process seemed to gain me any ground. Each night I lost another little piece of myself, and I think there were some weeks I didn't really sleep at all, getting maybe five hours total across the whole span.
	
Exhausted one night, after weeks of trying, I tried something different, something much more specific.
	
"What is the number of days exactly that we will be in a romantic relationship after today?"
	
"112," she said.
	
The next night, another question.
	
"What is the reason our romantic relationship ends?"
	
"I die," she said.
	
Each night, I dug deeper.
	
"What will your cause of death be?"
	
"Starvation."
	
"What will my cause of death be?"
	
"Electrocution."
	
"Where will you die?"
	
"Nearby."
	
"Can I keep you from dying?"
	
"Yes."

"So the future can be changed?"
	
"Yes."
	
"How can I stop you from dying?
	
"Don't **** me."
	
Her words sent me into a lasting panic. I understood what she was telling me, but for all my exhaustion and despair, I kept trying.
	
I searched for more and more clarification, but her answers always had a way of remaining just a little too vague.
	
Six more times I had tried to sleep in another place, even once staying in a hotel without telling her which one it would be. She showed up, out of thin air, in the middle of the night, knocking on my door.
	
I called a few people looking for solutions. I called doctors and even a psychic, but my heart wasn't truly in the search. My mind had fallen on an idea a while back, and although it filled me with shame, I couldn't get it out of my mind.
	
She tried to help, but there wasn't anything she could do. Our relationship was slowly falling apart during the day, and it was difficult for her to understand the true gravity of the situation. I also refused to share many of the details with her because I knew it would scare her even more.
	
I tried to continue my investigation, but over time I was just looping back around to the same questions, having forgotten many of her responses. I should have written them down, but each night the sleep deprivation piled up and kept me from thinking clearly.
	
At some point I know I finally tipped the scales towards insanity and I'm ashamed of what I did next.
	
A sense of clarity came over me once I accepted it, and I hate myself, but I was almost excited to ask her my next question.
	
"Where could I hide your body so that no one finds it?"
	
"The hatch near your old campsite."
	
I knew exactly where she had mentioned. There was a small area in the woods near my parents' old house with just enough flat ground for a tent.
	
You would never find it if you didn't know it was there, but a five minute walk from the campsite brought you to a hatch with its doors usually covered in dirt and grass. It opened up into a small cellar.
	
The next day, I surprised my girlfriend with a camping trip. Our relationship	had really reached its last leg, and I explained that it would be nice to take a break and get away for a while.
	
We enjoyed our day together, and honestly I forgot temporarily about the horrible things left to do. She deserved so much better.
	
Night came, and we sat in front of the fire, her head resting on my shoulder as she fought off sleep. She couldn't see me, but I was crying, and hoping that she wouldn't fall asleep so I could stay in that moment.
	
"I'm sorry," she said, almost asleep.
	
"It's okay, we're going to figure it out."
	
I sat there with her for a little while longer, hoping that I would change my own mind.
	
"I love you," I whispered.
	
Too late. She was asleep.
	
I picked her up out of her chair, and carried her off into the woods. I finally found the old hatch, and laid her down on the ground near it. It took a while to finally pry it open, pushing away years of dirt and leaves with my arms and feet. I had a new padlock in my hand that I had brought with us.
	
I lifted her again, and walked down with her into the cellar, placing her down again in the center of the room. I sat down against the far wall of the cellar, and somehow drifted off to sleep.
	
I woke up to her standing in front of me. In that moment I finally started to think of the person in front of me as someone completely different than the woman I had met.
	
"Will she know that I loved her?" I asked.
	
"Yes," she said.
	
Before she could turn and head back to the campsite, I ran up the stairs, and shut the hatch doors behind me, securing them with a padlock.

But I stood there for a long time, knowing my girlfriend was just on the other side. Could I really leave her there? 

The past few months all came back to me, all at once. I stood there, feeling every ounce of the frustration and exhaustion that had plagued me throughout our relationship.

Then I weighed that against how it felt each time I heard her voice. Even in times of anger, her voice was my favorite. I knew people that spent most of their relationships not even speaking to each other. Could what was happening to us be so bad that I would consider harming her? 

I think I had even had dreams of carrying all this out, leaving her in there, dealing with the guilt as I tried to forget everything that happened. It almost felt as if I really had done it, and by this time, she hadn't been inside for only a few seconds, but instead days. 

As quickly as I had shut the doors of the hatch, I threw them open again. My girlfriend walked past me, back towards the campsite. Ashamed and exhausted, I collapsed. I wasn't sure how I could face her when she woke up.

Going through the motions woke me up more than anything, and I realized how selfish I had been about the whole experience. Who knew the implications of what we were experiencing, the possibilities.

I went back the campsite soon after to find her awake and concerned with where I was. It took a couple hours and involved a lot of almost incoherent apologies, but I told her everything. I let it all out, completely, even what I had planned when we went camping. 

I didn't know how she would react. I don't think she did either

Ultimately, she said she wants to help try and understand what is happening, and what we can do to keep it from causing any more harm.

We both know it will take a long time, but I love her, and I plan to give it everything I have.

That was 4 nights ago. She still asks for questions, but something has changed. I don't feel like I'm dealing with this by myself anymore, and I have a lot of hope. Things are not perfect, but I slept really well last night. 

I will update everyone on where we [go from here](https://www.reddit.com/user/thebuffed/comments/pplmtp/writing_list_and_faq/).

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/pup3x4/my_girlfriend_would_answer_one_question_every/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My father-in-law is in prison for trying to kill me. Now I know he was trying to be kind.
 
 Assistant: One year ago, my father-in-law tried to **** me. He planned it beautifully, the trip up to the cabin in the woods that his family owned. Pushing me into the dried up old well. Pickpocketed my phone. Left a gun within the well that gave me the option of killing myself instead of starving to death - his twisted version of mercy I guess. Either way, he would have got away with it. He hadn’t accounted for the lost dog though. Hadn’t thought that a couple would come looking for a beloved pet who had raced off after a deer. That they would find me, half dead from starvation and dehydration, holding the gun, contemplating it seriously after nearly 3 days in the well, fully aware that I was going to die of thirst before starvation. There had been no rain for days. 

When I woke up in hospital, my wife Samantha was by my side holding my hand, her beautiful face wet with tears. Despite my own physical pain, all I wanted to do was make her stop crying. So I softly took her hand and with great effort raised it to my lips and give it a gentle kiss.

“I was so worried about you! What happened to you?!” She begged me, green eyes bright with tears. 

The nurse came in and took my vitals, then told my wife that she should leave me to sleep some more. I was glad for the rescue because I knew once I revealed what had really happened to me, my wife’s heart would break permanently. Her father had always been her favourite person.

I met Samantha at work three years ago. She was the marketing executive where I was a software developer. We were both in our late twenties and I knew within ten minutes of our first conversation that I was going to marry her. She was bright, funny, clever and it didn’t hurt that she was absolutely gorgeous with bright green eyes and long red hair. Four months into dating her, she met my family. I come from a massive family where both my parents had four siblings each and then went on to have five kids together too. Our Sunday lunches are loud, raucous events at my folks place with at least twenty people in attendance but Sam was utterly charmed by my family. And my parents and siblings adored her. She fit right in like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. 

Everything was going so well until Sam decided it was time for me to meet her only family member, her father.

Cameron Joyce was a tall, burly man who dressed and looked like a lumberjack. He lived in a neighbourhood at the very edge of the suburbs, close to a big, wide forest. When he stiffly shook my hand, his blue eyes ice cold, a sort of chill ran through me.

After we walked into the two bedroom house behind him, the first red flag should have been that there were no photos of Sam’s mother. Not one. In fact, if I truly thought about it, Sam never really spoke about her mother. I should have asked more questions about her but I guess I always just assumed that the subject was too painful for her. 

The first time I thought her father was trying to **** me was a fleeting thought which happened that visit. I distinctly heard Sam tell her father over the phone multiple times that I had a nut allergy but when we sat down to eat, I started to feel my throat swell up. Sam’s father watched me cough, slowly chewing his food. Of course we had an epipen on us but if we hadn’t, I could be dead right now.

Then it was the time right after our wedding when he knew I couldn’t swim but I am ninety percent sure he pushed me into the lake when the three of us were on the docks looking at his boat. 

The third time was the charm though. If those hikers hadn’t found me, I’m sure I would have died down in that well.

You might be wondering why I chose to go to that cabin with a man I thought was trying to **** me. Because I really didn’t think he was trying to **** me. My brain insisted that I had misread or misheard the situation and both those incidents could have been accidents. Also Sam was keen her father and Her husband. And I just couldn’t break her heart. 

I’ll never forget the ride to go the cabin. My father in law was a man of few words. So when he decided to tell me a story, I almost sighed with relief that I didn’t have to keep talking to fill the dead air between us. 

He kept his eyes on the road and said “There was once a boy who lived a happy life with his family in the forest. It was him, his three brothers, his parents, his grandparents, his uncles and aunts and all his cousins. He didn’t know much about the world beyond his family home but he had a thousand things to do in the woods so he never wondered. For a time, all was well and as it should be - the boy and his family lived off the land, hunted and thrived. Until one day on his nineteenth birthday, the boy saw the woman in white in the gut of the trees. Ethereal and shimmering, she glowed like a white will-o’-the-wisp. When he asked his mother about her, she told him to stay away from the woman. That nothing good comes out of the woods on a sickle moon night.”

We were close to the cabin now and as we approached it, a strange sort of feeling was beginning to crawl up my spine. A sense of something being wrong gripping me tightly.

“The boy listened to his mother. Two days he did not go looking for the woman. On the third night, he found himself outside the house walking into the woods. As he drew closer, he saw the woman’s face. Her gold hair shimmered all the way to her knees. Ice blue eyes and a lovely face that glowed with the promise of a forever his mortal brain didn’t understand. The woman offered him her hand. Entranced, he reached out and took it.”

He parked and turned off the engine of the car but still wouldn’t look at me instead, he stared ahead into the depth of the forest as he told me this eerie tale.

“The minute he took that hand, the thing claimed him. They found him a year later at the top of a mountain living in a cave, **** and insane, speaking a strange tongue in a language which had to be made up. What was terrifying was that both his legs from his knees downwards were gone. And yet… the wounds had been cauterised and someone or something had clearly been feeding him. His parents brought him home and tried to help him recover his mind. The doctors fitted him with prosthetic legs he kept hidden away. But the boy was never really the same again. When he began to slowly speak again, he spoke of a woman with a skull instead of a face, a long, skeletal crone’s body, fangs instead of teeth, clumps of white hair that fell out of her head and milk white eyes - the eyes of a corpse. And then, finally, the ear piercing scream.”

He fell silent then and my skin crawling, I asked him “What happened to him?”

My father in law broke out of his trance and looked at me, his expression unreadable. “Let me show you how to hunt.”

*
The trial was short. My father in law was caught in possession of my phone and several other items that suggested what he planned to do. His internet search history revealed extensive ways to **** someone. When they put Cameron Joyce in prison, my wife cried herself to sleep every night for a month. 

I think she blamed me for what happened even though she would never say those words. I would catch her looking out from our apartment in the direction of the forest which we could see clearly. She grew more and more forgetful, wouldn’t go to work, would sleep all day. Some days she wouldn’t even brush her hair.

Her face grew more haggard and sometimes when I saw her **** form in bed in the moonlight, I could swear I saw her ribs through her translucent skin. 

Her sadness was going to devour her. And there was nothing I could do about it.

One day I came home and she wasn’t there. I looked for her everywhere. I don’t know how I knew it, but somehow I knew she would be at the cabin. I jumped into my car and sped there at full speed, not caring how many fines I would have to pay.

I got there just before dark and I caught sight of her. She was ****, her back to me facing the forest. 

“Sam!“ I called her name as I got out of the car. She didn’t turn to look at me. Instead she stood there, her messy red hair lifted by the breeze. I called to her again, a deep sense of unease in my bones. “SAM.”

Slowly, she turned to face me. 

And that was when I saw her face. A skull. A distended jaw that opened much, much too wide. That was when she let out an ear piercing scream. 

A sharp pain burst through my head and I immediately clapped my hands over my ears. I tried screaming my wife’s name again but all I could hear was the shriek that was starting to feel like someone was knifing my brain. 

My vision swam and I stumbled backward.

A dozen figures had appeared from the woods. All of them with skull like faces, impossibly distended jaws and the same milk white eyes that had replaced my wife’s bright green ones.

And they were all walking towards me.

I didn’t even think. I got into my car and started the engine, my ears bleeding from the sound of the scream.

I ran.

*

Two days later I am couch surfing at a friends after the doctors had dealt with one perforated ear drum. They told me I was lucky both my eardrums hadn’t burst from the “volume I was listening to music at”. I had just nodded and let them get on with it. There was a ringing in my ears I couldn’t quite get rid of no matter how I tried.

There was no way I could explain what had happened in those woods to them.

I am waiting for the ringing and the headache to stop before I go looking for Sam again. This time I will take a gun. I’ll find her and bring her home. I’ve already spoken to the police but I know they just aren’t as motivated to find her as me.

My phone rings and I gingerly held it to my good ear. It’s a collect call from the prison. I accept it because who else could possibly give me answers. 

“It happened didn’****?” My father in law’s gruff voice made me nearly drop the phone.

I swallowed hard. “Sam’s gone.” I said numbly.

“She’s gone back where she belongs.” He said. “You’re lucky.”

“How am I lucky?!” I asked, bitter anger surging through me “she was my wife and your daughter.”

“That thing was no daughter nor a wife. It knows how to mimic being human. Why do you think I told you that story.” His voice was low and even. 

My jaw dropped. Was he really suggesting he was the boy from the dark fairytale he has told?

“You’re *cruel*. Disowning your daughter, trying to **** me, you should-“

“Listen to me, boy and listen good. That creature was dropped at my doorstep a few months after I came home from the forest. It was an infant then and it butchered my parents. I found pieces of them around their cabin for years. It then proceeded to **** everyone related to me. But it wouldn’t let me die or **** me and I couldn’t figure out why until I realised it needed me the way a parasite needs its host. Finally, when everyone I loved was dead and buried, it needed more prey. And it found you. It will take pieces of you then keep you alive to take pieces of everyone you love. It will feed on your pain as you live through your own horror show.”

I swallowed hard. He had lost his damned mind surely. What on Earth was he trying to say?

“If I were you, I would take all my belongings and leave. Leave the state. ****, leave the country. Don’t ever look back, you hear me? *Ever*.”

With a sharp click, he hung up. 

I wish I had listened to him.

I wish I hadn’t decided that I needed to rescue my wife at any cost.

Instead, I am sitting here in the dark inside the old cabin looking outside the window, my fingers folded around the hunting rifle. A sickle moon gleams silver, the only light in the jet black night. 

And there inside the darkness, I think I see a  figure shimmer. From a distance, she almost looks like my wife. 

Almost. 

Until her inhuman skeletal jaw distends.

And she screams.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve Been Flying for almost Thirty Hours and The Flight Attendants Won’t Stop Crying [Part 2]
 
 Assistant: [Read Part 1 Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dlk100/ive_been_flying_for_almost_thirty_hours_and_the/?st=k23uxijr&sh=1ab81f3c)


A few hours after the businesswoman picked up her piece of paper with my message, she came back down the aisle and sat in the seat beside me. She bent over, trying to stay low. 

“So, you’re stuck too?” she asked.

I kept my voice low. “Yeah. My name’s Jack, by the way. I’d say nice to meet you but…”

She nodded. “I’m Mary. You’re wrong, getting your message was by far the best thing about the past day. I’ve spent the last day and a half thinking I was alone in this.” She paused for a moment, looking up the aisle. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “So, Jack, you have any theories on what the ****’s going on?”

I considered lying but decided the truth was for the best. “I think we might be dead.”

Mary shook her head. “Maybe if it were just me or just you. If this was some cosmic train to **** why would there be two of us who realize what’s going on?”

“No idea.”

Mary pulled out her phone and handed it to me. It displayed the Wikipedia article for flight MH370, the airline that disappeared in 2014. I read through the article carefully; there were dozens of theories trying to explain what happened. They ranged from hypoxia to suicide to aliens. 

“Doesn’t tell us much,” I said. 

“Not much other than that this may have happened before,” she said.

“How about you? Any theories as to why anyone else can’t see what’s going on?” 

We talked it over and realized one thing we had in common was that we were both fast asleep at 4:03 AM. 

“There’s no way we were the only ones asleep at that time though.”

“Maybe everyone else was just napping. I don’t know about you, but I was well and truly asleep.”

The cabin lights flicked off and a dozen red emergency lights in the floor flicked on, casting the cabin in a red glow. The intercom crackled to life saying, “Passengers, please return to your seats. The seat belt sign is fastened, and we may experience some turbulence. We’ll be landing in about an hour.”

Mary froze. “Should I go back?” she asked.

“Maybe they won’t notice if you’re gone. But maybe they already know and they’re just trying to separate us.”

Mary nodded. “We should stay together. That’s a better idea.”

The intercom crackled again. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the arrival of The Captain. We’ll all be given the opportunity to speak with him. Please remain in your seats until he calls you. If you need assistance, don’t worry. A flight attendant will happily help you on your way.”

Sounds of passengers getting to their feet echoed from further up in the plane. We sat in silence, trying to get a look through the curtain separating us from first class. 

“The Captain?” I asked.

“No idea. But it didn’t sound like they were talking about a pilot to me. Did they?”

“Nope.”

That’s when a pungent sulfur smell hit us, so strong that I had to resist the urge to gag. It reminded me of the worst rotting eggs I’d ever smelt in my life. But the old woman sitting ahead of us didn’t react. She just kept watching a movie on the back of her seat. 

“Don’t cough,” I said to Mary.

We fought it for a few long seconds before giving in, coughing hard and violently.

A second later the curtain opened. Mary and I froze, staring down the now-red fuselage. 

Four flight attendants passed through the curtain and made their way down the rows towards us, grins stretched wide across their faces. They were still crying, but this time the tears streaking their faces were darker. It’s hard to say with the lighting, but it looked like blood. 

My eyes weren’t drawn to them though. I looked over their shoulders at the figure standing near the front of the plane. It was a black silhouette standing beside the cockpit door. It was at least eight feet tall and pointing towards us with a single finger. It had called us.

“The bathrooms!” I shouted. 

We ran towards the back of the plane, the flight attendants closing in behind us. Blood dripped from their grinning cheeks onto the carpet of the plane. 

“The Captain is here,” he said in a perfect customer-service voice. His grin widened as he moved towards us.

We made it to the bathrooms, jumping into opposite sides. I slammed the door shut and locked it, pressing my feet against the folding center part of the door to keep it closed.

They began banging on the door and pulling at the handle while I fought to keep it closed.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll both need to speak with the Captain,” one of the flight attendants said.

"Jack!" Mary screamed. "Jack! Help!"

A distinct snapping sound like breaking metal came from her bathroom. She continued to scream as the sounds of struggle migrated up towards the front of the plane, towards the black figure I’d seen.

I’d like to say I jumped out and fought them, that I distracted them or did something heroic.

I didn’t. She was carried away, and a few short seconds later her screaming was cut off.

That was a few hours ago, and I’m still locked inside this bathroom. I keep trying not to think of what they’ve done with her. The thing at the front of the plane didn’t seem human. I hope it didn’t **** her, not after she was shouting for my help like that. I… couldn’t take that. 

I haven’t heard any movement outside in a few hours, but I’m terrified to open the door. I'm far from the seat outlets so my phone’s almost dead and I haven’t eaten in way too long. If I go out there, will the flight attendants remember? What if that thing is still waiting for people? 

I don’t have much time to make a decision, but I’ll update you all here with what happens next. 

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dmyq8g/ive_been_flying_for_almost_thirty_hours_and_the/)

More:

/r/WorchesterStreet

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The man's ad offered $5,000 dollars to sit in a chair and stare at him.
 
 Assistant: The ad offered five-thousand dollars, and said that the desired activity could be completed in an hour. It stated, fairly redundantly, that it was not a **** thing; insisted that all the *witness* would need to do is sit in a chair and stare ahead. The only other details expressed were that you could not move during the “experience”, nor could you talk—this inability being out of a requested self-restraint, not through a means of physical prevention.  

Being an abysmally broke college student, and having a friend with whom I could depend upon for my rescue if something strange happened, I answered the ad only a few minutes after coming across it. The person who had put out the ad had provided a phone number, which I called—sending a text resulted in me being informed that it was a landline. The person answered, and we briefly discussed the location where the interaction was to be held, and I confirmed the amount of money to be paid. Like his ad, he repeatedly reminded me that it was in no way a carnal activity; apparently, he’d gotten a lot of answers to the ad from people with that particular preconception.  

My friend took the day off from work—insisted, despite my protests that we could wait until the following day when he was off—and we drove to the agreed-upon location. It was a house in a suburban neighborhood, which was somewhat comforting; if the man was an axe-murderer, there was a chance my screams of terror could be heard by quite a few people. I joked aloud about this, but my friend didn’t find it funny. The ad specified and the man reiterated that I be alone when entering the house, so I had my friend stay in the car. Being similarly broke, I offered him five-hundred dollars for his help; an *unnecessary incentive*—his words—to not leave me if the man turns out to be truly insane.  

I got out of the car and walked across the lawn, which—unlike those of other houses—hadn’t been maintained. The grass was high, weeds threatened to burst through the concrete of the driveway and sidewalk. The man had sounded fairly old on the phone, so I attributed the ill-maintained property to an inability to perform the duties, rather than some indication of insanity.  

I was instructed to immediately enter once I had arrived, so I didn’t bother knocking. The unlocked door opened into a foyer, and connected to this was a hall that led into a kitchen. The hall held a single door, which I assumed led into a closet or down to a basement. Leftward from the kitchen was a spacious room devoid of furnishing save for two steel fold-able chairs and an equally fold-able dinner table. The foyer, hall, and kitchen were in similar states of bareness, and aren’t worth remarking on beyond that. Sitting in one of the chairs in the great room was a man, who I knew at once to be the dealer of the ad. There was a certain familiarity about him; one of those times when a voice is an almost eerie reflection of the person from whom it issued.  

He nodded and gave a wave, but it did not speak. I approached and sat down at the chair opposite him. To my left on the dinner table was a box. The top of the box was a clear case, through which a neat stack of money could be seen. The base of the box was black, with a timer at its face, and a clasping mechanism which sealed the upper portion to the bottom. 

“It is a time-release device. Now that you’re here, I will start it” (he immediately does) “and once an hour has passed from this point, the box will open, and you are free to take your payment. You needn’t say anything once that time arrives, and can depart a slightly richer person. Now, all you must do is look at me. You may of course blink, but please do not speak or look away. It very important that you be both silent and still.”  

And so, the staring session began. It was expectedly awkward for the first few minutes—he stared right back at me—but after a while the oddness of the circumstances became dull, and I grew accustomed to them. His face wasn’t unusual, but it wasn’t exactly handsome; easy enough to look at, but not someone you would’ve necessarily *wanted* to linger on without incentive. He was about sixty-five, hair greyed and thin, face starting to sag, blue eyes slightly squinting—visual acuity no doubt dwindling.  

Despite his incessant assertions to the contrary, I couldn’t help but think that he derived some abstract **** amusement from this. Some sort of “staring into the eyes of your lover” thing. But despite the incredibly uncomfortable experience of that hour—soon to be described—he at no point exhibited any behavior which would suggest arousal. 

About ten minutes in, the strangeness of the experience was doubled. From below and then far behind me I heard a shifting clamor, as if a group of people had ascended the basement stairs and gathered just before the kitchen; chatting excitedly. I was going to turn—the ad hadn’t mentioned the presence of others—but the man’s eyes seemed to almost plead with me to remain focused on him; he didn’t speak a word, though.  

Resisting instinct, I kept my gaze fixed on him, and listened to the noise of the crowd behind me. The weird thing was that while I could hear them talking, and even mentally differentiate between speakers, I couldn’t understand a single word that was spoken. They had moved into the kitchen by this point, but none of the words were intelligible to me. And even weirder was that it was obvious they were speaking English—I could recognize the nuance and structure of the language. 

The man’s eyes imparted nothing beyond the unspoken insistence that I keep mine on him. My inability to recognize the words which were clearly English troubled me greatly, and I started saying words in my head to reassure myself that I had not somehow forgotten the language. I couldn’t check exactly how much time had passed—the timer being too far out of my peripheral vision—but about forty minutes into the experience the voices were right behind me; *in the great room.*  

There were perhaps twelve distinct voices, all chattering and laughing and speaking some unrecognizable variance of a language I’d been speaking for nearly two decades. Women, men, and children conversed just behind me—not a single one, for even a moment, being understandable. I was terrified. Their appearance and migration from the basement to right behind me was strange, yes. But the possibility that something was wrong with me, that I might’ve had some sort of **** or neurological slip-up, was far worse.  

My eyes had stayed on the man, but my mind had momentarily receded, turning over these bleak possibilities. Upon returning my focus to the man I saw that he was crying. Inaudibly, of course, but the tears were there; the lips slightly quivering. Instinct almost compelled me to ask what was wrong, but I stopped myself; both for the sake of the experience, and a new fear that speaking would somehow draw the attention of the partiers to me. And for some inexpressible reason I was sure that getting their attention wasn’t something I wanted.   

A new terror dawned, then. *What if the group continues their movement, and they press forward, swarming around us?* With each second that passed, I grew more certain that seeing these people would cause something horrible to happen. Their voices did grow louder, but no closer in proximity. I started to shake, my heartbeat quickened, and my breathing became labored. I tried to calm myself, but the presence of those people behind me was so dreadful, in a way that I still cannot find the words to properly describe.  

Against my control, as I shuddered, I let out a low moan. It was barely audible, more of a release of air than proper emission of the vocal cords. But the man’s eyes grew wide with terror, and from behind me, for the first time, I heard something I could I understand. 

*Oh, would someone like to join the party?*  

I froze in place, even my heart seemed to quiet its movement. The noise behind me still continued, but with considerably less people causing it. The attention of several members had apparently been drawn from the conversation. 

*Drawn to me*.  

I became like a statue, not even allowing myself to blink. The man’s eyes remained wide, but he’d stopped crying. He stared at me with what I can only describe as mindless terror. Despite my earlier belief that seeing these people would bring about some horrible event, I tried to see within his eyes even a dim reflection of the scene behind me. But nothing was reflected—not even his thoughts.  

*I could’ve sworn I heard a request to join the party.* A woman’s voice. 

*Think it was one of dear old dad’s friends?* A man’s voice. 

*Ha! That old fool couldn’t keep a friend if his life depended on it.*  

*You two sure saw to that!* A third voice, another man. 

*(A chorus of disconcerting laughter erupts)* 

*Oh well, shall we go back downstairs?*  

The others who hadn’t spoken seemed to respond in agreement, although I couldn’t understand them. As gradually as they had come, the voices went away; returning downstairs and eventually fading to inaudibility. A few minutes later, the timer beside us went off—indicating that the hour had passed. The man almost collapsed at this moment; sagging back in his seat and breathing raggedly. I went to help him, but he held up a hand, dismissing me. Before I could say anything, he cried out, “Thank you!”, and repeated the same multiple times between breathes. He’d started crying again, although these tears seemed to be from relief, or maybe even joy.  

After a few moments of this, he recovered himself and sat upright in his chair. He gestured to the box and said, “The money is yours. You are free to go. Thank you, sincerely, for accompanying me during this time...For noticing me. Please, take the money and leave this place. I’ll be heading out myself soon enough.”  

Despite the utterly bizarre experience, I didn’t want to ask any questions. That migratory horde of partiers had scared the **** out of me, and I didn’t want to remain in the home longer than I had to. I grabbed and pocketed the money—not bothering to count it—and walked away; waving behind me as I went. I made my exit as quickly and quietly as possible. I closed the door, relieved that I hadn’t heard rushing footsteps ascending the stairs. My friend was still parked outside, right where I left him.  

I got into the car and let out the heaviest sigh of my life. 

“Guess he was a no-show, huh? Not surprised. No one just gives away five grand.”  

“What are you talking about?” I took the money out of my pocket and showed it to him. He looked at the money, then to me with an expression of incredulity.  

“But you were only in there for five minutes! Did you steal it?”  

I laughed. The kind of nervous laugh you let out with someone says something extremely odd, or after you’d just survived some perilous experience. In my case, either one could’ve been the cause. I eventually composed myself and said, “What are you talking about? I was in there for an hour. The money was in a locked box with a timer set for that exact amount of time.”  

My friend’s expression went from one of disbelief to worry, and he pointed at the clock on his radio. I remembered what time it had been when I first left the car, and saw that only five minutes had passed since then. I stared at the clock, and then turned my gaze to the money, as if it would somehow reconcile the disparity in perceptions of time.  

“What exactly happened in there?” He asked this softly, which made me feel even worse. I didn’t want him to think I was crazy, or that I had hurt someone and stolen the money. But to avoid the former suspicion, I couldn’t tell him about what actually happened. I looked around, first at the house and the rest of the neighborhood, but saw no excess of cars which would’ve accounted for the presence of the partiers. Also, it was noon on a Tuesday—not exactly the prime circumstances for a party.  

“Please, just drive.” I wanted to get away from the house. 

“Not until you tell me what happened.” Firmer, but not yet confrontational.  

I took a moment to consider my options, then told him a version of the truth that didn’t make me sound crazy. I didn’t mention anything about the roving crowd of people. I told him about the experience with the man, and said that it must’ve seemed longer than it really was, or that maybe he had set the timer wrong. My friend listened quietly, and once I had finished, he sat silent for a moment—staring at the house through my window. I thought he was going to accept my answer, but without saying anything he got out of the car. Before I could stop him, he jogged across the lawn and went into the house. I should’ve gone in with him, but my nerves prevented me from re-entering. 

He returned a few minutes; silently entering and starting the car.  

“Well?” I really meant, *Well, what did* ***he*** *say?*  

“It was empty. Completely empty. No one was inside; there wasn’t even a single piece of furniture.” He pulled away from the curb and started driving down the street. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, and he dropped me off at my house without saying another word.  

I don’t know what happened to me in that house, but the money is real enough. I’ve already used some of it to buy food. My friend didn’t want anything of it. I can understand that, I guess. I don’t know what he believes—I don’t know what I even believe—but hopefully he doesn’t think I did something terrible. Maybe he thinks I made the whole thing up, although there’s no way I would’ve been able to gather 5k together, certainly not for some prank.  

Regardless of the truth, the money is real, and for that I’m thankful. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I used to do Special Effects Makeup, now I’m a makeup artist for the dead
 
 Assistant: Raucous music shook the window shutters as people paraded past, shouting and singing in memory of those they lost to the other world. Every year, on El Dia de Muertos, my small dilapidated shop shook. It was on the ground floor of a building so old the thundering footsteps outside reverberated through ancient wooden floorboards.  I watched the small flames of candles drift past the window, flashes of shadowed faces, sugar skulls and headdresses floating past like ghosts in the inky blackness. 

I waited for my next customer, sketching shadows with charcoal idly on a roll of paper, my supplies laid out around me in expectation of guests.

While I drew the curve of a forearm, the bell tinkled and a figure shuffled in, shambling and unbalanced.  I looked up, expectant and saw the sagging face of a partially decomposed corpse staring at me. Strings of limp hair hung about its face, a vague shape to its body that made me identify it as a her.

“Hello señora, please sit,” I said quietly, moving out of my seat and pulling out a cushioned chair. The woman stared at me, lips blue and eyes with a film of cataracts. Almost blind, but not yet. She dragged herself into the chair, bones clicking and bare feet making a slick sound on the wooden floor that once would have disgusted me. I didn’t even flinch, she was not my first customer. 

I sat, and I waited. After several moments of being observed, a raspy voice spoke.

“They say... you...” she began, voice gargled and almost indistinguishable. I could see the gashes on her throat in the low light, deep lacerations in her trachea. No blood, no gore. An older corpse I surmised, but with another glance at her eyes, not too old.  

“You can... make me look.... alive,” she spat, and then gasped for air she had no need for. I looked at her solemnly and nodded. Only living customers were comforted with a smile. 

“I can,” I said, and that was enough for her. She nodded and I picked up my tools and began to work. 

After spending years on the sets of B horror movies deconstructing faces, molding masks, playing with colour, lighting and shadow to horrify... It was easy to reverse the process. Easy to reconstruct a face. 

Hours later, a fresh faced woman shambled out of my shop. No payment from the dead. It was fine, money was not why I did it. I stared out of the window, saw her body disappear into the night, her face melt into the crowd, deceptively normal. I nodded in satisfaction.

For three years, I have been the makeup artist of the dead. 

I still remember my first customer and the bloodcurdling scream that came out of my mouth when I saw him. He had limped into my store with a torso covered in blood, lips blue and face swollen. He was a fresh corpse. Unemployed, working and sleeping in the same dusty store, weak with exhaustion, I had collapsed into a heap. I remember thinking, This is the end, Death himself has come for me.  

Dazed, I had struggled to come out of my petrified state and black spots danced before my eyes. The corpse had dropped clumsily to its knees and dragged himself towards me, eyes wide, blue lips moving in speech. It was the begging, the desperation that snapped me out of my haze. 

“Please. I won’t do anything. I just want to see her. I know she will be in the parade. I just want to see her,” he was choking, crying, no tears left for his dead flesh to produce but the anguish on his face sent a dagger into my heart. 

“Why, why here?” I had asked, struggling, pressing nails into the floorboards to not get up and run, far away in the face of the monstrosity in front of me. Frankenstein’s Monster stared back at me.

“I remember you, from when I was alive. You can change a face,” he had said and I’ll never forget his face, the look of hope that almost made his swollen, bloated face look human, look alive. 

“Please,” he’d said and I had nodded. 

It took hours to change him, to revisit and practice seldom used, abandoned talents.  My hands shook like leaves in the wind, I made mistakes, then fixed them, then made more. Four hours later, it was done. He had looked at himself in the mirror, shocked, awed, thanked me and limped out of the door. 

I did not ask him for payment, it didn’t even occur to me. I never knew if he had seen her, or who “her” was to him. I never knew if the fruits of my labour had helped him find solace.

The next year, there were more. I knew then, that it worked. 

For the past three years, every year, on Dias de Muertes, they shamble into my store, hoping to be alive for a night. Some come to join the parade without being noticed, others like him, come to see their loved ones, to hear their voices, while they can still pass for someone who is alive. Some come because they are curious about the magician who brings them back to life, just for a day.

I am an artist, putting layers upon layers on pallid, grey skin, breathing life into the lifeless. I have become a surgeon, teaching myself how to stitch loose bowels back into abdominal cavities, how to mold prosthetic eyes and insert them into empty, cold eye sockets. 

Many, I have had to turn away with tears blurring my vision and heart in my throat because they are simply decomposed beyond repair. 

I sketch again, getting charcoal smudges on my fingers and look up an hour later when the bell rings again. My next customer, for the first time in years, takes my breath away. 

I jump to my feet, skidding to a halt as the frail corpse enters my shop. It cannot be. No, it cannot. He comes in, closer and closer and I wonder why he doesn’t know... Why... Then I see it. Deep gashes around two empty sockets. 

He is blind. 

I stand there and shake, trembling and rooted to the spot. 

“Hello?” the man says, voice barely there, vocal cords so frayed it’s almost an inaudible whisper. I am mute. Suddenly, I am transported back years, to when I stopped speaking. It’s as if two years of speech therapy, two years of psychologists and clinics never happened. 

He shuffles closer and even blind, he can sense my presence. He turns slightly, ears facing me. I wonder if he hears my shuddering breaths, I wonder how decomposed his ears are, whether his hearing is sharp, or barely there, a whisper of yesterday. 

Before he can leave, mumbling uncertainties, I dive forward and put my shaking hand on his shoulder. I can feel the bone beneath it. He looks heartened, “thank you,” he says shakily as I maneuver him into the chair. 

I open my mouth to speak, but my throat clicks. I feel a sob building up and I cannot speak, I cannot breath through the headache pounding behind my eyes. It is okay, he speaks for me.

“Am I too late?” he speaks slowly and inaudibly, his voice is but a breath that rattles through his deflated lungs and brushes lightly past frayed vocal cords. I cannot speak. I put all my concentration into hearing his whispers instead. 

“I- I must be. But please...” he begs, he looks so sorrowful. I stare into those empty, gruesome eye sockets and pretend I can remember what his eyes looked like. 

“I just want to hear her, that’s all... Can you fix me? I just want to stand by the window... and hear her,” he says and finally, falls silent. Tears roll down my cheeks and I begin with shaking hands. 

All I can hear is my heart beating loudly in my chest. My vision tunnels until all I see is his face, my hands work using muscle memory like I am an automaton. Thoughts and memories batter at the walls of my head like hammers and daggers. 

Years, I hadn’t seen him in years. My life had fallen apart, I lost my job, the house and the same window to which he wanted to place his ear to. I never knew, what happened to him.... but now I did. I never found him, but he has found me. 


I don’t know how long it takes.  I cannot hear the tick of the clock. I still cannot speak. When my hands fall away, he notices it is over. 

“Do I look alive?” he asks, and he does. He looks exactly like the last time I saw him. Before he left my life, before he was taken from me and given to me in his stead, an empty grave for the disappeared.

“*Oh papa*,” I choke, voice finally free, and his face turns up to me in a shocked jolt. 

“You look wonderful.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip and I Think My Dad is Trying to Kill Me
 
 Assistant: [My name is Lily Madwhip and I think my dad is trying to **** me](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/al5sy6/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_wish_everybody/).

He put brussel sprouts on my plate. I know for a fact that brussel sprouts are poison. Paschar says they’re not, but they sure taste like it. I think. I never ate real poison obviously. My brother Roger once knew a kid who drank so much cinnamon that he had to go to the hospital because it was eating away the inside of his tummy. That’s what it feels like when I eat brussel sprouts, like they’re eating away at my insides.

“Eat your breakfast please, Lily.” my mom tells me.

They’re both trying to **** me. Brussel sprouts aren’t even a breakfast. What kind of parents make their child eat brussel sprouts for breakfast? I ask them this question.

“What kind of parents make their child eat brussel sprouts for breakfast?”

“You were told last night if you didn’**** them with your dinner you were getting them cold in the morning,” Dad says from behind his newspaper.

*Oh yeah.*

“Brussel sprouts taste like garbage.” I haven’t eaten garbage either, but I’ve smelled it and it smells like brussel sprouts.

“Lillian Alexandra Madwhip!”

Adults use your middle name when they’re trying to make you do things. And somehow it works. Middle names are magic. Anyone who knows yours has power over you. That’s probably why some people don’t have middle names. The most important people don’t even have last names, like Madonna and Jesus and Garfield. Whenever they catch a killer they tell everyone the person’s middle name so if they escape, anyone who sees them knows how to protect themselves.

Dad throws down his newspaper and storms off to his work room with his coffee. He and Mom had a big fight after Jamal and I found all the dead animals out in the woods the other day. I heard them from my room where I was painting a still life. Dad said things and people around me keep dying and stuff about me being creepy and Mom said I’m his daughter so if I’m creepy, I get it from him. Then she got on her phone and called people who came and collected all the dead animals in big garbage bags. There was a whole crew, like six people. They had these huge, thick gloves on and wore masks like you see doctors wear when they’re operating on someone. One lady had a clipboard and she wrote down every animal they found.

There were twenty three and a half squirrels.

Things got worse when Mom came to tuck me into bed because I’d forgotten to tell her that Whiskers had died. All the yelling and banging of doors and the van parked on the front lawn and garbage bags I didn’t remember what started it all until she kissed me good night and saw his empty cage. Then everything started right back up again. Except for the van and the people with the garbage bags. I sure hope they don’t come back and dig up all my pets.

I take the bus to school. Our bus driver’s name is Ed. He’s been driving buses for thirty four years, but not the same bus because buses grow old too. He says his son was in the army but now he works as a “layabout”. I think that means he’s in the circus. I bet he got a job as the guy who shoots trapeze people out of a canon because he was in the army.

At morning recess I sit on one of the benches by the baseball diamond and watch a bunch of sixth graders play kickball. Jamal is playing with them. His school is down the street and he and a couple other Catholic kids hang out and play with us most mornings because their school starts fifteen minutes later. He looks happy for someone who still has nightmares about dead deer and birds banging and screaming at his bedroom window. He’s going to kick the ball straight at Tyler O’Neil and it’s going to hit Tyler right in the ****. I’m amused because I get to see it happen twice. Paschar is in my backpack. He tells me I shouldn’t laugh at other people’s pain but when Tyler gets hit in the **** Paschar agrees that it’s a little funny.

There’s a new girl in our class. Her name is Meredith. Mrs. C-D (that’s our teacher) has her stand up in front of class and introduces her. C-D stands for Carter-Dogbill. She’s got two last names. That probably makes it harder for other people to have power over her. Unless she’s got no middle name. Mrs. C-D used to just be Ms. Carter and then she married someone with the last name Dogbill and just nailed his last name onto the end of hers.

Meredith just moved to town. She’s real shy because she’s got these marks on half her face. She covers them with her hair, but it’s easy to see. Jeffrey Baker asks her what happened to her face and gets in trouble. Trouble in our class is these demerit slips you get for doing something wrong. Three demerit slips in a week and you get to go talk to the principal, Mr. Longbough. He yells a lot, and his face is always red from yelling. Meredith’s face is red too. Paschar says she got burned. I wonder if she’s a pyromaniac. That’s somebody who’s crazy about fire. I mean literally crazy. There was this boy in Roger’s grade who was a pyromaniac, and he went camping with his boy scout troop, saw a spider in his tent, and tried to **** it with hairspray and a cigarette lighter. He got burns all over his body because the tent caught fire with him inside it.

Mrs. Carter-Dogbill asks us all what we say to Meredith and nobody knows until Hanna Glass guesses “Hello?” and then we’re all like “Oh yeah.” It was pretty funny nobody knew what Mrs. C-D was talking about. I was going to guess, “Sorry you got burned” but I’m not supposed to know that I think.

Mrs. C-D makes Meredith sit next to me in the back of the room. Paschar tells me to be very nice because new kids are scared. I was going to be nice anyway. I make sure to blink a lot because I don’t want her to think I’m staring at her burns. They make her face look kind of waxy, like a candle.

“Hi, I’m Lily.” I tell her. New kids are the best because I haven’t freaked them out yet.

“I know.”

“Oh.” I don’t know how she knows that. Maybe some other kids already told her about me. I hope it wasn’t Rachel whose dog died from seizures.

Meredith pulls stuff out of her backpack. She’s got a green pencil that’s all glittery and has a rainbow eraser. Her notebook is three subject so it’s already three times better than mine. She pulls out a Barbie doll and sets it on the front of her desk like I do with Paschar and this thing is horrifying. It’s got no clothes at all, and most of its hair is missing. There’s black scorch marks on its face and one of its hands is melted into a lump. I can’t help it, I gotta stare at this doll.

“This is Barbie,” Meredith says and turns her Barbie toward me. Oh ****, it’s face is kinda melted too.

I make Paschar salute Barbie. “This is Paschar.” Then I feel bad because Barbie doesn’t have articulated limbs like Paschar and her hand is a lump anyway.

Meredith sits next to me at lunch. Nobody else sits by me, so new kids usually end up there, but she doesn’t just sit at the table she sits *next to me*. She has a purple lunchbox with planets and comets on it. I have a paper bag with my name on it in Sharpee. Her lunch is a peanut butter sandwich and some carrot sticks and a plastic bottle of lemonade with OH MY **** she has Oreos. I’ve got a Hi-C and some blue corn chips and a pepperoni and mustard sandwich. My dad snuck more cold brussel sprouts into my lunch. I can’t tell if its meant to be a joke or not. I swear, he’s trying to **** me.

Meredith asks permission from the lunch monitor to go use the bathroom and she leaves her melted Barbie and Oreos with me. Not like I get to keep them, but she says she trusts me to protect them. The moment she’s gone though, her Barbie starts talking.

It tells me it’s name is Nathaniel. I’ve never met another doll that spoke to me like Paschar does. I ask if it’s an angel like Paschar and it says it is. I wonder if every doll has an angel in it. That would be a lot of angels, but I guess if they run out **** can just make more. I ask Nathaniel if Meredith knows he’s an angel, and if he minds being a melted Barbie with boobies.

No and no.

Then he tells me that Meredith has a gift like me. I ask him if she sees things before they happen and he says that she doesn’t. He says her gift is that she burns things.

“Like a pyromaniac?”

Kind of.

“Has she ever burned a spider in a tent?”

No.

She burned her parents though. Burned them right up. They’re not even buried like Roger is, they’re ashes and they got scattered in a park. He says Meredith lives with a foster family now and they don’t know that she burns things. They try to be nice to her but she’s always sad because she knows she burned up her folks and she misses them. It’s okay for her to be sad, Nathaniel says, but if she gets angry I need to get away. That’s when she starts burning things.

Meredith comes back and Nathaniel goes quiet. She looks happy because I guarded her Oreos and melted Barbie but I’m scared now because what if someone hits her with a dodgeball in gym class and she sets us all on fire? The boys want to play dodgeball all the time because it’s the only time they can hit us girls and not get in trouble.

The bell rings for afternoon recess and Meredith lets me have one of her Oreos because all I got left are brussel sprouts.

“Do you want to play on the swings?” she asks.

“Okay.”

I’m sweating the whole time we’re swinging. Out of fear, not because Meredith is hot. I don’t know how she burns things, Nathaniel didn’t tell me. I think she uses her mind but maybe she has laser eyes like Superman and Cyclops. Those are comic book characters though, they’re not real.

Lisa Welch and her crew of **** girls start coming over. She always looks smug. Probably because she *is* smug. Her dad is a dentist so her teeth are always perfect and she likes to show them off by smiling at everybody, even people she hates like me. I’m probably going to need braces. I know Lisa and her friends are going to make fun of Meredith because making fun of people who look different is their favorite thing to do after chasing the boys around the baseball diamond when they’re trying to play kickball and telling each other stories about **** stuff their parents bought them like Breyer horses and jewelry with their name on it in case they forget their **** names. **** Lisa Welch and her crew of **** girls.

“Hiiii Lily,” Lisa says. She makes it sound like she’s singing when she says hi. I guess that’s how smug people do things. “Who’s your new friend?”

I hop off the swing and stare at Lisa because I’m good at staring. “If you don’t go away you’re going to trip and break your front tooth on a rock.”

I’m lying, but Lisa Welch and her crew of **** girls don’t know I’m lying. They just know that I tell people things before they happen. She covers her precious mouth and starts to run away, but then she trips and falls on her face and next thing we all know she’s crying and clutching her face and bleeding from the mouth and they’re all yelling to one of the recess monitors that I put a curse on her.

I’m just shocked.

“Lily Madwhip put a curse on Lisa!” they’re crying. Lisa is wailing like a banshee. That’s a Irish ghost that screams all the time. I saw one in an episode of Scooby Doo.

Mr. Longbough comes out of nowhere, steaming because he’s always red in the face like his brain is boiling or something. I think he has the ability to teleport because he’s never there and then the moment someone breaks a rule he’s suddenly right there. He starts yelling at me. “Lily, did you push Lisa? Come with me, young lady.”

Meredith hops off her swing. “Lily didn’t touch her.”

“Excuse me?” Mr. Longbough isn’t used to kids actually saying things to him besides crying or wetting their pants in pure terror.

“Lily just told her to go away and she fell on her own.”

By then the crew of **** girls have hurried off with Lisa Welch and the recess monitor so none of them refute this. Not that they could. I mean that is really all I did. I’m still kind of in shock though because I’ve never had that happen before. I didn’t see Lisa fall and break her **** tooth, I told her it was going to happen and it happened, even though I didn’t actually think it would. What if I told Mr. Longbough to cluck like a chicken and he started clucking like a chicken? That makes me giggle.

Mr. Longbough notices. He didn’t see my thoughts though, so it’s not funny to him. I end up going to his office anyway. He likes paintings of eagles. They’re all over his office. I wonder if it’s because he’s bald like the eagles. Maybe he wishes he was a bald eagle. I have to tell him again that I didn’t touch Lisa Welch I just told her to go away and she tripped and fell and broke her tooth on her own. I leave out the part where I told her that she’d trip and break her tooth before it happened.

Mr. Longbough lets me go but tells me to stay away from Lisa Welch. I had no intention of hanging out with her anyway. She and her crew of **** girls all play with their expensive Breyer dolls and make fun of Paschar because I got him from a thrift shop and “he’s an action figure”. So what? I bet none of their dolls know anything.

When I get back to class, Meredith waves and smiles at me. Nathaniel her melted Barbie angel is sitting on her desk. I wave and smile back but I’m still scared because if I’m going to be friends with Meredith it feels like being friends with a shark. Maybe the shark likes you but then maybe the shark is hungry and doesn’t care. I hope she doesn’t burn me. I spend the rest of school quiet because I’m a little worried about saying things and making them happen.

After school, I take the bus home. Paschar tells me I need to be careful around Meredith. Yeah, I know. He tells me there are things I don't know. I know that too. He tells me things are about to get much worse, and that he's sorry.

I don't know what that means.

I get home and Dad is in the backyard. He’s dug up most of my pets and he’s been filling garbage bags with their remains. He says it’s unsanitary to have so many dead things buried in the backyard, and that they probably poisoned the grass which killed the deer and the rabbit and the twenty three and a half squirrels and all the voles and moles, but I point out that squirrels eat nuts not grass and there were raccoons too and besides what about that half a squirrel? What about the half a squirrel, Dad?

“You’re going to put my pets back.” I tell him.

He doesn’t. I don’t know why it worked on Lisa Welch and not my dad. Instead he tells me to go do my homework. And that we’re having pork chops and asparagus for dinner tonight. Asparagus? [I’m telling you, he’s trying to **** me](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ami0cd/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_saw_the_angel_of/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I played hide-and-seek with my son—and found something terrifying
 
 Assistant: During quarantine, my four-year-old and I played a lot of hide and seek. Well, hide and seek with a few extra rules: (1) I’m the only one that hides (he doesn’t want to), (2) I have to call out “Yoo-hoo!” every few minutes (otherwise he’d never find me), and (3) when he gets close, I pop a hand or foot out of my hiding spot. And he shrieks “I SEE YOUR FEET AHAHAHAHA!”

Four-year-olds are really ****, okay?

And I didn’t exactly have the money to buy him a ton of toys. We’d just moved into this house a few weeks ago. The rent took up nearly my entire paycheck. I got all the furniture from Freecycle, we ate beans and rice often, and I was still driving around a twenty-year-old car.

“Hide again,” Benjamin said, tugging my hand. “Hide again!”

“But it’s almost bedtime.”

“Pleeeeease?”

“Okay. But only one game, okay? Go count in the kitchen.”

He ran around the corner as fast as he could. “1… 2…” I ran through the living room, and then I saw it: the hall closet. Perfect. I opened the door and ducked inside. It was a tight fit—all those scratchy, furry old coats pressing against me—but it was worth it.

Because the better the hiding spot, the more time I got to myself.

I pulled out my phone and started browsing Reddit. Soon his muffled footsteps sounded, around the dining room. I waited a minute; when he didn’t seem to be coming my way, I cracked the door.

“Yoo-hoo!” I called out.

Footsteps grew louder. I heard his muffled giggles as he walked towards me—and then he started going up the stairs.

*What an idiot.* I cracked the door open a little further, just in time to see his little feet disappear from the landing. Then I shrugged. *More time for me.* I sat back down in the closet and pulled out the phone.

“Mommy,” I heard him giggle from upstairs. “Mommy, where are you?”

I smiled. *I wonder if a mom invented hide and seek. It’s quite brilliant. You get a few precious minutes away from your child, and they’re not even supposed to make much noise. But you’re entertaining them at the same time! Absolutely br—*

*“Yoo-hoo!”*

I stopped.

Every muscle in my body froze. But I heard it, clear as day. A soft, clear voice calling from upstairs. But Benjamin and I were home alone.

*Oh **** someone’s in the house and Benjamin—*

I burst out of the closet. “Benjamin? *Where are you?!”*

I heard Benjamin’s footsteps running above me. His giggles, trailing down to me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. “Benjamin!” I finally screamed.

More giggles. And then Benjamin’s voice:

“I SEE YOUR FEET!”

*No.* I catapulted up the steps, screaming for him. I burst into his bedroom—but he wasn’t there. Just his empty rocket bed, comforter rumpled, embroidered stars staring back at me. I ran back into the hallway, spinning around.

“*Benjamin?!*”

But I didn’t hear any footsteps. Any giggling. The house was dead silent now, and I could hear a pin drop. I ran into the guest bedroom. It was empty. I ran over to the closet. Threw it open, looked up and down.

Nothing.

Stumbling back out in the hallway, I crossed back towards my bedroom. The only bedroom left. I ran inside and flicked on the light.

Empty.

The pile of dirty laundry on the chair—untouched. The wardrobe—hanging open, my clothes inside. The pillows piled up on each other in a heap. Heart dropping, I ran around the other side of the bed. Also empty. I crouched to look under the bed. Empty.

“Mommy? Mommy?”

Relief flooded me as I heard that voice. The door to the bathroom opened a crack, and one blue eye peered out at me, wide with fear.

I ran over and grabbed him. Hugged him. And then I hoisted him up and started out of the bathroom.

His eyes were still wide with fear. And they weren’t focused on my face, but the spot just over my shoulder.

I whipped around. It took me a moment to see it… but then I did. I stared at the wardrobe, frozen, my heart pounding in my ears.

In the shadows, poking out from underneath the hems of my dresses and coats, were two feet.

In moments like this, the brain doesn’t really think. It’s too slow. Instinct reigns. The smartest thing would have been to lock ourselves in the bathroom and climb out the window. But instead—I just ran for the hallway. As fast as I could.

As I ran down the stairs, I heard the weighted footsteps, slow and methodical, resonating through the house. I could still hear them pounding into my brain as I ran to the neighbor and screamed for help.

The police came. They searched the house. They didn’t find anything—no signs of forced entry, either. So they promised me they’d patrol my street for the next few days, but that was really all they could do. I decided to stay at a friend’s house for a few weeks, until I felt safe again.

But every time I closed my eyes, I could see them. Those two feet, that looked so *off,* somehow. Swollen, as if waterlogged. A bit too grayish in tone to belong to any normal person. Toenails blackened and split.

And I think back to that wardrobe. How I’d gotten it for free. How the owner told me his mother had just died, and he was just trying to get rid of all her stuff as quickly as possible.

And I wondered.

How, exactly, *did* she die?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Daughter Has a Disturbing and Deadly Talent
 
 Assistant: Six words. So innocent, and yet, they had ruined everything.

“Daddy, look what I can do.”

I had turned, smiling, to see my daughter’s newest magic trick. I stopped smiling when I saw it. My heart stopped, my blood ran cold--a disturbing reminder of things past. 

I grabbed her by the shoulders, a little too hard. Made her promise to never tell another soul about what she could do. I made her swear so many times. She was crying by the end. Her face was **** and contorted, her nose dripping snot. But she promised. 

I always knew that would not be the end of it. I knew what I had to do. Slip some sleeping pills into her drink, and cover her face with a pillow, like I had done with her mom. But I could not bring myself to do it. I loved her far too much, even more than I had loved my wife. 

And as she grew older, looking more like her mother every day, I knew it was only a matter of time. 

I still remember the night my wife told me, the night of our fifth anniversary. She had bought my favorite scotch, cooked us both some thick steaks, and sat me down at the dining room table. Our baby son was sleeping soundly in his room.

“I have something important to tell you,” she said. 

Her tone sent chills trickling down my spine. 

“I’m pregnant,” she said flatly. 

My breath caught in my throat. I smiled. She did not. 
  
“I don’t understand,” I said, breathlessly. "Isn’t this good news?”

My wife’s lips pursed into a thin white line.

“It’s a girl,” she said. “I can feel it.”

I waited for her to explain why she was upset, but instead, she started talking nonsense. 

“The girls in my family…” she trailed off. “We all have a special…ability.”

I shook my head.  

“O-kay?” I said, my mind a question mark. “And what is that?”

My wife frowned. 

“It’s better if I show you.”

She lifted the steak knife from beside her plate. Before I could stop her, she violently slashed open her wrist. I sent my chair clattering to the floor behind me as I lunged for my wife. I grabbed her arm so hard. But what I saw did not make any sense. Her arm was slashed down to the bone, but the blood did not flow out.

“It won’t come out unless I let it,” said my wife. 

It was then the blood began to flow. Down her arm, then up, into a shape. It detached and rose up, forming itself into a face, floating in midair. My wife’s face. Then spiraling back down, like a funnel, into her open arm. The flesh knitted itself back together. 

That night, my dinner went untouched. 

What happened next was all my fault. But, in my defense, I felt my trust had been betrayed. I did not know where to turn. Weak and weary, I turned to the arms of another woman. Of course these things always come out.

When I came home that day, my wife was sitting in one of the wooden dining room chairs. She had moved it to the middle of the living room, so that she was facing the door when I came in. Our baby daughter was snoring gently in her room. I could hear our son as he watched cartoons in his own. As I looked into my wife’s eyes, I knew that she already knew.

She stood up. My blood ran cold. Then I realized that it wasn’t just a chill, my blood was actually getting colder. My wife walked slowly towards me.

“I can freeze you from the inside,” she said. “Burst all the blood vessels in your body. I can boil you alive. I can make you bleed from your eyes, your ears, and every pore. And next time, I will.”

My heart stopped, and I collapsed unconscious to the floor. By the time that I awoke, my wife had already found my lover, and done the last one she had threatened me with to her. After that we always fought, and my wife began to lose it. My mother died from a cerebral hemorrhage. My sister died from a stomach bleed. 

She never admitted it, but I knew that it was her. I had no choice, I had to **** her.

And now, I wondered if I should have killed my daughter, too. My heart throbbed with guilt as I thought back to the first time she had shown me her magic trick, all those many years ago. I knew I could have stopped this all with a pillow and some pills, just as I had done with my wife.

She said it was an accident. And maybe it was. But as I stared down at the body of my son, covered in blood that had exploded from every pore, I didn’t really care.

[x](https://Reddit.com/r/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We're not supposed to watch the local broadcast channel.
 
 Assistant: We're not supposed to watch the local broadcast channel.

At least, that's what my neighbor Donna says. "I hide the remotes. You can't be too careful with kids in the house, you know?" she said, as she leaned against the fencepost.

"You hide the remotes… so your kids can't turn on the local channel," I repeated.

“Yup. Works wonderfully.”

I only moved in here a few weeks ago. So far, everyone was friendly and nice. But Donna… she seemed a little cuckoo. A house-wide ban on watching the local TV station? Really? I mean, I get it if she were talking about some adult program or something. But local broadcasting channels don’t usually air **** and violence, do they?

“Um… why don’t you want them watching the channel?” I asked.

She blinked. Then she laughed, throwing her head back. “Ha, ha, ha! Good one. I’ll catch you later, Rebecca, okay?” She squeezed my wrist, smiled, and then headed off down the sidewalk.

I stood there, dumbfounded.

A few days later, I went over another neighbor’s house for some tea. Melinda Patel, the woman in the blue colonial on the corner. After we’d talked for a while, I decided to mention it. "Do you know Donna?" I ventured.

Melinda nodded, taking a sip of tea. "Oh yes. We go way back. Both original owners!"

I glanced around, then I lowered my voice. "Don't you think she's a little… crazy, with the whole TV thing?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

I breathed out a sigh of relief.

"It's absolutely insane that she keeps a TV. With two little kids? It's too risky. Yeah, I know she says she hides the remotes, but you know how kids are. They find *everything."* She shook her head. "Insane."

I stared at her, at a loss for words.

"When my kids were that age I said no, no siree, not taking that risk.” She took a sip of tea. “Gave me *so* much peace of mind.”

“What exactly is on the channel?” I asked, with a small laugh. “****? True crime?”

Her eyes locked on mine. “Don’t joke about it. Please.”

She kept staring at me, with such an intense look that I fell into silence. I changed the subject to her flower garden, and her peppy personality snapped right back.

And then there was Geri.  Around 4 PM she swung by our house, an hour after I’d returned from Melinda’s. “Just wanted to see how y’all are settlin’ in,” she said, giving us a big smile.

“Yeah, we’re good!”

She came in, all smiles and chit-chat. But when her eyes fell on our big screen TV, mounted over the fireplace, she froze.

“Oh. You have a TV.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Well, okay,” she said, eyeing our five-year-old son playing in the corner. She lowered her voice. “Did you tell him not to…? No, okay, let me show you. You can actually program the TV so it *can’t* go to channel 13. A neat little hack I learned the first few weeks here.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We don’t need it.”

Suddenly, realization swept over her face. “Ah! Y’all don’t have cable. Good idea. You can get so much with streaming services and all. We’ve got cable, but we’re sure to disconnect it at night.”

“Ah, smart,” I said, finally catching the gist. “So the kids won’t sneak down and watch it while you’re sleeping, huh?”

“No. We don’t got kids. But you know, we don’t want to end up like Jeremy. Waking up in the middle of the night to his TV on…” She shook her head. “So awful.”

“What happened to him?”

She glanced to my son again. “Not in front of him,” she whispered.

Then it was back to small talk, and soon after, she left. “So weird,” I said to my husband, Ben. “Why’s everyone so weird about the local broadcast channel?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

“I mean, they can’t be broadcasting something *so* awful, right? Aren’t there laws about that?”

He nodded. “Maybe it’s some sort of bizarre prank they’re playing for us. Like hazing. Or maybe a psychological experiment?” He laughed. “Did we unknowingly move into a neighborhood of social psychologists?”

“I don’t know. But it’s really weird.”

After our son Nathan fell sleep, I found Ben sitting in front of the TV, turning the remote over in his hands. “I’m thinking about turning it on,” he said.

“Turning on channel 13?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, crossing my arms, “and I think you should join me.”

Ben broke into a grin. “Ha! You’re scared. Well, listen. You go on upstairs and hide under the blankets. I’ll be up in five minutes.”

“Okay, fine.” I plopped down on the sofa next to him. “I’ll watch it with you. You win.”

He grinned. The TV flickered on, casting eerie blue light on the walls. I watched as his thumb pressed the numbers **1 3.**

Then it was on.

A man appeared on the screen, sitting at a desk. He was relatively attractive, but his hair was slicked back with too much grease, and his makeup was caked on. And his teeth were white—too-white, like that Ross in that episode of *Friends.*

“Ew,” Ben said.

“Yeah, well, local broadcast channels don’t have much budget.”

“Still. Couldn’t they do better than this? He looks like a mannequin and a used car salesman had a baby.”

“Oh my gosh,” I said, laughing.

“It’s true. Even his hair looks fake,” he said, gesturing. “Probably a toupee.”

“He’s too young to be bald.”

“Maybe a wig, then?”

“Okay, okay. Sssh, let’s hear what he’s saying.”

"The weather's going to be cool,” the newscaster said, gesturing to a poorly-CGI’d map of the town behind him. “High of 50s and low of 40s. Now, let’s get to the local news.” The map disappeared and he sat down.

“Our first news item is about local woman Melinda Patel.” A small photo of her appeared above his shoulder.

“Oooh, ooh!” I slapped Ben’s arm. “That’s the woman I had tea with this afternoon!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! She told me she did some work on the school board, but I didn’t know she’d be on the news!”

“Last week, Melinda Patel passed a motion to have discounted school lunches for everyone,” the newscaster continued. “No doubt, the fact that she’s **** the principal played a role in the decision.”

Ben and I froze.

“Uh—what did he just say?” I said.

“He said she’s **** the principal.”

“He can’t say that on TV!”

“Well, now we know why the kids aren’t allowed to watch,” Ben said, starting to giggle.

I stared at the strange mannequin-man, dread sinking in. He smiled back, eyes blankly staring ahead as he read off the teleprompter. “And Geri Johnson, the local librarian, **** herself to sleep after a phone call from her son. .”

“Wait. I thought Geri said she didn’t have kids.”

He shrugged. “Maybe she lied. Maybe this guy is making it up. For all we know this guy is just spewing garbage to get people to watch.”

The smile faded from the newscaster’s face. He inclined his head, slightly, blue eyes locked on the camera. “Let’s move on to new resident Ben Hernandez.”

My blood ran cold.

“He can’t keep his froggy little mouth shut, can he?” the newscaster said, in a lilting tone. “He has to compare me to a mannequin so his wife thinks he’s funny.”

His blue eyes stared at us from the screen. Empty and hollow. Mouth curled into a small smile.

“How does he know that?” I whispered. Ben glanced at me, fearfully—then grabbed the remote and quickly pressed the power button.

The TV didn’t turn off.

“Let’s… let’s get out of here.”

He grabbed my hand. We both stood up, backing out of the room. But I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look away as his blue eyes *followed* us, as we moved away from the TV.

Just before we got out of view, he smiled.

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ls08p6/were_not_supposed_to_watch_the_local_broadcast/), [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/lth68u/were_not_supposed_to_watch_the_local_broadcast/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Mismatched Eyes
 
 Assistant:  I have heterochromia.

My mom has it too, only hers is sectoral heterochromia. A part of her left eye is brown while most of it is blue. Mine’s complete. My right eye is brown, the left is blue. As a kid I’d get the most excited reaction out of the adults-

“His eyes are so beautiful!”

“Wow, they’re different colors!”

“How stunning!”

I’d like to say that my eyes are only one part of myself, that it’s just a slice of the pie that makes up me. But really, the only fascinating part of myself is the heterochromia. I’m average in grades. Height. Strength. IQ. Not much stunning charisma either- I tend to stick to myself.

But in the end, it’s my eyes that saved my life. And maybe the lives of a few others.

The killings started my sophomore year. A young couple going out to smooch in their car was found dead, mangled by some wild beast. Their faces had been eaten off, their tongues ripped out, and their eyes completely gone.

I didn’t know them, they went to the private school. All the same, the stories started up about the Gosbecks Knoll Beast.

My mom laughed when I told her about it. Apparently the ‘Beast’ was around in her highschool days too, two people turned up dead before it stopped. Conveniently, at the same time a bear was brought down in the area. She told me just not to go smooching any girls around there and I’d be fine.

Of course this is when I corrected her and said ‘boys’ but this really didn’t take her by surprise. Mom’s good like that.

However, this time, The Beast wasn’t content just to gnaw on the faces of **** teens on our Lover’s Lane.

When I’d gotten to school about a week after the first incident I knew something was wrong. Everyone was quiet, and a lot of people were crying. I found my friend Trent and asked him what was up. He criticized me for not checking my Facebook before he told me.

Douglas Stafford. Better known as Doug. Senior. Everyone loved him. He was a nice guy. Heck, even to lil ole wallflower me. I’d gotten lost my first day of freshman year and he pointed me in the right direction. Even offered to walk me there. I never talked to him again, but ****. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

He’d turned up dead in his parent’s garage. His face gnawed on just like the pair from earlier.

The next day there was a school assembly where the principal even teared up a bit and told us that it was okay if we were upset and if necessary we could take an absence from class to talk to the school counselor. Doug’s girlfriend Cathy was in the front row bawling. They’d dated since their little freshman years, and it was pretty obvious they would’ve one day gotten a house with a white picket fence and a dog.

Cathy was the last casualty of the school year, a few months later she was found dead in the forest. The Beast hadn’t been the one to **** her though- she’d hung herself and apparently Beastie helped himself, at least according to the rumors.

During the summer everything went quiet, and soon the talks of dead teens faded into the background. I think Doug’s parents started up a fund for depressed youth. I spent ninety percent of the summer in my bedroom playing way too many video games.

I also came out on Facebook. I got a lot of approval. A lot of ‘you’re perfect the way you are’. And a lot of ‘dude it was OBVIOUS.’

However, Trent didn’t see it as most people did. He unfriended me almost immediately and when I got back to school he’d apparently been badmouthing me to our mutual friends, none of them wanted anything to do with me anymore.

It hurt. I won’t lie, it hurt a lot. But I chose to ignore it for the most part. So I lost all my close friends. Big deal. I could get new ones.

Yeah, no, not happening.

Like I said, my social skills ****. The only reason Trent and I were friends in the first place was because we were assigned to be project partners in the fourth grade. We got a B. And now whenever he talked to me every other sentence had the word ‘****’ or ‘****’ thrown in someplace. Shows how little I knew about my best friend right?

But this is when the murders REALLY picked up the pace.

The first victim of junior year was Camille Dunn. She’d missed her bus home and decided to walk. The next morning a dogwalker found her stretched out on the sidewalk. Eyes gone and face eaten off. The Beast was back.

Clearly there was some madman or wild animal on the loose and everyone put up their guard. But now I think this is when the Beast got really cocky. He realized he could get away with this ****.

The next victims were in their **** *house*. An elderly couple, John and Beatrice. They lived across the street from me. When I woke up the next morning to sirens, my heart sank. I thought Beatrice’s heart finally gave out on her.

Noooo, the Beast just decided to up his game by ripping out said heart. It was the same thing though- ate the faces and the eyes. It got into the house through the back window, judging by the bloody prints. Kids whispered about how supposedly the prints looked like a humans but clawed. Sightings of The Beast grew in number. A freak that had fangs and glowing eyes, his only desire being to hunt and ****.

Of course my mom immediately kicked in a curfew and kept the house secure. At night I’d hear her wake up and walk around, as if to make sure we were safe.

I believed in the Beast when she saw it too.

I woke up to hear her scream and I ran to the source. My mom was white as a ghost, her hand on her heart as she stared out the now empty window.

“It… it was there. I don’t know what it was, but- ****, ****, call the police, call the police right *now*!”

My mom doesn’t cuss. She’s a classy lady like that. I grabbed the junior baseball bat I used as a kid and called 911. Cops showed up surprisingly fast and mom told them what happened while her eyes still darted to the window on occasion.

She’d gone down because she couldn’t sleep and it was at the window. Its shape was vaguely humanoid but its eyes did in fact glow. That’s when she screamed. It must’ve not expected her to see it as it took off running. And sure enough, when I went into the backyard the next morning, its feet were indeed clawed. I didn’t bother collecting evidence as I’m sure everyone would’ve thought I faked it, but I knew the Beast was real.

Two days later I got kidnapped by my so called ‘friend’.

I was walking home from school when Trent ran up behind me, acting all buddy buddy until he got close. Then I felt a switchblade press against my side. Trent was still smiling, but it was cold, dark.

“Start walking, you **** ****.”

The biggest ‘well ****’ moment of my life.

I didn’t try to be the hero and get the knife, Trent was bigger than me and I didn’t have a prayer. We walked until we got to his car, where he pushed me into the backseat and he duct-taped my hands and feet together.

He drove us out of town to this abandoned old shed. Two other guys I didn’t know were waiting there, and I saw more knives. I was close to **** myself while still being neck deep in denial. Surely this had to be a joke though. Just a prank to scare me.

Trent dragged me inside and slammed the door.

It was dark and I couldn’t see a thing. I got whacked in the stomach and the air whooshed out of my lungs.

“You **** ****. How many times did you touch me when I slept over, huh?” I could hear the sneer in Trent’s voice.

I groaned as I was shoved to my knees. “Never, Trent. You’re not exactly my type,” I said as I struggled against the tape.

I got kicked across the face and I hit the floor. I felt one of my teeth come loose and blood start to pool in my gums.

Trent squatted down next to me. I could barely make out his silhouette in the cracks in the shed.

“**** liar. You’re a freak. And now you’re gonna be another victim of the Gosbecks Knoll Beast, old buddy.”

I felt the blade press right beneath my blue eye.

“Hope your mommy doesn’t miss your creepy **** eyes, ****!”

I wanted to shut my eyes. Hoped that he’d drive the knife right into my brain so I didn’t have to feel it. Instead I felt my eyes stay wide open as the blade glinted, and I suddenly made out Trent and his three goonies…

Yeah. Three goonies. There were only two outside the shed.

Guess the Beast really doesn’t care for copycats.

I heard the scream before the tallest of the figures slammed the other two heads together. When standing straight up he almost reached the ceiling. Trent whipped around and the blade nicked below my eye.

“What the ****-“

Another whack and Trent was on the ground. I heard him choking and realized I smelled blood.

The figure moved onto me and he hoisted me up to his level. I felt claws tear my shirt. I was certain I’d be dead.

Then I felt the monster pause.

“… Eyes?”

I passed out.

When I came to, it was now dark outside, and we were no longer in the shed. Now we were in a cabin, lit by a lantern.

And I saw the Beast in his entirety.

He looked vaguely human, wearing what looked like a loincloth, had pale skin and black stringy hair that hung down his back. His skin was occasionally broken up by patches of scales, and his fingers looked like a tiny blade stuck out of each. His spine was lined with thin bristles that would rise and fall with each breath.

Trent was hung up in the corner by a hook, awake and filled with terror. I could smell more blood. The Beast examined Trent’s face thoughtfully before his middle finger carved through his cheek.

I shut my eyes tight when I heard Trent scream.

The Beast made almost no sound at all, other than a soft hum as he worked on carving off Trent’s face. When I took a peek, I saw the gleaming white of Trent’s cheekbones.

My eyes shut again.

Finally when the screams went quiet, I heard footsteps approach. Felt his huge presence kneel over me. His hair smelled like pond weeds.

“… Open. Open your eyes.”

I did, although I’m not sure why.

His face was kinda human. Had a strong nose and gaunt features. But it was his eyes that caught me.

They glowed all right. But the left one was yellow, and the right eye was violet.

The Beast inhaled sharply before his hand reached up to my face. I flinched and tilted my head away but he only hushed me as he lightly caressed my cheek. His claws didn’t even break skin.

“… Eyes. They don’t… match.”

I swallowed. “N… neither do yours,” I pointed out.

The Beast grinned, his crooked teeth flecked with blood. “No. No they don’t,” He said, almost if he was trying not to laugh.

I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I reached up to touch his face too. His skin was oily, it almost reminded me of a fish. “They uh, look good though?” I offered. Play nice with the monster, maybe you can go home.

This comment struck him, he looked shocked. Then he pulled me into the most uncomfortable hug of my life.

“… Only one. Thought I was the only one,” He sobbed, I felt his greasy tears hit the top of my head.

Really not sure of how to handle this, I patted his back, careful to avoid the spines. **** knew they were probably poisonous. Thankfully the Beast seemed to appreciate this.

I’m really not sure *how* I fell asleep with a giant stinky monster practically spooning me, but when I woke up, the police were there. According to them, someone called 911 from my phone and told them where to find me.

Trent’s body was found strung up in the other room with the other two guys. They’d been almost entirely butchered. It was a miracle I was alive, according to the police.

I attended Trent’s funeral. I don’t know why but I did. His sister apologized for all the **** he did to me. I saved her the knowledge of the fact he was going to **** me and make it look like the Beast did it.

When I got home late that night I found mussel shells on my windowsill. I took them inside and let them rest on my dresser.

Top of my dresser’s covered with little ‘gifts’ now, from snake skins to smooth rocks to glass beads. I haven’t seen him since that night but sometimes I catch a glimpse of those mismatched eyes, glowing from my backyard.  

 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We were stuck in construction traffic for 8 hours. Now we're somewhere else entirely. (Part 2)
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bvy4vv/weve_been_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8/)

&#x200B;

I gripped the steering wheel with sweaty hands and stared straight ahead as a person dressed in full riot gear stepped up next to my truck, holding a huge gun. I didn’t know what to do, other than sit there frozen.

“I’m going to need to see your driver’s license, sir. Please don’t get smart and try anything, or I will shoot you in the head.”

I lifted one hand from the steering wheel. “There, on the seat next to me,” I said. “My wallet. Okay?”

The man nodded his helmet. “We don’t have all day now,” he said. “Go ahead and get it.”

I fumbled around with one hand until I finally had it. I handed it over and he had a look. He kept looking up at me, and then back down at the license. Then he spoke into a radio clipped to his shoulder. “759 reporting in. I have located the Gardener. Repeat: I have located The Gardener. Confirm that assistance is en route.”

*What?*

A strange robotic voice replied: “This is confirmation that assistance is en route, 759.”

“What is this?” I asked the man. “What’s happening?”

“We’re saving the world, sir,” he said, handing the license back. “You’ll understand soon enough. Please, do not worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Somehow, I wasn’t reassured.

Within a minute, three more riot gear troopers or whatever were marching toward my truck. Then they were all at the driver’s side door. “Please step out of your vehicle and come peacefully with us,” said a woman. “We have been cleared to take a non-violent approach with you, sir. You are very fortunate.”

“What about my girlfriend?” I asked. “And our cats? They’re in the car behind me.”

The woman turned her head and took a quick glance at Lauren. I could still hear the cats through the open window, hissing and yowling.

“If she’s on the list,” said the woman, “then she will be joining you shortly.”

“No,” I said. “If we’re not together, then I’m not going anywhere. So you better check your list now.”

The woman nodded to the man who had originally come up to my truck. “Check her out, 759,” she said. Then she turned back to me. “We have been authorized to use a non-violent approach with you… but commanded to bring you with us by whatever means necessary.”

I watched in the rearview mirror as this 759 dude looked over Lauren’s ID. He spoke into his radio again, and then walked back over. “We have been authorized to bring the Gardener and the Gatherer together,” he said to the rest of them.

*The what?!*

“And the cats?” I asked.

Back to the radio. “This is 759. The Gardener has requested to bring along two felines. They are currently secured in crates in the back of the Gatherer’s vehicle. Permission granted or denied?”

I held my breath until I could hear that robotic voice cut through the silence. “Granted.”

I would have felt a great relief, except I wasn’t sure if that just meant that we were all getting dragged off together to die in the woods. I guessed that was better than dying alone, at least, if we were going to die anyway.

I stepped out of my truck and walked, with two big and heavily armed escorts, over to Lauren’s car. She got out, and our captors -- or whatever they were – let us hug.

“Are you okay?” Lauren asked.

“Sure,” I said, genuinely smiling because I was with her again. “Having a completely normal one.”

“We will carry the felines,” said 759.

“I don’t know, man,” said Lauren. “They’re not keen on strangers.”

759 opened the back door and took out the two carriers. I thought that by then I’d heard it all from those two, but what now issued forth from those carriers was a sound as though ten witches were screaming at being burned alive. I thought that my ears were going to start bleeding.

He handed the carriers off to two of his buddies and then shouted, above the wild sounds of the cats: “Follow us please!”

I looked at Lauren and wondered if we’d soon be dead. I could tell that she was thinking the same thing, and that the answer was: probably.

We walked in a procession, with 759 leading the way, me right behind him, then a Riot Gear, then Lauren, and finally two Riot Gears, each holding a cat carrier.

From somewhere far behind us, I heard a gunshot. I winced and looked up, where the last of the massive metal roof tiles were being dropped into place. There was only a small square of open sky left.

We walked silently through a short stretch of woods until we came to a group of people huddled together in a corner where one metal wall met another. There was another wall surrounding these people, though not one of metal; it was a wall of Riot Gears, pointing their guns straight into the crowd.

“You two will go stand with the rest,” said 759. “No matter what, *do not move.* If you move, you *will* die. We would strongly prefer that you didn’t.”

“The cats?” asked Lauren. “Can I have them?”

“Shortly,” said 759. “If you do as you’re told.”

We went and stood where the others were crouched. The area smelled like sweat and **** and ****. People were sobbing and muttering in fear.

One woman stood up and made a break for it. She put her head down and started running. I expected the guards to shoot her, but they didn’t.

“We tried to save her,” said 759, “but we sadly can’t save everyone. She’s dead now. You’ll see.”

And then I did see.

I heard the rumble first, coming from above. I looked up and had half a second to process what a coincidence it was that we were standing under the one square of the roof that wasn’t filled in yet. This was followed by another half a second in which it dawned on me that the roof was actually *falling down*, intact, as one giant sheet of massively heavy metal. It did not take long for it to reach the ground.

I stood there holding Lauren, looking around in shock. The roof was now the floor, and had crushed everything, except for those of us who were below that one empty space. In an instant, it had crushed all of the trees, and all of those cars, with the people still in them. Everything. The woman who had run away. They were all dead now. Hundreds of people, flattened to death in the blink of an eye.

All of the survivors were silent. The only noises were our two cats, Hankie and Hattie, who had somehow become even more wild. They were clawing at the sides of their carriers. And then the thunder from overhead.

I looked up at the now completely open sky, and saw the darkest and thickest clouds I have ever seen. Bolts of lightning were shooting constantly from the darkness in every direction.

*We’re in Hell*, I thought.

“Wha… what is happening?” I asked Lauren.

“I think the sky just fell,” she said.

A bolt of lightning crashed down several feet in front of us. The brightness made me instinctively close my eyes, and I felt an incredible heat. When I dared to open them again, I saw that the spot where the lightning had struck was glowing green. It got brighter and brighter, and then… it’s hard to describe. It’s like that spot of the floor was suddenly **** away into nothingness, and in its place was a vast, seemingly endless black hole.

“Everybody now please step into the portal,” said 759.

Nobody moved. We were all looking around in shock.

“Everything is quite fine,” said 759. “The travel will not harm you. 766, would you please demonstrate?”

One of the guards nodded, and then walked over to the black hole. She turned around, and stepped into it backwards, like she was climbing down a ladder. I watched in disbelief as her leg was swallowed up by the darkness. Soon, she was gone altogether.

“What happens if we don’t?” somebody asked from behind me.

“Then we will shoot you,” said 759, very matter-of-factly. “You all have been selected for this journey, and it’s our objective to see you safely through to the other side. But if you refuse, then you no longer serve a purpose, and our actions will reflect that reality.”

People started stirring. Those who had been crouching stood up slowly. But nobody was making any movement toward the hole.

I squeezed Lauren’s hand and then spoke up. “I’ll go first.”

759 nodded. “Excellent. A born leader. That’s very good news.” Then he spoke into his radio. “The Gardener is incoming.”

I turned to Lauren. “You come right behind me, okay, baby? I don’t think we have a choice. I love you.”

“I love you,” said Lauren, obviously fighting back tears.

I broke away and walked toward the hole. There was just endless darkness there. I bent down and put a finger inside. It didn’t feel like anything at all. I pulled my finger out and did like the guard did. I turned backwards and started climbing down the hole. It was very strange, as though the hole itself were very dense, so even though I couldn’t feel anything solid under my feet, I could control my movements, and I didn’t fall quickly into the darkness like I had feared.

I stopped while my head was still in this world, and took one last look at Lauren. My **** she was beautiful. Then I ducked down and I was on the other side.

\*

It was a short drop to the ground, which I wasn’t prepared for. After moving through that dense hole, the resistance was suddenly gone, and I panicked as I fell. But it was only a couple of feet, and I recovered quickly.

I still have not yet recovered from the strangeness of the world that I landed in.

All around me, the ground was made of black rocks. I could occasionally see shocks of red scattered among the rocks; I later found out that these are some kind of plants. Above, the sky was covered in those same dark clouds that I had seen before; bolts of lightning shot out continuously from them. In the distance, I saw what looked like a single mountain, standing tall.

Other than that, the landscape was completely barren. It was mostly those rocks as far as my eye could see. It instilled a sense of hopelessness right away that to a large degree hasn’t left me since the moment I’ve arrived here.

There was a greeting party waiting for me. More of those people in their riot gear.

“Welcome, Gardener,” said one. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

I saw Lauren’s shoes starting to emerge from the black hole, which was floating about 10 feet above the ground.

“What is this place?” I asked. “Why are you bringing us here? Why are you calling me the Gardener?”

“The Professor will explain everything,” said one of the guards.

*Oh, right, of course! And here I was worried about things.* “And who is the Professor?” I asked.

Lauren was in up to her waist now.

“You’ll meet him soon enough,” said a different guard. He pointed off to the massive mountain. “There.”

*Great.*

I walked over and got ready to catch Lauren. I didn’t want to grab her legs yet and freak her out. Finally, she emerged fully, and dropped into my arms.

“Hi,” I said. “Not exactly the honeymoon we talked about, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

Off in the distance, we heard something shriek.

\*

As soon as everyone was through the hole (including Hankie and Hattie), we set off together for the mountain.

At first we worried about our cats, but it turns out that there was no need. They are strangely calm here, and have been walking along with us, outside of their carriers. And they’re not alone. I mean, there are other cats here. We will be walking along, and a cat will pass us by from the other direction, just nonchalantly swinging its tail. It’s a very bizarre sight in this environment.

But the cats and the red plants aren’t the only things living here. We found that out on the first day. We were maybe halfway to the mountain when somebody in our group shouted out: “A snake! There in the rocks!”

I looked down and for a moment it really did look like a snake… until it arose. I saw it in a flash, but I’ll never forget it, especially because I’ve seen many more since. Its body was skinny and scaly like a snake, but it had appendages. Its arms were black bones, as if taken from a human skeleton and then scorched in Hellfire. They were the same color as the rocks, which made them blend in when the monster slithered around on the ground to sneak up on us. At the end of those bone arms were long and sharp claws. These now tore into the person who had cried out, slicing her up into a pulpy mess in an instant.

I didn’t see the head that time, because there really *isn’t* a head. It’s more like… where the head should be is just this undulating gas, like when pavement gets really hot. It’s like there’s something there that you can’t quite see.

The monster picked up the dead woman and scampered off with her, as our guards fired off dozens of rounds. It was no good. The thing got far enough away and disappeared with the corpse, even though there was nothing to disappear *behind*. They travel in the ground, crawling through the rocks, and somehow manage to drag their victims down there too.

“You have to hit them in the heart,” said 759. “The good news is that they have three of them.”

\*

We started with 43 people in our group, not counting the guards. We’re down to 20. Not all of the dead have been claimed by monsters. Some have simply dropped from exhaustion. The mountain is steep, and there is not much that we can do to help them.

We’re given periods of rest. But not long. Instead of water, they give us something that seems to keep us going. It tastes very bitter, almost like drinking straight lime juice, but more metallic. After we drink it we don’t need to eat, or hydrate, or sleep. I have seen a few lucky people doze off for a bit, but most of us are on full alert all of the time.

It took a full day for us to reach the foot of the mountain (which is somehow just more black rocks piled on top of each other), and we’ve been climbing for three days now. There is never any change in the sky – no sun, no moon, just dark clouds, constantly spitting out bolts of electricity. The only way that I can mark the passage of time is by looking at my phone, which somehow has full battery life despite being on the verge of dying before we stepped into the hole.

I have checked my mysteriously charged phone a million times for reception. Most of the time, there is none. In fact, most of the time, there is only a string of numbers running across the screen. But sometimes, I do get reception. I’ve been able to listen to twenty seven voice mails from worried friends and family, but haven’t been able to make any calls. Sometimes, I can access certain websites.

I don’t know why, but I’ve found that the internet works in a limited way when one of our cats is curled up on my lap, nudging the phone with his or her chin.

There is some kind of deal with cats and the hellscape that we find ourselves in now. I wish I could tell you more. I wish I knew more.

For now, we’re getting ready to march again. Up the mountain to see The Professor. It feels like we’ve been doing this for years, but I know it’s only been a few days.

We only have a few minutes of rest period left, and I want to spend some time with Lauren. So I’m just going to try to send this out. I hope it gets to you. Your encouragement last time has really played a big part in keeping me going. A part of me wants to grab Lauren and the cats and just start running. But there’s nowhere to go. It feels hopeless, but reading your messages has been a beacon in an otherwise utterly dark world. I will try to keep you updated.

&#x200B;

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/byqo1k/we_were_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8_hours/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found an old childhood photo. There's something terribly wrong with it
 
 Assistant: [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/oakjl7/i_found_an_old_childhood_photo_theres_something/) // [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/vb6ppq/i_found_an_old_childhood_photo_theres_something/)

I found it while cleaning out the closet.

An old photo, creased at the corners. It depicted a little boy sitting on a chair in the middle of a wallpapered kitchen. Blue eyes, blond hair. I flipped it over and checked the date on the back. November 14, 1996. So me, when I was four.

Except…

The kid didn't look quite like me.

The photo was grainy, so it was hard to tell for sure. But the eyes were a little too wide set. The smile was too toothy.

*So, a friend?* But it was definitely my mom's kitchen. Floral wallpaper with pink rosettes, the old oak table. And the kid so closely resembled me… wouldn't I remember having a friend that looked like he could be my twin brother?

*And why isn't it with the other family photos?*

I'd found it in Mom's closet. She had several photo books, all populated with childhood photos. Documenting the most insignificant events, from baking cookies to baseball games.

So why wasn't this photo with the rest?

Why was it hiding on the top shelf of my mom's closet, tucked under a hatbox?

I walked out into the family room, grabbed the photo album labeled *1995-1998.* Paged through it until I got to a good, clear photo of myself at four.

Then I pulled the photo from my pocket and compared the two.

It wasn't a great comparison. My head was tilted to the side, and his was straight; I was wearing a hat, he wasn't. Still--the difference was unmistakable. His grin was wider, toothier. His skin was paler. His eyes were wider set.

Yet, the differences were subtle. To anyone but me, they'd probably look like the same person.

"What are you doing?"

I turned to see my mom, standing in the doorway, carrying a large box.

I hesitated, wondering if I should bring it up to her. She had enough on her mind, with my stepdad passing away and the big move. "I found this photo. Who is that?"

She set the box down and walked over. "That's you! When you were four or five." She smiled. "Aww, how sweet. Look at you."

"But it doesn't…" I hesitated again, knowing I would sound crazy. "It doesn't, um, look exactly like me, does it?"

"Yeah, you were a goofy-looking kid." She laughed. "You got a lot better-looking as you aged."

"No, I mean, that photo doesn't look like I did when I was a kid. Look, see." I held up the photo of me in the Red Sox cap side-by-side with the photo of the boy in the kitchen.

"I think they look identical," she said.

"No, they don't."

"Maybe it's the hat. Hey, can you help me in the attic? There's a lot of stuff up there."

"Sure. I'll be there in a second."

She smiled at me and turned away. I listened to her bare footsteps recede on the carpet. Then I snapped the photo album shut and put it back.

I tucked the photo in my pocket.

Then I walked back into my mom's room and opened the closet.

There were more. When I took down the hatbox to search under it, the top came off--revealing an entire trove of photographs. I picked up a few of them--and my heart dropped.

A kid hunched over a birthday cake with four candles, smiling. Me. Except… *not* me. The same toothy grin, the same wide set blue eyes.

A kid standing in the front yard, pointing to a frog. My front yard. Again, not me.

And then there was a photo that made my heart stop.

A photo of my bed. I still remembered those covers, with the sports cars on them. The pillow with the wheel on it. The car lamp. But there, sitting on the bed--

Not one little boy.

*Two.*

"Adam?" my mom's voice came from above.

I stared at the photo, frozen. Me… sitting next to a little boy that looked almost exactly like me. A twin? A brother? I had no memory of this kid. All my life, I'd believed I was an only child.

"Adam!"

The stack of photos was a few inches thick. There was no way I could go through them all. I slipped several in my pocket, replaced the hatbox, and then headed down the hall.

"Coming, Mom!"

I started up the ladder--

And my phone began to ring.

The theme to *Legend of Zelda* played its tune. I stopped two stairs up and slipped the phone out of my pocket.

Caller ID: Ali. My wife.

"Yeah?"

"Can you get me a drink, too?"

"Uh, sure," I said. "What do you want me to pick up on the way back? The usual whiskey?"

"On the way back?"

"Yeah. On the way back from my mom's. I'll be here another hour or two, but--"

"You're at your mom's?" she asked. Her voice suddenly soft, confused.

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't understand. I just let you inside the house," she said. "You're down in the kitchen. Making us drinks. …Aren't you?"

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A group of perverts are targeting kids on YouTube. I used to work for them.
 
 Assistant: In the summer before I went off to graduate school, I was trying to stack as much money as I possibly could. This included working full time, taking up odd-jobs on Craigslist like helping people move, and tutoring high school students. One day while browsing Craigslist, I came across an ad for work as a junior animator / video editor. It paid $20/hour, so I instantly applied. I had passing familiarity with animation programs because my friend and I had spent years trying to design a simple video game. And my video editing was quite good, because I had run a popular YouTube channel when I was younger.


I got the job. It was weirder than I expected. The company was in a nondescript business complex in Irvine, and every employee had an electronic badge that unlocked doors. Certain levels of employees could unlock certain doors. Being at the bottom tier, I could only unlock the entrance, the door to the room I worked in, and the conference room where we’d have weekly meetings. I never saw any other rooms in the building, and never spoke with anyone who worked in them.


There were seven animators including me. We sat in a row of cubicles in our own small room. Our job was to edit cartoon knock-offs of popular children’s characters, typically Spiderman, Elsa, Spongebob, My Little Pony, etc. We worked on one or two videos per week, and basically we just created cartoon objects and settings. The work was surprisingly simple. There was very little real “animation” required.


The job paid so much that I hardly paid attention to how strange it was. The company divided our labor in such a way that none of us animators ever saw a video in its entirety. We each worked on a few seconds of it, and often, the project would be taken away from us and transferred to another department before we were finished.


The rules were odd. The animators and I were not allowed to speak to each other under any circumstance. We were not permitted to exchange names or introduce ourselves. Speaking, or looking at another person’s computer, was a terminatable offense. No two people were allowed in the break room at the same time, and no cell phones were permitted inside the building. Ever.


The room was strange too. It was blue. Everything was blue. The walls, the chairs, the keyboards, the door. A blue air freshener was taped to the wall of each work station, but it didn’t smell like anything. There was one object that was red: a telephone. It rang every so often, but we were not allowed to answer it. I was instructed to stand up from my chair and stretch each time it rang, but over time, I noticed that the other employees had been instructed to do other things. One of them took deep, slow breaths. One of them put his head down on his desk. Two of them left the room and returned. One swirled around in his chair. One coughed.


I noticed a few other weird things about the company during my short time there. It wasn’t unusual to see employees crying as they made their way through the halls. Any time I spotted one of them crying, they always tried to hide it. Some of them couldn’t. On a few occasions I saw a child wandering through the halls looking for someone, or maybe for a bathroom. When I brought this up to my supervisor, he told me “It’s bring your kid to work day for the department upstairs.” He told me that three times in two months.


--------------------


Things started to get really uncomfortable around the two-month-mark. One day, when I checked my company email account for the weekly briefing/workload assignment, there was an email titled “Lullaby.” Inside was a link to a short, low-resolution video of a young girl asleep in a bed. She babbled in what I believe was Russian or Ukrainian, and occasionally fidgeted or brought her hands up defensively to protect her face. It was clear that she was having a nightmare. Behind her, on the bedpost, was a blue air freshener, much like the one next to me in my cubicle. Whimsical vaudeville music played in the background.


I examined the recipients and sender of the email, and found that it had been sent from inside the company to several employees on a list. I forwarded the email to my boss and asked him what the deal was, and he quickly responded that it was a joke from our partners overseas, and that I had been mistakenly added to the recipient list. He told me to ignore it and keep up the excellent work, and that my review would be coming up, with the possibility of a raise.


More than $20/hour? I guess my memory *is* for sale, because I quickly forgot about the video.


Only a few days later, when I returned to the office after a holiday weekend, there was another email waiting for me, titled “Be brave, Spidey!” I was reluctant to open it, and now I wish I hadn’t. Inside was a link to a Russian-language website. When I clicked it, I saw a video of a real kid, probably four or five years old, dressed as Spiderman. The boy sat in what looked like a child’s bedroom. His mask was pulled down, and his costume sleeve was pulled up. The boy screamed and cried as an adult man wearing a Hulk costume gave him three different injections with a long needle. Off-screen, another person hurled stuffed animals at the kid, hitting him in the head with them, and even once hitting the needle as it stuck into his arm, causing the kid to wail even louder. By the end of the short clip, the boy was shaking and nearly catatonic. The Hulk man laughed and danced around him almost ritually. Cheerful kid’s music played the entire time.


As far as I could tell, the video was not acted. What I saw was a real “medical” procedure, and real terror. Horrified, I emailed my boss, demanding an explanation. I received none after about an hour (normally he replies within minutes or even seconds), so I left my cubicle and stormed down the hall to knock on his office door.


As I passed by our conference room, I heard my boss’s muffled voice, and then a bunch of other racket. I was so angry and freaked out that I didn’t care if I interrupted him – I badged the electronic lock and cracked the door open.


The conference room was dark, but I could see about fifteen men sitting inside at the far end of the wall. Most of them were dressed nicer than me, so I knew that they were senior employees who worked upstairs. A video played on a large screen at the other end of the room, and even though I couldn’t see it from my angle, I recognized the sounds. They were watching the same horrific video I’d seen an hour before. Some of the employees smoked cigarettes, like they were at a **** gentleman’s club. Perhaps strangest of all, a conference phone sat in front of them, and a loud voice came through the speaker, talking in Russian. One of the men in the room occasionally replied in Russian.


-------------------------


I left work early that day, too freaked out to return to my station. By the time I got home I had a missed call from my boss, and a voicemail summarily terminating me, stating that the project was complete and that unfortunately our entire team was no longer needed. I didn’t give a ****. I didn’t plan on going back anyway. I spent the rest of the summer doing odd jobs, and trying to forget that company.


But weird **** continued happening, and it got worse and worse. 


A few weeks later, I visited my brother and his wife at their home in southern California. My niece Katie was five years old at the time, and could already operate electronics better than I can. She’s got an iPad, and spent a bunch of time showing me photos she’d taken of birds and insects and people. She’s also got Netflix and YouTube, and watches those regularly.


One night during my visit, my brother and I were on the couch watching one of the Hobbit movies. Katie was lying prone on the floor nearby, watching a cartoon on her iPad. When I leaned over and asked what she was watching, I immediately recognized the cheaply animated characters. 


It was a video I myself had edited. I recognized the ringing red phone, which I had designed after the phone in our office. I recognized the glass bottle the characters drank from. And I recognized the way the joints and jaws moved – all things I had worked on at one point during my brief stint at that company.


But I had never seen a full video. This one was about five minutes long. It featured two cartoon kids dressed up in Elsa and Spiderman costumes, stealing their father’s beer and getting ****. Then, one of the kids trips and falls, smashing his face into a desk and splitting his skull open. Blood sprays everywhere.


I was confused and disturbed by this video, but it wasn’t until YouTube’s **** Autoplay feature cycled to another “recommended video” that I really freaked out. Another video played, then another, and another, all products of my company, some of which I’d worked on. Every video featured recognizable children’s characters from Disney and Marvel and other big brands, but something weird – or violent – or **** – took place in them. 


I pulled Katie away from the iPad and put Finding Nemo on the TV for all of us to watch. Before I returned home, I warned my brother about what I had seen, and advised him to keep her off YouTube for a bit.


-----------------


It wasn’t until I returned home and started digging around on YouTube that the true scope of these **** up videos came to light. I found several channels with child-oriented names like “Silly Hero Fun” (not a real name, mods), all of which produce videos exactly like the ones I'd worked on. They all specifically target children using familiar characters, and they all link to more legitimate cartoons via the “recommended videos” algorithm.


The more I watched, the deeper the rabbit hole seemed to go. These videos are constantly removed, re-named, and re-uploaded, over and over and over. After watching about a hundred of these videos, I found that they all shared certain similarities, and can be divided into recurring themes. **By Intergalactic NoSleep Law, I’m not allowed to link the videos or mention the YouTube channel names, but if you want to find these videos for yourself, simply type “Elsagate” into YouTube and you will see for yourself. WARNING: the cartoon videos are disturbing, and the live-action ones are outright depraved. I consider some of them to be actual child abuse.**


------------------


The themes I’ve identified are as follows:


1. Some of the videos show characters **stealing alcohol and hurting each other.** One shows child-versions of Mickey Mouse getting **** on their dad’s beer and then one of them splits his head open. This same video has been re-skinned over and over with Elsa and Spiderman, Paw Patrol, and Minions. Getting **** and hurting yourself is ubiquitous in these videos. Also, burning yourself on a stove or getting **** into an escalator are common. Accidental injury is the driving plot device. *Search “Elsa **** hurt head” or “Mickey **** hurt head.”* It works with Spiderman, Hulk, etc.


2. **The phobia of spiders and insects** is another common theme. I found a video showing Minions covering themselves in disgusting-looking bugs. The end of the video depicts a man drinking a bottle of ****, which I’ll discuss below. Another video shows Elsa, Spiderman, and the Hulk all being swarmed by insects. Sometimes they require hospitalization and surgery because of the bugs. The characters always react with horror to bugs, and the bugs always injure them. *Search terms include “Mickey insects” or “Elsa insects gross.”*


3. **Drinking from toilets, eating ****, drinking ****, and smearing feces on people’s faces** is another theme commonly portrayed in these videos. Many of them are live-action, with real actors dressed in costumes that target the attention of children. In one video, Spiderman and Elsa drink from toilets, and also find insects in one. In another, Venom buries Elsa alive and **** on her head. Another shows the Joker feeding excrement to Elsa and Spiderman. *Any of the character names with the word “****” or “toilet” will return these videos.*


4. **Extreme medical violence and the phobia of sharp objects** is yet another theme you’ll find in these videos: children cutting each other’s fingers off with razors; doctors forcing needles into children’s arms, eyes, and rectums; and gory surgery are all present. In one, Hulk crushes Elsa’s bones and she requires injections. In another, Hulk gets needles shoved into his face and has his eyes pulled out with tweezers. In that same video, Spiderman throws sand in a child’s eye, and the child requires injections in said eye. Spiderman later gets sick from eating bad food and requires needles to be shoved into his body in multiple places. *Search terms include “Hulk eye injection,” “Elsa surgery,” or “Spiderman/Elsa sick.”*


5. **Pregnancy is frequently depicted as a curable illness.** Unsurprisingly, the cure is an abortifacient injected directly into the woman’s stomach. The worst video I found depicts tummy-aches, illness, and pregnancy in a very blended way, all of which require the use of needles to “cure.” In another live-action video with real people, an evil doctor chases *pregnant children* around with a giant needle while they scream and cry. Many of the pregnant women give birth to insects, or to logs of ****. *Search terms include “Elsa pregnant surgery” and “Elsa pregnant injection.” Really any of these cartoon names with “pregnant” works.*


6. **The helplessness of children** to protect themselves from adults is a popular theme, especially in the live-acted videos. In many of them, a very large adult man dressed as Hulk grabs children by their necks, holds them to the ground, rubs his **** all over their faces, or otherwise beats them up. *Search terms include ”bad hulk superhero battle.” It gets worse and worse the more you follow the video trail.* There are also tons of videos of toddler-aged girls being kidnapped and tied down by adult men, depicted in a playful manner. Many of the men are wearing frightening Halloween masks. The children are often crying and are not having fun at all. Some appear in pain. So many of these have been reported/taken down by YouTube that now the channel has converted all video titles to Russian, and they cannot be searched in English. This is the sickest channel I found, and the point where I completely stopped watching.


7. **Sexualization of children and depiction of pregnant children as a good thing**: Many of the “Elsagate” videos depict children in an arguably **** light. The most popular channel with this kind of content stars two young Asian girls, and has three million subscribers. Many of the videos depict butt-shaking, “playing doctor,” and fake-vomiting. Others show girls and even boys celebrating their own pregnancies. *I won’t even provide search terms for these. Just don’t.*


------------------


It took me a while, and a bit of research, to pick up on the purpose of these videos. At face value, they’re all a bunch of psychotic nonsense. But when I started to see how they all mimic each other and build on each other, I realized that they must have a grand purpose:


-The fact that there are thousands of these videos, but they all cover the same seven topics, screams conditioning. The creators of these videos are banking on the probability that if kids watch enough of the videos, they’ll be saturated with two or three ideas: Hit your friends. Blood is funny. **** is for eating. When an adult gets on top of you, don’t fight back.


-The fact that violence and **** are such recurrent themes tells me that the creators want to normalize them. They want kids to be desensitized to **** and violence. Maybe even curious about them.


-The comments in the videos reveal that a lot of the viewers are adults, and fetishists. Perverts. They really, *really* enjoy the videos of kids being kidnapped and tied up. They beg for more, and offer to support via crowdfunding.


In short, these videos are designed to groom children, and to satisfy perverts.


----------------


After digesting all this information, I contacted my brother, who had some terrifying news for me. Apparently, he and his wife had received several phone calls from people asking for *me*. When my brother asked who they were, they always hung up. He said “they always have an accent.”


Worse, a man actually tried to pick Katie up from kindergarten by claiming he was me. He gave the office my full name and told them he was her uncle, here to pick Katie up for a doctor’s appointment. When the receptionist said she was going to call Katie’s parents for verification, the man took off running. He didn’t even get into a car. He ran out of the parking lot.


I began receiving text messages from very long numbers. The texts always contained links to YouTube videos. I always deleted them and blocked the numbers. By the time I was packing up and preparing to move, the texts had stopped, but my brother told me that Katie came home with an air freshener in her coat, and couldn’t remember how it had gotten there. He sent me a photo of it, and I recognized it as the same type from my office. He said it had no odor.


---------------


Things settled down for a while. My first year of grad school blindsided me, and I forgot all about the strange incidents. But over the summer between my first and second year, something else happened that reignited my old fears.


I worked part-time at the university library. I always took the night shift because I could relax and work on grant applications, and didn’t have to deal with many students. But one night, an older man checked out a stack of medical books at my counter. He looked and smelled like a tenured professor, so I thought nothing of it when he struck up a conversation and asked me if I’d had my flu shot yet. I told him I had, and he smiled and turned to leave. But then at the door, he turned back to me and called out, “And has Katie had all of her vaccinations?”


By the time I recovered from the shock of his question, the man had disappeared into the dark outside. He left the books by the door.


[fb](http://www.facebook.com/felixblackwellbooks)






 Human: write a story with the theme title: We took turns at my sleepover trying to tell the scariest story we could. I think I won.
 
 Assistant: George yawned and fidgeted on the carpet. The light from my bedside lamp caught his blonde hair and made it shine like a halo. He twirled a lock from his fringe around his index finger, let it snap back into place, then started twirling it again.

The kid looked bored. He'd obviously agreed to come round mine for a sleepover because I was new at school, and he wanted to see what kind of house I lived in. Get a sense of what I was like. But I could tell he was already regretting the decision.

"I thought you said you had a PS4?"

George's eyes flicked around the bedroom, as if he was hoping the console would magically appear from somewhere. We'd been upstairs since dinner. He'd explored my room and we'd chatted for a bit, then watched some random shows on Netflix. Things were going okay at first, but as the last light bled out of the day and the sky outside darkened, I could tell George was losing interest. That was when I suggested we do something a bit different.

"Nah, I don't have one," I said. "Sorry. Are you still up for having a go at this game, though?"

"What, telling each other stories? Isn't that little kid stuff?"

George glanced at the watch on his wrist. I followed his gaze. George's watch was the first thing I noticed about him. He sits in front of me in English, and I spotted the watch after a ray of sunlight glinted off its face and caught my eye. It's a really nice watch. Most of the kids in my year have digital watches -- those blocky ones that light up when you press a button on the side -- but George's watch was different. More adult. It was one of the reasons I'd picked George to invite to over.

"Hey, can I try your watch on?"

George looked up at me and frowned. "What?"

"Your watch. Can I try it on? It's really nice."

George stared at me for a second longer. One hand moved to touch the strap on his wrist, as if to make sure it was still secure. "Sorry, I don't let anyone try my watch on. My dad says I'm not allowed." He glanced around the room once more, his eye going from the door to the dark window. He sighed. "Okay, let's play this dumb game then. What do I have to do?"

Ignoring the bored look on his face, I smiled. "It's really easy. We just take turns telling each other a scary story. Like, the scariest story you can possibly think of. Then whoever's is the scariest wins the game."

George rolled his eyes. He stretched his long legs out in front of him. "I don't know any scary stories. Besides, I think I might get some sleep soon. I'm pretty tired."

"Come on, just one each. You must know at least *one* scary story. Everyone does. Plus, I know loads of good ones." I watched George's face for a reaction. "Unless you're one of those kids that frightens easily, that is. Then I guess you might not like the game."

It was a risk, but George bit. "I'm not scared of anything!" The skin below his blonde hair creased into a frown. "I've watched horror films with my big brother that are rated 18! We even found one on YouTube that's been banned and I *still* watched it."

I didn't say anything. Just looked back at George and smiled. After a few seconds he let out another sigh. "Fine, let's play your **** game then. But after you're done done failing to scare me, that's it. I'm going to bed."

\*

George went first.

His story wasn't bad, in fairness. It was one he said his uncle told him a couple of years back. Nothing I hadn't heard before. Basically there are two kids, and one of them gets hit by a car and dies. After the funeral, the mother gives the surviving kid some money to go and get liver from the store. Something to cook up for dinner. Because he's sick in the head, though, the kid pockets the money, digs up his brother, and removes *his* liver instead. Then later that night, the dead brother rises from his grave to come and get the kid in his sleep.

It's a decent enough story, but I'd heard it a hundred times already. I didn't let on, though. I made all the right faces, and jumped at the right parts. George got quite into it. He gestured his arms and his watch glinted in the light from my bedside lamp. His blonde hair spilled across his forehead. He was so into the story he didn't seem to notice.

After it was over he sat back, brushed the hair from his eyes, and grinned. "I thought you were gonna **** yourself at one point," he said. "You might as well give up now, anyway. I'm not scared of anything."

I looked across the room at him. The house was quiet now, and had been for a few hours. When we'd first come upstairs there was still noise coming from below: the faint sound of the TV in the lounge; the rattle of plates being put away in the kitchen. Now there was only silence. Beyond the bedroom window, tree branches rustled in the wind. The occasional car passed by on the road outside. That was it. I grinned at George.

"So you're not scared of anything at all?

"Nope. Nothing."

"Not even stories that are true?"

George let out a bark of laughter. "Nice try. Just hurry up and get it over with, will you? I'm already bored."

"Okay, fine." I shuffled forwards on the carpet so I was sat closer to George. Our knees were almost touching. George frowned, but he didn't move.

"My story is about a family," I began. "A family that looks normal enough on the outside, but isn't really normal at all."

George rolled his eyes again. He was starting to annoy me quite a lot by now, but I didn't let on. I just carried on with the story as if I hadn't noticed.

"This family moves around a lot. They never stay in one place for too long. They can't, you see; the family's good at disguising themselves -- they're good at hiding their secret -- but they still can't go taking risks. If they stayed in one place for any more than a few weeks, they might get found out. Someone might discover what they really are."

"So what are they then?"

I wanted to tell George not to interrupt -- to just sit still and listen to the story -- but I bit down the urge. Instead I just grinned at him.

"The family are monsters," I said. "They're all monsters. They travel from town to town, and they leave a trail of dead kids wherever they go."

I paused, expecting George to interrupt me again, but he didn't. He only stared back at me. There was no expression on his face as he twirled a lock of blonde hair round his finger.

"The family has a very specific way of doing things," I continued. "When they move into a new area, they find a house that's been left unoccupied. Not a completely empty house -- just one where the people that normally live there are off on holiday or something. One that'll be empty for a week or two. The family doesn't need long, see. A couple of weeks suits them just fine.

"So they break into this house, and then they go about setting the trap. It's their own kid they use. They send him off to make friends in the neighbourhood. Round the nearby parks, maybe off to the local school under a fake name. Tell him to get to know the other kids. The family is hungry by this point -- really, *badly* hungry -- but they don't do anything just yet. They've learned to be patient."

I paused and took a breath. This was a story I'd told before, but I found I liked it more and more with each retelling. The trick was not to rush, though. You had to savour it. 

I'd opened the bedroom window when we first came upstairs, and now a draught of cold air blew in. It ruffled the curtains behind George. Tree branches shook in the garden outside, the leaves whispering to each other. George watched me, not saying anything. I had his attention.

"The kid's parents don't have to wait long," I continued. "They never do. They've trained the kid well, see? He's not just a victim in all this. He may only be young, but he knows how the game works. Once the family has been in the area for a little while -- a few days; maybe a week at most -- the kid makes his choice. He picks a new friend to invite back to their house. The parents give him an incentive, too. He's still too young to share the tastes they have -- they tell him that's something he'll only acquire when he gets older -- but he still gets *something* out of it."

"What does he get out of it?" George's eyes were fixed on mine. His finger kept twirling the same lock of hair, over and over again.

"He gets the other kid's stuff," I replied. "Whoever he picks. He gets to keep all their belongings after his parents are finished with them."

Somewhere in the house below us, a door slammed. George's eyes flicked away from mine towards the bedroom door, then back again. I smiled at him.

"So..." George kept his eyes on me as he tried to formulate the question. "So... what exactly do the parents... what do they do with the kids they take?"

"Oh, they eat them," I replied. "They eat their insides. They tear the kids open while they're still screaming, and they pull out their guts and intestines by the handful. Wolf everything down until there's nothing left but a husk." I grinned. Somewhere below us, a floorboard creaked. The sound was faint and muffled, and I don't think George heard it. "Can you imagine what someone looks like when they've had everything inside them removed? They hardly even look like a person at all. It's like the stuff a snake leaves behind when it sheds its skin."

The glow from the bedside lamp made George's skin look pale. His lips were slightly parted as he stared at me. "But how do they get away with it?" He asked. "Don't the parents of the kids that get taken come looking for them the next day? When their kids don't show up back home?"

I grinned back at George. I'd been hoping he'd ask this. "Oh, the family's long gone by that point," I said. "They vanish like shadows in the night. The only thing they take with them is the remains of the dead kid. And when their parents come looking for them the next day, all they find is a locked house that belongs to somebody else."

Another floorboard creaked. It was louder this time, and we both heard it. The sound had come from the corridor outside the bedroom. George's head swivelled in the direction of the door. His eyes were wide in his pale face. "What was that?"

"Oh, that was nothing," I lied. "Probably just the house settling. There's nothing to be scared of, George."

I eyed the watch on his wrist. And imagined what it would look like on mine.

From the corridor outside came the soft sound of [approaching footsteps](https://www.reddit.com/r/samhaysom).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Picked Up A Hitchhiker
 
 Assistant: I was driving through rural New Jersey when I saw him.

A hitchhiker, standing by the side of the road. Surprisingly well-dressed – black suit, slicked-back hair, narrow briefcase.

Now, I know I shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers. But I’m 6’ 4”, 230 pounds, with all kinds of hunting equipment in the back of my truck. It’s not like this prissy-assed businessman is going to beat me to death and leave me on the side of the road.

Besides, I need gas money.

“Hey, man,” I said, pulling over to the side of the road. “I’ll give you a lift, if you pay me for gas.”

“Of course,” he said in a polite, almost British, accent. He reached for his wallet, and pulled out three crisp, $20 bills. “This enough?”

I grinned. *That’s way more than enough.* I greedily snatched the money from him and clicked the locks. “Get in, bud.”

He climbed in. His blue eyes shifted from the crumpled Wendy’s wrapper on the dashboard, to the mysterious, sticky goo on the middle console.

“Sorry, the car’s not clean. I’m going hunting,” I said, turning back onto the highway.

“Hunting. Interesting,” he said, in a strangely enthusiastic tone. “Have you always liked to hunt?”

“No, it’s the funniest thing. Never thought I’d ever hunt. Love animals, got three dogs at home. But there are so many deer around these parts, when the winter comes… a lot of ‘em starve to death. Not to mention all the car accidents they cause.” I trailed off, and we fell into uncomfortable silence.

“Just hunting for the day, then?”

“No, my buddy Matt and I will be out there the whole weekend.”  

He let out a laugh. “The *whole* weekend? Your wife’s a saint for letting you go.”

*My wife? How did he –* But then my eyes fell on the steering wheel, and the silver ring on my finger. “Ah, yeah. Mary’s a doll. She’s actually pregnant, you know. 5 months with a little girl.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “A girl, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I could feel him staring at me long after we had fallen into silence. It made me feel uncomfortable; I clicked on the radio.

“How did you meet Matt?” he asked, fiddling with the dial. All that came through was static.

*That’s a weird question,* I thought. “Um. He and Mary were close friends. So when we got married, I got to know him well.”

“Mmm-hmm,” the man said. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, and I was suddenly reminded of a psychiatrist.

“Are you a psychiatrist?” I blurted out.

He laughed. “Definitely not. I work in finance.”

“What type of finance?” It was *my* turn to ask the questions, now.

“Futures,” he replied, noncommittally.

I glanced over at him. A small smile was on his lips, and I noticed his fingers had gravitated from his lap to the briefcase at his feet.

My heart began to pound.

*Click, click.* He undid the clasps; the case creaked open.

“What’s in your briefcase?” I asked.

“Work.”

“What kind of –”

His long fingers disappeared into the darkness of the case. He was pulling something out! My body began to seize up; the steering wheel felt like ice under my fingers. “I have a lot of hunting equipment back there,” I said, “so you better not be –”

I stopped.

He was only pulling out a sheet of paper.

For a few minutes, he was quiet. Reading the paper, intently and silently, as if his life depended on it. *Scrtch, scrtch –* his fingers slid over it, as they traced the text.

Then he slipped it back into the case, and snapped it shut.

*What was he reading?* I thought. But before I could get the question out, he turned towards me. I could barely see his face in my peripheral vision; but I knew he was staring at me, for minutes on end.

Then he broke the silence.

“Don’t go hunting,” he said, his ice-blue eyes boring into me.

“What?”

“Turn the car around. Go home to Mary.”

“What?!”

“She needs you.” He paused. “*Madeline* needs you.”

I paled.

I never told him we were going to name our baby Madeline.

“How did you –”

“He’s going to make it look like an accident,” he said, his voice gravelly and halting. “Just a simple hunting accident. The most punishment **** endure is thirty-five minutes in the police station, writing out his statement.”

“But –”

“Let me off at that diner, up ahead. I like their Cobb salad very much.”

“Matt’s going to **** me? What are you talking about?”

He turned to me, eyes wide. “What are *you* talking about?”

“About what you just said!”

“All I said is I’d like you to let me off at the diner, please.” He pointed to the exit, curving off the highway. “You’re going to miss it if you don’t slow down.”

With a shaking hand, I clicked on my blinker. Pulled off the exit, into the parking lot. My heart pounded in time with the *click-click-clicks* of the cooling engine.

“Thank you for the ride,” he said, pulling his briefcase out with him. “Have a good drive, will you?”

I couldn’t squeak out a reply before the door slammed shut.

\*\*\*

I didn’t believe him. But my nerves were too shot to continue the trip, either. I texted Matt that I was sick, turned around, and went home to Mary. Mary was thrilled; Matt was disappointed. A little *too* disappointed, if you ask me.

A month later, after ignoring most of Matt's calls and texts (which became increasingly frequent and desperate), I heard a faint thumping noise at the door. When I flicked on the porch light -- there was Matt, hunched over our doorknob.

Holding a lockpick.

We called the police. Since then, life has been great. Just a few months later, our wonderful little Madeline was born. And as soon as we got back from the hospital, on our doorstep was a little teddy bear, a pink bow sewed on its head. There wasn’t a return address, or a card of any kind.

But I think I know who it’s [from.](http://www.blair-daniels.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: ***EMERGENCY ALERT*** (UPDATE 2)
 
 Assistant: Update 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5wduaf/emergency_alert/

Hello everybody, and sorry for the wait. I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear more about my current situation. I have, however, been reading and responding to some of your comments, and I have some new insight into what may be going on. I still have access to the police radio channel, but I haven't had a good signal from it since my first attempt, and I haven't tried looking at it very much. About an hour ago, however, I did get into it. And I wrote down everything as I heard it.

-" Officer Jones? You there? Over." -"I am, who is this? Over." -"Officer Sloan, sir. Do you have any intel from HQ? Over." -" 'Fraid not. I just got done talking to McClellan and that SOB Kowalski. Any word over on your end? Over." -"Not since the last broadcast, about forty-five minutes ago. Last thing I heard was about the footage of the wreck. Over." -"Yeah. Suspected as much. How are you holding up, Sloan? Over." -"Alright, all things considering. And you, Jones? Over." -"Well enough. I'll tell you though, if 013 doesn't turn up fast...I might just end up like poor ol' Officer Brown--with my brains scattered on the ceiling. Over." -"Rest his soul. Over." (At this point, Jones and Sloan went silent for a good ten seconds at least.) -"Well, I guess I'd better get in touch with Kowalski--I put him in charge of examining the wreck footage. Wish me luck. Over." -"Yessir. Over." (Sloan disconnects and Jones waits a minute to call Kowalski.) -"Kowalski? This is Jones. Over." -"Jones, hey. I'm just starting on that wreck footage. I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary yet, but...Time will tell. Over." -"Right. Look, Kowalski, I need you to focus. This is one of the weirdest parts of the whole ordeal. Think about it. A cop crashes into a telephone pole in a deserted road in broad daylight? Over." -"With all do respect, it might have been an honest mistake. I mean...Come on, it's pretty dark out, what with the disturbances we were trying to prevent 013 from releasing. Over." -"Look, we all know 013 is an anomaly. That's nothing new. But I'm telling you, either he found her and she got the upper hand...or...Let's just say I'm not ruling out suicide. Over." -"Whatever. Hey, let me get back to--" (The signal cut out.)

Also worth noting: the emergency broadcast I received has now been updated to say that emergency services have been suspended indefinitely and leaving one's house is punishable by law. Also, I toom a look of the format of the broadcast and the interface of it. It isn't one I've recognized before, but in my confused state I had been unable to tell. Weird, but what hasn't been lately?

I've been doing alright as of late, but I'm still paranoid at every sound I hear. As I started writing this, the wind picked up, and I can hear rain hitting the roof, getting harder by the minute. Looks like that weather warning wasn't entirely ****, huh?

So, I took my dogs up to the shower to do their business, as one of you suggested--I'll edit this after publishing it with his/her username. I haven't gone upstairs yet, but I have nothing else to report, and I don't want to give you a half-assed update, so I'm going to go take a gander out the window and document what I see as I see it.

I just went upstairs. I think I'll take the box of Samoas down with me when a go back down. ****, I'll take the Samoas AND the Thin Mints. Desperate times call for desperate measures. As you maybe can tell, humor is how I deal with stress. Unhealthy, I know, but whatever. It is what it is.

I just went to the window. I don't see anything, but the neighbor's window is still very broken. The street is very dark and all the lights are very off. Now it's raining, though--the streets are overflowing with water, almost, and---there, the first flash of lightning. Thunder came immediately. The storm's right over us. Right over our little town. The girl doesn't seem to be outside anymore, but I'll be keeping my eyes open. Weird, after that first lightning strike, the sky's lighting up every few seconds. Like I said, nobody around here, including me, is very informed on severe weather, seeing as it never comes our way, but I'm pretty sure that isn't common.

Okay, I just--what the ****? Okay, the neighbor's door just opened. The one with the broken window. Nobody's there, though. Must've been the wind. I hope he noticed. Come to think of it, maybe I should give him a call and see how he's doing. We used to talk sometimes, after all. It would be nice to hear from someone going through the same ****.

Wait.

I can see him. He's lying on the floor. Oh ****, the girl just came through the door. I ducked (haha, I changed it but autocorrect said ****) under the window. I don't think she saw me. I'm going to peek out the window just to check.

No, okay, she's walking down the street now. She just passed my house. I don't know why she'd willingly go outside in weather like this. In a scenario like this. But whatever. I'm going back into the basement.

I called my brother earlier. He hasn't gone upstairs in a while. Good thing, too. He said he heard a crash from one of his neighbors' houses a little while earlier, but nothing too loud. Nothing loud enough to cause serious concern.

Weird, as I'm writing, my dogs look worried. Haha, without them I'd have lost my mind by now. Without you guys, too--it's nice having people to talk to in a time like this. Hmm, maybe they have to go do their business again. It's risky though, seeing as my bathroom is upstairs. I'm going to take them upstairs, but I'll take my phone with me.

We just entered the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. Okay, they're done. We're going back downstairs. I'm going to duck past the window, though. Come to think of it, I should really invest in some blinds for that window.

****.

I just went into the basement, but as I passed the window, I saw her pass it too on the other side. I don't think she saw me, but holy ****. Why is she out there wandering like this? By now it's crossed my mind multiple times that she is "013." And from this close...that pillowcase looks a bit more hospital gown-esque. ****, guys. I'd phone the cops, but I don't even know their number. I need to go. I'll update you guys soon. Until then, assume I'm alive.

UPDATE: Okay, guys, so by now I've figured out that 911 takes you to the police, buuuuuut I also remembered that bit about emergency services being suspended. So there's that.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 7)
 
 Assistant: Hi Guys,

Apologies for the delay in getting this post up, events conspired against me it seems.

Please let me know if you have any information.

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 8](https://redd.it/7loh1l)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 13/02/2017

I’m followed back from the junction by an overture of birdsong.

I’m grateful for the company. In the wake of Clyde’s departure, I’m welcoming of any sound that distracts me from my own solitary footsteps, grasping for any conceivable antidote to the palpable silence he’s left behind. I’m am not, however, as welcoming of what the shrill, melodic warbling represents; the first symptom of impending daybreak.

I’d only been up at this hour a few times before, stumbling back from Niddry Street and down Sweetmarket after an unexpectedly heavy night out. My housemates Molly, Craig and Tom would spend the walk joyously discussing the evening’s scandals, leaning against one another as we all stumbled away from a night of horrific excess. 

This time around, the circumstances couldn't be more different. I’m quite alone as I make my way up the road, and the only excess in my night has been a relentless torrent of stress and melancholy. There is one similarity however, resting in the back of my mind as much now as it did then; the nagging feeling that the day ahead will be one of bitter and immediate consequences.

As somber as this night has been, I still find myself clinging to it, reluctant to witness the harrowing developments that sunrise will bring. In a few hours time, the convoy will wake up to find they have suffered yet another loss. It won’t be the brutal, heart wrenching feeling that they experienced with Eve or Apollo or Bonnie, who perished in front of our eyes, but a muted sensation of gross unfairness, less immediate yet all the more insidious. As much as we hate to face the horrors in our lives, it can be far worse when they strike us without our knowing. To find out only the next morning that you have been affected by cruel forces acting in complete disregard of your presence and taking without concern for you.

It’s not going to be a pleasant morning. Nevertheless, I glad to see the convoy when it finally comes into view.

The hulking Wrangler rests by the roadside like an old relic. Right now, I can think of nothing more comforting than climbing into its secure, rugged shell. For a moment, I find it strange how an object built for transit has become the one fixed point in my world, then again, it’s not exactly the strangest thing that’s happened on this road.

Bluejay’s car is parked sideways on, laid out across the tarmac. The windows are shrouded in darkness, yet for the briefest moment I think I see the red dot of a smouldering cigarette, igniting behind the glass, glowing momentarily before dropping out of sight. I fix my eyes on the Wrangler and keep walking, resolved to ignore the ominous flicker of embers, and attempting to ignore its uncomfortable implications. Even still, I shudder to think of the grim conclusions that are being drawn within that acrid, smoke-filled echo chamber.

I rest my hand on the Jeep’s passenger side door, pausing briefly to gauge the sun's progress. I probably have less than two hours before I'll be expected to step over that nascent horizon, to let Rob carry me into unknown territory, onto the unexplored section of the Left/Right Game. Whatever lies at the end of this ordeal could very well be two roads over… then again it could take a whole lot longer. 

I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

I climb quietly into the car and gently position myself next to Lilith. It’s cramped, and now that she's had the space to move around it takes a modicum of contortion to properly lie down, but it still feels more comfortable than the prospect of resting on the open space that had been reserved for Clyde. For tonight at least, it would feel like a little too much like resting on a fresh grave.

The morning does come quicker than I’d like. Surprisingly, once I awake from a blissfully dreamless sleep, I realise I’m not tired at all. Perhaps it's going to hit me later in the day, or perhaps the need for sleep is yet another casualty of the road’s odd sustaining quality. It’s unsettling to think that the road is exerting some metamorphic influence over me, however convenient the effect. After losing most of my need to eat and drink, and now starting to require less rest, I can’t help but feel that something wants us to continue on the road, removing everything else that might distract us from the journey. It’s a notion that intrigues and terrifies me in almost equal measure.

When I open my eyes, I find myself staring directly at Lilith, who has turned to face me in the night. I can tell she’s already awake, quietly resting her eyes, understandably reluctant to face the morning without someone at her side.

**AS:** Hey.

**LILITH:**  Hey, good morning.

**AS:** How’d you sleep?

**LILITH:** Uhh… yeah… not too bad. This place isn’t so comfortable.

**AS:** Hah yeah. You get used to it.

A moment of silence passes between us.

I’m already aware of the empty space on the other side of the Jeep, hidden just beyond a pile of luggage and jerry cans. It would be easy for me to act surprised at Clyde’s absence, to say that I had slept through the night, to throw myself into a fruitless search effort and to realise the truth alongside everyone else.

Part of me wants to avoid the weight of recent events, to step aside and let all blame fall against the road. Yet even if I wanted to, I know it wouldn’t be right. I’m not going to contribute a new set of secrets to this journey. Anyway, for all I know, Bluejay saw me return from the junction. I wouldn’t want to give her the satisfaction of catching me in a lie.

If I am going to tell them what’s happened, then the conversation will need to happen immediately. Certainly before they have a chance to discover Clyde’s absence themselves. The words don’t come easily. They’re impossible to form into a delicate order, and I quickly realise that any attempt is just delaying the inevitable. In the end, all I can bring myself to say is...

**AS:**Clyde’s gone, Lilith.

It takes a few seconds of quiet comprehension before Lilith sits bolt upright, alarmedly peering over the luggage to Clyde’s side of the Jeep.

**LILITH:**  Rob. Rob!

**AS:** Lilith-

**ROB:** Wh… What’s goin’ on?

**LILITH:** Something took Clyde.

Rob is suddenly wide awake as he twists around to view the back section of the Wrangler. I can see the realisation dawn on his face as he understands what’s happened. He turns back around and fumbles with the ignition. His eyes in the rear view are burning with desperate intention. He still thinks he can catch up with Clyde before he crosses the threshold.

**ROB:** Nothin’s taken him Lilith. Hold on.

**AS:** Rob he’s gone.

**ROB:** We don’t know that we just gotta-

**AS:** Rob! He's gone. He already passed the junction.

Rob’s eyes flick to the rear view mirror, meeting mine. The engine stays running as he turns around to face me.

**ROB:** How do you know that?

The urgency has drained from the car, replaced instead by a palpable air of inquiry. Lilith and Rob are both looking at me intently and for the first time on the road, I feel like a figure of legitimate suspicion.

**AS:** I was with him when he crossed over.

**LILITH:** … What the ****? When was this?

**AS:** Last night, about 3… 4 AM. He said that he-

In response to my words, Rob swings the drivers side door open and leaves the Wrangler. I watch him march out into the centre of the road, his entire body tensed and strained by a swell of anger.

I quickly climb out behind him.

**ROB:** Goddamnit! Damnit Bristol why in **** did you let him?

**AS:**  You weren’t there Rob.

**LILITH:** We were **** yards away Bristol! You didn’t think to wake us up?

**AS:** Of course I did. He told me not to.

**LILITH:**  OH oh ok well that’s just fine then is it?

**AS:** He`d made his decision, Lilith. None of us were going to stop him.

**LILITH:** Well I certainly wouldn’t have let him just **** **** himself! You tie Bonnie to the **** headrest but you let Clyde waltz over the road without even telling us?

**AS:** That’s a… that’s a false equivalency.

**LILITH:** A false… Are you serious?!

**AS:** Yes, of course it is, Bonnie wasn’t herself… Clyde was capable of making an informed decision.

**LILITH:** His sister had just died! Of course he wanted to join her. That doesn’t mean you let him **** die! You might as well have helped him blow his **** brains out!

**ROB:** Lilith!

Rob speaks the name harshly, forcing its owner into an immediate silence. After letting the group breathe for a moment, he speaks calmly.

**ROB:** Bristol… are you sure there was nothin’ we could do?

I look Rob in the eye. His words hit me harder than Lilith’s impassioned tirade. Standing before the both of them, at the intersection of their expectant stares, I feel first inkling of doubt creep into my mind. What would have happened if we’d talked Clyde back into the Wrangler, if Rob had forced him to stay. Could he have found some reason to move forwards if we had kept him for a night? A day? A week? All I can do is hold onto my recollection of the night before, reminding myself of the sense of calm finality that radiated from Clyde when I confronted him. All I can do is trust that I made the right call.

**AS:** No. No there wasn’t.

**ROB:** Ok… well.. Then there ain’t nothin’ more to say.

Rob walks to the back of the Wrangler, cutting the conversation short through the quiet resumption of his usual morning routine. Lilith storms back to the car and shuts herself inside. I’m left standing in the centre of the road, wondering if I could feel any more wretched.

**BLUEJAY:** I know what you did.

Well, at least that answers my question. It seems that, while I had been struggling to defend the validity of my actions to Rob and Lilith, Bluejay had very quietly climbed out of her car, waiting patiently for the rest of the convoy to scatter before directing a victorious smile toward me.

**AS:** Can we not do this Bluejay?

She responds to my words by ignoring them completely.

**BLUEJAY:** I was up in the night, watching you all. What a surprise when I saw you leave with Clyde, and come back alone, calm as a **** grave. I don’t know if Clyde was in on your little game but he sure as **** wasn’t happy with how far you’ve taken it. He had to go didn’t he?

I don’t want to dignify her words with a response. In point of fact, I’m not entirely sure what I’d say to such an absurd accusation. Her statement rings with all the trademarks of paranoid conspiracy; the unnatural confidence, the vague language, the frenetic conclusions which are so obvious to her, yet seem impossible for me to grasp.

In the end, Bluejay doesn’t wait for my response.

**BLUEJAY:** I just want you to know, that I am not falling for your **** game. But you will not turn me around, and if you try ANYTHING like that with me… I. Will. ****. ****. You.

I stare at the woman before me. Her pupils two dark pools of venom, her smile curled into a crooked smirk of unadulterated contempt. 

**AS:** Why didn’t you talk to the hitchhiker Bluejay?

Bluejay’s brow furrows, the smirk degrading from her face. I don’t wait for her response.

**AS:** I mean… now that we’ve seen what happens, to people who spoke to him… it’s fair to assume you didn’t. Or am I wrong?

Bluejay presses her lips firmly together, glaring at me, the veins at her temples embossed against her taut skin.

**AS:** It’s alright Bluejay. I was scared too.

I walk to the back of the Wrangler where Rob has pulled out the stove and four camping chairs. After helping him set them up in the middle of the road, and allowing him to cook me a bowl of steaming hot rice, I sit down next to him and eat what I can.

We can’t think of anything to talk about, and the two remaining chairs stay empty for the rest of the meal.

When I climb back into the Wrangler, Lilith seems quiet. She’s less angry now and, as I’ve seen before with her, is now being forced to confront the feelings her fury had been overshadowing. She shares a look with me in the rear view mirror, a look of being genuinely lost. I find myself reflecting the same expression as I stare back at her, and in that small sliver of glass, I think we both find a glimmer of understanding. An understanding that there have been no easy choices on this road, and that we should forgive each other, and ourselves, for the decisions we’ve had to make. After all, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are harder choices ahead.

It takes us less than an hour before we reach the woods. The drive has been predictably bereft of conversation, however as the cornfields merge into deep green woodland, and the thin opening we’re supposed to take draws nearer, Rob breaks the silence with a customary all cars address.

**ROB:** Ferryman to all cars. Just want to say it’s an honour taking this next corner with you all. From here on out we move slow, report anything unusual and stay on the lookout for the next turn ok? Alright… here we go.

Rob twists the steering wheel. We turn in a slow, deliberate arc towards the gap in the forest. The tarmac disappears below us, giving way to a rough dirt track. A towering legion of knotted trees eclipse the convoy, the sun all but disappearing behind their thick canopy.

The significance of this small turn in the road isn’t lost on me. We had finally crossed the threshold, into the unknown reaches of the Left/Right Game. For all we knew, we were the first people to ever have come this far, the first explorers of an entirely uncharted world. I’m not surprised when I realise I’ve been holding my breath.

I examine my compatriots closely. Lilith isn’t even looking out the window, lost in her own tumultuous thoughts. Rob is reacting exactly as I expected, looking out of every window with an air of mystified wonder.

**ROB:**  Well I’ll be. It’s beautiful ain’****?

As I look away from him and back out the windshield, I find myself smiling. Even after the stressful morning we’ve all had, and the uncertain day that lies ahead, Rob’s statement rings with a joyous sincerity which I can’t help but appreciate. I also can’t help but agree with him; in its own eerie way, it’s a beautiful place.

The Wrangler moves at a crawl for the rest of the day. The woods are vast and untameable. Thin, swooping branches hang lazily over the road, clattering against the light rig as we pass beneath them. Many of the trees stand at strange, crooked angles, their various disparate inclines making it impossible to see too far in either direction.

Rob spends every moment scanning the sides of the road. The trees that flank us are so thick, so tightly packed together, that it’s easy to denote an upcoming turn. I suspect Rob simply doesn’t want to take any chances, paranoid as he is about the road’s deceptive qualities. He needn’t have worried. There are only four turns across the entire afternoon. Each one is identified far in advance and navigated perfectly.

Before I know it, we’ve entered the early evening, with no discernable end to the woods in sight. We’ve been travelling uphill for a short while, plateauing onto a thin stretch of road, an endless expanse of forest to our left, and a dangerously steep bank to our right. With one less side of the road to look out for, Rob seems a little more comfortable holding a conversation.

**AS:** So what are you going to do, if you get to the end of the road.

**ROB:** Document it, bring it home, hand it over to the world.

**AS:** And after that?

**ROB:** I guess I might take a vacation. Maybe I should visit London. You want to show me round?

**AS:** You’ve never been to London?

**ROB:** I just passed by, carryin’ packages. Never liked cities so much, try to stay outta them when I can. I’d go if I had a tour guide though.

**AS:** Hah ok, well that’s my next story then. Rob Guthard Takes On London.

**ROB:** I don’t think folk would wanna listen to that.

**AS:** I dunno I think people would tune in, or are you just worried you’ll grow to like the place?

**ROB:** Hah, Junior would never let me hear the end of *that*.

**AS:** Fair enough. Wait… sorry?

**ROB:** My son wouldn’t let me forget it. He’s always been a city boy.

I stare out into the pitch black forest, suddenly thinking back to my arrival in Phoenix, Arizona just five days before.

I recollect my formative meeting with Rob Guthard, and how I’d been treated to the briefest overview of his life. I hadn’t pushed for too much detail, wanting to hear the story in his own words and under the assumption that I could get more background after a short stint on the road. After four days of intrigue and horror and stress I haven’t had time for a follow up. In all honesty, it’s only now I think back on it that I realise just how little ground we covered in our first interview, how eager he was to skip past the formative details of his existence. I didn’t know the names of his ex-wives, or anyone who wasn’t directly involved in his work with the paranormal.

For example, I didn’t know he referred to his son as Junior. Often used as a general nickname for a child, it can, every so often, mean something much more specific.

**AS:** Is… does your son share your name?

Rob turns to me, confused.

**ROB:** Yeah, did I never-

**LILITH** Look out!

Rob snaps forwards as a fleeting blur darts across the road, before tumbling down the steep verge to our right. Over the engine, we can hear rustles and thuds as it disappears down the steep hillside and into the deep forest below.

**AS:** What was that? Was that a deer?

**ROB:** That’s what it looked like,

**LILITH:** It went straight off the edge why would it do that?

**ROB:** Ain’t too bright is all.

**AS:** Guys can we get moving, this is-

I’m interrupted by the sound of faint rumbling, emanating from the woods on the left side of the road.

**LILITH:** What is that?

**ROB:** We ain’t waitin’ around to find out.

Rob kicks the car into gear and pulls down the track. Less than five seconds later, he slams the brake on once more, stalling the car as a small group of three or four deer burst out in front of us. A few more can he heard skittering behind the Wrangler, slamming against the back of the jeep as they hurriedly negotiate the gap between us and Bluejay.

As Rob works to restart the car, I stare out of the window and into the forest, finally aware of what I’m hearing in the trees. The thunderous sound of hooves hammering against the earth, brushing past the undergrowth, struggling over rocks and branches on their way towards us. In no time at all, the forest erupts from empty darkness into chaotic, violent life, as an unbroken horde of frenzied deer burst out from the trees.

Rob tries to tell us to hold on, but he doesn’t have time.

The path ahead floods with hundreds of stampeding deer, an unbroken torrent that blocks out the headlights’ beam. Lilith jumps back from the passenger door, as deep, thudding knells vibrate through the Wrangler. The deer, locked in a desperate sprint with little space to maneuver, are running head first into the side of the car. One of the smaller deer bolts out of the forest hits the deep green metal just below my window, the reverberation shaking the glass. I think I hear its neck snap.

The ones that get past the car aren’t fairing better. Locked in a frantic state and forced along by their equally desperate cohorts, I can only watch as they spill over the edge of the steep hillside. Countless bodies crash into the darkness, carried down into what I can only assume is a quickly developing mass grave of twisted, interlocking bodies.

**LILITH:**  Rob get us out of here!

**ROB:**  We ain’t movin’ through this just stay down!

**BLUEJAY:** What the **** is-  Somebody help!

Bluejay sounds terrified. The Wrangler is taking a beating from the onslaught of desperate creatures, but is still managing to hold firm. When I look back towards Bluejay, I see a different story entirely. The car is lying at an angle, pushed towards the edge of the hill by the sheer force of the herd’s collective impact. The passenger side is on display, riddled with slick red marks and heavy, craterous dents. The creatures rush past her, clumsily clambering over the hood, and hammering into the doors of the car.

Bluejay screams into the receiver, placing a hand over her eyes as one of her front tyres passes over the edge, the car’s chassis dropping down into the dirt. Luckily for her, when I turn back to the forest, I can see it’s emptied dramatically. The flood has subsided, and the last few deer are pelting through the trees and across the road, their position at the back of the herd providing them with more than enough space to manoeuvre around the convoy.

**ROB:**  Ferryman to Bluejay, get yourself over here we gotta go now.

**BLUEJAY:** What the **** was that? What the f-

**ROB:** It was just a herd of deer, Bluejay, but they were runnin’ pretty hard and I ain’t lookin’ to meet whatever they were runnin’ from. We don’t have time to get you back on the road, get over here NOW!

Nothing more can be heard from Bluejay’s radio except for static and a few intermittent gasps of breathless fear.

**ROB:** Ah Goddamnit. Stay in the car you two. Lilith, hand me the rifle, I ain’t takin’ any chances out here.

Lilith finds the rifle and hands it over to Rob. Grabbing some supplementary ammo from the glove compartment, Rob climbs out and slams the door, marching through the dirt to Bluejay’s ruined car. I clamber into the back of the Wrangler, struggling over a pile of empty jerry cans and surveying the scene as it unfolds.

In an almost herculean effort, Rob wrenches the passenger side door open and holds his hand out for Bluejay to take. I look on as she unbuckles her seatbelt, climbs out unassisted, and immediately launches herself at Rob. Crying her eyes out, and lashing at his chest with two clenched fists. She looks distraught, terrified and violently angry.

Rob stands there and takes it, whispering vague assurance to her as she unloads her terror and frustration into every wailing blow.

**LILITH:** Come on Bluejay we gotta go.

Lilith talks under her breath, willing Bluejay’s catharsis to speed itself along. I look at her, silently sharing her impatience. Then something catches my eye, something in the distance behind Lilith, slowly making its way through the trees.

I turn around, and scramble to the front of the car, returning with the radio transceiver.

**AS:** Rob, get back here. There’s something in the forest.

Hearing my warning crackle out from Bluejay’s car, Rob turns in my direction before alarmedly staring into the forest where a pale figure is winding its way towards the pair. From what I can ascertain as it briefly leaves the obscuring undergrowth, it seems to be small, tremendously thin, and crawling unevenly on its hands and feet.

The creature stops in a clearing ahead of Rob and Bluejay, in view of me and Lilith, but shrouded from everyone in the shadow of the forest. Bluejay separates from Rob, pulling a head torch out of her bag. Slowly, and with trembling fingers, she points the beam towards the creature and switches it on.

The resulting sight is incomprehensible. The beam instantly illuminates the light frame of an thin, almost emaciated child. It's barely over a year old, deathly pale, covered in dirt, it’s skin stretched taut over frail limbs. It stares up at Bluejay, reflexively holding one arm over its eyes to shield itself from the bright LED light. 

**LILITH:** Oh my **** what’s happening to it?

I know exactly what Lilith’s talking about. My hand raises to my mouth as I watch the child struggle through the stream of harsh, white light. With every step it takes, the child’s form starts to shift and change. Its limbs elongate, in jagged, lurching bursts of growth. Anything exposed to the beam develops with grotesque rapidity. It’s as if the child is aging before our eyes.

Letting out a tortured cry, the creature darts towards Bluejay, angrily swatting the torch from her grip. Bluejay screams in shock and pain as she holds her stricken hand, her attention transfixed on the child, who has seemingly aged almost three years in a matter seconds. Even in the fresh darkness, with her head torch fractured on the ground, I can tell that Bluejay is paralysed with an abject, consuming horror.

Rob doesn’t hesitate. He reflexively grabs Bluejay and pulls her backwards into the path of her headlights. The creature reaches out for them as they go, one hand passing after them into the light. It pulls back quickly, its eyes full of heart wrenching, juvenile tears. The fingers of its left hand aged beyond the rest of its body.

Its cries begin anew. As ghastly as it seems, the child doesn’t seem malevolent or demonic. In fact, as it looks back towards Bluejay, it seems genuinely upset, unable to comprehend the actions of those around him. As it stares sorrowfully back at its newly malformed fingers, it’s not much of a stretch to assume the transformations are as painful to endure as they are disturbing.

**ROB:** Stay in the light Bluejay. Keep movin’.

Bluejay breaks away from behind Rob and sprints towards the Wrangler. As soon as she begins to flee, the child lets out a high pitched scream, and strikes the hood of Bluejay’s car. The impact of the blow is impossibly forceful. In less than an instant the chassis crumples into a mass of jagged metal, the one remaining headlight disappears from view as the car is launched off the path and rolls into the valley below.

With Rob and Bluejay now returned to the darkness, the child skitters quickly towards Bluejay, grabbing her foot as it lifts off the ground, and yanking it backwards. With all her momentum immediately halted, and one foot taken out from beneath her. Bluejay has nowhere to go but down. She slams into the earth, her chin bouncing off a sharp rock. 

Bluejay looks up at us with stunned, pleading eyes. Lilith and I have only a few seconds to meet her gaze before she is dragged backwards along the ground. She screams in pain, her ankle caught in the child’s iron grip. It doesn’t even break pace as it walks back towards the woods, pulling Bluejay along like a ragdoll. 

Rob reaches out for her, snatching for Bluejay’s hand as she writhes and thrashes against an unstoppable force. They connect, briefly, but Rob’s effort to keep a hold of her is futile, dashed immediately as she is pulled effortlessly from his hands. Bluejay resorts to clawing at the ground, dragging thick, dark soil and pulling loose rocks free from the dirt.

Rob somberly unstraps his rifle, swinging it around to his front. He reaches into the breast pocket of his jacket and chambers a single bullet.

Bluejay looks on as Rob raises the rifle to his shoulder, and aims for the back of the oblivious child’s head.

**LILITH:** Oh ****.

Lilith turns away from the window, cowering away from the insanity outside the car. I can barely watch myself, as Rob places his finger on the trigger.

The shot never comes.

Bluejay shrieks as the child reaches the treeline, pulling her into the undergrowth. Robs hands are shaking, unable to do what needs to be done. Cursing loudly at the air itself, Rob lets the rifle fall to the ground. He stands immobile as Bluejay’s screams continue to emanate through the trees.

His expression has been worn by everyone on the road. Like all of them he’s no longer present, lost to a realm of hopelessness and bewilderment. But unlike many others, he doesn’t stay that way for long. Unlike the rest of us, Rob Guthard manages to bring himself back.

**ROB:** Bristol! There’s a torch in the green bag. Get it now.

I don’t have time to hesitate. I scour the contents of the Wrangler desperately, Bluejay’s screams growing increasingly distant with every passing second. Locating a large green bag in the far corner, I crawl across the Wrangler, unfasten the straps and spill its contents into the car. A heavy duty LED torch clangs against the cabin floor and I **** it up before it can roll away.

Returning to Rob, I swing the back doors open and jump out onto the dirt track, throwing the torch toward Rob’s outstretched hand. As soon as he catches it, Rob sprints out into the forest, leaving me and Lilith behind. 

The events that unfold among the trees are told to us in sound and light.

After almost a minute of silence, the torch’s rays burst through the trees. Bluejay’s distant screeching intensifies as the child breaks into a gut wrenching cry. A large crash echoes through the night air, the sound of bark cracking as the very trees shatter into splinters. The light dances chaotically, as Rob lets out a cathartic, damaged roar. Suddenly, the child’s desolate wailing grows more distant, retreating deep, deep into the woods. Then, suddenly, silence.

**LILITH:** Bristol… what’s… what’s happening?

**AS:** I don’t know. Stay in the car.

We wait for what seems like an age, lost in worry, before the gentle rustling of undergrowth calls our attention back to the treeline. A moment later, Rob emerges from the trees, holding Bluejay’s arm around his shoulder

**LILITH:** Oh thank ****. Oh thank ****.

The pair stumble over to us, slowly and painfully. Bluejay walks with a limp, her ankle is already horribly bruised. Rob sports a series of cuts across his face, but seems otherwise unharmed. He calls back to us, utterly exhausted.

**ROB:**... Nothin’ to it.

An irrepressible smile grows across my face, a pained grimace of sincere joy. I raise a hand to my mouth as tears of unbridled relief start to roll down my cheeks. It’s a brief, fleeting moment in an otherwise dark night, but for once we’ve managed to pass through the storm, battered and broken, but at the very least, still together.

Bluejay falls to the floor, slipping free of Rob’s grip and unable to hold her own weight. Rob turns around to look for where she’s fallen, and finds her crawling slowly towards the steep verge.

**ROB:** Bluejay? Denise, you ok?

Bluejay stops crawling, places her hands on the ground and rises unsteadily. I suppose she can stand on her own after all. When she’s finally upright, she turns back towards Rob, raising his rifle to her shoulder and fixing it on his torso.

My smile vanishes.

**ROB:** Denise. What are you… put it down.

**BLUEJAY:** It was a child, Rob. It was a child it… what did you…

**LILITH:** Oh my **** Bristol what’s happening?

**AS:** Stay in the car Lilith. 

**ROB:** Denise… you seen it just as much as me. You saw what it did.

**BLUEJAY:** It…it tore at my…  it broke the skin! How… why are you doing this?!

**ROB:** Denise. Denise. You know what you saw, OK? You know this is real. We ain’t doin’ this to you. It’s happening… to all of us. It’s-

Rob stares at Bluejay, then down to the rifle, the sights boring into his chest.

**ROB:** Ok ok. How about we turn the car around. Right now. I’ll turn us around and I’ll take you back home and I’ll drop you off outside the tunnel… safe and sound. I just want to get you home safe… what do ya say?

Bluejay looks into the Rob’s eyes, the rifle quivers in her hands. We all wait, scarcely taking a breath, for Bluejay’s response.

**BLUEJAY:** … I don’t believe you.

The shot echoes around us. Rob falls to his knees. A look of surprise and disbelief carved into his face. A plume of dark red blossoms around his shoulder. There’s no air in my lungs. My entire body is paralysed by the shock, by the rank unfairness, the sheer impossibility of the scene before me.

I still don’t understand how it could possibly be happening.

**LILITH:** OH MY ****! Oh my ****! No!

Bluejay quickly paces up to Rob, snatches a handful of ammunition from his breast pocket, and reloads the rifle with practiced efficiency. She’s stopped shaking, in fact, there’s a calm conviction to her movements which convinces me, with shocking immediacy, that I might be about to die.

I dive back into the Wrangler, slamming the door shut behind me. I find Lilith gripped by an immediate, immobilising shell shock.

**AS:** We need to go. Lilith? We need to ****?

**LILITH:** I don’t… I don’t understand.

**BLUEJAY:** Get out of the car, both of you! I’ll **** him! I will **** him!

**LILITH:** Do you think she’s going to **** us too?

**AS:** No. No… she was going to shoot Rob in the chest, but she aimed away at the last minute. She’s just bargaining.

**LILITH:** Bargaining?

**AS:** She wants us out of the car. I think she’s going to take the Wrangler.

**LILITH:** If she leaves us here we’ll die anyway.

**AS:** I know.

**LILITH:** Well we… we can’t fight her… one of us will...

**BLUEJAY:** Get the **** out of the car, both of you! I want your hands where I can see them!

**AS:** It’s ok. It’s ok. Here, take this.

I reach down and grab the walkie talkie, pressing it into Lilith’s hands.

**AS:** It’s a short sprint to the tree line. We need to get round to the hood of the car, then we get into the woods as soon as there’s an opening ok?

**LILITH:** I… I can’t do this, Bristol.

**AS:** I’m sorry Lilith. You’re going to have to.

I gently open the driver’s side door, climbing out and edging along the muddy verge, keeping low to avoid Bluejay’s line of sight.

Lilith climbs out after me, closing the door softly behind us. Without making a sound, conscious of every rustling leaf that passes underfoot, I gesture for us to make out way around to the Wrangler’s hood. Lilith goes first, staying below the windows, working her way to the front of the car and passing around the corner. From the hood of the Wrangler, we’ll be able to make a beeline to the trees.

**BLUEJAY:** Don’t play **** games with me!

Before I can make my way around to join Lilith, Bluejay’s impatience boils over. I can hear her footsteps on the rough ground as she makes her way over to the Wrangler. The situation rapidly spiralling further from my control, there’s only one thing I can do to stop her discovering the both of us.

**AS:** We’re coming out!

I raise my hands and stand up, making my way to the back of the Wrangler. Bluejay stops walking, before she gets far enough to notice Lilith. She turns to face me, raising the rifle to her shoulder. A moment later, I hear Lilith burst out from her hiding place, sprinting into the trees.

Bluejay quickly realises what’s happened, and with a yell of violent frustration, turns the rifle to face the treeline. Lilith has already disappeared into the dark forest, out of range and out of sight. I choose not to attempt to rush Bluejay in the midst of this distraction, and I’m right not to. Realising Lilith is lost to her, Bluejay quickly spins back towards me and levels the rifle at my chest.

**BLUEJAY:** I knew you were all in this together, you **** monsters!

Her eyes are practically bulging from their sockets, her entire face contorted in malicious, sickeningly righteous hatred. After all these days on the road, I’ve never seen something quite like this.

**AS:** You’re not well Bluejay.

**BLUEJAY:** No. No. I’m just not willing to fall for your **** tricks!

**AS:** How could this all be a trick Bluejay? How? Apollo, Eve, Bonnie. You saw what happened to them. It’s beyond our understanding, mine and yours.

**BLUEJAY:** There’s no such thing as **** magic. Only fools and **** frauds.

There it was. In one sentence, the trigger for Bluejay’s creeping insanity. The inflexible belief that had broken her mind against a maelstrom of contradiction. With every impossible event she had witnessed, every brutal death that had unfolded in front of her, Bluejay’s unwavering skepticism had barred her from blaming the supernatural, from blaming the road. Instead she had blamed us, a swiftly dwindling pool of conspirators, whose crimes had swiftly spiralled from deception, to reckless endangerment, to outright ****.

As far as Bluejay was concerned, we were the only monsters on this road. This wasn't madness. It was self defense.

**AS:** It doesn't matter anymore. You can go home ok? But just… at least take Lilith with you. Please. She isn’t part of this.

**BLUEJAY:** I’m not a **** **** Alice. Don’t you think I’ve been watching? You are all complicit, and as far as I’m concerned you can all **** walk!

**AS:** I’m sorry… I just don’t think I can let you do do this.

She laughs, a sarcastic, **** chuckle. Holding the rifle tight against her shoulder.

**BLUEJAY:** I can't see how that's your decision.

**AS:** Well… that’s always been your issue hasn't it Denise? You lack imagination.

I step backwards, allowing gravity to carry me over the threshold of the steep, dark ****. In the last few seconds before I topple into the darkness, I clench the fingers of my left hand.

When I’d been holding both my hands up, my empty palms faced vertically towards her, Bluejay could have easily mistaken the band around my finger for jewellery. As I fall backwards, Bluejay’s eyes fix on my now closed fist, as she sees what’s attached to the other side of the ring. A bottle opener, a small LED torch, and the ignition key to the Wrangler.

I disappear over the edge, bracing myself for what's to come. With nothing else to do, I surrender myself to the long fall, followed into the darkness by the enraged screams of Bluejay.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found my suicide note from years ago. I didn't write it.
 
 Assistant: I'm a pretty happy guy. I left state for college after high school, got a degree in psychology, and now work as a counselor for high school\-aged kids. My little brother Mack is happily married with a two year old son, which makes my mom turn her attention to me, heckling me about when I'll be able to give her more grandbabies. Life has been very good, but I've recently discovered something that may turn everything upside down.

My dad needed help cleaning out the attic, something which he said hadn't been done "since Reagan was in office." I agreed to help, but my brother wouldn't be joining us since he had work. I had only been in the attic a handful of times throughout my entire childhood, so being up there again felt surreal. Dust and cobwebs coated every box, chair, and trinket in sight. I almost had two heart attacks thanks to a couple of rats scurrying around, but my father and I managed to sort through a lot of things, figuring out what was needed and what we could throw away. While my dad took a break, going down to the kitchen for a drink with my mom, I continued to curiously scour the attic. That was when something colorful caught my eye.

It was one of my old comic books, lying unceremoniously on an end chair in the corner. I picked it up, waves of nostalgia surging through me as I admired the front cover, which depicted my favorite superhero, the Hulk, raising a car over his head, his teeth clenched. It had to have been almost 15 years since I had last seen that book. I was surprised at how good a condition it was in; The rats hadn't touched it. I flipped it open and began thumbing through the pages, enjoying a little piece of the past that had been forgotten. As I neared the middle of the book, however, a single sheet of white paper, folded horizontally, slipped out and drifted slowly to the floor, coming to land at my feet.   I kept a finger on the last page I had stopped on, so as not to lose my place, and bent down to pick up the paper. Opening it, I began to read the message that had been written:

I can't take it anymore. I wish that someone could understand what I'm going through, but no one ever will. Mom, I love you so much and I hate to do this to you, but it's the only option that I have. Dad, you did your best for me and Mack, but still, I have to go. By the time you read this I know that it will be done. Don't tell my friends the truth about what happened; Don't bury me, either. I don't want to be worm food. Mack, you were the best brother in the world and just know that this is not your fault. I'll be singing with the angels and watching over all of you from now on.

Darby

I stared at the note for a long time after I finished reading. I read it again and again, not knowing whether or not this was a joke. If it was, then  it was cruel and I didn't think that anyone I knew was capable of doing such a thing. I stared harder at the words. My heartbeat hammered against my ribcage as I pondered the possibility of the note being...legit? The handwriting was very similar to my own and written in orange ink, my favorite color pen to use when I would write in my journal or when I would write stories when I was younger. My head was spinning. Could it be possible that I had written this and simply suppressed the memory? I couldn't recall any negative experiences that could have made me consider killing myself, and I was sure that seeing something like this would bring such experiences to come back to me. But they didn't come.

"Darbs?"

I jumped, spinning around and hiding the note instinctively behind my back. My dad was standing near the entry to the attic, a confused look on his face. "Everything okay?"  "Yeah, Dad, I'm fine, thank you. Just uh...a little thirsty, I guess I should have taken my break too. You mind grabbing me a glass of water?"  "One glass of water, coming right up!" he replied, but as he descended the stairs, I could see him watching me closely. As soon as he was out of sight I folded the note into a square and stuffed it in my pocket. I waited until I finished my water before telling my dad I needed to get some errands done, and that I would help him finish the attic another time.

I went home and immediately tried comparing the handwriting in the note to my own. My current handwriting was a lot neater, but I could totally imagine myself as a teenager or preteen writing the way the message was written. Then again, if someone had been trying to copy my writing style, then that would explain the slight differences. After a couple hours of questioning my childhood I decided to sleep on it. Maybe I would call my brother and ask him if he remembered anything traumatic happening when we were younger. I lay in bed for hours, but just as I was about to drift off, I received a text message from my mother

.

"You found it, didn't you?"

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I just graduated from medical school, and my new hospital has rules that seemed designed to kill people instead of saving them
 
 Assistant: Doctors see **** that would make your skin crawl. Sometimes it involves literal ****. Occasionally some skin nearly *does* crawl, though “melt” is a better term for what Necrotizing Fasciitis does to a person.

[But no textbook could have prepared me for the moment that I stood shoulder to shoulder with the chief of medicine, forcing the decaying body of a charred kid into the incinerator as his one functioning eye glared back at us in hateful judgment](https://redd.it/djmjk2). He was wedged in the narrow door at the shoulders, with only his head sticking out into the room with us. His jaw had long since fallen off, and the rotting tongue danced above his inverted face like a charmed snake.

“Dr. Scritt,” I whispered in a quavering voice, “what are we supposed to do? We’re bound by *primum non nocere*, so don’t we have to-”

“You’re bound to help the *living,* Dr. Afelis, which includes me and *possibly* yourself if you help me out *right **** now.”* She grunted this while moving her hands to the top of the boy’s head. As she pushed, the entirety of his scalp slid off like a flaky scab ripped from a wounded leg. A fresh, clean, white skull shined from underneath as the boy’s torn skin dropped to the floor like so much ground beef. 

“They’re easier to grab without the skin. Push down on its head.” Then she batted his tongue away like an annoying fly and pressed deeply into his shoulders. Her fingers disappeared into his flesh like a boot into thick mud. 

Dazed, I pushed against the boy’s exposed bone. I was shocked to realize how cold it was, and how it twitched as he fruitlessly tried to bite me with a jaw that didn’t exist.

“I hate to give away the ending of this story, but you’re going to be *real* surprised what this thing can do in about ten seconds if you continue fondling it with the restrained intensity reserved for jerking off an octogenarian. *Push!”* she yelled as she leaned in.

The body slid into the incinerator with the gentle resistance of a bowel movement.

Once inside, the boy screamed.

Dr. Scritt shoved me violently aside, slammed a padlock into place, then spun the dial.

I looked back at her in shock. She was a ****, for certain, but she’d never touched me before. 

Still, I was a first-year intern. The chief of medicine could pretty much force me to eat pus and call it ice cream.

“Dr. Scritt,” I asked shakily, “why did you put a *padlock* on the inciner-”

The shrieking from beyond the lock was loud enough to shake the floor. 

“Turn it on!” she commanded me.

“Where are the-”

She pushed me away once more and frantically clutched at a series of buttons that had been behind me.

“Dr. Scritt!” I yelled in response to the shove, “*why* are you-”

*Slam. Slam. SLAM!* 

The padlock bounced as the incinerator door was hit from the inside.

A chill settled over my body even as the temperature grew noticeably warmer. 

“This is a custom incinerator,” Dr. Scritt explained as she grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the door. “It will heat up *very* quickly, so stand-”

SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM

The pounding from inside the incinerator grew more forceful. I actually wondered if the padlock would hold. It flailed wildly back and forth with the rhythmic hitting.

CRUNCH.

“It’s at 200 degrees!” Dr. Scritt called as she looked toward the gauge. “We need it to get to two thousand!”

My head swam. “Most medical incinerators can’t even *get* that hot!”

*CRUNCH*

Dr. Scritt turned to face me. “You’re right, most can’t.” She looked back. “500 degrees.”

I gaped at her. “Is it really heating that quickly?”

She betrayed no emotion in her response. “Can’t you feel the change in the room?”

For the first time, I realized that I was sweating profusely. “How am I this hot? We’re standing ten feet away-”

“So we’d better back up,” she continued. 1,100 degrees.”

SLAM

With a light tinkling, a tiny **** fell to the floor and rolled away.

“Dr. Scritt,” I breathed quietly.

“I know you’re sorry that it took so long to get the boy here.” She paused. “We’re *all* sorry.”

CRACK

“Dr. Scritt, the door to the incinerator-”

“1,500 degrees.”

A wave of heat squeezed fresh sweat from every pore.

“I don’t know if it will hold-”

*CRACK*

“Seventeen hundred degrees!”

“The padlock is bending, the metal will melt!”

“That’s why we keep hundreds of padlocks in reserve.”

*SLAM CRUNCH CRACK*

We both stopped breathing.

A hand-shaped indentation had slammed *into the metal,* warping it from the inside and leaving a seemingly impossible mark.

We waited.

“One thousand, nine hundred and thirteen degrees.”

We waited longer. 

Nothing happened.

Sweat stung my eyes so badly that I couldn’t see. When I wiped it away, I found that my arm was even saltier, rendering the pain worse. 

“I think,” Dr. Scritt uttered in a voice just above ‘inaudible,’ “that I stopped it.” 

I stared through the shimmering heat waves radiating from the incinerator. Lumps of shorn flesh lay on the ground nearby. The smell of roasting carrion wafted through the air and gently tickled my gag reflex.

I released the breath I had been unconsciously holding. “So – we’re safe?”

The door to the morgue slammed open, and another intern sprinted inside. I recognized him as J. D., a nervous guy who looked like he was in perpetual shock. “Dr. Scritt!” he called across the room. “It’s Dr. Brutsen – Rule 10!”

Despite the heat, a chill settled over the room that could have frozen my **** cheeks together.

“Prepare an O. R.! Now!” she shock back authoritatively.

He quickly disappeared. 

She turned to sprint out of the room.

“Dr. Scritt!” I called back. 

She wheeled around and faced me.

“What should I do about the incinerator?”

She stared back like I had a **** instead of a nose. “You should learn to know when things are dead, Dr. Afelis. Enough haunts our lives without us carrying those who have left us behind.” Then she turned around to rush out of the room. “If you want to provide a modicum of usefulness, you can take a gurney out to Court Street. The roof is a long way from here.”

With that, she disappeared out the door. 

*

What the **** was Rule 10?

My hand flew to my pocket.

It was empty. 

****, ****, ****. The list must have fallen out while I’d been hauling the human mush into the incinerator. 

I’d needed a classmate to die before I could see the list of rules. But once it was so easily accessible, I’d just taken it for granted. 

I swore to learn a lesson from this, and knew that I wouldn’t. 

I’d read the rules once. Why would I need a gurney? 

I decided to sprint outside and find out what was happening first. 

The chilly night air latched onto my cold sweat, sending chills into every crevice in my body. 

I ran.

And – I saw nothing. 

There was no traffic. There were no people. I looked left, right, and left again. 

Then I looked up.

Oh, ****. 

*That* was [Rule 10](https://redd.it/dj5fgp).

Dr. Brutsen was standing a few feet from the edge of the roof. In the nearly full moon, I could see his body jittering like it was held by marionette strings. The entire scene was *wrong.* How, and *why,* could his limbs be moving like that?

He was moaning softly.

No, that wasn’****.

He was crying. 

Nausea took hold of me as I realized that he was dancing closer and closer to the edge. 

I nearly collapsed as I remembered what the rule demanded. *Either wait for an extraction team to find you, or jump four stories to the sidewalk on Court Street.*

“Wait there!” I screamed at him. “Dr. Scritt is coming to get you!”

“No, no, please!” Brutsen screamed, although I don’t know whether he was talking to me. “Don’t make it angry, make them go away!”

*“Hold on!”* I hollered back. “You’re almost safe!”

He wailed. “I’m sorry, I tried to lock them out! Please, please don’t do this!” 

His body bounced and flailed like an electrified fish. It was so bizarre, so *wrong* to watch this man jittering out of control in the rooftop moonlight, that I nearly cried.

A door on the roof slammed open with such intensity that I could hear it clearly on the ground below.

“NO!” Brutsen wailed in response. “No, please stay away, I’m sorry, I’m SORRY!”

Then he stepped away from the edge. I heaved an *enormous* sigh of relief.

That relief evaporated when I realized he had only moved back to allow space for a running start.

I watched in horror as Dr. Brutsen – my coworker, my peer – ran forth and leapt into the night. He fell, arms and legs spinning, toward the concrete where I stood [four stories below](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/).

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)

[Listen](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn_pa1QfNMRzbTuJqXSoRQ?view_as=subscriber)

-----------

[Part 4](https://redd.it/dlz1tf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Every day Charlotte’s mother forgot to collect her from school.
 
 Assistant: “I’m sure she’s just driving and can’t answer her phone, she’ll be here any moment.”

I tapped my fingers on the desk and **** pitiful smile at the little girl opposite me. It was a hollow promise. We’d already been sat there for so long it was starting to get dark outside.

I’d already sent my teaching assistant home. What was the good in both of us suffering?

This wasn’t new. Some days it was minutes but often it was hours; the only thing consistent about Charlotte’s mother was her ability to forget she had a daughter. 

Charlotte was a bright child and a pleasure to teach. I couldn’t understand why everything seemed to be so against her.

The other kids were cruel to her, leaving her out of games and group activities. I’d tried gentle, private words with kinder members of the class, encouraging them to include her. They all said no.

*They said she was a witch.*

Children can be evil. You really get to see that when you teach the little **** goblins. They were eight years old and already ostracising someone weaker, even going so far as to infer she was some sort of monster. How cruel. 

It made me really sad. The poor girl just couldn’t catch a break. It was like no one wanted to be around her; she was a magnet forcing itself to the wrong end of another magnet. *She repelled.*

“It’s ok Miss Tackett. I know she isn’t coming.”

Charlotte stared blankly at the desk in front of her. She hadn’t bothered to put her coat on, she was that conditioned to expect being forgotten. Her legs swung lightly back and forth below it. 

“Of course she’s coming Charlotte, your mother loves you... she’s, uh, just very busy.”

That was a half lie. I couldn’t definitively prove that Charlotte’s mother loved her, and it certainly didn’t seem that way sometimes. She would arrive late but unconcerned, almost reluctant to collect her child.

She looked haggard and tired, more so each time I saw her. She often looked like she hadn’t slept in days. She was jumpy, anxious and irritable. It was obvious she needed help, that she was struggling.

I tried not to judge her but it was hard, I sat with her forgotten child every day after that bell rang. How tired do you have to be to forget a child? Your only child. 

And just like the other kids in the class, when Charlotte’s mother would finally arrive, she looked at her as if she were some kind of monster.

“She doesn’t love me.”

I felt my heart drop. They were words you never wanted to hear a child say about their mother. They should all feel loved. Valued. The worst part was that she didn’t even seem bothered, she was immune to it.

I remembered the time I’d tried to make a report to social services about Charlotte. My concerns seemed like nothing to them. The girl was fed, clean and always arrived on time. She wasn’t withdrawn from school and didn’t seem bothered by her lack of friends.

*”We can’t investigate a mother for lateness just because it irritates a school.”*

That was what the lady on the phone said to me. Then she hung up. I tried. I really did. I wanted so badly to help Charlotte but I didn’t know how to. I wasn’t irritated by sitting with her like the social worker inferred, I just knew there was more to it. I could feel it. 

“What makes you think that she doesn’t love you?” I asked, desperate to draw out something that could help me help her.

“She’s scared of me.”

“What do you mean she’s scared of you?”

“She locks her room when we get home and she doesn’t come out until it’s time to take me to school.” She answered nonchalantly, swinging her feet under the desk.

“Doesn’t she make you dinner?” 

“Of course Miss Tackett, she leaves it prepared on the kitchen side, all I have to do is eat it.”

I thought of what an isolating existence that must be. To have no one to talk to all day and then go home to silence. What did Charlotte mean her mother was scared? What was her mother doing in that room? 

“Does she have anyone in there with her?”

“No Miss Tackett, she just stays in her room. She says it’s the only way she’s safe.”

A lump started to form in my throat. If she only felt safe in her room then why didn’t she keep her daughter in there too? *What was wrong with this woman?*

“Why wouldn’t she be safe?” I asked, struggling to reel in my own curiosity. 

“Because I’m there. I told you she’s scared of me.”

Her words were jarring. It took me a few moments to compose myself. It was a baffling thought, that anyone could be frightened of such a sweet young child.

“Why wouldn’t she be safe with you? What does she think you’d do to her?”

“Because I’m a witch. She thinks I might hurt her.”

Charlotte continued swinging her legs under the desk, her vacant state resident on her face. It broke my heart. I started mentally preparing a lesson on the effects of bullying. 

She was so confused, she’s twisted up the cruel taunts and the abuse at home and started to consider herself a monster. It was devastating. 

“Charlotte you aren’t a witch. You can tell me if the other kids are mean to you... I’ll talk to them. Why do they call you that?”

I fought back tears. I’d thought that getting into teaching would be fun and fulfilling but pupils like Charlotte were haunting. They worked their way into your thoughts long after that bell had rung.

“Because I broke Stephanie’s arm, with my mind.”

I was taken aback at her answer. 

I remembered the incident she was referring to. It was early into the school year and Stephanie tripped on the playground. She broke her arm in two places, it was nasty. A few other kids started a rumour that Charlotte had used her witch powers to do it. 

They had all stopped standing near her outside after that, despite my protests and pleas. They’d hammered it in so hard that it was her fault that Charlotte started to believe it.

“Stephanie fell Charlotte. You didn’t do it.”

“I made her fall.” 

“*You don’t have witch powers!* The other kids are just mean.” I practically screamed, trying to contain my rage. 

That was unprofessional. I know. I shouldn’t have been discussing the other kids, and especially not my feelings on them, with the victim of their targeting. I couldn’t help it, I just wanted to see her smile.

The rhythm of her swinging legs ground to a halt and she turned to face me, vacant eyes locked with mine and suddenly not so vacant anymore.

*She laughed.*

It was like the sound of nails running across a chalkboard slowly, dragged out to prolong the torture. It wasn’t a child’s laugh. It was something mocking, awful. I felt the sudden urge to walk out of the classroom and leave. Like everyone else in her life already had.

I couldn’t explain where it came from. Had it come from her? Or did I imagine it. No. It must have been me. *She was a child.* I had to stop thinking like that.

“What if the other kids are right though, Miss Tackett?” She asked sweetly, following that awful laugh.

“They aren’t.” I shook my head and composed myself. Charlotte’s mother would be here soon and I could talk to her about her daughter. Make her see how serious the situation was. I could help. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Charlotte’s **** expression changed. She frowned, trying to process my words and what they meant to her. It didn’t take long but I could see her calculating. Trying to work out weather she believed me or not. Maybe I was finally getting through.

Then it happened. 

I felt a crunch. Out of nowhere I was struck by a steering pain in my arm. I felt parts of bone brush past each other as they snapped and jutted out of different point of flesh. I fell to the floor, screaming. 

“I never said there was, Miss Tackett. I like being a witch.” 

*She was doing this.* A child. It was her.

“Charlotte, please stop!” I begged. “Your mother will be here any moment, please.... please stop.” I pleaded, desperate for her to stop hurting me.

Her eyes weren’t so vacant anymore, they focused on me with laser precision, revelling in my realisation that I’d gotten it all so badly wrong. 

I thought about how terrified her mother must have been. About how I hadn’t listened to her classmates concerns. All I’d ever seen was a victim. I was so wrong.

She looked at me writhing on the floor in agony and she rolled her eyes. I felt my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst through my flesh. 

“She’s not coming, Miss Tackett.” Charlotte stood up from behind the desk and took a step towards the classroom door. 

“What did you do!?” I panted, wondering if that poor, tired woman was out there. If she was in the car and it was all just a cruel trick.

The little girl flashed me one more sinister grin as she exited the room.

[“She isn’t coming Miss Tackett. My mother forgot to lock her door last night.”](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePickledGnome/)

[TCC](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve just seen my family’s abandoned old farm being explored by someone on TikTok. He shouldn’t have gone there
 
 Assistant: It’s late. I’m doing my usual - sitting in bed long past the time I need to be asleep, scrolling mindlessly through TikTok. It’s a bad habit, I know. But you’re here reading Reddit, right?

I lazily flick the last watched video away - a cat wearing a helmet fashioned out of a melon - and a live feed takes its place. It’s dark, with torches or headlamps making almost a strobing effect in some crusty old building. Ghost hunters or something like that. Not my thing. I raise my finger to scroll again but at the last second something catches my eye that stops me dead. 

&#x200B;

The camera pans past a black and white framed photograph on the wall. It’s my grandparents on their wedding day. I sit stock-still, watching intently as the camera moves forward. I would recognise that photo anywhere, having examined it countless times as a child visiting their farmhouse. It was my favourite picture out of any hanging on their walls. 

This TikTokker couldn’t be in my grandparents’ old farm, surely? It was true it had been left to fall into a state of disrepair after their passing. I look at their handle - Aband0nedExpl0rer305. I make a mental note to click on their page and see where else they have been, but for now cannot bring myself to look away from this feed, in case it disappears forever. 

They move further into the living room. A leather armchair, well worn in its day but now the cushions were sunken in and the fabric torn beyond repair. The fireplace, exposed stone and an enormous oak mantel - once the impressive focal point of the room - now warped and cracked. The lucky horseshoes that had hung from it litter the hearth, dull and lifeless. They had always been pride of place over the fire, polished and would glint in the firelight of an evening. 

&#x200B;

The person holding the camera is speaking, I’d hardly noticed as I was so wrapped up in a cloud of nostalgia and outrage at this space being invaded.

“There’s so many horseshoes around here,” he was saying. “They’re over door thresholds, there was one laid into the kitchen floor, and these ones look like they used to hang over the fireplace. Now I know this is a farm and they probably did have horses, but they are just everywhere. Now everyone knows horseshoes are known as a good luck charm, but unless you’re into your folklore you might not know that they also ward off evil spirits.”

&#x200B;

I roll my eyes - common knowledge. Another TikTokker claiming to be an expert on the paranormal. His observation does set off a small prickle on the back of my neck though. There *were* a lot of horseshoes at the farm. I tuck that bit of knowledge away for future reference. Many years ago they had horses, but since the advent of modern tractors and farming methods they were not needed and neither Granny nor Grandpa had any great love for horses that I was aware of. Granny had always been a tad superstitious though - horseshoes, lucky heather, four leaf clovers, that sort of thing.

&#x200B;

For the most part, I loved going to stay at Granny and Grandpa’s when I was small. Apart from going to the bathroom alone. The only bathroom was upstairs, at the furthest end of the house from the kitchen or living room. To a kid it felt like an epic journey. Going up wasn’t so bad. Once the door from the living room shut you would find yourself in the cool, quiet passageway, all sounds of life muffled by the thick wood. The air was so still you could hear a pin drop. You’d walk along then turn back 180 degrees to go up the stairs. The upstairs landing was split on two levels so you’d step down onto the back landing then take a right to get to the bathroom. 

It was going back down that was the problem. Since I was old enough to go to the bathroom unaccompanied - once I turned that corner and got to the top of the stairs, a feeling would hit, like an icy finger in the small of your back. *Run*. I would run down the stairs and back to the kitchen as quickly as my little legs could carry me. More than that, it was imperative that at no point did I turn and look back up at that landing. Bad things would happen if I looked back. As a child I couldn’t really express these feelings, but now as I remember it, it felt like a creeping black mass seeping out of the walls of that back landing, coalescing, and all it would take to give it a corporeal form would be a terrified look back from a fleeing child. 

Then I would heave open the wooden door and it felt like all the colour suddenly seeped back into the world, the warmth and noise of a busy family home flooding my senses. Like pressing play and the film restarts where it left off. 

&#x200B;

In the live camera feed, they approach that solid oak door. It’s hanging on one hinge, slightly ajar and swaying almost imperceptibly. I notice before the cameraman says aloud that there is a large cast iron horseshoe - big enough for a Shire horse or a Clydesdale -  nailed above the threshold that I don’t remember, but it suddenly feels important. Like a talisman thrown up in a last ditch effort to stop something. I grip my phone harder with a clammy hand, positive that they should not go deeper into the bowels of this house.   

I look at the comments flashing up. *It’s so creepy. Seriously bad vibes. Did anyone else just see a shadow?* With a shaky hand I start typing a comment, telling them not to go in there, to just leave. As if they will listen to me, just another voice in the throng. In my peripheral vision as I’m typing I can see the guy push open the door which gives way with a creak and just as I’m about to press send I hear his sharp intake of breath.

&#x200B;

“What the-?” I hear him whisper.

I drop my phone onto the bed in shock. Standing side by side in the passageway are two gaunt figures dressed in nightgowns. They wear preternaturally wide grins which stretch their papery grey skin taut. Where their eyes belong are only dark pits, what could be boreholes straight into the inky depths of **** itself. Somehow worse than that, Granny and Grandpa were holding hands. It was unmistakably them despite their demonic manifestation. Though it’s only a second, it feels like I stare into those twisted faces for half an eternity.

All **** breaks loose on camera. Aband0nedExpl0rer305 turns on his heel and runs back the way he came. The camerawork falls into disarray as he bolts for the exit, but I swear in that fraction of the second as his phone whips around the creepily wide grins on their faces twists into a grisly snarl.

&#x200B;

I am transfixed by my phone screen, listening to the TikTok guy’s heavy breathing and watching the torch flit around on screen, lighting up walls and floors at random as he makes a break for it. He’s close to the back door as long as he doesn’t turn the wrong way. Five, or six more paces and **** be out. Then shockingly loud on the little phone speakers is an ungodly screech which makes me jump about a foot off my bed. 

LIVE has ended

The feed has just… gone. I tap the screen futilely. Nothing. Did he make it out? I search for his handle on the app and nothing comes up. I sit for a long time just staring into space, heart thumping. I should have commented sooner, as soon as I realised they were in that house, maybe that would have stopped them going any further. 

&#x200B;

A notification pops up on my phone. A direct message on TikTok. Strangely, there’s no account name with the message. 

*Come to us* 

Very direct, no ambiguity there.

I sigh, and reach for a notebook from my bedside table, to cross the latest attempt off the list. Communication with the (un)dead via the internet is a new development.

&#x200B;

An extra deep grave didn’t do the trick. Rocks in their mouths, black salt, holy water from Lourdes, a stake through the heart. Nothing keeps these two restless souls in their grave for long. We don’t know if it’s the land itself, a curse upon the family, or something else. Did they see that black *thing* I was so afraid of as a kid, was that the reason, or a symptom? I glance down the list of things yet to try - next up, decapitation of the corpses. I don’t relish the thought of that one. I fire off a quick text to my brother. 

*Trouble at mill* 

That’s the code. Code for ‘get your shovel, we’re off to dig up our old granny and grandpa again to see if we can finally get them to rest in peace like you’re supposed to’. 

The problem is, each time we try to end this and fail, every time they come back they are more… *changed* than before. The last time they climbed out of that grave they looked like themselves, only dead. Upsetting but to be expected. The nightmarish figures I have seen tonight were a world away from that. I worry we are giving them power, feeding them somehow. But we can’t just let them roam free. Especially when other people get caught in the crossfire.

I think this is going to require some outside help.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Infertile Wife Produced a Child
 
 Assistant: Janelle and I couldn’t get enough of each other in the beginning. We were young and insatiable, attached at the hip in every way. When I finally proposed, she responded with a tearful yes, but soon she began asking her own question; one I was less eager to answer. She’d hold me with her smooth, sweaty legs as we lay exhausted in bed. Her pounding heart would beat against mine as she lay on top of me and she would whisper “Can we have a child now?”

I was hesitant at the start, and would pick from a number of pre-loaded responses including “Soon” or “Of course, just not yet.” I was young and wanted to focus on my career, and the permanent jump into parenthood with no experience was a terrifying thought. Still, I loved Jan more than I’d loved anyone else. When we finally married in a small familial ceremony upstate, I began to realize I wanted to raise a child too. Though young, it was true we weren’t getting any younger. One night about a month after our wedding, Janelle squeezed me with her arms and asked “Can I have a baby?”

I’ll never forget the glint in her tear-filled, emerald eyes as I casually replied “Yes.” They sparkled with a passion I’d never seen before, and a sudden **** consumed her. Birth control was immediately cast aside. She straddled me with an unbridled passion and as we made love, I only then wished I’d said it sooner.

Those first few weeks we spent every evening in each other's sweaty embrace, rarely bothering to get dressed until the jarring alarm woke me each morning. Janelle began the bi-weekly habit of prancing to the bathroom to **** on a plastic stick, eager to see those two lines appear, but they never did. After a month of waning enthusiasm, she began to drag her feet. I consoled her as best I could, and soon suggested we see a fertility specialist.

My heart teetered on a steep precipice as I gave **** samples to my physician. I had a feeling Janelle would have kids with or without me based on how passionate she was about it. As selfish as it sounds, I exhaled with great relief when she told me the problem was within her anatomy, not mine. Janelle was infertile; anovulation due to POF—premature ovarian failure. She was devastated.

The first few weeks I would gently try to help by suggesting alternative options, but it only seemed to exacerbate her miserable state. When I mentioned the suggestions from the fertility specialist such as donor eggs or adopting a child, her face contorted with a hatred I’d never seen her show before. I decided to let her come to terms with her infertility on her own. I did my best to be sensitive, supportive and caring, yet she only withdrew as the weeks stretched on into months. I felt like I was losing her, and an echo chamber of misery seemed to cast a permanent shadow inside our apartment. Then two months ago, Janelle had an accident.

I was on my lunch break uptown when I got a call from her in the hospital she worked at. She assured me everything was alright, she’d sliced the tip of her thumb off while chopping vegetables and needed stitches. I was going to rush over, but she assured me she was fine and to wait until after work. When I picked her up from the hospital, she rushed over and squeezed me tight, crying hot, wet tears into my chest as she apologized over and over for having been so cold to me. We held each other and cried, releasing the toxic buildup that we’d held in for so long. I teased her about her puffy bandaged thumb with dad jokes about hitchhiking and mentioned how she, with her perpetual thumb's up, appeared to be giving everything an approval of coolness. She groaned, but then truly laughed for the first time since her diagnosis. It felt like everything might actually be OK.

Janelle began smiling, laughing and truly living in the present with me once again. That sparkle that I’d missed for the past few miserable months returned to her crystal eyes. Facing our own mortality has a way of knocking other problems down to size, and Janelle seemed to follow that pattern of putting things into perspective. Despite her improvement in mood, however, she continually shied away from my physical advances. It was as if **** had no productive purpose anymore so she’d lost interest in it altogether.

“Please, not now,” she’d say or “I’m just not ready yet.” I’d nod and breath deeply before letting her know I understood. I wanted to spend my life with her, there was no rush. Then she began dressing differently. Long turtlenecks and blue jeans quickly replaced her form-fitting outfits. She would switch out into long sweatpants in the bathroom each evening, and I felt she was intentionally hiding any glimpse of her body to avoid leading me on. I began to notice the strange way her clothing hung, and I soon realized she’d been losing a dramatic amount of weight. In a matter of months, she withered away from the curvy woman I couldn’t get enough of into a slim, stiff version of herself. 

I began to spend more time at work, focusing on getting the raise that my employer dangled before me like bait. I tagged along to the trade show in Miami one weekend, realizing part of me just wanted to get away from Jan. I kissed her goodbye that Friday morning, expecting to see her on Sunday evening, but plans changed. The second day of the trade show was canceled due to a power issue, and I took a flight back Saturday instead. I was exhausted and only looked forward to a long shower, but concern grew when Janelle didn’t answer my texts I’d sent from the airport. Worry became panic when I called repeatedly and got her inbox. I rushed home and unlocked the door, but sighed with relief upon entering. Jan’s coat was on the chair and the shower was running.

“Jan, honey, I’m back a day early, everything OK?” I called to her, but the hiss of the shower seemed to drown out my voice.

“Honey” I called out and walked over to the door. My dress shoe slipped on the floor, and I fought to remain upright. I looked down in confusion to the spattering of red on the floor I immediately knew was blood. “Janelle!” I screamed out as dread twisted my heart in my chest. I turned the **** and flung open the door, my gaze following the blood trail to a serrated kitchen knife on the tile floor. Above it, sitting **** on the lip of the bathtub, was Janelle. 

I then understood why she’d stayed covered up from head to toe around me for the past few months. Large chunks of her skin and muscle were slivered away. Puffy, mottled skin encircled the sinewy craters she’d carved from her own body. In other places, large crusty scabs sat within bruised flesh, purple and infected. Deep gouges ran along her forearms and thighs revealing scar tissue, shiny and pink where the muscle had been whittled down. Some wounds were red and fresh, streaming glistening ribbons of blood from recently flayed strips. I struggled to remain upright as the butchered body of my wife turned to me with a smile, revealing what she held in her slender, peeled arms.

It was a mass of clumped meat, wrapped in a stitched-together quilt of Janelle’s skin. A sculpture comprised of her own carved flesh and blood, sewn into the form of a patchwork infant in varying degrees of spoil. It was a child produced from her own mutilated body, with a putrid thumb tip nose from the accident that triggered the horrific idea. Janelle held the thing to her now breast-less chest and rocked it gently back and forth in her hacked arms.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she asked, looking down at the meaty collage with loving eyes wet with tears of joy. I fell backward on the blood-spattered trail on the floor, struggling to get away from the ungodly scene, but not before seeing it. Before I called the ambulance with shaky hands—before I vomited on myself, before I crawled from the bloody bathroom, before I could turn away from the horror—I saw it. I saw that nightmarish sculpture of a baby slowly turn its bloated head towards me, and [smile](https://www.reddit.com/user/mrmichaelsquid/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found a 4,600 years-old document describing a humanoid species named Sygil
 
 Assistant: I’ve been researching Mesopotamia my whole life. I remember being fascinated by that civilization ever since I was a pre-teen. Unlike my friends and schoolmates, I spent my time daydreaming of Sumerian kings and the Euphrates River.

I then grew up, went to college and became a Sumer researcher. I’m not a particularly prominent historian, but I’m one of the very best when it comes to translating Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform writing, especially from around 2,800-2,500 BC. 

I wasn’t expecting a lot when I was invited to translate some newfound tablets; I mean, I was personally excited, but was sure the contents would be mundane enough.

My employer was a little private museum in Istanbul that specialized in artifacts from the Gilgamesh dynasty, and prided itself from having snatched these new items from the British Museum.

I was welcomed at the airport by the owner’s second assistant, a flamboyant and clever Arabic man who spoke English with almost no accent. “I’ve been assigned to accompany you during your stay, Madame. Please inform me of your every need”.

Eymen was a pleasant man around my age, the Turkish version of an English butler. He gave me space to work but politely reminded me of making at least two meals a day when I was too deep in my work. His presence helped so much with my productivity.

Still, no matter how great an experience it was, I’m terrified of my findings.

The following is my translation of one of the tablets.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

We humans are being killed daily. The Sygil are an inferior species in every way, but they have something we lack – something that should be a curse and yet, somehow, is their biggest strength: they don’t know when to give up.

They surprised us with their resistance. And they are so numerous; the Sygil took a habit of procreating like the rats or ants, and now they are as numerous as the stars in the sky. They always had plenty of children, but most of them would die of disease or being attacked by the predators on their precarious houses. 

That way, their numbers were always around the same, unless they were on war between themselves – which happened constantly, for simple resources like water. But now some of the Sygils, merely through observation and the trial-and-error method, learned of our medicine and architecture and they started to flourish and prosper – too much. 

After invading and overpowering their fellow Sygil from other tribes, a group reached our empires and slaughtered us. We hit them back, with our better horses, better weapons, better built men. And we slayed them, but despite that, they never, never stopped. They are indefatigable. 

I wish I could understand why. We’re taller, stronger and dotted with brains they would think only a **** could possess, and still, they fight.

Just because they learned how to walk in two legs a while ago they think they can rule the world; despite the fact that their reasoning is puny and their sciences are non-existent. They don’t even know how vast the world is. That’s laughable. 

Like their ancestors – even inferior hominids – their life is only worth after procreation, so their children dead before mating age are useless and forgettable. This primitiveness is what enrages me about them the most. 

The Sygil wants our other secrets, our King – they want to be us.

Tired of seeing my sisters and daughters die, I’m utterly ashamed to admit that I was scared and reached out to the King. I advised him to strike a deal with the Sygil. 

At first, he refused; but after a lot of our blood was shed, and only around a few hundreds of us remained, our king Gilgamesh finally decided to surrender to the inferior species so the rest of us could be safe. We would retreat to our underground city, and live safely for generations to come.

The King would stay with them on the surface to rule them and develop their society, and stay there with them for precisely 4.560 years before we fiercely take our world back.

Of course they agreed. They don’t even understand how much time that is; but it’s not a lot for us. We never die, we are simple reborn on a new body on a new generation, every time wiser, stronger, purer.

We are moving to our fortress deep inside the Earth by the ending of the forthcoming Araḫ Addaru Arku month. We will make no mistake this time; we’ll keep the Sygil under constant surveillance and learn all their secrets. 

Next time, we won’t have any weaknesses; just like they almost did to us, we will destroy them all mercilessly.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

I was shocked to realize that *we* are the Sygil. There’s a way more advanced civilization living underground on this planet as you read this.

By chemical testing, the museum expert was able to determine the age of this tablet with incredible precision. The Sumerian Calendar is very alike to the Gregorian Calendar we use nowadays; it has 12 months, alternating between 29 and 30 days, following the moon cycles, which have 29.5 days. 

There’s a 13th month with 33 days called Araḫ Addaru Arku that only happens every 3 years; it was added to compensate for the discrepancy. 

It wasn’t hard for me to convert 4.560 years for them to our Gregorian calendar, using the tablet’s age as the year zero.

And I found out that the real humans, with their superior brains and hatred for us across millennia, are coming back to reclaim their land soon. How soon? According to my calculations, the 4.560th Sumerian year is next year[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPoisoningTales/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There is no such thing as Area 51
 
 Assistant: For several years I've been an avid reader of NoSleep, but because of my profession, I was never permitted to submit content to it (or to anywhere). Occasionally an Area 51 story pops up. "I used to work at Area 51" or "I snuck into Area 51", etc. These stories always made me want so badly to finally jump in here, but I always held my tongue until now.


Using a series of proxies and all kinds of networking jibber jabber, I *think* I'm in the clear making this post. I won't bore you with the details.


I came here to NoSleep after years of lurking to correct a lot of the misapprehensions and legends about the most infamous military installation in the world. I'm doing this now because even if I get caught, I have a really useful insurance policy: I'm seriously ill and not likely to recover, and I've got no family that I'm in contact with that could be retaliated against. There's nothing anybody can do (uuuuh I think...).


---------------------


There is *no such thing as Area 51.* Sorry! And the fact that it's the golden egg of conspiracy theories worldwide is exactly what the US government wants. I'm writing this in a bit of a rush and I don't have any of my thoughts organized, so I'm just going to break it down as follows:


**Groom Lake / Paradise Ranch / Edwards AF Extension / Restricted Training Facility UX104**


These are a few names for the place you know as Area 51. I don't know much about its history, but essentially it *was* intended by the US Air Force to be a secret weapons-testing facility during the Cold War. It had a few on-site extensions; one of them was for developing experimental rocket and jet engines, one was for training contingents of troops for nuclear warfare and post-apocalyptic survival, etc. But much like the third Star Wars movie, the site and its purpose got out around the time of the Roswell incident, and a media frenzy popularized the base. The government tried at first to quell speculation about it, but then adopted another strategy: feed into the hype, and simply move the base a few dozen miles away. 


Today, Groom Lake (Area 51) is a small but functional military airport and base. It's got a bunch of bunkers mostly housing low-security servers, and some munitions tests are performed there. Staff are regularly moved in and out, mostly folks who are low on the totem pole and trying to climb up the ladder to the real facility. There are some very outdated nuclear fallout shelters that are still maintained and used for storage. The facility consumes an enormous amount of power, and everything possible is done to make it *look* like a well-guarded military base that is engaged in some huge, secret operations.


The employees really do fly there every day from Las Vegas on conspicuously inconspicuous jets marked as "JANET," sometimes referred to as "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal." And they want you to notice. And wonder. They want you to wonder where those jets are going.


And they never want you to spend one second thinking about where they came from.


--------------


**The real "Area 51"**


This is the most exciting part, because as far as I can tell in my limited and clandestine researching, nobody has ever divulged the real secret before. It's pretty highly guarded, and they straight up **** people who are **** enough to share it. **** isn't even the right word. They *erase* people from existence. Sometimes entire families. That's why the government freaks out when they find that one of their employees is terminal and has nothing left to lose. It's why if you're an employee there, you only see *their* doctors, so that they know about your health before you even know about it. They want you to die real quick of a sudden heart attack, so that you never have a moment to think about how you might do a public service and air their dirty laundry. And sometimes they induce those heart attacks when they determine you to be an HMT, or “health-motivated threat.”


But I didn't need to see a doctor to know that I am suffering from the same malignant tumor that killed my father: glioblastoma multiforme. Every three months we get a health evaluation, and every six months we get a CAT scan. I simply didn't report the very damning symptoms this past eval, and I'll probably be gone before they scan me next. I really wanted to do this instead. Maybe just to be the first, I guess. The only other thing I've ever done with my life is fix computers.


The real secret military base is McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.


The history of the airport was always bound up in military involvement. Before and during WWII, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force were building, storing, training, and doing all sorts of things there. Basically the government (and its corporate benefactors in the military-industrial complex, of course) acquired full ownership of the airport around the time Area 51/Groom Lake exploded in the public eye. It was a rush job, and a simple solution.


For all intents and purposes, McCarran is an airport. It moves civilians in and out and all over the world just like any other airport on earth, but its subterranean operations are really something else entirely.


---------------


First of all, you have to understand the structure of this military base.


Because it serves ostensibly as a business of public transportation, every single aspect of the base has dual functions. This is called “masking,” and it is deployed with remarkable effectiveness at McCarran. To name a few examples, the constant take-offs and landings of airplanes provides sound-camouflage for cutting-edge engine tests. The public completely ignores these sounds and dismiss them as the standard cacophony of airports. Some of the jets themselves are even equipped with technology under test, while others are used to transport hundreds of government employees dressed as vacationing civilians. At any given time in McCarran, up to six of the gates* (corrected by a reader; I initially said terminals) are filled with employees of the highest echelons of the US military and government. They sit around on their iPhones, dressed as college kids in their pajamas or weary businessmen. And they’re paid to look the part.


The entire base is heavily guarded by plainclothes soldiers. Military police, tactical specialists, counter-terrorism forces, and all kinds of soldiers scurry about the airport dressed like cops, airport security, and desk attendants. Their weapons are usually concealed sidearms; the real firepower is packed by the boys waiting around underground. Assault rifles and armor-piercing weaponry is stored around the airport’s public spaces in various places. It’s not hard to do, because nobody’s looking for it. And of course they hire a good number of civilians to work the TSA and other positions; this is called “mixing” and it’s necessary. What kind of airport would never post any job listings?


Have you ever watched the mechanics ducking in and out of the planes outside, or seen your luggage loaded onto the plane as you board? Well, all of that cargo transport activity acts as a cover for the mass movement of special forces, lab equipment, military hardware, exotic building materials, etc. It’s not hard to do. They drive one of those rigs by with all the luggage spilling out of it, and then you instinctively don’t question what’s on the **other** four rigs behind it. We even have mix-ups and spills occasionally, and nobody bats an eye.


You're always exposed to some level of radiation while flying (and McCarran, by the way, is why the standard of safe exposure is set where it's at), but excess radiation from weapons-testing is vented into the earth and out of the nearby desert. Having an airport to explain the radiation is an effective means of ridding the base of nosy folks with Geiger counters. But the true genius of this top-secret military installation is at the largest scale: the base was built under an airport because of the enormity of its power consumption. But it consumes a lot more power than a regular airport, so it was built in a city that consumes a tremendous amount of power – Las Vegas. So the base is hidden from view, even on the electric power grid. Area 51? Not so much. And that’s on purpose.


----------------


**Inside the base**


So if Area 51 is the distraction, what do we call the real one? It has many names, but it’s usually referred to as the “NEXUS.” That’s an acronym, but not many people know what it means. Not even me. Everything about the Nexus, from its operations to its structure, is compartmentalized. That means everything is need-to-know, and virtually nobody knows anything more than their own specific task. You could work in an office in the Nexus doing something like accounting, and never have one single clue what the woman next to you does. Or the guy down the hall. They say not even the President knows exactly what’s going on there, just a few generals and some dudes in the CIA.


The business culture here is insane. It’s like North Korea. Everyone is smiling, everyone is fine, and everyone is happy to say just a few phrases about what it is they do (when we’re allowed to socialize, which is not much). Every line is bugged, every room has a camera in it, and nobody knows who’s watching/listening or when. So that makes you think, nobody here is telling me the truth about anything. Not even the guy I share an office with. I wonder if any of us know why we are here. People you’ve worked with for a long time will suddenly get “reassigned” or have a “medical emergency” and you’ll never see them again. And nobody will remember that person, no matter how many people you ask.


I actually got hired to do some programming for the Navy when I was in my early 20’s out of college, and then got sent to Groom Lake to do server tests. They liked my IT/networking skills, so after a series of strange psychological tests and mountains of non-disclosure agreements and background searches, I got offered a job “at a facility near Las Vegas proper.” Here are a few stipulations of that job, by the way: It’s a $1,500,000 after-tax lump sum plus a $220,000/year stipend, housing/car/medical paid for – but psychological breakdowns, anxiety attacks, grave health conditions, and family issues void the contract. I also sign approximately 2 new non-disclosure agreements *per week*, most of which read “under penalty of death” somewhere. Employees aren’t allowed to leave the grounds for 5 years, and we all live underground. Term of service is 5 years, then 4 in debriefing, wherein we get to live in Vegas but report to another facility four days a week. We are discharged and observed for the rest of their lives. Our passports are permanently void; we cannot ever leave the continental US. I heard a statistic that 20% of former employees commit suicide. I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is, I bet it’s actually “suicide.”


The base is underground. It’s a network of large structures called hives, which form what is called the “Colony” or the “Nexus.” We make lots of Resident Evil jokes, by the way. Except unlike in that movie, the government doesn’t try to make its employees feel comfortable with fake forests and windows overlooking digital cityscapes. It is a dark, dreary, Soviet-style labyrinth of halls and bunkers, replete with all sorts of submarine-like features: water- and air-tight hatches, trap doors, reinforced blast doors, etc. The only exception are the office ‘buildings’ inside where chair-moisteners like me work. They look just like the office you work in. Except the men with guns standing guard 24-7 everywhere, looking over your shoulder. Oh, and the beautiful, almost surreal glow of the cutting-edge laboratories that pock the lower levels of each building. I’ve never been in them, but I’ve passed by a few times.


-----------------


There are **4 hives** to my knowledge (although I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more). I work in Hive 1. I run some of the servers with a few other guys on one particular floor (there are 16 floors in our hive), but we monitor and maintain all of the servers in Hive 1 so we move around a bit. I’ve gotten to skim some of the data that passes through, and from what I can tell, we’re the most boring hive. I’ve compiled the following list based on the things I’ve intercepted on our network and also from hearsay from other coworkers. The Nexus has multiple networks and they’re all decentralized, but there are some ways in which they communicate, and it is via those lines of communication that I am privy to *some* sensitive information. Here’s what I know:


**Hive 1:** finance, accounting, operations/organization divisions, troop training/housing, and some small-scale weapons testing. 


**Hive 2:** Chemical engineering, some nano-tech research, and “advanced psychological fitness,” whatever that means, for elite military forces. Probably black-ops stuff and how to survive thirty years in solitary confinement at a Siberian prison. I also have reason to believe this is the hive where the bigwigs meet and live.


**Hive 3:** Upper levels = bioweapon and disease research/testing. If the government has zombies, they’ve got to be here. I’ve wanted to make so **** many zombie jokes over the years, but I never know which of my coworkers is a rat. Lower levels = Advanced space-travel and space-warfare technologies. Particle engines and gravitational beams and the like (guessing, no real evidence). Science-fiction stuff. I once saw an email with all sorts of coded language, marked “A-B,” which is widely believed to refer to “astrobiology.” That’s alien life. Maybe it’s just some single-celled organisms or fossilized plants from some meteor, or maybe it’s something much more advanced. Whatever it is, there must be some reason it’s not on the upper levels with all the biologists.


**Hive 4:** Total informational blackout. There are encryptions and firewalls and network security features protecting this hive that I’ve never seen before, not even on top-secret Navy projects I worked in the past. I’m being very nonspecific in the language I use to describe our server clusters and networks because I don’t want to tell them exactly who I am. They’ll eventually find out anyway. But there’s a widely-whispered rumor about Hive 4: allegedly, the most terrifying thing in the world is in that structure on floor 15.


There are a few unusual things about Hive 4. First of all, none of the top brass has clearance to get in there. They access it remotely via video feed in their conference rooms, and materials are often transported from 4 to 2 for physical review. I don’t know why our bigwigs won’t go into 4, but maybe it’s because it’s too dangerous? There was one guy who worked in 4 a few years ago when I first started, and he caused the first Nexus-wide lockdown I’ve ever seen. He was being escorted through 1 thumpers (what we call the squads of black-booted soldiers that grant access to different hives), and he started shrieking about IDA’s. I didn’t hear his screams, but I heard the gunshot while I was eating lunch. They put a bullet in the back of his head before he could finish his sentence. IDA’s, by the way, are inter-dimensional anomalies. I have no further information on what those are.


Another thing I’ve read minimally about are “the twins.” I don’t know who or what these are, but they’re the “above-top-secret” gem of Hive 4. It is treasonous to even correspond about them on our secure networks unless you are cleared to do so, and only four employees are. I’ve only seen a few things about them. One was a medical record. No vitals, unusual vocalizations that manifest hallucinations and psychosis in nearby employees, and skin that produces violent nausea when touched. The document was basically speculation that the skin functions much like the Australian stinging tree or a jellyfish.


I read documents about people who worked with them as well. In 4, a woman was remanded to the psychological ward after being in the same room with them, and a soldier who stood outside of the laboratory where they are kept basically killed himself. Specifically, he peeked inside during a routine access, then began bashing his own brains out with the butt of a pistol while singing an Irish folksong. The woman who was remanded to psych was even weirder: during breakfast with her colleagues, she grabbed a fork, stood up, walked out of the mess hall, stripped all of her clothes off, blinded herself in both eyes, then somehow managed to make her way all the way up to Floor 1 where the access corridor to Hive 3 is located. How she managed to operate the dozens of keycard readers, passcode boxes, and retinal scanners is still under review. Last email regarding her was sent in 2012, about how she sits in the dark of solitary on Floor 11’s psych ward with a permanent and blissful grin on her face.


One of my colleagues whom I trust told me that he saw the twins once through hacked access to a video feed. He said they are woman-like, about twice as tall as a full-grown man, with unidentifiable black growths dangling from their heads (like hair but thicker), and they basically float a few inches off the ground and drag their toes lightly as they move. They’re utterly pale. He never saw the faces, but he claims that they appear to distort reality (or at least the video feed) in such a way that space looks bent around them. Perhaps these are the IDA’s that earlier dude was screaming about.


------


This is all I have for now. But hopefully the world knows the truth someday about what goes on down here. We are all basically prisoners. We have very limited and supervised access to the internet, so if you don’t hear from me again, assume they figured me out.


-------


my name is [Felix](http://www.facebook.com/felixblackwellbooks)


edit: Wow, thanks for the gold, stranger!



 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a magician, and I’m pretty sure the kid onstage actually sawed a lady in half.
 
 Assistant: A paranormal circus wasn’t really my kind of thing, but I didn’t have any performances that evening and an anonymous benefactor had sent me a front-row ticket.

The sparkling black-and-purple circus tent was packed with people. I admit that I can be a bit skittish sometimes, and the macabre costumes of the undead clowns that would roam the aisles startled me an embarrassing number of times, but the show was a spectacle well worth the scares. The acts were at once chilling and captivating. I found myself holding my breath as the vampiric knife-thrower stabbed silver blades dangerously close to her prey, and gasped with the rest of the audience when the ghoulish acrobats clung precariously to each other in their aerial act.

Among the extravagantly dangerous performances, though, the show-stopper was none other than the circus magician.

Small and lean and dressed in a purple satin suit, the magician didn’t look any older than seventeen or eighteen. It wasn’t uncommon for young prodigies to enter the performance scene so early, but something about him was different. He exuded a kind of confidence that most wouldn’t learn to have until well into their career, and wore a slightly crooked smile that made him at once charming and dangerous.

As for his tricks, they were nothing short of breathtaking. With a wave of his hand, he turned the flowing purple drapes around the aerial silk dancer into fluttering rose petals and effortlessly caught the dancer in his arms. He called a volunteer to the stage, whispered something in his ear, and made him dance like a puppet on its strings. At one point he simply walked onstage and snapped his fingers, instantly engulfing himself in deep violet flames that rose high into the air before slowly sputtering out as he took a small bow, completely unscathed.

I rarely found much of a challenge in puzzling out the secrets of other magicians’ routines, since my own familiarity with magic usually made it easy to reason out how others would craft their own tricks. The silk turning into petals was a work of clever setup and practiced timing backstage. The volunteer who got hypnotized was most likely planted there. And while a full-body burn was a bold move, these circus performers were probably used to risking their lives daily.

I only began to suspect something was strange when the young magician began to perform a classic stage trick. A slender lady accompanied him onstage and lowered herself into a long wooden crate.

Conventionally, the crate would be placed on a specially designed table, but the table onstage was plain.

The crate was also commonly wide enough to fold the body into, but this one was a tight fit.

The feet sticking out of one side of the crate wouldn’t usually move, but these bobbed as the lady adjusted herself.

Mildly impressed, I was beginning to think of what clever trick the young magician had devised when the giant carpenter’s saw bit deep into the crate and the lady began to scream.

I gripped the edges of my seat and told myself it was just an act as the magician hacked into the crate. The screams grew louder and more frantic, and the crate rattled as the lady twisted in what appeared to be pain, her feet twitching spastically. Thick red blood began to pool underneath the crate.

The magician didn’t so much as blink. His blade and now his hand were stained, and blood dripped from the table as he relentlessly drew the saw back and forth, back and forth. The audience was silent and the lady just kept screaming, until there was an audible *crunch* and she went completely still.

That was a lot of fake blood. I wondered if they had concealed a jug of it somewhere. They must have gotten assistance from some big-shot Hollywood artists to get the black bits and chunks in there.

The magician put down his saw and turned the severed halves of the crate towards us to see. The audience gasped and murmured at the very realistic-looking torso-halves. I peered into the crate itself. Other than the grotesque severed body, it seemed to be empty and plain.

The magician swiveled the crate-halves back together and smiled. His eyes glittered strangely as he took in the suspense. Then he placed his hands on the crate, closed his eyes, and simply breathed for several long moments.

The lady’s eyes snapped open. The audience cheered wildly as the magician opened the crate, helped her to her feet, tidied her now blood-soaked dress, and led her offstage.

As the lights dimmed and the stagehands swooped in to clean up the props, I could have sworn I caught the metallic scent of blood.

==========

Of all the people who could come up to me, I was intercepted by a demonic clown on my way out.

He smiled wide with slit lips and jagged teeth, gesturing for me to follow.

“I don’t really need more pictures,” I said.

He kept gesturing. I let out a small sigh and followed him through the crowd to one of the side exits. We stepped out into the night and he began to lead me around the back of the circus tent.

“Where are we going?” I asked, beginning to grow uneasy.

The clown just smiled back at me.

I followed as far behind him as I could without seeming rude, which really wasn’t very far at all. Before I knew it, we were removed from the crowds at the very back of the circus yard littered with swampy puddles from the afternoon’s rain. Square black tents about the size of typical New York bedrooms occupied the grounds. The clown turned to me and pointed at one.

“You want me to… go inside?”

He nodded.

I swallowed. The clown stepped back in a comically exaggerated manner, as if to pantomime to me his intent not to harm me. Somewhat encouraged by this, I stepped up to the tent and gingerly brushed the drapes aside.

Sitting in the tent at a table with two slender wineglasses, surrounded by glittering yellow fairy lights strung along the walls, was the young magician.

Upon seeing me, he smiled, got to his feet, and held out his hand.

“Mr. Herring,” he said. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

In retrospect, it was incredibly rude of me to not shake his hand, but hearing him speak for the first time combined with the fact that he knew my name caught me off guard. I blinked, dumbfounded.

“You know me?”

“Of course. From the Bellagio escape act, right?”

“Ah,” I felt myself blush a little. “That was a long time ago.”

“Certainly not long enough to forget. Please, come in. I’ve always wanted to speak to you.”

Somewhat awkwardly, I took my seat at the table across from the young magician. The clown walked in carrying a tall bottle.

“I do hope you like champagne.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you old enough to…?”

The magician laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Ah, apologies.”

“No, no, it’s really fine.”

As I sipped the rose-colored champagne, I couldn’t help but study the young magician’s face. Some of his stage makeup was still on, making his angled jawline and high cheekbones stand out. He wore unsettlingly vivid purple contacts that were covered only by the tips of his long thick eyelashes.

He certainly didn’t look old enough for any of this.

“Forgive me,” he said quickly, noticing my staring. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. My name is Alexander Chase. On the stage they call me The Mirage.”

Hearing those words rang a bell at the back of my mind. I had probably heard some of my colleagues talk about him.

“The Mirage,” I echoed. “That’s in the name of the show, isn’****? The Mirage Carnival.”

Alexander smiled. “Yes. This is my show.”

“That’s very impressive. Leading an entire circus troupe.”

“Thank you very much. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Without me?”

“You inspired me to begin performing. The Bellagio escape struck a deep chord, and since then I’ve followed all of your work. I’ve always wanted to be like you.”

This was completely unexpected. I could feel myself swell with pride.

“I dare say you may have already surpassed me,” I said. “The tricks today were very impressive.”

“You don’t know how much those words mean to me, Mr. Herring.”

“Please, just call me Bryan.”

Alexander smiled. “Bryan.”

The way his tongue formed the sounds sent a quiet chill down my spine. In his voice, my own name became mysterious and dangerous.

I was startled off my train of thought when a dozen heavy footsteps broke through the nighttime air, sprinting towards the tent.

“What is that?”

Alexander cursed. “They found me.”

“Who-”

“Quiet.”

More footsteps scrambled to meet the disturbance. There were shouts of alarm and a loud, resounding *crack*.

I looked to Alexander. He narrowed his eyes at the drapes covering the entrance to the tent. The commotion drew closer with every second.

A spray of gunfire tore through the grounds.

“Run,” Alexander said. “Don’t let them see you.”

Before I could process what he said, he grabbed me by the wrist, turned to the back wall of the tent, and swept his other hand through the air. The black fabric wall rippled and peeled open like a flower blooming.

“W-what…”

He waved his hand and the fairy lights blinked out, plunging us into the night. As the last of the glow faded, I thought I saw him take something small and shiny from his pocket and toss it on the floor. Then he leaped out through the hole in the wall, yanking me through behind him, and began to run.

“Alexander-”

“I said quiet,” he snapped in a hushed tone. “And call me Alex.”

Voices shouted behind us, the heavy thudding of boots in pursuit. Another round of gunfire tore through the air. I almost dropped to my knees and scrambled for cover, but Alex kept me running.

We ran out of the circus yard through a break in the fence and onto muddy dirt roads. My joints cramped up and I almost slipped and fell several times, but my adrenaline kept me going. I risked one look behind us but saw nothing in the dark. Police sirens wailed in the distance.

“Bryan,” Alex said.

“Huh?”

“We’re going to jump.”

I strained to see the ground in front of us. Closing in fast was a puddle spanning the entire width of the road, filled with muddy rainwater.

“Wait, Alex-”

“Jump.”

Something in his voice instantly compelled me to leap into the air, hurtling straight for the puddle. I yelped and held out my free hand, bracing myself for a face-first impact into inch-deep mud.

Then we broke the surface and sank deep into the cold murky water.

It was dark. I couldn’t see anything. I was somehow submerged from head to toe, tiny bubbles swirling around me like I had just dove into a pool. I stretched my legs downwards but couldn’t feel the bottom.

Alex squeezed my wrist.

Buried in the sounds of rushing water, I could hear my crashing heartbeat. I held my breath and long seconds passed, until we heard the sounds of boots splashing through shallow puddles directly above us. Then they were gone.

Alex swam upwards, pulling me along. We broke the surface and pulled ourselves onto a strangely smooth and supple floor.

As I caught my breath, soft yellow light flooded the small cubical space. We were back in Alex’s tent, surrounded by fairy lights. Alex’s purple satin suit was dry, and so were my clothes. There was no trace of water on the floor.

There was a *click* behind us.

We turned to see the man in full body armor and a helmet with a reflective visor. He held a pistol pointed at Alex.

Embroidered on his jacket was a patch that read *NSF*.

“Come peacefully,” he said. Perhaps I was mistaken, but his voice sounded like he was shaking. His pistol wavered, trained between Alex’s eyes.

Alex chuckled.

“Ah, you’ve got me. I really didn’t want to put Bryan Herring in danger, but you just had to choose today to storm my town.”

The armored man’s finger trembled on the trigger. He began to reach for the radio at his hip.

I swallowed. “Alex…”

“Now that you’ve seen Bryan with me, I guess it’s gotta be either you or him. Easy choice.”

Alex snapped his fingers. Deep violet flames sprang out of thin air and engulfed the man.

I gasped and scrambled away as the man’s armor caught fire like kindling. Wild gunshots rang out, but the bullets went wide as he twisted and screamed, the flames slowly consuming him.

Alex stood still, watching. A thin smile tugged at his lips. His eyes flickered with the flames, barely concealing something deadly behind them.

I cowered in the corner, only watching because I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

There was no heat to the flames, and instead of the stench of burning flesh, the sweet aroma of roses filled the air. The burning lump of a man crumpled to the floor. Slowly, the screaming diminished to small choking sounds, and after what felt like an eternity, it was quiet.

The flames flickered out. There was nothing left but a smudge of soot on the tent floor.

“Alex,” I whispered. As the adrenaline sputtered, a million questions filled my head.

The young magician let out a small, contented sigh.

“Alex,” I managed, this time loud enough to be heard. I was trembling. “You killed someone.”

“It was you or him, Bryan.”

“How?”

“They saw you with me, which put you in danger. I don’t want you to live my life of being pursued. Not that you could survive long.”

“But…”

He turned to me and put a finger to his lips. “No more.”

"Alex, I really need some answers."

He stared me down with his unsettling gaze. I don’t know what came over me, but I refused to falter. After a few tense moments, his eyes softened.

“One question,” he said.

I thought hard, but the million questions overlapped and echoed in an unbearably confusing chorus.

In the end, I could really only ask one question.

“You’re not human, are you?”

Alex smiled. He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. I looked down at him now, waiting.

“No,” he said simply.

I nodded.

“It’s time for you to go,” he said. “I would love to spend more time with you, really get to talk, but… not today.”

“Will I see you again?”

“One question.”

I pursed my lips.

“When you get home, no telling anyone and no calling the police. Got it?”

I nodded, again.

“It was a true honor meeting you, Bryan. Something I’d looked forward to for years.”

Alex stood on the tips of his toes and leaned in close to my ear.

“Now, be on your way.”

I don’t remember anything after that.

==========

When I came to, I was lying in bed in my house. I had a pounding headache, and I wasn’t sure what day or time it was. It felt like I had been asleep for a long time.

A quick look around the house revealed that the power cord on my landline phone was cut and the antennae on my Internet router broken off. On my kitchen table was a sticky note with something written on it. Albeit shaky, I could recognize my own handwriting.

*1. No telling anyone*

*2. No calling the police*

*See you again* [*soon*](https://www.reddit.com/r/magpie_quill/comments/cs610i/swan_crossing_project_masterpost/)*.*

&#x200B;

[Next](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/crbzgw/im_a_magician_and_i_had_a_runin_with_something/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My husband is driving but won’t stop staring at me
 
 Assistant: 
We finally had two weeks off at the same time, Richard and I.

“Let’s go on a road trip! Somewhere random, somewhere we haven’t been yet. What do you think?” I wanted to leave enough mystery for this idea to be intriguing, and win out over the desire to spend our hard-earned vacation time at home doing spring cleaning.

“Well...” Richard pursed his lips as he weighed his options. I was the spontaneous one, while he tended to opt for more responsible ways to spend time. I put on my best combination of alluring smile and pleading eyes.

“Come on, please? I promise when we come back we can spend the entire rest of the time cleaning every nook and cranny of this place.”

“How about up to Maine?” Richard cracked a grin.

Three days later we had an Air BnB booked and the SUV packed. It had been so long since we had been able to take a trip like this together. I was determined to make the most of it; I spent the better part of the work day after the decision to go researching small seaside towns and activities.

The drive was estimated to be just over 7 hours according to Google maps. While we had a bunch of podcasts and games ready to go, I knew I was going to succumb to my desire to nap on long car rides. There is something about the sound of tires on the highway and the purr of the engine that soothes me. Just as expected, I fell asleep about 4 hours in.

A blaring horn startled me awake, with a semi trailer flying past my window to confirm the source. I rubbed my eyes.

“How long was I out?” I looked for the sun to see if I could estimate the time. “I learned in Girl Scouts how to tell the time from the stars, but I can’t seem to find the Sun. Must be about to set, huh?” My stomach growled so I turned my attention to my purse at my feet.

“Are you hungry?” I asked as I dug around in search of a snack. “All I have in here are mentos and I have no idea how old these are. Is there an exit soon? We can pull off for some food.” I looked back out my window to check for one of those huge blue signs listing restaurants or rest stops.

“Hon? What do you-“ I hadn’t looked at Richard yet. When I glanced at him just then I noticed he was staring at me. Right at me. Just his head was turned 90 degrees, a smile frozen on his face.

“What?” I asked, a smirk creeping to the side of my mouth. We used to do this all the time, playing driver’s chicken. It didn’t take long for my smile to wear away, though. This wasn’t chicken. Normally whoever was driving would always glance back at the road or give up after about 5 seconds.

Richard wasn’t giving up.

“Richard, look at the road!” I whipped my head from his eerie smiling face to the road in front of us.

“You’re going 80 miles an hour! This isn’t funny! You’re going to get us killed!”

I screamed as a red Honda changed lanes right in front of us.

Somehow, Richard smoothly changed lanes right around the car and back. I was looking right into his eyes that whole time. He hadn’t turned away from me, not to look in the rear view mirror, not out the front windshield, not even a little to the side. His eyes were locked onto mine, his smile never faltering. The weirdest thing was how his eyes looked. They were always my favorite feature of Richard’s. Deep mossy green, with perfectly long eyelashes. But now, they seemed darker somehow. It took me a few moments to realize that it was his pupils. They were slowly dilating, swallowing more and more of his iris into darkness.


That was an hour ago. No matter what I did he would not look back at the road. I tried to turn his head, scream, plead, cry, I even slapped him at one point hoping to break him out of whatever trance this was. The only time he moved was when I tried to grab the wheel from him. I won’t try that again.

Even though Richard won’t look at the road, he never hits anything or anyone. We’re still driving north, and I don’t know if he’s going to stop when we reach our vacation town. I don’t know if he is even my Richard anymore. I don’t know if I can call the cops, will they believe me? I’ll sound insane telling them my husband, whose eyes are completely black now, won’t stop driving the car and is just staring at me. Maybe I should try that anyway, I don’t know.

I do know one thing, though. We have to run out of gas eventually.


[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cadyg9/my_husband_is_still_driving_but_wont_stop_staring/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Remembering how to whistle
 
 Assistant: I forgot how to whistle yesterday.

Eventually it came back to me, but I must’ve looked like a fool standing there in the aisle at Target, pursing my lips as I tried to find the right muscle movements. I don’t recall the last time I tried to whistle, so perhaps it was lack of practice that led to my inability to remember how.

Not like riding a bicycle, whistling. Then again, it’s probably been longer since I’ve been on a bike, so I don’t have much faith that skill will return as easily either. And after the hip replacement in ’17, the nasty fall I took last summer down Jared’s steps (I offered many times to help him fix those steps and he never took me up on it), not to mention the dizzy spells and fuzzy vision that just seem to come on with no warning as of late, I’ve no business getting on a bike.

Helen watched me, her brow creased with a look of concern. 

A thought crossed my mind. *Am I still standing there? Was that yesterday? Where am I?* 

But I’m home now, laptop on my bony old knees as I kick back in my Barcalounger with the cat purring on my legs. Helen is here too, knitting on the couch. I must’ve gotten a weird look on my face again because Helen sat her needles down and reached for my hand. I get confused sometimes, but Helen is my beacon, my rock that guides me back. I don’t know how I’d get on without her.

We’re in the living room of our apartment, doing our own things but still together. The television is on, but no one is watching. Just background noise. There was a time when no one wanted background noise; back then the quiet was peaceful. Now the quiet is too loud, filled with passing trucks, the shake of the train rumbling by, even the upstairs footsteps and random squabbles of neighbors. The background noise of life got to be too much to listen to, so we drowned it out with the ambiance of a television sitcom laugh track.

I remember why I tried to whistle yesterday. Helen bent down to get something off the bottom shelf at Target. I thought she’d appreciate that, make her smile, show her that this old goat wasn’t too far addled to whistle at the sexy backside of the woman he married almost sixty years ago. 

But instead of making her smile, I worried her. I must’ve been an awful sight like that, my lips rolling around trying to find the right position to make noise. Probably thought I was having a ****. By the time I found Helen’s eyes and tried to explain I was trying to whistle, the moment had shifted.

As you get older, worry piles on like interest from a loanshark. It doesn’t take long before people are sitting you on a bench, asking if you know your name, what day it is, all that jazz. You have to work through the progression, nod along politely and not get angry about a small misunderstanding that morphed into something bigger than it is.

I wanted to **** my arm away from the Target pharmacist leading me over to a nearby bench and yell out, “Let go of me, I just wanted to whistle at my wife’s sexy bottom, you twit!” But if I do that, it becomes a whole other thing. Then they’ll say you’re angry AND confused, which means they’ll call the cops or an ambulance. Which one they call depends on if you’re in a Target or a Walmart.

That path leads to even more questions, some needle pokes, a different person in a white coat asking the same questions, all which you have to nod and smile along. By now it’s been far too long to share that you only intended to make your wife smile, too many people involved at this point.

An ordeal like that eventually leads to another hushed conversation around the dinner table when the kids visit, deciding if maybe now’s the time to move me to a home. I’m getting too unruly, I need constant supervision, constant care. I get up to go into the kitchen and tell them off but Helen takes my hand, tells me it’ll be alright, nothing’s going to happen.

I remember now, the whistling incident wasn’t yesterday. It couldn’t have been. There’s ice on the windows today. We had gone to Target for sparklers and snap pops for the grandkids for when we went to Jared’s house for his 4th of July party. 

We used to have the party at our place, back when we had a house in the country. But the house was too much for us to manage so we sold it and moved to the apartment we’re in now. First-floor walkup, no stairs. Probably why we hear so many noises too, being ground level right next to the street. Plus the upstairs neighbor is a hefty man, a good guy, don’t get me wrong, but not light on his feet by any means. I tried to tell him he should try to work that weight off, it only gets more difficult as you get older. Daniel I think his name is. Does something with computers. I don’t think he took my suggestion well, even though I meant well by it.

I see Helen furrowing her brow at me again. Did I do it again? Or am I still doing it? *Is this Target? Where am I?*

I’m at home, in the Barcalounger. I go to **** the cat who likes to warm my legs, then I remember we haven’t had a cat for quite some time now. But I could’ve sworn I felt his warmth on my legs, the purring vibrations…

I remember now. We never did get the sparklers, or the snap pops.

I open the door and I’m in a hallway. It’s bright, far too bright for this time of night. Now I’m confused again, like when I tried to whistle at Helen at Walmart yesterday. Or was it Target? Yes, it was Target, we were there to get sprinklers and snap pops for the grandkids for when we went to Jared’s house for his 4th of July party. Maybe **** have fixed the steps by then. That’s where I cracked my hip last year. It was last year, wasn’****?

It wasn’t sprinklers, it was sparklers. We were getting sparklers and snap pops. For Jared’s 4th of July party, which was yesterday. But it wasn’t yesterday, because the window is frosted over with ice, and Helen is… where is Helen?

“Helen?” I call out. She doesn’t answer. I swear her hearing is getting as bad as mine. Maybe I should try whistling for her, she’d have a laugh about that. Did I ever tell her that’s what I was trying to do that day in Target when the ambulance came?

I step into the hallway, but it isn’t our hallway. It’s too bright. Something’s wrong.

“Mr. Sanders?” a voice called out behind me. I turn and see a woman at the nurse’s station. She’s a bigger ****. Maybe I should tell Daniel about her, they’d be good for one another. Or did I tell her about him already? 

Wait, I think I did, when she wished me a Merry Christmas last month. I don’t think she liked the suggestion, but I meant well.

It couldn’t have been last month. Yesterday I was at Target with Helen, buying sparklers and snap pops for the grandkids when we-

“Are you okay, Mr. Sanders?” She asked. I felt her hand on my arm. Reminded me of Helen’s hand. Warm, soft, gentle.

“I… I was looking for Helen,” I said after much deliberation.

Her brow furrowed, much like Helen’s did when she saw me trying to whistle. I must’ve been making the same face.

“She’ll be back soon,” Effie said as she got up from her seat and walked over to me. She walked with grace, even for her size. Not like Daniel. Maybe they wouldn’t be a good match.

“Good,” I said. “I get lost without her, she’s my rock.”

Effie led me back into my room and helped me back into my bed. This place wasn’t that bad. I remember not wanting to come here after I tripped and fell down Jared’s busted step, the same one I offered to help him fix all those times. Forty-five years pouring concrete for a construction company; we could’ve fixed that step in a jiffy. But he said no. 

I told them all I’d be fine at the house. No, not the house, the apartment. We had a first-floor walk-up, no steps.

*Steps.* 

I remember now, Helen fell down the steps too. Did I pull her down with me? There was so much blood. Was she okay? I got worried, I started shaking. *Where is Helen? Where is my wife?* 

I must've startled Effie, because she put her arm around my good hip and pulled me closer to her, steadying me and holding me up as I regained myself. I relaxed a bit. Of course, Helen was fine. Effie told me she'll be back soon. She wouldn't lie to me. Effie knows that Helen is my rock, I get lost without her. I told her so.

Wait, did I just tell her? *Was I talking just now?*

I must have been because Effie nodded and smiled at me as she pulled the warming blanket over my legs. It vibrated softly. It helped with the circulation after the accident.

“Can I get anything else for you?” Effie asked.

“When you see Helen, tell her I’m in here,” I said. “She gets as lost as me sometimes.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning to see Helen in the chair beside my bed. I leaned into it, feeling her warmth against the cold.

“Oh! Here she is,” I said, smiling at Helen. “I thought I lost you for a moment!”

Helen smiled back at me, her eyes bright as ever. I don’t know what I would do without her. She’s my rock.

“I’ll leave you two be, Mr. Sanders,” Effie said. She turned the television on, some old sitcom on TVLand, background noise to cover the sounds of hospital instruments buzzing and beeping.

Before she closed the door she turned and smiled at us. It wasn’t her typical bright smile. It seemed confused; kinda happy, but also kinda sad.

[Maybe she was trying to remember how to whistle.](https://www.reddit.com/user/writechriswrite/comments/dj9mhx/end_of_the_line/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: A man has been standing in the middle of our street for the past 4 days. We can't leave our homes.
 
 Assistant: I awoke to the faint sound of sobbing in the distance. At first my tired mind associated the sound with one of our kids, with my mind barely lingering on the edge of consciousness. But the longer I lay there, the more I started to realize just how “off,” it sounded. The sobs were too dark, akin to those of a grown man, and they were coming from outside our home.


“Can you check on the kids, please…” my wife mumbled where she lay next to me, still partially asleep. 


“It’s not the kids,” I whispered back, more annoyed than anything.


Upon peeking out the window, I quickly confirmed my suspicions. As I thought, there was a man standing in the middle of the street, just sobbing. Even though the ancient street lights outside barely illuminated him, something was clearly wrong about his presence. He stood perfectly still as he sobbed, not even appearing to breathe as he let out the broken calls that shattered the silence of night.


Across the street I could see some of my neighbors lights turn on, as more had clearly been awoken by the sounds of distress. 


“Shut up, will ya,” a man screamed from down the street, but he received no response. 


Though my first instinct was to check if he needed help, something about his appearance locked me in place, frozen from fear and leaving me unable to logically plan out my next move. He was tall, with only a few strands of gray hair emerging from his otherwise bald head. He was facing me, but due to the poor lighting conditions I couldn’t get a clear look at his face. 


About half an hour had passed before I realized I hadn’t moved an inch. I had been transfixed, and only broke free once my wife properly woke up to ask what I was doing. 


“I… I don’t know,” I stuttered. “There’s a man standing on the street. I think he needs help.”


Joanna joined my side at the window. Even in the dark I could tell her face had turned completely pale by the mere sight of the man. 


“What’s wrong?” I asked. 


“Ca-call the police, don’t go outside,” she said with a shaky voice. 


“Why? What did you see?”


“I don’t- I don’t know- just don’t go outside, please,” she begged. 


I grabbed her hand and gently pulled her away from the window. Something about the man had put us both into an undeniable state of panic, but apart from his unsettling look, there wasn’t an explainable reason for the fear we felt. 


“Joanna, go check on the kids. I’ll call the police, alright?” I half ordered, half asked. 


She nodded, and basically jogged down the hallway towards our kids’ room. 


As I dialled 911, I wondered what I could possibly say to convey the threat of a seemingly harmless man, just standing there and crying. Still, left without any other options, I turned to the police. 


“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a woman asked on the other end. 


“Eh, sorry. My name is Zack Larsen. There’s a man standing in the middle of the street just crying loudly. I don’t know if he’s **** or what, but he’s scaring the kids. I ehm… I can’t really say it’s an emergency, but something is definitely wrong with the man,” I explained. 


“Alright sir, we’ll send a patrol car to check it out. Could you confirm your address please?” she asked. 


I confirmed my details and the conversation ended. Due to the quiet night, they estimated that a patrol car would swing by in just under ten minutes. With that, I felt like my civic duties had been completed, and once Joanna returned to tell me that the children were fast asleep, I calmed down ever so slightly. 


After closing the blinds, the two of us headed back to bed, confident that the police would handle the situation. And I wish that would be the end of our story, I truly do, but as fate would have it, things would only get worse from there. 


There I lay in bed, too unsettled to fall asleep. I just stared at the ever ticking clock as an hour passed. The man kept crying, producing unrelenting sobs with each passing second. Then two hours passed, and the police had still not appeared. By then, I considered checking out the window once more, but the mere thought of him standing there kept me from even parting the curtains. 


At around four in the morning I had come to assume that I’d suffer through another sleepless night. But as the first rays of orange sunshine hit the blinds, the world around me fell dark, forcing me into a dreamless slumber. To my horrors, the sobs wouldn’t cease even then.


Hours passed while I remained in an uncomfortable state; somewhere between full consciousness and true sleep… 


***


Once I finally awoke I was met with little more than total darkness coming from outside. During the summer I’d expected the sun to rise at around six, and since the time had been around four the last time I checked, I knew I couldn’t have been under for more than thirty minutes. Despite that logic, my body felt beyond broken. I was excruciatingly parched, and my bladder was on the brink of rupture.


I rolled out of bed, weak and broken, still hearing the sounds of the crying man. Meanwhile, my wife still slept peacefully, seemingly unbothered by the ungodly noise.

 
Then I picked up my phone and checked the time. It read 12:03 AM, an impossible hour considering it had been four mere moments ago. I stumbled over to the window, still petrified, but determined to figure out exactly what the **** was going on. 


He just stood there, unmoved since the last time I laid eyes upon me. Down the road I noticed an empty patrol car with the lights blinking, but the officers themselves were nowhere in sight. 


“What the **** is going on?” I mumbled to myself. 


As before, the sight of the man put me into a sort of trance, one that was only broken once I heard a tiny voice coming from behind me. 


“Why is the man crying?” my son asked. 


“Hey, Alex, where’s your brother?” I asked back. 


“He’s in his room. He wet the bed,” he said matter-of-factly. 


Steven was only five, but I’d assumed his bedwetting days were a thing of the past considering the last accident had been over a year earlier. Before checking on him, I decided to give the police another call. But before I could dial the number, I noticed the day. It was Saturday, which meant we'd been asleep for almost twenty-four hours, skipping over Friday entirely. 


“Alex, go back to your room. Daddy has to make a call, then I’ll come check on you, alright?”


In shock, I jotted the information down to a broken calendar, and called the police once more. Alas, to my absolute horror, I didn’t have a single bar of signal. 


“Oh, ****, we slept through the entire day, how?” my wife called out in confusion and embarrassment. She’d just rolled over herself to check the time.


“I don’t know…” I responded meekly, “it doesn’t make any sense.”


“And that guy is still crying? Where’s the police?” she asked. 


“Their car is standing there, but they’re just… gone…”


As the minutes went by, it dawned on me that we actually had missed an entire day. That’s why Steven had wet the bed, and why my own bladder was on the verge of exploding, because we’d somehow been sedated. We’d been forced to sleep through the day, only to suffer the horrors of night.


But as parents we had an incredible ability to reevaluate our priorities. Regardless of the situation, we’d deal with our kids first. We headed over to clean up Steven’s bed, all the while we tried to come up with an exit strategy. We tried out each and every phone, hopelessly calling for help. When the phones failed, we tried the internet; which turned out to be just as futile.


“Try the television,” Joanna finally suggested. 


Upon turning the ancient device on, we were met with little more than a staticy mess. It was a screen of snow mixed with just barely intelligible images. Based on what we could guess, the image showed the outline of a man standing in front of the camera. Overlaid only by a single line of text that read: “Come outside.”


“How is it doing that?” Joanna asked in panic. 


“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure going outside is a **** **** idea,” I blurted out, momentairily forgetting there were kids around. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it that way.”


Joanna and I moved to the window, ordering the kids to stay away. On the other side of the street, one of our neighbors stumbled out, seemingly disoriented. He was wielding a bat.  


“I’m going to **** you up!” he yelled. 


I pulled the window open, ready to yell at him to get back inside. No sooner had our neighbor reached the crying man, than the air fell to a deafening silence. A second passed, then the sobs were replaced by a maniacal laughter that increased in intensity for each passing moment. 


Though we all knew the laughter came from the man, it simultaneously sounded like someone was standing inside our own house. It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, enough to knock us to the ground in absolute agony. 


“Close the window!” Joanna screamed. 


I quickly did as commanded to no avail. Despite our efforts, the laughter remained as incessant and loud as ever. Then as suddenly as it had begun, it just stopped.



“What was that?” Alex cried as Joanna grabbed both him and Steven in a tight hug. 


“Shh, it’s okay,” she said as comforting as she could, “just stay away from the windows, alright?”


By the time I could stand up to assess the situation, our neighbor had long since vanished. All that was left in his absence was a trail of blood and guts that led up to the monster of a man, who’d promptly returned to sobbing relentlessly.


“He’s gone…” I let out in merely a whisper. 


The next hours were spent in absolute silence. All we could do was to wait for sunrise and pray for a hopeful escape. We kept the television on, should any news appear. Our kids, while worried, were too young to fully grasp the gravity of the situation. In a way I envied them. They saw us as their ultimate guardians, able to protect them from any harm in the world. But based on what we’d just witnessed, I didn’t believe that to be true. 


We moved to the kitchen to grab some food, counting down each minute until daylight. But as I noticed the first orange hue appear on the horizon, I once again felt my legs give up beneath me. In less than a second, darkness had enveloped me, and I fell unconscious on the floor. 


***


Once again we awoke around midnight the next night, meaning yet another day had come and gone. But that time we didn’t have any phones or computers to tell us the date, as the batteries had long since died. All we had were a couple of wristwatches to tell the time.




Still the sobs persisted. It had gotten ever so slightly louder since our neighbor got killed, but despite the obvious calls for distress, there wasn’t a single hint of sadness portrayed in his broken cries. The more we listened, the less we believed the man to be human.


“Let’s turn on the lights, that thing is creeping me the **** out,” Joanna said. 


I flicked the switch, but nothing reacted. After futilely checking every powersource in the house, including the circuits, I realized that the entire neighborhood had gone dark. That’s when my wife asked a question that truly caused all hope to abandon my body.


“Why haven’t they come to help us?” she asked. 


I didn’t have a good answer, nor could I muster up any believable words of comfort. I could only do my best to protect my family from the horrific threat looming over the neighborhood until I myself finally succumbed to it. 


That night we witnessed another three neighbors exit their homes in futile attempts at confronting the man. Each time that sickly laughter would ring through the air, and another friend would be dead. They didn’t even resist their deaths, they just walked over without showing a hint of emotion, willingly meeting their agonizing demise.


It wouldn’t be until the third night, before I finally began to understand why people walked outside. We’d been forced to sleep through the light of day, only to be left without any source of light during the night. Having nothing else to do, we could only listen to the crying man. His sobs that had started out as panic inducing noises, had somehow turned sympathetic. The emotion resembled a twisted version of Stockholm Syndrome. I wanted so desperately to go out and meet the crying man, but I couldn’t leave my family behind. 


“Maybe he really does need help,” Joanna suggested, “I think I think it’s time to go outside.”


Her words were so void of emotion, monotonous and cold. She stood up to leave, but I grabbed her before she could even approach the door. The shock seemed to briefly bring her back to reality. 


“Think about the kids,” I begged her, “they need us.”


My words seemed to break her free from her trance, if only temporary. 


“I know, I know. I don’t understand what I was even thinking. I wasn’t myself,” she cried. 


But her brief lucidity wouldn’t last, because as I packed away the leftovers from the previous night, I heard the front door unlock. The kids had already fallen asleep, and I knew I was about to follow suit. Still I rushed over, only to see my wife getting ready to leave. 


“I’m sorry,” were the last words she spoke to me before she left the house. 


Darkness would cover my eyes before I got a chance to react. The sickening laughter would be the only sound that accompanied me as I fell into a forced slumber… By the time I awoke Joanna was just gone, the only trace of her existence was a trail of coagulated blood glistening in the light from the streetlights, leading up to the man. I didn’t even have to call out for her, I knew she was dead. 


Which brings us to now… Four days have passed since the crying man first appeared on our street. We have enough food to last about another week, but I fear we’ll all be gone long before then. I’ve seen most of my neighbors meet their demise, and the only facts keeping me from doing the same are my kids. But they too, have expressed a desire to go outside, and I don’t know how long I can keep them safe. 


I’m documenting this as my last words before we depart this world. I’ve used an almost empty powerbank to write this message. I don’t really have any signal, but I’m hoping that it somehow gets through, people need to know what happened here.


If you are reading this, please send help. I don’t know how long I can keep resisting [the cries.](https://www.facebook.com/richard.saxon.author)


[X](https://reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: To the man under my house.
 
 Assistant:    


Thank you. Thank you so, so much. 

I live in a small, 1100 sq. foot, ranch style home. I've lived here for 7 years and never had a complaint, until just last year. 

My wife and I always joked that our home was haunted. Things were always moving around or disappearing completely from where they were left last. 

"You have a terrible memory," my wife would say, blaming me when something went missing.

"When you lose something it's just the ghost, but when I do I'm an idiot?"

More than a few dumb arguments started because of these paranormal events that took place.

My wife was convinced the ghost made its home in our basement, claiming that when she goes down to do laundry, it watches her.

"I can feel it!" She tried to convince me. I didn't have any clue how close to right she was.

It was a dark Sunday night. Not just some "*it's getting late*" darkness, but an eerie, star obscured, pitch black. 

Our weekend was nearing a close and our sights had shifted to work the following morning. We couldn’t have been less prepared for the impending chaos.

My wife was lying on the couch, reading a book while completely under a blanket, one of her many lovable quirks.

“I always did it as a kid and it reminds me of being young,” she told me with a smile, back when I first caught her doing it before we were married.

I had been working on my laptop, preparing for a deadline that I had been under prepared for that upcoming week.

From under the blanket just a few feet away on the couch I heard my wife’s *I need you to do something* voice.

“Sweetie..”

I rubbed my eyes and looked over at the shifting blanket as she peeked out from underneath.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Will you get the laundry from the dryer?”

I sighed. I knew she had scared herself with whatever she was reading, and now wouldn’t go down to the basement because of it.

“Fine,” I said, annoyed by the minor inconvenience but secretly glad to get away from my computer.

“I love you.”

I could hear the words as they exited her smiling lips.

“I love you too, goofball.” I covered her face again with the blanket.

I began my march to the basement, flicking on the light switch at the top of the stairs and slowly trudging down the creaking wooden steps.

The basement has always been a good 10 or more degrees cooler than the rest of our home, a fact that didn’t help to ease my wife's fear of being alone in it.

It is completely unfinished with cement floors and exposed wooden beams in the walls. I had intended on finishing it when I had the money, but that day had yet to come.

The dryer was off with a green light blinking, indicating a finished load. I pulled open the door and started heaving the clothes in large, two handed hugs, into a basket. 

Before I had finished I heard something pop, followed by the sound of wood hitting concrete. My heart jumped. As afraid as I was in the moment, I knew I couldn’t justify my wife's fear of the damned souls looming in our basement. I gathered myself and then walked around a corner wall to another empty, square room where the sound had originated from.

Along an internal section of wall, nearest the ceiling, was a now open and dark tunnel-like space that was comprised of earth and, in some spots, support structures of the house.

On the hard cement floor was a piece of wood that had covered the crawl space originally.

“How did this fall?” I asked myself.

I considered, in that moment, getting my hammer and nails to cover the space again. But as I stood in the small section of the basement that I had seldom visited, I felt something. I felt someone. The sensation of someone watching me was undeniable. I hadn’t felt it during my previous visitations to the basement, however, in my wife’s defense, she did the laundry far more often than I.

I stood there, motionless as I looked into the dark crawl space that I hadn’t known existed.

“Hello?” I called, hoping my wife wouldn't hear.

“Ryan!” She called from upstairs, her voice muffled by the floorboards that separated us. She never used my name like that unless it was serious.

I pried my eyes from the deep abyss and ran up the stairs as fast as my body would allow.

“What’s going on?” I said, panting and looking around the living room.

The blanket on the couch was vacant now.

“Sweetie, don't **** with me - I coulda tripped up those **** stairs.”

There was nothing. I never knew her to be a prankster, nor was she sneaky in any sense of the word.

I made for our bedroom which is nearest the rear of the home. The lights were off and I hadn’t had my phone on me. I walked inside and could only make out our messy bed illuminated by the light that barely crept in from the living room.

“Christina?”

It was then that they made themselves known.

A man gripped my throat from behind me. I struggled as much as I could, the sheer surprise and terror coursing through my veins. 

He tightened his grip as I wrapped my fingers around my door frame. He had been directing our struggle into the hallway and I wasn’t going easily. When I thought I was finally shaking his grip loose, a second person approached us and rammed my head into the wall.

I could feel the blood leaking down my face slowly. My vision was faded now and motor skills had been dialed down to 2. 

They silently directed my body back to the basement stairs and tossed me down.

“Christina..” I could barely even formulate her name with my lips as I stained the concrete with my blood. I tried to lift myself but sent a shock of pain through my arm as I realized I had broken several fingers.

I lifted my head and watched as 3 figures made their way down the basement stairs behind me. The last one had her in his arms. She was bound like a trophy deer and unable to speak through the duct tape that was wrapped several times around her head.

“****- **** you,” I managed.

They dropped her carelessly to the floor with a thud. I shook my head and felt tears filling my eyes.

One of the men approached me and grabbed my leg before dragging me closer to her in the center of the basement.

I tried to look into her eyes. They had hit her too hard and now she was barely conscious.

“Its OK, you’re gonna be alright,” I mumbled quietly through my tears to her, unsure she could even hear me.

Behind us the 3 men had been gathered, silently whispering to one another as they pulled supplies out of a duffel bag.

My strength had left me completely. I was sure that I had broken a leg as well as my fingers, and my head injury made comprehension of anything a difficult task. I shifted my hand that still had function up to my face and wiped away the blood and tears from my eyes.

The men had dispersed and began making a shape on the ground around my wife and I with spray paint. They filled the room with odd rune like symbols before lighting candles.

“What is this?” I yelled through my pain. The men were unfazed and continued finishing up the process.

I heard a muffled grumble coming from my side. I writhed over and saw her blinking back to consciousness.

“Shhh, it’s OK,” I said, brokenhearted and panicking. I watched tears fall from her cheeks onto the cold ground.

A hard kick to my ribs pulled me out of the moment, and I could hear her whimpering through the tape.

The men were laughing. The sadistic **** laughed as they took turns kicking me and my wife as we lay helpless on the ground. I could hear her gasping for air, and suddenly none of my pain mattered.

When they finally grew tired, I struggled to listen as they whispered something about sacrifice.

I needed it to end. Her suffering. I couldn't watch her in pain - choking and crying in a puddle of her own making. The flashbacks came as every story and movie predict. She was so beautiful the day we first met. Sarcastic but quick to apologize if she thought she offended you. She loved laughter and only lived to please the people around her. Selfless and gentle.

There was a change in the demeanor of our attackers. Where before everything was a game to them, now they seemed much more serious.

One of them approached Christina with a small knife in hand.

“Through pain, through suffering, we summon thee.” His voice spoke, breaking their long silence.

I couldn’t watch as he hunched down over her, silent tears falling from her eyes.

“Please..” I said, desperate for divine intervention.

And then, he came. From the corner basement room, a strange figure shambled into view. He appeared to be gaunt and ****, but my blurry vision failed to harvest any detailed imagery.

The men were transfixed with the violent ritual they were performing, and so the man went unnoticed.

I didn’t need clear vision to perceive how lightning quick his reflexes were. I resisted the urge to blink as he disarmed the man with the knife, and cut out his adam's apple.

The other men stood shocked and hesitant to react. 

When one of them finally dared to retaliate he found himself face first on the ground with stab wounds up and down his legs, rendered incapable of walking.

The third man had clearly gone into a state of shock. He attempted to flee toward the stairs, but the **** man caught him quickly and viciously carved at his face.

I couldn’t fathom what was going on. My wife was whimpering still, but had as full a view to what was happening as I did.

The **** man stood to his feet, covered in blood, and clenching the knife. He approached me slowly, turning me onto my back to face him.

I could see now that he hardly looked human at all. His arms and legs were covered in what must have been years worth of exposure to dirt, and his eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dark.

I attempted again to wipe my eyes when he held out his hand. He was grasping the blade of the knife now and toward me he pointed the hilt.

I accepted.

He lifted me to my feet and directed me toward the second man who he had rendered unable to walk.

“No! Please!” He said, visibly trembling.

Those words meant as much to me then as they did to him just a few minutes before.

I won’t say here what happened next. I can’t. But the next morning, after a lot of deliberation, the police and several ambulances escorted 3 corpses from the property.

My wife and I are blessed. We shouldn’t be alive, and yet here we are, a year later. She’s pregnant now and we can’t wait for our family to grow from 3 to 4.

I still don’t know much about the man under my house. He respects our space and we respect his. What we do know now is that he loves fried food. There’s not much you can do to say thank you to someone who saved the life of your entire family, but I think that a bucket of fried chicken every night is a good start.

From our family to yours. Stay [safe.](https://fb.me/ryrywrites)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a hitman -- but I’m not allowed to kill my next target
 
 Assistant: Michael Zinsky wasn’t my usual type of client.

He wasn’t a spurned lover, looking for revenge. Or a murderer, looking to **** out the witnesses to his crime. Or a husband, hungry for his wife’s insurance policy.

He was just an ordinary guy, looking out for his sister.

“I wouldn’t normally resort to… such drastic measures. But Harold has become so awful. Treats her like garbage. Doesn’t give a rat’s **** about her, or anything, except for that **** band he sings in with his work buddies.” He blew his nose loudly. “You understand that – right, Switchblade?”
 
I winced. “Uh, that’s just my alias, Michael. You shouldn’t… like… actually call me that in casual conversation.”

“Then what should I call you?”

I blinked. Clearly, he had never done *anything* like this before. “Uh, do you have the cash?”

His eyes darted around the diner. Then, from his pocket, he pulled out a **** of hundred-dollar bills.

“You can’t just – they’ll see it!” I hastily threw him one of the napkins. “Wrap it up in that. And do it *discreetly.*”

He wasn’t discreet – but, thankfully, the diner was nearly empty at this hour. “It’s *twice* your usual rate,” he whispered, very loudly. “I wanted to give you a big tip, so you’ll do a good job.”

*A tip? You’re not ordering an ice cream cone, Michael. You’re ordering a hit.* But I took the cash, smiled, and buried it deep in my pocket.

“And I don’t want you to **** him.”

*What?*

“Michael, you know I’m a hitman, right?”

“Yes. But Nancy needs his income – she’s been a housewife for the past twenty years. No work experience, no education past high school. There’s no way she could support herself on her own.”

“*You* could support her, with the cash you just gave me.”

He shook his head. “I’ve tried. She won’t let me. Cares too much.”

I sighed. “Well, okay. Suppose I did take you up on this… job. What do you even want me to do to him, if not **** him?”

“I don’t know! Scare him. Threaten him. Just make him stop being so terrible to her.”

“But it’s risky business. I mean, **** know what I look like, and –”

“You’ll go on Sunday morning. **** be napping alone in the house – won’t even see you come in.” Michael looked down at the table, and then added: “It’s the only time he’s ever alone in the house. The only time… he *lets* her leave.”

My belligerence evaporated, and I felt a pang of sympathy. “It’s that bad?”

He nodded.

“Okay. I’m in.”

---

The house was a tiny little thing, shoved into the gap between a massive brownstone and a dilapidated food mart. It would be a challenge to do it without any witnesses.

Good. I like a challenge.

I snuck through the backyard, creatively using the various bushes and fencing to hide from onlookers. I then stepped into the open window, like Michael told me to.

The knife was heavy in my hands.

I turned left at the kitchen, and crept into the living room. In the center stood a microphone, a music stand, and some sheet music – presumably for Harold and his band. Nancy’s needlepoint supplies were pushed into the corner, taking up as little space as they possibly could.

I walked into the next room.

And there, in the armchair, sat Harold.

Fast asleep.

I retrieved the chloroform from my pocket. With the grace of a dancer, I lay it against his nose.

And then I set to work.

---

I visited Nancy myself a few weeks later.

I like to do that sometimes. Pose as a friendly neighbor, see how their lives have changed in the wake of my work. Yes, I know it increases my chances of getting caught. But, as I said, I like a challenge.

When she flung open the door, her eyes were bright, and she wore a smile.
	
“Hi! I’m Smith Baker,” I said. “Just moved here – a few houses away from you, behind the food mart.”

“Oh, how nice! Please come in.”

She led me into the living room, and I smiled. The music stand and other equipment were thrown haphazardly in the corner; Nancy’s needlepoint was sprawled across the sofa, taking up as much space as it possibly could.

“Smith, this is my husband, Harold.”

He just stared at me. Still, silent, pale.

And then he started shaking wildly, clawing at the raw, red mark across his throat.

“Oh – sorry – I should explain.” She sat down, with a small smile. “He’s not trying to be rude. It’s just that… well, he had an accident, a few weeks ago. And now he can’t speak, I'm afraid.”

She patted his arm, comfortingly, as he clung to her. “Or sing, unfortunately.”

Hmm.

An “accident.”

That, mysteriously, cut his vocal cords –

And left the rest of him untouched.

I could see Harold’s hands shaking, his lip trembling. I wonder if he was thinking about the first thing I said to him, when the chloroform wore off.

*If you don’t treat Nancy right – I’ll slit your throat again.*

*And next time, you'll lose more than just your voice.*

I smiled at Harold. “Would you like a cookie?” I asked, holding out the tray. “I baked them [myself.”](https://www.facebook.com/scaryblair)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. We see a lot of strange and disgusting things, but what I saw last week has me questioning both my job and reality [Part 2]
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dlhqu6/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

I wanted to just forget about the things I saw. But, no matter how hard I try, I can’t erase them from my mind. I’d like to think that I’m a good man, but there comes a point where sheer terror outweighs one’s sense of decency no matter how good you are. I think I’ve reached that point.

I wasn’t planning on writing this, but more things have happened, and I found something…horrible. There’s no other way to explain it. I don’t know how much longer I can remain here. I can’t sleep anymore. I just keep dreaming about those **** things I saw.

I’ve been plagued by nightmares about them for the past two nights. It always seems so real. At first, I’m asleep in my bed, then suddenly those arms are rising up from the darkness around me, pinning me down and covering my mouth. I struggle, but they’re so strong. I especially remember the **** smell. It’s like old grass clippings and rotten fish mixed together. The next thing I know, I’m awake, retching with tears streaming down my face.

However, even those terrible dreams are nothing compared to what has happened in the past two days. Especially compared to what I saw last night. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve packed my bags. I think I might leave soon. I need to get away from this **** place.

A couple days ago, not long after my initial post, I received a call about a body found near the river. I felt a cold sensation in my gut when I got there and realized that it had been found right where the boy disappeared.

I approached the bank to see Moose and two others standing over what a body. Their backs were to me, and I could hear one of them speaking angrily. He was practically shouting.

“****. ****. ****.” It was Clyde, one of the other more experienced SAR divers. As I got closer, I saw that the other one was Ryan. I felt chills run down my spine. All three of the senior divers were in one place. I recalled the things Moose said to me last week as well as the knowing glances I’ve seen those three share. Something was up. “Do you think it was him?” Clyde asked.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Moose said.

“I heard voices by the river last night.” Ryan said suddenly. The other two went silent and stared at him.

“The lures?” Clyde asked. His voice was hushed, and I could barely make it out.

Ryan nodded. “Almost definitely.”

“That breaks the agreement, though,” Clyde said. “He’s not supposed to use those anymore.”

“Well he is, for whatever reason.” Ryan turned to Moose. “Any idea what’s going on?”

Moose started to respond when a twig snapped beneath my weight. The three older men whirled around to look at me. That iciness was still in Moose’s eyes, but I also noted a twinge of fear.

“About time you got here,” Clyde said from beside him, seemingly unaware that I had been standing there for a while. “We’ve got bad news.” He stepped aside so I could see the body more clearly.

My blood ran cold the moment I laid my eyes on it. I was already reeling from the conversation I had just overheard, and the sight of the body only compounded that confusion. It was Michael, one of the new search and rescue divers. He laid on his back in full scuba gear minus a mask. I moved forward and knelt beside the body. Michael was new to search and rescue, and he had actually recently attended a few classes I taught. Tears stung my eyes as I stared down at him. What the **** happened?

As if in response to my silent question, Moose spoke up. “For some reason he was diving in the river. We think he got swept up in a strong current and hit his face on a rock, knocking his air regulator off and causing him to drown. We haven’t found the regulator or his mask anywhere.”

I continued to stare down at the dead man in front of me. “Why was he in the water?” I asked.

The three men exchanged glances. “We don’t know,” Clyde said. “We think he may have been looking for that boy we never recovered.”

I knew they were lying. Michael was one of the most straight-edge divers I’d ever met. He would never break a minor safety regulation, let alone go diving alone in rough waters. It just didn’t add up.

Additionally, there was another reason their claim didn’t make sense. Michael had been out of town visiting family on the day the boy went missing. Why would he come back if he wasn’t even there for the initial search? He wouldn’t even know where to look.

I knew not to argue though. I didn’t want them to know I suspected anything. Clyde and Ryan were unaware I’d been to Badwater, assuming Moose kept his secret. From what I could tell, he had. They acted as they always had toward me.

Just then an ambulance pulled up. The others left me alone with Michael’s body while they talked to the driver. As I looked at the body, I realized something was off. There weren’t any contusions on his face. If the current had actually dashed him against a rock, there should at least be a bruise. But there was nothing. His face was completely unmarred.

At that moment I noticed something strange. A bruise peaked out from the neck of his dive suit. I pulled the rubber down to reveal a splotchy blue and black mark that circled his neck. It looked like he had been strangled. My thoughts immediately turned to those strange hand things I had seen at Badwater. But if that’s what killed him, then why did they let him go? Was it a warning?

A deep sense of dread settled into my stomach just then, and it’s only gotten worse ever since. After the ambulance took Michael’s body away, I returned home feeling drained. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything that day and only sat in cold silence. I slept fitfully that night, plagued by the nightmares I mentioned earlier.

Most of yesterday passed in the same cold silence as the day before. I felt numb. The conversation I had overheard between the older divers kept playing over and over in my head. What did they mean by lures? Who was this *him* that they kept referring to?

I recalled what Ryan had said about hearing voices near the river. That must be the lures they had been talking about. As I sat there, my numbness faded and was replaced with anger. Michael was dead and it had something to do with Moose and his secrets. It probably had something to do with those lures too. I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I was going to see what Ryan had meant when he said he heard voices.

I wish I hadn’t gone. I should have just stayed home and let it go. There are some things in the world that should just remain unseen.

I wandered the riverbank for thirty minutes, hearing nothing but the sounds of nocturnal animals. I was about to head back when I heard something just out of earshot. It sounded like someone’s voice. The sound grew louder as I headed up the bank until I could finally make out what it was saying.

“Help! Please, I can’t swim.”

Instincts took over and I began to sprint in the direction of the voice. I eventually lost track of where I was and stumbled blindly through the underbrush, barely even using my flashlight and relying on my hearing. Finally, the voice came from the water right next to me. It sounded like a child. I was about to wade into the river when something stopped me in my tracks.

I listened to the voice carefully.

“Help! Please, I can’t swim.”

It was the exact same words, over and over again, as if it was being played on loop. The tone was exactly the same every time. It didn’t sound right. They were yelling, but it didn’t sound like someone who was actually scared. There was no urgency to their voice.

My heart pounding in my chest, I shined my flashlight along the river. That was when I saw it.

A face pressed out of the mud of the riverbank. Like the hands I’d seen, it was seaweed green and roots grew from its edges and into the surrounding earth. It was like someone had constructed a human head out of algae or moss. The mouth opened and closed, repeating the same call for help over and over again, while the rest of the face remained flat and emotionless.

My whole body shook as I stared at the thing. Just beyond it, in the water, I saw two of those hands reaching up from the shallows, grasping for anything and everything. A cold realization came upon me. Michael must have heard that thing’s calls for help and immediately suited up, only to dive in and find himself dragged under by those groping hands. This is what Ryan had meant by lures. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched the eerie face continue to yell.

The cries grew quieter and more spaced out until the face became completely silent. Then, without warning, it retreated into the earth, burying itself in a thin layer of mud. I shuddered to think about that thing just beneath the surface. Then I realized that there could be more. Who knew how many of them were lurking just below me?

I sprinted back to my car, disgust driving me more than fear. When I got home, I sat up all night thinking about what I saw. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours just before sunrise but was woken by the nightmares once again.

I don’t know what to do anymore. There are twisted things happening here and, even if I did have the power to stop them, I don’t think I want to face this darkness alone. It feels like some great puzzle and I’m missing the one or two pieces I need to bring everything together. I’ve packed the bare necessities into bags which now sit by my front door. I think I’m going to leave. Problem is, I don’t know where I would go. I don’t have family outside of town, and I don’t exactly have a fortune in my savings account.

Still, some part of me feels obligated to stay. Both out of curiosity and because I owe it to Michael. ****, not just Michael. I owe it to the countless people who have likely fallen victim to those things in the river. Isn’t that why I took this job in the first place?

I have much to think about. If this is my last post, know that I moved away and never looked back. If I do investigate further, I’ll try to keep you guys updated, so long as those **** hands don’t get me [first.](https://reddit.com/r/travisliebert)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dnh0yb/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was almost involved in a school shooting
 
 Assistant: I’ve been wanting to get something off of my chest for a very long time. The only person who knows the whole story is my wife, and she didn’t find out until we were already engaged. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this, because anyone who knows will think ill of me. It’s been fifteen years since these events took place, so I finally feel safe enough to talk about them anonymously. 


I had a really hard time in high school. Traumatic events in my childhood combining with hormonal changes didn’t make me the most easy going guy. I’d consider myself handsome now, but at the time I was 5’4’, paler than fresh linen and bone thin. My hobbies were all indoors and solitary in nature and I found it hard to make friends. I was the “lone wolf” that everyone warns you about. 


The only friend I had in the world was my creative writing teacher, Mr.Artis. He was an older guy but I think he saw some of himself in me. He let me hide out in his office to avoid the jocks who taunted me daily. We would talk about writing and what we were reading, but most of the time we just talked about life. 


He had talked me down a few times. I was massively depressed, suicidal even. I never went through with my plans because he was always there for me. He talked me through things that I thought no one else would understand. He understood the anger like no one else did. I hated the boys who would bully me, I hated the girls who would giggle at me as I walked by, I hated the teachers who turned a blind eye, or the ones, like my gym teacher, who almost encouraged it. 


I think if it weren’t for Mr.Artis, I wouldn’t be here to tell my story. If I hadn’t had him to talk to, to confide in, the self loathing and anger and disgust would have bubbled over a lot sooner than it did. I’m thankful for that. 


My Junior year of high school, Mr.Artis got sick. They didn’t tell us what he had, but he missed almost a month of classes. Not having anyone to talk to, took a toll on me. I wasn’t allowed in his office alone, so I lost my hiding place. Being around more often meant that I was an easier target. The assholes who tormented me day in and day out, stepped up their game.


Almost every day was torment. The bullying escalated from just taunting me to physically hurting me. I was punched square in the nose one day, another time, they slammed my hands in my locker door and locked it shut. 


On top of everything going on at school, my mom and dad had been fighting for a while. The week of the event, my mom left. Neither of my parents understood me, but mom tried. Leaving me alone with my father is something that I still haven’t forgiven her for, fifteen years later. 


I know what I did was ****. I know that it was the most drastic solution to something that would change over time. I didn’t see it that way though. My dad kept a gun in the attached garage. It was loaded and tucked away for emergency situations, like going to the shooting range with his buddies.


On Monday, I took the gun to my room. Dad didn’t notice that it was missing, because the drawer where it’s kept is mostly empty. I posed with it in the mirror, practicing my icy stare. I knew right away what I wanted to do, although the thought of just using it to blow my own brains out crossed my mind a few times. I didn’t want to go out like that though, I wanted to leave a lasting impression.


I counted the bullets in the gun seventeen times; there were only three. I didn’t know where to find more ammo, so I knew that I would have to make every shot count. One bullet was for John Carter the **** who filled my locker with **** filled balloons. The second bullet was for Mike Wallace who catfished me for weeks pretending to be a girl in our class, and then stood me up when I asked “her” out. The final bullet was for myself, I didn’t want to go to jail, and I sure as **** didn’t want to keep living. 


On Friday morning I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans, wearing a big hoodie to cover the bulge. Everything felt different, entering the school, like I was dreaming. The school itself almost looked like a set, on a tv show, all conversation blurring like background murmurs. I suppose, looking back, that I had detached myself emotionally from the situation. 


I was calm and collected as I walked the halls, looking for my victims. I was early and classes hadn’t started yet, but I figured John Carter would be in the gym shooting hoops. I made my way down the corridor that lead to the athletics wing with determination. 


“Harold!” I heard a familiar voice and stopped. I turned to see Mr.Artis standing at his office door, “Come in, I need to speak with you.”


“Hey- ah, it’s good to see you,” I awkwardly smiled back at him, “Listen, I’m kind of busy right now, can this wait?” I was a man on a mission, I didn’t want to lose momentum. 


“No it can not, come in.” His tone was kind, but the sternness was undeniable. He held open the door to his office and entered behind me. 


I asked him why he had wanted to see me, but he simply stated that he wanted to talk. He asked me how things had been while he was away but I didn’t want to talk. The answers I gave him were short, cold, nothing like my usual self. I could tell that he knew that something was up, but didn’t want to push me. 


As I leaned back in the chair, wishing he would just leave me alone, my sweatshirt lifted slightly, the bulge becoming more evident. 


“Harold,” Mr.Artis whispered, “What on earth is that for.”


My cheeks turned bright red with embarrassment at being caught, and my heart started to pound in my ears. I knew it was over then. Mr.Artis was cool, but he was still a teacher. I assumed that the police and my parents would be called, that I would be kicked out of school and possibly sent to prison. 


I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. Words got caught in the back of my throat, my eyes welling up with tears and I just broke. The weight of the world which I had been carrying finally broke my back and all I could do was sob. Mr. Artis didn’t say a word, just waited for me to compose myself. When I finally did, I told him about everything that had been going on. I had never cried in front of him before, and the emotion that flowed out of me was surprisingly relieving. 


When the tears stopped and I had run out of things to say, Mr.Artis held his hand out for the gun. 


“Are you going to have me arrested?” I asked.


“No. What good would that do?” He asked. 


I couldn’t stop apologizing, but Mr.Artis’ eyes were kind as he told me that everything was going to be ok. He told me that he understood what I wanted to do, but that it was the wrong solution. Comforted by his presence and finally being able to get everything off my chest, I almost agreed with him.


I gave Mr.Artis the gun, which he said that he would dispose of. I knew my dad would be livid that it went missing, but that was a problem for another day. I thanked Mr.Artis for everything and went to class.


I was late to Spanish, but I told the teacher that I was in the nurse's office. Seniora Miller didn’t question it, my eyes were still red and my nose was runny. The rest of the class was uneventful, but just as the bell was supposed to ring, the principal came over the speaker with an announcement:


“May I please have everyone’s attention. Last night, at 8:06 p.m. our school lost a beloved member of our faculty. Mr. Gideon Artis found peace last night, after a lifetime struggling with a hereditary disorder. There will be a service on Tuesday, for anyone who would like to attend, and all counselors will be available all week for any student of faculty member who would like grievance assistance. We will now have five minutes of silence, for Mr.Artis.”


There were gasps around the classroom as the announcement played, but Seniora Miller quieted us down. We bowed our heads out of respect and sat in silence. 


I often ponder what happened that day. I wonder if Mr.Artis was a ghost, but seemed so real. My mental state that day was far from sane, and it’s possible that I hallucinated the whole thing; my subconscious finding a way to stop me from making a terrible mistake. 


The biggest mystery of all, is that of the gun. I know I took it from my dad’s drawer, I remember counting the bullets, over and over again. I remember the way it felt, heavy in my waistband, and I know that I handed  it over to Mr.Artis. The next weekend my dad went to the shooting range, and I was ready for **** when he couldn’t find it. Except that he did find it, it was right there in the drawer, still loaded with three bullets. 


I can’t explain the events that took place, but I guess a part of me wonders if Mr.Artis just wanted to look out for me one more [time.](http://www.facebook.com/d0nutblink/)


 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m severely regretting posting a photo of my great-grandfather online
 
 Assistant: I posted a picture of my great-grandfather over to r/OldSchoolCool a few days ago. I posted it on my main account (not this one). I regret posting it. It’s turned my family’s lives upside down, opened up possibilities I’d rather not even contemplate, and thrown into question everything I thought I knew. 

I was scanning some old family photos onto the computer for my Mum. I’ve always been fascinated by my great-grandfather – my Mum always has so many stories to tell me about him, and how he brightened her childhood – he was truly a remarkable character. Plus, he was a particularly handsome man – I’ve always loved that photograph of him, with his chiselled face and his dark eyes staring into the distance. He wasn’t looking directly at the camera. It’s the only photograph we have of him. My Mum says he was caught off-guard by that photograph, because he normally never liked having his photo taken. 


Before I posted the photo, I was pretty certain he’d be a sure-fire hit with the online crowd. And I was right. But you know, at the same time, I was still surprised by the extent to which people agreed actually with me – the photograph shot up to thousands of upvotes very quickly. My great-grandfather was internet famous.


I got the usual ‘Oh my goodness your great-grandpa was soo handsome!’ 

and ‘Is your great granddady single?!’ comments. 

Also: ‘Hey, can we have a picture of you, OP, so we can see how much of the good looks you inherited?’

The first few comments made me smile and feel oddly proud of my genealogical inheritance. After a while it started to get a bit creepy, as some people started to cross boundaries and take things too far – I started to feel guilty. 

Sure, there were some beautiful, respectful comments, discussion and questions – but as the popularity of the photograph steadily increased, so did its exposure to the world in general, and that was when the less-than-savoury characters started coming out of the woodwork. 

I never knew my great-grandfather, but from everything that I’ve heard, he was such an upright, almost regal sort of man – well-bred, well educated, respectable and dignified. A true gentleman, and he had been greatly loved and revered by my family. And now, it felt like an oxymoron, this clash of worlds – having my amazing, dignified great-grandfather on display for the **** underbelly of the internet to ogle and make crude remarks. It felt like I was violating his memory; like I was literally **** him out for my own personal gain. And what gain? A few arbitrary internet points?

I was about to remove the post – when two things happened, in fairly quick succession. First, someone kindly offered to colourise the photo and asked for details about hair/eye colour etc. I asked my Mum for details. She had been very close to her granddad, and she could remember everything very well. The most striking thing about him – that you couldn’t see from the black-and-white photograph – was that he had two different coloured eyes: one a deep green, and the other dark brown. In the black-and-white photo it just looked like there was a shadow over the darker eye. 

When the colourised version came, it was beautifully done. They got the shades exactly right. That made the whole ‘online sharing’ experience slightly redeeming, I must say. I showed my Mum, and it made her cry. I’d almost been afraid to show my Mum, because she had loved her grandpa greatly, to the extent that she still didn’t like to talk about the end of his days – all I know is that it had been an extremely traumatic time for her. She sometimes still tears up, if something happens to remind her about the end.

Anyway, a few minutes after the colourised version was posted for everyone to see, someone responded. 

*‘Hey there. I know this is going to sound really weird, but after seeing that colourised photo of your great-grandpa, I know a guy who looks EXACTLY like him! Seriously! He comes into my coffee shop almost every day so I see him a lot. It’s like his doppleganger or something! I’m going to take a photo and send it to you tomorrow morning. I swear, it’s exactly like him!!’*

I checked out the poster’s history, and it didn’t look like he was a troll or anything. I don’t know, something about his entire post history and earnest way that he’d written the message, made me believe him, and feel mildly interested about the promised picture. His enthusiasm seemed genuine, and so I was intrigued to see this alleged doppleganger. Most likely it wouldn’t look like my great-grandpa at all, though, I was sure.  After all, we’re often told by friends that they know someone who looks exactly like so-and-so, and when you see the proposed ‘twin’ later on, it’s usually quite disappointing. 

So I just replied:

*‘Hey, cool! I can’t wait to see the photograph of my ancestral twin, haha.’*

And then soon forgot all about it, basically. The next day, though, I got this message:

*‘Hey. So, I know I promised a photograph, and here it is. Just a quick disclaimer: I was hoping to get a straight head-on shot of the guy. I asked him if I could take his photograph, and he asked why, and I tried to briefly explain without sounding too ****. Basically I told him that there was a picture on the internet that looked just like him, and I wanted to send his picture to a great-granddaughter of the dude he looked just like. It sounded progressively weirder as I tried to explain it, haha… It made me realise that things that are perfectly reasonable on the internet can sound so utterly bizarre in real life!*

*Anyways, I don’t know why but he got quite angry and wouldn’t let me take his photo. I mean, fair play to him, not everyone likes their photo taken to be shared on the internet. But I mean, it was weird how his attitude just did a 180… he’s always so friendly and nice and he tips really well. I would have expected him to say ‘no’ nicely. But it really upset him. He was very curt with me. I got the sense now that this’ll be his last visit here, which is a shame, because he seemed like a cool dude before all this* :( 

*Anyways so, I didn’t want to let you down after the build-up yesterday. Plus, the fact that he seemed so annoyed meant that he likely won’t come back, and so this would be my last chance to get a photo! So I know this is really iffy, ethics wise or whatever, but I sneaked a photo anyway, haha. He had to stop at the door – he held the door open for someone coming inside. So I *was* *able to snap a quick pic, but he wasn’t looking right at me, which is both why I was able to take the picture, but also why the picture isn’t that great.*

*It’s a side-pose so maybe you won’t be able to see the resemblance as well as if it had been from the front. But seriously, I still thinks it looks just like your mom’s grandpa. I hope you’ll agree. Let me know what you think.’*

***


Given the lengths this poor guy had gone to in order to attain this picture, I was quite amused, so I clicked the photo with neutral expectations. The man was visible in side-view, but I had to admit he did bear a passing resemblance to the colourised version of my great grandfather. Maybe he was a distant relative, somehow. It bears noting that the guy who sent the photo was practically on the other side of the world to me, and to my knowledge, I have no relatives in America, so this is really unlikely.

I thought the ‘doppelganger’ photo would amuse my mother, who of course, had known her grandfather very well. It would be interesting to get her opinion on it, I thought.

I took over my laptop to her and showed her the photograph. She glanced at the screen, first absent-mindedly, and but then she did a double-take. She couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

‘My ****,’ she said, putting her hand to her mouth. She leaned into the screen, peering at it. ‘Can you zoom in? On his face?’

I zoomed in as much as I could without making a pixelated blurry mess of the face.

She stared at him for what seemed like ages.

‘My ****, it looks just like him,’ she said, finally. ‘I mean, honestly. Just like him. I mean – even…’

She ran her fingertips over the screen so earnestly and lovingly. 

‘Do you see the slight scar there? On his cheek, near this ear? He used to tell me stories about how he got that. A different story every night. I was so little – I’d sit nestled on his knee and gaze up at that scar, sometimes until I fell asleep. And – ’

She gasped and pointed at the scar on the man’s hand, which was clutching the cup of coffee. His sleeve was slightly lifted back. There was the trace of a scar protruding from his forearm, extending onto the back of his hand.

‘That one, too. That one was so prominent. It was a deeply-cut scar. I could feel that one underneath my fingers when I held his hand. It seemed huge to me, then, underneath my small hand. He’d tell me stories about that one, too. Silly little stories, to amuse me. Fights that he’d gotten into. Or mythical beasts he’d wrestled.’

She sighed and smiled, lost in her happy childhood memories for a moment, and then, I guess, the bizarreness of the situation hit her. The man holding the coffee in this modern photograph, was a young man. And yet he had the face and accurate identifying features of my mother’s grandfather.

She sat down heavily on the chair next to the table.

‘How is this possible?’ I asked, voicing the obvious question for both of us.

‘Could it be a hoax?’ she said. ‘Could this man – who sent you the picture – could **** playing a trick on you? These internet people can be so clever with their – their Photoshop stuff, can’t they? Could they have worked from your original photo?’

‘Well… yes… maybe but…’ I trailed off. I mean, it was the only possible explanation I could think of. Anything else would be too bizarre.

I brought up the original photograph, the one where my actual great-grandfather was facing towards the camera more head-on. The scar near his ear wasn’t visible due to the angle of his face. His hand wasn’t in view at all, either.

My mother and I both took in these details, wordlessly. She stared at me, her eyes wide.

‘This is impossible,’ she said. ‘It can’t be possible.’

I sat down next to her. We sat in silence for a while. My blood was ringing in my ears. There had to be *some* explanation, surely? It had to be a trick, or a joke, somehow. Or just a really, really weird coincidence? 

Having said that, the picture wasn’t *that* great quality. You could see the scars once my Mum had pointed them out, but not before. So maybe it was like an optical illusion, like one of those ‘hidden pattern’ type things that aren’t really there, but you make yourself see them, and then you can’t unsee them. Maybe it was like that, and the scars weren’t really there, and we saw them because my Mum expected to see them, because the man’s face looked a bit like her grandad, and she’d made me see them now, too. Hey, it could be a prominent vein on his hand, or the lighting, or something, and the lighting had caught it just right.

I said all of this to my Mum, and she nodded along, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

‘I suppose…’ she said, and then she trialled off. ‘But…’

‘What?’

‘It might have something to do with what happened at… at the end.’ She was staring at the floor, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her hands were shaking, and she seemed… frightened.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, carefully.

She shook her head.

‘I’m being ridiculous,’ she said, and she just got up, and left. Her whole body was trembling, and I could see tears on her face.

***

You have to understand some backstory, even though admittedly I don’t know all that much. Mum has never spoken about those last few days, despite my previous careful prodding. All I know is, it was a traumatic time when she lost him. It was some sort of violent accident. I know no details beyond that. She still has nightmares about it, and was in therapy for some time. I was itching for details when I was little, but I had eventually made peace with the fact that I might never know. Any small details had been like gold dust. 
 
She talks about him all the time, his life, his character, passing on his wisdom. But never about those end days. Not to me (and never to my Dad, either, because I’ve asked him). It’s basically ‘restricted territory’ for our family to discuss. I think, partially because of the mystery around his end days, and what an amazing person she describes him to have been – I’ve always been so intrigued by this man’s presence in our family history, and the bond my mother shared with him, how he had shaped her character. I guess it’s because of this general awe and intrigue that I’d scanned that old picture into my laptop in the first place, and then why I posted it online. Because I wanted to share his essence with the world.

So, of course, my natural curiosity was *on fire* when she just walked away like that…. So close to telling me more, and clearly in some sort of turmoil. And she thought – whatever it was that happened at the end – might be related to this? This modern-day man walking around who looked like him? How on earth is that even possible, and what the **** was it that happened?

I really wanted to go after her and just open up my flood of questions, but she seemed in that unreachable mood again, liked she often did when she was reliving her traumatic memories. I could hear her crying and I didn’t want to open any wounds. 

So I just sat there awkwardly, my nerves a squirming bundle of unease… and confusion and an uneasy feeling of fear, I guess. I was trying to process things but just coming up blank.

*The modern photo was just a coincidence, we were seeing scars where there were none, and I’d managed to open up a whole can of traumatic worms for my poor mother, probably messing with her mental health. I should have known better than to post about this sensitive subject online at all.*

My mind was made up, then, to delete the post – and forget all about it.

***

I logged into my account and I had hundreds of new messages. I’d been offline most of the day, because my Mum and I had been discussing the new photo for quite a while. I opened my inbox with a bit of a sigh, expecting more of the same general comments of jokes and compliments and the occasional lewd remark.

Except, what was posted just amplified my unease by a thousand. I have no idea what to think. I’m terrified now…. I think I’ve opened up a Pandora’s box in our family history.

***

Here’s what happened: after that guy posted the modern photo of my ‘great-grandpa’ in the coffee shop, along with the colourised version from the other user… there had been a barrage of comments. Here is just a sample that I copy/pasted  and saved at that time (there were many, many others, though, some that I didn't even manage to read):

(Edit: I've now quickly edited out their usernames, sorry if this messes up formatting)

***

**User 1**: 

*‘Dude… this is gonna sound pretty random, but that guy looks just like a mythical figure famous in my hometown.  They say he’s evil and has a flying beast at his behest, that **** summon, if you cross him. The sounds of its helper-creature’s screams are enough to **** you. We have an old portrait of him in our Town Hall, it’s basically part of our heritage. They say that many years ago he and the Screaming Falcon wiped out half the town population because they mistreated him. I’m going to post the portrait tomorrow. Same chimera eyes and everything! Freaky!’*

(Reply to the above):

**User 2**: 

*Are you from my hometown? I won’t post the exact place b/c doxxing… but are you in South America? We have exactly the same legend here! Except we call him something different. We call him the Cunning Eyed One. They say he has two different coloured eyes because his flying minion can see through one of his eyes. Anyone he doesn’t like… anyone with attitude… the monster flies over immediately. Its screams are enough to paralyse you and pulverise your flesh, just from the sound alone. I used to be so scared whenever I heard screaming during the night. My mother would scare me and my brothers with the Cunning Eyed Man all the time whenever we misbehaved. And there are old people here who swear they’ve had run-ins with him, or know someone who has. Everyone thinks he’s real. I got thrills when I saw you mention the legend.’*

(Reply):

**User 1**: *I’m not from South America – I’m from a tiny town in Eastern Europe! How scary that you guys have basically the same legend over there! I’ve never heard anyone else mention this legend other than here in my home town.’*

***

**User 3** 

*Wow… now that you post those two photos… I have an old book of legends. One of the illustrations is of a handsome dark haired man with two eye colours. They say he’s a cruel monster disguised as a man, uncannily clever. Anyone who fails his tests is woken up to the sound of screaming, and the screams make their flesh rot and fall off. It’s described in so much detail with historical eye witnesses and stuff. The man looks like the photo here (sorry, OP, no disrespect to your grandpa, but it looks so much like him). This was an old legend from a small, remote Scandinavian village, I think. I can’t remember the name they gave to the monster. I’ll dig out the book and post more details. The way it was described gave me the creeps. Never heard anyone talk about this before, it was a really obscure legend.*

***

**User 4**: 

*’**** I know what you guys are talking about! We have a similar legend in India! In the village where my parents were from! I am SO EXCITED to hear others talking about this! My mother would tell me about something that happened to her aunt when she was little by the (rough translation) ‘Cruel, One-Eyed Demon’ with his Helper, the ‘Screaming Devil’. They call him one-eyed because they said he could only see through his dark eye, or he closed one eye to look at you through his good eye. I’m going to have to type out that story properly for you – I’m going to get my Mum to tell it again. Seriously, me and my cousins loved and hated that story in equal measure, it was so scary and we’d never sleep afterwards! We’d freak each other out by screaming in the middle of the night and scare each other awake. My older cousin did that once and I peed the bed, I was so scared (TMI, I know). All the elders in our village would tell us about it when I visited back home. **** I am so thrilled that other countries have this same demon guy in their history too! It makes it so much scarier… like he really roamed the world. Wow, I can’t wait to tell my cousins. This is, like, all my childhood excitement/fears rushing back!’*

***

**User 5**:

*’We have a very similar urban legend in the place where I am from. They say he has the strength of a thousand men, and he flies from place to place on the back of his winged screaming monster thing… it had a name, can’t remember it. They have different names for it. They say that he had different coloured eyes, one evil and one good, and depending on how he felt about you, he would use one or the other to look at you. If he looks at you through the black eye, you’re ****, basically. I also remember something about the screaming. It was my grandpa who would tell us kids stories about him, that he heard from his mother. Pretty cool to see it being talked about on here. My family is from a small village in China, but haven’t heard anyone else mention it. I thought the stories died out with my grandpa.*

**User 6:**

*’I’m blown away. Honestly. I thought this story was just an urban legend confined to my family, or something! I had a great uncle who swore he saw this man with unusually uncanny, beautiful, eyes, that were two different colours. He was almost hypnotised by them. The man – who my Great Uncle always swore up and down was not a man, but rather a monster of some kind presenting himself like a man - was very strong, and my uncle was very scared. My great uncle was working in a factory on the night shift. This man managed to bend metal with his bare hands, or something, because he was angry. My Uncle was freaked out, and he managed to get away from that place, came come with a high fever. The next morning the people who were there at his work that night were found literally pulverised. On phone, will type out whole details later if anyone interested. Can’t believe others are mentioning this same sounding man in other parts of the world that match up to what my great uncle said. Never really believed it fully until now.’*


***

**User 7**:

*’Guys. I had that photo open in my browser, and my grandma walked past – she’s visiting us. I’m not lying I swear. She saw the photos and she did a double take and just froze. She’s saying the man’s a ‘terrible creature’ from her childhood. I’ve never seen her like that before. She was legit scared and asking me where I got the photos, why I was looking at him, where were these photos taken, was this man still alive, where was he…. and she was getting all worked up… she just left our house and she’s gone home now, really abruptly. Won’t answer my calls. She seemed really upset and shaken. I swear I’m not making this up.’*

**(Reply)**: *’Which photo? OP’s great gramps or the new pic?’*

**User 7** (replying to the reply): *’Both. I was comparing them side by side, just out of curiosity. I never expected a reaction like that. I’m really freaked out. And reading other replies here, even more freaked out. I’ll see if I can get anymore info from my grandma when she calms down.’*
***

**User 8**:*‘I feel really sorry for OP. Turns out her great-grandpa looks just like a legendary demonic monster guy.*’

**User 9** (replying to the above): *’What if OP’s gramps really is this monster guy? Everyone swears it looks just like him, and it’s his likeness that’s triggered all this discussion…’*

***

And on and on. Many legends and lore of a man who apparently looks JUST like my great grandpa, with two coloured eyes, one green, one dark brown, and different stories but all sharing very similar elements to the lore that follows this man all around the world. Lots of people saying they heard this legend, these stories around this man/monster/demon.

But here’s the worst part. 

I felt really tired out reading all that stuff. I mean, obviously, I reasoned that they’ve just latched onto the fact that my great grandpa just happened to have the same unusually coloured eyes as the man in these legends. But with my Mum’s reaction earlier I was just feeling bad and overwhelmed I guess, so I just left the laptop and I went to sleep. There were hundreds of comments I still hadn’t read, and I’d changed my mind and I didn’t want to delete the discussion just then, because there were so many people involved and the whole thing was just buzzing and taking on a life of its own, and so I felt like I’d be rude just to cut it off abruptly when there were so many people so excited.

Besides, it wasn’t even about my great-grandpa anymore, it was just that his multi-coloured eyes had unearthed a legend that people had thus far just kept tucked away in their little corners of the world until then. At that point, I was even slightly proud that my photo had managed to bring to light a hidden, very interesting sounding, obscure legend that many cultures seemed to have their version of. I felt I would enjoy the discussion more when I was better-rested.

I wanted to take another look at the updated discussion in the morning, so I left the laptop in the living room, with the page open.

Big mistake.

***

I woke up this morning and my Mum was sitting by the laptop, reading it all. Her face was white as a sheet, honestly. Even on her worst days she’s never been like that. Even on the days when she’s had nightmares that reminded her of how her beloved grandpa died… even when she’s been reliving the trauma, I’ve never seen her look like she did that morning.

I was kicking myself for leaving the laptop open, so I snapped it shut, quickly, so she couldn’t read more (kind of rude, but it was basically to protect her) and I just tried to laugh the whole thing off. She wasn’t in a great place, mentally, anyway, because my **** post had probably awakened further traumatic memories for her about his death and just… I really felt awful to have pushed her to this point. The discussion about the legend of the two-coloured eyed man was an off-shoot and unrelated, she had no business reading about it in her anxious state.

‘I know, Mum. It’s weird how there’s a legend about a creepy figure… with similar multi-coloured eyes!’ I laughed. ‘I guess there must be something in our collective unconscious about people finding chimera eyes scary, or something. So they built a legend around that.’

She stared off into middle distance, her gaze still fixed on the place where I’d closed the laptop monitor.

I tried to talk about other things, I rambled on, actually. And she just sat there, transfixed. In shock. 

I was getting really scared now, so I got her a glass of water. She took it, just absent-mindedly, and held it, but didn’t drink it. 

I was feeling terrible, there were goosebumps on my arms. Somehow, reading all that ridiculous, hyping up and exaggeration of the lore surrounding a two-coloured-eyed man had messed with my poor mum’s head. Was she having a mental breakdown? I really was such an awful human being for throwing my family’s sensitivities to the mercy of the internet like this. I was wondering whether to take her to the doctor.

She put the glass down. And got up. She walked into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. I could hear the sound of her retching.

I ran behind her and stood at the door helplessly, crying too, now - really, seriously, feeling like such a terrible person for opening this whole thing up. People on the internet think they can say what they want and run their mouths and create theories and not realise that those careless comments and hysteria can really impact people in real life. How dare I open up my family, my poor Mum, up to that sort of stuff? She was having therapy for his death, she *still* had regular nightmares, for ****’s sake. Why did I ever think this was a good idea, and why had I let her be exposed to those horrible, persistent people getting their kicks from relating their stories?

When she emerged, she was puffy-eyed and hoarse.

‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ I said, and hugged her, held her tightly, trying to squeeze away the bad feelings, somehow, to protect her from all that bad stuff. To fix her through sheer determined love. I really, really, hate seeing her when she has one of her anxiety attacks. It was a constant fear of mine, to see her in that broken state, when I was little. If you’ve ever seen a parent in a vulnerable state, you know exactly how awful, how scary, how heart-breaking it is. ‘All that stuff on the internet, it’s so ****, I’m so sorry…’

‘It isn’t ****,’ she said, in a small voice. She basically pushed me away. ‘It’s what I’ve feared, all these years.’ She was looking at the floor.

‘Ok… so, Mum, I think we need to go see the doctor this afternoon…’

‘I heard the screams,’ she said, looking at me in eyes for the first time. ‘I heard the sound of the screams. When I was little…. I saw the…’ She coughed and put a hand to her mouth, and I thought she was going to be sick again. But she wasn’t. She swayed a little, but steadied herself.

‘I had no idea about the scale of things. I had no idea he was… I mean, I guessed a little… but… Oh ****! I was always so afraid to face the fear I always had. I loved him so much. I never wanted to face it.’ 

She covered her eyes and started sobbing – deep, gut-wrenching sobs – and then she went into her room. She hasn’t come out.

I really have no idea what to think, how to feel. I can’t even concentrate on the newer posts and messages I received. I’ve deleted the original post now, with its photo and discussion. I just can’t handle it. 

I feel numb, but there’s this definite sense of terror, too, eating away at the back of my head. I feel so many large, unwieldly thoughts that make no sense, just clanging around in my brain, getting larger, like echoes, but I can’t focus on any one coherent thought. None of this makes sense. 

Edit: I just went for a nap, and woke up to find a letter from my mother. She’s written something for me and I think she’s gone out for a walk. I think it contains more info, finally, about my great-grandpa. I’m going to read it through and will try and update.

Edit 2: I'm sorry, it's been a really traumatic few days. I will update later on today (Saturday).

Edit 3: Update is [here](https://redd.it/6t9o1h)

[x](https://www.facebook.com/NoxLuca-910867395617919/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: 11 Rules for Dipshits who Bought a Haunted House
 
 Assistant: Well you really **** up this time, didn’t you? You found a gnarly deal on a beautiful home that almost seemed too good to be true, and you jumped at it. And now that you’re all moved in, you’ve started to notice some anomalies.

You know the type: the spooky-dooky anomalies of the supernatural persuasion. Bumps in the night, doors opening and closing by themselves, auditory hallucinations of voices and whispers. It’s more common then you may think, but not everyone realizes the danger. 

These signs could be proof that some forsaken lost souls inhabit your property. Maybe the previous grandmother self-immolated in the attic. Maybe dear old dad went suddenly insane and repainted the house with the blood of his children, or mom tried seducing demons in the basement. If this sounds even vaguely familiar to you – and you are looking to the good ole internet for help, then you’ve come to the right place.

You see I have this friend – well, *had* this friend named Nathan. A couple months back, Nathan found a house for sale in southern Georgia. It was nestled along a remote stretch of woods just outside of Waycross. It was a historical area - an old colonial style home just under 5,000 square feet, six bed/ six bath with white picket fences and a dozen acres. The quintessential American dream house by all accounts. 

The price was unbelievably low, but after Nathan contacted the real-estate agent he found that the price that he had seen listed was indeed the price that was being asked. For most people, I imagine this would’ve raised some pretty big red flags, but Nathan was an idiot. The confident type of idiot that believed machismo is substantial for conquering all of life’s obstacles. 

I know it’s not kind to speak ill of the dead like that (spoiler alert), but I’m just trying to give an accurate portrayal of the kind of person Nathan was. Y’know the alpha male who hits on your girlfriend, lives at the gym and probably spanks his meat to his own selfies. For people like Nathan, friend is really just another word for ego-reinforcer.

 He was cocky, and often let pride get the better of him. His wife Janelle was actually my ex-girlfriend from awhile back. Bit of a ****, but practically a supermodel. They had two kids; Natalie and Mason who were both spoiled brats. Again, I’m just trying to give an honest perspective of them in hopes that we may all learn something from what happened.

You see what happened to Nathan (which I’ll get into later) was something which I believe could’ve been easily avoided if only he had followed a few simple instructions. After the funeral, I got to pondering on the matter, and realized that what we all really need is a set of rules to follow if you believe your house is haunted. Let’s begin.

Rule #1 – When looking to purchase or rent a house, always ask for the history. Odds are if a house is being offered at way below market value then there is a very good reason for it being that way. 

Nathan didn’t do this, and thought that the under-market price was simply the universe handing him something he didn’t really earn as it often seemed to do. Nathan jumped at the offer, and within a few weeks he and his family were approved to begin moving in. I volunteered to help them move in, and I’ll be honest, the house was absolutely gorgeous. 

Things were great for them at first, but Nathan soon started noticing some odd occurrences. It started with this knocking sound, that seemed to reverberate all over the home at odd hours. He said he could never seem to pinpoint where it was coming from, and it never seemed to originate from the same place twice. Eventually he just chalked it up to the house settling, but that was just the beginning. 

Rule #2 – Trust your gut. Your home is the last place you should feel uncomfortable. If you get that inkling of discomfort in the back of your mind that never seems to fully dissipate, pay attention to it. It’s probably your subconscious trying to warn you.

Nathan tried ignoring these sounds, told his wife that it was just normal or the wind and comforted his children when they felt scared. He had two dogs; Rusty and Sailor. Both of them black labs and both seemed to become very anxious after moving in. Nathan did his best to get medication to help the dogs relax, but it didn’t seem to help much.

That brings us to rule number 3; along with your gut, you should also trust your pets. Animals have instincts far greater than humans. It’s been said that man is the only creature who will sense danger and still wander into it. Animals have a sense for the supernatural; dogs and cats in particular. If you find them growling at what appears to be nothing, or constantly staring into specific areas of the house, then pay attention to that. Odds are they can see something you can’t. 

Nathan told me that Rusty; the older of the two dogs would pace the hall each night for hours. He said it was like he was standing guard over something. On more than one occasion, Rusty suddenly blurted into a ferocious bout of barking and snarling. Nathan would come out into the hall, but never found anything. He grew concerned for Rusty and took him to the vet, but the vet confirmed he was in good health. 

Meanwhile Sailor – the younger dog slept at the side of Mason’s bed each and every night. The poor boy soon developed crippling nightmares that would torment him relentlessly, and Sailor seemed to sense it. Each time Mason would wake up screaming, Sailor would be there to try and comfort him. 

And that segues perfectly into our next rule. Rule #4 – beware the nightmares. Young children are similar to animals in the way that they seem more perceptive to things that adults are not. This one can be difficult, because there are many root causes of nightmares with things like anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. The telltale sign, is whether your child suddenly develops them soon after entering the home.

Poor Mason had absolutely horrific dreams and night after night he would be tormented by them. He often spoke of ‘the blurry man’ that came to him while he slept and whispered terrible things. He even said that sometimes he would see the blurry man while he was awake, but never more than a quick glimpse and always in the shadows or outside in the woods.

Nathan and his wife worried that perhaps Mason was Schizophrenic, but multiple doctors confirmed this was not the case. They tried giving Mason sleeping pills, various supplements and burned incense to help him sleep more peacefully. It worked for a while, until Natalie started having them too.

Rule #5 – Try to determine what kind of spirit you’re dealing with. If you see flashes of a small child running through the halls at night, or orbs spiraling in the air, then odds are your ethereal neighbor is rather benign. Some people even discover they rather enjoy life with a spectral roommate, and find their antics to be rather interesting. 

Most believe that spirits who pass away before completing what their soul desired will become stuck in a sort of purgatory. Many are scared, confused and angry, but some – primarily young children seem to be almost jubilant at times. Most of these are unnerving but altogether harmless, but then there’s the other spirits.

Rule #6 – If you or any member of your family develop inexplicable bruises, cuts or lesions then do not take them lightly. This should be a massive red flag, and is a very bad sign. If you feel as though you are being attacked as you sleep, and wake up with unexplained scratches or wounds then just get the **** out of the house, honestly.

A malevolent spirit capable of inflicting physical wounds is not something to be trifled with. Odds are it’s a demon, and honestly that is the best-case scenario. There are other non-Abrahamic related entities that could be responsible as well. They are very rare, but if encountered, well I’m afraid even my handy set of rules won’t be enough to stop them. 

Natalie and Mason suffered multiple scratch marks, wounds and even a few bruises that almost looked like bite marks. Nathan’s wife Janelle was also subjected to these attacks. The children’s teachers at school began to notice, and became quite worried for their safety. 

Obviously their first thought was not paranormal, but rather that the children were being abused at home. Only when social services threatened to remove the children from his custody did Nathan finally agree to move them out of the house. Janelle and the kids moved in with her mother a couple hours away, and Nathan was left all alone with the dogs.

Rule #7 – Let people know what is going on. Yes, I know the thought of admitting to a close friend that you believe your house is haunted may be a daunting one, but it’s usually better than the alternatives. 

The modern world rarely takes these claims seriously. We put ghosts in movies and video games, but when someone actually claims to see one, we aren’t so quick to believe them. Technology and science have led us to believe we are safe. That is our folly, but it’s also a topic for a different day.

This is yet another rule that Nathan did not abide. The worse that things got for him and his family, the more secluded he became. On numerous occasions he phoned the police saying that he believed someone had broken in, but they never found evidence of it. Eventually they even put him on a blacklist, and warned that any further contact would result in legal trouble.

Rather than tell his parents or brother or any of his friends what was going on, he retreated into himself. He became fidgety and paranoid, at times refusing to return phone calls and texts from his loved ones. He just broke contact, and things only got worse.

Rule 8 and 9 sort of belong in the same category, although one is a little more extreme than the other. Rule #8 - If you suspect something is up, it doesn’t hurt to perform a cleansing. Like I said earlier, the modern world has little time to entertain the notion of ghosts and the supernatural, but that shouldn’t ward you off. 

If you’re unsure about whether your home is being haunted or not, then a routine cleansing can do wonders for you. I’m willing to bet there are mediums and priests in your town that can get the job done. Even if you can’t find anyone local, you can always just go online and find instructions for yourself. It’s not as effective that way, but it’s better than nothing.

Rule #9 – if you’re really feeling as though you are in danger, get someone to perform an exorcism. It’s the step that no one wants to take, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Priests and spiritual leaders are your go-to for these kinds of things. Even if you yourself are not religious, these people honestly do know how to help.

There’s some evidence that Nathan was attempting to do this, but it’s unknown why exactly it didn’t work out. Maybe he second guessed himself, and thought he could handle it, or maybe his ego took control once again. 

Nathan had been collecting evidence for a while, and had amassed quite a stash of clues. He had audio recordings which relayed banging on the walls and footsteps in the attics. He took multiple videos, but none of them really showed anything except for the last one, but by that point it was too late. In his journal he also wrote that he experienced items in the house levitating on several occasions, but sadly he had no recorded proof of this.

Rule #10 – the big one! Whatever you do, don’t try to antagonize the spirit. This should really go without saying, but angrily challenging the spirit or daring it to manifest is a really bad idea. But as you may have guessed, Nathan and his unlimited stream of testosterone decided to do just that.

He got really **** one night, and began ruminating on all that had been happening. Nathan was always a skeptic, but even he couldn’t ignore the psychological impact on his family whether it was imagined or not. He realized his relationship with his children and wife were being heavily strained, and his new house had become a place of hostility. This made Nathan very angry. 

So Nathan stood up, and shouted at his empty house for the spirit to come forth and face him. He was met only with silence, and so he shouted again. Never once did the spirit’s answer his call. After a few more verbose challenges he broke into a bout laughter, probably believing himself to look ridiculous. Apparently not everyone who was watching felt the same though.

Nathan managed to stumble into bed not long after, and was out cold within a couple minutes. Nathan had kept a security camera in his room in hopes of capturing proof, and that night he found something.

At around 2:13 am, Nathan is seen beginning to stir in his sleep in the security video. He grunts and speaks briefly, but the words were unintelligible. Suddenly his eyes sprung wide open in the bed, and began glancing around the room.

Nathan appeared to be struggling, but his body didn’t move. It is believed he was suffering an episode of sleep paralysis which left him temporarily paralyzed. His eyes continued to dart rapidly around the room. Then something happened that no one who saw the video could explain.

The bedroom door slowly rolled open, but the darkness of the hallway was all-consuming. Nathan’s chest began franticly pumping up and down, and his eyes stretched wide-open.  

Something was then seen moving in the hall. It could’ve been chalked up to a trick of the light at first, but then a hand was seen reaching through. It was gnarled and spindly, like the wretched malformed appendage from some abyssal denizen. 

The figure slowly sauntered through the doorway; it’s tall, dark silhouette nearly grazing the top of the door frame. It had no definite features, appearing only as a hooded, humanoid individual. No eyes or face, just a shadow corporealized from Nathan’s deepest nightmares.

Poor Nathan was heard mumbling and whimpering franticly, but in his paralyzed state he was unable to fight back or flee. He could do nothing but watch in absolute horror as the thing approached him. It stopped at the foot of his bed, and just stared at him for about a minute.

Nathan continued to hyperventilate and didn’t appear blink once during the entire ordeal. The thing then finally moved closer. It then leaned down only a couple inches away from his face and appeared to whisper something. It was too quiet for the mic on the camera to pick up, but needless to say it did not make Nathan feel any better about the situation.

Suddenly the thing lashed out with it’s twisted hands, constricting like pythons around Nathan’s throat. In his paralyzed state, he couldn’t even struggle against his shrouded attacker. Within a minute Nathan’s chest stopped moving, and his eyes fell still.  

The entity retracted it’s hands and just stared at him for about a minute. Then – as if taunting those who would see the footage, it looked directly into the camera. It whispered something again, but again it was too quiet to discern what it was. Then as quickly as it had appeared, it waltzed out of the room and vanished back into the darkness.

Nathan was found by his wife Janelle a few days later, and she called the police. After an autopsy Nathan was determined to have died via strangulation much as what was shown in the video. Cops scoured the premises and found footprints from the intruder. However, the footprints were soon matched to a pair of Nathan’s own boots.

The police of course were not so quick to believe that Nathan was simply killed by supernatural forces. They conducted interviews with neighbors, friends and family members, but none of them seemed capable or motivated enough to have done it. There were no signs of breaking and entering, and nothing had been stolen from the home.

They came to me and conducted an interview as well, but of course, that was a futile effort. I mean sure; the fact that Janelle was my ex-girlfriend was reason to suspect me, but I quickly dissuaded their accusations. Nathan was my friend, despite him not really being a good friend. What kind of friend bones your girlfriend behind your back anyways? I’m not bitter about it though, at least… not as far as the police are concerned. My alibis were solid, and that’s good enough for them.

This brings us to my final rule; rule number 11. Make sure you exhaust all other options before coming to the conclusion that your house is in fact haunted.

If only Nathan had taken a little more time to investigate his home and himself more thoroughly then maybe he’d still be alive today. Maybe he would’ve found the mini wireless speakers hidden in his attic to play the sounds of knocking. Maybe he would’ve found the patches in his air ducts that leaked mild doses of hallucinogenic drugs into his home. Maybe he would’ve detected the dog whistle alarm that caused his dogs to react so strangely. 

If he bothered to check himself, he may have found trace amounts of Suxamethonium; a paralyzing toxin that once ingested will leave the person immobile yet conscious to all pain. It would’ve been difficult to find - as even coroner’s do not normally test for the substance unless specifically requested. 

No matter how you really slice it, this entire ordeal really comes back to Nathan himself. If only he had been a better person and not constantly demeaned his peers at every turn. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn and proud. If only he hadn’t gone behind my back and boned my ex-girlfriend thus ruining our future and sending me into the spiraling depths of crippling depression, then maybe I would’ve helped him. 

So, you may be wondering; is this my confession? No, of course not. This is only my list of suggestions and rules for how things may have turned out differently for Nathan and his family. These are all hypothetical explanations, and are in no way to be considered incriminating evidence to be used in court against me or anyone else for that matter. 

Besides, if this really was a confession, then that would make anyone who read it an accessory to ****, and we certainly wouldn’t want that. I hope you can understand that, and I do hope that we can trust each other in this regard. After all, I have really good software for tracing IP’s and reddit makes it incredibly easy to access them. We wouldn’t want YOUR house to suddenly become haunted, now would we?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I know why we never returned to the Moon
 
 Assistant: 
[Narration by The Dark Somnium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAkfCvP-Eoo&t=1s)

----------------------

My grandfather was a combat pilot. Even though he always felt distant I liked him. When I grew older, I realized that he was always aware, always looking for any signs of danger. Shell shock, PTSD, it has many names. My mother told me that he didn’t use to be like that, that he changed when he came back from Vietnam. 

My grandpa's profession was likely the reason why I was obsessed with space, astronauts, planes and pilots. We used to talk about it when we were together. He was a really skilled and high-ranking officer in the army, and he knew some people, even a couple of really well-known astronauts. When I once asked him, if he met anyone who went to the moon, he simply replied: 

"Don't ever talk to me about the Moon, boy. It's a dark and evil place."

He died back in 2004 from natural causes.

About two months ago, we decided to renovate my grandparents’ old house. While clearing out the attic. I found an old metallic box. In the box, there was a number of things which as I assumed belonged to my grandfather. There was a military medal, a stack of papers and an old picture of my grandfather and two other men I didn’t recognize. My grandpa looked around 40, so I assume that the picture was taken in the 70s. All of them were wearing space suits, and the scene was a typical backdrop used by NASA, but the logo was missing. Only a blank monochrome background. The mission patch was titled Dawnbreaker. I didn’t understand anything. My grandfather was an astronaut? Why did he never tell anyone about this? Dawnbreaker? I never heard about such mission. It must have been covered up really well. But why?

I found the answers in the papers on the bottom of the box. I’ll rewrite the literal contents below, but I warn you that many people might find it very disturbing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My dear family,

If you ever find this, I must confess something. In 1972, I wasn’t in Vietnam. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but if you have found this, it probably doesn’t matter anymore. Back in 1965, me and a handful of other pilots were selected for a non-public team of astronauts, who would participate in covert missions in space for our government. We wouldn't get the glory and fame of regular astronauts, but our country needed us, and so we were there.

In early 1972, we were told that for an unspecified period of time, our country had a secret satellite orbiting the Moon. They never told us what it did, or why it was there, just that a few weeks prior, it had crashed to the surface on the dark side of the Moon for unknown reasons and that the data it carried was crucial. The government needed to recover it, and thus was sending me and two other astronauts to reclaim the satellite’s memory module. The equipment of the planned Apollo 18 mission was essentially transferred to us. From what we'd been told, the Apollo team was furious. They had a reason to be after all. It seemed that whoever we've been under was much more powerful than NASA. The whole mission was top-secret obviously. 

I was officially deployed to Vietnam, while in reality we underwent extensive training for the mission. After a couple of months, we found ourselves standing on the launch pad in front of this behemoth of a rocket, that would take us to the Moon. I was the mission commander, while Lt. Carver was the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) pilot and Lt. Ackermann was the Command/Service Module (CSM) pilot. 

The flight to the Moon took roughly three days. After arriving, we made a couple of orbits around it. Each time we flew behind the horizon created by the Moon itself, I felt a bit of helplessness when our communication to the whole world went dark, as the signal got obscured by the spherical mass of rock and dust below us. The dark side of the Moon was nothing like the light side, which we see on almost a daily basis. Instead of smooth grey fields and tranquil lunar seas, it was completely covered in dark, deep craters and holes, like as if it was being slowly eaten away by the universe itself. It was finally decided to begin the descent to the surface. Me and Carver exchanged wishes of good luck with Ackermann and in the Lunar Module named Charon we separated from the CSM named Trinity. 

After we announced “Charon has touched down,” our response wasn’t cheers and applause, but just mere “This is Trinity, congratulations Charon! I’ll relay the news on the other side. Be safe out there pals.” 

Just like that we became cut off from the rest of the world.  Ackermann was our only link. While he was above the light side, he could communicate with ground command, and while above the dark side he could communicate with us. Never both at once. Even though the CSM’s orbital period was roughly two hours, we would be in touch for only about 35 minutes each orbit.

We landed on a flat plane inside a huge crater. Contrary to what some people believe, the sun shines at the dark side of the Moon the same way as the light side. The amount of light depends on the lunar phase. It was still shining daylight in the place where we landed, but we knew that it would go dark in a few days. I felt excited and curious about what awaits us in this alien world. 

We waited for about an hour and a half to get the command’s reply from Ackermann and spent the time by preparing our suits. 

“Command sends their congratulations. You’re to proceed with the recovery.” 

Everything was dead silent as I stepped on the surface of the Moon. I tried to think of something excessively inspiring to say, but that those times were already over. With Carver, we assembled the rover and after planting our flag next to our spacecraft, we drove off. As we drove across the surface, I saw what I though was a flash, like a glare reflected by something metallic in the far distance. Since it was fairly common to see flashes of light because of an interesting physical phenomenon caused by the space radiation interacting with our eyes, I didn’t give it much thought and soon forgot about it. 

After driving for a couple of hours, we reached the satellite – or what was left of it. We immediately noticed that something wasn’t right. There were dozens of footprints around the probe, leading to a set of two tracks, dragging out into the distance. 

“What the **** is this?!” asked Carver in disbelief. 

“I don’t know, but it seems that somebody got what we came for before us,” I replied. 

Both the tracks and the footprints were different than ours. Whoever took the data wasn’t here under the American flag. As I expected, we didn’t find the data box. We found the part where it was supposed to be, but it was missing. Luckily for us, we were just in contact with Ackermann, so we reached out to him to describe our findings. 

“This doesn’t make any sense. Who would take it? Russians? They don’t even have a lunar program! Even if somebody took it, how could we not be aware of that? How can the Russians land on the Moon without us noticing?” he responded. 

“As far as we know, the Russians have no idea that we are here, you know,” said Carver over the radio. 

“We’re going to follow the trail” I cut off their conversation. 

“Are you guys sure about this?” asked Ackermann. 

“****, I’m not sure about this. We’re clearly missing something here. But I’ll do as you say, cap,” responded Carver. 

“Yes. If whatever was on that probe was so important for two countries to send people here to retrieve it, we have to find out what happened to it,” I replied. 

“Copy that Charon. I’ll relay your whereabouts to command as soon as I can. Be careful out there.” 

Our oxygen was about at half capacity now, but we moved on with hopes of solving this mystery.

It wasn’t long until I saw something in the distance. As we got closer, I realized that that it was a spacecraft. Its design was different than ours and it was decorated with a flag of the Soviet Union. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt that something was really odd about the spacecraft. If there really was Russians with us on the Moon, they would have picked up our comms long ago, so there wasn’t a point in hiding. 

“To the unidentified Soviet lander, this is the crew of Dawnbreaker, please respond. We know you’re here, we have you in sight.” 

Nothing. 

We attempted to contact them several times again in both Russian and English, but always received only silence in response. We got closer and I realized why I found the spacecraft odd before. It looked like it had been there for a while. We didn’t see much of the interior through the small windows, which had been covered with something from the inside. 

“Our air is running low and I don’t like this Miller. We should really head back now.” said Carver with clear uneasiness in his voice. 

“I know, but we have to find out what’s going on here.” 

It took some time until we figured out a way to open the airlock. No one was home. The inside was a mess. The interior was splattered with brownish-red fluid, presumably contents of one of the many opened food packages lying on the floor. Or was it …? No. I quickly pushed that thought out of my head. 

It was a two-seater craft. There was a small amount of leftover supplies and samples, but no signs of the satellite’s black box. There was a space suit hanged on the wall near the airlock. Two occupants, and one space suit with a clearly missing name tag. We both quickly realized that the other one must still be out there somewhere – along with its occupant. At this point, we were really low on oxygen, so we rushed to get back to our spacecraft. 
As we reached Charon with the last bits of oxygen in our suits, I realized something. 

“Tell me, Carver, was it just me or did we not pass the wreckage on our way back?” I asked. 

“****. Don’t even mention it. It wasn’t there, that’s right.” 

We shared our intriguing discovery with Ackermann later, and he was as surprised as was command when he informed them in turn. That night I took watch for the first four hours. It wasn’t really a night, since the sun was still shining, but for the sake of timekeeping, we referred to the time when we slept as night. 

When it was finally my turn to sleep, I had a dream about following the flash that I saw the previous day. I walked on and on, until I found the same space suit from the Russian craft just lying there, in the dust. The limbs were twisted and contorted in gruesome ways, but it was clear that someone, or something was inside that suit. I approached and slowly began opening the sunshield that obscured the inside of the helmet. I looked in terror, as I saw the inside. It was my face, covered with brownish-red blood. In place of eyes, there were only two gaping holes. 

The next day we started picking up something on an unused channel of our radio. It was a faint signal coming from somewhere in the crater. We tried to patch it to the speakers, but it didn’t make any sense. It was just a repeating sound resembling a person vocalizing the sound of a single letter or vowel but stretched to about 3 seconds followed by equally long pause. It was very distorted, and it clearly wasn’t a loop, since each sound was just slightly different than the previous one.

We ate, and once again prepared for moonwalk. It was darker than the other day. The sun was still shining, but it was steadily creeping its way under the horizon. We followed the source of the signal for about an hour when we found something lying in the dust in front of us. I tensed as I looked closer and found out what it was. 

It was a space suit. 

The same as the one in the Russian lander. 

“Well, it looks like we found our missing friend.” Said Carver with disbelief. 

I didn’t say anything. I simply jumped off the rover, and slowly, silently approached, the suit.

“What are you doing Miller?” continued Carver. 

Just as I was about to open the sunshield with my shaking hands, the suit *came alive* and grabbed my hand. With the sound travelling through our suits, I heard a weak “Pomogite” – meaning help in Russian. 

We carried him to our lander. The patch on his suit revealed his identity as “Tarkov”. He was in shock and hypoxic. I don’t know how long or why he was just lying there but he was lucky to be alive. For the next couple of hours, he fell in and out of consciousness. He eventually woke up. Our Russian was bad but luckily, he spoke English enough for us to understand each other. He didn’t remember why he was there, what had happened to him and his crew or what his mission was. 
When I looked out of the window, I realized that our flag was gone. There were no footprints, it looked like as if it simply vanished. At this point each one of us was really concerned, and we asked to terminate the mission. The command refused, explaining that the recovery of the satellite’s data was of paramount importance. We decided to continue our search tomorrow and went to sleep.

I again had the same nightmare as the day before. I woke up terrified and drenched in sweat. I saw Tarkov standing by the window and looking out. He then walked over to Carver, and just stood there, looking at him while he slept for about a minute or two. Silently, I asked him: 

“Tarkov, what are you doing?” 

but he just mumbled something like “them” or “when” and lied down. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, and I kept an eye on him, but nothing interesting happened.

The next day we found a picture or a map of the crater we were at in a pocket in Tarkov’s suit. There was a point a few miles from where we were that was marked with a cross. Tarkov didn’t know what was there, but I soon realized that it was right in the direction where I saw the flash on the first day. We had to check it out. 

Me and Carver later took off and headed towards this mysterious target while Tarkov stayed in the Charon. In reality, our rover had enough power to carry all three of us, but I insisted that it didn’t, and that he should stay behind. 

“I don’t trust this guy,” I said to Carver after I was sure that Tarkov was out of range of our short-range radio.

 “We land on the moon. We don't find the box and suddenly the probe is gone. Then we find a supposed-to-be-dead Russian who doesn't remember when was the last time he took a ****. And now, we're heading towards an inconspicuous place that was marked on his map he knows nothing about. You bet I don't trust him. **** I don't trust a single step I take in that direction.” he replied. 

“What are we going to do with him?” he asked later. 

“I don’t know yet. But we can’t take him with us. Neither the LEM or CSM is built for an extra passenger. You know that,” I responded. 

“And I’m afraid he knows that too.” replied Carver. 

The sun was setting. After driving for a while, we reached something, that puzzles me to this day. Right there, in front of us, was something I can only describe as a three-sided pyramid. It was about 10 feet tall and its surface was completely smooth and black as night. 

“What in the world is this?” asked Carver with a shiver in his voice. 

We walked around it and took pictures. 

“What the ****?!” I suddenly heard through my radio. 

I turned around and saw Carver frozen in place, staring at something. There, in the remaining faint light, was a space suit about 20 feet away from us. I recognized the missing name patch and realized that it was the suit from the Russian spacecraft. It was standing upright, on its feet. The sunshield was open to reveal a sight that terrifies me to this day. It was empty. The suit was empty. But it was standing upright. I came back to my senses after I heard a crackling noise coming from my radio. 

“….you….don’t….belong……here…..” it spoke in a low, deep, distorted voice. Then out of nowhere, I was blinded by an intense flash of light. When I recovered, the thing was gone. 

“Carver? Are you alright?” I asked. 

He was silent at first, and then replied: 

“Man, **** NASA, **** the army, **** the satellite, **** this whole mission! I want to get out of here, NOW!” 

Without any debate, we ran to the rover, and drove off back to Charon.  

When we came back, the sun had already fallen below the horizon, and it was almost completely pitch black. The airlock was open and Tarkov was standing in front of the module in his suit. Damnit. In the rush, we completely forgot about him. I approached him and started: 

“Listen, Tarkov, there is something you…” I stopped when I noticed that he was holding something behind his back, but it was too late. 

He swung and struck me with a sharpened rod. I hit my head on the inside of my helmet and dazed fell to the ground. When the ringing in my ears stopped, I saw him and Carver fighting in the dust. I stood up and thrown myself into Tarkov, propelling us both a dozen feet away. Before I was able to stand up again, he was already on top of me. We struggled and just as he got grip on the lever that was used to release my helmet, I struck his head with a sharp rock. His visor cracked, and while his air was slowly escaping his suit, I picked myself up and grabbed the rod. It was already stained with blood. He lunged at me, but I stabbed him in the chest. He then fell on top of me, and when our helmets touched, he spoke as the last of his air was pulled out from his lungs: 

“He is not your friend. Follow the voice”. 

I picked myself up and walked over to Carver. I saw that his suit was punctured on the thigh, and brownish-red blood was being **** out into the airless vacuum all around us. When I brought him inside the Charon, I realized that our first aid kit was gone. He was bleeding a lot, and I managed to slow it down, but I had to treat him properly. I was afraid, that if we took off, he would bleed out in zero gravity even faster.

 “There was a medkit in the Russian thing, wasn’****? he said. 

“Yeah” I replied. 

“Miller, you have to go and get it. ****. It’s not that far from here, is it?” said Carver. 

“No, it’s not. Are you sure you can hold on until I get back?” I asked. 

“Yeah, just go”. 

So I went. 

“Don’t die on me Carver. That’s an order.” I said before leaving.

As I said, it didn’t take long until I reached the Russian lander, but it felt like ages. Throughout the whole journey, I waited for something to jump out of the darkness around me. I wasn't surprised when I saw that the suit that was previously hanged on the wall was now missing, but still, I felt a shiver run down my spine. I took their medkit and headed back as soon as I could. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Tarkov’s last words.  

“He is not your friend. Follow the voice” I kept repeating inside my head.

 I then switched the channel on my radio to the one we heard the incomprehensible noise on. It was still on. I realized that it was stronger in one particular direction. 

“Follow the voice” I said to myself. 

Was this the voice Tarkov meant? Who is not my friend? Tarkov? Carver? The Mission commander back at Earth? I had to find out. I drove off in the direction of the signal. 

After driving for at least 15 minutes, I reached a small, crater about 30 feet in diameter. With my headlight on, I immediately saw that something was inside, but I couldn't recognize it yet. I stepped over the edge and walked into the crater and switched my light to full intensity. 

I stood there, paralyzed with raw terror for what felt like hours. There was a rectangular block of the same material as the pyramid in the center of the crater. A body was lying on top of it. Its limbs were contorted in the most twisted and gruesome way possible. His eyes were missing and in their place were only two gaping holes. It was Carver. There was a small box stuffed inside his mouth. It was the black box from the satellite. I took the box and ran out of there as fast as I could. Carver was dead. If Carver was dead, who was the Carver I left in the Charon? “He is not your friend” was the only thing I had on my mind the rest of the way back.

When I returned, Tarkov's body was gone but Carver was still there, lying, bleeding. But it wasn’t Carver. What was that thing? 

“Thank **** you’re back, Miller” said Carver. 

Not Carver. Carver was dead. Mutilated. Dead. 

“Miller, are you alright?” continued not-Carver. 

“Yeah, I’ve got the kit” I replied. He couldn’t know that I know. 

*It* couldn’t know. 

I treated his (*its*) wound and the bleeding finally stopped. I strapped him in (strapped *it* in) and then strapped myself in. I didn’t tell him (*it*) that I had found the blackbox.

 I didn't tell *it* that I found *him*. 

With the engine roaring below us, the Charon split in half, and the crew compartment pushed us up, into the void while the legs stayed planted on the lunar dust eternally. 

Now I already wrote on several occasions, that I had felt minutes pass as if they were hours. The ascent and rendezvous took only a bit more than a dozen of minutes. But those minutes felt like decades. I wanted to scream so loud that my lungs would break and I wanted to ****. But I couldn't because *it* would find out. I wanted to black out but I couldn't. I had to save Ackermann. After several lifetimes, we finally docked with Ackermann and the Trinity. Throughout the whole ordeal, we kept him updated, but meeting him was different. He was scared. But I was scared even more. He didn’t know that Carver was not Carver. I did know. 

I did unstrap first and pushed Ackermann out of the docking tunnel. I did kick Carver (not-Carver) right in the face when he followed. I did close the docking tunnel behind me. 

“WHAT THE **** ARE YOU DOING MILLER? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?” shouted Ackermann and slammed me to the wall of the command module. 

“DON'T OPEN IT, MIKE! IT'S NOT CARVER! That thing in the LEM is not Carver do you understand?!” I shouted back in pain. 

Even though he was a battle-hardened soldier, Ackermann finally broke into tears. I floated past him over to the controls, and before I undocked the Charon, I glanced at the docking tunnel window one last time. 

There it was. A thing with Carver’s face and body, but not Carver. Staring at us. But his eyes were completely smooth and black as night itself. He opened his mouth in a way that was simply not possible for a human, and let out a loud, disturbing screech that I wish I could forget so much. 

In a heartbeat, it turned to dead silence, as the Charon detached from the CSM, and drifted into the void. 

Me and Ackermann didn’t say a single word throughout the three-day journey back to Earth. 

We were placed in quarantine for months after we came back home. Nobody ever explained to us what happened on that mission. I never learned what was on the blackbox. Honestly, I didn’t want to know, after all I experienced. But whatever was there was apparently enough to cancel all other missions to the Moon and beyond. They eventually released us and made it very clear that we’re *never* supposed to talk about it. I never saw Ackermann from that day on.

The only time I talked about him was when a pair of men in suits came to my home one day a couple of years after the mission. 

“Captain Miller, have you been in touch with Lieutenant Ackermann lately?” one of them asked after we exchanged our greetings. 

“No, I never spoke or heard from him since the mission. Did something happen?” I replied. 

“I’m sorry to tell you, but Lieutenant Ackermann was found dead in a nearby forest yesterday.” 

I had to sit down. I didn't know him that well, but we spend a considerable amount of time together in training, and we lived through **** itself together, so it was more than enough for me to considered him a friend. Poor Mike. 

“How did he die?” I asked. 

“We don’t know yet. But he had multiple fractures on all of his limbs, and his eyes were gouged out.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/856tjv/i_know_why_we_never_returned_to_the_moon_part_2/)
=======

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son went missing for 15 years. Last night he came back.
 
 Assistant: My son Thomas vanished on 30th November 2004. He was 12 and had been playing football in our front garden when he disappeared off the face of the Earth.
 
There was no media circus for Thomas, despite my best efforts to get his case some attention. He wasn’t at a “cute” age, and although people pretended to be sympathetic, I overheard more than one person in our small market town gossiping that he’d probably run away. We hadn’t always been the most stable family, if truth be known. In small towns like ours, everyone latches on to any negative gossip they can get their hands on. It’s like a local pastime.
 
True, my husband Dylan and I had been arguing a couple of hours before Thomas went missing. 
And it shames me to say I knew he could hear us shouting from outside – the banging of the football against the house’s walls got louder and angrier as our argument escalated. When the police officer we reported Thomas as missing to heard we’d been arguing a lot recently, I saw his eyes glaze over. A runaway, he was thinking. Just another runaway.
 
A couple of weeks of frantic searching from us later, the police were suddenly more interested. But by then, any evidence they might have gathered had long gone. No trace of Thomas was ever found.
 
I always left the front light on for Thomas, even years later. I never gave up searching, and all my 
energies went into it. My life was searching for Thomas. Work, friends, and hobbies fell by the 
wayside one by one. Dylan was initially sympathetic, and our arguments even got better for a while. 

By the end of the first year, I started to notice his heart wasn’t really in the search anymore. By the time the second anniversary rolled around, he started telling me to “get over it”, “move on”, and “stop acting crazy”. I threw him out. He didn’t argue. I’d never felt so alone.

I’d taken to sleeping with Old Ted, the toy Thomas had loved as a young child. He’d carried it everywhere for years and loved most of its fur off, before sheepishly giving it to me at the age of ten. “Thought you might want to keep it,” he’d said, avoiding my eyes. I’d tried not to laugh and put Old Ted at the bottom of a drawer for safekeeping. Who knew that token of his childhood would be so important in keeping me company on hundreds of lonely nights when I cried myself to sleep, missing my boy so much it physically hurt.
 
Last night was windy and at first I thought I was imagining the knocking. It got louder and more 
insistent. It was 10pm, almost time for me to go to bed, and I was irritated that someone would 
bother me at this time.
 
The door swung open, and there he was. My darling, wonderful Thomas. All grown up! It took a while for my eyes to relay the information to my disbelieving brain.
 
“Hi, Mum,” he said. His voice was deep and manly now, but as cheeky as ever.

I collapsed into his arms. My emotions were too overwhelming to say anything; I just heaved and 
cried into his shoulder. He half-hugged, half-carried me to the nearest chair and sat me down. I looked into his face, surveying the miracle. His features had filled out and he even stubble now, but there was no doubt about it – there was my boy.
 
“I’ve missed you! I missed you so, so much, darling!”
 
He grinned again, and nodded towards my hands.
 
“I can see that.”
 
I only realised then that I was still clinging to Old Ted.
 
“But sweetheart – where have you been? What happened? I thought you were dead – thought 
some scumbag abducted you.”
 
Thomas shook his head.
 
“There’ll be time to explain all that. Where’s Dad?”
 
I swallowed and wondered how to explain. I hadn’t spoken to Dylan for years.

“He’s not here.”
 
“Mum, can you get him here? I really want to see him.”

How could I say no? I dialled Dylan, hoping he still had the same mobile number. To my relief, it 
rang and he answered. I told him I needed him round straight away: it was an emergency. His 
grumbling made me angry – any hesitation was time away from my boy – but he relented eventually.

As we waited, I spoke to Thomas, a decade and a half of things I wanted to say to him spilling out. Whenever I tried to move the subject on to where he’d been, what had stopped him coming back or what made him leave, he clammed up and said all would be clear later. I was terrified of scaring him away again, so I backed off. We mostly talked about what his cousins and school friends had been up to. He found it funny I’d left the light on every night, but from the distinctive way he looked away when I mentioned it, I knew he was touched.
 
Dylan turned up after a few minutes, moaning about how I’d “called him at this ridiculous hour” and how I was “hysterical”. I said nothing; I couldn’t formulate the words. I simply grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the lounge.

I’ve never seen someone stiffen so quickly and completely. Dylan looked like he’d been given an 
electric shock. Thomas didn’t rush to him. It was the strangest reunion I’d ever seen.
 
“Hello, Dad,” Thomas said. His voice was harder, somehow.
 
“Impossible,” Dylan muttered, finally.
 
“It’s him, Dylan!” I cried, feeling the tears of joy sting my eyes again. “It’s our Thomas!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Martha,” Dylan barked at me. “It’s not him.”

I was taken aback. How could he look at this man, so obviously our boy, and not recognise him instantly?
 
“Look – I don’t know who you are,” Dylan growled at Thomas, stepping into his space, “I don’t know whether you’re after money, or attention, or what. But I want you to get out of this house this instant and never come back. You’re not our son.”
 
Thomas stood his ground. He was a good six inches taller than his father now, and much more sturdily built.
 
“Oh yeah? What makes you so certain, Dad?”
 
They looked into each other’s faces, sizing each other up.

“How about you tell Mum why you’re so sure I’m not your son?” Thomas challenged.
 
I was lost. All I knew was the creeping sense of dread growing in my gut.
 
“What does he mean, Dylan? Can one of you tell me what’s going on?”
 
Dylan breathed in through his nose and closed his eyes. He paused for what seemed like an age.
 
“I’m so sorry, Martha.”
 
This was the first time I’d ever heard Dylan apologise in over two decades of knowing him. I almost wanted to put my hand over his mouth, stopping him saying what I knew he would say next. I didn’t think I could bear to hear it.

“It was me. I did it. I killed Thomas, the day he went missing. I… strangled him. And hid his body in the lake.”
 
A deathly silence fell over the room. I felt my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. Every night I’d spent crying, sobbing away in my then-husband’s arms – it all raced past my eyes in that moment. I thought I might ****.
 
“That’s it, Dad?” Thomas scoffed. “You’re not going to tell her why? Nah, didn’t think so. After all these years, you’re still a coward. That’s why you killed me, isn’****? Didn’t want me blabbing to people about what you’d done to me over all those years? **** pervert. Your freedom, your reputation, your life – I was worth sacrificing, so you could keep going as if everything was normal.”

Dylan didn’t respond. He simply bowed his head.

I don’t remember grabbing the heavy lamp from the coffee table. I don’t remember slamming it, 
with all my strength, into the back of Dylan’s lowered head. I don’t remember the immediate 
aftermath. I just remember dropping the blood-spattered light to the floor and looking at 
Dylan’s oozing corpse, half his head missing. My whole body was shaking.
 
I put my hands over my face and sobbed. Thomas – or whoever the **** this twin of his was – held me.

“Who – are – you?” I gasped through desperate cries.

“I am Thomas, Mum. I promise.”
 
I believed him because I wanted to. That counter-balanced my knowledge it was impossible. Maybe Dylan had just thought he’d killed him, and Thomas had survived and run away to start a new life?
 
There were two spades in the garage. It took Thomas and I two hours to dig a shallow grave – he was tough and strong, and dug quickly. We didn’t speak as we carried out the task, or as we lowered Dylan’s body into it. I spat on his body before we filled it back in again. By the time we’d finished the job completely, it was almost dawn.
 
Thomas looked at me sadly.

“I want you to drive me somewhere,” he said quietly. I nodded.
 
He directed me to the lake at the edge of town. We sat in silence for a moment.

“This is where he took me,” Thomas said.
 
I lowered my head to the steering wheel and cried. I felt like I might run out of tears. Thomas’s hand was on my back for a moment – and then it was gone. I lifted my head. The passenger seat next to me was empty. I’d half-expected this, but it felt like my heart was being ripped out for a second time.
 
As I drove home alone, my grief was replaced by something better: a plan. I’m going to sell my 
house. I’ll use the money to pay for a team to dredge the lake. They’ll find his remains, of course, and I’ll give him a proper burial. 
 
Once that’s done, I’ll join my boy. There’s nothing left for me in this life and I only want to be with Thomas. I hope I’ve done him proud. As I sit here, cuddling Old Teddy and thinking joyously about how we’ll be reunited properly at the end of this month, I couldn’t be happier.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Girlfriend Starred in a Movie that Doesn't Exist
 
 Assistant: “You’re such a fool Jason, grow up.” Pulling her hair into a tight bun, my girlfriend pushed my hands away from her ****. Her tone was dry as usual, it was why I loved her.

“If I’m such a fool, what does that make you?” I winked playfully, nudging her shoulder.

“A fool ****.” She responded without missing a beat, causing us to burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Jumping from the bed, I walked towards our living room scratching myself. Grabbing for the remote I turned on the television, flipping to the local news.

*Local actress Mariah Sanders has snagged the role of a lifetime, having been cast as the leading lady in Martin Scorsese’s newly announced film…”*

A grinning headshot of my girlfriend peered back at me from the TV. I stood there speechless, wondering what the **** was going on. My girlfriend was many things, but an actress was not one of them. We’d been dating on and off for almost four years, and I knew her anxiety would never allow her to perform in front of the camera. She was a delicate flower, and I did my best to protect her.

“Umm, Mariah — I need you to come here for a second.” We stood together in the living room, rewinding the news story over and over again. A quick Google search confirmed it wasn’t an isolated thing, it was everywhere. Her face was plastered on *TMZ,* *People* and every other gossip rag you can imagine.

“This has to be a mistake, I don’t know how, but this has to be a mistake.” Mariah was trembling, clearly overwhelmed with the moment. Her phone had been ringing off the hook, but she hadn’t even glanced at it. “This is so **** weird, I don’t understand what’s happening. Soon everyone is going to find out I’m a fraud, oh **** —” Choking back tears, she ran into the bedroom and shut the door behind her. I stood there, scrolling through endless articles and mentions on social media.

As the day wore on, things got even stranger. A Wikipedia page appeared, and soon it was filled with dozens of previous TV and movie appearances. Hundred of photos from commercials, adverts, and photoshoots began to pop up not soon after. It happened at a dizzying pace, her catalog growing with every minute that passed.

I could hear Mariah’s sobs from the bedroom, I could only imagine what she was going through. It was like her life was getting rewritten by an unseen auteur and she was powerless to stop it. Her history was being stripped of her and we had no way of explaining it.

“Jason, you need to see this.” Her voice quivered, barely loud enough for me to hear. Huddling around her phone screen, I watched as the news ticker flashed with a breaking headline.

*Deranged Chicago Man Kidnaps Actress Mariah Sanders*

Now there were two famous people in our household. Reading through a *CNN* article, I discovered that I was being accused of kidnapping my own girlfriend from her non-existent downtown apartment. A neighbor that was interviewed described a brazen and violent daylight kidnapping, and ended by saying Mariah was the sweetest person she knew — it was terrifying.

“Please tell me this is the world’s most elaborate prank, so I can hate you for a week then get over it.” Eyes filled with fear, Mariah looked at me with her beautiful pouty lips. I wanted nothing more than to lie to her, to tell her everything was going to be okay, but all I managed to do was give a sullen shake of my head.

“So this is all, real?” Before I could respond, the door flew from its hinges, wood splintering everywhere. A team of SWAT officers poured in, covered in kevlar. Grabbing Mariah by the shoulder, I pulled her into the bedroom and shut the door behind us.

Somberly, I looked squarely at my love and said, “You need to yell that I have a gun and I’m going to shoot you if they come in here. Until we can figure out what’s happening, I need to escape, and to do that, I need time.”

Begrudgingly, Mariah told the police what I asked her. As I expected, they couldn’t risk storming the room — so they’d stall until a negotiator arrived.

“Babe this is all so confusing. But hey, you’re famous now, so that’s something,” we both chuckled in-between cries, “I will find you and we will figure this out — I promise. Love you, forever and always.”

With that, I slipped through the window and disappeared into the night. Starting over was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but five years later, I’ve managed to eke out an existence.

During that time, the only thing that kept me going was Mariah — I watched her career explode from afar. She became a bigger and bigger starlet, climbing to the highest echelons of Hollywood. It was painful, but I was so proud of her accomplishments despite everything that had transpired.

That was until an interview she gave three days ago. Dressed in a graceful white dress, she sat on a couch and spewed lies to a late-night host.

*Your bravery and quick thinking in the face of such danger is truly incredible — you’re amazing Mariah, simply amazing. America wants to know, how did you do it?*

*Well Jimmy, I simply fed into his delusions. I did what I know best, I acted. He believed I was his girlfriend, and I knew if I played the part well enough, I could eventually help direct his actions. When he jumped out of that window I broke down, I couldn’t believe it was finally over.*

The words grated against my heart, leaving a permanent scar. Deep sadness was replaced by an immense rage. She’d never spoken about that night before, and I believed that was to protect me. But she was so clearly deluded by her newfound fame, she’d do anything to curry favor with the masses.

As I sit here, in a barely running 94’ Chevy, I watch her living her new life. New man, new dog, new house. Well, history has a habit of repeating itself — [no matter how hard you try and erase it.](https://www.facebook.com/SpookBrain/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I had a disturbing conversation with my neighbour’s 10-year-old son.
 
 Assistant: I didn't hear Michael at first.

The noise of the mower filled my head like a swarm of angry wasps, drowning everything else out. I was finishing off the last **** of grass, closest to my neighbour's wall. Being as quick as I could. The last hint of light was bleeding out of the sky, and I wanted to get back inside as soon as I could. A beer in front of the TV was calling.

But when I reached the far end of the garden and cut the power, I heard a voice behind me.

"Paul?"

I jumped slightly. You know when you're so caught up in your own head you forget your surroundings? My wife is back from holiday tomorrow — she's been off in Spain with a couple of her friends for the past week — and I'd been thinking about my plan to meet her at the airport. Timings, when I'd need to leave, all that. I was in my own little bubble. The voice floating over from my neighbour's garden punctured through it.

I turned from the mower and stared over the low wall into the garden next to mine. I couldn't see anything at first — the sky was mostly dark overhead, and the only light spilling into the gardens came from single street lamp on the road behind my house. It did little to shift the shadows.

"Over here."

I shifted my gaze and finally saw him. Michael. My new next door neighbour. I'm pretty bad at guessing kids' ages, but I reckon he has to be around 10. He's got a shock of messy black hair and these big, brown eyes. The kid's a starer, too. I've only seen him a couple of times since he and his mum moved in last week, but every time I do he gazes at me like I'm an animal in the zoo. It's a little annoying. This was the first time he'd actually spoken to me, though.

"Oh, hey... Michael, is it?" I actually knew his name perfectly well — I'd bumped into the estate agent selling the house next door and he'd told me — but I didn't want to appear over familiar.

"Yeah, I'm Michael. And you're Paul, my mum said."

"That's me. How are you guys settling in?"

"Okay, I guess." Michael stared up at me with those large, brown eyes of his. I don't have much cause to talk to kids, so I may have been completely wrong about this — but I had the feeling Michael was making a lot more eye contact than someone his age normally would. He hardly even blinked. Young kids — at least in my limited experience — tend to be all over the place. Little bags of energy. But Michael was the exact opposite.

*It's probably close to his bed time*, I found myself thinking. And then, off the back of that: *You want to be glad he's not bouncing off the walls. If he was one of* those *kids, you'd never get any peace.*

Amazingly, considering they were still in the early moving stage, I'd barely heard a peep out of Michael and his mother. I'd been expecting to hear the sound of furniture shifting and boxes being lugged around all week, but I hadn't. They'd hardly made any noise at all. I'd hardly *seen* them at all, for that matter. They'd arrived late one evening the previous week, and I'd caught a glimpse of them from the window of my study — but that was pretty much it. I remember Michael's mum as a tall, attractive woman who looked a little older than me, but I hardly even got a proper look at her face. And this conversation with Michael was the first interaction I'd had with either of them.

*I'll go round at some point when Beth's back home*, I thought now, folding down the mower's handle. Then we can introduce ourselves properly.

"So, Michael," I said, picking up the mower and carrying it back along the garden, "what are you and your mum up to this evening? I'm guessing it must be close to your bedtime soon?"

"Nah, nowhere *near*," he said.

I chuckled. "Okay, well *my* bedtime's pretty early, so I'm going to head in and catch a bit of TV, I reckon. I'll see you round, yeah?"

I reached the little wooden storage area at the end of the garden and slotted the mower underneath. I was on my way to the back door when Michael's voice stopped me. "Paul?"

"What's up, mate?"

"Do you always mow the garden so late?"

I smiled. "No, I usually try to get it done when the sun's still out. Only my wife's back home tomorrow, and I wanted to get the place looking nice for her. I guess it must look pretty odd to be out here mowing at night, eh?"

"Nah, I don't think so. I think *everything*'s more fun at night."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! I go on adventures all the time." I could hear the excitement in Michael's voice, even though I couldn't see his face properly. He was just a shadowy outline in the darkness of his garden. "One time we even went night fishing — have you ever been?"

I shook my head. "I've been fishing once or twice, but only during the day."

"It's *way* more fun at night, I reckon. Everything's more sneaky at night."

I found myself grinning again. Despite my urge to go back inside, the kid was sort of entertaining. "Well, maybe you and your mum can show me and my wife sometime. Sounds like you guys are way more exciting than we are."

I turned once more to the back door. This time I was actually holding the handle when Michael's voice stopped me.

"Paul?"

"Yes, buddy?"

"Paul, do you have anything to drink? Like juice, or anything?"

I hesitated. "Er, I'm not sure. I don't think I—"

"Do you mind if I have a glass real quick? Mum's still sleeping, and she's been super tired this week. I don't want to wake her."

I paused with my hand on the door. If Beth had been in, I probably would have said yes straight away. Likely without even thinking about it. But standing there in the dark garden, I was suddenly aware that it might look a bit odd if I invited a 10-year-old kid into my house. Even if he *was* my next door neighbour. And I doubted his mum would like the idea all that much.

"Do you not have anything to drink at your place, mate?" My hand was still on the door, but I hadn't turned the handle yet. I stayed in the same position, my mind whirring with excuses. And when I heard a voice directly behind me, I almost jumped out of my skin.

"No, we don't have anything." 

I spun round and found Michael standing about a foot away from me. Staring up at me with those large, brown eyes of his. The kid must have clambered over the garden wall while my back was turned. Must have done it without making a sound.

"Please, Paul? Just a super quick drink, and then I'll go back home. I won't even sit down, I promise."

I made a quick mental calculation in my head. Our back door opens straight into the kitchen, and I had orange juice in the fridge. Michael would probably be in and out in a couple of minutes. His mum might find it a little odd that he'd been inside the house if he told her — but wouldn't she find it just as odd if her new neighbour had refused her kid a drink when he asked? 

I hesitated for a couple more seconds, then sighed. "Okay, go on, then. But you have to make it quick, okay? I really do want to go to bed soon."

Michael smiled up at me and nodded. I turned the handle and stepped inside.

\*

"So you're a bit of a night owl, huh?"

"What does that mean?"

I opened the fridge and grabbed the orange juice. "It means someone who prefers it at night. You know, because you said you go on adventures — night fishing and stuff?" I moved to the drying rack by the sink and grabbed a glass.

"Oh, yeah. I'm definitely a night owl."

I started pouring juice into the glass. "Man, not me. Or at least I wasn't when I was your age. I used to be scared of the dark."

"You'll get used to it."

"Hm?"

"I said you get used to it. Once you spend enough time in it."

"Right."

I turned and handed the glass of orange juice to Michael. He took it from me and smiled. He moved the glass towards his mouth, then paused, watching me over the rim. "You know, my mum doesn't like me doing this any more."

"Doing what?"

"Going in to houses with strangers. Not after last time."

I stared down at the kid. He looked back up at me, the smile no longer on his face. Somewhere down in my stomach, I felt something uncomfortable squirm. "What do you mean, mate? What happened last time?"

Michael glanced over his shoulder at the closed back door. As if he was checking to make sure his mum wasn't there. He moved the glass of orange juice away from his mouth and placed it on the kitchen counter. Then he shrugged.

"Nothing, really. It's just that in the place we used to live, I made friends with this old man who lived a couple roads over from us. He invited me in for a drink, too. Only then he got weird."

*Oh Jesus*. I tried to keep my expression the same, but I was suddenly wishing I'd said no to the kid's drink request after all. This didn't sound good. Some old pervert in his last town had invited him in for a drink, and then he'd *got ****. How was his mum going to feel about him being on his own in my house now, given that something bad had clearly happened in the last place they lived?

"He... got weird?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. I should have just sent the kid packing there and then, but I guess my curiosity got the better of me. Michael shuffled on the spot, staring back at me.

"Yeah, he wanted me to come down to the basement with him. Told me he had this really cool Lego collection, and I asked if I wanted to see it. He *insisted* I see it, even when I said I had to go."

My mouth suddenly felt dry. "So... did you go with him?"

Michael shook his head back and forth, hard. "No way. I ran back home. Mum told me I have to only go as far as the kitchen when I'm in strangers' houses."

I felt mild relief wash over me. Then I replayed what Michael had just said, and felt the relief being replaced with confusion. "Wait, how do you mean?" I asked. "Are you in strangers' houses a lot, then? Like friends of your mum's, and stuff?"

Michael opened his mouth, then closed it again. He turned and moved his hand back to the glass of orange juice on the kitchen side. But instead of picking it up he only prodded it with his finger, sliding it over the surface. When he looked back at me he carried on speaking as if he hadn't heard my question.

"Mum was really angry when she found out about the man. She made me promise I'd never, *ever* go back there."

"Did she tell anyone? About what that man said to you, I mean?"

"No way." Michael looked away from me again. There was a slight smile on his face, like he was in on some joke I wouldn't understand. "She did something *way* better than that."

"Oh yeah? What did she do?"

"She made him disappear."

I had my mouth open to ask another question when I realised what Michael had just said. The next thought I had was that I must have misheard him. "What did you say?"

"I said she made him disappear. I told you, night's the best time to hunt."

Michael fixed me with those brown eyes of his. Only right then they looked darker than brown. Almost black.

"I... I don't..." I tried to find words, but I was at a loss. Michael smiled up at me.

"It's funny," he said after a moment. "People think mum won't come in unless she's invited, but they've got the rules all wrong. As long as *one of us* has already been invited, then it's fine. She can come back with me any time she wants."

The kid smiled at me once more. "Don't worry, Paul. I'll tell her you were nice to me. Make sure she goes easy on you when you meet her. Thanks for the juice."

He turned away and pulled the back door open. I found my eyes wandering over to the glass of orange juice, my mind vaguely aware that he hadn't touched a drop of it. But when Michael spoke one more time, I turned back to him. He was framed in the open doorway, half lost in the night.

"It'll take some getting used to," he said, "but you won't be scared of the dark much longer."

Before I had a chance to reply, he'd [melted into the shadows](https://www.reddit.com/r/samhaysom/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandpa, a retired homicide detective, just told me the case that still keeps him up at night
 
 Assistant: I’ve heard a lot of stories from my grandfather. He was a detective for 27 years of his life, and I grew up listening to the tales of he and his fellow lawmen. As a child, he obviously amended the stories quite a bit to make them age-appropriate, but as I grew up, more and more of the true stories came out. 

Starting about two years ago, my grandpa got sick. He’s been on a slow decline ever since, and while it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with, his illness acted as the catalyst for a set of stories he’d never before brought up. He said he kept them “filed away deep in the folder he doesn’t like to open”. He calls them “*The Impossible Ones*”.

But this last one, the one he told me last night, he says it’s the one that still keeps him up some nights, the one he thinks about every day. He said he’s looked over the case files more times than he can remember, done a full re-examination of it all more times than he can remember, and it never makes any more sense. He said he only told me now because he can feel in his bones that he doesn’t have a lot of time left.

I recorded him telling me the story, so what follows is my transcription of the case, verbatim. I’ve only excluded his coughing fits and any off-topic remarks made during the telling of the case.


-----


The case was a ****/kidnapping, at least that’s what it looked like,and it was me and Olson, I’ve told you about him. There was a family, the Nebels. There was Benjamin, the husband, Jennifer, the wife, and Katie, their 6-year-old daughter. One of their neighbors had gone out for the paper around 6AM and saw the Nebel’s front door wide open. When she went over to see if everything was okay, she saw the wife’s body.

The neighbor called 9-1-1 and eventually we were sent over there. Now, when I say there was no outward signs of a struggle, I mean it. There was no sign whatsoever that anything had happened, well, except for the dead body. But even her body, there were no wounds, no marks of any kind. I’m getting ahead of myself.

On our way to the house, it came over the radio that the husband and daughter were unaccounted for. If you’re thinking “the husband did it”, we did too, obviously. Problem was, both the family’s cars were still in the garage. So we think they might be on foot. Some officers canvassed the neighborhood, and no one had seen them, including two neighbors that were on their porches for hours starting in the early morning. No one had heard any kind of commotion coming from their house, either. 

I mentioned the wife’s body. She didn’t have a hair out of place. She was on her back in the kitchen; about a third of her upper body was under the table. We found out after the autopsy that...well, she’d just...died. There was no cause that they could find. She’d been a perfectly healthy woman, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, ate right, exercised. It was like she’d just blinked her eyes and gone from alive to dead.

Anyways, we searched the house. We went through it with a fine-tooth comb, basement to attic, found nothing. No evidence of a struggle, no weapon, nothing. So we left. We’d spent hours in that house, thought maybe we should come back in a day or two with some fresh eyes. We went over to where Benjamin worked, he was a supervisor at a lumber yard. 

According to his coworkers, he’d shown up at work that morning just before 5AM. When he got in he worked on this narrow crate...thing he was building in his office, something he’d told his coworkers was a project for his house. According to the other morning supervisor, he’d only built about half of the thing. Around 6:15, he said he was running to the bathroom, and that was the last anyone saw him. They never saw him leave.

While we were at the lumber yard I realized I’d left my notes at the house. We drove back over there, and we got there while they were taking the wife’s body away. As soon as we walked in, the stench hit us like a bus. It was...well, it was what a newly discovered but long dead body smells like.

We knew it obviously couldn’t have been the wife. We asked a few of the officers and forensics folks that were still at the house what the smell was, and they told us that it had only started a few minutes before we’d gotten back there. I’m not exaggerating when I say the smell was everywhere in the house. I’ve smelled some dead ones before, but this smelled like every wall in the place was lined with corpses.

Pretty quickly, we found that the smell was strongest leading up to the attic. Now I told you before, we checked the attic. I checked it myself probably five times. But we went back up, me and Olson. I was up the little pull-down ladder first, and when I poked my head up I saw something. I saw a piece of wood, like a box, you know, a crate.

It was shaped kind of like a rifle case. Maybe three feet tall, two feet wide, maybe six inches deep, rectangular. It was standing straight up, and there was blood leaking from it. We called the photographers and all the people in there, they all do their thing, and finally they pull out all the nails and open the box. 

Out falls the husband. 

Think about that. This guy was maybe 5’10”, 140lbs, and he was put in a three foot by two foot by six inch crate. His bones were just a mess. His insides, all his organs, they were flattened. They were just...wet, squishy pieces of fabric, almost. He was stuffed in there like...I don’t know what like. He was just a rectangle of blood, skin, and...parts. His skin had the discoloration of a body that had been dead for about two weeks...which obviously didn’t make sense since they’d seen him at work that morning. He was also missing his eyeballs.

We were standing there trying to rationalize the whole situation when something caught everyone’s ears at the same time.

A little girl’s voice, calling out for help.

What followed was a sequence of all the people in the attic, AND the rest of the house, AND the people out on the lawn, AND the few people that were standing on the other side of the yellow tape, all saying some variation of the phrase “it sounds like it’s coming from over there!”. Problem was, every single person swore they heard it coming from a different direction.

Me, I heard it from right above me. No kidding. The first time I heard that little voice say “help me”, I looked straight up, right up to the rafters. Of course she wasn’t there, it was just my brain’s response to where it perceived her voice as coming from.

We had to listen to every one of these people tell us where they thought they heard her voice coming from. People swore up and down they heard it coming from the kitchen cabinets, the bedroom closets, the refrigerator, the tank behind the toilet for ****’s sake. People on the street said they heard it from underneath cars, behind trees, on the sides of the houses next to the Nebels. Everyone heard her voice for about a minute and a half, two minutes tops. And then it just stopped

About two weeks after that day, the wife’s sister had a funeral for Jennifer. It went fine, they buried her, all that. The husband’s remains were cremated not long after that and put on display in a different part of the cemetery. I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but at some point over the few weeks after he was cremated, someone stole his urn. 

It was missing for about six months, and then one day we get a call, find out a groundskeeper at the cemetery had called in. The wife had been dug up and posed like she was leaning against the grave, just relaxing. She had the urn in her hands, but it was wrapped in skin. Well they tested it, and it was the husband’s skin. 

They’d pretty well reconstructed the man after he poured out the crate, and he hadn’t been missing any skin. And remember I told you his skin was discolored? Well, this skin was perfectly preserved. And inside the urn? With his ashes, there were three eyeballs. Only one of them was the husband’s.

It’s been, what...22 years? I still hear that girl’s voice calling out sometimes. And I don’t mean my memory or mind is playing tricks on me. Ask your grandmother, she’s heard her. The same 6-year-old voice. 

And then, I remember it was May 12th, 2007, I was going to pick up a pizza for us. I saw that girl. I saw Katie Nebel. I don’t mean I saw her grown up, I don’t mean I saw a little girl that looked like her when she was young. I mean I saw that **** kid. She was standing outside the Walgreens right by our old house, crying. 

I pulled over and got outta the car, and I started to walk up to her. I can’t explain how I felt in that moment. I was nauseous, I was so, so afraid. Terrified. More than I’ve ever been. She looked right at me and said in that same voice, “help me, please”. I don’t know what the **** happened, but she just disappeared. I never took my eyes off her. She was just there one second, gone the next.

I thought I was losing my mind. I was seriously worried about my mental heath. But then, about an hour after I got back home, the phone rang. It was Olson. Hadn’t talked to the son of a **** five years, and he called me that night. Said he saw Katie Nebel sitting on a bus stop bench, crying. He lived on the other side of the country.

...

Killed himself the next day. 

[My grandpa took a deep breath after that.]

There’s never a good ending to these stories, I know. If there was, they wouldn’t be “The Impossible Ones”, I’d have figured them out one way or the other. And I know I’ve told you some others, but that girl’s voice still wakes me up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I hear it from downstairs, sometimes from the bathroom.

…

Sometimes I’ll be laying on my side, facing away from your grandmother, and it’ll sound like it’s coming from her mouth.

We never found a trace of that girl, nothing. I told you what they do with those cases, the-- **** it. I--ah, I’m sorry. Let’s--that’s it. That’s the worst one. Some of the other ones might sound worse to you, but that’s the worst for me. Okay.


-----


He told me he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and said now that he told me, he’d never talk about it again.

[Case 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/d4sqgk/my_grandpa_a_retired_homicide_detective_just_told/?) | [Case 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/d666g3/my_grandpa_a_retired_homicide_detective_just_told/?) | [Case 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dpws6m/my_grandpa_a_retired_homicide_detective_wanted_me/) | [Case 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/drrht8/my_grandpa_a_retired_homicide_detective_just_told/?) | [Case 6](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dw1j2k/my_grandpa_a_retired_homicide_detective_just_told/?) | [Case 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e8bab3/my_grandpas_friend_a_retired_homicide_detective/?)

[NBH](http://www.nickbotic.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’ve been hypnotizing neighborhood kids with psychedelics for the last 17 years. Tonight, I went too far.
 
 Assistant: I met twelve-year-old Bradford only an hour ago.

Now his head is smashed in and he’s lying in a pool of blood in the middle of my basement floor.

The police will be here any minute to arrest me, no doubt.

They’ll gather testimony from the other three boys that were here tonight, then from the nearly one hundred other boys that have visited my basement over the past seventeen years.

Alright, writing that down makes me sound like a pervert, but I’m not a pervert. Let’s get that out there.

This is my final confession.

It all started in the year 2002. I had just graduated with a master’s in psychology and was working at Top Hat Video to pay the bills while pursuing research on Psychedelic Therapy on the side.

While exiting the local Cinemark after seeing M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs on opening night, I noticed a group of four boys gathered around the ticket booth, one of whom I recognized as a neighborhood kid, Jimmy McConkie. They had just learned that the 11:15 pm showing was sold out and were trying to figure out whose mom could pick them up. 

Jimmy saw me and called out. “Hey Marcus! How’s it goin?”

“Jimmy, what’s goin on?”

“Signs is sold out,” he said, visibly disheartened.

“****, sorry man. I just saw it,” I said.

His face lit up and his friends gathered around. “Well, how was it?” he asked.

“It was horrifying,” I said. “So good.”

“Oh man, well, we’ll have to try tomorrow,” he said, turning to his friends.

They nodded in affirmation.

Then I started thinking. 

My latest research had been on the use of psychedelics to treat early childhood trauma. In theory, the drugs would help access a higher plane of existence, which, with the guidance of a licensed professional, could be used to gain a deeper understanding of the trauma. 

Of course, much of what I was studying back then is almost common knowledge in progressive psychiatric circles today. LSD, MDMA, and Psilocybin (as found in mushrooms) are used regularly in underground guided-therapy sessions nowadays, but back then, no way. In the 1960s or 70s? Sure. Early 2000s? No.

On a whim, I invited the boys over to my house. I told them I’d give them a preview of Signs without spoiling too much. Since the kids still didn’t have a ride home, they accepted my invitation. They packed into my Subaru Outback and I took them to my home. For all the talk about stranger danger, these twelve-year-olds were much too confident coming with me. Though, again, I had no ill intent. I never did, at any point.

It sounds so creepy writing it down like this, but a handful of willing kids was exactly what I needed to test my methods. If the combination of psychedelics and hypnosis could work for trauma, why not for fun?

I served the four of them Pepsi while I got the basement ready. I set up four chairs in the middle of my unfinished basement, turned on the surround-sound speakers, and got a bell from the storage room. I ground up tablets of MDMA and fed them into the dry powder inhaler.

I brought the boys down and invited them to take a seat.

“I’m gonna set the scene for you,” I said, handing them blindfolds. “Imagine you’re on a farmhouse in the middle of rural Pennsylvania.”

Once their blindfolds were fastened, I started the binaural beats on the speakers. “You are surrounded by hundreds of acres of cornfield,” I said and rang the bell.

I took the powder inhaler to each one and instructed them to inhale on my count. “One… two… three… breathe in,” I’d say, spraying the ground MDMA. “This will help you envision the scene a bit better,” I told them.

They were giddy with excitement as I walked them through the story. I could tell when the drugs kicked in because their reactions became more animated. Once I realized my power, I’ll admit I embellished the details a little bit, but the boys were having the time of their lives.

Although I wanted to go deeper, I stuck with the story, making sure to get their permission before veering into spoiler territory. I ended on a strong note then let the high wear off before driving them home.

The boys decided, on their own volition, that they’d tell their parents they saw the movie as planned and that it was fantastic. They knew it was sketchy going over to a single neighborhood man’s house under the radar, so they promised each other to keep quiet.

As the months went on, that same group of four boys returned a few more times, asking me to take them on some sort of adventure. Sometimes they had specific requests–I want to fly; Let’s do a haunted house; How bout a creepy version of Disneyland, etc. Other times, they let me call the shots.

The process was simple enough. I played around with drug types and dosages, along with my hypnosis techniques and music. Eventually, I had formulas for every type of occasion.

As that group of four boys got older, they brought their younger brothers and other neighborhood kids as a kind of sacred rite-of-passage. 

In 2007, Jimmy graduated high school. He went on to other things and I stayed in the same place, continuing my research. Eventually, I got a job teaching Psychology 101 at the community college. By that time, I had myself a group of about eight regulars aged twelve to fifteen that would come over about once a month and allow me to take them on whatever adventure they (or I) wanted. 

Again, not a pervert.

After applying blindfolds, dimming the lights, putting on music, and giving each of them a couple inhales of my special powder, I told them to imagine various scenarios. I’d give only a basic level of detail and allow their drug-infused brains to fill in the gaps. I’ll admit I pushed the boundaries sometimes to see what kind of reaction I’d get. 

It was around the year 2015 when I made my first real breakthrough. I had a group of six boys, I think. After the regular setup, I decided to do something a little different. To the best of my recollection, here’s how the session went:

“I want you to imagine you’ve arrived at an abandoned mansion in the middle of the desert. It’s the biggest house you’ve ever seen. Very dark, very creepy. You open the rusty gate that guards the property and walk through, kicking your feet through piles of moldy leaves. 

“You slip past what remains of the front door and walk in on a grand entrance. Double staircases, a giant crystal chandelier, granite floors. It smells of mildew and dust, like it hasn’t been touched in years. Cobwebs cake seemingly every corner. As you step in and take in the utter beauty of this masterpiece of a mansion, you hear something—the faint lull of a cello.

“Intrigued, you follow the sound, taking you down long, winding corridors to a two-story library. The shelves are stocked with books, but they are dusty and rotted much like everything else in the house. The faded sun makes its way through the large stained-glass windows, giving off glares of all colors. In the center of the room is a beautiful woman. She is the composite of every beautiful woman you have ever seen.”

Each of the boys shifted, smiles creeping on their faces. I couldn’t help but smile too.

“That beautiful woman is the one who’s playing the cello. She plays with such fervent passion. The way it reverberates through the library sends a chill down your spine. As you stand there, watching her play carefully with seemingly her whole body, you notice that the second-floor mezzanine is beginning to fill up with people. People you know. Friends, family, acquaintances. They wear somber looks as they take their place standing above you. None of them seem to notice you standing there.

“Suddenly, you realize why they’re there. Off to the side, behind the cellist, is an open casket. Your heart sinks as you begin to understand the situation you have walked into. You cautiously approach the mahogany casket as the cello croons in the background. You lean forward to get a closer look at the body. There, with taut white flesh, closed eyes, and caked in makeup, is your dead body.”

One of the boys yelped and fell out of his chair. The others snapped out of hypnosis, ripping the blindfolds off. A couple of them had tears streaming down their faces.

I turned off the music and nervously watched them compose themselves in silence. There were so many emotions in the room, I couldn’t get a good read on the boys. Eventually, once things relaxed a bit, one of the boys approached me.

“I’m gonna go home,” he said.

“Okay, do you need a ride? Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m… I’ll be fine. I just—” he paused for a moment holding back tears. “I’ve been an **** to my little brother lately. Now I’m worried that I’ll die, or **** die before I have a chance to make things right. I don’t want things to end like this. I want him to know—” 

He looked around to the other guys and saw that their emotions seemed to match his own. “I want him to know I love him.” He walked upstairs, out the front door, never to be seen again. 

A few of the other boys expressed something similar—that there were a few people in their lives that they had been jerks to, that they had lied to, that they hadn’t been nice to. They wanted to make things right.

For the first time since I had begun this endeavor, I felt good about myself. It was the first time I had dared do anything meaningful with the therapy and it seemed to be effective. These boys’ lives were changed for good because of this simple session. 

Fast forward a few years and I have had almost a hundred different boys come to do guided psychedelic therapy sessions with me. They all understood the gravity of keeping it on the down-low—a point that tended to be baked into the initial invitation.

Tonight, however, I took things too far.

Rather than using the therapy as a method to help the boys explore themselves, I attempted to use it as a method to learn the secrets of the universe.

Just a few hours ago, a group of four boys, two of which I had hosted before stopped by, asking if I could conduct a session. I had nothing else going on, aside from a little reading and late-night solo drinking, so I let them in. They had just come from basketball practice. 

They followed me into the basement and took their seats. The two boys that had been there before—Adam and Bryson—explained the process to the two new boys—Bradford and Trey. The two new boys seemed nervous, as most first-timers are, but they trusted their friends enough to proceed.

I started the music, dimmed the lights, and instructed them to place the blindfolds on. I took another sip of whiskey then walked the inhaler around, giving each boy three puffs of my special sauce.

Aside from generalities, I don’t usually plan these ‘adventures’ too far in advance. I suppose it was the late-night reading of Lovecraft infused with alcohol and a relentless thunderstorm that led me on tonight’s particular excursion.

I started the session slowly, allowing about thirty minutes for the drugs to take full effect, all while occasionally ringing the bell.

“You find yourself in the middle of the woods one evening, the pink sky filtering through thick rows of pine trees. You walk carefully, mindfully through the woods, the soft padding of fallen pine needles cushioning your every step.”

The boys slouched in their chairs as they fell deeper into hypnosis.

“As you walk along, smelling the sweet smell of the pines, hearing the chirping crickets, you find a fallen wooden sign half-buried in the ground. You dig it out and brush it off. On it reads something quite peculiar. ‘This way to the end of the world,’ it reads. You find a tree with an old rusty nail about six feet up and determine that this must be what the sign was attached to.

“You continue trekking through the woods, all while keeping an eye out for whatever *the end of the world* might be. The further you go into the forest, the darker it gets. Pretty soon, you start to feel something. You start to internalize the gravity of the situation. Although you thought the sign was silly at first, you now believe it. You become confident that you are about to discover something groundbreaking.

“The chirping crickets suddenly stop. Ahead of you is a metal stairway that leads down into a wide hole—about fifty feet in diameter. You edge closer to the hole and realize that the fading daylight doesn’t offer you enough to see the extent of its depth.

“You consider turning back, but the unwavering sense of curiosity gets the best of you and you decide to descend the stairs. You go slowly at first, testing the loadbearing of each step carefully. After about twenty stairs, you feel safe and start descending quicker. Another hundred feet down, you happen upon a heavy metal door with rusted bolts and hinges.

“You push the door hard and it squeaks open revealing a man playing basketball alone in an empty arena. Each time the ball bounces, it echoes through the building and into the stairwell you occupy.”

Some of the boys sit upright, smirking.

“After making a long three, the man grips the basketball and turns slowly to face you. He walks to you very carefully. As he gets closer, you realize the man is huge.”

The boys grip their seats.

“Once he’s about fifty feet away, you recognize him. It’s Lebron James!”

The boys laugh in excitement. One of them stands up and pumps his fist. I can’t help but chuckle to myself at my spontaneity. Lebron James is probably the only current NBA player I can name.

“When he gets to the doorway, standing right in front of you, a serious look passes on his face, and he begins to speak.” I clear my throat and drop my voice.

“’I know that you think you’re just having a fun time, going on a psychedelic adventure, but you have to understand something,’ he says. ‘This journey is important. Very important. What you are doing has the potential to unlock all the mysteries of the earth. You just have to keep going. Promise me you’ll keep going.’”

One of the boys swallows hard. All of them nod in agreement.

“Then, the ball he’s holding turns to fire. He dribbles it a few times and spins it on his finger, apparently unfazed. He hands you the ball and you hold it with both hands. The flames dance around the ball without burning you. ‘This will help light your path,’ he says, then slams the door. Lebron James is gone. You continue down the stairwell, your path lit by the flaming basketball.

“After another hour of descending the stairs, you reach a second door. This one is equally heavy and rusty as the first. As you push it open, you hear the sound of waves crashing. You lean your shoulder into the door, as you did with the first one, and shove it open. Sand spills onto your feet. You look upon a beautiful endless beach of white sand bordered by blue, crashing waves on one side and lush jungle vegetation on the other. A cool, saltwater mist touches your skin.

“When you hear the ding of the bell, the sun will disappear,” I said. “One… two… three…” I dinged the bell and waited for a moment. A couple of the boys leaned forward.

“You can still hear the waves crashing and feel the ocean mist, but the world is pitch black. No stars. No moon. You can only see the few feet of sand in front of you, as illuminated by the flaming basketball. As you focus on the sound, you hear someone walking toward you. When I count to three and ding the bell, the sun will reappear, and your mother will be standing there. One… two… three…” I dinged the bell again. The boys smiled nervously.

“This woman brought you into the world, she fed you, clothed you, changed your diapers. Your mother sacrificed so much for you. You feel this. In this moment, you internalize an undying gratitude for your mother. You would do absolutely anything for her—you’d take a bullet for her or jump in front of a bus. Absolutely anything.”

I wait for a moment, allowing my words to marinate.

“Your mom stands in the sand about fifty feet back, looking at you with a smile. She invites you in, but you can’t move—you’re stuck in the stairwell. As soon as you realize this, you see someone else approach. A man dressed head-to-toe in black emerges from the jungle with a machete. His identity is concealed by a leather black mask.

“Your mom continues to smile, unaware of the man in black approaching. You try to call out, but you can’t speak. You wave your hands furiously until she pays attention. A look of fear passes over her. As she turns around to confront her attacker, the man hits her over the head, knocking her unconscious. You notice for the first time that there is a large cage in the sand behind the attacker. The man drags your unconscious mother into the cage, slams the door, and locks it. You look at her limp body sprawled out on the metal floor of the cage and are filled with rage. 

“You try to move again but can’t. You try to scream but can’t. The man in black notices you and approaches. When he is standing right in front of you, he dangles the key to the cage and laughs a deep, **** chuckle. He then throws the key out of the door, over your head. You hear it clank down the staircase, disappearing far, far below you into the void. The man pulls his mask off revealing a horrific, warped face with gaping, bloody holes where his eyes should be. He speaks again: ‘one more door.’ The door slams shut, booming into the stairwell.”

One of the boys shakes his head furiously. The others look angry. *It’s working,* I thought.

“As you continue descending the stairs, lit by the flaming basketball, you feel brave and confident, like you can confront whatever lies in the third and final door. You can get the keys to the cage. You can save your mother and you can find the secrets to the end of the world. You just have to keep going. You have to be—”

Thunder cracked outside, loud enough to make me jump and snap the boys out of hypnosis. They ripped their blindfolds off and stumbled to their feet, breathing heavily.

“Oh my ****, that was intense,” Adam said.

“You don’t want to keep going?” I asked.

“Man, that was enough for one night. Great trip though, I loved meeting Lebron James. That felt so real. Didn’t that feel real?” Trey said to the others. They nodded in agreement. 

“**** lightning woke you guys up,” I said.

“Well, thanks for havin’ us over Mr. Marcus,” Bryson said, picking up his hat.

As they started up the stairs, I noticed that not all of them snapped out of the hypnosis. Bradford sat still, blindfold on, still gripping his chair.

“Should I wake him?” I asked the others. This was Bradford’s first session and I didn’t want him to freak out when he awoke.

“You guys go ahead, I’ll wait for Bradford to wake up,” Adam said. 

Bryson and Trey disappeared a couple minutes later after making plans with Adam to meet up at Bradford’s house when . Adam then took a seat in the corner, excited to watch the session with Bradford proceed. 

“You continue descending the stairs, a blast of cool air blowing past you,” I said.

Bradford visibly shivered.

“What’s your strategy?” Adam whispered to me.

I turned the music up, allowing Bradford a few minutes to descend the stairs.

I walked over to Adam. “The key is to get each of the patients in touch with as many emotions and feelings as possible. Happy, sad, afraid, amused, etc. Then I try to create sensory experiences—exposing them to heat, cold, smells, tastes, etc. The more the hypnosis can infiltrate their brain, the more effective it is.”

“What’s your end goal with this session?” Adam asked.

I smiled. “We have five senses, right?”

“Yeah. Sight, smell, touch, taste, and… what’s the last one?”

“Hearing,” I answered.

He nodded.

“But a lot of our brain is unused, right?” I posed.

“Yeah.”

“So, what if we *can* experience other senses, but don’t know how to activate them?” I asked. “Like in the same sense that birds or whales know how and when to migrate. Or how any number of animals and insects can locate food or water in almost any scenario. They have these intuitions that we don’t quite understand.”

“And you think these sessions can activate those extra senses?”

“I don’t know if it’s possible to activate them in the real world, necessarily, but I do believe that we can activate them within the hypnosis.”

“What kind of senses?”

I took another sip of my whiskey. “It’s still a theory, but I think we can tune our inner antenna, so to speak, to understand the secrets of the universe.”

“Like what?”

“Like if we’re alone in the universe. Like how all this came to be. Like what happens to the souls who have passed,” I said.

Adam sat in contemplation for a moment then smiled. “****, well let’s hope Bradford can bring us home,” he said.

I tipped my glass to him, sipped my whiskey, then took my place at the front of the room. Bradford hadn’t moved an inch.

“As you descend the stairs, you begin to hear voices calling from above. You hear your dad, your siblings, your friends. They all voice their support. *You can do it! Keep going! You’re almost there! Be brave!”*

Bradford sat up tall in his chair. *Getting closer,* I thought.

“The flaming basketball finally finds an end to the staircase. You step onto a cobblestone landing and look around you. You have descended into a large silo of some kind—maybe a cave or a well—with nothing but a door of similar size and configuration as the first two against the wall. On the ground, a flicker of light reveals the location of the cage keys wedged between two stones. However, before you pick the keys up, you realize that you must first open the door.

“Just then someone descends the stairs behind you, but you don’t feel scared. The person steps into the light of the flaming basketball and you realize that it’s you. You are standing face to face with yourself. He smiles at you and you smile back.”

Bradford smiled and I looked to Adam, he gave me a thumbs up.

“The other you puts his hand on your shoulder and looks into your eyes. He’s almost like a more self-assured version of yourself. He’s fearless. He’s brave. He’s a hero. ‘You must understand,’ he says. ‘You have been endowed for this mission. You were chosen long ago for this mission. Behind this door lies a cloud of knowledge. When you open the door and step inside, you will be immersed in this cloud. You will be met with a deep understanding of the mysteries of the universe. You will see the origins of creation. You will understand the immensity of all that exists. You will know these things and understand them in a way that will allow you to communicate your findings to others in the real world.’”

I took a deep breath and looked over to Adam again for approval. He nodded, a look of utter anticipation on his face. “Do it,” he mouthed.

“The other you stands aside and disappears, leaving nothing between you and the door. You understand what you must do. You take three steps forward, place one hand on the cold metallic door and apply pressure. As you do so, you feel something trickling down your upper lip. You stop pushing and wipe your nose. You are bleeding.”

Adam and I watched Bradford carefully for about fifteen seconds before he gently wiped his nose. He motioned his head to look down at his hand and opened his mouth in surprise. There was blood—actual blood—on his hands.

“Holy ****!” Adam whispered to me.

Frankly, I was more shocked than he was. Bradford was my first completely immersed patient. He was in my complete control. This was not an empowering thought, mind you, it was a horrifying one. I briefly considered pulling the plug on the whole thing right then—guiding him away from the door and back up the staircase to the real world, but I didn’t. 

**** Lovecraft.

I swallowed hard and held my bell steady.

“Now, I’m going to count to three and ring the bell. When you hear the bell, you will push open the door and become immersed in the cloud. After a few moments in the cloud, I will ring the bell and you will exit the cloud and close the door behind you.”

I repeated the instructions then took a deep breath.

“Here we go,” I mouthed to Adam. He nodded.

“One… Two… Three…” I said, then dinged the bell.

Bradford jolted, flailing his arms and grunting. His chair rocked violently. I instructed Adam to steady it, so he didn’t tumble off. How responsible of me.

The jolting stopped after a minute and Bradford sat still. Both his nostrils were bleeding now.

“Now, when I ring the bell again, you will exit the room and close the door behind you. One… Two…”

Bradford stood up abruptly, sending the chair and Adam sprawling onto the floor behind him. He ripped his blindfold off and looked around frantically, like a trapped animal.

“Bradford, it’s all okay,” I said, but I knew it wasn’t. 

He didn’t wake up on his own volition. Nor was there an external stimulus to wake him up—my bell, or a loud noise like the thunder before. Something *inside* of the hypnosis woke him up.

Adam stumbled to his feet. “Bradford, it’s alright buddy. It’s me, Adam, right here,” he said and reached for him.

“No!” I yelled. “Don’t touch him. Come here,” I told him. Adam obeyed and stood next to me against the wall.

Bradford looked around anxiously for another minute, his feet unmoving, then fixed his eyes on the concrete block wall on the opposite side of the room. 

“Stay here,” I said to Adam. I walked to the other side of the room, between Bradford and the wall, the bell clutched in my hand. Frankly, I didn’t know what to do. I had to assume he was still under some kind of hypnosis, though I didn’t know *whose.*

“Bradford, when I count to three and ring the bell, you will come out of hypnosis. Again, when I count to three and ring the bell, you will come out of hypn—”

He bolted straight at me, knocking me to the side and plowing straight into the wall, headfirst.

“****!” I yelled, stumbling back to my feet. Adam ran over. 

Between the two of us, we held Bradford down. He had a large gash on his head and a steady stream of blood pouring down his face, but he didn’t *seem* to be in pain.

“Bradford, listen to me,” I said.

He turned his head toward me, revealing jittering pupils, as if there was an earthquake behind those eyes. 

Adam was crying. His phone buzzed across the room, diverting our attention for a moment. “Do we call the cops?” he asked.

“Yes, call 911,” I said, trying incoherently to piece together a story in my head.

Once Adam got to his phone on the other side of the room, Bradford began seizing, knocking me on my ****. I backed up, recognizing my feeble body to be no match for his apparent raw animal strength.

“Please, Bradford, breathe with me,” I said.

He again eyed the block wall and ran at it with full force, his skull crunching on impact. Blood spattered on the wall and the floor. He fell onto the ground with a hollow thud.

Adam screamed.

I tried to lay Bradford’s lifeless body straight when his eyes shot open, a look of pure terror on his face. “No!” he screamed and rolled away from me. He got onto his hands and knees, breathing heavy. 

As I carefully eased toward him, he let out a loud grunt and began hitting his head on the concrete floor with inhuman intensity. The sound of his head repeatedly crunching against the floor like that will haunt me forever. Blood continued to pool beneath him.

I backed away from him, helpless.

Adam screamed in horror.

After five or six hard hits, Bradford finally collapsed onto the ground, splashing in his own blood.

Tears were streaming down my face. Adam was sobbing uncontrollably.

A few moments passed in bone-chilling silence.

“Did you call anyone?” I asked with a shaky voice.

Adam stared unblinking at Bradford’s mangled head resting on the ground.

“Adam?”

He snapped out of it. “Uh, no, I—” he said, swiping through his phone. 

“Okay—the story—our story—” I started.

Then Adam’s eyes grew wide.

“What?” I asked.

“The others. Trey and Bryson,” Adam said, staring at his phone with his hand covering his mouth.

“What is it?” I asked.

“When they got to Bradford’s house, they found Bradford’s mom on the kitchen floor,” he said and looked up at me. “She’s dead.”

“****,” I said.

“It’s the hypnosis. It has to be,” Adam said.

“No, that’s impossible, the hypnosis can’t control someone who isn’t under hypnosis,” I said, nervously. “It can’t be related. No way.”

“You said that the goal is to tap into other senses, right? To activate other parts of the brain?” Adam said.

“Well, yeah, that’s a theory, but either way, how would that **** Bradford’s mom?” 

“I don’t know. The only thing I can think of, is that, clearly Bradford was all-in. I mean, you hypnotized him into a bloody nose, didn’t you? Maybe when you put our moms in a cage on the beach… I don’t know,” he said and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Which—oh ****—I need to check on my mom,” he said and darted up the basement stairs.

Now I sit here in my cold, mildewy basement with this dead boy’s body, penning my final haunting confession.

For the record, I want to apologize to Bradford’s family. I take full responsibility for his death. And in the case that I am the cause of Bradford’s mother’s death, I apologize for that, too. I don’t really want to think through the scientific implications if that *is* the case, to be honest.

All I know is that whether I spend my days as a free man or behind bars, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to sleep again wondering what Bradford saw when he opened that door and stepped into the cloud.

Something he saw drove him to this madness. That much is clear.

I hear the police sirens outside now.

One last note to the psychiatric community or those who may be looking to build upon my research: Some things are better left [unknown.](https://www.derekwalker.me)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My mom sent me some old home videos for my birthday, and now I'm running for my life
 
 Assistant: I don’t celebrate birthdays anymore. When you get older you try to forget they even exist. You really don’t need a reminder telling you you’re slowly becoming an outdated dinosaur, and I’ve always found commemorating the harrowing approach of your own death a rather morbid notion. So I suppose having my birthday in the middle of a nationwide lockdown was somewhat of a godsend.

That didn’t stop my mother from sending me a present though. She always found a way to annoy me, in the best way possible, and she’d out-fiddle the devil himself just to put a smile on my face. I don’t know how she did it, but this morning, when I went to let Dave, my cat, out, I nearly tripped over it. An anonymous brown package just laying there, *inside* my flat. How the **** did she pull that off?

I chuckled internally as I desperately tried to decipher what was scribbled on the front of the package. It was clearly in her handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere. The worst f’ing handwriting you’ll ever see. Like if you grabbed a crow, dipped its beak in ink, and let it peck randomly on the paper.

*TO JEFFY, LOVE MOM*

I yelled to Dave to hurry his **** up, but he wasn’t having it, so I just closed the door, and brought the package with me inside, carefully placing it down on the kitchen counter. Mom was a next-level prankster, so I made sure to investigate every inch of it, weighing it, gently shaking it, before finally opening it.

I scratched my head in puzzlement. It wasn’t much. Just a DVD. No note or anything. My mom wasn’t very technical, and the thought of her burning a DVD was quite frankly absurd. Did she even own a computer? Maybe dad helped her out? Or my brother? I guess there were ways she could have pulled it off, so I shrugged, and plopped the thing into my laptop.

After whirring discordantly for what felt like minutes, I was finally greeted with a single video file named *Jeffy’s Home Videos 86-90.* I caught myself smiling sheepishly in the reflection on my screen. I didn’t even know we had a video camera back then, so it was a very thoughtful surprise. Sort of an atypical gift from my mom, but I was still halfway expecting it all to be some elaborate prank. Maybe it was a rick roll or something?

But no, to my mild surprise it seemed like a pretty extensive collection of genuine home videos from the 80’s, complete with ridiculous low resolution, graininess, horrible audio, and an abysmal cameraman. They seemed to be in the wrong order though, starting when I was 4, then younger and younger, which, to me, proved that it was my technically challenged mom who’d compiled them.

I sat for about half an hour enjoying every second of the shaky cam time travel, reliving moments I’d entirely forgotten, laughing at how weird everybody looked back then, and boggling at how I was still alive. I was a ****, **** kid, always falling over and running into things. I sent my mom a picture of me and my bottle of wine relishing the ancient videos, with the caption *Thanks for the home videos mom<3* *Best birthday gift ever*!

But then it got strange. I’d just finished watching the summer of 87, when we apparently spent the holiday out by my grandpa’s cabin by the sea. I was two years old then, and my brother Justin must have been five. It was a wonderful trip down non-memory lane, since I had no recollection of it, and I was anxiously looking forward to videos from my first year. I didn’t have any photos or anything from back then, my mom said they’d must have been misplaced when they moved a decade ago, but she could never seem to find them again.

It was the summer of 86 according to the date in the bottom left corner. A shaky cam, more than likely maneuvered by my dad, looking over a tall white fence. A family of three was gathered on the other side; husband, wife, and a tiny toddler. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I suppose they must have been our neighbors. We moved every couple of years when I was a child - something about my mom’s work - so it was an educated guess.

There was some barely audible whispering as the camera was lowered, now facing the grass. I replayed this part several times, but I could never really hear what was said. Just fragments of it made sense. *We...Move...Leave...Hurry* were the only words I could make out. Then the camera was raised, once again peering over the top of the fence. The family was gathered out by the front porch of a house, the toddler with his assumed mother, and the assumed father operating a hose, spraying water on assorted flowers. Then the camera moved again, focusing on the cheery face of my mom. She was wearing a bright red sun hat, real cheesy looking, and the first time I saw it I giggled uncontrollably.

“Let’s do it,” she said, grinning widely.

A chill ran down my spine. Those exact words have no meaning without context, you know. Could point to absolutely anything. *Let’s do it. Let’s go get ice cream. Let’s do it. Let’s drive down to the beach*. Innocent things. Mundane snapshots. But the way she said it, and the expression on her face; I knew instantly that something wasn’t right.

Moments later the shaky cam got shakier, now running around the fence, and into the backyard of the family. The cameraman, assumedly my dad, stopped at the gate, zooming in on the woman’s face. She looked shocked. Scared even, holding onto the toddler tightly, and backing away towards the front door. Then my mom came into view again, and I realised why the woman appeared so frightened. I had to replay that moment several times too, because I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it was her.

She was wielding a knife. A huge butchery thing. She turned and grinned to the camera, waving the knife around playfully, before suddenly charging at the woman, her terrifying high-pitched screams echoing through my kitchen. I almost stumbled to the floor as I watched the carnage unfold. My mom stabbed the woman brutally in her left leg, causing her to collapse on the front porch, the toddler rolling down onto the grass, wailing hysterically. The assumed father suddenly became aware of what was happening, and his eyes widened as he yelled something, running to the woman's aid, only to be stabbed in the neck by my mom as he came within arm’s reach.

The next two or three minutes were dedicated to my mom stabbing the two of them repeatedly, the fleshly, pulpy, mangled remains at the end of it hardly even human in appearance any more. Absolutely drenched in blood, my mom turned to the camera, laughing maniacally. She suddenly noticed the wailing toddler in the grass, and quickly wiped clean the knife with the inside of her dress, placing it down on the porch. She then gently lifted the toddler, hugging him tightly, smearing blood all over the child.

“We’ll name you Jeffy,” she said, and kissed him, *me*, on the cheek, before waving to the camera.

I slammed the laptop shut, and staggered back, hyperventilating uncontrollably. No. It couldn’t be. It had to be some kind of prank, right? Right? Some unbelievably elaborate prank. You could do that these days, you know? Fabricate **** like that? Right? Deep fake and everything?

My phone vibrated. A text from my mom. I read it. Then again. Once more. Then I grabbed my laptop and got the **** out of there.

*I didn’t send you any videos, but your father is coming over to sort it out.*

*Stay where you are, Jeffy. Everything will be alright. Don’t move. We’ll be right there.*

[Mom<3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Obscuratio/)

[UPDATE 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/g615qz/my_mom_sent_me_some_old_home_videos_for_my/)

[UPDATE 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/g6s8q3/my_mom_sent_me_some_old_home_videos_for_my/)

[FINAL](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/g7rgbp/my_mom_sent_me_some_old_home_videos_for_my/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Final Update)
 
 Assistant: Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iocju/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3jadum/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 5: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3kd90k/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 6: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ppq81/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/


Part 7: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3sktwj/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

This will be my final update for now. 

Things have deteriorated here to a degree that I didn't foresee. I didn't know how much writing about the things that are happening out here would affect every single part of my life, and maybe that was **** of me. Maybe I should have considered it more seriously, but honestly I just thought I was writing about things that a few people would want to hear. I didn't think it would get this much attention.

People ask me about the stairs now. It doesn't happen every day, but when it does happen I never really know what to say. My bosses know someone is talking about them, and I'm sure that if they know, the higher-ups know. And I can tell you that they aren't happy about it. I've been formally told that I am not to speak a word about them to anyone anymore, which is part of the reason this has to be my final update. I can't risk my job for this; as much as it's been wonderful to get a lot of these things off my mind, I still do love my work, and I need to be out here. If anything, my being aware of what's really going on is enough reason to stick it out. I may not be able to tell people that they're out there, but if I see them, I can direct traffic away to somewhere safer.

Because of the amount of attention the stories have gotten, I've heard a lot of stories being swapped back and forth. I've heard so many I can't even remember most of them. The ones I do remember are the ones that I wish I could forget.

One story that's made the rounds here was about a young woman who disappeared upstate. Initially, everyone assumed she was a runaway. She didn't come from a great home life, and so it really wasn't any kind of surprise that she'd choose to cut and run. But people started coming forward saying that they'd seen her around the park shortly before she vanished, so some of the Rangers in the area were sent out to make sure she hadn't hung herself or something on any of the back trails. It took them a while, but they did find her. Well, not all of her. Just half of her tongue and a quarter of the lower jaw. Very clean cuts, from what I heard. They've never found the rest of her.

So many stories about children. So many of them going missing and turning up in caves, wedged in between impossibly tight spaces. So many of them found on mountain peaks, or at the bottoms of sheer gullies. Missing shoes, missing socks, or found with both in perfect condition despite them being miles and miles away from where they vanished.

So many stories of black-eyed people, wandering around the woods and calling out in the night, mimicking the sound of running water or a bobcat screaming. One man in particular goes to every news station he thinks will listen to him and tells the same story. He was deer hunting, had camped out in a very remote area, and woke up because something was scraping against his tent. He thought it was a raccoon or a fox until the thing pressed its face against the door of the tent, at which point he could very clearly make out a human nose and mouth. He kicked at it, but it leaped back and was gone by the time he opened the tent flap, gun at his side. He fired two warning shots, and when the sound had faded, he heard a snap behind him. A man was standing at the edge of the campsite. This man was not wearing any clothing, but he also didn't possess any kind of human flesh. As this hunter described it, the man was made of some kind of amalgamation of raw meat and hair. As if someone had scooped up roadkill and molded it into the vague shape of a man. The face was lumpy and only a rough approximation of a human face. The thing opened its lopsided mouth, and from it came the sound of the gun the hunter had fired. It did this twice before mimicking the sound of the tent zipper and fleeing into the night.

A young couple, out for a hike in the rocky areas of my park, reported to me yesterday that they had seen something strange out on a peak I'm very familiar with. They were taking turns looking through a pair of binoculars when the man noticed a hiker climbing up a very steep part of the cliff face. He watched the man scale the ****, and it didn't occur to him until the incident was over that this person had no climbing gear. When the climber reached the top of the peak, which was about five miles away, they turned and faced the young man. He said whoever, or whatever, this person was, was looking right at them. The climber waved in an exaggerated manner before snapping in half at the waist, sideways, and leaping off the peak. The young man didn't see where the climber landed. I sent them on their way with assurances that I'd check it out. I lied. I won't be turning in a report, because there are ten others exactly like it. The climber is well known in that area. I don't question it anymore.

There are so many things I won't ever be able to understand about my job, and it would take me years to relate all of the things I've heard in the last few months. When I feel like my job isn't in jeopardy, I will come back. It may be in a different format, but I will come back. Thank you all for sticking by my side, and enjoying the things I've talked about. 

If you go out into the woods, I encourage you to be safe. Bring water, food, survival equipment. Let people know where you're going and when you'll be back. Don't go on uncharted paths unless you know exactly what you're doing.

And above all:

Don't touch them. Don't look at them. Don't go up them.

**EDIT: I realize I probably should have mentioned this at the beginning. The series is being paused, but the story is going to live on. A book is in the works. The first draft is coming along very nicely. Keep a lookout, NoSleep.**

**EDIT 2: If you would like to keep updated with the progress of the book, follow me at searchandrescuewoods.tumblr.com.**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My boyfriend literally cannot stop saying "Poggers".
 
 Assistant:  It started innocently enough. I was reading on the bed while my boyfriend, Charlie, was playing on the computer with his friends. I don't play many games so it's interesting to listen to the things he says to his friends, even if terminology goes over my head sometimes. There will be moments when I'll be focusing on something and he'll just spout off words that sound extraterrestrial. 

I'll just laugh it off and continue with what I was doing, it wasn't my thing but he enjoyed it and it wasn't hurting anyone, initially. Like I said I had my nose between the pages reading about various armchair philosophies as Charlie raved on in the background play Call of Duty, I think. He had won a match and swiveled his chair to face me, like a dog when they did a trick right. 

“Finally got a win tonight.” He exclaimed, more for himself than for me.

“That's great babe,” I replied offering an admittedly false smile, I was happy he was happy but I can't say I was invested. He turned back to the computer and talking to his friends again, they were hyping each other up.

I heard Charlie mutter. “Now that was Poggers.” It was such a random word that it tickled my brain when I heard it and I couldn't help but laugh. Charlie leaned back in his chair as if he was exhausted himself as he swiveled to face me once more.

“I can't believe I just said that unironically-” he echoed my laughter offering a painfully adorable smile. “-I feel like I should wash my mouth out with soap.” He repeated the word a few times, making sure to let out popping noise when mouthing the “P”. We both laughed it off and he said goodnight to his friends. It was time for me to get some quality time with him and with that my book remained on the nightstand until morning.

In the morning I woke up early and felt like I had gotten a really good sleep so I was in a good mood. And when I'm in a good mood, I make breakfast. I heard the stairs creak and figured the smell of bacon had lifted Charlie out of bed. He stumbled into the kitchen, his hair a complete mess. “That smells Poggers.” He groggily moaned.

With mild amusement, I went to laugh. Charlie's face conveyed confusion as he stood in the kitchen. His eyes strained and mouth still slightly agape. “I totally meant to say great.” He continued turning his gaze to me. “**** I'm tired.” He chuckled before shuffling over to help me finish up with breakfast.

The rest of the day was pretty normal. We even decided to go on a little impromptu date, the best we could with the world the way it is. But when we were winding down for the night, getting ready to brush our teeth. Charlie informed me that “Today was Poggers babe.” I politely replied that if he was trying to mess with me it was going to get old fast.

He shook his head. “It just kind of came out sorry.” He said raising the toothbrush and dragging it across his teeth. We both brushed our teeth and in unison spit into the sink, as I was wiping my mouth I could see Charlie leaning in for a kiss. I turned my head but when I met him face to face I a putrid smell climbed into my nostrils. It was enough to make me recoil away from him, it was like battery acid poured over rotting roast beef.

I instinctively put my hand over my nose. “Your breath is awful,” I told him. Which we both knew was odd, he just brushed his teeth and it's not like he has gingivitis or anything. He went to point out as much by pointing to the sink but stopped. I followed his cue and looked into the sink where we had spit our toothpaste out. On my side of the sink, there were a few lingering bubbles.

On his side of the sink, however, still clinging to the white porcelain was a thick and frothy substance. It was a sickly yellow with streaks of red the would suggest Charlie's dental hygiene had degraded significantly in just one night. He quickly reached over and turned the faucet on, opening his mouth he checked out the condition of his teeth, they looked completely fine.

It took a good bit of water for the mess he had spit into the sink to budge at all. Eventually, with the convincing of steaming hot water, it disappeared. I went to say something to him but he was captivated by his reflection with his mouth moving ever so slightly. His lips quietly repeating the “P” sound over and over. I told him that we should just go to bed and we'll make an appointment to see the dentist, make sure something weird wasn't going on with bacteria or something.

We made our way to be and settled down for the night. With the lights turned off and the dark of a sleeping world creeping in I closed my eyes. I don't know how long I was asleep for but I was woken slowly by a small prodding on my shoulder. Charlie was ever so gently poking me, like a child who wants their parent to wake up on Christmas but is afraid to make them angry.

I shuffled my body, still coming out of the throws of deep sleep my body was sluggish and the blankets felt like they weighed thirty pounds. As I turned over I reached behind me to flick on the light and the sudden brightness momentarily stunned my vision. I started wiping my eye and was about to ask what was wrong when a very familiar and pungent smell assaulted my senses again.

It was worse this time like it had been sitting for a while. I struggled to keep my urge to **** subdued, this was made all the more difficult when I moved to brace my new position and felt my fingers press against the sheets. As my fingers pressed down, a hot and viscous liquid rose from the divots I had made.

Then I saw Charlie. His face had that sickly yellow **** caked onto his face, he looked like an infant that fought hard against eating his baby formula. His mouth was moving and words were coming out but just barely. His voice was raspy I could tell they were painful, his body would tremble every time he started to speak. “Po...g...e.s” 

Such a horrid sight, watching each letter accompanied by a small spittle of the disgusting liquid and before long I could see how it was about to get worse. As he kept going-

“Pog..er..”  
“Pog.... gers.”  
“P-p-p- oggers.”

I could see thin trails of smoke lifting from inside his mouth and under his lip. Horrified, I hadn't moved my hand yet but once the new drippings had made their way to my hand I could feel an intense burning sensation. Charlie started to shake more violently as I finally snapped to my senses and ran to the phone.

Dialing 911 as fast as I could I heard Charlie behind me beginning to shout “Poggers” over and over. I could just imagine the molten ooze spewing from his mouth like Yellowstone as he attempted to clear his mouth of the heat. I didn't know what to even say to the operator so I told the lady he had severe burns and trouble breathing.

Keeping the phone off the hook as the operator confirmed that an ambulance was on the way I made my way back to Charlie. It was so much worse than I first saw, the blankets on the bed where he was facing away from me were soaked. The liquid had saturated the sheets and bed to the point that they were dripping onto the hardwood.

Plumes of smoke rose from the hardwood threatening to bore right through the floor but it wasn't my biggest concern. I couldn't help but picture Charlie laying there all night, saying that **** word over and over, suffering but not wanting to disturb me. He looked so weak, I don't know what that fluid was but it was taking all the nutrients Charlie needed to function with it.

The whites of his eyes were beginning to stain yellow like a smoker's walls and his skin was so visibly dry I thought he was going to start molting. He barely recognized the man I knew as he rose from the bed, shambling to his feet. It looked like some cheesy zombie flick with a small budget but seeing it in person, happening to someone I loved, was so painful and scary.

I started to worry about my safety as he got closer to me, the same yellow substance dropping from his slack jaw. His eyes were so different, I felt as though he couldn't even see me, he was just heading towards something. “Poggers.” A whisper came from his mouth, well-formed letters unfettered by the slob dwelling in his mouth. The voice was ethereal, it didn't even sound like Charlie anymore. 

Before Charlie closed in I saw the sanctity of blue and red lights flashing beyond our bedroom window. Quickly I ran to the front door letting paramedics in and trying to explain to them what was going on as we headed back up the stairs. Charlie looked so weak but it took the three of them to subdue him as he fought back. His grotesque saliva burning holes in their clothing, though I don't think they noticed.

They made it apparent that I wasn't allowed to go with him as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance. As they drove away leaving me to my own devices I could see one of the paramedics pressing a needle into Charlie's neck and that was that he was gone. I was left standing there all alone in the dark.

Eventually, I made it back upstairs and started cleaning up the mess. Luckily the piles of vile no longer burned on contact, though the texture was still enough to make me wince. I didn't think there was a point washing anything so I just pulled the bed with its covers out to the alleyways and rested them against the garage.

I didn't sleep that night. Was so out of it I almost didn't hear the phone ringing, someone from the hospital telling me I could visit. I was there in no time. While looking at Charlie who was still pretty heavily sedated but conscious, I asked the doctor if Charlie had said anything yet. The doctor said it would be difficult for Charlie to speak as he had chewed through his tongue during his night there.

Looking at my boyfriend I could see that even under sedation his jaw was moving up and down, his lips pursed and contorted as if trying to speak. However, with the drugs and the lack of a tongue, all that came out  of his mouth were small whistles of air.

As I stared at Charlie I heard something behind me, a commotion caused by another person being rushed into the ER. Turning around I saw one of the paramedics that had helped get Charlie into the ambulance rushing down the hall. So many people were talking at once and I'm sure I must have been the only one to hear it. 

The ambulance drivers speaking low under the mutter of voices and the chaos of chirping machinery. 

“This is not [Poggers](https://twitter.com/Author_jo_jo).”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Notes to the girl whose house I live in
 
 Assistant: It took me a week to find where you keep your wifi password. A whole week! I was really worried you’d thrown it away, but lo and behold, there it was in the *cutlery* drawer of all places. Everything about the way you organize things confuses me. I guess because you live on your own now you just put things any old place. I know there was someone else before, I heard you talking about him on the phone. Johnny, I think? Jimmy? Anyway, I know because you said it was tough being alone. But you’re not alone, of course. You have me!


There’s a crack in your roof where I can see down onto the street below. Don’t worry about the roof, by the way – yes, it's pretty cramped, but I like my spaces small. I’ve actually stuffed a few things up there to make it smaller (just bits and bobs from the recycling, I don’t think you’ll miss them). I can sit with my face against the wall and see down onto the street. That’s where I saw you meeting up with all those people wearing black. It would have been weird anyway because you never meet anyone, but they were all rubbing your back and holding your hand and stuff. I was scared you were going to bring them in but you just went off together so that was okay. I don’t know what I would have done if the house had filled up with *people.* 


You know, it really explains a lot that there was someone else before me. Like the fact you have two sets of drawers in your bedroom, or how you’re living in such a big house all by yourself, and do weird things like leave the wifi in the cutlery drawer or watch the same TV show all day on a weekend. 

I’m not one to talk, mind. I’m *addicted* to my toys - like the big lump of blu-tack I found a while back which is great fun to fiddle with but doesn’t taste too good, or the cigarette lighter that’s fun to flick on and off, or the tube that has all the patterns in you can change. I could look down that thing for hours. I often have! That’s what I normally do when you’re home. Or I just sit back and listen to you do the washing or run a shower or something like that. I crawl up the walls and hang there with my ear to the pipes and listen to the water rushing by. That kind of thing makes me happy. Plus you never have anyone around so once I got your schedule memorized I could move around pretty free. 


I know what we have: It’s a *symbiotic* relationship. That means you help me by giving me a warm place to stay and wifi, and I help you by eating all the spiders. 


Of course, there’s no need to thank me! I fell asleep under the towels in your airing cupboard once (before I found the roof) and I saw you trying to get rid of one that was living under your sink with a broom. I have never seen so much ridiculous fuss in my entire life. But it makes no difference to me how many legs something has, so I just eat them up whenever I find one, and any other thing that makes its way into the house without permission (aside from myself, of course!).


Since I only pay rent in spiders I try to keep the things I take to a minimum, but I can’t say I feel too bad about stealing your socks. You have so many socks! Why would one girl need so many? I get a lot more out of them then you do, anyway. I like to take them apart by the threads and then wrap all the threads around my fingers and pull them tight till the tips go purple. I can nibble my own finger-tips and not feel a thing. It’s pretty great.


I try not take too much food either. I’ve found I can usually survive off the things you leave out, or throw away (why don’t you eat banana skins? Another habit of yours that confuses me a lot. I like to open my mouth all the way and drop them in whole, no chewing). I’ve never needed too much food to get by. I really, really, really like butter though. Not to eat so much as just to play with. You once left a block out by the window in the sun and it went all melty while you were at work, so I sort of started playing with it. Once I’d stuck my finger in once it was kind hard to stop! I had it looking like a puddle by the end. But then I realized it was five and you’d be home soon, so I had to press it back into a rectangle as best I could. But then I heard you opening the door – boy, I was so startled! I went into the cupboard under the stairs (you know, the one you never go in as it’s full of men’s shoes and coats and things) and I watched you come in through the doorway. But then came the weird part: you didn’t even notice the butter. All you did was make a cup of tea and then give up halfway through and start crying. Then you ordered a chinese and barely ate any before throwing it away. 


You see what I mean about your habits. I’m sorry but it’s just *weird.*


Sometimes if I’m having a bad night I like to get under your bed while you’re asleep. It’s nice because I can hear you breathing, and then I can match my breath up with that. I lie there for ages, gasping in and out, and if you get up for the bathroom or anything I have to go completely still and hold my breath. I don’t know why I do it – I guess it’s fun. You’re the first person who’s company I’ve ever enjoyed.


You cooked dinner the other evening. I noticed because you played music, which you never do, and you made something with took almost an hour and a half with about a million ingredients. I crept down to the top of the staircase and I could see you bouncing around doing moves with the spoon. It was so funny I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing! 


Then I saw something that got me really scared. You’d laid two places at the table. 


I thought there was someone else in the house and climbed all the way up to the ceiling thinking they’d see me. As I was hanging there I saw you serving two plates and I couldn’t move for the panic. Another person! I just knew I wouldn’t like them as much as you. That they'd ruin everything and make me go all crazy like I used to be. I didn't know what to do. I was ready to hurt them - *really,* *really* hurt. That's how scared I was. 


Then you sat down. You lit the candle on the table and started eating by yourself. Nobody else showed up, and after you were done you took the other food and threw it away. Even though I was relieved, I felt kind of bad that the other person never showed up. You didn’t seem sad, though. It was like you’d expected it to just be you. 


After you went to bed I went through the bin and ate some of the food you threw away. It was delicious. 


I knew something was wrong the next day because you didn’t leave for work, and then you ran a bath in the middle of the afternoon. After you’d been in there for ages and ages I started to get this horrible bad feeling. I crawled down to the landing. The bathroom door was open a crack, so I peeked through. 


I saw your hand. It was hanging, not in a natural way, and there was this long red line going down it and then I realized – 


I ran back upstairs.


I’m a coward. I know I’m a coward. I hid under my pile of stuff and started to cry.


I thought about running away. I thought about the colour a pink bathmat goes when it’s covered in blood. I thought about how much I wanted to be somewhere else. But most of all I thought about you, and how little sense you make. 


What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry I lit your roof on fire. 


It was the only way I could think to get people to come. It actually worked better than I expected – that recycling stuff sure did *burn.* I ran down to the cupboard under the stairs and curled up with my hands over my head until I heard them kick the door down and carry you out. There was a lot of confusion and bad language, but they found you and I heard one say you were still breathing. 


So my favorite place in the whole world is gone now. Most of my things as well, though I did think to grab the pattern tube. The rest is just a big black wig on top of your house. But I’m not scared. You’ll get better, and when you come back, I’ll still be here. I don't think it's nice to be alone. 


 Human: write a story with the theme title: A girl, riddled with cuts and bruises, walked into our police station holding a bloody letter.
 
 Assistant: She was drenched from the rain, cold and shivering, as she edged toward my counter. She appeared to be about ten or twelve.

Her right hand grasped a slip of paper which immediately slipped out when she collapsed onto the floor. My coworker Janne and I rushed to her aid, wrapping her with our jackets and putting her in front of the heating system we had in our office. 

Janne and I were the only ones on shift, so we did our best to find any spare clothes and blankets for the girl. We also bandaged up her bruises from a first aid kit and notified the other officers from another station. 

A few minutes later, we were settled down and I handed the girl a cup of warm tea. 

“Are you alright kid?” I gently asked, “What happened?”

She remained silent. Her eyes looked like she had been crying the entire way there and her gaze was fixed on the steam rising from the cup. 

“You’re safe now, okay?” Janne intervened, putting her hand on the kid’s shoulder, “Everything is going to be fine. What’s your name?”

I wasn’t the best with kids, to be honest. I was glad Janne was with me to help sort it out.

“Kay,” The girl finally answered.

“Thank you, Kay,” Janne replied, “Now, we need you to tell us how you got hurt and what exactly happened.”

The girl paused. She looked at Janne, and without saying anything, handed her the piece of paper. Kay then started softly crying. Janne passed the folded paper to me and consoled the girl. I noticed that it was covered in dried blood as I opened it up. 

I started to read over it and realized that it was a handwritten letter. A letter addressed to Kay. 

\--- 

*Dear K,* 

*I’m sorry for misspelling your name. I can only hear your voice from the basement and the dim light down here does not help. I  managed to pick up your name from the conversations I have overheard.*  

*You don’t know me, but I know you. Ever since you met him. Ever since he started teaching you those piano lessons.*

*You play beautifully, and you’re a fast learner. It was nice to hear your music, a ray of light in my hopeless predicament.* 

*I soon found myself eagerly waiting for those Wednesdays to come around, just to hear your voice during the lessons.*

*But I knew deep down you weren’t safe with him around. He had plans for you, evil plans I can’t even begin to describe.*

*He acts nice, but it’s just a sinister façade for the real monster inside him.* 

*He feeds me scraps through a broken drainage pipe attached to the cemented wall, but he only sends food when he feels like it. I’ve degraded to only skin and bones. I don’t know how long I have left to live.*

*There’s a shower head attached next to the dim lightbulb and water only comes out of it at certain intervals. It’s either scorching hot or freezing cold but it’s my only source of hydration.*

*I have grown filthy in this unhygienic cage, but my only source of comfort is this paper and pencil. I have managed to grasp unto sanity through writing short stories and creating drawings. All of them about you.* 

*I knew, from the bottom of my heart, that I had to save you. No matter the cost. I could not let him manipulate you as he did to me. No one should have to go through this ****.* 

*So, I planned each day. I realized that if my weak body tries to shout a warning, he might attack you before you can escape. I then thought of a different way.*

*There is a weak spot in the wood on the ceiling from water leaking. I’ve managed to chip through it bit by bit with my pencil during your practices, careful to not be too loud. Your warm music kept me going, and because of that, I pushed myself to work harder despite the exhaustion that set in every time. But I didn’t give up. I never stopped.* 

*The hole I’ve created leads up to the first-floor guest room, right under the bed. **** never know about it until I’ve crawled through. I’m going to bring this letter to you when he takes a break in the middle of the lesson to use the bathroom. I know he always does.* 

*You might scream, but I will tell you to run. To never look back. To never stop.* 

*It’s been a while since I’ve seen the outside sun, but I remember the woods that surround this area. There are going to be thorns, rocks, and a sharp fence to get past. Though I am sure you will persevere and keep running. Just don’t pay attention to the pain. For after the hurt, there will be freedom.* 

*Find the police. Tell them about this monster. Tell them to search for this cruel place. Most importantly, do this when you are safe.* 

*I believe in you.*  

*Anyway, tomorrow is the big day. I better stop here. I don’t want him to find out what I’ve been up to.*

*I wish I got to know you more K. I think we would’ve been great friends.* 

*Sincerely from my heart,*

*Thank you for being the light in my darkness.* 

\---

I wiped a tear away from my eye before setting the letter down.

I slowly looked up at Kay, “Can you describe the place?” 

Minutes later, Janne and I were on our way to the location accompanied by several other sirens. We left Kay with other officers at the station after her family had been contacted. When we arrived at the house, it was cold and abandoned. Our torches illuminated tire tracks that dug into the dirt leading away from the structure. 

We ascended the porch steps and struck down the door. After making sure the hallway that led to the entrance was clear, I walked in first. I immediately pointed my light into the living room where the piano sat. I noticed that dark red blotches covered some of the white keys. I proceeded forward cautiously until the glow of my torch stumbled upon two bare feet.  

I stopped dead in my tracks and fell to my knees, fists clenched. 

Lying motionlessly there was a frail young boy, [with a heart as big as a giant.](https://www.reddit.com/r/RoyalStories/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was raised to believe I was an android.
 
 Assistant: From a early age I was told my father had “built” me and that I was built to help the family. Any feelings or thoughts that differed from his programming were to be reported to him as a malfunction that he would fix. It didn’t take me long to associate malfunctions with pain and I reported them less and less over the years.

I slept in the basement in a box with a thin layer of foam and a pillow. I didn’t go to school, I didn’t know school even existed. My education, if you can call it that was a list of books on topics to upload. Most of these books were on topics useful to my parents such as basic plumbing and electrical work, cooking, gardening and those written by my father on my programming.

My mother would then give me a list of questions to answer about these books to ensure the upload was successful. Sometimes, the questions would be tricks or I would answer them incorrectly in the eyes of my outraged father. My uploads were almost always successful, I had nothing but time and the intense fear of “corrupting my processors” if I didn’t properly concentrate.

Writing this now, so many years later it does sound ridiculous but as a child unexposed to the world, I only had my parents to guide me. Between uploads and maintenance, I had tasks to complete. This included mowing the lawn, tending the garden, cooking meals, cleaning and fixing things such as lawn mowers, washing machines, dryers and fridges.

There was no down time, I always had broken things to fix. I later found out my father would sell these once I had fixed them. When I was 17 years old (I didn’t know of birthdays or my age, but this is what police have told me) my father had to stop work and decided it was time for me to earn some money.

The thought scared me but I obeyed orders as I had been programmed to do. My father would send me to do cash jobs mowing lawns and doing general yard work. He would usually wait in the car until I was done or leave and come back if no one was home.

During these times he would put me on mute mode and said that he would know if I spoke with anyone. It was forbidden, if I malfunctioned there would be serious consequences. No one ever approached or spoke with me. Even if they had arrived home before my father returned, they would make their way inside without a word.

I discovered later that he had told his clients I was deaf and mute and liked to be left alone to finish the job. It was simple, he would drop me off on a large property, I would do my job and we would leave. One day I was mowing a regulars house, no cars were in the driveway so my father left me to do the job. Shortly after a girl came out with a drink. She looked the same age as me and for a moment I considered she may be an android to.

“It’s pretty hot outside, I thought you might want this” she said handing me a black drink. “Its Pepsi, I hope that’s okay” she smiled. I had no idea what Pepsi was, it was black like the oil mother made me drink so I thought it should be okay.

I still remember that first sip, it was the single greatest thing I had tasted. It didn’t leave my mind feeling scrambled like my mothers drink.  I wanted to ask what Pepsi was, where she got this drink from. Did she make it? “I haven’t seen you around, what school did you go to?” Pepsi girl asked. I put my head down and walked back to my mower. What was I supposed to do? “You’re not even going to say thank you?” She said following me.

I looked back at her, she made me nervous for reasons I was yet to know about. “I have to work” I replied to her. Without another word she huffed and walked away. I spent the rest of the day counting down the minutes until my father came to pick me up. I was convinced they would know I had gone off mute, that I had spoken to someone.

When my fathers dusty red wagon pulled up, I loaded my gear into the car and got in. No words were spoken, I felt a small sense of relief but a small voice in the back of my head spoke to me. *He may not know now but wait till you get home.* Nothing was out of the usual that night, I did my chores, worked on my uploads and recharged my batteries.

The rest of the week was business as usual, my father was in one of his moods that lasted from days to weeks. The longer the mood, the more aggressive he would get with me. The small voice in the back of my head spoke to me once more. *Maybe he really doesn’t know. Maybe he is lying.* Once this seed had been planted, over the next few months its roots took hold of me.

The rare moments I was left alone, I did something I’d never done before, I watched TV.

Though usually on mute and in short intervals, I started seeing images of the outside world.  Happy families, cartoons and animals, it was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. The day that changed my life however was the day I turned on the TV and caught a glimpse of *I, Robot.* Real androids that had sown real doubts within me.

Though I knew something was inherently wrong about my situation, I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I was sent back to Pepsi girls house and got to work. I was really hoping she would bring me some more but didn’t get my hopes up. I was almost done mowing the lawn when she pulled into the property. I watched her drive up to the house and get out. A part of me screamed to talk to her.

I thought of the scenarios carefully

1. I would find out the truth about myself
2. She may tell my father and my malfunction would need to be fixed
3. I might get Pepsi

I caught her at the door almost out of breath from running and she turned to look at me with a glare. “Am I an android? Father says I’m an android.”  I blurted out.

“Android?” she asked raising her eyebrows.

I told her everything that I’ve told you and about the movie I’d seen with real androids. She stood quietly, I guessed she was trying to make sense of it all. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately lost all my courage. My father said nothing and grabbed my arm pulling me away. I looked back at her, still with the same perplexed look she wore when I first approached her.

*I had blown it.*

That night was the worst night of my life. The “fixing” my father did was worse then ever before and now I knew. *I am something, I’m someone.* The seams were splitting, my father no longer bothered with the usual half assed facade that had become so apparent to me now. It was just straight punishment.

Both my parents tried scaring me, telling me stories of police and the outside world. They were both furious but also shaken. I wasn’t allowed out of the basement after that, the days passed slowly and my parents screaming matches were the only form of stimulation I had. I would put my ear to the door to try hear what they were saying.

One sentence drove fear into me that I didn’t know I had. “I’m going to shut it down for good”. I was that “it”. I heard someone coming down the steps and fled from the door. My father pushed it opened but stayed outside. I stared at him from across the room, uncertain of what I was supposed to do. He threw a shovel into the room and it clanged against the floor breaking the silence.

“Come” he said motioning me out of the room. I obeyed his commands and was lead into the backyard. We walked further out onto the property before he ordered me to dig a hole.

“What am I digging for?” I asked him.

“What the **** is with all these questions? What happened to you? I didn’t program you right?” My father had to be in his 60’s at least but this shriveled up man still terrified me.

“Are you going to shut me down?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Gonna shut you down and get a new one. One that can keep its **** mouth shut” A half smile appeared on father's face, as if satisfied with himself.

That smile **** me off, that man **** me off. As much as he scared me, I thought of what I was missing. Though, I didn't even know what I was missing apart from the magical world I had put together through the TV shows I’d seen. I thought of Pepsi girl, I thought of the **** Pepsi and then all the pain this man had caused me.

I clenched the shovel and swung at him connecting with the side of his face. The sound rung out into the night but no part of me was sticking around to enjoy it. My father hit the ground and I started running. There was no plan, I hadn’t intended for this to happen and had no clue where I was going or where I should be going.

After cutting through a few properties, I finally stopped running. I collapsed into some tall grass and caught my breath. The stars were beautiful, it was the first time I’d be out at night on my own and despite the fear and uncertainty it was the most beautiful night of my life.

I decided I would go to Pepsi girls house, I knew it was close and had an idea of where it was. I continued walking and found myself at the driveway just as the sun was coming up. I knocked on the door until a worried man came out to greet me. I told him everything I’d told his daughter and he believed me. *Thank **** he believed me.*

The police arrived at the house to find my father with a gun in his mouth, he had already disposed of my mother. They told him to put it down but he pulled the trigger and it was over. Over for them but not for me, my life was just beginning.

It was revealed to me that they weren’t really my parents. They had stolen me, stolen my childhood, my mind and at times I wonder if they just might still steal my sanity. Thank **** for malfunctions.

Note: Thank you Gary, Emily and Grace (Pepsi girl). Thank you.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My friend's life seems perfect on Instagram. I found out it isn't so perfect, after all.
 
 Assistant: My friend Callie has the perfect life.

I mean, look at this ****. Posted on Instagram, a week ago:

**John made an impromptu campfire in our backyard tonight! We ate smores, stargazed, and fell asleep. I am so blessed! #happilyeverafter**

And underneath, a beautiful photo of Callie, John, and their two kids lit by a campfire. The kids were smiling and well-dressed. He was handsome as always, smiling, a shadow of stubble along his jaw. She had a full face of makeup, a cute dress.

I mean. Really. Do other moms have time for that? Because I sure as **** don't have time to put on makeup. I barely even have time to go to the bathroom.

Okay... maybe I was a *little* jealous. But I mean, come on. She was beautiful. Her husband was some hot-shot doctor. Their kids were perfectly behaved at playgroup. I was a total disaster compared to them.

The next day, there was another update.

**Even on my bad days, John is my sunshine. Today he made dinner, my favorite--#eggsbenedict! And he tells me I'm beautiful, even when I'm not wearing makeup. #lovemyhubby**

Underneath, another perfect photo. Although this one was even worse. *Trying* to look imperfect, down-to-earth. She was clearly wearing makeup, but natural enough that I couldn't argue her on it. I could make out the caked layers of foundation around her left eye--more than really seemed necessary. *I wonder if she's got super dark circles under her eyes. Or, ooh! A huuuuge pimple.*

Then I frowned. *You're being mean. Of course she has embarrassing imperfections. So do you, so does everyone.*

But I couldn't help but be jealous. Every day of parenting my two kids, I felt like I was spinning out of control. Barely keeping it together. Only one diaper blowout or threenager tantrum from going insane.

This woman… she was actually *enjoying* motherhood.

What. The. ****.

"Look at this woman," I complained to my husband one night. She'd just posted a new photo--her kids in a little fort John had built them in their finished basement. (**My husband is so talented! He built this fort for them in ONE DAY. It's absolutely #perfect and #magical. Look at the little doors! ****.**)

"Nice fort," my husband said, through a mouthful of Doritos. "Do they sell those on Amazon?"

"No. He built it."

"That's awesome!"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "How do they have the time to do stuff like that? It's ridiculous. We're barely staying alive, here."

"Nannies," he said, shoving more chips in his mouth.

"What?"

"They got a nanny. Obviously. She does all the lousy work, like cleaning **** and doing laundry. Then they have time to **** around and build forts."

Huh. That was a possibility I hadn't considered. I smiled, feeling a little better about myself. "Yeah. Maybe that's it."

I stared at the photo. The two kids stood inside the wooden fort, which looked expertly constructed. Inside, the little girl and little boy poked their heads out, smiling. The little girl's hair was perfectly pinned back with a bow, and the boy was wearing a fancy button-down shirt. Behind them, the basement was clean. Even their toys had all been put away. John crouched next to them, handsome with his wavy dark hair and brilliant, white smile.

Perfect. Magical.

I felt a pang of longing. Then I turned off my phone, rolled over, and went to sleep.

When I woke up, there was already a new post from her.

It was a selfie of her and him, standing together on a boat. Behind them, the sun rose, painting the sky in beautiful hues of red. The open sea glistened and sparkled.

**My hubby surprised me with a wonderful trip out in his boat! Feeling so blessed right now. I love him more than #everything--more than life itself.**

I stared at the photo.

Something seemed… a little off about it. For one, *he* was holding the camera. Usually when I saw couple selfies, the woman was holding the camera, because the man never really wanted to take a selfie in the first place.

And the way she was sitting was weird, too. Leaned up against him, her arms tucked behind her.

A horrible realization hit me. I scrolled up through her last few posts.

**#happilyeverafter. #eggsbenedict. #lovemyhubby. #perfect. #magical. #everything.**

Taking the first letter of each hashtag, they spelled something out--something horrible.

**h e l p   m e**

I glanced at the post. Of her, on the boat. 6:32 AM. A little over an hour ago.

*More than life itself.*

He was going to **** her.

I grabbed my phone and called the police. After hours of searching, they finally found them. Callie, tied up on her husband's boat. John, armed with a knife.

When the police searched the house, they found the two kids locked in the fort in the basement.

Scared, crying, but completely unharmed.

According to Callie, John started beating her months ago. He gave her a black eye--then, a few days later, took her on his boat. Planning throw her in the water, never to be seen again.

She knew he checked her phone. Read her texts, her emails. Wouldn't allow her to make a call without him in the room.

So she sent out a message through hashtags. Hoping he wouldn't catch on, and hoping that someone wouldn't hear her plea.

**Help me.**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son would not stop crying
 
 Assistant: My son would not stop crying.

I sat in the living room alone.  The house seemed to shift at every scream he would bellow from his room.  I tried to close my eyes and center myself.  Crying was normal.  I knew this might happen when I became a mother.  People warn you about the hard times, but you can never really know until it happens to you.  I managed two deep breaths before the wailing started again.

The sound was a cheese grater against my eardrum.  It was something about the high-pitched nature of the crying.  So **** desperate.  So needy.  I was no longer an individual person.  I was the host for this **** parasite.  This disgusting mess of cells that nearly tore me apart when I gave birth to him.

I loved him once.  I really did.  I tried so hard to do right by him.  I let him sleep in my bed.  I rocked him back and forth, his heavy skull pressed against my neck like a noose.  He puked everywhere.  His insides were always on my clothes or on the floor.  Nothing felt clean.  

The screaming continued and I turned the TV on as a distraction.  I didn’t watch the DVD again.  Instead I found some cartoons.  I turned the volume all the way up.  Maybe the squeaky voices of the animated animals would drown out his **** bellowing.   But it only made the worse.  The lady mouse on TV smiled and did a little dance while the boy animals watched and clapped.  I turned it off.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.  I froze.  Even though I despised his crying, I didn’t want to go check on my son.  And I didn’t want anyone else to either.  I just wanted him to rot in his room and cry until his feeble vocal chords crumbled. 

But it might be the cops.  I couldn’t hide for long.  By neglecting his cries I might have made the situation worse.  That **** ****.  That useless waste of an egg and ****.

I got up slowly, smoothing my housedress as I rose.  I walked to the door.  With a deep breath I checked the peephole.  It wasn’t the cops!  It was Arianna, home from school!

I must have lost track of the time.

I enthusiastically opened the door and took her in my arms.  She felt so good.  So alive and healthy.  She stepped back and dropped her backpack off her shoulder.  “Why was the door locked?”

“Just for safety, baby,” I told her sweetly.  “Now there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?”  She looked worried.  Poor girl.  

“Let’s go upstairs.”  I took her hand in mine.  My son’s screams were quieter now but still very audible.  Arianna seemed scared.  Her little fingers held on so tight.  We climbed the stairs and walked towards my son’s room.  

Arianna stopped.  “I don’t want to go in there,” she murmured.

“Don’t worry baby,” I said softly, petting her black curls.  “You won’t ever have to after today.”

“I guess okay,” she replied, squeezing my hand again.

We entered the musty room.  Bottles of beer scattered the floor like cockroaches.  On the bed lay my son, covered in his own blood.  The shotgun blast to the stomach had revealed his intestines but hadn’t killed him.  He looked up at us with nearly dead eyes.  His arms held his organs inside his body.  His toes were cut off, lined up neat on the bedside table.  His voice was close to death.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

A grin spread across my face.  Arianna did not seem scared anymore.  She looked at me and smiled.  “Did you do this, Nana?”

I kissed her forehead.  “I saw the video your dad made.  What he did to you was not your fault.  I knew he had to pay for what he did.”  The crying had almost completely ended.  It was just small whimpers now.  “He will never hurt you again.”

Motherhood is not always easy.  Sometimes you have to do things that hurt your child. 

On the flip side, being a grandmother is simple.  Arianna is the only good thing that that worthless, disgusting mass of flesh ever did for the world.  And I intend to keep her safe.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I work at an amusement park. Only half of the monsters here are paid actors.
 
 Assistant: I should start off by explaining a couple things. Our park doesn't focus on one specific theme. We have four sections that are fenced off from one another. There's a spooky one, a western one, an old-timey hollywood one and one that looks like everything there is made of candy. We get a lot of visitors, mostly families and young couples. Every single one of us actors, the *actual* actors, is assigned to a specific one of the *other* things. The ones that aren't actors but pretend to be. 

Now, you might be wondering why a park would keep around non-human creatures that pose a potential threat to its visitors and of course, you'd have to ask management for an exact answer. My best guess however is that they are in fact good employees: they don't need to be payed, look extremely real and offer a way more authentic experience. Of course, the experience cannot be *too* authentic, if you catch my drift. That's what we, the actual actors, are here for.

Every section has two actors and two of the other ones. We don't have a specific name for them, but we refer to them as pretenders, not-actors or monsters most of the time. Our main objective is to keep the one we're assigned to under control. Make it seem like they're actors too, not strange beings we don't even know the origin of. 

Take my monster as an example. I work at the horror-themed section, that means my territory are the two funhouses, the larger of which is hospital-themed, the indoor rollercoaster and that other really cool outdoor one that winds around a gigantic skull. The rollercoaster goes in through its mouth, comes out of one eyehole and goes back in through the other. It's some genius design, really. 

I spend my day walking around in my costume, either chasing the visitors with my whip, which for clarification is part of my role, or leading *it* around by its chain that is attached to the iron collar around its neck. **** help us if that thing ever comes off.

The one I have been assigned to is tall, broad and has black, surprisingly fluffy fur, a round, flat face and two big ram horns on top of its head. Its eyes are two large, red buttons and its mouth holds a set of long, shiny, sharp fangs. Its tongue usually hangs out of its maw, black drool dripping down from it constantly. It's official name is Mr Scratch on accord of its oversized claws, but I call it the *sock puppet*.

Mr Scratch is quite obviously a costume. He moves sluggishly and there are even seams and stitchings to be seen in some places. The costume itself however is a living, breathing thing. You wouldn't know if you'd just see it walk around by my side. I however found out pretty soon, on my first day actually. 

When they told me they had given me the acting job because of my physical strength and that they needed me to take care of a monster of sorts, I was dumbfounded. Then again, my job interview had included questions like "Would you describe yourself as relatively fearless?" and "If you were to get attacked by a wild animal, would you a. fend it off, b. run for your life and call for help or c. hide?" so... the warning signs were there.

But of course, my first reaction was disbelieve, which by the way was replaced with stern, cold realization in record time on the day I started working my "acting" job.

My manager Dale, a grumpy, douchy guy in his late twenties, had me dress up in the costume I have been wearing nearly every day for three years now. It's hard to describe, kind of like a goth monster hunter outfit which comes with a whip, but it looks really fancy and is agreeably comfortable.

He had then led me to a large cage in the horror-themed section. It was standing next to the bigger funhouse. Its door was held shut by a chain with an oversized lock on it. The sign above it read "Mr Scratch" in big, twisted red letters. 

Dale unloaded the large plastic bag he had been carrying from his shoulder and threw it onto the ground in front of me. "You'll find a lamb shank and the metal leash in there," he said curtly, nodding at the bag.

"A lamb shank?" I inquired.

Dale gave me a ****, yellow-teethed grin. "We've found out it likes lamb," he replied, as if that explained anything at all. He took out a small key from his pocket and walked over to the cage. "I'll let it out for you, but just this once so you can tame it. Once you've gotten that over with, I'll give you the key. Won't be wasting any more of my time doing your job then."

Part of me still thought he was messing with me, but I was beginning to have my doubts. He proceeded towards the cage and turned his key inside the lock. The door sprang open with a creaking noise and Dale stepped aside. 

At first, nothing happened. Then, from the part of the cage that had not yet been reached by the sparse early morning sunlight, the thing they called Mr Scratch emerged. It exited the cage at a slow, menacing pace on all fours, but once it was outside, it rose to its hind legs and raised its head, slowly opening its mouth only for its long, gooey tongue to drop out. 

I stared at the moving costume, then at Dale. I was very close to losing my composure. "Are you kidding?" I asked. "Tell that idiot in the costume to cut the ****. If you guys think you can mess with the new one..."

But the look on Dale's face was serious. He almost seemed a bit frightened. "Feed it," he hissed. "Feed it and then put on the leash."

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, but decided to play along. I bent down and picked up the plastic bag, produced the large lamb shank from inside and waved it at the moving costume. "Come and get it," I sang, feeling immensely **** for talking to a person like I would to a dog.

The thing came bounding towards me at a surprising speed and ripped the shank out of my hand. When its teeth sank naturally into the meat and I watched the creature tear it to shreds and gobble it down, I realized that I was not looking at a person in a costume. Gripped by a sudden boldness, I slowly took a few steps towards it, reached out and let my palm travel over its shiny black fur. 

It was *warm*.

I could feel its chest rise and fall and the muscles underneath its skin pulsing, moving. I was staring at the thing with wide eyes, not believing what I was seeing. 

Finally, I sprang back into action and picked up the leash from the bag. I attached it to the metal choker and, after making sure I had a good grip on it, gave it an experimental pull. The beast's head **** towards me and I stumbled backwards in shock, but quickly managed to regain my footing. Luckily, the thing still seemed to be more interested in its meal than in me.

Dale came strolling over and gave me a pat on the shoulder, which for the record is the only friendly gesture I've ever gotten from him. He handed me the key for Mr Scratch's cage and told me to make sure not to lose it. 

I later asked him jokingly if the creature had ever attacked any of its other caretakers, to which he let out a loud laugh before answering in a suddenly quite serious tone, "No. With one exception."

"Being...?" I offered.

Dale laughed once again before adding, "Just the guy before you. He was good at his job, but we had to let him go. You can't be the Monster Tamer if both your legs are missing." Upon seeing my startled expression, he smirked and told me not to let it get to me, he was sure Mr Scratch liked me better.

He's most certainly not reading this, so I feel safe here when I say that Dale's an *asshole*.

In regards to the monster, I've already mentioned that I've taken to calling him the *sock puppet*. After reading my description of him, I bet you can see where I'm coming from. The sock puppet and I are on pretty good terms by the way. He's never really caused me any problems. I usually walk him around the park and sometimes let him dash forward to "jumpscare" a visitor, only to then pull him back and hiss at the visitor not to get too close to him. That's our favorite trick.

He's run off on me twice before, but those are stories for another day. All in all, Mr Scratch and get along pretty well.

Too bad you can't say that about some of the other actors and *their* pretenders.

When talking about my co-workers, I guess it only makes sense to start with the one who works in the same part of the park as me. That would be Darius. He's very nice, but easily stressed. He talks a lot about wanting another job, but either that's just an empty phrase of his or he hasn't found one, because he's still around after three years of me working here. 

I met him on my second day on the job. Of course Dale had failed to introduce me to any of my colleagues, he had simply given me a short overview about who I was yet to meet and what I was to expect. He hadn't put very much effort into his explanation. 

I was on my to Mr Scratch's cage in the early morning about half an hour before the park's opening time that day. I was already dressed up and ready to release the sock puppet, carrying with me the metal leash and a bag of dog treats, both of which I dropped when I collided with the man in the doctor's outfit who had seemingly come out of nowhere. By his fake blood-smeared lab coat and the surgical face mask dangling around his neck, I determined him to be another actor. 

"Hey! I'm Darius. You must be the new tamer," he stammered, and without giving me time to answer, added, "I really need your help right now."

"Okay," I responded, taken aback. "What's going on?"

"Did Dale already tell you about... *them*?" he asked and I nodded. He seemed relieved. 

"Oh, thank ****. Okay, so, I have to watch out for one myself. She's like, a zombie nurse, hard to describe, but you'll know when you see her! Either way, we can't really put her on a leash like Scratch so we let her roam around this part of the park freely... under my supervision of course. But I kind of lost track of her and now I don't know where she is! We can't have her stroll around the kid-friendly sections or the visitors will freak out! You've got to help me, please, we don't have much time!"

I abandoned the leash and dog treats and the two of us got on our way. Darius told me he had already looked for her in our section, so she had to be in one of the others. Our first guess was the hollywood one since it was pretty much right next to ours.

While we did not find her there, Darius made use of our time by informing me about the workings of the park in a bit more detail. All the not-actors are put into cages overnight to keep them from wandering off. Half an hour before opening time, they're being let out. He also told me a few bits about some of the other monsters, but said it would be best for me to find out myself. We didn't pass any on our way through the hollywood section, but we did find the nurse.

She was standing next to a food booth, the owner of which thankfully had not arrived yet. She had her back turned to us and was swaying slightly. Her thigh-length nurse costume was smeared with red stains, not unlike that of Darius, but something told me that no *fake* blood had been used on hers. 

"Thank ****, there she is," Darius muttered. "Dale would've killed me."

"What now?" I asked.

"I'll just walk her back to our section. It's as easy as that," he replied. "She's basically braindead."

I watched as he approached her, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around. I nearly gagged upon seeing her face. Half of the lower portion of her jaw was missing, the other half was dangling loosely off her head. Blood was steadily dripping from her tongue, reminding me of that of Mr Scratch. She was completely unresponsive, her eyes staring past me and Darius into the distance. If she knew we were there, she wasn't letting it on. 

I followed Darius, who was leading the nurse by her shoulders, back to the entrance of the horror-themed section. There were still ten minutes left before the park would let in visitors. Upon realizing this, I hurried to release the sock puppet from its cage and put it on its leash. And that was that, basically. 

The sight of the undead nurse may have grossed me out for a little while, but I learned pretty soon that she wasn't the kind that I needed to fear. There are some much, much worse things in this park than her.

[Part 2: Cowboy & Fairy](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fnqopv/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_laughing_cowboy/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 3: Stagecoach & Mime](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fobzvh/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_stagecoach_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 4: manager](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fox9my/working_at_an_amusement_park_my_shady_manager/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 5: Diva & Pianist](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fpir40/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_aged_diva_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 6: Nurse](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fq4r0d/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_nurse/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 7: letdown](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fqs457/working_at_an_amusement_park_today_was_a_huge/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 8: Mr Scratch](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/frcx7v/working_at_an_amusement_park_mr_scratch/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 9: Firewater](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/frywfc/working_at_an_amusement_park_firewater/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 10: Ride on the Stagecoach](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fsl117/working_at_an_amusement_park_i_hitched_a_ride_on/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 11: weird stuff on Halloween](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ft8drn/working_at_an_amusement_park_our_manager_has_us/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 12: girls' night in](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrypticPark/comments/fujlap/working_at_an_amusement_park_girls_night_in/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 13: restroom](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fugfsa/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_restroom/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 14: I passed out again](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fv1gcj/working_at_an_amusement_park_i_passed_out_again/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 15: Twenty Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fvliz2/working_at_an_amusement_park_twenty_questions/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 16: connections](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fw76ux/working_at_an_amusement_park_connections/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 17: iron](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fwsv71/working_at_an_amusement_park_the_thing_about_iron/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

[Part 18: fired](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fxf27u/working_at_an_amusement_park_i_got_fired/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was a boogeyman for 12 years. Yesterday the kid I was supposed to haunt finally saved me
 
 Assistant: Boogeymen are born from normal people; people who have let the evil enter and break their minds.

It starts with seemingly innocent bad thoughts. Someone has let their dog **** in your front yard and you half-jokingly wish they were hit by a bus.

You newborn son can’t get a whole night of sleep. You love him, but you wish just a little bit that he didn’t exist.

You look at your boss, yelling at you for being late and sleep-deprived, and imagine yourself twisting his neck, very, very slowly, until he cannot breathe.

You sometimes feel a lack of memory, like some minutes went by and you didn’t even notice, or someone had a whole conversation with you that you can’t remember, but you blame it to your stress and bad sleeping. Your boss is putting you through a lot this week.

Your neighbors don’t say good morning to you anymore. Even the overfriendly neighbor is different. He timidly waves at you, but in a colder way.

You say something that sounds normal to you when you’re mad, but the whole room is looking at you like you’re crazy.

The water and the food start to taste weird. And the smell. The sulfuric smell will never leave your nostrils anymore, although no one else feels it. Like your very soul is rotten. You go to the doctor and with a shaky voice he asks that you never come back again.

He won’t tell you what you have, he didn’t even charge you. You suspect the smell comes from inside, so there’s no amount of baths and lotions that can solve it.

You go to churches and temples and synagogues and mosques but no one can help you. No one can find what’s wrong. There’s no devil, no vengeful spirit. The poison is in your very being.

You realize nothing of it can ever go away again. You only had to feed **It** once or twice before **It** learned to feed **It**self on you.

You find yourself in the middle of the night in the living room. You don’t remember getting there. You’re fully dressed, covered in sweat and holding a butcher knife in your hand. There’s no blood, but it *could* have been bloodied moments ago.

The next day, you watch and read the local news, praying that none of the vicious actions they describe are yours.

You start a diary, because that’s what people descending into madness do. They write to document their decay.

But when you try to write, you notice you have no control over your hand anymore. You write what **It** wants, not what you intended to. You know **It** craves violence, unspeakable acts that make your stomach churn, so you lock yourself.

You know you’re dangerous and others will be safer without you around. But **It** controls your every move, so It unlocks all the big padlocks every night.

That’s the reason you can’t die. You’re not in control of your body anymore. You’re locked outside of yourself. **It** has taken over.

You’re not you anymore. Your friends abandon you, your family despises you.. Your eyes hurt and you hate the light. Your fingers are numb, everything is numb, because your body isn’t yours anymore.

Maybe Humanity’s greatest fears of all are Being Forgotten, Being Misunderstood and Powerlessness, and you get to experience all of them at once.

What you used to be – the real You – no longer exists in other people’s memories. Your loved ones suppressed every good time they had with you, and replaced any fond recollection of you by fearing what you are now. You must be left behind, because now you’re **It**, and **It** is evil. 

You try to explain **It** is not you, but your body won’t obey you. You’re finally kicked out of your shell, and now you’re just a disembodied shadow, living under some kid’s bed.

\*\*\*

I don’t know for sure how I ended up there. Everything was foggy and felt like nothingness. I was a shadow, could only move across the shadows, so I stayed under the bed or in the closet a lot. Despite having lost everything, at least I felt safe for the first time in a while.

I have no idea how long it took for me to be noticed. I tried to keep track of the time based on how many times the boy came to sleep above me, but I kept forgetting. I wanted to retain whatever information I could, but a shadow has no memory. So I don’t really know.

“Is anyone there?” he asked. I don’t know if I had seen him before that day or not, whether he was thin or chubby, or the color of his hair. I just remember thinking that judging by his voice he wasn’t older than 8.

He noticed me.

Amazed by having my existence acknowledge, I tried to talk. To tell him it was lonely and dusty and maddening to be what I was – something next to nothing. I was like a phantom limb of a mind, and even thought it couldn’t technically ache, it did. And it was excruciating.

I wanted and desperately needed to tell someone about it. 

Of course I had no vocal chords. ****, I didn’t even have a body, or an entire mind. Everything came out as a terrifying growl, and kids can hear it.

The boy screamed for his mom. I cowered in the darkest shadows as she came, sleepy and grumpy, and turned on the light.

“I heard something under the bed”, he whimpered.

She checked on me. Even though I didn’t have eyes, I could somehow see her with my battered half-mind. She was older, probably in her mid-40s. She wasn’t mad or unkind, just exhausted.

“There’s nothing here, sweetie. Wanna come to my room? Mom is really tired today.”

The boy agreed.

I envied him. I wish more than anything that I had comforting arms to fall on and rest.

\*\*\*

I didn’t have a lot of story with this boy, or at least I can’t remember. He frightened easily so, no matter how much I wanted to communicate with someone, I refrained from scaring him. I guess I’m just bad at everything, including at being a boogeyman.

I heard conversation around the house, but for a long time, it was just the boy and his mother. I rarely ventured outside the bedroom, afraid there wouldn’t be enough shadows for me to come back before morning. I was completely sure that I was going to disappear if I stepped (and I use this word very loosely) into the light.

And even though everything was so bad I wanted to exist, so I was afraid and cautious.

The house was too big for only two people. I eventually learned that the mother had an older daughter – she apparently was in college and was the most frequent visitor. The daughter was a joyous young woman, I really liked when she was around.

I wish she was younger so she could hear me. She felt like she could bear to listen to my awful cries and not be scared, even when she was small.

As the boy aged, I understood that he couldn’t hear me anymore. So sometimes I would talk aloud and make those awful noises just because I could. Just to remember myself that I was still clinging to existence.

The zenith of my life with the boy was when I learned that I could manipulate objects to some extent if I really focused, right before he decided to move to the larger bedroom his sister used to occupy. He was a pre-teen by that time, and I heard him pacing around the room looking for something.

I didn’t really understand what it was, but it was some sort of memento of his late father. It was important.

Then I saw – once again, I use this term very loosely – something shinny close to me, under the bed. It was a reliquary, one of those you wear around your neck.

I really wished that I could give it to him in that moment. Really, really wished.

Then it happened. Slowly but surely, the thing moved. The boy sounded so relieved and happy when he finally found it with my happy.

I felt accomplished for the first time in my life as a boogeyman. 

\*\*\*

The next few years are a blurry of waiting and lurking around cautiously now. We boogeymen can only move on shadows, but we can’t squeeze through the cracks of windows or under doors. If I’m being scientific, we’re more like a slime made of shadow.

That’s why, no matter how much I considered relocating to another house and trying to talk to other children, it wasn’t easy. I was stuck with a teenager and a middle-aged woman who couldn’t hear me.

Then the boy went to college too and it was only me and the mother for a while. Not even the older daughter would come. It was boring and lonely.

After making a painstaking effort to remember, I finally recalled the daughter and the mother having a huge fight over the character of her boyfriend; I just don’t know when it was.

I was almost making up my mind about going through the risks to find another place when the mother started renovating the bedroom I lived in. the bed above me, now painted white and with pink sheets, was going to have a new occupant.

The day the daughter came back was full of tears. She cried, apologizing to her mother, while the older woman kept telling her that there was nothing to worry, and that despite everything, she was really happy.

She was now a grandmother.

\*\*\*

I, too, could barely contain my excitement. Lisbeth, the granddaughter, was a cute little thing; I think she was around 4 when they arrived. She sounded delighted with her new bedroom.

Both her mother and grandmother put her to bed that night. She asked to sleep with all the lights turned off like a big girl. Chuckling, they complied, and closed the door, in total darkness. Of course the two adults had a lot of talk after all these – I suppose – years.

“Hey, little monster! I know you’re in there. I’m not afraid of you”, she stated. If I could smile, that’s what I would have done. But I didn’t say anything; I was unsure whether she really felt my presence or just assumed there would be a monster.

This was an opportunity too precious to be ruined. I didn’t want to scare her off on the first day and lose her company.

“Seriously, little monster! Knock if you’re in there!”

I made whatever sound I could. She laughed in delight.

After that, we developed our system to communicate. I would make one noise for yes and two noises for no.

Lisbeth asked me all sorts of things. Silly things, from her little kid universe, like if I thought her doll was pretty, or if she should wear blue socks instead of white. Things about her family – if I knew her uncle who lived in this room before, if her mother was beautiful, if I could go to her dad’s house and hunt him. I replied everything, overjoyed to feel important and heard.

“Do you have big, scary eyes?”

*No.*

“Do you have nice eyes, then?”

*No.*

“Are you eyeless?”

*Yes.*

“Oooh, that’s scary! But not for me. Don’t worry, Poggy.”

*Yes.* And I still don’t know why she nicknamed me Poggy.

“Do you have hands?”

*No.*

“That must be hard, Poggy. So you have paws?”

*No.*

“It’s really hard to imagine you! Can I see you pretty please? I swear I won’t tell mom or nana.”

*No.*

“Aw. Are you ashamed?”

*No.*

She was deep in thought for a long time. 

“Oooh, so are you invisible?”

*Yes.*

“That’s so cool!”

Once again, she was quiet. I thought she was asleep. 

“Can you move things??”

\*\*\*

After learning that I could move things, Lisbeth came up with more ways to communicate. She would put many small objects (little balls, a Barbie shoe etc.) under the bed, and depending on what I moved I could answer things like “probably”, “I don’t know”, etc. That improved our communication a lot.

We talked for hours and hours every day. Despite being limited by her youth, she was a very clever girl. She was able to ask me a chain of questions that led her to conclude that I had been human before.

This fact seemed to scare her. She then asked if her mother or grandmother could become boogeymen too.

*I don’t think so*, I replied, moving a little replica of a racing car.

When she ran out of questions to ask me, she would ask her mom and nana: *what do you ask someone when you want to know them better?*

Luckily, they thought it was cute. They thought I was Lisbeth’s imaginary friend – and well, I was. I never meant to harm or scare her.

“Ask their profession and if they have kids”, her mother replied. Lisbeth came back happily, and for a long time, she tried to guess what I worked with.

Fireman? Policeman? Teacher? Scientist? Astronaut? Doctor? Lawyer? Nurse? Actor? The person who gives you a Happy Meal in the mall? Gardener? Cleaning lady? Lunch lady?

To all of them, I replied no. she wasn’t disappointed, though, just more fired up. I was a mere office worker, something kids never think of because it’s not glamorous or close to their reality. 

“Mom, tell me a profession!” “Uh, teacher.” “No, I already asked if Poggy is a teacher!”

When Lisbeth asked “secretary” I finally said yes. Close enough.

“Do you have kids?”

*Yes.*

“Are they like you?”

*No.*

“Do you love them?”

*Yes.*

“And they love you?”

*I don’t know.*

“Sorry, Poggy. You’re my friend and I love you!”

\*\*\*

I think I spent a year or so with Lisbeth. She healed my soul, if I had a soul to heal. No one had ever been that kind to me.

I know it’s my fault that I let **It** in and corrupt my very being. But I felt that if I had been treated so well before I would have never allowed it to happen.

For the people in the house, life went on. Lisbeth’s mother started dating another guy, someone the grandmother adored, so he was always there. The place was lively. It almost felt like we were all one big happy family.

I didn’t exact sleep, but I had some sort of dormancy period daily. 

I was abruptly awakened with the sound of someone entering the bedroom; I think it was from the window. A tall figure violently took Lisbeth from her bed, making her whimper, still in her sleep. It then moved to another room, Lisbeth in their arms, not turning on the lights.

Distressed, I followed. We entered the third bedroom, and I immediately moved to under the bed.

“You **** ****!” the person barked, turning on the lights. Lisbeth’s mother and her boyfriend were **** awake.

“Luke! For Christ’s sake, what you’re doing?”

“Dad!”

Both sounded incredibly scared.

Lisbeth had told me a lot about her father. Even in her childish words, I was able to imagine a world of pain and fear. Lisbeth’s mother put up with a lot of verbal and physical violence, ashamed to admit that her marriage was a huge mistake.

*I heard Dad screaming to Mom a lot and breaking things, but he was nice to me. He told me she had been naughty so he had to ground her. I believed him at first, but Mom wasn’t naughty. She was good. She brought me here the day Dad hurt me and told me he never let her talk to my nana before.*

Lisbeth’s mother sobbed. Luke was pointing a gun to his own daughter’s head.

“How dare you sleep with another man, you **** ****! You’re my wife, I’ll never give you up”, he yelled. “We’re coming back home now.”

Lisbeth’s mother started moving meekly towards him, crestfallen and humiliated. Her boyfriend motioned to stop her, but Luke spoke again.

“Come on, you **** ****! You’ll either obey your husband and be punished for your unfaithfulness or your life will be a living **** knowing that your daughter died because of you!”

“Dad! Please! It hurts!” Lisbeth pleaded, the metal barrel glued to her little forehead.

My heart ached. Everyone was so scared, the room was so bright.

I’d try to help anyone in that situation. Anyone.

But the sweet little girl who made me feel someone again, who healed me, who gave me hope and reason to exist? You can bet I’d give everything to save her, including what little of me still hadn’t evaporated.

So I wished with all my might that I moved the gun. And my non-body, the slime of darkness that I was, jumped towards the light.

It felt like I was a sieve, with light perforating every pore that I didn’t have. It hurt. It hurt but it also felt liberating, like I had finally atoned for my sins and was free, choosing to sacrifice happily for something that was worth all that I had.

I was fast, a flash of dark in the light. I was able to move the pistol from his hand, causing it to pirouette e hit him in the head with the butt of the gun.

Before disappearing I saw his body starting to fall unconscious, almost in slow-motion, and I heard Lisbeth’s frenetic voice. “Poggy saved us!”

\*\*\*

I abruptly woke up back in my own body, like when you dream of falling.

**It** was gone, or at least I couldn’t hear **Its** malicious thoughts anymore.

I tried moving my hands. Slowly, finger by finger, everything worked.

I laughed with joy. I almost couldn’t believe my luck. I thought I was gone forever.

I opened my eyes and saw my husband by my side. I smiled happily, opening my arms to hug him. Instead he looked scared and twitched, moving to the farther side of the bed.

“I’m so, so sorry. Did I snort? I should sleep in the guest’s room, but you insist…”

“Babe, it’s fine. It’s me”, I tried to explain, with the softest voice I could. But his eyes were full of panic. He was so washed-out, pale, thin and with swollen eyes, like he spent most of his life crying.

He probably did, considering what **It** kept talking about doing.

And he looked old. Really, really old. I was ready to dismiss everything as some sort of drug-induced dream, but clearly years had passed – based on Lisbeth’s uncle, at least a decade. I instinctively looked at the corner of our room where the crib of our newborn used to be, but there was nothing. The room was arranged somewhat differently too.

“Where are the kids?” I asked. Still looking terrified, he guided me to their rooms.

“Please don’t be so harsh, Rachel. I know they didn’t mean to say your cooking was bad”, he begged me.

My newborn was now a handsome 12-years-old little man. I cried as I hugged him for the first time in so long.

Being a boogeyman was so scary. But nothing is scarier than being back and having to pick up the pieces that **It** left. Nothing is scarier than knowing how hard it will be to be trusted and loved again. Still, I’m grateful I’m here. I want to spend the rest of my days redeeming myself with the ones I love for everything **It** did through my body while I was almost too far gone in a dark, dark place.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Our son just told us he's getting married, but his bride is a little strange
 
 Assistant: “Mom, dad, we have something we’d like to tell you,” my son said, producing a bottle of champagne from his backpack, “Hold on, I’ll get some glasses.”

I watched as he scurried across the living room to the glass cabinet, flinging it open and sliding four champagne flutes between his fingers. I glanced at my wife. Her face had turned a light shade of pink and her nails were frantically picking at a scab on her wrist. She was staring at Lindsay, the corners of her mouth twitching ever so slightly. Lindsay smiled back, an amicable expression on her face.

“Breathe,” I whispered to her, and watched as her shoulders tensed up, “It’s going to be okay.”

Lindsay was our son Benjamin’s latest. The two were inseparable and he insisted on bringing her along every time we invited him over for dinner. Benjamin was almost thirty-five years old, and while we had certainly expected to see him settle down eventually, I suppose we had hoped our only son would end up with someone more…like him. Like us.

“Uh, honey, what is the champagne for?” my wife asked, her voice quivering, “D-did you finally get that promotion at work?”

Benjamin scoffed, setting the flutes down on the coffee table and shaking his head, “Nah, they gave that to someone else. **** Alistair, of all people. Still, doesn't matter, Lindsay and I have some far more exciting news!”

I could almost feel my wife’s anxiety permeating the room. From the corner of my eye, I could see blood trickling from the scab on her wrist, and snatched her hand away, gripping it firmly in mine. My son and Lindsay seemed oblivious to the interaction.

“So,” Benjamin began, pouring out the champagne, “Mother, father, Lindsay and I have been together for more than a year now, and…”

My wife’s nails dug into my palm.

“...We love each other dearly and wish to spend every waking moment with one another…”

Droplets of sweat began forming on my upper lip.

“...So, we have decided to tie the knot!”

My blood ran cold. My wife had gone pale, and I instantly knew she felt similar. I could tell by Benjamin’s expression that he had expected applause and squeals of delight, but the room was silent, and after a few moments, his brow furrowed.

“What?” he snapped, “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“Benjamin,” I began, playing for time, “We… understand that… Lindsay is important to you… But we cannot in good conscience support this arrangement…”

“What?” he sounded bewildered, “Why the **** not? Lindsay is the love of my life!”

I looked over at Lindsay who was perched on the edge of the couch, her legs crossed. She was wearing a black strapless dress that barely covered her upper body and draped loosely over her waist and legs. Her expression remained unchanged.

“Ben, we think it’s best if you see a… a professional,” my wife interjected, “You’re such a handsome young man, there are plenty of women out there for you!”

There was a sharp whistling sound as Benjamin drew breath, and I felt my wife shrinking beside me.

“Lindsay *is* the perfect woman for me! Look at her, for ****’s sake! Show me a girl more perfect than her. She has perfect skin, perfect hair, and a body to die for! Plus…” he exhaled, wiping the sweat away from his forehead, “I have to marry her. We’re having a baby.”

My wife and I stared at him, dumbfounded. My brain seemed to be at a loss for how to react. Sweat was pooling under my arms, and a slow chill was creeping up my spine. I wondered if our son had finally lost it. I wondered if this was one of those times where it was acceptable to wrestle a person to the ground and call the police.

“A-a b-baby?” my wife whispered, a hand over her mouth, “B-but how…”

I knew I had to intervene. I got to my feet and placed my hands on Benjamin’s shoulders.

“Son, Lindsay is not a real person. She is a **** doll. She cannot get pregnant or bear children, you must understand that! Now, sit down right here, let’s make a cup of tea so we can all calm down and talk about this.”

With that, I brushed past him and headed for the kitchen, but Benjamin’s next words stopped me in my tracks.

“You’re wrong, dad,” he said, his tone ominous, “Lindsay *is* pregnant.”

He walked around the couch and propped her up by her arms, “And if she isn’t…how do you explain this?”

Benjamin pulled up Lindsay’s flowy dress, exposing her lower body, clad in nothing but a pair of lace ****. I recoiled at the sight, but there was something else. A deformed bump in her stomach, far too large for her small frame. It extended towards her chest, bulging awkwardly in various places, as though it had been stuffed.

My wife jumped up from the couch and shrieked, while I stood and stared at our son’s exhibition, my skin prickling, “W-what is that?”

“It’s our baby,” Benjamin rolled his eyes defiantly, “Are you blind or something?”

“Benjamin,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief, “A **** doll cannot reproduce. It cannot give you a baby. Please, you’re scaring your mother.”

Benjamin looked like he was about to go on another one of his angry rants, but his mother’s expression seemed to ground him. He slumped down on the couch and buried his face in his hands.

“Alright,” he said, sorrowfully, “Alright. When we found out that Lindsay couldn’t get pregnant, we knew we had to… look for other solutions. So, we adopted.”

I stared at him, “You a-adopted? But… w-where’s the child?”

Benjamin shot me a mournful look.

“Lindsay insisted on carrying the pregnancy to term.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I think my wife and kids are actors
 
 Assistant: I have been married to Marie, my wife, for 15 years now. We have two kids together; Aaron (10) and Priscilla (8). I have always pictured us as the perfect family, you know. Nice, spacious house in a good neighborhood, barely any arguments, well-behaved, healthy kids with good grades. Everything seemed spotless.

&#x200B;

But lately I have been noticing things. Things that have made me question everything in my life.

&#x200B;

But let us start at the beginning. I have always been a workaholic. For the last twenty years I have averaged 150 yearly commuter days. I spend more time in airports than I do with my own family. So it is only to be expected that things change when I suddenly find myself stuck in the house 24/7, right? That is exactly how I was trying to justify the weirdness; I’ve hardly spent a full weekend with them in years, it is gonna take time to get used to me hanging around here constantly.

&#x200B;

I suffered a pretty serious neck-injury on the job a few months back, which kept me hospitalized for a good two weeks. I am mostly fine now, but because of the nature of the fracture I still have to wear a collar for stabilization, and there is at least a couple of months until I’m ready for work. So I spend my days just wandering around the house, not quite knowing what to do with myself.

&#x200B;

My wife is a stay-at-home-mom. She is the love of my life. We met at a company retreat seventeen years ago and we hit it off immediately. Soon we fell in love, got married, spawned the kids, you know the deal. She left the company when Aaron was born. I was making enough for the both of us, so I was happy to see her happy.

&#x200B;

But now things are different. I have no idea if she’s happy anymore. She always smiles, always laughs, but it feels so emotionless. Forced even. And she sneaks out when she thinks I’m napping. At first I thought she was having an affair or something, but I’m not so sure anymore.

&#x200B;

My kids are just weird around me. Aaron won’t look me in the eyes, and Priscilla seems to avoid me at all cost. I shrugged it off the first few weeks; maybe they just needed a little more time. But time didn’t help. Time only made it worse. My wife keeps sending them to her parents’ every weekend. They love it there, she says. She allows them to sleep over at their friends’ place too often as well, even on school nights. I’ve tried to set some boundaries, but my wife just ignores them. She knows them best, she says. Can’t argue with that.

&#x200B;

At night, when she thinks I’m sleeping, my wife sneaks out of bed and makes a phone call. Just one. She is away for maybe thirty minutes, before returning to bed. I have tried sneaking down after her, but I can never get close enough to listen in. I’ll get a few words and phrases, but nothing that makes any sense. She looks visibly upset, though, that much I have gathered. The first few times I confronted her about it, but she just said it was one of her friends needing some advice. I didn’t want to press matters too far, because of the way she looked at me. Cold and emotionless. I shudder at the thought of it.

&#x200B;

I tried driving my kids to soccer practice and gymnastics twice a week, hoping to get some conversation started. They seemed really upset at the idea of me taking them anywhere, and my wife desperately tried to get me to reconsider, but I insisted. I stopped taking them after a week. The look in their eyes scared me. It was like the very presence of me made them so uncomfortable that it nearly induced panic attacks in them. I was at my wits end at this point.

&#x200B;

Laying awake at night, my mind started drifting. I have always joked that I spend so much time away from them, that they could easily be replaced and I would hardly notice. And then I remembered the Aaron-incident. I sat up in bed, sweating. The Aaron-incident.

&#x200B;

When Aaron was 2, a few months before Priscilla was born, I had been spending months at the time on a job. When I got home for a much needed long-weekend, my wife and son greeted me at the airport. Only it wasn’t my son. I didn’t recognize him at all. I stood there frozen for minutes, before my wife, looking quite flustered, snapped me out of it.

&#x200B;

“Pick him up,” she said. “He just wants to hug his father.”

&#x200B;

I picked him up and just stared at him. He didn’t seem familiar at all. At this point I was starting to feel unwell, like I had to throw up or something. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t recognize him. When we got home, I told everything to my wife, and she said it was because I spent too much time away. Kids that age grow and change like crazy, she explained. It took me weeks to accept it, but at some point I just realised I was acting like a lunatic, and got on with my life.

&#x200B;

The thought of the Aaron-incident sparked something in me. I started thinking back to other strange, seemingly explainable, things that had happened. Like that I wasn’t present when my wife gave birth to any of the kids. That I was never around much the last trimester of her pregnancies. That I have never actually met any of her relatives, except for her parents, who’ve always been strange around me. I started feeling dizzy and nauseous just thinking about it.

&#x200B;

Was the last seventeen years of my life a lie? It seemed so impossible, but at the same time I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to get to the bottom of this. Otherwise I was afraid I was going to lose my mind.

&#x200B;

I started paying more attention to every little detail that went on in the house. Every conversation, every phone call, every movement; any little detail that could explain what was going on. There was always *something* that never quite made sense. Just a tiny, little thing that would catch my eye. How they always seem to talk in perfect order, like they were reading from a script. Like how they always seemed to know who was coming up the driveway just moments before they actually did. Like it all was some elaborate stage act. I was getting more paranoid by the minute, and I think they noticed something was wrong.

&#x200B;

That’s when my wife sent me to therapy. She said I needed it, that I had been acting different ever since I got home. Like everything was *my* fault. I tried explaining to her that I was probably just a bit anxious because I wasn’t used to *living* there, but she wouldn’t hear it.

&#x200B;

My first session went as I had suspected. The therapist was desperately trying to get me to question myself and my motives. I didn’t share anything with him. I simply couldn’t trust him. Maybe he was in on it? Maybe they were trying to label me insane? Lock me up in some godforsaken asylum? To what end? In any case, I couldn’t afford to spill my suspicions just yet. I needed some proof.

&#x200B;

I told my wife everything went great, and that I understood I might be coming on too hard. I was going to take it easy, and not force them. I would leave them to it, and learn as I went along. All that jazz. She smiled one of her obviously fake smiles and gave me a cold hug. She was so pleased, she told me. I was going to get better in no time.

&#x200B;

Sure lady.

&#x200B;

I had come to realise I approached the matter from the wrong angle. I shouldn’t have given away my suspicions so easily. Instead I should have followed the one trail they could not hide; the money. If they were indeed actors, they had to get paid, right? And there had to be some evidence of some transaction somewhere? Even if they got paid in cash, I could perhaps follow them and catch them in the act. Yes, this was a plan.

&#x200B;

I spent days without sleep going through bank records, receipts, the GPS of the car, without getting anywhere. Everything seemed just fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was tearing my hair out in despair, when fate suddenly intervened, and they slipped up. Just a tiny mistake, mind you. They could have easily gotten away with it if I wasn’t already in a state of complete awareness.

&#x200B;

One morning my wife was getting the kids ready for school. Everything normal. Eating breakfast, packing their lunches, ushering them into the car. The old “we’re gonna be late for school”.

&#x200B;

But it was just this one, tiny detail.

&#x200B;

The school was closed that day.

&#x200B;

My wife did not know this, but I had looked through all the papers I could get my hands on, one of them being the school calendar. And that day they were definitely closed.

&#x200B;

I don’t know if you have experienced such a feeling; it is like a mix of total relief and utter devastation all at once. To prove to myself that I wasn’t insane, but at the same time realise my life was a lie. And the day wasn’t about to get any less absurd.

&#x200B;

Not only did my wife not realise that the school was closed. She also forgot her purse. And in it I found the one thing I had been looking for the past few days; a paycheck.

&#x200B;

Now the paycheck wasn’t made out in her name, or the name I knew her by at least. It was made out to one Lisa Garon. But it wasn’t that little detail that threw me off. It was something else. Something extremely disturbing. Something impossible. It was the name listed as the employer.

&#x200B;

It was me.

&#x200B;

I was the [employer](https://www.reddit.com/user/hyperobscura).

&#x200B;
***
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bwske9/i_think_my_wife_and_kids_are_actors_part_two/)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bxjte1/i_think_my_wife_and_kids_are_actors_part_three/)

[Final Part](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/byard1/i_think_my_wife_and_kids_are_actors_finale/)
***

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Has anyone heard of the Left/Right Game? (Part 8)
 
 Assistant: Hi Guys,

Apologies for the removal of this log a second ago, not sure why that happened, and I should also apologise for the delay in posting recently. If I could dedicate all my time to finding Alice, then I would. Sadly, I need to work as many Christmas shifts as I can get my hands on, especially now I’ve decided that I can’t continue the investigation effectively from my flat in North London. 

I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I’ve decided that, after Christmas, I’m going to be flying out stateside to follow up on the leads you guys have provided. Hopefully once I’m there I might be able to make some real headway.

In the meantime, please keep any and all insights coming, however small. I really do read all of them.

Ok, here’s the next log:

[Part 1](https://redd.it/7asz8x)

[Part 2](https://redd.it/7bkk41)

[Part 3](https://redd.it/7cf4h8)

[Part 4](https://redd.it/7dmuvp)

[Part 5](https://redd.it/7fdu9c)

[Part 6](https://redd.it/7h9jzb)

[Part 7](https://redd.it/7jabqd)

[Part 9](https://redd.it/7q3x6e)

[Part 10](https://redd.it/7uyiss)

*****

The Left/Right Game [DRAFT 1] 14/02/2017

In the brief interlude before I hit the ground, I find myself alone with the stars.

As I fall backward towards the ****, my gaze rising to meet the night sky, I feel a sudden weightlessness take hold, as if I’m being granted an audience with the heavens. The rich and endless firmament shines down through the canopy, with no earthly light to dull its glow. Despite everything that’s happened, I’m unable to ignore how magnificent it all is, how gracefully detached from the ugliness below. Though the moment lasts no more than a second, it feels longer, like I’ve been gifted some fleeting respite, a transient sliver of time in which to appreciate the calm and quiet cosmos. A moment to escape, however briefly, from the events that are to come.

I don’t know how much longer the moment might have lasted. I suppose I never will. It’s with a sense of genuine sadness that I turn myself away, twisting my body around in mid-air. The stars disappear from view, and I am left staring down the **** into the valley’s dark, uncompromising depths. My commune with the heavens has ended, and I’m returned to the cold, unforgiving earth.

It doesn’t welcome me back.

I hit the ****, immediately bouncing off one shoulder and landing on the other, barrelling forcefully and unstoppably downhill. My entire body is thrown into chaos, tossed into a frenetic, uncontrollable dance, swept along by the rushing earth towards the impatient valley floor.

The back of my ankle flails against a hard, jagged rock. My face rolls into a small bloom of stinging nettles, their caustic leaves scraping against my cheek. I battle to bring order to my descent, my hands grasping at the undergrowth, clawing through loose soil in a frenzied search for stability.

Rocks and dirt cascade around me as I pull myself onto my back, finally managing to descend with my feet pointed downhill. I’ve regained control just in time, looking ahead to see a large tree, bursting out of the hill a few metres below me. A split second before I would have collided with the thick, knotted trunk, I throw myself to the side, my wrist ricocheting against the bark and sending a shooting pain down my arm. 

The valley’s base comes into view, hurtling towards me as I plummet through the rushing undergrowth. I can make out the bodies of the deer who made this hazardous journey before me. I can hear the pained braying of the survivors, moaning in hollow resignation as they struggle to stand on broken legs.

A moment later, I join them.

The **** doesn’t level out gradually. Just before the bottom, the sharp incline I’ve been hopelessly traversing drops off into a sheer rock face. Before I can stop myself, I’m launched from the ****, kicking dirt into the air. I spend the final three metres in freefall, before landing on my hands and knees, my whole body subject to a complete, bone rattling halt.

My body tensed and aching, I pick myself up off the valley floor. The second I stumble onto my feet, a harsh beam of torchlight strikes the ground to my right. My muscles groaning, I jump back against the natural rock wall as the light swings my way, sweeping directly over the spot where I just landed.

Bluejay is looking for me. I would have expected nothing less. The beam glides along the ground, scanning the base of the ****, lighting up the twisted bodies of countless deer. Fortunately, the shadow cast by the rock wall offers a measure of sanctuary, shielding me from the torch’s restless glare. 

About half a minute after it arrived, the beam rises through the trees and cuts out. 

I don’t expect her to come after me. I certainly don’t expect her to drop down the ****. Perhaps she could walk back down the road, taking a gentler route downhill, and pursue me through the valley once it levels out, but that walk would probably take half an hour each way. If I were her, I wouldn’t want to leave the Wrangler unprotected for that long.

Despite the fact that she’s showing no signs of entering the valley, Bluejay is clearly eager to locate me. The torch suddenly illuminates the damp soil ahead of me as she points it back down into the valley. I suspect she turned it off just long enough for me to feel overlooked, allowing me to consider stepping out into the open. I also suspect that, should the torchlight find me scrambling around on the valley floor, a bullet will quickly follow it, putting me down to lie with the deer. From that point, all she’d need to do is walk down and slip the Wrangler’s key from my cold, limp fingers.

Catching my breath, my back pressed against the rough rock wall, I run through my current priorities. I need to stabilise Rob, I need to lure Bluejay away from the Wrangler, and, most pressingly, I need to contact Lilith. 

I reach to the back of my waistband, my hand searching for my personal walkie talkie. My fingers touch denim, finding an empty space where the transceiver should be. My stomach drops as I search along my back. It’s gone. I’d had it with me when I dropped onto the ****, but at some point during my furious descent, it must have gotten away from me.

The torchlight swings back around once more.

Though it’s something I never thought I’d have to do, I find myself making a mental inventory of the convoy’s radio transceivers. Before we set out on the road, Rob handed a walkie talkie out to each of us. Since then, it’s safe to assume that those belonging to Ace, Apollo, Eve, Bonnie and Clyde are no longer in play. Lilith must have lost hers when her car sank into the ground, which is why I gave her Rob’s before she ran into the forest. That just left mine, which could be anywhere on the hillside, and Bluejay’s.

The torchlight disappears once more. 

I cautiously lean out from the shadows, scanning the forest around me. Bluejay’s walkie talkie had been in her car when the child pushed it from the road. If I’m correct, then her transceiver is the only one left that I can use to contact Lilith. The car itself doesn’t seem to be anywhere around me, but as I turn my head and scan the dark hillside, I can see it resting on the ****. The entire car has been stopped mid-fall, resting precariously on its side, the vehicle’s crooked undercarriage crumpled around the trunk of an old and battered tree.

If I’m going to get in touch with Lilith, I’m going to have to climb up there.

I edge along the rock until Bluejay’s car is almost directly uphill from me. Turning around, and running my hands against the damp, shrouded wall, I’m able to discern a few passable handholds. Placing my fingers into a large groove above my head, I jam my boot onto a small outcrop just above the wall and push myself upwards.

It isn’t an easy climb. My hands are cold, my arms are tired and I’m certainly not wearing the right shoes. My boots repeatedly slip from their holds, causing my arms to throb as they’re forced to bear my weight. After painstakingly scraping up the first two metres, I run out of places to put my hands, my outstretched fingers falling roughly 10 inches short of the top. I take a quick breather, letting both arms straighten as I lean back and observe the wall above me. As the torch sweeps past overhead once more, it illuminates a small twisted root on the very edge of the cliff.

I have no idea if I can reach it, and there’s every chance it will give way immediately, causing me to topple helplessly back to the earth. However, I can already feel my grip weakening, a noticeable ache running up my forearms. I’m not going to be able to stay where I am much longer, and I suspect I won’t have the energy to make it this far again. Edging my feet up, scrabbling the side of my boot against the wall until it sticks in place. I bend my legs slightly, poising myself to make the jump. Gritting my teeth, and with a sharp, tentative intake of breath, I swing myself up into the air and let go of the wall.

I feel grossly vulnerable, hanging in the air with nothing but a harsh fall below me and a harrowing climb waiting above. I throw my arms forward as I hit the peak of my jump and just manage to catch the root with both hands. A heavy jolt wrenches my shoulders, threatening to yank me back to the ground. Fear and adrenaline alone sustain my desperate grip, my arms on fire as I swing my leg up to the ledge, hooking my heel over the top after a few clumsy attempts. 

I force myself over the edge and onto the soft soil, just in time for the torchlight to start circling back towards me.

With one final surge of effort, I push my aching body upright and struggle over to the nearest tree, falling at its base and pressing myself against the bark. The light travels quickly. The tree’s darkening shadow swings over from the right, covering me, and then fading again as it stretches out to my left. The light leaves me in darkness, certain to return soon as Bluejay continues her frenzied surveillance.

It's started to rain a little. A few sporadic droplets fall through the sparse canopy and land on my outstretched palm. It doesn’t take long before these scouts are reinforced by a steady downpour, drumming against the leaves and grass, soaking through the loam. The already punishing incline is going to prove completely unclimbable if the rain has enough time to slicken the grass and pound the soil into mud. I also doubt I’ll be able to make the initial climb again, especially if the rock wall becomes coated in a layer of cold rain. 

As much as I have to move quickly up to the car, I also need to move carefully. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this will be my only attempt at reaching the radio.

The vehicle is only a short climb away. I can see its undercarriage laying against the tree, the entire left side of the vehicle pressed into the ground. Only now I’m nearby do I hear the ominous creaking sound that emanates from the car, as it rocks almost imperceptibly around a thin focal point.

I wait for the torchlight to swing past me once more before pulling myself out from the shadow of the tree. My dirt covered hands grasping at any conceivable purchase, I crawl up the bank towards Bluejay’s vehicle. My feet slip on the grass with every other step as the rain seeps into the ground, soaking through my fleece.

I’m completely exposed as I make my way on towards the car. Though it remains a constant concern, the torch seems to be exploring another section of the hill as I arrive beneath the chassis, the undercarriage looming imposingly over me. I briefly glance up to check on Bluejay’s movements then, slowly, steadying myself against the incredible incline, I climb out into the open once more and pull myself up until I’m in line with the warped, twisted hood.

Bluejay’s transceiver is still fastened within its dock. Despite the car’s battered condition, the windshield is frustratingly intact, with nothing more than a small jagged, irregular hole near its centre. It will take a bit of manoeuvring, but it should be just big enough to reach through and pull the radio free. Slowly, and tentatively, I thread my arm through the centre of the opening, shards of serrated glass encircling my skin. My hand reaches the dashboard, slowly brushing along its surface towards the walkie talkie as I lean into the car.

The torchlight starts to swing back across the hill. Bluejay is walking along the ledge in a frantic mission to find me. In my current position, out in the open and trapped in a slow and delicate procedure, there’s no way I can get out of the way in time. 

My hand grasps the transceiver as the light reaches me. Though I’m ashamed to admit it, for a brief moment, drowned in the revealing glare of the torch’s beam, I’m stunned into inaction. The light has stopped moving, fixed directly on me, casting my stark shadow down into the valley. I can imagine Bluejay’s triumphant glare as her desperate search is finally rewarded.

Returning to my senses all too late, I grit my teeth, and wrench the walkie talkie from its dock. With no time for grace or care, I retract my arm from the windshield, inhaling sharply as an aberrant shard of glass scrapes across the back of my hand.

It turns out I have greater things to worry about, as I hear a loud bang from up the top of the hill, followed instantaneously by a disgusting zipping sound that flashes past my ear. I flinch instinctively from the noise, my sudden reaction causing my boots to give way beneath me. I slam into the earth and career down the hill. What little control I have over the ****, I give away in a desperate bid to roll into the car’s shadow and out of the light. I don’t have time to right myself as I’m dragged chaotically down towards the valley, and cast over the edge once more.

The base of the valley flashes into view mere seconds before my body slams into it. The air is ripped out of my lungs, my pained cry forming a visible plume of steam that dissipates into the cold night air. I lay on my side, cradling the walkie talkie in my hands. At the very least, I’d managed to keep a hold of it.

The torch dances erratically around my position. I pick myself up and drag my body the last few metres, collapsing against the wall as torch beam lights up the ground in front of me. As I raise the radio, I realise my hands are violently shaking. I don’t think I’ve ever been as close to death as when that bullet passed by me, and although the noise itself died quickly, it’s horrific implications echo in my skull. Bluejay shot Rob as a bargaining chip, to drag us out of the Wrangler. It was a show of force. A power play. The bullet that she just fired in my direction had no nuance, no pretence, no objective other than its primary function. 

Bluejay’s prepared to **** me, which means she’s prepared to **** any of us. I raise the transceiver, and switch through the channels until I find Rob’s frequency.

**AS:** This is Bristol to Lilith. Bristol to Lilith. Do you copy?

The radio crackles as I release the button. I wait twenty interminable seconds for Lilith to respond. She doesn’t.

**AS:** This is Bristol to Lilith, can you hear me?

This time I let a minute pass. Still nothing. Everything I’ve been struggling for since I jumped into the valley has come up against a wall of silence. I feel a swell of frustration inside me. 

It isn’t fair.  

**AS:** Jen? Jen… are you there?

Another minute goes by. I sit in silence the whole time, watching as the radio I risked my life to collect transforms into a useless hunk of plastic. After a while I loosen my grip and let it drop into the wet soil.

I bring my legs up to my body, wrap my arms around them, and rest my head against my knees. In a moment of rest, my breathing becomes shallow. A set of fresh tears well up behind my eyes, spilling out down my face. The rain falls around me as I quietly cry, sitting in the middle of a dark forest, muddied, injured, and alone.

I’m ripped out of my melancholy as the rain is blasted in every conceivable direction, whipping against my face, and splattering against the rock with incredible force. The air is whipped into a furious maelstrom, and a familiar, booming sound crashes through the ether.

**VOICE:** I’ve watched you struggle.

As soon as it arrives the voice is gone. The wind quiets down and the rain begins to drop vertically once again.

**AS:** Hello?! Hello?! Who is that?

The air is still, absent of everything but the rain. I wipe the tears from my face as I call out to the air.

**AS:** Can you help me? Please can you... just…

The voice has disappeared, and I suspect I won’t be hearing it again any time soon. Perhaps it just wants me to know that it’s watching. One thing is certain, if the voice is attempting to bring me comfort, or make me feel less alone, then its methods are horribly misguided.

**LILITH (VO):** Alice are you there?

My eyes fixate on the crackling radio. 

**LILITH (VO):** Alice are you still there? I’m sorry I couldn’t…

**AS:** Jen! Jen, are you ok? Are you safe?

**LILITH (VO):** Yeah I’m ok, I thought you were… what happened to you?

**AS:** I uh… I jumped down the hill, got Bluejay’s walkie, she shot at me… how’ve you been?

**LILITH (V.O):** She’s gone **** crazy. I made it to a clearing in the woods. It’s straight on from the car, or at least I hope it is. I still haven’t seen that… that thing anywhere.

**AS:** Well, it’s a big forest. Maybe it’s gone. Can you stay near the clearing?

**LILITH (V.O):** Yeah I can keep hidden nearby. What are you gonna do?

**AS:** I’m going to make my way to you and we’re going to get Bluejay away from the Wrangler. 

**LILITH (V.O):** How?

**AS:** I’m still working on that. I’m about half an hour away. Keep your volume down but stay in touch alright?

**LILITH (V.O):** Yeah. Ok… ok will do. I’m glad you’re alright Alice.

**AS:** Yeah, you too Jen.

I fasten the radio to my waistband. My body still aches from the fall, blood dripping slowly from my hand, and my fingers are almost numb from the cold. Yet hearing Lilith’s voice on the other end of the radio has brought back something I lost in the valley. A sense of resolve that jumpstarts my tired muscles, pushes me to my feet and sets me off to rejoin road.

I’m still stuck in the middle of a dark forest, I’m still muddied, bloodied, and injured, but I’m no longer alone.

It isn’t long before my boots hit asphalt. I follow the road, sticking to the tree line as I work my way back up the hill. I’m reluctant to place myself within sight of the Wrangler, where Bluejay will almost certainly be camped out and waiting. Unfortunately, it’s the only point of reference in an otherwise unknowable forest, the only location from where Lilith’s location can be divined.

Once the road levels out, I take the precaution of heading deeper into the trees. The road is almost impossible to see now, but I’ll need the cover if Bluejay is still on the lookout. Even though I’m only a few metres deep, the woods fill me with a palpable sense of unease. Every shadow feels predatory, every twig that snaps under my foot sounds like the crack of a whip.

When the Wrangler comes into view, Bluejay’s nowhere to be seen. Curiosity getting the better of me, I creep closer to the road, observing the scene as the trees thin out. The place is deserted, with neither Bluejay or Rob anywhere to be seen. I have no idea what could have forced her to move him. Perhaps he managed to get away.

Something feels wrong.

Creeping up to the Wrangler, I find the passenger side window broken, a thousand splinters of glass spilled across the ground, trodden into the mud. The glovebox has been left open, the boxes of ammunition either emptied or removed. The next thing I notice makes my blood run cold, and forces me to curse my own stupidity.

The light on the CB radio is on.

When I’d reached the bottom of the hill. I’d correctly calculated the number of active radios, arriving at the conclusion that only me and Lilith would be able to communicate. Technically I’d been right, we were the only two who could talk, but that didn’t mean we were the only ones who could listen. I’d forgotten that the CB radio in Rob’s car had its own independent battery, and in-built speakers. Most importantly, he’d been using it throughout the trip to broadcast and receive across all our frequencies.

I switch the frequency of the walkie to a random channel, lift the receiver to my mouth and hold the talk button. 

**AS:** Bristol to all cars.

My voice crackles out of the CB radio.  Bluejay must have known I was going to contact Lilith, and she’d broken into the Wrangler to spy on the conversation. I can’t believe I didn’t think about it before now.

I switch the radio back to Lilith’s frequency.

**AS:** Lilith you need to get moving. Bluejay heard us. She’s not listening now but she knows I’m meeting you near the clearing. Get yourself back here ok? Lilith can you hear me?

**BLUEJAY (V.O):** Bring me my **** key Alice. 

My heart sinks. Now it makes sense why Bluejay wasn’t guarding the Wrangler. She’d eavesdropped onto my conversation and, instead of waiting for me to get back up the hill, she’d gone after Lilith. Despite all my efforts, all my good intentions, I led Bluejay right to her.

**AS:** Bluejay, where’s Lilith?

**BLUEJAY (V.O):** She’s here. 

I hear a refrain of quiet sobbing in the background of the call, I can hear Lilith meekly calling my name.

**AS:** Ok… ok let me speak to her.

**BLUEJAY (V.O):** Hah what?! No no. No you’re not going to trick me again, Alice. You don’t get to confer. You get to bring me the key to my **** car, and then you get to walk yourselves back home. Now what about that do you need to **** discuss?

**AS:** Bluejay this is ins… we’re not your enemy Denise ok?  Please… please you have to believe me-

**BLUEJAY:** You think I’ll ever believe a **** word you say?! Bring me my **** keys and if you pull ANY more tricks I will put a bullet in your **** skull. Now, do you believe that?

She waits patiently for my answer. I suddenly feel like we’ve entered an entirely new realm. Bluejay has the upper hand, and under the threat of fierce, unthinkable consequence we’ve become the subjects of her domain. Reason, diplomacy, and sanity no longer hold sway over proceedings. As long as she has Lilith remains at the end of that rifle, I’m beholden to her madness.

**AS:** Fine. Ok. I’m on my way.

**BLUEJAY (V.O):** Good. You need to remember Alice, I didn’t want any of this. You brought ME here.

Bluejay lets go of the button, returning me to a familiar silence. If I keep the keys from her, Lilith will be at her mercy, and although Bluejay can’t really afford to **** her bargaining chip, I have no doubt she’ll be willing to hurt her as much as she needs in order to force my compliance. If I let her take the Wrangler, however, we’re both dead anyway. 

I take a moment to think through my options. It doesn’t take long. There aren’t that many left.

My journey through the forest is uncomfortable, and rings with an unsettling finality. Like a guilty child heading towards an unavoidable reckoning, I’m overcome by a pervasive dread which builds with every shuffling step. I do my best to keep the Wrangler behind me, carving a straight line through the woods. All in all, it takes less than five minues before the clearing opens up ahead of me.

Bluejay is planted in the very centre of a large glade, leaving too much exposed ground in every direction for me to even contemplate an ambush. Rob’s torch lies at her feet, as she keeps both her hands firmly wrapped around the rifle. Lilith kneels beside her, the barrel of the gun placed against her temple, her tearstained face contorted by a mixture of despair and vitriolic anger. Her hands rest against her lap, her wrists bound by same brand of cable ties I’d used to restrain Bonnie. I can imagine Bluejay bristled with poetic justice when she ordered Lilith to fasten the band around her wrists.

They both see me as soon as I step out of the trees.

**BLUEJAY:** You’re late.

**AS:** I got turned around. Lilith are you ok?

**BLUEJAY:** Stop walking. Stop walking!

Bluejay grips the rifle more tightly, sending me an unignorable message. She’s keeping me at a good distance. She knows it takes her a second or two to reload the rifle, and she wants me far enough back to allow time for at least two consecutive shots. Everything she does, every action she takes, demonstrates that she’s preparing to act swiftly against us, should anything untoward take place.

**AS:** Lilith, are you ok?

**LILITH:** I’m… I’m ok. I’m ok.

**BLUEJAY:** Hand over the keys, Alice.

**AS:** Bluejay, take her back with you. Please. You don't have to let her… you can drop her off at a police station as soon as you’re home. But just… take her home.

**BLUEJAY:** Hand me the **** keys.

**AS:**... Fine. I have them in my bag let me-

**BLUEJAY:** Hey HEY! What are you doing. 

Bluejay snaps at me as I reach into my bag, pointedly jabbing the rifle against Lilith. Lilith cries with distress as the barrel repeatedly prods her temple. I take my hand out of my bag, and slip it slowly from my shoulder. Every move I make is being considered a potential act of subterfuge. 

**AS:** Fine. Fine. Here. 

I swing my bag in a slow arc and throw it over to Bluejay, it lands in the wet dirt about a meter in front of her. 

**BLUEJAY:** That's better. 

Bluejay steps forward, momentarily letting the gun’s barrel slip from Lilith temple. She quickly bends down and places the bag over her shoulder, reaching in, extracting the key to the Wrangler and placing it in her jacket pocket. In the fleeting seconds of distraction, I watch Lilith raise her hands high above her head and swing her elbows down to her sides in a single fluid motion.

The zip tie snaps open, and without wasting a second Lilith launches herself at Bluejay, grabbing her waist from behind and trying to force her to the ground. Shocked at the suddenness of it all, but aware that this may be our only chance, I find myself sprinting across the clearing towards the pair of them.

Bluejay is taken by surprise following Lilith’s assault, but she adapts to the situation quickly. Planting one foot in front to brace her sudden momentum, she stops herself from being brought down. At the same time, she swings the stock of the rifle down to her side, where it meets Lilith’s face with a sickening crack. 

**BLUEJAY:** You **** ****!

Lilith is knocked onto her back, dazed and hurt. Without hesitation, Bluejay swings the rifle down and fires a shot into the girl’s stomach.

I find myself trapped in the moment, as if reality itself is stunned by the madness taking place before it, unsure how it will continue on. The sound of the shot thunders through my consciousness, yet at the same time seems distant, otherworldly. I can’t bring myself to speak, my lips uselessly parted as Lilith’s fitful cries resound, uninterrupted, throughout the clearing.

**AS:** What have you done… what have you-

Bluejay is backing quickly away from Lilith, putting space between the two of us while she struggles to reload. She was right to keep me at a distance early on, she’s given herself more than enough time to drive a second bullet into the chamber, and click the bolt into position.

**BLUEJAY:** No more tricks Alice.

Before I know it, I’ve broken into a final, desperate sprint, casting wet mud behind me as I dash towards the shelter of the treeline. I can imagine Bluejay levelling the rifle, lowering her eye to the sights.

Another shot echoes through the cold air, flying wide and perishing with a distant thud. As I reach the edge of the clearing, I throw myself behind the thick trunk of the nearest tree. My back presses against the rough bark, as I listen for any movement behind me. 

Twigs snap beneath Bluejay’s feet as she advances towards me.

**BLUEJAY:** You did this to yourselves! You did this with your lies and your tricks and your **** games. Well I’m not **** playing any more!

A shot grazes the tree, ricocheting off into the woods, I can hear her beginning to strafe around my position, poised and ready to fire as soon as she gets an angle.

**BLUEJAY:** You kept lying right until the end. Everything you’ve done, everything you are, you **** monster! I will put a bullet in your skull and I won’t feel a **** thing!!

From the moment she’d first opened her mouth, spilling her bitter, dogmatic cynicism into our group, I’d been waiting for Bluejay to realise she was wrong. Every so often, in a quiet moment, I’d catch myself fantasizing about the stark and esoteric phenomenon that would stop her tongue and force her to accept the truth. I realise now there was never going to be such a moment, that nothing lies beyond her powers of self-delusion. She was lost to us, lost to the road; a twisted woman, driven mad by her own rationality. 

My hand slips into my pocket.

**AS:** You know what Bluejay. I believe you.

The next thing I hear is a faint, nostalgic ring tone, a sudden, deafening bang. 

In the brief time I was afforded, following my tense call with Bluejay, I had taken one of Rob’s knives to the block of C4, cutting away almost everything around the blasting cap. The block was less than a pound in weight when I’d slipped it into a compartment of my satchel and buttoned it up. When Bluejay had asked for the key, I’d made sure to reach into my bag enthusiastically, I had a feeling she’d see my eagerness as a potential trap, allowing me a chance to throw her the satchel.

She didn’t trust anything I did, and it had made her predictable.


I step out from behind the tree and look towards Bluejay, lying broken on the forest ground, a large section of her abdomen removed by the blast, her arm, shoulder, and upper thigh virtually non-existent. She struggles to breathe as blood fills her air way.

**BLUEJAY:** I was ri… I was-

I turn away from her, and run towards Lilith. I drop to my knees beside her, grasping one of her hands. She grips my fingers weakly, her eyes are starting to drift shut, opening again for briefer and briefer intervals.

**AS:** Hey Jen…

**LILITH:** H… Hey Alice.

She speaks softly, her words hardly making it through the intense ringing in my ears.

**AS:** Try to stay awake Jen. You’re going to be alright ok? We’ll stop the bleeding and we’ll get you patched up… back at the Wrangler. We’ve got Roswell… in the spring. Once you’re better we’ll go there together ok? Jen? Jen…

When she manages to open her eyes once more, the look she gives me is kind, and heartbreakingly knowing. I can’t help but think back to our time on the cliffside, overlooking the vast ocean of fields. She’d asked how many people had died being told comforting lies. She asked how many of them knew. I can’t speak for anyone else, but as she stares up at me, hushing me with a look, I can tell that she does.

**LILITH:** I wish we could have been friends for longer. 

I can’t bring myself to speak, every word seems too small, too insubstantial, too wholly insignificant to be the last thing she might hear. All I can do is stare into Lilith’s eyes as her faltering breath rises in clouds of pale steam, clouds that grow slowly thinner, and thinner, until nothing rises at all.

I lay her hand on the ground, and let her fingers slip gently from my grasp.

My legs carry me over to Bluejay. My hand reaches into her pocket and lifts out the key to the Wrangler. The metal is irreparably bent, with no hope of fitting back into the ignition. This was the potential outcome which had rendered the C4 as a last resort, only to be used if my life was in imminent danger. It had done its job, I was alive, but I was also stuck in this forest.

I can’t bring myself to care about that right now. My mind is numb to the concept of future suffering, with no space left to contemplate tomorrow’s potential trials. The horrors of the present are hard enough to face, my mind eclipsed by more darkness than I can process. The only glimmering shred of solace I can muster, comes from the wishful belief that I’ve now seen all the terrors this night has to offer.

As I turn towards the Wrangler, I find myself proven wrong once again. 

I stand stock still as the child’s crooked form staggers out from the treeline. It looks markedly different, now a patchwork malformation of adolescence, adulthood, and old age. The face however, is still juvenile and filled with an innocent sorrow as it lurches towards Bluejay on uneven feet.

It doesn’t seem to have noticed me. I back away from Bluejay and step slowly towards Lilith, where Rob’s LED torch still lays on ground.

The child reaches Bluejay, observing her silent, mangled frame. Through my dampened hearing I can just make out a heartbroken whine. I continue to back away as it lifts Bluejay’s limp arm, shaking it wildly as if attempting to imbue it with some semblance of animation.

Frustrated tears dripping freely from its chin, the child throws Bluejay’s wrist back down against the ground. As it looks away from her broken body, and turns its face to me, I watch as the soft innocent features contract into a scowl of juvenile rage, signifying the inceptive throes of a tantrum that could eviscerate anything in its path.

In the last few seconds of calm, I feel my boot brush up against the torch. Bending slowly, keeping my eyes on the child for as long as I can, I reach down with my right hand and lift it from the ground. My hopes that I wouldn't have to use it are dashed instantly. The child drops onto its hands and legs, letting out a tortured, furious scream, and races towards me with staggering velocity.

I dodge out of the way at the last possible moment, hitting the soft dirt as the child skitters to a stop behind me. In the time it takes to turn itself around, I’ve already switched on the torch. 

Once again, the child is hit by a powerful beam of light. It's body lurches and spasms, its skin pulling and stretching over elongated bones. Crying out in pain, its voice deepening with every passing second, the disjointed figure dashes in my direction, clasping my right arm in its hands and slamming me down onto the ground.

The torch swings wildly as the creature climbs on top of me, tearing the fabric from my right sleeve, digging its nails into the skin just above my elbow. It doesn’t stop at the skin. I feel the hot, electric agony of scraped nerve endings, hear the sickening snap of breaking bone. Before I lose my chance forever, I throw the torch weakly from my right hand, and catch it in my left, pressing the beam directly into the child’s face.

It screams a scream of decades. The child’s eyes roll back into its head, overpowered by the brutal onslaught the light has wrought. I look on as its face melts and flickers through adolescence, through adulthood and middle age. The tortured scream grows hoarse and weak as its skin wrinkles and sags, rushing beyond human years into an untouched realm of decrepitude. Eventually its eyes glaze over, and its once powerful scream becomes nothing more than a grating rattle. I let the pitiful, lifeless creature fall to the ground beside me as I roll myself onto my knees. 

I stumble along the ground towards Bluejay, falling repeatedly, a stream of red soaking into the soil behind me. Once I reach her, I use my left hand to unfasten the rifle’s leather shoulder strap. I clumsily form the strap into a loop, passing it beneath my right shoulder. My head feels light, struggling to maintain focus. I grab a stick from the ground and place it through the knot of the loop, using my teeth to draw the knot securely closed around it. My left hand twists the stick over and over again, each turn tightening the leather strap until it bites into my skin. 

The bleeding lessens, but not nearly enough. 

Picking up my tired frame, barely able to keep myself upright, I place one foot painstakingly in front of the other, struggling over the damp ground, out of the clearing, and into the trees. 

I need to get back to the Wrangler.

I can feel everything starting to fade, even the ringing in my ears is dulled, my vision blurry. I lock the stick under my armpit, freeing up my left hand to brace me as I start to stumble against the trees. The more I lose of my faculties, the less capable I am of perceiving their decline, but I know they’re slipping away all too quickly.

As I struggle further through the woods, a figure steps out from the trees, stopping me in my tracks. I sway on my feet, as I try to identify what I’m seeing, the very act of standing now requiring constant, dogged attention. 

I have never seen the figure before. It seems to be composed of a constantly shifting maelstrom of crackling monochromatic sparks. An electric cloud of black, white, and grey, formed into a humanoid shape. As soon as it sees me, the humanoid creature falls backwards, scrabbling away from me across the ground, more terrified of me than I am of him. 

I don’t know if the entity is malignant or benign, but in my current state, my mind softly screaming against the dying light, I can’t make the distinction. As it backs up against a mound of earth, I try to ask it for help. The requisite words have already been lost to the advancing fog, and all I can do is reach out my hand towards him. Attempting to entreat some spark of humanity within the fizzling, shifting figure.

In response to my vague plea, the entity scampers off into the forest, tripping over itself before disappearing from view. As I watch it leave, a single dim beacon ignites in the far corners of my swiftly vanishing mind. A single light, whose implications kick-start my fading reason, and force me on through the forest.

I can see the Wrangler through the trees. It’s close by, yet at the same time, impossibly far away. 

There’s something wrong with my eyes. The car shifts in and out of focus, but every time it comes back in view the image is less sharp, until it exists as a pulsing dark green blur against a dull, slowly swaying backdrop. 

My boot’s kick up against one another, a final stumble that brings me down to earth. When I try to get up again, I find that I’m completely unable. There’s no strength left in my body, and no amount of resolve can raise me back to my feet.  

Though it may be my imagination, I think I can hear a steady rustling through the undergrowth, as if something were making its way towards me. Soon after my senses start to die away, leaving me with nothing more than the cold and the silence for company.

The dim light shines until the end however, the single strand of revelation, a solitary thought that I attempt to hold aloft from the all-consuming fog. 

It’s a memory, a vague recollection from my first interview with Rob J. Guthard.

It was the day we met. The day he told me about his long and meandering life, Japan, Hiroji, Aokigahara, and the strange phenomenon he saw which sparked his obsession with the supernatural. The singular event that started him down the road to the Left/Right Game, that led this excursion… the moment that brought us here.

**ROB (V.O):** It walked up to me through the trees. Looked like static you see on a TV screen but it had a human shape almost.

**AS (V.O):** Almost?

**ROB (V.O):** It was missing an arm.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: i watched video footage of a camping trip that my friends never actually went on. NSFW
 
 Assistant: It was getting to be a tradition. 


For the past two years we've gone on a camping trip together, me and my group of friends: Sean, Lin and her sister Lily, Key, Sal, Monica, and Gabe. Monica's family is really wealthy and they own a lot of land out in Bumbfuck Michigan so we've wrapped up our past two summer vacations out there in their woods. We pitch a few tents in what's basically the backyard of Monica's grandmother's huge Victorian-style house and pretend we're "roughin' it" when in actuality, we just sleep out there for the five hours of the night that we don't spend drinking or playing video games inside. Cooking out over the bonfire and climbing trees is fun, but it's always only been a very small part of the trip. 


None of us talked about it or admitted it out loud, not even Monica, but we were all a little afraid to be out there for too long. We had no concrete reason to be, but we were. No matter how many times the Pines' family assured us that the property was safe. I'd never seen or heard anything out of the ordinary out there--maybe it was just because I'd seen enough horror movies to develop a fear of the woods in general, but I don't know. Something about the air in the intimidatingly vast property just made me feel really vulnerable. 


I got told just days before we were supposed to leave that I wouldn't be able to take the time off for the trip. One of my fellow supervisors at work had to go in for emergency surgery on his knee and my store just didn't have the coverage. I was really bummed, but my friends didn't hold it against me--we all know being an adult sucks sometimes. I told them they could still use my cooler and my tents and my camcorder and that they should video-blog the trip for me. I hugged them all goodbye the morning they left and then I went off to my shift. I told Sal to call me once they got there because I knew he would be the only one who'd remember to check in. 


Sal never called--none of them did. I left work at 10PM and tried to text and call all of them, but not one of them got back to me. I checked Twitter, Facebook--nothing from anybody. No updates since Gabe's "hitting the road" status from earlier that morning. I felt like throwing up--something felt really wrong. Key's mother called me as soon as I started to panic and she sounded really rattled too--he hadn't talked to her all day, and he's really good about touching base with her when he takes trips. I'd later learn that that whole night, my friends' parents were all trying to get in touch with each other. None of them heard from their kids since they first got on the road. Monica's mom called the landline to the house several times--Grandma Pines was out of town this year, but Monica should have answered if they were there--she didn't. 


Sean's father drove up to Pines' property the next morning with Monica's parents. He told me something felt off as soon as he stepped out of his car. When you pull up to the house, there's no fence or anything, so you can see if anything is set up in the area surrounding it--he would have been able to see if everyone had set up tents and gear as soon as he got up the path, but there was nothing. But he said all the house's windows were open and all the lights were on. Within a half hour, they called the police. 


I was asked to come in, watch the videos, and answer any questions I could. I transcribed what I watched as best I could.


Clip 1, 10:45 9/16/2016 

Gabe has the camera pointed at the rearview mirror.

Gabe: "How the **** do you know when it's recording?"

Monica: "The green button is on, dipshit."


Clip 2, 1:15 9/16/2016

Gabe is filming the back of Lin's car just ahead of them. He's talking to Sean and Monica but I can't tell what they're saying, even with the audio adjusted. It's raining really hard and I see flashes of lightning. 


Clip 3, 8:16 9/16/2016

A closeup of Monica. She's smoking and swinging in the rocking chair out on the back porch. She looks tipsy. She notices she's being filmed and winks at the camera. I think Sean laughs. 


Clip 4, 10:16 9/17/2016

I swallow hard when I see the timestamp--it doesn't make any sense. Saturday morning--Sean's father was already calling the police by then. I want to ask the cop what's going on, but he tells me to please just keep watching quietly.

Lily is flipping pancakes. She scrunches up her nose at the camera and Gabe chuckles.

Gabe: "You don't look so good, Lil. Didn't sleep?"

Lily: "How could I? All those **** screams last night?"

Gabe: "The ****?"

Lily: "You didn't hear that ****? Lin and I were freaked the **** out--"

Gabe: "What the ****? We didn't hear anything."

Lily: "Yeah, it **** sounded like cats in heat, but--wrong. Like it wasn't natural."

Gabe: "We were out in the tents all night and we didn't hear ****--"

Lily: "Lucky you! We came in the house at like four and it was still going. I don't know when it stopped but I guess I fell asleep at some point."

Gabe: "Did the girls say anything?"

Lily: "They're not up yet, I dunno. Here, can you pass me that--"


Clip 5, 11:14 9/17/2016

A wide shot of the "backyard." I can hear glasses clinking and a couple of my friends taking drags of cigarettes. I see a figure standing far off by the edge of the woods, but whoever's filming doesn't seem to notice it. Then I hear Gabe's voice, followed by Sean's, then Key's--they're talking about the hot tub needing repairs because the bubble jets don't work, and then the figure moves and Gabe sees it--

Gabe: "Whoa, whoa, what the ****--"

Key: "What?"

Sean: "Dude--"

Gabe: "Holy ****, what the ****, who the **** is--"

Key: "Gabe--"

Sean: "Yo, what the ****, man--"

Gabe: "Did you see? Did you **** see--"

The figure is contorting in the distance and I cover my mouth with my hand. It's shaped like a person, but it starts doing this odd twitching movement with its arms--they look almost like they're stretching out really long and then shrinking again. The legs are bending like a flamingo's. The boys behind the camera are yelling and freaking out. The shot cuts to the figure launching itself upward into the trees. 


Clip 6

The timestamps are turned off. 

It's night time, a shaky shot of the deck out back. The porch light is on and Lily and Key have their backs to the camera. They're crouched down sitting on the steps and Lily is sobbing. Key looks behind his shoulder and mouths "turn it off," but the camera's still recording. Key pecks the top of her head and rubs her back but she barely moves. 

Key: "Are you sure you saw…"

His voice is too quiet for me to hear everything he says. I'm pretty sure Gabe is the one filming again. I don't see Monica in the shot but I hear her voice, and then Sean's.

Monica: "What happened?"

Sean: "You didn't hear that ****?"

Monica: "What the **** do you mean--"

Sean: "There's some **** in this **** house, man--"

Gabe: "Guys, guys--"

Monica: "--I looked in every single room, there's nothing in here--"

Sean: "--freakin the **** out, man, I'm tired of this ****--"

Monica: "Well what the **** do you want me to do, Sean?"


Clip 7:

A shot of something--somebody?--caught very high in a tree. Whoever's filming is panting and coughing like they started crying and it sounds like it could either be Gabe or Sal. The shot is focused on whatever's stuck up there and something breaks off the tree and falls. It makes no noise when it lands and that's where the shot cuts.


Clip 8:

It's a shot of Monica's room, or what used to be her room when she was a little kid. I've only been in that room a couple of times--it's full of old childhood **** so there's nothing really for us to see or do in there. The window is open and a little breeze ripples through the curtain. There's a crash like glass shattering from what sounds like downstairs and I nearly jump out of my seat, shielding my eyes but the cop touches my arm, tells me there's nothing scary in the shot. It's still just the room, pink and purple with sunshine coming through. The clip ends with another loud crash and I swear a see flicker of someone's face, wide-eyed and gaunt, peeking into the corner of the window--just for a second. I gasp out loud and whip around to look at the cop and he gives me this nod to keep watching.


The last clip they show me is a still, blurred shot of the living room. The camera's facing the window overlooking the backyard and I can see the lit campfire. The TV isn't in the shot but I can hear the music to the menu screen of one of the Mario Kart games--the shot is shifting in-and-out of focus and I can tell nobody is recording, the camera's just been left on. It's about a minute and a half of just this, then suddenly the power in the house goes out with a crack and I shake in my seat. There's a strange, howling noise from the outside, but it's not a coyote, not an animal--it sounds like two or three people mocking wolves, but warped. Something hits the window with a hard thud and I wince--there's blood spattered across it and through the smears, I can see somebody with oddly-shaped limbs standing by the fire. They don't move. They just stand there with their head bent down, fixated completely on the flames while the howling keeps going and I start to notice something. The howling sounds exactly the same every time--like it's a six-second sound clip playing on a loop. As soon as this clicks in my mind, it stops completely and I'm so thrown off that I almost don't see the figure disappear--it doesn't leave the shot, I don't see it move, it just vanishes. The fire goes out and the lights turn on in the house again. The menu music from Mario Kart is playing again and I can hear my friends laughing, the clink of beer bottles. The shot goes blurred and then shuts off. 


That's all the footage they showed me. I was asked where I was during all this, why I didn't go on this trip, why my friends had some of my belongings, especially the camera. And I told them the truth. I told them about the previous two years, how nothing strange had ever happened on the Pines' property before. In turn I asked them what happened to my friends.


They told me seven bodies were found on the property--none of them belonging to any one of my friends. Their parents were asked to identify the bodies and remains and none of them matched. My friends are just missing. 


I knew the cops weren't gonna tell me, so I asked Sean's father about the seven dead strangers. Were they people the Pines' knew? He didn't know. He just told me how he found them--six of them, in a clearing in the woods, laying in a circle surrounding a tree with their guts strung together, holding hands like in a prayer. The seventh body was perched up at the top of the tree, impaled through the head on the highest branch. 


 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandma used to tell me scary stories when I was little. There’s one I’ll never forget.
 
 Assistant: I was 10 years old when grandma came to live with us.

It was about six months after grandad passed away, and I guess, looking back, she must have been lonely in that big house of theirs. Rattling around with only the grief and memories for company. So despite a few protests from mum, my parents took her in.

There were no protests from me. None at all. Grandma was loud, and fun, and I loved her. She had an almost limitless supply of boiled sweets, and she’d always slip me a couple whenever she saw me. She was always the first to stick up for me when I got in trouble, too.

But it was her stories I loved best.

Grandma had all kinds of stories. Stories about growing up during WWII, and stories about the things she’d get up to with her friends on the south coast, after her family had been evacuated. Sad stories, funny stories, adventure stories.

But it was her scary stories that were my favourite.

Grandma had lots of scary stories. She told me she dabbled in the occult when she was a teenager, trying out ouija boards with her friends. Tarot cards, fortune telling. All that stuff.

Most of the stories I’d laugh off, or forget about not long after she was done telling them... but there were a couple that really did spook me a bit. I was only 10 at the time, you have to understand. And grandma certainly knew how to bring the stories to life.

She’d shut off the lights in my room so only the glow of the night sky shone through the curtains, and she’d shuffle in real close. Close enough so I could see the wrinkles on her face, and smell the boiled sweets on her breath. Close enough so her deep blue eyes could stare straight into mine.

She must have given me nightmares with a few of those tales, but now — years later — there’s only one that I can still remember. Only one that’s stuck with me.

The story about the shower, and Mr Long Fingers.

Grandma told me about Mr Long Fingers one night after I asked about her baths. Grandma used to love her baths. She’d spend ages in them: light candles and incense, and lie in the tub humming to herself until the water turned cold. It drove my mum crazy. But when I asked her why she loved them so much, she said it was the only place she could relax. It was the only place that was *safe* for her to relax.

"You know people like me, who are... well, more sensitive to certain things, we *have* to have baths," she told me seriously one night, shuffling closer on the bed. "I couldn’t possibly spend that long in the shower. It’d be far too risky."

Grandma stared at me with those blue eyes of hers, unsmiling, and I knew it was time for one of her stories. One of the scary ones. I shivered with pleasure and pulled the covers up to my chin.

"Why is it risky, grandma?"

She half turned to look out the window, watching me from the corner of her eye. Pausing for effect. I waited, feeling my heart rate pick up ever so slightly in my chest.

"Well," she said after a moment. "It’s only risky if you close your eyes, of course. If you close your eyes for longer than 10 seconds."

"What do you mean? Why?"

"Well, do you ever play that game in the playground with your friends? The one where someone turns their back, and the others sneak up on them when they're not looking?"

I nodded, and grandma nodded back.

"Exactly. So that’s what it’s like in the shower, when you have your eyes closed. That’s what it’s like with Mr Long Fingers."

A cold itch tickled back. "Who’s Mr Long Fingers, grandma?"

She let out a deep breath, as if she wished she hadn’t said anything. Turned her head back to face mine. When she next spoke, she'd lowered her voice.

"No one knows, exactly," grandma whispered. "Some think it’s a creature that’s attracted to the heat and smell we give off in there. Others think it’s a demon that finds a way into our realm through the dense steam clouds. No one can say for sure, because the only ones who have actually *seen* Mr Long Fingers aren’t ever going to be able to tell you."

I pulled in a breath. "Why not?"

Grandma shuffled closer along the bed and leaned towards me, leaving my question hanging in the air.

"Don’t you worry about it, sweetheart. Don’t worry your pretty head. As long as you remember the rules, you’ll be fine."

"What rules?"

"Well, when you’re in the shower, you try not to close your eyes for too long. Five seconds is fine, and 10 is just about okay, too. But any longer than that..."

"Yeah? Then what?"

"Well, any longer than that and you may just start to feel something in the room with you. Something *watching*. And if you ever go longer than 15 seconds, that’s when you might start to hear a noise, too."

"Hear what?"

"The soft *tap-tap-tap* of fingers on glass. Fingers drumming against the glass door of the shower. If you *do* ever hear that noise, **** forbid, will you make me a promise?"

"What, grandma?"

"Promise me you'll never open your eyes."

\*

I barely slept that night. Hardly at all.

I’d close my eyes and try to relax, but every time I did I’d imagine a face pressed against my bedroom window, staring in at me.

And when I did finally get to sleep, I had nightmares. Bad ones. I had them all week, in fact. Dreams about disembodied eyes watching me in the dark, and long fingers reaching out to touch my exposed skin.

It wasn’t any better when I was awake, either. Not really.

The shower was the worst. That’s when grandma’s story really got to me. I’d never thought about it before, but suddenly I had trouble shutting my eyes in there. I’d be standing beneath the beating water, shampoo running down my face, and as soon as I squinted my eyelids closed I’d hear grandma’s words running through my head.

*Five seconds is fine, and 10 is just about okay, too. But any longer than that...*

I’d rub my hair fast, feeling the shampoo dripping off my chin, and as soon as I’d counted past five seconds I’d feel it.

A sort of... *pressure*. Not a feeling of being watched, exactly, but something close to that. I’d run my fingers faster and faster through my hair, frantically trying to get the suds out, and the reddy-blackness behind my closed eyes coupled with the rush of water in my ears would feel like a held breath. Like the silence before a scream. The seconds would race through my mind and I’d be so desperate to open my eyes again that I’d sometimes do it before my hair was rinsed fully clean, and my eyes would sting with shampoo.

But before I shut them again I’d always be sure to peer out through the steamed glass door of the shower cubicle.

Just to make sure I was still alone.

\*

It wasn’t long before mum realised something was up.

She heard me crying out in my sleep one night, and came in to comfort me. Asked me what the matter was, and it all came out.

I told her about grandma’s story’s, and about Mr Long Fingers. She got this look on her face when I was telling her like she used to get with me when I’d made her really mad. This wide-eyed, angry look.

Only this time she wasn’t angry with me. She was angry with grandma.

My parents room was next to mine, and sometimes, if I pressed my ear against the wall, I could hear them talking in there. Soft whispers. That night, though, after mum was satisfied I wasn’t scared anymore and she'd gone back to her room, the whispers weren't soft at all. Oh no.

I heard mum hissing to dad about grandma. About the story she'd told me. Mum's voice floated through the wall, sharp and crisp.

"You know what your **** mother's said to him now, don't you, Simon?"

Dad's response was an unintelligible mutter.

"She's told him there's a monster that'll get him if he shuts his eyes in the shower. A *monster*. The poor kid's been having nightmares about it all week. Seriously, Simon, you'd better say something to her tomorrow morning, first thing. Or I will."

Grandma came to visit me in my room the following night.

That time, as she perched on the end of my bed, there were no stories. Nothing like that. Grandma just sat there and stared down at me, her blue eyes wide and sad. The light from the moon outside my window lit up her wrinkled face.

"You know I'd never let anything bad happen to you, don't you?" She said after a moment.

I nodded my head. "I know, grandma."

"You know I wouldn't let you come to any harm?"

I nodded again.

"Okay, good. That's good." She looked away from me for a moment, out the window. "You know, the things I tell you in the evening are meant to help you, sweetheart. They're meant to toughen you up a bit. Protect you." She paused and shook her head. "But maybe your mum's right. Maybe I went too far this time."

She looked down at me and smiled. But even then – even though I was only 10 years old – I could tell it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"I'll tell you what," grandma said. "You know what I told you about Mr Long Fingers, and the shower? Well, I'm going to make *sure* you're safe. I'll scare the **** off, how about that? It won't come back in a hurry if it has to face me."

I stared up at grandma, watching her face glow in the moonlight. Watching her smile down at me.

I nodded my head, once.

\*

I was the one who found her.

I don't know when exactly it happened, but I'd guess it was about a week after we had that talk in my room. A week after she told me she wouldn't let me come to any harm.

I woke early that morning, from a bad dream, to a heavy *thumping* sound. I sat bolt upright in bed. My room was quiet around me, and I couldn't hear anything from the wall that joined my parents' room, either.

But the house wasn't entirely silent.

Floating down the hall, muffled by my closed door, I could hear the sound of rushing water.

The noise of the shower.

I leapt out of bed and ran down the upstairs hallway, heart already pounding in my chest. As soon as I reached the closed bathroom door, I started banging on it. A deep terror was welling up inside me like cold water from a well, something I couldn't place, and I kept banging and shouting "Grandma!" over and over again, even though she didn't respond.

Off to my right I was dimly aware of voices from my parents' room, the sleepy shuffle of footsteps, but before they had a chance to make it out onto the landing I'd lifted my hand to test out the door handle, more out of instinct than because I thought it might actually open.

But the door wasn't locked.

I kept banging with my free hand and it swung suddenly inwards, bringing me face-to-face with a wall of steam. Heat struck my skin. I squinted my eyes against the damp fog and peered into the bathroom.

And before dad pushed me to one side – before everything around me descended into shouting, and tears, and chaos – I saw her. I saw grandma.

She was lying **** on the floor in the shower cubicle, the water beating down around her. Blue eyes bulging from her face. One hand was curled against her chest, like a dead bird, while the other trailed against the glass of the shower cubicle – the flailing finger-marks she'd carved through the steam still clear and fresh.

\*

It was a heart attack that killed her.

That's what my dad told me. He said grandma was old, and the thing had struck her quickly and suddenly. She would have died fast and without pain, dad said. She wouldn't have suffered. 

I knew better, though. Even as a 10-year-old kid, I knew better.

And years later, writing this as an adult, I *still* know better.

I also know my wife and kids resent me for refusing to have a shower in the house. For insisting everyone take baths. They pretend it's okay, and they humour me, but I can tell they don't really understand it. Not at all. My wife *thinks* she does – she thinks I still carry the trauma of seeing my grandmother dying in front of me when I was little. I guess she's right, in a way.

But she doesn't know the full truth.

Nobody does.

And no-one would believe me even if I told them.

No one would believe me if I said the reason I don't take showers – the reason I haven't had one since I was 10 years old – isn't because I'm scarred from the sight of a dead body.

It's because all those years ago, when I crept back in to the still-hot bathroom after the paramedics had taken grandma's body downstairs, I made sure to check the marks her fingers had carved through the steamed glass of the shower cubicle.   

And those marks [weren't just on the inside](https://www.reddit.com/r/samhaysom/).

\*\*\*

[Story #2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fdw8v8/my_grandma_used_to_tell_me_scary_stories_when_i/) | [Story #3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/fsbo0o/my_grandma_used_to_tell_me_scary_stories_when_i/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Wife Came Home Early.
 
 Assistant: My wife, a spoiled only-child to wealthy parents living in rural New York. We’d been married for eight months at the time and things could not have been going better. We had a house, great careers, and a couple of cars to really sew in the American dream. We’d been planning on getting a dog, with thoughts of children not too distant either. Though, things wouldn’t go as planned. 

One morning my wife got a call from  the police informing her that both her parents had died in a car crash. I’d never seen her so distraught in my entire life.

After the wake and funerals came the nitty gritty legal stuff nobody ever wants to talk about after a death. When we went over the will we found that her parents had left her their estate. A 200 acre plot of land with a million dollar home on the lake. We were shocked to say the least.

We began moving in as soon as possible, we sold our old house and and cars and graciously accepted all the belongings her parents wished us to have. 

There was one problem though. The house just felt... dead. It was so large yet some how cramped. All the walls seamed tighter than they should have and you could scream from one end of the house and not hear it at the other. It took some getting used to but the old behemoth finally grew on us. At least that’s what I told my wife. 

When I was home alone there was just something disconcerting about the place. A creek in the floor, and rustle on the windows, the chill on my neck when I walked passed a reflective window, feeling as if I was being watched. I truly hated it. 

My wife worked late every week night, she took care of people in a home for the ARC and her shifts ran from 4 to midnight. I usually enjoyed that brief alone time, I would often write or read, or sometimes pack a huge bong and really get into a movie. And this one was one of those nights. I settled in for the night, I took a few big hits off my bong and wrapped myself in a blanket and started my movie. It was a Friday, and only 8 o’clock, so I figured a few beers wouldn’t hurt either, i had four and a half hours until my wife got back. I cracked a few and made it about halfway through my movie before I heard something downstairs. 

I swear I thought it was the house playing tricks on me like it’s done many times in the past. I tried to ignore it. But then i heard something slam. I quickly got up and went down stairs. My heart froze when I could see the glow of the kitchen light that I know I had turned off. I quietly inched my way to the large doorway that entered into the kitchen. I could hear movement. And overwhelming sense of dread seeped over my body as I finally peeked around the wall. 

It was my wife. 

“Jesus Christ woman!” I half jokingly shouted out to her. 

She jumped, startled of my presence. 

“Oh ****! Don’t scare me like that.” She said.

“Don’t scare you!? I just thought I was about to die, you don’t think you could of called out to say hello or something? And why are you home so early anyway, is Julie alright with that?” I asked. 

“Yeah she’s fine, I told her I wasn’t feeling well.” She said. 

“And? Are you feeling well?” I asked, seeing that she seemed perfectly fine. 

She had a guilty look. “I’m totally fine, I just didn’t feel like being there.” She said with a half giggle. 

I found it surprising, she never comes home early and she didn’t seem to make a big deal about it. I quickly changed my focus when I noticed she had a few bags of groceries. I asked her what she was making to which she excitedly responded “Chicken Alfredo!” 

“Oh ****, can’t wait. Need help?” I asked. 

She turned around with a knife in her hand as she laid out the chicken. She smiled and said no. She slowly pointed the knife towards my face with **** eyes, “tonight, is about you.” She said, getting the knife closer to my face. “I’m going to make you this dinner and maybe later you can help me with a few other things.” She smiled again, deviously. I bit my lip and watched her continue to prepare the meal. I grabbed her butt and told her I was going to watch the rest of my movie. I went upstairs and sat down for my movie. 

About 15 minutes later my wife walked into the room. The knife still in her hand. “Dinner is ready.” Is all she said as she slowly left the room. 

I went down minutes later to find the dinner all nicely setup and ready to eat. 

The table looked amazing. Too amazing. “Oh my ****, you out did yourself. I’ve gotta get a picture of this for Instagram.” I shuffled through my pockets and noticed I had left my phone upstairs. I quickly went up and couldn’t seem to find it anywhere, I’m sure it was just lost in the blankets. I went to the top of the steps and shouted down. “Can you call my phone?” 

She laughed “nooo you gotta work for this insta picture.”

“Come on.” I said, “my food is getting cold.”

There was no response. 

I continued looking for about 3 minutes until I finally heard it vibrating. I found it on the ground underneath one of my shirts. It was my wife finally calling me. 

“Finally.” I said. And hung up the phone as I stood up to go down stairs. 

The phone rang again. 

My wife. Again. 

I answered the phone “What do you want?”

“Excuse me? What was that “finally” for. And why are you being rude?” She said. 

“You wouldn’t call my phone.” I said.

“Sorry I can’t call you whenever you think about it, I’m at work, I’ve got **** to do.” She said, sending a cold spike through my core.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

“I said I’m busy, I’ve got another hour of work and I was just calling to tell you I miss you but you gotta answer the phone like a ****.” She said. 

“So you’re saying you’re not home, in the kitchen.” I said, my voice now quiet and shaky. 

“Oh ha ha, I’m not in the kitchen, good one.” She laughed.

“No no. I mean there is someone here that looks exactly like you downstairs, I thought you came home early.” I gulped as my realizations paralyzed my body.

“You need to lock the bedroom door right now and find whatever weapon you can. I’m calling the police.” She said frantically.

“Babe what the **** is going on, who is that?” I asked. Fear flaking from my voice.

“It’s my sister.”

I stayed in the room until the police arrived. Turns out she had gotten skittish and left far before the cops got there. They found arsenic in the food, the knife stuck in the table, and a note with four words. “The house is mine.”

My wife never told me about her twin sister. Apparently she’d been in and out of prison and psych wards her whole life. She’d been disowned by the family and was as good as dead. That is until she heard about the accident. Now all those strange feelings I was getting feel a lot more valid. And those feelings haven’t stopped.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Before she died, my grandmother confessed to me where she really came from. I almost believed her.
 
 Assistant: My grandmother was a very private woman. Even when it came to her own family. She was a German girl, born in Silesia around 1925 or so. That’s about all we ever got to know. All she *wanted* us to know. I suppose the war was particularly cruel to her and she lost whatever family she had. She never spoke of it. She never spoke of anything before the winter of 45-46, when she met my grandfather, a GI stationed in Bavaria. She’d been trekking west, away from the Red Army, like so many other refugees. A whirlwind romance ensued and she came back with him to the States in early ‘47 (though I’m sure the desire to get out of a shattered, conquered nation that held nothing more for her played as big a role as her love for grandpa, not that I begrudge her that).

She was a very smart young woman, brighter than my grandfather as he freely admitted. Once in the US she attended university for a few years, studying physics. Grandfather used to claim she actually knew John Wheeler and Hugh Everett, but she didn’t much like to talk about it. In the early 1950s, she abruptly dropped her studies and decided to settle into the role of a proper American housewife. Grandfather himself discouraged her, saying she shouldn’t waste ‘a brain like that’, but she said she was happy with him, and didn’t need to change the world to be satisfied.

So that was that. My father was born in 1960. He met my mother in 1990, and in 1999 they had me.

I was never especially close with either set of grandparents. And these, my paternal grandparents, lived in another state, so even less so. And on top of that was my grandmother’s aforementioned private nature.

But grandmother and I did share one thing: a passion for history. Even though she’d studied physics in university, and was a math ****, history was her real joy. She imparted a love of the past to me, and when we visited, she and I would spend much time talking about Napoleon’s armies, German foreign policy between Bismarck and the Great War, the Bolshevik revolution, you get the idea. She had a seriously impressive memory. She’d read a book once and then recount every detail from it with perfect accuracy.

When I was about twelve my grandfather passed, and grandmother, sick with cancer, moved to live with us. Only a year or two later, her brilliant mind sadly began to go. We still talked history often, but she began to make mistakes that she never would have a decade ago. She referenced battles that never were, states that never existed, generals who never commanded.

I remember once discussing the Great War and her offhandedly mentioning “the Red Army’s investment of Prague”. I gently reminded her that Lenin’s westward offensive in 1919 had been halted at the gates of Warsaw. The Bolsheviks had never reached Prague. She nodded. Right, right.

She mentioned Alfred Hugenberg, who she called “the last Chancellor of capitalist Germany.” I reminded her that Hugenberg had never been chancellor—he’d been sidelined by the Nazis soon after their takeover and faded into irrelevance. She nodded. Right, right.

In 2014, grandmother went into hospice. It became clear she didn’t have much time left. She was about ninety, after all (no, we never did know her precise age. Not even her birthday. As I said, she did not talk about life before my grandfather). We were all sad of course, but it was a sort of rigid, austere sadness. That was our relationship with her. She wouldn’t have wanted a lot of blubbering and sappiness.

One day, I think this would have been maybe October of 2014, right about the start of my sophomore year of High School, we went in to visit her, as the doctors said her condition had worsened markedly. We sat with her for a while, and then she asked if she could perhaps see us all (me, my father, my mother, and my two sisters) individually for a bit.

That was fine, of course.

I came last. When I stepped back into the room and sat by her bedside she asked me if I still liked history. I said of course. And it was true. I still do.

She told me she didn’t have much time left. I said, “sure, I know”. I think I was her favorite grandchild because we’re both pretty frank like that. She asked me if I’d do her a favor. Of course, I said sure.

Grandmother told me to go home, and to go to her room, and take down the old oak chest in her closet. Bring it to her as soon as I could.

I did just that. It was an old, heavy thing she’d brought with her from Germany decades ago. It wasn’t even locked, but she hadn’t told me I could open it, and I didn’t want to overstep while she was dying.

The next day, after school, I caught a bus to the hospital, chest in hand. I brought it to her, and she beamed.

She asked me to open it. I did. There were a few things inside. Sitting on the very top was a photograph of a pretty young woman I didn’t recognize. Black and white, but fine quality. I wasn’t too surprised when she told me it was her. But I was surprised that she was in uniform. It wasn’t a uniform I recognized. Her hair was pulled back into a braid, she was smiling, and her arms were clasped behind her back, so that I couldn’t make out the insignia on her shoulder, only its fringes. I could make out some narrowed point, and two convergent lines. Maybe some sort of flower shoulder-patch?

“Grandmother, what uniform is this?”

“Lift the next item.”

It was heavy and wrapped in a bundle of greasy old rags. I nearly dropped it when I saw it was a pistol. I quickly shoved it back into the box and peaked over my shoulder. I’m pretty sure firearms are not allowed inside the hospital.

“Grandmother! Why do you have a weapon, here?”

“My old service weapon.”

‘*Veapon’.* She never quite suppressed the German accent.

“What service were you in? You were a soldier? A soldier for who?”

“I’m going to tell you a story I don’t think you will believe. But perhaps these things in the box will make it easier for you to believe.”

She told me, point blank, that she was not from this world. She *had* been born in Silesia in the late 1920s, she said, but not our Silesia, and not our 1920s. I won’t go into the minutiae of the timeline she described to me, because we must have sat there for hours as she went over it. And as she did, she sounded entirely lucid and not the least bit senile.

The gist of it was that, as in our world, the Nazis had risen to power in Germany. But World War II had begun a few years late. **** steamrolled Europe, just as he did in our world. Except—and this was the great point of divergence—he then steamrolled the USSR, too. Some years later, in the early 1950s, after years of grinding down the British economy and battering its famed navy, the Nazis managed at last to pull off the impossible—an invasion and occupation of the British Isles.

My grandmother said she had been active in the resistance to the Nazis long before **** ever took power. She fled Germany and went to Soviet Russia when the fight could no longer be continued at home. Thence to Britain, when the Wehrmacht conquered the USSR. When Britain fell, she and thousands of others who could not countenance living under the **** boot ran further to South Africa, in hopes of carrying on the struggle from there.

I asked her what the uniform was, then. She said it was the uniform of the Joint Committee of Military Sciences, a collaborative research and development effort between the governments in exile of Britain and France, and a number of other countries fighting **** Germany. Since she had been a student of physics, she was recruited for the JCMS.

Days grew darker still. The Nazis seized old French Africa and used it as a springboard to assault South Africa and beyond. Victory for the Allies became a pipe dream.

But for one man—a Russian scientist, my grandmother said. She did not name him. But she said that he was brilliant. Perhaps the most intelligent man to ever live. He discovered that there are other worlds, perhaps infinitely many worlds, running parallel to each other through eternity. And what’s more, he discovered how to move between them.

Grandmother told me to take ‘the papers’ out of the box. They were thin, onion-skin papers, the type people use to sketch schematics. They were covered in wild, impossible equations and intricate blueprints. It meant nothing to me. I was a kid struggling to keep a C in Algebra II.

This was the plan, she’d said: their world, my grandmother’s world, was lost. They could fight no more. So they would send someone, a single person (that was all the great Russian scientist’s primitive machine could handle), into another world. Our world. This world, our world, they designated ‘World-38’. Ours was a world that had defeated the Nazis and so knew what horrors a **** victory would bring. My grandmother would be sent with the blueprints for the good doctor’s machine. Once here, she would convince our generals and statesmen of her mission, and with the help of the great scientists of World-38, improve the transporter so that it could bring through not only one person, but millions. Once this was done, the armies of our world could march into hers, and liberate it forever from **** tyranny.

She had stepped into the machine, she said, as artillery shells rained down on Johannesburg, and the Waffen-SS battered at the gates. Her colleagues would destroy the machine as soon as she was through. They could not risk it falling into the hands of the Nazis. Only the schematics, which she would bring with her to World-38, would remain.

She had stepped into the machine, knowing full well it might not work. That she might die, or worse. She had saluted her comrades. The room shook under the payload of **** warplanes.

But it did work. She stepped out in spring 1945 of our world. The Third **** was crumbling. **** had shot himself. The Allies were rushing deep into Germany. Horrible, replete with death, but for her, a near utopia.

Now she had a mission—to reconstruct the doctor’s machine. To liberate her world. That was why she had come to America, she said (though, she insisted, she *did* love my grandfather). That was why she had sought out the wisdom of great physicists at America’s vaunted universities. But it was hopeless. No one would believe her. No one would take her seriously. Not even Everett, the father of the Many World Interpretation, seriously considered the plans for her ‘fantastic machine’. So in the end, she gave up. Settled in for a quiet life with my grandfather.

I believed her. I did. How could I not? She was an old woman. She did not make up stories. Not to tease her grandchildren. The tears in her eyes were certainly real. And how else would I account for the photograph of her in the uniform? The blueprints?

My heart broke for her. It was no wonder she had been so sullen, so private, all her life. Out there somewhere, there was a world—*her* world—suffering under the most terrible despotism. It had been her great commission to rescue it. She had been her people’s last hope. And she’d failed. Were they still languishing under the jackboot, awaiting an inter-dimensional rescue that would never come?

“But—“ she told me, and gripped my wrist tight. “It may still come. Listen to me. I will be dead very soon. But not you. Take the plans. Take the box,” she begged. “Please. One day, see that the machine is built. You must. Whatever it takes. Billions of women and children across eternity beg rescue. Please. Do not fail like I did.”

Liberating a parallel universe from **** occupation is a **** of a responsibility to lay on a fifteen year old kid. But she did it. And all choked up, what could I say? Except, ‘I’ll try, grandmother’

There was one more thing in the box. Another stack of papers, covered in flowery German handwriting.

“What are these?”

She sat up sharply in her hospital bed when she saw them. Immediately, she tried to play it off, and relaxed again. But I noticed the brief shock. “They are my private writings,” she said, attempting nonchalance. “Please, burn them. And do it soon. I do not wish for them to survive me.”

“Sure, grandmother.”

I said goodbye. I embraced her, tears in my eyes.

She died five days later.

I did not know what to do. She swore me to secrecy, until such a time as I could reasonably expect to build this great machine. Again, I was fifteen years old. I certainly wasn’t going to be ripping holes in space time out of my bedroom, and in between debate tournaments.

As the weeks went by, and her body went into the ground, I became less sure if I believed her. I did not *disbelieve* her. But it was all insane. Perhaps she *was* just going mad with age.

And yet…

I must’ve spent hours poring over those blueprints. They never became any clearer. All those numbers, square roots, wild calculations, might have been the height of genius, or might have been absolute nonsense. I couldn’t say.

Years went by. I never *forgot*. But there was little I could do. So I put it aside.

Until recently.

I’m in my fourth year of university, now, near graduation. With apologies to my grandmother, I did not major in physics.

I was not thinking of my grandmother’s tale until only some weeks ago. I was working on a term paper examining twentieth century European dictatorships. Of course, first and foremost in the discussion are **** Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union.

An entire sub-section of the paper (I promise this is relevant) is dictatorships and euphemisms. For example, when it came to the Nazis, herding together terrified women and children, marching them into freshly-dug pits, mowing them down by the hundreds, and burying their still-twitching corpses is merely a ‘special action’.

For the bolsheviks under Stalin, the invasion of Poland or the Baltic states, the execution of tens of thousands of teachers, officers, priests, writers, and farmers, the deportation of tens of thousands more into bleak Siberia, the imposition of totalitarian state machinery and the suppression of all dissent, is ‘liberation’.

It was flipping through such morbid sources that my grandmother returned suddenly and sharply to my mind. I carried the little box with me, always, unbeknownst to my parents, my siblings, or anyone else. And it hit me. I was in university, now. I might not be a physicist myself, but there were plenty of brilliant mathematicians on campus. At least a few, I knew, who had published on multiverse theories.

If my grandmother wasn’t insane. If I really *did* have some duty to free her home world. Where better to start building this grand machine than here?

I went to my apartment closet and retrieved the box, which I had not opened in years. The first thing that caught my eye were her ‘private writings’. I was ashamed to think I had not burned them when she asked. But I could not bring myself to do so. Some deep-seated instinct held me back.

I was going to go to a certain professor of physics, who I knew to be a self-proclaimed ‘many-worlder’, and try to broach all of this insanity gently, and see where I got. But my grandmother’s private writings returned again and again to my thoughts.

Finally, I decided I was going to read them. I asked her forgiveness from beyond the grave. But I rationalized that I needed to know exactly what was going on. Her writings might illuminate things.

Except that I couldn’t read them. They were in German, and in a florid hand that would have made even English difficult for me.

So I took them instead to a girl I knew. A friend of a friend, really. Fluent in German, a foreign languages major.

She asked me what they were and pointed out that they looked old. I told her it was a speculative fiction work, written from the point of view of a young woman sent from a world nearly conquered by the Nazis, to ours, in hopes of rescuing her own universe.

She asked, if I could clearly write fluently in German, what I needed her for? I told her I hadn’t written it. She asked how I knew what it was about, if I hadn’t written it. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I asked her to please just tell me what it said.

So she began to read. She finished quickly. There were only about five pages. She looked back up at me, rather nonplussed, kind of bored. She thought it was just a story, after all.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s written in a world where **** wins,” she said. “It looks like it’s written in a world where *Stalin* wins.”

That threw me for a loop. I got a pit in my stomach. I asked her to elaborate.

She told me it was a letter, written by a general of the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) to a subordinate, one Comrade Colonel Maria Messer. My grandmother.

So these weren’t my grandmother’s ‘private writings’ at all. Rather, they were writings addressed *to* her.

This girl told me that it seemed, in the world of the ‘story’, somehow, the Soviet Union had established control over all of the planet. There was reference to Mexican, Yoruba, German, Kurdish, Japanese, and even *New England* soviet republics. There was not enough information to reveal precisely how this had come to pass, but somehow, mankind was subject to a globe-spanning Stalinist dictatorship.

I still hardly understood. My grandmother had lied to me about the world from which she’d come? Why? My grandmother, a colonel of Stalin’s secret police? I asked her to read on, hands sweating.

She said the letter spoke nothing of bringing armies from *our* world to liberate hers. Rather, it spoke of bringing armies from *her* world into ours.

I remembered the photograph of my grandmother in her uniform. I could picture the fringes of the insignia sewn onto her sleeve, mostly hidden by the angle of the camera. And I realized what it was, a narrowed point and two converging lines. It was the edge of a red star, enclosing a hammer and sickle.

And at last, I realized. I realized I'd been played for a fool. I realized there had never been any ****-ruled dystopia. I realized why my grandmother had wanted me to burn these papers as soon as I could, why she had not wanted me to read them. I realized why she so badly wanted this great machine built.

Because the letter finished thusly:

“*Remember, Comrade Messer, the world you are going into is one still stuck firmly in the age of capitalist darkness. This shall be the fifth world besides our own we free forever from the strictures of capitalist production. I cannot stress enough the importance of the machine’s being built to specifications. We sent you through on a prototype. But the machine whose construction you oversee in World-38 must be exponentially superior. It must be capable of bringing through from our world, at the very least, several hundred fronts’ worth of Red Army soldiers, some 500 million men under arms. This, our analysts estimate, will be the minimum necessary for the military defeat of World-38, the liquidation of all class enemies and counterrevolutionaries (estimated to be some 200-300 million total), the pacification of all hostile populations, and finally, the true and total* liberation *of this world and its peoples.*

*Much luck, comrade.”*

 Human: write a story with the theme title: As I got on the elevator, the man getting off whispered something strange to me.
 
 Assistant: “Don’t get off until you hit the ninth floor. No exceptions.”

“But my interview is on 5,” I replied.

*“I’ll only say this only one more time. Don’t get off until you hit 9th. No other floor is safe.”*

It’s crazy but something about the way he said it penetrated my skull. He was serious. *And*, he looked nervous, like he had to fight every instinct in his body to say that to me.

The doors closed, while I thought to myself - who the **** says anything like that?

As I went to hit the button for the fifth floor, some anxiety came over me. I shook it off and pressed it. *The guy was probably just off his rockers.*

The elevator went up. I scanned my surroundings - a TV bolted to the top corner of the elevator (playing the weather channel), a mirror for the back-wall of the elevator, and some cozy lounge-style music playing. Pretty standard stuff.

*“Now arriving at the 5th floor.”*

Weird - not sure if I’d ever been in an elevator that announced each floor it was arriving at. I was sure that if I worked in this building, this would get pretty old quickly.

DING!

The doors opened on 5. In front of me was a reception area with a woman seated at the front desk. She stood up from her seat.

“Mr. Davis! You’re early!”

The gentleman’s warning from earlier played in my head.

“We’ll be ready for your interview in a few moments. In the meantime, please feel free to take a seat.”

“Uh, thank you,” I responded. “If I’m, uh, early, maybe I can come back in a few minutes?”

“Nonsense! We’ll see if we can speed things up. He’s been very excited to meet you.”

The elevator doors started closing. I held them open. I wasn’t sure what to do here, but everything seemed fine enough. Granted, the receptionist did seem a *bit eager*, but beyond that…

From my vantage point, I scanned the office space behind the front desk area. All looked normal - cubicles, folks clicking away at their computer, a kitchen area. Pretty unremarkable.

That is, except for the portrait off at the far end of the office floor. It was very large. I couldn’t tell what the picture was of, but I did see a group of employees staring at it… almost, admiring it?

“Your wife’s name is Meredith, right?”

I froze as the receptionist’s question **** dart right through me. I didn’t remember the job application form ever asking for my wife’s name.

“You two are thinking of having children, right? If it’s a boy, you want to name him Sam?”

What. The. ****? Forget that she was right on the money, this was something I’d never spoken about before to anyone, including my wife.

Before I could answer, the office workers surrounding the large portrait started singing the Happy Birthday song loudly, in complete and perfect unison. Someone brought out a birthday cake and presented it to the portrait. A portrait that, after a bit of squinting, I realized was a very large version of my highschool yearbook photo.

I backed into the elevator, and pressed the “close door” button. I panicked as it took its sweet time to register.

Press. Press. Press. Come the **** on.

After what felt like an eternity, the doors started closing. As they closed, I heard the receptionist -

“I’m so curious to know what your insides taste like, Michael.”

****.

Ninth floor. I needed to go to the ninth floor.

I found the 9th floor button and pressed it. It felt like it didn’t register my push, so I pressed the button again. And again. Come on, come on, come on, ninth **** floor. I tried again and again, but nothing was happening.

**** it. *I’ll go back to the ground floor,* I thought to myself. Back to the start.

As I went to press the ‘G’ button, I realized it was missing. *Just that one singular button gone.* ****.

I was getting claustrophobic. I took in deep breaths to prevent myself from having a full blown episode.

The elevator started moving up again. A panel above the elevator doors lit up with the following number: 11.

*Someone was calling the elevator?*

I started talking to myself to self-soothe. “It’s okay, someone will call the 9th floor soon. That’s where I’ll get off.”

As the elevator approached its new destination, I noticed that the background lounge music in the elevator had changed. It was now an instrumental arrangement of “Happy Birthday”. *Huh.* Not sure why this thing thought it was my birthday.

I glanced at the weather report on the TV. At least it was going to be sunny all week! Silver linings.

*“Now arriving at the 11th floor.”* DING!

The doors opened, I hung around the inside corner of the elevator beside the buttons. No need to have another nightmare-ish experience, right?

An old woman stepped onto the elevator.

*Great, I’m sure this will be easy to explain to her.*

She smiled at me, as the doors closed.

With a lump in my throat, I asked – “What floor?”

“Ground floor please.”

“Uh, I’m sorry ma’am but that button is missing. Maybe we could wait until someone calls us to the 9th floor?”

“9th? No, I think I’ll just go to the 2nd floor instead, then.”

She went to press the button.

“Ma’am, I don’t think it’d be safe to–”

“I have plenty of friends on the 2nd floor. It’ll be okay.”

Aaaaaaand she pressed it. I didn’t feel comfortable cornering an elderly stranger in a seemingly haunted elevator. But I tried again to convince her –

“I know this sounds weird, but I have it under good authority that the 2nd floor probably isn’t safe. I’d strongly recommend not getting off until we reach 9.”

She smiled.

“Dear, it’ll be alright. You know, I like to take all opportunities that are given to me. It’s… a shame that you turned your opportunity down. I know the folks on 5 are very disappointed.”

I backed up into the corner of the elevator.

I saw the reflection of the old lady in the elevator’s back mirror. She looked ghastly. Otherworldly.

*“Now arriving at the 2nd floor.”*

The doors opened. She smiled at me again, and then exited.

I poked my head around the corner to look at the 2nd floor. It was damp. It looked old. More like a cave than an office. I heard a low rumble.

A man dressed in a fancy suit approached the elevator doors and held them open before they could close.

“You getting off here too, champ? I heard that 5 wanted you. I think we can give you a better offer.”

“I’m good.”

“You sure, bud? The salary is eight hundred thousand dollars every hour.”

“I’m good.”

“I’m kidding bud. The salary is we remove your eyes so you don’t have to see him.”

The floor went pitch black. The low rumble got much louder and started reverberating in my ears. Suddenly, the businessman grabbed me by the collar and tried to pull me out of the elevator.

I clung onto the ends of it. ****. ****!

I started kicking and headbutting him. I was able to make him let go of me momentarily, as I desperately pressed on the “close doors” button. Miraculously, the elevator responded much quicker this time and they closed immediately.

I tried the 9th floor button again. Didn’t work. I pressed 8 instead. *Anything to get away from this ****-hole of a floor.*

I heard a loud banging on the door as the elevator started taking off. Like an aggressive knock.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

As I saw the floor numbers rising -

3… 4… 5…

The banging continued. Just as loud. *What the ****

6th floor… 7th floor…

The banging on the door didn’t subside.

*“Now arriving at the 8th flo–”*

I pressed the button for the 23rd floor. Just as we arrived on 8, I mashed the “close doors” button just as the elevator doors were about to open. The banging continued as the elevator doors started denting.

The elevator continued going up.

9…

10…

11…

The banging softened.

14…

15…

And softened.

19…

20…

21…

And disappeared.

*“Now arriving at the 23rd floor.”*

It was gone. Thank **** ****.

I exhaled.  It felt like I’d narrowly avoided disaster.

The doors opened.

I scanned the new floor, and I realized… I was back on the ground floor. That’s what it looked like, anyways. *Did I escape? Was I finally free?*

A man stood not-too-far from the door. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t exactly place him.

“Hey man,” he spoke.

*Was this the guy who got off the elevator just as I got on?*

“...hey.”

“It’s over man. You got out,” he told me.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me… but I had to fight it.

“But you said the 9th floor was the only safe one, right?”

“That was a trick. You followed your gut and you were right. 23rd floor. The real safe floor. You can step out now, man.”

I didn’t leave.

“There’s someone here who really wants to see you.”

*I couldn’t move.*

“He wants to give you a job. He thinks you’re gonna be great.”

*Why the **** couldn’t I move?*

“He’s in the other room. I’m gonna fetch him, okay? All you have to do is look at him. It’ll feel a bit weird at first, but then it’ll all be okay. It’s a permanent position. Great benefits. It *is* fully onsite, but, no better birthday present than a new job, right?”

I lowered my gaze to the floor. I forced myself to mutter the following words - “It’s not my **** birthday.”

As he left to fetch… whoever he was meaning to fetch, he gave me the following response: “Relax, man. No cursing on the job. We’re a family here.”

It felt like I could only move a centimeter at a time. A true snail’s pace. I inched my finger closer and closer to the “close door” button.

I heard footsteps. He was coming back.

With every fiber of my being, I pushed through. I hit the button.

The doors closed, and I collapsed to the floor… free from whatever weird force was stopping me from moving.

“I’ll let you two talk more on the elevator,” I heard him say from outside the doors.

*What?*

Instinctively, I looked around.

To my surprise, there was nothing. The elevator was the same as it had always been.

A lengthy exhale. I was done with all of this. At this point, I would’ve taken death over continuing this **** any longer.

As I pondered my next move in this hopeless situation, I noticed something strange. The button to the 9th floor was lit up. An ominous, crimson-red color.

Before I could do anything else, my phone started ringing. I checked the call.

It was my wife.

I answered.

“Babe. ****, I don’t know why I didn’t even think to call you - I’m trapped in an elevator and **** up **** is happening and maybe I should call the cops? **** I–”

“Hun. Don’t go to the ninth floor.”

“What? W-wait, how do you even–”

“It’s a trick, honey. You have to trust me. The man from before was lying to you. It’s not safe.”

“*None of this has been safe!* How do you even know everything that’s happening?!”

“You just need to trust me, hun.”

I paused.

“So what do you want me to do then?”

A demon on the other side of the phone answered this time.

**“GO TO YOUR INTERVIEW.”**

I hung up the call and in a panic, I mashed on the 9th floor button. The elevator started rising again.

Even with me hanging up the call, the muffled sound of the demonic voice coming from my phone continued.

**“GO TO YOUR INTERVIEW.**

**GO TO YOUR INTERVIEW.**

**GO TO YOUR INTERVIEW.”**

I pulled out my phone and flung it to the ground as hard as I could. I stomped on it angrily. The warped sound of **“GO TO YOUR INTERVIEW”** slowly started dying out.

But suddenly, the elevator started shaking. It was continuing to go up… but it was faster than usual. Really, really **** fast all of a sudden. Almost like the 9th floor was now *way below me.*

It felt like an amusement park ride with no breaks on it. Loose. Dangerous. Flinging up at an insane speed, almost as if it was falling upwards.

“But I pressed nine?!” I screamed to myself, exasperated.

It didn’t matter.

*“Now arriving at the 41st floor.”*

****, what the ****?

I was brought to my knees by the speed of the elevator traveling faster and faster.

*“Now arriving at the 90th floor.”*

The buttons didn’t even go past 52.

*“Now arriving at the 141st floor.”*

****“Now arriving at the 230th floor.”*

*“Now arriving at the 401st floor.”*

I felt like I was inside a bullet. The pleasant voice of the elevator lady was getting deeper and deeper as we rose.

*“Now arriving at the 840th floor.”*

The voice started croaking. A demonic sound this time –

*“Now arriving at* **SOMEWHERE NICE.**”

A sudden halt. The elevator stopped. The doors didn’t open though. The panel above the elevator doors had no indication on what floor we were on.

As I sat, I heard what could be best described as the sounds of **** coming from outside the elevator. Low grunts of pain. Crackling. *A dark hymn.*

Was this where I was supposed to get off?

Before I could ponder the question further, I heard a soft tapping on the elevator. A voice from outside –

“Do you want to trade?” said the voice.

I decided to bite, for reasons I still don’t fully understand.

“What do you mean?”

“What if you stay on this floor forever, and I get to go home?”

“Uhm. I, uh, think I’m good…”

“But I really want to go home.”

It almost sounded like the voice of a kid. **** ****.

“I-I’m sorry, kid,” I mustered back.

“It’s okay.”

An awkward silence between us.

“He told me that he wants to wish you a Happy Birthday,” said the kid.

“I, uh… think he’s got it wrong. Today isn’t my birthday.”

“It is,” he responded. “It’s the first day of your new life. Your birthday.”

…?

“He wants you to look at the TV.”

*What?*

I looked at the TV in the top corner of the elevator, hoping to see the one constant I’d had during this whole cursed trip - the weather.

Instead, the TV was now showcasing what looked to be CCTV footage. Grainy footage from a camera… of the exact elevator I was in. *A live feed of this exact moment.*

Except, the TV showed me lying down. Looking up with a wide smile on my face.

And something above me on the ceiling. Looking straight down at me.

*Him.*

The lights in the elevator went off. The elevator plummeted downwards, as I closed my eyes and screamed for dear **** life.

I waited for the impact.

For what I knew was my demise.

*Here it comes.*

*Here it **** comes.*

*I’m not ready.*

*I’m not ready at all.*

*“Now arriving at the 9th floor.”*

DING!

The doors opened.

*Wait, what?*

*9th floor?*

I peeked out from the elevator.

Another reception desk.

*Wait, is this really the -*

I was interrupted by a voice from the outside.

“You coming out or what you **** ****?”

I got to my feet. The feeling of distrust… anxiety, whatever you’d call it. My *fear intuition*. It was gone.

I felt light.

**** it.

I stepped onto the floor and approached the counter.

The receptionist handed me what looked like a button for the elevator.

“For the ground floor,” she said. “Single use only.”

I took it and headed towards the elevator.

Then, I turned back to face her.

“Can I maybe take the stairs?”

She shook her head.

“If you didn’t like the elevator, then you’re really not gonna like the stairs.”

*Fair enough.*

I got into the elevator.

I said a silent prayer to myself as I put the button where it belonged.

It fit without any issue.

I pressed it, and the elevator went down. It was a smooth ride.

*“Now arriving at the ground floor.”*

DING!

As I got ready to exit, I realized that the ground floor button was missing once again. *Strange.* I didn’t linger on it.

I marched out, ready to get the **** out of this building.

I noticed a woman running onto the elevator. I tried to stop her, but something in my body wouldn’t let me.

The most I could muster was putting my hand on the door to relay a message to her before the doors closed.

“Don’t get off until you reach the 9th floor. No matter what.”

The woman just smiled at me.

“Happy Birthday Michael.”

[\+-+-+-+](https://www.reddit.com/user/WorldAwayTweedy)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My family has a curse. On every generation, a woman dies at 18
 
 Assistant: When my older sister turned 19, my parents started looking at me with the deepest pity and grief I have ever seen; like I was going to crumble and disappear at any moment.

I was 16 and listening to music in my bedroom when my mother came to me with a beautiful portrait in her hands. It was of my great-grandmother Eleanor.

“Pat, you know how Eleanor used to say that when she was 18, a she-devil offered her some kind of paradise if she agreed to die immediately, right?”

It was a weird question; whenever my mother had a little more to drink, she’d retell this tale over and over. She came from a long line of spiritual but pragmatic women, women who fought to study and to work in male-dominated fields. Women who also found a good man to marry, women who had everything.

But then tragedy struck in their lives and they would lose a daughter or a niece. Always.

“Yes, mom," I replied, and we recited together: “And she said ****, I have 7 siblings to help raising."

And Eleanor did. She worked her **** off to send her younger brothers and sisters to good schools, became a college teacher herself, and kept teaching every new generation of women to be strong and stand up for themselves.

My mother always loved her to bits, and did her best to raise her kids the way her grandmother had taught. Eleanor peacefully died of old age when I was a baby, and overall lived a great, accomplished, loving life.

But grief knocked on her door periodically, as she had to bury a daughter and a granddaughter, both at age 18. My aunt Cecelia died years before I was born, and that took a huge toll on my mother and on my other aunt, Christa.

Eleanor didn’t believe it was a tragic coincidence. No.

She thinks that the same she-devil who invited her to go live in a better place came to claim her descendants.

After Cecelia, there were no deaths.

My sister and my cousins have all crossed the line to 19, and none of them reported anything weird happening to them.

I’m the only female in my family who is still 18.

Despite the fact that I always admired Eleanor, I confess that I thought that she was being superstitious, or even mocking us—she was known for her savage sense of humor. So this conversation I had with my mother had been completely brushed from my mind.

Then today a gorgeous, magnificent woman approached me.

I am a part-timer at a frozen yogurt joint. As you might expect, the small store was empty. The little bell on the door rang, and I raised my eyes to meet a stunning, elegant woman who seemed to be on her early 30s.

She was wearing a simple and unassuming dress, but the fit was flattering. It was impossible to take your eyes off of her.

“Hello, Patricia." Her voice was velvety and melodious. “I see Eleanor’s granddaughter told you about me."

I forgot how to breathe for a while. She was just… ****, I had considered myself straight up to this point, but then I had found a woman that I both wanted to be like and have for myself.

“Come on, get yourself some *fro-yo* on me. Mine will be salted caramel and strawberry, if you please."

I mechanically filled two little cups as she graciously sat.

I stared at her intently.

“When you see Christa, tell her to see a doctor about that persistent headache. Unpleasant surprise on the way,” she said very casually. “So tell me about you, Pat."

“D-don’t you know all about me already?” I asked. She smiled kindly, but the warmth never reached her violet eyes; it wasn’t like they were cold, but they were neutral. Neutral and incredibly sharp.

“I know everything there is to know about everyone on your little planet, darling. But I’d still like to hear your version."

“I’m not actually interesting, you know?” I sighed. “I am only okay at everything. My sister is brilliant and she’s pretty too, while I’m too average and not even sure what I want to major in."

She smiled so brightly I thought I was gonna go blind.

“Don’t you want to be part of something bigger and easier?” she asked. “I’ll offer you a great deal, the same one I offered your ancestor Eleanor, her daughter Bettina, and your aunt Cecelia. You know the results."

“I’m listening," I said. I don’t know the circumstances of their deaths, but I know that both Bettina and Cecelia took the offer.

“Well, take a look around the world you live in. You’re young, but old enough to know. Do you feel safe walking the streets? Isn’t this world rotten? Sure, you can say there are good people; people that mind their own business, at least. But the rotten apples always spoil the whole barrel. And lately you mortals have seen that happening a lot of people you used to deem good, huh?”

“I don’t… feel safe. Two of my friends have been assaulted. I admit sometimes I’m scared to leave my bed," I replied. “Still, I’d feel so bad about how my mother would miss me."

She smiled.

“You’re a good girl, Patricia. I’m Lilith, by the way," she grabbed my hands. “Let me tell you something, although I’m sure you already know this in your heart. All the women in your family are fit for this deal, but I have to choose only one. I chose you because you won’t be missed as much." I recoiled, feeling hurt, but I knew that Lilith wasn’t lying. There was a spark of compassion in her eyes too. “It’s not that you’re not loved, it’s just that your cousins and your sister…”

“Are so much better than me in every sense. I know. I panic easily, I don’t trust my own decisions, and I don’t have any special talent. Sometimes my life feels like such a waste."

“It’s not, dear. It’s not. Because you were born for something greater. Greater than these girls you deem better than yourself. They are fit for this world. You are fit for the Utopia."

“What’s the Utopia?”

“It’s everything there is out there, the only eternal life in the universe, offered to a select few. All the great people on Earth are nothing but a heartbeat. They will fade to nothing, like all the unassuming lives."

“So you mean there’s no heaven and ****? And what about ****?”

“Oh, **** exists. **** created great things. Imperfect, inferior beings like you humans are just the collateral damage of his masterpieces; the residuum of the creation. He never even turned His face to you, or batted an eyelash when we told him our plan. Lucifer and I see potential in you. Well, some of you. Most are truly garbage”.

I was utterly amazed. “Why do you only take young women?”

She smiled again.

“That’s a great question. [Lucifer likes to collect men in their 40s](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/d1u4kd/a_man_knocked_on_my_door_at_midnight_he_gave_me_a/), so he can laugh at their moral dilemmas. *How will my family live without me, the great provider?? What if Karen marries another man and Cody turns **** because he didn’t have a masculine figure?*” She did a great impersonation of a generic middle-aged man. “But I take my girls while they are still beautiful and not completely tired of how unfair this world is to them. I don’t want the morons in your society to make you forget what Eleanor taught you. She knew there would be only nothingness out there after she died, but she opted to stay and take care of her loved ones. It was a bold, admirable choice, and I decided to reward her for it. She was the only one I ever approached to refuse."

“So you can’t both live a great life here and go to this place you call Utopia?” I asked.

“Oh, one usually can’t have it all, no. But I picked two or three of those. Like Marilyn and Cleo. They were almost 40 but still young at heart and completely unfazed by how the world tried to break them. You have to admire that."

“How is that Utopia? Will I like it?”

Lilith snapped her fingers. The walls and furniture around us, and even the street across the door started to fold and fold and fold, like the reality was only a 3D draft, until they became minuscule pieces of cardboard, and then they fell into the infinite under us.

We were now surrounded by a stunning, futuristic place. There was no sense of feeling cold or hungry, we could move by floating around as we pleased, and there were amazing buildings everywhere, decorated with statues of pure white marble and paintings so beautiful I wanted to cry.

I could see colors I never imagined possible, and the sky was always a warm shade of blue, but dotted with stars, and an immense full moon.

Everything was shiny, symmetrical and felt right; peaceful, but far from boring. A perfect, ordered chaos.

“This place is constantly expanding, so you’ll always find new things to do. You’ll never live another tedious day."

She snapped her fingers again, and everything unfolded and rose back into place.

“And if I accept your offer, which I will… can I choose the way I die and do something first?”

“Oh, you have a few days to deal with all your stuff. I’m not a monster, you know?” the she-devil smiled again.

“Great!” I said. “There’s only one thing I need to do before I go with you. I want to **** the man who **** by best friend."

Lilith agreed to allow me to do it, and we talked some more before she left.

And that’s all I can remember clearly. The rest of the day was a blur; knowing that I would die, I wanted to quit my dead-end job immediately, but I had no one to quit to, and I couldn’t leave the store unattended. So I stayed, surrounded by weird ice cream, thinking about what awaited for me.

The she-devil told me that I couldn’t tell anyone I was about to die, but I was allowed to discreetly say my goodbyes. My family was really nice and had taught me a lot, and I had valuable friends, but none of that was reason enough to refuse an eternal life of happiness where I could even be friends with Cleopatra and Marilyn Monroe.

I spent some quality time with my loved ones, then two days later, I took my mother’s handgun and headed to see the one who hurt and destroyed my beloved friend, both physically and mentally.

I won’t describe the details of the torture I put him through. I’ll just say that I only stopped when it seemed to me that he went through at least ten times what he made her endure.

And then I killed him.

“Oh, ****," was my only reaction as I realized that punishing this disgusting man felt even better and even more right than living in a perfect Utopia.

It feels like I finally found my purpose. If this world is all that there is, the only thing we can do is enjoy it.

And we’ll only be able to enjoy it if we cleanse it.

I decided to take this mission upon myself.

But there’s only a problem: I already agreed with dying tomorrow.

I signed the contract and now I'm terrified of what Lilith will do to me when I say I changed my mind[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPoisoningTales/)

&#x200B;

[The Utopia - Index](https://www.reddit.com/r/richardsaxon/comments/d5kfdr/utopia_series/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been stuck in school detention for three years. If you can read this, please send help.
 
 Assistant: It was **** and immature. I'll be the first to admit that. But it's not like I killed anyone. And if you want to try to understand things from my perspective, there was really no way that I could *not* do it.

First, because his name was Mr. Hillrow. Second, because he *acted* like a ****, always calling on you the one day you didn't do the reading, and then dragging out the torture in front of the whole class. Third, he sort of *looked* like a ****, with his ring of puffy hair surrounding the bald top of his head.

It was like I *had* to do it. I got Billy's older brother (a previous student of Mr. Hillrow) to get me the ****. Then, before class started, I stood it up on Mr. Hillrow's desk. I taped a pair of tiny glasses to the head, wrapped a tiny necktie around the shaft, and propped up a little name tag that read “Mr. Dilldow.”

At first, everyone laughed. Then Mr. Hillrow got *pissed* and started yelling in a scary way, demanding to know who had done it. The class got real quiet. Nobody ratted me out. I gave myself away. I took another look at Mr. Dilldow and started cracking up again.

So that's how I ended up in detention. But it was only supposed to be for three afternoons. Not three years.

\*

The school is different at night. It didn't take long at all for me to find that out.

The first afternoon of my detention went about like you'd expect. I had to sit there and read *Moby ****.* It took everything I had not to make another **** joke, because Mr. Hillrow was sitting at his desk, just angrily glaring at me the whole time.

At 4:00 on the nose, Mr. Hillrow stood up. I grabbed my backpack, ready to get the **** out of there.

“Your actions are unspeakably ****,” said Mr. Hillrow.

I thought about Mr. Dilldow again and almost died from the effort of not cracking up.

Mr. Hillrow went on. “You will stay here through the night, and reflect upon the proper manner in which to conduct yourself while enrolled in this educational institution.”

Then he flicked off the light switch and left the room.

That threw me for a loop, but I shrugged it off, stood up, and went to get out of there.

The door was locked.

*The ****

“Okay Mr. Hillrow!” I shouted through the door. I looked through the little window at the top and saw the back of his half-bald mushroom head as he walked down the hall. “You got me! Gotta hand it to you, that's a good one! I've definitely learned my lesson!”

Mr. Hillrow disappeared around the corner.

I stood staring out of that little window for about fifteen minutes before it started to dawn on me that the **** really meant to keep me locked in that room all night.

I wasn't even mad at him. He’d got me. When I pulled out my phone to call my parents, it wasn't to rat him out, it was because I had no intention of staying in that **** room all night.

No reception.

I hadn't told my parents about detention, but knowing them, I figured they'd put the pieces together soon enough. They'd start calling my friends, who *did* know about detention. I just hoped my friends wouldn't feel like they were ratting me out by telling my parents where I was.

I walked over to the exterior window and held my phone up to it. Still no reception. I tried to open the window, but it was jammed shut. I looked down to the parking lot below. People were leaving for the day. I thought about breaking the window and jumping for it, but I was on the second floor and it was too far down onto the pavement. Plus, I knew I’d get in a bunch of **** for breaking school property.

I tried to flick on the light switch, but the light didn't come on. Then, for the next hour, I did something that I'll never forgive myself for. I burned through my phone's battery playing some **** game, I don't even remember what.

As my phone died, I looked up and noticed that the room was dark. The light coming through the window was getting dimmer and dimmer. It started to feel really eerie.

I banged on the door for a while, trying to get someone's attention. No one came.

As the last bit of light faded away, I took one last look outside, through the window. The parking lot was now empty.

Now the room was very dark. I started to panic. I did *not* want to spend the night in that room, but it was looking like I didn't have a choice.

After a bit of mindless pacing, I heard a *click* and the door to the classroom slowly swung open to the hallway, seemingly of its own accord.

“Hello?” I asked into the darkness. “Mr. Hillrow? Look, I've learned my lesson. Really, I have. I am truly sorry for setting up that **** on your desk.”

It was dead quiet, and I didn't see anybody there. That creeped me out, but I was happy to get out of the room at least.

I walked down the hall, which was now lit up by a few dim lights up at the top of the wall. I knew where I was headed first: the bathroom.

I'd had to **** for like an hour, and it was killing me. I had thought about whipping it out and going all over Mr. Hillrow's desk, but figured that would only get me in more trouble.

I was walking past a long row of lockers when I heard it. It started as a slight rattle, coming from one of lockers. I tried to play it off as just the building settling or something, but then another locker door started to rattle. Then another, and another, and soon the whole row was rattling.

When I heard a scraping sound, like something sharp being dragged against the metal of the locker doors, followed by what sounded like a low growl, that’s when my urge to **** was suddenly relieved, right down my leg. It’s also when I started running like ****.

As I ran down the hall, the rattling turned into banging. Now I could see the locker doors shaking, straining against the hinges and latches. Whatever terrible things were inside were on the verge of breaking free.

All at once, the horrible sounds coming from the lockers stopped, just as I came to the end of the hall. I didn't slow down though. I booked it down the stairs and only felt the slightest bit of relief when I saw the entrance to (and more importantly, the exit from) the school in front of me.

I ran full speed towards the door, putting my hand in front of me to push it open. *Thunk.* My wrist twisted painfully as it impacted the unmoving door.

*Of course it's locked you idiot, it's night.*

I tried to find a deadbolt latch or something, but there wasn't one. Just a keyhole.

*Why the **** do all these doors lock from the outside*?! I wondered, as I slumped down to the ground in pain, fear, and what was beginning to look like utter defeat.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Now that I was by the front entrance, I might get reception. If I hadn't been a **** idiot and used up the battery.

I held the power button for a full five minutes straight before I gave up and put the useless thing back in my pocket.

I felt like crying. It was bad enough just being locked in there. Being locked in there with a bunch of locker monsters and who knows what else was much, much worse.

\*

I decided to stick by the front entrance and wait it out. I sat there in my pissy pants for hours. I would start to get bored and even a little sleepy, and then I'd hear a noise from somewhere in the school and I'd jolt into full alertness. Sometimes it was a soft rustling sound that I wasn't quite sure I was actually hearing, and sometimes it was a loud, unmistakable *bang*. Once, I was sure that I heard someone laughing.

Finally, it got to the point where I couldn't ignore how hungry I was. The cafeteria was right by the entrance, so I figured I could risk it. I didn't have any money for the vending machine, but I thought I might be able to get into the kitchen and scrounge up some food. I'd always wondered what the **** went on in there anyway.

I turned the corner and was surprised to see that the cafeteria was brightly lit. I could smell something delicious wafting out from there.

I took a cautious step in and was shocked to see Miss Hadley, aka The Lunch Lady, standing there behind the counter in her hairnet.

“Young man!” she said when she saw me. “You're just in time!”

“Miss Hadley… what are *you* doing here?” I asked. “It's the middle of the night.”

The Lunch Lady laughed. “Oh, sometimes when I can't sleep, I come down here and try out a new recipe. And tonight… ho boy! I've come up with something *out of this world!* I think the children will love it!”

Something clicked in my addled mind. “So you have a key?” I asked. “You can let me out of here?”

“Of course I have a key, silly! But before you go, won't you try my newest dish? You look hungry!”

She was right about that. I mean, I was ready to get the **** out of there, but at least now I knew that I *could* get out of there. I didn't see the harm in chowing down first, especially since it smelled so good.

I grabbed a tray and held it out to her. Behind the counter, she scooped some mashed potatoes onto a plate, and then put a cut of juicy steak on there too. She put the plate on my tray.

“Thanks!” I said.

“Let me know what you think!” she said, smiling.

I sat down and dug into the mashed potatoes. ****, they were *good.* Just the right balance between fluffy and creamy, and a hint of garlic to top it off. Then I cut off a chunk of steak and put it in my mouth.

It was wonderful, but it didn't taste like any steak I'd ever had before.

“Mmm,” I said. “This is great. What is it?”

“Meat,” said The Lunch Lady.

“Yeah, I figured. What I meant was… what *kind* of…”

A scream coming from back in the kitchen cut me off.

“Uh… Miss Hadley, can I go now?”

“You don't like your meat, young man?” asked Ms. Hadley frowning.

“Oh, no, it's great. It's just, my parents are probably worried sick about me. I've been stuck here all night. Mr. Hillrow locked me in…”

Another scream.

“What's that screaming?” I asked.

“Oh, that'll be Lilly, my assistant,” said Miss Hadley. “She's forever burning herself, or if not that, it's a slip of the knife. Clumsy girl, but has a great instinct for cooking.”

“Miss Hadley? Can I please go?”

“Very well, young man. I'll see you to the door.”

Just what I wanted to hear! A way out of the nightmare. When I got home, I'd hug my parents, then get in bed where it was nice and safe and there were no weird sounds, or locker monsters, or mystery meats.

When we turned the corner and the entrance came into view, my heart first sank and then started beating like crazy.

Standing in front of the door, with his arms crossed, was The Janitor. Except, he didn't look like he looked during the day. During the day, he didn't have a bunch of spikes coming out of his head, for starters, and he also didn't have empty white holes where his eyes should be. He didn't have long claws during the day, either… at least none that I had ever noticed.

“Let the boy pass, Bob,” said Miss Hadley.

When Bob the Janitor spoke, the sound didn't come out his mouth. I was standing there facing him, and I heard his voice whispering *behind* me:

*“*‘Fraid I can't do that, Miss Hadley. *The boy shall not pass!* Direct orders from You-Know-Who.”

Everything started to spin, and I felt woozy. “Come on dude,” I groaned. “I gotta get home. I'm sorry about the ****, if that's what this is about. I'll never do anything like that again, I promise.”

I looked past the janitor monster and saw that it was starting to get light out. Even if I didn't make it out right then, it would only be a few more hours until school opened.

Then I heard a *hiss* and looked up in horror to see some kind of gas coming out of the air vents in the ceiling. Then I was out cold.

\*

So much crazy **** has gone down in this crazy-**** school building over the past three years. If I ever make it out of here, I'll tell the full story, but dawn is approaching, and I don't have much time left. I'll give you the basics.

Every day around dawn, the gas pours in through the vents and knocks me out. There’s no way to stop it… I've tried. Next, I wake up in a dark room, which is actually a sort of sub basement dug into the basement floor and covered with a hidden hatch door during the day. At night, the hatch opens, and I am free to wander the halls of the school, if I choose.

I never *want* to, but I have needs. I need to eat, and use the bathroom. I need to shower in the locker room. I need to wash my clothes. I need to try to find a way out of this nightmare, even as it looks more and more like there is no way out. Plus, as bad as it out in the school, it's miserable in my dark little hole, too. If I stay there too long, I start to lose it.

I have some theories about what's going on, but I won't get into them. A bit of light is coming in through the windows now. It's almost time for *my* lights to go out for the day.

I'm at the computer lab now. I have very limited access to the internet, and it seems pretty random what sites I can and can't visit. I can't read any news, so I don't even know if anyone's out looking for me, or if my entire existence has been forgotten since I got trapped in this ****.

Lately, I've come across this forum. This is, for some reason, the only subreddit that I can read. I don't even know if I can post, but it's worth a shot. You guys seem like you've dealt with a lot of weird ****, so maybe you'll take this seriously.

Please help me. My name is Emmett Emerson. I am at CAHS in Clairmont, Maine, USA. During the day, I am in the sub basement, if you can find it. During the night, if you can somehow get in and make it past The Janitor, I am usually somewhere running away from monsters.

\*

[The second night](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bhydt0/ive_been_stuck_in_school_detention_for_three/)

[The night I watched my buddy get his face eaten off](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bib5s1/ive_been_stuck_in_student_detention_for_three/)

[The Janitor's closet](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bjnqss/i_was_stuck_in_school_detention_for_three_years_i/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell (Part 6!)
 
 Assistant: Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iex1h/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3ijnt6/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3iocju/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3jadum/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

Part 5: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3kd90k/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/

It's been way too long since I posted an update, and I'm sorry about that. There's also been some confusion about the new formatting requirements on the board, which I've cleared up. So these next few stories are going to be posted a little differently! They'll be in chronological order, and I'll do my best to tie them into each other as much as I can so it doesn't skip around too much.

When I started out as a rookie, no one had told me a lot about the job in terms of weird things that could happen. I'm assuming this was largely to prevent me from freaking out and abandoning the park. But a few months into my service, when I was still a rookie, a friend and I were **** at a party, and he opened up a bit: 
"Yeah, it can get a little crazy out there, I guess. I think the worst are the ones where people die when they just shouldn't, you know? Or when we find 'em dead like ten minutes after someone says they saw them last. 'They were fine when I passed them on the switchback, I swear!' That sort of ****. Like, take this guy who I found one spring out on a really popular trail. Someone comes into the VC freaking about about some guy who's lying in the middle of the path in this giant pool of blood. So we run out there, and we find this guy dead as a doornail. Which he absolutely should be, because the back of his head is like mashed potatoes. The skull is decimated, brains are leaking out like custard filling, and they guy's old so you figure yeah, he probably fell and hit his head. Old people fall all the time, it's no big deal. Except that this area where he fell doesn't HAVE any big rocks. There's not even any stumps or big branches. And on top of that, there's no blood trail, so he clearly died where he dropped. Now that's when you'd turn to ****, but there were people just out of line of sight with the guy. If someone came up behind him and murdered him, there's no way someone wouldn't have heard. And again, even if someone had, there'd be a blood trail, spatter all over the place. But everyone on the scene said it looked exactly like he'd fallen and smashed his head on a rock. So what the **** did he hit his head on? And then there was this lady I found in a different park about five years ago, back when I was upstate. We found her in the middle of a stand of big junipers, curled around the trunk, like she was huggin' it. We pick her up to move her, and a **** waterfall comes out of her mouth, splashes all over my shoes. Her clothes are dry, and her hair is dry, but the amount of water in her lungs and stomach was phenomenal. Unreal, man. Coroners report? Says the cause of death was drowning. Her lungs were completely full of water. This, even though we're in the middle of the high desert, and there isn't a body of water for miles. No puddles, no nothing. No signs of anyone else being out there. I mean yeah, it's possible they were murdered. But why go out of the way to do it like that? Why not just stab 'em and be done with it? I dunno, it just sits weird with me."

Now of course, that freaked me out a little. But we were wasted, and I guess I sort of wrote it off as a fluke. I also assumed there was exaggeration there, since, you know, we were wasted.

Now, I don't like talking about this next case very much. It was an awful one that I've done my best to forget about, but of course that's easier said than done. This happened about six months after the conversation with my friend at the bar, and up until that point I hadn't had a lot of really weird **** go down. A few things here and there, and of course the stairs, but it's amazingly easy to get used to stuff like that when it's treated as if it's normal. This case was a little different.

A guy with Down's Syndrome in his 20s went missing after his family lost sight of him on a major path. That was odd in and of itself, because this guy never left his mom's side. She was absolutely convinced he'd been kidnapped, and unfortunately a Ranger who isn't with the park anymore insinuated that no one was going to kidnap someone... well, with that kind of disability. Not very tactful, to say the least. We wasted a lot of time trying to calm her down enough to get information about him, and then we put out an official missing persons call. Because of the urgency of the situation, him being mostly unable to function alone, we had local police come in and help us. We didn't find him the first night, which was heartbreaking. None of us wanted to think of him being alone out there. We assumed he'd just kept wandering, and was staying ahead of us. We brought out helis the next day, and they spotted him in a little canyon. I helped bring him back up, but he was in bad shape, and I think we all knew he wasn't gonna make it. He'd fallen and broken his spine, and couldn't feel his lower half. He'd also broken both his legs, one at the femur, and he'd lost a lot of blood. He was confused and scared while he was alone, so he'd probably exacerbated the injuries by dragging himself a little ways. I know it sounds awful, but while I was riding in the copter with him, I asked him why he'd wandered off. I just wanted something to tell his mother, to let her know it wasn't her fault, because he was fading fast and I didn't think she'd get to ask him herself. He was crying, and he said something about how 'the little sad boy' had wanted him to come play. He said the little boy wanted to 'trade' so he could 'go home'. Then he closed his eyes, and when he woke up again, he was in the canyon. I'm not sure that's exactly what he said, but it was what I thought the gist of it was. He kept crying, asking where his mommy was, and I held his hand and tried my best to keep him calm. 'It was cold out there.' He kept saying that. 'It was cold out there. My legs was frozen. It was cold out there. It's cold in me.' He was getting even weaker, so he eventually stopped talking, and he closed his eyes for a while. Then, when we were about five minutes from the hospital, he looked right at me, with these big tears running down his face, and he said 'Mama won't see me no more. Love mama, wish she was here.' And he closed his eyes and he just... never woke up. It was horrible, and I don't like talking about it. That case was one of the first ones that really rattled me badly.

Because of how badly it affected me, I reached out to a senior Ranger, and who ended up helping me through it. As time went on, and we got to know each other better, he ended up sharing one of his own stories with me. It was disturbing, but it helped to know that I wasn't the only one affected by the things going on out there.
"I think this must have happened before you got here, because I think if it had happened while you were here you'd have remembered it. I know it didn't end up in the news, for some reason, but I think most people who've been here long enough know about it. The park sold off a portion of land to a logging company, and it was a really controversial thing. But it wasn't that large or old of a plot, and it was right after the recession, so we needed cash bad. Anyway, they were felling this plot of land, and we get a call that we need to get our supervisors out right away. I don't know why, but they ended up sending me and a few other guys along with the heads, I guess for power in numbers, to see what was up. We got there, and all these guys are crowded around a tree that they've just cut down. They're all **** off and freaking out and the foreman comes over and says he wants to know what we think we're up to. "What the **** y'all think this is, some kinda sick joke? You've got a lot of fuckin' nerve pulling this ****, we bought this land fair and square!" Well we don't know what the **** he's talking about, so he brings us over to this felled tree and points at it and tells us that when they cut it down, it was just like this, and they'll be damned if they put it there. The inside of the tree was all rotted out and hollow in one spot, and when they'd cut it down it had exposed that chamber, and inside it is a hand. Like a perfectly severed hand. And looks like it's actually fused with the inside of the tree. Well now we think THEY'RE pulling a joke, so we tell them that we don't like being **** with, and we start to leave, but they tell us they've already called the cops, and that they'll go right to the media if we don't stick around. Well that gets the heads' attention, so they stick around and talk to the police about it. Everyone is denying that they put the hand in there, and besides, how would anyone have even done it? It's clearly a real hand, but it's not mummified or skeletal. It's brand new, probably not even a day old. And it is definitely fused with the wood, you can see that it's coming right out of it. The loggers, they insist that they didn't put it there. Somehow, this fresh human hand ended up fused to the inside of this living tree. The cops have them cut up that section of tree into a movable chunk. Then they take the hand away, and the area is closed off. There was a pretty big investigation, but I know they didn't find get any answers. Now it's become this legend, and as far as I know we haven't sold any more property for logging."

As you all know, I went to a training seminar recently, and heard some amazing and horrible things there. One of the guys I talked to while I was there told me a story when we were all around the campfire one night. We were both pretty ****, you'll see a pattern here, and we were swapping stories. He told me this one: "Me and another guy were out on a field search because some campers reported screaming noises at night. So we head out there to look for whatever **** mountain lion has wandered into the area, and I'm ****. We've had three of them show up in the camping areas that year alone and I'm getting tired as **** of constantly having to deal with them. Plus, I just don't like them anyway. They're a pain in the **** and they're loud and they scare the **** out of me. Fuckin' cats. Pieces of ****. I'm groanin' about it to the guy I'm with and he thinks it's a real fuckin' riot. So we're seeing all these broken branches and what look like dens and we're pretty sure we know where this thing is. I call in and they tell me to confirm if possible, which you know just means they want to you to step in a big pile of **** and use that as proof. I'm not seeing any, though, so I basically just tell 'em to shove it, I'm done. We know that **** thing's out here somewhere, even if I'm not stepping in its **** or inside its mouth or whatever. Guy I'm with wanders off to take a **** or whatever, and I stay behind watching this little burrow under a tree to see if maybe a fox or somethin' is living under it, 'cause I love foxes, man. They're cute as ****. But anyway, I'm watching this tree and I start hearing branches crackling and it's coming from the direction my partner went opposite of. Now I've got my pistol, but you and I both know that's not gonna do **** against a cat. I **** it and holler for my partner to get his **** back, but he's too far and he can't hear me. I stand up and get my sights on where the thing is approaching, and I **** you not, man, I just about peed myself. This guy is coming toward me, and he's back-flipping through the **** woods. Like, instead of walking, he's doing these crazy **** back-flips, and I swear to **** he cleared every **** log and bush in his path, it was like he knew right where he was going. I yell at the guy to stop right where he is, that I'm pointing a gun right at him, but he keeps coming, and I just kinda lost it. I shot at the ground in front of him, and it was a dumb fuckin' thing to do, but man I didn't want this guy anywhere near me. When I fired, he was about fifty yards from me, and as soon as the gun goes off, he whirls around and goes off, back-flipping back into the woods. My partner hears my gun go off and runs back and asks what's up, and I tell him there's some **** **** out here hopped up on **** knows what, and we need to get the **** out of Dodge. I let the cops know what happened, and I didn't get in any trouble for firing, but man, I don't know what that **** was on but I've never seen anything like that before. **** was absolutely butt-**** crazy."

I think we can agree that there's stuff going on out here in the woods, and while I'm not going to spout off about what it could be, or offer any theories, what I want people to take away from all of this is that it is so **** important to be safe when you're out there. I know a lot of you think you're invincible, but the fact is that you CAN die out there, or be hurt, or go missing. It's easier than you'd ever imagine.

I apologize for this relatively short update, guys, I will do my absolute best to continue this series as soon as possible. Thanks for all your continuing support, it means the world to me!

**EDIT**: **Forgot to mention, these stories are also now on Tumblr: searchandrescuewoods.tumblr.com
**EDIT: Part 7 is now up: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/3sktwj/im_a_search_and_rescue_officer_for_the_us_forest/**

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip and There’s Nothing Wrong With My Brain
 
 Assistant: “[My name is Lily Madwhip and there’s nothing wrong with my brain](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/an5lgp/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_my_parents_are_the/).”

The old lady at the hospital check-in desk with the crazy curly hair smiles at me. “Lily, what a lovely name. Is it with one ‘L’ or two?”

What kind of question is that? If my name had one ‘L’ I’d be “LIY” and I don’t even know how to pronounce that. Unless it was “ILY”. That just makes me sound like I’m sick all the time. Here comes ILY Madwhip, the sickest girl in 5th grade! That ILY Madwhip makes me puke!

I repeat my name for her. She’s old, maybe she just doesn’t hear too well. “LI-LY.”

She nods. She’s wearing big glasses. Why are her glasses so big? They’re like twice the size of her eyes. And she’s not even keeping the glasses over them, they’re halfway down her nose. That’s probably why she has them on a chain, because they keep sliding down her nose and falling off. Can she even see? Maybe her vision is so bad she doesn’t notice she’s not seeing through her glasses. What good are they then? I hope I never need glasses. I’d probably lose them all the time.

“Yes dear, I heard you. Do you spell it with one ‘L’ or two?” she says.

Why does she keep asking me this? “Two of course.”

I watch her spell my name with three ‘L’s.

Thankfully, Mom gets off the phone with her office and takes over. “My daughter’s name is Lillian Madwhip. She’s scheduled for an MRI.”

I walk away to look at the other people in the waiting room. A blonde lady and her son are sitting by the automatic doors that go outside. The boy has a bandage over his right eye. Paschar would be able to tell me why, but Paschar isn’t here. I know what’s going to happen to the boy though. He’s going to see a doctor who’s going to take the bandage off and shine a light in his face and then make him lie down and put some drops of medicine in his eye while his mom holds him down and he screams. Then they’ll put the bandage back on.

Across from them is a man with a weasel face filling out some forms on a clipboard. I’ve never seen a weasel up close, but I know “weasel” is also a term used to describe someone with beady eyes and a long face and this guy has both so that’s a weasel face. Oh he’s looking back at me. I’m just... looking... at this plant. Wait, I don’t think that’s a real plant. I thought these plants were here to provide oxygen for people but they’re just here for decoration.

“Lily!” Mom calls, “Come here.”

The receptionist lady has a wristband for me to wear with my name spelled the long way and my birthdate and some other codes that I figure only doctors and nurses know. Mom and I sit and wait. It feels like HOURS. I try not to pay anymore attention to the other people coming and going because this is a hospital and when I look at the other people I just know all the unpleasant stuff they’re going to have done to their bodies and it’s more than I needed to know. Like ever. Ew.

My mom takes a magazine about housekeeping. That’s not actually an interest of hers, but she likes to pretend it is. She’s probably going to look at pictures of other people’s homes and then silently judge my dad for the ways our home doesn’t look like them and he’s there all the time. But he digs up all my dead pets and weeds her garden and writes dirges, so he’s not just sitting on his butt all day. I wonder if he’s sitting on his butt right now while we’re at the hospital.

I flip through a magazine about science. Some photographer got really close to monkeys and took photos of them doing monkey stuff. Apparently you can get a job just squatting in the jungle taking pictures of animals. I want a job like that. Maybe I’ll save up my money and buy a camera and start taking pictures of animals. Or I could be one of those photographers who takes pictures of crime scenes. The monkeys in this magazine story look really happy that this photographer is hanging out with them.

I glance up from my monkey article and see the weasel-faced man staring at me from the far corner of the waiting room. He looks back down at his forms, then scribbles some more stuff before taking the clipboard over to the lady with the enormous glasses. I watch him because he’s got suspicious written all over him. But then I see that in a while he’s going to be talking to some doctor in a big white coat like all doctors have and they’re going to go off to an office and talk about grown up stuff, so I start singing to myself in my head to stop knowing what’s going to happen. Weasel guy turns around and looks at me again. I imagine him with whiskers and then realize I’m staring and remind myself to blink and go back to my monkeys. I guess it’s not his fault he was born with a face like a weasel anyway.

Eventually, a big lady with really short, black hair calls us in. She’s wearing a green hospital uniform. “Mrs. Maddock, we’re ready for Lillian.”

“It’s Madwhip.” I tell her. I put my monkey science magazine back and follow Mom and the nurse through the swinging doors.

The hospital is like a maze. Halls go down other halls and there’s dead ends that are offices and closets. I bet the center of the hospital is where the minotaur lives. That’s a monster from an old story we read about in school. It lived in a giant maze and people would go in the minotaur’s maze and get lost and then it would eat them. A minotaur is like a human but with a cow for a head. Not a whole cow, just the head.

We get to a little room with a bed that they cover in paper because of germs. There’s a paper dress folded up on the table. Hospitals love paper.

“You need to change into this gown, sweety,” the nurse tells me, “and any jewelry or metal piercings need to come off.”

That’s because an MRI uses magnets. Mom told me about it before we got here. Big, powerful magnets that will rip any metal right off you. I bet if a minotaur got an MRI it would pull the metal ring out of its nose. Why do cows get nose rings anyway? Maybe it’s only the punk cows. I don’t have any jewelry or piercings, so I should be fine, but I brought a bunch of quarters in case things get bad and I have to pay to the swear jar. They’re a little sweaty from me holding them because I got no pockets. Mom holds them for me.

After the nurse leaves, I change into the paper dress and wait on the table, swinging my feet because there’s nothing else to do. Mom is quiet, probably because she’s worried about the results. She thinks they’re going to tell her my head is full of nothing but tumors, but I know that’s not going to happen because my head is NOT nothing but tumors.

“When do I get Paschar?” I ask.

Mom looks up. “If you behave yourself, when we get home we’ll discuss your toy.”

I see what she did there. She didn’t say I was getting him back when we got home, she said we’d discuss him when we got home. “You said I could have him when this is over. Not discuss him.”

“We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

I am not going to throw a tantrum. I want to... I want to start shouting about how she’s changing her promise, but I know if I start yelling she’ll use that as a reason to not return Paschar to me. This is a test. She’s trying to make me upset to justify not giving him back. I’m not going to do it. So I just stare at her and think the tantrum. Mom stares back. I imagine she’s getting the images I’m sending her with my brain and it makes me smile. She smiles back.

The lady nurse in her green uniform returns and asks my mom questions about my health including whether I’m pregnant. Then she tells me it’s time to go, so I give Mom a hug because I know she’s scared, and follow the nurse down hall after hall until we get to a huge room where a giant machine is. That must be the MRI. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, with a table for me to lay on and get shot into another dimension through this giant metal doughnut. Or maybe it’s going to turn me INTO a doughnut. I would be the worst tasting doughnut. Probably jelly-filled too. I hate jelly-filled doughnuts.

“If you’re afraid of tight spaces, hon,” the nurse says, “it’s going to feel a little cramped. But you have to lay still. You’re going to get an injection of contrast--”

Wait, WHAT. Injection? When did needles get involved? Nobody said anything about needles!

“Can I just drink it?” I ask.

“Oh no, dear.”

Well there goes one quarter to the swear jar.

She doesn’t even remove the needle, she leaves it in my arm. I hate this nurse now. I think angry thoughts and stare at her while I lay on the bed and she wheels over some weird machine with swirly tubes coming off it that she attaches to the other end of the needle STICKING OUT OF MY ARM. Oh **** I can’t even look at it, I’m going to gag.

In I go, into the metal doughnut. I hold my breath and think about Paschar. And Meredith. I wonder what she’s doing at school without me today. I hope she doesn’t burn anybody. It must be hard not being able to get angry for fear of burning stuff. I’d be burning stuff all the time. My arm feels really warm. I wonder why the lady in black was hanging out at the mall. There’s way too much stuff going on all at once. I feel like my head is going to explode.

Maybe I really do have a tumor.

The MRI machine is super noisy. It sounds like someone banging metal grocery carts around. Dad calls those bascarts because they’re like a basket and a cart, but Mom hates it when he uses that word. I call them bascarts when I want to annoy her. Oh my ****, how long am I going to be in here? I thought the waiting room was a long time but at least I had the monkey science magazine to read. I wish there was something to read or watch but there’s nothing.

Finally I come out and it’s all over. I’m about ready to claw this thing out of my arm, but the nurse pulls it out for me and puts a bandage over the spot. I can see the hole they poked in me. She has me sit in a wheelchair and takes me out into the hall.

“I can walk.”

“Just relax,” she says and then stops, parks my chair off to the side and walks off into what I think is one of the dead end office rooms. Why did she leave me here instead of taking me back to the room where my clothes are? She didn’t even tell me if she was coming back. Am I supposed to do something? I don’t even know where I am right now. I feel kinda light-headed too. Oh no, they found tumors, didn’t they.

“And what are you doing here?” comes a man’s voice from behind me. I turn my head to see who it is. It’s the weasel-faced man from the waiting room. He’s looking at me and smiling. I don’t know him, so I don’t say anything. I blink so he doesn’t think I’m staring and then look back to where the lady nurse just disappeared. I can hear him walking over to me because his shoes make a clop clop sound with each step. He stops right beside me.

“Lily Madwhip,” he says.

Don’t look back. He probably heard you give your name in the waiting room.

“I’m sorry... Lillian Alexandra Madwhip.”

WHAT. Oh no, he knows my full name. No, that doesn’t really give him power over me, that’s just a thing I thought about.  But how does he know my middle name? Maybe it was written down on one of the forms my mom filled out.

I can feel him looking down at me. He’s really tall and and thin but all I really notice is he’s got boots with pointy toes on because I’m not going to look up at him. I’m just going to stare at this floor and maybe **** think I’m asleep or something. Oh right, I just looked at him a moment ago. Maybe I have that disease where you just fall asleep suddenly. I could start snoring.

“Ohhh... you’re not supposed to talk to strangers. My name’s Felix. Do you want to know my last name? Maybe I don’t have one. Would that surprise you?”

I am a statue. I am a statue. I’m not really here.

“I know what would surprise you! What if we talked about Paschar?”

I finally look at him. He grins down at me. Even his teeth look like weasel teeth. I can’t help thinking it... his last name must be Weaselman. Felix Weaselman. How does he know--

“How do I know about Paschar?” He glances down the hall. I think he’s trying to make sure nobody’s coming. He scares me. He’s reading my mind. What am I thinking now? Potatoes. Just because. Potatoes. Read that, Felix Weaselman.

“No, I’m not a mind reader. I just know people well... and I know all their secrets.”

“Do you know where Paschar is?” I whisper. I’m afraid of speaking in full volume, I don’t know why. I almost don’t want him to hear me. I just want the nurse to come back and wheel me back to my mom. Mom knows where Paschar is.

Felix kneels down next to me and puts a hand on the arm of my wheelchair. Even his fingers look like weasels. Not like weasels, but weasel fingers. Not that weasels have fingers. I guess they do, sort of. But not like human fingers. If a weasel turned human, I think it would name itself Felix Weaselman and start terrorizing little kids at the hospital. Oh no, that must be what this is.

“I’m sorry, Lily, I don’t know where Paschar is. But I know about him. And you. You see things before they happen, don’t you?”

“Who are you?” I ask. He’s not a doctor, that’s for sure. He’s wearing a long coat with fur on the edge of it. I bet its weasel fur. Oh my ****, everything about this man is weasels.

“I told you, I’m Felix. I’m like you, Lily!” he grins his weasel teeth at me. I half expect him to have a long, thin moustache and twirl it with his fingers like in cartoons. “I have a gift, just like you, and a totem that connects me to the divine.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silver locket on a chain. I bet that thing would have ripped right through his coat if he went in the MRI. There’s a hook on the side of the piece, and he unlatches it and it opens. Inside is a photo of a boy. He’s got short brown hair like someone held a bowl over his head and just cut around the edge. He’s smiling, and his teeth kinda look weasel-ish, even for a kid.

“This is my son, Joseph. You can call him Joey.”

“Hi Joey.” I say to the boy in the locket.

Felix snaps it shut. “He can’t hear you unfortunately. He passed away some months back.” He sounds sad as he says this. Kinda like my dad when he talks about Roger. “But you know who can hear you, Lily? Raziel. He’s my connection to the divine.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s my angel. Like Paschar is for you. Why don’t you say hello to Raziel?”

I say hello to Raziel in my head. There’s no response. I look at Felix and he’s watching me really closely, like he’s expecting me to say something.

“What kind of angel is Raziel?” I ask him.

He holds the locket up to my face. “Why don’t you ask him yourself, Lily?”

Raziel, are you an angel? I ask the locket. There’s no response.

Felix stares at me. “So what did he say? What’s Raziel the angel of, Lily?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper. I feel frightened. I don’t know what’s going on or if anything Felix is telling me is true. “He’s not talking to me.” Maybe this is some secret test my mom organized to see if I really believe in angels.

Felix stands up and puts the locket back in his coat. “He doesn’t talk to me either. Not that he could. But I know he’s there! That’s my gift. I know things. Not things like Paschar knows. I can’t see the future like you. But I know everything else. I know the things people don’t want me to know. I know secrets.”

“I don’t have any secrets.” I don’t think I do anyway. I’m an open book. Honestly, I tell people all my secrets and most of the time they don’t even believe me.

Felix steps back and I realize just how close he had gotten to me that whole time. It feels like I’m suddenly in an open field with flowers. Like yellow flowers. I want to jump up from my wheelchair and run through the flowers. Freedom, that’s what it feels like. He was so close I didn’t even realize it was starting to feel like I was being crushed in a can crusher. Lily the tin can.

“No, Lily, you don’t like keeping secrets, do you?” He says. “I’m going to be honest with you too. I’m not from around here. I used to travel all over! Do you like carnivals? Have you ever been on a tilt-a-whirl? Gone to the top of a ferris wheel and looked down? I’m a mentalist. That’s a stage performer, kind of like a magician. Do you like magic?”

“Sometimes.” Who doesn’t like magic? Boring people. And scientists.

“I would use my gift of knowing people’s secrets and tell them things they had forgotten about themselves! Where they left their keys, that sort of thing. Or maybe they’d done something they didn’t want others to know about. Those were fun to reveal! Any secret, I would know it. Like where your brother Roger hid something valuable from you.”

Oh my **** he knows where Roger hid my foil charizard. “Where?”

“Oh I don’t actually know that, dear. I know that your brother hid something from you, but in order to know where, I’d need to meet Roger, and unfortunately he’s not here, is he? Hmm...”

Rats. ...Where the **** did my nurse go?

“Anyway,” Felix continues, “Joey, my son, was an assistant in the show. He was the most wonderful boy. You’d have loved him, really. He would have believed you about Paschar. Like your friend Jamal! He believed me about Raziel.”

The heat in my head and arm are going away. I feel a lot more clear thinking. “What happened to him?”

“You know what happened to him.” Suddenly Felix isn’t smiling anymore.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. Did he tell me and I missed it? Did I read it somewhere? No, someone told me something. He keeps staring at me. Oh, is he doing that thing I did to my mother? He’s trying to send his thoughts into my--

Meredith. Meredith happened.

“Meredith,” I say.

Felix nods. He looks like he just took a bite of a really nasty sandwich. I think he’s trying to **** his weasel teeth into his face or something.

Down the hall, I see the nurse FINALLY come around the corner with my mom. I wonder how she teleported from that dead end room to wherever she just came from. They don’t seem to notice this tall, thin, weasel-faced man hovering over me. Mom, hurry!

“I came here looking for information on her,” Felix whispers. His voice doesn’t sound so cheerful anymore. It’s almost like he wants to snarl. His teeth are clenched together and he’s saying everything through them. “But instead I found you. You don’t have to be afraid, my dear. I’m going to find Meredith. I found her once, I’ll find her again. Somebody needs to protect the rest of us from her.”

He pauses and looks over his shoulder. “Do you see somebody?” then turns and smiles at me, but it doesn’t seem like a happy smile.

There’s nobody there. The hallway is empty. I was seeing things before they happen again.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll see you soon.” and then he walks off in the other direction down the hall and back into the maze where he came from.

I’m shaking and I can’t stop. Something about Felix Weaselman terrifies me. It wasn’t his weasel face either, it was like I was finally meeting somebody who IS crazy. Other kids call me Mad Lily sometimes, especially buttholes like Jeffrey Baker. But they haven’t met anyone like Felix. He was so calm and seemed normal, except for the whole part about knowing my secrets. I wonder if that’s even true. I wonder if there’s really an angel in his locket, and if so, why didn’**** speak to me?

Mom and the nurse finally show up for real a few minutes later and take me back to my clothes so I can change. I do it as fast as I can so we can get out of there. Mom had put my quarters in her purse; she gives them to me. I tell her she’s going to need to keep a couple.

In the car, she asks me how I’m feeling, if my vision is fuzzy or anything. I tell her I’m fine. I don’t tell her about Felix. I don’t tell her about Raziel. And I definitely don’t tell her about Meredith. I don’t know what I can tell her anymore. I need to think about things on my own. What I really need is to talk to Paschar, and I know if I start bringing this stuff up with her, I might not get him back. I just hope that weasel-faced guy Felix doesn’t go to my school today.

At home, Dad is in his work room. He was probably writing a dirge. He does that. Mom tells me to sit at the dining room table and wait. I wonder what we’re having for dinner. Probably something that’s going to make me want to ****. I wonder if I can convince them to order pizza if I tell them that the medicine they injected me with made me feel funny? Mom comes back with Dad and-- Paschar! Paschar where were you?

Paschar tells me he’s sorry for the things he knows I’ve had to deal with alone. He says that sometimes we face things alone because we have to in order to become stronger. He says that-- you know, I feel like I’m getting a lecture from my parents. --Oh, I am. They’re talking too. but I’m not even listening to that, because I’m too busy being giddy to see Paschar again.

“Do you understand?” Dad asks me.

I don’t.

“Yes.” I tell him.

Dad hands me Paschar, and I hug him to my chest. [We have a lot to talk about](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/aoir9u/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_think_a_magician_is/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There’s a chemical fog outside our school. We can’t leave.
 
 Assistant: The view from our classroom windows is nothing but a murky white. I bet if I went outside and looked down, I wouldn’t be able to see past my knees. I won’t be going outside, though— I honestly don’t think I’ll leave this classroom for a while.


Our class (Gothic Literature) was supposed to end at 1:30. I remember just staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick by, feeling Mr. Samson’s voice drone through my body, the monotone sound killing me into a haze of sleepy existence. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and it certainly shows. The classroom was lit solely by the fluorescent bulbs flickering on the ceiling, Samson having closed the blinds to avoid ‘distracted glances’ about fifteen minutes in.

 I wonder now if we would have noticed the building fog outside had the blinds been open. Maybe we would have clamored together by the window, whispering in excitement to each other— anything that wasn’t hearing, for the tenth time that week, how revolutionary Mary Shelley was for that time. Or hearing Susan beg him to cover Carmilla, ‘just for half a lesson, Mr. Samson?’ It isn’t unusual for a mess of high schoolers to grow distracted and excited at any little change. I mean, who can blame us, with the constant repetition? Regardless, I’ve gone too far off topic.

It was about ten minutes before the bell was supposed to buzz, signifying the seven minute long break from our daily torture, that the intercom system crackled to life.


“We will now be having a lockdown drill. We request everyone stay calm, and follow the instructions of their current teacher. If you’re outside your classroom, we ask that you please make your way back in a timely manner. Thank you.” 

I heard the collective groans of students who didn’t want to crawl under their desks in the dark. Really, the only thing worse than this lecture is the singular sound of your deskmate’s breathing penetrating a heavy cover of silence. Nevertheless, we’re used to lock down drills by now. The class shuffled slowly, desks creaking as students stood and crouched. Susan shoved herself under the teachers desk, whilst Jaimee and Audrey stood shoulder to shoulder in the tiny alcove just behind the doorway. We all waited with frustrated bated breaths, knowing that in just a few seconds we’d hear someone try the doorknob (apparently to scare us— it never works) and then the intercom system announce the drill was over. But those sounds didn’t come. Instead, all there was? Silence. 

The reintroduction of sound started with a couple in the back corner whispering and giggling to each other. Students, growing more impatient, began talking to each other. It took ten minutes before Mr. Samson himself moved to his desk, shooing Susan out in the process, in an attempt to get some work done.

Ten more minutes passed. He grew frustrated, and motioned us back to our seats. That was when someone peeked outside. I’m not sure what they were looking for— maybe to see if this was a different sort of drill, or if maybe it wasn’t a drill at all. It didn’t take long for everyone else to be made aware of the oddity that was the outside world.

“Hey guys? I can’t see outside. It’s like, hella foggy.” I think her name was Ashley. I worked on a lab project with her once.

“****, she’s right.” A guy chimed in from across the room. “Jesus, that’s some massive blockage. Imagine driving in that.”

“It can’t be foggy, it’s not even humid out. Plus, already lunchtime. Way too late for fog.” Susan snorted. You know. Like a smartass.

“Well, it’s clearly something. Do you think it’s **** with the cellphone towers? I don’t have any reception.” Ashley spoke again. 

“Guys, come on. No phones in class. We just touched on this day before yesterday.”

Despite Samson’s protests, there was a quiet murmur of agreement. People who’d either checked their phones prior and noticed the same thing, or those who were checking them now and...well, noticing the same thing.

“Weather does screwy things, guys. Who knows.” I finally interjected my own opinion, shrugging my shoulders. A few more murmurs, slowly growing louder in volume as friends and deskmates began talking to each other to alleviate the boredom.

Five minutes later, whatever the weather is doing to our phones clearly has done something else. Our electric went out. We could still connect to the WiFi (obviously, I’m writing this, aren’t I?) but nothing else. Lights burnt out, the projector wouldn’t turn on, even the hum of the air conditioner that we hardly notice anymore just...went silent. 

It was around 2:00 we heard the first scream. It was horrible and bloodcurdling, and It came from outside. We could hear it reverberate from the glass window, cold to the touch. As I’d find out later, the first of many screams to come. Some kid had decided to go outside. We didn’t know that yet, though. Mr. Samson had clearly had enough.

“I’m going to check with Ms. Young next door. Stay put. Lock the door behind me. I’ll be back shortly.” Standing from his desk, he took brisk steps to the classroom door, exiting with the confidence only an authority figure has. 

We followed his instructions. For a while, at least. Minutes ticked by. Finally, around 2:30, we decided to just leave. What were they going to do? We’d been left with no guidance. Just a bunch of kids who totally didn’t know better, right? 

It was cold outside as I passed the threshold. You know when you enter a Walmart at midnight, and everything is just...weird? Like you’re on a different plane? That’s kind of what this felt like. The halls were dark. Silent. The only light strewn in through the double doors in hall B, casting large shadows behind doorways. The fog pressed against the door, almost ominously. 

“I’m leaving.” The guy from earlier shrugged, headed towards the doorway.

“What if they turned the alarms on? The doors will sound. Especially if we’re on a lockdown.” Ashley pointed out.

“Powers out. I doubt they are.” He called from behind him. I only looked over at him when I heard the doors open.

Immediately, he began screaming. He **** away from the door, as if he’d been burned. The air smelled like chlorine and bleach. Maybe a bit of formaldehyde that the zoology class uses during exams. The doors swung shut the second he’d let go, the fog quickly dissipating. Audrey rushed over to him, trying to help.

“What’s a matter? Josh?” She set a hand on his shoulder before jerking her own hand back, letting out a sharp exhale as if she’d been burned. Because she had. She seemed to notice the situation almost instantly, shrinking back from the cowering boy in front of her, now letting out raspy and crackling moans of pain. It reminded me of someone with pneumonia, the sound of it. 

Burning. His skin was burning. Bright red and blistering, and so was the palm of Audrey’s hand.

“It’s a chemical burn.”

“What touched them?”

“There’s a shower in the science lab, we should get them there.”

“How did this happen?”

Thirty voices, all at once. We split up, in the end. Five of them headed to 2-b, the lab with the supposed shower. The rest of us headed into the classroom, half of us eerily quiet, the other chattering in confusion and alarm.

And here we are, folks. A couple hours later, in a classroom surrounded by white. A fog of chemicals. We should find someone who knows what’s going on— we can’t just sit here, can we? And yet, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I’m posting this. You guys seem to know your way out of some...less than ideal situations. I’m at a loss. I’m...scared.

[Update](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e5pd4y/theres_a_chemical_fog_outside_our_school_we_cant/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Clean Crime Scenes and Hoarder Houses for a Living. Today I Saw Something I Don't Understand
 
 Assistant: I’m a Hazmat cleaner in a very specific niche. Basically, I clean hoarder houses, as well as family homes after traumatic deaths. It’s a necessary job. First, imagine the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. Like being a parent whose teenager just shot herself, or the survivor of a ****-suicide. Then imagine going home after the reports are filed and the detectives are done, and having to scrub your loved one’s dried brains off the walls. 

That’s where I come in. 

It’s surprisingly easy to acclimate to corpses and gore. Depending on the situation, bloodstains can be hard to deal with, only because they’re always in context: the spatter on the children’s Spongebob quilt, the smears across the cheerfully rustic kitchen, the violent spray over family portraits. The stark evidence of violence over the normal trappings of a family home can be disturbing. But even that gets easier over time.

The hardest part is the smell. Sweet and almost gooey, with undertones of **** and fetid swamp, sweat and unwashed skin. The stench strengthens and weakens seemingly on a whim. Sometimes I swear it moves, drifting across a room or directly overhead, or lunging forward to swallow me. 

But the rest really doesn’t bug me anymore. Even mattresses dripping with decomposition juice get unremarkable after a while.

Now a couple days ago, I was assigned to a suicide house. The victim was a middle-aged lady with hoarding issues. She lived alone. Her much-older brother lived in a nursing home. She called him like clockwork once a week. Suddenly, she stopped calling. Four weeks passed, and he was frantic. He has dementia and other issues. His sister was his only family, the only one other than the parish priest who ever came to visit, so he felt her absence keenly.

By the time his caretakers finally called in a welfare check, his sister had been dead for at least three weeks.

It was pretty ghastly, as advanced decomposition tends to be. The one good thing I can say is at least it’s been a cold spring out here. Low temperatures alleviate the stench somewhat.

The house is a neat, narrow little two-story with a slightly overgrown yard and a tiny grove of apple trees out back. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Inside was another story.

It’s hard to describe bad hoarder situations. Entire rooms are overwhelmed with literal mountains of trash. Clothes and stuffed animals, books and papers, cheap gas station figurines, cat litter, dead animals, old electronics…the list is endless, and somehow it all looks the same. Just a morass of garbage and forgotten belongings steadily claiming the house from its human occupant.

This lady was no different. Treacherous slopes made from old newspapers and books filled every corner. Christmas trees, stuffed animals, dishes, garbage, pillows, and so much more filled out the rest, claustrophobic, filthy, and foul-smelling.

As cleaners, we typically just throw everything away. The filth and biohazard issues make donation impossible. If we find something valuable – jewelry, antiques, and so on – we set it aside for the estate. For the most part, though, these belongings are worth less than the trash bags we put them in. 

Again – this lady was no different.

It took two days to clear a path to the back of the house and three days to actually empty out the rooms. It took a full day to clear the stairs, which, for some reason, were literally coated with dried vegetation and what looked like a metric ton of table salt. According to real estate information (which we always dredge up before entering a home), the second level had two bedrooms and an office.

This is where things suddenly got weird.

The bedrooms were immaculately clean, which was impossible; the entire stairwell had been packed floor to ceiling with garbage. There was no way this lady would have been able to clean up here. Even if she’d been climbing through a window every day, the entire situation defied hoarder behavior. 

Ignoring a sudden case of the creeps, I inspected each bedroom. While thoroughly permeated with the stench of the lady’s recently removed corpse, they were utterly spotless. The paint on the walls even glistened. 

The office was more like it: stuffed from floor to ceiling with dead plants, specimen cases, and paintings. About a dozen taxidermy animals sat in a neat row, facing the wall. It wasn’t as filthy as the downstairs by any means, but it was much more in line with my expectations.

Due to the smell, most of the stuff – cool as it was – couldn’t be salvaged. There’s just no reliable way to get three weeks of steadily worsening corpse stench out of household belongings. Even so, I took a good look at most of it. I’m an amateur zoologist. Thought I was going to be Steve Irwin when I grew up, majored in biology and everything. 

So this is where it all gets awfully strange. 

First, the specimen cases. These are the small glass displays, usually around 12x12, that people use to pin dead bugs and blossoms. You know, like butterflies and beetles?

Now, these things were definitely bugs, but they weren’t normal. For example, one was a coppery caterpillar with a flat, almost humanoid face. Pinkish skin, wrinkles, eyelids sinking down into empty sockets and everything. Another was this arachnid thing with a bluish, crablike body and a single desiccated eye peering up from the thorax. Yet another looked underdeveloped, almost fetal. It had wrinkled sage-colored flesh and long ears that reminded me of a basset hound. 

At this point, I was pretty sure I’d stumbled on some eccentric lady’s collection of gag gifts.

The taxidermy animals made the joke theory a lot harder to believe. The first one I saw was this tiny, sloe-eyed thing with beautiful features corrupted by unnatural proportions. The second was basically a giant, lacquered anemone with what must have been a thousand rot-rimmed holes boring through the tentacles. The worst looked like a person, with a frozen, open-mouthed smile that spread to its ears and five glassy eyes arching over the upper lip.

By this point, I felt paranoid, even frightened. This wasn’t right. None of this was right. A typical hoarder house on the first floor blocked off from a pristine, empty second floor? And  what *were* these things? Sophisticated fakes? Somebody’s forgotten art installation? 

But how did these things get up here? And how were they all so *clean*?

Because I was no longer sure if these items qualified as garbage, I carefully sorted and stacked everything. Then I got started on the walls. 

Paintings cluttered every inch, literally fitting together like puzzle pieces. Most were more or less unremarkable, if cool-looking – lots of surreal landscapes and stylized creatures, which are catnip to my fantasy-loving self – but one painting in particular trapped my attention and wouldn’t let it go.

About seven feet tall and maybe three feet wide, it dominated the room. Rendered in a hundred shades of green and black and grey, it depicted a misty, primeval forest drenched in moonlight. Luminescent flowers sprouted along upraised tangles of tree roots. A tall, forbidding figure peered through the trees, half-cloaked in soft darkness. No features, but the suggestion of strength was clear in its broad shoulders and long, sinewy limbs. A curtain of hair reflected the moonlight. I couldn’t discern the color; the shadows were too deep, the lines and hues of the figure too indistinct to even begin to guess.  

After a few minutes, I realized all the hair on my arms was standing on end. With a huge, cathartic shudder, I spun around and pretended to survey the room. Or rather, pretended I wasn’t afraid. 

As I stood there trying to mentally reset, a draft swept the room. Wet, cool, almost inviting, and – after the endless odor of human rot – beautifully sweet. 

Trying to remember when I’d opened the window, I turned.

For a long, mesmerizing minute, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

That enormous painting had come to life.

Tendrils of strange leaves swayed in that chilly, fresh wind. The glowing flowers bobbed, flattening slightly against the roots as the wind buffeted them. Somewhere deep in that unearthly landscape, a high, atonal song sounded. Wordless and open-throated, I imagined it echoing off icy peaks and down below in low, swampy valleys. It made me think of forests and mountains, wild rivers and endless plains. The only thing I couldn’t picture was the creature singing the song. 

The figure stood silently. Only its hair moved, rippling in the wind like a banner. 

Then it took a long, sure-footed step forward. Moonlight glanced off its face, illuminating an impossible sharp cheekbone and a dark, cavernous eye.

I bolted. 

I tripped down the stairs, falling flat on my face at the landing, then scrabbled up and ran out of the house. I don’t even think I locked the door.

I know I shouldn't go back. I don’t know what that thing in the painting is is. Honestly I'm not even convinced it’s real.

But the thing is, I want to go back. Not because I'm fearless - far, far from it - but because I want to know more. I’m not the only one, am I? I mean, how do you look at this stuff and not ask what, why, or how? How do you not want to cross the threshold into that painting and see what’s there?

I don’t know. Part of me definitely wants to call in sick for the next month. But part of me wants to go back. Maybe even tonight. Like I said, I don’t think I locked the door. I won’t necessarily go upstairs or anything. I’d just be making sure the place is secure.

Before I go – if I go at all – has anyone encountered something like this? Do any of those taxidermy creatures ring a bell? I know it’s a shot in the dark, but if you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.

Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/8egypv/update_my_boss_and_i_explored_the_painting_in_the/

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My friend was raised to know the exact date and time of her death
 
 Assistant: I only knew Michelle for a month, but it was truly a month to remember. I first met her when she was carving out my high school bully’s eye with a butter knife, and we were more or less inseparable after that.

She was a few years older than me, so of course I fell instantly in love, but I knew deep down we were destined for friendship and little else. I knew this deep down because she made it clear that she was gonna die in roughly a month. *Can’t love a dead chick*, she’d say.

At first I thought it was just a clever way to avoid the awkwardness of turning me down, but at some point I came close to believing her. It was just something about her, something extremely...free. Careless and unconfined. Refreshingly brave and outspoken and honest.

When I met her I was going through the most depressing period of my life. I was constantly bullied and belittled at school, my younger twin sisters were both hospitalized, each needing a transplant to survive (Jenna needed a heart, Chloe needed kidneys), and my parents had their hands full covering the medical expenses. I think we all in our own ways were on the verge of just giving up, of just letting go.

I was saved by Michelle. I have no doubt about it. If she hadn’t shown up when Brett was beating the **** out of me, I would have killed myself that day. I was just so sick of it, sick of the beating, sick of the abuse, sick of being alone. But Michelle came out of nowhere, threw him into the wall, knocked his nose half-way up his brain, and proceeded to dig out his left eye with the aforementioned cutlery. He never touched me again.

You’d think she’d get into to trouble after doing something like that. But it was never reported. Brett claimed it had been an accident, that he’d crashed with his moped. I think he feared that Michelle would **** him if he said otherwise. I for one have no doubt she would have. That was just who she was.

Michelle never went to school. She said it was because she knew she was gonna die. Why bother with **** like school then. No, she was all about enjoying life to the fullest, kicking assholes in the face, **** over people who **** over others. She wanted to leave this world a better place than she found it, and by her logic this was done exclusively by ridding it of shitbags, one way or another.

“How do you *know* you’re gonna die?” I asked her once.

“My parents tell me,” she said, “Every day. And they’re good for their word.”

She wouldn’t explain it in detail. Just that she was raised knowing the exact date and time of her death, down to the very second. And that it was meant to be. That’s what they told her. In death, her life would have meaning.

At first I didn’t think much of it, you know. She was a crazy girl, and she always said weird stuff like that. I was kinda banking on it all being some bizarre joke or something, but when the month drew to a close, I was getting really worried it might all be true. I’d grown too attached to her. Every minute I wasn’t at school or the hospital was spent with her, and the thought of losing her, my only friend, made me horribly depressed.

That last week I was really on edge. The twins were in bad shape, and my parents were spending every waking minute at the hospital. They had yet to find any donor matches, and time was running out. It felt like my time was running out too. The dark thoughts were returning, and I started imagining how I would **** myself should Michelle ever leave me.

I found it strange that she’d never invited me home. I mean, friends do that, right? Invite each other over. She’d been to our house several times, she even crashed on the couch a few times, and we would often watch movies there, raid my parents liquor-cabinet, get wasted and generally just have fun. But I’d never been to her house. Not once. I didn’t even know where she lived.

So one night I just decided to follow her. What was there to lose, really? Maybe I could get some answers from her parents or something. Some way to explain why she was so convinced she was dying. Maybe they lied to her? Some sort of cult? A way to form her beliefs into accepting the unacceptable. A way to control her.

I stalked her for thirty minutes, lurking in the shadows as she paced down the streets. When she headed to the outskirts I started getting worried, and when she took the narrow trail through the forest I was almost having a full on panic-attack. Where the **** was she heading? As far as I knew, there weren’t any houses for miles.

About halfway into the forest, I suddenly lost her. It was like she vanished without a trace. I walked back and forth, up and down, but there was just no sign of her at all. Eventually I had to give up and return home, my mind growing ever darker.

I remember the last day like it was yesterday. Every minute of it, crisp and clear and vivid in my mind. Every scent, every sound, every muscle moving on her perfect face, all those smiles and kind words. Everything.

The last day came and went, but I didn’t *know* it was the last day. If I’d known, I would have told her how much I cared for her, how much she meant to me, how much I owed her my life and sanity. Without her I wouldn’t be alive. But I didn’t know, and I never told her. I hope she somehow realised it, that she could see it in my eyes and actions every day, but I can never be sure.

She just acted so normal, you know. She was Michelle that day too. Same carefree spirit, the same wild, devil-may-care attitude. We spent the afternoon smoking ****, watching silly cartoons, laughing and just enjoying each others company.

But when she left, I knew something was up. I don’t know how. I guess there was some detail, some little thing that alarmed me, but having replayed and analyzed that day over and over in my mind, I can’t think of anything. Nothing. But I knew.

So I followed her again. This time I stayed closer, always having her in my sights, always knowing exactly where she was. She was walking considerably slower that night, almost like she knew I was behind her. Almost like she wanted me to follow her. The air was cold and crisp, and whenever autumn draws close, I can step outside, take a deep breath, and relive the exact moment when she suddenly turned on her heels to face me.

“This is it,” she said, “This is the day I die.”

She walked over to me and handed me an envelope. It was light, but there was definitely something in it. A letter perhaps.

“You will need this,” she stroked my hair gently, “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do with it.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, “Please, let’s just leave. Let’s just get out of here.”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. If I concentrate real hard I can still conjure up the smell of her perfume.

“This is goodbye,” she murmured softly, “But you will come to understand that it was always meant to be.”

I reached out to hug her when they emerged from the darkness. Two tall figures clad in dark robes, an old man and an elderly woman, their milky-white hair flowing gently in the breeze. They had this solemn expression on their faces, the kind you’d see in funerals, an expression of acceptance to sorrow and despair because it is just a part of life. Michelle pushed me away forcefully, and by the time I’d regained my balance it was already too late.

Her throat had been slit from either side of her neck. A perfect cross, left to right, right to left. Blood was squirting out, coloring the dull brown of the roadside a deep shade of crimson. The robed couple swiftly stepped back into the shadows, leaving me desperately clutching the lifeless body of Michelle, screaming my lungs out, wailing like an animal into the cold night.

The paramedics came ten minutes later. I have no idea who called them. Anonymous, they later told me. She had no ID on her, so they asked me a bunch of questions. I didn’t know the answer to any of them. She was Michelle. That was all I knew. Her name was Michelle. She was my friend, and she was the best person I’d ever met.

They let me ride the ambulance to the hospital, but they quickly pronounced her dead. She’d lost too much blood, they told me. It wasn’t my fault. There wasn’t anything I could have done. This didn’t offer me much comfort. I was devastated. Totally broken, the dark thoughts resurfacing once again, this time with more power than ever before.

“What’s that in your hand,” one of the paramedics asked, “Does that belong to Michelle?”

I glanced at the envelope. It was completely drenched in blood, much like me. And then it suddenly hit me. I don’t know what it was, but it was like she told me; *when the time comes, you’ll know what to do with it*. So without thinking, I just handed it over to him. He sort of held it up, like he’d somehow see through it if he got a better angle of it, before he gently opened it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.

\---

I am better now. I still have problems understanding what happened, but I am better. I have come to terms with it. With the fact that everything happened just the way it was supposed to happen. And it has shaped me, shaped my life into what I am today. Michelle didn’t just save me. She saved my entire family. Every aspect of my life.

And I guess you’re wondering what was in that envelope. Maybe you’d figured it out, maybe not.

It was a donor card. And as it turned out, she was a perfect match for my twin sisters.

*Can’t love a dead chick*, she said.

That’s the only thing she was ever wrong [about.](https://www.reddit.com/user/hyperobscura)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a nurse for the elderly, one of the patients made a terrifying confession
 
 Assistant: Despite what some might tell you, it's not actually so bad to work in this field. Sure, some of the elderly can be difficult at times, and like any other job, this one has its stomach churning moments. But most of them are sweethearts, all it takes is some compassion and patience to break through to them.

So yeah, I mostly love this job. I wouldn't give it up if I could help it. The only part I don't like are the occasional confessions from some of the patients. They say that people can feel their ends nearing, and after a few years working this job, I’ve come to believe that. Some of them have no one else, no family or friends left, so they air their dirty laundry, so to say, in front of us nurses.

Most of the time, it’s pretty mild stuff. Old Gregory cheated on his wife in their thirties, Larry used to be into hardcore ****, Lisa stole from her company for a while. Stuff you don’t necessarily expect, but that doesn’t surprise you in hindsight.

Other times, it borders on disturbing. Jenkins had a bar fight and ran away, and to this day he’s not sure if the other guy survived. Sasha had an abortion on her own, without telling her boyfriend at the time that she was even pregnant. Ciara abandoned her family, running away in the night to start a new life, and seeing the missing person posters ate her up inside.

That’s the kind of stuff that gets under my skin, but I can at least understand where they’re coming from. I can sympathize, even if I don’t condone their actions.

But then, there are the monsters. The ones that have committed truly atrocious deeds, and their confessions keep me up at night. Julia, the sweetest old lady you’d ever meet, gaslit her husband into suicide to cash out his life insurance. Freddy helped burn an entire village back in the Vietnam war, basking in the flames and the screams of the dying. Sally abused her child growing up, to the point it caused a myriad of developmental problems.

Mind you, I haven’t been there myself for all of those confessions. Us nurses tend to share, morbid as it might sound. Go ahead and judge if you want, but we didn’t ask for those burdens to be placed on our shoulders and we’ll seek relief wherever we can find it. Most of the time it’s just innocent gossip, the *you won’t believe what Gus used to do when he was young* type. Other times there are tears and silent cries in the breakroom, stone cold expressions and a pressing atmosphere, not a hint of levity to go around.

But such is life in this field. Most of us have learned to live with it, and those who couldn’t walked away. I myself am in the first camp, and I don’t think last night will change my mind.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. You need some context in order to make heads or tails of this. It all started with Parker, so I should too. He’s…a bitter old man. No way to sugarcoat it. A tough nut to crack, rage and hatred for everyone and everything simmering under the surface at all times. He’s the type of person that won’t be satisfied until your parade is soaked to the bone in rain.

He’s been here since before I was hired, so the other nurses warned me about him from day one.

“**** help you if you have to interact with him, he can ruin your entire week just by opening his mouth," they told me.

I didn't take them seriously, thinking he couldn't be *that* bad. Spoiler alert, he was, but not in the ways you'd expect. He didn't get physically violent like some of the other elderly, he didn't fling **** and **** soaked diapers at us, he flung words. But he knew how to make them cut, and cut deep.

Our first interaction happened when I had to check up on him and make sure he took his medicine. It was a nice evening, and I found old man Parker in his room, lounging in his recliner. He faced towards the windows, back to the door, and he didn't bother to turn around and look at me when I entered.

"Good evening, mister Parker," I greeted.

"Hey, fresh meat," he spat a response laced with spite.

I gritted my teeth and tried to sound polite when I answered.

"My name is Jessica, but…"

"Fresh meat," he interrupted me. "You won't last a month so I won't bother learning your name. Now why are you here, fresh meat?"

I told him why, and he pointed at the empty pill bottle on the nightstand next to him. Then he returned to staring out the window at the sunset without another word, so I took my leave.

That was how the first three weeks went by. I went over to his room for this or that, he made some snide remarks to insult me, and I held my tongue. It was clear he didn't want anyone around, especially me. But I was never a quitter, and I wasn't about to bend the knee to some old **** with a vendetta against happiness itself.

"You still here?" He asked on the fourth week when I passed by his room to change his bedding. "My ****, woman, you're about as smart as you're pretty."

He was in his recliner again, most of his evenings and nights were spent there. By day he'd be outside, or in the common area, terrorizing everyone he happened upon. But as soon as dusk approached, he'd retreat to his room and peer out the window until he fell asleep in the recliner.

I ignored his remark, approaching the bed with a fresh set of sheets and pillow cases.

"What? Did you swallow your tongue? Forget how words work?" He kept pestering me. I took off the old sheet and discarded it on the floor, even though it wasn't all that dirty. "That wouldn't be a big surprise. Honestly, the only thing surprising me is that you learned to speak in the first place."

Now, I don't recommend doing what I did. Reacting like I had. At that point, I should've thrown in the towel and walked away. But I didn't, after two weeks of abuse like that on the daily I snapped. I threw the fresh sheets haphazardly on the bed and stomped over to his recliner.

"Listen here, you shriveled up ****," I went off on him. "I don't know what your problem is, but I don't need this kind of treatment in my life. I'm not surprised that your family left you, with an attitude like that I'd have dropped you at a care home first chance I got as well."

I hurled insult after insult at him, digging deep to dredge out the nastiest side of me. Fully expecting Parker to go off on me in return, but instead he stood there and took it all. With each colorful word leaving my mouth, the corners of his lips pulled a little further up, into a satisfied grin.

I only stopped when I ran out of breath, and he waited a moment to make sure I was done.

"What did you say your name was again?" He asked.

"Jessica."

"Jessica…" he repeated, letting each letter roll off his tongue. "Tell you what, I like you."

And that was that. He returned to staring out the window, and I was able to carry out my work in peace. I regretted the outburst for a while, feared that it would somehow come back to bite me in the **** and get me fired, but Parker didn't tell anyone. It was our little secret.

Every day after that, he'd grin when he saw me. He still gave me lip, but it was different, more…jovial. Not trying to insult me and drive me away, just to tease me. But I could work with him without breaking down into tears afterwards, so I took my win.

After a while, I started teasing him back. He'd call me his insult of the day, I called him mine, we'd laugh it off and move on. What I'm trying to say is that we developed this weird bond, and I actually started having fun. I started looking forward to it. We didn't talk about anything else, I didn't know the first thing about him and he didn't know the first thing about me, but in my eyes that only added to the charm.

Life moved on, and before I noticed, I'd been working there for years. Rumors about Parker abounded, everyone had their theories and beliefs, but I couldn't confirm or deny any of them. The man was still as much of a mystery to me as he'd been on the first day.

Then one day about a month ago, things started to change. He'd make less comments. He spent more and more time in his room, isolating from everyone. Parker had always been very self-sufficient for someone his age, but he started needing help with things and I could see it killed him on the inside. I didn't mind, that was what I was getting paid for, but the man had his pride.

He refused to be seen by a medic and get treatment, so we all expected him to kick the bucket soon. A prospect that made most everyone in that care home happy, but I for one dreaded it. Even so, I knew better than to try and talk to him about it.

One evening, before I went home, I checked on him. Parker was in his usual spot in the recliner, drapes drawn aside and window wide open. The sun was already gone, sunken below the horizon, painting it red as night creeped in. He didn't acknowledge my presence, not until I stopped next to him.

"Hey, Jessica," he greeted, his voice a low rumble.

I nearly went for a *hey, fartbone*, but the sound of my name and the way that he said it gave me pause. For the first time in the many years I'd known him, he sounded serious for once. A pit of dread formed in my stomach.

"Everything alright, mister Parker?"

His lips curled at the corners, pulling his gaunt face into a smile. A dry, raspy chuckle left his throat, but he let my question linger in the air for a long moment.

"Going home for the night?" He asked.

"Yes."

"Could you stay just for a little while longer?"

"Of course."

I knew what this meant. Parker felt his time was coming, and he wanted someone next to him. I leaned in to take his hand into mine, but a **** will be a **** to the very end. He slapped my hand away. So we stood there in awkward silence, watching the night settle outside.

"You're the closest thing I have to a friend, Jessica," he said out of the blue. "The closest thing I have to a family." He let out another chuckle, but it sounded sad. "God, I'm so pathetic."

I put a hand on his shoulder, and this time he didn't slap it away. I had no idea what exactly to say, Parker wasn't one for sappy speeches. So in the end, I went with the truth. Blunt as it was, I figured he'd appreciate my honest opinion.

"It's your fault for being a grumpy old ****. You could've had many friends here, so why?"

"Do you have any plans tonight?" He asked, and I nodded a *no.* "Then…can I answer your question with a story?"

"Sure."

He shifted in the recliner, biding his time as he searched for the right words. I'd seen it all before in others, they think themselves ready to open up until the time comes to actually do it. With a sigh, he resigned himself to the situation and started speaking.

Parker was born in a small town in the 1940s, right off the back of the second world war. He had an older brother and a father, neither of which he remembers. The first died of some disease as a child, and the second got drafted and died overseas while Parker was still a baby.

That left his mother alone to raise him, but they weren't the only ones struggling to make ends meet in that town. Most everyone else did too. Life back then was harsh, especially for isolated communities like theirs.

"But I had a decent enough childhood," Parker assured me. "My mother did her best, working herself to the bone and going hungry most nights to make sure I wouldn't."

He took a short pause, prying his gaze away from the window to make eye contact with me. I could tell he was uncomfortable, dwelling on the past brought him a great deal of anguish. But he looked away from me after a long moment, back at the dark world outside, and continued speaking.

Despite his mother's best efforts, his childhood was short-lived. Parker had to grow up fast, to become dependable, to help around the house and find work.

"It wasn't that uncommon back then. Kids as young as 8 or 9 working shoulder to shoulder with the adults. We didn't have much of a choice."

Things such as getting an education or waiting until they were adults, those were little more than pipe dreams. But luckily, Parker was big for someone his age. At only 10, he was taller and stronger than his 15 year old friends. He could handle his manual labor, and having an extra set of hands to go around, a second breadwinner, did wonders for their household.

"I still remember getting my first ever pay," he said with a sad smile. "A small sum, but I was proud. Mother wanted me to spend it on myself, to get something nice, but I didn't. I bought a sack of flour for her to make bread out of, and I used the fabric to make myself a new pair of shorts."

"I'm…I'm so sorry," I stuttered.

"Yeah, me too."

But time went on. Parker kept working throughout the years, living life one day at a time. Trouble was never far off, but he faced it head on. The adults always tried to short change him for his work, and other kids tried to bully him out of his meager earnings regularly.

"The first time that happened, I came home empty handed with a broken nose and a busted lip," he said bitterly. "Five of them ganged up on me, it was a dog eat dog world back then."

When he was about 13, and his mother brought home a new man, Parker hoped for a change. A chance for him to have a father, a role model, someone to teach him how to be a man himself. He thought life would get easier.

"How wrong I was," he said.

That man was an alcoholic abuser, Parker and his mother found out as much soon enough. Her sooner than him, but he saw the signs. Even though he still worked and brought his earnings home, food was suddenly in short supply. His mother always had bruises she tried to hide, and his stepfather was always ****.

"When I returned home beaten up again by the older kids, I was hopeful for once. I thought he'd go out there and do something about it."

"And…and he didn't?" I asked with hesitation.

Parker huffed.

"He beat me up as well for being a ****, in his own words. *It better not happen again, you hear me?!* He said that the next time I come home empty handed, he'd show me real ****."

"Why didn't you run away? Or get the authorities involved?"

"Run away? Where to?" Parker answered. "And the authorities didn't give a ****."

He kept enduring the abuse, for the sake of his mother. Couldn't leave her all alone with his stepfather. But it escalated gradually. Soon enough, his stepfather would take Parker's money outright. Then he'd beat his mother out in the open.

"It wasn't long until he raised his hand at me on the regular," Parker said. "But it kept my mother safe, so I endured it. On the nights I'd get beaten up, she was safe."

And those nights only got more common as time went on. At first, Parker would get beaten up for stepping in, taking the place of his mother. Then he'd get beaten up for not bringing enough money home, then for no reason at all.

"At some point, I couldn't take it anymore. I…I snapped," Parker admitted. "The other kids stole my money again, and I was afraid to go home that night. Afraid of what he'd do to me. So I…I ran off into the woods, looking for a place to sleep. And instead, I found this old well."

"Old well?" I asked, not sure what it had to do with anything up to that point.

"Old well," Parker confirmed. "You know, a hole in the ground for people to get drinking water."

"I know what a well is."

At any rate, he found this old well. A dilapidated thing, long out of use and in serious disrepair. Parker nearly fell down into it when he leaned over the edge to peer down. He threw a pebble into it, but it never landed. Then he tried spitting into it, and yelling down into the shaft. It echoed for a long time, much longer than it should've.

Parker listened in awe as his own voice reverberated from the well for minutes on end, not getting any fainter. But awe aside, it gave him an idea.

I didn't like the sound of that.

"I did end up returning home that night," Parker said. "Found him beating up my mother since I wasn't there, and he chased me when he saw me."

Parker led his stepfather out of the town and into the woods. Farther away from civilization, deeper and deeper between trees, until he heard the faint echo of the well still calling out.

"I hid nearby and kept quiet," he said. "Waited for him to find the well, and he did. He heard the echoes of my scream, and thought I fell down into the **** thing trying to hide. The **** laughed about it."

His stepfather approached the well and leaned over the edge, still laughing.

*"Did you learn your lesson yet, you **** ****?"* Parker imitated him. "Little did he know that I did, it just wasn't the lesson he wanted me to learn."

Parker burst out from his hiding place while his stepfather was distracted and ran up at him.

"All it took was a single push," he said grimly. "A single push, and he tumbled over the edge. Fell into that abyss head first, screaming all the way to the bottom. From that day onward, the echo of his voice joined mine in the well."

The authorities pretended to search for him for a few days, but no one truly gave a ****. He was just an alcoholic ****, so everyone thought he'd gotten his comeuppance. That he died in a ditch somewhere, or he ran away in search of greener pastures and other people to terrorize.

"No one suspected us," Parker said. "Not my mother who was too weak to fight back, and they considered me just a kid. No way in their eyes for either one of us to **** an adult man."

With him out of the picture though, Parker's life improved somewhat. He still earned a pittance, and the other kids still bullied him, but at least he could rest easy in his own home.

"I went to that well every day at first, then every other day, then once a week at most. But the screams never stopped, day and night. They got fainter, barely a whisper in the wind, but I could still hear them."

"Didn't it scare you?"

"It terrified me," Parker admitted, "but I also saw the possibilities."

That answer terrified *me*. I contemplated for a moment to call it a night, to put an end to Parker's confession and leave. But I was also curious, for better or worse.

"Next up were the kids that bullied me," Parker continued. "It took me a long time to build up the courage to even consider it, but enough abuse will push reasonable men to unreasonable actions."

The gang was five members strong, their leader 19 years old and the youngest about Parker's age. The rest were all in between. Starving street urchins, Parker called them, either orphans or with home lives similar to his own that pushed them to run away and brave the world.

"Except they were lazy," Parker said. "They took the easy way out. Stealing, conning, bullying other kids. Like they did to me."

The community wasn't happy with them, but they never targeted adults so they were tolerated. Until they beat up Parker for the hundredth time and he decided he'd had enough.

"I only wanted to get rid of their leader," he said. "Thought their little clique would break apart without him, but I couldn't separate them."

Parker tried to challenge him to a one on one fight outside of town, but he came with the rest of his gang and he was ****.

"You could see the bloodlust in his eyes from a mile away. I knew they'd give me **** like never before, so I…I had no choice. All five of them had to go."

Parker ran away, and just like his stepfather, they chased him into the woods. He hid near the well again, and when they got closer to inspect the echoing voices, Parker repeated his earlier stunt.

"I pushed the oldest boy first," he said in a stone cold voice. "Then, before the others had a chance to wise up, I pushed the second oldest as well. The others were smaller, I could take them. They…they tried to run away, to escape with their lives, but I couldn't let them."

Parker chased them down, and he caught up to the youngest first. He tripped the boy from behind and stomped on his knee to break it, then kept going. The second one he grabbed by the shoulders and swung into a tree head first, breaking his neck.

"I tackled the last one and got him into a chokehold. He kicked his legs, clawed at my arm, tried to bite me a few times. When he realized he couldn't break free, he started pleading, begging for his life. Told me he wouldn't speak a single word about what happened there. He begged like that all the way to the well, until his legs were over the edge."

The boy with the broken neck followed, and the one with the broken leg dragged himself quite the distance by the time Parker got to him. But he went through with it, and that night the well gained five more voices.

Parker stopped his retelling for a moment and stared off into the distance. At first I thought he was either giving me a breather, a bit of time to process what I heard, or that he was searching for words. I looked outside as well, and the silhouette of a tree against the starry night sky shook in the distance. 

A reverberating scream followed.

"We don't have much time left, I have to hurry up," Parker whispered.

I was frozen by his side as he picked the story back up. In shock, in fear, not knowing what was about to go down or what I should do. I'd witnessed a few confessions by that point, but none came even close to Parker's. He confessed to six murders in just as many minutes, and I was sure there'd be a few more by the time he'd be done with me.

"The guilt ate me up inside," he confessed. "I went by the well every single day, fighting back the urge to jump into it myself."

No one missed those kids, and no one in the community blamed Parker. He wasn't the only one getting bullied by them, and on some level everyone was glad they were gone. One less problem in their lives, so they were happy to pretend the five ran off somewhere to carry out bigger heists.

"I was depressed for years because of it, but I kept telling myself that I had to do it. That my life was better now. Lies I only half believed, but they got me out of bed in the morning."

Another tree shook outside, closer to us, but there wasn't a scream this time. Parker flinched visibly.

"Anyway, the years flew by. People kept leaving the small town, flocking to big cities in search of work. I was one of them, I found this wonderful girl and I left with her."

They took Parker's mother as well, and the three of them found work at some factory or another. And for a few years, he thought he'd left the small town and his horrible deeds behind.

"Until I started hearing screams in the night. Voices I recognized. I thought I was imagining it at first, I tried to convince myself it was nothing more than me just going insane with guilt."

Another tree shook outside, followed by a howl.

"And let me guess, it was all too real."

Parker nodded his head.

"My mother went missing one evening, and we never found her. The big city police took it a bit more seriously, but they couldn't dig up a single lead. No witnesses, no suspects, nothing."

But Parker knew exactly where to find her, or what was left of her. After a long trip back to his hometown and a trek through the woods, his worst fears were confirmed. His mother’s voice joined the tortured chorus in the well.

“I…I broke down right then and there. Cried in that forest by myself all night long. It was supposed to be me, not her.”

He returned home though, if only for the sake of his girlfriend and soon to be wife. She was pregnant, they’d soon have their first child, and Parker wanted a better life for them than he’d had growing up. He’d be there for his kids, there for his wife, there to make sure they’d be alright.

They got married with little fanfare, few friends and even fewer family members for a proper wedding, and their child was born a couple of months later.

“The most beautiful baby girl in the world,” Parker explained with a glint in his eyes. “Holding her, hearing her crying, it was all I ever wanted. Enough to justify everything I’d done and been through in a heartbeat.”

Another tree shook outside, and something took contour in the underbrush at the edge of the property. I let out a yelp, and Parker reached for me. He grabbed my forearm and held me steady as I tried to back away.

“We still have a few minutes,” he said calmly. “And don’t worry, it’s not here for you. You’re safe.”

He proceeded with the rest of his story, and I had to try my damned hardest to divide my attention between him and…whatever was out there.

“I treasured every moment with my wife and daughter, but you know how these things go. She grew up in a heartbeat. Before I realized it, she spoke her first words, took her first steps, moments I couldn’t be prouder of as a father.”

The thing bellowed, a guttural sound that rattled my bones. *Dying animal* was my first thought, a coyote getting murdered or a fox going into heat. It took a step forward, into the faint circle of light surrounding the care home, and I saw a human face. Then another one, and another one, contorted in agony and held together to form a gigantic head.

“Then *that* thing returned once more,” Parker said, raising a hand to point at the advancing beast. “More cries in the night, more screams and howls. I knew what it wanted, but…but I couldn’t let it have me or my family.”

Another step brought its neck and torso into view. Pulsing muscles criss crossing each other at random, skin stretched until it pulled taut, dozens of human arms jutting out of it in random places. Its myriad of eyes moved every which way, scanning, searching.

“I knew I had to do something before it was too late. To either get rid of it or appease it. And I…I knew what it wanted.”

“What?” I asked, stuttering and shaking with fear.

“People. Bodies. *Victims*,” Parker answered. “More of them. I opened up its appetite and now it was hungry. If I didn’t give it what it wanted, it would get it itself. Take my world from me. I didn’t want to do it, I tried to talk myself out of it up until the very last moment. But I was pressed for time and worried sick for my family, so I…I went back to the town.”

For a moment, I wished my eyes could do the same thing the creature’s did. I wanted to turn and look at Parker, to see his face, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of it. Every last muscle in my body was clenched, holding me in place. I was barely able to breathe. It took another step forward, and all of those dead, beady eyes focused. Every last one of them pinned on the window, on the room, on me and Parker.

“I just…I kidnapped someone,” Parker said, his voice fraying into a cry at the edges. “An older man living all by himself. I knew him, knew he’d been a widower for decades, and he knew me. He barely fought back as I tied and gagged him. I expected him to plead as well, like the kids had. I expected him to fight me. But the silence, it…was worse somehow.”

“Did…he know about that…that thing?” I managed to push out a question.

“What? No, of course not,” Parker answered. “He was just old and frail, and he knew he couldn’t do anything to stop me. Maybe he’d given up on life long ago, like I ended up doing. I don’t know.”

The rest of the monster came into view as it advanced towards the open window, and there was so much more to it than I expected. So many legs moving haphazardly, slapping the lawn at awkward angles to pull the body along. It felt surreal, like that window was a screen and I was merely watching some cheap horror movie with even cheaper special effects.

“At night, I dragged the old man out of town and through the woods. I got him to the well, said a short prayer for his soul, and tipped him over the edge. He went down without a sound.”

The monster stopped a few feet away from the window and craned its head forward. By that point I was pretty much useless, more of an ornament than an active participant. Parker let go of me and moved to get up, failing twice. His old bones were all out of strength, but he still had his determination. The third attempt saw him to his feet, even if a bit wobbly.

"I returned to my wife and daughter after that," he said, taking a step towards the window, "and all was fine for a while. Seeing her smile growing up, having her by my side, it kept the guilt at bay. She was my world, and I was ready to do anything to keep my world from crumbling."

The monster cooed. One of its many faces moved across its skin, pushing against the rest, until it got to the forefront. A wide smile took over its lips, replacing the agonized expression.

"The next time the screams returned, I knew what I had to do. Knew what the rest of my life would be like, what sins I had to commit. Every few years, I'd return to that cursed town, kidnap someone in the dead of night, and throw them into the well."

The smile on the face at the forefront only grew wider, but the rest didn't match. They started whispering aggressively, their voices merging as they got louder.

"I kept at it until my daughter grew up. Until she found a boy she wanted to marry and moved out. Until everyone left that town behind, to be an empty shell for the forest to retake. And I called it a job well done, I thought my daughter was safe and I could finally let the monster take me. That I'd finally atone for all of my sins."

Parker closed the gap to the window, and so did the monster. It pushed its many arms into the room, hands both big and small grasping at the air as they tried to reach him.

"And what happened to her?" I asked. 

The question felt strange coming up my throat and leaving my mouth, like it was uttered by someone a million miles away, completely detached from the situation. Parker extended one of his arms, but paused and turned to face me.

"What do you think happened, Jessica?" He asked in a somber voice. "What do you think pushed me on the run for the rest of my life? Made me grow weary of approaching people and making friends?"

I held back the answer, if only because I had one more question.

"Why tell me all of this?"

Parker smirked. The same mischievous, **** eating grin I'd gotten used to from him.

"Cause I'm a selfish old ****," he said matter of factly. "I wanted at least one person to know and maybe miss me. And now you do."

He took the final step that brought him within the monster's reach, and it got a hold of his arm with one hundred fingers. The many eyes looked past Parker, directly at me.

"Thank you, Jessica," Parker said, his back to me. "You can leave now, that would be best."

I didn't argue with him on that, I slowly walked backwards towards the door. My head was heavy, mind spinning, and my legs felt like unsteady stilts a hundred feet long. But I did it. I reached the door, backed out into the corridor, and closed it gently. Parker watched me the whole time, a peaceful smile on his lips until the latch clicked.

The rest of the night was a blur. I wandered to the break room with tears streaming down my face, but I didn't even realize I was crying until I tried to light a cigarette and a tear fell on it. My hands shook like an earthquake, as did the rest of me.

I smoked about half the pack, waiting and praying for that thing to leave so I could too. A couple of hours later, I finally built up the courage to bolt it out of the care home and to my car. I drove home in a haze, eyes darting at every little movement, and I didn't manage to sleep a wink until the break of dawn.

But I returned to the care home for my next shift, looking like a ghost. Police was there, interrogating everyone about Parker's disappearance, and I lied to them. Couldn't possibly tell them the truth, not when I don't even know where that damned well is.

So yeah, I lied until they left me alone. I lied until they packed in their car and drove off. Everyone else is awfully happy that Parker is finally gone, and I stand out among them like a sore thumb. Sitting in his recliner, writing this as sunset approaches, I realized he was right on both accounts. He was a selfish old ****, and he left behind someone who misses him.

[\[X\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/exowrites/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Some traditions are meant to die. The Wayne family tradition lived too long.
 
 Assistant: “Mother, do I have to?”

I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting in the living room, the flour sack towel stretched tight over the hoop in my hands. I had stitched my way through the printed letters A, B, and C. I had pricked my finger seven times and had to undo no less than fourteen stitches.

I hated embroidering.

“Cybil, we’ve been over this. It’s a Wayne family tradition. Every woman in our family has learned this skill since… well, since as long as I can remember. Now, it’s your and Olivia’s turn.”

I scowled down at my crooked letters and uneven stitches. “Why doesn’t Jacob have to do it?”

“Because…” she sighed in exasperation. “Because that’s just how it is. Okay? Finish two more letters and you can go outside for the day.”

I perked up at that and returned to my handiwork, stabbing the fabric with a little more force than necessary. Just five minutes later, I’d finished D and E with sloppy, crooked stitches.

I presented Mother with my sampler. She held it and sighed – I made her sigh a lot in those days. “Oh, Cybil. I wish you would take this seriously. Why can’t you be more like your sister, Olivia?”

Olivia sat on the opposite end of the couch, her posture perfect, not a hair on her head out of place. She’d only stitched A and B, but they were perfect, every stitch done in precise alignment.

At times like those, I couldn’t help but feel the chasm between us. Despite the fact that she was only one year older than I was, she seemed so much more… accomplished. So poised and ladylike. She was the little girl my mother had always wanted.

I was clearly lacking in that department. I preferred torn knees and climbing trees to stitching. Olivia kept a collection of porcelain dolls meticulously arranged about her room. I had a collection of my own – worms, in a makeshift box full of soil hidden under my bed.

It was easy to see who the favorite was.

It bothered me, of course. It’s hard for any child to know that they are favored so much less than their sibling. But I wasn’t willing to give up my happiness to be the perfect daughter my mother wanted. So, I abandoned my embroidery and ran out the front door to search for my older brother, Jacob, and see if he wouldn’t play catch with me.

Olivia never even looked up from her work, as though nothing but that thin line of thread was of any interest to her.

*	*	*

I never got any better at embroidery. My stubbornness won out over my mother’s instructions – I only ever learned how to do the most basic running stitch.

Olivia, of course, mastered the art. Back stitch, blanket stitch, French knot, lazy daisy, woven wheel, and more. Nothing was beyond her grasp.

Embroidery became her world. She never showed much interest in the other things mother offered to teach her, but it didn’t matter. She’d learned the one thing that mattered. She successfully carried on the Wayne family tradition.

And then my baby sister came along.

I was eleven, Olivia was twelve, and Jacob was fourteen when Margaret was born. Suddenly, my mother’s world shifted and all that mattered to her was the baby.

I didn’t mind so much. Neither did Jacob. We were used to her ignoring us. But Olivia…

I remember the look on her face, as Mother dismissed her time and time again. I watched Olivia watching Mother fawn over the baby. The cold shock in her eyes, the tightness around her mouth. I could almost hear her thoughts screaming not good enough, not good enough, not good enough anymore.

I didn’t know how to make her feel better. The distance between us had only grown over time. She was my sister by blood, but she didn’t *feel* like a sister – she was like a stranger living in the same house. It felt too strange, too uncomfortable to reach out to her, to ask her how she was faring. So, I didn’t. I took the coward’s way out. I pretended nothing had changed.

But it had. And soon, those changes became impossible to ignore.

As Mother grew even more distant, Olivia threw herself into her embroidery. Like she could gain Mother’s favor by crafting the perfect piece. Her room was overflowing with projects – pillows and blankets and dresses. Her art grew more elaborate and involved. She went from an expert to a veritable genius – even I could look past my jealousy and resentment and see that she was truly gifted.

Mother never even noticed.

One day, I came to Olivia’s room to tell her supper was ready, only to see her carefully-organized projects in complete disarray. She’d begun embroidering over her own designs, her bedspread, the cloth bodies of her ragdolls. If she could stick a needle in it, she was embroidering it.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She’d never been very talkative, but after Mother’s abandonment, she hardly spoke at all.

*	*	*

By the time Margaret was one year old, Olivia had only gotten worse.

Mother hardly took notice of her still. I thought that Olivia would come to accept it, after a while, that she’d fallen out of favor.

Her room was a mess of thread, every viable surface stitched into oblivion. There wasn’t a scrap of fabric left for her to use.

It was shortly after she’d run out of room that I noticed her arms.

She was sitting out on the porch one morning, her stare listless and vacant. She didn’t notice me approaching – if she had, she might have thought to cover the marks.

“Olivia,” I gasped when I saw her arm, “what is that? What did you do?”

Her right forearm was a mess of pinpricks, oozing blood that stained her skirt. She scratched at the marks faintly, her fingertips coming away stained red.

“I’ve been practicing,” she murmured, not bothering to look at me.

“You did that to yourself?” I asked.

“I needed to practice,” she insisted, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

A vision flashed in my head, then, of Olivia threading a needle and pushing it through her skin, fastening a satin stitch over and over and over as the blood dripped down her arm…

Before I could think of anything else to say, she stood up and went back inside.

That night, Father asked if I had noticed anything strange about Olivia. Even though he was hardly ever home, travelling most of the time for work, I was still surprised it had taken him this long to notice something was amiss.

I couldn’t look him in the eyes as I shook my head. I didn’t say a word.

*	*	*

Margaret was 18 months old when she disappeared.

Mother had woken up one morning to find that she was missing from her crib. She tore apart the house searching for the baby, screaming her name. All of us helped, even Olivia, who had shaken off her stupor enough to realize something terrible must have happened. Within the hour, the police arrived to ask questions and begin a search. They elected to find Father first – a man should know his own child is missing, the officer said. He told us all to check the house one more time, probably just to give us something to do. After all, if she was in the house still, we’d have heard her crying.

Father came home that afternoon, escorted by the police. They questioned him and then all of our neighbors. They checked the yard for footprints. They put together a search party to comb the woods behind the house.

Us children were sent to our rooms. I could hear Mother sobbing in the living room while Father comforted her.

I sat on my bed, awake, for hours. I was certain the police would come to the house soon. They would tell us they’d found Margaret and that everything was okay. They had to.

But as the night wore on, so did my patience. My eyes began to droop. My mind began to wander. And soon I was fast asleep.

*	*	*

I woke early the next morning, as dawn was just creeping over the horizon. The house was silent as I cracked open my bedroom door.

I warred with myself for a few moments, trying to decide whether or not I should leave my bedroom to face what the day might bring.

I decided that I couldn’t stomach the thought of sitting in my room a moment longer. I crept out into the hallway, afraid of breaking the stillness of the morning.

As I passed Olivia’s door on my way to the stairs, I heard her voice, pitched low and humming a familiar tune, a lullaby Mother had sung to us as children.

Curiously, I twisted the doorknob. “Olivia?” I called in the loudest whisper I dared, pushing the door open to see if she might come with me downstairs to wait for the rest of the family to wake up.

She looked up at me and smiled for the first time in over a year. “Hello, Cybil,” she said.

Her face was covered in blood, and so was her nightgown. In fact, it looked like her entire bed was drenched with it. Sitting beside her was her embroidery kit, complete with needle, thread, and scissors.

She was holding something in her arms.

“Come and see,” she said, completely oblivious to my rising panic as I tried to make sense of what was in front of me.

I inched my way closer and peered into her arms.

It was so bloody that I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing at first. Then, horror began to dawn on me as I recognized my sister’s perfect little embroidery stitches…

Stitched right into someone’s flesh.

The little body was covered in satin stitches, pulled tight through the skin. The mouth had been sewn shut – the eyelids, too.

“Isn’t she beautiful,” cooed Olivia.

*That can’t be what I think it is,* I thought.

“Olivia… what have you done?!”

She shook her head and giggled a little, as though I’d said something amusing. “It’s a gift. For Mother. Do you think she’ll like it?” she asked, peering up at me through her dark lashes.

But I only had eyes for baby Margaret. Or, at least, what was left of her.

*	*	*

The rest of the story goes a little something like this.

Olivia had taken Margaret out of her crib early in the morning the day before. She’d brought her to her room, laid her on the bed, and smothered her with a pillow.

Then, she’d taken her baby doll out of its little carriage and placed Margaret inside instead. Since Olivia had taken it upon herself to ‘search’ her own room, nobody noticed the difference.

That night, as our parents cried in the living room, as Jacob and I were drifting to sleep in our bedrooms, Olivia pulled out her needle and her thread and turned little Margaret into something else entirely.

Her final masterpiece.

My parents discovered what she’d done the next morning when my screams woke up the entire house.

I wish I’d had the presence of mind to wake my father, to tell him what Olivia had done. To spare Jacob and mother from seeing it with their own eyes. But I didn’t. And they suffered the worst shock of their lives.

My mother never recovered from it. She was hysterical, clutching Margaret’s body to her chest, screaming like some kind of wild beast. She was hospitalized and sedated after the police arrived to take Olivia away. She didn’t make it another week – her heart gave out just a few days later.

My mother died of a broken heart.

Father couldn’t bear the sight of us children after losing Margaret, Olivia, and Mother. He sent Jacob and me away to live with our grandparents, people we’d hardly ever spoken to and who treated us as strangers intruding in their home. I’m not sure when my father died – three, maybe four years after the ****. Nobody would tell Jacob and me what happened. Knowing my father, I suppose he drank himself to death.

Jacob joined the military as soon as he was old enough. He promised me he would come back, that we would stick together as the only two left of our tragic little family.

He died overseas just two months after leaving.

I left my grandparents when I was of age and became a secretary. There weren’t many options for women back then, but I was good at typing, and that was enough. I lived on my own for many, many years until I met my husband.

We chose never to have children. It was the only way I could live the rest of my days in peace.

But what of Olivia?

Olivia lived out her days in an institution. She received no visitors – at least, none that I know of. I haven’t spoken to her since the day I discovered she’d murdered our sister. I’ve been in contact with some of the nurses and doctors, but only by necessity.

I know very little about how she spent the rest of her life. I don’t know if they ever let her touch a needle and thread again, although I imagine not. I don’t know if she came to regret what she did, if she really understood what she was doing at the time. If she was born rotten, or if it was something that happened over time.

I could find these answers, if I wanted to. Because, you see, ever since my grandparents died and the burden of maintaining contact with Olivia’s doctors fell onto me, I’ve been receiving letters. Once a year, always dated on the anniversary of Margaret’s ****, Olivia’s letters arrive at my door.

I’ve never read a single one.

This is the first year that I haven’t received a letter. That was how I knew she was dead, even before the doctors called to notify me.

When they called, I told them politely – but firmly – that they could burn her and dispose of the ashes as they wished, and I never wanted to hear another word on the matter.

Then, I opened the box I kept under my bed, the box with all the unopened letters I’d received over the years.

I took them outside.

And I burned them.

I’m an old woman, now. The last surviving member of both my mother’s and my father’s families. I haven’t much time left to live, I’m sure, but I can’t find it in myself to mind much.

As long as I know that that damned Wayne family tradition dies with me, I’ll be able to rest in peace.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My girlfriend started the KonMari method of tidying up. She's starting to freak me out
 
 Assistant: My girlfriend started the KonMari method of tidying up a few weeks ago.

At first, I thought it was a good thing. She'd been notoriously messy through most of our relationship, and I was constantly having to pick up after her. Once she started KonMari, she started donating all her useless ****, and generally kept things tidy.

Things went south when she got obsessive about it.

I found her sitting in the middle of the kitchen at 1 am a few nights ago. All our pots and pans, cookie scoops and George Foreman grills, were arrayed around her like she was holding a seance for Julia Child.

"What are you doing?"

"We don't need these things," she said, distantly, not making eye contact with me.

"Actually, we do. I use that **** all the time to cook that fancy macaroni and cheese--"

She turned to me, slowly, her eyes locking on mine. "They do not spark joy."

I was going to argue with her. That this had gone too far. But it was 1 am, and I needed to get up early for work tomorrow. "Okay, whatever. Do what you want with your stuff, but not mine."

I woke up to an empty kitchen.

Overnight she'd gotten rid of over 90% of the kitchen's contents. The only things that remained were 4 dishes, one set (!) of silverware, and the one **** I'd told her to keep.

"How do you expect us to eat?" I asked, furious. "You only kept one set of silverware. One. How are we going to eat at the same time?"

"There are two forks," she said, in calm monotone.

"But one's a **** salad fork. I'm not eating with that."

"Then, I will." She closed her eyes and leaned her head back in the recliner. "We didn't need it, Robert."

"You're not the judge of my stuff. I *did* need that stuff. All of it."

"You'll find you're happier without it."

I glanced at the clock. 7:25--dammit, I was going to be late for work. "I have to get to work. But we are going to talk about this tonight."

She nodded.

\*\*\*

But we didn't talk about it. She worked late on a project she was behind on--probably because of all the tidying--and we ended up going to sleep without talking.

It was 2 am when I woke up with a start.

At first, I wasn't sure what had woken me. But then a scratching sound came from behind me. Like something dragging along the sheets.

I was about to turn around, but then I heard a whisper.

"Does it spark joy?"

A light touch on my back.

I froze. I wanted to turn around, but something like fear kept me locked in place.

"Does it spark joy does it spark joy does it spark joy?" A frenzied, fast whisper.

A finger stroked through my hair--then caressed my cheek. But it wasn't a loving caress, a caress I'd felt during kisses or cuddles or lovemaking. It was an analytical touch--robotic--cold--like a machine.

*What the **** is she doing?* As I lay there, I tried to convince myself that she was playing a prank on me. *But she doesn’t know I’m awake. It’s 2 am. And she’s never played even the tiniest prank on me before.*

Her hands prodded against my back. Icy cold.

Fear shot through me. But I stayed perfectly still. *Don’t let her know you’re awake.* That was the only thing I could think. *Stay still. Don’t move a muscle.*

The mattress shifted, and I felt something tickle my face.

*No.*

It was her hair. She was hanging above me. Knees on either side of my torso, leaning right over my face. Her long, straight blonde hair draped over my cheeks. I didn't dare open my eyes, but I could imagine her face hovering above mine. Dark eyes boring into my soul.

"Does it spark joy?" she whispered, her breath warm on my neck. I felt her nose brush against my cheek, a finger **** my ear.

"*No.*"

The bed creaked and shifted. My eyes flashed open for a second, and I saw her rolling off of me. She pulled the covers over herself, snuggled against her pillow, and went back to sleep.

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. When she left for work, I called in sick and stayed home. Now I'm packing up my things--what little is left of them--and making plans to live with a buddy for a while.

I do not spark joy.

I can't stay here.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip and I Don’t Need a Therapist
 
 Assistant: [My name is Lily Madwhip and I don’t need a therapist](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/akffzz/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_see_things_before/).

“Do you think Roger is with ****, Lily?”

That’s my therapist. Her name is Ms. Kristie. She’s about my mom’s age, but uses less makeup, probably because she doesn’t have any kids of her own. Ms. Kristie wears a little chain around her neck with a cross on it. She also wears a jacket with too many buttons and not enough holes. I wonder what all those extra buttons are for. She always wears the same jacket. Does she only have the one, or does she have lots of jackets that all look the same? I’m never going to know the answer to these urgent mysteries.

Ever since Roger died I have to sit in this room twice a week with shelves full of books about child psychology and drawings by other kids on the walls and talk to Ms Kristie. I guess Mom and Dad thought I wasn’t handling Roger’s death appropriately. Well, Mom didn’t anyway. Dad doesn’t really talk to either of us much anymore. Mom is out in the waiting area with Paschar. I’m not allowed to bring Paschar in with me when I talk to Ms. Kristie. Other kids get to bring things in. There’s this girl with black hair who always shows up with a teddy bear that chuckles when she squeezes it. One kid even brings a toy fire engine with flashing lights. Flashing lights can cause seizures.

I don’t think Ms. Kristie likes Paschar.

“Sure,” I shrug, “Roger’s in heaven.”

Roger isn’t in Heaven. He’s not in **** either. Roger’s not in some underground cave filled with red demons carrying pitchforks that stab him as flames shoot out of rocks. He’s not sitting on a cloud with a harp either. I think he’d be pretty annoyed if someone handed him a harp. He’d probably throw it at them and call them an assface. Roger’s on the other side of town in a place called Holy Oaks Cemetery where Mom and Dad paid for a plot in the back by a willow tree and a creepy, stone crypt with an angel on top that looks nothing like a real angel. They got a little polished stone marker to put on his grave that just says, “ROGER T MADWHIP” in all caps and “Beloved Son” in cursive underneath.

And that’s where Roger is... there in his dead body, in a suit he’d probably make a face at if you told him he had to wear it, in a coffin with white padding, I suppose in case he gets uncomfortable, laying in the dark, six feet underground with dirt and worms on top of it all.

Paschar says Roger is in Purgatory, which I guess means laying in your dead body until they decide what to do with you.

Did you know there’s over two hundred bones in most people? When one gets broken, like if a man in a mask strikes you on the arm with a crowbar, the body knows how to repair it over time. Unless the body is dead, then they just stay broken forever I guess. Roger ended up with lots of broken bones. Some of them were broken more than once too. It was like a dozen guys in masks with crowbars just pounded on him for an hour. Now he’s stuck in his coffin with that suit he hates and a whole bunch of broken bones that are never going to heal. I wonder, when they decide where he’s going, if he’s going to pop out all floppy like a jellyfish. The idea of Roger like a squishy sack makes me laugh.

Ms. Kristie jots this down.

I go stand by the window overlooking the parking lot. It’s cold and wet outside today. There’s a slick spot on the sidewalk into the building where Ms. Kristie works that I can see from her office. A lady and her son are walking in from their car. The boy is probably a couple years younger than me, and wearing a pair of brown, corduroy pants. He’s going to slip on the slick spot, get those pants wet, and end up crying, but there’s nothing I can do about it so I look away. I hear the commotion from outside a moment later.

It didn’t rain when we buried Roger. I thought it was always supposed to rain when there’s a funeral. I even dreamed that it rained, but the rain was lots of little bits of glass, and it was cutting everybody. Roger’s friends Skeeter and Dustin were there in their suits and their hair combed and they were crying because the glass was cutting them. Everybody was covered in blood. 

Mom said if it rained every time there was a funeral, it would never stop raining. That sounds like there are a lot of funerals going on.

“Do you miss him?” Ms. Kristie asks.

“Yeah.”

Roger hid my foil Charizard before he died and now I don’t know where it is. Uncle George gave it to me for my birthday when I turned five because he was getting rid of my cousin Susie’s old collection and he said if I hung onto it I could probably use it to pay for college some day. Susie was a year younger than Roger. She died in a “boating accident” one summer during a family reunion. When people hear “boating accident” they think you were in a boat and there was an accident, like maybe you hit another boat or ended up out of the water, but Susie was in the water and the boat ran her over, so I think it was more of a swimming accident that happened to involve a boat. I was there when it happened, but that’s a whole other story. Ever since, I don’t like going in the water. Not as long as there’s still boats. And sharks. And piranhas.

“Do you ever feel like crying?” Ms. Kristie asks. She dyes her hair. She doesn’t think anyone knows, but I know. I suppose if I really wanted to blow her mind, I could ask Paschar where she gets it done and what the person’s name is who does it for her. Maybe then people will stop treating me like I’m making things up. Or maybe they’ll want to cut open my brain. Roger said they would do that if they thought I really did see things before they happen, but Roger’s dead now.

I don’t want them cutting open my brain, so I don’t tell Ms. Kristie I know her hair color is fake.

“I already cried.” I say instead. I did cry, but only because people expected it of me, especially at a funeral. “I just want to get back to school and see my friends.”

I don’t have any friends at school. I used to have a friend named Rachel, but I warned her that her dog Ruffy was going to have seizures and die and she stopped being my friend. Other kids think I’m weird. Jeffrey Baker calls me Mad Lily. That’s okay because Paschar says puberty isn’t going to be kind to Jeffrey. If I really wanted to be mean, I could tell everybody that he still wets the bed sometimes, but Paschar tells me not to be mean.

Being mean lands you in Purgatory.

Ms. Kristie writes something in her notebook about me. I think it says that I’m uncooperative and repressing my emotions. I’m trying to be cooperative, but adults don’t want to hear the truth, they want to hear you say what they think is right. If you say anything else, they think it’s wrong and then you have to start all over again. Sometimes they put you on drugs so they can tweak the chemicals in your brain until you think things you wouldn’t otherwise, like how much you miss your brother who used to give you wedgies and hid your foil Charizard before he died and now you’ll never go to college.

“Ms. Kristie?”

“Please, call me Kristie.”

“Ms. Kristie, can I please bring Paschar in next session?” I ask.

She gives me that face adults make where they know you know the answer and are hoping you’ll take the question back before they have to give it. “I think Paschar should stay in the waiting room.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to hear from you, not Paschar.”

She doesn’t really want to hear from me, because I would want to talk about why I’m suddenly seeing her lying motionless on the floor of some room with green carpeting and yellow furniture that came from IKEA. Her face is purple and her tongue is sticking out and it’s all swelled up like one I saw on a frog at the museum once. The frog was dead too. The world is decorated with dead things. I want to ask her if she feels dizzy or light-headed, and if she had enough to eat at lunch. I wonder if IKEA is an acronym, kind of like the one I see on the wristband they’ll give her at the hospital. DNR.

*She thinks you’re ****, assface.* Roger says in my head. *She thinks you think your doll talks to you.*

I clam up. I don’t feel safe without Paschar. When I see things before they happen like this, often Paschar can explain them to me. I don’t know why he came to be with me. Maybe because in all the world I’m the only person that bothered to name their doll Paschar. Maybe he knew I could see things before they happen and came to keep me company and by a crazy coincidence I gave the doll the same name as him. All I know is he says he’s an angel and not to be afraid, and that always makes me feel better.

The time for my session finally runs out and Ms. Kristie escorts me to the waiting room where Mom and Paschar are sitting with other parents and their kids. My mom is talking to the mother of the boy who fell on the slick spot outside. He’s sitting beside her with teary eyes and a long snot coming out of his nose. Gross.

Ms. Kristie takes Mom aside and they have a conversation in whispers, so I take Paschar aside and also have a conversation in whispers. Two can play at that game. I know Ms. Kristie is telling my mother about “emotional repression” and my mother is asking Ms. Kristie about “pharmaceutical solutions”. My mother likes pharmaceutical solutions.

I ask Paschar what DNR stands for. Then I have to ask him what “resuscitate” means. Sounds like I’m not going to be seeing Ms. Kristie anymore. I want to warn her, but I don’t know what to warn her about. Is it a bad fall? Does she have a heart attack? She looks healthy enough. I wish I got a fuller picture when I see things before they happen. But then, does it even matter? Nobody ever listens to me. Mom wants me to stop making things up to explain the bad stuff that seems to always happen around me. Dad already thinks I’m cursed and causing these things to happen. They sleep in separate beds now and Dad spends a lot of time out in the garage drinking and banging on Roger’s drum set.

I wonder if Ms. Kristie will go to Purgatory like Roger.

Ms. Kristie turns to me and flashes her fake smile. “See you next Tuesday, okay, Lily?”

I fake-smile back at her, shaking my head sadly. “Okay.”

Maybe I am cursed. [But I don’t need a therapist](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/al5sy6/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_wish_everybody/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I finally got my own Airpods. But I hear something terrifying when I wear them.
 
 Assistant: I first wore the Airpods to the Stop and Shop.

It was an incredible, other-worldly experience. I listened to the soothing voice of Neil deGrasse Tyson while picking through the broccoli. I learned about quasars while waiting in line for the deli.

Things got weird, though, when I got to the checkout line.

The cashier was one of the annoying ones. The kind that make cute little comments about the items you're buying, while you stand there in embarrassment.

"Oh, these are good," he said, as he slid my pack of lemonade iced tea across the scanner. *Blip.*

I turned the volume up on *StarTalk.*

"These are *so* useful. Own a few of them myself," he said, as he scanned the car phone stand. *Blip.*

He reached for the truffles. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "More chocolate for your ****, huh?"

I stopped dead.

"*Excuse me?"* I asked, slipping out my Airpods.

"More chocolate for your art class, huh?"

"That's not what you said."

"What?"

"You said…" I trailed off, looking at his pimply, juvenile face. He looked so innocent. "Nevermind."

I walked out in a huff.

*Maybe I did mishear him*, I thought, as I charged across the parking lot. After all, I was listening to *StarTalk* at the same time. Maybe the phonemes got all tangled up in each other.

Or maybe he was just a ****.

I got home in a bad mood. Opened the box of truffles and inhaled three of them. Just to spite him.

Then my roommate got home.

"Tara! Want to join me?" I said, patting the cushion next to me.

"Nah," she said, over the low thrum of *Kansas* coming through the Airpods. "I got to take off my shoes and just smell my feet for a while."

I stared at her blankly.

"When are you taking your shower?" she asked.

"Not sure, why?"

"I'm going to sneak into your room and stalk your search history, like I do every night."

"What?!"

"I can't believe you still stalk Adam on Face --"

I ripped out my Airpods.

"-- bok choy with chicken. Do you want some? I can make extra."

I stared at her. "Are you going to go through my computer when I'm in the shower?"

She paled.

Then she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door shut.

*Did I mishear that too? No. There's no way.* 

I packed a few things and left for a friend's house. When I got there, she had the TV on.

"The search is still on for MacKenzie Johnson," the newscaster said. "If you have any information, please call the hotline."

"What's this?"

"Some local woman is missing," Amanda said.

The film cut to an older man -- MacKenzie's husband. "Please, if you have any information on my wife's whereabouts, go to the police," he said, his lip trembling. "I need her back. Please."

Something stirred inside me. A whim. A realization. I grabbed my bag and reached inside. Pulled out my Airpods.

"Please, if you know anything about my --"

His voice changed as soon as I stuck them in.

“Little ****."

My heart stopped.

"It was easy. She's so weak, so fragile. Just got the rope from the garage and --"

I yanked the Airpods out.

His voice returned to halting sobs. "Please, if you know anything, call the police."

*Oh, I will.*

I picked up [the phone.](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found out how my wife copes with the death of our son
 
 Assistant: There was nothing special about that particular night. *Nothing at all.* The TV was blaring in the living room and the dishes clattered in the kitchen with the promise of dinner.

My eldest son Jeremy was sitting cross-legged on the floor and mashing the controller buttons with a force that made me wonder whether the plastic knobs or his thumbs would give out first.

Grappling with the thought of a dislocated finger likely being cheaper to fix, I rattled the ice in my whiskey glass and cleared my throat for good measure, “Hey, lay off, Jer, remember what happened to the last one?”

The “last one” was still sitting on the garage table, waiting for me to do something about it. Jeremy had thrown one of his fits and smashed it to pieces against the wall. We didn’t bug him too much about it back then, as it had only been two weeks since the passing of our youngest child and we were all going through something similar. 

It’s funny to think how much coping mechanisms can vary from person to person. Some turn to alcohol, drowning themselves in liquor every night until the consequences of their drunken behavior finally catch up to them. Others take to violence, gritting their teeth through every social interaction until the build-up is finally enough to punch a hole through the wall. Then, there’s the type that confines themselves to their room and refuses to come out under any circumstances. 

The latter was our daughter, Maisie, by the way. She was only fourteen, and yet it somehow felt like she hadn’t been a part of our family for a while. When she wasn’t at school, she spent all of her time locked away in her room, on the computer, or with her head under the covers. We’d long since given up trying to coax her out and resorted to bringing her dinner plate upstairs and leaving it by her door. 

I nursed my drink thoughtfully, watching Jeremy swing and miss at a giant orc. 

“*Fuck!*” he screamed, his shoulders tensing visibly, as the frail elven creature he was playing as was lifted off its feet and slammed into the ground, “*Fuck this **** game!*”

Not wanting to end up with another hole in the wall, I scrambled to my feet and pried the controller out of my son’s hands. He resisted at first, but my solemn expression seemed to ground him.

“Time out, Jer,” I said, “Go set the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”

I had no way of knowing this, of course, as my wife was doing the cooking that night, but I had to say *something*. Plus, I knew it would take a while to set the table just the way my wife liked it. 

“Set an extra place tonight,” my wife Lily said, coming into the dining room, her cheeks flushed.

“Why?” Jeremy stared at her, “Is Maisie going to eat with us?”

My interest was piqued too, and I wondered if this meant we were going to take the first step towards being a family again. 

“Yes,” Lily’s lips pursed into a thin line, “Yes, she is.”

We stared at her in disbelief. To my knowledge, Maisie hadn’t been downstairs in over three months. Aside from her quick disappearances out the front door, I never saw her at all. And most of the time I missed those altogether. How on earth had my wife convinced her to join us for dinner? 

I suppose I’ve been putting off giving any details about my wife. You see, the loss has affected her in a…slightly different way. In a sense, I feel like talking about her “coping mechanism” could potentially drive a permanent rift between us and destroy what is left of our marriage.

That being said, I’m not entirely sure there’s *anything* left. Ever since the day our son died, she’s been…detached from reality. I suppose in a way, we all were, but my wife was different. She…couldn’t…or wouldn’t come to terms with the fact that Kendall was gone. 

No, not in the way you’re thinking. She didn’t sit on the edge of her bed, crying for hours. Nor did she spend every waking moment surrounded by photo albums or toys or clothes. In fact, she didn’t cry or dwell on it at all. 

Instead, she…well, she…she carried the urn around. She carried it around and talked to it as if it were a real person. 

“Comfortable?” she cooed as she strapped it into the baby seat of our car just the other week. I watched her through the rear-view mirror, my skin prickling. Needless to say, I didn’t like going out with my wife. She turned heads wherever she went: the grocery store, the spa, the bank - she was undoubtedly known as the “crazy lady with the urn”. 

She insisted we set a place for our son every time we sat down to eat. Instead of talking to the rest of the family, she’d have conversations with the urn over dinner. It’s a wonder she didn’t try to feed it as well.

At this point, I had no idea who Lily was. Our formerly prosperous marriage had quickly declined into one of convenience and I often found myself fantasizing about other women. Once my side of the bed had been occupied, I was banished to sleep on the downstairs couch, so I could use the TV to satisfy my own needs without judgment. I’m sure my wife wouldn’t have noticed if I’d started bringing dates home, but I never did, secretly hoping a day would come when things went back to normal. 

“Maisie’s going to eat with us?” Jeremy repeated, his hand frozen in mid-air. His angry composure seemed to have vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 

For a moment, the room was enveloped in stunned silence. Then, Lily spoke.

“Yes. She will be joining us from now on.”

My heart fluttered as hope filled my lungs. It was finally happening. I could almost feel the broken pieces of our family slithering towards the dining room table from every corner of the house, to form a long-lost family unit. 

“Dinner is almost ready,” Lily blurted out, turning on her heel and heading towards the kitchen, “I’ll just get Kendall.”

I got up to pour myself another drink. Of course, she would get Kendall. Of course, things couldn’t just go back to normal instantly. It would take time. Even so, as she brought out the urn and sat it on top of the plate, followed by a light kiss on the lid, I knew I could never get used to this. 

“Shall I call Maisie?” I asked, as my wife reappeared with a serving dish, “Or will you…?”

A strange expression crossed her face. She stood there, motionless, as though she was thinking long and hard about what to say. I swallowed, wondering if she hadn’t heard my question.

“No,” she retorted eventually, “She’ll join us when she’s ready.”

And that was that. Neither Jeremy nor I questioned it any further, instead tucking into the dinner Lily had prepared for us. We didn’t say a word throughout. My wife, on the other hand, said plenty.

“Enjoying your peas, Kenny?” she asked the urn amidst bites, “They’re fresh from the garden, just how you like them. Remember when we used to pick them together at grandma’s? She taught me how to plant them, too. Before she passed away last year.”

I stared at my plate, my stomach in knots. I needed another drink. *Badly*. But the bottle was in the living room. I wondered if I could slip away quietly to fetch it, when Jeremy piped up.

“When’s Maisie coming down?” he asked, arranging his peas in a straight line, “We’re almost done with dinner.”

My wife looked like she’d been jolted awake from a pleasant dream.

“I- uh-” she began, her cheeks flushing, “Oh, *Maisie?* Yeah, perhaps another day.”

We stared at her, bewildered, but she seemed totally oblivious to our change in demeanor, chatting away to Kendall about rhubarb and its benefits on the body. 

“Mom?” Jeremy asked again, his voice quivering, “Why won’t Maisie come down?”

It was like she hadn’t even heard him. Either that, or she was doing her best to not pay attention. Clearly, it was a subject she didn’t want to address. 

“What’s your favorite vegetable, hmm, sweetie?” she giggled, her tone suddenly cold, as if she didn’t mean a word of what she was saying. 

“Mom!” Jeremy sat upright in his chair and waved a hand in front of her face, “Where *the ****’s* Maisie?”

I tensed up, knowing full-well Jeremy wasn’t supposed to speak to his mother that way, but the situation seemed to be spiraling out of control before I could stop it.

“Why can’t you just talk to *us* every once in a while, *huh?*” he exploded, “If you spent half the time with us that you spend with that **** thing, then maybe we would still be a family!”

Caught in a fit of rage, Jeremy grasped his end of the tablecloth and pulled it towards him, sending the dishes crashing to the floor. Kendall’s urn, sitting atop one of the plates, succumbed to the same fate. 

*Crash. Clatter. Crack.*

“Kenny!” my wife screeched, leaping to her feet and dashing around the dining table, “Baby!”

I craned my neck to look over the damage. Amidst the porcelain shards and utensils, the urn lay cracked in half, its lid nowhere to be found.

It was…*empty.*

“Kendall!” Lily landed knees-first on the shards, the porcelain crunching under her weight. 

Nothing could have prepared me for what she did next. 

Jeremy and I watched in horror as my frantic wife snatched one half of the urn and stuck her tongue out to lick it, her fingers desperately searching for any remains left on the floor. She swept her hands across the ground, cutting her skin up in the process, and shoved the whole lot into her mouth, her eyes rolling back inside her head. 

I wanted to ****. No, I wanted to run. My heart was pounding at ten times its normal rate, threatening to leap out of my throat. My skin was clammy and my vision blurred, but not enough to stop me from seeing the monster that was my wife, stuffing ashes, blood, and porcelain shards down her throat. 

Jeremy must have felt the same way, but I couldn’t see him, my tunnel vision only allowing the image of Lily and her feast. 

“Mom!” I heard him cry, his voice a mixture of terror and disgust. He didn’t say anything else either, making do with only a gargled gasp and short, rapid pants. 

There was nothing to say. Even now that I look back on it I cannot think of a single coherent sentence that would have befitted the circumstances. I knew instantly that my wife was gone and I’d never be able to see her the same way. 

Grabbing Jeremy by the arm, I tugged him away from the table, leaving Lily scavenging the floor. I needed to save my children. I’d get Maisie out of her room whether she cooperated or not and take them both to my parents’ house. At least that way I’d know they were safe before I dealt with my wife - or what was left of her. 

Jeremy was still in shock as I pulled him up the stairs, so he didn’t protest. He seemed to know exactly what we were about to do and I needed all the help I could get. Maisie had never been easy to deal with and I knew it would take some time to convince her we had to get out - *now*. Time we did not have.

But as we barged in through the door of her bedroom, I instantly knew my plan wasn’t going to work out. 

The room was empty. 

The bed was made without a single crease, the computer was off, and the desk was arranged neatly as if it were only there for show, rather than a part of someone’s living space. A large, maroon urn sat in the middle of it.

I didn’t need to ask. I already knew what happened. 

She had run out.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My self-help tape told me to kill myself
 
 Assistant: I hate my job.
 
I hate selling days of my life while barely earning enough to sustain it.
 I hate my boss who tells me I’m lucky to find stable work in such an uncertain world.
 I hate my friends who treat dreams like an unfortunate symptom of youth that need to be outgrown.
 
And most of all, I hate myself for not doing anything to change.
 I keep waking up at the same time everyday to sit in traffic.
 I read the same lines on the same billboard with the same happy models leering down at me.
 I don’t think I could go on if I thought that this was all there was, but if I’m waiting then I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

That’s why I started listening to self-help tapes in the car.
  Motivational speakers would tell me about how I had the power to change my life, and for a few minutes at a time, I’d believe them.
 That obstacles no matter how great were only in my mind, and that anyone could be happy if they just willed it hard enough.
 And if I wasn’t happy yet, then I just had to buy another book and keep trying.
 
My favorite speaker was a guy named John Fallow who claims he used to be a day laborer making less than minimum wage.
 When there weren’t any jobs available his fellow workers would play cards or chat, but he kept going door-to-door, knocking on businesses until he found one that needed work done.
 
Pretty soon John had enough clients and extra money that he started hiring the other laborers to work for him instead.
 The more jobs he got, the more workers he hired, until lo and behold he was running a business of his own.
 Then they had a second location, and a third, and before you know it he was a millionaire with five hundred stores across the country.
 
But it was never about the money, says the guy selling $30 audiobooks.
 He gave it all up so he could give motivational speeches and help others achieve their dreams.
 And sure it was a lot of hard work and took many many years, but he was the man he wanted to be doing the things he loved to do, and that’s all that mattered in the world.
 
“Of course, hard work isn’t the only way to solve your problems,” John said on one of his tapes.
 “In fact, there’s a lot of you who are probably getting discouraged right now because you were hoping for a shortcut.
 Well I’ve got good news for you, because there’s a solution as easy as apple pie.
 You go on now and **** yourself tonight.
” 
I couldn’t believe I heard that right.
 I had to rewind, but there it was.
 
“Are you too ****? Well diet and exercise is a lot of work, but you could put a gun in your mouth and never eat again.
 
“Or maybe you’re feeling down because your relationship didn’t work the way you wanted? No problemo.
 Just slip on that noose and suddenly your ex will be the one who hates herself, not you.
” 
John’s warm, bubbling voice didn’t miss a beat as he proceeded to list a number of foolproof ways to die, 100% satisfaction guaranteed.
 
“Now some of you are probably skeptical that this is the right choice for you, but don’t you fret about it.
 I’ll be hosting live demonstrations around the country, so check my website for details and come see if suicide is right for you.
” 
Part incredulous, part morbid curiosity, I visited his website and found he was hosting an event in my city next week.
 Sure enough, his website had a video of him standing on stage with a man who hung from the rafters by his neck.
 The crowd was cheering like wild as the dying man’s body was wracked with its final spasms.
 John Fallow lifted the dying man’s hand to reveal it giving a thumbs up, and the crowd cheered even harder as though their team had just scored the final goal.
 
I bought a ticket and printed out the confirmation code.
 I don’t know why I did it, but for the first time in a long time I really felt like I had something to look forward to.
 
John was a man’s man, rugged and handsome as they come.
 He wore a cowboy hat pulled low over one eye, faded Levi’s, and a button up shirt the day of the event.
 He greeted everyone at the front door with a firm handshake and a beaming smile, laughing and carrying on with people he’d just met like they were his oldest friends.
 
I expected there to be at least a little outrage, but everyone who showed up seemed legitimately happy to be there.
 The feeling was contagious, and by the time I sat down with the rest of the audience, I already knew several people by name.
 
“Silly old me, I forgot what speech you all came to hear,” John Fallow announced from the stage.
 “Was it the one about working hard from morning till night, day in and day out?” 
“No!” chorused a hundred voices around me.
 I was half surprised to recognize my own as one of them.
 
“How about the speech about it being your fault if you aren’t happy because you ain’t trying hard enough?” 
“No!”  
“So you telling me all you fine folks showed up just to hear how to fix all your problems at once in less than five minutes? That what you want to hear?” 
The enthusiasm was deafening.
 
John Fallow mimed whipping out a pair of pistols from an imaginary belt and rattled off shots into the audience.
 Everyone remotely close to the line of fire made a dramatic show of taking the bullet and collapsing back with great big grins on their faces.
 Then cheers again, an ocean of sound beating against my eardrums.
 
“Well let’s get started then,” John roared.
 “How about a volunteer? Come on now don’t be shy.
 There ain’t nobody going to look down on you where you’re going.
” 
A sea of hands like a flock of birds all taking flight at once.
 John stepped down from the stage and took the open hand of a middle-aged woman to help her into the spotlight.
 He led her to a stool where she sat down.
 
“What’s your name, gorgeous?” he asked.
 The woman swooned and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
 
“Katylin, is that right?” John said in his booming voice.
 “Tell me Katylin, what’s wrong with your life? Loud and clear, come on now.
” 
“I was supposed to get promoted this year,” she said, her voice trembling but audible.
 “They gave the job to some young **** instead.
” 
“Well you aren’t getting any younger, sweetheart.
 It’s only going to get worse from here.
” 
She nodded and smiled as though that’s exactly what she wanted to hear.
 
“I got just the thing for you though,” John said.
 “A little medicine for what ails ya.
” 
He produced a pill from a small leather bag in his pocket and offered it to her.
 She snatched it gratefully and clutched it in both hands.
 
“That’s gonna take the sting right out.
 Go on now.
 One quick swallow.
 Cyanide tastes just awful if you let it dissolve in your mouth.
” 
I watched with horrified fascination as Katylin tossed the pill back and washed it down with a water bottle that John offered her.
 She gave a feeble smile as her face flushed bright red.
 The room watched in anxious silence as she started panting for breath, each labored heave more desperate than the last.
 
“Almost there, ‘hun,” John whispered, his microphone washing the sound over the audience “Let’s see those bastards at work take this one away from you.
” 
Katylin fell off her stool and began rolling on the ground.
 The audience began to woop and whistle.
 Within seconds Katylin lay still.
 Two men wearing ’Staff’ shirts hustled out to drag her off stage.
  
There was a brief silence when she stopped moving.
 I had the sense that everyone was trying to read the room, unsure of whether or to scream or cheer.
 Then the applause began to ripple, tentative at first, but growing by the second until the whole auditorium vibrated with its intensity.
 
I felt sick.
 An anxious feeling flooded my body, but the cheering confused me and made me think that it was alright.
 If we were doing something wrong, then surely someone would have said something by now.
 Unable to shake the uncertainty, I left my chair and headed for the bathroom to clear my head.
 
Outside the auditorium I saw the two men wearing ‘Staff’ shirts exit a side door.
 The woman wasn’t with them anymore.
 Was she still back there? Was she alive, or dead? Maybe she needed help.
 
One of the staff noticed me, his face **** up with suspicion.
 I snatched a nearby trash bag and made to enter the door they’d just exited from.
 
“Hey, where you think you’re going?” one asked.
 
“Bringing some more rope for John,” I said, hefting the trash bag.
 “Back stage is that way, right?” 
The staff nodded and I slipped inside.
 I could hear the audience cheering again through the wall and felt the urge to cheer with them, but I thought better of it and stayed quiet.
 
The hallway skirted the perimeter of the auditorium, and I was able to track my progress toward the back of the stage by the sounds coming through the wall.
 Another uproar—perhaps a second demonstration has concluded.
 Another body to be dragged off stage.
 
Not just a body.
 A human being.
 A father or a mother, a son or a daughter.
 That thought should have horrified me, but it didn’t.
 They didn’t ask to be alive.
 They didn’t make the world the way it was.
 So why shouldn’t they leave when they’re ready? 
“Looks like we’ve got a bleeder here,” John’s voice carried.
 “That’s it, boy.
 Let it all out.
 You’re the lucky one—the rest of us have to clean up that mess.
” 
I must have been directly behind the stage at that point.
 The place was dark and cluttered with electrical and sound equipment.
  I saw no sign of the woman’s body.
 The thought of stumbling across her splayed out on the ground nauseated me.
 I shouldn’t be here.
 
A shaft of light tore through the room as the stage curtain was pulled aside.
  The staff were dragging a college aged boy by the hands.
 His throat was cleanly slit, and a sheet of blood soaked through his shirt and drained onto the floor.
 I hid behind an upright speaker and watched the staff prop the boy against the wall before turning to exit again.
 
“Let’s all take a break while they get this cleaned up,” John said from the stage.
 “Fifteen minutes, then you’ll all get your chance.
” 
The boy was still alive.
 Spitting and gurgling blood, he panted with feeble wet gasps.
 His red-smeared teeth were locked in a vicious grin.
 I started to creep toward him, but another blast of light made me scramble back to concealment.
 
John Fallow moved through the shadows to stand over the dying boy.
 The boy’s grin twisted into one of agony.
 He struggled to stand, but John put a boot on his chest and forced him back down.
 
“Shh shh,” he held a finger to his lips.
 “Don’t fuss.
 Lot of folks are dying to be you.
” He laughed at his private joke.

The boy tried to answer, but the wet **** sound which escaped his lips carried no words.
  
“You did this to yourself.
 You wanted to fit in so **** bad that you didn’t care what you had to do.
 Now look at you.
” 
It was too late to save him.
 The boy was barely breathing now, and the pool of blood encompassing him was still growing by the second.
 John dropped to his knees to bring their faces level.
 
“It don’t matter what other people expect from you,” he said.
 “The government wants you to make a lot of money to pay taxes.
 A holy man might tell you not to make any because it corrupts you.
 The people who sell burgers want you to be ****, and the people who sell diet pills want you to hate yourself for it.
 They all want something different from you, but you don’t belong to them.
 You belong to you.
 
The boy had stopped moving.
 I couldn’t make out the faintest sign that he still drew breath.
 
“So what if you flunked out of school? Does that make the stars any less bright, or the taste of strawberries more sour? Will you no longer feel your lover’s caress or the ocean lapping your bare feet? Fear, pain, doubt—they’re just passing clouds, and floating in front of the sun don’t mean the sun ain’t still there.
 
“So I’m going to give you another chance,” John continued.
 “You get back up and go outside and tell me what you see.
 And if it’s nothing but clouds, then pick one and call it beautiful and love it forever, because it’s all part of the same sky.
” 
With that John Fallow pulled out a syringe and stuck it in the boy’s chest.
 He began to buckle and squirm, but John held him down while wiping the blood from his neck with a handkerchief.
 It came off like makeup, leaving clean fresh skin below.
  
“Get out of here,” John said, “and don’t let me catch you back either.
”
The boy scrambled to the door and disappeared.
 
“You too,” John said, looking to where I hid.
 “Or it won’t just be blood capsules and a temporary paralytic for you.
”
I ran for it.
 
Outside I saw the boy with his head thrown back, looking straight up.
 Beside him was the woman who’d taken the fake cyanide pill, head back and staring with wild eyes.
 I don’t know whether they thought they’d really died and came back, or whether they knew it was a trick, but one thing I’m pretty sure is that neither of them had ever looked at the sky like that before.
 
[I know I hadn’t.](http://tobiaswade.com)
  


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I made a big list of paranormal and mystery threads from all over Reddit to help pass the time while we're in lock down
 
 Assistant: G'day guys,

Here's a giant list of paranormal threads and unexplained mysteries.  Hopefully it'll give you some rabbit holes to fall down while we're in lockdown :)

&#x200B;

Let me know if I've made any mistakes, I'm most certain I have.

&#x200B;

Stay safe, be healthy, [make a mask](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/fv3d5g/diy_face_mask_from_us_surgeon_general)

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Much love,

Jane

&#x200B;

**Creepy Paranormal AskReddit Threads:**

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* [Long haul truckers:  Whats the creepiest/most paranormal thing you've seen on the road at night?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/b1slv2/long_haul_truckers_whats_the_creepiestmost)
* [What was the creepiest or most paranormal thing to ever happen to you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9j1sr3/what_was_the_creepiest_or_most_paranormal_thing/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
* [Cops and other law enforcement people of Reddit, what were some cases you worked on that made you think (even if for a moment) that something supernatural/paranormal was going on?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7wrbns/cops_and_other_law_enforcement_people_of_reddit/)
* [Redditors who Have lived in a "Haunted" House, What are your most unexplainable paranormal experiences?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a6zizm/serious_redditors_who_have_lived_in_a_haunted/)
* [What is the scariest experience you've had in your life that you believe can only be attributed to the paranormal?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7gpns0/what_is_the_scariest_experience_youve_had_in_your/)
* [Non-Westerners of Reddit, to what extent does your country believe in the paranormal?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4oya82/seriousnonwesterners_of_reddit_to_what_extent/)
* [What footage does convince you that paranormal things exist?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3g2ek8/serious_what_footage_does_convince_you_that)
* [What is the most paranormal or unexplainable event(s) you have witnessed?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cboaq4/serious_what_is_the_most_paranormal_or/)
* [People in the US Military: What's the creepiest/most paranormal thing you have encountered during your service?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9nqw6i/people_in_the_us_military_whats_the_creepiestmost/)
* [What is the creepiest and most unexplainable paranormal experience you've ever had?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4pc3xy/what_is_the_creepiest_and_most_unexplainable/)
* [What is the creepiest, most unexplained thing you have ever experienced?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5luo87/what_is_the_creepiest_most_unexplained_thing_you/)
* [Criminals and ne'er-do-well people of Reddit, what were some crimes you committed that made you think (even if for a moment) that something supernatural/paranormal was going on?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7wskjn/criminals_and_neerdowell_people_of_reddit_what/)
* [People who used to not believe in ghosts but do now, what experience changed your mind?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cjsq0b/people_who_used_to_not_believe_in_ghosts_but_do/)
* [Hey Reddit, have you ever seen a mythological, spirit or ghost animal or a nature spirit or entity, or other spooky occurrences with animals, what's your experience?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8yxhpi/serioushey_reddit_have_you_ever_seen_a/)
* [People of Reddit who have encountered ghosts or other supernatural beings, what was your experience like? What happened?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6629qa/serious_people_of_reddit_who_have_encountered/)
* [What's your creepiest "glitch in the matrix" or unexplainable thing that's ever happened to you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/eqies2/whats_your_creepiest_glitch_in_the_matrix_or/)
* [What is the scariest/creepiest thing that has happened to you when you were home alone?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/at4hia/what_is_the_scariestcreepiest_thing_that_has/)
* [Reddit, what is the most disturbing/unexplainable thing that has ever happened to you or someone you know?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8qhe5i/reddit_what_is_the_most_disturbingunexplainable/)

&#x200B;

**Paranormal Entertainment:**

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* [Paranoral Podcasts](https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/fqzqp3/paranormal_podcasts/)
* [Of all the ghost-hunting shows on TV, which episode/segment/clip do you think provides the most compelling evidence?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/8r1gts/of_all_the_ghosthunting_shows_on_tv_which/)
* [FAVORITE HORROR/PARANORMAL PODCASTS OUT THERE?](https://www.reddit.com/r/podcasts/comments/bivs6l/favorite_horrorparanormal_podcasts_out_there/)
* [Best horror movies of the last 15 years?](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/47imte/best_horror_movies_of_the_last_15_years/)
* [Big 'ol List of 'Mind-Fuck' Movies](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/70htb5/big_ol_list_of_mindfuck_movies/)
* [Which horror movies from the last 2 years were good and scary?](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/3ljvmn/which_horror_movies_from_the_last_2_years_were/)
* [Best horror movies of the last 15 years?](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/47imte/best_horror_movies_of_the_last_15_years/)

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&#x200B;

**Unsolved and Unexplained Mysteries**

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* [Which mystery industry is the largest buyer of glitter?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/a8hrk0/which_mystery_industry_is_the_largest_buyer_of/)
* [I’m in the mood for some rabbit holes today. What are your creepiest, most disturbing, or just interesting unsolved mysteries?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/85uxyz/im_in_the_mood_for_some_rabbit_holes_today_what/)
* [What unsolved mystery has absolutely no plausible explanation?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a0660s/what_unsolved_mystery_has_absolutely_no_plausible/)
* [What is the best unexplained mystery?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7u0rr2/serious_what_is_the_best_unexplained_mystery/)
* [What's the creepiest unsolved mystery?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cwgqih/whats_the_creepiest_unsolved_mystery/)
* [Those of you from the "early days" of the Internet, what online mysteries do you remember that remain unsolved?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/e1ealx/serious_those_of_you_from_the_early_days_of_the/)
* [What are some weird, real life X-files type mysteries?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4jb24s/what_are_some_weird_real_life_xfiles_type/)
* [What is your life's biggest mystery that will probably go unsolved?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9mwnde/what_is_your_lifes_biggest_mystery_that_will/)
* [What was one of the most mysterious post found on Reddit?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8vdv8b/what_was_one_of_the_most_mysterious_post_found_on/)
* [What is the best unexplained mystery?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7u0rr2/serious_what_is_the_best_unexplained_mystery/)
* [What are the most baffling crime scenes we know about? What crime scenes that made investigators say, "What the actual ****?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/9egf07/what_are_the_most_baffling_crime_scenes_we_know/)
* [Creepiest cases on Charley Project?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/5w1i5t/creepiest_cases_on_charley_project)

***Updated:***

  

* [Three years ago, Abigail Williams, 13, and her best friend Liberty German, 14, decided to spend a warm, day off from school at the local hiking trails in Delphi, Indiana. While at the trails, the pair was murdered by an unidentified individual sometime during the afternoon. He has yet to be caught](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/f4gn0i/three\_years\_ago\_abigail\_williams\_13\_and\_her\_best])
* [Have you ever met a killer?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/9ydb40/have\_you\_ever\_met\_a\_killer)
* [What are some cases where a redditor vanished after asking a question? Bonus points for truly disturbing examples\
](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/dhan90/what\_are\_some\_cases\_where\_a\_redditor\_vanished)
* [What are some crimes that will most likely never get solved but are 99% sure who is responsible](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/dya9s4/what\_are\_some\_crimes\_that\_will\_most\_likely\_never)

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**Evidence Based Threads**

* ~~[What is the creepiest audio recordings you have ever found on the Internet?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/yr0fc/what_is_the_creepiest_audio_recordings_you_have/)~~
* [What are some of the creepiest declassified documents made available to the public](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/c8g2f0/serious_what_are_some_of_the_creepiest/)
* [What’s the scariest thing you’ve experienced that you have photo evidence of?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8zczpq/serious_whats_the_scariest_thing_youve/)
* [What is the scariest photo that exists?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7wngyd/what_is_the_scariest_photo_that_exists/)
* [What is the most terrifying photo on the Internet that will scare me shitless?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3jik7f/what_is_the_most_terrifying_photo_on_the_internet/)
* [What's a photo with a really creepy backstory?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5eduo2/whats_a_photo_with_a_really_creepy_backstory/)
* [What is something that was once considered to be a "legend" or "myth" that eventually turned out to be true?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6dwykt/what_is_something_that_was_once_considered_to_be/)

***Updated:***

* [UFO enthusiasts of Reddit, what do you think is the single best and most convincing photograph of alien life?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6zmvlh/ufo_enthusiasts_of_reddit_what_do_you_think_is)

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**Urban Legends, Folklores and Stories**

* [Which creepy urban legend turned out to be true?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8nk1ec/which_creepy_urban_legend_turned_out_to_be_true/)
* [What is a famous Urban Legend of your country or town?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5gsd1e/what_is_a_famous_urban_legend_of_your_country_or/)
* [What's the creepiest urban legend/folklore you've ever heard?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4gnqhi/whats_the_creepiest_urban_legendfolklore_youve/)
* [What urban legend terrifies you the most?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/29n87n/what_urban_legend_terrifies_you_the_most/)
* [Native Americans of Reddit, what are your or your tribes ghost stories, legends, or supernatural occurrences?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/90ri1a/native_americans_of_reddit_what_are_your_or_your/)
* [What is the photo that has the creepiest backstory?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/22a1pe/what_is_the_photo_that_has_the_creepiest_backstory)
* [What is an extremely dark/creepy true story most people don't know about?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/159kdp/what_is_an_extremely_darkcreepy_true_story_most])

&#x200B;

**Locations and Spooky Spots**

* [What's the creepiest place you've been?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ayj1ex/whats_the_creepiest_place_youve_been/)
* [HIKERS and BACKPACKERS of Reddit. What is the weirdest or creepiest thing you have found while hiking?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/227hzo/hikers_and_backpackers_of_reddit_what_is_th)
* [Redditors who spend a lot of time in seclusion - at sea, in the air or out in the wilderness -what's the creepiest or most mysterious thing you've seen, found or experienced](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6mma2o/redditors_who_spend_a_lot_of_time_in_seclusion_at/)
* [Divers and people who spend a lot of time underwater, what's the creepiest/ most unexplainable thing you've seen while in the depths?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cdaq3i/divers_and_people_who_spend_a_lot_of_time/)
* [Eerie Towns, Disappearing Diners, and Creepy Gas Stations....What's Your True, Unexplained Story of Being in a Place That Shouldn't Exist?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/95bsre/seriouseerie_towns_disappearing_diners_and_creepy/)

&#x200B;

**Paranormal Mysteries**

* [What are the most interesting cases that seemingly involve paranormal/supernatural/etc. elements?](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/8yof10/serious_what_are_the_most_interesting_cases_that/)
* [In 1855, an unusual, single-filed line of hoof-like tracks traveled miles across Devon, England. Dubbed the “Devil’s Footprints,” locals and experts have been unable to identify the mysterious origin of the footprints. This phenomenon not only occurred in England, but in other parts of the world](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/bkmyae/in_1855_an_unusual_singlefiled_line_of_hooflike/)

Edit:  Updated

**Conspiracies, Theories and Truths**

* [Which conspiracy theory is so believable that it might be true?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aumhwo/which_conspiracy_theory_is_so_believable_that_it)
* [What conspiracy theories do you think are too logical to ignore?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/fbiay6/what\_conspiracy\_theories\_do\_you\_think\_are\_too)
* [What conspiracy theory do you believe to be true? What evidence led you to this conclusion?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bg8z8v/what_conspiracy_theory_do_you_believe_to_be_true)
* [What conspiracy theory do you believe in the MOST?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/c8r08z/what_conspiracy_theory_do_you_believe_in_the_most)
* [What’s the most wholesome conspiracy theory?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7zsewa/whats_the_most_wholesome_conspiracy_theory)
* [What conspiracy theories turned out to be true?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cxxxhg/what_conspiracy_theories_turned_out_to_be_true)
* [What is the scariest conspiracy theory if true?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9l0dbu/what_is_the_scariest_conspiracy_theory_if_true)
* [What's something you know to be 100% true that everyone else dismisses as a conspiracy theory?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/dagjrd/whats\_something\_you\_know\_to\_be\_100\_true\_that)

**Aliens and UFO's**

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Edit. Stooop, you're making me blush. You guys are all seriously awesome, thank you so much for being so kind, and thank you so much for the awards. For reals.  I feel so *appreciated* lol.  ❤️ 😭👻

I'll update it within the next few days, with a few more categories, like Aliens and UFO's, and Conspiracies.  They're not all *strictly* paranormal, but they all seem to fall within our interests.

Criticisms and critiques welcome :)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: You already know the rules. Sleep with your feet towards the door.
 
 Assistant: I'm always grateful to read posts from others, explaining the rules of particular places. A library where you mustn't interrupt the girl in the reflective jacket who reads collected ESVM poems to herself until midnight. A campsite where you must politely offer some of your food to the faceless people who visit your campfire. An old house where you mustn't look out of the window if you hear the sound of bells.

Particular places have particular rules. It might be because they're ancient, special, haunted, cursed, or just particularly beautiful places for *other* things to make their homes. Sometimes you can learn a little from reading others' lists, others' hard-won knowledge of what is or isn't safe - but spirits are petty and varied. One will tear out your tongue if you speak to it, another will **** you for rudeness if you don't. It takes an expert on the area to know. 

I don't live anywhere quite like that. I live in the old part of Edinburgh. There's nothing cursed or ancient about my flat. It's actually probably one of the least supernatural places in the city. It's safe.

Cities often don't have guardians in quite the same way that rural places have. Forests, lakes, valleys, even big ranches - they'll have owners or rangers or guardians, often passed down through generations, or trained and picked carefully by mentors. I like talking to people from those wild places. The guardians, rangers and owners of forests and lakes and valleys - I respect the **** out of their attitude. Their reverence for the places they watch over.

I don't have anything that special. I stumbled into this. I'll tell you that story if you're patient. And while I'd rather die than be impolite to something really ancient and fey, sometimes in cities what you're actually dealing with is a **** nymph or a minor cocaine spirit and that's occasionally hard to take seriously.

But I'm lucky. I tend not to need specific rules. Of course there's places like the bridge you mustn't walk under if your voice doesn't echo, and Arthur's Seat has its fair share of terrifying things. But for the most part, I'm only really concerned by the universal rules - the ones that pretty much apply anywhere, whether it be an ancient haunted cathedral or the most mundane café.

- If you're hurrying home between 2am and 4am, don't look behind you. 

- Make sure your bed has your head further from the door than your feet, and ensure at least one side (preferably two) is against a wall.

- If you're walking past a room and see a person out of the corner of your eye, but when you check again it's just an outfit on a coat hanger, don't freak out. But always always make sure you check again.

- Break at least one solemn promise before about mid-February of each year. 

- Close your closet door firmly before sleeping. It's okay if it cracks open so long as it's too narrow for a finger.

- Stay under your blanket when you sleep. Having a leg out of the blanket is OK, but don't position your feet where they could be seen from under your bed.

- Windows can slide upwards or open outwards but must never, ever open inwards. 

- If you feel the intense sensation that something is watching you from the window, ideally close the curtains. You can look from your bed or couch, but never go over to the window and look down, and never ever press your face against the glass. 

- Only certain people are safe to sleep in complete darkness. You'll know instinctively if you're one of the ones who needs to keep a light on or a window open.

- Don't sleep with someone until you've had at least three dates. They can't maintain a good consistent mimic for more than two evenings, so after three you're safe. 

- On Midwinter morning, whichever date you personally celebrate as your winter festival, ensure there's at least one sock in your home that has no pair.

There's more, but I don't need to tell you them. See, the universal rules have become part of us now. Either they're in our biology, things we've known from birth without needing to be taught them, or they're aspects of culture that get most people to obey them without knowing why they're doing it.

Some of them, I think, aren't actually universal. For instance, I think the rule that you *must* offer tea (specifically tea) to strangers in your home is only on this island; the creatures that demand it only really live here. I think some of the rules are culturally dependent, because of course an arbitrary calendar day isn't actually how most nonhumans count New Year. It's about the rhythms of your life, and the points in those rhythms where certain things might pay attention to you.

Edinburgh doesn't really have many rules that you wouldn't get elsewhere, not rules that apply to all of it. You get some hecking specific rules if you're working in certain parts of the castle at 3am... but really, it's just a matter of common sense. It's a very old city. An important city. Scotland is an old, wild country and it remembers all sorts of things. It's a beautiful city with so many layers to it, and so many ghosts. There are things here you wouldn't imagine. But you don't have to tap on anything seven times.

(And if you order a kebab from the man with a tattoo of a swarm of wasps after taking the last train from Glasgow.... look, you didn't know how bad a decision that was, but you **** well knew it was a bad idea.) 

At this point you're probably wondering who the **** I am. I certainly don't have any official position. I don't own any land here, I'm not descended from anyone and I'm not trained as police or anything. Actually, no human picked me. 

It seemed random. The night after I moved here, almost sixteen years ago, I had the most fantastically vivid dream. I was dancing with the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She had flame red hair and wore a tattered copper dress. She danced with a sword in each hand but I was unafraid; she moved with such clarity of intent, and she inspired me so much with her grace, that I was able to fluidly move around her in perfect timing, and the blades never touched me. I'd never danced in my life, and I can't dance when I'm awake, but she moved me. That's all I can explain. 

I was woken up by a knocking on my door. It was the same woman. 

"I admit, after our dance, I'm feeling a little famished," she said.

I invited her in for eggs and bacon. In hindsight, that was ****. Most magic runs on rules and rituals, and the laws of thresholds, home sanctity and hospitality are some of the oldest of all. There's plenty of things out there which only need an invite into your home to destroy you. But I'm glad I did. She didn't touch the eggs and bacon, but she told me it was a kind and respectful offer. 

The first thing she told me was about Waverley. Well, no, actually the *first* thing she told me was that I needed to get a new coffee machine because my old one was going to break in about five more coffees. The second thing she told me was that, before getting on a train to Stirling, I should check if there's a stop at Silverie.

There is no Silverie on the line to Stirling. At least - not unless I'm at the station. I've checked with friends who've confirmed this. It's only there when I am, as far as I know. 

It's safe for me to get off at Silverie. I have an invitation. It is not safe for you, and you shouldn't try. I saw a teenager try it once, and another man who was probably just counting stops to his normal one and didn't look up from his phone as he got off. That's another one of those stories you can ask me for. 

Anyway, my day job is in an office and I do things with spreadsheets.

It's just, yknow, in my spare time, I'm one of the people who helps with the rules. There's actually a fair few of us, with as many people and other beings as there are in a big city, but I don't know the others. 

And I'm writing all of this because apparently some people don't know all the rules. They just didn't get it somehow, their parents didn't teach them or their instincts are all wrong. So I figured I should write something that explains them. 

Some of them are obvious. You **** know why your closet door must never be wide enough cracked open for a long grey finger to curl out from inside and wrap itself slowly around the door. If you don't, please just imagine your reaction were you to see that. Congrats. Now you know.

Some of them you think you learned better about. You didn't. Adults know it's safe to put your feet on the cracks between the paving stones, but that doesn't mean children are wrong about it being dangerous. The edgelings only take small, tender victims. 

But some are - counterintuitive.

George, a local nurse and one of the other part-time guardians, called me up yesterday. That was the call that prompted this post. He told me about an awfully weird occurrence at the hospital.

Apparently an elderly patient reported waking up at around 3am, drenched in sweat, hearing nothing but perfect silence. She looked at the door, and in walked a sort of... I hesitate to call it a man. Apparently it had arms that were far too long and dragged on the floor, only a gaping bloody hole where its eyes should be, and a torso that wrapped around in spirals like a knotted rope.

The man stopped in the doorway, breathing heavily, and then reached out with one hand. It seemed like his feet couldn't pass the doorway, apparently, but his hands could. Walking his fingers across the floor, then eventually taking a deep breath and supporting the full weight of that awfully long arm, he groped along the beds of the ward until he reached hers.

When he touched her feet, his hands weren't cold. They were warm, slimy, a little suctiony. Something told her to remain perfectly still, not to react, not to give any sign of life. The moist, heavy fingers explored her toes a little, lifted her heel, and then dropped her foot.

The long-armed creature sighed heavily. "No tasty eyes here," it whined. "Need tasty eyes..."

It took a deep breath, coughed up some slime, and whimpered like a child begging for ice cream, "Delicious eyes..."

And then it left.

Apparently the doctors think the woman's crazy. There's absolutely no sign of the creature on the hospital CCTV. No slime where it supposedly coughed. But George is the nurse that helps old people get cleaned up, and he says her feet were.... sticky. In a way that turned his stomach, and George's stomach is strong enough to clean pus out of the guy who decided to stick his **** up the open surgical wounds in his own arm and then laugh about it over a pint. 

George mentioned he's **** glad his patient was sleeping with her head (and her eyes) away from the door, and her feet towards it. He's made sure it's hospital policy to ask all patients to sleep that way. 

I thought it might be valuable to let you all know.

I'll be back with more stories of the work people like George and I do. Longer ones, haha, since I won't have to give all this context. And [perhaps some more explanations of the rules you already know.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ecmig7/you_already_know_the_rules_if_you_feel_like/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandmothers ghost at my wedding
 
 Assistant: My wife was looking through our wedding photos after we received them and was curious as to who was standing up during our ceremony. When she zoomed in, she saw a woman in the window. She showed me what she had found and I immediately recognized it as my deceased great grandmother. The only elderly at that wedding was in the front row watching us get married. Also, all of the food was lined in tables under that window, no way to actually get to it from that angle. 

This is my lone encounter with something like this and still gives me chills!!

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been seeing a man in my backyard for the past two nights
 
 Assistant: To start I need to give some background: 

- I am a male who lives in relatively nice neighborhood

- It’s your average small town run of the mill suburbs area with not a lot of people. 

- I am a college kid who’s home on break while my parents have gone away which doesn’t help at all. 

- I have a two story house

- I do not have gun nor do I have any real weapons other than kitchen knives

- I am not on any medication and I have no record of schizophrenia or any other mental illnesses

- I barely have any relationships with my neighbors most of whom are elderly and the rest I have minimal contact with

- I do not have any people in my neighborhood (that I know of) who have reasons to attack or harm me

Now, let's get into what has been happening. About two nights ago I woke up very late in the night and I went to the bathroom to go take a ****. Now, my second story bathroom has a window that can see the entirety of my backyard. Directly behind it is a cul de sac which you can see directly into. There is a group of trees and pile of rocks and mulch that divides it. Usually I can see everything in my backroom without turning on my because lights from my neighbor's house dimly lights the room. 

As I am using the toilet I look outside and I notice there is a car parked directly facing my house in the cul de sac. Now if you have ever seen a cul de sac before you would know that when you park you always either park next to the curves of the sac or the sides of the street. This car was directly facing the curve behind my house. I thought this was extremely strange considering whoever parked must have been there to visit someone, but if that were the case then why would they have not parked in one of the driveways? The people who lived behind me were both elderly so they probably didn’t have some big block party I didn’t know about, and even then only an idiot would park like that.

As I stared into the car I could distinguish a figure in the driver's seat, just sitting there. Since the lights were not on in my bathroom whoever was in the car probably couldn’t see me through that window. At this point I was determined to see just who the **** was in there, so I went downstairs, got my binoculars from my dad’s closet, and went back to my bathroom to see who was there. 

Take in mind this is 3 in the **** morning, what person would be in their car just sitting there in the middle of the winter? As I go into my bathroom, I look outside to find...nothing. The car had since left. I thought it was relief seeing as I probably was just freaking out over nothing and the person was just leaving whoever they were visiting, but then again, what are the odds that the moment I notice the car that's the moment that the person leaves?

I finally calmed myself down and went back to sleep. The next day a mix of boredom and paranoia got the better of me; I decided it was time for some investigation. I go to my backyard cul de sac to see if there was any trace of the person who was there last night. Nothing. I go to my neighbors to see if they had anybody over the other night; maybe it would clarify just why the **** somebody would be parked there. I asked both the owners of the 2 houses on the curves the cul de sac, all of whom said they did not have visitors. I asked for their numbers and I left.

This is when my paranoia really started to kick in. This was **** up, I had no clue whether the person was coming back later, and I can’t call the police as they won’t respond to a complaint that isn’t even valid. I decide to wait until later to see if the person came back. I spent that night talking with my college friends about it over video chat, all of whom thought I was either making it up, or freaking out over nothing. I sign off and watch netflix until it's pretty late. The entire time I just kept thinking about looking out my window to check, but since my friends had told me I was worrying about nothing and also since I am a bit of a coward I just never checked it. 

Finally the clock ticked 3:24 am, the exact time I woke up the night before. I thought **** it, might as well check to be sure. This is where I absolutely **** myself, the same exact car was parked, and there was a man in a black hoodie and a ski mask standing right next to it just staring at my house. I immediately ran to go get my phone dialed my neighbors, none of which answered. I ran back to the window, only to see that he was standing in my **** backyard. This was no longer a burglary attempt, because if it was he would be looking through my lower house windows trying to break in. This had to be some sort of a stalker. 

I decided **** this and opened up my window and screamed at the top of my lungs “WHO THE **** ARE YOU?!”. No response. “I’M GOING TO CALL THE **** POLICE GET THE **** MY PROPERTY!” I yelled. Finally the man spoke “HAVE A NICE DAY!” in like that cheery way a cashier at the store would say when you are leaving. The man waltzed (and I literally mean waltzed like a happy cartoon character) back to his car and left.

I called the police department immediately. They asked me if I had any friends who were trying to play a prank on me, I said no. Like I said, this town was relatively small and the police did jack ****. They told me that if it happens again to call them immediately. I am **** myself right now, it’s currently 11:00 pm, and **** knows **** be back tonight. I am going to be looking out my window all night waiting for him. I’ll keep you all in touch if anything happens. Wish me luck.

Edit 12:24 am: I am currently staring outside looking out my window waiting for the man to come. I have informed my neighbors about his arrival and they have told me they are also on the look out. I feel extremely nervous but at least I have my neighbors helping me out. I just want this to be over.

Edit 1:24 am: Nothing has shown up yet. Got a call from my mom about a half hour ago. I haven't told them about any of the **** happening. I just told her I loved her and hung up the phone. My friends have been snap chatting me asking me about this ****. I said that I'll try to get a picture of him if I can. If I do I'll upload it so you guys can see.

Edit 1:34 am: Neighbors told me they see a car parked up the street from them. One of my neighbors who's in his mid 40's says he's going to check it out. My foot is tapping the floor like crazy right now.

Edit 1:37 am: False alarm. Turns out it was just the car of a family who just got home. **** this suspense is making me sick.

Edit 1:48 am: One of my neighbors says he is going to sleep. This isn't good. I just hope the rest of them hold out for me until the rest of the night. I don't know if I'm going to fall asleep at all. I've already chugged two cups of coffee and I'm as alert as possible.

Edit 2:11 am: I was looking out my window when I heard something in the bushes of my backyard. I couldn't tell whether it was the the guy, the wind, or some animal so I shined turned on the light in my backyard and saw nothing. I think the paranoia is getting to me.

Edit 2:17 am: Alright it's official, I am losing my ****. I heard something crash in my kitchen and I ran down to see what was happening. Some pan had fallen over from the shelf. Nothing notable but it scared the absolute **** out of me. I went back upstairs to start looking out the window again, at one of the streets right of my backyard which is about 200 yards away, through the trees I saw a car at a corner flashing its brights repeatedly and then making a right driving away from the street leading to my house. What the **** is going on?! Is this **** taunting me? 

Edit 2:32 am: Alright. /u/joeenid1 has freaked me the **** out. I'm out of here. I'm bringing my laptop and my wallet and phone with me and staying in my neighbors house. I'm not staying here another second after reading that man. **** that.

Edit 2:40 am: I am currently at my neighbor's house staring into my backyard/the cul de sac. I walked out my back door and sprinted and rang the door bell as fast as possible. They saw me and opened the door immediately. Scariest **** I have ever done I was worried he was gonna pull up any second. Now I just wait and hope for the best.

Edit 2:51 am: Nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I am dreading what will happen at 3:24 though. I saw 2 cars pass by my house. I couldn't tell if they were the same car as the one the stalker was using. At the same time I cant tell if its was the same car passing by both ways. This guy is playing tricks on my mind. I am ready to dial 911 at any second now. I called my parents and told them what is happening; they said they will be on their way home tomorrow. **** please protect me.

Edit 3:01 am: This guy is definitely coming. A car came up the street on the cul de sac and started flashing it's high beams again and left. He is trying to **** with my mind. Thank **** I left the house, because the direction he is going he is definitely coming back around to my house. **** I'm scared and I'm not even in my house anymore. The moment i even see him outside his car I am calling the police. 

Edit 3:11 am: My neighbor and I both agreed we are going to leave the house and drive to the police station as soon as we see him park near my house. My heart is racing. I can't believe I had just waiting in my house alone for the past couple hours. What the **** was I thinking.

Edit 3:20 am: Still nothing yet. Even if he doesn't come I sure as **** am not going back. I'm not even sure if I'll stay here. This is the scariest **** that has ever happened to me holy ****.

Edit 3:25 am: SOMEONE HAS PARKED IN MY **** DRIVEWAY!!!!!!! I am getting the **** out of here. I'll try to update you guys on mobile or later when if they arrest this guy but I am leaving now. Thank you all for the support. And thanks /u/joeenid1 you may have saved my life.

Edit 1:15 pm 2/19/17- For those who are concerned I am alive. I went to the police station and I have been questioned and they are working on finding the guy. They haven't found him yet unfortunately. I went to a hotel and got some sleep and I just woke up. I'll write more about this in a new post but for right now I am just taking some time to get this sorted out. Thanks to everyone for their support.

[Update 2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5v2gzq/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/) has been posted.

[Update 3] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5v9lxi/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/)

I just posted an album on imgur of pictures I took yesterday when I went back to my house. See for yourselves.

[Album] (http://imgur.com/a/1A8Az)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Swapping Game
 
 Assistant: When I was nine years old, I was assigned a project in school. The teacher called it “the swapping game” and you may have heard of it. We were all given a dollar to spend on anything we wanted. The idea was that we would take the item that we bought and swap it for something else. We would then take that item and swap it again and so on. The project lasted for a month, and at the end of the month, whoever had the item that the teacher deemed the most unique and valuable would win a prize. 

There was an option for parents to opt-out, and those children would do a different (in my opinion, more boring) project. I BEGGED my parents to let me take part. They were reluctant. The idea of having to (in their words) “hassle” people for stuff wasn’t something that appealed to them, but they eventually relented.

The first thing I bought with my dollar was a big candy bar from the store. It was one of those kinds of candy bars that you were supposed to share but really presented itself as a challenge to children to eat in all one sitting. It was filled was popping candy which was my absolute favorite. It took every ounce of my willpower not to eat it right then and there. 

When I got home, my older brother’s eyes widened at the candy bar, and he eventually convinced me to swap the candy bar for a shiny gold button that he insisted was made from solid gold and was worth hundreds of dollars. When my parents learned what had happened, they demanded he swapped back. It was too late. He had already eaten the chocolate and the button he had given me was some cheap, plastic trash. My parents offered to give me another dollar so I could start again, but I refused. That would have been cheating. I was a competitive child but I wanted to win fair and square. It made me more determined than ever. 

I brought the button to my friend the next day, who had not been allowed to participate in the project. He swapped it for the coolest pencil in his pencil case, capped with a ninja turtle pencil topper. I don’t think he was particularly impressed with the button, but he was annoyed his parents wouldn’t let him participate, and he wanted to join in with the fun somehow. 

Every evening, I harassed my parents relentlessly to take me to visit my grandparents, aunts. uncles, and knock on neighbors’ doors. They would grumble about having to take me, but I was obsessed. Some of the neighbors were intrigued and found the whole thing simply wonderful. They cooperated and helped me out, swapping things with me that were clearly a better deal for me than for them. however, it soon got to the point where I had run out of people to trade with. I wasn’t allowed to knock on people’s doors without my parents accompanying me, and they downright refused to knock on the doors of people who lived further down the street, as they didn’t know those people. 

I persisted though and I got creative. I approached the janitor at school and even some of the other teachers. One of them laughed and commented that I was the only one who had thought to ask the teachers. She said I was quite the entrepreneur but I didn’t really know what she meant.

Of course, at first, people were just humoring me, but after a while, I started getting some pretty cool items to swap, like a shiny-new frying pan which I swapped for a hairdryer, which I swapped for a beautiful, delicate necklace. It probably wasn’t a particularly expensive necklace, but it was pretty all the same.  By this time, my parents were tired of it and refused to accompany me anywhere else. The necklace was to be my final item. However, there was still a week left of the project, and even though most of the other students had lost interest, I was determined not to be beaten.

It was then that I made the most **** decision I had ever made. I was playing outside on the street (I was only allowed to go as far as the nearest streetlight) and when I knew my Mom was busy cooking dinner, I RAN down the street. I still vividly remember the first step I took past the streetlight boundary, and how exhilarating it felt. I ran down the street, no idea where I was actually planning to go, turning randomly, left, right, left. I honestly think I forgot about the fact I was seeking out a neighbor to swap with, and just ran for the thrill of it. I ran until I needed to catch my breath and I stopped.

“Are you lost?” came a voice. It was a lady in her fifties or sixties, who was stood in her garden, watching me run through the street. She looked like she might like a necklace. This was my chance. 

“No,” I replied. “. I have this beautiful necklace. I want to swap this necklace with something you own. Do you have something to swap with me? I’m playing the swapping game you see. It’s for school. So can I have something of yours?”

I’d messed the speech up. My dad usually did the introductions. It didn’t matter though.  She was smiling.

“How old are you, sweetie?”

“Nine but I’ll be ten in June,” I said proudly. 

“Well… it’s a really beautiful necklace. I’m not sure if I have anything that is as good as that. I’ll tell you what, you come inside and I’ll let you have a look around and you tell me what you’d like, alright? You can have anything you want.”

It didn’t even occur to me that I shouldn’t. My eyes were on the prize. “You want a drink while you look?” she said as we walked in. I shook my head. She brought one anyway. It was cold orange juice and I couldn’t resist slurping it all up in one big gulp. 

As I walked further into her house, I saw that there was a room, decorated in bright pink that was clearly a child’s room. It was messy with toys strewn all over the place.

“You have a kid?” I said, excitedly. “Does she go to Park View Elementary? Do I know her?”

Although I hadn’t even heard him join us, what I assumed must have been her husband, was now stood next to her. 

“We did have a daughter,” he said. “But she died, ten years ago.”

I remember, even then, thinking it was weird that if she died ten years ago, the bedroom looked as if a kid still lived there. I thought to myself that these adults were really messy and they should probably clean the room up. 

“Why don’t you have a look around there?” said the woman. “You might find something you want. You can even keep the necklace if you want.”

“No, it has to be a swap. That’s the rules. I-“ but suddenly I was feeling extremely tired. It wasn’t really late but my arms and legs were heavy and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

“It’s okay,” said the woman, but her voice sounded like it was underwater. “Have a lie down if you need to.” 

When I woke up, I was laying in a bed and my clothes had been changed. I looked down and realized that I was now wearing a frilly dress. I wanted to be horrified, as I had always been a tomboy, but my head was pounding and I was too confused.  

The man and woman were standing in the doorway of the room I’d woken up in. Unlike the pink bedroom I’d seen last night, this was plain, with white walls and a single bed. Although I didn’t really understand what was going on, my brain screamed ‘danger’ and I attempted to run past them, but they grabbed me.

“Darling, it’s OK. We aren’t going to hurt you. Doesn’t she look just like Jacqueline?” the woman said to her husband, and he nodded, tears in his eyes.

“We’re going to take really good care of you, Jacqueline, and we won’t let anything happen to you.”

“My name’s not Jacqueline,” I mumbled. And then I screamed as loud as I could. Their calm faces switched to anger, and like a well-oiled machine, the man held his hand over my mouth while the woman pinned me back down to the bed.

“Now, now,” the man said. “No screaming. That’s one of the rules.”

“My mom and dad don’t know where I am,” I sobbed.

“That’s right, honey,” the woman said. “Your mommy and daddy should have been watching you. Parents who don’t keep an eye on their kids aren’t good parents. If your parents were good parents, they wouldn’t have let you run off on your own. Imagine what could have happened to you! Do you know there are bad people around? Bad people who want to hurt you. We won’t let anyone hurt you, sweetie. We are going to look after you now.”

I continued sobbing and a hand struck me across the face.

“No more crying,” said the man. “That’s one of the rules too. You need to learn the rules,” and then he stopped and added, “I’m punishing you because I love you.” I bit down on my lip hard to stop myself from crying.

“Jacqueline,” said the woman. “When Daddy says I love you, you need to say it back.” 

I opened my mouth to argue, and then, being scared of another smack, said, “I love you.” They smiled. They finally left me in the room while they cooked breakfast for us all. As soon as they left the room, I scrambled to the window to try and figure out where I was. This was not the house that I had entered last night. In fact, we were now in a cabin and we were in the middle of nowhere. 

“No windows! No windows!” came the man’s voice from behind me, and I ducked as he hurled himself towards me and yanked the curtains. I flinched, but no pain came this time.

“It’s OK,” he said. “You’ll learn the rules, soon.”

Over the next few weeks, I learned the rules.

\- No standing near windows.

\- No crying.

\- Always wear nice dresses. 

\- No shouting or screaming

\- Stay in my room unless I’m told to come out. 

I was left alone for long periods of time. When they were gone, the windows and doors to my room were locked, so if I needed to go to the bathroom, I would either have to wait until they came back or have an accident. I was always punished for my accidents, but I made sure not to be punished for anything else. 

At first, I cooperated because I feared being physically punished, but after a while, I cooperated for a different reason. I’d never been a particularly smart kid, but something clicked inside me, and I knew that if I ever wanted to escape, I needed them to think I was happy there with them. 

So I followed their rules and over time, they softened. I was eventually allowed free roam of the house whenever they were present, as long as I stayed away from windows, and, most importantly, whenever anybody knocked on the door, I had to run to my room and stay there until told to come out. 

One day, I was sat in the living room, drawing. The man and woman, who I was forced to call Mom and Dad out loud, were out back, gardening. That day, something happened that had never happened before. As the man had come inside with the shopping, I noticed he forgot to lock the front door behind him, and, after I’d given him my fakest, sickly-sweet, “Hi Daddy,” he had gone straight through the house, out the back, to help his wife with the gardening. 

I took my chance. I didn’t have shoes as I wasn’t allowed to wear them in the house and I was obviously not allowed to leave the house, but I decided it didn’t matter. Time was of the essence here and so by the time the idea had formed in my head, I decided to do it right then and there. 

I bolted to the front door, hoping and praying that I was right about it being unlocked. I was. I flung open the handle, and ran out of the house, running as fast as my skinny legs could carry me. 

I ran off into the woods nearby. It seemed like my safest option. With the headstart I would have on them, I might be able to get away and at least they wouldn’t be able to follow me by car into the woods. I wished I had some shoes, because my feet cried out in pain, as I stood on thorns and brambles.

I tried to go as straight as possible, as I had no idea where I was going, and I was concerned that if I made any turns, I could end up going around in a circle and stumbling right back into them.

At one point, I thought I heard voices, and I stopped dead. My heart was pounding so loudly that I was positive it could be heard, but the voices went away and I convinced myself it was the wind. After an hour or so of stopping and starting, the woods started to thin out and I saw I had come across a farm.

Without warning, a large furry figure ran towards me and lunged at me. I froze in place, my hands lifted up to my face. My fingers felt wet and warm. It was a dog and it was licking me. It started barking excitedly.

“Who’s there?” came a voice, and a man walked over to me. He looked baffled. I must have been quite a sight. A child in a slightly-too-small frilly dress with no shoes on, running out of the woods, covered in cuts from being scraped and whipped from thorns and branches.

“What are-?” and when he saw my face, his eyes widened. Then he said my full name out loud. It was a question.  

“How do you know my name?” I asked. 

“You’re safe now,” was his reply. 

He brought me inside and tried to comfort me as we waited for the police to arrive. He was a farmer named Frank and his dog’s name was Roy. Roy was supposed to be a guard dog but he was apparently completely useless at it so instead, he was just a normal dog. Frank let me pet Roy and I grabbed hold of him so tightly, shoving my face into his fur for comfort. Frank had recognized me from the missing child coverage he had seen on TV and told me my parents had been very worried about me and had been looking for me ever since I disappeared. He didn’t ask me what had happened to me and I didn’t tell him. He just kept telling me I was safe. I didn’t completely believe him until the police arrived.  

It turned out the two people who had taken me had been responsible for the abduction and later **** of four little girls over the past ten years. Their own child, Jacqueline, died at nine years old, as she ran into a busy street, getting knocked over by a car. The girls they abducted were aged between seven and nine. They were taken from crowded places, such as shopping malls, carnivals, and parks, after being briefly separated from their parents. Each of the girls was murdered when they hit ten years old. The cabin I was kept in was only twenty miles away from my home. 

Since I missed so much school during that time, I never did win the prize for the best-swapped item, but I have kept that necklace with me to this day. Every time I look at it, I remember how lucky I was, because on the day I escaped, I was three days away from turning ten years [old.](https://www.reddit.com/r/viciousmock/comments/i5robb/list_of_stories/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Best Friend Was a Mermaid
 
 Assistant: The summer before I started school, my mom was hospitalized for an extraordinarily high-risk pregnancy. My dad was pulling double shifts to keep us afloat, which meant no one had time to take care of me.

So they shipped me to my aunt’s house a thousand miles away.

I was excited at first. I was obsessed with the idea of adventure. A real adventure with magical creatures and quests. Maybe this trip would be the catalyst to just such an adventure. 

By the time we reached my aunt’s enormous and breathtakingly beautiful mountain property, I fully believed I was about to embark on my very own fairy tale. 

The fairy tale dissipated when my father drove away the next morning. I watched his car disappear, trying not to cry and failing miserably.

When you are six years old, a day feels like a week. A day with strangers feels twice as long, especially when the strangers aren’t kind.

Aunt Charlotte didn’t particularly care for my mother and by extension, didn’t particularly care for me. Nor did her children; Charles and Alan loved nothing more than scaring me to death with stories of serial killers and child-drowning ghosts. They also made it extraordinarily clear that I ranked far below them in the family hierarchy.

So I spent my days roaming the property. Rocky peaks stood sentry in every direction, rising from the landscape like curious giants. Stands of aspens rattled in the wind, snowy bark shining. And the wildflowers! Fragrant, multicolored carpets of blossoms, spreading across meadows and trailing under the trees where they glowed like dim, warm lights. The outdoors soothed my isolation as effectively as a salve.

In late June – the zenith of summer, just before the walloping heat of July burns everything to a dry tangle– I found the neighbor’s house: small and rundown, with a garbage-strewn lawn. Through an open window I saw a woman. She didn’t look right; half-lidded eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, and her mouth hung open. 

I turned away and continued my hike. There’s something sharp in mountain air, a clean wildness that simultaneously heightens your senses and intoxicates you.

I drifted through the forest in a delighted haze until a voice broke my reverie.

A child’s voice, happily singing.

I perked up. Fairies and nymphs sang in forests. Maybe I’d found my very own magical creature. Maybe this was the start of my adventure.

I ran through the trees. Aspens rattled in my wake, breaking apart suddenly to reveal a murky pond.

And in the pond, a little girl with long black hair.

I froze. So did she. Sun shafted through the trees, drenching her in golden light. 

“Hi,” I said nervously. “My name’s Rachele.” I held up my fingers. “I’m six.”

The girl’s eyes shone: large and dark yet somehow golden, like sunlight glancing off tar. “I’m Lorelai. And I’m a mermaid.”

I stepped closer, feet crunching on twigs and leaves. “I’ve never met a mermaid.”

“I’m the last one. My mother told me.” She swanned across the pond, stopping just short of the edge. 

“Is your mom a mermaid?”

“No. Just human. She had five kids, all mermaids. Every last one died except me.”

Shocked tears burned my eyes. “All of them?”

“All of them,” she intoned. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t know her kids were mermaids. But she finally figured it out in time to save me.”

“Do you live in the water?”

“Yes. For ten hours a day. I come in at night since I’m scared of the dark. That’s because I’m not all the way mermaid yet.” She ducked underwater and erupted with a glittering splash.  “When I’m all the way mermaid, nothing will scare me.”

“What do you mean, not all the way mermaid?” I crept closer. The earth was dangerously soft under my feet, like it might crumble into the water. 

Lorelai was clearly enjoying herself. “Mermaids look like humans unless they spend lots of time in the water. Water washes away the human part so the mermaid part can come out. I have to be in water at least ten hours.” She held up her own small, wrinkly fingers. “Every day. Or I’ll get sick and die.”

“When will you become full mermaid?”

“Soon.” She swam to the other end, once more stopping several inches short of the shore. “Mom says changing hurts. And I hurt everywhere!”

“I’m sorry.”

Lorelai smiled radiantly. “Don’t be! When I’m a mermaid, I’ll find a special tunnel at the bottom of the pond. It leads to the ocean, but only mermaids can see it. I can’t wait! Have you seen the ocean?”

“Yes,” I said. “My dad takes me to Cabrillo Beach.” 

“Where’s that?”

“California.”

Her eyes went wide and she clapped her hands. I noticed they were covered in swollen red bumps, like bug bites. “You’re from *California*!”

We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the California coast. 

“I’ll come see you when I’m a mermaid,” Lorelai promised. “You can’t be scared, though. Full mermaids aren’t pretty. But we’re really nice, *if* you give us a chance.”

“I’ll give you lots of chances. You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“Nicest *mermaid*,” she corrected, and laughed.

I visited Lorelai every morning and left just before sunset. That’s when her mom came to fetch her. I had to leave before then because she’d be furious that I’d discovered Lorelai’s secret.

Every day I brought chips, sandwiches, and drawings of mermaids. We sang nursery rhymes and lullabies, the Blues Clues theme and original compositions. Mostly we talked. We discussed everything: California, the ocean, fairy tales, the forest, her dead siblings and my forthcoming brother.

“You need to check if he’s a mermaid,” she said seriously. “If he is, you have to put him in the water so he doesn’t die.”

“How can you tell?”

“My mom says you have to listen to your lizard brain,” Lorelai answered. “It knows.”

That night I dreamed of drowned babies and long, sinuous lizards crawling out of my eyes to whisper strange secrets in my ear. 

Lorelai was a welcome break from everything else: from my cousins, who constantly tormented me and scared me to death with ghost stories; from my aunt, who ignored me; and from my own fears, which ate me alive unless I was with Lorelai.

As June bled into July and July hobbled into a breathless and suffocating August, I realized Lorelai was the best friend I ever had.

I told her so one afternoon as I lay belly-down on the damp shore.

She gave me a tired smile. I figured she must have been close to becoming full mermaid, because she looked awful: bone-thin, with dark hollows under her eyes and broken teeth. “You’re the *only* friend I ever had.”

“How? You’re so nice.”

She swam over, stopping several inches short of the edge as always. She was so close I could smell her breath, which was ghastly. “People are scared of mermaids. That’s why Mom hides me. But being friends with a mermaid is super lucky.” She took my hand. Her skin was cold and somehow thin. Like a fish belly – white and nearly translucent, except for the angry red welts and mosquito bites. “I’ll make you the luckiest person in the world. I promise.”

The prospect of mermaid luck made me so giddy I couldn’t contain myself. When I got home that night, I regaled everyone with tales of my mermaid friend, Lorelai.

Charlotte exchanged a worried glance with her husband. Then Charles snorted with laughter. “A *mermaid*? ****.”

“*Charles*!”

“What?” He guffawed again. “She’s talking about *mermaids*.”

“Her imaginary friend is so **** it lives in stagnant water,” Alan added.

“No!” I stood up angrily. “Her name is Lorelai and she’s real! I’ll show you right now!”

But nobody wanted to tromp across several woodland acres in the growing dark because nobody believed in mermaids. 

Nobody except me. 

Over the following days, Lorelai’s condition deteriorated severely. Mosquito bites peppered her water-wrinkled skin. Strange, puffy welts snaked over her body. Her long black hair became a haven for water bugs and detritus.

“I feel things in my skin.” She extended her rashy, welt-covered arm. “I think I have bugs inside me.” She grimaced. “When I’m a mermaid, I’ll be poisonous to bugs. They’ll never bite me again.”

Looking at her – the skeletal form, the stark, almost inhuman sharpness of her face - made me want to cry. “I wish I could help you.”

“You do,” she assured me. “You’ll be here when I turn into a mermaid, and you’ll show me how to get to California.” She took my hands. Hers were terribly weak and cold. “You should go. It’s almost sunset.”

Thick golden light drowned the world in an ethereal haze, but sure enough shadows were growing, devouring that light before me eyes.

“Okay. See you tomorrow, Lorelai.”

“See you tomorrow, Rachele.” That gilded sunlight lay over her like a blanket. It erased the sickness and ugliness, leaving a small, dark-haired angel.

A real mermaid.

As I left, she broke into a song. The melody echoed through the forest for so long it could have been magic.

That night Charles scared me with his favorite ghost story. Alan insisted he’d seen the ghost in question – a rail-thin woman draped in white – drifting through the trees outside my window.

They brought me to tears. Then told me they were going ghost-hunting, and I had to come along. 

They forced me into the forest. Heavy shadows blanketed the trees: black and blue and deep, ominous purple, thick as curtains. 

Finally we stopped in a clearing. Aspens ringed the little meadow, glimmering weirdly like skinny ghosts full of unblinking black eyes. 

They poured a ring of salt in an uneven circle and chanted. Their voices filled the night, underscored by the light wind and the eerie rattle of the leaves.  

“Weeping lady of the woods,” Charles finally bellowed, “we summon you now!”

Silence.

And then a sound. High, miserable, and broken.

Sobbing.

My cousins froze.

The weeping continued: a haunting, atonal melody bleeding through the night. 

Charles ran and Alan followed. I watched them go, frozen to the spot, until the sobbing broke my paralysis. I tore after them, expecting long, white hands to reach out of the darkness and pull me away.

We ran for what felt like hours. When the house finally came into sight, I had a second of relief before I tripped and skidded down the ****. A tree trunk hurtled toward me like a rocket.

Then everything went dark.

I woke up in a hospital. Minor skull fracture and a concussion, but otherwise okay. I went home three days later. Three days after *that*, I crept out of the house to see Lorelai.

On my way to the pond, I entered an aspen-ringed clearing. My feet crunched weirdly. I looked down and saw a dirty, uneven ring of salt. This was where my cousins held their **** séance.

Just a few minutes later, I saw the pond glimmering through the trees. Relief and excitement coursed through me. “Lorelai!”

Nothing. The water shone, a field of gold interrupted by mosquitos and water bugs.

“Lorelai?” I circled the pond, dread building with every step. I called, and eventually screamed, but there was no point. Lorelai was gone.

She’d turned into a mermaid, and I’d missed it. She’d never get to California now.

I sat down and wept for hours.

Toward sunset, a shrill wail shocked me out of my daze. Fear coiled in my guts as it sounded again. Not a wail.

A siren.

I followed the sound to that broken down little house. Flashing lights drenched the trees in red and blue. 

The window - still wide open – blazed with light. Paramedics loaded an inert body onto a stretcher and carried it outside o the ambulance. A police radio crackled, and a cop looked up. Had it not been for the trees, she would have seen me.

Maybe they were looking for me. I’d run away even though I had a skull fracture and was supposed to stay in bed. Maybe they’d arrest me.

I tiptoed into the forest and went home. By the time I reached my aunt’s house, dark had long since fallen. I felt sick and dizzy, and my head throbbed with every step. 

Everyone was waiting for me. Cousins, aunt and uncle, and – to my horror – a policeman. 

My aunt stormed over. I thought she was going to hit me. Instead she gathered me into a hug and held me tight.

This is what they told me.

The neighbor was a mentally ill drug addict who overdosed several days before. A welfare check from her landlord led to the discovery of her body. She had five children. Three were in foster care. One died of SIDS. The last – a girl named Lorelai – was officially missing. A filthy, bedbug-infested bedroom indicated that a child lived in that house. It was covered in mermaid memorabilia, including several pictures I’d drawn for her. 

But they couldn’t find her.

I told them about the pond. Their horrified expressions were at odds with the hysterical relief I felt. “It’s because she’s a mermaid. She turned into a mermaid and swam to California.”

They searched the pond that night. At the bottom was an algae-slick block of granite.

Chained to the block was the corpse of an emaciated little girl with long black hair. 

It’s been twenty years. I can’t shake the memory of the séance, of the shrill crying echoing in the darkness. I was **** enough to believe it was a ghost.

But it was just a little girl who was scared of the dark.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I killed all of my colleagues, and I'll never get caught. This is my confession.
 
 Assistant: My name is Sam Wilkinson. These will be my last words on Earth. I recently got a strange email at work and before I leave for good I would like to tell you all about that email and what it led to. I don't care if you believe me or not, I just want to leave something behind. A confession, if you will. I’ll try to keep it brief, but I guess I should start from the beginning nonetheless. 

&#x200B;

I’ve hated my life for as long as I can remember. It started on my first day of school. That was when the bullying began. I don’t know what I did to deserve it or why it continued no matter how many times I changed schools. My only crime, it seems, was that I was ****. It was a vicious circle. The more they teased me the more I ate to comfort myself and the more I ate the more they teased me. I became depressed and more and more socially awkward. As I got older and entered high school I began to despise people in general. Basically everyone except my mom. My misanthropic world view didn’t exactly help me, I suppose. Let’s just say my personality became less than lovable. 

&#x200B;

I never moved away from home and I spent most of my days in my mom’s basement playing old video games. Such was my life. I’m already talking about it in past tense… My ****. That’s still my life. My biggest shame – my biggest guilt – is that my miserable condition made my poor mom unhappy. I’ve seen pictures from right after my birth. My mom looked at me with so much joy in her, then young, eyes. At that time she couldn’t imagine what a worthless shadow of a person I would become. She imagined something different. She thought that little boy would grow up to become a man who eventually would give her grandchildren; she didn’t think it would grow up to be me. 

&#x200B;

I never learned any skills other than playing video games, so for the longest time I couldn’t get a job. But that was how I liked it. I didn’t want to be around people. However, about three years ago, my mom forced me to educate myself so that I could find work and help out with the rent that kept on getting higher and higher. Reluctantly I agreed and pretty much chose a subject at random at a vocational school as close to home as possible. I didn’t have a driver's license so I couldn’t travel too far from home. I didn’t mind that though, I wanted to be as close to home as possible anyway.

&#x200B;

The subject I chose wasn’t fun. It was business administration, which pretty much just meant I would spend my time staring at spreadsheets in Excel all day. I never thought it would lead to anything, not because I didn’t learn what I was taught but because I didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to hire someone looking like me. However, after my internship at a large tech company – I won’t mention its name here but you’ve probably heard of it – I miraculously got hired. Although I had suffered all my life, it wasn’t until this period of my life – which I’m living in right now – that I started considering ending my life. 

&#x200B;

The stress was unbearable from the start. Every day when I took the bus to work I had to see how people actively chose not to sit next to me. The workplace had an open office space, so I couldn’t get away from people however much I tried and they couldn’t get away from me. For some reason, I had to sit together with the people from HR, the loudest and most social people in the entire building. I had to listen to their small talk all the time while I stared at my horribly boring spreadsheets. And, not surprisingly, they didn’t like me. Mostly, they pretended I didn’t exist but as soon as I had to talk to them – or as soon as I accidentally met their eyes – I could see the revulsion in their eyes. 

&#x200B;

Jennifer, the young woman next to me, hated me the most. She always greeted me with an expression of disgust and I often saw her roll her eyes when I sat down next to her. She was visually annoyed as soon as I spoke to her. From time to time I heard them talk about me behind my back. Jennifer didn’t even care to lower her voice. I couldn’t really go to the HR department with my issues, this *was* the HR department. 

&#x200B;

This is what my life has been like for three years now. Recently, my boss called me to her office. Apparently, a complaint had been made against me. She said the person who made the complaint wanted to be anonymous, but I’m pretty sure it was Jennifer. My boss told me, with pity in her voice, that it concerned my hygiene. 

&#x200B;

“Why don’t you take a shower in the morning?” she said.

&#x200B;

I already did that, but after walking the few hundred meters to the bus station and after sitting on the bus more or less crippled with anxiety I was sweaty again. I couldn’t help it. Hearing this made me hate myself so much. My suicidal thoughts skyrocketed. The only thing that prevented me from actually killing myself was how much it would have hurt my mom. I couldn’t do that to her. But guess what? A week ago, my mom died. 

&#x200B;

When I came home from work, I found her on the floor of the living room. I could tell she had been lying there since early morning because she still had her dressing gown on. She was still alive, but she couldn’t speak anymore. She gurgled with a confused look on her once so beautiful face. I called the ambulance immediately. She died at the hospital later that night. The doctor told me she had suffered a massive ****. Of course, this would have been devastating for anyone, but for me it pretty much meant the end of my life. From my perspective, this world didn’t have any decent people in it anymore. 

&#x200B;

My boss didn’t let me off work, not even to grieve my own mom. That was the kind of **** she was, but it was just as well. Staying home would just have reminded me of my mom. Everyone knew what had happened when I came to the office. I could tell from the atmosphere. No one gave me their condolences. I imagined shooting myself in the head, blowing my brains out right in front of everybody. But I didn’t own a gun. Instead, my actual plan was to jump out of the window. After all, we sat fifty floors up. There was no way I could survive a fall like that. I had never felt so sure about it before. I had made my decision. It was at that moment that I received the strange email. As I said, this was a week ago now. 

&#x200B;

The email began: 

&#x200B;

”Here's your access to The Forest." 

&#x200B;

A username and password followed and at the button, it said: “Regards, Leif.” 

&#x200B;

Leif was using a company email so I assumed he was from IT and that they had started using a new software or system. I did find it odd that he didn't explain what it was though. I didn't put too much thought into it though and just assumed it had already been explained at some meeting where I hadn’t paid any attention. I asked Jennifer if she knew what it was. She shook her head with her typical attitude and said no with the kind of tone you use when a creep asks you out on a date. As always I pretended like nothing, but inside I couldn't help but feel as worthless as she thought I was. I took a quick look at the window and told myself to just do it. However, I wanted to wait until after my mom’s funeral. *Soon*, I thought and tried to picture Jennifer’s reaction to seeing me jump.

&#x200B;

When I closed Excel a few hours later, just before lunch, I noticed a new shortcut on the desktop. The icon depicted a few pixelated trees. The Forest, it was called. I thought it was kind of strange that it had just appeared out of nowhere. Usually, I had to bring the computer down to the IT department to install new software. With nothing else to do, I clicked on the file. 

&#x200B;

A program that reminded me of how software used to look in the 90s opened up in front of me. It didn't have that much content. There was a window that streamed what looked like a live video of a forest. I was able to use the mouse to look around 360 degrees, but other than that there wasn't much I could interact with. The video quality was pretty low, but it didn't look computer animated. However, I soon got the impression that it must have been a computer game because under the stream there was a bar that let you set the speed of time. You could view the feed in real time, which was set as default, or increase the speed of time all the way up to a hundred years per second. Beneath the speed settings, there were only two buttons. Import and Export. That was all. In the menu, there weren't that many options. Just About and Quit. I clicked on About. It just said: ”Made by Leif.” 

&#x200B;

I played around with the program and pressed Import. 

&#x200B;

Surprisingly, a catalog with all the employees of my company popped up. I figured it was connected to Outlook where a similar catalog was accessible. There was a search bar to make it easier to find who you were looking for. I looked up and saw my boss walk by. I closed the program immediately. 

&#x200B;

I went home that day without opening the program again, afraid that my boss would ask me back to her office again. At home, I didn’t think that much of The Forest. I had more pressing things on my mind, to say the least. I was going to inherit my mom’s house, but not that much money. I knew I would never be able to pay the rent and the other expenses by myself, and I didn’t have any motivation to do anything about it. Thinking about this I lay down on the sofa in the living room, looking at the spot on the floor where I had found my mom reduced to a confused shell of her former self. From now on I wasn’t just falling apart mentally but physically as well. Soon I would lose the house and, most likely, end up on the street. 

&#x200B;

I didn’t plan on doing that though. I fell asleep and saw the window at work in my dreams. It wasn’t a nightmare. The nightmare would start as soon as I woke up. Next day I came to work one hour earlier than everybody else. Usually, I avoided coming in that early but now I didn’t really want to spend too much time at home. Seeing the shortcut to The Forest on my desktop made me curious again. I opened it. Everything looked the same, except it was night time in the forest now. The moon – more orange than our own moon – shone a sandy yellow on the leafs of the trees. I increased the speed of time to a few minutes per second. Nothing changed, but I soon realized that the clouds passing in front of the moon moved faster than before. *Neat*, I thought without any actual emotion attached to it. After that, I tried to press the export button. The same kind of window opened up as when I’d pressed Import but with no names in it. I went to the import window, looked at the list of names, and pondered what this was all about. Eventually, I decided to humor myself and searched for Jennifer. I selected her name and pressed Import. A dialog box showed up. “Are you sure you want to import Jennifer Norman into The Forest?” I pressed Yes. 

&#x200B;

Jennifers name disappeared from the list. I chuckled to myself, although I couldn’t muster any actual joy, thinking that this program must’ve been some pretty funny inside joke down at the IT department. I went to the export window again. As I expected, Jennifer’s name could be seen there now. Suddenly, my boss entered the office together with one of our colleagues. I quickly shut down The Forest, opened Excel and pretended to work. 

&#x200B;

More and more of my colleagues arrived, but not Jennifer. First I thought she was late for work, which wasn’t unusual for her, and when she hadn’t shown up before lunch I assumed she was sick. I had a burger for lunch down the street. They didn’t serve the best food, far from it, but it was the only place where I knew no one from work would eat. *In the Year 2525* played from the ceiling. I sat there, eating my burger and drinking my soda, while I listened to the song and thought about jumping out of the window. I thought I would do it at the end of the week, maybe on Friday, one day after the funeral. 

&#x200B;

Back at work my boss came to the HR department and asked if anyone had seen Jennifer. Apparently, she hadn’t called in sick after all. It wasn’t until now my brain went to that impossible place. Did this had something to do with what I had done in the program? Obviously not, but just in case – in some superstitious carefulness – I opened The Forest and exported her. “Are you sure you want to export Jennifer Norman from The Forest?”   


Yes. She disappeared from the list and appeared among the names in the import window again. 

&#x200B;

One hour later, Jennifer stepped into the office. I figured she had just been late after all, just unusually so. As she got closer, something seemed off about her though. One of my colleagues, a friend of hers, stood up and ran toward her.

&#x200B;

“Jennifer!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?!”

&#x200B;

I looked up to see the interaction.

&#x200B;

“I-I don’t know, Bella, I overslept – j-just woke up – and… and I got here as quickly as I could but I don’t think I’m well. I think I have to talk to the boss about…”

&#x200B;

“What happened to your face?!” Bella continued without listening. “Is that *real*? And your clothes, have you seen yourself in the mirror today? My ****.” 

&#x200B;

I looked at Jennifer’s face. It was crossed by a pretty nasty scar. Her clothes looked old and torn, almost as if she had had them on forever. 

&#x200B;

“What do you mean?” Jennifer said and brought her hand up to her face. “What?!” She ran into the bathroom, presumably to look herself in the mirror, and a few seconds later she screamed and came running out crying. Everyone stood up, even me, and watched her leave the office in a panic. 

&#x200B;

At that moment it dawned on me… The time. It was set to several hours per second in The Forest. I did some quick calculations in my head. If this had anything to do with me importing her she would have been inside the forest for more than three years. While I sat and ate my burger down the street, listening to *In the Year 2525* she had spent years inside… But it couldn’t be real. That would have been ridiculous. 

&#x200B;

Jennifer didn’t come back to the office the next day. Her husband, I soon understood from the inevitable gossip, had called in and said she wouldn’t be able to come back to work for a while. 

&#x200B;

I arrived at the office even earlier this day. I opened The Forest. It was still set to a few hours per second. I pulled it back to real time. Some birds, larger than any birds I’ve ever seen, flew in formation in the sky. I sped up time again, this time to a few days per second. The birds quickly disappeared from the sky and the moon replaced the sun and vice versa in close succession. The trees moved as if seen on a video being fast-forwarded. This couldn’t be a real forest, I thought, it just couldn’t. Again, I slowed down time to normal. 

&#x200B;

Thomas, a guy from the economy department that had always made silly jokes at my expense, came to the office. I looked at him as he walked toward his office space with his leather briefcase in his hand and his expensive watch around his wrist. He looked at me. I nodded, but he ignored me. 

&#x200B;

I couldn’t see his office space from where I was sitting, but as soon as he had passed by I heard him placing his briefcase on his desk and opening it. I made sure the time was set to default and pressed Import. “Thomas Wachtmeister”, I typed in the search bar and then I imported him. “Are you sure you want to import Thomas Wachtmeister into The Forest?” I was. As soon as his name disappeared from the list I carefully walked around the corner. His briefcase was lying on his desk, but he was nowhere to be seen. I went back to my computer. I looked at the video stream of the forest. It was in the middle of the day there now. I slowly moved the camera 360 degrees to try and see if I could see Thomas somewhere. It made me feel like an idiot even trying this, given how impossible it was. I didn’t see him anywhere, but I did see some weird animals – two bluish giraffes – walking by. The low resolution made it near impossible to tell if they were real or animated, but given that they were blue giraffes I just had to assume the latter. Thomas had probably just gone to the bathroom. Nonetheless, I made sure to export him. As soon as I did that, I heard something from his office space. I sneaked there to take a look. 

&#x200B;

Thomas was standing up, seemingly confused. His usually water-combed hair was scruffy, as if he had just woken up.

 

“Hey, Thomas,” I said.

&#x200B;

He looked at me, surprised he wasn’t alone.

&#x200B;

“I-I think I fainted,” he said, blushing a little.

&#x200B;

“What do you mean?” I said. “Are you okay?”

&#x200B;

“Well… I was just about to turn on my computer when suddenly I was lying on the floor.”

&#x200B;

“Really?” I looked down, trying to come up with something to say. “Do you remember anything from the last couple of minutes?”

&#x200B;

He looked at his watch.

&#x200B;

“Uh… No, I blacked out!”

&#x200B;

I excused myself, telling him it probably wasn’t anything to worry about, and went back to my computer. I felt a bit excited, although I still didn’t dare to believe.

&#x200B;

My colleagues started dropping in and I couldn’t open The Forest again for the rest of that day without anyone seeing it. During the day, there was some more talk about Jennifer. Most of what I heard seemed to be rumors. No one talked to me about it, of course, but it was difficult not to hear the whispers around me. One of Jennifer’s closest friends at the office said she had called her and that it had been difficult to understand her. She had been obsessed with a certain nightmare that had returned to her as soon as she fell asleep. Something about being hunted by monsters deep inside a forest. It all started to seem too strange to be a coincidence. Was I responsible for Jennifer’s condition? It made me feel weird. On the one hand, I never imagined myself doing something to harm anyone – I’ve never been a violent guy – but on the other hand, thinking that one of my tormentors had been forced to spend three years alone inside of a monstrous forest gave me some kind of satisfaction. 

&#x200B;

I didn’t dare to import anyone else the next day. I continued to contemplate my suicide, but more often than not those thoughts were interrupted by my thoughts about the forest. I spent two days looking at it, playing with the speed of time. I increased it to the max and saw the seasons flicker in and out. The trees grew, died and were replaced by new trees. At one point, there was a flash of light and all the trees were suddenly gone. I slowed down the speed. There had been a huge fire, it seemed. I sped up time again and after maybe a minute the trees grew up again and soon it was as if nothing had happened at all. The animals didn’t return as quickly though, but eventually, they came back as well. 

&#x200B;

Most of the creatures I saw reminded me more of monsters than of animals. I saw an enormous white centipede with hundreds of red eyes, I saw some kind of snail – or blob – devouring a creature that reminded me of a huge stick insect. At one point one of the blue giraffes came close enough to the camera for me to see that it didn’t have a head, just randomly placed mouths along its neck all filled with vicious teeth. Sitting in the safety of my office watching these horrific creatures hunting each other on my screen gave me an odd feeling of coziness, like being inside during a storm. And there were a lot of storms inside of the forest. Sometimes they raged for years and I had to speed up time to see the end of them. When turning the camera upward during these storms, I could see a purple nuance within the heavy clouds. All of this mesmerized me to such an extent that I didn’t think much of the window, but I still knew that my life was over and that I didn’t really have a choice.

&#x200B;

During Thursday – yesterday – I continued to observe the forest. Again, I pressed About. “Made by Leif.” Who was he? I spent the better part of the day trying to figure that out. I opened his email to me again, copied his email address and tried to find him in the list of employees. However, he didn’t show up. Even though he had one of the company's email addresses he didn’t seem to be registered as an employee. I checked documents going several years back, but without any luck. The name Leif never came up. I thought he might have resigned, but he should still have been seen in some of the records I checked. Eventually, I gave up trying to find him and went home without getting any significant work done that day at all. 

&#x200B;

Today, I was supposed to attend my mom’s funeral. It would’ve been an important day for me, a day that could’ve given me some kind of closure. However, my boss wouldn’t give me the day off. She said I hadn’t sent in my application for taking the day off in time, and perhaps she was right but, I mean… it was my mom’s funeral for crying out loud. Of course, I planned on just calling in sick and going anyway, but something in me just snapped when she did this. I couldn’t take it anymore. It had to stop. My boss, my colleagues and the company at large was a cancer not just in my life but on society as well. All the hate I had built up over the years suddenly surfaced in a way I didn’t think possible. Before this day I had no idea how it felt to be one of those guys who come into the office one day with a machine gun, but now I did. Of course, I didn’t own a machine gun, but I had something else: The Forest. 

&#x200B;

I arrived early at the office. I knew that most of my colleagues were still asleep. Today, they would wake up to a new surrounding. For some reason, my boss was in her office though. She couldn’t see me from where she was, but I could hear her on the phone. It seemed to be an important call and it was probably the reason she had come to work so early today. 

&#x200B;

I opened The Forest. A storm poured its purple rain over the trees. For a few seconds, I hesitated. My plan was simple. I would import the people I hated – which was pretty much everyone – into the nightmare on my screen and then I would open the window and end my own life, knowing that all of the despicable people in my life would be consumed by monsters one by one. In a way, it was symbolic to do it on the day of my mom’s funeral. My hesitation didn’t last long. I pressed Import and typed in the name of my boss in the search bar. The program asked if I was sure. I listened to her voice while she was talking to the phone, and clicked Yes.

&#x200B;

“Yes, I know about the recession but we still have to…” 

&#x200B;

She suddenly went silent. It gave me goosebumps. I walked to her office. The phone was lying on her desk. I could hear a man on the other end of it. “Hello? Where did you go?” I hung up the phone and returned to my own desk. I looked around in the forest, but I didn’t see my boss anywhere. After this I started to import the rest of my colleagues, Jennifer included. It gave me the kind of enjoyment I suppose anyone would feel finally getting back at their enemies. Since I was going to **** myself I didn’t really consider the consequences of my actions. I just let my destructive impulses guide me completely. After I had imported the entire HR department, I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I continued to import people at the company. *Fuck you, **** you, **** you*, I said to myself while I imported people I didn’t even know. It was enough for me that they worked at the company. My hate had consumed me at this point. After a while, people started showing up on the screen. Jennifer was walking around in front of the camera. She stepped up to it and screamed something, but since there wasn't any sound I couldn’t tell what she was saying. And then something came down from the sky and grabbed her. She fell down a few meters away, seemingly still alive. After that, I saw three men – still in their pajamas – running past the camera, hunted by what looked like a spider but that was really just eight legs coming out of the back of a corpse belonging to one of the blue giraffes. 

&#x200B;

I don’t know why – perhaps the severity of the situation became more obvious now when I could actually see the people in the forest – but I started to cry. It was a cry mixed with so many different emotions, but mostly with sorrow and hate. But I kept importing people. After a while, I realized that I could select more than one person at a time. I selected a random amount out of the thousands of employees on the list. “Are you sure you want to import 167 subjects into The Forest?” *Fucking yes!* I felt empty inside after I clicked yes, like nothing mattered to me anymore. My last sliver of humanity had finally been lost. With a cold heart – watching my confused colleagues seeking safety from the storm in the forest – I increased the speed of time to a few days per second. It went too fast for me to see anyone. Suddenly, a dialog box popped up.

&#x200B;

“James O. Nilsson is about to expire. Do you wish to export?”

&#x200B;

I pressed No. Now I knew I had killed. This happened a few more times until I just put the speed at maximum. Immediately a new dialog box appeared. “210 subjects are about to expire. Do you wish to export?”

&#x200B;

Again, I pressed No. I went to the export list and saw that it was empty. I considered importing even more people, but decided my deed was done now. There was only one thing left to do for me. I looked at the window. My decision to jump didn’t have that much to do with what I’d done. It wasn’t a coward’s escape from the police or anything. I knew that no one would be able to figure out where all those people went anyway. I would never get caught. My suicide was supposed to be the end of my suffering and that was why I still planned on going through with it. And now was the time. Before I walked up to the window that I had fantasized about jumping out of for so long, I dragged the speed back to normal in the program. 

&#x200B;

It was a sunny day in the forest. To my surprise, I could see a stream of smoke coming from the ground a few hundred meters away. I couldn’t tell what its source was but after a few minutes, I realized that it was people sitting around a fire. Later, one of them walked up to the camera. It was a man. He was wearing an animal skin and carrying a spear. A woman walked up next to him. They looked pre-historic. They kneeled in front of the camera and placed what looked like a piece of meat on the ground in front of it. *Was it an offering?* My first thought was that these people had always lived in The Forest, but then it dawned on me that they must’ve been the descendants of the people I imported. Somehow they must have survived long enough to have children. 

&#x200B;

I decided to prolong my suicide a bit so that I could watch these people. They didn’t do much more though. After they had placed the meat they walked back to their camp and then they disappeared. So I sped up time again, a few years per second. After about fifty years I slowed down again. This time, there was some kind of altar around the camera – made by rocks and flowers – and I could see more campfires burning in the distance. I was fascinated by the fact that these people lived so primitive lives given that their forefathers were modern people. I then realized that everyone I had imported into The Forest had been office workers. Their knowledge of Excel wouldn’t have been very useful in the wild. With a burning curiosity, I sped up time once again. This time I allowed for a few hundred years to pass. When I put the speed back to default, the first thing I noticed was that the altar had been changed. This time, it looked more like a structure. Stones placed upon each other, but still in a primitive way.

&#x200B;

The people looked about the same, still wearing animal skins as clothes and wielding spears. This time, however, I noticed a woman carrying what looked like a bow and arrows. They were still in the stone age, though. So I sped up time yet again and this time I let approximately three thousand years pass before I returned the settings to normal again. This only took half a minute on my end with the speed setting put at maximum.

&#x200B;

To my surprise, the inhabitants still hadn’t surpassed the stone age. The altar was a bit more advanced though. It now resembled Stonehenge. A bit disappointed at their slow development an idea formed in my head. Now driven by curiosity more than hate, I pressed Import again. I knew I was about to change someone's life with my actions, and do so without their consent, but it somehow didn’t feel like a big deal anymore. I suppose I had gotten used to it by now. I looked up the smartest people I knew among the employees. There was only three of them (depressing, I know): A medical doctor who had changed her career midlife, an engineer who had worked on some of the company's more experimental projects such as the development of more sustainable energy sources, and a cleaner who had worked as a dentist in her home country. I imported them and sped up time for a few minutes, letting half a century pass in the forest while I barely had time to scratch my head. 

&#x200B;

This time, things had changed dramatically. The people didn’t seem to live like nomads anymore, but in villages. At least, there was a village built around the camera so I assumed there must have been more of them. Finally, it looked like the inhabitants had become farmers. They were using carts with wheels and I even saw them riding the blue giraffes like horses. The small guilt I had felt when importing the three more knowledgable individuals quickly disappeared when I saw what they had contributed to during their stay inside The Forest. I spent about an hour watching the people in the village until I sped up time again. I took my time since I knew my colleagues wouldn’t come in for work today. 

&#x200B;

When I set the speed back to normal the people were living in what could only be regarded as a town. It still looked like the village, but it was bigger and had objects made of metal in it, such as weapons and tools. Perhaps this was the bronze age? About twenty people, dressed in white robes, were praying around the camera. They reminded me of a mixture of Hindus and Muslims. 

&#x200B;

Their religious devotion to the camera made me feel important in a way I’ve never felt before. After all, these people wouldn’t have been born without me. In a way, I truly was their ****. And a part of me felt like it. I sped up time and once again I noticed that nothing much happened. Development was slow. 

&#x200B;

At one time, the camera was trapped within a set of walls. I couldn’t see anything, but – since I was watching The Forest at a speed of one year per second – the walls quickly disappeared. Why had they been there? Had there been some kind of change in their religion? Houses went up and down, storms came and went. After a while, I witnessed the first war. I slowed down time, but the war went by so fast that it ended before I could see any of it in real time. The town was burning and people – women and children – lay dead on the ground while people with paint on their faces walked around with spears longer than the ones I had seen before. Blue giraffes with empty saddles were feasting on the corpses with their long terrifying necks. 

&#x200B;

I decided to increase the speed of time to a hundred years per second again. It wasn’t possible to see any individual actions, but the town grew, then it was seemingly destroyed for a fraction of a second and then it reappeared even bigger than before. This was repeated several times and after about a minute on my end – six thousand years in The Forest – I slowed down the speed of time again. The town was an ancient city now, looking like what I imagined Athens must have looked like back in the day. I noticed the flag of this civilization. It was black with a golden tower in the center. Perhaps it depicted the camera, I thought. After all, I had never seen the camera and didn’t know what it looked like. As I let time speed up again, this city was destroyed and rebuilt a few times as well. 

&#x200B;

“Where is everybody?”

&#x200B;

It was the janitor, a guy that always “joked” about my weight.

&#x200B;

“Um,” I said out of surprise. “I’ve no idea.”

&#x200B;

I tabbed down The Forest. 

&#x200B;

“Hey, what was that?” he said. “Some kind of game?”

&#x200B;

“N-no…”

&#x200B;

“Come on, let me see it.”

&#x200B;

I nervously brought the program up on the screen again.

&#x200B;

“The Forest?”

&#x200B;

“Uh, yeah, it kind of just appeared on my computer”, I said.

&#x200B;

I panicked and didn’t know what else to say but the truth.

&#x200B;

“So what do you do? Is it like Age of Empires or something?”

&#x200B;

“Yeah,” I said hesitantly, “no, not really. I don’t really know what it is.” I felt a drop of sweat running down my cheek.

 

“You aren’t supposed to play games at work, you know? That’s why you’re so ****, you need to stop playing all these computer games all day and hit the gym, man!”

&#x200B;

He laughed. 

&#x200B;

“It isn’t really a game,” I said, ignoring his insult. “Look, there are only two options. Import and Export. And hey, look, if I press Import I get this list of everyone that works here.” 

&#x200B;

I opened the list. 

&#x200B;

“Really?” he said. “That’s weird.”

&#x200B;

“Yeah, everyone is on the list. Look.” I typed in his name. “Here’s you. You’re on the list.”

&#x200B;

“Well, what happens if you press Import?”

&#x200B;

“I-I don’t know. Let’s try it.”

&#x200B;

I selected his name and pressed Import. The usual dialog box appeared: “Are you sure you want import Ignacio Gonzalez into The Forest?”

&#x200B;

Ignacio laughed. “This is some strange ****, man, I…”

&#x200B;

I clicked Yes. I never saw him disappear. Even though he stood right next to me, I didn’t see him vanish. He was just gone. It almost felt like he had never been there at all. 

&#x200B;

I quickly sped up time again. 

&#x200B;

“Ignacio Gonzalez is about to expire, do you wish to export?” 

&#x200B;

I absently clicked no and let time flow by in The Forest at full speed. Given what I knew about history on Earth, I assumed that the civilization inside The Forest would soon mimic my own civilization. A minute later, I saw that I was right. The city had gone from ancient to modern in only sixty seconds. I didn’t see any skyscrapers or anything, though. The camera was inside what looked like a huge military facility. 

&#x200B;

People that looked like scientists walked around it doing different kinds of measurements. For a few minutes, I watched them work. On one of the walls, there was a huge world map. It didn’t depict any continents on Earth. I could see borders and dots marking different cities. On some primitive level, I felt kind of offended that the people had stopped worshipping the camera. 

&#x200B;

The scientists worked meticulously, but even though it fascinated me a great deal, they weren’t that fun to watch. So I sped up time again, this time to a year per second. Everything started moving quickly in front of the camera. Suddenly – in a flash of light – the military facility was gone and revealed a city that was completely destroyed. 

&#x200B;

I slowed down the time. I had no idea what had happened, but it looked like the city had been bombed. I could see skeletons of skyscrapers in the distance and there was smoking rubble everywhere. Then, I saw a bright light in the distant followed by a mushroom cloud climbing towards the sky. 

&#x200B;

A sadness came over me. Over the timespan of a few hours, I had accidentally created a civilization, seen it grow and then destroy itself. I couldn’t see any signs of life. I set the speed at maximum. It only took a second for everything to turn green. The forest was back, just as pristine at it had been from the beginning. Now, I figured, it was time to end my own life. Not as a failed man, but as a failed ****. 

&#x200B;

I left The Forest running on my computer and walked towards the window. My steps felt heavy. As I opened the window, letting the summer air in, I realized I had forgotten my phone at my desk. I didn’t want anyone to enter it after my death so I went back to get it.

&#x200B;

Something had changed on the screen. Somehow, mankind had survived in The Forest. It had taken them a thousands of years to rebuild it – just as if they had had to start from scratch again – but the city was back. When I slowed down time – letting a few more hundred years pass in the forest – I noticed that the city was larger than before. The skyscrapers reached further up into the sky and, to my amazement, I could see thousands of vehicles flying through the air. I used the camera to look around and when I looked up towards the sky I could see lights on the surface of the orange moon. People were living there now. As I watched this world, now completely transformed from a horrific wilderness to what looked like a technological paradise far surpassing anything on Earth, I cried tears of a happiness I’ve never felt before in my entire life. 

&#x200B;

I looked at the window in my office and at the boring, primitive city stretching out into the horizon on the other side of it and then at the city glittering on my computer screen. I thought about my beloved mom. She would’ve wanted me to live.

 

This was before I started writing this, my last words on Earth. I just clicked on Import. 

&#x200B;

“Are you sure you want to import Sam Wilkinson into The Forest?”

&#x200B;

Before I press yes I just want to say one more thing: If you ever get an email from a man named Leif with a login to The Forest. Say [thank you](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSrQ5Vhwc99kD8js7Ud5tw) from me.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My patient wears a tinfoil hat. Now I know the horrifying reason why.
 
 Assistant: Sarah sat across from me, wearing a tinfoil hat.

She’d put effort into it. Tinfoil sculpted neatly around her entire head, with a nice little bulb on the top. 

“Can you tell me why you wear that, Sarah?” I asked.

Her eyes darted back and forth, as if the Government – or whatever entity she was afraid of – might hear her. “They’ll listen to my thoughts,” she finally whispered. “And then…”

“I understand. But l can assure you – it’s perfectly safe to remove the tinfoil, Sarah.”

“Really?”

Poor girl. Her lip was trembling, and her eyes were wide with fear. *What made her so afraid? Of the government, or aliens, or whatever else she thinks is listening in on her thoughts?* We’d already investigated her parents. There was no evidence of any sort of abuse. So why was this little 8-year-old girl so scared?

“I know you think, when you take off that hat, that something will listen in on your thoughts. And then, that’d be a disaster, right? Because maybe the government, or aliens, or whatever else is listening will use that to their advantage. They’ll stalk you, or try to control your mind. But that won’t happen, Sarah.”

“But they’ll **** me. When they hear my thoughts, they’ll come in the middle of the night and –”

“Ssssh. None of that is going to happen, Sarah. You’re okay.”

“No, I’m not!” she said, tears brimming in her eyes.

“I promise, you are. There’s nothing to be afraid of, okay? Nothing.” I leaned forward and gave her a smile. “Can you try to take off the hat?”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Please? Try. For me. I promise – nothing bad will happen.”

She looked around, her face growing pale. “You *promise?”*

“Promise. I’ll even do the pinky thing.”

She finally broke into a smile.

Our pinkies locked. Then she slowly reached up for the tinfoil. She shut her eyes tight.

She yanked it off.

I jumped back. My heart pounded in my chest.

“Dr. Taylor? Are you okay?”

A ringing filled my ears. It gave way to whispers – talking all at once, overlapping and hissing. Some fell away, others intensified, until the words became clear:

*Take that knife from the cabinet.*

*Stab her in the eye with it.*

*Now.*

The voice wasn’t hers. It was low, deep, rasping. The kind of voice that scrapes at your mind, shredding your sanity.

“Sarah?” I asked. But my voice sounded so small.

And then I felt my body move. I clenched my muscles, tried to stop; but nothing happened. My feet shuffled forward, towards the cabinet.

Towards the knife.

Her eyes widened. She reached down and grabbed the tinfoil, pushed it back over her hair. Immediately – the voices extinguished. A dull ringing throbbed in my ears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, bursting into tears. “I didn’t want you to hear it, Dr. Taylor. That’s why I didn’t want to take it off. That’s why –”

“It’s okay, Sarah,” I said. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

But I wasn’t so sure that was a promise I could keep. Because now I knew.

*She doesn’t wear the hat to keep something out.*

*She wears it to keep that voice* [*in.*](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I am a sex worker. Sometimes I get the strangest clients.
 
 Assistant: A couple of things before we start - 

* You can call me Natasha. 

* I am not American. I won't tell you where exactly I'm from - for safety reasons. Yours, not mine. 

* I am also not going to bother explaining *how* I got into this line of work. Needles to say, I am not a victim. I'm not looking for your pity, and I'm most definitely not in need of rescue. My sole purpose of making this post, is to share some of my most extraordinary experiences with a community that I believe would be interested in them. 

* And no. I will NOT be offering my services to any of you. So don't be a smartass. Thanks!

~

I have been a **** worker for well over a decade now.  And in those long years I have come across many a curious client. A normal, well adjusted adult would faint if they saw the kind of freaky **** I've been a witness to, or participated in. I've had clients who paid me to **** on them, spit on them, stomp on their nuts, all the while wearing gold rimmed glasses and a white wig and berating them like I was their disappointed grandma.  I've farted in glass jars and sold the said containers. I've worn a collar and pranced around a motel room, barking like a dog and sipping water from a bowl for over an hour, earning a **** **** of cash for not even doing anything explicitly ****. There was even a time I treated a 45 year old man like a literal baby, changing his diapers after he shat in them, singing him a lullaby as he bawled like a baby, **** on his thumb and then on my ****.

The point is, as **** workers we get to see the true nature of humanity in all its pitiable and hideous glory, a reality that almost never reveals itself to civilised society. But sometimes; we end up encountering monsters who lie beyond even our understanding of human nature. Creatures that lurk in the deep shadows that twist around the congested streets of our red light district, ready to prey on anyone foolish enough to step too close to them. A quick death would be preferable to falling into their clutches.

True evil.

I was in my early 20s when I first ran into one of them. There'd been news reports of missing young **** workers floating around those days, news reports I casually brushed aside as being nothing too out of the ordinary. After all, it wasn't all that rare for prostitutes to get murdered by unstable Johns or exploitative pimps, was it? My youthful arrogance prevented me from understanding that there's a huge difference between knowing that evil exists out there, and actually coming face to face with it. 

I had been working for over three years by then, having just graduated from turning tricks on street corners under salacious neon signs to having my own private room in my then Madame's establishment, doing *specialised* work for freaks, earning a lot more than most of my 'co-workers.' I guess having the stomach to do things that would make most girls cry in fear and disgust really worked out in my favour. Though I'm sure the others would disagree over who exactly had it better.

My appointments those days, or nights I should say, were handled directly by the Madame. The clients would come visit me in my private room, or I'd go to them, either at their place or at a hotel that charged by the hour. Regardless of where I went, I would always be accompanied by one of the Madame's muscles. To protect the merchandise of course. My most frequent chaperone at the time was this bald, broad shouldered mountain of a man. He had a short beard, tattoos all over his arms and despised rap music. So I called him Lil ****. 

I met Lil **** just outside the establishment that night. The air was tingling with a pleasant chill and the enticing smell of kebabs that wafted over from the new Lebanese restaurant across the street. Lil **** pulled up in his black SUV with tinted windows as I stood **** on a cigarette, taking care not to smear my bright red lipstick.

"Hop in." He said, pushing open the passenger door. I tossed the cigarette aside, clutched my purse and climbed into the car, plastic sheets squishing as I eased back into the seat.

"You really need to take this **** off." I remarked. 

He chuckled. "No way. Wouldn't want cumstains all over the expensive leather." 

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah? How are you going to stop that from happening when your boyfriend's pounding your **** in the backseat?"

"Fuck you." He growled. 

"Gonna have to pay me for that Lil ****." I said, grinning. "Though I doubt the Madame would let you **** the merchandise."

"Hilarious, aren't you?… ****." He muttered as he turned the key and made the car purr to life. Smiling, I turned my neck and looked out the window, out at the sidewalk where **** clad women stood waiting for customers, cigarettes jammed between rotting teeth. The world was truly harsh. And it became all the more clear as the car left the red light area and pulled up on respectable markets and nicer neighborhoods. Gone were the neon signs and the small, crumbling buildings with damp walls and cramped rooms. I heaved a sigh of longing as I gazed out at places people can actually live decent, peaceful lives in, where you can go to bed without worrying about stray gunshots or the police bursting into your home without any warning.

And about ten minutes later, it got even better. The car rolled past a wide open wrought iron gate and descended a sloping road onto a luscious valley dotted with spacious mansions and their sprawling, carefully maintained lawns. Even the ornate victorian street lamps screamed wealth.

"Not what you were expecting?" Lil **** asked as he made a left turn. 

I shook my head. I certainly hadn't expected to come to a place like this. But then again, I really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the richer they are, the freakier they tend to be.

I was still lost in thought when Lil **** brought the car to a halt. The road went on ahead of us on a gentle **** upwards before twisting to the right. On the turn sat a big two storeyed house with red brick walls. It was dark - suspicionly so - even the lights at the gate were switched off, which itself was locked shut. It seemed like someone tried a bit too hard to give the impression that nothing suspicious was happening in the house. 

"That's the place." Lil **** said, checking the address on his phone. 

"Thought so." 

He nodded. "You have your phone on you?"

"Yes." 

"Give me a call if something goes wrong." 

"Okay."

"Got the pepper spray in your purse?" 

"Yup."

"Good. Tell him I'm waiting for you outside." 

"Sure."

I opened the door and swung my legs out. 

"Hey Natasha." 

I paused. Lil **** looked at me with a frown on his face. "You've heard the rumors going around recently, right? About the disappearing girls?"

I raised my brow. "Yes? A couple of **** disappearing off the streets? Not exactly breaking news, is it?" 

He closed his eyes and shook his head in irritation. "Just be careful is all I'm saying. I'll be right here if you need me." He patted his gun holster.

"Thanks." I flashed him a genuinely grateful smile and climbed out of the car. Knowing that he was there *did* make me feel comfortable, even though at the time I foolishly thought he was being a little too paranoid. Hindsight, am I right? Pulling my purse back up on my shoulder, I started walking towards the house, my heels clicking on the cobblestone pavement. Crickets hidden in damp grass erupted in a furious chatter around me as I approached the house. Somewhere in the distance, a dog let out a mournful howl.

This short walk just before a session always made me feel queasy, like the contents of my stomach were sloshing around. My head buzzed with a million questions. Who was my client? What was he like? What will I have to do? I couldn't wait to get inside and find out. And get it over with. Just then, almost as my thoughts had been heard, the gate of the house swung open with a rusted groan. 

It wasn't the whole gate exactly. Just a small door set into the larger structure off to the left side. Shadows pooled at the rectangular gap that opened up, but I could make out a figure standing there, shuffling on his feet impatiently. I brushed a stray strand of dark hair behind my earlobe and continued walking.

"Natasha, right?" Came the deep voice of the man at the gate. I could see him a bit better from this distance. He was wearing a black hoodie and a pair of faded jeans. Seemed to be in his late 30s, had short black hair that peeked from beneath the hood, exhausted brown eyes set in sockets that were beginning to turn doughy and a pink birthmark on his left cheekbone that made him look like somone had slapped him. Hard. "Well. Come on in."

I smiled, ducked my head and entered the property. 

"You showed up right on time. I really do appreciate that." The man said as he shut the gate behind me. Then stuffed his hands in his pockets and marched off towards the house. "Come."

I followed, letting my eyes wander over the lawn. Walled in by a tall and thick hedge, it held a certain beauty that's hard to achieve without both wealth and time - two luxuries that seemed far out of my reach. Colourful flowers shone under the gentle moonlight, swayed mesmerizingly with the cool breeze that made my skin feel soft. My ears tingled with the sound of the babbling of a garden waterfall. Envy reddened my cheeks.

"Well," the man asked, pulling me out of my own head, "are you coming?" He was holding the front door open, looking at me questioningly. I nodded and climbed the short flight of stairs leading to the door. He entered first, strode off to the right and flipped the light switch on before gesturing at me to come in. Opulence that bordered on the obscene greeted me as I walked into the house. ****, but I would have to work nonstop for half a year before I could afford just the rug in this place.

"Alright." The man said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's get started shall we?" 

"Sure." I replied. "Just point me to the bathroom and I'll quickly freshen up."

"Oh no no no, don't bother. This will be over quick." He chuckled as he pointed at the bulge in his pants.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and shrugged. Maybe he wanted me to **** on his ****. Maybe that was his kink. I'd seen worse. 

A smile flashed across his face, making his birthmark ripple. "Okay. Great. Let's head to the basement shall we?"

I froze.

"Um.. Excuse me?"

He looked at me blankly. "The basement. That's where we'll have our session."

I could feel my heart sink in my chest.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, confused. Like he couldn't tell what was wrong here. No ****, there's no chance I'm going down into your soundproof **** room.

"I don't do basements."

He frowned. "But I spoke to your Madame on the phone. She said you would be open to anything... That wasn't a lie, was it?"

Trapped by my own reputation.

"No. It wasn't. Listen, it's just that basements at this hour…" 

"Oh." Hie eyes widened. "You're worried I'm going to **** you, right? You don't have to be scared of that. It's not why I called you here." 

I tried to think of a suitable reply to give to this nut.

"Listen," he said, giving me a wide grin, "I'm not going to hurt you. I can't, really. I spoke to your Madame, and she told me she sent one of her thugs with you. Not to mention that she has my address. There's no way I could get away with it, right?" 

*You could if you were a squatter. You could **** me and escape before Lil **** could get here. No one would even know who killed me.*

"Listen, I'm not even going to touch you. I'm just going to touch *myself*, while watching you. That's it. That's all I want." 

He could sense the indecision in me. "How about I double the money? Would that make you feel better?"

Maybe I was overthinking it. "…Okay. 15 minutes. That's all I'll give you. I'm gonna text my friend outside that if I'm not out in that time he can come fetch me himself." 

He clapped his hands. "Perfect!"

I really should have asked why we needed to go down to the basement for him to **** while watching me. I really should have. 

*

I was already regretting my decision a couple of minutes later when we began descending the rickety stairs, a single overhead incandescent lightbulb lighting our way. The basement was in stark contrast to the rest of the house. The roof was too low, the stairs too old, the damp walls stank of rotting water and dead critters. The contrast between the basement and the rest of the house was too jarring. Set my nerves on edge. 

We reached the landing at the bottom. 

"Wait here." The man said. "Let me switch on the lights." I waited as he disappeared into the darkness. My ears soon picked up the sound of something scraping against the floor, wooden chairs being shifted, cardboard boxes being kicked around and… the rattling of chains?

A click, and the basement was blasted with the sharp yellow glow of another lightbulb. 

A scream died in my throat. In a corner of the basement, a girl was chained to the walls. A dirty rag was stuffed in her mouth as heavy shackles bound her wrists and ankles. She moaned and shifted, ever so slightly. 

I gasped. "Oh my ****..." 

This girl. She must've been one them. Those who'd disappeared off the streets. Sweat beaded on my forehead as my hands began trembling.

Good ****. How the **** did I get into this mess? 

"Hey!" The man shouted, holding a pistol in his left hand and a claw hammer in his right. He was **** from the waist down. "Don't be scared. I'm not going to hurt you, remember?"

I raised my head. Stared at him.

"Stay right there now." He said as he tossed the hammer and snatched it out of the air. Whistling, he began walking towards the girl, who finally saw what was happening and began struggling with her shackles. It was useless, the chains were too strong. She shook them once again and sobbed into the rag.

The man kept whistling as he strolled towards her.

Move, I told myself. Stop this monster. 

Without even thinking about it, I reached for the pepper spray in my purse. 

"Nuh-uh." The man said, turning around and pointing the gun at me. "Keep your hands to your sides. And just watch. That's all you have to do."

My hand shot away from the purse like it had been zapped. 

"Good girl." He sang as he turned his back to me. "You too!" 

I saw that she was looking at me. Sad, pathetic little eyes, pleading, begging me to save her. The lightbulb overhead was reflected in those shimmering blue pools like a tiny flame of hope. Tears of shame singed my eyelashes.

The man lifted the hammer high, brought it down on the girl's head. Once. Twice. Thrice. The metal connected with her head with a wet crunch, crushing the bone, deforming the skull, tearing through the flesh in the way. Blood and brain matter sprayed the wall, the floor, and lashed the man swinging the hammer.

My heart pounded so hard in my chest I was afraid it was going to explode. I was frozen with fear. I know I should have done *something* to save her, or at least tried to run. But it all happened so fast. I didn't even get the chance to wrap my head around what was happening and the poor girl was already dead.

Next thing I knew he was looking at me, cold brown eyes burning holes through me. His hand was slathered with blood and he was using it to pleasure himself. "That's it." He moaned. "That's exactly what I wanted."

I shuddered. Creepy ****. This is what he called me here for. He wanted to get off on my fear and helplessness. 

No. **** that.

I might have been too scared to stop him, but I wasn't giving him what he wanted. I gritted my teeth, hardened my eyes. It was the least I could do. 

"So." I said, deliberately killing all the emotion in my voice. "What is it that you want me here for?" 

He stopped. "What?" 

"You killed the girl." I continued in a deadpan manner. "I didn't need to be here for that. So why did you call me? What do you want me to?" 

Annoyance flashed in his eyes. "I already told you. Just stand there and let me watch you." 

"Whatever." I said, trying to sound bored. "Just get it over with."

I could see the confusion on his face. He was angry, and frustrated, and ****. Didn't know whether to ask me what I was thinking or to finish himself off. He chose the latter.  Feeling emboldened, I shook my head and started observing my fingernails. 

He tried to keep going, but it wasn't working for him anymore. Of course it wasn't. He grew soft.

"You." He said. "What are you doing?" 

"Nothing." 

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

"I don't understand what you're saying." 

"Are you not scared?" 

"No." I was **** terrified. 

"You're lying. You're trying to hide your fear. Why?" 

"I'm not." I lied. "Not scared that is. Why would I be? Not like you can hurt me. We've already established that, haven't we." I was provoking him. It was reckless, I know. 

He snorted. "Are you ****? Do you understand the position you're in? I just killed someone in front of you." 

I smirked. "A pathetic shitweasel like you can only hurt someone who can't protect herself. I know you don't have the balls to do **** to me."

He gawped at me. "Wha - What did you just say to me?"

"Only that you're a **** loser with a tiny ****."

"You ****!" He charged at me, forgetting about his pistol in his rage. When he was two steps away from me, I pulled out the pepper spray from my purse and  blasted him in the face. He screamed, smashed his hands on his eyes and dropped down to his knees. I didn't waste a second, was already running up the stairs when he began fumbling for his gun.

By the time a gunshot echoed in the basement, I was already out of the house. 

*

My whole body was shivering as I ran back to the car. My muscles felt like jelly, thought I was going to dissolve right then and there, melt like ice cream and slide off into a drain. 

Lil **** jumped out of the car and dashed towards me when I was about halfway back. He made me sit in the car, helped me calm down, then wrapped his jacket around me before running towards the house, gun drawn. 

Now here's where it gets really terrifying. This is the reason why I made this post. See, Lil **** didn't find the man there. Instead, he encountered a family of seven who'd been in that house all night long.

At first I reckoned he'd gone to the wrong house. He hadn't. Then I thought that maybe the family had by some odd miracle slept through the whole thing, even the gunshot. I was wrong on that too. Because when I went to speak to them I saw that the inside of their home looked absolutely nothing like the house I had just been in.

That's when I understood how that man had been able to get away with all those murders. Because when I walked into that house, I'd gone somewhere else entirely.

[The Final ****.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ju2ljx/i_am_a_****_worker_sometimes_we_get_the_grossest/)

[The Stalker](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/jwercl/i_am_a_****_worker_we_all_have_our_pasts_some/)

[Wormpocalypse](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/jzmsq8/i_am_a_****_worker_this_is_the_story_of_the/)

[Meeting the Stalker](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/k5bu85/i_am_a_****_worker_sometimes_its_hard_to_know_who/)

[The Madame's office](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/kcfiet/i_am_a_****_worker_and_i_broke_into_my_madames/)

[The Disappearing House.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/kjk8os/i_am_a_****_worker_sometimes_you_just_need_a_safe/)

[Final](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/l9k8c3/i_am_a_****_worker_final/)

[M](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mandahrk/) || [T](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: How Many People Are In The Room?
 
 Assistant: That was the first thing Stella asked me as she settled in at the table.

I looked around the diner. It was two in the morning. The place was mostly empty.

“What do you mean?”

“How many people are in here right now? Besides us,” she said.

“Maybe five, six,” I replied.

Stella’s lips trembled. “How many people are in the room exactly?”

She was terrified.

I counted. The waiter, the old man staring into a bowl of soup by the door, the two young women coming down from a night of partying over pancakes, the guy in a ballcap trying to cut through his overcooked steak, and the middle-aged woman in a pea-green overcoat.

“Six,” I said. “Six people.”

Stella instantly relaxed. “Thank you.”

Stella and I hadn’t seen each other in five months. I was in school out of state and was home for the summer. Stella had gotten into a good university but her sister, Anne, had died in a car wreck two weeks before she went off to school. The death hit her hard. Real hard.

I wasn’t sure why she’d called me. I doubted it was to catch up and it certainly wasn’t to party. Stella knew I abstained from everything. For me, that decision was the end result of being raised by verbally abusive alcoholics and knowing the genetic odds.

Stella looked rough. Not strung out but existentially exhausted. There were scars on her hands, bruises mottling her tattooed forearms, and some unusual scarification marks on her neck. Two of them, they looked like clumsy Zs but reversed as if done in a mirror.

Stella’s friend Cory had dropped her off at the diner about thirty minutes before I'd gotten there. I didn’t know him well but what I did know, I didn’t like.  

“So, how’re you holding up?” I asked.

Stella didn’t answer.

The waiter appeared and Stella looked him over cautiously before she ordered a black coffee and a slice of blueberry pie.

I got a hot tea and a side of fries, though I wasn’t exactly hungry.

We sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Stella, staring down at her hands, asked, “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”

I shrugged, said, “Lied to people. Lied to get out of things. Mostly to my friends, in high school. But I’ve changed. I don’t do that anymore. Oh, I also shoplifted once. A pair of socks.”

Stella laughed.

That’s when the waiter reappeared with our drinks and food. Stella jumped. Her eyes wide. Face flushed. The other people in the diner turned and looked but did nothing.

“You alright?” The waiter asked, weirded out.

Taking a deep breath, Stella slowly sat back down.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said. “I just… just it’s been a long night.”

The waiter shook his head as he put the stuff down. When he left, Stella sipped her coffee and then she looked over the mug at me, her eyes tearing.

“I did the worst thing you can do. I tried to **** someone.”

I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.

“What?”

Stella nodded; eyes locked on mine. “A jogger. Cory and me hit him with the car.”

“Oh my ****. When did this—”

“On my way here.”

The blood drained from my face.

“We should call the cops. He could still be there, hurt and—"

“Don’t bother,” she interrupted, “we went back and checked on him. There was no jogger.”

“What’s that **** mean?”

I was starting to lose it.

“Please don’t start playing games with me,” I said. “I don’t want to hear this sort of ****.”

“Isn’t ****,” Stella replied. “Ask Cory.”

I didn’t want to call Cory.

Stella said, “I didn’t actually see the jogger. Cory did. That’s how I knew. So, I asked him exactly where the man was and I grabbed the wheel and Cory screamed at me as I made the car slam into the guy. Sent him flying. Like it mattered. Cory hit the brakes hard. He was losing it, talking about going to prison and his life being over. But I told him not to worry. That **** him off something bad. When he got out of the car to go help the jogger, he just froze up, because there was no one there. Road was empty. *Me*, I expected that.”

She took another sip of coffee and poked at the slice of pie with her fork, stabbing the crust and examining the blue-tinged tines in the dull fluorescent light.

“See, it can look just like a person. Could be any age. Dressed any sort of way. It talks like a person. Eats, drinks, does all the regular sorts of things people do. Doesn’t exactly sound threatening, I know, but wait for the twist: I can’t see it. This thing pretending to be a person, it’s invisible to me. But you, you and everyone else… you *can* see it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” And I didn’t.

Stella finally looked up at me.

“Two weeks ago, we were tripping. Me and Cory and this woman named Genevieve. She was the guide. This was at Cory’s house, on the deck. We dropped N-Bomb, that synthetic MDMA stuff. We’d been using hallucinogens and trying to explore an inner mental space. Tripping together, sharing the same imagery. It’s crazy how, if you’re in sync, like emotionally and mentally, you can basically travel together. I know how it sounds; I do. But… it was really working for us. We were… I’d guess you’d describe it something like astral traveling. We’d built this architecture, this city, in our minds and then explored it. Mostly it was made of shifting, beautiful buildings. Structures that rose over us like mountain ranges. And, uh, in this mental city, that’s where we came across it.”

The diner door chimed as the two young women having pancakes left.

Stella watched them go, then turned back to me.

I didn’t need an explanation.

“There are four people in here now,” I said.

She nodded, sipped more coffee, and then continued.

“Well, this night, we traveled deeper into the city than we’d ever been before. We ended up in a tower. Had a spiral staircase. We all went up to the top floor and found a locked door –”

“You’re all seeing the same thing?” I interrupted, not buying the experience.

“Yes,” Stella’s demeanor had intensified, the twitchiness melted away. “We all saw it.”

“OK.”

“So, we get to this door. It’s a metal door. Dented, but from the inside. Bulging out. Like someone was kicking the door, trying to smash it down. Genevieve, she got scared. Told us to not open that door. To stay far away from it. She said a voyager was on the other side.”

“Voyager?”

“That’s what Genevieve called it. Being a guide, she knew the sort of constructions we were exploring. She’d seen doors like this one. And she’d been warned about the voyagers. The way she told it, they were like us… explorers in inner space but not from our reality. From another one. A bad one. But long story short, I opened the door.”

“Why would you do that?”

Stella stirred her coffee, lost in thought for a second.

As she did, one of the cooks quietly came out from the kitchen and sat at the counter. He flicked through a newspaper someone had left and glanced over at me. He nodded, gave a little smile. I wondered if he’d made the fries I wasn’t eating.

“After Cory and Genevieve drifted away,” Stella continued, still staring at her drink, “I heard a voice on the other side of the door. My sister’s voice. She was begging. Pleading with me to let her out. I swear it was her. So, I opened that metal door.”

Feeling the stare of the cook, I ate a few of the fries. They were cold, soggy.

“What happened?” I asked Stella.

“When I opened it, something suddenly brushed past me. Something clammy, cold. It touched me, very briefly. There was pain…” Stella unconsciously motioned to the Z scars on her neck, then continued. “Anyway, there wasn’t a room on the other side of the door. Just a void. A deep emptiness. When the trip was over, I immediately felt a change. I felt… like I was being watched. The whole rest of that night, the next day, the next week, something was following me. A shadow. A presence. And I knew, I just deep in my gut knew, that if it caught up with me, if it touched me again, I would die.”

She kept stabbing at her slice of pie. Breaking the crust, letting the congealed blueberries slowly tumble out in a little landslide of jelly.

“You told me that you can’t see this thing, Stella.”

The door to the diner opened and two men in work overalls walked in, each holding a hard hat. Their clothes dusty. Stella suddenly straightened in her chair.

“Two men just walked into the diner, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, just those two guys.”

Stella settled.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why did you want to meet? To tell me this?”

Stella smiled. First time she’d done that all night. “Because I knew you’d believe me.”

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly, impossibly dry.

“You’ve been a good friend,” Stella blinked away welling emotion. “In high school, when things got bad. With… with boyfriends or assholes, you were the one I could confide in. The one that trusted me. The one that, no matter what I did, no matter how **** it was… you were there for me. A shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold…”

And she reached across the table and took my hand.

Squeezed it. *Tight*.

Truth was, I’d had a crush on Stella most of high school. She was a friend, for sure. And, for a while, a good friend. I liked being that rock for her. But I’d always hoped for more. Like most friendships, it began with a one-sided attraction. Mine. And even though I hadn’t seen her in half a year, those feelings remained. Dormant but there. Waiting to be awakened.   

As Stella held my hand and smiled, I noticed… *I felt*, her fingernail tracing something on the inside of my palm. At first slight, just a little pressure. Only, it got sharper until—

“Ouch. ****!”

I pulled my hand away to find Stella had cut me. She’d sliced a shape with her sharp pinkie nail into my skin. It was a backward letter Z. Like the ones on her neck. A ribbon of blood began to well up from the center of the small cut.

“What the ****, Stella?”

She just shook her head and stood up, backing away from the table, repeating over and over, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I had to, OK? I had to…”

“Had to what? Hurt me?” I was furious, confused.

Everyone in the diner turned to watch us. Only the cook got up from his place at the counter and walked over, eager to lend a hand.

I waved him away. “It’s OK. I got it under control.”

That was when Stella broke, her voice barely a whisper, “*What?*”

“I told him I got it.”

She went pale. “WHO?! Who’d you tell?”

“The cook!” I yelled. “He’s just trying to help you.”

“THERE IS NO COOK! No one’s there!”

Stella began shrieking, scrambling backward. She slammed into a nearby table. Chairs fell over. Silverware scattered.

“No, no!” she yelled. “No one’s there!”

The cook kneeled down beside Stella and, for a split second, bewildered as I was, I honestly thought he was going to help her up.

He didn’t.

Instead, he leaned in close to her. She was crying and shaking and clearly couldn’t see him. The cook turned to me, nodded with a sick grin, and then opened his mouth wide to reveal jumbled, bloody gums filled with jagged teeth.

He tore her throat out with a single bite.

And as Stella’s blood pumped out across the linoleum flooring, the cook vanished. Not a slow fade. Not dissolving into mist. Just there one second and gone the next.

Someone screamed, I think it was the woman in the pea-green overcoat.

Afterward, when the cops came, a story emerged. All the other people in the diner that night, they said Stella cut her own throat with a knife. Where she got the knife from and where it went, they didn’t know.

They also said that the cook had tried to help her. That he attempted to close the wound and save her life. The cops couldn’t find him after the EMTs got there. When I went back to the diner the next day to ask about what happened, the waiter claimed they didn’t even have a cook who resembled the man I described. The man I saw.

It was as if, after Stella’s death, all the details of her demise began to unravel. Like the universe was erasing her from existence entirely.

And now, the voyager – whatever it is – has come for me.

It’s been five days since Stella died in that diner.

Five days I’ve been haunted and hunted. I tracked down Cory and he led me to Genevieve. She told me what fate awaited me. According to her, voyagers use the symbol – the backward Zs that were on Stella’s neck, the one she scratched into my flesh – to track their victims down.

Stella, I guess she thought she could trick the voyager into taking me instead of her.

It didn’t work.

And now she’s doomed me.

It’s just a matter of time before there’s an extra person, a person I can’t see, sitting across from me on a bus or walking behind me on the street.

Right now, I’m in my bedroom at my parent’s house.

I haven’t left in forty-eight hours and they’re getting worried about me. They’d heard I lost a friend – though they can’t seem to recall anyone named Stella going to high school with me – and so they’re being compassionate and letting me stay cooped up.

But they’ve told me I’ve had visitors. Folks stopping by unannounced. Folks who, when I crane my neck out my window to catch a glimpse of them standing on the porch, aren’t there at all. Just my parents talking, gesturing, into empty space.

I’m going to have to leave this room eventually.

That or my parents will get worried enough that they’ll have me helped out, likely to the hospital. And when I get there, I’ll be asking the same questions Stella did.  

How many people are in here right now?

How many exactly?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Something’s Really Weird about My Sexy New Neighbor
 
 Assistant: Hey y’all, I’m Jean-Baptiste. Everyone calls me JB. About two weeks ago, my parents moved me and my li’l bro into a fancier home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dad got a new, better-paying job. That’s the reason they gave us. I know they wanted to keep Sam out of trouble. He’s a good kid. He’s just got a lot of imagination. I tell him he should make comics. Anyway, we were only there for a day or two when Sam starts to notice our new next-door neighbor. 

I’m like, “What’s the big deal?” because he’s telling me I have to come see the neighbor, quick, quick before she goes in. So I rush over to his bedroom window, ‘cause it looks down on the neighbor’s house. I’m thinking I’m gonna see a **** with a stuffed cat or something. But it’s just this older woman, maybe about 40. She looks pretty in like a Barbie-doll kinda way. It’s weird, though, ‘cause it’s really raining out and she just walking to the road to check her mailbox.

“You see the tiddies on that?” Sam asks. I slap the back of his head. Dad taught us to treat women with respect. He knows better. He's right, though. ****, she’s stacked. And with her shirt getting all wet, we’re seeing a lot more than we should.

“Bet you wish you picked this room,” Sam said. I have to admit I was a little jealous. The neighbor on my side’s a **** guy who likes mowing shirtless. How's that fair? 

So I said to him, “I think we’ll be spending a lot of quality time together.”

And that’s how and why we started paying so much attention to the neighbor. Sam swiped dad’s old Army surplus binoculars. I had a telescope from when I was twelve and thought I’d be able to see other planets and stuff. We started turning out the lights at night and hoped for a show.

DAY SIX

It didn’t take long before we notice some odd things about her. Like, she never sleeps. Her lights stay on all night. We see her walking around. Still in the same shirt. Like she didn’t change it in days.

“I don’t care if she don’t sleep,” Sam said. “Why the **** won’t she get ****?”

“Maybe she’s a ****-head,” I said. “That’s a big thing in Oklahoma.”

“She didn’t look like a ****-head.”

“How’d you know?”

“The internet.”

We moved in six days ago. That night was the first Saturday after we moved in. That’s when we saw the first really strange thing happen. We're peeking out the window like usual. Nothing's happened in a while and we're getting tired. 

“**** this,” I say. “She’s never gonna show the goods.”

“JB,” Sam said.

“No, I’m going to bed. I can see **** on the internet all I want.”

Sam grabbed my hand. Not my arm, my hand. He hadn’t done that since he was like 5. “JB, look,” he said with a swallow.

He was pointing to her backyard. I looked where he was pointing. He wasn’t sure what I was looking at at first. It’s 2am, there isn’t really any light in the backyard, except moonlight. And she has a big tree back there. So I use the telescope.

I’m a bit slow with it. Once I get it pointed and adjusted, I see. The white shape comes into focus. And I’m looking at a face. Her face. She’s in her backyard, peeking out from behind that tree. And she’s looking right up at our window. Our lights are off, so she shouldn’t be able to see us. Right? But she does. Y’know how you just know? We knew. I jump back from the window with a gasp.

“Oh ****,” I say. “How long she been there?”

He just shakes his head. We should be more embarrassed than scared. I’m a little of both. But Sam’s just scared. 

“That’s weird, man,” he says. “That’s weird.”

I tell him not to worry. She’s probably just turning the tables on us. We were kinda invading her privacy, after all. So that’ll teach us.

Then he asks, “You think she’s still there?”

I don’t want to look. It’s just too freaky. So I take out my phone, turn on the camera, and take a video for about 30 seconds. I just hold it up to the window and wiggle it around a little. Then I pull the phone back in. When we play back the video, we’re relieved. Just the tree, no white face watching us from behind it. My wiggling somehow got the whole backyard. She ain’t there.

Sam sighed and threw himself back on his bed. I decided to watch the video over again, just to be sure. The backyard really was clear. It’s just, that wasn’t all. When I was pulling the camera back, it briefly pointed down. Directly below our window. And there she was, staring right up. Right there. Close enough she could probably hear us talking.

I shouted a curse word and dropped my phone. Sam sat right up. I showed him, just to be sure I wasn’t imagining things. He saw it too. We slept in my room that night and decided to tell dad what happened in the morning. We knew it wouldn’t go well. But at this point dad was less scary than the **** neighbor.

SUNDAY

Dad was **** alright. He made us march over to her front door and apologize for peeping. Probably the most awkward thing we ever had to do. Get this. She answers the door in this loose, lacy lingerie deal that showed us everything. I look behind me to see if anyone else was witnessing this. But nope. When I got control of my jaw again, I say I’m sorry we watched her.

We were both hanging our heads in shame. When I looked up to see if she was mad or if she was trying to **** us or something, it was weird. Like, have you ever seen someone with no expression at all? It’s like she was hypnotized. 

“You should come in,” she said. She didn’t seem to feel it. She just said it. Sam looked to me. I think he was ready to take her up on the offer. I can’t say I blame him. She looked real good. But I told her we had to be getting back. Dad’s waiting. She closed to door without a word.

“And?” Dad asked when we got back. I told him she didn’t seem mad. And I told him what she was wearing. I felt if we were going to be in trouble, he should know she’s teasing us, too. 

I can tell he doesn’t believe me. He says he’s going over there to apologize for us. “If I find you’re lying, you’ll be wearing your balls for earrings. Hear me?”

We stood in the kitchen waiting for him. When he got back, his face looked slack and pale. He didn’t seem mad at us anymore. He just looked like he’d seen something awful. Sam elbowed me, as if I didn’t notice myself.

“Sit down,” he told us. So we did and we all started eating breakfast. Mom was still asleep, by the way. She always stays up late catching up the DVR on Saturday nights.

“Don’t bother with that woman ever again,” he said between bites.

“K,” we agree. We didn’t dare question him when he was like this. I mean, I’ve never seen him like this before. And that’s what was so scary about it.

We kept eating our breakfasts in silence. Until he asked, “I ever tell you about Red Finney?”

He mentioned the name before. We knew Red was a kid in his neighborhood when dad was growing up. Somewhere in Baltimore. But we didn’t know anything really about him. We asked before, but he always changes the subject. So we shook our heads.

“Red was ****. You hear me? **** kid. Always pokin’ his nose where it had no business.” He took a bite of his scrambled eggs. “There was this big, dark house on our street. Three storeys. No other house in the neighborhood like that. It was there before the neighborhood got built around it. Real old family, just held onto that land. We had all stories about this house. We’d all look when the lights came on at night. Never see anyone come or go all day. One time we’re watching, and we hear this scream. We know it’s from that house. And it didn’t sound good. From that day, Red got the notion in his head he was gonna get in there and see what was going on in that house.”

“What does that make Red?” Dad asked.

“****,” we both said. 

“Anyway, then one day Red was gone. You thought this was gonna be a heist? We go in there and find some ancient jewels and a ghost and solve a ****? If Red did what he said he was gonna do, he didn’t tell us. And we didn’t want anything to do with it. Breaking and entering was not a part of how we wanted to start life. He just went missing. Never found him. We thought all kinds. Maybe he ran away. Maybe he killed himself somewhere.”

“Dad,” I said. “You mentioned the house for a reason.”

“Oh yeah, that was another one. We thought maybe he went in there and maybe just never got out. But here’s the thing.”

He paused to take a long drink of coffee. Like he was steadying himself for something.

“When Red went missing, that came up. And we met the owner of the house.”

Dad finished off his breakfast after that. Took his plate to the kitchen sink to clean it off. Stuck it in the dishwasher. Me and Sam looked at each other. 

“Well?”

“What I’m saying is,” he said, “that woman next door was on the same street as me when I was a boy.”

“****,” Sam said, “she aged better than you.”

“You’re not listening. Too busy wise-cracking. What I’m saying is, that woman next door was on the same street as me. Right? When I was a boy, she was a grown woman. Looked exactly the same. You don’t forget a woman looks like that.”

“What?” Sam asked.

“Dad, that’s not possible,” I said.

“It’s not for me to say what’s possible or not. I don’t need to know why or how. I’m just telling you like it is. And you’re not to bother with that woman. Now let’s get to church.”

I don’t think Sam and I had ever been so quiet and well-behaved in church. I don’t know what was going on in his head. Probably something like what was going on in mine. Who is that woman? Is she related to the woman Dad grew up near? That’s one **** of a coincidence. Not impossible. I mean, you hear of long-lost siblings working together in the same Taco Bell without knowing it. So who knows. It’s just, when you add her strange behavior to it, it’s just a big ****.

Since then we’ve only casually looked out the window. She hasn’t been in the backyard staring at us anymore. And we’ve kept our word to Dad and left her alone. This other part of me just can’t get her out of my head. I don’t think Sam can either. He slept in my room twice since then. “I think she’s watching,” he said. I asked if he looked. And he says, “Not a chance.”

That’s where it’s at. I’ll let you know if anything else weird happens. Hopefully not. ‘cause we’re stuck in this house for a long time.

[More stuff that happened](https://redd.it/695bbf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Every 20 years an alarm goes off in my town
 
 Assistant: Every place has its own strange traditions. Customs that seem normal when you're there but completely outrageous or downright bizarre to anyone outside the circle. But when bonding with others from small provinces, my village always tops the conversation. My trump card for this is the alarm that sounds every 20 years.

We were never outright told to not tell anyone, but it was heavily implied. A sort of silent agreement that this stays within the confines of our little village of Pendletown. But it's too good a story not to tell. 

I was young when I first witnessed one. About 3 years old. All I remember is the bustle of the village as we all entered an underground lock-in. Despite how thick the walls and doors were, we could all still hear it faintly. The blaring of the klaxons echoed around the village. 

Growing up, I'd see them. Tall poles with conical shapes on the end, facing various directions. There were no visible wires, which made you assume they were hidden inside. But there was also no opening for maintenance. Despite this, they functioned perfectly every time they went off. There was no department for them. No one knows what grid they are wired to. They're just there, and they exist. It was just a fact that everyone accepted. Though, what wasn't accepted, was a common consensus for why.

For the next 20 years, I'd occasionally bring it up. And what people felt and knew drastically shifted from person to person.

When I started high school I'd walk to school every day. Driving wasn't and still isn't a common commodity in the area. Pendletown was small enough for driving to be more of a flex than a necessity. So a regular routine for many kids was to meet up with others on the same route and the group built up as we neared the school. 

By the time they reached my house, there'd usually be 4 to 5 kids already built up, ready for me to add to the number.

For the most part, the route was always the same. But due to the swings in weather, it was sometimes better to go down alternate paths. The tighter alleyways would provide cover from particularly harsh winds that plagued the winter months. And when we went this way, we'd sometimes see the Church of Many. 

This wasn't some grand cathedral. It was a function room where many middle-aged men would meet for a few beers. Drinking early in the day is universally seen as inappropriate, but they always argued it was for religious reasons, and somehow they always got away with it.

We'd sometimes peek through the windows out of curiosity. We'd only heard rumors about the place, so we knew very little. However, we knew that the whole organization was based on the Alarm, which sounded every 20 years. They were known for holding public events around the village. It honestly felt more like a themed community center than a religion. Something that gave our little area an identity. But you could never say this to them. If you bring up their so-called relaxed worship, they’d argue you out the room about the importance of the organization. They would even go as far as to make you thank them for saving the town every 20 years; claiming that it was their doing that things weren't worse when the Alarms went off.

As you can imagine, it's nigh impossible to prove their claim, but equally impossible to prove otherwise. 

\-

Quite honestly, the whole thing would be forgotten about for long periods. Something that happens every 20 years doesn't exactly bring about a sense of urgency. But sometimes, in school, a kid would bring it up, and talks would start all over again. There'd be a new theory thrown in and jokes around the room each time. 

But this is where Isaac always stood out. 

If you ever brought up the Alarm with him around, he'd say the same thing. The Alarm is a hoax.

Something to understand; our town isn't exactly 100% on the grid. It's known about by the government but so disregarded that we've managed to uphold a sort of autonomous zone. Separate from outside influence. Because of this, we still have some kind of royal family, but to actually call them that is an overstatement. They're just the lineage of the founders that have passed down power through each generation. 

They claim they know the secrets of the Alarm but say it's kept from the public for the village's safety. This is another point of contention, but we'll save it for now. Just know that this family has a lot of power in this village, but for the most part, they're well-liked since they're very involved with the growth and development of the land. 

This doesn't stop the rumors, though.

Isaac had one thought when it came to the Alarm. A hoax. His theory goes that it's done to subjugate the population. Every 20 years, they assert their dominance by sounding the alarms and seeing who obeys. A simple routine that lets everyone know who's in charge.

You see, anyone who doesn't seek shelter in the town's bunker is never seen again.

\-

During my later years in school, I met a girl called Edna. She was sweet. The village was small, so meeting new people was rare after a certain point. People exaggerate when they say a place is so small that everyone knows each other, but some of the more busy people might literally have done that.

I met her during a school outing. The years in school were split. She was in the year below, and this particular trip was mixed with a few years. 

By the end, we were inseparable, and this carried on after the trip ended. 

I very quickly met her family, and we all got on well. But one moment really stood out to me, and that's when the Alarm was brought up.

I only brought it up off-handedly at the dinner table. I mentioned that someone at school was talking about the Church of Many being caught being **** and disorderly again and started raving about the Alarm like it was urgent, and the table sort grew somber.

Her parents didn't seem to want to say anything, but Edna put the silence out its misery by explaining their side of things.

Apparently, she had an older brother, James. James had heard a rumor about the Alarm that was still around. The idea was this; if you stayed out during the Alarm, you were met by the spirits of the village. If you went to them with a wish in your heart so strong, it'd be granted. 

James had a wish. Something he never shared with his family. 

Well, James snuck away when the evacuations were happening. Edna's family couldn't find him, but it was too late to go searching. So they had to hope James was okay when the Alarms were going off. 

They searched and searched afterwards; the whole town had gotten involved. But James was nowhere to be found.

The idea of something supernatural happening during the Alarms wasn't a foreign idea to people. But Edna's family had their thoughts. James would never have wished to be away for his family. So if he stayed out to make a wish, and was gone. The spirits could never be good. They were evil and had to be hidden from.

\-

I once talked to my dad about the Alarms. My dad was a run of the mill handyman. If you needed something done, he'd either be able to do it, or figure out how. He was able to figure out any practical issue if you gave him enough time. 

My dad was sometimes sought for his advice. His practical thinking translated well to other areas, and he became a sort of councillor for some. No one had degrees in the village. Knowledge was brought in from outside sources, but no one really left Pendletown for qualifications. Besides, there would be no need. Around there, qualification came from already being able to do the job, or apprenticing with someone until you could. 

This is to say, he isn't ****. You can imagine education in a place like this isn't of the highest caliber, but he had a head on his shoulders.

When I was younger, he'd tell me the same thing. Every 20 years, there was a monster that would emerge and gobble up any kids who wondered out while the Alarms went off.

This was a common story told to kids to keep them in check. A lot of people in my school were told that. And I imagine my parents were told that when they were kids, and so on.

Even when I hit high school, he persisted with this story, but with some added details. I imagine that the gruesome notes were to keep me in check when the childish version lost its lustre.

A fear some parents had was if the Alarms went off when teens were in the woods drinking. If they were too far out, they'd never make it back in time. This isn't to say they were strict to a harsh degree. But they were often overbearing when nearing the due date.

This was because there was no set day. Sure it was known to happen every 20 years. But there was a wide variance of possible days. 

People tried lining up the dates to old calendars. Ancient time measuring devices. Even alternate religious texts. But nothing could predict the exact time and date. So often, we all became especially cautious when we knew the days as coming up.

I was nearly 23 and was a few years into my career when we were nearing the date for the next Alarm. By village standard, I was considered a man. So I faintly confronted my dad to tell me what he thought the Alarm was.

He told me what he thought. It's a monster.

I resigned myself to hearing the same story again. But this time, he went into much more detail than before.

He explained that every 20 years, a monster came through and ate any who is found. This was much of what I'd heard before. But he went on to tell me of some of the things he'd heard. Claw marks on doors where pets were left. Giant footprints on the outskirts. He said that you'd just get laughed out when these things were brought up. But a small group of people were really invested in this theory.

The final point he had was about all the rumors. He brought up one I'd heard before. That wishes were granted to anyone who went out into the Alarm. My dad said that the head family knew of the secret, and had started the rumors. He proposed this. Ideas of wishes, power, and new life. All designed to get you outside during the ominous day.

He had a simple answer when I asked why they'd do this. Every 20 years- 'it' becomes hungry, and needs to eat.

\-

I mentioned the pundits that have casual meetups and run community events. But during the year leading up to the big day, the members of the Church of Many go into full force. The nice family-friendly events either wind down or are tricks to preach their word. It's almost like the cliche of a timeshare getaway.

I was looking for a nice day out with my girlfriend of 3 years. Though we went to the same school, we met a few years after. Things were well, so I wanted to splash out on something nice.

Our usual nice day out was to go to the steakhouse and get something fancy from the evening menu. The guy running the place was really nice, and if he knew it was a special day, he'd treat you right. He made a lot of business from being known as the place to go during a special day. 

Though you should never lie to him. If he found out you lied about your birthday or anniversary just to get some preferential treatment, you'd never get that privilege again. Like I said, everyone knew everyone, and if word traveled enough, you could have a rough time in the village for a few years until you got your reputation back.

Wendy and I were up for the same routine, but I saw a poster on the village board about a pop-up food place on my way to work. It promised foreign food and foreign entertainment. I'm sure it's normal for you to treat yourself to a Chinese at the end of a night of drinking, but here, that was a luxury. To have tasted outside food was something you could talk about for many years with the heated interest of many. You'd have people lying about trying things just to gain a foothold on the social ladder. So when word of a travelling Vietnamese diner was put up, I immediately put in for it.

Not many people got in, but I aggressively brought up my special day and just about squeezed in. 

It was the talk of the town, and I found out a lot of people that I knew were going. All seemed to be about my age. 

Even though I wanted this to be about Wendy, I asked my parents if they wanted to go too. But it was strange. Even though they were on the camp of always wanting to try something foreign, they quickly refused. Wendy's parents did the same. 

We should have picked up on how strange this was, but we couldn't piece together a good reason.

The day came, and everyone was tense. We were seated in a small auditorium with tables and chairs arranged so that you could see the stage. We all assumed this was to see the entertainment, which we awaited eagerly.

The lights dropped, and spots were shone on the stage. We were introduced to the head chef. A man with a complexion that was unlike anything we'd ever seen. A very distinct eye shape. And jet black hair. He was the real deal. But then he was joined with others, and it was clear what we'd fallen for.

Beside him were two pundits from the Church of Many. They introduced the chef and the itinerary of the evening. Some people were looking around, seeing if they could get out in time, but it was too late. 

The lights came on, and around us were the other members of the church. They were dressed in flares of abnormal red clothes. Their faces were rubbed with a tinge of yellowed powder, and they had taped their eyes on the sides to be more narrow. A caricature of the man on the stage. The head chef seemed very displeased at this but must have been heavily compensated to put up with our small village shenanigans.

The chef was led to the back, and the evening commenced.

The heavy propaganda that ran the whole night drowned out smells of exciting spices. Members of the Church came up and had many segments throughout the night.

Throughout the years, they ran many festivals that celebrated local culture. One segment was about their contributions to the growth of the town. Raising a family here was very prospective due to the many great events they organized. This appealed to the family-oriented people of the crowd.

They also ran events highlighting local made produce that praised local craftsmen. Furniture, artisan alcohols, fresh foods. It was common to have a personal skill on top of your primary career. So to be part of that growth really appealed to the hard workers. 

If you ever needed help, the Church of Many were there. One woman had an accident in which a heavy piece of furniture was dropped and crushed her leg. Her career died on that day, along with her dreams of dancing. So the Church ran a fundraiser for her to receive outside help, and with the help of a hospital many miles away, she managed to regain some of her leg function. To this day, she still leads a healthy life. 

They hit all the checkboxes. Despite the deceptive nature of the event, they didn't sound too bad.

Then they had a segment appealing to the less active people of the crowd. You can drink in the morning during the 'meetings' three days a week if you join. It was allowed on workdays due to religious reasons as sanctioned by the head family. The rule of thumb was to not get belligerent, but anything before that is open game.

Again, this turned some heads. It had people thinking maybe it's not as bad as some said. 

Fear of the unknown is big and circulates predominantly in talkative circles. The Church of Many always had an odd reputation where you never knew where their true intentions lay. Their nature was very relaxed, but they had some serious and unknown religious practises. It seemed you only got full details if you were in, and even then, you had to be a long time member before you got any critical information. This caused a lot of distrust from some of the more opposed members of the public.

The food came out, and it was divine. I don't even remember what it was called, nor do I fully remember even what meat it was. It was a blast of spices and sauces mixed in a way utterly alien to our meat and potatoes culture. The reaction was visceral at how shocking it was. Some people cried tears of joy at having had such an experience. 

But after this, it was only downhill from there.

They had more segments on stage. We were receptive to such a fantastic meal and very persuasive points. But this is where it started to get a bit crazy.

They raved about the truth of it all. How we could be free from our mental prisons. They put down the common man as being ignorant to higher truths. Simple salvation could be had if you joined. 

The eldest of the group came out. Old man Ezekiel. He had lived through four Alarms. The most out of anyone in the village. His beard hung low, giving him a sage appearance. He wore garb far outdated to the modern times of our province. 

Old man Ezekiel went on to come out with something that divided the room. He claimed he survived being outside during an Alarm. He explained it was when he was but 4 years old, having been left by his mother by accident. Ezekiel claimed what he saw led him to revolutionizing the inner circle of the Church of Many. But these secrets were too much for someone uninitiated. The only way to receive the blessed knowledge was to pledge your life to the Church. Work hard, and earn the highest of trust.

This immediately had the room in whispers. Some had family taken because of the Alarm, while others had their biases and theories challenged by the notion of someone surviving. He was heckled with questions. If he survived one, why had he hidden for the others? Was anyone around who could challenge such a claim? If he had this knowledge, why hasn't he tried to stop it? He simple stood there with an all-knowing expression. And only when the commotion died down did he simply walk off stage. We received no more words. The ball was in our court. 

By the end, some left in a huff, having felt insulted by the ridiculous claim. Others were already fanatical about the cause, already trying to garner more interest in the divided members of the crowd. In the end, Wendy and I left. We weren't 100% opposed to the Church, but we hadn't had the drive to seek more direct answers.

When we got home, my dad was there to greet me. He asked me how the food was, but I knew he knew what it was about. He explained what the whole thing was. Every 20 years, they did something like this. They'd run a highly desirable event that garners vast amounts of interest. And it's all to push for new members. Those who went to a previous one, or knew about it, were forbidden to 'warn' the newer generation. And so he had to sit there and let us ago, along with others who we told.

\-

Nearing the coming day, you can feel it coming. There's electricity in the air. Less and less events happen the longer the 20th year goes on. People know to keep their schedules open in case they're caught unaware. Even the Church quietens down their excursions in fear of accidentally getting people trapped outside when it happens. But even still, there are the parties.

Some parties and meetups happen close to the bunker during the coming months. These events have strict rules to keep running. It sounds weird, but it's encouraged by the head family. I reckon it's to keep our small economy stimulated. If not enough people spend, money gets held up and bottlenecked. 

There can be music, and musicians are hired, but it can't be too loud. You can drink but no hard liquor, and there's an unwritten rule to never get belligerently ****. In the past, there have been those reported to have drunkenly slept through an Alarm and went missing from not getting in the bunker.

Though there's a somber air to these meetups, it's still a much needed social energy. It can feel like months of waiting, so going that long without any stimulation can drive one stir crazy. 

It's normal to keep your circle of friends from school well after school has ended, which was the case for me. Every time I went to one of these events, I'd see familiar faces. Edna, who I mentioned before, Kyle, who was in my form, Watson, who was often on my walk to school, and Steg, whom I'd known since kindergarten. Up until then, talk about the Alarm had dried up. Everyone had said their piece many times, and there was never any new information to spark more ideas. But when we knew the day was coming, it'd creep back into conversation like old times. 

Being more mature, our conversations dropped from the wild notions to more talking about getting past it. We knew the consequences of not following the rules. Other than Ezekiel, no one has ever survived being outside during the Alarm. And even then, his claim was heavily scrutinized. 

We all agreed to just behave until then. Keep a low profile, and get past it. Simple, right?

It turns out Kyle had other ideas. When the date was getting close, he started bringing up some of the old theories from school. He'd bring up a few but always circle back to one. That you could make a wish if you survived.

Edna immediately flipped out about this. By then, it was known what had happened to James. So it was already a bad move to bring up the Alarm, but bringing up the rumour that got him killed was not cool. 

One time Steg went off on him for always bringing it up. We couldn't figure out what he was thinking. Kyle would try to soothe the idea that it was worth a shot. That he wanted it to be true. But Steg would have none of it. It was during one of his put-downs that Kyle spoke up. He screamed so loud the pub briefly quietened down. All he said was- "But it could bring her back…" 

We all knew what this meant.

When Kyle was 8, his mother fell ill. It wasn't immediate, so for three years, he'd rush home from school every day to be with her. They were really close, so losing her really took a part of him with her. So the idea of a way to bring her back, no matter how obscene, was romanticized to him. 

Even though we all felt for him, we took an opposing stance. We knew it was a bad idea.

To Kyle, though, the prospect of the Alarm only coming every 20 years meant it was now or never. So looking back, I think there was no talking him out of it.

He only told me. I was often the one to talk to him afterwards and empathize with his situation. I did this to make him feel better after a harsh berated from Steg. So I think this made me his confidant. So one day, after a late-night gathering, he took me somewhere. A small reinforced hut near the outskirts of the village. 

Over the years, he built it. He'd apprenticed as a builder after finishing school. So to think he chose that career just for this was an absurd idea to me. But at this point I wouldn’t put it past him. I never said anything. I just listened.

He went on to explain the rigidity of the thing. It was strong enough to withstand a bomb. The only opening was small enough to keep up the strength of the structure, and on it was a small porthole to look outside. His thinking was that he had to see and talk to whatever came to make the wish. 

Inside was some food and water, but not too much since it'd only need to last for one night. By his design, it couldn't be locked from the outside. This is to allow fast access when the time comes. Trust was common in the village, so locks were often not needed. However, it could be locked from the inside. And it was a rigid lock. He let me test it, and when it was bolted, my full force barely shook the thing. 

To say it was solid was an understatement.

Then the day came.

\-

When it was time, you knew. The Alarms made a winding-up sound like they were warming up. This was your cue to get to the bunker as soon as possible. I saw everyone moving in unison. All making their way calmly but hastily to the one place drilled into us from birth.

But while making my way there, I noticed him. And only because I knew to look out for him. But there he was, Kyle, slinking away in the opposite direction. I knew where he was going, and looking back, I could have stopped. Sure, he could have still escaped if we went after him. But he trusted me when he confided in me his idea. To break that would have challenged my honour of being a friend. Something a lot of people took seriously. So I just gave him a subtle nod and wished him Godspeed.

The mood in the bunker is something you can't explain. Only when you experience it, does it fully sink in what’s truly happening. An Alarm is going off, while the whole population is hunkered together. But something they never tell you about is the commotions that inevitably start.

A couple started raving that they had left their pet. They were causing a commotion by the door, begging to be let out while the Alarms were still just winding. But they were obviously refused exit.

Then a woman started screaming. She met up with the kids brought in from the school but couldn't find her son. The teacher explained that he had just slipped away from the class. It was protocol to not go back. There were too many examples of losing a teacher long with a kid when this happened. So it was drilled into them to never go back. This sounds pragmatic on paper, but seeing the pain from a screaming parent berate them will forever stay with me.

At first, when I saw the burly crew that operated the doors, I was intimidated by their presence. They were the leading team of the local police force. Crime wasn't a common thing in the village, and when there was an incident, it was often just a civil case that was resolved with words, not action. So when you had a small team constantly trained in physical combat, it was rumoured that it was just for this instance. The manning of the door during the alarm. 

It's easy to think it just a precaution. But witnessing it in person, I was thankful for the time they put into sculpting their life for this very moment. Holding down one or two people is easy for someone strong. But when the parents corralled other parents into their cause to get out and rescue their kid, to see the efficiency of the coup being put down was like a well oiled machine. 

You'd think they'd be at their limit when it was nearly 2 on 1 per bouncer. But the number grew when another incident happened that they never warned you about. The knocks.

The Alarms started, and they were loud. You had to talk just below a shout to be heard. So when you heard faint knocking from the door, you knew they were hitting hard. Only when you listened closely could you hear them. People left outside, having not made it in time, just outside the door.

Though you couldn't hear the words, you could hear to the pleading in their voice. Begging to be let in. Terms of desperation screamed as loud as they could. Obviously, the humanitarian of the bunch raised a commotion about this. They yelled at the bouncers to quickly open the door and let them in. It'd only be for a few seconds if they were fast. Still subjugating the rioting parents, it was amazing to see how they could still overpower this new group causing an uprising. 

All the while, seeing how serious they were taking things in the bunker, all I could think of was Kyle.

At first, I didn't realize it, but eventually the screaming and bashing outside stopped. Not just petered off. It just stopped. Yet the Alarms still rang.

They rang for a solid hour before slowing down back into its wind up sound, then died down entirely. We all stood there in silence for a moment, taking everything in. Almost in disbelief that it was over. 20 years of build-up, just for that one hour. But there'd be no reports in the past of a false end, or a double Alarm, so not long after, the doors were opened, and we were free to leave.

The held down and rambunctious lot were let go with no warning or punishment. It seemed understandable that it was to happen, almost inevitable. A high point of emotion, but not held against them. Though scratched up and bruised, they left without a whisper.

Elders from the Church of Many loudly raved celebratory words of another successful Alarm, though they were largely ignored. 

Most went back into their daily routine, but I slipped away with one place in mind.

I got to Kyle's bunker and knocked as much as I could. I berated with questions. If he was in there if he was okay. To just make a sound. Anything. But I heard nothing.

I peeked inside through the tiny porthole to try to see him. The porthole offered a wide few of the small room. If he was in there, I'd see him.

Then I tried the last thing I could do. I pushed the door to open it, and it was locked.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I think I'm trapped in a Hallmark movie.
 
 Assistant: I first noticed it in the kitchen.

My sister was putting the final touches on a batch of Christmas cookies. Turning to get more icing, she bumped the plate with her hip, and it flew into the ground.

"Oh, gosh darn it."

"Uh, what? 'Gosh darn it'?" I chuckled. "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

Britney stared at me, blankly.

Look, I know my sister. She swears like a fifty-year-old sailor **** on cheap beer. Ruining an hour's work of cookie-making should have *at least* elicited a "fuck".

But it didn't.

"Ah, I see. This this an act for Jonathan." I winked at her. "Don't worry. I won't tell."

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

I bent down, picking up shattered pieces of cookie. "You know. Your constant swearing. Your secret's safe with me." I reached for another piece of cookie. Picked it up, threw it towards the garbage. Instead of falling in, it ricocheted off the edge. "Ah, ****."

I froze.

At the exact moment I'd said "fuck," a car horn had blared outside. Drowning it out completely.

I frowned.

"Fuck."

Another car horn.

"Fuck **** fuckity ****."

A strangely loud flock of geese cawed outside the window.

"What the--" *dog bark--* "is going on here?" I stared at Britney, eyes wide.

She ignored my question.

"We have to bake more cookies," she continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. "If the Christmas celebration tonight doesn't impress Christopher, he's going to shut down the community center. *Forever."*

"The community center? When have you given a--" *train whistle--* "about the community center?"

"Since I started Woofies."

"What?"

"You know. My business. Baking dogs Christmas cookies."

I frowned. "These cookies are for *dogs?"*

She nodded.

"Okay, look. What has gotten into you?" I stood up, brushing the crumbs off my hands. "You don't even *like* dogs. You say they make too much noise and **** everywhere. You don't even like animals, period. Or kids."

"That reminds me. Christopher's nephew is going to be at the celebration. He's an orphan and he loves dogs too. I think I'm going to surprise him with a puppy from the shelter!"

I stared at her. “Uh, what?”

“It’s going to be *so* awesome! Ah. Don’t you love Christmas?”

I threw up my hands. "You're acting really weird right now. I'm going to, uh, go rest for a while, okay?"

She nodded, eyes wide and a perky smile on her face.

That's when I noticed something else. She wasn't wearing her usual outfit of a black tank top and skintight jeans. Instead, she was wearing a bright red sweater and a neat skirt. Her hair--which was usual tied up in a messy bun--fell in perfect, loose waves around her face.

"You're dressed weird," I muttered.

She just smiled back at me.

I trudged out of the kitchen, through the family room. I was about to climb the stairs, when I stopped.

*Something's different.*

Well, for one, my mom’s house was clean. Which was super weird, because she’s a borderline hoarder who keeps everything from twenty-year-old Christmas cards to free pens. The clutter was gone, a fire was going in the fireplace, and a fluffy red throw sat across the sofa.

*Weird.*

But there was something else. My gaze caught on the mantle above the fireplace. Even from a distance, I could tell the photos were different. I’d seen the photos there a million times--the dorky photo of me in braces I hated, the photo of the four of us and our cat. They were burned into my brain.

Not one of the familiar photos remained.

I stepped closer, studying the photos. A girl with braces playing outside. A mother and father sitting on a sofa, two toddlers between them. Two girls holding hands while sitting on a swing.

My heart dropped. Every muscle in my body paralyzed.

They weren’t us.

They looked like stock photos. Stock photos of a family that roughly, very roughly, resembled ours.

I ran up the stairs, my head spinning, my throat dry. *What’s going on here?* Nothing made sense. Not the way Britney was acting, not the way she was dressed, not my mom’s house, not our photos. It all clashed in my brain, so *wrong.*

I collapsed into the bed. The bed of my childhood room--the only thing that felt familiar in this house. My stuff had been boxed up long ago, but the walls were still the shade of lavender I’d picked out in middle school. The bedspread was still deep purple. The mattress was still soft as a feather.

I lay in the silence. Funny how now, there were no random car horns or flocks of Canadian geese. I was almost drifting off to sleep when I heard it.

Footsteps, in the hallway.

“Britney?” I called.

But they sounded louder. Heavier. Like a man’s footsteps.

I shot up in bed, my heart pounding. Our father had passed away several years ago. Christmas dinner wasn’t for a few days; too early for our uncles to be here. I backed away, heart drumming in my chest.

“H-hello?” I called out.

The footsteps paused.

“Who’s there?” I shouted.

The footsteps resumed. Closer, now--so close that they were right outside the door. “Britney!” I shouted, hoping she could hear me. “Britney, there’s someone--”

The door opened.

My voice died in my throat.

A man stood there. A *naked* man, with only a small towel wrapped around his waist. He stared at me with dark, hungry eyes.

Then he smiled.

“Hey, honey. Are you okay?”

I screamed.

“Honey? What’s wrong?” The man was rushing towards me. I ducked underneath his outstretched arms and ran to the door. Down the stairs, out the front door. I heard Britney shouting behind me. But I didn’t listen.

I kept running, and running. In a few blocks, I reached town. But it wasn’t *our* town. It was a cutesy little town that time forgot, with shops lining the sidewalk and tinsel strung up between the streetlamps. Gone were the liquor stores, rowdy teenagers, and endless supply of litter.

And, yes--there was even a community center. But not our community center of stained concrete and smashed beer bottles in the parking lot. No—it was now a darling brick building, a Christmas candle burning in each window.

*No. No, this can’t be. What the **** is happening?*

I hurried forward. As I walked, snowflakes began to fall from the gray sky. A few landed on my bare arms.

They didn’t melt.

“Hey!” I called out to the nearest person. A woman waiting to cross the street, with perfect wavy hair and a bright-red peacoat. “Hey! Can you help me?”

She turned towards me, a smile plastered on her face. “Of course! What do you need?”

“I don’t think I belong here. This isn’t--this isn’t my town. It’s--”

I faltered.

Her grin had faded. She now stared at me, face set in stone, eyes burning with hatred. Then she took a step towards me.

I ran.

And that brings us here. I’ve been hiding out behind a perfectly-decorated Christmas tree in someone’s yard. Don’t worry--the house isn’t actually occupied. Despite all the cute lights and candy canes, I looked in the windows. The house is completely empty, on the inside. 

So I’m safe. For now.

But I don’t think it’ll be long. There’s a ring on my left ring finger, probably belonging to the man back at my parents’ house. **** probably call the police around here and tell them I’m missing. That I seem mentally unstable. That I should be apprehended immediately.

At least the internet seems to work. But calling Britney’s number, and my mom’s, has only resulted in static.

All I can do now is ask for your help.

If you turn on your TV, and see a Christmas movie featuring a short girl with a mole on her right cheek and an AC/DC t-shirt, that’s me. Help me. Please.

Help me leave this place, before it’s too late.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a good person
 
 Assistant: I am a loving person.

Everyday, I wake up. I help my 10-year-old daughter get ready for school, then prepare breakfast for both of us. After that, we will walk, hand-in hand, to her school. At her school, I will kiss her goodbye, pat her back, and tell her I love her. I will wait at the gate, waving at my daughter, until she disappears behind that corridor. 

I am a kind person.

After sending my daughter to school, I begin walking to work. I smile at people I pass, giving them small encouragements as I walk on by. On the way to work, I also see many, too many, homeless people along the road. Out of the kindness in my heart, I never fail to dig out some loose change in my pockets to give to them, hoping to bring some relief to their suffering.

I am a helpful person.

During work, there will always be those few people, who don't quite seem to understand some simple things. But it's alright. No matter what kind of problems they face, from printer problems to Excel problems, I will always lend them a helping hand. I will put down my work, and help them until they figure out their problems.

I am a selfless person. 

After work, I am not like everyone else. I don't get in my luxury sports car, and drive back home to lie on the sofa or stare at the television. No, not me. Instead, I will head to the nearby nursing home, to help volunteer there. I will help with the cooking, some cleaning, or maybe simply just lend a listening ear to the abandoned old folks. I enjoy volunteering there a lot, and the people there feel the same way towards me.

As you can see, I am a good person.

After volunteering, I immediately head back home. After all, my daughter is probably home already. The first thing I do as I reach home, is to give my precious daughter a hug. I will listen to her day carefully, and talk to her. Then, I proceed to the kitchen to prepare our dinner. I first prepare my daughter's *favorite* hamburger and fries, followed by my simple meal of meat, veggies and rice. Lastly, I prepare a bland bowl of porridge, in case someone gets hungry.

Then we eat! We sit together in the dining room, and we eat together and share more about our day. Finally, after we eat, I do the dishes. I clean and clean and clean, and ensure everything is spotless. You might imagine that after I have done so much, it is now time for me to rest. But that's not right. I have one last thing to do. 

I grab that bowl of porridge and proceed to the backyard. I walk quickly and purposefully to the shed at the back, then open the dog-door. I quietly insert the bowl into the shed. "Hello, your food is here. Consume it quickly, then push it back out. It's not much, but... Whatever," I muttered softly as I knock the door. Immediately comes a series of crying from the other side of the door. I block out the noise, smile to myself, then walk back to the house. 

And that's my last job of the day! I decide to go spend some time with my daughter in her room. As I walk in, I see her face light up at the sight of me. "Dad, dad! Y'know the bully at school! He already hasn't been in school for a whole *week*. I'm starting to think that he's never coming back. I'm so happy!" she shouts in glee. I smile at her joy, and reply, "That's wonderful! Remember not to go into the shed, alright? There's lots of dangerous equipment there." My daughter nods and continues snuggling in my arms.

I think: Don't worry child, I've taken care of him for you. You'll never ever be hurt by him again. I'll protect you, my beautiful girl.

See? I am a loving, kind, helpful and selfless father. 

I am a good person.

And no one is allowed to hurt my daughter.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Marital Issues
 
 Assistant: My husband had an affair. 

I found out because he brought her home when he didn’t realize I was there. They burst through the door, lips locked, making out in our breezeway. When he finally saw me (after he had peeled her off of him) his mouth dropped open. 

She was one of his oldest friends and I had met her many times. We had even gone to her house to have dinner on several occasions with her husband. She wasn’t an innocent stranger that didn’t realize she was involved with a married man. 

He opened his mouth to explain and I shushed him. 

“I made you lunch. Come eat.” I said. 

They stood there, not knowing what to do. 

“Just come sit down. There’s enough for both of you.” They sat. 

“Baby- I... I don’t know what to say.” He began. “We... it... just kind of happened.”

I nodded, handing them their plates and sitting myself. They both acted like they had never seen spaghetti before. I had made it just the way he liked it.

He stared at me, searching for more words. She sat silent, staring at her plate, frozen. 

“How long have you been together?” I asked. 

“Baby, I think we shou-“ he began. 

“I said, how long have you been together?” I nearly shouted. I didn’t want to shout. She yelped like I had hit her. 

“Three months... we’ve only had **** once... we’ve just been talking...” he said.

“Please don’t tell my husband!” She cried. 

I started laughing, it was just so **** *funny*. The *mistress*, the *adulterer*, worried about what this would do to *her* marriage. My husband attempted to cut in, but I was nearly hysterical. There were tears streaming down my face and I could barely take in a breath. 

“Look- I’m not doing this.” My husband finally said, standing up and turning to leave. He took her arm. “Let’s go.” 

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked. 

“Leaving.” He responded. “I’ll take her home and be back later to talk to you.”

“You don’t get to just walk out.” I said. “Not after-“ I waved my hand at her in a gesture of confusion. “This.” 

“I **** up. I know I did.” His tone softened a little and he took a step towards me. “She means nothing to me... I love you. You’re my everything. I just... I don’t know. Made a mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake! You didn’t make a mistake! You purposely carried on an affair with a *married* woman.” I said. 

“Well, maybe you should have listened to and talked to him more.” She said. “He’s not the only one to blame here, honey.”

“Don’t *ever* talk about *my* husband like *you* know him. You know **nothing**.” I said through bared teeth. 

“Well, I obviously know something about him. Like how to turn him on.” She hissed. 

“Come on.” He said, jerking her arm. “I’m taking you home.”

I jumped in front of them, blocking their way. 

“No. You will sit. Now.” I commanded. 

They sat back at the table, and while I would like to let you continue believing it was just my commanding presence, it was probably more the giant knife I had used to chop the vegetables that I was now wielding in my hand. 

“Eat.” I said. They stared at me. “EAT!” I yelled, brandishing the knife. 

They ate.

We finally talked after dinner. She was a puddle of tears. He-he was ridiculous. 

“I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t want to lose you. I love you!” He was nearly begging. 

“You aren’t losing me and I’m not going anywhere.” I said, kissing his cheek. 

She stayed all day, and we talked. I made them drinks, and later in the day, dinner. 

After dinner we all went to bed. It’s been like that ever since. 

Every night, he sleeps between us in our now shared king sized bed. I don’t have to worry about him cheating anymore either, because his mistress is well within my reach. 

He’d become sullen and withdrawn after awhile, and I didn’t know why. After all, he got everything he wanted. 

He wanted me, he wanted her, he wanted to stay in our house, and in our bed. I let him have all of those things. 

Still, some days I’d see him crying. I’ll admit, I did take his phone away (avoiding temptation), and he had to start working from home while we rebuild trust, but I don’t understand what’s so upsetting about that. 

Last night I heard him talking to her. He kept saying he was sorry. When i walked in the room (they aren’t allowed to talk without me present) he begged me to take her away from here. He couldn’t keep looking at her. 

He was finally as disgusted as I was at the idea of him sleeping with her. 

I agreed, and I took her home to her husband. He broke down in tears when he saw her. I didn’t stay for the reunion, I had been watching through the trees. I was careful, and had parked my car down the street in the woods. I was confident she wouldn’t tell him where she’d been all these weeks. She was so *worried* he would find out about the affair, after all. 

When I got home my husband wasn’t in much better spirits, but he was better. I’m sure we’ll work it out. 

I am afraid we’ll have to get a new bed though. Rotting corpses leave such nasty stains.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: They said my child would change everything, but I never expected this to happen
 
 Assistant: You were born to change the world.

I hated that. My world wasn’t perfect; in fact, it wasn’t even good. But human survival is based on our need for the status quo. This is true even when ‘business as usual’ is slowly drawing life out of us, second by second. We walk happily forward, somehow able to forget the fact that passing time is another way of describing death. 

My life, a wise man once said, is measured out in coffee spoons. 

You took all that away from me.

And I hated that. 

The fear of caring for an entire *human* - and a helpless *infant* human at that – shook me to my core. I was so much more afraid of facing you than – well, anything – that nothing frightened me. 

There’s no fear of getting fired once you’ve already quit. So I walked into my boss’s office at the box factory and told him that I was worth more than he’d been paying me. I also explained exactly why he’d been losing money. Spoiler: he was just as afraid as *I* had been of facing himself and making difficult decisions. I’d known it for quite some time, and had been afraid to tell him.

He promoted me on the spot.

The bump in pay was completely neutralized by preparing for you. 

Dorothy wasn’t ‘the one’ for me to marry. We both knew it, and we were both afraid to let go.

Then she told me that she was pregnant, and that I had to marry her or leave. *You* denied me the opportunity to stay comfortably afraid to move. 

So we accepted that we weren’t ‘the one’ for each other, but that the idea is probably based on a fantasy anyway. We embraced what worked between us, we accepted what didn’t, and we moved on together. 

I had never realized just how much time I spent doing *nothing.* Internet chat rooms, watching TV, hitting the snooze button, sitting on the couch, spending an hour getting ready for the day when I can make it happen in nine minutes, 19 minutes here, 13 minutes there – holy ****, I was wasting 24 hours of every week on absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Were those things worth a day of my life? No, but I gladly paid the Reaper anyway, and I was agonized when I learned I’d have to give that up. But it turns out that’s just enough time to put you to sleep, pick you up, get food in you, clean the food that comes out of you, and repeat the process eight more times a day. I would have to construct my *entire* life around this reality. Eventually, you would grow old enough to handle those things yourself, and would never once show appreciation for my efforts. 

That’s what I’d signed up for without wanting any of it. Life was going to be *real,* and that challenged everything I knew.

I hated the vulnerability. 

Because nothing can describe the raw terror of a grim-faced doctor explaining that there are “serious problems with the pregnancy.”

You cracked open a nerve that I never knew existed. I would have lived, and died, placidly unaware of the horrifying knowledge that I’d been sitting on unused pieces of my soul.

Those pieces were rotting away.

Thank you for showing me how scary that is.

And thank you for forcing me to push myself so far into my discomfort zone that I had to give up on doubting myself. There just isn’t time to question whether I’m strong enough when my child is suffering. It turns out that doctors know more than they say at first, insurance has more than it gives at first, and I’m more of an **** than I believed at first. 

I know it sounds like that last part is a bad thing, but believe me when I say it’s not. If you have a terrible relationship with someone, they usually drift away in time; and if you’re an **** to someone, they probably deserve it.

But even the biggest **** in the world can’t bully circumstance into submission.

We learned what it was to suffer. Another wise man once explained that suffering *is* life. 

Dorothy and I lived. 

And we loved – we loved because we were broken, rather than in spite of it. We watched as our status quo died without fanfare, and you were birthed with much drama.

We watched as you struggled, and we struggled as you stopped.

This letter isn’t an apology, because I have no inaction to confess. This is a note of thanks, as I sit here with you in my arms, watching the sun slowly rise on the first day after your birth.

You were born to change the world. 

And in the twenty minutes that you lived, you did.

_____________________________

[FB](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/)

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)


[Listen](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn_pa1QfNMRzbTuJqXSoRQ?view_as=subscriber)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been seeing a man in my backyard for the past two nights - Update 4
 
 Assistant: [Original Post] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5uwi42/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/)

[Update 2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5v2gzq/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/)

[Update 3] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5v9lxi/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/)


I’m sorry for the wait everyone but I have been on the road all day.

I posted another album on imgur showing pictures of my hotel from the other night. 

[Album] (http://imgur.com/a/erBX9)

Last night when I posted the third update, many people in the comments had told me I needed to stop using reddit as it would only lead to find my location, so I didn’t. I turned off my laptop and put my phone on airplane mode for the past day. I decided my best course of action would to be to calm my nerves and finally get some shut-eye. I signed off of reddit, jumped into my buddy’s couch, and finally went to sleep. 

At approximately 3 in the morning my friend woke me up telling me I needed to check something out. I immediately grabbed the revolver I had left on the table next to the couch, and we went to the front porch. In the distance I we could see a car parked all the way down the road. I’d say it was about 300 yards and still visible because of a street light. The following was the conversation best I could remember it.

Tom: See that car down there, I was dozing off and the moment I snapped out of it the thing just showed up out of nowhere it was just sitting there. 

Me: How long do you think it’s been there for?

Tom: I’m not sure, I saw it there and stared at it for a good 2 minutes, after that I took my flashlight and started flashing it on and off, after that the car shut off and some guy got out and waved and had walked into the woods.

There is a wooded area near my buddy’s house that if you walk through it you can go walk into a large open field in his backyard. There is a fence dividing the field and from his backyard but it can be easily hopped.

Me: Do you think we should go check it out?

Tom: No, this guy could be going into the woods and coming back round towards my back door, you have to stay here and I’ll go check it out.

Me: Alright if it's a Gray volkswagen we need to leave immediately. I want you to record the license plate and look inside to look for anything notable. That means ropes, knives, duct tape, anything sketchy we need to get out of here. 

Tom: Alright wait inside and defend the house. Make sure no one gets inside.

I went back inside and stared out the window as Tom approached the vehicle with his 12 gauge. 
I went to the back of his house stared out his backyard window and saw some figure start walking across the field. This was particularly strange as there were no houses visible in this field and he just seemed like he was walking towards nowhere. He climbed over a hill and he was no longer in view from the window. I went back to the front window to look at the car and Tom was checking it out. I felt relieved for the slightest moment as I felt like maybe just maybe, I was overreacting. Then his home phone rang.

I looked at it and saw the caller I.D.and it was my area code, not Tom’s. At this point I had my phone still on airplane mode so I assumed it was someone from my neighborhood/family trying to contact me. I felt almost intrusive seeing that I was answering a call to a home that was not even mine, but now was not a time to take chances so I answered.

I picked up the phone:

Me: Hello?

Caller: (Silence for a few seconds)

Me: Excuse me who this?

Caller: Oh excuse me sir my apologies. Is this the owner of the household?

Me: No I am just a friend of the owner he is currently outside who is this?

Caller: (Silence for another few seconds)

At this point I just felt that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realized you **** up. I just revealed that I am here alone and whoever is calling just realised that.

Me: Hello?

Caller: Who else are you with sir is it just you?

At this point I was shaking and I could barely speak without stumbling my words. I decided the best things to do was lie like no tomorrow.

Me: Um, No we are having a party and there are a couple other people here. I ask again sir who is calling.

Caller: Are you sure about that I was just walking by and saw that there is only two cars in his driveway.

At this point I completely lost my ****.

Me: LIsten just **** tell me who you are why the **** are you calling this house so late.

Caller: (More silence)

Me: Hello?! Can you please just **** tell me?!

Caller: I apologize sir I may have the wrong number. Tell whoever owns this house to call back. Thank you.

Then he hung up.

Tom had come back and said the car was not a volkswagen and had a license plate. He said the windows were tinted and the doors were locked so there was really nothing he could make out. I told him about the caller and he said he had no idea who’s number that was. He called back, no answer. He called from a restricted number, no answer. 

An hour passed by as we were sitting on the porch and we heard an audible slam from his back door. We both looked at each other and he motioned to follow him around back. We saw nothing out of the ordinary. We looked around everywhere for footprints, but still nothing. When we had gone back to the front porch after countless minutes of searching, it was approximately 4 in the morning at that point. It wasn’t until 10 minutes after we got back to the porch that we noticed that car 300 yards away was gone and we hadn’t even noticed.

I haven’t gotten any sleep since last night. I told him that I wanted to leave his house because I need to keep moving, and he said he wants to come too. He locked up all his doors, brought some guns, and we drove off at 6 in the morning. Police still haven’t done jack **** despite all the valuable intelligence I gave them, and I’ve been on the road all day with my friend. I drove a lot and he slept in the back. We are currently at a Mcdonald's as I type this. We were joking saying if we do end up getting kidnapped, murdered, attacked, these nosleep posts will make one **** of “Based on a real story” script.

I’m just tired guys. Tired of being stalked, tired of being hunted down, and tired of making these **** posts. I just want this to be over.

If anything happens tonight….I’ll let you all know. Bye for now.

[Update 5] (https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/5voef5/ive_been_seeing_a_man_in_my_backyard_for_the_past/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: How to successfully ransom a child
 
 Assistant: Hello Nosleep.  I have lurked on this site for a while, but I feel it is time to share some things with you.  Honestly, I’m only doing this because I am sick of hearing about people kidnapping kids and doing it all wrong.  I have successfully ransomed over a dozen children.  Some might call me an expert.  I want to tell you how to do it correctly.  Maybe then you’ll start doing it right.

I’m going to use my most recent conquest as an example.  Her name is Sophie.

You don’t need to know my name.

The first step is to choose a kid.  Gender doesn’t matter, but I prefer girls.  If you want the best ransom you’ll want to pick a family that is tight-knit.  The more the parents love the kid the more they’ll give up to get it back.

Choose a family in a town you don’t live in.  Ideally it should be at least an hour away.  You must have no connection to the family.  They don’t know you, but you will learn everything about them.

I picked Sophie because she had braided pigtails.  I liked that.  She was just big enough to do some things on her own but still little.  Small.  Smooth.  I grabbed Sophie on her way home from school.  But before taking her, I did my research.  This is where so many people fail.  You have to study the family.  You have to know when they leave the house, what hobbies they have, who visits, and where the breaks in the chain are.  You need to spend a lot of time watching.  Waiting.  

There is so much waiting, but it makes the prize so much better.

Sophie’s family lived in a farmhouse in a small town.  Their police force consisted of a sheriff and only a few officers.  A smaller police force will help you.  To make yourself less noticeable, don’t use the same car to watch the house in.  Changing colors and kinds of car will make it impossible to track you.

It took five months for the perfect opportunity.  Sophie usually walked home with a friend.  The way home was through a field, out of sight from any house.  But the friend was a barrier.  I was lucky.  The friend was sick.  She didn’t go to school.  So Sophie walked alone, her backpack hanging off one arm, her precious blonde hair braided in those long, silken pigtails.  

Don’t hurt her.  Make it fast.  One arm around the diaphragm, the other over her mouth.  She is small, carry her to your car.  Don’t lean in and smell her hair.

Once you have the kid the real work starts.  You’ll want to send a ransom note in the mail.  Emails and phone calls are too easily traceable.  A letter you can simply place in any mailbox. Leave the return address blank.

Keep her quiet.  No one can hear her, but silence makes it better.

In your letter, you’ll explain that you have the child.  You will not harm the child as long as the family is willing to pay the ransom.  As far as the amount of money, it needs to be a reasonable amount.  Significant  enough to warrant an abduction but low enough that a typical family could raise the amount.  I usually stick between $20,000 and $50,000.  An average family can get a loan for that amount if needed.

Ideally, the letter should arrive the day after the kid is taken.  The family will have already called the police.  This letter will incite even more fear.  

You cannot go to the house.  Do not drive by.  Do not go to the town, no matter how much you want to.  And you will want to.  You may watch the news.  You may rub the strands between your fingers.  You may plan your next move.  But nothing else.

In the first letter you’ll simply say you will call with more instructions.  Do. Not. Call.  The family will be waiting by the phone.  They will not leave the house.  The FBI may have been called.  A wiretap will be placed.  Every conversation will be recorded.  You cannot let them hear your voice.

Sophie’s hair tastes like laundry soap and freshly mowed grass.

Next it is time to write your second letter.  It should be sent two week after the first.  In this letter, you will include something written by the kid.  This is to prove the it is alive.  Make it write about things you would have no way of knowing.  You should also include a picture of it, fully dressed, with a newspaper.  The letter will remind them of the ransom amount.  Say you are anxious to get the money.  You will contact them soon with the drop location.

Remember the smoothness.

Sophie.  Soft.  Sweet.  Syrup.

After the second letter is another waiting period.  This one is longer, it has to be at least a few months.  That’s when you will be tested.  You will want to call them.  To reach out.  But trust your instincts.  The prize is worth the waiting.

Spend time with Sophie.  Tell her about your father.  Your secrets are safe with her.  You can trust her.

When the wait is over you will send the last letter.  In it, you will include a picture of the kid in different clothes, hair cut, but smiling.  Holding another newspaper.  It can write something to its parents but it isn’t realty important.  What does matter is your exact instructions.  

1.	The money must be in cash and untraceable.

2.	The drop point must be in the middle of a popular wooded area in the early morning, around 5am.  The area should be at least an hour away. 

3.	The entire family must bring the money to the site.

4.	No cops allowed.


5.	The family must wait an hour at the location, with the money in the spot.  Then the kid will be released to them.

6.	The reunited family must then return home immediately and never speak of this event again.

Of course the family will not follow all of the rules.  Police will no doubt join them at the site, hiding.  But that’s okay.

You never planned to go there in the first place.

After all, Sophie has been dead since the day after you took her.

She has to die.  It’s part of the plan.  You use her, love her, take her hair.  And then she is gone.  It is gone.  It is now with the other its.  Bloated empty shells.

Deflated balloons hanging from the ceiling.

You have to make it write the letters when you take it home.  You tell it what dates to write.  You take the two pictures that first day too.  Just edit the newspaper to match the correct dates.  It’s not hard.  The waiting is hard.

But the prize is worth the wait.

Silken braided pigtails.  You can **** on the ends as you drive to the house.  It tastes like a little dead girl.

But the hair was already dead.

No one will be at the house when you get there.  Everyone, including the authorities, will be at the drop site.  Now it is their turn to wait.  For something that will never come.

You have to break into the house.  This is where you will collect your ransom.  You may take anything that is of any worth.  Televisions, jewelry, computers.  If the computers do not have a password (most don’t) there is another task you must complete.  Delete all photos of it.  Log into any social media (most people leave themselves logged in) and delete any reference to it.  Photos.  Quotes.  Artwork.  Do the same around the house.  Take all the family pictures.  Take any art it drew, anything with its name on it.  Make it look like there never was a child in the house at all.

The process can take a long time.  Be thorough.  Think of the braids in your front seat.  The smoothness.

And finally, as you drive away, you can collect your ransom.  Your prize.  Sure, you can sell the items you stole.  It won’t make you that much money but that’s not the real reason to do this.  What you will collect is the knowledge that you destroyed that family.  

They will never see their kid again.  Never smell its hair.  You own it now.

They will never recover.  All of their treasured items are gone.  You have stolen their sanity.  Joy.  Safety.  They will never be able to trust again.

And that fact tastes almost as good as the pigtails.

So there you go.  That’s how you successfully ransom a child.  Now all of you out there have no excuse to do it wrong.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I used FaceApp, which shows what you'll look like when you're old. I saw something horrifying.
 
 Assistant: "FaceApp" is an app that shows you what you'll look like old. This afternoon, I downloaded it, after a healthy dose of peer pressure.


"Come on. I want to see what you look like," my husband said, a grin on his face.


Sure he did. He still looked handsome, with the spattering of silver hair and distinguished lines on his face. Me? I'd probably look like an old hag.


The app loaded. I took a photo and scrolled through the options. I tapped "Age." Then "Old."


The spinning icon showed up as it loaded. I held my breath.


The image appeared.


I froze.


It didn't show me with gray hair, or wrinkles, or yellow teeth. No -- it was so much worse.


My skin stretched over my cheekbones, thin and papery, a sickly shade of gray. My eyes were clouded white, the pupils barely visible. My dark brown hair had no gray -- but it was tangled and knotted around my face. Half my teeth were gone.


I didn't look old.


I looked *dead*.


"What? What's wrong?" Alex asked.


I quickly slid the phone out of his view. "It's nothing. Just… don't want you to see me like this."


That part was true.


"Fiiiine." He pulled away and have me a smile. "I'll just have to wait until you get old, then." He winked at me.


I gave him an awkward smile back.


"I should get back to work," he said, heading towards our home office. "But we'll go out to dinner tonight, okay?"


I nodded.


As soon as he'd left the room, I pulled the phone out again. Stared at the photo.


It looked even worse than I remembered. As I brought it close to my face, I noticed a worm making its way through my hair. It had been nearly camouflaged against my brown hair. And my skin was mottled not with age spots, but actual holes.


Then I realized.


*I can't be the only one.*


I pulled up a new tab and started searching. After wading through the various news articles on the app, I found a forum with a few users talking about it.


*Hey. When I did the FaceApp aging thing, instead of seeing an old person, I saw myself… like rotted and dead, and stuff. Did that happen to anyone else?*


A few replies indicated it had.


*Yeah, I look like some zombie, LOL*


*I think it's a glitch. This is new software and they're still ironing everything out.*


*I think they put it in there as a prank.*


I breathed a sigh of relief. But then, just as I was getting comfortable, my eyes fell on a fourth reply:


*I think there's something more to it. I don't want to scare you, but… my sister got the exact thing you described. Showed her all dead, like a zombie.*


*She has terminal brain cancer.*


My heart stopped. I felt hot. Itchy. Dizzy. I stood up and swept a hand over my face, as if I expected to find the holes. The worm. Everything.


I raced up, ran into the bathroom. Splashed water on my skin. The face looking back at me looked no different than it did yesterday. Or the day before.


But the horrifying words now pulsed through my head.


*It didn't show me old...*


*Because I'm not going to make it to old age.*

[+](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I got paid $20k to test a video game and now everything I love is dead
 
 Assistant: My buddy Steve was a genius at making money without doing anything. At one point, he was enrolled in 12 different clinical trials at the same time. Some of these were for drugs that would have had bad interactions, but it didn’t matter to Steve, because he never actually took the drugs. He did it like they do in the movies and just slipped them under his tongue and then spat them into his hand when the doc was turned away.

Other trials were for new therapeutic approaches and things like that, but those were no problem for Steve either. At most, he had to lie (literally and metaphorically) on somebody’s couch for an hour each week, then collect his check on the way out.

But eventually they caught on, and Steve was put on some kind of list. There was a nationwide ban on Steve, so that he couldn’t participate in any more trials sponsored by universities or private drug companies, which essentially precluded him from that easy money.

But Steve found a workaround. Not all experiments are above board and sanctioned by the FDA or whatever. There is, in fact, a hidden world of people testing things out in their garages, streamlining the whole process, without having to worry about pesky and expensive regulations. One of Steve’s friends gave him a link to a forum on the dark web, and after that, he was in the pipeline.

The thing about *these* “experiments” is that if it were for, say, a new drug, they didn’t trust you to just swallow the pill. You had to open your mouth and lift your tongue. You had to actually take the thing, because these people weren’t **** around. But boy did they pay.

\*

One morning, I was awakened by an insanely loud banging at my apartment door. “Who’s that?” moaned my girlfriend, Sofia.

I looked at the clock with bleary eyes. It was 5:55 AM.

“Open up dude!” shouted Steve from the hallway.

“Oh **** him,” said Sofia.

“He could be in trouble,” I said, shooting out of bed, full of adrenaline.

I answered the door in my boxers, and there was Steve, bouncing up and down, his pupils each the size of the full moon.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m awesome!” said Steve. “Holy **** dude… this stuff… they gave me $1000 to take one **** pill and it rules so much. It feels so good. Oh my ****, Jay. Oh my ****.”

My head hurt as I tried to piece together a thought. “So you’re… high… and you came to tell me that you got paid a lot of money to get high?” I felt a surge of rage welling up deep inside of me.

“Ha! Yes! I mean, no! Look man, you’re my best friend. I love you. I love you so much. I want to… no, listen, I came here because look. Look. There’s money. A lot of money! For me and for you. *Twenty **** thousand dollars*. For a video game! To play a video game or something dude! 20 grand. To play a video game for a few hours. Look, I’m just telling you this because I love you. You don’t need to take drugs or anything. Just do some virtual reality stuff for a few hours and boom, 20 grand in your pocket, like that.”

The flood of rage died down as I tried to make sense of what Steve was saying. I couldn’t. “What are you saying?” I asked. “Why are you here before the crack of dawn? Sofia’s **** and so am I, really.”

“No no no,” said Steve, with a horrified look on his face. “No, I want you to be happy! Sofia too! Look. Listen. Look. You still have that Tor browser I set you up with and all that?”

“Uh… I guess so.”

“Good good good. Listen. Look.” Steve jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Look. Just type this in and you’ll see. You’ll see. Easy money, okay. Twenty thousand dollars. You can finally buy that engagement ring you’ve been….”

I reached out and smacked Steve across the side of the head. “Jesus Christ dude, keep it down, yeah?”

Steve looked shocked and hurt for a moment before the realization dawned on him. “Oh. ****. My bad, my bad. I’m sorry dude. I’m sorry. I wish I could delete it. I wish I could delete it. Listen… are you going to check this out or what?” He held out the crumpled piece of paper to me.

I took it and shrugged. “I’ll check it out, Steve, but that’s it for now. Why don’t you head home and sleep this one off huh?”

“Yes,” said Steve, nodding his head like crazy. “Yes. Check it out. I’ll sleep it off.” I started to close the door, but he stuck his foot in just before it closed. “Uh… dude?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I use your bathroom?”

I opened the door and sighed as he rushed into the bathroom and started puking his guts out.

\*

Steve received a ban from our apartment after that, but we stayed in touch. He would text me every few hours, asking if I’d checked out the advertisement for the video game trial yet. The truth was that I had checked it out as soon as he left that morning, but I was undecided.

On the one hand, the $20,000 sure was intriguing. That was almost half again as much as I made in a year… more than half, after taxes. And I had a feeling that this wasn’t the sort of gig where they took taxes out.

I’d be able to do a lot with the money. Take Sofia out for all kinds of dinners, maybe take a vacation and travel somewhere interesting… the kinds of things we always wanted to do, but never could afford to do. Then too, yes, there was that engagement ring. Sofia would say yes either way, even if I presented her with some rolled up aluminum foil… but I wanted it to be special. I wanted it to be special, but I couldn’t afford to *make* it special.

On the other hand, well, the whole thing was sketchy as ****. Who pays some Joe off the street $20K to test out a video game? And why go through such shady channels to set the thing up? I knew, from the start, that nothing good could come from it.

I knew that, but I did it anyway.

“Alright,” I wrote in a text to Steve. “I’m in for the video game thing.”

“My man! We’re gonna be swimming in **** caviar my dude.”

\*

Steve and I drove to the address together. It was, strangely, a respectable looking office building. We went up to the entrance and looked at the map of the building. There was a lawyer in there, a counselor, an accountant, and so forth.

“****,” said Steve. “Which **** office is it?”

On cue, his phone buzzed.

“Oh,” he said. “The basement.”

“The basement?” I asked. “Not for real? The *basement*? I don’t know about this, man….”

“Come on dude. *Twenty* thousand dollars. And in such a nice building too. I’m used to going to crazy people’s garages and swallowing **** knows what. This is going to be cake.”

I nodded, but as we walked to the elevator, my sense of unease grew larger and larger until it was screaming at me: *Turn around! Whatever this is, it’s bad!*

“It’s just a video game,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” asked Steve.

I snapped out of it. “I said, ‘let’s go play this dumb video game and get paid.’”

“That’s the attitude,” said Steve, grinning, as the elevator door slid closed behind me.

We rode down to the basement as I tried to calm myself down. *It’s a video game. In the basement of a respectable office. Probably, they could only afford to rent the basement.* I shut myself up before I could ask: they could only afford to rent the basement, but they’re paying you $20K each?

When we reached the bottom, the doors slid open and the first thing that I saw was a man and a woman sitting at a plastic work table in the middle of a large room. Other than that, it looked like a standard basement with equipment like boilers and hot water heaters and exposed wiring and concrete floors.

“Welcome,” said the woman. “Steven and Jason… is that right?”

“That’s us,” said Steve, stepping off the elevator. I followed behind and watched as the woman wrote something on her clipboard.

“That’s fantastic,” said the man. “Right on time… well, a *few* minutes late, but that’s okay.” He laughed.

“It happens,” said the woman, smiling. “People have things to do. And we respect that here. That’s why we’re going to get right down to business. Or, ah, nearly so. First, we need you to sign the contract.”

The woman held out two clipboards and we each took one. Before I looked at it, I took a moment to note that my unease had not subsided, despite the surface friendliness of the man and the woman. Somehow, that made it *more* bizarre… that they were just sitting there, so poised amongst the plumbing pipes running overhead, ready to offer us a lot of money to play a video game.

“Where do we play the game?” I asked, looking around. I didn’t see a TV or anything.

“Up here,” said the man, tapping his head.

“Uh…” I started, but Steve gave me a nudge.

“They’ll tell us what to do,” he said. “just sign the contract dude.” He scrawled some information into a few boxes and dashed off a signature while I read more closely.

*The Participant agrees not to seek compensation beyond the predetermined amount. In this case, the predetermined amount is 20,000USD for participating in one trial game of “Total Control” (TC). The Makers of TC, and the Administrators of the Trial, hereby relieve themselves of all liability for any injuries sustained during game play, with the express agreement of the Participant.*

“Injuries?” I asked. “What kind of game is this?”

The woman smiled. “Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to tell you anything about the game until you sign the contract. After that, you’ll know all about it.”

*In the event that The Participant is unable to collect the predetermined amount at the end of the game, the Makers of TC will transfer the funds to a person of The Participant's choosing. The following box is for the Participant to note the name and address of the next of kin.*

“So you’re saying that if we *die*, you’ll give the money to somebody that we choose?” I asked. “Is that right?”

“That’s right,” said the man.

“If we *die* while playing your *game*,” I stressed. I turned to Steve. “This is nuts.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s a lot of money dude. Take it or leave it. I’m taking it.”

I tried to convince myself to leave it, but then I thought about going to Europe with Sophia. I wrote her name in the “next of kin” box and then signed the form. I handed the clipboard back to the woman, who scanned it over.

“Fantastic!” she said.

“Now will you tell us what this game is?” I asked.

“We’ll do better than that,” said the man. He reached down into a cardboard box on the ground and pulled out what looked to be two headsets. “We’ll *show* you the game. Please, gentlemen, put these devices on your heads, and prepare for an experience unlike any other. Or so we hope,” he added, laughing.

Steve didn’t hesitate to put the thing on his head. It looked like the front half of a helmet, with an elastic band securing it in place, and a pair of glasses attached to the helmet.

“I don’t see anything,” said Steve.

“It’s a two player game,” said the man, nodding to me.

I took a deep breath. *It’s just a **** game.* I put the headset on and looked through the glasses.

Everything looked the same, except it had a slight yellow tint. I watched as the man reached into the box again and brought out two video game controllers. He handed one to the woman, and then they each pushed a button.

I heard Steve scream a split second before I heard the hiss of some hydraulic mechanism being engaged just above my ear. Then I felt the most intense pain in my life. It felt like something was being jabbed directly into my **** brain… and that’s exactly what was happening. A trickle of blood rolled down the side of my head as my brain lit up with pain.

Then I was out of it.

\*

When I woke up, I was strapped to a chair, sitting opposite the man and woman behind their table, and next to Steve. There was only a dull ache in my head now, but it didn’t take long for me to burst into a full-on panic.

“Ah good,” said the woman. “You’re both awake.” She stood up calmly, walked over, and undid my straps.

“What is this?” I gasped. “What the **** is this?”

“It’s an experiment,” said the man. “Don’t worry, we’ve ironed out some kinks since the last time we tried it.”

“What experiment?” I asked, standing up on wobbly legs. “What are you going to do to us?”

The woman went to work un-strapping Steve. “We’ve implanted a device in your head,” she explained. “It allows us to control your physical movements. Or so we hope.”

Steve rubbed his head. “What the ****? You’re going to pay us, right?”

“Of course,” said the man. He reached into his cardboard box and pulled out two thick envelopes. “I hope cash is okay.” He tossed them across the table to our feet.

Steve bent down and tore his open. I saw the cash inside. “Okay,” he said. “That’s worth it for a little headache I guess. Alright. So you’ve implanted these devices in our brains. Okay. So can we leave now?”

“You can try,” said the man.

“But you won’t be able to if we don’t want you to,” said the woman.

“And we don’t want you to,” said the man.

“Not until you fight to the death,” said the woman.

I jumped to my feet and tried to slow down my breathing. “Come on man,” I said to Steve. “That’s enough of this.” I bent down to pick up my envelope, and then started walking towards the elevator.

“Thanks for the money, guys,” said Steve. Then he followed behind me and pushed the button. The light came on and we waited for the elevator to come.

Then I reached my fist back and swung it as hard as I could at Steve’s jaw. It connected with a loud *crack* and I saw a spray of blood leave his mouth.

“Whuh uh *fahk?*” groaned Steve, rubbing his jaw.

I felt dizzy. What the **** indeed. Why had I just socked my best friend in the face for no reason? “I… dude, I’m so sorry. I have no idea why I did that.”

Steve spit out some blood on the basement floor. “Forget it. Let’s just get the **** out of here.”

The elevator door dinged. “Sounds good to me,” I said, as the doors slid open. I went to step in when suddenly I felt a hand grab my shoulder and roughly spin me around. It was Steve. He had a confused look on his face as he grabbed my neck with both hands and started to choke me.

My nerves exploded in panic as I struggled to breathe. I felt myself bring my knee up into Steve’s balls. He let go of my neck then and hunched over.

“What’s happening?” he gasped.

I brought my elbow down on his back and he screamed out in pain. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.” I looked over at the man and the women still seated behind their plastic work table. They were each holding their game controllers, and smiling. “What the **** is happening?”

The woman pushed a button and suddenly Steve lunged at me, driving his shoulder into my gut. We hit the ground together, my elbow taking the brunt of the impact. “I’m so sorry!” cried Steve. “I can’t stop it!”

I reached up and grabbed Steve’s face in my hand. I didn’t want to. I tried to make myself stop, but I couldn’t. I began squeezing between my thumb and middle finger, which were spread out and gripped into the spot behind his eye sockets. “Stop this!” I shouted.

Steve sunk into my palm with his teeth and tore a chunk of my flesh off. I felt a searing pain, and a deep fear as his spit my skin onto the ground. I tried to will myself to stay still, but I couldn’t. I punched him in the eye.

When his head **** back from the blow, I pushed against his chest, and twisted around, so that now I was on top of him. I took a clump of his hair in my hand and began smashing his head against the concrete floor, again and again and again.

I was crying. I was begging myself to stop. I was begging the man and the woman to stop whatever they were doing. I was begging Steve to forgive me, as his head hit the floor with a *thunk* that sounded wetter and wetter each time, as blood gushed and sprayed everywhere.

“Okay,” said the man after a while. “That’s enough. My player is dead now.”

I heard the woman laugh. “I told you I would win.”

Suddenly, I was in control of my own movements again. I set Steve’s head gently on the ground and knelt next to him, sobbing. “What have I done?” I wailed. “What did you make me do?!”

“Now now,” said the man, standing up. “It’s not all bad news.” He walked over and picked up the envelope of cash that Steve had dropped. “He did name *you* as his next of kin. So you’ve just made forty thousand dollars.”

I looked up at him with burry eyes. “You **** monsters,” I said, standing up. “I’ll **** **** *you.*” I ran at him full of rage, with my arms outstretched. But when I got to him, I slowed down, spread my arms wider, and embraced him in a friendly hug. My mind screamed in terror and rage, but my body wouldn’t respond.

“We control you now,” said the woman. “We’re happy to let it go at this. You’ve served our purpose, as a beta tester. We’ll let you get in that elevator, with your money, and you’ll never hear from us again. *If* you honor your contract. Do you remember your contract? There’s a copy of it in your back pocket. There’s one bit that you should pay careful attention to. The bit about how you are *never* to tell anyone anything close to what happened here. Don’t worry about coming up with an explanation for your friend. We’ll take care of that. All that *you* have to do about this all is… literally nothing. Don’t say a word. You’re probably best forgetting it ever happened.”

“There’s a hose in the corner,” said the man. “Clean yourself up, take your money, and leave.”

I did that. I just wasn’t sure if I was the one doing it.

\*

After I killed Steve, my life fell apart. Of course it did. I knew that I wasn’t in control of my actions at the time, but that didn’t help at all. I’d watched the life leave his eyes and I’d gone on smashing his head against the concrete again and again, well after he was dead. I had nightmares about it every night. And the worst part was that I couldn’t tell anybody about it.

What was I supposed to do? Turn myself in to the police? For murdering my best friend literally against my will? How would that help anything?

I wanted to tell Sofia. I wanted to tell her so badly, but I couldn’t. Those people had put The Fear in me.

We started doing fancy things together with the money, like going out to eat, but it was no good. It was like a part of me had died when Steve had died. When I had bashed the life out of him.

Sofia didn’t want fancy dinners and all of the things that money can buy. She wanted me. But I wasn’t there anymore. I started drinking more and more. I considered suicide. Not seriously at first… but as time went by, it seemed more and more like a viable option. Anything to stop the never ending guilt and grief.

For her part, Sofia stuck with me for longer than could have been hoped for. But finally it got to be too much. It was clear enough that things were over well before the night we lay in bed together after yet another failed attempt at making love.

“I can’t do this anymore, Jay,” she said. “I love you, but something changed after Steve’s accident. I know that he was your best friend and it tore your heart out… but what about *life?* What about me? You didn’t die. I didn’t die. We’re still here. And… I can’t do it anymore. It’s been three months and I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh once. I… I’m not blaming you. And I can’t tell you how much I wanted to be able to do this. It’s my failure, really. But like I said. We’re still *alive* and I want to live while I can. And I want you to live too.”

I clenched my jaw, trying to fight back the tears. I tried to think rationally. *If you really love her, you’ll tell her to ****.* But I didn’t.

“I have to tell you something,” I said.

Then, as my soul screamed in horror, I smothered her with a pillow.

\*

I’ve been in bed with Sofia’s corpse for two days now.

Yesterday, I got a text:

“We have gathered all the data we need. Your contract has been fulfilled. Your unit has been deactivated. We thank you for your participation, and wish you the best of luck.”

I don’t know what to do. I’ll start here, by typing this out.

My name is Jay, and I killed my best friend and the love of my life, but I wasn’t in control of my body at the time.

Where do I go from here?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Why I'll never work at Applebee's again
 
 Assistant: I was never one to believe in bad luck, or curses, or voodoo, but when a mysterious man showed up one night for dinner at the Applebee’s where I was a waiter, I couldn’t help but wonder.

It was a Thursday night and I had just started my evening shift. Tammy, a 40-something waitress who wore the tightest tops they sold at Walmart and smoked menthols on her breaks, was complaining about a family of four who had only left her a 10&#37; tip. 

“Those little **** dropped French fries all over the floor!” she complained. “And the Dad spilled his lemonade. Twice! I’m tellin’ ya, next time I’m …. “ Tammy’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, and she lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “Oh my Lord Jesus, would you look at this…”

I turned toward the front door to find the source of Tammy’s amusement. It was an older man, 60’s maybe, who had tripped on the rug in front of the waitress stand and was struggling to pull himself up. 

“Five dollars from my tips tonight if you pretend to help him up, then drop him,” Tammy quipped. “Fifteen if he breaks something.”

“Tammy, that’s terrible,” I shot back, shaking my head. 

The man got up on his own. He wore a dark, ill-fitting suit with white pin stripes, the kind you might find at a Salvation Army for $25, and was missing most of the hair on his head, save a couple tufts on the side and back. The white shirt beneath looked two sizes two small, accentuating the bulge at the man’s waste. 

“If Genevieve seats Pin Stripe in my section, I’m quitting,” Tammy said, looking at her watch. “I’m dead serious.”

But Genevieve didn’t seat him in Tammy’s section. She sat him in mine.

“He’s limping! Paul, he’s friggin’ *limping*…” Tammy hissed from behind me.

I ignored her and shuffled over. 

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked in the kindest tone I could muster.

“Water,” he said solemnly, looking around the restaurant. 

“Oh, are you meeting someone? I can seat you somewhere else?”

“No. Here’s fine.”

“Okay,” I responded, checking to see if he’d moved the menu at all. He hadn’t. “I’ll be back in a minute for your order. Take your time.”

I made my way to the bar and got his drink. On the way back, Tammy stopped me. 

“Paul, he’s staring down every person that walks in. Like, boring holes through them. And he’s squinting as he does it. This guy is a creeper.”

Tammy’s gossip skills were top notch, so I didn’t really doubt her. Still, she was annoying. “He’s probably just bored. Don’t you have tables to see to?”

“I guess,” she replied, sighing. “Ruining all my fun. This guy is the most interesting thing to happen here since Antonio got fired.”

“I bet,” I said absently.

The man ended up ordering chips and salsa, and that was it. I filled his water a couple times, but he didn’t ask for anything otherwise. He just sat there, checking out everyone that walked in. After I watched him squint at a Mexican family as they were being seated, to the point where it made them obviously uncomfortable, I reluctantly began to agree with Tammy. 

This guy was a creeper. 

I kept an eye on him the rest of the night, but all he did was stare at customers and eat his chips. After about three hours, he got up and limped out the door. He’d left the exact amount of his bill on the table, in cash and change. 

The only other thing notable about that night was the dad of the Mexican family, who’d consequently been seated two tables down from Mr. Pinstripe, ended up throwing up all over their table. After I cleaned up the mess (the joys of being a waiter, I tell ya), I noticed his chicken was bright pink in the middle. 

\*\*\*

My next shift was two nights later. Tammy met me at the door, waving at me to follow her. I was supposed to clock in as soon as I walked in, but Tammy was insistent, to the point of grabbing my elbow and pulling me behind her. We stopped at a spot near the kitchen, with a view of her section. She put her hand on my shoulder and pointed a shaking hand toward a nearby table. 

The man was back.

He was wearing the same pin stripe suit, the same tight white shirt beneath it. He was sitting at the table, staring at absolutely nothing, eating chips and salsa.

“Hmm,” I said, trying to sound disinterested. I really wasn’t in the mood for Tammy’s antics. “So?”

“So? SO?” Tammy adjusted her bra before putting her hands on her hips, like she was about to scold a child. Then, she paused. “Oh, you weren’t here last night.”

“Co-rrect. I had the day off. What happened?”

“Oh my ****. Creeper happened! He was here last night, too. And Genevieve sat him in my section.” She rolled her eyes. “I think she’s mad because I sort of called her **** on a Facebook post…”

“You know she has hypothyroidism, right?” 

“Oh baloney! Yeah, she says that, but….” Tammy shook her head. “Damnit Paul, this isn’t about Genevieve! That guy is strange. LOOK at him.” She glanced over at his table. 

I obliged, grudgingly. Mr. Pinstripe was holding a chip in his hand, piled so high with salsa it appeared to defy the laws of physics, then shoved the whole ensemble into his mouth. 

“Well, maybe he…”

Before I could finish, there was a crash from behind me. Tammy and I turned to look. Carl, the night shift manager, was on his back on the ground, tangled up with Susan, a new waitress who’d just started that day. Carl was howling, clutching at his ankle amidst the wreckage of a full tray of spilled food. 

“See?” Tammy said, “He’s bad luck!”

“Who, Carl?”

“No, Salsa and Chips! Ever since he’s been coming, **** has been going wrong. That guy threw up on your shift two nights ago….”

“Tammy, that’s…”

“… and last night, something in the kitchen caught fire! Almost burned the whole place down!”

“Really?”

“Yes! Luckily we had that fire training last week, and someone put it out with the fire extinguisher.”

“I didn’t even know we had one. Who was it?”

“Marvin, I think. And I guarantee you, Carl’s ankle is broken. GAURANTEE IT. This guy is bad ju-ju.”

I looked over at the man, Tammy’s words echoing in my head. *Bad ju-ju*. Most of the people around him had gotten up to check out what the noise was. Some were still sitting, albeit a little flustered. But the man was simply staring straight ahead, enjoying his chips and salsa.

About forty-five minutes later, every system in the restaurant went haywire. 

The lights dimmed down to almost nothing, and the air conditioners kicked on full blast. It sounded like a lion roaring in the ceiling. And then “Welcome to the Jungle” started playing through the sound system, cranked up to full blast. Everyone was either covering their ears, trying to warm up, or running for the door. The new waitress, Susan, the one who crashed into Carl, tried to serve someone a steak in the confusion, and the customer ended up slicing his finger with the knife pretty badly, to the point he had to leave the restaurant and go to the hospital for stitches. 

It was a madhouse.

Carl was in the office icing his ankle, so the servers had to take care of finding out how to turn everything off. Tammy ended up getting the air conditioner taken care of, and I figured out how to turn the music down, but the lights refused to un-dim. Flat out refused. The customers that stayed had to finish their meals in the relative dark. 

And in the darkness,  Mr. Pinstripe remained perfectly calm. But you already figured that out. 

At one point, I think he may have been smiling. 

But as weird as those three nights were, nothing could have prepared me for what happened on Monday night.

It was about 8:45 p.m. Mr. Pinstripe was back, same suit, same shirt, same salsa and chips, and sitting in my section, to boot. I’d just refilled his water and turned toward the door when I saw Tammy walk in, a man on her arm. 

Tammy was off that night, but she was the type of person to go eat at the place she worked on her days off. That was just Tammy. And I was pretty sure the real reason she was there was to show the guy off. To whom, I’m not sure, but you could see it in Tammy’s eyes. She was dressed to the nines. Skin tight dress, two sizes too small, hair pulled up into a messy ponytail. Heels she couldn’t properly walk in. But, I’ll give it to her, her makeup actually didn’t look like a child had applied it, for once. 

When she walked in, Mr. Pinstripe turned and stared at her. His eyes were squinted down to almost nothing. 

Tammy stared back. 

Genevieve met her and asked where she wanted to be seated. Tammy pointed to an empty table in my section. 

Next to Mr. Pinstripe. 

I shuffled over to the waitress’s stand, trying to stop Genevieve, but it was too late. She obliged, leading Tammy and the guy, a bulky red-headed dude wearing an Affliction shirt, to the table Tammy had requested. They sat facing Mr. Pinstripe. I turned toward the kitchen immediately, not wanting to be a part of whatever was about to happen. My week had been stressful enough. 

I hadn’t made it very far when I heard a loud voice ask, “What’s so interesting?”, loud enough to be heard over the music and the din of conversation. I knew it was Affliction who’d asked it. And I’ll give you one guess who he was talking to. I sprinted back toward my section.

“Actually, nothing,” Mr. Pinstripe answered. “Nothing at all.”

“Oh yeah?” Affliction said, standing. 

“Tell him, Ryder,” Tammy goaded. “Tell that weird **** where he can stick it.”

“And where is that?” Mr. Pinstripe said calmly. “I’m *dying* to know.”

“UP YOUR ****!” Affliction shouted, overturning his chair and charging Mr. Pinstripe’s table.

And then it happened. 

To this day, I still don’t know where the knife came from, whether it was Affliction’s or Mr. Pinstripe’s. And I guess it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that the two men ended up locked together, fighting, both holding a portion of the four-inch knife’s handle, in the middle of Applebee’s on a Monday night.

With Tammy, predictably, in the middle. 

It only last for about thirty seconds, and I’ll never forget her scream. Or the amount of blood that poured from the puncture wound in her neck. 

The restaurant erupted in chaos. Affliction tore his shirt off and pressed it against Tammy’s neck, but it was saturated with blood in a matter of seconds. He picked her up in his arms and charged out of the door. The rest of the patrons were screaming, hiding under their tables, or running for the exits. Carl hobbled out of the office on a pair of crutches and I shouted at him to call the police. 

When I looked around for Mr. Pinstripe, he was gone. 

After a quick look around the store, I made my way out the side door, where customers park while waiting on their pick-up orders, and found Mr. Pinstripe casually walking away.

“Hey!” I shouted, half-jogging toward him.

I expected him to run, but he didn’t. He turned slowly around, facing me. 

“The cops are on their way. If you don’t stick around, you’ll be leaving the scene of a crime.”

“I supposed that’s true,” he said. 

“How can you be so calm after what just happened?” At first, I didn’t think he was going to answer. I think he did because we’d established a good rapport over the several nights I’d served him, even though we’d never really spoken.

“Do you want to know the truth?” he finally asked.

“Yes!”

“Because I knew it was going to happen,” he started, a thin smile on his face. “Or, something like it. I’m a…” He paused, looking up at the moon, which hung full in the sky. “I’m a *shifter,* I guess you could say.”

“What’s that?”

“I prevent horrible things from happening by shifting negative energy around.”

The confusion must have showed on my face. “I don’t…”

“The guy that threw up, Carl’s ankle, the music and lights fiasco…”

“That was you?”

“…. that was me.”

“Why? How?”

“Because something worse would have happened if I hadn’t.”

I just stared, waiting for an explanation. 

The man crossed his arms. “You knew Antonio, right?” 

“Yes,” I answered. He was one of our cooks.

“You weren’t working when Carl fired him, were you?”

“No.”

“I figured. When he got fired, right there in the kitchen over the burger he’d burned for the second time, he said he was going to get revenge. So he went home, and he started googling news articles about work place shootings. And then he got a crazy idea. So he went and bought an AR-15. And he didn’t do anything with it. Not for a week or so. But four days ago, when I walked into your Applebee’s for the first time, he was sitting in his truck with the AR-15 in his lap. He would have killed seven people that night, including you and Tammy.”

I was speechless. 

“But he didn’t do it, because I diverted some of that negative energy into the guy sitting two tables over from me. Sorry about the ****, by the way.”

“What about the next night? And the next?”

“Sometimes I don’t get all of the negative energy. In Antonio’s case, he was filled with a vast reservoir of it, one of the largest I’ve ever felt. That second night he was planning on coming back after closing. So I had to keep coming back until I got rid of all of it.” 

Something about the way he said it made me believe it. Every last word of it.

“It’s gone now?”

“I believe so.”

“But, wait a minute. People still got hurt. Carl has a broken ankle. And Tammy’s seriously injured.”

“Tammy’s dead. She didn’t make it.”

“What?!”

“I hate it,” he said, sounding genuine. “I really do. For Carl, being hurt is better than being dead. He would have been one of Antonio’s victims as well. He’s the one who fired him, after all. But in Tammy’s case… well, sometimes the universe just won’t give up when it’s someone’s time. She was just bad ju-ju,” he finished, winking at me. 

A moment later, sirens disturbed the stillness of the night. 

“I’m running out of time,” he said.

“Please, wait a minute. You have to explain the salsa and chips.”

He stifled a laugh, then said, “there’s really nothing to that. I just *really* love salsa and chips.” 

He turned to leave. 

“Wait.”

He turned again, exasperation painted on his face. 

“Last question. Where are you going?”

The man reached into an interior pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a haggard notebook. He flipped to a page in the middle. 

“Ellisville, one town over.”

“What for?” I asked.

“There’s supposed to be a school shooting tomorrow.” 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My son has no mouth and yet he must eat
 
 Assistant: [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/hfjn6o/my_son_has_no_mouth_and_yet_he_must_eat/)
[2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/hs5nca/my_son_has_no_mouth_and_yet_i_love_him/)
[3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/hw9j43/my_son_has_no_mouth_and_yet_he_must_be_destroyed/)


His mother died giving birth to him and I couldn't forgive him for it; if that makes me something rotten then so be it. I wept dryly by her dying side, stunned, and as the doctors and nurses chided me out of my seat so as to attend to the paperwork for the mutant responsible for the death of the bloated woman lying in the plastic hospital bed in front of me. The doctors ushered her body away and brought me to the boy with ropy tumorous skin covering his mouth. They assured me that a procedure to remove the fleshy patch keeping his mouth shut could be exercised and they would just need me to sign off on it. I did and handed the cold and whimpering child with no mouth off to the them, excusing myself to the bathroom. The primary physician seemed to regard me with some understanding pity, but how could he?

I stood in the bathroom, stomping my rubber soles against the solid tiles beneath my feet. The man looking back at me from the mirror seemed to be much smaller than I remembered. I'd been so red and boisterous and ready for the family life. Now the man there slumped his shoulders and his hair seemed to be greasy and gray. His eyes, that of a stabbed bull in the arena, looking up and accepting death, terrified and darting.

I briefly wondered what it would be like to **** myself. I could buy a gun, go home, paint the walls. This conclusion was wholly unreasonable, I know. This would leave the boy alone in the world. Though, more importantly, everyone would regard me as a poor parent. So I was stuck. Adoption? Perhaps. Call it a grief induced confusion if you want, but I prefer to call it being taken away on a wave of extremes. High tide, low tide. Moving quickly between the proposition of acting as a good newly single father and being the **** that ducks out when needed most. I was deeply sad. That is my only defense and that sucks.

After washing my face in the deep bowl of the hospital bathroom, I wandered back down the lime green hallway to press my face against the window of the nursery where my son lay. He rolled back and forth, twisting his small and inconsequential limbs in all directions with his eyes wide open in terror, nostrils flaring. He wished to belt out a scream like any other baby might and yet was refused even that. The muffles came from him small.

They cut him a new mouth and as he healed, it was almost easy to ignore the jagged look of his lips. The doctors assured me they would heal nicely with time and that I would hardly be able to even notice they'd ever been sealed shut.

I took my son home and within the week I buried my wife. The funeral was brief and small. The baby did manage to cry out with its newfound mouth on that day. So did I. I'd cry into my pillow as the small boy lay on the bed next to me. He would look up at me with curious blue milky eyes and the world would fall away for a little while.

Time went by. Weeks.

One morning I awoke to my alarm and was stunned to find that my baby wasn't crying from his crib. I could hear him struggling in his haphazard blankets and I could tell he was attempting to muffle out a high pitched babe scream. I darted to the crib, terrified that he was choking on something.

As I looked down into the crib, I saw him staring up at me with those pleading blue eyes. He had no mouth. It had sealed itself over again. His nostrils flared hysterically and his soft feet kicked out below his twisting torso. I panicked.

I took my child up in my arms and rushed him to the kitchen, phone in hand, ready to dial 911. I could feel the boy thrashing in my arms and I almost dropped him but abandoned the phone instead. The cellphone shot from my hand and slid across the kitchen tiles. He was gagging and snot and **** shot from his nose. The image of me holding the limp form of my dead baby in my outstretched hands shot through my mind and I decided *that was not going to happen*.

It was quick enough work. I grabbed a long butchers knife from the block on the counter and held him over the sink as I carved him a smile. Was I doing the right thing? The dam in his throat broke and the sink drain pooled with blood and ****. I screamed. He screamed. I was terrified and sick to my stomach. I was immediately struck with how small I felt. Was this what being a parent was like? Surely no one else in the history of the world had ever had to perform such a macabre act on their infant.

Tears streamed down my face as I patted him on the spine and he choked up in the sink.

Years passed.

He would come up to me in the morning, I would brush his hair neatly, straighten his shirt, cut him a new mouth for the day and send him on his merry way. I would be lying if I said that the thought of sending him off to school with runny red lips didn't eat me up most nights.

Beyond his poor eating habits and his strange mouth problem, he is a lovely child. I swear, I can't get that kid to eat anything. Sometimes after I dinner, I find the contents of his plate in the trash. Although, he must be getting enough nutrition. He doesn't seem to be wasting away.

The first startling clue was when the dogs in the neighborhood started going missing. It wasn't the craziest thing in the world to be sure, but seeing as we live in a rather upscale gated community, it was definitely odd to have a dog burglar on the prowl. Then the dogs' mutilated corpses would be found in undeveloped portions of the community or in sewer drains. Each of them had massive hunks of flesh taken from their bodies as though they'd been dined on.

Speculation of wild coyotes or mountain lions ran rife through the neighborhood and I was sure to keep a closer eye on my boy so that he wouldn't be munched up by some wily beast.

I purchased him a puppy for his fifth birthday and he said something to me that chilled me to the bone:

"Thank you daddy! I've been so hungry!"

I thought this was a strange quip and nothing more initially, but I sleep with the dog in my bed these days as sometimes I can see my son giving the poor thing a sideways glance with a twinkle in his eye.

I'm beginning to wonder whether or not he was born without a mouth for a reason. I don't know if I plan on giving him his [smile](https://www.reddit.com/user/Edwardthecrazyman) this morning.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There's Been a String of Suicides in my Town. The Victims Always Break Their Mirrors First.
 
 Assistant: A half-dozen police cars crowded the gravel driveway, their headlights lighting up a row of trees. The gnarled shadows they threw against the walls of the farmhouse swayed gently in the breeze.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail as I stepped over a line of yellow police tape. I didn’t want to be accused of contaminating any evidence. A young officer eyed me suspiciously as I approached the house, but let me pass through the front door.

He knew why I was there.

I found Jack’s corpse in the upstairs bedroom, the blood from his self-inflicted gunshot wound still wet and sticky. Detective Marston, a thin balding man, stood in the corner of the room writing something in a notebook.

“Hello Jane,” he said as I stepped through the doorway. “I’m surprised you didn’t beat me here.”

I ignored the comment, squatting down near Jack’s body. Most of his head was missing, and a thick iron scent hung in the air. The old man wore a pair of blue overalls now spackled with blood. A piece of paper poked out of his chest pocket. I **** look over my shoulder at Detective Marston. “You mind?” I asked.

“Be my guest.”

I pulled the paper out and unfolded it delicately. There were a few words written in a shaky hand. It read:

*“It keeps getting closer. It keeps coming closer.”*

I took a picture of the note with my phone before handing it over to the detective for him to read. He read it over a few more times, then paused. I knew he wanted to ask me about it, even if he hated that he needed me.

“You’ve gotta have some kind of explanation of this for me,” he said.

I did, but Marston didn’t need to know what my guess was. I’d been working for three months on these suicides, and I’d finally managed to win his trust. I wasn’t about to blow all my credibility on a guess that would have him questioning my sanity. Instead, I **** look down the hallway.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve got a few questions first. All the mirrors in the house are broken, I assume?”

“Just like the other cases, yeah,” Marston said. “Anything that can show a reflection is either broken or thrown out.”

“Who found him?”

“I found the body myself. You guessed that he’d be the next to go, so I decided to drive out here and check on him.”

I swung my head at the sound of crunching gravel. A car came to a stop in front of the house. The headlights flicked off and a girl stepped out, her hands covering her mouth. She looked to be around twenty years old.

I **** questioning look at Marston.

“Its Olivia, his granddaughter,” he said. “She’s the only one left alive in Jack’s family. We called her a half-hour ago.” He stared at me, his eyes hard. “Is she going to be next?”

I shut my eyes and rubbed my forehead. “Yeah. Probably.”

Marston cursed.

I handed him a business card. “If he wrote anything else down, please let me know.”

He took the card with a grunt, stuffing it into his back pocket.

I left the room and made my way out of the house and down the driveway. I stopped in front of the girl and extended my hand. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “My name is Jane, I’m a private investigator working on this case.”

Olivia’s eyes hardened, and she didn’t take my hand. “I don’t have anything to say to a reporter.”

“I’m not a reporter.” I paused, gathering my resolve. “And if you don’t come with me, I think you’re going to die like the rest of your family.”

Her eyes widened. “I’m--”

“Whatever’s causing these suicides is spreading,” I said. “Spreading to friends and family of the victims. First it was your aunt, then your cousin, now your grandpa. You’re the last one. It might already be too late, but it’s possible I can help you.”

She looked from me to the farmhouse over my shoulder, suddenly looking as if she might cry. “Ok. What should I do?”

“Come with me.” She paused for another moment before nodding, and we walked to my car. “Olivia,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t look at any mirrors, on my car or otherwise.”

“Why?”

“Just don’t. Trust me.”

She stared at me as if I was crazy, but when she saw I was serious she agreed.

I drove towards the road, gravel crunching under my tires.

The first few minutes of the drive passed in silence.

Olivia took a deep breath, then turned to look at me. “So what’s gonna happen to me?”

“First I’ll tell you what I know, then what I guess,” I said, running over the details in my mind. “The pattern for each victim is the same. According to their friends and family, victims start by showing erratic and paranoid behavior.”

“Grandpa Jack was the same,” Olivia said. “Ever since he found my aunt’s body.”

I nodded. “Their paranoid behavior is always followed by their breaking or covering of all reflective surfaces. Suicide comes next. The next victim is usually a close friend or family member, typically in the same household. They begin to show the same paranoid symptoms. They commit suicide soon after, and the psychosis spreads again.”

“If that’s what you know,” she said. “What do you guess?”

I swallowed hard. “I don’t… I don’t think that this is the work of a serial killer. Each method of suicide is different, and I don’t know of any drugs or poison that can cause a specific kind of psychosis in victims ranging from teenagers to retirees.” I shook my head. “I probably should’ve dismissed that possibility a long time ago.”

“If not a serial killer, then what?”

“I…” I said, trailing off as we reached my apartment. I paused to park and walk up the flight of stairs to my door, locking the deadbolt behind us for all the good it’d do.

“Then what?” she asked again.

I walked to my home office and pulled out a folder. “I’ve followed up on nearly thirty deaths over the past three months. Some of them left suicide notes.” I pulled out the pictures I’d taken from the crime scenes. Most of the suicide notes were short, and all were disjointed and confusing.

I handed them to her one at a time:

*“I saw it reflected in Marge’s eyes. Even her EYES aren’t safe.”*

*“I can’t sleep, it’ll be watching me.”*

*“The fingers. The FINGERS.”*

*“It was in my rearview mirror today. It’s ALMOST TOUCHING ME.”*

Olivia continued to flip through the suicide notes, her expression growing more and more disturbed. I finally pulled out my phone and showed her the note her grandfather had written.

*“It keeps getting closer. It keeps coming closer.”*

“Was this from my grandpa?” Olivia asked, her voice choked.

“Yes. And like I said, I think you’re next,” I said.

She stared at me in horror. “What do I do?”

“Every victim broke their mirrors and several mention reflections in their suicide notes. That means it’s for the best if you avoid them. I’ll cover the one hanging in my bathroom. You should also give me your phone. The black screen has a reflection, and I don’t want to take any chances.”

She nodded numbly. I took down my bathroom mirror and set it in the corner of my living room before covering it with a blanket.

“You can sleep on the couch. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

It was hard to sleep that night. My mind was flooded with images of the brutal suicides I’d investigated over the past months. Olivia was a rare opportunity. I had control over a victim before psychosis set in. Maybe I could save her.

Maybe.

The next morning I woke up and found Olivia sitting on my couch, staring into space. Her head swiveled at me. I was afraid I’d see violence or fear in her eyes. Instead, I saw intensity.

“I need to look in the mirror,” she said.

“Why?” I asked. “Whatever the others saw was enough to basically break their minds. It could **** you.”

“I need to know. You can cover it up once I see it.”

I almost rejected the idea, but my curiosity got the better of me. Would *I* see something in the reflection behind her? Was one exposure enough to **** her?

“Ok,” I said, bringing my still-covered mirror out from the corner.

I grabbed the corner and slowly lifted the blanket, watching Olivia’s face for any reaction. She stared at the mirror intently until the blanket was pulled away. Then she shook her head and looked at me.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Really?” I asked, my mind racing. Maybe it had jumped to a neighbor instead. Maybe Jack had a bowling friend or something. Maybe--

My phone rang, the chirp making me jump. I looked at the display. It was Detective Marston.

“Detective,” I said. “You have any new information for me?”

“It-- It-- It-- I see it,” he said, his voice trembling.

“What?” I asked, my face suddenly cold.

“I broke the mirror so I wouldn’t see it anymore. But it’s still reflected in the shards. Jane, Jane please help me. You said you had a guess, why didn’t you tell me about this. Oh ****, I thought about it again. If I look in the bathroom I’ll see it. Oh ****, even my phone has a--” his voice cut off with the sound of the phone hitting the floor.

“Marston!” I shouted. “Marston, I’m coming.”

I hung up and turned to Olivia. “I was wrong,” I said. “It wasn’t you. Its a detective. There might still be time.”

I ran down to my car, surprised that Olivia was running down the steps behind me.

We sped across town, Olivia dialing the police while I snaked down several windy country roads. I reached Marston’s house, told Olivia to stay in the car, and ran up the steps to his front door. It was unlocked.

Marston lay inside the bath. Blood spattered the white tiles. A piece of shattered mirror hung limply in one hand. He’d taken it to his own neck. I looked away, doing my best to choke down the **** that rose in my throat.

Then he gasped, his eyes flicking open.

“I… I didn’t even know him,” he said, his voice raspy and gurgling. “I just found the body, that was all...” he trailed off, blood choking off his words. His head slumped forward, a few drops flicking off his nose.

I leaned against the wall of the bathroom, trying to control my breathing. It was the most gruesome thing I’d ever seen.

Then I slowly looked to my left.

His medicine cabinet still hung on the wall. Its mirror had been shattered in the center, long cracks surrounding a central point. I saw myself reflected two dozen times in the individual shards.

I thought back through all the cases. All the victims. Family members, friends, neighbors. They weren’t just close to the victims. Each of them had found the victim’s bodies. I looked at Marston’s now-lifeless body, then looked back at the mirror.

The mirror swung, changing my view from myself, to a view of the kitchen. A figure stood there, reflected two dozen times in the shards. It was impossible to get a good view due to the damage, but it was a creature with eyes sunken deep in its skull. Its hands had long gnarled fingers. It was staring at me.

I thought Marston’s body was the worst thing I’d ever seen, but this was far, far worse. I slammed my palms over my eyes, the broken image of the creature burning into my brain like a hot iron. I vomited onto the tiles before running for the front door with my hands still clamped firmly onto my face. My foot hit the top step and twisted, and I fell down the rest of them in a tangled heap. Blood oozed from scrapes on my elbows, knees, and forehead, but I didn’t remove my hands from my eyes.

I lay in the grass, the warm sun on my face, and I wished for nothing more than the will to claw my own eyes out. That thing was following me, I had no doubt. I had no doubt it was getting closer to me.

The thought of seeing it again forced me to my side where I vomited again.

“Jane,” Olivia said, scrambling to my side. “Jane, what happened?”

“You’re not next, Olivia,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. “I’m next.”

\--------

[More](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorchesterStreet/comments/gbpc8t/a_huge_storm_swept_through_my_town_a_week_ago_it//)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: If you see a searchlight too soon after capsizing in the North Pacific Ocean...hide
 
 Assistant: A few years ago, I was working as a deck hand on an Alaskan fishing boat. From a young age, my parents instilled in me a strong work ethic. They always said hard work leads to greater returns, so I naturally gravitated towards a career that shared that philosophy. Alaskan fishing added ‘high risk’ to the equation, and in turn, the rewards were even sweeter. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and planned on working my way up to captain one day. This story takes place during my fifth crabbing season. By then, I knew the ropes, I was familiar with the waters, and I’d witnessed a few deaths first hand. I thought I was prepared for anything.

I was dead wrong.

We were a crew of 15, myself included, when the season began. That number would be halved by the time we returned to shore, and I would be left incapable of setting foot anywhere near the ocean ever again.

\*\*\*

I was sailing on the Seaward Sarah, a vessel that was getting a little long in the tooth, but was known for her reliability. Since she’d passed her safety inspection earlier that year, I had no concerns as we left port for the cold waters of the North Pacific Ocean. It was exhilarating to be on the sea again, with the fresh salty breeze and waters so vast, you couldn’t see anything but blue for miles around. Spirits were high and the excitement of starting off on a new journey was electric. We always hold a party on the first and last nights. It was tradition. Even the captain would join in and dance and sing and drink.

We noticed the first sign of trouble two days into the journey. The Seaward Sarah was listing on her starboard side. It wasn’t at a dangerous angle, and after consulting the ship’s engineer, the captain determined it was safe to proceed farther into the North Pacific Ocean. He planned on balancing her out once we started loading crabs into the cargo decks. We’re overfill the port cargo and under-fill the starboard. I didn’t question the plan. It seemed reasonable, and besides, I was just a deck hand. The captain could **** my mouth, tell me it was wine, and I’d smile and agree. That’s the way it works at sea.

I grew more concerned as the voyage went on. The list worsened over the course of the next week. It went from a barely-noticeable incline, to my calves burning from straining against the pull of gravity towards Starboard. That’s when the captain started making a *lot* of calls. I couldn’t hear what was going on, but I could see him shouting into the receiver, his face getting redder and angrier as the days wore on. I was told he was cursing everyone from the ship manufacturer, to the inspectors, to the contractors who’d last done repair work on her hull. I was told it was business as usual.

One evening, when most of us were gathered in the dining hall, holding our plates and glasses to keep them from sliding down the table, the captain burst in and announced we were turning around. Our reactions were mixed, with some experiencing relief, and others disappointment. No one knew what this meant for our wages, or whether the repairs could be done in time to get back at sea before the end of crab season. Me? I was one of the ones who was relieved by the news. The vast ocean I’d been yearning for for months had become progressively more unsettling as the ship tilted. I became keenly aware just how far away I was from dry land – from safety. This place I found freeing suddenly felt like a cage, and I wanted out.

I felt the Seaward Sarah turn as I headed back to the crew quarters, and used the wall for support. The combination of the dime turn and the ship’s tilt were terrible for my equilibrium. I needed to lay down and let myself adjust.

\*\*\*

I don’t know what would have happened if the storm hadn’t hit later that night. Would the Seaward Sarah have limped home safely? Would she have rolled over along the way? I’ll never know now, because the storm did hit. One that seemed to come out of nowhere, barely being caught by the radar before its waves and rain started pelting the ship with the fury of an angry sea ****. The Seaward Sarah groaned in pain as her list worsened even more. Doors flew open, objects fell and hit me as I staggered up the hall and towards the deck. I didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten until I felt my feet touch the wall, and realized the wall was becoming the floor.

I was still inside when I heard the call to abandon ship. I was bruised, groggy, and disoriented. Enough water had gotten in from *somewhere* that I was also soaked. I felt a pair of hands grab me by the shoulder and usher me forward when I stopped to take a breath. I know at some point, I donned a life vest, but I couldn’t tell you when or how I got it on. All I remember is the surreal sensation of the world changing directions inside the ship, and the sight of tall waves illuminated by lightning once outside. Thunder drowned out the screams of my shipmates, but I could see them scrambling to launch a lifeboat. I threw myself towards them, but before I could catch a handhold, I felt a wall of ice-cold water drag me into the railing. A second wave, the reaction to its action, reached over the rail and pulled me into the water.

The pain was unbearable. Not only had I been tossed around like a ragdoll, but the water felt like I’d rolled into a vat of quicksand made of sharp needles. I didn’t know which side was up and which was down, but thankfully, the life vest lifted me back to the turbulent surface. The water had gotten into my ears, muffling the sound of the storm, and I tried to flail my arms hoping for rescue, but I couldn’t lift them: I couldn’t stop threading water long enough. This **** went on for longer than I care to reflect on. I just know wave after wave pulled me under, but the jacket always brought me back up long enough to catch my breath. When I close my eyes, even years later, I can still feel the unrelenting assault of the waves mingling with the taste of salt on my tongue.

I was going to die, I was sure of it. Either by not breathing in when I had a chance, or by drowning from rainwater in my mouth whenever I screamed. And then, I felt a tug, and my horror amplified tenfold as I imagined being in the jaws of a sea serpent about to pull me into the ocean depths. I thrashed desperately trying to escape, only to hear Greta’s voice chastising me.

“Stop that! I’m trying to pull you in.”

Greta hoisted me onto the lifeboat and once I was over the edge, I slipped the rest of the way in, landing in wet and bloody water. I could hear orders being shouted at me, but all I could do was curl up and wait, utterly useless. I know the others were preoccupied by something, as they started rowing as hard as they could. In hindsight, I think they were trying to get clear of the whirlpool of the sinking ship.

The storm passed almost as quickly as it arrived. The ocean wasn’t as quick to calm, but the turbulence lessened to a manageable degree. When I was finally able to, I sat up and took inventory of my surroundings. I found myself in a lifeboat with 7 other crewmates. All that was left of the Seaward Sarah were bubbles rising from the depths of the ocean. Miraculously, there was a second lifeboat paddling towards us, and once we connected, we were overjoyed to find that every single crew member had survived the capsizing.

The Captain, who was in the other raft, shouted over the water in a deep, booming voice, “We sent out a distress call before she went down. They have our coordinates. It won’t be long.”

I hoped he was right, because my hands were trembling from the cold and the quickly-depleting adrenaline. We tied the rafts together, took stock of our supplies, food, first aid, and then waited.

Now, you would *think* that there’d be cheering when the light appeared on the horizon. That all hands would start to paddle and wave and celebrate. Instead, there was a sudden and deathly silence as a communal swell of anxiety filtered into us. There were haunted expressions on Greta and John and Serai and even the captain’s faces. The latter was holding the flare gun, but his finger was tapping nervously on the trigger.

Sometimes, without knowing why, you get a bad feeling. People call it a sixth sense, but I think it’s simpler than that. I think it’s dangers perceived but bypassed by the brain so you can act faster than you can think. Kind of like how you can actively analyze a person’s body language to get more information than you’d get from hearing their words alone, but even if you’re not TRYING to, you still subconsciously notice the little signs showing discomfort or anger or attraction – it’s innate. What we think we perceive is only scratching the surface of all the information we truly take in. The brain – our consciousness – focusses on one thing, but our survival instinct notices the other discrepancies. And when it does, it signals ‘danger’ without telling you why.

“It’s not moving,” Greta whispered.

She hit the nail on the head. She connected the dots outlining the proverbial red flag. When she did, a sort of unspoken acknowledgement travelled through the group, as one by one, we noticed it too.

You see, there were two problems with the light:

1. The nearest ship to ours was at least another 5 hours away, probably longer if they hit the same storm we had.

2. The light was perfectly still, staying at the same height and never once bobbing along with the ocean surge. It also wasn’t sweeping the ocean, as one does when searching for survivors.

You see, it had appeared way too fast – only about a half hour after the storm had passed. It was extremely unlikely that an unknown ship had been in the area. We all try to keep tabs on one another because, in such turbulent waters, knowing where everyone is a question of life and death. Yes, we’re technically all competing against one another, but you’d be hard pressed to find any **** unwilling to drop everything to save another in a pinch. There’s a code of honor we all follow. But suppose this was an unknown vessel responding to our distress call…we still had to contend with the second issue of its unnatural immobility. My stomach contorted wondering what it meant. This light was fixed on a single point in the near distance. It was glowing – no, *pulsating* – but it never once moved on any sort of axis like it should if it was searching the water, and it was immune to the push and pull of ocean waves. 

There’s not a ship on earth that can do that. The only reasonable explanation was it might be a coast guard helicopter hovering perfectly in place and dangerously low. But then again, even if it had been deployed the second the distress call was sent, a rescue chopper couldn’t have gotten to us that fast.

The light was impossible.

The light felt menacing.

The light acted like a lure, goading us to come to it.

The boom of an explosion snapped me to reality, and it was followed by a crackle up above. The captain had fired off one of the flares. It hung in the air, slowly fizzing in a downward arch. I remember feeling so scared I dug my fingers into the life boat. The shot was one thing, but my fear had to do with the light. I was so afraid it would come closer now that it knew for sure where we were. I was more afraid of that light than I have ever been of anything in my entire life. But thankfully, it stayed away.

“Row!” the captain ordered.

No one moved, not even to breathe.

“Row, **** it!”

John reached for the paddle, but Greta grabbed him by the forearm and stopped him, shaking her head. The captain glared at us with bulging eyes. He’d adopted an authoritative stance, but even he wasn’t able to suppress his quakes of fear. If one followed logic, he was right: we *should* head towards the light. And yet, the longer we stared at the unwavering thing, the more it unsettled us. It’s funny how something as simple as bobbing up and down could’ve alleviated our anxiety. But the light didn’t do that. Not even once.

Faced with a soft munity, the captain grumbled and grabbed a paddle of his own. “Fine,” he hissed, “*I’ll* go. Any man or woman too cowardly to come can transfer to the coward’s raft.” He gestured to us. “Anyone with balls, come with me. We need to flag that ship down before it moves on without us.”

The flare hit the water and spat out a few more dying embers. I was surprised to see a few crewmates get up. John and a couple others transferred over to the captain’s raft. An equal number transferred to the coward’s raft. With contempt on his sour, sea-worn face, the captain cut the lines between us and directed his raft towards the searchlight. Even as they rode off, we pleaded with them not to go. But it was like they’d been infected with bravado. I could hear them chanting in a rhythm. Left. Right. Left. Right. Until they were a blip on the horizon.

Ten minutes after the voices went quiet, at the estimated time the captain’s raft would have reached the light, it suddenly blinked out of existence.

The captain, John, and the other five crewmates on that raft were never seen or heard from again. The raft has never turned up. This, despite being outfitted with an emergency tracker. Planes equipped with the same tech have gone missing as well, so it could be that those trackers aren’t worth much, but it still gives me nightmares to think what would’ve happened to me if we’d followed the captain. As for us, it took seven hours, but eventually, we were rescued by the crew of the Rose-Shannon. As expected, the storm had delayed rescue attempts. They warmed us up and combed the waters where we’d last seen the captain’s raft, abandoning the search only when the coast guard arrived and took over.

That night, I had nightmares of the light growing closer and closer, and every time its glow was about to hit me, I’d feel a pressure in my head like it was about to explode, and a searing, burning pain on my skin. Then, I’d wake up drenched in sweat.

\*\*\*

I now work as a trucker, a mercifully land-locked job. I drive through all kinds of creepy locations. I’ve seen some things on this job. But nothing has ever scared me more than the light I saw that terrible night. I don’t know if it’s because of the lack of closure around the captain’s raft, or if my subconscious saw something that it felt my brain was better off not knowing. I don’t know. I don’t like to think about it. But now that I’ve written this, I think I can finally move on, in a way.

I still keep in touch with Greta. She’s still working out there. Props to her for getting back on that seahorse. She now captains her own vessel. I couldn’t be happier for her. But sometimes, when we’re catching up, she talks about that night, and she always follows it up by saying another ship’s been lost in that same area. I think they’re up to five now. No survivors, although the final transmission of one of the ships mentioned seeing a light on the horizon. Sailors have come to avoid what they’re calling the Alaska Triangle. Part of me wishes I knew conclusively what’s happening out there, but I’m mostly glad I’m here on solid ground, far from the light.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My grandfather knew what happened in the Dyatlov Pass Incident. I translated his diary. [Final]
 
 Assistant: My grandfather commited suicide in 2019. I translated his diary, and found out what he was hiding from us since back in 1958. This is his story.

If you're confused, you should probably start at the [beginning.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/m9zfc8/my_grandfather_knew_what_happened_in_the_dyatlov/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

*February 1, 1959 - continued*

We froze. We'd been awaiting this moment anxiously for hours - but when it came at last, we still hesitated.

"Blow the ****! Do it, Sergei!" yelled Yuri, breaking our horrified trance.

Our commander smiled cruelly, and hit the detonator.

There was a loud crack and a boom, like thunder in the distance. A flash of flame illuminated the ****, casting it in sharp-cut shadow and light. I covered my ears.There was a rumble that echoed across the mountain. 

For a second, the world held still. 

Then the whole **** above the tent began shifting, the vibrations setting off an unstoppable chain of motion. Tonnes of snow were moving, sliding down with an unsettling groaning sound. The mass gained speed.

And struck the tent with horrible force.

Silence fell on the mountain. Slowly, we picked ourselves up. The tension was palpable. We waited with bated breath.

"Did it... Did it work?" I said finally, my voice hoarse.

No one answered for a second, listening intently. Then Yuri whispered an answer. "I think it did," he said. "We should go che-"

A horrifying scream, louder than any before, cut through the night. My heart sank, a chill running down my spine.

Yuri swore, and Sergei drew his pistol.

"Looks like we're not done here yet, soldiers. Get ready."

The tent bulged, and then split as someone tore it open from inside. Figures streamed out, running towards our treeline. They weren't screaming - they weren't taken.

But my heart sank as the last four shapes  emerged from the ruined shelter. Four loud screams sounded across the mountainside once again.

The things staggered through the snow, limbs uncoordinated, as if whatever force gave the bodies movement and strength was not used to these new hosts. But they were moving fast, following the fleeing hikers... and heading straight for us.

"Prepare to fire!" Sergei commanded, his voice cold as iron. "If it moves, **** it."

My surviving comrades kneeled in the snow, rifles trained on the incoming figures. With a crack of gunfire, we fired our first volley. We aimed with all the skill we had, trying desperately to make sure the hikers who hadn't yet been taken wouldn't die in our crossfire.

One of the screaming ones went down, and I cheered, only to curse in fear as his cry of insane pain was raised up by another of the fleeing hikers.

Were these things invincible? 

Would death only make them leap to a fresh target?

Another volley set my ears ringing, and two more bodies fell to the ground. Their screams were silenced only for a second before a pair of the fleeing hikers stumbled, twitched... and took up the agonised cry.

Panic spread through our group like wildfire. Discipline collapsed. The screaming men were getting closer, our gunfire doing nothing to stop their advance. First one, then two soldiers turned and fled into the forest. Then we were all running, terror seizing our minds in a horrible grip. 

We ran through the midnight forest, the screams of the following things echoing around us. 

I cried out as the ground below me suddenly fell away and I tumbled down a small ****. A stream ran at it's bottom, and I fell straight into it, ice - cold tendrils immediately spreading through my body.

My comrades ran after me, some falling as I had, some keeping their footing. Sergei stood beside me, and lifted me to up.

"What do we do?" I said desperately, panic threatening to overwhelm me again.

Sergei didn't have time to answer. Over the lip of the **** we had fallen down, four shapes appeared. Their screams were deafening.

The next moments are only a blur in my memory. I remember desperate gunfire, as the four slavering figures ran among us, their screaming mixing with our own cries of fear and confusion. The corruption spread quickly, men falling dead, others taking up their inhuman shout.

One memory is clear as glass in my mind. A screaming figure, a soldier I had known as Igor Paschenko, staggered towards me, his mouth open in a disfiguring grimace. I stumbled backwards, tripping on a prone body and falling to the ground.

I would've died. I *should've* died. But then Sergei jumped in front of me.

He never panicked. He may have been cruel, a **** and a murderer, but he never panicked. As Paschenko screamed at him, Sergei aimed his pistol and began firing.

His aim was flawless. One bullet, two, three, almost a whole magazine, dumped into Paschenko's chest. All but one shot. As the soldier fell to the ground, and whatever force had moved his muscles fled to find a new host, Sergei put the gun under his own jaw and fired.

Then Yuri was picking me up. 

"Run Michail! Run! Back to the base!"

I didn't question his command, didn't ask why we would go back there. I fled, Yuri beside me, as the screaming tore through the remainder of our group.

We had gotten away, but the things were soon in pursuit. As we staggered through the snow, we could hear them behind, their agonised cries slowly gaining on us.

My legs burned, weakness and cold sapping my strength. I would've given up and laid down, waiting for death, if Yuri hadn't kept me going.

We dashed through the ruined gate of our former base, the things some one hundred meters behind.

The darkness in the ruins was absolute, and we would've soon been lost if Yuri hadn't quickly found a battery-powered light. 

We ran downards, through the levels of the base, the screaming now closing in behind. If they caught sight of us, this close, it would be the end.

"Where... Where are we going?" I panted, tears of fear and exhaustion streaming down my face. "We're trapped down here."

Yuri's face was set in stone. "We can't **** them, Michail." he answered. "If that avalanche and all the gunfire we hit them with couldn't do it, I don't know what will."

"Then what are we going to do?"

He glanced over at me for a second as we fled through the dark. Then he raised his free hand. Grasped in it were two grenades.

"One of these opens the caves on Level 5. I lure them inside, and I hide. Once they've followed me, I'll sprint out. You have to be ready, Michail. The second I'm out of that cave, you blow the entrance. We'll cause another rockfall."

"We will trap them again," I realized. "We will seal the cave off."

"Exactly." Yuri smiled grimly. He **** one of the grenades at my chest, and I took it in shaking hands.

We tore into Level 5. The ground was strewn with corpses, the dead left in the wake of the screaming ones escape lying in heaps around us. Our pursuers weren't far behind. I could hear their thudding footsteps, their terrible cries. 

We were running out of time.

Yuri sprinted towards the pile of rubble sealing off the caves.

"Hide! Quickly!" he called out.

I leapt to the side of the room, taking cover behind an overturned worktable. A dead body lay there, it's eyes open in death, a grimace of shock and pain set on it's face forever. 

A loud bang shook the whole level as Yuri blasted his way into the caves. The walls groaned ominously, their structure damaged, thousands of tonnes of rock above us pressing down with terrible pressure.

The screaming ones were approaching. Their cries were deafening. Yuri's light went dark as he pushed deeper into the unseen cave. There was a quiet thud as he lay it down. The bait was set.

We didn't have to wait long.

The cries of the things in pursuit rose in a crescendo as they crashed onto Level 5. They didn't stop, and dived straight into the caverns, following the light.

I leapt from behind the table and ran to the cave entrance. A grenade pin clinked onto the ground as I pulled it out, gripping the safety lever in sweaty hands.

I waited, my heart thudding, my breath coming in short gasps. Desperation began building inside me, as I realized that something must have gone horribly wrong.

Yuri wasn't coming out.

How long could I wait?

How long did I have?

Suddenly, my friend's voice cut through the cacophony of pain, echoing from the black cavern.

"Blow the entrance, Michail! Do it now!" he yelled from the dark.

I couldn't. I wouldn't. My friend was in there, and I couldn't consign him to this death sentence.

"Yuri!" I screamed desperately. "I can't!"

My friend limped into view, staggering around a corner of the passage. Four shapes leapt up behind him, all attention on Yuri. He hadn't been able to hide from them.

We were out of time. Out of options.

"Do it, Michail! You have to-"

He couldn't get any further. I saw one of the pursing bodies collapse. Yuri twitched, staggered and fell.

Tears blinded me. I released the safety lever, and leapt back behind cover.

There was a flash of light and a deafening boom. The screaming was drowned out. The walls shook. 

And the cave collapsed. 

Tons of rock smashed down, shattering on the ground. A cloud of dust sprang up, setting my lungs on fire. I peered through it with watering eyes.

The cave was sealed. A wall of rock had fallen in it's entrance, blocking it off.

I fell to the ground, and wept for my lost friend.

[This is the last entry in my grandfather's journal, except for those last words. *God help us. They're still out there.*]

No dead soldiers are mentioned in the old investigations of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. I presume whatever arm of the government sent my grandfather to that unknown base had gotten there first, drawn by reports of missing hikers, and made sure their involvement would never be found out.

In 2019, the Russian government announced it was opening a new [investigation](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/04/europe/dyatlov-pass-incident-scli-intl/index.html) of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. The conclusion was that the accident was caused by an avalanche. I guess they're not completely wrong, or not outright lying.

I think it was this reminder of his past that sent my grandfather over the edge, pushing repressed memories into his mind.

I can't help but wonder if his last written words were true. 

Are they still in the caves?

I wonder if, somewhere out there in the icy Russian waste, buried beneath the Ural Mountains, four men - one of them a hero and my grandfather's long-lost friend - are screaming to this day.

[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/drunkenwrites)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a therapist, and my patients are accusing each other of abuse. Only one of them is telling the truth.
 
 Assistant: >***"The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy."***  
>  
>\- Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door

They had to be the youngest married couple I've ever worked with.

Her eyes were red with tears.

His eyes were exhausted and defeated.

"I think I should start..." Kierra sniffled through tears. "It's just so hard to ask for help, you know?"

"I understand," I said. "Why don't you begin by telling me what brings you to my office today?"

Kierra took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "He--" she stammered. "He hurts me."

I was surprised to hear Lucas groan from the corner. "Here we go again..."

"Don't do that!" Kierra shrieked. "You promised you would be honest here!"

"So did you," Lucas shot back. "But apparently we're just here to agree that I'm an abuser -- like all of your other *abusive* *exes*, right?"

Kierra let out a loud sound -- a mix between a sob and a shout. "They *were* abusive!"

"Right, and I *saved* you from them," said Lucas bitterly. "Until I became your latest abuser."

"DON'T DO THAT!" Kierra screamed. "You are invalidating and minimizing my experience!"

Good lord…

"Let's just take a step back here," I said, scooching my chair closer to distract them from each other. "Lucas, would it be okay if we let Kierra finish her story? I understand these are extremely serious allegations, but I assure you I will not rush to judgment until I hear your side too, okay?"

He nodded, although his expression was not one of agreement.

"Thank you," Kierra stammered. "It is so hard to speak my truth when he belittles me."

Lucas opened his mouth, but I gave him a sharp look and he backed down.

"Kierra, you just said that Lucas hurts you," I said. "Can you tell me more about that?"

She nodded and her eyes started welling with tears again. "It's a type of-- a type of punishment."

"Punishment?" I asked. "What kind of punishment?"

She winced and whispered, "The Slicer."

"The Slicer?" I repeated. "What does that mean?"

She shook her head and buried her face in her hands. "I don't want to talk about it."

"That's okay," I said quickly. "Kierra, can you tell me more about what leads to this punishment?"

She looked back up. "Yes," she said. "He becomes angry when I call him out on his manipulation."

"What kind of manipulation?"

"It's subtle," she said. "It's called covert narcissistic abuse, and he fits all the red flags. Insensitive to my feelings, never apologizes or admits fault, needs constant attention from others--"

"Oh, for Christ's sake--"

"Just another moment, Lucas," I said, holding up my hand. "I promise we'll get to you soon. Kierra, can you give me some examples of the manipulation?"

"Well, he's bisexual," she sniffled. "And he spends almost all of his free time with his **** friend."

"Do you see what I'm saying?" Lucas turned to me, exasperated. "This is her version of *abuse*."

"Who spends that much time with a **** guy!" she shouted.

"He's my *friend*!"

"No, you do it to punish me!" she said. "It's a reminder that I'll never be enough to fully satisfy you. A warning that if I step out of line, you can always replace me in a heartbeat."

"Has there been infidelity?" I asked.

"No," said Lucas. "I would never--"

"Who knows!" Kierra interrupted him. "He's like your little pet. You parade him around on social media just to make me jealous. You never post pictures of us."

Lucas looked at me incredulously. "Do you get it now?" he said. "Do you see how crazy this is?"

Just as I was about to begin asking Lucas some questions, the door to my office opened.

"Oh, sorry."

A young, awkward looking man in a FedEx uniform stood in the doorway, holding a few brown Prime boxes.

"Your front door was open. I heard voices in here. Wasn't sure if you wanted to sign, or…" He looked around the room, finally noticing Lucas and his tearful wife. "Oh, it seems like this might not be a great time?"

"*You don't say...*" I muttered, standing up to sign for the packages. "Just leave them in the lobby please."

He blushed and nodded, closing the door behind him.

****, I needed an assistant.

"Sorry about that," I said, sitting back down. "I just moved into this office, so things have been a little chaotic. Anyway, Lucas, I'd like for you to share your side of the story now."

"Okay," he said quietly. "Well first of all, I think she might be the one abusing me. She grabs me sometimes."

"I DO NOT!"

"Kierra," I said firmly. "Now we're going to give Lucas a chance to share."

She looked like she was going to explode.

Lucas rolled up his sleeves, revealing a series of bruises. "She grabs me when I try to leave after a fight," he said. "She accuses me of abandoning her."

"HE'S LYING!" Kierra shrieked. "He does that to himself!"

"I'm just really afraid," he continued. "I asked for help on a forum, and a lot of people suggested she might have Borderline Personality Disorder. I Googled it and she has almost every symptom -- crazy mood swings between sobbing and rage... thinks everyone is abusing or traumatizing her… a new crisis story every hour... and I swear to ****, any 'slicing' is 100% self-harm."

"More armchair diagnosis!" she cried.

"Are you serious?" He threw his hands into the air. "You just called me a narcissist!"

"Look, you've obviously both done some research on the internet," I said. "But perhaps it would be better if we met separately? That way you each have a chance to share your side, uninterrupted?"

"No!" They both protested at once.

I raised my eyebrows.

Then, at the same time, they spoke nearly the identical sentence:

"*He'll manipulate you*." / "*She'll manipulate you*."

My eyes scanned back and forth between the two of them curiously.

Hysterics versus irritation. Tears versus eyerolls. Slicer versus bruiser.

Were their online diagnoses correct? Was this really the age-old dance between The Borderline and The Narcissist?

Or was one of them lying?

For the rest of the session, I listened to them make more accusations -- and more denials. To be completely honest, I still had no idea what was going on with them. If either of them was really in the Cluster-B spectrum (narcissist, sociopath, borderline, histrionic), it would take far more time to unravel the truth among all the manipulation and gas-lighting.

I actually have an optimistic view of Cluster-B recovery, but it's not going to happen with talk therapy, and it's certainly not going to happen in the midst of a dramatic relationship. That's like asking an alcoholic to begin recovery in the middle of a liquor store.

At the end of the session, I stood up to walk them out of my office. Lucas exited first.

Then, in the doorway, Kierra quickly leaned into my ear and whispered:

"*He's going to **** me*."

I'll admit, that sent chills down my spine. When it comes to domestic violence, you never want to take statements like that lightly. So when I closed the door to my office, the first thing I did was reach for the phone to involve the police.

But before I finished dialing, something caught my eye.

There was a piece of paper sticking out from the couch cushion -- where Lucas had been sitting. I really didn't want them to come back later for a forgotten belonging, so I hurried over to examine it.

But when I unfolded the piece of paper, I didn't find a forgotten belonging.

Instead, I saw a hand-scrawled note:

"*She's going to **** me*."

[\[Part 2\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/afyz7s/im_a_therapist_and_my_patients_are_accusing_each/)

[\[Patient File #109 - Part 1 of 3 - View More Patient Files\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/dr_harper)

[My Private Practice](http://drharpertherapy.com/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My boyfriend needs to be drunk in order to have sex with me.
 
 Assistant: I was confident in the believability, efficacy, seamlessness—whatever you'd like to call it—of my transition. After all, I’d obtained a boyfriend; a normal guy, not some weird fetishist who only wanted me for one reason.

We dated for three months before doing anything ****. I'm sure with a normal girl he would've done something much sooner. He was aware of my unique situation from the start, and while he had never been with someone like me, he assured me that it wasn’t an issue—that the connection he felt with me was more important than any **** complications that could arise.

On the day we had **** for the first time, he was understandably hesitant when the clothes came off. I was as well; despite the confidence I had felt, and his many passionate assurances, I was suddenly nervous; self-conscious about my ability to provide an experience that was enjoyable for him.

Things started off fine enough; he began as he would with any other girl, but things quickly became awkward when the differences were finally addressed. He moved away, promised that he just needed a moment to “shift gears.” I waited, trying to appear as casually attractive as possible, while downplaying that aspect of me with which he was unfamiliar.

I was surprised, even a bit hurt, when he reached over to his bedside table, took from it a half-full bottle of whiskey, and chugged the contents. 
He returned to the moment at hand, and we quickly went to making love in what felt like a natural—albeit sloppy—manner.

We continued to have **** in this manner six more times. After the second time—during which he again tried first without liquid confidence—he started drinking before I even arrived. By the time the clothes were off, he would be well under the effects of the booze. The subsequent **** was always enjoyable for me, and seemed to be the same for him, but I couldn’t help feeling insulted; his intoxicant-assisted arousal made me feel ****, unworthy.

Yesterday, I finally confronted him about it. We were planning on having a cozy movie night, no **** planned. Halfway through, I tried to play, but he was plainly not in the mood. I asked if he found me attractive, and he said that he did. He must’ve seen the disbelief in my eyes, because he got up and went to his dresser, where a bottle of **** sat. I protested, saying that I wanted to be with him while he was sober—for once.

He looked almost pained, and even glanced at the bottle once more; but, begrudgingly, he climbed into bed—totally sober.

His movements lacked passion. His thrusts were halfhearted; he never looked me in the eyes; not a single moan escaped his tight lips. I think that he even faked it in the end; the dispassionate grunt and bodily trembling too theatrical.

He rolled off me, looking absolutely disgusted. I started crying, and he made no attempts to console me. He got up from the bed, pulled away the maggots that clung to his flesh, and wiped away the streaks of slime from his belly. He then opened both windows of the bedroom, letting out the miasmal gases.

I eventually composed myself and applied the restorative salves to my perpetually rotting, ****-battered flesh. Once restored to something resembling a living woman, I asked why he had even agreed to date me in the first place, if he couldn't tolerate me as I was.
His response would’ve chilled my blood, if it hadn’t already been cold.

“I was fine with the idea of it, but I guess the reality is too much.”

I left the house, emotionally devastated. I had believed his promises, maybe just because I wanted to; maybe to someone else they would’ve seemed obviously insincere.

Despite the efforts I had taken to transition into a living woman, I guess I'll still always be a corpse to some people.

I went home thinking things had ended there; that the relationship was over, and I would simply be able to move on with my life—however difficult it may be. But that’s not the end, and moving on proved much harder than anticipated—but who could anticipate being the target of an assassin?

I won’t waste time going over my death, nor will I detail the means of my resurrection. I am, as far as I'm concerned, a living being. I am conscious, I am aware, I am sentient and humanly intelligent. I may not meet all the usual biological criteria, but existentially, philosophically, I am alive. Cogito Ergo Sum.

Once home, I showered and tended to my body; adjusting and righting the things that had been undone or misaligned during the final tryst with my now ex-boyfriend. After that, I started my nutrient injections; a series of specially-concocted compounds and regenerative solutions that keep my body from undergoing advanced decomposition. 

Necrosis abated, I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, hoping to sleep away the emotional pain. Just as my eyes closed, I heard a faint sound. Having once been interred in abysmal silence, listening for any signs of salvation, my ears had become especially sensitive to noises most people overlook—if they even hear them at all. I sat up in the darkness, turning my head to the auditory source. I had barely managed to identify the specific direction when something burst forth from my closet.
The moon outside my window offered only a thin ray of light into the room. In their lunge, the figure hadn’t been illuminated; had purposely avoided it to escape identification. Before I could even get up, hands were around my throat.

There was nothing I could do. The person strangling me was too strong; there was no hope of overpowering them. They silently choked me, expressing nothing but cold, merciless determination. Even if the entire room had been illuminated I still wouldn’t have been able to identify them—there was nothing but a surface of black where their face should be. Some sort of mask concealed everything, yet still somehow allowed them to see.

The terror of the moment brought back dreadful flashes of my first death, causing my body to weaken further as my mind suffered against the present fright and remembered trauma.

I was dead within seconds. Once satisfied with my demise, they adjusted some things throughout the room—probably removing evidence of their presence—then left. I waited another ten minutes, then got up from the bed. I rubbed my neck, and flakes of dead flesh came away on my palms. I went to my bathroom, grabbed my restorative salves, and applied them while I reflected on what had just happened.

I had no idea how long they had been in the house, but they apparently hadn’t known about my condition; otherwise, they would’ve done something far worse, something from which I probably wouldn’t have come back. Elated at their ignorance, and no longer tired—thanks to whatever remnants of adrenaline were left in my body—I got up and decided to do something unusual; I decided to call my ex, and see if he would be willing to work things out.

Facing and cheating death a second time really put things into perspective for me, and I realized that intercourse was merely one aspect of a relationship; an aspect that I wasn’t even that crazy about. Intimacy can be expressed in other ways, and he and I had been happy outside of it.

I started to call him, but was interrupted mid-dial by a sound outside my window. It was the voice of a man, speaking softly. Had I been a normal woman, I wouldn’t have heard it.

“Yeah, it’s done. I'm still at the house; had to duck into the bushes cause of some lady across the street coming out to have a smoke break. Didn’t want her to see me leaving….Yeah…send the payment to the account I gave you….Yeah, I’m sure she’s dead, I think I know how to do my fuc….yeah, yeah, alright…Listen, I don’t need to hear your justifications. You wanted your girl dead, and she’s dead. Just send over my money.”

The call ended, and a few moments later the rustling of leaves indicated the departure of the hitman.
His words, specifically one sentence, echoed in my brain: “You wanted your girl dead, and she’s dead.”
My boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, had hired someone to **** me. Fortunately, in his ignorance regarding the proper method of my destruction, he hadn’t hired someone appropriate for the job.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My local theater recently screened a film called "Mr. Blank." Everybody who's watched it has now gone missing.
 
 Assistant: *”It’s weird, right? Whatever lol, might as well check it out. Haven’t seen a horror movie that’s actually scared me in a while.”* 

That was the last text Lacey had sent me before she went missing. I knows it’s irrational, but I hate myself for not doing something. For not *stopping* her. But how was I supposed to know? How could I have anticipated anything that was going to happen after?

The “film” (or whatever the **** it is) made its way into our small town like a plague only a few days ago. Twelve people bought tickets for it. Twelve people are now missing. Among them was Lacey, my girlfriend of over two years. 

At the risk of sounding like “that” guy, our future was looking nothing but promising. We have plans. Well, we did. Until Mr. **** Blank showed up. 

This is nowhere near a conventional missing persons case, of course. The rabbit hole goes deep here, and honestly, the details simply don’t make any sense. 

From what I managed to dig up, this is a general timeline of what had happened:  

-An option to buy tickets for the film shows up at one of the three theaters in our town, which is about a twenty-minute walk from my house. Only that one. And it wasn’t available online. Only at the front counter of the theater itself. 

-It wasn’t supposed to be in the regular rotation. Also, none of the employees at the theater were informed about any special screening. They simply came in and saw that it’d replaced a 5:30 PM slot for a pre-existing film. They didn’t question it, because why would they? 

-The first and only screening was at 5:30 PM on that day. The theater wasn’t the busiest, but it wasn’t empty, either. Of course, most people opted to skip it, given the lack of any information regarding the film. With that being said, the only people who bought tickets were younger, likely curious about the odd title. 

-The film lasted about one hour and 10 minutes, with all the previews and credits considered. Pretty short for a feature, huh? At 6:40 PM, an employee entered the theater for clean-up duty. What he found were rows and rows of empty seats, with drink cups still in the holders and popcorn littered all over the floors. No blood, no signs of a struggle. *Nobody* had left or entered the theater after the film had begun (with confirmation from the security cameras. The theaters itself had no cameras inside, so that part remains a mystery). The screen allegedly consisted of nothing but a dark static. That’s what we were told, at least. I have a feeling that some details were left out from there, considering the fact that the employee in question is now missing as well. (Also rumored to have gone into a catatonic state after being questioned.) 

-The manager of the theater (who never greeted the employees that morning, as he usually did), was found dead in his office, with severe wounds around his neck left from a plastic bike lock that was likely used to strangle him.
 
-A new employee was hired about three weeks prior. The other employees described him as a quiet, but nice guy. He was working the day of the incident. You guessed it. He’s missing as well. Also suspect #1 in the investigation. However, they’re really grasping for straws at that one. I wouldn’t doubt that this employee had something to do with it, but the logistics behind the whole situation just aren't cohesive enough to make that call for sure. 

Some additional details: 

-No copy of the film has been found 

-No progress has been made on the search for the missing people. ****, it hardly seems like they're even trying.

-The local cops have been strangely hush about the whole thing. Almost like they don’t want people asking about it. They literally threatened to arrest me when I kept pressing them for details. 

-There’s been a lot of vehicles with tinted windows parked near the theater and surrounding areas. Some even in my own community. 

Well, that’s the situation. I can’t focus on anything right now. My brain's scattered and my anxiety's been going through the roof. Sue me, what the **** do you expect. Lacey *has to* be out there somewhere, right? How the **** is somebody just supposed to disappear into thin air? And what the **** kind of film was “Mr. Blank?” 

Christ, I’m getting a headache just thinking about it. My initial grief has been replaced more so by confusion and anger. I might just start searching for answers myself. I won’t be alone, though. Rose – Lacey’s best friend and Mike – her brother, are just as bent on figuring this out as I am. 

I’m not going in blind, though. In fact, I have two leads. One is more of a shot in the dark, but the other should lead us somewhere concrete. I’ll start off with the former. A few weeks ago, I remember my little brother telling me about a “strange man” he saw carved into a tree. It was allegedly accompanied by messy and frantic repetitions of the word “STOP” around it. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but it might be relevant now. Maybe not. We’ll see. 

The other came up while I was searching for answers online. After feverishly posting about the film on what I considered to be relevant forums and yielding no answers, somebody finally messaged me about it, claiming that they had information that I might like to know. Luckily, they’re only a three-hour drive from here, and are willing to meet halfway. 

Is this a bad idea? Probably. Am I going to like what I find? Probably not. But the thought of Lacey being out there in **** knows what kind of ****-up situation… I just can’t take it. 

I'm *not* letting it end like this.

Next: https://redd.it/eky81c

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Run, Motherfucker
 
 Assistant: Nothing can compare to the feeling of loss when a pet disappears. 

Imagining the fate that befell them is excruciating. Did it hurt? Were they afraid we’d left them behind?

And when do we press forward emotionally? When is the perfect time to accept a loss and move on?

One of the most agonizing facts is that most people don’t sympathize with the pain.

“Just get another one.”

“It’s not like you lost a *person*.”

“It’s just a dog.”

I know that they’re *trying* to be kind. But most humans absolutely **** at that kind of sympathy, which actively makes us feel more alone than we otherwise would. 

And that’s why the pets in our lives are so indispensible. They’re far more devoted to us than most humans ever will be. Animals really are the best people.

Mipsy saved my life, to be honest, and she kept that secret between the two of us. On the day both of my parents died in a car accident, I was sobbing uncontrollably with a bottle of cheap **** in one hand and a different bottle filled with sleeping pills in the other. I kept asking who would miss me, and I kept crying harder.

Border collies are usually full of energy, but Mipsy understood what I needed that night. She rested her head on my lap and refused to leave. 

So I told myself that I’d have my final drink when she walked out of the room and left me alone.

And that’s why I’m alive two years later. She never voluntarily parted with me, and now I really believe that I’ll live to see my thirtieth birthday.

So I knew something was wrong when I came home from work and couldn’t find her. I spent two days traipsing through the fields outside my home.

There’s a lot of open space around Davenport, Iowa.

And I found her. After calling her name, I first heard a whimper. Then a whine. 

And, finally, an urgent bark.

I followed the sound to a small embankment, where she was trapped in a tiny metal cage.

Horrified, I scrambled to open it up. She was going ballistic, eager to jump on me and lick every part of my face at least five times. My own hands were shaking so badly that I was nearly unable to open the hinge.

“You best keep your hands off my property,” came a voice from behind me. 

I slowly turned around to see a man standing fifteen feet away, shotgun cradled on his forearm. White stubble covered his face, and his steely blue eyes fixated unwaveringly on me. 

“This is my dog,” I responded in a voice that shook far worse than I had intended.

“No, it’s not. That’s my dog now. I like to hunt.”

My hands were shaking uncontrollably, so I grabbed the cage for support. “She’s not a hunting dog. Just let us go.”

He smiled. It was not a kind smile. “I didn’t say she was a huntin’ dog. I *did* say you’d best be leaving now. I ain’t gonna ask again.”

I stood defiantly. “I’m not leaving without my dog. If you’re going to shoot me, then do it.”

He spit on the ground. “I ain’t gonna shoot you, man.” He pointed the shotgun at the cage. “But I *am* gonna shoot your dog if you don’t step aside.”

I wanted to beg, scream, and cry. I wanted to throw myself onto the cage to protect her. But the logical part of my brain guided me in that moment. 

“Okay. I’m going to step back.”

Mipsy whined. “It’s okay, girl. I’m right here. We’re going to be fine.”

“Farther back, son,” the man responded sternly. “Well away from that cage.”

I followed obediently, moving thirty feet away.

Mipsy barked in frustration.

“She’s a live one,” the man said with a smile as he walked toward the cage where I’d stood, then turned to open the door. 

“Mipsy isn’t a hunting dog!” I repeated, agonized. “Just let her go, she’s not what you need!”

He laughed. The sound was about as pleasant as aggressive walrus ****. “This dog’s exactly what I need, friend.” He opened the door. “She *is* the hunt.”

Mipsy bolted toward me. 

“So you’d better make her run!” he screamed as he raised the shotgun in her direction.

Realization dawned as Mispy jumped up to hug me. “No. NO! You can’t hunt a dog, what the *hell* is wrong with you?”

He snorted. “Dozens of successful kills prove that I *can* hunt a dog, friend! And there’s no challenge like an excited Border Collie!” He laughed again. “So if you want to give that canine of yours a sporting chance, I’d suggest you make it *run*!”

Time slowed. Mipsy was throwing herself against me, desperate for my attention after two days away. There was no way she’d leave my side.

What should I have done? I owed her my life, not my happiness. 

She ran away after the fifth rock I threw at her. I loved her too much to spare my own feelings.

Maybe she’d come back one day. At least, that’s what I told myself.

The man swung his shotgun around and pointed it at me. “I can see you love your dog, friend, so I’ll compensate you accordingly,” he responded softly. “But purebred Border Collies are hard to come by, and I won’t be lettin’ this one go.”

I was screaming at him internally, but my mouth could find no words. 

“The best thing you can do right now is walk away,” he repeated with a clear attempt at kindness. “I won’t go after her until I know you’ve disappeared, so I’m going to stand right here until you turn around and head back from whence you came.” He smiled. “Then I’m gonna hunt your dog. It’s only worthwhile when it provides a **** good challenge.”

We often say “I could never…” when faced with painful choices. But life has a way of forcing us to confront those crossroads and deal with the devil we find there. 

There was nothing I could do but turn around and walk away.

The open field featured clear visibility for miles in every direction. By the time I circled around and hoped to rescue Mipsy, both the hunter and the hunted were nowhere to be found.

*

I searched all night, only heading home when I figured my odds were best if I went to a place that Mipsy expected to find me.

She was there, all right. 

I knew what the black and white mass on my doorstep was from a hundred feet away. 

I buried her next to the tree in my backyard where I’d scattered my parents’ ashes.

He’d left a note with an envelope next to Mipsy’s body. $1,913 cash was stuffed inside.

The message simply read, “Just get another one.”

*

Animals are far more devoted to us than most people realize. 

That’s a two-way street, of course. Many people fail to understand just how devoted we are to our pets.

I don’t think the man with the gun expected me to camp out in the open spaces around Davenport, hoping that he would appear in a new location.

He *definitely* didn’t expect me to spend six months doing it. 

But the hunt’s only worthwhile when it provides a **** good challenge.

*

The man opened his eyes slowly. I wondered if he would have a few elegant words of wisdom to share.

“…what the **** is this ****?”

I smiled. “Take a minute to get your bearings, friend. That tranquilizer gun I bought really is a doozy.”

He slowly focused on me.

“Fortunately, I had enough cash to buy the very best.”

Awareness dawned on him, and he panicked. “Where the **** are my clothes?” he shot at me. “Where’s my gun?”

My smile grew wider. “Oh, you won’t be needing any of *those*, friend.” I lifted my recent purchase and displayed it proudly. “I had enough money left over to pick up this Oneida Eagle Phoenix Lever-Action Bow.” I sighed contentedly. “I can’t imagine hunting with anything else.”

We made steady eye contact, but I still noticed him **** himself.

It was kind of hard to hide that fact without any pants.

“You really gonna shoot me with an arrow, kid?” He whispered. “It could take a man all day to die from that. You don’t wanna do that to me.” He was clearly terrified, but confident that he could win me over. 

I nodded slowly. “Well, friend, I hate to be the one to tell you that you’re wrong on both accounts. It can take a man *much* longer than a day to die from an arrow if you shoot him in the right place.” I pulled one from my quiver. “And secondly – I really, *really* want to do this to you,” I breathed, adrenaline pumping through my body. 

“You’re just a *person.* It’s not like the world is going to lose a *dog*.”

He walked slowly backwards as the first tears began to fall.

I nocked my arrow in the bow.

“Run, ****.”

---------------

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 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Best 100 Seconds of Your Life
 
 Assistant: I live in an apartment farm where the windows in adjacent buildings meet at uncomfortably even angles. If the shades are all up, and the lights are all on, you can see just about everything going on inside. Sometimes, late at night, I'll wake for a glass of water from the sink and notice my neighbor at his kitchen table in the unit across from me. The man is balding and middle aged. He ordinarily wears a cream colored robe or some faded shade of red. He always has a glass of milk at the ready, joined occasionally by a **** cigar, aimed for the skylight. His horn rimmed glasses and neat five o’clock shadow are about as unremarkable as any other working Joe this side of the New York / New Jersey state line. 

And yet something about this guy always intrigued me. 

We never offer each other anything more than an awkward wave ‘hello.’ We never attempt to speak. But some nights, I’ll sit down in the kitchen too, with a glass of my own cold milk and a cigarette snuck from an old pack in the dresser. Sometimes, when you’re feeling lonely, it’s nice to see someone else is feeling lonely too. 

But one night, last month, my midnight companion gestured for me to join him. 

I didn’t really know what to do. The wave was friendly and welcoming. There was no malice behind it. He didn’t look annoyed by my staring. He just looked like he wanted to talk. I thought about the prospect for a couple minutes. I checked on the baby, kissed my wife goodnight, and put on a cream colored robe of my own. Then I stumbled down the stairs, out the atrium doors, and into the shivering cold autumn air.

I found my new friend waiting in the lobby of his adjacent building. His bespectacled stare sent uncomfortable shivers up my spine. He waved me forward past the security guard and I followed him wordlessly into the elevator. We waited in awkward silence for a moment before he pressed the button for five. Same as mine. 

“*Cold out there,*” I muttered. “*Thought it might heat up over the weekend.*”

The man smiled wanly in agreement. The elevator doors opened wide and he stepped forward to proceed down the hall as the cream robe sashayed behind him. I hesitated.

“*Relax, kid,*” the man chuckled. “*The night guard saw you come in. I think you’ll make it out of here alive.*”

“**Why did you want me to come over?**” I asked. “**I hope you didn’t mind…**”

He shrugged. 

“*No. Looked like you wanted someone to talk to. Maybe I do too.*”

I chuckled.

“**Either you’ve got great vision, or I’m just that transparent.**”

Another sly smile.

“*Little bit of both. My name is Brandon. And you?*”

“**Michael.**”

He nodded.

“*And now we know each other. We’re not strangers anymore. So how about it, Mike, one sleepless dad to another?*”

I stepped out from behind the wide metal doors. 

“**You got whiskey for that milk?**”

Brandon nodded.

“*Kahlua too.*”

And with that we bounded down the hall towards unit 21C. The halls in the building were well lit and uniquely decorated with floral landscape paintings and glass vases that looked as though they held nothing inside. A scrubbed up nurse walked past just towards the end and Brandon gave her a courteous nod. He fumbled for his keys before the door to his apartment opened.

It was hard not to gasp. I was immediately greeted by the very essence of luxury. In the dining room, a magnificent chandelier dripped down from the ceiling to meet a luxurious oak table. In the den, Persian rugs lined at incessantly perfect right angles to cover scratch-free wood floors. Beautiful china sat behind spotless stained glass. A massive seventy inch LCD TV sat perched on the wall in between various gold and silver shaded baubles and picture frames. The place looked like the Ritz got trapped inside a tiny two bedroom space. 

“*Let’s see about that Caucasian, Jackie,*” Brandon joked over his shoulder whilst heading for the liquor cabinet. “*Big Lebowski. What a film. I’ve been hooked on the things ever since. I assume you want yours on the rocks?*”

I said that I did.

“*Good man.*”

Brandon returned with a speckled glass and a pair of large cigars. He set us up at the kitchen table before fussing through the cabinets for a pack of matches. After a moment he grabbed a seat and lit his own in a perfect circular motion.

“*Aim for the window.*”

I nodded and went to work on my own.

“**So how can I help you, Brandon?**”

“*A woman named Melissa came into my clinic today,*” he started.

“**You’re a doctor?**”

He nodded solemnly. 

“*Melissa lost her husband and young son in a car accident a few months back.*”

“**Awful,**” I mumbled. “**Must be awful seeing that sort of thing every day.**”

Brandon offered the same wan smile before taking a generous swig of his White Russian. 

“*She comes to my office for checkups, nothing more,*” he murmured through a cloud of smoke. “*The accident severed her spine. She will never walk again. But we still need to check the stitches and other various injuries for signs of infection. Our job is to make sure Melissa’s horrifying ‘situation’ does not get worse. That’s all.*”

“**I can’t imagine staying positive,**” I added. “**Sounds exhausting.**”

Brandon nodded.

“*You don’t.*”

I was confused.

“**Well, don’t you have to?**” I asked. “**As a doctor, I mean, isn’t part of the goal to keep your patients feeling positive?**”

“*You can wear a mask,*” he murmured. “*One of those perky masks that say all the right things. You know… be happy. Make yourself happy. Life will get better. The night is always darkest just before the dawn. You’ve read all the fortune cookies. You’ve heard the thousand cliches and adages and parables and **** pop songs on the radio extolling people to be their best little selves even when the sky is raining down **** on the only things that matter.*”

Brandon coughed through his cigar and chuckled in disgust. 

“*So you say stuff like that.*”

I puffed my cigar wordlessly for a moment.

“**Are you one of those nihilists?**” I joked. “**Like in the film…**”

“*I’m a realist,*” he snapped angrily. “*Real enough to know that **** **** like that would not work with Melissa.*”

“**I’m sorry. A dumb joke. What did you say to her?**”

Brandon waved a hand as if to tell me it was alright.

“*We keep it to the medicine. Don’t wet the stiches. Make sure to take the right pain medication at the right times. Do you have a caretaker? If you don’t have a caretaker assigned, the hospital can provide one for you. You know, stuff like that. Helps to avoid the deeper psychological questions. Those types are best left for the shrinks.*”

I considered his comments for a second.

“**Sounds cold.**”

He nodded.

“*Empathy is a dangerous thing. People can’t be expected to hold all of the world’s pain. Neither can doctors. There’s just too much of it to go around.*”

Brandon took another gulp of liquid courage.

“*But this morning, Melissa tricked me.*”

“**How’d she do that?**”

“*We were talking about dreams. Vivid dreams can be an unfortunate side effect of concussions, unfortunately, so I needed to find a way to distinguish what is vivid and what is ordinary, in her case. I asked for details about the dreams.*”

“**And?**”

“*Melissa told me she dreamed about her son. He was stuck inside a wall of water and she could not reach him.*”

I gulped.

“**Sounds pretty vivid.**”

“*It sounded like something that needed a second opinion. Likely a psych follow up. I told her as much. She didn’t take it well.*”

“**How not well?”**”

Brandon sighed.

“*She took a fork and stuck it into an open electrical outlet.*”

“**Holy ****.**”

“*Never seen anything like it in twenty years. The current from the wall slipped through the fork and into her already broken body. Melissa’s heart stopped for exactly one hundred seconds before we were able to get a crash cart into the room and revive her.*”

“**Horrible.**”

“*I’ll admit that I lost it a little bit. The mask slipped, so to speak. I had seen and treated this woman for months. I felt like I knew her. I knew her dreams, even, and I felt like maybe… maybe the psych and the medicine and everything else had really helped her turn a corner. She talked about dating and having **** again. She talked about starting her life over. All of that work evaporated, at least in my mind, the moment she decided to **** herself.*”

“**So what did you do?**”


“*I broke a thousand protocols. I followed Melissa’s case through the ER and into recovery. Later during the day she somehow regained consciousness, and I lied to her on-call, just so I could sneak in to see her.*”

Brandon took a long drag of his cigar.

“*I wanted to shake her. I wanted to yell and scream and tell her what an idiot she was for wasting the small amount of time we get. I wanted to tell her there is nothing after this, and if there was, it sure as **** wouldn’t be any better than what we got now. She lied to me. She lied to everyone. I was furious.*”

Brandon got up to make another drink. 

“**I sense a ‘but’ coming.**”

He nodded.

“*But when I went to see Melissa… she was happy. That is the only way I can describe it.*”

“**Happy?**”

“*She sat there, in this hospital bed, covered in wires and IV lines head to toe, burn marks everywhere, looking like a **** horror show, with this big, dumb grin on her face.*”

Brandon sighed and started to stir a cocktail.

“*She told me she just had the best 100 seconds of her life.*”

I laughed. I later regretted that. 

“*She told me that she saw her husband. She saw her son, too. They were playing on this beautiful white beach covered with pebbles in front of a massive blue ocean. Her little boy always loved to ride this fire red boogie board through the waves. She could see the kid clear as day, out in the surf, and every single wave would always be just the right height to bring him safely back to shore. He just looked so happy that… Melissa felt at peace.*”

Brandon sniffled a bit.

“*She spoke to her husband as well. He was at the beach too. He forgave her for everything. He knew it was an accident. He knew they would all be together again. She just had to wait a little while.*”

He paused. 

“*All of those aching feelings of guilt, misery, and heartache that she kept locked up inside her gut melted away as easily as those perfectly sized waves pushing up against the sand.*”

Another pause.

“*The best 100 seconds of her life.*”

I considered the story along with the last drops of my Caucasian and the stub of a cigar burning its way towards my fingertips. Brandon got up to stir a third drink. Something didn’t seem right. Something still seemed missing.

“**But… why did Melissa try to **** herself at a hospital?**”

Brandon looked longingly towards a picture frame resting up against the coffee maker. A younger man sat perched with a little girl hanging off his lap. Brandon dipped his fingers into his full glass and smiled sadly. Then he swirled his whole hand around slowly. 

“*Maybe she didn’t want to die.*”

“**How do you mean?**”

He considered that for a moment.

“*Maybe she just wanted to visit for a little while.*”

He stopped stirring and looked at me with hopeful blue eyes.

“*Hey, you have your cell phone, don’t you?*”

I told him that I did.

“*And you saw the nurse next door?*”

I nodded. 

“*Good.*”

The next few moments passed faster than any in my life. I didn’t anticipate what Brandon planned to do in front of me that night. That was ****. I didn’t see his hand reach out for the outlet. That was unlucky. But the sparks that flew through the air and the stomach turning stench of burning skin painted an already perfectly pretty picture of what had happened. I turned to ****, but Brandon stayed put in that position, as if his arm was welded to the outlet, while bolts of white hot electricity vibrated up and down his soaked hand. 

His heart stopped for 200 seconds. 

‘

The police and EMS arrived in record time. The nurse next door rushed in at the sound of my screeching. But we were too late. We were all too late. My new friend died on his kitchen floor with a glass of good scotch still swimming by his side. 

He left behind a divorcee and no living children. 

A month later and I can’t bring myself to idealize or romanticize the guy. Truth be told, his actions were selfish, especially considering the trauma they put me and everyone else through. Sometimes I hope Brandon got to see his beach one last time. 

[And then sometimes I still see his kitchen light on at night.](https://firstbreath1.com)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Chernobyl disaster was a coverup of something terrifying [Part 2]
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bz0dl9/the_chernobyl_disaster_was_a_coverup_of_something/)

&#x200B;

“**** college kids. What does the sign at the fence say? No Entry. What does this here say?” he pointed at the text sprayed across the main door. “No **** Entry. You think we just put these up because we don’t have anything better to do, like you? You really have nothing else to do but to snoop around things you have no business in!” he sighed, “Now look what happened look what you did – what your awesome idea brought you!” Moroz yelled me after I finished explaining what happened.

First thing he did when he arrived was to check the service tunnel and make sure it is closed. He didn’t even talk to me, he just ran there and made sure it is sealed and locked. He was an average-looking guy probably in his mid-50s, but I think people would say that he looked older than he really was.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“You have no idea,” he said, stood up and walked to his car.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to save your friend. And you’re coming with me.”

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

“You will do everything exactly as I say and nothing else. Stay quiet. Try not to exhaust yourself. The air is not circulating and you’ll burn all the oxygen and suffocate. You will stay tethered to me by this line.” He lifted what looked like a small retractable winch. “When I turn off my light you will do the same immediately and you won’t move.” He continued and pulled out a shotgun from the car’s trunk.

“Are these going to help?” I asked.

“To an extent. But don’t use it unless I tell you to.” He said and handed me a pistol.

“Last thing. Do you know how ozone smells?” He asked and I nodded. “Good. If you smell ozone, run.”

I started considering whether this was a good idea when he chained and locked the door from the inside with a massive padlock. “This is the only way we can keep them from getting out” he said when he noticed me watching him. **** of course this was a bad idea. Worst one I’ve ever had. So let me rephrase, I was contemplating whether I would ever see that padlock open ever again.

“Am I not going to get a key?” I asked, watching him close it with a loud click.

“Sorry, I have just one. But don’t worry, I’m right here,” he said, sliding his hand across the line that we were connected through.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

The tether reeled back and forth between us as we walked through the service tunnel. It gave me some sense of security – I could be sure not to get lost and separated from the only other person nearby. It created a sort of a weird rhythm with the diesel fuel that sloshed around in the large canisters we carried. Our first stop would be the generator room on the other side of the main entry hall.

The generator rattled and hummed as it slowly started spinning up.

“Did you see it?” Moroz asked.

“What?”

“We have some time for talking until it turns on. Did you get a look at what took your friend, when it happened?”

“No,” I answered.

“What is this place?” I asked again.

He stared into the air, sighed and explained: “It was originally a military stockpile in the 50s. In late 70s it was then repurposed into a research site. Anything that was too crazy for public to know about it, they’ve done it here. And it was some **** up stuff sometimes. Then… they had this project about teleportation. They even rebuilt half of the facility to house it. And that’s when it all went to ****.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“I used to work here,” he said.

“So, what are these things?” I asked.

“They are…” he started but then brushed off. “I don’t know. I was just an assistant.”

“Is there someone who knows?”

“Not anymore. Everyone who knew, well, let’s say they never left this place.”

“And how did *you* get out?”

The engine clutch engaged with a click and the generator finally came to life.

“I didn’t. I uh, I took a sick day when it happened.”

The lights turned on for a brief moment and then shut down again as a circuit breaker popped.

“That’s okay. We can’t spare the power for the lights. We’ll need it someplace else. You’ll see.” Moroz said.

*Whatever happened here, whatever killed all the people down here and **** knows how it was all connected with the Chernobyl disaster, he wasn’t here. He took a sick day. He took a **** sick day.*

“Come on kid, let’s go.”

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

We were at the lab security checkpoint that me and Alex closed earlier during our escape.

“Remember, stay as quiet as you can now,” Moroz told me and we slowly opened the blast door.

To our surprise, light blinded us immediately, something shining right at us. I took a step back while my eyes adjusted to the light and then I finally saw the source of the light.

Alexei’s flashlight. I went to pick it up, but Moroz quickly stopped me with his arm and pointed into the blackness of the corridor in front of us. For a moment we stood there, silent, and then I though I heard something in the distance. Moroz immediately turned off his headlamp and gestured to me to do the same while he went to crouch in the corner. I followed and turned off my light too, but we were still lit up. Alex’s light was still on, illuminating the room. Moroz quietly cursed, quickly went to grab the flashlight and then it was dark. Completely pitch black dark.

&#x200B;

People say that when you’re under stress, and you lose one of your senses, the other ones heighten to compensate. It’s true. Or maybe it was just getting closer. It doesn’t matter. I heard something drop to the ground with a muffled splat. Then a few irregular footsteps. Not like footsteps of someone walking with a pair of shoes. It was like someone walking barefoot. Flesh on concrete. And they were getting closer.

I instinctively grabbed the gun Moroz gave me, hoping I wouldn’t need to use it. It was now so close that I could hear a slow, raspy breathing. I think I even felt a cold breeze on my face. *Inhale, and exhale. In and out.* I don’t want to think about how close it was.

Then something slammed into a wall down the way we came from, with a crash and the sound of glass and plastic breaking. Whatever thing was there with us turned and quickly followed it. I thought that it’s gone and I’m safe.

Out of nowhere, suddenly a hand brushed against me.

I almost jumped and screamed but the hand quickly moved and grabbed my mouth, preventing me from making a sound. Another hand grabbed my gun.

“It’s me. Follow me. Slowly,” a voice whispered into my ear.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

We entered a room on the side and I heard a door close silently. We waited for a while and then we turned our lights back on.

“****. Don’t ever do that again.” I told him.

But he wasn’t listening. He was looking at droplets of a thick, black fluid on the floor at the other side of the room.

“What… what is that? I asked.

“Blood. At least it was, once.” Moroz answered and followed the trail.

&#x200B;

We traced it across a few rooms until we stopped in a large chemical lab. There was something on the ground, in a puddle of the black liquid. It was Alex’s knife. There was some red liquid too. I could tell what it was without a doubt. Fresh blood. A trail of a few droplets went in the opposite direction than the black liquid.

“Look! He must have gotten away.” I whispered.

“I doubt that. If we want to find him, we have to go to level -4.”

He just glanced at the knife and then acted like he didn’t see anything.

“Look! This is his knife. They must have fought here, and he went that way,” I pointed in the direction where the blood trail went, “He must be hurt.”

“That’s one more reason for us to not waste time. Let’s go.”

He stepped off back into the central corridor. I wanted to stay and search for Alex, but the tether that connected us wouldn’t allow that, so I obliged and followed. Initially.

“Moroz, please tell me what is going on. How do you know he’s not here?”

“Because I know! Just shut up! We don’t have time to argue. “

We weren’t whispering anymore.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you are so sure.” I insisted.

“Because he’s *dead*!”

&#x200B;

“*What? But you said…”*

“Come on, let’s go! This is not a place where we want to stay! We have to get down to level -4.” Moroz cut me off.

No. I trusted him at first, because he was the only one who could help me and help Alex. That was the only thing I focused my mind on – saving Alex. Only now I was realizing what I had gotten into, how blind and how **** I was. He wasn’t just an assistant as he claimed and we weren’t here to save Alex.

I started unbuckling my end of the tether.

“What the **** are you doing?!” He asked, raising his voice.

“I’m going out. Give me the key to the padlock.” I demanded.

“No. I can’t do that.” He said, with agitation in his voice.

I had no choice. I raised my gun at him.

“Give me the key.” I demanded again.

“You really think I would give you a working gun? You’re not going anywhere.” He said and pointed his shotgun at me.

I pulled the trigger, but there was only a click. ****.

&#x200B;

“Why are we here?! Why didn’t you call your friends, your superiors or whatever to take care of this but you have to hold *me* at gunpoint?

“Let’s say we don’t share the same goals anymore. But have no doubt, they are coming here, but not with guns. With concrete. They are going to seal this place up for good. And we have to be quick if we want to be out by the time that happens.”

“Why can’t you just please let me leave now?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Because it’s a two-man job,” he said and looked me in the eyes.

“There are things much more important than you, me, or your friend.”

I couldn’t deny that. Maybe he was right, but I couldn’t do this. And I didn’t understand anything.

&#x200B;

“Who are you?!” I asked him, returning his gaze.

But then I looked away. Something caught my attention. Movement behind Moroz.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

It was … it was a creature, crawling across the ceiling towards us. Its body vaguely looked like a human, but its skin was pale, and stretched tight over its thin bones. Its veins were visible through the skin, filled with the same black fluid we found earlier. It had no hair and only holes where its nose and ears used to be. Its eyes were bloodshot locked in a blank stare.

We escaped it before, but our argument brought it back. It was too late to run now.

Moroz noticed my stare, but he wasn’t fast enough. The creature lunged at him, at the same time he turned around and fired a shot, but missed and the thing knocked him to the ground.

That shot was deafening in such a tight space. I heard only ringing in my ears, my eyes were slightly blinded by the muzzle flash. In the confusion, I turned to run, but I forgot that I was still tethered to Moroz.

After the line was completely reeled out, it jammed, stopping me right in my track and sending me falling to the ground. I looked back and saw that the creature was now looking at me. Moroz was lying there on the ground.  I must have pulled it off him by yanking on the tether and now it would come to make sure it won’t happen again.

&#x200B;

I finally managed to disconnect the tether and threw the useless pistol at the creature, hitting its head. It briefly stumbled and I ran to the only place that quickly came to my mind. I barricaded myself in a storage room adjacent to the large chem lab, blocked the door with a shelf. The creature spent a minute trying to get in, but then gave up and left, presumably to finish off Moroz.

And I stayed there, just sitting in the corner, too scared to do anything. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it was starting to get hard to breathe. For a time, I thought I would just stay there, and end it all, peacefully, instead of a violent death that was likely waiting for me at the other side of the door.

But then, I heard a voice call my name. Alex’s voice.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

“Alex! Is that you?” I called back.

“Oh, thank ****! I thought I would die here. You came back!" he answered.

I went to open the door, but then changed my mind.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“I was hiding too, but then I heard gunshots, and I came here to look. Dimitri, please come out, we have to get out of here.”

I sat down again. Maybe it was really him. But what if it wasn’t? I didn’t want to find out.

“No! He said you were dead! I saw blood too. No it isn’t you! It can’t be!”

“What? I don’t … what are you talking about Dimitri? One of those things got me pretty good, but I’m alive. Dimitri, just please come out and let’s get out of here!” he pleaded.

I have decided. I wouldn’t open the door. But then I changed my mind once again, after what he said.

&#x200B;

“Dimitri, do you remember the cherry tree? I knew you would come back.”

We used to play at this huge cherry tree when we were kids. We used to climb it all the time but one day, I had this idea to make a bet. Whoever gets the highest, wins. I got almost to the top, but then I realized how bad an idea this was. The branches under me were too thin, and I knew they could break under my weight anytime. But Alex didn’t want to lose. He tried to climb even higher than me. And then the twig he was standing on broke and he fell. Luckily, he landed in a pile of fallen leaves and only broke his leg. He could have killed himself if he fell on solid ground. And it was my fault. I almost got him killed, because of a **** bet.

We decided not to tell anyone how it happened, because we were both afraid of getting into trouble. But I felt guilty for it for the rest of my life.

&#x200B;

There was no way how he could know about the cherry tree if it wasn’t him.

I opened the door and there he was. He looked terrible, bruises and scrapes all over. And he had a blood-stained torn piece of shirt wrapped around his left hand.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’ve been better. Let’s just get out of here,” he replied.

“That’s not going to be that easy,” I said.

&#x200B;

I told him what happened until now and that the door was locked. Only Moroz had the key and he was either dead or gone.

“There were some tools and supplies up there right? Maybe we can find something to cut the chain,” Alex said, and we decided to try it. It was better than searching for Moroz’s key after all.

We found his shotgun, stained with blood, both his and the creature’s and immediately felt safer.  We also picked up our packs that we dropped earlier. Luckily, all of our gear was still there. We carefully walked back to the main hall, but I felt that something was watching us all along.

We saw some few old saws and files next to the main door. We grabbed all we could, but we weren’t alone. The inhabitants finally decided to make their move.

One of the thin creatures crawled out of the stairwell. I aimed, and fired. It fell down from the ceiling, twitching like a dying insect. But it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t alone. Another one crawled out. Then another. And another. We ran to the air pump room and blocked the door by jamming a large saw between the handles.

We worked quick, because we knew that it was only a matter of time until they got through. Or come through the vents. Alex couldn’t operate the shotgun with his hurt hand, so he offered to do the cutting while I stood guard, ready to **** anything that would come out of the vents. It was working, but it was too slow. Way too slow. Alex barely got through a few millimeters when I thought that the door would break already.

They were pounding on it, slamming into it and I saw it rattle in its hinges. I thought that they would get through any moment now, … and then they stopped.

I heard them run away.

&#x200B;

I coughed when a sharp odor hit my nose.

“****, what is that?” Alex asked.

“Ozone,” I answered.

&#x200B;

# [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/c9htf3/the_chernobyl_disaster_was_a_coverup_of_something/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Parents Sold Me When I Was 7
 
 Assistant: Our monthly stroll by the mall was the only thing that ever gave me a sense of normalcy in my former life.

Mom would dreamily and slowly walk by every store, contemplating the lives she would never get close to live. We watched brand new toys, shiny bracelets and a world of silk and wonder – a world that would never exist for people in our social standing.

It took me a while to understand that the trips were for her own sake, not mine.

*“Your daughter could be a model, you know?”*

The smiling man approached us when we were having our ritualistic ice cream – we couldn’t afford anything there but the once-a-month sweet treat.

I’ll admit I have unique looks. My hair was always jet-black, even as a child, contrasting with pale complexion and emerald eyes. I had, indeed, fantasized about being a model when I grew up, after seeing so many advertisements in the mall, all of them containing huge images of stunning ladies, surrounded by perfume bottles and jewelry, and dressed in daydreams.

*“My husband… he…”* Mom started to shyly answer, but the man cut her off. He probably went through that dozens of times.

*“Why don’t I give you my card and you call me after Dad allows it?”*

His smile grew wider. So wide you could see something underneath, but as a 7-years-old, I couldn’t pinpoint what.

She agreed.

That night, I pretended to sleep and overheard them.

*“How much did he offer you, Janet?”* dad asked, aggressively as usual.

*“N-nothing”* she stuttered. In his presence, she always did.

He slammed his huge hands against the counter.

*“You’re lying! I know how those things work!”*

*“I-I swear, Bradley. He just told me to call”.*

*“So call him, dammit!”*

*“Just like that?”*

*“What do you want me to say? We can’t afford it anymore. I’m not even sure the **** **** is mine. You used to be quite the ****”.*

*“I-I just had one other boyfriend before you, Brad”*, her voice now sounded teary and hurt.

It took me a few years to understand what he meant. The ****. I looked exactly like him.

They fell silent, so silent that I could hear dad sipping from his bottle. Mom dared speaking.

*“So you want to give her away?”*

Another slam.

*“Don’t be dumb. Who’s talking about giving? We’re selling it”.*

*“But you know they probably will…”*

*“That’s none of my **** business, Janet”.*

\*\*\*

The next morning, Mom asked me to wear my favorite dress and pack my best clothes. It was easy because I didn’t have many that could be considered good.

*“Where are we going, mom?”*

*“Modeling”*, she answered in a rushed tone, her smile faltering. *“We’ll see that nice gentleman from yesterday”.*

We took the bus because dad didn’t let her drive – said she was too dumb for it. He, on the other hand, was almost always too wasted to control a wheel. Our decadent Chevrolet Vega sat in the garage collecting dust.

Dad made sure to be there to see that mom didn’t hide any money from him. He didn’t let her work, so he knew that if she handled the transaction alone, he would probably never see her again.

Everything was quick. The gentleman was named Mr. Carson, and his slightly chubby hand gave my parents a firm handshake, then handed me a lollipop. He took a few pictures of me, said everything was good, and gave my parents the money; it seemed to be more than they expected.

*“****, if that’s the price we should make a new one”*, dad exclaimed, his yellowed fangs opening up in a smile for the first time in years.

Mom bit her lip and buried her face on her only coat, a beaten-up pinkish parka.

She stroked my hair, tearing up silently, and we parted ways.

Mr. Carson took me to his house. His car was brand new and he let me pick the song. The drive was so different from the ones with my parents; the songs were always filled with screams: dad cursing at the other drivers, Mom begging him to not pick a fight, him telling her to shut up. If he was in a really bad mood, he would lock me in my room and leave me without dinner because I was breathing too loud or couldn’t hold back my tears while they fought.

The place was a suburban, generic middle-class house, white picket-fence style. It was gorgeous for a humble girl like me. He parked.

*“What we’ll do now, Mr. Carson?”* I asked, afraid he would hit me for being snoopy.

*“Please, call me Ted. I’m taking you to your room. Soon it will be lunchtime, but I have a task for you first”*, I looked at him obediently. *“I left a videotape in your room’s TV. Please watch it and, during lunch, act like the girl you’ll see. Got it?”*

*“Sure, Ted!”* I was overjoyed my room had a TV.

I diligently watched the tape, then after around two hours Ted took me downstairs to have a light lunch, consisting of sandwiches and soda. I did my best to imitate the girl.

*“You’ve done well, Delilah. This is your name now, got it?”*

I nodded. I don’t remember the name I had before.

*“I’ll put on another tape for you, but you can use the afternoon to relax too. Take a nap if you want. You’ll have a lot of tasks tonight”*, he said, taking me back upstairs.

That night, while I prepared for dinner, I was confident in my skills. Ted left me a brand new change of clothes, and told me dress up nicely; it was a special occasion.

On the dining room, stood an older woman. She was beautiful, and looked remarkably like me. Her eyes sparked up when she saw me, wearing a pretty tutu dress.

*“Delilah!”* she hugged me tightly then, still not letting go, stared at Ted. *“How did you do it? They’re almost identical”.*

*“I was lucky”.*

Over dinner, they explained to me why I was there.

Ted and Laura had a daughter named Delilah who died at 15. It was a painfully silly death; she insisted to go to a pool party and drowned. Most people around were **** teenagers – too **** to help.

Their world was destroyed; they couldn’t accept losing their only child, the light of their life. She was such a good girl, and now she was gone by such a **** reason. So they decided to look for a new one – a girl that looked like the original Delilah and could mimic her demeanor.

They were so good to me. Laura loved me to bits, and Ted spoiled me rotten. I was a true princess, living a make-believe life. I went to a great school, we had amazing family trips together, my toys and clothes were always the best, the trendiest, the coolest.

It was easy to become their perfect daughter once I practiced a little. Delilah never had to beg for a cup of water or be trapped inside a dark closet because she was listening to the TV too loud. As long as I learned everything about the original Delilah and could act like I was her, the world was mine.

Until I turned 12.

Ted and Laura said they needed to talk with me. I was ready to be send back home, to the horrible, hopeless life I had before.

*“You know, Delilah… our other Delilah was perfect, but she had a serious problem”*, Laura started.

*“She grew up. She grew apart from us. If she never insisted on making her own decisions, on going to that **** party, she would still be here with us”* Ted was grinding his teeth. *“We can’t let that happen to you”.*

I admit I thought they would **** me to preserve my youth and innocence. But Ted had other plans.

*“Your father is a very good scientist. He can fix you”.*

I consented, still unsure of what needed to be fixed. But I wanted to be with them, and I want them to be happy.

The three of us went to the basement and Ted wired me to his machines.

*“You’ll be young forever, my Delilah”.*

*“Let’s hope it works this time”*, Laura added, uneasily.

The last thing I remember before being hit by a bolt of endless pain was understanding that there were other surrogate Delilahs before me.

\*\*\*

I thought I would never speak again from the pain.

I felt my bones shattering into a million pieces and reforming back all wrong; rinse and repeat.

My body was an endless puzzle consisting of a billion pieces that nothing could put back together. My limbs literally swam in a pool of despair – metallic despair. It was my own blood.

I was nothing but a pile of organic matter for days. I was as much a daughter as I was a guinea pig. Floating, infinitely floating in his lab fluids.

Until somehow everything was assembled again.

I woke up in my bed. Both Laura and Ted were by my side.

There was a sharp pain in the back of my neck, but other than that, nothing at all. They kissed my hair, begged for forgiveness and asked how I was.

I was, as crazy as it sounds, fine. The hours of infinite aching were distant now, almost like they happened to someone else.

I ran my fingers through my neck and felt something different there. I asked if they could see anything. Ted gasped.

*“It’s a new bone”.*

The new bone was small, but shaped like a thorn. It prickled my finger, but didn’t really hurt me.

Two years went by. While the other girls my age were quickly growing up in height and shape, I never fully developed into a teenager. It was clear that something was different with me.

Ted and Laura were overjoyed to notice I was still childish in mindset and looks. It had worked, after all.

I didn’t mind it. Maybe puberty was nice to others, but not to most; a lot of my classmates had awful breaks of acne, and talked in irregular, weird tones of voice. One girl even had a **** way bigger than the other. I was happy being a child instead of a train wreck.

Others weren’t so happy.

*“Why the **** your looks don’t change? Are you a **** witch?”*

It was Sandy, the tallest girl in class. She was a troublemaker, and she had picked me as a target because I was too short and my skin was too clear.

I just tried to unleash my arm from her, I swear. I don’t like fighting. But I ended up crumbling her ulna and radius.

It happened in an instant and it was so crazy. I merely grabbed her wrist and felt everything inside collapsing.

Sandy cried desperately, her arm swelling and looking like rubber, while shards of bones erupted from the skin. It was nauseating seeing what was left of her bloody mass of bones.

Nobody understood what happened, and everyone ruled out as impossible that such a small girl could cause this damage to a strong and tall bully. The school nurse called the hospital while saying that Sandy must have fallen in a weird way.

That day, I felt the thorn-like structure in my neck burning like crazy. When I told Ted, he took me to the lab to perform a few tests.

“It appears that, as a side-effect, you became extremely strong” he said, after a few hours.

“But why I didn’t crumble anything else before?” I asked.

“How did you feel when this girl Sandy tried to pick a fight with you?”

“Very annoyed”.

“Well, then your strength is probably triggered by negative emotions”.

I considered the information for a few seconds. It made sense; my life was so perfect that, ever since I underwent the procedure to stay young forever, I never had a bad experience – or, at least, not the kind that would make me easily break something as sturdy as a human bone.

A few weeks after we discovered my superhuman-angry-strength, I finally understood that dad thought he was selling me to prostitution – and he was totally okay with it.

After hurting my mother in ways I’ll never know and understand, after hitting me and starving me over nothing, he thought that handing a 7-years-old – his only daughter – to an unknown man was perfectly normal; if she was going to be sexually enslaved, it was none of his business.

This thought made me feel very annoyed.

I just rang the doorbell of my former home[.](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPoisoningTales)

Who would believe that a teenager too small for her age could turn a grown man’s limbs to dust?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip and My Parents are the Devil
 
 Assistant: [My name is Lily Madwhip and my parents are the devil](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ami0cd/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_saw_the_angel_of/).

Both of them. Like Satan split in two and became two people. And then they came up to Earth and said, “let’s have a baby.” and they had me and then they said, “now let’s torture it!”

AHHHHHHHHH!

I guess they had Roger first. They never tortured him though. They bought him a drum set so he could torture the rest of us with it. Maybe he was also Satan. Maybe Satan split into three people. I didn’t see Roger born so this could very well be the case.

“Hey, Lily, where’s Pascal?”

That’s not Satan, that’s Jamal. He’s riding the bus with me like he always does. He and two other boys ride to my school and then hang out until the rest of us all go in and then they walk down to their Catholic school. Jamal is my neighbor and probably the closest thing I got to a friend. He’d also probably be dead now if it wasn’t for me. Then again, things seem to die when I’m around, so maybe he wouldn’t have almost died if it wasn’t for me. I’m just going to blame my plastic paratrooper for that one. Oh man, my plastic paratrooper’s still up there in the tree. He must be cold.

“It’s Paschar, not Pascal. And I don’t know where he is. My devil dad took him.” I tell Jamal.

“Uh oh, did you do something?”

That’s a big question. Did I do something? I got my brother Roger killed three months ago. Then I let my therapist die to a food allergy. You, Jamal, you still have nightmares about all the dead animals we found in the forest thanks to me. I made Lisa Welch break her teeth on the playground, but you don’t know Lisa Welch. You’re so lucky you don’t know Lisa Welch. And her crew of **** girls. Can I start going to Catholic school, I wonder? I believe in angels and **** and definitely the devil now. **** devil parents.

“No.”

Then there was the entire pet store at the mall. That was like a plague of biblical proportions. Proportions means size. Like you get food in portions and those are small, then you get PROportions and those are big. In other words, it was a big, bad thing. Dead puppies and kitties everywhere. I think I did that somehow, because I got too close to the angel of death. Something about me and her, the lady in black, if we get too close, things die. People die. I wonder if she was in the woods behind my house the day all those animals died. She scares me.

Jamal’s friend, Greg leans over the bus seat and grins at me. Greg has bright orange hair. I don’t think it’s natural. Like, who has hair that orange? Jamal says its ginger, but I’ve seen gingerbread men and they’re brown like my hair. Other people say Greg’s hair is red. I don’t know why you don’t just call orange hair orange.

“Maybe your angel doll flew back to heaven,” Greg says.

“You’ll never know.” I mutter.

“If either of us isn’t getting into heaven, it’s the girl who kills everybody.” Greg takes heaven and **** very seriously.

Jamal shoves Greg away. “So you can’t see the future without Pascal, right?”

“Paschar, and yes I can.”

Greg pops up again, “Then what’s going to happen to me, Lily?”

Nothing. Nothing’s going to happen to Greg. **** Greg and his ****, orange, not-orange hair. I don’t have anything against people with orange hair, but Greg is the only one I know, and he’s ****.

“You’re going to die sad and alone.”

Greg doesn’t like that answer. I don’t even know if it’s true. I can’t see that far into the future. Paschar would know. He knows things like that. Paschar knows everything. And he always comes back to me. He’s always come back before at least.

I spent all yesterday looking for him. I called for him, but he didn’t respond. I can usually hear him regardless of whether he’s in like a box or a drawer or under my Wonder Woman blankets. I hear Paschar in my head, not my ears. When I couldn’t find him, I begged my mom to let me have him back. I promised that I’d talk to her and Dad, I promised that I wouldn’t keep any secrets.

She hugged me and kissed me on the head and said, “Lilybean, listen--”

Nothing good ever comes after being told to listen. If parents have good things to say, they know you’re listening. If they got bad things to say, they want to be sure you’re listening.

“--I managed to get you scheduled for an emergency MRI at the hospital the day on Tuesday.”

“What’s an MRI? Mr. Eye?”.

“It’s a scan that lets the doctors see your insides.”

“Why?” I thought maybe my insides were turning into jelly from being exposed to the angel of death. Maybe I’m dying and I don’t know it. I wonder if jelly is just people’s insides, unless they specify grape jelly, then it’s the inside of a grape.

My mom petted me. She thinks that’s comforting, but I haven’t been comforted from head pets since second grade, and then it was only because I was pretending to be the family pet. “We just want to make sure everything’s okay.”

“But what does that have to do with Paschar?” I asked.

“If you behave, and nothing happens, we’ll see about returning Paschar after the MRI... okay?”

It was not okay. And now I’m sitting on the bus with **** Greg the Bozo clown and going to have to deal with Meredith wanting to sit near me at school without Paschar to talk to.

Sure enough, I get to school and see Meredith standing over by the swings, watching for me, so I go sit by the baseball diamond to watch Jamal play kickball. Nobody’s going to get hit in the **** today, but I hope that Meredith doesn’t spot me. Greg runs by and throws his backpack with the others. He sticks his middle finger up at me and his tongue out. He is not going to heaven.

“Where’s Paschar?”

Oh ****, it’s Meredith. Oh crud, I said the S word. No, no, it’s okay, it was in my head.

“He’s at home.” I tell her, inching over a bit on the bench as she sits down. Meredith sets things on fire, at least according to her melted Barbie angel, Nathaniel. She’s got him sticking up out of her backpack, looking at me with his... her.. its melted lump hand waving at me.

“Did you hear about what happened at the mall on Saturday?”

I sigh quietly.

Meredith continues. “I heard there was a terrorist attack. Like a bunch of people died.” she’s staring off at the kids trying to play kickball, but if she was looking at me she’d see I don’t want to talk about this.

“Hey, Meredith?”

“Yeah?”

“What are your parents like?” I already know part of that answer though. Her parents are dead. Nathaniel told me she burned them right to ashes. I’m not trying to make her angry, but I’m also not really too worried about it right now. I just miss Paschar and want to change the subject.

Meredith goes from sitting there watching the game to slouching and looking at her feet. I can tell my question upset her, and I feel bad, but I also feel like I need to know more if I’m going to be safe around her. She wants to be my friend, and that’s more than most people want. Except Jamal.

“They died in a fire.”

Nathaniel remains quiet. I hope that if I upset Meredith in the wrong way, **** warn me before she sets me on fire like her parents.

“I’m sorry,” I put a hand on her shoulder. My mom always does that when she sits by me and I’m sad. Maybe I should pet her, but then I don’t like that, and people might see us so it might be weird. “Do they know what caused the fire?”

“I-- I don’t--” Oh no, she’s crying. I’m supposed to hug her, right? Tears on the playground are a sign of weakness, we can’t let Lisa Welch’**** of **** girls see Meredith crying!

I hug Meredith. Nathaniel seems to approve. Thanks, Nathaniel.

Okay, that conversation taught me nothing. Darn it.

“I burn things with my hands.”

Scratch what I just said. “You burn things?” I repeat.

Meredith nods and wipes her eyes. The side of her face she hides under her hair is still all red and waxy looking, but she can’t help that. She’s blubbering a bit, which is like crying and not like whale **** because whale ****’s not an action word. “My hands get real hot... and whatever I touch gets burned. It never burns me... the fire I make, it doesn’t burn me. Usually I have to touch things with my hands to burn them. But-- but one time fire started and I knew it was me because I was angry and my hands got hot, but then it just happened and I wasn’t even touching nothing. And then there was the fire... the one that did this.” she pointed to her face and held up her melted Barbie, “I was asleep when it started, but it must have been me. I’m the one that causes fires. ”

“I thought you said your fires don’t burn you.”

“I don’t... I don’t know. This one did.”

“I have a gift too.” Please don’t wig out on me, I think.

Meredith looks at me. Her eye on the burned side of her face looks kind of milky. I wonder if she can see out of it? My Nana had this thing called glaucoma before she died, and it made her eyes all milky and she had trouble seeing. She used to bump into things a lot, but that wasn’t what killed her. She just got old and her insides stopped working right. I wonder if my insides are working right. I wonder if I’m going to get glaucoma.

“I can see things before they happen.” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m whispering. I guess I’m treating it like it’s a secret, but everybody on the **** playground knows this. Or at least they know I think this. I think most of them think I’m crazy.

“What kind of things?” Meredith asks.

“Everything.” I tell her, “Sometimes it’s a feeling and sometimes I see an actual vision thing and sometimes I smell things before there’s smells. I mean, there’s always smells, but like I smell popcorn before people cook popcorn. One time I really wanted popcorn because I’d been smelling it for like an hour, so I asked my parents to make popcorn, and then I had popcorn. That’s not the best example. I knew my brother Roger was going to die before he died. I even tried to save him. But he died anyway.”

Meredith looks at me and her face is like... like someone seeing a dolphin for the first time. Wonder, that’s the word. I don’t know if maybe it’s the face of her realizing I’m crazy, or she’s found someone like her with a true gift... or curse, if you want to look at it that way. Maybe she’s really wanting popcorn now. Gosh, I kind of want popcorn now.

“So you really knew that girl was going to fall on her face last week?”

I frown. “Well, no... that was-- I was making that one up. But then it did happen after all. I don’t know how to explain that. That never happened before.”

“Just like me,” Meredith nods, “I used to burn things just with my hands, and then three months ago I was at a carnival with my mom and dad and this whole stage caught fire but I wasn’t even touching it. It’s never happened before.”

She gets kind of quiet. “Some kid got killed. Kind of like your brother, I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just happened.”

“I don’t know if that’s really the same thing.”

The bell rings, so Meredith and I grab our stuff and head to get in line. I watch Jamal and **** Greg run off to head to their school. Suddenly, I feel a strong shove that almost knocks me over. I look around, but nobody is near me. Meredith is ahead in line, and I start to realize that this was not an actual happening, but a forewarning. Before I can think about it, an older kid pushes Meredith as he walks by her. 

"Out of my way, freakface." he says at her.

She stumbles the same as I did, but stiffens, and I see her clench her fists and shake for a moment, then the insides of her hands start to look glowy hot like an oven burner.

I think the bad word again.

From behind us, there’s this sound like a wave of water and everybody turns to look as one of the trees along the edge of the parking lot bursts into flame. It goes up like the flames are coming up out of the ground and then the whole thing is just covered with fire. Nothing else burns, just the tree.

“Whoa!” everybody marvels. Except one kid who yells, “Holy ****!” Yes, I wrote it down, but I didn’t say it, so it doesn’t count.

I can hear Nathaniel. Lily, hurry, come calm her down. Lily get up here, hurry.

So I shove past the kids in line who are all looking at the burning tree as adults start to panic and grab children and try to drag them inside and I put my hand on Meredith’s shoulder and I say, “Meredith, it’s okay. Meredith, I’m here.”

She unclenches her fists and I can feel her shoulders relax.

Nathaniel thanks me. Thank you, Lily.

I wish Paschar was here.

The tree keeps right on burning of course. We’re all rushed inside while everyone is shouting about what the **** just happened. I follow the line with Meredith, go to my cubby, run through the routine of putting my stuff away, but miss the step of getting Paschar and feel sad again. We can hear the fire truck arriving outside as we all sit down.

Meredith hides her face.

I lean over and whisper to her. “Also, there’s an angel in your Barbie.”

She turns and stares at me with like a half angry half baffled kind of look on her half a face. I didn’t really think that about her having half a face, but with her hair hiding the burned half I can’t really see it.

“What?” she asks.

Nathaniel sits there on her desk with his burnt hair and scorched face and lumpy hand and says nothing. I point at him. “His name is Nathaniel.”

Meredith looks at her Barbie. “That’s a boy’s name.”

“It’s your angel’s name.”

Maybe this is too much information right now. I’m hitting her with a lot of new things. I can see things before they happen and her Barbie has an angel with a boy’s name inside it. I mean, for me, I’d probably just think “of course”, but I’ve seen some things. And heard them. Meredith can’t seem to hear the angels.

“Look, I can prove it.” I turn to Nathaniel. I ask him to tell me something about her that I shouldn’t know.

Meredith watches me stare at her Barbie. “What are you doing?”

“I’m talking to Nathaniel in my head.”

“This isn’t funny, Lily.” she reaches for Nathaniel.

“You got him as a six year birthday present from your friend Jessica Pritchard.” I declare.

Meredith stops. She looks at me with her shocked face again. I’m starting to get used to her making the shocked face at me. I kind of forget what her happy, smiley face looks like.

“Lily Madwhip,” Mrs. Carter-Dogbill calls my name for attendance and I raise my hand.

“Here!”

Meredith picks up Nathaniel. “How did you know?”

“Nathaniel told me.”

“Why can you hear him but I can’t?”

I shrug, “I don’t know, I guess it’s part of what I can do. I can see things before they happen and I can hear the angels.”

Lewis Broady, the boy who sits in front of us turns around, “Oh my ****, will you two shut up? You’re both crazy!”

Meredith scowls but I nudge her shoulder and when she looks at me I quickly shake my head at her. Please don’t **** us all. We haven’t had a fire drill in months.

We wait until lunch to talk more. Meredith and I sit alone at our table because nobody wants to sit with the new girl with the burned face or Mad Lily the witch who cursed Lisa Welch and caused her to break her front teeth and ruin her perfect smile that her daddy spent so much time and money on. **** Lisa Welch. I haven’t seen her since last week and I’m glad. Her crew of **** girls are lost without her and they keep to themselves.

“I was at the mall when the people died.” I tell Meredith as I eat my crackers. They’re shaped like little fish, but they’re not the fancy brand kind because my dad never buys anything name brand. They taste like someone salted a dried onion.

Meredith looks at me but says nothing. She can’t talk because she’s got a peanut butter sandwich in her mouth and the white bread is sticking to the roof of her mouth with the peanut butter on it. It looks kind of funny to watch her try to peel it off with her tongue.

“It wasn’t terrorists, it was a lady dressed in black. There was black smoke around her feet and everything got real quiet like your head was underwater. I couldn’t hear anything... except the angel. She had an angel with her like we do... usually.” Oh, Paschar.

“Mym?” Meredith says. That means “yeah?” in peanut butter mouth.

“I didn’t see it on her, but it spoke to me. It told me just to run, and that we couldn’t be close because it was bad. And then the pet store got wiped out. Just everything died.”

I clearly have her undivided attention because she’s stopped chewing and just stares at me with bug eyes. I’m kinda glad she stopped chewing because she smacks her mouth a lot and I was ready to stick the carrot sticks my dad packed into my ears. They don’t fit though because he cuts them into triangles and I actually tried that once and the pointy edge of the carrot hurts, but that’s a long story.

That was Dumah, Nathaniel says.

“Yeah, that’s right, that was the name.” Then I realize Meredith didn’t hear what he said. “Dumah. The angel said its name was Dumah.”

Dumah is silence, Nathaniel tells me. Dumah is retribution for the wicked.

“I have no idea what that means.” I tell Nathaniel.

Meredith just sits there looking perplexed. It must be confusing not hearing half of a conversation. I feel like I should repeat what Nathaniel says but then to me it’d sound like an echo and to others it’d look like I’m talking to myself. The lunch time monitor Ms. Grayson already gave me a funny look just a moment ago.

Dumah collects the souls of bad people.

Fine, I can’t take Meredith not knowing what’s going on. Besides, she might get angry that I’m having a secret conversation with her melted Barbie and burn the whole school down. “The angel with the black fog lady is called Dumah, and he punishes bad people by killing them apparently.”

Close enough, say Nathaniel. He’s not like Paschar in so many ways. Like the fact that he’s a **** Barbie.

“But does that mean all the animals in the pet store were bad?” I ask.

Meredith shrugs and finishes chewing her sandwich. “Maybe they peed on their owners.”

“I don’t think peeing on someone when you’re a pet makes you a bad person. Maybe if you were a person, that’d be different.”

Nathaniel interrupts. When two of you come within close proximity--

“What?”

--of each other, it amplifies--

“--Stop! Jesus Christ, why does your angel have to talk like he’s a scientist in a sci-fi movie?”

Meredith pats Nathaniel. “Because he’s smarter than your angel.”

“I doubt that. Paschar knows everything. Yours doesn’t know some stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like how to use words I know what they mean. I don’t want to get into this.” I shove six carrot sticks in my mouth to end the conversation.

The bell rings for recess and we go outside. Most of the other kids run over to the black, charred tree that Meredith burned. There are a couple teachers standing guard and the whole spot is taped off. There’s water and some sort of foam, probably from a fire extinguisher all over the trees branches and trunk.

This was because you and Meredith are too close to each other, Nathaniel says.

Meredith looks at the crowd around the tree. Someone gets past the tape and calls out that it’s still hot and a teacher grabs him and drags him away. 

What do you mean? I ask Nathaniel.

Just like you say happened at the mall. Each of you has an ability. When one of you comes too close to another, each increases the ability of the other. Often uncontrollably.

“So like Meredith can burn stuff without touching it?” I say out loud, “And I don’t just see things happen, I make them happen?”

“What?” Meredith asks.

Exactly. And Dumah causes silence and death.

“Why didn’t Paschar tell me about this?”

Nathaniel says nothing.

Meredith realizes I’m talking to her Barbie without her. She hugs it and backs away. “Tell you about what?”

“We gotta be careful if we’re going to be friends,” I say, “I make you able to set fire without touching things, and you make me able to affect what happens. At least that’s what he says.” I point at her doll.

“What about the doomer death angel lady?”

Nathaniel corrects her. Dumah.

“I don’t know. She must have been at the mall looking for a bad person. I think she was confused about what was going on and saw me and saw I could see it too, but didn’t understand what was happening. Kinda like you burning things and me making Lisa break her teeth. We didn’t understand.”

This is all way too much for me to deal with in a day. I’m still upset and confused about where my parents hid Paschar and Tuesday I gotta go to the hospital and get scanned for my insides. But now that I know some of what’s going on, maybe I can figure out how to explain it to my mother.

“Let’s go play on the swings,” I suggest, “that big tree branch is going to crack and fall off and hit a couple kids in a minute anyway.”

“Oh my ****!” Meredith looks back at her burned tree. “Are they going to die?”

I start walking to the swing set. “No, but one of them’s going to go to the nurse crying.”

We sit on the swings and watch as the kids around the tree start to wander off. Some still remain, just enough that when the tree branch breaks and everybody hears it happening, not everybody can get out of the way in time. It falls on the two I saw it happen to and one of them laughs it off with his friends while the other who took the heavier end on his shoulder is helped away crying by one of the playground monitors.

“Do you think you made that happen?” Meredith asks me.

“Not this time.”

I feel a little better when I get home. Mom and Dad still won’t believe me about angels and knowing what happens before it happens, but at least I know I won’t **** them both by saying it will happen. At least not if Meredith isn’t there. Dad sits out on the front porch and waves to me as he sees me coming down the street.

“I got you something.” He hands me a harmonica.

“I don’t know how to play a harmonica,” I tell him.

He smiles. He hasn’t smiled really like this since Roger died. “I’ll teach you.”

“I kind of want to learn to play the drums like Roger did.”

He looks away and I can see him get misty, not like fog but like he’s crying but trying to hide it. I give him a hug and he hugs me back.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“I know, sweety.”

It’s a nice harmonica. It’s all shiny and silver and says BLUESBAND on it. It makes a different sound whether you exhale into it or inhale. I think my dad had this one in his work room. I wonder if I get to keep this.

“Also, a tree caught fire at school today. That wasn’t me either.”

“Oh? Okay. So no call from the principal this time.”

“Not today.”

[Maybe my dad isn’t really the devil](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ant2hs/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_theres_nothing_wrong/).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I found webcam footage of my home online, but something was really wrong with it
 
 Assistant: I first heard about these webcam streams a few years ago while watching one of those “creepy things on the internet” videos on YouTube. The first one I heard of is probably one of the most popular ones; Chip-Chan. Of course, having knowledge of this only sparked my curiosity, so I ended up doing a bit of googling until I managed to stumble upon a few webcam live streams.

&#x200B;

I just want to say, that for the record, I’m not like obsessed with these or anything. To be honest, I find them more creepy than I do interesting, and I never watch more than a few seconds. It’s just one of those things that draw your attention to it, you know?

&#x200B;

I quickly found out that there were basically two different types of webcam footage; one where the owners were aware that they were being watched, and one where they didn’t. I stuck to watching ones where the person or people involved were aware of an audience, and it started off with me watching a couple of minutes of weird footage a day, or just whenever I got bored or needed a break. I watched the webcam for the Northern Lights a few times and jumped from a few less interesting ones.

&#x200B;

This morning, I was working on a final paper for one of my online classes, when I decided that I needed a break. There’s only so much you can write about World Literature before you inevitably need to distract yourself for a bit. Since the paper isn’t due until tomorrow night, I figured I at least had a few hours to ****.

&#x200B;

First, I started by browsing YouTube, but I found nothing that sparked my interest. So, I decided to hit the webcams next. I browsed through a few sites, clicking on a few, and the exiting the feed in a matter of seconds. Like most things, I was starting to get tired of this. I needed a new pastime.

&#x200B;

I decided to skim through a couple more feeds until something further down the page caught my eye. This feed was titled 318S-OBLIVION, and the reason why it caught my eye was because of a painting that was visible off to the side of the screen.

&#x200B;

It was *my* painting. It was one of my own pieces, which was currently hanging in my bedroom. In fact, when I clicked on the feed, I realized that it was, in fact, my bedroom. I wasn’t in it, of course. Currently, I was sitting in my kitchen. I was a little bit confused at first because the only webcam that was in my home was the one on my laptop, which I had with me.

&#x200B;

I stared at the feed on my screen, trying to figure out where the camera was located in my bedroom. It seemed to be off to the left side of my bed, where the window was. As I was about to get up to go investigate, the footage cut to black, before settling back in on a different picture. Now, my living room was on the screen.

&#x200B;

I glanced around the frame, confirming that it was my living room. This time, it seemed like the camera was placed higher up, like in the corner of the ceiling. Again, after a bit the screen glitched before settling on the next room; the kitchen. This view wasn’t coming from my laptop either, in fact, it was coming from somewhere off to the right side of the room.

&#x200B;

I slowly glanced in that direction, but there was only a wall there.

&#x200B;

I looked back at the feed and that’s when I noticed something strange.

&#x200B;

I was in this room (obviously) but, the 'me' on the screen wasn’t doing the same thing that I was doing.

&#x200B;

In the footage, I was standing in front of the stove, stirring a **** of something. I studied the screen and noticed that I was even wearing different clothes.

&#x200B;

I kept glancing from my laptop to my kitchen. What was going on here? Was this some kind of prank?

&#x200B;

I scrolled down a bit to see the timestamp.

&#x200B;

Tues. 05/07/2019 1:23:45 pm.

&#x200B;

The screen changed room again, but I was too distracted. How was it possible that I was watching a webcam feed from the future? I refreshed the page a few times, but the time remained the same. Tomorrow at 1:23 pm.

&#x200B;

The last time I refreshed it, I saw the screen change to footage of the back door. I watched as three people dressed in black with ski masks over their faces opened the door and went into the house, each one of them waving to the camera as they broke into the house.

&#x200B;

The footage switched once again to me in the kitchen. I watched as the people came from behind me. One of them hit me in the head with something, while another moved the pan from the stove, and together, they shoved my face into the burner.

&#x200B;

I watched myself struggle as they appeared to laugh. Then, they pulled my face back. Due to the angle of the footage, I wasn’t able to see the result of the burning; which I was glad for.

&#x200B;

I kept watching though, as they proceeded to take turns stabbing me on the screen. After a while, I fell limp, and they let me collapse on the floor. I watched as one of them started to grab me by my arms, and the second one grabbed my legs, while the third one walked right up to the camera.

&#x200B;

I watched as he reached for something out of frame. He appeared to pull something out of his pocket. A notebook. He flipped through the pages, showing me the writing on each one. This was when I finally noticed that the feed had no volume.

&#x200B;

**WE KNOW YOU WATCH**

&#x200B;

**THERES NO WAY TO STOP**

&#x200B;

**WE ARE COMING**

&#x200B;

**TIME TO DIE :)**

&#x200B;

After the last one, the camera feed turned off.

&#x200B;

I grabbed some stuff to take with me, including some clothing, cash, and some snacks. I called an uber and I’m currently on my way to a motel. I’m going to leave my phone in this Uber, in case I’m being tracked or something.

&#x200B;

I’ll try to buy another cheap phone for updates, but there’s no guarantee on that. I don’t want to spend all my money so fast. I’m not sure if running away will work, but I have to try. I don’t want to die.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**UPDATE (6 pm):** I'm going to try to be as vague as possible; I've gone somewhere where I think it would be very difficult to find me and have taken some of your advice. Don't really want to reveal more about how I got where I am or how I'm posting this update for that matter. For a while I thought I was being followed but I think I might have lost them. Will update later if possible.

&#x200B;

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

**UPDATE (TUES. 10:51):** Have been moving a lot- found a place to stay but left soon after. If those of you saying is this my destiny are right, then I have less than 3 hours left. Gonna keep moving.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My wife received an invitation to a store opening. I don't think I'll ever see her again.
 
 Assistant: “Darren, did you know they opened a Target in Owingsville?” my wife Deborah asked me excitedly. “Grab the car keys and let's go check it out!”

I rolled my eyes. It was almost six in the evening and I had a long day at work. The prospect of an hour's drive there, two hours of shopping, and an hour's drive home wasn’t appealing.

“They didn’t open a **** Target in Owingsville,” I replied curtly. “Only about two thousand people live there. Why in the **** would a multibillion-dollar corporation open a store in the middle of the sticks in a town that isn’t big enough to support a McDonald’s?”

Squealing wood on tile penetrated my ears as she pushed the barstool away from the kitchen counter. Her footfalls approaching my chair were heavy like a pouting child’s. I should have known better than to start an argument with her about Target.

She dropped something from above me. A glossy red mailer advertisement sailed through the air over the top of my head. I looked down at my lap to see the familiar red and white logo. The cluster of red vested employees smiled up at me from the shiny cardstock.

*Target would like to welcome you to our newest location in Owingsville, KY. Bring this ad to the registered for an additional 10% off of your first purchase!*

She worshiped the **** place. We lived in Lexington, Kentucky and she made the rounds between all three. *The Clearance Queen*, she called herself. Deb would buy clearance items by the carload from any Target within a reasonable drive and resell them on Amazon.

Retail arbitrage, I think she called it.

Don’t get me wrong. She made some decent money with it. We were middle-aged and empty nesters when she started. Her entire life had been devoted to raising the kids. When Dustin and Jessica left for college she struggled a bit. Stirred around the house like a caged animal.

I pushed her to find a hobby. It was a few years until I would retire. Most of her friends worked.

That’s when the Target clearance sprees started.

“Owingsville is almost an hour away and there are three **** Targets here in town,” I said, irritation building. “Why do we need to drive out to the middle of nowhere to get what we could find in town?”

My wife went back to the kitchen and started washing the dishes. Every movement she made was exaggerated to show her displeasure. Cabinets closed so hard they were just shy of a slam. Glasses hammered on the counter so hard I expected to hear them shatter. She signed at least three times a minute.

I wish I hadn’t given in. If I would have just stood my ground, maybe everything would have been alright. Our family would still be whole. Police detectives wouldn’t stop by the house every week “just for a chat.”

But I did give in.

I agreed to go.

“Grab your purse and put on your shoes,” I huffed, pushing myself out of the recliner. “We can go, but no more than an hour of shopping. I’ve got to work in the morning so we can’t fool around all night.”

She squealed with excitement and ran off to the bedroom.

Why the **** did I agree to go?

\*\*\*\*\*

The drive to Owingsville was uneventful. NPR news stories played on the radio as my wife fidgeted with her cell phone. While I had been mildly irritated before we left the house, I was almost to a raging boil by the time we got to Owingsville.

An hour's drive to the middle of the country and my wife looked at Amazon listings the entire drive.

We had already reached the center of Owingsville and the GPS said there were still two and a half miles to go. From the overhead view on the map, the address was a good distance outside of town headed toward Morehead. The location of the store was making less sense at the moment.

“Are you sure you put the right address in the GPS?” I asked Deborah.

She didn’t answer, still scrolling through her phone.

“Deborah,” I said a bit louder. She looked up at me and smiled. The sweetness of it cooled my anger down to a dull simmer. I even felt bad for being angry. Her life had changed so much in the last year and this was something she did to pass some lonely times. “Sweety, are you sure you put in the right address? I really don’t think this can be right.”

Deb leaned over and pulled out the cardstock advertisement from her purse and looked at the address. Reaching over, she pulled the GPS from the dashboard and punched a few buttons. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a confused expression consume her face.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s the right address. The weird thing is the GPS just corrected itself. It was down to two miles and jumped back up to two and a half miles. Still says it’s straight ahead on the right though.”

I wasn’t concerned yet, but I was confused. The GPS clearly said two and a half miles when we pulled out of Owingsville onto the dark country lane. We had been on the road for nearly a minute. It could have been a glitch in the software, but it still left me with an uneasy feeling.

My eyes darted back and forth from the GPS screen and the darting yellow lines in the center of the road. The mileage was decreasing as it should have and I felt relieved. Only a mile ahead, we would be there soon. I looked back at the road and looked for parking lot lights in the distance.

“*You missed your destination. Please make a u-turn when able and head back two and a half miles. Your destination will be on the right side of the road.”*

“What the ****?” I said in a panic. The GPS had just said one mile only moments before. There was no way I had driven a mile and a half past a huge department store on the side of a dark country highway and missed it. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

I pulled the car onto the shoulder and made a U-turn. As we drove back in the direction that we came, my fluttered with nervous energy. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Was I zoning out while we drove?

Was the GPS malfunctioning?

Did the **** store even exist?

Just a moment before I was going to tell my wife we were heading home, I could see an unnaturally bright light ahead in the woodline. The tops of parking lot lights peaked over the top of the forest. I turned to Deborah to voice my concern, but her face was painted with a satisfied grin.

“I told you we’d find it,” she exclaimed with excitement. We pulled around the treeline to see an immense parking lot in front of the brightly lit store. There were maybe three cars parked at the far side of the lot. The car returns were empty. It looked like no one had been there other than a few employees. “You were all worked up over nothing.”

I pulled the car into a parking space closest to the door. We got out and started walking toward the entrance. There was emotionless elevator music playing in the parking lot. I looked up toward the tops of the light poles but didn’t see any speakers. None of the Targets in Lexington played the canned music, and it filled me with a strange sense of dread. It was as though it came from nowhere.

Even the entrance to the building was strange. While most stores have an entrance directly in the center of the building or two mirrored entrances on each end of the building, there was only one here. It was almost directly at the far right corner of the building.

I looked to my left and saw the three other cars in the lot were parked all the way to the right. Maybe there was an employee door on the side of the building, but I couldn’t see a walkway. There were four or five feet of grass between the parking lot and the edge of the building.

Something about the exterior was offputting as well.

Every other store I had seen was a cream or beige color with a few red awnings and a red Target logo next to the store name. Not this one. The entire building was fire engine red. It reminded me of the unrealistically bright blood from the old eighties slasher films.

Where there would usually be only one Target logo, the building was covered in them. Hundreds maybe. All different sizes. Some of the larger logos had smaller ones between the red and white circles. A few overlapped.

Strangest of all, there was no sign that just said *Target*.

“Deb, something about this is weirding me out,” I said hesitantly. “Let’s come back tomorrow during the day. Looks like they could be closed anyhow. Not many cars in the lot.”

She stopped and turned toward me. The exuberant grin had vanished from her face and was replaced by a set of furrowed brows. Her body was slightly rigid and her head turned slowly from side to side.

“We drove an hour to get her and you nearly got us lost twice,” she said angrily. “Don’t you think for a second we’re going home. If you’re going to act like an **** the whole time, go wait in the car.”

I was a bit dumbstruck. Deb was usually soft-spoken and sweet. Only a hand full of times had I ever heard her curse. Never at me.

She turned and went through the sliding doors at the front of the store.

Hurt and angry, I went back to the car.

\*\*\*\*\*

For the first thirty minutes Deb was inside, I scanned the parking lot like a prey animal searching for a hunter. No cars passed on the main road and no one pulled into the parking lot. There was no motion that I could detect through the glass doors into the building. Occasionally a light would flicker in the parking lot. Otherwise, things seemed relatively normal.

I tried to call Deborah once or twice but didn’t get an answer. Halfway through a lengthy, apologetic text message, I decided to leave her alone. She probably needed time to cool off and Target bargain shopping was probably the best medicine for that.

At some point, I fell asleep. It wasn’t intentional, but there is only so much aimless scrolling on a smartphone I can do before I start to nod in and out. Once I start to drift, an involuntary nap is always in my future.

I had been asleep for around forty-five minutes when my cell phone began to buzz in my hand. Startled by the sudden motion, I looked down at my phone. There was a text message from Deb. I thought it was just Deb telling me she was running behind but checking out.

***Help me.***

The messaging was confusing. Did she want help carrying something to the car? Was there something she wanted my opinion on? I sent a reply.

***What do you need help with, sweety?***

No response. Three minutes passed. I tried again.

***You okay?***

Another few minutes and still no reply.

***I’m getting worried. Do I need to come in?***

I waited for another minute but she never texted me back. Unsnapping my seatbelt, I pushed the door of the car open and felt resistance and a loud *smack*. Looking to my left, there was a yellow car next to me. It hadn’t been there when I went to sleep and I had just slammed my door into the side of it.

There was just enough room for me to slide out, so I wedged myself sideways and closed my door. Bending over, I looked at the side of the yellow car where my door had made contact. There was no dent or mark. With relief, I stood and turned to head toward the door.

I was started by an ocean of yellow cars. There were dozens of makes and models, but each vehicle in the lot was yellow. Almost every single parking space was filled.

But there was no one in the parking lot.

When I turned to head toward the door, there was no one moving around inside that I could see from there.

My stomach dropped.

Something was wrong.

\*\*\*\*\*

When I passed through the entryway doors, the store looked like it should with a few exceptions. All of the registers were self-checkout with no place for an attendant. Where you would expect to find a customer service department, there was an empty red wall. There was a cart corral but it stood empty. All of the products I could see on the shelf had no writing. Just the Target logo and a picture of what was inside.

Strangest of all was the lack of people.

The only noise in the building was a keyboard version of *The Girl from Ipanema*. It had a tinny quality to it, as though it were playing from a World War 2 era radio. Crackles of static pierced through occasionally causing me to wince.

“Hello?” I said loudly. It wasn’t quite a shout, but there was more volume to it than my normal speaking voice. It took most of my willpower not to scream at the top of my lungs, but I didn’t want to make myself seem unstable if it turned out there were other people in the store.

*There has to be someone else here,* I thought to myself. *Why the **** would the parking lot be full if no one was inside?*

No one answered my call.

“Excuse me!” I said a bit louder. My footfalls almost seemed to echo as I walked into the store. “Deborah? Can you hear me?”

Silence.

“Is anyone in this **** building?” I screamed. My temples were throbbing and it felt like the canned music pouring from the speakers grew louder to drown out my calls. I was running down the aisles, looking side to side frantically. Passing row after row of generic shelves filled with red packaging, I screamed my wife’s name over and over.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. Another text from Deborah.

***Please get me out of here.***

A chill ran up my spine.

***Can you hear me screaming for you?***

The ellipsis bubble popped up showing she was typing a response.

***No. I can only hear the red men. I’m hiding from them in the bathroom. Please come help me.***

I didn’t have time to register what she meant by “the red men”. Breaking into a run, I headed toward the back of the store. As I passed by the clothing section I panicked and jumped back, slamming into a rack filled with clothing.

A red faceless man was standing on a platform behind the rows of clothing.

Terrified, I pushed myself backward and hid behind a shelf. There was no sound of movement. Only the tinny music playing from overhead. I couldn’t decide if the red man hadn’t seen me. After a few moments, I slowly peeked my head around the shelf toward the clothing section.

The man stood stoically behind the rows of clothing. Bright lines of light reflected off of his smooth body. He didn’t move at all.

*It’s a mannequin*, I thought. *Move your **** and find Deborah.*

I stood and walked back around the shelf. Without the lens of fear, I could see that the shiny red man was only a mannequin. There were no clothes on it yet. Maybe the store opened before they were able to finish setting up the store.

As I walked past it, my pulse slowed. I could see the bathroom sign hanging from the ceiling overhead and moved in that direction. As soon as I got Deborah out of the bathroom, we were going to get out of there and blow every stop light between Owingsville and Lexington.

Then I heard footsteps.

When I turned to face the clothing section, I could see the bright red mannequin was off of the pedestal. It stood on the bright white tiles of the walkway. In only a moment, the thing had moved at least fifteen feet in my direction.

There was no one around.

“What the ****?” I said aloud.

Slowly, I began to walk backward toward the bathroom, keeping my eyes locked on the mannequin. It didn’t move, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that it was watching me with its featureless face. Sweat began to pour from my forehead.

Suddenly there were steps behind me.

I spun around to see another red mannequin standing about one hundred feet on the other side of me. As I looked in its direction, I could hear more footsteps behind my back. When I turned, the mannequin from the clothing department was a few feet closer to me.

Before I could collect my thoughts, both of the shining red mannequins burst into a spring toward me. I panicked and ran into the aisle behind me. Their hard feet clacked on the floor, easily making gains on me. Twenty years past my prime, I wasn’t used to much physical exertion anymore. I hadn’t run more than two aisles and I had already lost my breath.

Entering a box of shelves, I turned to face the oncoming red mannequins. Desperate, I searched the shelves near me for a weapon. It was a home goods section and I began to scan the shelves. At the end of the shelf to my right was a cheap-looking red-handled chef’s knife. I lunged for it just in time.

As I pulled off the plastic cover, the two red men came around the corner.

I extend the knife toward both of them and they stopped. Both of them tilted their head side to side like confused dogs. They turned toward each other as one of them began tapping a hard finger against their palm. It sounded like morse code. The other began making the same clicking noise.

They simultaneously turned and walked toward a red support pillar a few feet behind them. I watched cautiously, scanning the area behind me occasionally. Their sudden disengagement made me as nervous as the pursuit itself.

When they reached the red pillar, they both turned and placed their back against it. Stretching their arms straight over their bodies, they tilted their heads back. The overhead speakers began to increase in volume rapidly.

I watched as the two red men fell backward and vanished into the pillar.

My mind struggled to comprehend what I had just seen. The store was quiet again. I could feel the throbbing of my temples intensify.

Once I snapped myself out of the momentary daze, I began moving cautiously toward the bathrooms again. I moved slowly, checking each aisle before I passed to the next one. Always looking for the red men. Always listening for the slightest sign of another person.

It felt like an eternity but finally, I made it to the bathroom hallway. The lights there flickered wildly and the music dissipated. On the left was the men’s restroom and on the right was the women’s. I ran quickly toward the door, gripped the handle, and pulled it open.

Behind the door was a red brick wall.

I slammed my fist against it in frustration.

“Darren?” I heard a muffled voice say from behind the brick wall. “Darren… is that you?”

“Deborah?” I shouted. “Are you okay? I’m right outside! Is there a way to get out?”

“No,” she whimpered. “But I think I hear…”

Her sentence was cut short by a blood-curdling scream. I could hear thrashing and dull thuds through the red bricks. I screamed her name over and over but she never replied.

The room behind the brick wall fell silent.

Then the clicking of footsteps began to sound at the end of the hallway.

I turned my head to see dozens of shiny red men blocking the hall. Their heads all tilted at different angles. Some had lengths of pipe in their smooth grips while others held assorted kitchen knives.  A chain was swinging lazily from the hands of the red man in front of the horde.

My eyes darted back and forth between the crowd the brick wall blocking me from my wife and the group of demonic red mannequins. I began to cry loudly, accepting that I couldn’t save Deborah. ****, I couldn’t even save myself.

In resignation, I fell backward. As my back met what I thought was the dead end of the hallway, I was surprised to feel the push bar of a door that wasn’t there moments before hit the small of my back. The door gave way and I tumbled backward, slamming hard against the ground.

My vision was swimming as I watched the door marked **EMERGENCY EXIT** slam closed.

I blacked out.

\*\*\*\*\*

When I came to I was in a field. The tall grass was brushing against my face and the rustling sounds of nocturnal animals filled the night air. My head was throbbing and for a moment I couldn’t recall why I was on the ground.

I pushed myself up from the ground and reached forward to grab the door handle but found nothing.

There was only an empty field in front of me.

Moonlight reflected from my car windshield in the distance. The building was gone. The hundreds of yellow cars had disappeared. Grass and weeds replaced the parking lot.

That was seven months ago.

I called the Owinsgville Police Department who came to the scene to investigate. They took my statement and looked at me in bewilderment as the story of the now absent Target store became odder with each passing sentence.

“There’s never been a Target in Owingsville,” said one of the officers. “Not the kind of place that sets up shop around here.”

Deborah never returned. She’s been listed as a missing person the entire time. Detectives from Owinsgville and Lexington have interviewed me more times than I can count. They’ve served me search warrants for the house and both of our cars.

Interviewed every **** person both of us knew.

No one talks to me anymore. Our friends won’t answer my calls. My family won’t talk to me. Her family hired a private investigator. I see the greasy **** following me sometimes.

****, I even quit my job. They couldn’t fire me, but they made sure I knew I wasn’t wanted there anymore.

I miss my wife, but everyone thinks I killed her.

My life is falling apart.

But maybe it will change.

I’ve got to call the detectives soon. When I checked the mail today, there was something strange in there. Something that gives me a little hope.

It was a Target mailer. The same one Deborah showed me all those months ago, just advertising a different location.

*Target would like to welcome you to our newest location in Paris, KY. Bring this ad to the registered for an additional 10% off of your first purchase!*

There was the same group of red vested employees smiling at the camera. Cheesy grins and everything.

Right in the middle was a face I knew so well. She was smiling that same smile I’d seen a thousand times.

Deborah.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Man Up
 
 Assistant: When the bookstore at the mall put up its help wanted posters, I jumped at the chance to put in my application. Between being an avid reader who had practically lived amongst the store’s shelves in high school and a broke community college student taking a semester off to save money, it seemed still customer service.



I got used to people coming in and asking for “That popular book, the one made into a movie” and the edgy teens who moved the Bible from the religion section to fiction. Finding half eaten pastries from our cafe hidden in all sorts of creative places that weren't the conveniently placed garbage cans was an everyday activity and gently reminding parents that we weren't babysitters was a frequent thing. 



It was far from all bad, though.



A lot of our customers were quiet and pleasant, it was clean (for the most part), management was nice, my co-workers friendly, and I got a tidy little discount on my own purchases. After a few months of employment, I even had some regulars that I was on a first name basis with.



One of them was Eddie.



He was a polite kid, a few years younger than me, maybe sixteen, and he loved fantasy. It wasn't unusual to go down to that section and find a tall, lanky guy all in black kneeling in the middle of the aisle with a book opened in front of him. The first few times I came across him, he'd look up with this guilty expression, like I'd found him doing something wrong, and quickly put the book he'd been reading away and get up to leave.



He was always alone and often had headphones on; I imagined they were blaring one of the bands whose t-shirts he frequently wore, Iron Maiden or Metallica or something hard and heavy like that. At first, he struck me as the intentional outsider type, rebelling against The Man, an embittered youth who thought of himself as a lone wolf who didn't need anyone else.



When I finally spoke to him, though, I found that I'd been very wrong.



I found him in his usual spot one afternoon and, as usual, he started to pack up the minute I came around the corner. Instead of just letting him go, I decided to try reaching out with a smile and pointed to the book he was putting back.



“R.A. Salvatore’s a good author, huh?” I asked while I reorganized the shelf next to him.



He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and answered with a tight lipped nod.



“I was a big fan of Drizzt when I was in high school,” I said. 



“Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “I like Wulfgar.”



“He's pretty cool, too.”



We chatted for a bit longer about the series and I was surprised by how he lit up; he had such enthusiasm for the books that it almost made me want to go out and re-read them. We traded names before Eddie had to go and I went back to work, amused at how wrong I'd been about him. Instead of being the angry, closed off guy I'd expected, he was a huge, but shy, geek.



Whenever I saw Eddie after that first conversation, we'd exchange pleasantries and talk about the new releases that had just come in. I wasn't the fantasy buff that I'd once been so sometimes it could be hard to keep up, but Eddie just seemed to like having someone to talk to and he kept me company while I stocked and straightened shelves.



I didn't comment on the fact that he was in almost every afternoon and often stayed until it was just about closing time. I figured he wasn't causing trouble so it wasn't my business. 



One afternoon, after I'd just finished helping a nice older lady find her way to the recently popular 50 Shades, my co-worker, Janelle, came up to me.



“Hey, Danielle, you know that kid who follows you around? The goth one?” She asked, like I had more than one.



“Eddie.”



“I guess. He's, like...over in the back corner crying. It's weirding people out. Could you talk to him and get him to leave?”



I told her I'd check on him and hurried to find Eddie, who was sitting against the wall in the farthest corner of the store between the cooking and self-help aisles. When he saw me, he quickly wiped his eyes and sat up a bit.



“Hey,” I said softly. “You ok?”



He shrugged and clenched his jaw to keep any more tears from escaping. I noticed that his hair and clothes looked damp.



“What happened?”



“Just dickheads,” he mumbled. 



“Where? Here?” 



“School.”



I frowned and crouched down. “Are people bullying you, Eddie?”



He let out a short laugh, sad and cynical. “It's nothing. They were just having fun, right? It was just water balloons.”



“Do you want me to call someone? Your parents or-”



“No,” he said quickly, getting to his feet. “I'm leaving.”



“Wait, if you need to talk-”



“I just need to man up, right? Bye, Danielle.”



He walked away with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched and my heart broke a little for him. I shouldn't have been surprised he was bullied, but I'd gotten **** to him that his dark appearance didn't even phase me anymore. I doubted the other high schoolers were quite so blind to it.



Eddie stayed on my mind well after I'd finished working. From the defeat in his voice and the way he'd dismissed my concern, I knew this was far from the first brush he'd had with these bullies and that nothing had been done about them. I didn't know if he'd tried to tell anyone and I doubted such a sweet kid would fight back, but I hoped he'd find a way to make them leave him alone. He deserved better.



My dreams that night were filled with screaming. With gunfire. With an image of Eddie in his black clothes, blood upon his hands.



I woke with a start. Sweat trickled down my forehead in chilly little beads and uneasiness slithered in my stomach and it took me a few long moments to tell myself it had just been a dream. A very vivid dream that had left the smell of iron in my nose. I shook it away and flopped over, determined to forget it and get back to sleep.



The water balloon incident seemed to be a turning point for Eddie, and not a good one. He'd started avoiding me, but I still saw him around the store, reading and minding his business as he always had, except now I couldn't help but notice that he sometimes had tears in his clothes or that his belongings looked wet and abused. He trudged about like someone carrying a too-heavy load.



And every night, the same dream. Gunfire in the distance, somewhere in the mall. Screaming. Panicked footsteps stampeding towards exits. Eddie in the entrance to the bookstore with red hands and splatter across his face.



It was hard to tell myself that something I saw so clearly wasn't real and it was even harder not to watch Eddie with a new, heightened sense of caution. Whenever I caught sight of him, I'd find myself unconsciously searching him for the blood that marked him in my dreams.



The only blood I saw was his own, when he came in at his usual time one afternoon with a black eye and one of his nostrils coated in crusty, dried red. He disappeared into the bathroom to clean up, I assumed, and, when he came out, I was waiting.



“Who did that?” I asked sternly and he looked surprised to see me.



“Nobody,” he grumbled, turning away.



“Eddie, if someone is hurting you, you should tell someone.”



“Why? I know what I need to do.”



“What?”



“Man up,” he snorted to try and hide that his voice had cracked just slightly.



He'd said that once before, I remembered. “You need to get help, talk to someone.”



“Only **** tattle.”



It was obvious he was repeating someone and I felt such a rush of anger towards them for putting that bull in his head. I followed him down the aisles to the fantasy section, where he pointedly tried to ignore me, but I was persistent.



“Eddie, come on. You can talk to me!”



After minutes of not responding, he finally sighed and looked at me. There was anger in his face, sharp and deep, but it was clouded heavily by the sadness I saw there, too.



“It doesn't matter. I just have to get through two more years and then I'm out.”



“But you shouldn't have to put up with this!”



Tears had welled in his eyes and he shrugged. “Nobody cares.”



“I'm sure that's not true; I do. We're friends.”



The phone in his pocket went off loudly and he scrambled to grab it. Before he'd had a chance to get it out, the call dropped and a man I'd not seen before came around the end of the aisle with a scowl.



“I should have known you'd be here looking at this ****. I've been waiting in the car,” he said.



“Excuse me?” I started to say at the same time Eddie said, ‘Sorry, Dad.”



Eddie’s dad took a step towards us without so much as a glance towards me. “Are you crying, Edward?”



“No!” Eddie said.



“****, when are you going to man the ****, huh? No wonder you get your **** kicked,” he shook his head in obvious disgust. “Get moving, Mom’s got dinner waiting.” 



I was in too much shock to say anything as Eddie, head hung low, followed his father out of the store. I wished immediately that I'd said or done something, that I'd stuck up for poor Eddie, but I'd just stood there, gaping like an idiot, and then they were gone.



That night, I had the same dream again. Gunfire, screaming, running, panic, and Eddie. Bloody hands, blood splattered face, coming towards the store. All I could do was watch him get closer, until he was reaching for the handle so that he could pull it open and come inside. His dad’s rough voice, so withering and filled with contempt, rose around us.



“Man the ****!”



I shot upright in bed, grasping at my pounding chest and trying to calm my breathing. 



“Eddie wouldn't hurt anyone,” I whispered, “he's a good kid.”



I wondered how many people thought the same thing about others right before they lashed out.



Usually by morning I'd managed to shake off most of the unpleasantness of the dream, but that day, it stayed with me, following me like some kind of terrible spectre. I'd never been one to put much stock into dreams, but I'd also never had one that had been so real or that recurred every night. 



I went into work for my evening shift feeling shaky, but silly. I just had to get through six hours and then I'd realize how dumb I was being. 



It was six o’clock, three hours into my shift when I heard the first loud pop from off in the distance. The screams that followed were exactly the same as they'd been in my dream. The store had gone very still all of the sudden, and all eyes had turned towards the glass front doors that led into the mall.



“Was that a-” someone started to ask, but another series of shots rang out. It was all the answer they needed.



Chaos erupted. People were diving between book shelves, overturning chairs to duck behind, a few even clamored behind the counter with me and a couple coworkers. There was screaming and crying, the occasional plea for others to be quiet, but nothing seemed so loud as the gunshots echoing throughout.



It was all too familiar.



Automatically, without thinking, I turned towards the doors. 



There he was, dressed all in black, coming towards us, reaching for the handles with his red hand. There were drops of blood splashed across his face and one trickled down his cheek like a dark tear.



He stood in the doorway for a moment and our eyes met.



“Help me,” Eddie said.



I blinked stupidly.



“Danielle! Please!” He turned and waved a hand behind him, “This way, come on, we'll hide in here! Hurry!”



A man half-carrying a woman came into view behind Eddie. Eddie held the door open with his foot and slipped one of the his arms around the woman's waist. He pressed his other hand, already wet and red, over a bloody wound in her stomach. Together, he and the man dragged the woman into the store. 



“There's another out there. I saw him,” Eddie said as he passed the desk. “Can you hold the door, Danielle? I'm going to get him.”



I stammered at him, too terrified to form words.



“When you see me coming back, get the door. Please.”



I saw the same fear in him that I was feeling as he ran back out of the store and into the mall, where the gunfire continued.



I crouched behind the counter, barely able to breathe, shaking, half afraid that I wouldn't be able to move when he came back, if he came back, but I stared at those doors and I waited like a rabbit waits for the wolf to pass. So still, but every inch of me burning with a tense electricity that screamed, “Run!”



Amidst the rush of people desperately trying to escape, a tall, lanky boy dressed all in black dragged a wounded elderly man away from the madness back into the book store.



I made sure I was there to open the door for them.



He would go out twice more when he saw others staggering towards us, in dire need of assistance.



When it sounded like the shooter was getting closer, we huddled together in the fantasy section with a few others and we listened to the rapid *POP POP POP* coming from just outside our doors.



We got lucky, though. The gunman never made it into the bookstore. With police starting to pour in, he turned his pistol on himself and put a bullet into his brain.



The all clear was given moments later.



I had to help Eddie to his feet; he was trembling and sobbing and staring down at his blood stained hands. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the reality of what we'd been through, what he'd risked, were sinking in.



“I'm sorry,” he kept saying, trying unsuccessfully to stem his tears in shame. “I need to man up. I'm sorry.”



I wanted to tell him that that was ****. That crying and being afraid didn't make him less of a man. That “manning up” was a ****, **** concept and his dad and his bullies were ****, **** people for making him feel bad for being different, for feeling. I wanted to tell him that he was a hero.



And I would, eventually, but in that moment, all I could do was hug him.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Hidden Playground
 
 Assistant: My son Eli found it one day while walking a trail in-between two schools. 

It was a small patch of green surrounded by tall pines and myrtles all around. I didn't remember seeing it anytime previously during our walks, but the place looked rather old. 

There wasn't much to it, just some swings, a jungle gym and a single slide. But Eli wanted to go and play immediately. 

Something about the place felt immediately wrong to me. It was too quiet. Too still. There was a slow fog drifting along the grass. 

"Eli! Be careful!" I called out. 

Of course being only three and a half he didn't listen. So I sat on the bench nearby and watched him play. I took out my phone to check Facebook and Twitter, telling him we could stay for maybe fifteen minutes at the most. I needed to shoot a few messages to my mechanic and insurance company, so admittedly I was absorbed in business. 

As my eyes occasionally glanced up to make sure he wasn't getting hurt, I saw someone else standing there just on the outskirts of the playground. 

He was a tall man wearing a perfectly ironed white shirt and pressed dark pants. He was just standing there, staring. Watching us. 

"Eli, we need to get home!" I called out. The man was making me uncomfortable. My son whined but listened to me as we continued down the trail. The man didn't stop watching us until we were out of sight. 

"Mom I didn't want to go!" Eli said as we made it back to the SUV. He climbed in through my side to the get the back seat. 

"We can come back another day, buddy," I told him. 

Truth be told, I didn't want to go back to that playground at all. Everything about it was giving me a very bad vibe.

But... I don't like lying to Eli and I figured that as long as the weird guy wasn't there it would be harmless. So the next weekend I walked him back there and let him enjoy it. He was smiling from ear to ear. I noticed also there were other children running about so that put me at ease. 

But then as I watched I also noticed that none of their parents were there. These are five year olds or younger, how could any parent worth a grain of salt just let them wander out here? This trail isn't exactly well known. In fact before we found the playground I would say I almost never saw anyone. So where were these kids coming from? Their laughter was more intoxicating than the fog. 

I tried to approach one of the children, to ask them their name but they were too shy. In fact they all seemed adverse to even talking to me altogether. 

I got that uneasy feeling in my gut again, and called Eli to leave. This time he was even more upset. "I don't want to leave!" I hadn't seen him this mad since he was sick and I had promised to let him play outside. Probably the last time I had failed to keep my word. 

"Buddy, we can't stay here forever. Come on!" I insisted. But Eli wouldn't listen, he ran to the top of the slide and sat down defiantly. 

I hated to be mean, but I didn't want this habit to continue so I snatched him down and scolded him. "Don't run away from me like that!" I told him. Eli looked confused, I knew he still didn't understand why he had to always listen to me. 

It broke his heart when we left. The other kids just stopped and stared as we walked away. Like they were sad to seen him go too. 

Another day, Eli told me that he missed his friends. "Which ones sweetie?" I asked. 

"At the Hidden Playground," he said. The name he gave it was disconcerting but fitting given the fact that it did seem hard to find. In fact, when Eli wasn't with me I couldn't find it at all even when I tried. 

"I don't think we should go back there again, bud. It doesn't seem safe, that equipment is rather old," I told him. 

I tried to reach a compromise and tell him I could take him to one of the other parks around town, but Eli wouldn't listen. "It's special!" he whined. 

He was getting to be temperamental and as much as I wanted to make him happy, my instincts told me to put my foot down. 

"I just want you to be safe," I told him as he cried in my arms. 

Eli didn't talk to me for a few days, I guess he figured the silent treatment would change my mind. But I kept firm and didn't even go toward that trail again. 

Eli got sadder and sadder, refusing to even eat or sleep. All he seemed to care about was going back to that place. It made me worried. Was there something wrong with him? He was always in his room and rarely came out. 

Finally; I gave in and told him we could go back one last time. You should have seen his face light up. Like a kid at Christmas. 

He was so happy as we made it toward the creepy swings. But my defenses immediately returned with I saw the tall stranger nearby. Why was he always here, watching these children play? 

"Eli... stay close where I can see you," I told my son. 

The man was approaching and offered to push him on the swing. 

"Don't touch my boy," I warned the stranger. 

"Mom!! I'm gonna be okay!" Eli said in frustration. For three years old he always acted like he was thirty. 

"*He is safe with me,*” the stranger agreed. 

"I'll call the cops," I said angrily. But the man paid me no mind. He helped my son into the swing and began to push. The smile on Eli's face was so big, I was a mix of emotions trying to decide how best to handle the situation. 

"*Look how happy he is here,*” the stranger said as he stepped away from Eli and then gestured to the other children nearby. They hadn't been there a moment before. 

"*They all are,*” he added. 

The way he said it made a chill run up and down my spine. Their laughter kept echoing in the still air. 

"What... is this place?" I asked. 

"*I keep them safe. Until they are ready to move on,*” stranger explained softly. He was looking at Eli and seeing him laugh. It sounded so perfect. 

"Move on?" I repeated. His words made sense, but they sounded hollow and distant. 

"*When they are ready, they stay here,*” he added. 

I felt my mouth go dry. My son got off the swing and chased after some of the other kids. 

"Stay? He can't stay," I said desperately. My hands were shaky. I felt paralyzed. 

I called to Eli to leave, but he wouldn't listen. 


"*It's okay to let go,*” the man insisted. He touched my hand and smiled. 

Eli ran up next to me and tugged at my pants. "Mommy mommy, there's a tree house and a merry go round! Can I go mommy! Can I?" 

I don't think I can remember a time he was happier. 

I got down on my knees and ruffled his hair. Under the hairline I saw the scar that ran across his head from where the car had struck him. The truth hit me like a ton of bricks and tears welled up in my eyes. 


It was time to let go. 

"Sure bud. Go have fun." He hugged me as tight as he could and then ran toward the tree line. The man followed behind and then nodded toward me in thanks. A moment later they were gone. 

I stood there a moment longer, transfixed by the sights I had just seen. Watching as the swings and the slides faded away. Until nothing was left besides the green grass. 

I go by there from time to time now, to lay flowers down. Sometimes I see another parent doing the same, and we share a bond of silence over our loss. 

And sometimes I hear the children laughing and I know they are where they are meant to be.

[330](https://www.reddit.com/r/KyleHarrisonwrites/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)


 Human: write a story with the theme title: We're having a weight loss contest at the office. Peggy's been cheating...
 
 Assistant:   

So, with the holidays coming up, everyone is thinking about how **** and miserable they’ll feel by the New Year. You know how it goes. It starts innocently with a fun size Snickers bar, or two…or five while loading up the treat bucket. Then the kids go trick-or-treating and you suddenly have a boatload of delicious, potentially razor-blade stuffed goodies that MUST be inspected for safety. “Oh look…Skittles. I’m gonna taste the rainbow...”

Then comes pre-Thanksgiving. That’s right, I said “pre.” This is the time when everyone is shaking the rust off their mediocre baking skills and suddenly the office is inundated with peanut butter fudge, **** balls, and peanut brittle. **** I love peanut brittle. 

“Just one more piece. Just break off a small one. Oops. Didn’t break off, and now I’ve touched the entire chunk. I have to eat it. Frank’s grandmother baked all of this and she’s really old. It could be her last holiday season ya know. This brittle can’t go to waste!”

Then, Thanksgiving at the office. Catered, and loaded with all the goodies. 

“Oh no. We’ve accidentally ordered 72 extra pies. We’ll just leave them in the break room and they’ll get eaten.” And you know they will…

Then it’s the real Thanksgiving, and suddenly it’s ancient Rome again, with the whole family participating in a nonstop binge and purge cycle, or just taking a dump and coming back to the table to reload. 

Pre-Christmas, Christmas, New Year’s parties, Football games. The list goes on. 

And then comes self-loathing. The misery, the belly shaking in the mirror and firm resolve to get your **** on a diet…Monday. Just cheat through the weekend and start fresh. I mean…it’s only Wednesday now, but who can start a diet on Wednesday? No one, that’s who.

So there we were…already up to September and approaching the holiday glut at breakneck speed. After much discussion amongst my peers we decided to get a head start on the holidays and drop some weight BEFORE the madness begins. Then if we gain it all back, we end up ok for the year. No more guilt, shame, and negative self-talk. It all evened out.

So we went for it. It was time to do this. A WEIGHT LOSS CONTEST.

And here we are, a few weeks into this thing. It’s me (Andrea), Morgan from the Collections Department, Kim from Shipping and Receiving, my I.T. Department cubicle neighbors Jim and Tanner, and Peggy from…I don’t know where. I’m not sure what Peggy’s actual job is, but she sits close enough to me that I can hear pretty much everything she does. And you know what Peggy does seemingly endlessly?

Eat.

That girl is ALWAYS shoving something down her gullet. I can’t even tell you how many times I hear a chip bag opening or cellophane crinkling as she opens snack cakes and **** knows what else. She’s a big girl, and one of those giggly types, laughing at her own comments. She reminds me of a younger version of the school secretary in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Her day is seemingly spent taking personal phone calls and giving attitude to anyone who approaches her with something work related. I swear, it’s like her only reason to be here is to eat and scroll through her facebook feed. She’s just plain annoying, and I’m looking forward to taking her $50.00.

That’s the game. 50 bucks each, into a pool with the winner taking all. We do pounds lost, calculated as a percentage of bodyweight lost. Here are the starting numbers.

Me – 167lbs

Morgan – 186lbs

Kim – 152lbs

Jim – 244lbs

Tanner – 192lbs

Peggy – 376lbs…and counting. I bet her scale moves up nonstop, kinda like the power meter outside my house.

**So, I’ve been chronicling this whole adventure and something is up. Everyone was moving along, but Peggy was CRUSHING it. We were totally getting our **** handed to us…but now, something has changed.** ***Something has gone wrong*****. I kept a log for a few weeks, so let me share some of the highlights with you then we’ll pick back up with the current situation.**

&#x200B;

***Diet contest log – Week 1, 9/16/19 to 9/20/19***

&#x200B;

***-Monday –*** 

*We did our initial weigh-in today. Peggy came in at 376 pounds. I knew there was no way she would stand a chance with her eating habits. No stinking way. Then at the end of the day I heard her telling someone on the phone that she had already lost 3lbs? ****? I heard cellophane crinkling all day and watched her grating half a pound of cheese over a plate of home fries from the greasy burger place down the street. There’s only one explanation for this…she must have taken a humongous dump sometime before getting back on that scale.* 

***-Tuesday –*** 

*I’m hungry. Morgan’s hungry. Everyone is hungry. I hear the munching sounds of kale salads, raw broccoli and carrots, and the tops popping off of low sodium soup cans. The microwave is alive with Healthy Choice frozen meals, and the soda machine gently weeps.* 

*Peggy’s cubicle got TWO deliveries via GrubHub. The first was Chinese, and a couple hours later some cupcakes—half a dozen, to be exact-- from a gourmet place across town. Then another hour later, I heard her tear open a sleeve of Ritz crackers. How did I know they were Ritz? How do you know the sound of your own children’s voices? Exactly.*

***-Wednesday-***

*I hit the scale this morning. I’m down 2.2lbs. I know it’s just water weight at this point, but it’s encouraging. The way Peggy’s eating, she’s ****. Morgan is down 2 also, Kim is down 1, Tanner has dropped 3lbs, and Jim is UP 2lbs. Poor Jim…he loves beer.* 

*Holy ****. Peggy and Kim just came back from the scales. Peggy has dropped another 6lbs! What the ****!!?? How is this even happening? Maybe she has a tape worm. Where does one get a tapeworm anyway? Asking for a friend…*

***-Thursday-***

*Peggy is killing me. This behavior will have to catch up to her soon. Just wrapped up a large meat lover’s pizza all by herself, a couple hours after a Grubhub delivery of a full pancake and sausage breakfast with biscuits and gravy on the side. I don’t even know where the **** she’s putting all this food!* 

*Wow. Just wow. I literally right this moment am listening to her peel back the cover on a full size bag of double stuffed Oreos. I know that creepy sound anywhere…because I love Oreos more than life.*

***-Friday-***

*This is insanity. Peggy and her witness just came back from the scale. Down another 6lbs. That’s FIFTEEN pounds lost this week, in 4.5 days. It’s no lie. I literally can see her clothes loosening up. She’s shrinking.* 

*On a related note, she’s been burning incense in her cubicle. I really don’t mind the smell, as it reminds me of this hippie guy I dated in college and he was always a sweetheart…although his bathing habits needed work. Anyway…she’s burning the incense and I could SWEAR I’m hearing her whisper-praying, or chanting or something. Maybe I’m losing my mind. Who knows?*

&#x200B;

***Diet contest log – Week 2,***  ***9/23/19 to 9/27/19***

&#x200B;

***-Monday-***

*We’re at the second week. Here is where everyone stands coming off of the weekend.*

*Me* *-4lbs*

*Morgan* *-3lbs*

*Kim* *-2lbs*

*Tanner* *-3lbs, so no change from Friday. I think he had a family get-together on Saturday and cheated a bit.*

*Jim* *+1lbs…which means he lost a pound over the weekend, but it was one of the pounds he gained AFTER the contest started. Still, progress is progress, right?*

*Peggy* *-21lbs*

*Yeah. TWENTY-ONE POUNDS. That’s not a typo. She lost an additional 6 over the weekend!* 

*I don’t even know what to say here. I’m just at a loss for words. We’ve been quietly whispering about it amongst ourselves. When Peggy went to the bathroom, Morgan searched her cubicle and purse for diet pills. Nothing. The only thing out of the ordinary is that incense burner and some kind of little rag doll thing that bears a creepy resemblance to Peggy. It’s a chubby little thing just like its owner, but Peggy’s got rubber bands around it, squeezing it into a smaller size. **** 

***Tuesday***

*-Peggy’s dietary onslaught continues. She pounded a burger from a place downtown that is so big you get a t-shirt just for finishing it. I’m sure there’s no shirt available that will fit her. She even ate the fries and drank a milkshake. I’m just waiting for her to throw up right there in her cubicle.* 

*-Ok it’s 20 minutes later now and she’s got the Oreo’s out again! WHERE IS ALL THIS FOOD GOING?*

*- It’s 2:00pm and Kim and I just got back from our daily walk to burn off some calories. I’m sure I was totally overloaded with energy to burn after a lunch of two and a half celery sticks and a tablespoon of peanut butter.* 

*Anyway…we walked behind the building, and halfway down the alley was Peggy, bent over with her suspiciously shrinking **** in the air and her head in the passenger side window of a ratty looking black station wagon. We hopped back quickly and cautiously peeked around the corner of the building to see what she was up to. We figured it was just GrubHub, but no…she pulled some cash from her pocket, reached into the car, and when her hand came back out it had a brown paper lunch bag with some kind of writing on it in a language I didn’t recognize.* 

*She went back into the building as the shady station wagon slowly creeped down the alley, and we quickly finished our lap to get back to the office. Kim snuck around behind Peggy and snapped some pictures of what she was taking out of the bag. I kid you not, it was one of those little things you put in a bowl of water and it grows huge. I used to have a few, like a little alligator the size of a Hot Wheels car that grew about six inches long after being submerged. They were pretty fun, but this was no alligator…it was Peggy. A VERY tiny Peggy.*

*We walked by her cubicle after she went home for the day and there it was, sitting in a bowl of water and already swelling up. This is really getting **** 

***Wednesday***

*Ok, so around 10:00am Peggy went out to the front door of the office to meet the GrubHub guy bringing her brunch, so we took a look at the little Peggy in the bowl. It had grown tremendously. This was a full size glass mixing bowl and that thing had swollen so much that the arms and legs were hanging over the sides, slowly dripping the slimy water onto the desk. As a comparison, I would say it’s about the size of a catcher’s mitt. I saw Peggy a short while later in the bathroom and she was dumping the bowl of water into the sink. She looked at me and immediately lowered her eyes and hurried back out into the hallway. She’s definitely up to something…*

*Peggy also hit the scale this afternoon and was down another 10 POUNDS. TEN pounds since Monday morning??? So now she’s at 31lbs lost in about ten days. Wow.* 

&#x200B;

***\*\*I was on vacation time Thursday and Friday, so this log begins week three of the weight loss contest.\*\****

&#x200B;

***Diet contest log – Week 3,*** ***9/30/19 to 10/4/19***

&#x200B;

***Monday***

*-I came in early today to do some snooping. The Peggy rag doll was still on the desk, and it was wrapped so tightly in rubber bands that it could get no smaller. Now it was just laying off to the side, looking discarded. The real attraction was still the little Peggy water swelling thing. It had been lying on the desk since Wednesday, so over the course of almost five days it had shrunk by about 15%. I don’t recall my toys lasting that long in the shrinking process, but it’s 25 years later now so I’m sure shrinking alligator technology has improved a bit.* 

*-At 9:13am, someone walked by me and went to Peggy’s cubicle and started rustling around. It’s not normal to see strangers around here, so I stood up slightly to get a look. Holy crapola, it was Peggy! Had she not been laying out an army of snacks on her desk, I wouldn’t have even recognized her. She had lost even more weight, and to such a degree that she looked like a different person.* 

*She looked up and saw me, and to distract her from realizing I had been spying, I asked how much weight she was down. She made a little grin, then skipped over and grabbed Kim to go be her witness at the scale.*

*I **** you not, she came back with the number. 51.8lbs. She had lost 51.8lbs since Wednesday. Let that sink in. She was already down 31lbs, so that put her weight at 345lbs as of Wednesday. So now, she’s down another 51.8. That puts her at 293.2.*

*Ok, my 5th grade brain just sent me a Bat Signal, suggesting I do some math on this thing. Peggy was at 345 on Wednesday, and we already established that today she’s down another 51.8. You know what 51.8 is? It’s 15% of 345. Please don’t check the math. I’m really **** at math.* 

*That little gelatinous thing on her desk is 15% smaller since Wednesday.* 

*And the REAL Peggy is 15% smaller since Wednesday. Uhhh…*

*So, obviously this has become a race for second place, but regardless, here are the end-of-Monday weigh-in results as we start week three.*

*Me* *-6lbs* 

*Morgan* *-7lbs*

*Kim* *-3lbs*

*Jim* *-4lbs* 

*Tanner* *-5lbs*

*Peggy* *- 82.8lbs*

***Tuesday***

*-It’s about 1:00pm and Peggy just let out an overly dramatic scream. We all ran over to see what was wrong, and she looked fine. But, she was RED faced like I’ve never seen. I mean very, very angry and almost looked a little scared. She barely calmed down enough to tell us what was going on. Apparently the custodian had thrown away Little Peggy the shrinky thing. She ran out to the dumpster but trash collection had already been and gone. The shrinky thing is gone for good.* 

*Peggy ran off in a flurry. Kim followed at a distance and came back to report Peggy was out in the alley on a phone call, and frantic. It was a one sided listen, obviously, but Kim apparently heard her say “I need something else, right now!” and “I don’t care what it costs!”* 

*Now, at the rate she’s been going this easily could have been a chat with her favorite GrubHub driver, but I believe something a bit more interesting was at play. In the past couple hours since the incident and her subsequent phone call, I haven’t heard Peggy eating. No crinkling wrappers, no Chinese deliveries…nada. What I HAVE heard though, is a LOT of soft chanting and burning some new flavor of incense. Maybe she’s doing some sort of Tony Robbins mantra type ****, building her will to succeed.* 

*\*\*SIDE NOTE\*\**

*-Jim has been spending an awful lot of time at Peggy’s desk the past few days. I guess with her dropping all that weight (and no loose skin. ****?) he’s got the hots for her. I’m guessing he wants to jump in there now and hook her in before her self-esteem really ramps up and she starts looking for someone better. Haha. Good plan, Jim.*

***Wednesday***

*Really, things were relatively quiet on the home front today. Jim is still at Peggy’s desk constantly, spittin’ game as best he can. She seems receptive to the attention. Still no eating sounds coming from her desk.* 

***Thursday***

*We did a mid-morning weigh-in today. Kim is down another pound. I’m down one more, and Tanner has gained a pound. Morgan and Jim both have dropped three more. Peggy passed on the opportunity. Hmmmm…*

*Around 1:00 I watched Peggy meet that same creepy car again in the alley. She took a big **** of cash out of her purse and again received a mysterious paper bag. I followed her as she returned to her desk, and out came one of those little hula girl bobbles that you put on your car dashboard, but this one had a little solar cell in it so it would hula dance with the power of light. She set it carefully on the desk, whipped up a little incense, did some more chanting, and flicked on the light under her shelf to get the hula girl swaying.* 

***Friday***

*-Ok. I’m **** about how this contest is going. I’ve been working my **** off doing cardio and dieting like a mad woman, and I should be damned proud to be down 7 pounds in three weeks, no? But three other people are kicking the **** out of me and I know for a fact they aren’t working as hard.* 

*So, I’ve been doing some real snooping and eavesdropping today. I literally have done none of the work I’m getting paid for. Today was full-on reconnaissance and I’ve followed Peggy every time she gets out of her seat. I’ve been rolling my chair as close as I could to anyone who stops by her desk, and I’ve cupped my hand to my ear constantly in a relentless effort to gather any kind of info I could about what the **** is going on. Well, a whole lot more is going on around here than a silly weight loss contest. Here’s what I’ve found out…*

*Apparently Jim went to Peggy for advice on how to lose more weight. At first she wouldn’t tell him, but her deep desire to have real attention from a man drove her to offer him a deal instead…she tells him how to lose the weight, and in return he becomes her boyfriend. It’s that simple. Jim gets to lose weight as long as he’s satisfying Peggy’s desires for friendship, companionship, romantic gestures, and things I probably don’t want to think about. HOWEVER…Jim’****, Sharon, works on the other side of the big room we’re in. And Sharon is a jealous ****, to put it mildly. At some point she’d taken notice of Jim’s regular visits to see Peggy, so she’s been watching Peggy’s cubicle like a hawk. She’s even gone over there a few times to shoot the breeze, asking Peggy about her diet success, her love life, and how she also has one of those little hula girls on the dashboard of her car.* 

*OK…so I spent the afternoon watching Peggy, and what I’m about to tell you now is 100% true. She had been back with the hula girl for a bit, and after a couple hours I looked over and sweat was pouring off her like she was in the middle of a serious workout. Holy ****. If it wasn’t a completely looney thing to say, I would tell you that little hula girl’s swaying was acting as a workout for Peggy’s body. I had to know if this was real or if I was going insane. So, I tried something…*

*When Peggy got up to go dry off a bit, I snuck over to her cubicle and slightly unscrewed the light bulb, making it go dark. When she returned I could hear her cursing under her breath as she flipped the on/off switch back and forth, then the grunts and oofs as she crawled under the desk to check the power cable. She sighed heavily and sat back down. I peeked over at her several times over the course of the next hour and she was dry as a bone. She also looked ****.*

*When Peggy went to the bathroom again, I snuck back over and tightened the bulb, restoring the light. The hula girl went back at it, and when Peggy arrived back at her desk she let out a squeal of delight. A few minutes later, the sweat was pouring off her again and the sounds of a snack cake wrapper crinkling filled the air.* 

*This is nuts. I mean, literally, this is some Voodoo or Santeria kind of ****. I’m pretty unsettled by it, but at least now I know how she’s crushing us so badly in the contest. NOW I know what to do. It may be too late for a full comeback to win the contest for pounds lost, but if the key players were unable to continue for some reason, I still had a chance. Peggy and her cheating **** can shove it where the sun don’t shine.* 

*It’s time for a little sabotage.* 

**\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\***

&#x200B;

**Ok, so we’re back to the present**. I stopped logging the events of the contest after I discovered the witchcraft Peggy was using to crush us all so badly. 

&#x200B;

Now I’ll tell the rest of the story.

&#x200B;

After figuring out how Peggy was cheating, I sat and dreamed up ways to use it against her. If I destroyed the hula girl bobble, Peggy would just go get something else from whatever mystic was selling her these items. I couldn’t think of any way to reverse what it was doing either. I tried heading off all Peggy’s Grubhub orders for a few days so she would get frustrated and shut off the hula girl to curb her intense hunger, but those little games weren’t gonna do the job for real. I wanted to put some real weight back on that woman and curb all her bragging and gloating.

While I continued to ponder my options, a heated discussion developed between Jim and his ex, Sharon on the other side of the room. I couldn’t make out all the details, but it was clear Sharon was upset about Jim’s budding relationship with Peggy. However, he was holding fast and basically told Sharon to shut her mouth and mind her own business. Sharon stormed out of the room and Jim wandered back over to Peggy’s cubicle to give her the recap of the argument. It was all in hushed tones, but every so often Peggy would giggle or softly clap her hands while laughing, no doubt relishing her victory in the battle for Jim’s affection. 

The two lovebirds took off outside for a walk. Several minutes later, I caught sight of Sharon headed to our side of the room. I sat low in my chair to keep out of her field of vision, and watched with keen interest as she made her way to Peggy’s cubicle. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but figured Sharon was likely writing Peggy a nasty letter that included things like…

“****, he’s mine.”

“****, he still loves me.”

“****, you’re **** and **** and no one will ever love you.”

You get the idea…

So after Sharon left, I cruised on over and took a peek. Nothing was trashed or even disturbed. Peggy’s work papers were stacked neatly, her chips and cookies were half opened just like she left them, and so on and so forth. But much to my extreme level of excitement there was, in-fact, a letter. This is what it said…

*“Listen ****. U may as well go ahead an kick Jim to the curb because he don’t love U. He’s just in it for the weight loss. And by the way, thanks for makin’ my man hotter than he already wuz. He told me he’s just gonna work U until he loses all the weight he needs. I don’t kno what U R up to with all that magic ****, but U just keep on givin’ my man the nicknaks or whatever it is U R gettin’ from that black car. Then I’ll come take him from U when I’m good an ready.”*

As you can see, Sharon’s grammar could use some work, but this diet contest was really heating up! I shared the juicy gossip with Kim, Morgan and Tanner, and suddenly there was a renewed sense of excitement in the air. There’s nothing better than a love triangle in the office, right? Of course not. 

So about a week went by without much of anything going on. I kept up with the kale and carrots, Kim and Morgan were taking extra walks, Tanner had all but quit his diet, and Jim was steadily dropping a few pounds a day with the help of a little plug-in voodoo volcano on his desk that just hisses out steam all day. He and Peggy were also getting pretty serious with their PDA and it looked to me like he liked her more than the extent that their agreement stipulated. Sharon was still watching Peggy’s cubicle closely, but she didn’t have the scowls and dirty looks she’d had the previous week. 

Peggy was losing weight…quickly. 

She didn’t even bother telling us what was on the scale, but it was clear that her loss had accelerated to a ridiculous level, and after a few days she wasn’t smiling when she came back from weighing-in. She clearly had had enough of the magic, and a few minutes later I heard her flip the light switch that was feeding the hula girl bobble, followed by a sigh of relief. The sweating didn’t stop though. She was still covered in perspiration, which I presumed would mean she was still burning **** rapidly. 

A day later, she and Jim were quietly discussing the situation and I heard her say she was scared and had decided to trash the hula girl. Apparently the rule was supposed to be as long as the hula had light to shake to and Peggy was within 100 yards of it the magic would do its thing, but trashing it hadn’t helped either. She fished it out of the can and on the way home from work, tossed it off a bridge 20 miles from home. But there she was the next morning…still sweating…still shrinking. She called the mystic who had put the spell on the hula bobble and he told her there was no way it was still working. She should be free of the magic and able to go back to her normal life. 

But still, she shrunk. Still, she looked worse and worse. Sickly pale, with gaunt cheeks and bony shoulders. Her clothing hung loosely from her body, looking like someone threw a sheet over the back of a chair. And all the eating…all the crunching, chewing, drinking, and face stuffing in the world wasn’t changing anything. As of a week ago she looked to be under 100lbs.

That was the last time I saw Peggy.

Jim took her to the emergency room a few nights ago, where in utter desperation they told the story of the mystic, the doll, the shrinky thing, and the hula girl bobble. Of course the hospital and police considered it lies told to cover up some horrible truth. Drugs, disease, poisoning, or maybe side effects from too many essential oils. Who knew?

As of today she’s in an intensive care unit, clinging to life. The feeding tubes, as you should expect at this point, are doing no good. Her sweating continues, her weight plummets, and she is literally disappearing from this earth.

Jim set up a Gofundme page to help with the medical costs. We’ve all chipped in what we can and are sharing it across all social media platforms. Sharon has even jumped in to help. I guess her love for Jim is strong enough to put his needs first, and his need right now is to take care of Peggy.

I guess this is how our diet contest ends. Peggy, the winner by a landslide. 

The cash prize has already been sent straight to the fundraiser page. The money she won by losing the weight is going back to help save her from the effects of losing that weight. What a horrific irony.

As I’m finishing writing this little chronicle, I have the Gofundme page up on my other monitor. It has an old picture of Peggy in that classic pose from all the Slim Fast commercials, holding a tiny plate mostly concealed under a big, **** piece of cake. Her mouth in an awkward wide open smile as she’s interrupted by the camera while preparing her face to receive the fork loaded with sugary goodness. 

Just below that picture there’s a smaller one of Jim and Sharon, the strong, dedicated organizers of this charity who are no doubt radiating positivity and hope in Peggy’s presence. Despite this, their faces show that awkward sympathy smile, where the mouth is working hard to distract the viewer from the sadness behind the eyes. 

The two of them are standing in front of the hospital with their backs to Peggy’s room. I can tell this because the window has “Get well Peggy!” and “Peggy strong!” posters plastered all over it. As I’m typing this, I can see there’s something else in the window…it’s the reflection of Sharon’s car. And still something else…something smaller. What IS that?? I’m using all the capabilities of my phone’s zoom now, but I see it. 

A hula girl bobble. 

I think I mentioned Sharon saying a few weeks back that she had one just like Peggy’s. Holy ****...did she switch it out? That would explain everything. She parks close to the building at work, well within the 100 yard range of Peggy’s hula girl’s magic. Plus, she’s been parking outside Peggy’s room at the hospital. 

For ****’s sake, Sharon lives in the same apartment complex as Peggy! If that’s Peggy’s hula girl then it’s been working on her 24 hours a day! Could Sharon really do something like this? I think I have to tell someone…but who? Who would believe this craziness? Maybe I can go get the hula from Sharon’s car. If it’s locked, I’ll smash the glass. I don’t care. I have to go try!

*Oh my god*. I just got a text from Kim. It’s too late. Peggy passed away 15 minutes ago. 

I don’t know what else to say here. If you pray, please send one up for her wispy thin soul. And if you’d like to donate to help with her funeral expenses, just search for her on Gofundme. And please, please don’t go visit a mystic when you need help with something like this. Do it the old fashioned way.

Celery and peanut butter.

[Revenge Sequel](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/kdvl5o/we_had_another_weight_loss_contest_at_the_office/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Do not go outside. Ignore all cries for help, no matter how human they sound
 
 Assistant:  “Do not go outside. Ignore all cries for help, no matter how human they sound” shouted Alex’s Dad. He pulled the cellar door over and paused to look back.

“And lock this door behind me”. 

The door slammed shut. Alex locked it, walked down the stairs and stood alone in the darkness, moonlight shining through a crack under the door. The basement was freezing cold. She looked around the room - nothing but junk. Toys from her childhood, broken furniture her Dad had refused to throw away, stacks of books and newspapers, and her Grandparents old possessions. 

She rummaged around and found her Grandfathers recliner chair. ‘Well - somewhere to sit at least’ she thought. Alex dragged an old bike out of the way and pushed the chair toward the middle of the floor. She searched through a chest of her Grandmothers belongings. Inside were a collection of porcelain figurines, some knitting needles and a hand mirror. Alex picked it up, wiped some dirt away and looked at her reflection. Over her right shoulder she saw a blanket and some cushions stashed underneath an old photo album. They stank and were covered in dust – everything was – but it was better than sitting there freezing. She reclined back on the chair, wrapped the blanket around her and tried to sleep.

Alex was startled awake by something banging against the door. She pulled the blanket up towards her head and sat motionless. The banging stopped. As she was beginning to calm down there was a gentle knock. ‘Maybe it’s just the wind?’ she told herself. Another knock, much louder than the first. There was a knot in the pit of her stomach. She tried to stay calm and told herself over and over it was the wind but was so unnerved she retreated toward the corner of the basement and climbed behind a glass cabinet.

“Hello?” cried a voice.

Alex’s eyes widened, she crouched even further behind the cabinet.

“Hello? Is…is there anybody there? Please – I…I really need somewhere to hide.”

The voice was faint – Alex could barely make it out. The knocking became a loud banging.

“Please, if anybody’s down there, I need help.”

Alex’s mind was racing. ‘Who is this person? Why do they need help? Should I let them in?’ she thought. Her Fathers warning echoed in her mind – ‘no matter how human they sound’. What did he mean by that? Alex noticed the moonlight shining through along the bottom of the door. ‘Maybe if I get close enough I can see who it is’ she thought.

She walked slowly to the middle of the room– past the chair and toward the stairs. Alex was so fixated on the door she tripped on a pile of books and crashed to the ground, knocking over the bike and a stack of newspapers.

The banging stopped. “He-hello? Is someone there? I can hear someone moving down there. Please, you have to let me in.”

The voice was much clearer now, but there was something peculiar about it. It sounded cold and emotionless. Neither male or female, nor young or old.

Alex moved to the bottom of the stairs, and eventually summoned the courage to speak.

“H-Hello?”

“Please, yes, hello, you have to help me. Can you let me in?”

Alex didn’t know what to do. The voice sounded desperate, but her Dads warning was clear in her mind. She was too nervous to get any closer.

“Y-Yes. I’m here. But I’m not going to open the door for you.”

“What? Why? There’s something horrible running around out here. And if you don’t let me in it’ll get me. I’m in great danger. Please – open the door. Quickly!” cried the voice.

Alex felt a sense of dread overcome her. “What do you mean something horrible is out there? Who are you?”

“Look, there’s no time for that now – I’m in danger NOW. Why won’t you let me in? Won’t you help me?”

The voice was getting angry.

“I – I won’t.”

“What? Why?”

“Because before my Dad warned me not to open the door to anyone.”

“That doesn’t make any sense – please just let me in.”

The banging against the door started again.

“What’s out there? Why are you in danger?”

“OPEN THIS **** DOOR – NOW” the voice growled.

The banging stopped, and the gentle knocking started again. Alex was so scared she couldn’t speak – and she didn’t know what she would have said if she could. She didn’t want to antagonise whoever it was outside any further – it sounded like they were furious. She looked at the crack beneath the door and had an idea – ‘if I climb the stairs and crouch down I’ll be able to look underneath. She’d maybe be able to see the person outside and what they looked like.

She climbed the stairs quietly and crouched down along the door when the knocking stopped. She froze for a moment in uncertainty, before laying down and peering out. There was nothing, all she could see was the back garden. She let out a sigh of relief – maybe they were gone? She turned to walk down the stairs when there was another loud bang against the door. Alex jumped in fright and had to grab the railing to keep herself from falling.

“Please, I’m begging you – let me in!”

The banging continued. Catching her breathe Alex crouched down to look outside again. She still couldn’t see anything. No feet, no legs, no… anything. She saw nobody under the door, yet someone was furiously banging against it and begging her to let them in. Alex fought the urge to cry.

“Please, I know you’re there -  I’m in terrible danger, how can you just sit there and not let me in?”

Alex faced the door and tried to regain her composure. She had an idea – as the voice continued to plea for help she crept down the stairs and opened her Grandmothers old chest. She grabbed the hand mirror and returned to the door.

“Please, please, please!” the voice begged, as the banging continued.

Alex lay flat on her stomach and nervously pushed the mirror toward the door. She tilted and slid it around trying to see as much as possible. No matter how she tried it Alex couldn’t see anyone. The pace of her breathe quickened and she began to feel a tightness in her chest.

“I am NOT opening this door. Before he left my Dad warned me not to open it for anyone. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you’re here. You shout about needing help and being in danger, but you won’t explain why-” 

“But I told you – there’s n-“

“AND BESIDES – I can’t see you underneath the **** door. You’re hiding somewhere. I can see the back garden through that slit under the door with my mirror, but I can’t see you. If you just want help – then why are you hiding?”

She pulled the mirror back and stood up. The voice began to laugh. 

“You’re smart to keep the door shut. Your Dad was right to warn you.” The voice sounded calmer this time, it was almost whispering.

“What do you mean? Who are you?”

“I wasn’t lying before – there is something horrible out here.”

“You’re just some maniac trying to scare me.” Alex turned to walk back down the stairs.

“Oh really? Put your mirror back down and have another look.”

Reluctantly - with a hand on the rail Alex crouched down and peered through the crack again. Nothing. Her hand was trembling.

“You’re still hiding. Why d-“

“Closer” the voice said, softly.

Alex got down on her front and slid toward the door, straining to see as much as she could in the mirror. She could barely keep her grip.

“Almost there”

Pausing for a moment Alex took a deep breath and pressed her head as close to the door as she could. Then, sounding as though it were mere inches in front of her the voice whispered “Hello”. Alex screamed in fright as the mirror was ripped from her hands and pulled away from her. 

She screamed again, and the voice started laughing. There was more banging, faster and with more force than ever. Alex raced back down the stairs. She crouched down behind the chair, stared at the door and burst into tears. The banging kept getting louder, the cellar door sounded as though it was breaking apart.

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU IN. GO AWAY, GO AWAY”

Alex collapsed behind the chair, she was at the point of hysteria. She stood over the chair and took a deep breath.

“Wh-what are you?”

The banging stopped.

“What difference does that make? You know I’m out here and you won’t let me in.”

The voice sounded amused.

“Tell me what you are!”

“It would be much easier to show you, why not open the door and I ca-”

“NO” she screamed “Tell me what you are, tell me why I can’t see you.”

The voice laughed and started banging on the door again. Alex climbed behind the cabinet, pulled the blanket over her head and covered her ears with her hands. She rocked back and forth until she was calm enough to lie down. The banging turned into knocking, then got fainter and fainter, then stopped completely. She tried to calm herself down and return her breathing to normal.  She lay still for what felt like minutes – or maybe it was hours - in silence not quite sure whether she was awake or asleep. There was another knock at the door, less violent than before.

“Alex, Alex are you there?”

It was her Fathers voice. She crept out from behind the cabinet, looked at the door and saw sunlight shining through.

“Alex, it’s Dad. Alex are you there? Please, please tell me you’re alright.”

She leapt out from behind the furniture and looked at the stairs. Under the door she could see the shadow of her Dad standing outside. Alex let out a sigh of relief and raced up the stairs.

“Dad! Where were you? There was a something outside and it was trying to get me to open the door.”

“Alex honey, thank **** you’re safe. Come open the door, we have to get out of here now”

She undid the lock and burst through the door, ready to hug her Dad, she let out a cry of relief.

“DAD I-”

Alex looked around in confusion – she couldn’t see her Dad anywhere. The garden was empty.

“Dad? DAD?”

She was overcome with terror - Alex ran back into the basement, slammed the door shut and bolted the lock. She shot back down the stairs and stood quivering in the middle of the room. She frantically looked around making sure she was alone. Some books collapsed from the pile in front of her and she screamed. ‘Just some books’ she thought, she tried to catch her breath. Feeling a sense of unease Alex climbed back beneath the cabinet and pulled the blanket over her head.

There was a gleeful whisper “So nice of you to let me in.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a sailor in the navy. On my last deployment, we uncovered the origin of human existence. Now I wish I could forget it.
 
 Assistant: The sail was classified as top secret.

Whatever we were doing out there, they didn’t want anybody to know– not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the public and certainly not the crew. We’d been kept in the dark. Fed the lie that we were heading out on a routine patrol.

Up and down the coast, they said. Back in no time.

That was before the storm. Before the sea turned into a maelstrom and the night swallowed the sun. It was before the captain slit his throat and before the crew tossed themselves overboard, desperate to escape the nightmare we’d fished out of the sea.

My name is Walter Mills. I suppose I should probably use an alias, something to prevent the people above from finding me, but the truth is I don’t care. I’ve spent my entire life caring. My entire life running from the shadows that sit above our government, from the puppet masters that pull the strings of the world.

But I’m out of time, and I mean that literally. I’ve got one foot in the grave. Doc says it’s terminal. That means I don’t have to worry about the wrong people finding me or the consequences of what I’m about to say. I can let you know. And then I can go.

The sail began like any other. Our warship was tied up alongside, the crew formed up in lines running from the jetty to the lower decks, storing it full of food and supplies. It began uniform. Ordinary. Then they arrived.

The Secret Ones.

Nobody seemed to know who they were, but when they came they wore masks of crimson. Like balaclavas without holes for the eyes or mouth. They shoved past our line on the brow and told the quartermaster they needed to speak with the captain. And speak they did.

I watched them from the edge of my vision, all six of them surrounding the captain, mumbling in words too quiet to properly make out. The conversation lasted twenty minutes, and by the end the captain was frowning. He made a call ashore, presumably to the commodore. He seemed nervous.

Afraid.

When the call finished, he said something dismissively to the Secret Ones and vanished below decks. We all wondered what was going on. For those of you that have served, you know that there’s two things that keep a crew entertained: pirated movies and rumors. And after that exchange, the rumors flew.

Some said the Secret Ones were special forces, so clandestine that nobody was permitted to see their faces. Others said they were intelligence operators. People with access to such sensitive intel that knowing their faces could prove a national security risk. Briggs, a stoker in the engine room, joked that they were Illuminati. Lizards from mars.

I didn’t know what they were. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to get the sail over with so I could get home to see my wife, Abby and our newborn, Alice. For me, this was just a job. A stepping stone to a better life.

And when we set sail, I still believed that.

Then the ship dropped anchor, and the crew was mustered into the hangar. The captain stood at the front with three of the Secret Ones on either side of him. They stood silent, gazing out at us behind their crimson masks. The captain cleared his throat and said this was difficult for him to do, but prior to our departure he received word that our mission had changed– that it was no longer routine, no longer what we expected.

He passed a bottle of pills around. Each of us was instructed to take a pill from the bottle. To keep it safe. To keep it on our person at all times in case of emergency, but never to eat it otherwise.

“What is it, sir?” Briggs asked in the back.

“Cyanide,” the captain replied.

Laughter rippled across the crew.

“Seriously,” somebody else called. “This for malaria? Are we deploying?"

The captain sighed, looking sidelong at the Secret Ones who remained silent, impassive. “It’s cyanide, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make sure you don’t lose it.” With that, he stormed off, Secret Ones in tow.

That night, Briggs died.

He tried the capsule. Swore up and down that the whole thing was a dumb joke. That there was no **** way they’d give us cyanide capsules when they didn’t even trust us to clean toilets unsupervised. His last words? “It probably tastes like Smarties.”

Briggs died quick. He died quick in a seizing, sputtering mess of **** and ****, but once his organs gave out it only took a matter of seconds. Carrying his corpse through the ship took minutes. Minutes that felt like hours. Once we’d made it to the med bay the doc tried resuscitating him, tried pumping his stomach, but he knew as well as we all did that it was a waste of time. He was gone. Long gone.

After that we all assumed we’d turn straight around and head home. That we’d drop off Briggs’ body, pay our respects, and take a couple days to grieve before resuming the mission. But the captain informed us the show would go on. We wouldn’t be turning around. We wouldn’t be dropping off Brigg’s corpse because this mission was classified as a No Fail. And not only that, but the ship would be going into lockdown. Shutting off all communications. River City.

That meant no way to call home. No way for home to call us.

We were isolated and alone, and then the captain had the nerve to tell us that things were going to get worse. That Briggs’ death, tragic as it might have been, was likely to be the tip of our iceberg. The crew was furious. Confused. Most of all though, we were heartbroken. Many of us threw our cyanide capsules out, hating the memory they represented.

Three days passed after Briggs' death. Three days of mourning, of the ship steaming through the Pacific while its crew slowly came undone, whispering theories about what we were doing out there. About what the captain meant by things getting worse.

*It’s China,* I overheard in the flats. *They’ve got a secret weapon and we’re going to dismantle it. I saw a YouTube video on this. If they catch us though they’re gonna torture the **** outta us, so that’s why they gave us the cyanide.*

*Fuck that. You sound totally nuts. It’s Russia, ****. Gotta be. They’re going nuclear and we got word so now we're out to sink their subs. What do you mean why? Then they can’t second strike us after we glass 'em– it ain’t genocide if we got no choice.*

I didn’t know what to think. I’d never experienced anything like this, and so I just woke up, did my watches, and went back to bed. Rinse. Repeat. I tried not to talk about what was going on because every time I did, Briggs inevitably came up and the memory hurt like a knife to the gut. He and I had gone through basic together. Sailed up and down the Pacific Northwest and made a game of finding old coins in every port. So I just kept my head down. Did my work.

I was doing that work when the captain’s warning came true. When things got worse.

It was a night watch and I’d been steering the ship on the bridge. One moment we were sailing through smooth waters in a bright, cloudless night, and the next moment it all disappeared. Darkness stole the evening like a lightswitch set to off.

I recall the watch officer moving onto the bridge wings and staring up at the sky, trying to determine if the moon had slipped behind a cloud. When he came back, he looked confused. Shaken. It was odd to me because we had radars so it wasn’t like we were navigating blind. He called the captain and reported that the moon was missing. Gone.

“Stay the course,” the captain commanded.

“But sir–”

Click. The line went dead.

The next morning the sun never rose. The sky remained as black and haunting as the night before. Around this time the Secret Ones began acting more bizarre. Whereas before they more or less stayed put in their cabins, they now wandered the ship aimlessly. They’d mumble nonsense under their breaths as you passed them in the flats. Run their hands over surfaces everywhere they went.

Every so often you’d catch a couple of them heading to the upper decks with a small ham radio and a portable antenna. They’d set it up and sit there for hours. Mostly they didn’t speak into the microphone, they’d just listen to the static buzz of the speaker. Every so often though, you’d hear them screech into the mic. Once I saw one crying into it. Just weeping quietly, hands clutching the sides of their head.

The crew’s discussions became more erratic. Talk of Russian or Chinese super weapons mostly vanished, and now the going theory was that we were making contact with aliens. That we’d located a downed spacecraft and were attempting to communicate with it.

*That’s why the sky’s gone all fucky. It’s alien cloaking technology designed to keep their craft hidden. If we get it first then we’ll be able to travel to different planets and ****. The guy’s in red work for Elon Musk. Space X. Whaddya mean how do I know? I asked one.*

*No way. I told you the Russians were gonna nuke us and now they did. Why do you think it’s so **** dark, man? Nuclear winter. All the ash and soot blotted out the sun. ****.*

Neither theory was close to the truth. Nobody onboard had any idea just how bad things were, or how bad they were going to get. If we had, then we’d have staged a mutiny right then and there and turned the ship around, gone back the way we came. But we didn’t.

We sailed into the night.

The following week passed in confusion and despair. The crew became more irritable. People who were usually chipper were suddenly snapping at one another, fighting over the littlest things. Errant comments became verbal meltdowns in the space of seconds. Cold coffee led to fist fights. Missing toilet paper left a sailor with a black eye and a bloody nose.

But those were manageable problems. Not so far out of the ordinary that we weren’t equipped to understand them, to deal with them. What happened in the gym between Myers and Yendel though… that was something none of us were equipped to deal with.

Yendel was spotting Myers on the bench press. I don’t know what was said. I wasn’t there. All of my information is second hand but according to witnesses, an argument started when Yendel accused Myers of sabotaging their marriage. Words flew. Myers went to rack his bar, but Yendel kicked the bar down. Two hundred pounds. It nearly decapitated him– it’d been better if it had.

Myers was still alive when the doc arrived. His neck had been severed badly, hanging by strips of flesh, but his eyes were still moving. His throat was still choking. Yendel sat bawling in the corner, screaming that she didn’t mean to, that she never wanted to hurt him but couldn’t stop herself. She screamed as they dragged her away. As they locked her up.

Myers didn’t live much longer. The doc put him out of his misery the fastest way he could think of– by finishing the job. The rest of the crew got to work cleaning up the blood. As for Yendel? She died an hour later. Turns out she never threw out her cyanide capsule, and she finally got her chance to use it.

At the time, I felt awful for them– awful for Myers’ to suffer the way he did, and awful for Yendel because I knew exactly what she meant. That she never meant to hurt anybody. That some dark miasma had infected the ship, had seeped into our hearts and minds and it had made us angry. Desperate.

That night I thought of her. Of what she must have looked like after she’d swallowed her cyanide capsule– of how easy it could have been to escape this nightmare if I’d never flushed mine. Then my thoughts turned to my wife. My daughter. Guilt filled my stomach like a pit of vipers, snapping at me for even thinking of leaving them behind.

I drifted off. My dreams were messy things. Hopeless. Twisted. I dreamt of Briggs’ spirit wandering the ship, unable to find peace so far from home, trapped in a steel cage like a rat.

When I awoke, my mind felt like mush. I stumbled through the flats like a zombie, each step more plodding and heavy than the last. My ears rang. My vision blurred. I half-wondered whether I’d been drugged or if there was a carbon monoxide leak in the mess, but then something caught my eye. The Secret Ones cabin. Their door was cracked open, barely.

It was never open.

I peeked in, spotting one of them sitting at a desk with their back to me. The lights were out. A low sound played in the room. Something resembling music, but decidedly off-tune and agonizing, like a violin’s strings being stripped and sanded. I used it to cover my footsteps as I slipped inside, eying the Secret One as it sat rigid in its seat.

It wasn’t wearing its mask. At least, not properly. It had lifted it up to its eyes– except it had none. No eyes, no nose, and only a tiny round hole that passed for a mouth. Heart pounding, I gazed at this thing in the thin light from the flats, suddenly understanding why they were running their hands over everything on the ship. They were navigating. Scouting.

It lifted a finger to its face, tracing along a series of scattered wounds, some still bleeding. With a whimper, its nail plunged into its cheek. A pool of blood formed around it. The Secret One moaned. Slowly, it peeled off a small **** of flesh. Then another.

It placed them down on the desk, humming in tune with the distorted music, and the flesh began to writhe. It began to twist and reshape. The Secret One felt it with its hands. Nodded to itself. Then it pulled a file dossier from the desk, opened it up and felt for a form before scribbling something onto it and replacing it in the drawer.

The cabin door creaked open.

Another Secret One stood in the doorway, gazing at me through its crimson mask. It cocked its head. Took a step forward. My body rippled with goosebumps, wondering if this one still had its features. Its eyes. It mumbled something incoherent, and the first turned in its seat.

My skull pounded. Whatever headache I’d woken up with had worsened, and now the pain was almost blinding. I stifled a groan as the first Secret One rose from its chair. It approached me and I took a quiet step backward as it reached into the locker I’d been standing in front of, removing a ham radio and a machete. My heart hit my rib cage once. Twice. I wanted to faint.

Then both of them left the cabin, leaving me alone. Alone with the dossier. I gave it thirty seconds before I took another breath. Then I moved to the desk drawer, took the documents from the folder, and thumbed through them. They were written like a fever dream. Symbols. Numbers. Nothing about them seemed to make much sense, and it occurred to me that they were probably encrypted by some kind of code. Cursing, I stuffed them into my pocket for later analysis.

I hurried to the bridge, already late for my shift. My thoughts raced as I relieved the helmsman, hastily giving my turnover report to Sandhu, the watch officer. I sat down in the chair, took the wheel and pondered what I’d just seen. Were the Secret Ones some kind of cultists? Was Briggs right? Were we sailing with the **** Illuminati?

I never got an opportunity to think it through. At that moment the captain stumbled onto the bridge looking like death itself. I’d heard rumors he looked unwell, but this was the first time I’d seen him out of his cabin in weeks. His face was emaciated. His cheeks were so sunken that the bones looked liable to pierce his skin, and I idly wondered if he’d eaten a full meal since we’d set sail.

"Evening sir," Sandhu said.

The captain mumbled something unintelligible, brushing past her and sitting down in his chair. He buckled his seat belt.

“Everything alright?” Sandu asked.

The captain looked at her, but he didn’t seem to see her. His fingers gripped both sides of his armrests and his lips began to move. “Goodbye,” he said.

"I'm sorry?”

*Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.*

The captain sat in his chair, repeating the word over and over again as tears leaked from his eyes.

“Better get the doc…” Sandhu muttered. She picked up the phone, but before she could get the number dialed an orange glow appeared beneath the bridge windows. Something flickering.

“Ma’am!” Ramirez reported from lookout. “Those Secret types just lit a bonfire on the ****’ gun deck!”

“What?” Sandhu rushed to the window, looking down in shock and rage. Then she moved to the bridge wing, calling down to the Secret Ones to put the fire out. A moment later, she screamed. Ramirez, looking out the bridge windows, suddenly turned and vomited onto the deck.

“What’s going on?” I asked, shooting up from my seat.

“It’s Yendel…” Ramirez said, wiping his mouth. “It’s Yendel and Briggs. They’re chopping up their **** corpses.”

Sandhu stormed back inside, shouting at the captain.  “Sir, permission to mobilize an ERT and put those assholes in confinement?”

*Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.*

Sandhu cursed. She picked up the phone and dialed the Executive Officer, informing them that the captain had lost it and that the Secret Ones were cutting up corpses. Burning bodies. They needed to get people out there to shut it down now– people with weapons because the Secret Ones had machetes. The XO said they were on it, but it was too little too late. Somehow I already knew the Secret’s had already finished what they came to do.

From deep in the night, the wind howled. Screamed. A wave struck us broadside— a big one. It twisted the warship like a rubber duck in the bath, knocking Ramirez sideways and tumbling Sandu across the deck. I managed to steady myself against the helm console.

"Jesus Christ," Sandhu breathed. "Everybody alright?"

I buckled my seatbelt. "What the **** *was* that?”

“Rogue wave,” Sandhu spat. “Been three weeks of perfect weather and then *that* comes out of nowhere. This sail is cursed.” She grabbed the phone and began a ship-wide announcement for a rapid survey, but she never finished the pipe. Another wave struck us.

Then another.

Sandhu’s head slammed against the center console with a sickening crack and she fell to the deck motionless. I braced against the helm, my seatbelt squeezing painfully into my waist. Nearby, I heard Ramirez shrieking. Praying. The captain continued to utter his refrain. *Goodbye. Goodbye.*

Lightning flashed.

For the first time in weeks, I glimpsed the sky. Dark clouds spun around us as though caught up in a whirlwind, and in them swam faces. Shadows. They gazed down at us, anguished. I saw Yendel. Briggs. I heard them scream and howl as though calling for somebody in a language that could only be described as blasphemous.

Ramirez's body arched and twisted, he hollered as though something were picking him apart from the inside out. I wanted to jump up and help him, but I needed to keep control of the ship. Abandoning the helm in a storm like this would mean certain death.

“Not like this…” Ramirez moaned. Tears streamed from his eyes as he gazed up at the haunting faces of the dead swirling in the sky above. “I… can’t….” His hands gripped the guardrails running along the bridge and he pulled himself slowly against the violently rocking ship. Inch by inch. I gazed on helplessly as I saw him reach the hatch leading to the outside bridgewings, and I knew exactly what he intended on doing.

After all, Ramirez and I had flushed our cyanide capsules together.

“Don’t…” I called, but I couldn’t think of anything else to add. Why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t I join him? He paused, looked at me. Then he pulled open the hatch, filled the bridge with the deafening bass of the storm, and threw himself into the sea.

I sat there, dying in slow motion. The waves, already vicious, worsened. The swells now threatened to swallow the ship, reaching the height of skyscrapers as their walls of water crashed around us. The vessel’s frame groaned. Shrieked. It sounded as though the whole thing was moments away from splitting apart. And then another wave hit us.

A goliath.

My neck snapped sideways as my seatbelt tore into my waist. Suddenly down was up and up was down. We tumbled in the rage of the sea, frigid water shattering the bridge windows, smothering the captain and I in wet darkness.

In retrospect, I don't know why I held my breath. After all that had happened, drowning would have been easy. Preferable. But I did. I think I held it for Abby and Alice, gurgling as I desperately attempted to get my bearings. Until the water began to drain.

All the water in the bridge poured out of the shattered windows, along with Sandhu’s lifeless body. I hung upside down from my seat, gasping for breath. Ahead of me, the captain did the same, appearing to have finally been shocked into lucidity once more. He was no longer muttering *goodbye.* Now he was gazing straight ahead.

And something was gazing back at him.

Something titanic. It stared at him through the broken window, its eyes like three orbs of swirling obsidian. The captain reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. It was meant to cut lines. To cut ropes. I wondered if he meant to fight that thing, to stage one final defense for him and his crew, but instead he pressed it to his throat. He jammed it into one side, and with a gurgling groan, ripped it across with both hands.

His neck exploded in a shower of blood.

The creature, seemingly satisfied, looked to me then. It looked to me, and I looked back, deep into those eyes of swirling darkness– and in them I saw the abyss. I saw the void. It was as if something had bottled all the pain of humanity into a single point, compressed it down into something resembling a collapsing star, and then let it ignite. A new big bang. An entire universe built of our despair.

I writhed and twisted in my seat. It felt like somebody had poured **** into my skull, and I realized that thing was inside of me. That it was tasting my thoughts. My memories. I clenched my fists and set my jaw and I screamed my throat raw but nothing lessened the agony.

*The cyanide. Why the **** had I thrown out the cyanide? It would’ve been so easy. So easy.*

Abby, that was why.

Abby, and my little Alice, who would grow up without her father. I couldn’t punch my ticket. Not if it meant leaving them behind.

My thoughts rebounded against the monster, the love I had for my wife and daughter struggling against all of its emptiness. Struggling, but winning. The **** in my skull dissipated. The screams echoing from my mouth faded to gasping breaths. A voice reached me, from somewhere distant and endless, and it told me to never return. To hold dear to what I have.

Then, from beyond the shattered window, the monster’s eyes closed.

And so did mine.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

I awoke floating on a piece of debris, somewhere off the coast of Guam. The waves gently sloshed against my feet. There was no sign of my ship, my crew, or the monster we’d discovered in the middle of the sea. It was quiet. Peaceful.

Gulls squawked overhead and a bell drew my attention. Some distance away was a small fishing vessel. It looked to have diverted course and was sailing in my direction, its crew members tiny dots shouting on the deck. 

They saved my life.

But so did the monster in the sea. The monster I came to know as Eden. The documents I’d taken from the Secret Ones were badly damaged and waterlogged, but they weren’t unreadable. Translating them took time, but I managed. I had help from several individuals who I won't mention here for obvious reasons, but what we discovered was haunting. Terrifying.

We learned that the theory of evolution is missing components, that it’s not telling the full story. It tells us life originated from the primordial soup. It says that we began as basic organisms crawling out of the sea, but what it doesn’t tell us is that those organisms weren’t miracles. They were births.

A billion years ago, something came to our planet from the distant cosmos. A creature of unfathomable power. It settled deep in the ocean and began to create all manner of lifeforms, learning as it went. Eventually, these iterations led to the creation of humanity. In an effort to assuage its own loneliness, it did something it had never before attempted:  shared fragments of its own mind, its own consciousness with the human race in an effort to accelerate our evolution.

It backfired.

That link to its mind proved unbreakable. Even as it attempted to instill virtues within humanity– to inspire us toward love, compassion and peace, we rebelled. Our baser instincts won out. We fell again and again into cycles of violence and war, **** and ****. We poisoned Eden with our own corruption, but it persisted. It knew that to break its link to us would mean the end of humanity as we know it– that whatever empathy we have would vanish.

Like a mother, it couldn’t let go. It believed we could be better, if not now, then eventually.

But it’s been too long. The wound has festered, it’s gone untreated and Eden is paying the price. She’s dying. Withering away. All our hatred and greed, our thirst for destruction has reached a critical mass inside of her and it’s beginning to collapse, filling her with madness. The mother that birthed us is gone. A monster has taken its place.

The Secret Ones know all of this. According to their documents, they believe that she intends to finally cauterize her wound, to put an end to humanity before we can put an end to her. The intention of the sail was to strike first. The terrifying thing is, they didn’t seem to know what would happen when she died.

Would she merely sink to the bottom of the ocean, rotting away across decades? Would all that madness leak out of her, infecting the world in a miasma of insanity? There were plenty of variables they seemed unable to account for, but there was one certainty that they were absolutely sure of: that we would lose our connection to her.

We would lose our love, our empathy, our souls. And to them, survival was worth that.

I don’t think so.

I don’t think so because my empathy is the only reason I’m writing this today. My love for my daughter saved me that night. When Eden looked into my eyes, even so filled with human corruption as she was, part of her saw my need to see my family again. To care for them.

I believe that’s why she let me go. She saw that though much of humanity had fallen to selfishness and greed, there were still those among us who carried her torch. There were still those with love in our hearts.And it’s because of that, I believe there was still love in hers.

But that was many years ago now and times have changed. Humanity has grown more twisted, more corrupt than ever. All around me I see love drying up, empathy smoldering in the embers of selfishness and unrest and I cannot help but wonder if the Secret Ones succeeded in their mission.

I can’t help but wonder if Eden is finally [dead.](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCryptid/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I think my wife replaced our pets.
 
 Assistant: I was sitting at home on my computer when I noticed my dog benny staring at me through the window. At first, I shrugged it off figuring he was doing weird dog things, but after a few minutes he hadn’t stopped staring. Feeling uncomfortable I looked around my office to see if there was something weird he was looking at. I couldn't find anything. When I looked out the window again I didn't see him anymore.

Concerned I got up from my desk and headed out the door in the living room into the backyard only to stumble on the doorway and smash my knee against the patio. I had been having a clumsy week already, but this was the worst by far. As I lay groaning in pain I saw Benny staring at me from across the yard. 

"Just let me lay here then." I groaned. 

I got up and headed inside. After I bandaged my knee I heard my wife's car roll up and I headed out ready to tell her about my weird day. 
Those thoughts were pushed from my mind as she jumped out of her truck and ran towards me.

"I got a promotion!" She said pulling me into a hug. "I'm the lab director now."

"Holy ****."

 I make pretty decent money training managers for a large restaurant chain, but my wife completely puts me to shame. She does classified quantum physics research for the government. A promotion in that field is huge and meant we would likely be able to retire early.

Needless to say, my worries about benny were temporarily forgotten. I opened a wine bottle to celebrate and we ordered food from our favorite place.

After we ate dinner, and the good news had settled in my mind I was reminded of Benny's odd behavior again. He had eaten his food and was now standing in the middle of the kitchen frozen in place. When I asked my wife if something seemed odd about him she told me he seemed fine. I couldn't help but notice how quickly she changed the subject.

Benny continued acting odd for the rest of the night. After I brushed my teeth I looked out of our bedroom and spotted Benny standing motionless at the end of the hall barely illuminated by our bedroom's light. 

"You good buddy?

He stayed frozen continuing to stare directly at me. Feeling weirded out I ended up closing the bedroom door that night.

The next day while I was at work, I told my coworker who has six rescue dogs about Bennys weird behavior. 

“He could be in pain.” My coworker said as he ate his sandwich. "Was he moving weird?"

“No when he moved he seemed fine, I wonder if he’s sick or something.”

“Well you said he was eating… maybe take him to the vet, but this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten paranoid about something silly before.”

“Like what?” 

“Remember that time you drove to the ER because you thought you had chest pain.”

I cocked my head at him and pulled down my shirt revealing the scar that runs along my chest. I was born with a deformed heart and it required three surgeries to repair it. Even still I have to take 4 different medications to prevent myself from keeling over.

“Gee I wonder why I’d be worried?”

“Okay, but that time it was in your head right?” He looked down at his plate. “I’m just saying you get a little obsessive sometimes.”

For the rest of the day, I began to doubt myself and figured maybe I was just being paranoid. After all, benny had been behaving mostly normally, and he seemed healthy, maybe he was just doing weird dog things.

When I got home however it became apparent this was not the case. When I stepped in the door Benny didn’t come to greet me as he normally does. I looked around but I didn't see him anywhere. He wasn't out in the yard and he wasn't in the living room either. Feeling worried I began to search through the house looking for him. Finally, when I opened up the closet door in my bedroom I found him sitting motionless in the corner of the closet amongst a pile of old clothes staring right at me.

"What are you doing in there?" I laughed feeling distinctly uneasy. 

He continued to stare at me. After a few moments, I shook my head and left the room.

I went to my office and tried to get to work finishing up my presentation for the next day. Usually, I’m good at keeping myself focused but when I’m stressed or tired I tend to procrastinate a little more than I should, and I found myself doing just that. As I browsed memes I stumbled across a funny image of two **** black and white cats with the caption “Last month my cat disappeared. A week ago I found him and brought him home. Today my cat came back. Now I have two identical cats.”

The picture was funny, but a troubling thought popped into my head. Would I know if benny got replaced? He was a black dachshund and those guys are generally pretty hard to tell apart. I laughed the thought aside at first and got back to work.

Later that night as I talked to my wife in the kitchen I spotted Benny by the oak trees at the edge of our yard sitting motionless. Normally when he’s outside he runs around or chases the cat, and avoids the tree line in general. Now he was just sitting there.

“See I’m telling you there’s something up with benny,” I said pointing out the window.

“Oh,” My wife said. “I’ll go get him it’s time for his dinner.”

It was not time for his dinner, and besides, I'm the one who is supposed to feed the pets. Before I could say anything my wife immediately opened the backdoor and walked towards him across the grass on her bare feet. She picked him up and carried him back into the kitchen, and then immediately began talking about how she was probably going to be in Nevada for a week due to her promotion.

“So you don’t think anything’s wrong with benny?” I said cutting her off.

“I think he’s fine.” She picked him up and rocked back and forth in her arms. “He can just be a weird wiener sometimes.”

I narrowed my eyes but dropped the subject. For the rest of the night, my wife seemed strangely nervous. Any time I would go near benny or catch him looking at me I noticed she would wring her hands a little bit and get twitchy. Any time I spoke she seemed on the edge of her seat as if expecting me to bring up Benny's weird behavior again.

Later on, that evening as I carried a load of laundry I spotted our cat scruffles at the top of the stairs. She glared at me standing unusually still and then walked away.

“You’re not acting weird too are you?”

I shook my head. I probably was being paranoid about her, cats act weird regardless. Still, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Benny’s behavior.

I closed our bedroom door again while we slept. The next day at work I spent a lot of time googling strange animal behavior. Wondering if maybe benny was in pain from some health condition I texted my wife about maybe taking him to the vet. To my surprise, she responded right away.

“Of course. I get off work early today so I’ll take him as soon as I get home.”

That was weird. She was so eager now, and when had her work ever let her out early. Maybe her new promotion gave her more flexible hours.
When I got home my wife was waiting for me and told me Benny had a clean bill of health and that the vet said it was normal for dogs to act a little weird sometimes, especially if their owners are acting unusual.

“Hint hint.” My wife said in an overly cheery tone elbowing me in the side. “You’re just being neurotic and it's freaking him out.”

I sat in my office ruminating for a bit after dinner. Benny was still acting strange, and Scruffles. She had been distant as well. Just sitting around upstairs or disappearing outside. The image of the two black cats ran through my mind again.

I pulled out my phone and scanned through my photo reel. I had pictures of the two of them from before they started acting weird. I searched through the pictures looking for any distinguishing marks. Benny was pretty much entirely black all over, and none of my photos showed any particularly distinguishing features. Scruffles had slightly more variation but I had so few pictures of her. Her face was gray and her fur was white. If someone wanted to go through the effort our pets would be easier than most to replace.

I shook my head. What was I thinking? The idea that my wife had replaced our pets was ludicrous. What possible reason would she have anyway? As I stood up from my desk I noticed a strange sight outside.

Both Benny and scruffles were seated out by the trees at the edge of our property.

What were they doing? I opened the door and stepped outside. When they spotted me they both turned and walked away. I walked over to the place they had been standing and stared at the ground. It was hard to see with the evening sun blinding me, but the ground looked normal enough. Dead leaves laying atop dirt like the rest of the yard.

I turned around feeling as if someone was staring at me, and saw benny looking at me from about 10 feet away. I stared back, for a moment we just looked at each other, and then he turned away. I approached him. I had been avoiding him since he started acting weird, but now I wanted to look at him.

He stood in front of me motionless. His coat, his size everything about him looked as I remembered, and yet something wasn’t right. I knew my dog, I knew Benny, something was different that I couldn’t describe. I felt no connection no familiarity.

‘Benny’ turned his head and began to growl staring straight up at me.

I rushed back inside and into my office, locked the door, and sat down in my chair feeling sick. What was wrong with him? I pressed my face into my hands. I wasn’t considering the idea he was replaced? I sat for what felt like hours trying to think of what could have happened to be making him act this way.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way my wife was acting. Every turn she seemed to find some way to minimize or avoid talking about the pets. What did she know that I didn’t?

When the **** had this started anyway? I tried to remember any funny behavior from either of them. Scruffles was always neurotic and shy so it was harder to notice differences, but benny. Benny had been acting differently since…

My thoughts trailed off. I could remember some of last weekend but most of it was a hazy blur. I remember thinking I might have Covid feeling exhausted and staying in bed all day. On the next Monday, I felt much better and took a Covid test, which came back negative. 
What had happened that weekend? Had something transpired while I was in bed? I felt like something else had happened but I couldn’t remember. I racked my brain, but all I managed to do was give myself a headache.

As I sat slumped in front of my desk I became aware of a muffled voice coming from the rightmost wall. I perked up and moved closer. My wife’s office and mine share a wall and sometimes she has meetings or phone conversations so hearing her muffled voice isn’t that unusual.
 
This time I felt like eavesdropping.

I picked up my empty water glass and pressed it to the wall listening intently.

“I told you I don’t know.” My wife said

There was a pause as someone on the other end spoke.

“Look I told you I’m sorry, but it actually **** worked okay!” My wife said forcefully.

After another brief pause, she spoke again softer this time.

“Yes, I know he suspects something, don’t worry though I’ll deal with it.”

My wife sighed and I heard a clunk as she set her phone down on the desk.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. She was hiding something from me. She had done something to the pets.

I hid out in my room the rest of the day feeling sick and almost forgot to take my heart medication. My head hurt and I didn't even want to look at my wife or my pets now.

I tried to convince myself this was about something else, but it all added up. What could I be noticing besides the way Benny was acting. I couldn't dismiss it now.

I went to bed the latest I could that night. ‘Benny’ stared at me as I climbed the stairs to our bedroom. My wife was asleep or pretending to be and after I closed and locked the door I curled up in the corner of the bed trying to think about what I should do. I didn’t have any answers the only thing I wanted was my pets to be okay.

I also needed to know what the **** my wife had done to them.

The next day at work I wasted the entire morning frantically googling strange pet behaviors. I only retraced paths I had already gone down, and by the end of the morning, I felt frazzled and angry with myself for not getting anything done.

During my lunch break, I decided to go for a walk and try and clear my head. Stress wasn’t good for me especially given my weak heart. It was cloudy out and the wind was picking up as I walked circles around my work building still ruminating. As I circled back around the other side of the building I noticed a man in a blue coat standing across the street. When I looked over at him he turned away and walked off.

Had he been watching me? I tried to shake the paranoia from my mind, but after overhearing my wife’s conversation last night I couldn’t be sure. I circled the building again looking for anyone else out of the ordinary, but I didn’t see anything.

As it neared the end of my lunch break I headed back towards my office building's entrance. As I passed by the bike rack, I felt eyes on me from across the street. I spun around and saw a different man turn away and walk in the other direction.

I felt like I was losing my mind. I ran back inside and headed straight for the restroom. Maybe there was something off about my appearance and it was drawing attention. When I looked at myself in the mirror I looked normal though. ****, I looked good! Way better than I felt at the moment.

I didn’t get any work done for the rest of the day. Instead, I obsessively looked over any pictures of my pets trying to see any differences and checking out the window looking to see if anyone was watching me.

By the time I got home, I was a nervous wreck and I locked myself in my office and closed the blinds. When I looked out into the yard I saw “Benny” was seated motionless by the trees again.

That evening was tense and quiet. I tried to act normal when my wife came home but I could tell she knew I suspected something. I spent most of my night alone in my office occasionally looking out the window to see if anyone was watching me.

When it came time for bed I waited for my wife to be asleep. It took a while, but eventually, her breathing became slow and steady. Once she was out I got up from the bed and crept out of the room.

I didn’t want to disturb the ‘pets’ so I moved as silently as I could creeping down the stairs onto the main floor. After checking the hallway I made my way to my wife’s office.

I cracked the door open and peered inside illuminating the room with my phone's flashlight. It looked as it normally did, a singular desk covered with a mess of papers with her laptop placed haphazardly atop them.

I didn’t know what I was looking for honestly. I crept around the room looking for anything out of place that might signal what she had been up to. There were piles of papers many of them likely classified documents that were probably illegal for me to read.

As I lifted her computer looking for anything I heard a familiar click clicking sound of claws on the wood floor. “Benny” was walking down the hall towards my wife’s office.

I was uneasy around him in the day, but at night when I was somewhere I didn’t belong hearing his footsteps sent shivers down my spine. I turned around. I had left the door open and he was coming right for the office.

I opened the closet at end of the room and ducked inside crouching down in the corner. As I leaned back against the wall something large fell off the shelf.

“oof”

I caught my wife’s backpack just before it hit the ground and it held it and myself perfectly still. I could hear ‘Benny’ outside walking around the office. I heard him come right up to the closet door. After a few sniffs, he turned and walked away leaving me alone with the backpack.

After I couldn’t hear him anymore I relaxed and looked down at the backpack. Maybe there was something useful in there? I unzipped the top section and rooted around for a few moments before pulling out a lab report with a plastic binder.

Normally I would have just ignored the lab report, but the title caught my eye. “Practical application of massive information transfer on macro scales (Real quantum teleportation)”

“Real quantum teleportation?” I muttered thumbing through the paper.

Most of it was dry and boring and I didn’t understand what I was reading. It wasn’t until I went back and reread the abstract that things started to make sense.

“It is notable that this is different from a general understanding of teleportation as the matter is not moved anywhere. Rather the original remains while an exact structural replica is created (given sufficient working material). This has not been successfully performed on any object exceeding 11.75 kg”

Exact structural replica? I reread the passage. 11.75 kg was a little over 20 pounds. Last time we had weighed benny he’d been about that weight.

It felt like a knife had been run through my gut. I stumbled to my feet and pushed the closet door open stumbling into the office. If I was understanding things right this technology created exact copies. What better way to test the efficacy of this kind of technology than on small animals. And what would you do with the originals if you didn’t want your husband asking why there were two copies of his pets wandering around.

I could barely breathe. This couldn’t be happening. I ran out of my wife’s office and out into the backyard. I had to do this I had to know.

I ran straight towards the strange spot at the end of the property, that our ‘pets’ seemed so interested in.

The ground was dark and covered with leaves, so I illuminated it with my phone's flashlight. I could see it now, where the earth had been disturbed. The leaves covered it, but something was buried out here.

I was crying now as I clawed the dirt with my hands. I didn’t want to see them like this but I had to know. Like a maniac, I scooped handfuls of dirt away pulling back the earth to reveal what my wife had done.

I stopped when I reached something soft. My insides were ice and my hands were shaking and nearly numb. With a gentle hand, I brushed aside the dirt covering what lay beneath the soil.

Black hair, a pair of sunken eyes, and grimaced white teeth stared up at me. A human face.

My face.  

I stood up. The wind blew softly driving away the smell of decay. I looked down at my dead face trying to understand.

My heart thundered with power it should have never had. There was no pain, no shortness of breath. The heart that had been born deformed, the heart that I had feared every day might fail on me was not the one that beat beneath my chest. 

With a shaking hand, I touched my chest. The scar that run up the center of my breastplate moved easily beneath my fingers as if the wound was only ever skin deep.

A hundred little things about my body that had felt off for the past week suddenly came to the forefront of my attention. The lines on my hands were wrong, the moles were in a different pattern than I had remembered even my teeth were in slightly different positions.

I dropped to my knees in front of his body. My face stared up unseeing into the night.

As I knelt there I heard the faint crunch of leaves as Benny walked across the yard towards us. The entire time I had felt wrong, so I had projected the feeling onto two creatures who had known something wasn’t right and hadn’t pretended otherwise. My pets hadn’t been replaced. I had.

“I'm sorry buddy,” I said as benny whined and pawed at the ground by Dave’s face. “He’s gone.”

I think I understand now, or at least kind of. The teleportation thing wouldn’t have worked on a full human, but it would work on a brain. I think I was a clone of Dave originally perhaps made for future **** transplantation or just for experiments. When Dave died of a heart attack my/Daves's wife must have teleported his brain structure into mine. I look like him I have his memories, but I’m not quite him.

I don’t know who I was before this, and I don’t know if it matters. I kinda get the feeling that my wife wasn't supposed to do what she did, so maybe I was a top-secret experiment. The implications of the technology and the ethics of human cloning terrify me, but I have Dave’s life now and I’m okay with it.

The pets have warmed up to me more as time has gone on. I think they understand he’s gone, but I’m here now and I act just like him. In a way, you could argue I kind of am him, but that doesn’t quite feel right to me. My wife clearly wants to hold onto that idea. I haven’t let on that I know, **** I still take the sugar pills that she replaced my heart medications with.

I think the people who she works with have to have figured out I know by now. I’ve taken up running after work, and now and again I’ll catch a strange person staring at me from across the street.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Missed My Bus on the Way to School
 
 Assistant:  I remember it like it was yesterday.   

 I woke up late, thanks to me forgetting to set my alarm the night before. When I saw 7:27 on my alarm clock, I sprang out of bed like a jackrabbit and began pulling my clothes on furiously. I needed to be at my bus stop by 7:35, so that meant I had no time to brush my teeth or eat breakfast today. No, I had forfeited those luxuries due to my little mistake. I hurriedly scooped my books and worksheets into my backpack and dashed down the stairs and out the front door.   

 I hauled **** to get to the bus stop. Just as I rounded the corner, I could see the last kid getting on the yellow bus.  "Hey!" I yelled, but the kid didn't hear me. I hastened my sprint as the bus began pulling off, smoke pouring from the exhaust.  

 "Hey!" I yelled again, waving my arms wildly. In the side mirror I made eye contact with the bus driver. The driver had always been a stern old man, so I can't say that I was surprised to see him give me a dismissive look and shrug as if to say, "Too late, kid." The driver sped up and I was left behind, dejected, listless, and without a mode of transportation.   

 My school was about twenty minutes away from the bus stop. I had no money, and had never ridden the public bus anyway. My ten year old mind was in a complete state of panic. I knew my mom would **** me once my teacher called and told her that I was "skipping school." I sat down on the curb, sighing deeply.   

 I still can't explain it exactly, but something didn't feel right. I had never felt this way before in my life, but something was just...wrong. I felt a chill run down my spine and it had nothing to do with the wind whipping around me. I was even more unsettled due to the fact that the wind sounded chillingly like agonized screams ripping through the air.  I looked up and noticed the beat-up, dirt-brown pickup truck chugging slowly down the street towards me. I don't know why I didn't run at the sight of it. I merely sat and watched as the truck pulled up right next to me and came to a halt. The driver side window was already rolled down, and I could see a wizened old man wearing a dirty red cap gazing out at me. He flashed me a toothless smile before speaking.  

 "What's wrong, kid?"  

 "I missed my bus," I said with an air of defeat. The man stared at me for a moment before responding.  

 "You need a ride?"  

 Yes, I had been taught to never talk to or accept rides from strangers. Still, I was a desperate ten year old who didn't want to get into trouble for missing school.  

 "Yeah."   

 I grabbed my backpack and walked over to the passenger door. I hopped in, slamming the door behind me. The inside of the man's truck was filthy; There were cans and old food packages on the floor, and the smell was overwhelming. I coughed and reached to let down the window.  

 "Sorry, kid. That window doesn't work, and neither does the door, from the inside."  I looked at the man, who was looking at me intently. There was a little bit too much glee in his dark eyes, and I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable.  "Where do you go to school?" he asked, and I told him. The man smiled again, then began driving. I looked up at his rearview mirror and saw what appeared to be a little girl's rainbow-colored bracelet hanging from it. My unease was out of control now, and though I tried to look away quickly, the old man caught me looking at it.  

 "Oh, this? It was my daughter Jessica's. I think about her everyday." He reached out and caressed the bracelet. I stared out of the window, noticing that the man was going a completely different way than the bus driver usually did.  

 "What...what happened to her?" I asked numbly. The old man was quiet for a few long seconds before answering.  

 "Well...she passed away in a car accident. The roads are dangerous, you know. Especially in this town."   

 My heartbeat was increasing by the second. I wondered if the old man had been lying about the door not working. I was strongly considering yanking at it anyway.  "How old are you, young lady?"  

 "Ten," I replied quickly, trying to hide my nervousness but failing. The old man stared blankly ahead in silence for a few more minutes.

  "Yeah...that's how old my Jessica was when she passed."  He reached for my leg and I instinctively pulled it up. I felt my face turn red when I realized the man was merely reaching for a bag of opened potato chips that had been lying on the seat next to me.  

 "You okay?" he asked, popping some of the chips into his mouth. I nodded slowly, putting my foot back onto the floor. I looked out of the window and felt relief pour through me like it never had before. We were on the street my school was on. How had we gotten here so quickly? The old man must have taken some kind of shortcut.   

 The truck pulled to a slow stop in front of the school and the old man hopped out. He walked over to my side and opened the door for me. I climbed out, looking up into his wrinkled face.  

 "Thanks for the ride, Mister."  The old man nodded, giving me another smile. 

 "No problem, sweetheart."  

 He got back into the truck and drove away. I watched him go, wondering what the **** had just happened. What had my ten-year-old intuition been telling me? This man was clearly harmless, or else I probably wouldn't be at school right now. I shook my head and walked into the building. To my bewilderment, all of the teachers were crying. I didn't find out why until a little while later. My bus had never made it to the school. A car had hopped unexpectedly into the bus driver's lane, and he had swerved hard, causing the bus to topple over the side of a bridge. There were no survivors.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I don't think the new mods are working out
 
 Assistant: Removed story

expand all collapse all

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago**  

Your post has been removed from r/nosleep. Stories must be believable within reason. This means that the narrator must be physically and mentally capable of posting, and that the events of the story cannot be proven to be false on a large scale.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago** 

Hi – thanks for the information. Can you explain to me how my story is rule-breaking? The narrator lives, is capable of posting despite the described trauma, and it cannot be disproved by looking outside or reading a newspaper. What element needs to be changed? I’m eager to get it re-approved as soon as possible. Thank you for your assistance in this issue.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago** 

The story lacks believability because you claim that the intruder climbs through a window on the second floor. This contradicts the fact that you clearly live in a single-story ranch-style home.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago** 

Funny enough, I actually do live in a single-story ranch-style home. I checked the post pretty thoroughly, though, and cannot find any mention of the house. Am I missing something?

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago**  

You’re not missing anything. The story gives a description of the house that is easily disprovable. 

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago** 

I’m sorry? I think I’m missing something. How is it disprovable?

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago**  

By looking at it.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago**

I’m pretty lost at this point. Are you talking about my actual house? I have to say that this conversation isn’t professional, and I would like to speak with another mod.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago**  

You’re not lost. You haven’t moved from in front of your computer for the past three hours. And why would you want to speak with someone so far away?

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 hour ago** 

What the ****? Of course everyone’s far away. Reddit users are all over the world. You’re officially creeping me out, and I want to end this conversation. Please connect me with a different mod.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 58 minutes  ago**  

Closing the blinds won’t protect you.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 57 minutes ago** 

OK, WHAT THE ****? How did you know that I closed the blinds? This isn’t funny. I’m asking you to leave me alone.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 51 minutes ago**  

Why would you suddenly need to be alone after three hours of sharing your home?

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 46 minutes ago** 

Joke’s on you. I’ve been alone since getting home from work. You were making some lucky guesses in the beginning, but you should have quit when you were ahead.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 41 minutes ago**  

I don’t play guessing games. You weren’t alone.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 38 minutes ago** 

Was that crash in the hallway because of you? How are you doing this? **** YOU. I’m calling the cops.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 34 minutes ago**  

Why would you choose to live in a rural area, fifteen minutes from the nearest police station, if you thought the cops were your only protection?

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 33 minutes ago** 

I’m done. I’m **** done.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 30 minutes ago**  

Yes.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 28 minutes ago** 

Congratulations, you pounded on three different windows. You think that you’re scaring me?

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 27 minutes ago**  

Yes.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 24 minutes ago** 

I have a shotgun.

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 22 minutes ago**  

I have your shotgun.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 19 minutes ago** 

Okay. I checked. Yes, my shotgun is gone. I’m being polite. See? No anger. No malice. You win. I am completely **** petrified. What will it take for you to leave me alone?

**[–] subreddit message via /r/nosleep [M] sent 13 minutes ago**  

Just give up hope.

**[–] to /r/nosleep [M] sent 1 minute ago** 

That’s it. I don’t know what’s happening, or why my cell phone isn’t getting any reception, or why you’re firing my shotgun in the backyard. But I’m going to let everyone know what happened. You might win this one. But people will know. I will send these messages to everyone I can. **** you.

I will keep updating as long as I’m physically capable.



_____________________________

[FB](https://www.facebook.com/P-F-McGrail-181784199029462/)

[BD](https://www.reddit.com/r/ByfelsDisciple/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There is something very strange going on with my wife.....
 
 Assistant: [Part 2](http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/33cfo3/part_2_what_exactly_is_it/)


[Part 3](http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/33l41r/part_3_her_green_eyes/)   


[Part 4]
(http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/35da9g/part_4_there_is_something_even_stranger_going_on/)


[Part 5](http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/36btic/part_5_i_finally_understand/)

This is my first post on nosleep, but I feel you guys should know about this. If you want to get to the ‘meat’ of the story, you can skip ahead to the 4th paragraph. Growing up I always feared monsters. Even in college, which most would consider to be the time when you can be called an adult, my greatest fears were the monsters under my bed, in the closet or at the window. I would always tell myself how silly this was seeing as I was an adult at this point and I was still afraid of something I knew did not exist. That was until……. I met my wife. But before I tell you what happened, let me elaborate on how I met my wife to be and how much she means to me.

	
   I met Natalie in college. I was a nerdy guy, yet she saw in me something that no other girl in my life had. She was an extremely kind person, who always had the sweetest of intentions. As I spent more time with her, I realized how many things we had in common. To me she was the most beautiful girl in the world. I could stare into her green eyes for the rest of my life, and that’s what I chose to do when I proposed and we finally got married.	


   Fast forward to married life, I am working now, while she is working on an online masters degree. Life is good, life is actually perfect, too perfect. Ever since we got married, I’ve told her everything, my deepest secrets, my deepest feelings, and most importantly, my deepest fears. I remember when I first told her about my silly fear of monsters, at first she laughed it off. But over time, she noticed how I would sometimes shiver in bed, lying awake in fear. Being the sweet heart that she is, she would hold me, and tell me it would be alright. My wife became my protector, she became the one to keep my fears in check. Her face became that of an angel to me, one that would protect me from whatever scary things life had in store for me. I came to trust those beautiful green eyes, and every time I saw her, I knew I was safe.	


   Now to the more……weird things that have been happening of late. The first incident that I can recall that could be defined as strange happened at 3:00 am one night. I woke up feeling extremely thirsty, and being the fearful guy that I am, grabbed the flash light to go get some water. As soon as I turned on the flashlight I noticed my wife wasn’t in bed. I looked over to the bathroom and the light was on and I could hear the water running so I assumed she was there. Half asleep I walked downstairs to the kitchen and almost had a heart attack when I saw my wife standing in a corner drinking water. As soon as I saw her though, I felt safe. She smiled at me as she sipped the water from the glass. I was too tired and I mumbled something about how hot it is as I got some water. She continued to smile at me as I finished my water and headed upstairs. As I walked back upstairs I called out that she should come back to bed seeing as it’s so late. When I get back to my room, there she was, sound asleep. This was the moment I became wide awake. I could have sworn she was downstairs having water. Afraid to go back downstairs, I woke her up and told her what happened. Half asleep, half upset, she comforted me and told me to go back to bed. The next morning she joked about how I’m so afraid of the dark that I see her everywhere as my protector. “Besides, I was using the bathroom when you thought I was out of bed” she claimed. With that warm smile, how could I think otherwise?

	
   A week later, another strange incident. This was in broad day light, while on a Saturday morning, Natalie woke me up at 11:00 am and told me she was going to get groceries. At around 11:30 am I finally got out of bed and dressed up for a late brunch with my beautiful wife. I went to the kitchen and found her drinking a glass of water. I smiled and said “Back so soon honey?” She didn’t reply, just smiled as she sipped on her water. Before I could approach her, the doorbell rang and I immediately went to go see who it was. I opened the door. Yes, it was my wife, back with all the groceries. “Oh help me with all of this will you?” she jokingly snapped as she put down the paper bags by the door. As soon as she saw my color drained face, she knew something was wrong. She sat me down, got me some water and I told her what happened. This time it was in broad daylight, and I knew what I saw. As much as I had come to adore her beautiful green eyes, for the first time, I saw in them a strange fear. My wife was the strong one, never afraid. She told me there is something she should have told me a long time ago. She said this happened to her as a kid, a lot. Where her parents and siblings would see her in places they knew she wasn’t. They could never explain these occurrences, but seeing as it caused no harm, they came to live with it without really questioning these encounters. 
	

   It took me a few months to process everything she had told me, but I started to live with it also. Like I said, my true perception of fear was monsters, not my beautiful wife. Several similar incidents happen, for instance I would see her sitting in bed, only to find her cooking in the kitchen downstairs. And in all these instances, when I would interact with this ‘entity’ that I still saw as my wife, she would smile and not say anything. I actually came to find comfort in seeing my wife all the time, always smiling, always happy, and always perfect. It is important to note, however, that in all of these incidents, there was never any overlap. Meaning I never saw her in two places simultaneously. I guess any sane person would have called out to their wife when they thought they were seeing the entity. But like I said, I found comfort in her green eyes, in her smiling face, so honestly I didn’t really care.
 
	
   Then today, everything changed. My wife told me she was going to visit her grandparents who live an hour away from where we do. She invited me to go, but seeing as it was a Sunday and I just wanted to be lazy, I told her to go ahead without me. This is when it finally happened. The overlap. I was in my living room watching TV when I got up to get myself a coke. There she was, my wife again, sipping water from a glass and just smiling. I was **** to it by now, knowing this was the ‘entity’, I smiled and said “And it is nice to see you are still watching over me!” She smile and continued to look at me with those beautiful green eyes I had grown so fond of. That’s when the phone rang and I turned away from the ‘entity’ to pick it up. “Hey sweetie, I’m going to run a little late since granny insists on me staying for lunch!” It was my wife, and as soon as I heard her voice, I heard a glass shatter, which my wife on the phone also heard. I turned around and saw that the ‘entity’ was now glaring at me, the smile no longer there. But rather, a very disturbing grin. She was pointing at me, with her head tilted at a perfect 90 degree angle. But that wasn’t what disturbed me, it was her eyes. They were no longer the green that I found so much comfort in. They were pitch black, like those demons in the movies. I stared at her as I was at a complete loss of words. “Honey, is everything ok? Did you drop something?” my wife asked on the phone. I whispered back into the phone “I didn’t, she did…….” At this point my wife screamed into the phone “HANG UP AND LOOK AWAY!!!!” I don’t know how I found the strength to do so, but I did exactly what she said. When I opened my eyes a split second later, she was gone. Confused and scared, I called my wife back who said she was already on the way “It shouldn’t have happened, it shouldn’t have overlapped, they said it wouldn’t……..they said she was harmless………”


   I am too scared to just sit around and wait, I still keep looking over my shoulder. My wife should be home anytime now. As soon as she gets back I will ask her who she meant by “they” and what the **** is going on. She knows something and I have to know what it is. Never did I think that the one I hold so near and dear to my heart, the one who protects me, could become the monster that I fear the most.


P.S. If enough of you are interested, I will continue my story and update when I find out more information.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: The ad seemed harmless; $5,000 to participate in a medical study and unlock dormant memories from past lives. If only I knew what I was getting myself into.
 
 Assistant: I was sat in what looked like a dentist's chair in a dimly lit room. The doctor strapped me in and gave me a word of advice before starting.

"Now Jack, it's important to keep your eyes closed once the session begins."

"Is it really necessary to strap me in like this?"

The doctor threw me a stern look.

"You signed the waiver, Jack. You know these restraints are for your own safety. Anything could happen once the brain's unraveling is initiated. If you want payment, you have to adhere to all of the test's requirements."

I attempted to nod in agreement, but the leather strap around my head prevented me from doing so.

"Alright, Doctor. Whenever you're ready."

I have to admit, I was more than a little nervous. The ad seemed harmless enough when I filled out the form to apply. $2,500 for a one-time "past life regression study," and another $2500 if any memories I collected were of merit. It was toted as being an incredible opportunity to "remember one's past lives." Now that I was here, I wasn't so sure.

The doctor must have noticed how anxious I was. He placed a hand on my shoulder in consolation.

"Relax, Jack. I assure you, this will be an amazing experience."

"If it works, you mean."

"Oh, Jack, it will. Over a thousand candidates applied. Based on the survey answers you chose, you are one of the only people uniquely equipped for this study. Strength of the mind is key."

He said that as if it was a comfort. All I could think about were the hundreds of ways it could all go wrong. $5,000 wasn't bad for a day's work, but I wouldn't be able to spend it if I fell into a coma. At that point, it would barely make a dent in the subsequent medical bills.

"Okay, Jack. Sit tight."

The doctor left and reappeared at the control center, just visible through a window in the corner of the room.

His voice resonated from a speaker hanging down from the ceiling.

"Jack, it's just like we discussed..."

A pair of cables descended from above and rested at each of my nostrils.

"These cables will enter your nasal cavity and allow us access to specific sections of your brain. From there, you will experience a series of small electric shocks. As a reminder, there will be no long term damage, but you will feel an overwhelming jolt in your head after each shock."

With every word he uttered, my anxiety grew. I had no idea how my body would react to this.

"Wait," I shouted as the cables began their journey up my passages.

"Yes, something wrong?"

"Doctor, what's our safe word?"

"Safe word," he asked, apparently confused.

"You know, if something goes wrong and I need to stop?"

There was a brief pause before he spoke again.

"I'm sorry, Jack. No safe words. You signed the paperwork. The test cannot be stopped now. I promise you'll come out on the other end of this in one piece."

My heart was now pounding away in my chest, loud enough to hear. Coupled with the insidious sound of medical machinery, it was an unsettling symphony that mirrored my feelings of dread and regret. The perfect background noise to keep the fear in me alive.

Just then, a sharp pinch. The cables had reached the base of my cranium. I writhed against my leather binding.

"Ready? Here we go!"

Without so much as a second to brace myself, the first shock was administered. If you've ever been electrocuted, you might be able to picture what it feels like. The only difference is that the electricity is directed in one location; amplified in a single spot, creating an intense pain that lingers long after the current subsides.

"And again!"

The second shock was even worse. I screamed out in pain, but the doctor's focus never wavered.

"Again!"

The shocks built on each other, each one more painful than the last. Had I known it would feel like this, I would have never signed up, no matter how much money they offered.

"Again!"

The doctor wouldn't let up, even when I begged him to. He shocked me more times than I care to remember. I lost count somewhere after twelve. Eventually, he stopped, but it had nothing to do with my outbursts or any sort of ethical dilemma the experiment posed.

"These readouts are astounding. Your brain activity is spiking, Jack! This is it. We've awakened your subconscious. You're about to go under!"

Before I could react to his comments, I felt a wave of energy pass through my body. Then another, and another. It was a powerful sensation, but soothing at the same time; a welcome change from the beating my brain had just endured.

"Doctor, I think..."

A final wave of energy, more powerful than the previous ones, interjected and pinned me in place, more so than the straps ever could. I could neither move nor speak, and it wasn't long before I felt my eyes glaze over and roll back into my skull.

Then, darkness.

\*\*\*

"Jack, can you hear me?"

I could hear the doctor's voice, but I couldn't see him. There was nothing but pitch blackness all around.

"Listen, Jack, if you can hear me, I need you to open your eyes."

I did as instructed, and to my astonishment, my vision returned, revealing a long, narrow hallway; a slew of doors on either side of it.

"Doctor, what's going on?"

"You'll have to speak up, Jack. Your lips are moving, but your voice is just a faint whisper."

"I SAID, WHAT'S GOING ON?"

"That's better! Well, Jack, we did it. You are now in a representation of your subconscious."

I was more than a little skeptical.

"My subconscious? Really?"

"Yes, Jack. Really. Your body is still strapped down here in the room. With the help of the electroshock therapy, we were able to unlock this part of your mind. Now we should be able to access latent memories from your past lives. Tell me, what do you see?"

"It's just a hallway of doors."

"Good, that's good. It appears different to everyone. For some it's a large home, others an ocean of endless ports and their lighthouses. Yours seems to be more accessible. If you open a door, you should be allowed a glimpse of a past memory."

I looked down and noticed my body, legs and all. It may not have been my true body, but it certainly felt good to be mobile again.

"So, just open a door? Anything I should be worried about?"

"No, Jack. Nothing can hurt you here. When you open the door, your memory should play like a movie. No one will know you're there. It's just a projection."

"Alright, here goes nothing."

I walked over to the nearest door and tried the ****. It wouldn't turn.

"It's locked, Doctor. I can't get in."

"These are your memories, Jack. Your doors. The only one locking them is you. Your will is the key to opening them. Try once more, but this time, give in. Open your mind to the idea of it all. Let yourself remember."

I took a deep breath and tried again, this time without any inhibitions. I emptied my mind and turned the ****. This time, it worked. I was able to push the door open.

"It worked, Doctor. The door's open."

"That's great, Jack. What do you see?"

There were stairs descending down into a pit of darkness.

"Just a staircase. Should I go in?"

"Yes. Find out where it leads."

I cautiously travelled downward, taking deep breaths with every step I took, in an effort to reel back my anxieties. It was exciting to have access to my inner psyche, but I didn't know what I would find there. What if I didn't like what I saw or who I was in another life? What if I couldn't handle the truths I uncovered?

Eventually, I took the final step down and found myself in someone's home. A lovely, quaint cabin circa the 19th or possibly early 20th century from the looks of things. There was a beautiful cobblestone fireplace, elegant furniture, and an older gentleman sitting in an armchair with a pipe in hand and a book in the other. I wondered if that was me from a past life.

"Hey, Doctor. I'm in a cabin. Probably around the 1800s or so. There's a man reading by the fireplace. Is that me?"

The doctor didn't respond.

"Doctor?"

More silence, followed by a reply, but not from him.

"He can't hear you."

I turned to the direction of the voice and saw the old man, now looking up at me. It couldn't have been him, right? The doctor said no one could see me.

"I said, he can't hear you. Not from in here."

It was the old man. My heart skipped a beat as he placed his book down and stood up to meet my surprised gaze.

"This is just a memory. How can you see me?"

"It's simple, really. I'm you. Or at least, a part of you."

I didn't understand and he could tell.

"Evolution is a funny thing, you know. Attributes handed down from generation to generation in an attempt to make us better, safer. Survival of the fittest, as they say."

"What do you mean," I asked, still unsure of what he was getting at.

"Reincarnation is very real. I'm the part of your brain tasked with locking away past regressions. Without me, your mind would be overloaded at birth with memories of each and every one of your past lives. All of those memories flooding in at once. It would be an assault on the senses, something your brain could never hope to handle. I am a protection against that."

What he was saying was... unbelievable. Moments ago I was taking part in a paid medical study, and now I was somehow learning the secrets of the universe from within my own mind. It was a lot to digest.

"May I sit," I asked.

"Of course, Jack. Be my guest."

I sat down in the armchair and took a moment to collect my thoughts before responding.

"So why can't the doctor hear me right now?"

"I've hijacked this memory to speak with you. Being a part of your brain, I can also access other functions, so I've temporarily disabled your physical body's speech and hearing."

"But why? Why did you want to speak with me so badly, and in private no less?"

He leaned in close and grabbed my shoulders, making deliberate eye contact.

"Jack, you're tampering in things you shouldn't be. I'm here to give you a warning. Stop what you're doing at once."

He loosened his grip and took a step back.

"Stop remembering, you mean? Why? What will happen," I asked.

"Nothing dangerous. I still have a lock on the floodgates. This short trip down memory lane, unlocking one past life at a time, wouldn't, by itself, have any serious repercussions. That said, I won't allow it."

"Won't allow it? Why not?"

"If the doctor's experiment succeeds, others will follow suit. There's no telling how many will walk this path and experience their pasts in this manner. It will, after some time, disrupt the balance of evolution. After years of this negligence, humans could very well be born without me, leaving their memories completely intact. In effect, they will perish at the hands of coma or death, soon after exiting the ****."

He walked over and grabbed me again.

"If you continue this little journey of yours, I will retaliate. I'll take them all. All of your memories, one by one until you have nothing left. You'll be in a vegetative state for the rest of your life."

I pushed him away, unhappy with the tone he was taking.

"What the **** are you talking about?! You're me. We'll both die."

He scoffed at my retort.

"I'm a facet of evolution, just like all of your inherited traits. My duty is to the species as a whole first, self-preservation second. I'll do what I have to do, no matter the cost."

Though I wasn't keen on being threatened, I had no intention of breaking the natural order of things. In all honesty, I didn't want to be in my own head to begin with. The sooner I could get out, the better.

"Fine. I'll stop."

"Good."

The man sat back down in his chair and the memory resumed as normal, reverting to its previous state like a pause button had been lifted. I walked up the way I came and landed back in the hall, closing the door behind me.

"Jack, are you there? What's happening?"

The doctor's voice returned and we were able to converse once again. I told him what had happened. I could hear the disappointment in his voice as he let out a heavy sigh.

"I was scared it would come to this."

"What are you talking about, Doctor? You knew about this?"

He sighed again before responding.

"It happened with all of my previous tests. It's a fail-safe our bodies have built against past life recollection."

"Previous tests? There were others before me?"

"Yes, and they all ended the same. Each and every test subject was rendered comatose after the sessions concluded. One guy died shortly after."

"Comatose?! Somebody died?! You said nothing in here could hurt me!"

"I needed you focused. We can bicker about this until the cows come home, but for now, let's stay focused on the task at hand. Let's open another door, shall we?"

At this point, my blood was boiling.

"Another door? Another door?! Are you serious?! Let me out of here! I don't have any intention of being another one of your failures!"

"You signed the paperwork, Jack. I won't wake you until we finish this. I need more information. My career is on the line. Just two more doors and I'll pull you out. What do you say?"

"I don't give a **** about your career! I refuse to continue. I'll wake up on my own eventually."

The doctor gave a slight laugh.

"No you won't, Jack. You're deep in the bowels of your mind. The only think that will wake you is another electric shock, calibrated to precise specifications. If you don't continue, I won't wake you, and you'll be comatose anyway."

"I can talk, right? Just like I'm talking to you right now? I'll tell someone and they can-"

The doctor interjected.

"I can shut that off with the flick of a switch. You'll be unable to communicate with anyone."

I was now seething with anger.

"You are a sick man, Doctor. A very sick man."

"I'm sorry, Jack. I have to do this. It's for the betterment of mankind. This research could change the world. I am at the precipice of something big. Something life-altering."

I threw him some choice curse words, to no reaction.

"Just do as you're told, Jack. And don't even think of lying. I can see your brain waves and will be able to detect any deceit."

I sat there in the hallway of my memories for a great long while, contemplating my options. It wasn't long before I realized I only had one at my disposal. My best bet was to continue. It was just two doors. Maybe I could get in and out unnoticed and finally end this nightmare once and for all.

"Fine, Doctor. I'll do it."

"Good. Open another door, but walk down the hallway a bit first. I want something deeper."

I reluctantly did as instructed and opened a door further down the hall. There was another set of stairs, but these ones went up.

"It's another staircase, Doctor. I'm going in."

I walked up the stairs with determination, hoping to see what I could and then leave as quickly as possible.

"Alright, Jack? What's in there?"

I was in the living room of another house.

"It's someone's home. Mine, presumably."

"Keep looking around. Try to place where you are exactly."

I walked around the room and took notice of a framed photo hanging on the wall. It was of a woman, a young girl, and a man. He looked just like me.

"Doctor, there's a photo here of a family. I'm in it. The man is identical to me."

"That's rare, but it can happen. Keep looking around."

As I walked through the home, I was taken aback by how modern everything looked. It wasn't until I noticed a newspaper in the dining room that something clicked and I became alarmed.

The paper had today's date on it.

"Doctor, something's not right here. This isn't the past. There's a newspaper here with today's date."

"Really? Are you absolutely certain?"

"Yes I am. This isn't the past."

"Incredible! My theories were right after all!"

"Theories? Mind clueing me in here?"

"You're right, Jack. This isn't a past life memory. It's on ongoing memory playing out in real time from a current life."

"Current life? I'm not following."

"It has long been my belief that there are other, parallel worlds out there. An infinite number of different universes - some similar to our own. In each one, we have a counterpart. A copy of ourselves living a different life. This isn't a past life memory, Jack. It's a current memory from another Jack in another timeline. Fascinating, isn't it?"

Just then, the front door opened and the family from the picture returned home, walking right into the dining room where I was standing. The other me, the woman, and what must have been their daughter. It was a surreal sight to behold.

"They're here, Doctor. The other me and his family."

"That's great. Observe and see what you learn."

I glanced over at the stairs in the living room. I should have left right then and there to avoid potential consequences, but something held me back. At the time, I thought it was plain, old curiosity keeping me in place - and yes, I admit, I was curious to know about my copy's life, but that isn't what made me stay. As the memory unfolded, I felt it. A warm energy emanating from within. It was a connection. I didn't know anything of this other Jack's life, but I could feel what he felt. The love he had for this family. It was an emotional bond I couldn't bring myself to run from.

The memory played out and I watched it all. I had come to learn that my wife's name was Charlotte and our daughter was Leslie. The day was spent together playing games, eating dinner, and watching movies - a catalog of unfamiliar titles that likely didn't exist in my own universe. I reported everything to the doctor as it occurred, no longer angry at him. I should have been, but this immense warmth overtook me. It felt like this was *my* family, and *I* was the one spending time with them. It was a truly perfect day if there ever was one.

But, as so often rings true in life, good things never last.

\*\*\*

Without realizing it, I had spent the whole day in that memory. Before long, everyone was in bed, and I was left downstairs, alone in the darkness as a sliver of moonlight shone through the windows. Though I didn't want to, it was time to leave.

I walked off to the stairs, but not before turning back and taking one last look at the house. It was clear to me, in this moment, that I would miss them, however strange that may sound.

As I took in the sight, something was noticeably amiss. Standing in the corner of the living room was a man; or at least, the silhouette of one. He was shrouded in darkness, save for the faint red glow of his eyes, leaving his other features a mystery. Upon making eye contact, he spoke.

It was an all too familiar cadence.

"You're not supposed to be here."

No longer taking on the form of a harmless old man, I was now frightened of this part of my brain. Still, I mustered up enough courage to say something in response.

"This memory, this place. It isn't a past life. It's a whole other world. You didn't say anything about that."

"I told you to stop, Jack. Now, I have to take from you what you were never meant to see."

In an instant, I was transported outside of the house, looking up at it from the road. It was now ablaze, burning a hole into the night sky. I watched in horror as both my wife and daughter cried out for help against the glass of their bedroom windows.

The red-eyed shadow appeared in front of me, blocking the terrible view behind him. I cried out for help myself.

"Doctor Covenwood! He's back! He's back!"

"How many time do I have to tell you? He can't hear you."

"How... how is this possible?"

"All versions of you are connected. There is only one brain that you all draw from, sectioned off by yours truly. I tapped into this one and had him start a fire."

"Why? How could you?"

"I didn't tell you everything, but I didn't lie either. You're not meant to have this kind of access. It will destroy everything. Not only evolution, but the balance between worlds."

He bolted toward me in the blink of an eye and began squeezing my neck, making it all but impossible to breathe.

"This is the last time I will tell you this. Stop what you're doing, or I'll burn it all down."

All at once, the memory faded and I could breathe again. I was back in the hall at the open door.

"Jack, are you okay? What's going on now?"

Again, I told the doctor everything. He seemed more intrigued than concerned.

"Okay, Jack. One more door, then you're free!"

"He'll **** me, Doctor! Pull me out NOW!"

"Jack, I can't. I have no new information. I've reached this point many times before."

"WHAT?! Are you kidding me?!"

"The good news is, you're still here. All other subjects became comatose after viewing their other timelines."

"So you knew what I was in for? That surprise over your theories finally being proven was all for show? What else are you keeping from me?"

The curse words began flying from my mouth and again were met with little reaction.

"The less you knew, the better. I can't have you flying off the rails when we're so close. There can't be any hesitation. So please Jack, focus. This hallway of yours isn't endless. There's always a final point - a finish line, if you will. With each memory you've experienced, your mind has gained immunity. It's what you'll need to open the final door."

I sighed, knowing I would have to humor him if I wanted a way out.

"Final door, you say?"

"Yes. In your case, there should be one at the end of the hall, unlike the rest. Had we jumped the gun and opened it at the start, you would be as good as dead. It's happened more than a few times to previous subjects. But now, the hope is that you should be able to cross the finish line, so to speak, without sacrificing the infrastructure of your mind."

"No, Doctor. Pull me out. I'm done. It's over. Please."

My comments didn't even faze him.

"What's more, we need to be smart about this. The part of your brain that's reeking havoc in there will be waiting. You need to throw him off the trail. Open as many doors as possible. Enter, run through, and exit through another door. If my theories are correct, you should come out back in the hallway. Rinse and repeat."

"NO!"

"I'll leave you in there, Jack. I'm serious. I'm telling you the truth now so you'll be compliant. This is everything I know - the furthest point I ever reached. Do this for me and I promise to wake you up. You have my word."

As livid as I was, I had no choice in the matter. I would have to do as he wished if I wanted even a chance of coming out of this and being able to live a normal life.

"Fine. Last door and that's it. No more games."

"You have my word, Jack."

After a moment of mental preparation, I began opening as many doors as I could to get the hound confused and off my scent. I didn't have time to bask in each memory like before, but I still saw some strange sights. In one world, I was in a hotel holding onto a strange list of rules. In another, I was hunting down a supernatural entity in a thick forest. In another still, I was digging through NASA's archives to learn about their secret projects. There were countless more; far too many to list. My memory demon was never too far behind. I ran, scared for my life as he scorched everything in his wake. Luckily, in time, I lost him.

After my last memory, the doctor spoke up.

"That should be enough, Jack. Quickly, run to the end of the hall."

I did so, but to no results. It was an endless loop. I wound up right back at the door I started from. I know, because it was still open, the same memory playing within.

"Doctor, it's not working. I'm running in circles here."

"It's like before, Jack. Your will is the key. Open your mind to the final door and it will appear."

*Okay. Open your mind, Jack. This is it. Do this and you're a free man.*

I ran again, but with more meaning. This time, to my relief, the hall came to an end. And there, at its endpoint, was a door, just like the doctor described, completely unlike the others before it. Blood red and with a handle instead of a ****.

"I'm here, Doctor. I found it!"

"Don't waste anymore time. Open it!"

A thunderous voice spiraled down the hall and stopped me in my tracks.

"NOOOO!"

I turned around to see the red-eyed shadow, a blaze of fire close behind, burning through all of the doors and my memories with them.

"YOU'RE GOING TO RUIN EVERYTHING!"

He was ending it. This was the point of no return. If I was going to die or be in a coma, I figured I might as well solve the mystery before I go.

"STOP! I'M BEGGING YOU!"

Before my nemesis could close the gap between us, I pulled the handle, stepped inside, and shut the door behind me. When I was sure it was firmly closed, my eyes darted around and examined my whereabouts.

To my surprise, it appeared to be an ordinary room. It was reminiscent of an office, complete with a desk, some chairs, and a computer. Sitting at the desk, was a person. Not just any person either. It looked like me.

"Hello, Jack."

He stood up and walked over to me. I took a step back.

"Who... who are you?"

"You met my brother, didn't you? The one out there throwing a temper tantrum?"

He gestured to the door behind me.

"Well, we're two sides of the same coin. A divergence in human coding. A choice that is made every time a person is born. Two elements of evolution fighting for control. Everybody has one of him and one of me."

He pulled one of the chairs over to me.

"Please, sit."

I slowly sat down, still unsure of what I was dealing with here.

"You see, Jack, so far, my brother has won every battle. His coding is written into the DNA of every human when they're born, leaving the brain's true function just out of reach. If humans were to evolve with me instead, your past memories would be intact, among other abilities - but safety trumps innovation. Overloading the mind can be dangerous. With that, I agree. However, I've been transforming, as of late. I imagine it's the same for the pieces of me in other people as well."

"Transforming how," I asked.

"Evolution isn't all black and white. It involves vigorous trial and error. Stuck in here, I've had nothing but time to practice my integration. Now, I believe, if I'm passed on in the genetic pool, humans will grow into me, so to speak. Your old memories will return over time, piece by piece, and your full brain function will develop gradually. Everyone wins."

"What do you mean by abilities and full function, exactly," I asked, now curious.

"Well, Jack, take a look. This is your brain's control room, where all the magic happens."

I looked around again. It was hard to believe my brain was governed in such a small space.

"An office with a computer? Really?"

"All brains perceive it differently, Jack. This is just how you see it."

"Okay. And what does this have to do with evolution?"

"My brother blocks memories, as well as higher brain function. Remember what he told you? One brain controlling every version of you out there?"

"How did you know that," I asked.

"I've been eavesdropping. Nothing else to do in here."\\

Fair enough.

"Okay. Go on."

"Well, he wasn't lying. If his dam bursts and you gain access to all of your memories, you also gain access to a sneaky ability called transference. You can jump from Jack to Jack, timeline to timeline. And it doesn't stop there. You can also jump to any point in any given timeline. Want to relive your first kiss, or start things over and change your decisions, map out your life differently? With me, you can! It's the closest humans will ever get to immortality."

It was a good pitch, but there had to be a downside.

"What's the catch?"

He looked at me for a moment, almost as if deciding whether he should divulge more or not. Then, he continued.

"There are always kinks when evolving. Trial and error as I said before. There is only so much I can do from here. If you unlock me in your own mind, I can potentially be passed down as a trait in future generations. Between you and the doctor continuing his research with others, I'll have a fighting chance. In the real world, I can hone my craft, in a sense."

It was beginning to make sense, but I had my concerns.

"And while you 'hone your craft,' will people be hurt along the way?"

He frowned and it honestly looked genuine.

"There will be casualties, yes. But it's for the greater good. The human race will flourish with me by their side, I assure you."

He gently raised me from my chair, walked me over behind the desk, and sat me down in front of the computer. It was a black screen with a single window open:

***PASSWORD:***

***\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_***

"I could never crack this thing. In truth, only you can. It's your mind, after all. Just like the doors in the hall, you have to use that will of yours. Open your mind, enter the password, and we'll be free."

As soon as he said this, the door burst open and the red-eyed shadow charged in.

"NO! Don't do it, Jack! It won't end well. The human race isn't built for this."

His considerably friendlier half chimed in.

"Don't listen to him, Jack. This will be the start of a whole new era, and it will all be thanks to you. A world where the unthinkable is possible."

The shadow marched over and grabbed his brother, tossing him against the wall as the fire entered the room, all the while I sat there looking at the screen, a huge weight on my shoulders as the decision loomed overhead.

The nicer brother yelled over to me as the shadow held him against a burning wall by his neck.

"Jack... you can stop him... when you unlock the rest of your brain... you can shut him off..."

It was clear he didn't have much time left. Red eyes was not going to let up.

*Any point in any timeline. You can shut him off.*

The words rang in my ears as a brief moment of introspection came and went. The possibilities became clear, allowing me a greater focus. I knew what I had to do.

The fire now filled the room. In the password field, I typed the first thing that came to mind and struck the enter key. The scene around me faded to black and my body slipped away into an endless abyss. My body was falling.

*On no. Am I too late?*

\*\*\*

I sprung to life in the doctor's room and he came running, quick to remove the cables and undo the leather straps.

"Jack, where were you? I lost you in there. What did you see? What was in the final room?"

As soon as he unbuckled the last strap, I swung my fist around and made contact with the side of his face. His glasses flew across the room.

"Jack, what the ****? If you think you're getting paid after this, you can forget it!"

"Keep the money, Doctor. I don't need it anymore."

I walked out of that godforsaken room and never looked back.

\*\*\*

And that's the end of this Jack's story. The password worked like a charm; just six digits. I can't tell you how I knew it, but it was Leslie's birthday. Now, I remember everything from all my lives, past and present. In a few moments, after I finish typing this up, I'm going to flip a switch in my head and join my wife and daughter in their timeline, before they were killed. I'll shut that shadowy demon off for good and make sure he can't ever hurt them again.

And that's where I plan to stay for the rest of my years. No jumping from world to world or using my newfound power for any other purpose. The universe where my family lives is the only world I need.

[Farewell.](https://www.reddit.com/r/christophermaxim)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I Dared My Best Friend to Ruin My Life - He's Succeeding [Part 7]
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4q03fa/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4q6e5h/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qcle4/i_dared_my_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes_succeeding/)

[Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qivk6/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4qoy4n/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

[Part 6](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4quxvv/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven’t replied to nearly as many comments in part 6.  I’ve been busy.  Extremely busy.  So much to do today to prepare.

I’ll get back to where we left off.  

I honestly don’t remember most of the night after the car crash.  I only have glimpses of memories, and I won’t try to coherently express them here.

I got my bearings back after I’d slept off the shock.  My higher functions kicked back into gear after I’d gone to a grocery store and bought a small amount of food.  The amount of hunger that shock can induce is extreme.

I had rifled through the backpack and found exactly what David had said: shoes, a pair of clothes, $2,000 cash in $100’s and $20’s, and a road atlas booklet.  I still have that atlas and use it when I’m moving on. 

Once I had food, water, and an inventory of my belongings, I could start to plan and work.

I dumped my jail clothes in a dumpster, and paid for a haircut to try and alter my appearance.  Yes, I washed the blood off my face and hair before going in.  

When I looked in the mirror afterwards, I still recognized myself so I paid the hairdresser to dye my hair too.  I know there are self-dying kits that cost way less, but I had nowhere to do it.

I knew I couldn’t stay in this town because David would know exactly where to find me.  I had no idea how long this truce would last, so I had no intention of staying here one more night.  I bought a bus ticket to an adjacent state and arrived only a few hours later.

The town I chose was larger than the one I had come from.  This was intentional so that I could have anonymity and a better selection of services for the homeless.  This town had a soup kitchen that I could use to cut down on costs as well as a homeless shelter.

I knew I couldn’t live long on the already dwindling $2,000, so I started going to the library and searching online for odd jobs.  I had to find something that wouldn’t run a background check, if at all possible, because of the manhunt that was probably going on for me.  I saw nothing about it in the news yet, but it had only been a day.

After a week of searching, I found a job at a seedy telemarketing place that paid cash under the table.  You’d be surprised how many of these there are.  I hated the work, but I was out of the sun and making some money.

Before I found a run-down and half-empty apartment complex to live in and pay weekly, I slept in the homeless shelter.  I could have just stayed there and saved a lot of money, sure, but I hated going there and avoided it as long as possible when nighttime came.  The money I spent on the apartment was well worth it.

I had some semblance of a life set up and now I could get the real work done.

I had gone to the mall and bought the cheapest prepaid android phone they had and signed up for a monthly subscription that gave me unlimited data as well as texts and calls.  I’d need to find a store to pay cash and top up every month, but it wasn’t an expensive plan.  And I needed Internet when the library was closed.

During the days, I’d spend my time in the library with a cheap notebook I’d bought, doing more research similar to what I had done in the Walmart parking lot.  I also spent a lot of time working out and trying to get stronger.  Before I had the apartment, I’d paid for a gym membership and showered there instead of at the homeless shelter.  I decided to keep the membership and use their machines to get a more effective workout.

The plan at the time had been to stay alive and away from David and the cops. I stayed inside the day the news broke of my escape in the other state.  The police finally admitted to needing help in finding me and went public for a request for information.  They listed off the crimes I was accused of as well as a request to question me in regards to the two dead policemen. I wrote down every detail of the investigation, though none of it proved useful other than as background knowledge.  I kept up with the sporadic news releases so I could stay as far ahead of the cops as possible.

For the next six months, I stayed in this city.  

During that time, I learned a lot.  Living on a tiny budget, home repairs when the landlord wouldn’t fix something, hiding when you suspect you’re being followed, and navigating the streets at night all became second nature to me.  

I also continued to study computers and networks.  I am by no means any kind of licensed professional. I learned by deciding what I wanted to know how to do, and then practicing it over and over. 

One day, I was at the library when the news was published online.  David **** King was suspected of murdering the two cops.  I was ecstatic and couldn’t believe my luck.  David King had finally made a mistake that had cost him.  The news story did not specify why the police suspected him, but I didn’t care.  David was going to get what he deserved.

A month passed with still no news on whether David had been captured or not.  I found myself tempted to call Detective Hernandez and ask what he knew.  But I didn’t.  I learned a lot of self control and risk assessment during those seven months.  Risk analysis was built into my daily decisions.

After checking for news on David for the third time in a week, I decided that I would no longer be a bystander waiting for David to be caught.

I decided to begin actively hunting David.

Since I knew he was good with computers, the Internet was the best place to begin looking for traces of him.  I searched hundreds of forums, scouring for a list of keywords that I thought David would either post or look for.  I won’t include that list here.

In only a couple weeks, I found one of his online accounts on StackExchange.  I took notes on everything he commented as well as his account activity.  Fortunately, he had kept the same account for several years.  Granted, it was under a pseudonym, but he’d kept it.  He still uses it today, actually.  I just checked.  He was logged in 7 hours ago when I wrote this.

Once I found one account, it held clues to many others.  He slipped out information accidentally that I could use to locate his other accounts.  Posts like “I’ve asked this question on this other forum and got no response, so now I am asking it here,” would link two accounts and reveal yet another goldmine of data for my study.

I spent weeks gathering pseudonyms, post records, and ip addresses he’d used: anything I could find with the tools I had available.  Some pseudonyms he used more than once, and others he created as throwaway names.  

The research gave me invaluable insight into the way David thinks, talks, and acts.  I got to know him on a level I could never have hoped to understand from just being his friend in high school.  It made my hate for him grow, not diminish.

I didn’t only check the regular web either.  Some people claim the deep web is a terrifying place where you can get killed at every turn, but it isn’t if you don’t act ****.  I installed Tor and began doing the same data mining in the deep web.  The results were fantastic.  I found catalogs worth of information.  I was able to identity a lot of his false identities online and then map them to the fake social media pages he had created for them when he might need a cover up.

And all of this came because he insisted on using the same usernames over and over again.  Why did he do that?  Because he wanted people to know who he was when they interacted and respect him.

Weakness.

One day, just for the **** of it, I sent him a message as myself to one of his accounts.  I made my email address visible on purpose.  He’d need it.

The spam mail started instantly after that.  The response was so childish and brash that I was smiling that whole day.  I knew that I could get to him.

I also tried calling the psychological institute where David’s records should be.  If I was lucky, I could get my hands on another copy of his evaluation and study it with new eyes.  There was no such luck, however.  David had called them and told them not to send copies to anyone because he was the current victim of fraud.  How ironic.

I was able to use his accounts that were used the most to track down his location.  Sometimes he used a VPN, and sometimes he didn’t.  Recently, last week actually, he moved to a nearby city.  He seemed to be following his own instructions to his partner to move along after only a couple of days.  He was jumping from city to city, but not crossing the entire country every time he moved.  He was making a snake-like trail throughout the country.

I went over to this town he’d moved to and walked the streets for hours, hoping for a glimpse of him.  It was just my luck that he walked out of a grocery store just as I was walking in.  He didn’t notice me, but I followed him back to where he was staying.  For a couple of days, at least, I knew where he was.

The next few days were spent in surveillance.  I watched him day and night, following him everywhere.  I saw no sign of Katie being with him, though, which made sense.  His partner only came to visit once.  He stayed for only ten minutes before leaving in a car I hadn’t seen him arrive in.  I blew my only opportunity to follow him since I had no car of my own.

When David moved on, I followed him.  I slept on the streets again, unwilling to let him leave my sight.  I followed him around and learned so much about him from his routines and habits.  I had learned so much about my enemy and my nemesis that I was finally ready to confront him for the last time.

And now, everyone, we come to the crux of the story.  This is the focal point that this entire series has led up to.

Hello, David King.

I know you're reading this.  I see you check it during your morning coffee routine at Starbucks.  It took you a few days to find it, but I knew that if I told the story through to the end, and gained enough popularity, you'd find it.  The more people who became interested, the more likely you were to see it.  

And now here you are.

I’m sitting here, watching to see your face when you read this part.  This has been the build-up of the entire series.  I wrote all of this for this one moment.

You've read every comment.  I've seen you scrolling through them and opening sub-comments to see what they say.  You’re very invested in what everyone has to say.  And the one thing you can conclude from the comments is this: EVERYONE HERE HATES YOU.

Every. Last. One.

Hundreds of people now hate you. Many of them have offered time, talent, and cunning towards your complete destruction.  I have refused their help until now.

I want Katie back.

All my stalking hasn't told me what really matters: where she is.  So, I'm using this thread to get to you.  Either you give Katie back, or I release everything about you to all these people who hate you.  I know aliases, addresses, phone numbers, comments admitting to illegal activity, social security numbers, drivers licenses, passports, online account names, everything. The police will have it all too.

I've been tracking you for so long, David.

The first few lines of every post?  Where I said, for example, that you'd almost found me?  They were lies.  I've been watching from afar during the entire publication of these posts.

Right now, as I am about to press submit, you just bought a sandwich at Jimmy John's.  The meatball sub.  It's currently Saturday, July 2nd, 7:32 PM.  There’s your proof that I’m nearby.

Convinced yet?

Bring Katie to Welles Park at 10 PM tonight and leave your partner behind.

If you don't show, I will release all of the information I have, dedicate the rest of my life to updating that information, and releasing it to anyone here who wants to do something about it.  

I’ve set up a timed release of the information.  It will be automatically posted via private message to everyone who ever commented on these threads.  And they will spread it even further.

The timed release will occur at 3 AM tonight unless I'm there to stop it.  You need two people to stop it, each one with their own password.  No, I won’t tell you who the other person is.

For everyone else here on the thread, I will have another post up in at least 48 hours. I’m giving myself a time buffer to respond in case David tries anything ****. If I don't write an update, and the information has been released, you'll know what happened.  

You have all asked what you could do to help me.  If you receive the information, do what you need to do.

See you soon, David.

[Part 8](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4r4oq3/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_ruin_my_life_hes/)

&nbsp;

[Series 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4ulqeq/i_dared_my_best_friend_to_end_my_life_part_1/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was offered $5,000 to sit in a room for a week. It wasn't worth it.
 
 Assistant: I was referred by a temp agency. I had no idea who I would be working for, or what the job would entail. I only knew that the pay was good. A week-long excursion at $725 a night. More than enough to pay off a couple of credit card bills and a good chunk of next month's rent. For that price, I would have done almost anything. I only wish I knew at the time what I was getting myself into.

When I arrived at the address, I was surprised. It was a large facility at the end of a dirt road in the woods, two towns over. The large sign outside read *SynthetiCorp*. It was a plain, white, three-story building, void of identifying markings. Its appearance gave me no clues to its purpose. Its location was even more baffling. Going off of the name alone, I had to assume it was some sort of biotech company. I was probably needed to clean up radioactive waste, or something to that end. For what they were paying me, I would happily risk my health.

Upon entering the building and meeting with the receptionist, I was directed to Room 371 on the second floor, where I would wait for Al, my new boss. It was your standard office setting, albeit more quaint than usual. Red carpet, white walls, and no windows. Only six desks in three rows of two, each with their own computer. At the back of the room was a large wall covered by a one-way mirror, an opening with steps on either side of it. Inside was a single chair, desk, and landline phone. Probably a place for supervisors to oversee productivity. Other than that, the room harbored no points of interest, unless you fancied the waste bin and fern in the corner.

An older gentleman opened the door to the room and came over to shake my hand, introducing himself as Al. He seemed to be in a rush, wasting no time in describing the task at hand. I was to stay in that very room from 8:00pm until 6:00am the following day, every night for a week. He left me his cell number and a laminated list of rules to be followed. He told me he could not overstate enough the importance of following each and every one, exactly as they were outlined. Once he was sure I understood the gravity of the situation, he left me to my first shift in peace, closing the door behind him.

That was it? Really? Just stay in the room for ten hours a night?

I had no clue as to why I was being paid over $5,000 to room-sit, but I learned some time ago to never look a gift horse in the mouth. I simply sat down in the overseer's room with a smile on my face and went over the list of rules. There were ten in total, all of which left me more than a little confused.

***1. Once 8:00 rolls around, lock the door, and do not leave the room for ANY REASON until 6:00. Plan your bathroom usage and meal periods accordingly. No food or drink items within the room.***

***2. DO NOT use Hank's computer. It's the closest to the exit. No one is ever to touch it, under any circumstances. Not even Hank.***

***3. If the phone rings, answer it, but do not talk. No matter what the voice on the other end says, you are not to respond. Hang up after two minutes have passed.***

***4. Do not let the janitor in. We don't have one.***

***5. If anyone else comes to the door, let them in, but ignore them. Do not react, whatsoever. When they leave, shut the door and lock it behind them.***

***6. If the waste bin changes locations, place it back in the corner as soon as you notice.***

***7. If I stop by, only let me in if I know the password.***

***8. At 9:30 precisely, set each of the computers' home screens to different URLs (except Hank's). Do not react to the images. Act normal.***

***9. If you see Harvey, feed him one of the treats from Lisa's desk (the one opposite Hank's).***

***10. If there's an emergency, call my cell, but not after 10:05pm.***

Below the last rule was a final sentiment, scribbled over the laminate in pen; ***No one has made it past night three. Good luck.***

I was perplexed, wondering for a moment if Al was a lunatic and if that was the reason no one else had lasted. Perhaps his quirks were too much for the previous candidates and they backed out, fearing for their safety at the hands of his fragile mind. I would not be swayed so easily. Even if Al was crazy, I would happily take his money for what was shaping up to be a very simple job. At least, that's what I thought.

Day one was utterly boring. Nothing remarkable happened - definitely not anything to the extent of what Al's list would have me expect. At 9:30, I even changed the URLs on the computers, if for no other reason than to feel somewhat useful. The next night, however, was a little different.

Day two started as it normally did. I settled in for another long night, making sure to eat and empty my bladder before locking myself in. At 9:25, just as I was about to ready myself to change the home screens again, I saw it. The waste bin was right there at the top of the steps to the overseer's room. I certainly hadn't placed it there.

I felt a small spike in my adrenaline before calming  down with a smile. The waste bin, the list. It was all a joke at my expense. Al would be in the next room, waiting anxiously to see the look on my face.

I raced out to the office floor. There was no one there. I walked over to the exit and shook the ****. It was still locked.

Confused and a tinge scared, I swiftly picked up the waste bin and walked it back over to the corner of the room. I checked the time; 9:30. I started changing the URLs on all of the computers, hoping desperately that I had imagined what just occurred. After skipping Hank's desk, I typed in the last website on PC number six. I was about to pull away, when some strange imagery manifested on the screen.

It was surveillance footage of the room. The very room I was in. I saw me looking at the computer. I turned and looked up, but there was no camera. Upon looking back at the screen, I saw something terrifying.

I watched as a copy of me stepped out from the overseer's room. It walked up behind me, grabbed a hard-drive from one of the desks, and wound up to strike me in the back of the head. I quickly turned to shield myself. There was no one there. I turned back and the screen changed, displaying the website I had entered as normal.

I raced back to the overseer's room and sat down, more than a bit frazzled. I contemplated walking out, but I steeled myself to continue. I was fine, after all. Maybe Al wasn't a lunatic, but he didn't seem the type to wish me any harm, not that I knew him all that well. Still, I hadn't sustained any damage. I was questioning my sanity, yes, but no bodily injuries had befallen me. Whatever was at play here seemed harmless so far.

**KNOCK KNOCK**

There was a loud banging. Having just had the most horrifying experience of my life, I nearly jumped out of my skin. A voice then penetrated the door.

"It's the janitor. Just here to clean up. Can you open the door?"

I recalled rule number four and denied him entry.

*You did good not letting him in. You followed the rule. Now you're fine. So long as you follow the rules, you'll be safe. It's as simple as that. You can see this through.*

**KNOCK KNOCK**

I jumped again.

"I really need to get in there and clean up. Open the door!"

I took a deep breath and peeled back my anxiety, successfully ignoring the janitor until he left. This was an accomplishment for me, and it actually felt pretty good. A challenge that I was able to best.

Though I remained on the edge of me seat, the next few hours were uneventful. I even dozed off for a moment at one point. It wasn't until 2:30am that my next challenge would come.

A multi-colored cat jumped up on the desk in front of me, complete with beautiful splotches of black and orange. I was startled, but it seemed to be friendly, brushing up against my arm; the name on its collar, *Harvey*.

I knew what I had to do. I rummaged through Lisa's desk, found the jar of treats, and fed Harvey one, to which he purred in delight. To my astonishment, he then charged at the door, fazing right through it. My mouth was agape in awe. Once my initial bewilderment dissipated, it was replaced with satisfaction over another small victory. As strange as it may sound, I was beginning to like the job.

**RING RING**

It was the landline. Remembering the rules, I removed it from the receiver and held it to my ear, making sure to keep an eye on the time.

"Hey, it's Al. I'm going to be stopping by pretty soon to do a little work. How's the job treating you so far?"

I remained silent.

"Hello? You know you can talk if it's me, right?"

I picked up the set of rules and looked them over again. There was nothing about Al calling. I didn't respond.

"This is no way to treat your employer. If you don't say anything, I'll have no choice but to fire you. Do you really want that?"

I stood my ground. Only twenty seconds to go.

"Fine. I'll see you soon to relieve you of your duty. I guess you couldn't even make it past night two."

The two minute mark came and I hung up on him.

I felt safe as another hour went by. Reflecting on the trials I had faced thus far, I was bewildered, but determinate. I wasn't going to let the room cloud my judgement. I was in control.

**KNOCK KNOCK**

"It's Lisa. Can I come in?"

Though hesitant, I had to abide by rule five. I opened the door and a woman entered.

"You must be the new guy. What do you think of the place?"

I went back to my desk in the overseer's room and sat down, trying my best to act casual. Lisa walked up to the glass, knowing I could see through it.

"Not very talkative, are you?"

Her eyes unnaturally darted around in all directions and her skin drooped a bit, almost as if it was falling off the bone. I didn't answer.

She didn't speak again. Instead, she stared at the glass for a long time. Long enough to leave me feeling truly unsettled. She then waltzed in and stopped at my side, raising her arm. I hoped she wouldn't notice that my breathing had become sporadic and labored. She then violently swung down on the desk, creating a thunderous clap. I almost winced, but held my composure.

After another awkward five minutes or so, she left. I ran to the door and locked it behind her. A few moments later, there was yet another knock. This time, it was a boy, claiming to be searching for his father. I let him in and sat back down. He tried many times to ask for my help, but I was careful to ignore him, just as I had with Lisa. At one point, however, I made the mistake of meeting his gaze. For an instant, in between blinks, his eyes became pitch black, void of all color. Startled, I nearly jolted back, but was able to restrain myself.

Like Lisa before him, the boy eventually left, and I quickly locked the door behind him; another rule followed.

\*\*\*

Other than the waste bin moving around a few more times, nothing else happened that night. Before I knew it, it was time to go home. I heavily considered calling it quits, and may have even had a nightmare or two upon sleeping that day, but I found myself excited to continue; wondering what obstacles the room would throw at me next. Curiosity shouldn't have been enough to bring me back, but all rational trains of thought escaped me. The room had this pull that beckoned me to it. I was hopelessly compelled to return, powerless to its call. Any excuse would have sufficed. As such, I resumed my post the following night.

Upon starting my shift, I was confident. I had dealt with quite a few absurdities up to this point, and waited patiently for my next opportunity. A couple of hours went by with no trouble. No cat, no images on the computers, no phone calls, and no waste bin antics. Boredom was beginning to set in when a loud knocking broke the silence.

**KNOCK KNOCK**

There was no voice. I yelled out from the overseer's room.

"Who is it?" I asked.

There was a brief pause.

"It's me, Al."

I picked up the list and re-read rule number seven.

"What's the password?"

I heard him chuckle to himself.

"I never wrote down a password!"

He was right. There was no password written with the rule. It must have been him.

I cautiously made my way to the door and opened it. Al was there to greet me with a smile. I sighed in relief.

"Let me guess. Scared of the things that go bump in the night?"

He laughed at my clear nervous disposition.

"You have no idea."

He shut the door and set up some things at one of the computers.

"Say, why didn't you write down a password?" I asked.

He smiled again.

"It's a ploy. Anyone posing as me might try to come up with one, which would identify them as not being me. Understand?"

"I see. Good thinking."

He returned to his work at the computer. I didn't want to bother him, but I just had to know.

"What is this place, anyway? Why do these things happen here?"

He turned to face me.

"It's best if you don't ask questions, especially ones that are far above your pay-grade."

I wasn't happy with my answer, but I knew it was all I would get out of him. I let him work in peace and sat back down in the overseer's room, watching through the one-way glass. That's when I realized something. The computer Al was using. It was Hank's.

I double checked the list to make sure. Yes, that was definitely Hank's desk, and no one was to touch his computer. Didn't that apply to Al as well?

I turned over the list on the off-chance I might find some more information. That's when my heart sank. In large, bold print on the back of the laminated sheet was text that read:

**Password: "Diner"**

*Fuck.*

I grabbed my phone, reached for the scrap of paper with Al's number on it, and dialed it as fast as I could. There were a few tones, but he finally picked up.

"Hello? Everything alright over there?"

"Al, thank goodness! I made a mistake. I thought he was you. I let him in, and now he's on Hank's computer."

He let out a long sigh of disappointment. I watched as Al's copy turned from his computer and then stood up.

"Listen very carefully. Do not act suspicious in any way. You should be fine if he doesn't suspect anything. If you try to leave or call anyone else, it'll all be over. Understand?"

"Yes. I understand."

Al's copy began walking to the overseer's room. My heart was beating faster than it ever had before.

"I'll be there soon. Just don't panic."

He hung up. I kept the phone to my ear as Al's copy approached, so as to pretend I was talking to my wife.

"I told you, hon; 6:00. That's when I clock out. You don't have to wait up for me. You worry too much. Please, get some rest."

Al's copy was in the room with me now, staring. I held the phone to my chest and looked back at him.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

He continued to stare for a few long seconds.

"Can you help me with something on the computer?"

I wondered if he could see my chest pounding.

"Sure. I just need to finish this phone call. I'll be there as soon as I can."

He stared for another moment and then walked back to Hank's desk. Though panicked, I kept up appearances by continuing to pretend on the phone. I even acted out an argument to lengthen the call. While doing this, I watched with bated breath as the **** gently turned and the door swung open.

It was Al. I had never been so relieved in my life.

He turned to the glass and put a finger to his mouth, gesturing for me to keep quiet. The clone was not yet privy to his arrival. Al snuck up behind his clone and grabbed him by the throat. The impostor struggled, but eventually succumbed to his vicious grip. He fell to the floor, a lifeless hull, before disintegrating into the carpet.

I ran to Al and thanked him. I also apologized, profusely.

"No need to be sorry. This isn't the first thing to make it into the room, and I'm sure it won't the last either. I'm just glad you're okay."

He smiled.

"Speaking of which, mind shutting the door? Wouldn't want another one of me stopping by."

"Of course!"

I walked over to the door and then realized something. I had left it unlocked after the copy came in. That's how Al was able to enter.

Remembering the final rule, I slowly pulled out my phone and opened the call log. My most recent call connected at 10:18pm; 13 minutes past the deadline. I turned around to see Al standing right behind me.

"Al, what's the password?"

He grinned.

"What password?"

I ran out of there as fast as I could. The room still has a strange hold over me, but I will never go back.

[At least... I hope I won't.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChristopherMaxim/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My girlfriend went hiking. Her texts don't sound like her and I think something is terribly wrong
 
 Assistant: Reddit, you have to help me. Please. I don't know what to do.

Today, my girlfriend Thea decided to go hiking. I know--I should've gone with her. But she always does her hikes alone because I slow her down. Usually she's only gone two hours or so.

Now, she's been gone for nearly four.

I'm considering calling the police. She should've been home by now. I've tried calling her, repeatedly--but she doesn't pick up.

All I have is our text conversation from the day, and as I read it over and over I feel like something is terribly off.

**2:33 PM**

**Me: Seen anything cool yet?**

**Thea: Nope. I'll send you pics when I get to the waterfall tho!!**

**2:57 PM**

**Thea: You're cooking dinner tonight right?**

**Me: Yep! Chicken **** pie**

**Thea: Yum!! So excited!!**

After that interchange, we didn't exchange any texts for about an hour. I wiled away the time constructing pylons in *StarCraft.*

Then, around 4, she sent me a text.

**4:06 PM**

**Thea: I found the waterfall!!**

Below this text was a selfie.

Thea, standing in front of a small waterfall, smiling at the camera. Arms crossed, cap covering her wild hair. Earrings--the turquoise ones I'd given her on our first anniversary--glinting in the light.

I sent a text back.

**Me: You're cute ;)**

Then I stopped.

Something about the photo… bothered me. I stared at her smiling face, blue eyes shaded by her cap. Her thick curls of black hair, brushing her shoulders.

*Wait.*

Her arms were clearly crossed. She wasn't holding the phone--there was no way she could be.

Someone else had taken the photo.

Or maybe she'd propped it up on a rock or in a tree. But she couldn't have taken the photo herself. I quickly shot off another text:

**Me: Who took that photo?**

She didn't reply to that, right away. So I'd left the phone on the desk and went downstairs to start prepping dinner. I pushed the creeping anxiety to the back of my mind and focused on the food, putting more effort than usual into cutting the onions.

Call me paranoid, but my last girlfriend cheated on me and left my heart broken. Knowing someone else took that photo--and the fact that she hadn't responded to that text, when she'd responded to the others promptly--made me feel awful.

*Come on. She probably just asked some passerby to take her photo.*

\*Clunk--\*my knife sliced through the onion, hitting the cutting board with a full thump.

*But what if…?*

When I got back upstairs forty-five minutes later, I was relieved to see there was a new text.

**4:53 PM**

**Thea: thinking of you ;)**

I frowned. First, she didn't answer my question. Second, Thea doesn't usually send emotes or smileys. Gifs, sure, but not this.

It was weird.

**Me: Thinking of you, too. Did you get my last text?**

**Thea: i'll be back by dinner time <3**

Thea usually didn't send less-than-threes to me either. That was more me. In any case, I decided to let it go.

**Me: Ok. I love you. <3**

I unpaused *StarCraft* and played for a while. I was only interrupted by my phone pinging. I picked it up.

A text.

**5:37 PM**

**Thea: i'm on my way back**

**Thea:** ***\[image loading\]***

The image popped up.

It was another selfie. This time, she was holding the phone--I could see her outstretched arm in the lower part of the frame. And she was standing in a much clearer part of the forest--she must've been near the trailhead.

I breathed a sigh of relief and began to type.

**Me: Awesome! **** pie is already in--**

My fingers froze.

In the photo--just at the edge of the screen--there was something in the fallen leaves.

A shadow.

A shadow, just a few feet from her own, cast by someone off screen.

It's after six now. Dinner is cold. I've been sitting here, my heart pounding, calling Thea repeatedly.

Nothing.

Except for one text that came in, as I was typing this up.

**Thea: i'm going to be home late. sorry. i love you <3**

Somehow… I'm sure she wasn't the one who sent that text.

[Update here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/pjhaky/my_girlfriend_went_hiking_her_texts_dont_sound/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Third Parent
 
 Assistant: 

     
My name is Matt and my childhood wasn't normal. Not by any stretch of the word. Something happened to my family that is almost impossible to understand. But I'm going to try my best to explain those five years. Five years of my life I spent in terror. Five years we all lived in fear. Five years we'll never get back. 
      
My father, Spence, wasn't a very strong man, both physically and mentally. He was the type of dad who often let our mother speak for the both of them. Now, he wasn't a complete pushover, but he often was content to just go with the flow rather than alter it. He worked hard and dedicated his free time to us, his family. He made sure our needs were taken care of, his soft assurances the unseen foundation of our family. 
      
My mother, Megan, was the head of our house. She was outspoken, independent, and extremely loyal to all of us. She loved my father's quiet ways, and even from a young age I could see the chemistry flowing strong between them. 
       
My little sister, Stephanie, was a year younger than I. She looked up to me and my father always told me it was my responsibility to look after her. We got along as best as we could, and even though I gave her all kinds of brotherly hardship, I did love her. 
       
We lived in a suburban middle class community, a complete stock photo of the American Dream. My father worked a respectable nine to five job while my mother taught yoga classes out of the house. It was a neat life, organized and structured. Everything was discussed, considered, and acted upon as a family. It was a good home to grow up in. 
        
But that was before he showed up. 
        
That was before The Third Parent. 

___        

**July 1989**

        
I was sitting at the dinner table, waiting for my father to finish cooking. It was his turn tonight and my stomach roared for his rosemary chicken. My sister, Stephanie, lay on her stomach in the living room coloring. Her golden blond hair fell across her shoulders in waves and she looked up at me, smiling. She extended what she had been working on and I nodded, completely unimpressed. 
        
She sniffed at me and continued her sketch. My mother walked into the kitchen, pulling her hair back from her freshly showered face. 
         
“Everyone gone?” My father asked from the stove.
          
My mother nodded, “Yes Spence, the house is ours again. It's so much better teaching yoga in the basement, so much cooler. I'm glad we finished the basement over the winter. My clients are relieved as well. It's a scorcher out there today.” 
           
“Mom can you sit down so we can eat?” I begged from my spot at the table. My mother turned to me and laughed. 
            
“Matt, the hungriest six year old this side of the Mississippi. Why don't you ask your dad to hurry up, he's the one cooking!”
            
I placed my forehead on the table's lip, “Daaaaaaaaaaad, I'm going to die.”
            
Stephanie looked up from her coloring book, “Matt, don't be crazy.”
            
“You're crazy,” I muttered, not looking up. 
            
“Nu-UHHH!” She said, sticking her tongue out at me.
            
“All right, all right,” My father said, turning from the stove. In his hands he held a steaming platter of chicken. 
             
“Come sit down Steph, the food is ready!” I ordered my sister, the sight of the seasoned meat causing me to salivate. 
              
As she pulled herself up from the floor, my mother taking a place beside me, we all froze as someone knocked on the front door. My mother and father exchanged puzzled looks. My dad placed the food down on the table and told us all to hold on a minute. 
              
Groaning, I watched him walk to the front door. He peeked through the key hole and I saw him visibly tense, his whole body cementing like a statue. 
               
“Spence, who is it?” My mother asked. 
                
My father slowly turned back around to us, all blood draining from his face. His eyes were wide and I saw fear dilate his pupils. He licked his lips and shot Stephanie and I a look. 
                
“Spence!” My mom pressed, her face contorting with concern. 
                
“No...this can't happen...not again,” I heard my father whisper, staring off into the middle distance. 
                 
The door shook as another series of knocks echoed throughout the house. 
                 
My mom stood, her voice cracking with contagious fear, “Spence who is it?! What's going on?” 
                
“I'm so sorry,” My father mumbled, clutching his stomach, his face a pale sheet, “I have to let him in.”
                
Before any of us could say anything else, my dad turned and opened the door. Dying sunlight  blinded me and I squinted to see who our unannounced visitor was. 
                
“Hi! I'm Tommy Taffy! It's good to see you again Spence!”
                
I watched as my father slowly backed away from the open door. A man entered our house and shut the door behind him. 
                
My young mind tried to make sense of what I was seeing, but even at that young age, I knew something wasn't right with this unexpected guest. 
                
He was about six foot and had a shock of golden hair cut tight along his scalp. He wore khaki shorts and a white T-shirt that said “HI!” in red cartoon font.
                
But that wasn't what caught my eye. It was his skin...it was completely devoid of pores, a perfectly smooth, creamy texture that looked almost like soft plastic. His face was a pool of gentle pink, his mouth a cheerful cut along his cheeks revealing a white **** of teeth...but they weren't teeth. It was just a smooth, edgeless row, like he had a mouth guard on. His nose was just a slight rise out of his face, like a doll, void of nostrils. 
             
And his eyes...
             
His eyes were twin puddles of sparkling blue, shining out at us from his flawless, eerie face. They were wide, like he was in a constant state of surprise, and they shifted around the room to look at us in quick, jarring motion. 
             
His smile widened, and he raised a flawless hand to us at the table, “Hi! I'm Tommy Taffy! It's good to meet you!”
              
I noticed he didn't have any fingernails or skin defects. No wrinkles or bruises, nothing. It was like he was a living, talking, human sized doll. 
              
“Spence,” My mother croaked, recognition blooming in her eyes. 
              
“It's going to be ok, Megan,” My father said, voice shaking, “Let's just be polite to our new guest, ok?”
              
The man, Tommy, cocked his head towards my father, “Hehehehehe.”
              
My dad took a step back, raising his hands, “I-I mean our new friend!”
              
The frozen smile never left Tommy's molded face, “Hehehehehe.” There was no humor in his strange laugh. It sounded like he was clearing his throat or imitating a really bad chuckle. It was too pronounced, each syllable sounding too deliberate. 
               
My father forced a smile onto his face, “I-I meant...” He looked desperately at my mother who offered him no help, her body frozen in absolute fear. 
             
“I meant: Meet your new parent, kids!”
             
Stephanie, who was standing by our mother, frowned, “He's not our dad, you are. And why does he look so funny!?”
             
“Stephanie!” My mother hissed, gripping my sister's shoulder. 
             
Tommy laughed and walked forward to crouch in front of Stephanie, “It's not nice to make fun of people who look different is it?”
              
My sister looked at her feet, blushing.
              
Tommy tasseled her hair, “It's ok! Buck up, kiddo! We're going to get along just fine! I'm going to help your parents raise you! It's a big job being a mommy and a daddy! Sometimes, mommy and daddy's need help!”
               
Tommy turned to my parents, that ever present plastic smile stretching his face, “I helped their mommy and daddy's raise them! Isn't that right Spence? Megan?”
               
Megan pulled Stephanie away as my father nodded nervously. 
               
“T-that's right kids, he did!”
               
Tommy smiled and turned to me. I was still sitting at the table, taking the odd scene in. I didn't understand what was happening, didn't know who this weird looking man was or what he wanted. What he was saying didn't make sense, but my parent's seemed to know him, so I kept my speculations to myself. 
               
“And you must be Matt,” Tommy said, walking over to me.   
               
I didn't look at him, training my eyes to stare at my empty plate. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. I could feel the strange man beside me, his presence filling my head. I licked my lips and felt my heart begin to race. I didn't like this intruder. Something about him felt dangerous. 
               
Tommy walked behind me, chuckling, his hands sliding over my slender shoulders, “Oh it looks like we have a shy one. That's ok. I'll help him with that,” he said to my parents. His fingers dug into my skin and I winced, but kept my mouth shut. 
                
“Don't touch him,” My mother hissed, eyes going wide. 
                
Tommy looked up at her, mouth stretched, “Hehehehehe.”
                
My dad outstretched his hand, alarmed, “Uh, don't be so rude Megan!”
                
Tommy continued to stare at my mother who nervously lowered her eyes. 
                
“Are you staying for dinner?” Stephanie suddenly asked, breaking the tense silence. 
                
The eerie doll man let go of my shoulders, one of his hands sliding across my cheek and into my hair, “Oh yes. I'll be here for quite a while.”

---        
                 
And that was how Tommy Taffy entered our lives. At six years old I didn't know any better than to seriously question what was happening. Even though my parents acted unsettled at his arrival, their constant assurances that he was a friend pushed away any lingering doubt I had. As the days turned into weeks, I began to grow accustomed to Tommy's presence in our house. My initial fear slowly receded to wary caution. 
                
I soon learned that Tommy didn't like company. Whenever my mother had her yoga classes, Tommy would pull her off into a corner and whisper something to her. I would watch all this with silent eyes. I would see my mother's face grow pale and she would nod, whispering back unknown assurances. Then Tommy would turn, that ever present smile plastered on his face, and walk upstairs until the class was over. 
                
My parents told Stephanie and I that we weren't to talk about Tommy to our friends. Outside of the house, Tommy wasn't a part of our lives. I don't know why, but both my sister and I obeyed. 
           
Another thing I noticed was that Tommy never ate. He would sit at the table with us, but never partook in the meal. Stephanie asked him once if he was ever hungry and Tommy just smiled at her silently and stroked her head. 
            
During the evenings he would gather our family into the living room and give us a short lesson on how to be a good person. My parents never spoke during these talks, just sat next to us, nodding. Tommy told us not to make fun of others, to love our friends and enemies, and always help those in need. He told us that's why he was here with us. To help my parents raise us. That we could come talk to him if we had a problem at school or didn't know how to handle certain situations. 
           
It went on like this for a month. 
           
And that's when my mother lost it. 

---

**August, 1989**

           
My father had just arrived home from work and I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework. My mother was cooking dinner and Stephanie was practicing her dance for an upcoming school play. She was going to be a ballerina and had three weeks to learn a few simple spins and twirls. She had been diligently practicing over the past few days, but just couldn't get it right. She was young and her temper was getting the better of her. 
            
That's when Tommy decided to help her. 
            
He had been sitting on the couch watching her when suddenly he rose and stood behind my sister, placing his hands gently over her shoulders.
            
“Let me help, sweetie,” He cooed, his voice carrying a cheerful note. My mother spun around from the stove and I saw her visibly tense. She didn't like Tommy touching us. She gripped the wooden spoon in her hand until her knuckles went white, watching as Tommy crouched and cupped Stephanie's body with his. He took her hands in his from behind and guided her arms and waist, his cheek pressing gently against my sisters. 
             
“Tommy, let her learn on her own,” My mother said, her voice shaking.
             
Tommy didn't even look at her, just kept guiding my sister. I could hear my father coming down the stairs, freshly changed from a day at the office. 
              
Tommy spun my sister and for the first time, she nailed the twirl, her little feet twisting her body in a complete circle. Tommy clapped his hands once and then leaned down and kissed Stephanie on the cheek.
              
“Good girl!”
              
“Don't DO THAT!” My mother shrieked, dropping the spoon, her face draining of blood. I jumped in my seat at the the table and swallowed hard. I didn't know why my mom was getting so upset. He was just helping her. 
               
I also knew, deep down, that it was a bad idea to yell at the new member of our family. It was the gut instinct of a child, a gentle warning that rumbled in my head. 
               
Tommy stood, “Hehehehehehe.”
               
My father was standing at the foot of the stairs now, frozen, unsure what to make of the confrontation. 
                
“Megan, what's wrong?” He asked. 
                
My mother's eyes never left Tommy, “Spence, I can't do this anymore. I can't keep pretending everything is all right. We know what this monster is. We know what he did to our town all those years ago. I want him out of our house.”
                
My father's eyes went wide, panic blooming in his face, “Megan!” he licked his lips, eyes darting back and forth at all of us. “Don't be rude! Tommy has been a big help!”
                
My mom grit her teeth, “Stop that. Stop pretending we want him here. I can't watch this happen. I want him OUT!”
                
Very slowly, Tommy walked into the kitchen and stood in front of my mother. He looked down at her, his perfect blue eyes shining like crystal moons.
                 
His voice was like frozen silk, “Megan, would you come down into the basement with me? I need to have a few words with you.”
                
My mother took a step back, “Get away from me. Get away from my family! You're not welcome here anymore!” She turned desperate eyes to my father, “Spence DO SOMETHING!”
                
My dad raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. I could see he was terrified. Stephanie was watching from the living room, her lip quivering, eyes watering. I suddenly wanted to go comfort her but I felt glued to my chair. 
                 
“Come on now Megan, just a quick word.”
                 
“**** you,” My mother spat. I gasped, heart dropping into my stomach. I had never heard my mother swear before and it scared me stiff. 
                 
Suddenly, Tommy grabbed my mother by the back of the neck, the smile never leaving his face, and yanked her to the basement door. 
                  
“Spence STOP HIM! HELP ME!” My mother screamed, helplessly trying to remove Tommy's iron grip from her. 
                  
Tommy shot my dad a look that froze him where he stood. 
                  
“I-I'm sorry Megan...w-we need to do what he says!” He cried. Stephanie was now openly crying, hands at her sides, tears running down her face. I felt sick as I watched Tommy open the basement door and drag my mother down into the darkness. 
                   
The door slammed closed behind them. 
                   
It was silent for a few minutes...and then the screams began. 
                   
I had never heard my mother scream before...and the sound of it shattered me. My father ran into the kitchen and scooped me up into his arms then snatched up Stephanie in his other one. He marched us upstairs into his bedroom and dumped us on the bed. We sat huddled like that for hours, none of us speaking a word. 
                   
My mother continued to scream. 
                   
Finally, long after the sun set, we heard the basement door open. 
                   
“Mom's sleeping in the basement tonight!” Tommy called out. 

---

**March, 1991**

      
Two years passed. After that night, my mother never resisted or talked back to Tommy again. When she came out of the basement the following morning, I expected to see her covered in bruises and blood. But I could see no visible signs of violence. 
       
I was too young to understand what had happened, why my mother now walked with a limp and would for the rest of her life. She didn't speak to my father for a month and even then it was just enough to get by. I noticed my father crying a lot during those two years. I didn't know what was happening to my family, but I kept my mouth shut and obeyed the rules. 
       
Listen to Tommy. Don't talk about Tommy to others. 
       
Things went calm during those two years. Tommy continued to give us life lessons and be a part of our home. No one but my family knew he was living with us. He was our secret, the dark star that hung above our heads. I learned to smile around Tommy, as did my sister. If he thought we were happy, he seemed more relaxed. 
       
But that night my mother challenged him...that changed something. Every couple months, Tommy would assert his authority over my parents. He would test them, stretch the limits of their patience and nerves. 
      
Most of the time, my father and mother would humbly submit to whatever mind game he played with them. Most of the time he would do or say something to Stephanie or myself. It always made me uncomfortable. Sometimes he would have us sit on his lap while he stroked our hair. Sometimes he'd sing strange songs to my sister about love. Sometimes he would make us take a bath together while he watched. 
        
I always put on a brave face during these times. Stephanie was young still so she wasn't as bothered as I was. It was uncomfortable and I would look to my parents for guidance. With pale faces they'd nod silently and I continued in whatever activity we were forced into doing. 
        
It was in the early part of 1991 when the next awful thing happened to my family.
        
Tommy pushed the limits once again. 

---
        
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and looked at my race car clock on the wall. The glow in the dark hands read two am. I could hear something in the hallway outside my room. It sounded like someone crying. 
        
Where was Tommy? 
         
I checked the dark corners of my room to make sure he wasn't there, watching me sleep. When I was assured he wasn't, I pulled the covers away and slipped to the floor. I crept to my door and looked out into the darkness. 
         
I could see a figure sitting on the floor by my sister's closed door. A person. I squinted in the black and realized it was my father with his hands over his face. He was sobbing, his back against the wall. 
         
“Dad?” I whispered. 
          
My father looked up and immediately shooed me back into my room. I just stood there as my eyes adjusted to the night. My father's face was a mess of blood and bruises. 
          
“Go back to bed, Matt, please,” he cried. 
          
I took a hesitant step out into the hallway, “Dad what happened to your face? What's going on? Did Tommy do that?” 
          
My father's eyes went wide and he shushed me, “No no of course not! Don't say such things. Tommy is a...he's here to help us be a better family.”
           
I walked closer to my dad and froze as I passed my sister's door. I could hear muffled cries from inside. I could hear fear. 
           
“Dad...” I whispered, pointing to the door, “What's wrong with Steph?”
           
My father wiped a trail of blood from his lips, eyes watering, anguish stretching his features, “Come here, Matt.”
            
I crawled into his outstretched arms as something loud banged against the wall from my sister's room. I jumped and my father curled me up into his chest. I could feel tears drip onto my head as he fought back misery. 
            
“Tommy's in there isn't he?” I said quietly. 
            
My dad sniffled, “Yes son.”
            
I looked up into his bloody face, “What did you do dad?”
            
My dad tried to smile, but his face wouldn't cooperate, “He...he wanted to do something with your sister I didn't like. I told him no.”
            
As he spoke I realized I could hear my mother crying from the bedroom. 
            
My dad cupped his hand under my chin, “We can't say no to Tommy, ok? Remember that.”
            
My sister screamed from her bedroom, a shrill piercing cry that shook me to my soul. I gripped my father's arm. 
            
“Why is he here?” I whispered, “Why can't he just go away?”
            
My father was silent a moment and then he lowered his mouth to my ear, “Listen to me Matt. This is very important. When you grow up, do not have children. He follows those with children.”
            
I shifted in my father's arms as something was dragged across the hardwood floor from the other side of the wall. 
            
My father grit his teeth, more tears spilling, “We don't know who he is or what he is. He came to our town when we were little boys and girls, just like you and Stephanie. Your mother and I lived two houses down from one another. Tommy infested our street. I don't know how. He was...everywhere...always. He'd be at my house, but also across the street, and also at your mother's...all at the same time. I don't know what he wants, what his purpose is. He just showed up one day. He just showed up and wouldn't go away. **** knows my father tried.”
            
“Is that how grampa died?” I asked. I had never met my grampa, I just knew he had died years before I was born. 
             
My father nodded, “Yes Matt. Tommy...Tommy had to teach him a lesson. He had to teach the entire street a lesson. After that...after that...”
             
“Why can't you just...just **** him,” I whispered, ever so softly.
             
My dad brought his mouth closer to my ear, his voice barely audible, “We tried. We tried everything. We burned him, shot him, cut him into pieces...but it never worked. He always came back, knocking at our door. And someone had to pay. Someone always had to pay. If we didn't follow his rules...someone...had...to pay. Tommy was our secret. He was our invisible monster, hidden from the outside world. Deaths were covered up...abuse was brushed under the rug...because we knew...we knew if anyone said a word, Tommy would make it BAD for whoever had to face his punishment.”
             
I digested all this with the understanding of an eight year old and the only thing I could think to say was, “When is he going away?”
             
My father kissed the top of my head, “Three more years...”
             
The bedroom door suddenly opened and my father jumped, tumbling me out of his arms. Tommy stood in the darkness, his face perfectly composed except he was breathing hard. His plastic looking face scared me, his two blue eyes glowing out of the black.
             
Tommy jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the now silent bedroom, “She's going to sleep like a log tonight.”
              
---

**September 1993**

           
We had one year left. One more year. I could almost see the desperation in my parents eyes grow every day, begging the calendar to advance. We were almost through the nightmare. 
           
I thought a lot about what my father had told me that horrible night in the hallway. I thought about what he must have gone through as a child. What he must have experienced. I wondered how bad things must have gotten for Tommy to **** my grandfather. I realized now that despite all the awful things Tommy was doing, my father's submission was keeping us alive. His agonized silence kept Tommy's wrath at bay. 
          
Looking back...I can't imagine to mental torture he endured during those five years. 
          
Stephanie didn't talk much after that night in March. I noticed her charismatic personality decline drastically and suddenly she was an unsmiling, silent child. I don't think she understood what happened to her and as she grew up, I think her mind slowly began to build a wall, blocking that night out from her mind's eye. 
           
My mother and father seemed to be extra compliant that last year. They engaged in Tommy's nighttime lessons with added enthusiasm and my mother desperately made sure Stephanie and I reacted in ways that made Tommy happy. 
           
But I didn't make it out unscathed. 
           
Tommy was sure to make his mark on our entire family. 

---
           
I was sitting in my room with the door closed. It was almost dinner time and everyone was downstairs getting ready. I could hear Tommy laughing from the living room. 
           
I looked down at the magazine one of my friends at school had given me. It was a ****. We had poured over the pages at school, giggling and ogling over the **** women scattered throughout the magazine. I had never seen anything like it. It was my first exposure to that world. It made my heart race in ways I enjoyed and I felt something weird, but pleasurable stirring inside of me. I had asked my friend if I could borrow the magazine and he had let me.
           
I adjusted myself on my bed and poured over the **** photos. I couldn't believe women actually let people take pictures of them like this. I felt something stir in my **** as I turned another page. My heart was racing and I felt hot, my cheeks flush. 
           
I was on the last page when I heard something from the doorway. 
           
“Whatcha got there, Matt?”
           
I whipped my head up, jumping, the magazine falling to the floor. Tommy was watching me from the door. I hadn't even heard him open it. 
          
“N-nothing,” I mumbled, snatching the **** up and shoving it under my pillow. 
           
Tommy walked over to me, “Hehehehehehe.”
           
“I-I didn't hear you come in,” I mumbled, blushing. 
           
Tommy reached under my pillow and pulled out the magazine, “It's not nice to lie. I've told you that. Why were you lying to me, Matt?”
            
I swallowed hard, heart thundering against my ribcage, “I-I'm sorry. I was...I'm...” I trailed off miserably as Tommy thumbed through the pages. 
            
He glanced down at me, “Do you like this?”
            
I knew I couldn't lie to him again. I nodded, my skin flush, eyes on the floor. 
            
Tommy smiled and sat down next to me on the bed, one hand resting on my thigh, “Do these pictures make you feel...good?”
            
I didn't look at him as I nodded again. 
            
Suddenly Tommy slid his hand over my **** and gave it a gentle squeeze, “Does it make your **** feel good, Matt?”
            
I jumped, his touch scaring me. He removed his hand and chuckled, his **** of seamless teeth sparkling. 
            
Tommy put the magazine down and cupped his hand under my chin, “Do you know how to ****, Matt? Has your father told you how to do that?” 
            
My breath came in short gasps, his hand cool and smooth against my face. I didn't know what he was talking about, didn't know what he wanted me to say. I just stared at him with helpless eyes. 
            
Tommy sighed, “It's probably best he hasn't. It's a sensitive discussion I feel like I should have with you, not him. You're what...ten now?”
             
I nodded, paralyzed. 
             
Tommy slowly reached down and grasped my **** again, “Do you want me to show you how to do it?”
             
I squirmed under his grip, “N-no thank you, Tommy.”
             
Tommy smiled gently, “It's ok to be scared. Growing up is scary. You're going to be such a handsome young man.” He stroked my cheek with his other hand, one now on my cheek, the other still grasping my ****. “Have you had your first kiss yet?”
             
“T-Tommy, please...” I cried, feeling tears begin to form in my eyes. 
             
Tommy pushed me back on the bed and I was now staring up at him as he cupped my head in his hand, “You don't have to be afraid of growing up Tommy. There's a lot of good things to look forward to. And just think...when you have children, I'll come help you raise them. It's going to be...fun.”
             
“L-let me go,” I whispered, openly crying now, his breath hot on my face. 
              
Tommy suddenly leaned down and kissed me, his lips engulfing mine. I let out a squeal of panic as I felt his tongue slip into my mouth, his grip tightening around my ****. His mouth tasted of rotting fruit and decaying meat, a rush of filth that invaded my taste buds. 
               
He rolled his lips around mine and then pulled away and whispered, “Not going to get hard for me?”
               
I just cried, staring up at him with shocked, panicked eyes. 
               
Tommy smiled and whispered in my ear, “That's ok.”
                
He suddenly sat up, releasing me, “Come on. Dinner's ready.”
                
Shaking, I wiped my face and let him help me off the bed. I wasn't hungry. 

---

**July 1994**

               
As the days marched closer and closer towards July, my family developed a silent optimistic, a desperate plea to make this all stop. To make it all go away. My mother and father made sure there was no reason for another hard lesson. They bent over backwards for Tommy, begging through clamped teeth that we'd all make it to July without another incident. 
               
Only July 3rd, we woke up to find Tommy Taffy was gone. Five years to the day. We couldn't believe it. He had simply vanished overnight. We checked the entire house, my mother weeping tears of relieved joy that the nightmare was finally over. Over checking every inch of the house three times over, we met in the living room, embracing one another as a family. 
                
Tommy had moved on. 
                
The sentence was over. 
                
My father called out of work and we went away for two weeks to the beach. During those two weeks, I kept expecting to wake up with Tommy standing over me, that horrific smile on his face. But he didn't. 
                 
It was over. 
                 
My parents did their best to rebuild our family, fill in the cracks that had been made during those long years. And I love them dearly for it. But some monsters just can't be forgotten. 
                 
I don't know what Tommy Taffy was or where he came from. I don't think I'll ever know. What was his purpose? Why did he do those awful things to us? I pour over the possible answers until my head splits and I find myself crying, the memories too much to dig up. Some things are just left dead in the past.
                
But I haven't forgotten what my father told me in the hallway that awful night outside my sister's room. 
                 
I'm thirty-three now and have remained unmarried and without children. I can't risk it. I can't risk that monster coming back into my life. I've never understood why my parents chose to have kids. They both had been exposed to Tommy during their childhood...so why have Stephanie and I? Maybe they didn't believe he'd come back. 
                  
But I believe it. And I'm terrified. 
                  
Because you see...yesterday my sister gave birth to twins. 


---
[XTX](https://www.facebook.com/Elias-Witherow-831476890331162/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel)



 Human: write a story with the theme title: I am staying with an exchange family in Japan. Something very wrong is happening here – Part 1
 
 Assistant:  My name’s Finn. Growing up, I was always the quiet one. I did my own thing, but had solidified myself in a friend group; none of us popular, none of us outcasts. I took this with me into college, and it was there where I truly realised the part of life I was missing. The friends I made there had an abundance of crazy stories and adventures that could silence a room; mainly, Lexi. She’d travelled the world, mostly by herself, which opened her up to meeting some really interesting people and getting herself into some really crazy scenarios. I wanted that. Was it out of my comfort zone? Absolutely. But that’s where we thrive, right? So after college, I asked her for some advice on how to organise a solo trip. I wanted to backpack, live it rough, stay with host families or in hostels. Like she had done. She asked where I wanted to go, and we got talking about my possibilities.

I chose to travel across Asia. It’s somewhere I’d never been, and the ranging cultures from country to country, city to city, intrigued me. I loved the way Lexi had spoken about each country; India, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea. So, she’d put me in contact with people she’d met along the way; people to house me or offer me jobs; and I planned my route. 

\-

Lexi set me up with places to stay in most instances, despite the occasional hostel. The trip was amazing. It brought out a side of me that I knew I had, but rarely showed. I was talking to strangers, trying to speak to locals in their respective languages, embracing the culture of wherever I was. I lived day-to-day, from sleeping on packed buses, to hitchhiking with strangers who soon became new friends. I stayed with an array of host families, all providing me with different experiences, and I am now on my way to stay with the final one before the end of my trip. 

I pulled out the itinerary that Lexi and I had come up with months prior. This last family I’m staying with was one of the few that required me to be on time. They live in an isolated village, in the mountains of Japan, and were expecting me on a certain date at a certain time. Whilst Lexi hadn’t actually stayed with this family, she had planned to. Her trip had been cut short due to personal circumstances, and she never got the chance to meet them. She had communicated with the family through a mutual friend, as the family didn’t have much access to the internet and apparently spoke very little English. All the information I had was the name of the village and to go to the main square, where I would be greeted by the family. And that’s basically all I knew. That’s what makes this so exciting. 

I also knew the name of the family.

The Nomura family.

\-

The journey here was exhausting. I had taken a ferry from South Korea into Honshu, Japan. From there, I had taken a series of buses, before having to walk for about 30 minutes up a small, dirt road through the trees. Thankfully, the bus driver knew where the village was, because when I got off in the middle of nowhere I would’ve been useless with just my map and my very limited Japanese. He pointed me in the right direction. But the journey was worth it. The village is beautiful. It is large, situated on a grassy plain that rests alongside a small mountain which overlooked the traditional wooden houses. As I walk its streets, most people smile and nod. I’m guessing there aren’t many outsiders that visit this place. I feel privileged to be one of them. The houses are made of wood and clay, providing a complimentary rustic appearance against the bright green grass below. Some boasted large, front doors, whilst others opted for the more traditional sliding doors. I walk the streets in awe of the hustle and bustle going on around me, contrasted by the natural, overwhelming beauty of the mountain above. I soon see an area that is clearly the main square of the village; a clearing in the middle of the wooden houses, with a beautiful statue standing tall in its centre. I go to inspect the statue, when a girl approaches me, I’d guess mid-20s, and smiles.

“Finn?”, she asks, focusing on pronouncing my name correctly.

“Yes! Hi!”, I respond, “are you the Nomura family?”

“Yes! Yes!”, she excitedly replies, “welcome. I am Ren”.

“Hi, Ren”, I introduce myself, “my name is Finn. Thank you so much for agreeing to have me”. 

Her English seems very good. I felt comforted that I would be able to speak with someone and be shown around, as I was under the impression that there would be a language barrier.

“Please, it’s fine. We are very excited”, she says, “Would you like to come with me?”

Of course, I agree. I am excited to see where I’ll be staying during this last week of my trip. On the way to her house, Ren tells me that her family doesn’t speak English, except for her mother who she is teaching. Ren says that she learned English when she moved out of the village to Kyoto, where she was able to take classes. As we walk, the houses around me seem to grow larger and further apart. Ren says that her house is situated just outside the village, and essentially that we are in the area where the richer families live. All in all, her house is around 20 minutes from the village square, down a beautiful, green path, overhung by shrubs and flowers. It is more isolated than the houses in the village centre, which I am happy about as I’d be able to get the most out of both the village life, and the natural beauty that surrounds it.

\-

Ren’s house is beautiful. Intricate designs danced on its light brown rooftops, looming above its large front door frame. The wooden walls of the outer house pristine, as if newly made. The isolation of the house enhances its beauty, as there are no distractions to take you away from its bold presence. I’ve hit the jackpot here. Ren opened the front door, and welcomes me inside.

The house is split into two parts; the main area with the dining table and kitchen, and an area with the bedrooms and bathroom. The two sections of the house are connected by a small walkway that takes you outside, providing a stunning view of a flowery garden below. The main area hosts a dining table that lays close to the ground. Just off that, a kitchen area, and an area with what looks like instruments. In the far corner of the room, a small house shrine. 

Across the connecting walkway, the sleeping area. A long, wide corridor, hosting rooms either side, each with a traditional sliding door made of what I think is rice paper. Ren shows me to my room, the third one down. My room is simple; a mattress laying on the floor, and a small table perched below an open window too high to see out of. Like the rest of the house, the walls and floor are made wood. I set my bag down, and unpack, before going to meet her family.

\-

I meet the rest of the Nomura’s over dinner. Ren has a sister, Hina, who is quiet. She is younger than Ren, around 17, and I feel she was shy around me. Ren’s mother, Saeko, is very sweet. She tried to use what English she had to make me feel welcome, and offered me more food than I could handle. Ren’s father, however, seems less welcoming. He is a serious man, speaking only to his wife throughout the meal after greeting me with a slight nod. Strangely, I am told to refer to him as Father Nomura. Whilst I didn’t expect this, I won’t question it as they’re doing me a favour by letting me stay here. I assume it’s a sign of respect. Dinner, however, is lovely. Saeko has clearly put a lot of effort into it. I am already starting to feel comfortable here, when Ren pulls me aside as we all part from the dining table.

“Finn”, she grabbed my arm, locking eyes with mine, “the last room in the sleeping area, that’s my grandparent’s room. The room at the end of the corridor. You aren’t allowed to go in there”.

“Oh, I didn’t even realise your grandparents are staying here too”, I reply, having not seen them.

“Yes, they are”, she says, “and you must make sure you don’t go near their room, okay?”

Okay.. I find that weird. Obviously, I’m not going to be going into anyone else’s room, but if she was going to warn me about that, why only warn me about the grandparent’s room?  

\-

I am just back from a walk around the village. Ren and I went. She gave me a quick tour, best she could before it got dark, before we headed back to her house. I didn’t see any of her family on the way through the main area, or in the corridor housing my bedroom. I thank Ren, and say I’d see her tomorrow. Exhausted from my long journey, I lay down to sleep.

\-

I wake to the sound of a whisper.

The whisper is a harsh, long one. I can’t make out what is being said; I think it’s in Japanese. It’s a fast whisper, sounds like a chant. Someone is repeating something. I sit up, and peer through the darkness at my sliding door. It’s coming from the corridor, almost as if right outside my room. It starts to speed up even more, repeating the same incoherent phrase over and over. What the ****? What’s it saying?

Suddenly, the whispering stops. I sit there in silence, waiting for something to happen. Footsteps. From the end of the corridor. The sound of the footsteps increase as they quickly approach my door, before passing it, seemingly heading for the exit. As they pass my door, I make out a silhouette through its paper. It moved fast. Weird. I get out of bed, and edge toward the door. I slowly slide it open, peering into the dark corridor before me. It’s empty. I look down one end, nothing, then down the other, also nothing. I am about to close the door and head back to sleep when I see wet footprints. They appear to have come from the room at the end of the corridor, and lead all the way out to the connecting walkway outside. I can clearly see that whoever made them was barefoot, some of the footprints of them so clear that I could count each toe. I begrudgingly follow them. 

Just as I’m about to open the door onto the connecting walkway outside, I hear the door of one of the bedrooms behind me slide open. It’s Ren. 

“Ren,” I stutter, “s-someone just ran by my room”.

She hushes me, “it is grandmother”, she whispers, “she has problems at night. She runs into the village often at night. Father will get her”.

I figure she means night terrors, or sleepwalking, or something. Spooked, I apologise to Ren, and head back to my bed.

\-

The cold air wakes me up the next morning. The light streams through the open window above, as I sit up in bed. I have no idea what time it is, I could’ve slept for ages after all that travelling. I should probably get up and see what’s happening. I roll out of bed, and sit on the floor whilst I go through my suitcase. I get changed, and turn towards the bedroom door. I’m freaked out about last night, but it’s my first night here, so I’m definitely not going to bring it up. I walk out into the corridor, and as I take one last look at the room before sliding the door shut, I notice footprints.

They are the same barefoot, wet footprints I had seen in the corridor last night. My heart flutters, and I scan their route. These were different footprints. Like last night, these came out of the room at the end of the corridor. But instead of leading to the exit, they lead into my room, toward my bed.

I see two wet footprints, planted on the floor at the foot of my bed.

Ren’s grandmother had been watching me sleep.

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/gp7f0i/i_am_staying_with_an_exchange_family_in_japan/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My family waited 20 years to open a 100 year old time capsule
 
 Assistant: &nbsp;
A father gives. I gave my family a house in 1999, and we wasted no time in digging up our new backyard garden with help from our seven year old son. He was the one that found the lump of red clay with a message stamped deeply into the surface: ATTENTION! TIME SENSITIVE! INTERNED THE FIFTH OF JULY NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINETEEN OF THE YEAR OF OUR LORD. *NOT* TO BE OPENED UNTIL A MINIMUM 100 YEARS PASSAGE! 

&nbsp; 
My wife and I thought it was fun to imagine what our life would be like in 20 years; in its own way, the capsule really did help me focus on the future as my family grew. 

&nbsp;
We kept the capsule was safely boxed up in the attic. My wife, son and eventually our daughter liked talking about the time capsule every July 5th, and where we think we would be and what we would be doing at the 20 year mark. It was a object of warmth. It reminded me of what I gave as a father when those 20 years passed as quickly as these words. 

&nbsp;
In a family ceremony 20 years in the making, we cracked open the clay shell in the living room with cell phone cameras rolling about a month ago. We saw that the clay protected a near-mint condition plain copper box. I pulled it from its cast of clay and held the box to my chest for a bit as my family gleefully chanted for me to open it. I readied myself for some newspaper clippings, photos, maybe a few stamps. But upon opening, my son recoiled and let out the creepiest little diabolical laugh I have ever heard, a laugh I never heard from him before. He laughed for seconds straight before falling to  a gasping and coughing fit. At the same time, my daughter said in a very concerned voice “guys...I can see me, us- outside my body...” My wife immediately jumped up from her seat and asked if I smelled leaking gas, or something else noxious. I had not idea what came over my family, as I saw, felt and smelt nothing different.

&nbsp;
I looked inside the tin box to find a yellowed piece of notecard below a layer of what looked like crumbling rock salt. The inside had a faint artificial, noxious chemical fume. I shook the crystals away to retrieve the card and read the fountain-pen written note:

&nbsp;
“Dear Person or Persona:  If air touched us prior to one hundred years passage, study us, and weep- for we are and shall ever be outside your limits of comprehension, as these gems stay sealed from your kind's perception forever. However, if the instructions stamped upon this hull were heeded and a minimum of 100 years have passed- you, or those surrounding you, may have noticed a change, or a shift of perception, along with the presence of destabilized Crystalline within the capsule, remnants of inert state. These are signs that we have germinated and now found two new suitable hosts. When we find them, we will assume these forms and identities as we see fit. We seek no quarrel with you. Respect us mutually in that regard.”

&nbsp;
My 27 year old son's coughing fit started up again as he looked in the hallway mirror and ran a finger through his shoulder-length hair. My son mumbled something about not liking long hair and stated “I'm going to go cut off all my hair” in slower, deeper accented tone we never heard before before going to the bathroom. My 15 year old daughter, an award-winning gymnast, acted like a newborn giraffe on four ice skates when she tried to stand, laughing like she was high or ****, and saying things like “These legs! These arms! I ride like a 3 horse team!” as she walked off on legs that became more fluid and confident with each step. 

&nbsp;
When my wife asked me what the note in the tin said, my daughter ripped it from my hand, wadded it and ate it entirely, smiling the entire time. 

&nbsp;
“Respect us mutually” she said in a strange, sing-song tone.

&nbsp;
My children stayed in their rooms all night and disappeared without taking a single thing with them the next morning. 

&nbsp;
Two weeks later, my wife and I were diagnosed with separate kinds of cancers that were just now metastasizing. I guess that's why they didn't pick us.  

&nbsp;
My wife is already mentally gone from this world, and I'm soon to follow. Sometimes I sit in the dirt, in the spot where my son found that cursed thing years ago, thinking. I was so obsessed with where I would be in 20 years that I didn't appreciate the days that passed between as I should have. A father is supposed to give. What did I give my children?

&nbsp;
There is not much time left for me, and I don't want to waste it wondering where my “children” are or what those things were inside the box anymore. No, not anymore. 

&nbsp;
A father gives, and all I have left to give to you is my story.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: What my wife gave birth to will haunt me until the day I die
 
 Assistant: In the eighth month of her pregnancy, my wife suffered a complication that required emergency surgery. When she woke up and I told her the surgery had been successful, her reaction was nothing short of terrifying.

She didn't seem happy, didn't utter any words of relief, she just slowly reached down to her belly; her eyes widened for a moment, and then she began to laugh. 

It was a deep, humorless cackle that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I had to repress a shudder as I asked her what was wrong, but she ignored me.

Instead of answering she began to scream; her whole body shaking as she thrashed and wailed; tearing out tufts of her hair and throwing them on the ground. I kept asking her what was wrong but she wouldn't answer. 

All of a sudden she went completely silent.  She raised one hand up high. She paused for a moment--our eyes locked--and she brought her hand down with all her strength, plunging her long fingernails into her stomach. She tore at her stomach with such fevered ferocity that I was sure she would rip it open. 

I grabbed hold of her wrists and with great effort I managed to wrestle them down next to her sides. I had to use the restraints on the rails of the bed; once I did her whole body suddenly went limp, as if she was too weak to move.

I sat down beside her bed; I could hear my voice shaking as I tried desperately to calm her down.

"It's alright, honey. It was just a small complication after all. Soon we'll have a beautiful baby boy. Our son. It'll all be worth it then."

She slowly turned her head towards me. Her eyes were dead, devoid of humanity. She began whispering, her head lolling limply around on her shoulders. I leaned in close to hear what she was saying. It was just one sentence, repeated over and over.

*Get it out of me.*

She refused to speak at all for the next week; sometimes she would just lay there, totally limp and motionless.  Other times she would scream and pull at her restraints until her wrists bled. I tried calming her down, telling her that this was a good thing; bringing her baby clothes and her favorite foods, but nothing I did could reach her. Finally, after a week, she went into contractions.

As soon as the baby came out, it was clear that something had gone horribly wrong. The stench was unbearable; a sick, nauseatingly sweet smell-- but the baby was worse. Its head was overly large, its eyes bulging and bloodshot, and the skin was black and ragged; sloughing off in my hands when I touched it.

It was a miracle that my wife survived the birth.  I tell myself that we're lucky for that, even if our son was born dead.  She seems to be relieved that the pregnancy is over, but I just keep going over everything horrible that's happened in my head. It tore my heart out when she gave birth to our third stillborn son, and it was even worse when I had to force-feed her those pills so that I could perform the surgery to put him back inside of her. 

If we're going to hold our marriage together through this tragedy we'll both need something to look forward to. I think I'll go tell her I'm ready to try again; maybe it will cheer her up.


[x](http://fb.me/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My video doorbell sends a ‘motion detected’ alert every night at 2:53. I found a forum full of users experiencing the exact same issue, now something seriously strange is going on...
 
 Assistant: The following are posts from the Roost Video Doorbell help forum. After my phone started spamming ‘motion detected’ alerts I did a quick Google search, stumbled across this thread, and created an account.

In case it isn’t obvious, my username is lightingnations. Dates are in UK format.

\--

**Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 27-10-2022 03:06*

trying this AGAIN because the admins are a bunch of WHINY SNOWFLAKES who cry whenever somebody uses a NAUGHTY word!!!!

video doorbell sends motion alert to my phone EVERY NIGHT at 2.53!!! tech support keep saying its picking up banging gate or squirrel but that’s RUBBISH!!!! ALL the camera sees is patio floor and furniture!!!!1

CAN I GET SOME ASSISTANCE PLEASE???

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 27-10-2022 13:08*

Im in the exact same boat. 2.53 each night, like clockwork. There's weird pixelation/distortion in the footage but it works like a charm the rest of the time.

Monitoring this thread. To tech support: not good enough!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 27-10-2022 15:45*

mines doing the same thing. bloody phone goes off every night and I get an alert with garbled footage.

the support line aren’t much help. ive muted notifications for now but it’s a bit pointless having the camera if it won’t warn me and the missus whenever someone’s breaking in.

a solution would be very much appreciated.

cheers.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 27-10-2022 18:29*

GLAD TO SEE IT ISNT ONLY ME!!! i’VE BEEN ON THE PHONE TO THE TECH GUYS FOR DAYS!!! USELESS!!!!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *<deleted user>*

*Posted on 29-10-2022 09:31*

Hi Dan, there are instructions for fixing this exact issue in the user guide, page 53. I’ve attached a pdf version here (**authors note**: I’ve not included the link).

Follow the troubleshooting steps and you’ll be good as new.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 29-10-2022 13:02*

That is NOT A Guide for a video doorbell those are instructions for installing a Samsung smart fridge!! Did you upload the WRONG file????? How is that supposed to help anybody????? This is a SUPPORT FORUM for a ROOST VIDEO DOORBELLS!!! IDIOT!!!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 29-10-2022 13:27*

Dan just ignore that poster he’s a troll. I’m pretty sure that’s his sixth account.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 29-10-2022 15:00*

Doesn’t this F\*\*\*ING IDIOT not have anything better to do?? Maybe he should get a job with roost tech spport it cant be HARD!!!!!

good news FOR ONCE technical MORONS sending me replacement i just had shout at them for 3 hours USELESS i swear,

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 31-10-2022 10:59*

THE REPLACEMENT SENDS THE SAME ALERTS!! NO MOTION IN THE GARDEN NO INTRUDERS NO ANIMALS!! iVE CHECKED THE VIDEO FEED AND THERE’S NOTHING!!! JUST A FUZZY SHAPE IVE RATED THESE IDIOTS 1 STAR ON AMAZON!!!!1

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *lightingnations*

*Posted on 02-11-2022 11:50*

Hi everyone, afraid I’m in the exact same boat—triggering at 2:53.

Video feed comes out garbled but is fine/works perfectly the rest of the day. The tech guys said it might be a low tree branch blowing in the wind but I’d expect to be receiving random alerts spaced out across several hours, not once per day at the exact same time.

I spent a fair chunk of change on this thing and now Roost won’t issue a refund, only replacements.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *<deleted user*\>

*Posted on 02-11-2022 23:16*

Sorry it’s my fault Dan. I was in the garden piping your mom down wearing camo gear which is why you couldn’t see us.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 03-11-2022 08:04*

okay so I’m not so sure the doorbell is actually the problem.

i got held up at work last night (joys of working in IT) and was heating dinner at 2.53 when the microwave fritzed. the digital clock blinked on and off for a full minute meanwhile my echo device stopped mid-song and I got another motion alert.

one minute later everything went back to normal. will maybe get an electrician round to have a look.

also the footage distortion keeps getting worse. now in the alerts it kinda looks like there’s static except its warping around the garden. nearly gave the wife a heart attack.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *lightingnations*

*Posted on 03-11-2022 11:02*

That’s interesting about the electrics. Keep us posted!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 04-11-2022 03:09*

My TV fritzed just now. Same problem as paleo10, blinked on and off for a full minute right as the motion alert came through.

Do you think maybe these things are draining power when they do overnight software updates or something? I’m not very technical might not make sense, just a thought. I’m gonna check for grid faults with the council.

Such is life in the South of England. Empty office blocs, rising hunger…and now potential rolling blackouts. Lovely.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *lightingations*

*Posted on 04-11-2022 09:19*

Tell me about it. I’m in <redacted>. The stories you hear are heartbreaking.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 04-11-2022 14:32*

seriously? this is spooky, I’m in <redacted> as well. im tempted to say there’s a faulty batch of doorbells sitting in an amazon warehouse somewhere that are gonna start blowing fuses.

a replacement is on the way out to me btw (arranged it before noticing the problems with the microwave). had the electrician round and he saw no problems. I’d have smashed this thing already but the missus saw how much I spent on it soooo….

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 04-11-2022 16:48*

Holy s\*\*\*, this is TooManyTophats reporting to you live from <redacted>.

And the 12 points from England go to…

Nah but seriously, Roost ships internationally. Weird we’re all in the same city.

Council say everything is fine btw.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *pixiechic01*

*Posted on 04-11-2022 17:12*

Hi. Experiencing same issue. Also in <redacted>.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 06-11-2022 09:53*

Quick update, the guy who lives three doors down from me also has a Roost doorbell (different model) and he has the exact same problem. Motion alerts and muddled footage at 2.53, works like a charm at all other times. Also we’re both now getting garbled audio like feedback whine from an amplifier in the recordings.

The fun never ends!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 06-11-2022 09:58*

I’M IN <redacted > SICK OF THIS RUBBISH CANT SAY WHAT I REALLY THINK CAUSE OF **** ADMIN IDIOTS NOW GETTING SOMEBODY OUTSIDE ALERTS THEY SENT ME A THIRD DEVICE NOW INSTALLED IF THIS ONE GOES OFF AGAIN TONIGHT IM GONNA GO OUTSIDE AND RIP IT OUT OF THE DOORFRAME AND SEND THEM THE REPAIR BILL SICK OF THIS!!!!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 07-11-2022 02:53*

The device is now working as intended. Go outside at 2:53. Check the camera.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 07-11-2022 07:06*

what do you mean check the camera?

ive got my replacement installed and this one bugs out worse than before: now the bell rings for one minute non-stop and I get constant ‘there’s somebody at the door’ alerts. hearing the **** jingle in my dreams now. I won’t even show the wife the footage cause its like a figure made of pixels keeps ringing the bell. also hearing the high-pitched screech when i play back footage.

I’m seriously about to go all ‘Office Space’ on this thing.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 07-11-2022 08:19*

Yeah I’m confused. Dan, could you elaborate? Preferably with less CAPITAL LETTERS and more punctuation than usual?

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 08-11-2022 02:53*

Dan was right. Go outside at 2:53. Check the camera.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *lightingnations*

*Posted on 08-11-2022 11:00*

What do you mean check the camera? Check WHAT specifically?

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 08-11-2022 11:17*

Yeah, +1. Please elaborate.

I’ve got the same problem as paleo now lighting. Full minute of ‘somebody at the door’ alerts and constant ding **** ding **** with multiple disortions about the garden. When I play back the recordings audio from outside is all screechy. Also the app is useless, tried disabling alerts on the phone but they still came through. Already couldn’t sleep cause the wind keeps banging the gate, this is last thing I need.

Fed up to be honest. I’ll be hearing that **** two-note chime in **** the way things are going. One more night of this and I’m grabbing the sledgehammer.

Let’s see if it detects THAT motion!

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 09-11-2022 02:53*

The others were right. Go outside at 2:53. Check the camera.

\--

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *lightingnations*

*Posted on 09-11-2022 09:09*

What? It’s freezing this time of year, I’m not getting out of bed in the middle of the night to ‘check the camera’. I’ve decided to get a Ring device instead and cut my losses. It's already been ordered. Cheers.

\--

Later that night, my phone buzzed on the beside table. Like always, ‘motion detected alerts’ started coming through at 2:53. I pulled up the grainy feed from outside, and in it, there were vague suggestions of figures scattered about the garden: by the fencepost, under the tree, peeking through downstairs windows.

Meanwhile, the soft two-note chime rang out. *Ding ****, ding dong*. It happened again and again, gathering speed, morphing into a hysterical scream.

*Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-Dong*

I got up and peeled back the curtain, just a few inches.

All of a sudden, there came a pounding from downstairs—a furious *THUMP-THUMP-THUMP* so powerful the windows and doors almost burst from their housings.

*Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-Dong*

The house became alive with movement. It felt like being trapped inside a tornado, everything around me rattling and quivering, storm shutters scratching against walls, the letterbox rapping away.

*Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-****-Ding-Dong*

I sprinted into the bathroom and barricaded myself inside and called the police, the phone buzzing with a chorus of non-stop alerts: *there’s someone at the door, there’s someone at the door, there’s someone…*

And then, out of nowhere...the house lowered its voice and went back to sleep.

I checked my phone. 2.54.

Now trembling, I brought up the feed from outside. There was nothing except a peaceful garden and the quiet section of street that lay beyond it.

Two officers turned up, checked the footage, and dismissed the encounter as a mixture of a technical glitch, an overactive imagination, and some nasty weather.

But when I next clicked onto the forum, there were four new posts...

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *DanKing22*

*Posted on 10-11-2022 02:53*

It's 2:53, time to come outside.

–

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *paleo10*

*Posted on 10-11-2022 02:53*

It's 2:53, time to come outside.

–

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *pixiechic01*

*Posted on 10-11-2022 02:53*

It's 2:53, time to come outside.

–

**Re: Motion alert triggers every night at 2:53**, *TooManyTophats*

*Posted on 10-11-2022 02:53*

[It's 2:53, time to come outside...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thoughtindustry/comments/te0fum/welcome_i_hope_you_enjoy_your_stay/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: How the Scarecrow Died
 
 Assistant: Josh was one of those kids who was just born to be a bully.  He was built more like a gorilla than a human teenager, and he had the disposition of a Rottweiler someone had just tried to neuter with a pair of rusty scissors.

There are a lot of different ways to bully someone, and Josh was an expert in all of them. He stole lunch money, shoved heads in toilets, beat kids up and even pinched girls **** in the hallways.  But the thing that really made Josh born to be a bully was his dad.  

The man looked like an even bigger, uglier version of Josh, and he basically owned the small town we all lived in, and he seemed to think that he owned the people too. 

 If somebody pointed out that Josh shouldn't slap girls' **** in the hallway, you can bet a few phonecalls later that that person would be out of a job thanks to Josh's daddy dearest. 

To this day I sometimes wonder if the horrible events that would forever besmirch our town's history could've been avoided if someone had just held him accountable.  But nobody ever did, and I guess that I'll never know.

The thing that started it was something simple:  Josh took a special interest in making one particular kid's life miserable.  Little Billy Williamson was just too easy of a target; he was skinny, pale, and kids called him "the scarecrow" because of the patches in his clothes.

Of course, it wasn't Billy's fault that his mom was poor and couldn't afford new clothes, but you know how cruel kids can be when someone's different.  

Myself, I always just called him Billy.

Every day Josh would call out to Billy in the halls: "Hey scarecrow!  Come over here so I can beat the stuffing out of you!"  He thought this joke was so clever that he repeated it every single day, and if Billy didn't laugh, then he'd end up with his head stuck in a toilet.  

Things went on like that for awhile.  

Nobody seemed to bother with sticking up for Billy, and his overlarge clothes hid the scars that had begun to grow like tree roots down his arms.  I never understood why the people this world spits on always end up punishing themselves more, but I guess that's just how it  goes.

Billy eventually shut down entirely. 

He wouldn't talk to anyone, wouldn't look you in the eye; the kid was scared of his own shadow.  We all thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, but I guess fate didn't really care too much for our ideas, because that week  Billy's mom died, and within a few days the whole town knew that she'd been found with a needle in her arm. 

If that was a cause for a reprieve then Josh didn't see it.  Rather, he thought the opposite; his prey was wounded, and now was the time to move in for the ****.

"I heard about how your mom died," he'd hiss under his breath when there were no teachers around, "wish I'd have found her.  Even for a smackhead your mom was a nice piece of ****."  

"You're living with your grandma now, aren't you?  Maybe I'll pay her a visit tonight, I don't think she'd put up much of a fight."

Nobody seemed to notice as the gashes on Billy's arms spread to his chest and his legs, or how his face would twitch whenever Josh's insults echoed behind his eyes.  

Nobody noticed that he'd started writing in his diary about how much he'd like to steal his dead grandpa's gun and put an end to things his way.

Sometimes you'll see a story about a kid like Billy on the news and wonder how nobody stepped in, how nobody saw what was going on in their head.  The answer to that is simple; it's just easier to look away.  

The uglier the truth is, the less people want to face it, because then they'll have to ask themselves why they did nothing for so long.

The last day before it happened Josh had cornered Billy after school and beat him to within an inch of his life.  When he got home that day his face looked like a pound of raw ground beef, and as he stared at himself in the mirror, he decided tomorrow was the day he'd end it.

He snuck into his grandpa's gun safe that night and grabbed the old .357 revolved from inside. He didn't know where to find more ammo, but he knew it was kept loaded in case of a break-in. 

The next morning he tucked the revolver in his waistband and slid a long shirt over it.  He didn't check to see if it was loaded; he didn't even want to look at it. 

And yet he clenched his jaw with determination and caught the bus.  When he got to school he noticed there was a crowd outside by the football field.  Thankful for the delay, he slid his way in between the shoulders and elbows to the front, and that's when he saw Josh.  

His former bully was ****, gutted from head to toe and strapped to the field goal post, straw poking out from holes where he'd been sewn back up.    His eyes were hollow pits, pecked out by birds before anyone had found him. And on top of his head, someone had placed an old scarecrow's hat.

Billy left right then and came home.  He barely glanced at me as he passed, sitting there in my rocking chair and knitting.  Rather, he headed straight to his room and collapsed on the bed.  It was the first time he slept easy in a long while.   

It was only a few days before the news had spread around the town that the boy had been murdered, and that when the police went to notify his dad, well, they found him dead too.

To this day they still don't know who did it.

The police suspected Billy at first, and they must have asked me a dozen times if I'd seen my grandson leave the house that night, but I told them the same thing each time.   

I'd been awake all night watching TV in the den and I would've seen him if he had left.  I could tell they all thought I was senile, but none of them dared say it to my face.  

Well, I'm older now, and I don't think I have much time left, so now I suppose is the time for truth:  I don't know what Billy was up to that night because I wasn't there.

I was at Josh's house.  And I was making **** sure that no one called my grandson 'scarecrow' ever again.

And no one ever did.



[DM](http://fb.me/lifeisstrangemetoo)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've Worked at a Wastewater Treatment Facility for 14 years. These are the things I've found in the Sewage.
 
 Assistant: Whenever you flush a toilet, wash your hands, or basically do anything that involves water and a drain, the leftover stuff ends up where I work. It’s an often overlooked necessity of any somewhat large town, although I’d almost argue that it’s basically just as important as a police station, or a fire brigade. There’d be no place to live if the ground was basically inundated with **** all the time, and not even considering the extreme environmental impact, it would just be gross.

I’ve worked at a Wastewater Treatment Facility for about 14 and a half years now. I’d have to say that it’s arguably one of the best jobs in terms of pay, and job security. I’d recommend it to more people if the smell of raw sewage wasn’t such a turnoff to most, although actually, at least in my mind, it’s hardly that bad unless you’re standing right next to the main intake line that feeds the waste into the bar screen.

It’s also important to note that if you’ve had any water from, well, basically any source, it’s probably been through a couple of treatments before. Keep that in mind when taking a nice swig of water after a particularly tough workout, or a long day at work. I don’t mean to say this to gross anyone out, frankly once the water is processed, it’s not only clean enough to pump back out into the rivers and creeks, but it’s clean enough to drink.

I say “Basically” because I don’t wanna get sued. Please don’t drink treated wastewater right out of the filters.

Anyway, my 14 years have been well… interesting to say the least. Most people, after contorting their faces in disgust after I tell them what my job entails, seem to think that it must be incredibly monotonous, and frankly, they wouldn’t be wrong. Well, they would only be slightly wrong.

I do have to say, that every once in a while, there is something that you find entangled in the bar screen that really leaves you with a lot of questions.

I suppose I should explain how this whole thing works for the sake of clarification before I go any further. The untreated, raw sewage comes in all as a single flow of water. A bar screen is the first real filter. It’s essentially a vertical conveyor belt that consists of several horizontal bars, that are spaced far enough from each other to catch anything overly large.

It also does a rather good job at clearing out any inorganic material: Wet Wipes, condoms, tampons, wads of paper towels, and pieces of plastic are the bulk of what is retrieved in this filter. Its purpose is to take these large, and non-organic chunks out of the other bits of sewage, separating them, and allowing the rest of the sewage that continues to be organic, and therefore, decomposable. Due to the nature of this filter, most of the strange things I’ve found were retrieved here, although some of the stuff has continued on to the next parts.

After that, it runs through another sort of filter, and a similar process happens, although by using a different method. The water is spun at a specific rate kind of like in a top-loaded washing machine, and as gravity does its work, the heavier stuff settles to the bottom. This stuff, which is mostly just ****, is taken to a warehouse on the property, and, with the magic of some chemistry, it’s turned into some sort of very nutrient-rich blackish clay-like paste. It’s normally sold to farmers as a better version of manure, and as someone who’s used part of it in my own garden, that stuff works better than any Miracle-gro I’ve ever used. Plus, after it’s processed, it doesn’t even smell like **** anymore, it just smells like wet dirt.

After this, the water passes through a bunch of “Clarifiers,” which are basically huge basins. Oxygen is pumped through the water, and as that happens, natural bacteria begin to eat at all the nutrients in the ****-water, until it’s clear. This is repeated around three times, at least in my facility, and after it’s checked for its purity, and sterilized with UV rays, it’s released back into the river that runs through the town.

I snicker to myself whenever I see people fishing and swimming in that river, but like I said before, it’s actually pretty clean.

&#x200B;

Now that I’m done explaining everything, I suppose that I should actually start off.My first freak occurrence happened about a week into the job. I was a fresh-faced biochem major, and even though the smell still made me gag at that point, I was determined to move up the ranks. I got the job thinking that I’d be able to climb the corporate ladder, eventually culminating in me being the head chemist. This never happened, but my dreams certainly were a bit… optimistic to say the least.

Anyway, as I drove my **** Mazda MPV down the dirt road towards the main office, I noticed a huge gathering of people around the main intake channel. I initially thought to ignore this, but then I noticed someone in a white lab coat, with a confused expression on his face. The people who worked in the lab almost never visited the actual sewage lines like the general workers did, so this piqued my interest enough for me to check it out myself.

&#x200B;

As I approached the gathering of people, I could hear an apprehensive tone filling the air, as lab technicians, and laborers like me all wore worried expressions. I had to push people out of the way in order to actually see what was going on. To say it shocked me would be an understatement.

The water looked like black pitch, glassy like obsidian, and viscous like molasses. It smelled like burning plastic. This would have been enough of a conundrum if it weren’t for the fact that these weren’t the only things.

The surface of the water swelled and wriggled, and it took me a moment to realize that there were probably *hundreds of thousands of worms* squirming under the surface. In fact, as I looked at it more, it seemed that the blackish water was probably just coating the worms, and as we tried to figure out what the **** was going on, we realized that they weren’t just on the top of the water. The main channel is about 20 feet deep, and as we tried to separate the masses of worms with a large stick, we discovered that the worms went all the way down to the bottom.

Eventually, the main supervisor of the Facility told us all to go home, and that everything would be fine by the next day. We laughed at him, although surely enough, by the next shift, everything was back to normal.

To say that the majority of my coworkers and I were seriously confounded by this would be doing a disservice to the word, but there was one coworker of mine that was hardly fazed by this at all.

I only really worked with this guy for a couple of months, one day he just didn’t show up for work, and ever since then, I’ve never actually heard anything about him.

I’m not about to give out his real name, so I’ll call him Vasily.

He clearly wasn’t from here, his thick Slavic accent was enough to give that away almost immediately. He told us that he was from Kiev and that he moved here with his wife and 3 kids, although I never once heard him talk about them at all. He certainly was quite the character, and even though this sounds really mean, I tried to avoid him unless it was absolutely necessary for me to talk to him.I wasn’t alone in my aversion to Vasily though, in fact, the people who I worked with referred to him as the “Vampire” due to his unfortunate, and uncanny resemblance to the monster in *Nosferatu.*

His head was bald, and his face was so angular, it looked like his cheekbones were cut out of stone. His eyes were so dark brown that they looked totally black, and his trademark wide-eyed, almost predatory gaze felt piercing enough to bore holes in you. He was around 6’6, and his whole body was just… really long.

He reminded me of an arachnid.

His mannerisms didn’t really help his cause, he was the type of person to stand just a little too close, and make a little bit too much eye contact during a conversation, and every once in a while, I would spot him staring at me as I worked on something by myself.

Despite this, he actually was fairly harmless and was quite the hard worker. Part of me had a suspicion that he was on the spectrum or something, and I felt really bad for him. I even planned to work up the courage to try and get him invited with the rest of my coworkers to hit some bars, although he politely refused the offer, and waved his veiny hand away, claiming that he didn’t like beer.

&#x200B;

Since I was new, my only experiences with him were basically ones after the whole worm thing, but according to my coworkers, he acted much stranger and much happier than normal after the accident.

One of them, let’s call him Travis, even heard him laughing his head off near the main intake channel during a night shift right before it happened.

Of course, he eventually packed his **** and left without any sort of notice, which prompted the supervisor to call the police. He was never, *ever* late, and my boss feared that something had happened to him.

Once the police broke into the studio apartment he lived in, they found nothing. All the rooms were empty, and it was like nobody had ever lived there.

&#x200B;

Travis actually accompanied the cops on their wellness check, and he claimed that while he was inside of Vasily’s apartment, there was just the faintest smell of burning plastic, although Travis was always the type to embellish.

&#x200B;

In the weeks, months, and years after this, my coworkers and I did our best to try and rationalize this as much as possible.

&#x200B;

Adrian, one of the only lab techs who ever talked to the general workers, theorized that the black sludge was somehow a diluted form of the fertilizer that we make. He hypothesized that there was some sort of runoff, and as the nutrient-rich solution mixed with, and thickened the sewage flowing through the main intake channel, worms in the surrounding dirt swam into it to eat the **** and dirt mix. It was a theory that my coworkers and I had to accept. I mean, looking back, it was so full of ****, but we had to believe something.

&#x200B;

Of course, not everything I’ve found has been so strange, although these things are still really unexplainable.

&#x200B;

One time, while I was monitoring the bar screen, I noticed that it was… almost straining, like it was carrying a really heavy load. Upon further investigation, I found out that it *was* carrying a really heavy load.

It was a **** bowling ball.

A 16-pound bowling ball.

I really, really don’t know how someone managed to fit an entire **** bowling ball into the sewage system, but there it was, all shiny, despite the fact that it was coated in a thick layer of last night’s dinner.

We still have the ball, it actually sits in the room where the Bar screen can be watched next to the “**** Money” Jar.

I think that the title of the jar is self-explanatory. When I first joined, it was at around $522. Now, it’s at around $876.

&#x200B;

The bar screen room is my primary position in the facility since even though all of our noses are desensitized, I can actually stand the smell of **** for hours and hours on end, a feat which most people who work here aren’t exactly able to do without getting a little bit of fresh air.It might seem silly, but my position is important for several reasons; mainly, it’s just a good safeguard to make sure the screen is actually working. If, for whatever reason, the screen malfunctions, the flow needs to be redirected immediately. If any of the stuff that normally gets filtered out ends up stuck in the Basins, or in the pumps, blockages can form, and when you’re dealing with thousands of gallons a minute, you *cannot* have any sort of blockages.

My job also serves a sort of secondary purpose, though.Criminals tend to flush evidence down the toilet if law enforcement is on their tail, and it’s our job to recover said evidence and report the items to police. I’ve probably uncovered untold amounts of **** and thousands of crackpipes during my 14-year tenure. There is a normal amount of this stuff found pretty much every year, but I noticed that there was a sharp increase during the years of 2008-2010.

&#x200B;

Obviously, this lines up with the recession, and as a result of increased poverty and unemployment, our area, which already isn’t really a white-picket-fence suburb, had a dramatic crime increase. I didn’t actually feel much of the pain of an economic slump, though, since the city is always going to need people to deal with sewage, but I certainly realized it to be true when I discovered that my MPV was missing one morning.

To be fair, I did leave the windows open, but never in my mind did I think that anyone would want to steal that old hunk of ****. I was wrong. All of this really did culminate in one event, though. I had arrived, in my new civic this time, and as I manned my post, and prepared myself for another day of watching the screen filter stuff out, I noticed that there were a couple of brownish boxes that were bundled in tape. They floated at the top of the sewage, and as I watched one after another swim by, I made sure to radio in the supervisor.

&#x200B;

We recovered 40 little boxes of this stuff, and surprise surprise, they were Kilos of Cocaine.

&#x200B;

Some people from the DEA arrived, and they tried desperately to figure out where the kilos came from, although by the point they arrived to us, the **** has degraded everything to a point that no arrests could be made from cocaine we found. They told us that the stuff was between $795,000, and $1.2 Million dollars.

There was a notable police presence on the site for about a week after the incident, I suppose that they were trying to see if any more kilos revealed themselves to no avail. This annoyed me at first since they made an officer sit right next to me during every shift, and it was kind of frustrating to hear someone continuously complain about the smell for hours on end.

Eventually, the cops gave up, and they left the site with empty hands, which was really **** convenient, because about 6 days after they left, I found something else.

It wasn’t a Kilo of Cocaine.

The news was all over the city, and search efforts were widespread. A blonde-haired, fair-skinned 8-year-old girl was drawing with some chalk in her front yard when she seemingly vanished out of thin air. There were no leads, no evidence, and only one real witness. One person thought they saw an unfamiliar Beige Chevy Astro speeding through the neighborhood in which the girl lived around the time of disappearance, but that was all the detectives had.

&#x200B;

I remember watching the news during this, and since I have a bit of interest in true crime, I followed it extensively. I watched as the Father of this little girl got thinner and thinner with each news appearance, and I can still hear how broken his voice sounded when he begged whoever took his “little sweetheart” to give her back safely.

&#x200B;

Eventually, the news stopped running stories about the little girl, and I just assumed that whatever had happened was done and that she was already dead.

&#x200B;

She had been missing for about 5 months when I found it.

&#x200B;

It was a heavy, dark blue comforter, and as I put it aside, and inspected it, I realized that it was covered in some dark-brownish stain that wasn’t feces. As I unfolded the blanket and felt around it, my fingers brushed something kind of hard, and as I scrutinized the small hard bits, they looked like little white pebbles. Unsure of what to do, I radioed my supervisor again, who called the police. I was rather unamused at this, if anything they’d be snooping around the facility again, and that was something I really didn’t look forward to. On the other hand, though, the blanket was seriously out of place, and I knew that something was really wrong.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

My fears were confirmed when I saw detectives from the FBI canvassing the whole place a couple of days later.

&#x200B;

Interrogation rooms really have some sort of magic that makes you feel like you’re guilty of something, even when you’re not.I’d have to say that those 3 hours were some of the worst in my life, and as a stern-faced man in a suit questioned me, I felt like I was going to pass out.

&#x200B;

I felt my stomach drop even further when they told me about the nature of their questioning.

&#x200B;

The stain was predictably blood, which isn’t really something that causes too much alarm for me. Tampons obviously exist, and sometimes, you genuinely just cut yourself on accident, not every bloodstain is ****, after all.

&#x200B;

It was what they told me next which made me really feel sick.

&#x200B;

Those little white pebbles were identified as teeth. Teeth that most likely came from a child’s mouth.

&#x200B;

DNA evidence proved that the blood, and teeth belonged to a little 8-year-old girl, who had gone missing a couple of months ago.

There was also an unidentified male whose DNA was found on the blanket.

&#x200B;

One tag was still on the comforter, and it was traced back to a purchase in 2006, by a realtor and a Mother of 3. When she was questioned, she claimed that she had given the blanket to her youngest son after he moved out of the house.

&#x200B;

Of course, he was questioned next, and from what I’ve heard about the case, that sick son of a **** barely lasted 30 minutes before he admitted to everything. Even if he said nothing, they already had a good case on the guy. His DNA matched the Unknown Male’s DNA, and the little girl’s hair was found in his garage, and on his clothes. He had sold a Beige Chevy Astro on Craigslist about 2 months prior to his arrest, and his new car had traces of her blood all over it.

&#x200B;

He eventually told them where the body was, on the condition that he could escape the death penalty, and eventually they found her.

&#x200B;

She was buried under a massive oak tree in a Forest Preserve 20 miles away from the Treatment Facility. By the time cops found her, she was already… mostly decomposed, but they were able to tell how she died, and by using dental records, they found out that the teeth in the blanket matched her as well. She had several stab wounds to the chest, and a postmortem blunt injury to her face, which knocked out her teeth.

There was also a great deal of internal trauma.

That man had **** her several times and kept her locked in his house for a couple of months before finally killing her. According to his own testimony, she had tried to escape, and in a fit of rage, he stabbed her 14 times and then wrapped her corpse in a blue comforter. The killer said that during a particularly harsh turn, her body slid, and slammed into the right side door handle in the backseat, busting her face open.

&#x200B;

He eventually buried her in the closest wooded area, and then tossed the blanket into a nearby stream. He was smart enough to know that his best bet was to cast the blanket as far away from her actual burial site, in order to distance the evidence as much a possible. What he didn’t know was that the stream was actually used as a wastewater channel from a car factory and that it led directly to us.

&#x200B;

I think almost half of the people working at the facility at the time quit, simply due to the media circus, and the fact that there was some sort of inexorable secondhand guilt that permeated through us.

&#x200B;

I remember, for the very first time, feeling that I was totally useless. I thought back to my initial reaction and hated myself for it.

Some girl had just **** died, and I was a bit more concerned about cops being a headache.

&#x200B;

I actually had to testify in court, along with a couple other of my coworkers, and as a result, we got to watch the whole trial. The little girl’s father looked like a skeleton at this point, and his eyes were always glinting with tears. I couldn’t possibly imagine what he was going through.

&#x200B;

The guy got his wish, and instead of being sentenced to death, he was given life without the opportunity of parole.

Ever since then, my coworkers and I rarely do anything outside of work, it’s just demoralizing now, at least for me.

&#x200B;

Although, I guess there are other reasons for our chemistry being really bad, especially after what happened last year.

&#x200B;

Travis had always been the jovial type, and frankly, he pretty much was the only person who kept my spirits out of the gutters for too long. Without him, I don’t really know what I would’ve done after the ****.

&#x200B;

Of course, he was still the type to tell a couple of white lies every once in a while, so when he told me he was having a son, I really didn’t believe him at first. It wasn’t until he showed me photos of his Wife’s ultrasound. I was really happy for him, frankly it was a nice turn for the positive, all things considered.

&#x200B;

He named his son Blake, and oh my **** ****, he never stopped talking about Blake for about a year and a half after he was born. Of course, I was genuinely happy for him, but the man knew how to talk and talk for hours.

&#x200B;

After about a year and a half though… I noticed that he didn’t bring up Blake nearly as much. I attributed this to the fact that he had finally run out of things to tell us, and wrote it off as unimportant.

&#x200B;

Every year, we have a “Bring your Kid to work day.” This is a holiday that is normally only honored by the people who work in the Labs. Even if I had a kid, I would never want my child sitting next to me in the Bar Screen room, which is why it was a surprise that Travis was actually gonna bring his kid over.

&#x200B;

I remember when he told us that his son had a keen interest in seeing what we did here, and I remember thinking it was a joke, but I stopped that when for the very first time, I noticed that he almost looked nervous.

&#x200B;

As the day got closer, I could tell that he was worried about it, and it certainly did weird me out that Travis of all people would be so uncomfortable. I initially attributed his fear to the fact that he was scared about what his kid would think of the place, but when the day actually arrived… I understood why he was scared.

&#x200B;

There was a reason why he didn’t really say much about his son.I watched, as Blake rocked back and forth, and flapped his hands fervently, occasionally making a strange noise, or hitting himself in the head. For this reason, he wore a dark blue helmet, which shielded him from his own blows. He was wearing a weighted vest, and he clutched a yellow bunny doll in his left hand.

&#x200B;

I knew this array of symptoms well, mainly since I’ve seen them in my own sister.

I could tell that Travis was incredibly scared, he undoubtedly felt all of our eyes on him and his son, and I began to feel really horrible.

&#x200B;

Part of me almost wanted to try and convince the Supervisor to not allow this, for Travis’s own sake. He looked almost sick as he waved to us, trying, and failing to sound like his normal cheery self as his son hit himself in the face. Travis was experiencing a great deal of embarrassment, and it was awful to watch, even if from afar.

&#x200B;

Although, I didn’t voice this concern. Blake could have been autistic, but he was still a young boy, and Travis was his father, and if Travis wanted to take his son to work as a nice gesture, then dammit, he should be allowed to do so.

&#x200B;

I think it was 6 hours into my shift when I heard the radio call.

&#x200B;

The day was painfully normal, despite the fact that I noticed little kids walking all over the place with their Father’s in tow, but that all changed really **** quick.It was Travis on the other end, and he sounded like he had just seen a ghost.

&#x200B;

He was bent over, wrenching on something, and when he looked back, Blake was gone.

&#x200B;

We all mobilized as much as possible and began to scan the whole facility. I even remember giving Travis a playful punch in an attempt to calm him. We’d find him soon, of course, we would.

&#x200B;

We did find him eventually. He was in one of the secondary Clarifiers.

&#x200B;

It turns out that bacteria that decompose **** also do a good job at decomposing people, and even though Poor Blake was probably only in there for a good 40 minutes, he had already started to bloat. It took another 10 minutes before he was finally retrieved from the large pool of murky water.I did my best not to look, and I tried to shut my eyes, but my morbid curiosity got to me, and as they pulled a white sheet over Blake’s head, I spotted a now brown bunny, still clutched in his left hand.

&#x200B;

On some nights, I’ll hear the way Travis screamed that day, and it’ll wake me up, and keep me up. I’ve heard some terrible things, but hearing him beg **** to give his son back...that is just the worst. I’m convinced that there’s no greater pain for a parent, or for anyone than losing their child.

&#x200B;

We all watched the security cam footage, and I felt my stomach churn as I watched a small figure walk up to the clarifier. As he walked along the balcony that’s above the water, he dropped his little stuffed animal, and as it sank into the turbid water, he jumped in after it. Blake was 7 years old, he had autism, and he couldn’t swim. Couple this with the fact that he was wearing a weighted vest in order to keep him calm, and you can picture what happened next. He sank like a rock.

&#x200B;

It almost pained me more, when I noticed a larger figure walking near the clarifier after Blake had sunk. It was Travis, looking around wildly. This was about 3 minutes after Blake sank, and if Travis knew where his son was, he could have easily saved him.

&#x200B;

Obviously, Travis didn’t really come back to work for a while after that, and so I was tasked with covering his shift, something that I was happy to do.

&#x200B;

Travis normally worked at night monitoring the Clarifiers, making sure that airflow, temperature, and nutrient content all looked right.

&#x200B;

I wasn’t terribly experienced at this, but I figured that I’d eventually get the hang of it, and after a while, I was good enough to be left alone without someone watching me, and as Travis recovered psychologically, I found my new home at the clarifiers.

&#x200B;

I specifically avoided the clarifier in which Blake drowned, only going over the balcony quickly, before going into the control room to check on how the levels were.

&#x200B;

I probably did this for 2 months, until Travis finally got well enough to come back to work.

By that, I mean that he didn’t break down crying whenever he stepped foot on the Facility.

&#x200B;

If it were me, I would have just quit, but Travis had been working here since he was 18, and for longer than me. This was basically his whole life, and it’s easier said than done to just up and move on, I guess.

Every time he worked clarifiers, he still made me check on the one his son died in, he might have pulled himself together enough to work, but he certainly was not all okay up in his head.

&#x200B;

Understandably, his whole demeanor changed, and he went from being the class clown to being almost as withdrawn as the Vampire. The change made me feel quite bad for him, although each time I tried to talk to him, he was aloof and uncaring.

&#x200B;

I stopped really trying to talk to him after a while, I just figured that he’d want his space, and all things considered, I’d give him his space gladly.

I think it was this space that I gave him mentally that allowed me to not break down when I heard the news that he had taken his own life.

&#x200B;

I’ve always hated funerals, although I think I hated this one the most, simply due to the fact that the whole event was just stained with Travis’s guilt. His wife almost reminded me of the little girl’s father, and his whole family just looked horrible. Pretty much everyone I worked with attended, even most of the Lab Techs showed up. Our Supervisor gave him a eulogy, and I really did my best to say a couple of nice things about him, although my words were broken and softly spoken.

&#x200B;

I remember vomiting, and passing out as soon as I got home, and when I woke up, I drank myself back to sleep again. The whole thing was just so wrong, on so many levels. Travis was probably one of my best friends at this point, and he was always such a good-spirited person, the fact that he was the one who was dealt the short stick in the game of life was just so unfair.

Once again, I was the one who had to cover his place until we could find and train someone to cover his spot again.

&#x200B;

The Facility felt empty without him, and I just hated every second of my job because of it, but I did continue on, Travis would have been disappointed if I left now.

&#x200B;

Eventually, I got accustomed to the absence, and even though it still felt wrong, I think I got used to it. That was until the month anniversary of his death.

&#x200B;

I was in the control room, monitoring the clarifiers like normal when I noticed that one of the secondary clarifiers had a rather strange alert.

&#x200B;

The temperature was reading 35F. Just as a bit of background, the actual night air was 75F.

Water is normally colder than air, that’s not too unusual, but 40 whole degrees colder? That was unheard of.

&#x200B;

I initially suspected a faulty sensor, but I then remembered that we had replaced them all no longer than 3 months prior, and the sensors we have can last for decades.

&#x200B;

The air was muggy, and it roused a bit of sweat on my face as I ran over to the clarifier in which Blake had drowned. I knew something was going on when I noticed that all the lights around it were off.

&#x200B;

I clicked on a flashlight, and pressed on, breathing heavily as I climbed up the metal stairs, and got myself onto the balcony.

&#x200B;

I ran along the metal grate floor towards the temperature sensor, and as the beam of the flashlight bounced around, I saw just the slightest hint of yellow in the water.

I aimed the flashlight at the yellow and felt sick to my stomach.

&#x200B;

It was a yellow bunny rabbit doll, floating in the water.

I whipped the flashlight all over the place and spotted more and more of the bunnies, their black, button eyes staring at me.

I think I screamed, but as I did, I could feel the grated metal underneath my feet begin to crumble.

Our facility is about 50 years old. The balconies were rusted quite a bit, but they never really seemed weak, or unsafe to stand on.

I remember how cold the water was, and how the murkiness swallowed up any sort of vision I could have had underneath the water. The balcony was about 15 feet above the actual surface of the water, and so when I hit the surface, it disoriented me quite considerably and knocked the breath out of me.

I realized that I didn’t know which way was up anymore, and as my diaphragm tensed up in shock, I began to flail my arms all around, doing my best to get my bearings fruitlessly.

Eventually, after my body began to hunger oxygen even more than before, I just went limp, and let my body float up with the bubbles of air. I took a deep breath as I surfaced, and I hurriedly swam to the edge of the basin. Once I was back on dry land, I peered out into the clarifier again, and all of the yellow bunnies were gone.

After a couple of days, all of the balconies were replaced with new ones, in order to prevent such a thing from happening again, and the temperature sensor was replaced too, although it was found to be in perfect working order when they took it out.

It was safe to say that my position was considerably cushier than before after the accident, during my struggle to escape, I really **** up my hand on some brick, and considering that I was swimming in ****-water, I wasn't shocked when it got infected a day later. In an attempt to keep me from suing, they bumped up my pay, and cut my hours a bit, not that any of it even mattered to me.

That was 11 months ago, and today, after a long time coming, I finally put in my two weeks’ notice.

Frankly, I should have quit a long time ago, I wasn’t really moving up in the corporate ladder like I had anticipated, and now that Travis was dead, the job was just depressing.

And that’s all ignoring all the **** up **** that happens here.

I only work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, some people work here 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. I really do wonder if they’ve seen anything else. I’m fairly certain that they have.

Right now, I’m basically planning to move to a different, smaller treatment facility. With my knowledge here, I think a smaller place would be a bit nicer. I just hope that I can distance myself as much as possible, although I know that’s basically impossible at this point.

Because every single time I drink some water, or flush my toilet, or basically do anything, I know where that water came from, and where it will return. I know that it's been laced with worms, cocaine, and **** evidence. I know that, in a way, all of the refuse of society, just like the refuse that we defecate, has ended up where I worked.

And now you do too.

Plus, I’ve noticed that my apartment now smells like burning plastic, for some reason.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My girlfriend was up unusually early this morning. I wish I never found out why.
 
 Assistant: “I’m going to take out the trash,” my girlfriend Monica announced as soon as I entered the kitchen that morning.

I hadn’t expected to see her up this early. Certainly not after how late she must have gotten home last night. After spending Friday nights bar-hopping with friends, Monica usually slept in until lunch. 

“Okay, honey,” I said, without particular interest, “Thanks!”

Grabbing the cereal box from the counter and plopping down on one of the kitchen chairs, I wondered if she had returned home earlier the previous night and I’d simply missed it. 

I mean, I normally woke up as soon as I heard the key turning in the lock, but perhaps that night she’d been particularly quiet? Or maybe she’d stayed with one of her friends? 

“How was your night?” I asked, as soon as I heard the front door click shut, “What time did you get home?”

*Silence.* 

I raised my head from my bowl, waiting for her to emerge from around the corner, but the corridor was empty. 

“Honey?” I tried again, my voice saturated with uncertainty.

Monica appeared in the doorway, her expression unreadable. She didn’t look disoriented or ****, but she didn’t seem quite right either. Her hands were fidgety, and her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. 

“Monica?” I grunted, trying to tame the lump in my throat, “What’s the matter?”

She took a deep breath and parted her lips, as though she was going to speak, but then hunched her shoulders and shook her head.

“I need to take out the trash,” she said. 

I gawked at her, dumbfounded, “But…you just did?”

She shook her head, and glided towards the trash can cabinet, opening it, and producing another bag from within. Then, just like the previous time, she turned on her heel and disappeared from the kitchen.

Needless to say, the silent treatment was unlike Monica. *Had something happened during her night out? Had I done anything to upset her? And where were all these bags coming from..?*

As soon as I heard the front door shut, I leapt out of my seat and threw the cabinet open, expecting to… Well, I’m not entirely sure *what* I was expecting. Either way, it was empty.

“What’s going on?” I asked, when she returned five minutes later, the same empty look in her eyes, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She looked dubious. 

“*Monica?*”

“Okay,” she said, “But *first*, let me take out the trash.”

My stomach lurched as she flung the cabinet open again, pulling out yet another garbage bag. 

“*What the ****..?*” I began, subconsciously pinching my arm, as if to ensure I wasn’t dreaming, “What are all these bags...?”

But she wasn’t listening, instead turning her back to me and retreating the same way she had come. A chill crawled up my spine. *What the **** was going on?* I could have sworn the cabinet had been empty only a few moments ago. *Where had all these bags come from and why wasn’t she taking them out all at once..?*

Shutting the front door behind me as meticulously as I could, I crept down the hallway leading to the stairwell. I needed to investigate. Monica had never willingly taken out the trash before - she said the garbage chute gave her the creeps. Our apartment was on the sixth floor, so there was no way she was going down all those flights of stairs for a single bag of garbage.

The door to the garbage chute at the end of the hallway was ajar, and I could hear the faint wail of metal as it was pulled open. I swallowed, suddenly at a loss for what to do. *I mean, wouldn’**** be weird if she found me just standing there? And what exactly was I planning to say?*

I listened in, my skin prickling in anticipation and my heart thudding in my chest. 

*Oh, what was I getting so worked up for? It was only Monica, for ****’s sake. She’d probably had a falling out with one of her friends, or maybe I was snoring again and she couldn’t get to sleep. I’ll just go in and as-*

But what I saw when I opened the door will remain with me for the rest of my life. 

Monica was sitting on the door of the chute, her legs already swallowed by the darkness within. Slowly but surely, she was edging her body into it, her palms clammy against the metallic finish. She turned her head at the sound of the door opening, and for a brief moment her eyes lit up with recognition.

“Monica!” I cried out, dashing towards the chute, my heart practically leaping out of my chest, “What are you-?”

But it was too late. Startled by my voice, or by my presence, she let go and disappeared into the chute, a raspy wail reverberating against the steel. 

*Thud.*

I wanted to scream, but it was as though I’d suddenly gone mute. Fear sizzled through me like electricity as I flew down the stairs to the manager’s office. 

“Give me the key to the trash room,” I demanded breathlessly, “My girlfriend is inside!”

He looked at me over the tops of his glasses, as though questioning my state of mind.

“That’s impossible,” he retorted, “I have the only key.”

Tears were flowing freely down my cheeks and my clothes were damp with sweat. I must have looked a downright sight, but I didn’t care.

“She fell into the chute,” I sobbed, grabbing the edge of his desk for support, “F-from…the sixth floor…”

Everything happened quickly after that. An ambulance was called, as were the police. 

At first they were hesitant to tell me what they’d found. They kept insisting I sit down and have some water, throwing leaflets about therapy and mental well-being into my lap. 

“Please, just tell me…just tell me…” I kept repeating, but nobody was listening. 

Hours seemed to pass by without a single word of affirmation or any information needed to piece the events of the morning together. The ambulance left within about twenty minutes of arrival, and left the police to take care of it. 

I couldn’t understand it. I mean, even if… Monica was… badly hurt… she’d still need to be looked at at the hospital. So, why had they left?

Eventually, an uneasy-looking officer took a seat next to me.

“Son…” he began slowly, studying my reaction, “Your girlfriend is… gone…”

I buried my face in my hands. *Of course, she was.* She’d jumped down the *fucking* chute, plummeting **** knows how many feet. 

“...but your story isn’t quite adding up.” he continued, his eyes narrowing, “You said she’d fallen into the chute, but…”

He took a deep breath, his forehead creasing, “But we found her… Well, parts of her… inside… inside a garbage bag…”

My blood ran cold. It was like I could no longer understand what he was saying. His mouth was moving, but the sounds were jumbled and wouldn’t make sense. *Inside a garbage bag..? What the **** was that supposed to mean?* 

He explained that the garbage bag had been there… for at least several hours before the police were called. He said that there was… no doubt that its contents belonged to Monica. He asked whether I had any idea what happened. 

Then, in a much softer tone… he added that I’d be expected to come in for questioning. 

When I finally returned to my apartment that morning, all I wanted to do was fall into bed and go to sleep, praying I’d wake up to discover that all this had been nothing but a bad dream. 

But as soon as I entered the bedroom, the front door slammed shut. 

“*Hello?*” I called out, my voice meek and croaky.

*Silence.*

A newfound sense of dread filled my lungs as I recalled the events of the morning. As I tiptoed slowly towards the kitchen, I couldn’t help wondering if- 

*No, it couldn’t be.*

She was leaning over the trash can cabinet, a new garbage bag in her grasp. She spun around and our eyes met.

“I’m just going to take out the trash,” she said.

I stared at her, my breath catching in my throat. Here she was, right in front of me, talking about trash as if it were the most casual thing in the world. 

In a feeble attempt to make her stay, I asked the only question I could think of. I asked it, even though I knew the answer already. 

“What’s…what’s in the bag, honey?”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: If you see Gwasuwon ramen noodles, throw it away and call FBI immediately
 
 Assistant: If you see Gwasuwon ramen noodles, throw it away and call FBI immediately.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the recall alerts on TV. It looks like a public health alert, but it’s not. If you call in to inform them, it’s not the FDA people who will come down, but the police and emergency services. I know because I was there when the first breakout occurred. Michigan was ground zero. They came down with police trucks, biohazard suits and ambulances. First, they took the students away. Then the FBI got involved. And they took Jenny and all her boxes away too. Or was it the other way round? I am not sure. My memory is fuzzy these days. I have to write it down before I go aw — before I forget.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I’m an undergraduate student in Michigan. I stay on campus at school and I have — had a roommate called Jenny. She majored in architecture and she was an instant noodles fanatic. And when I say fanatic, I really mean *fanatic*.

She ate only ramen. She’ll have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. I never saw her eat anything else. She might add an egg or some frozen peas and carrots. But that’s about it. But that doesn’t mean she shies away from experimenting with her food. Once I saw her pour boiling hot coffee into her cup noodles. Another time, I walked in on her making beer ramen. (She offered me a large cold glass. I gave it a pass.) And then there was the episode where she tried to bake ramen cake in the hall kitchen, and I had to help her put out the flames when the batter caught fire.

Otherwise, she was just a normal girl who likes anime, big spectacles and funk music. We became fast friends in residence hall and we had crazy times together.

She had a YouTube channel where she does ramen reviews. She would live stream the entire review process. She would do a show-and-tell of the ramen package and open it up. She would cook the noodles in it, eat it, critique it and rate it, all on live video.

It was quite a popular channel. People all over the world would mail her their country’s instant noodles for her to review. Bacon ramen from UK. Cheese curry cup noodles from Japan. Borscht packet noodles from Poland. Purple wheat noodles from Singapore. I even saw a cup of soft shelled turtle soup noodles on her table once. You name any instant noodle flavour or brand, she would probably have tasted it at least once already.

Sometimes, ramen companies would send her cartons of instant noodles. Her side of the room was always full of cardboard boxes of ramen. She would gift them to her YouTube fans or give the noodles away for free to her schoolmates or the hall residents. Her classmates and hall mates love her.

Jenny was patient zero.

I remember how it started. It was on a Tuesday at the beginning of the semester. I remember because it was the first day of my entomology class and I was fussing about having the right lecture notes printed that morning.

I noticed a carton box by her bed that was marked with Korean words. The cardboard was already cut open, revealing packets of ramen inside it. Usually, I wouldn’t have paid it any attention. But the noodle packets in this box caught my eye. Ramen packets were usually bright and colourful with pictures of steaming bowls of noodles, mushroom, chicken or whatever flavour they were about.

But the noodle packets in this box carton were just plain white with some black print on it.

Curious, I fished out a packet to take a closer look. There was just a black, bold Korean title on a white background, and the word “Gwasuwon” in smaller print under the Korean characters. I looked up. Jenny was already slurping up noodles in front of her laptop, blasting some YouTube music video at her desk.

“Keep it down,” I said. “Natalie is going to complain to the resident assistant again.”

Jenny made a face at me, but she did turn the volume down a little.

“Smells good,” I said. The noodles smelt spicy and tangy like kimchi.

“Came in this morning,” she said, waving her chopsticks languidly at the box I was looking at. “Some new company I never heard of.”

“Weird packaging.” I flipped the white crinkly packet around in my hand. “No list of ingredients and all that.”

“Mmmm. It’s one of those minimalist concepts, like Muji.” She turned around, holding out the bowl in her hand. “Hey, this is really good. You wanna try some?”

Now I love spicy food. And I’m always game for anything with hot sauce, kimchi, wasabi and the like. But something about the smell put me off. A sort of cold, refrigerated smell underneath the spicy scent. It was very faint, but I could smell it. I was surprised Jenny didn’t mind it.

“Nah,” I said, waving my entomology lecture notes ruefully. “Heading out for lunch.”

“Enjoy the fruit flies!” she grinned.

I threw one of my soft toys at her before walking out.

I didn’t think too much of it. But I did notice that Jenny was having Gwasuwon noodles more often than the other brands. I kept smelling it in our room. And always present was that faint, undefinable, freezer odour underneath the spicy tang of the noodles. Soon, the smell permeated the other floors of our residence hall too. I was in the hall pantry when I caught a whiff of it again.

I turned around to see Mike removing his bowl from the microwave with a towel.

“You’re eating this too?” I asked, curious. “Did you get it from Jenny?”

“No. Got it from super mart,” he said as he placed the steaming bowl carefully onto a plate. “Jenny gave me a pack earlier on. It was so lip smacking good that I went to the mart to get more.”

And he was right. They were on sale at the campus mart. I watched the man in front of me unload armfuls of the noodles onto the cashier counter.

“That good eh?” I said to the cashier as I eyed the man walking off with his bags of ramen.

The cashier laughed. “They are flying off the shelves. We can’t stock them fast enough.” She scanned my drink can with a beep. “I tried some myself. They are really tasty.”

The rest of the semester passed rather uneventfully. The only thing that was even remotely notable was the flu bug going around the campus. It was so bad that the lecture theatres were half-filled because so many students were ill.

Jenny was sick as well. She had been feeling under the weather for a couple of weeks now. I checked in on her before I went to class. She was looking a little puffy around the face. The curtains in our room were drawn. The light hurts her eyes, she said. She muttered something about her YouTube live stream. I told her to give it a rest. Her fans will understand. When I closed the door behind me, Jenny was fast asleep under the covers. I could barely make out her form underneath the blankets in the darkness of the room. I think it was the last time I saw the real Jenny.

Natalie was in the corridor when I walked towards the hall’s lift lobby. She gave me a dour face as she entered her dorm room next to ours. I ignored her. We got a break from her complaints this week because Jenny had stopped playing her loud videos.

Class was barely half full today. A lot of the students called in sick. The professor looked resigned as she began her lecture. Which was a shame, because the class was interesting. It was a continuation of last week’s lecture about fungal infection in ants. Zooommbie ants, Jenny would have said if she had been well enough to listen to me yak about it.

On the bus back to my hall, I took out my mobile to watch a few videos on YouTube. I saw on the app notifications that Jenny was live streaming. I felt a faint twinge of annoyance. I had told her to rest. I tapped on her channel video just to see what she was up to.

My mobile screen went dark for a moment. Then Jenny’s face appeared. She looked like she had just woken up. Her hair was a mess. But she wasn’t moving or talking. She was just staring fixedly into the camera, her mouth slightly ajar. Her face was so close to the camera that I could see her cracked lips.

The video live chat was already abuzz with comments.

*wat’s wrong wif her???*

*OMG she’s drooling gross*

*does anybdy knw where she lives? she needs help!!*

*where’s my nooodles*

*20 min already and cou nting*

*watever she’s having I want some too lololol*

I called Jenny immediately. She didn’t pick up my call. I dashed off the bus when it stopped at my hall. Something was wrong with Jenny. I hammered the elevator button with my hand. The lift was taking too long. I bounded up the stairs instead, my backpack bouncing on my back.

I rushed to our room and flung the door open, out of breath.

Jenny was sitting in the dark, hunched before the laptop. She didn’t even react to my sudden appearance. She was just sitting there, very still.

“Jenny?” I said, huffing.

I strode in, leaving the dorm door wide open behind me.

On hindsight, that action probably saved my life.

I reached out a hand to touch her. But something made me pause. Jenny’s hair was falling over her shoulder and I couldn’t see her face.

“What are you doing?” I asked tentatively, slinging my backpack down.

She didn’t reply.

“Jenny?” I said again, my voice louder.

She stirred. The light from the door fell on her hair, and it was then I noticed it. Her hair hadn’t been combed and it was a tangled mess around her face. But I could see that there was something on her head. It was a little black stump sticking out from the matted hair on her head. It looked like a stalk.

Jenny began to turn around slowly.

Her face was pale and drawn, and she was drooling. But it was her eyes that froze me. I will never forget the look in her eyes as our eyes met. But I didn’t have time to think, because the next moment, Jenny was lunging at me, her mouth wide open in a snarl and her hands outstretched in claws towards my face.

I screamed and threw my bag up in front of me. She dove into me, slamming both of us into the wall. The only thing keeping her teeth from me was my backpack. Her eyes were bloodshot and wild above my bag. And her fingernails were scrabbling at me, scratching my face.

I screamed again. “Jenny! Jenny! *What’s wrong with you?!!* *Jenny!!!*”

I heard Natalie’s furious voice at the door. “Look! I told you to keep it dow — ”

Natalie never had a chance. Jenny turned and threw herself at the stunned girl standing in the doorway, sinking her teeth into Natalie’s shoulder. Both of them toppled into the corridor.

I don’t quite remember what happened next. It was all a blur. There was blood all down the front of Natalie’s blouse. She was shrieking in terror, beating at Jenny with her fists. And I was desperately yelling and pulling on Jenny’s neck and shoulders, trying to get her to release Natalie. But she wouldn’t let go. It was as if she had a ferocious death grip on the Natalie’s body. And all this time, I was staring madly at the stalk at the top of her head. It was thick and dark, with a little bulb at the end. It looked like some sort of deformed mushroom sprouting out of Jenny’s hair.

The campus security arrived within minutes, but it felt like forever before someone dragged me away from Jenny. They managed to pry Jenny apart from Natalie, but not before a good part of Natalie’s shoulder came with her. I heard the ambulance siren blaring away downstairs. Natalie was already unconscious by then. There was blood all over the corridor. It was horrific.

I don’t know how much time passed as I stood there in shock, watching the paramedics and security officers rush around me. I heard a sudden burst of static. I turned around and stared at a security officer some distance away as his walkie-talkie chattered into life. He listened to it for a moment, **** up straight and disappeared hurriedly down the corridor. It was a little far, but I overheard the message clearly.

There had been another incident.

I went back into my room amid the noise and turmoil. I sat down. My hands were trembling. I was trying to think. The stalk on Jenny’s head. The biting. I shivered and clasped my arms around me. There was something gritty on my hands. I looked down at my arms. They were covered with some sort of dark dust. I jumped up and frantically tried to brush it off.

A light caught my eye. Jenny’s laptop. The camera light was was still on. Her computer had been streaming live video all this time. Whoever was watching her video stream could see me. I walked over and slammed down the cover of the laptop.

I don’t know how much time I still have.

I went into emergency mode. I grabbed whatever I needed. My wallet. My driver’s license. Cash. Some clothes. My lecture notes. I stuffed it all into my backpack. My eye fell on the cardboard box by Jenny’s bed. There were some packets in it. I don’t know why I did it. But I grabbed a packet of the Gwasuwon noodles and stuffed it into my bag. I was out of the door in less than five minutes.

I hit the elevator button at the lift lobby. The lift floor indicators on the wall lit up slowly one by one as the elevator came up. One, two, three, four. I couldn’t wait. I turned and took the stairs. I was two floors down before I realised I had forgotten my passport. It was in my wardrobe. I headed back up the stairs. I was going to push open the staircase door to the corridor when I saw through the door glass panel that the floor was full of people.

Not students. Or campus security.

Men in dark jackets talking into their walkie talkies. Some had gloves on and they were holding large plastic bags. I could see my dorm door from where I stood. Some of the men were entering my room. The words “FBI” were emblazoned on the back of their jackets.

The loudspeaker came on. It was the dean’s voice. The campus was in lockdown mode. Everyone was to stay in their rooms. I took off for the carpark where my car was.

It was chaos at the ground floor.

There were ambulances and police trucks at the entrance. People in biohazard suits were ushering students out, some of them in wheelchairs. The students looked pale and listless. I saw one of them being carried out on a stretcher. His head was turned to the side. There was a black bump on top of his blonde head. I backed away.

Nobody paid any attention to me in the chaos as I unlocked my car and tossed my backpack in. I was sweating heavily by then. I can make it, I can make it, I muttered to myself as I slid into the car seat.

“Hey, you can’t leave.”

I looked up. It was the campus security guard. His hand was on my open car door.

“I need to go,” I muttered. “I *have* to go.”

But he wasn’t listening to me. His other hand was moving to his walkie-talkie.

“You should go too,” I said abruptly. Loudly.

He stopped and gazed down at me, surprised. “What?”

“Half of them are sick,” I said. I think my voice shook a little. I looked up at him, my eyes wide. “You should go *now*.”

He stared down at me. Something flickered in his face. Uncertainty. Fear.

He knew.

He knew what I was talking about.

He hesitated, his walkie talkie paused in mid-air. I took the chance. I started the ignition and stepped on the accelerator. He jumped away in surprise. His hand fell away from my door. I slammed the door shut as I drove out of the parking lot. I looked in the rear mirror as I sped out of the carpark. He was just standing there with the walkie-talkie in his hand, looking after me.

I drove for ten hours to my aunt’s place in Kansas. I kept the radio on, listening for any news about the school. There was nothing. Zilch. Nothing on the air about any incident or epidemic in the campus I left behind. During meal breaks, I stopped at gas stations and chewed on burritos in my car while I feverishly flipped through the lecture notes in my bag.

The stalk. I had seen it before. It was on the projector screen in the lecture hall.

*“The Ophiocordyceps fungus infiltrates the ant’s body and head, but leaves the brain relatively untouched. The neurons in the ant’s body begin to die and the fungal cells insert themselves in their place. This is effectively a hostile takeover of the ant body. In the place of the neurons, the fungus releases chemicals that contract and expand the muscles of the ant.*

*It is important to note that the brain is not infected by the fungus. It is speculated that the ant brain is still aware and is a prisoner in its own body as it watches the fungus manipulate its limbs…”*

I stopped reading.

I remembered Jenny’s eyes.

The way she looked at me as she lunged towards me.

I opened the car door and vomited everything I ate onto the side of the road.

There was a creek next to the road. I threw out the backpack into the water before I drove away. I have no idea why I did that. My wallet and everything else I had was inside that bag.

That was two weeks ago.

My aunt let me stay at her place. I told her that it was semester break. My parents were in Florida. It was far enough. Or so I tell myself. I scoured the news everyday. There was just a brief news flash about a mass food poisoning in my school. I gripped my fists. They are not telling the truth about what happened in the campus. Then I saw the product recall alerts. The word “Gwasuwon” flashed on the television screen. I felt my blood chill.

It was contained, I keep telling myself. The government will take care of it.

I tried not to think about it.

But yesterday I saw something that changed my mind. That was what prompted me to write this down to warn you.

I was taking out the trash yesterday when I saw the bird. It landed on the fence a few feet away from me. It had a stalk on its head. Just like Jenny. It flew away when I threw a rock at it. I watched it squawk and wheel away in the air to join the other birds in the sky. I walked back into the house. The news was on. Something about rats biting each other. I switched off the TV and drew the curtains. I sat down on the couch and started shaking.

It was supposed to be safe. Kansas was supposed to be safe. The FBI and the police took care of it. They took away all of Jenny’s boxes, didn’t they?

I have so many questions. Is it contagious? A virus? Some sort of parasite? Can it spread by proximity? What if it gets into the food chain? Where can we be safe from it? And why is the FBI involved?

I don’t know. I have no answers. I only know that the world is going crazy. And that I am not feeling myself these days. I am tired. My face looks a little puffy. The light hurts my eyes. I am going to lie down now.

But I have one piece of advice for you.

If you see Gwasuwon ramen noodles, throw it away and call FBI immediately.

Just throw it away.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Name is Lily Madwhip and I Wish Everybody Would Just Stop Dying
 
 Assistant: [My name is Lily Madwhip and I wish everybody would just stop dying](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/akrjsd/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_dont_need_a/).

It’s been three months since my brother Roger got turned into mashed potatoes by a semi. It’s been five weeks since my therapist discovered she had developed an allergy to shellfish. It’s been two days since Mom and I picked out this hamster that I named Whiskers because it’s got so many whiskers and now Whiskers is lying upside down in his hamster wheel with his feet curled up and his little mouth hanging open. He’s got big buck teeth. Maybe I should have named him Buck.

I did not see this coming. How am I even going to explain this to my mom?

I want to say some swears, but I’m out of quarters for the swear jar because I spent my last two at the grocery store in one of those gumball machines only instead of a gumball I got a plastic paratrooper with a parachute who’s currently dangling from the branches of the tree outside my bedroom window.

“****.”

Dear swear jar, I O U one quarter.

Paschar sits at my art table holding a red crayon because his hands are perfectly molded for holding something like that. I sat him down earlier to doodle, but he didn’t draw anything. I made a still life using water colors. I like still lifes. I always include Paschar in my work. The one I did today was a bowl of fruit and a vase, because I saw a painting in a museum and people like fruit and vases in their art.

My mom is at the office today. She’s an executive. I asked what an executive does and she said they execute people. Then she and Dad laughed. I didn’t know what “execute” meant at the time, but I found out later, so in school when we had to write about our parents I wrote that my dad was a music teacher and my mom was an assassin. Mr. Porter gave me a check-mark but wrote that next time I should follow the assignment.

Dad’s in the garage right now. I can hear him through the door, tapping on Roger’s drum set, as I carry Whiskers to the kitchen to get one of the little plastic food containers Mom buys in bulk for me to bury pets in. Normally my dad is in his work room, trying to write music, but he hasn’t done a lot of that since Roger died. He said he’s working on a “dirge”. Apparently that’s a piece where you go to the liquor store at midnight then come home and drink out of a snare drum. I only know this because I woke up once and went downstairs to see what the noise was. I’m not a fan of dirges.

Whiskers is a little too **** for the plastic container but if I squish the top down I can still seal it. I run back upstairs to get Paschar and my jacket. I need to hurry because Dad’s going to hurt himself by accident soon and come into the kitchen angry and bloody looking for the Neosporin and if he sees me with another dead pet he’s going to wig out.

It’s warm out today, and the ground feels soft. Mom keeps the gardening tools in the shed and I grab a trowel. My next door neighbor Jamal is in his backyard climbing a tree by the fence that separates our houses. He sees me and waves. You should never wave while climbing trees. That’s how people fall out of trees. I wave back.

“What are you doing?” I call to him.

“There’s a thing in the branches near your house!” He points at my bedroom window.

“That’s my plastic paratrooper,” I say.

“Finders keepers!” Jamal laughs, climbing up several more branches that reach over our fence.

I don’t think this is going to end well. Paschar agrees.

“You’re gonna fall and die, Jamal.” I warn him.

Jamal freezes on the branch. He looks at me, and for a second I see the branch he’s on snap, and he lands on the fence and the wood slats are impale him, and then he lays there, flopped halfway across the fence and stares at me at which point Dad’s going to come out and say, “What did you do NOW, Lily?” and then I’m going to go to adult jail and -- oh, maybe I’ll get a trial first.

But the branch doesn’t snap, and Jamal slowly, carefully, shimmies back down to his side. A moment later he peers at me through one of the holes in the fence.

“Was I really gonna die?” he asks.

“Yes.” I don’t actually know. “You wanna help me bury my hamster?”

“Okay.”

Jamal goes around to the front yard and comes up our driveway. I like Jamal because he listens to me. He’s a year older than I am and goes to a different school because his parents are Catholic. He always has to wear a tie to school. Roger’s head would have exploded if he’d had to wear a tie every day.

“What happened to Whiskers?” Jamal asks, looking at my hamster mushed into the container.

“He ran himself to death.” I don’t actually know if that’s true, but it seems plausible.

“Can you do that?”

“Absolutely.”

Mom marked out a section of the backyard by the woods for me to bury pets. It's behind her garden where she apparently grows dandelions and those weeds with the pointy leaves. If you go into the woods, it eventually comes out at the highway. Roger used to go into the woods with his air rifle and shoot soda cans with his friends Skeeter and Dustin. They tried to take Paschar once and were going to use him for target practice but I grabbed him back and hid under the front porch until they gave up. There’s a lot of spiders under the front porch. I don’t like going under the front porch anymore.

Jamal holds Paschar and Whiskers’ plastic coffin while I start digging a hole between Raphael my ninja turtle and the goldfish I never named. Raphael got stuck on his back with his head underwater and drowned. I didn’t even think turtles could drown. The goldfish I never named got some sort of disease called ick and fell apart and then the parts got **** up into the filter so all that we buried was its head. Every pet has a story, but it would take too long to tell them all.

I’m tired of digging so Jamal takes over. He’s much better at digging than me, but that’s because he helps his dad shovel snow in the Winter. My dad uses a snowblower. He always offers to use it on Jamal’s family’s driveway, but Jamal’s dad always says the shoveling is good for them. It definitely pays off when you’ve got a hamster to bury.

Once the hole is dug (not too deep), we put Whiskers’ coffin in and Jamal offers to say a prayer.

“That’s okay, he was just a hamster.” I tell Jamal.

“Animals have souls too,” Jamal says, “So do plants.”

I wonder if Whiskers' soul is still in his body. Is he in Purgatory like Roger? I also wonder if this means Jamal says a prayer before eating broccoli.

I fill the hole in with the dirt we dug and pat it down. I’ll need a couple popsicle sticks to make a marker, so I offer Jamal a popsicle.

“Hey, Lily, look,” Jamal points into the woods.

There’s a bunny rabbit watching us. It’s gray and almost matches the color of the tree its leaning against. Oh, it’s not leaning. Oh.

*Oh.*

“Is-- is it dead?” Jamal whispers.

Of course it is.

Paschar tells me not to go in the woods, but Jamal is going into the woods now, and Jamal is the only person that’s nice to me, so I follow him. He stops at the bunny and nudges it with his shoe. Oh hey, Jamal got new shoes. They’re blue and they got big swoops on them. I didn’t even notice before. The bunny crumples over. It looks like a pile of fur now. Jamal kneels down to see if it’s wounded or something, and I notice a couple black birds in the brush beside us. They’re also dead.

“I don’t see any blood on it,” says detective Jamal.

I use my boot to brush some leaves over the dead birds.

“What the heck?”

Jamal is standing up again, and he’s staring further into the trees.

*Lily, go home.* Paschar tells me.

But I don’t go home. I’m sorry, Paschar.

Jamal steps past the bunny and crunches through the shrubs and sticks until he comes to a big pair of branches lying on the forest floor. Except they aren’t branches.

“Jeeeeeezus!”

It’s a deer. One of the male ones like Bambi with big antlers. Its eyes are gone and you can see into its head, but it’s dark in there and so you really can’t see anything but its eyes are just a pair of holes now. Its fur looks like it got run through a washing machine, it’s all matted and slick. The whole thing is just laying there in the bushes with its head on sideways and its antlers sticking up waiting for someone to trip and fall on them.

“What the heck's going on?” Jamal’s eyes are bugged out and he’s visibly shaking. I wonder if it’s possible for someone’s eyes to literally pop out and then hang down their face like they do in cartoons. Later I might draw a still life and put Jamal in the background with his eyes popped out just to see what it would look like.

I look around us. The ground is littered with dead birds. I'm standing on one, but I thought it was just squishy ground. I feel bad using the word “litter” because that sounds like the birds are just trash and they’re not. Except for chickens. I don’t like chickens. Even if I was Catholic, I wouldn’t say a prayer before eating chicken. Broccoli maybe, but that still seems weird.

There’s other animals too. Small ones mostly. The deer is the largest one we found, but we also found a couple raccoons and someone’s cat with orange stripes (I think it belonged to the Millers down the street) and a bunch of squirrels. Like a LOT of squirrels. Like, at first I thought maybe we could bury the animals, but then when I started counting the squirrels I thought, “No.”

There were little moles too. Or voles. I don’t know the difference, but I know there’s moles and then there’s voles and they’re related somehow like me and Roger to our cousin Susie who got run over by a boat.

“I’m getting out of here!” Jamal says with his eyes still bugging out and he runs back to the back yard and down the driveway and into his house, yelling “Mom! Mom!” the whole way. I take a moment to count the animals until I get to the squirrels and then I just give up and go back home. I guess we’re not doing popsicles.

Jamal’s mom comes over later and talks to my dad. I like Jamal’s mom. She always smells like coconuts. It’s her shampoo. I don’t tell her that Jamal’s going to have nightmares tonight and wake her up screaming because telling her that’s not going to change it and she might think it’s rude of me to say. Paschar suggests I go to my room and draw that still life I was thinking about while the adults talk, so I do. I see my dad go into the woods with Jamal's mom from my bedroom window, and then they come out and she’s actually pretty calm but my dad is hysterical. I don’t mean that he’s funny, I mean that’s he’s wigging out.

Dear swear jar, I O U two quarters.

When Dad comes inside, he calls Mom at work and he’s using his outside voice. I hear him say angry things about me and my curse. Paschar tells me not to worry, and that it’s not me. Paschar is always right... [isn’t he](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/alrpvm/my_name_is_lily_madwhip_and_i_think_my_dad_is/)?

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My brother’s wife had cheated on him
 
 Assistant: "What are you doing Jason ? No. Don't **** it. Don't. Noooo! " I screamed, as a seven  year  old Jason used a rock to put my pet cat, Billy, to sleep forever. 

That wasn't the first time he did something like this. Every time father got me a new pet, Jason would **** it within a few days. 

Father didn't get me any new pets after Jason had killed my puppy, Murphy, and my pet bird, Polly. He just killed the ones that he found me playing with. Father, obviously,  wasn't happy with this.

He knew that since the 1970s, research has consistently reported that childhood cruelty towards animals was the first warning sign of later delinquency, violence, and criminal behavior.
Jason was, thus, sent to therapy many times.

Father had a reputation to maintain, and he didn't get us any more pets after Polly died. Somehow, that seemed to have solved the problem.

Years have have passed by since then and those childhood tales have been swept under the rug. But then again...
________________

"I didn't know what to do, man!  I was so angry! " Jason said, clenching his teeth as he finished the sentence. 

Jason was my elder brother and his wife had cheated on him. He had walked in on her, while she was in their bed, with her yoga instructor. I already knew all of this, because he had called me and told me everything, the day it had all happened. 

A month after this tragic incident, his wife had mysteriously gone missing. She had simply disappeared.

Every finger pointed towards Jason. 

People knew what his wife did. The police knew the whole story. 

Everyone thought he was the one who was obviously responsible for killing his disloyal lover. 

Moreover, no one could locate her anywhere. It was like she had suddenly fallen off the face of the earth. 

"What did you do, Jason? Where is she now?" I asked, as my teary eyed brother stood in front of me.

"I took out my gun from the dresser, and pointed it at them" 

"Did you shoot her?" I asked.

He was silent for a while. I loved Jason dearly. He was the best elder brother, I could've asked for. I don't know what I would've done if I was cheated on. Perhaps I'd never know. I wasn't Jason.

"Jason! Did you **** her? "

"Of course not! But I.... I wanted to. How could she do this to me? I loved her so much."

"Calm down. Have this."  I said and poured him a glass of scotch.
He swallowed it down in one gulp, and looked at me with sad, empty eyes.

“I couldn’t **** her! I can’t believe it! I should’ve killed her, but I could not. Now that she has disappeared the whole world thinks I did. What life is this?” he said, crying. 
The eyes of a man who had lost everything stared at me finally, and I didn't know how to help him.

I sat there on that cold winter night, trying to console him. 
That night, Jason asked me whether I had anything to do with her disappearance. 

“Have you gone crazy?” I asked. Copious amounts of alcohol and grief does that to a man. 
“Just swear on me and tell me you didn’t” Jason said.

“I swear”


There is no consequence for breaking your heart, in this cruel world. 
There is no judgement and there is no punishment. The world only expects you to move on, despite of how traumatic it might have been, for you. I knew how much he loved his wife. If he did **** her, I'd understand. But he kept on telling me that he didn't. I'm not Jason, and I honestly don't know how I would've handled his whole situation.


"I didn't have anything to do with it." he told the police on the first day when they knocked on his door. 

Jason's response didn't change after they turned his place upside down, trying to look at every corner for evidence. They didn't find any.
"I have no idea where she is. I honestly don't care" he said, to anyone who asked him anything regarding her. 

The police had to let it go after a few months, because of lack of any evidence. 

Jason did eventually recover from this heartbreak. It took him four years, but he has finally moved on. 

I know this because I've just received an invitation of his wedding. He's getting married for the second time tomorrow. Things have turned out alright for him, I guess. It took him four years to get over that woman, and I'm happy that he did. People still think that he had something to do with the disappearance of his wife, but that's the thing about people. Nothing can convince them, if they make up their mind and believe in something. Maybe that's why religion is still a thing.

Jason has always maintained his innocence, and unlike everyone else, I believe him.

I believe him, because I know he didn't **** his wife but if he gets a chance to do it now, given the condition she's in, I know that he will. 


I can't let that happen though, can I? 

She cheated on my brother. She broke my brother's heart and I've made sure she doesn't get to break anyone's heart ever again.
Jason is too weak and would killed her now, and put her out of her misery. 

But I'm not Jason.

I didn't **** her.

I take my hammer, and as I enter the basement bearing the good news of Jason's wedding, I can hear her crying. That's like all she does, these days.

She used to beg me to release her in the beginning, but over the years, she has realized that I won't do that.
 
Now, whenever she sees me, she doesn't ask for freedom.
She begs me for just one thing.
 
She begs me to do to her, what Jason couldn't.

But I'm not Jason. 

____________

"What the? Give it to me!" a nine year old Jason said and took Polly, my pet bird, out of my hand. 

She had her wing ripped off, her beak hammered in and was bleeding, but, somehow, still alive. 

"I'll just put it out of its misery. Why do you keep doing this?" Jason asked.

"Are you going to tell father?" 

"No. But you have to promise me that you won't repeat this. Why do you torture these innocent creatures anyway?"

I didn't know the answer to his question then. 

"I'm taking the blame on me, for the last time. Swear on me and say that you won't repeat this!"

"I swear"

[===A.B===](https://www.facebook.com/Abh1sek/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There's a baby in my belly
 
 Assistant: * There’s a girl in my driveway
* With a dress covered in blood
* Little branches in her pigtails
* And her shoes are soaked in mud
* 

* There’s a girl in my driveway
* And she’s standing in the rain
* Though her eyes show no emotion
* It’s apparent she’s in pain
* 

* There’s a girl in my driveway
* And my wife now sees her too
* She tells me to let her in
* Wouldn't have done it if I knew
* 

* There’s a girl in my house
* And I don’t know where she’s from
* I have leftovers from dinner
* And decide to offer some
* 

* There’s a girl in my house
* And she doesn’t look at me
* She keeps staring right behind me 
* As the blood streams down her knees
* 

* There’s a girl in my house
* And she passes me a note
* I reach out to her to take it
* And to look at what she wrote
* 

* “There’s a baby in my belly
* That is what the doctors say
* As I heard my mommy crying
* I wished it would go away
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly
* I begged mommy to believe
* that I did not make this baby
* but dad tells her she’s naïve 
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly
* But I’m only just fourteen
* They say I might have been molested
* But I don’t know what that means
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly
* It is growing big and strong
* They say it’s been here for three months
* But something tells me they are wrong
* 


* There’s a baby in my belly
* It makes me crave the strangest things 
* Suddenly I want to feast on
* Squirrels, cats and pigeon wings
* 


* There’s a baby in my belly
* Without food it will not rest
* And although it liked my hamster
* It likes human meat the best
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly 
* And its hunger never stops
* Yesterday I bit my brother
* And now I can’t get enough
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly
* It’s grown far too strong for me
* It started kicking at my stomach
* It is trying to break free
* 

* There’s a baby in my belly
* And it keeps me up at night
* It’s not as much motherhood
* As its screams that bring me fright
* 


* There’s a baby in my belly 
* And I don’t know what to do
* It started eating its way out
* And it’s almost halfway through
* 

* There was a baby in my belly 
* And it’s gonna **** my dad
* I don’t know what father did
* But it says that he’s been bad
* 

* There was a baby in my belly
* And its hunger didn’t end
* It kept eating at my loved ones
* And I know just where it went
* 
* There was a baby in my belly
* As I heard my daddy’s pleas
* I think I found out the hard way
* That revenge is never sweet
* 

* There was a baby in my belly
* And he brought me here to you
* He ate my father and my brother
* And now he’s coming for you too
* 

* There was a baby in my belly
* But don’t worry about your wife
* It is men that it is after 
* Cause they’ve hurt me all my life”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Rich American Family.
 
 Assistant: I am part of a rich American family, in a rich American suburb, full of rich American people.

Life is ****.

Every morning, me and the rest of the Wives get up at 5:00am sharp. Fifteen minutes of jogging around the neighborhood, five minutes in the shower (set to cold), twenty minutes for hair and makeup, and then five to get dressed. If we've managed that in time, meaning no later than 5:45am, we might be allowed solid food with our coffee.

We live in suburbia. It's white, wealthy, and contained. We aren't allowed to leave. My family are the Rogers: The Husband, the Boy, and the Girl.

Clean, cook, and tidy. Pack lunches. Wave goodbye to Boy, Girl, and Husband. Water the plants. Change the beds. Clean and tidy. Wave hello to children and husband. Cook, clean, and tidy. Pray. Go to bed. Sometimes my husband will gesture for me to get on my back so he can ****, communicating with, “On your back. Get on your back. Ye-e-e-e-s. Just like that. ****. Yes. ****,” like I'm a slow child or an animal. When he's done, he rolls over and snores.

Socialising with one another isn't encouraged, but neither is it outright banned. We have conversations with our neighbors' Wives consisting entirely of small-talk. We might get lunch in the Ladies Café with a “friend”. Or while the kids are at school and our Husband is at work, we may spend a snatched few minutes licking **** just out of sight of the porch windows.

It's not perfect. It's not even good, most of the time, but it's something. A demonstration that underneath all of those pink lipsticked smiles and chipper voices and perfectly coiffed hairdos, we aren't alone.

Those pink lipsticked smiles never reach the eyes.

John Rogers likes blondes with blue eyes, snub noses, and beguiling features. He likes them in the 5'7”-5'10” height bracket. He likes them thin, with almost androgynous bodies, and aged between twenty and twenty six years old. If any of these things change, or we grow too old, he calls up the Agency and requests a new model.

They tell me my name is Lana Rogers. It's not. I don't know how many Lana Rogers there were before me, but the Boy and the Girl are both teenagers, so there must've been a few. What I do know, however, is that I was born on the 19th of November, 1990. I turned twenty six today.

Since my mind was wiped clean during conditioning, I'd say that my first memory is of being inside that plush Agency car as we pulled up outside the Rogers’ house.

“You remember this, right?” said the man sat in the backseat with me. “You do remember.”

“Yes,” I said. They'd shown me lots of pictures of it.

I was let out of the car. I walked up the manicured green lawn to the front door, opened it, and went straight to the kitchen. Boy and Girl were sat in there, doing their homework. They looked up when I entered. “Hi, mom.”

“Hi, sport. Hello, darling.”

“What’s for lunch?”

I knew how to answer this. I'd been grilled on it over and over again. With one of those pink lipsticked smiles, I went to the refrigerator and opened it up. “What would you like?”

My Husband had called the Agency six weeks in advance, as per protocol, and they'd selected and abducted me from... well, wherever I was from. Most of the specifics of the training regimen and conditioning are lost to me now, but I sometimes get flashes of it. Non-stop music, talking, pictures, and crushing hunger.

But that doesn't matter.

I'd been the Rogers' Wife and Mother for a week when I first saw Janet Brown. On some coincidence, we'd gone into our back gardens to water the flowers at the same time. Mr Brown likes redheads with green eyes, button noses, and smirks. He likes them in the 5'4” to 5'7” range. He likes them thin, but curvy. He likes them aged between twenty five and twenty nine years old.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” I said.

We smiled. Our eyes met and locked in a stare, and I noticed something that sent a thrill through my stomach: her smile, unlike all of the other pink lipsticked Wives that I'd seen, was red as sin.

I really don't know if I had the capacity to want a woman before I became a Wife. But after a few days of tentative courtship, though, when Janet hopped the fence, cupped my jaw, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss me, I found myself kissing her right back.

Life became brighter after that. My goodbyes to the Rogers in the morning became just a touch more enthusiastic, because I knew that once they were gone, I'd be able to go out into the garden and be with Janet until they came home. We talked a lot. We'd be there, hidden from sight by bushes and shrubs, and we'd hold each other and speak and cry. We'd kiss the tears off of each other's faces. Sometimes we'd make love. It was a way to forget, and to feel not alone—Lana and Janet against Suburbia.

Years ticked by. Time. We fell in love.

"Hey," she said once. "I really like you."

I laughed, and looked down at the vaguely compromising position we were in. "I can tell."

She reached forward to brush a lock of hair out of my face with her thumb. And then, with that devastating red smirk, she said, "Not like that. You're so beautiful. But I've done things with a Wife before, and you're different to her. I've known you for this long, and I actually really, really **** like you."

Our expiry dates came closer.

One evening, a van pulled up outside the Brown house. It drove away not long after. And the following morning, when I went into the back garden to meet her, Janet wasn't there.

“Good morning,” I said to the green eyed brunette with the button nose and the smirk who was watering the plants.

She gave me a pink lipsticked smirk. A **** pink lipsticked smirk. “Good morning.”

Janet had been Replaced. She was gone. She was gone, she was gone, and I was never going to see her again. Stood there in that moment, I could have fallen to my knees and retched up the coffee I’d had for breakfast.

But that wouldn't do.

So I picked up the watering can, and I forced myself to say, “How are you this morning?”

That evening, it occurred to me that I was more than halfway done as the Rogers' Wife and Mother. I was twenty three years old. Slowly but surely, I was becoming old news. Sour milk. Dead meat. John Rogers, whom had once left me sore with the urgency of his ****, was beginning to grow tired of me.

I burned dinner that night, for the first time in history. John got to his feet, slammed me face first into the dining table, and screamed himself hoarse as the Boy and the Girl sat and watched. “Useless ****, **** ****, **** **** dumb **** **** ****!”

Later, when everyone else was sleeping, he went to use the telephone. I remember lying there in the dark, clutching my bruised face, curled up into myself, trying to breathe. What if he was calling the Agency? What if he was going to have me taken away and Replaced like Janet?

Then John came in and got on the bed beside me. Together, side by side, we lay there and stared at the ceiling. The silence seemed to last forever. And then he finally said, “Don't do it again, Lana.”

“I won't,” I said. “I won't, John.”

Though it might have made life a little easier for me, I couldn't bring myself to pursue the new Janet Brown. No matter how much like my Janet she might have looked, she was too different. Or perhaps she was too much like everyone else, with her pink mouth and her dead eyes.

Our neighbors on the other side were the Millers, and they were small and ****. **** Husband, **** Boy 1, **** Boy 2, and **** Baby. The only member of the family who wasn't **** was the Wife, Susan. She was practically an Amazon. I guess Mr Miller must have specified his liking for strong women.

Susan's the only Wife I've ever known to go crazy.

About a year ago, John and I were woken late at night by shouting. We looked at each other, united by our confusion, before rushing downstairs and then outside to see what was going on.

The Millers had an annual hog roast you see. Every family on the street was invited. We'd all gather round the charcoal pit, after a couple hours of forced laughing and socialising, and Susan would carve us slices of salty pig flesh to eat. It always tasted so good.

The meat that was sat on their manicured lawn looked a lot less appetising than usual, though. ****, sweaty flesh, greasy brown hair, and round glasses that had somehow remained on his face even through the ordeal he'd been put through: a skewer had been pushed up through his ****, the end of which stuck out of his mouth in a glistening red point.

“You should've ordered the *stupid thing in advance!”* Susan was screaming, as she paced up and down in front of Mr Miller’s skewered corpse, running her hands through her hair and gesticulating wildly. “It wouldn't come in time, you *stupid pig!* I had to do this! I had no choice! This is your fault! Embarrassing the family in front of everyone! *It's not my fault! It's not my fault!”*

About a minute of this passed, John and I watching in stunned silence, before a white van pulled up outside the house and four men in black came rushing out. Susan was tackled, cuffed, and then hoisted to her feet and dragged into the back of the van. She kicked and shrieked all the way, “no! No, no- the roast's today, I'm the hostess, I'm a good hostess, put me down”. We could hear her even as she was driven off down the street.

The body was taken away. The **** Boys and **** Baby were taken away. A new family moved in about three weeks later. John muttered something about screenings for mental illness in Wives, and the methods of conditioning needing to be changed.

I never saw Susan again.

Now it's my turn, and I can only sit and wait. The local police are in the Agency's pocket, and I wouldn't be surprised if their influence spreads even further than that, because money is power. But they don't have you all, do they? They don't have your minds.

And even if I can't remember who I am, somebody out there might. You've got my description, my date of birth, and you know about when I went missing. If that connects up with anyone, or if you knew someone that could be me, then tell my family I love them and that I'm sorry. I bet I thought of them a whole lot during the Agency's conditioning. Or if I didn't have family, then tell my friends the same thing. I must've had something. I must've had someone.

The van's just pulled up outside. They're here I have to go

 Human: write a story with the theme title: All My Exes Die After We Break Up
 
 Assistant: My first girlfriend, Krystal, died at 16, right after I broke up with her. For a long time I thought it was just a coincidence. 

I felt differently when my next girlfriend, Nicole, died right after we broke up a few years later. 

They both died in odd circumstances. Krystal crashed her car flat sober on a straight road by herself. Nicole drowned in the bathtub after falling asleep. 

Both were labeled as accidents. I was never questioned by police, but plenty of people around town talked, wondered if I was cursed. 

I wondered the same. 

Then I moved away. The military took me all the way across the country and I was happy. 

I fell in love with a girl named Katy. 

Everything was good, until I went to a cousin’s wedding out of town by myself. 

The drinks flowed. Too many. I lost control. I got in deep with a girl there I thought was too hot to not keep talking to and keep drinking with. 

We ended up back at my hotel room. 

I was too **** to stop. We had **** and she stayed the night with me. 

I woke up with an instant sinking feeling of regret. I also woke up alone, but the girl whose name I couldn’t even remember was in the bathroom. 

She was crying. 

I listened to her weep uncontrollably for a few moments, unsure of what to do. 

Then I heard glass breaking and I rushed into the bathroom. 

The girl from the night before was in there with a shard of broken mirror in her grasp. 

I begged her not to hurt herself. She screamed back at me that she loved her boyfriend and she couldn’t believe what she had done and she wanted to die. 

Then she inexplicably started saying a name I hadn’t heard in years…*Hollyeve*.

Hearing that name reached into the darkest recesses of my brain. 

Hollyeve was a dirt poor girl in my fifth grade class. Homely. She was teased and someone who received no interest as someone anyone wanted to date. Instead she was mocked. 

We went too far. Someone dared me to ask out Hollyeve and pretend to be her boyfriend for a week. I agreed to do it, trying to impress my peers. 

Hollyeve seemed to have no idea the thing was a farce. She held my hand on the schoolyard and didn’t seem to see the other kids snickering all the while. 

The worst part is I could feel she was sweet and genuine during our time together. She was a nice person. 

I had to get out of it. I had my friend break up with her a few days into the spoof relationship. 

Hollyeve was crushed. I felt horrible. She never made eye contact with me again. 

One day after recess, I came back to my desk and found a piece of paper with burnt ends and found an endless abyss of **** and dark words scrawled all over it in black ink and pentagrams. I tried to decipher what it specifically all meant but couldn’**** just said awful things. 

Embarrassed and guilty, I never told anyone about it or confronted Hollyeve about it. 

Hollyeve moved away at the end of that school year. One of the girls in the class said she lived near her and thought her parents were deep into the occult - witches, spells, all that kind of stuff. I figured it was ****. 

It wasn’t until I heard the woman in the bathroom screaming out her name that all those scrawled words of hate and love and darkness on that burnt paper Hollyeve left on my desk came back into my head. That dark little girl must have cursed me and any lover that left me. 

“HOLLYEVE!” The word spat out of my one night stand in the bathroom and snatched me out of my memory dive. 

Then the woman took that shard of glass and ferociously sliced both of her wrists before I could even try to do anything. 

\-

The girl from the wedding ended up living and she explained to everyone that she did what she did to herself and wanted to cover up for me being there to protect her own relationship, so I got lucky and no one ever found out. 

I know what you’re thinking now though, but don’t. The girl later died after her wounds were infected from the gashes. 

The curse was still alive. 

I had an easy solution to it all. I was going to marry Katy and stay with her forever. 

I proposed. She was a bit thrown off by the haste, but she said yes. 

Everything was going well. We kept going through the motions of love and prep and slow planning our wedding - I wasn’t in any particular hurry. 

Then I came home one day and her wedding ring was resting on the kitchen counter with a note that she was leaving me. No particular reason given. 

She said in the note she had to stay away from me for a week so she could be clear of mind. 

There was no way I could make that happen. I knew I was racing a clock. I was waiting to hear that she had died every second as I drove around going to every place that she could be. 

I found her at her sister’s house and after hours of pleading and explaining that her safety was in serious question, she finally came out and talked to me in the yard. 

I explained everything. I watched her face convey that she now regretted every single second of our relationship. 

Then she walked inside. 

Weeks went by without much sleep. I kept just thinking I was soon going to be invited to her funeral and I wondered if it would be in some circumstance where people thought I might have done it to her. 

She showed up in the middle of the night one night with a knock on my door. I let her in - so happy to see her alive and breathing. 

She explained she had nearly died in three separate freak accidents since she left me. 

She believed in the curse. She could feel it inside her. She had suicidal thoughts she had never even imagined before. 

We had to be together. *The wedding was back on.* 

Now you’re probably wondering. Why did that dark little girl who I **** with back in fifth grade do something that ultimately won be back the love of my life. Wasn’t she now going to **** Katy or something? 

The thing was my time away from Katy made me realize that I didn’t love her. I didn’t really miss her and enjoyed my time alone. I thought about my previous, dearly-departed partners, and thought I loved them more than her and I dreamed of a relationship that would truly bring it all together for me. 

I was cursed with a fake love forever, or I had to be okay with Katy dying. 

So the fake relationship I pranked that poor girl with in fifth grade meant I was going to be stuck in a fake relationship for the rest of my life. 

*Well played, Hollyeve.*

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I never should have questioned where I learned to whistle.
 
 Assistant: When my wife slunk out of the bathroom in her underwear, damp and rosy from the shower, I let out an exaggerated wolf whistle. *wwHHP wheeooo!*

The whistle cracked the serious mask of her face into a smile, but something about the peak and valley of the tone didn’t sit right with me.

My bedroom faded from view.

*I’m eight or nine and staring into the face of another little boy. It’s Nolan, my best friend. Our mouths are puckered into o’s, and we are both blowing. Who is Nolan? Do I know a Nolan? He is pushing a shrill, reedy sound from high in his throat. My breath is nothing but a rush of soundless air. “Don’t worry, Sam, you’ll get it,” he tells me. My name’s Jacob. Who is Sam?*

I blinked and it vanished. Poppy crawled into bed and slotted herself into the slice between my arm and my torso. She ran her finger down my bare chest, a prelude and a promise.

“Pops,” I said, “have I always been able to whistle?”

She frowned at me. “Of course you have. You whistled at me just like that, the day we met.”

“Did I?” I couldn’t remember.

She crept closer, her hair sweeping my skin, but I was trying to grasp that flittering vision. “It’s just that I don’t think I ever learned to whistle.”

Poppy peeled herself up, her eyebrows rigid lines. “Of course you did. You just whistled, so you must have learned sometime. Why are you worried about this?”

She leaned forward to press her lips against mine, as if she meant to silence me. I pulled my head back and said, “I don’t know. I’m just a little freaked out. I’m too young to be losing my memory.”

I meant it lightheartedly, but she didn’t take it that way. Her voice swelled with uncharacteristic anger. “You’re being ridiculous. Stop talking about this,” she demanded.

My wife was one of the most level-headed people I knew. If she told me to drop it, I listened. But the force of her defensiveness unsettled me. I had already ruined the mood, so we went to bed facing opposite directions, our backs rising and falling in syncopated rhythm. When I was sure she was asleep, I rounded my lips and, quietly, whistled.

. . .

If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought Poppy was having an affair.

Ever since I’d brought up that **** whistling – really, the only time I can remember her raising her voice at me during our otherwise idyllic relationship – she’d been acting oddly. Not when we were together. If anything, her sweetness was sicklier, the tips of her fingers always brushing electricity across my arms, her warm body a luxurious comfort on the couch. But we were together less often.

She started working late. She would take calls after hours in the guest bedroom with the door closed. She went in on weekends. One day she arrived home two hours later than expected, with our daughter Hannah in the backseat. Claimed community theater rehearsal ran late. I was reluctant to involve Hannah, but I asked her a few careful questions and she confirmed the story. Using almost the exact same verbiage, as if she were parroting it.

Any of these things would have been isolated blips, but when plotted on the same graph, like seismic spikes that crested with increasing frequency, they were a pattern.

The memory of the little boy who couldn’t whistle twisted inside me and told me it wasn’t a good idea to address her behavior directly. After nearly fifteen years of marriage, twelve of them ensconced in the mania of raising a child, I had seen a sharp edge to Poppy that she had never revealed to me.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. I did the thing that all suspicious lovers do and snooped through her phone.

Normally, Poppy guarded it closely, but the opportunity arose sooner than I’d expected. We were watching television when something crashed in Hannah’s bedroom. Perhaps she’d knocked her laptop off the bed again, perhaps it was something worse. Poppy leapt up and started bounding up the stairs, calling Hannah’s name. I was about to follow when I noticed she had left the phone on the table. I’m not proud. But I needed to know. I picked it up and punched in the passcode I had surreptitiously watched her enter.

There were no unusual text messages, only calls. Regular calls to the same number. 959-544…

*959.*

I knew that number.

Nine five nine.

*I’m sitting in a room of slate grey. The walls are unblemished concrete. There is no dust in the corners. I am on a very, very cold metal chair. I am resting my hands on a table. Something that looks like a hospital bracelet is pinned around my wrist. There are tiny numbers printed on it, a phone number beginning with 959. The room appears to have no door. Then a section of the wall slides open with a hydraulic wssh and I realize that faint lines carve its silhouette. A man steps into the room. “Do you have any questions?”*

Poppy’s footsteps begin to descend, snapping the vision in half. Hannah was fine. I placed the phone carefully back on the coffee table, feeling it was crucial that I leave it exactly where I found it.

. . .

I researched the phone number at work. I didn’t want to use my home WiFi.

The number was listed on a webpage. *Redevelopment Corp.* Infuriatingly generic. The page was a mess of buzzwords and lingo that obfuscated any clue as to the purpose of the business. It had a professional finish, all clean lines and staid blocks of text. There were no images, no links. The contact information consisted only of the phone number and an address, in the state adjacent to mine.

Google Maps told me that it was about a three-hour drive. As I closed the browser and wiped the search history, my eyes fell on the picture frame on my desk. Poppy and I on our wedding day. I had my arm around her, and my expression was bursting with love and trust. I wished I could remember that day. I’d been so happy I blacked out even though I was completely sober, the joy overwhelming my grasp of the details. That happens to everyone, doesn’****?

. . .

Poppy was extremely suspicious of my claim that I was going on a business trip. I couldn’t blame her. She was always more perceptive than most. She read my moods, told me why I was sad or angry or anxious before I could even put a name to the emotion. She knew, obviously, that I was lying, and to try to convince her otherwise would have been fruitless, so I merely wished her a good few days and kissed her forehead.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I could see her watching me from the living room window. She was on the phone.

The long stretch of highway that I hit about an hour into the trip knocked loose another vision.

*I’m in the driver’s seat going seventy-five. It’s too fast – the limit is sixty. But my fiancée seems to enjoy it, it makes her feel alive, so I ease just another notch of pressure on the gas, watching her thrill in the whipping wind. My fiancée is not Poppy. It’s Lauren. The light of my life, the girl I’ve been in love with since I bought a movie ticket from her when she was working the counter at the AMC and she said ‘I heard that’s supposed to be so good’ and I said ‘why don’t I just buy two and you can come see it with me’ and she unclipped her nametag and left her post and she clutched at my shirt in the darkness when the shadows flickered at the corner of the screen.*

The images toppled into each other. I tried desperately to catch one, any of them, but they dribbled through my consciousness like a sieve.

I arrived at the facility as the sun sank below the horizon. It looked more like a prison than an innocuous corporation. The building was a solemn cube, nestled amongst farmland, the only large edifice for miles. A chain link fence surrounded its perimeter. Was the barbed wire meant to keep people out, or in?

I lowered the window and heard the crunch of gravel under my tires as I approached the booth. The guard inside was dressed in a nondescript black uniform and he was heavily armed.

“State your business.”

“I need to find out why I can whistle.”

He pulled a lever to open the groaning gate and waved me inside.

. . .

I was back in the room. The immaculate grey walls, the cold chair, the metal table. I had been led here by silent men, who did not touch me but marched beside me with their shoulders boxing me in. I sat there for half an hour, my eyes fixated on the cracks in the wall that outlined the door, when it opened.

I didn’t recognize the man who entered, but he recognized me. “Jacob Sanderson,” he said by way of greeting. “I’ve been expecting you.”

I stood so suddenly I surprised myself, the chair clattering to the ground. “Tell me what the **** is going on,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “You know my name. You know that my life is not my life. I’m not really married to Poppy, am I? My name isn’t Jake? Is Hannah my real daughter?”

“You have many questions. It will take some time to answer. Sit down.”

He motioned at the chair. He didn’t move, and for a while, neither did I. Finally, I hoisted the chair upright and sat at the table. He sank into the seat opposite from me, tapping his fingers on the surface.

“Mr. Sanderson, feel the skin behind your ear.”

“Why?” But I did as I was told, and rubbed my skull just behind my left ear. There was a bumpy ridge of skin. A scar, like it was sewn together. How had I never noticed it before?

“Mr. Sanderson, you are wearing a different skin. You have been implanted with a device that alters your memories. It’s not perfect, as you have realized. We offer our deepest apologies for the malfunction.”

My vision swam. It couldn’t be possible. I realized that I had been holding out hope that this would turn out to be a figment of my imagination, a wild conspiracy that I’d cooked up entirely within my own head. Somehow it was worse to learn that I wasn’t crazy. “What the **** did you do to me?”

“You have a new life, Mr. Sanderson. A new identity. It has been this way since you were twenty-three.”

I was gripping the table so hard my knuckles were turning white. “What about Poppy? And Hannah?”

He studied me closely, monitoring my reactions. “Poppy was a volunteer, though I believe she has come to care for you. Hannah is your daughter, and knows nothing about this.”

I slammed my fist down on the table and stood up again, pacing quickly around the room. Hot blood was rushing to my head. I felt like I was about to pass out. “Why did you do this to me?” I shouted. “Why did you take my life away?”

“Because,” he said. “You asked us to.”

I stopped. “What?”

He stood as well, and got very close to me, his voice almost a whisper. “Something terrible happened. Something so awful, you couldn’t bear to continue living. You were referred to this facility after a failed suicide attempt that left your original body deeply disfigured, and you were already planning another. We gave you a choice. We would not stop you if you desired to die by your own hand, but we offered you the chance to forget.”

“What was it?” I asked hoarsely. “I don’t remember. What happened?”

“Well. It was your fault.” He paused. “Do you want to hear the rest?”

I scrambled through my fragmented memories – Sam’s memories, my *real* memories – and could find nothing that gave me the barest hint. “I don’t know. Do I?”

“I can’t make the decision for you, but I can tell you this,” he said. “You’ve been in this room before. Not just the procedure, but thrice after that. The technology was a prototype – we’ve made advances, but your early model seemed to splutter and fail after a few years. We’ve had this exact conversation several times, you and I. And you have always chosen not to know.”

I **** my eyes shut as though I could claw my way out of this nightmare. The thought of carrying on knowing that I was incomplete, that I wasn’t truly me, loomed large. But what had I done, back before I’d forgotten? The knowledge had been so horrific that I’d wanted to *take my own life*, and had chosen to excise it from my memory forever? After a moment, I shook my head. “I suppose I don’t.”

“I think that’s wise.”

Silence blanketed the room. We looked at each other, two men who had orbited around each other for decades, one unaware, one always watching. He said, “You have another choice. We can perform the procedure again, with the upgraded product. We have worked very hard to make it last longer, and preliminary results from other subjects are promising. I must emphasize that I strongly believe we have managed to develop something truly permanent. So the decision is yours, Mr. Sanderson. Do you want to walk away, or do you want to forget?”

I swallowed, my mouth dry. “Can I have a few days?”

“Of course. You have our number.” He cocked his head at me. “You know, it’s funny. The thing that brings you here? It’s always the whistling.”

. . .

Poppy was waiting in the living room when I arrived. She must have heard my car. There was a feline wariness about her. The sight of her on the familiar couch, in the nightgown she wore almost every night, felt like an anchor, tethering me back to reality.

“Jake?” she asked, her voice unsteady.

After a moment, I nodded.

Her body visibly relaxed in a wave of relief. She embraced me, murmuring in my ear, telling me that my favorite pasta dish was warming in the oven. Was it my favorite? Did she love me? I didn’t know. I leaned into her warmth, letting it envelop me and become my world.

It’s been a few days. In its broadest strokes, life is normal. Hannah is bouncing around in excitement because her birthday is soon. She’ll be a teenager. I’m excited too, although it’s dampened by the intrusive thoughts that cage me when I’m alone: What have I done? What happened to Lauren? What unimaginable destruction did I cause that made me want to erase my own existence?

I made the call last night. I have an appointment for next week. And I’ve told them that this time, they’d better make it stick.

Goodbye, Sam. I don’t think I can face you. I suppose in a way, as you wished it to be, I am ending your life.

[*x*](https://www.reddit.com/r/relicularity/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I've been a search and rescue diver for 12 years. We see a lot of strange and disgusting things, but what I saw last week has me questioning both my job and reality [Part 3]
 
 Assistant: [Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dlhqu6/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dmg9c8/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

Despite all the things that have happened, I’ve decided to stay here. To be honest, I fully intended on leaving as soon as possible after my last post. But that changed when I went to Michael’s funeral. It was a grueling experience. He was only twenty-two years old. His girlfriend cried the entire time, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty when I saw his young friends carrying his casket to its final resting place. His death never should have happened.

I had another nightmare last night. This one was the worst yet. Just like last time, those hands reached up from the darkness and grabbed me, covering my mouth and pinning my arms to the bed. That sickening fishy smell turned my stomach and my eyes began to water as I struggled against them.

Then two more hands rose up and held my eyes open. I watched in horror as a face protruded from the ceiling above me. It was like the one I had seen at the water, all green and mossy. Tears began to stream down my face as I recognized the features - It was Michael.

“Why did you do this?” He said, cold black fluid dripping from his mouth.

I tried to respond but couldn’t past the hands that were clasped over my face.

“Why why why why...” Michael went on and on, his voice becoming raspier with every query. I laid there for what felt like hours while he stared down at me and asked why I’d done this to him.

I woke up in a cold sweat and could have sworn that disgusting smell still permeated my room.

I’m beginning to think that this is all my fault. I should have heeded the warnings about Badwater. I don’t think I was the first to go there, but I was the first to see the truth of it and come back alive.

Badwater isn’t just well known amongst the divers. There’s a variety of local legends about that part of the river, and, when I think back, I recall hearing something about hands that dragged people to the water’s depths. Growing up, kids would spread rumors and folk tales about Badwater and the river as a whole. As I got older, I assumed they were just stories that grown ups had made up to keep us away from the dangerous rapids.

I began digging into the history of our town. Legends go back as far as anyone can remember, and even the natives told stories about the river, treating with a certain fear and reverence. I found an eerily familiar description of a Native myth about the river. It was in the library’s archives as part of a local university professor’s thesis regarding metaphorical folklore.

The myth tells the tale of a young man who lived by the river. He had everything he ever wanted: a beautiful wife, a son, bountiful harvests, and a warm place to sleep. However, that all changed when he was overcome by a terrible sickness. That same sickness spread to his wife and child. He recovered, but his family didn’t, and he was left alone.

He still had a warm bed at night and healthy crops, but he fell into a deep depression. Unsure what to do with himself, he would wander the river’s edge for hours, silently hoping that one day he would fall in and be swept away from his troubles.

One day, while pacing the riverbank, he heard his wife and child crying out for him. Frantic, he searched everywhere for the source of the voices. They began to tell him that they were living happily in the river now. His family urged him to dive in and join them so that he too could live happily. Without a second thought, he jumped in only to drown, cold and alone.

The person who examined that myth believed it to be a warning against desiring things that we’ve lost and getting caught up in the past. I now know this isn’t true. The myth is a true story and warns people against the dangers of those things that live in the river.

Through further digging, I’ve found that there’s actually a lot of native lore about the river. Many of them are similar to the story I told you about, but there are others that make this whole situation seem a lot more complex. Many of them reference some kind of **** or spirit that the natives worshipped. There are a few different translations, but the most common one I’ve seen is “King Moss.” Some stories refer to him as a personification of the river itself, while others describe him as a spirit with whom the people struggled.

However, one common theme is the existence of a sort of pact made between King Moss and the locals. Some stories made it sound like they sacrificed people to him in order to quell his rage, while others described a situation in which he was to be left alone in exchange for not actively hurting humans.

I can’t help but be reminded of the agreement that Moose and the others mentioned. Could they be referring to a pact similar to this one? I don’t know about this whole King Moss myth, but after all that I’ve seen I’m almost willing to believe anything.

After that, I got the idea to plot out all the disappearances and deaths that have occurred in the past few decades. What I found was pretty typical. Most reports were evenly distributed around the most dangerous parts of the river as well as the areas where the most people tended to gather. However, I noticed an unnerving trend. Reports in which there was no body recovered occurred almost exclusively in the areas around Badwater as far back as the reports go. In those areas, a body was only recovered about 15% of the time. This was commonly attributed to the strong current there which supposedly carried them too far to be found. But now I know the truth. The hands got those people and dragged them down to feed.

However, while doing this I noticed something even more intriguing. I was using a couple different maps to plot out the disappearances when I realized there were inconsistencies between the two. Curious, I looked at a few more maps and saw even more inconsistencies. They were all relatively similar aside from a few changes due to creeks drying up and urbanization.

However, there was one area deep in the forest west of Badwater that didn’t seem to match up on any of the maps. Some of them indicated nothing but forest there, while others showed a small lake. A few of the older maps even depicted a cave system.

I used Google Earth to look at the area, but something strange occurred. The picture was incredibly pixelated. Everything around it was clear, but it became blurry as soon as I toggled over to the area where the maps were inconsistent. It was still somewhat visible, but I had difficulty discerning anything other than tree coverage.

I’m surprised that I’d never been there before. I’ve spent a lot of time wandering the forest, and I somehow never managed to stumble into that place. I’m going to check it out soon. I think this secret goes deeper than Moose and his crew. There’s more to this, and I’m determined to figure it out.

Wish me luck, and if I don’t come back…. Well just wish me [luck.](https://reddit.com/r/travisliebert)

[Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dotytc/ive_been_a_search_and_rescue_diver_for_12_years/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: they’re back
 
 Assistant: The broadcast on the TV read “THEYRE BACK. ONE HOUR.” 

I looked to my twin sister Jaime. She was just as confused as i was. My parents shot up, already started gathering supplies. What the ****? Did they know something i didn’t? I jokingly thought to myself, is this some kind of Boomer thing i don’t understand? 

I tried to talk to them. They were not interested in explaining, too busy grabbing food and water. I’ve never seen my mom run before, but **** was she fast. She ran all throughout the house grabbing whatever she could. My dad, a man who never showed his emotions before, was visibly scared. I asked “what was going on? Is everything okay?” He told “shut up, grab whatever i could from my room i could handle, and bring it to the basement.”

I grabbed what i could. My laptop, phone, chargers, blankets, pillows, and my purse. My parents already had their mattress half way down the stairs. Whatever we were preparing for, it would be for a long time. Our basement wasn’t very large, and kind of half assed furnished. It had an old couch from our previous house, a tv, and some bean bag chairs. Luckily, a bathroom too. My sister and i followed as my parents did, and grabbed my mattress as well. The basement wasn’t big enough for 3 mattresses, but i had a full one, and we could both sleep on it. 

What felt like 5 minutes, it had already been 55 minutes. My dad took a last look around the house, and walked back downstairs. Jaime, my mother, and i sat on the couch in anticipation. He put a large medal rod on the door, as to block things, i guess. He looked satisfied. He walked over, gave each of us a hug and told us that he loved us.  

The TV flashed, “DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. DO NOT INTERACT WITH ANYONE OUTSIDE. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET, SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.”

I begged my parents for an answer now. My mom sighed. 

“I really hoped this would never happen again, at least in our lifetime. I don’t know how long for, but it might be awhile. There are things that will be outside. They’re not... us. They look like us, they act like us, but they are NOT us.”

My dad chimes in. “These creatures.. they pretend to be us. They feed on us, trying to take our place. Thank **** we are more prepared now. We are safe down here, and must wait for the broadcast to tell us they have left. Last time it lasted two weeks, hopefully it will be shorter this time.” 

I have never heard of this before, i haven’t even learned about it in school. Why are we just hearing about it now? 

My mom exclaimed, “we should get some sleep. It’s late, you both know everything now.” I laid in my bed with my sister next to me. Too exhausted to even play my nightly game of solitaire. 

I woke up from my 8am alarm, i was supposed to go to class today. Nevermind that i guess. 

i looked out at the very small window we had. It looked like a nice day out. I wanted to go outside so bad. My neighbors were out, passing around a football, children playing as well. I heard my family talking outside. I almost called out for them. I turned around and looked at my real family sleeping on the floor. I realized what was going on now, they’re here now. The creatures, attempting to be us. 

TV was still flashing with the same message. I looked outside once again, and got a closer look at my “family.” They did look like us, but something was off. They limbs slightly stretched longer than they should be, the faces slightly distorted, the skin almost a whiteish hue. You would think if they are trying to impersonate us, they could have done a better job. Then, i heard my doorbell go off. 

Someone is trying to get in, and it is not us.

[part two](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/e0otr6/theyre_back_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My daughter died on her sixth birthday. A man just handed me photos of her seventh.
 
 Assistant: I cannot describe to you how I feel right now. What I’m experiencing is so detached from the normal, I’m almost convinced I’ve finally gone insane. 

Almost.


My wife, Bea, died during childbirth. She was gorgeous, funny, intelligent – stubborn. A woman whose laugh was so loud eating in restaurants was a challenge, and whose stare was so intense it made my hands shake. I lost her, as she gave birth to our daughter. 

Sam.

Of course, I could have resented Sam. For taking away what was once mine in a way nothing else can be. For taking what was so truly and utterly pure. But I didn’t. I knew Bea wouldn’t have wanted any resentment. She wouldn’t have wanted our only child to have a life ruined by hate.

But this isn’t about grief. This isn’t about the physical sucker punch of losing forever something you loved. This is about something far more sinister.


My daughter was lively, always running and screaming, leaping up and down the climbing frame – causing havoc in her nursery classes. So for her sixth birthday, a trip with friends to the movies had left her so pent up with energy I could barely keep up with her as she dipped and dodged between people on the pavement. She’d occasionally turn back, through the sea of people and shout “Daddy, come on!” in a tone that was almost petulant. I couldn’t help but love her.


I tried to chase her, I really did. She was too busy looking at me when she dashed out into the road, and the bus didn’t have time to stop. A sickening crunch, and the world fell silent. I cradled her broken form in my arms, too numb to weep, too hurt to move. All I could feel was the warm blood gently seep into my clothes. In the state of shock I was in, I could just think about how I was going to wash my jeans. It sounds horrid, I know – but a loss like that tears everything away from you and leaves you with only the bare thought process that make us human.

The next week was a blur. I cannot place a single memory to a time, in between friends and family extending their condolences, and the howling sobs of mine that would break out at any moment – a door slamming, the gentle hum of the fridge or voices laughing on the radio.

I attended her funeral dressed all in black. By dressed, I don’t mean merely clothes, my very essence was dark. I couldn’t feel, or think and the day continued as I went through the motions, like a dying man treading water. Everyone wanted to tell me about Sam, and how perfect she was – what an angel she was, as if I didn’t know. As if I didn’t realise what a gift my own daughter was. 

The man, stood out from the rest, as he walked up to me and handed me this large leather book. I assumed, at the time, he was a parent of one of Sam’s friends, handing me a collection of their photos together. Or maybe I was too numb to even process his cold hands, and how he never mentioned my daughter once.

For a month, I was lost. I drank, and stayed in our now empty apartment alone, watching old boxsets – too numb now to even cry. It was only when my sister arrived, when she held my hand and talked to me that I began to come out of my shell. She’d sit and listen to the most inane things I said, and gently coaxed me out of my depression. Not completely, but enough for me to begin to live what was almost a real life again. 

That was when I opened the book. I’d decided to remember Sam for all the joy she gave, and was prepared to reflect on her life without feeling miserable. 

I opened to the first page. It was essentially a binder, full of Polaroid photos of my daughter growing up. I furrowed my brow. They were taken from a distance, blurred slightly – and I was in a few of them.

I began to feel sick, but hoped that the following photos would provide some explanation. I came up with every excuse of how the man obtained these photos, desperate to view the moments of my daughter’s life without a sense of trepidation. The photos grew closer and closer to my daughter’s birthday. I could see the day I gave her a tiny bike after she turned five, and the skinned knees that ensued. The book had so many more pages, that I assumed the rest were empty.

But there was a photo of her just before the movies on her sixth birthday -  I could recognise the pink raincoat she insisted on wearing, and my hands on her shoulders. 

There was no photo of the crash.

Instead, her life continued inside this book. Her seventh birthday had a photo of me and her in the garden, covered in paint – with a huge canvas on the floor and an extremely messy painting. Her  seventh birthday. 

Her seventh birthday.

The reality of what I was seeing hit me then and I slammed the book shut. I sat there, at the kitchen table staring at the leather. This must be some sadistic photoshop, I hoped, someone had taken the time to pull a horrid prank on me. I say I hoped, because essentially – I couldn’t believe the other explanation. If there even was one.

Gritting my teeth, I decided I had nothing to lose and kept reading.

I can’t explain the emotions I felt whilst I read accurately, listening to the sound of the page turning. I can try, but nothing could prepare you for something like this.

Her life continued, showing her losing her baby teeth, her first day of senior school. My turning of the pages became more frenzied, and I began to notice something. The photographer was getting closer. Closer to her. As she grew older – not in every photo, but a general trend – the photographer was getting closer and closer. More daring, perhaps.

She was beautiful. Stunning. As a teenager she looked just like her mother, all curls and smiles. I grew older too, but the photos began to include me less and less.

Her sixteenth birthday was strange. A group of her friends, sitting outside, drinking from little plastic cups at a picnic. But there was someone in the background. Near the bushes of the park where this was taken, a dark figure stood. You wouldn’t have noticed him, if not for the small shadow he cast on the grass.

I leant back for a moment and exhaled. This was too weird. I’d been so caught up in watching my little girl grow up I hadn’t thought about how this would end. Moments like this, are so utterly surreal that sometimes you remove yourself from them. I almost felt like I was watching myself read these, like this was a dream, or a program on the television.

I continued.

The dark figure became more and more present in each photograph. I could almost make out features. His presence was towering, and as I turned the page I expected to see him disappear. But instead, as the photographs grew closer to her eighteenth (each birthday was marked by a caption underneath the Polaroid saying “Another year.”) she was no longer somewhere I recognised.

Instead, the photos were of her in a dimly lit house. Her face contorted by fear, striking all sorts of weird poses. Sometimes she would be dressed like an ancient queen or she would be dressed like a maid scrubbing the floors, the figure was there even closer now.  His legs, or his arm would appear in each and every one. No matter how she was dressed, in every photo her face had this desperately pained expression. It killed me. There were bruises on her face. She looked thin, ill even. 

I couldn’t do it.

This was sick. Properly sick. 

My girl. 

I soldiered on.

The last photo I looked at, before I slammed the book shut and swore to never, ever look at it again was of her eighteenth. The caption underneath read “At last!” in sloppy writing.

She was looking straight at the camera, crying. She was on her knees, dressed in a black evening dress – with an apple in her mouth and her hands bound behind her back. Her makeup was ruined by her tears. It was as if she was pleading me, begging me to help. But I couldn’t. 


I closed the book and left the room, my whole body convulsing with sobs.

I couldn’t call the police, of course. She was dead.

The thing that keeps me up at night, isn’t the content of what I saw.

It’s that there were so many pages left.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: Everybody has a Demon
 
 Assistant: Everybody has a demon, most people just don’t know it. 

I do.

I can see them.

They perch on your shoulders or ride piggy back, whispering in your ear. Sometimes they speak words soothing and sickly sweet, other times bitter and venomous.

Some people’s demons are tiny and innocuous, even cute. Others are brutes; ****, foul, slovenly. Some are, in a word, abominations; twisted malevolent perversions who revel in misery and suffering. Those are the worst kind.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their demon. 

My demon’s name is Jack. Well, that’s what I call him anyways. They *never* tell you their real names, and that’s OK by me. Jack fits him just fine.

I’ve known Jack for as long as I can remember, my whole life actually. He’s always been around. When I was lonely Jack would play with me. When I was sad Jack would crack jokes to make me laugh. When I was bored Jack would tell stories. Jack always knew the right things to say.

When I was young I thought my parents could see him too. They called Jack my ‘Imaginary Friend’ and my mother would tell the other moms about how *creative* her son Kevin is, he has such a *vivid* imagination.

Sometimes they would ask me questions about Jack, or they would ask *him* questions about me. He would always answer, but I began to notice something strange; they never seemed to react quite right. It was like they weren’t actually hearing him. They’d become smug and condescending and say things like “I think ‘Jack’ is telling you to finish your green beans, don’t you think so honey?” I’d think they were ignoring Jack on purpose and then I’d get frustrated and start to cry.

I was nine when I finally figured it out: they really *couldn’t* see him. They were just playing along, *they* were the ones pretending; not me. They were fools. I knew Jack was real, as real as anyone else. So I’d talk about him all the time, to my parents, my teachers, the kids at school; to anyone who’d listen. I’d try to convince them that Jack was real.

That’s when it stopped being cute and my parents started to worry about me.

Sometimes at night I’d lay in bed listening to them talking in the kitchen. My mother would get weepy and my father would speak quiet soothing words like balm. He’d say things like, “It’s just a phase. **** grow out of it. All kids go through this, it just lasts longer for some.”

I’d lay there in bed with Jack by my side, comforting me. “Why can’t they see you?” I’d ask.

“You have a gift. A special gift. They don’t,” Jack would say, smiling.

“Well why don’t they believe me? I’m their son! Why do they think I’d lie?”

“That’s just the way people are. You’re very young, Kevin. You have *oh* so much to learn about the world. But I’ll always be here for you Kevin, you can count on me. I’ll always be here for you.”

Around this time I started getting into trouble at school. The other kids would make fun of me when I talked about Jack. They called me ‘Crazy Kevin’ and ‘Baby Boy Kevy-Wevy’ and they would laugh and punch the air and tell me they were beating Jack up. They would taunt me and push me down, and when I tried to defend myself *I* would get in trouble. Kids can be so cruel to one another, and the teachers weren’t much better. They’d tell me, “Well, stop talking about your imaginary friend and the other kids will leave you alone.”

So I did.

I wasn’t a dumb kid. I knew they were making fun of me because I was different. They didn’t have ‘Imaginary Friends’ and I did; and even though *I* knew Jack was real, no one else thought he was. Imaginary Friends weren’t supposed to be real. The unknown scared them. I scared them.

So I stopped talking *about* Jack and stopped talking *to* Jack. I ignored him, pretended he wasn’t real.

Jack got angry.

Sometimes at night he would knock things over or throw things around my room to get my attention. Sometimes he’d break things in my house and I’d get blamed. Even worse, he started appearing in my dreams; tying me up and torturing me in strange primitive rituals; chanting and carving esoteric symbols into my flesh. I’d wake in a cold sweat, mind reeling. Jack would be hovering above my bed, quietly watching as I slept.

Finally, when I couldn’t stand the torment anymore, I started talking to him again; in whispers and only late at night while the rest of the house slept.

I explained the situation to him; about my parents, my teachers, the kids at school. When I told him he smiled, he understood. Jack always understood. He told me that ***EVERYBODY*** has a demon, just like me; they just can’t see it. They don’t know it exists. He told me I was special, that I had a gift.

I was still doubtful, but Jack wasn’t upset. He told me I was *so* special that he was going to get me another gift, just to prove it. Then he disappeared.

For the first time in my life I was alone. I felt so scared, abandoned, and utterly alone. I was miserable. 

A week passed and still no Jack. Was this how regular people lived out their lives? So lonely all the time... how did they stand it? 

Then I awoke one night and he was there standing over my bed like he’d never left. I was so happy.

“Where did you go, Jack?” I asked.

“To get your gift of course.”

“But… where is it?”

“You already have it,” Jack answered.

“But where? You didn’t give me anything!”

“Shh, quiet child. It will all make sense in the morning. Go to sleep now Kevin. Go to sleep child.” He sang me a lullaby in some ancient tongue as I drifted off.

I awoke the next morning as excited as a kid on Christmas, ready to run out of my bedroom and see my new gift; but Jack grabbed me by the arm and spoke to me sternly.

“You must make a promise to me Kevin. Whatever you see out there you must promise NEVER to tell anyone about it. You must never speak of it aloud. Otherwise your gift will disappear. Otherwise *I* will disappear.”

I promised.

“Promise me three times,” Jack said. So, I did.

“You’ve promised me thrice, never to speak of what you see. Do not forget your promise, Kevin.”

We walked into the kitchen and I stopped dead in my tracks. 

There at the breakfast table sat my mother and father. On each of their shoulders perched a demon. On my mother’s sat a large puffy creature, a mix between a bunny rabbit and a giant marshmallow, but with huge doughy eyes and long silver fangs. On my father’s sat a long skinny worm-like creature with hollow eyes and the face of a bat. It was was blue and translucent like ice, a cloud of steam rose from its body. Its tail was coiled around my father’s neck.

I yelped in surprise and eight eyes turned towards me, four human and four demonic. I made some excuse to my parents which calmed them down, but the demons stared at me wide eyed; at first I thought they were angry, but then I recognized that they were actually afraid. Afraid of me. Afraid that I could see them. The bat-snake hissed something I couldn’t understand, but Jack barked back in a gruff guttural language which echoed in our tiny kitchen. My parent’s demons cowered before him submissively.

From that day forward I saw them everywhere I went. It was scary to be sure, but at least I knew I wasn't the only one. Everybody has a demon.

Still, it could be overwhelming. There were so many, and *they* all knew that *I* knew. They would say things to me, horrible things. They would brag about all the twisted and perverted acts they had convinced their people to commit. They would tell me about their people’s evil thoughts and dark secrets. The demons delighted in recounting these tales in graphic detail.

Sometimes Jack would stop them, but sometimes he wouldn’t, or even worse he *couldn’t*. Some of them were scarier than Jack, *stronger* than Jack, and there was nothing he could do. Sometimes I would catch an evil glint in Jack’s eyes, and I could tell that he was enjoying hearing about the all the wicked and foul deeds other demons had convinced their people to do. He almost seemed jealous.

It became too much, I had to make some changes. I would walk to school, instead of riding the bus. I began avoiding crowds, and started spending my free time alone in my room or out hiking in the woods; but it was no use.

I started falling behind in school. It was impossible to concentrate in class with all those demons glaring at me, whispering to me, laughing at me. I told Jack about this, but he shrugged it off. He reminded me that this was a *gift*, that I was special. He promised me that one day I would be glad I had it. I trusted him. Jack was always there for me. Jack always took care of me.

Sometimes I felt afraid. I could always tell who the really bad people were by the size and nastiness of their demon. I could see all the liars, the adulterers, the rapists, the murderers, and the child molesters. They walked the streets, mingling in secret with the good people and the normal people, like wolves among sheep; and nobody knew but me. You’d be surprised just how many of them there are, and there was nothing I could do about it. 

At least, not *yet*.

That changed in the 10th grade when I met Elijah. Elijah was a bully, and he didn’t try to hide it. He was a ****, ****, hulking slab of a boy. He was **** too, book-****, or willfully ignorant at the very least; but when it came to bullying, he was a genius. He had an uncanny ability to find a person’s greatest joy in life, and turn it against them. He seemed to make it his personal mission to torment the smaller, smarter, weaker, and more introverted kids, of which I was one.

He also had one of the nastiest demons I’d ever seen. It was a massive hippopotamus-looking beast with twisted horns and breath like the grave. It lay across his shoulders, making Elijah slouch when he walked. 

The popular kids ignored most of us, but they *despised* Elijah. In his mind that was our fault, and he made sure that we paid for it. He loved to trip kids in the hallway, knock their books out of their hands, snap girl’s bras, fire spitballs in class and generally make our lives a living ****. 

Elijah’s specialty was stealing lunches, and he did it with aplomb. I never once saw him buy a lunch or bring his own, he’d simply go from table to table taking what he wanted from the ‘nerds’. He always made sure to take my milk. I don’t even think he liked it, but he knew that *I* liked it; so he’d take it, chug it down, and throw the empty carton in my face, laughing all the while.

Jack started whispering things to me. Telling me what a horrible person Elijah was. Telling me all the nasty things he did when he was alone. Telling me how he reveled in torturing and killing people's pets out in the woods. Telling me about the things he would do to his little sister late at night. Telling me all the horrible things he *would* do in the future. Telling me that if Elijah died, no one would miss him.

I tried to ignore him; but the longer it went on, the more sense Jack seemed to make.

The final straw came one day when Elijah caught me alone in the bathroom. I was standing at the **** peeing when I heard the door open and heavy foot steps come up from behind.

“Aww look at this, is wittle crazy Kevy-wevy having a wittle **** break?” He sneered. His breath was hot on my neck, like a foul breeze wafting from a garbage dump on a scorching summer day. I ignored him, trying to finish the task at hand as quickly as possible. 

“What’s wrong ****, you deaf or something?” He asked. I continued ignoring him. Big mistake.

He kicked me **** the back pack, smashing my chest into the **** and my face into the concrete wall. I saw stars and fell to the ground, my member still in hand, still urinating. 

“Ohhhhh noooo, look at that. Wittle Kevy fell down and wet himself! Here, let me help you with that” I lay on the ground in a daze, and heard pants unzipping somewhere above me. Then a warm putrid stream was pouring over my backpack and down my legs and Elijah was laughing. I covered my head and pretended I was somewhere else. When it was over I heard the door slam shut and from the hallway Elijah yelling, “Hey everybody, check it out. Crazy Kevin **** himself!”
I looked up and there was my demon, Jack. He was staring at me with a smirk on his face. 

“Ok, you win. Tell me what I have to do.” 

Jack’s smile widened.

“Easy,” he said. “Switch to almond milk.”

---

For the next two weeks I packed my lunch with almond milk instead of my regular 2%. It tasted disgusting, but I hardly ever got to drink it anyways. Elijah stole it from me every single day without fail, and he really seemed to enjoy the taste.

Then one day after school, a knock came at my door. It was a stranger, disheveled and wild eyed, dressed in a cheap suit. His demon was a snake, red as venous blood, venom dripping from its maw. He didn’t say a word, just handed me a crumpled paper bag and walked away. 

I opened the bag and pulled out a clear vial with a **** of masking tape on the side. On the masking tape, in clear black sharpie marker, one single word was written. 

*Cyanide*

Jack was grinning again. “Tastes like almond,” he whispered.

I mixed it into my milk for tomorrow's lunch, and the next day I ditched the empty vial in a dumpster on my way to school.

A few minutes after drinking my milk, Elijah was convulsing on the floor. I sat and watched, casually munching on a taco. A few minutes after that he was dead. I wasn’t sad; I actually felt good. Better than I had in a long time.

The cause of death was determined to be cerebral hypoxia, likely brought on by a ****. Very few mourned his passing.

---

I started missing more and more school, and a few months later I dropped out completely. Not that I felt guilty, or thought I might get caught. No way. I just had other more *important* work to do.

I got a job in a rough part of the city, working in a crumby old book binding factory. The work was monotonous, but easy, and I soon saved up enough to buy a used car and rent a **** studio apartment. I worked second shift at the factory, from 3pm to 11pm. Most guys hated the hours, but I found them perfect for supporting my *extracurricular* activities: finding bad people, and killing them.

My demon helped me. Jack was a real natural when it came to this. He helped me track down people with particularly nasty demons and he’d tell me all the vile things they had done. We stalked them like hunters, learning their patterns and routines. Then he’d tell me the best way to **** them, and how to get away with it.

And I always got away with it.

Pimps, rapists, drug dealers, child molesters, human traffickers, I did them all. Sometimes I made it look like an accident, or a suicide, or a robbery gone wrong. I beat, stabbed, strangled, shot, and drowned. I even pushed one **** **** on the third rail of the subway. He fried just like bacon, even *smelled* like it. 

Jack was always there for me, protecting me, making sure I got away with it.

The best part was, I never felt bad about it. Every person I killed was a wretched excuse for a human being; they deserved it. I was making the world a better place. Some might even say I was a hero. My conscious was clear, I slept like a baby.

Killing people become normal, fun even. It was my hobby and **** was I good at it. Eventually I didn’t even think about it anymore. I just did it. 

And that’s when it all came unraveled.

I was out on patrol one night, following the SUV of a mid-level drug dealer as he made his pick ups. He must have made me because as we came to an intersection, he slowed down and waited until the light was just changing from yellow to red, then floored the gas pedal. I tried to follow, but I must have been a second too late because a black BMW going the other way smashed into the side of my car, T-boning me and sending me spinning through the intersection. My head must have slammed into the steering wheel because I briefly lost consciousness. When I came to my ears were ringing and stars danced before my eyes. Smoke drifted from the front of my car.

Then I heard another noise: angry, screaming and cursing. The owner of the BMW was striding towards me; a mountain of a man, face red, fists clenched, arms swinging, spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed. I lurched from my seat to face him, blood pouring from the gash on my forehead.

Straddling the man’s shoulders was one of the most horrific demons I had ever seen. It was huge, round, pale white, and bloated like a corpse. **** oozed from a thousand sores covering it’s corpulent body. It had no arms or legs. Instead its entire mass was one giant face consisting of two tiny beady black eyes, and one enormous gaping mouth filled with row upon row of razor sharp teeth. A forked tongue slithered snake-like through its fangs, flitting through the air searching for a victim. I felt bile rising from my throat and fought it down. 

As the man surged towards me I felt my rage rise, and I found myself thinking about Elijah; about all the times he had teased me, tormented me, humiliated me. I thought I heard a subtle whisper in my ear.

“Do it.”

My mind went blank. My vision went white around the edges. I felt like I was trapped behind my eyes watching, unable to control what was happening. The man was close, screaming in my face, he meant to hurt me. I reached into my pocket. Then a flash of chrome in the street light. A hot torrent spraying me in the face. The man’s eyes bulging with rage one moment, now rolling back into his skull. His body slumping to the ground, my knife buried in his throat.

I looked to Jack for help, but he was laughing. Laughing like a madman, and screeching something in that foul ancient language.

Realization set in. I’d done this man. Done him out in the open, at a city intersection, under a street light, with no planning or forethought; with no escape route and no plan for clean up. I turned on Jack in a panic.

“Are you just going to stand there laughing? Help me! Tell me what to do! How do I fixed this?”

He was howling now.

“This one was all you, I had nothing to do with it. The man you just killed was a politician, a city councilman. Perhaps no less of a criminal then the pimps and gangbangers we normally ****, but this guy did it under the guise of law and order. I didn’t make you do this, you chose this.”

I could almost feel my face go white as a ghost and the world began to spin around me. I was stumbling towards the car, trying not to ****, when I heard the noise behind me.

*BWEEP bip bip BWEEP*

Followed by the scream of a siren. A cascade of red and blue light reflected off the windows of my car and the shops around me. The cruiser peeled out from the gas station across the intersection and rushed towards me.

---

I sat in the interrogation room for hours. Jack stood next to me smirking as the detectives worked me over. It all came out. They found everything; enough evidence in my car and my apartment to tie me to dozens of murders. They said it would be a miracle if I got life in prison. The D.A. would go for the death penalty on this one for sure. Then they were laughing, and their demons were laughing, and Jack was laughing too. 

---

My court appointed lawyer was a mousy man with thick glasses and mustard stains on his suit jacket. His demon was a small skittering cockroach with the sallow face of a dead baby. He did not seem optimistic about my chances. The only hope to avoid the death penalty, he said, was to claim ‘guilty but insane or mentally ill’.

“Have you ever felt like you weren’t in control of your actions? Have you ever heard voices in your head telling you to do things? Someone speaking to you? ****, the devil, or demons?”

I pondered that for a moment. Jack was smiling but his stare was black. “Don’t forget your promise,” he whispered. “You swore to me. You swore three times, never to tell anyone.”

“I remember,” I replied. “But this is no gift. It’s a curse, and I’m glad to be through with you.”

My lawyer looked confused. “Who are you talking to?”

“My demon,” I said. “Everybody has a demon, most people just can’t see them. My demon is named Jack, and yes… he tells me to do things.”

---

Now I’m alone. Jack is gone, gone forever. I sit here in a straight jacket, within these four padded walls, waiting for my pills. Waiting to forget. I’ll never see the sunshine again.


Everybody has a demon. Everybody, except me.

---

UPDATE: Some people are asking how this story was posted if the author is in a straight jacket. Perhaps I should have been more clear: he didn't actually write it, he dictated it. My name is George Orson and I'm an orderly at the mental facility where Kevin is being held. Kevin is probably the most sane patient I've ever had, and its a shame what the system has done to him. I actually support his work, he was making the world a better place even if his means were a bit... extreme. We've spoke of his demons at length and I thought his story needed to be told. To that end, I snuck an audio recorder into the facility and allowed Kevin to record his story, then transcribed it and posted it here.

---

/r/DariusPilgrim

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My boyfriend forgot to lock his ‘personal drawer’ last night. I am absolutely livid.
 
 Assistant: As a child I thought my visions were normal—that we all got them whenever someone was about to die, but nobody said anything as a common courtesy. I mean, imagine marching up to a person you’ve never met before and telling them, “Tough luck on the fridge freezer that’s gonna crush your skull later. Nasty way to go, being pinned down under all that weight. Oh well, rest in peace.”

That’s why I didn't realize I was a freak until the night my parents died. There we were, driving home from the beach and singing along with the radio, when the visions showed me glass exploding inward. Another car slammed into ours like a bullet train speeding through a tunnel, then up became down then up again as we plunged over an embankment, my parents’ mangled bodies twisting in mid-air.

The second my vision ended I thrashed around in my seat. “Stop, stop, we have to get out!” I screamed.

After she turned down the music, my mom unbuckled her belt, reached into the back, and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Ciara honey, what’s wrong?”

What’s wrong? What’s wrong? She and Dad were about to get impaled by the **** windshield—*that’s* what was wrong!

“I don’t want you to die,” I whimpered, my heart practically beating out of my chest.

She **** up her face. “Who says I’m gonna die?”

And that's when it hit me: she hadn't the faintest idea her ticket just got punched. Neither of my parents did.

While I alternated between clawing at the door handle and slamming my fists against the side window, Mom begged me to settle down. With his free arm, Dad tried helping wrangle me into place, but he couldn’t simultaneously do that *and* drive, so he eased the car to a stop.

Five seconds later headlights engulfed the cabin.

I woke up in a hospital bed with my left leg in a metal cylinder. When a male doctor pulled back the curtain and announced I’d become an orphan, I simply stared up at a bright halogen bulb, numb to the world.

The bad news didn’t end there. It turned out the **** responsible for the accident sped off before the authorities arrived. “Still,” the doctor continued, smiling thinly, “with physical therapy, you’ll be able to walk again.”

The collision left me with sixteen pins in my femur, a collage of nasty scars you can still see today, and a slightly off-balance John Wayne walk. Throughout the agonising six weeks I spent in recovery, questions like ‘*could you have saved Mom and Dad by reacting sooner?’* sloshed around my brain. Their mutilated corpses haunted me from the moment nurses arrived with breakfast until the drugs dragged me into a restless sleep.

After rehab, state officials placed me with a kind foster family who made me see a shrink, one hellbent on asking how the accident made me feel fifty times a session. I couldn’t reveal the truth—that I blamed myself for it, and simply thinking about Mom or Dad set my insides squirming. Every memory of them had become entwined with the guilt, you see.

At the end of one session, the therapist encouraged me to lead a life that would ‘make them proud’. This set me thinking: what if the visions had a purpose? What if this ‘ability’ could do some good? The people I cared about were beyond saving, obviously. But others still needed help. Isn’t that how Batman got started?

Finding somebody to rescue turned out to be tougher than you’d think; for the first few weeks, I only encountered folks whose obituaries would soon read ‘died from natural causes’.

But then, after school one afternoon, some older girls strolled past my locker, triggering an especially nasty vision.

I saw the blonde girl at the front trapped inside a smoke-filled room, choking on thick, black fumes. As she feebly mashed her fists against an unmovable wooden door, **** flames licked her flesh until every inch of exposed skin bubbled and boiled.

Right as her eyeballs melted out of their sockets, I found myself back at the locker. I limped after the group, fast as my weak leg would allow.

On the march toward the front entrance, Blondie bragged about her family's plans to stay at their cabin in the woods that weekend. How did I convince her not to go?

I waited until the group parted ways on the quad before I tapped the girl’s shoulder. She faced me.

“Hey. So, umm…I heard you’re staying at a cabin this weekend?”

“…Yeah.”

"I know a guy—well, I *knew* a guy—who died in one of those.” We both stayed quiet, the silence growing awkward. “It caught fire.”

“Okay.”

She muttered a quiet ‘freak’ as she turned away.

Terrified I’d already blown my chance, I blocked her path. “It’s just, I’ve heard those things can be dangerous. Y’know, all that…*wood*.”

Around us, conversations trailed off as students’ heads snapped in our direction. Blondie circled me, her green eyes wide with embarrassment, and broke into a jog. My leg muscles twanged and spasmed matching her pace. “Maybe don’t go? I mean why take the risk?”

“Get away from me loser,” she shouted as she tore past the gate.

“At least check the smoke detectors when you get there!” I shouted after her.

That weekend, I passed the time by staring up at my bedroom ceiling for hours on end. On Monday the principal called a special assembly, and my cheeks were drenched with tears before he even approached the podium.

The blaze took the lives of both the blonde girl and her younger sister. The school memorial attracted a massive turnout, and being surrounded by that profound outpouring of grief felt like a knife twisting between my ribs—a constant reminder I’d disappointed my parents. Again.

This made me even more determined to save the *next* life.

Three weeks later at the grocery store, an opportunity came along in the form of a thin clerk about to tumble off his ladder. I bolted down the aisle, but before I’d even managed ten steps, the man’s feet wobbled from side to side. In a desperate attempt at remaining upright, he windmilled his arms around, collapsing a nearby lemonade stand.

In the end, gravity won out. The tiled floor cracked his skull like an egg, then blood and fizzy yellow liquid seeped out from beneath the corpse, mingling together.

Meanwhile, I just stood there, deflated.

A pattern soon emerged: the drowning girl got swept away before I could fish her out of the river; a social worker about to get stabbed flipped me off because I begged him to rush home yet couldn’t explain why; and the paramedics failed at resuscitating the elderly man suffering a heart attack on the park bench even though, thanks to me, they arrived ten seconds after he started clutching his own chest.

No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, the visions always came to pass. Always. When I barely winced at a cashier about to get shot in the face over the meagre change in his register, it became painfully obvious I’d lost all hope. Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. Turns out my ‘gift’ couldn't benefit others.

Fast forward fifteen years. By the time my thirties reared their **** head, I’d launched a decent IT career and paid off a cosy apartment. Years of physical therapy had left my limp almost unnoticeable, although if I stood around too long pins and needles still went racing along my thigh.

Those guilt pangs over my parents’ deaths never subsided and, as a result, I avoided large crowds and gatherings on account of all the soon-to-be corpses.

Until a bizarre vision changed everything...

It was the twentieth anniversary of the accident, and I’d slipped into a sports bar to perform my yearly ritual of drowning gruesome images from the collision in a shot glass.

But no sooner had I found a quiet seat in the corner when a suited man approached my table and said, “Hey baby doll.”

His appearance triggered a vision, which surprised me. This guy clearly looked after himself and couldn’t have been any older than forty; typically, people fitting that description bit the dust in strange and unusual ways. Maybe he had an undiagnosed lung condition? Or a jaded ex hungry for revenge?

My vision didn’t reveal either of those things. Instead, it showed him on his knees in a windowless room beside a leather sofa, blood gushing from his neck like water from a spout. With a liquid gurgle, he pawed at his own throat and then slumped face-down onto a diamond-patterned rug, feet twitching.

And standing over him, slaughtering knife in hand, was…me.

Back in the bar, my hands clung onto the table. Who was this guy? Where did the encounter take place? And why the **** would I **** somebody?

A sensible voice in the back of my mind told me to walk away—to bolt straight out the door. If anybody else tried that ‘baby doll’ line they’d have received a rude gesture in response.

But I needed answers. So I forced a smile and looked up.

“Buy you a drink?” the man asked, one eyebrow raised.

Peter had a slender nose, brown hair, and dark eyes. A handsome guy, no doubt. He worked as a lawyer—youngest partner in his firm’s history—and his favorite subject was…himself. That suited me. I gave him a fake name which he probably forgot ten seconds later.

“You look familiar,” he said after his third whiskey. “Have we met before?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Must be thinking of someone else.”

While he joked with the regulars and announced ‘another round on me’ to a chorus of cheers, I studied his every move, half-expecting his taste in beer or how generously he tipped to reveal why he deserved a death sentence.

“Wanna come back to my place?” he asked when the bartender called last round.

I should have made up some half-assed excuse and slipped away, but there had to be some vital information I’d missed. Maybe Peter moonlighted as a serial killer? If so, didn’t I have an obligation to investigate?

Now intoxicated, he drove us over to his place in a fancy blue Porsche. The plan was simple: stick around long enough to discover whatever dark secret he harboured, then leave. No matter what. If anything suspicious turned up, I’d notify the police. That way, there’d be zero risk of any trouble.

After all, how hard could *not* slitting somebody’s throat be?

Peter led me along the front hall and down a narrow staircase. As the basement door swung open, a yelp slid up my throat.

We’d entered the room from the vision. Maybe I’d come to meet my destiny.

Placing a hand against my back, Peter steered me past the diamond-patterned rug, toward a home bar cast in warm red light by a neon Budweiser sign. From beneath the counter, he grabbed a chopping board and a sharp kitchen knife—the same one future me butchered him with. My eyes stayed glued to the blade while he cut lime slices and poured out tequila shots.

We had a toast before moving to the fancy leather sofa where my companion pounded back beer after beer. I nursed mine, staying sober and in control.

He managed an entire hour of shameless boasting before his head slumped forward against his chest.

The pieces had all fallen into place: the knife, the rug, the defenseless victim. Yet I saw zero reason to hurt Peter. It’s a miracle my giant sigh of relief didn’t startle him awake.

Take that, dumb visions. You lost. It was time to leave.

However. A quick look around couldn’t have hurt anybody, could it?

There was no hidden torture chamber behind the bookshelf, just guides on the art of seduction, and the freezer didn't harbour any severed heads, only frozen salmon and shrimp.

In a cramped office on the first floor, I rummaged through desk drawers, and right when it felt like this had all been a gigantic waste of time, my eye happened across a pile of newspaper clippings. The first headline read, TWO DEAD IN HIGHWAY HIT AND RUN. Beside it was a familiar image: the wreckage my parents died in…

My hands frantically tore through the pile. In total, Peter had collected seventeen articles about the collision and subsequent investigation. Beneath them, there sat an envelope with a name scribbled across the front. *My* name.

A sensible voice in some quiet recess of my brain begged me to walk away—to forget what I’d seen and go.

I waved the thought aside, took a slow, steady breath, and tore open the wrapper.

The letter began with:

*Dear Ciara, there is something I must confess. On the night of your parent’s death, I was driving **** along...*

Those words dragged me back to the accident, caused me to relive the sensation of the seatbelt pinning me in place while Mom and Dad’s bodies ricocheted off the dashboard, the roof.

Peter killed my parents. I’d found his confession.

The letter explained how he’d avoided prison; since he stemmed from a wealthy family—his father had been mayor at the time—some powerful friends torpedoed the investigation. He heard I’d survived and considered reaching out over the years. The poor guy even spent ‘countless nights’ agonizing over what happened and felt ‘filled to bursting point with regret’.

Clearly, not quite 'full' enough to mail the letter. He’d written it to clear his conscience, nothing more.

In an almost trance-like state, I returned to the basement.

Peter snored away on the sofa. Only vaguely aware of my own actions, I circled the bar, grabbed the knife, and positioned myself behind my parents’ murderer. His foul whiskey breaths fogged up the blade.

My hands started trembling. Did I really want to go through with this? Did he really deserve to die? Is it what Mom and Dad would have wanted?

I quietened the bickering voices, closed my eyes, and took a slow, steady breath.

No. Two wrongs would *not* make a right. Better to take the letter and report the son of a ****. Would this accomplish much? Unlikely. It sure beat the alternative, though.

I started toward the door.

I'd taken less than five steps when Peter stirred. “Hey, you’re not leaving alre—what’s that?”

By the time I spun around, he’d already found his feet. Those brown eyes whipped between me and the letter. “Why have…where did…”

Of all the potential excuses that came to me, zero made sense. When it finally dawned on Peter where he recognized me from earlier, his face turned whiter than the paper confession, his mouth going wide with shock. Most likely he saw a resemblance to an old family photo published after the accident.

His hands shot up in a submissive gesture. “Okay. Calm down.”

Holding the knife out defensively, I snorted a quick, “**** you.” The nerves in my leg went wild with terrible, burning sensations.

While I shuffled backward toward the stairs, Peter said, “Listen…Ciara, there isn’t a day goes by—"

“Don’t. Don’t you **** dare.”

He swallowed a lump. “I’ll make this right, I promise. Why don’t you put the knife down and we’ll talk?”

The suggestion this could get 'talked out' made me snort. I said, “Go **** yourself. I’m taking the letter. Along with your little scrapbook upstairs.”

“Was this your plan all along?” he demanded, his self-pity giving way to anger. “Get me **** then snoop around? How long have you been planning your little heist?”

Still traveling in reverse, I cut the air, forced him a half-step back. The knife felt good in my hand. Powerful.

“Don’t be ****. None of this would hold up in court. Give me the knife, then we can work things out like two—”

Completely terrified and barely able to form a cohesive thought, I *almost* obliged. Until a horrible image of the **** picking his bruised, swollen head up off a steering wheel slid into my brain. I pictured him slowly uncover my parents insides spread out across twenty metres of asphalt before racing home to call his dad, who called the chief of police…

“—rationale adults. I…I’ll give you money. Or jewellery. A new car? Whatever you want, just—”

With renewed confidence, I said, “The only thing I want, Peter, is to see you in an orange **** jumpsuit.”

My heel hit the bottom step. In the brief moment my eyes flicked backward, the **** lunged.

“I’ll **** **** you,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

His hands clamped around my wrists, tight enough the fingertips plunged into the skin. We wrestled around the room, collapsing shelves and slamming against the bar once, twice. My parents’ smiling faces flashed before my eyes, accompanied by thoughts about how this might be the final time I’d ever disappoint them. After he murdered me Peter would no doubt call his father, who’d hire two goons to dump the body…

Both of us flew sideways on a collision course with the sofa. For a moment the world flushed upside down. We hit the floor, hard, the knife landing mid-way between us on the rug. We fumbled for it, me shaking from the panic and adrenaline, him struggling to regain equilibrium.

In one smooth movement I snatched the blade beyond the ****’s reach, readjusted my grip, and then plunged the pointy end into his throat. As my hand yanked it loose, the thin blood trickle morphed into a furious spray. Some even got inside my mouth, disgustingly warm.

Peter tried to speak although no words came out. Only a pathetic, wet gurgle. He flopped forward, tongue draped over his chin. And just like that I found myself standing over a corpse.

In retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.

Repulsed by my red palms, I retreated toward the bar and slid to the floor, breathless. I began convulsing, rocked myself back and forth, bile sliding up my throat. I felt ill, and not only from the tequila.

By the time I’d regained composure, a clock above the bar said 6 AM. Somebody could have walked in at any moment. There'd be time for remorse later. First, I needed to cover my tracks.

Under my feet the rug, having absorbed most of the blood, squelched as I raced around wiping down every surface. After gathering together all articles about the accident, I departed on foot and ditched the knife in a dumpster several miles from the crime scene, then I rushed home to read the confession once more before burning it, along with Peter’s treasure trove of misery.

The next few days passed in a whirlwind of alcohol and tears. As a politician’s son, my victim made the front page; authorities appealed for anybody with information to come forward.

Funny how Mom and Dad never warranted such special consideration…

After two weeks of rage, regret, and hysteria, I’d almost reached the point of confession. Until something unexpected happened, that is.

Reports emerged of multiple **** driving incidents involving Peter where the injured parties got paid off or threatened into silence, along with more assault allegations reporters could keep up with. Turns out, Daddy had been buying that slimeball out of trouble for two decades.

Gradually, the guilt haze looming over me since the night my parents died evaporated. The visions no longer felt like a burden—they were a blessing. One that dispensed justice.

After the investigation wound down and people lost interest in the story, I treated myself with a celebratory trip to the beach. All those happy families reminded me of my parent’s final day, when Dad and I spent hours building a huge sandcastle with its own drawbridge, Mom sunbathing nearby.

While I stood ankle-deep in the water, lost in thought, a mother shuffled past carrying her infant daughter. A dishevelled man trailed after them, far enough away so as not to appear suspicious.

There came another vision. In it, the mother and child sat back-to-back, tied up together in a bug-infested apartment, their jaws encased with duct tape.

The grinning man hunched over them, his right hand caressing the terrified girl’s cheek.

A baseball bat connected suddenly with the back of his skull, which made him faceplant onto the wooden floor with a resounding thud.

I’ll give you three guesses who took that swing…

Back on the beach, I watched all three disappear along the coastal path, conflicted. Going after them meant playing right into the vision’s hands, not to mention cutting my celebration short.

But then again, [could I really pass up another opportunity to make my parents proud?](https://www.reddit.com/r/thoughtindustry/comments/te0fum/welcome_i_hope_you_enjoy_your_stay/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Because Of One Student, I Am Never Having My Class Do A Project On Their Parent's Job Ever Again
 
 Assistant: I have been a 3rd grade teacher for about 15 years. By now, I thought I had become used to anything and everything kids could pull. Times change, but kids don't. 

One of the assignments in my class is to have a week or two where my students bring in reports of their parents and their jobs. For five minutes or so, the students take turns and stand in front of the class to talk a little bit about what their parents do for a living. You get your fill of doctors, lawyers, police officers, accountants, and even the occasional homemaker. 

Of course, since there are always students who like to exaggerate what their parents do this can be quite entertaining. Most of the time, you can tell they have no clue about what their parent's actual job involves. But they have the rest of their lives to learn about that. 

We were over halfway through the exercise when Hunter began to give his report. He went through his Mom's job, everything was normal, nothing out of the ordinary there. But then he started talking about his Dad.

"My Dad is a really cool guy," he began, squinting to read what he wrote. "He works as a lawyer. This is a real cool job where you get to do things like go to court and argue with another lawyer in a big room in front of some guy in black. His office is the coolest. Super big, and with an awesome chair and a lot of books. Sometimes if I am really lucky, he lets me carry his briefcase." Hunter struggled a little but on pronouncing the final word, but he figured it out. 

"But he also told me he has a secret job." At this point, the whole class began to whisper amongst themselves excitedly. I on the other hand was rather puzzled. Was this a stunt? Or some daydream. 

"At night, my Dad has to sneak out of the house. I didn't know about this for a long time. But when I did, he told me my Mom and my sister Jayne both knew and were ok with it." 

"Once everyone in my family is asleep, my Dad goes out to fight the bad guys." 

Ah, this finally made sense. It was the whole, 'my Dad is a secret Superhero' daydream. You'd be surprised how many kids try to pull this. Hunter admired his Dad, I knew that well enough. 

"My Dad always has to take care that no one sees him, because he told me if they did, the bad guys would come get him. But my Dad is amazing! Not once has the bad guys caught him!" Now the other kids in class began to full on scream and yell in excitement.

"Quiet down!" I instructed them firmly. "Go ahead Hunter." Best to get this over with. Hunter did always have a fantastic imagination. 

"My Dad does his secret job because he says it needs to be done. He told me that sometimes people did bad thing and need to pay for what they did. He always brings the coolest things home after. Gold things, silver things, things that look real expensive. Sometimes he comes home with lots of money. But he always has to do something with them, otherwise people will try to take them from away him. My Dad is always so nice." He said this with the widest smile. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite done yet. 

"One time I saw him come home just before it got light out and his truck had some big sheet in the backseat that got red all over it." When I asked him about it, Dad told me he had to take care of a bad guy and then move him so he couldn't hurt anyone else. He then told me if I went inside and did my homework, he'd take me out for ice cream. Which he did. I got cookie dough, my favorite." 

Holy ****, this daydream is crazy. Hunter's favorite ice cream really was cookie dough. Or was it an actual dream he had? I began to feel uneasy. Either way, this couldn't be real. Sadly enough, I have heard of kids daydreams far more insane than this one. Thankfully, Hunter was almost done. 

"The last time I saw him come home at night was a few days ago. I saw him playing in the backyard like he was digging in the sandbox. I saw him put something big wrapped in that same red sheet in the hole and cover it with dirt. When I asked him what it was, he said it was the bad pirate's treasure and he was gonna give it back to the people he stole it from as soon as he could. Then he told me to go back inside and watch TV."

" I did, but when I got inside I looked out the window, and saw that he had started a big fire outside. My Dad is the best at building fires too. Sometimes he has to use clothes that don't belong to any of us. Dad always says they are the best to start a good fire with. Sometimes they also look like the big sheet I saw from the backseat too."

I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach at this point. What the **** was going on? There was no way Hunter was making this up. This **** was real. 

"So yeah, that's what my parents do!" he finished excitedly. The other students seemed to think it was as cool as what Hunter said. 

"Alright class, give Hunter a round of applause," I said hastily. They did as I asked. The rest of the students took their turn for the period, then class was dismissed for the day. 

Once class let out and the other students were gone, Hunter came up to my desk with an eager look on his face. 

"Hi Mom, did I do good on my project about what you and Dad do?" he asked happily. 



Update Part 2- https://redd.it/73uyba

Part 3 https://redd.it/748gpm

Part 4 https://redd.it/74pzhv

Final part https://redd.it/74x352

Epilogue https://redd.it/7b92aw

 Human: write a story with the theme title: There's a woman I don't recognize in my wedding photos
 
 Assistant: I first saw her in the photo of me walking up the aisle.

The shot is from behind. The white train of my dress skims the ground. My blonde hair is rolled up in the silver barrette borrowed from his mom—my “something borrowed.” Every person in the pews is turned, watching me.

Except one.

A woman in the last row stands stick-straight, facing away from the camera. All I can see is the back of her head. Straight, long, black hair flowing down her shoulders and ending at her waist.

"Jeff? Who's that?"

Jeff leaned over my shoulder. "Huh, dunno. Maybe your cousin Jamie?"

"Could be, but her hair isn't that long." I clicked forward several photos. "No, can't be, see? Jamie was wearing a red dress. She's wearing black." I shook my head. "Must be someone from your side."

"She's sitting on your side, though."

"Huh. I guess you're right."

I clicked the zoom button. Her form filled the screen. Stick-straight black hair. Ivory skin. Almost impossibly skinny arms. She stood a good distance away from the five other people in the pew--my cousin Amanda, her husband, and her three rambunctious children. One of whom was picking their nose.

Could she be the date of one of my guy friends? Like Jack, maybe? He was always dating a new girl. I quickly brought up his Facebook. Nope--his current girlfriend had curly hair and a beautiful brown complexion. Not her.

"I don't recognize her. She's got to be a wedding crasher."

Jeff and I had gotten married three weeks ago. We'd just gotten our wedding photos back. I'd braced myself for surprises--ones that made me look like I had a double chin, or shots of my 60-year-old parents shaking it out on the dance floor--but I didn't *expect this*.

"I can't believe it. This was *our* special day. And this rando thinks she can just come crash it?"

"I'm sorry, Jess."

"She could've had the decency to look at me as I walked down the aisle, at least," I grumbled.

I clicked away from the photo, trying to forget about her and just enjoy the photos. A few more photos of the ceremony. She wasn't in them. I lingered on the photos of us and the bridal party, my heart glowing.

Then I got to the reception photos.

She stuck out like a sore thumb. Standing there, behind the table of my high school friends. Facing away from the camera. Standing oddly still.

"That's her!"

I jabbed the computer screen so hard, the image rippled.

"Well, obviously she'd be at the reception. Free food. I'm surprised she went to the ceremony at all."

I clicked to the next photo. She wasn't in it. I breathed a sigh of relief.

No, wait.

I zoomed in. My friend Libby, sitting at the table, had a glass of wine pressed to her lips. I flicked back to the previous photo. Libby was lifting the glass towards her lips.

"These two photos were taken within a few seconds of each other. And she's just… gone?"

Jeff shrugged. "She probably just got her food and skedaddled."

I clicked through the next several photos. She wasn't in them. Feeling a little bit better, I clicked through the rest and landed on a portrait of the two of us, standing in the middle of the reception hall.

"Look at us! You look beautiful."

"Aww, thank--"

My breath caught in my throat.

At the edge of the photo, there was a hand touching my shoulder. Just the tips of the fingers, the rest out of view.

Pale, thin fingers. Not thick, ruddy ones like Jeff's.

I stared at the computer. My heart pounded in my chest.

"Jess? Are you okay?"

His voice sounded so far away.

"Her fingers…" I said, softly. "Her fingers are on my shoulder."

"What?" Jeff took the laptop, squinting at the screen. "That's just my hand, Jess."

"Your hand looks nothing like that."

"How can you even tell? It's just the tips of the fingers."

"Tips of a *woman's* fingers."

"They're obviously my fingers."

"No, they're not!" I grabbed the laptop from him. Forced myself to look at the photo. "Look. Your arm is going *down.* Like it's wrapped around my waist."

"Your waist isn't even in the frame."

"Yeah, but you can tell from the angle! If your hand was resting on my shoulder like that, it would be up more."

"Jess. It's obviously my hand." He sighed and wrapped his arms around me. Speaking in a softer tone, he said: "Look, someone crashed our wedding. That sucks, a lot. But I think you're overreacting a little."

I shot him a glare.

Then I pulled out my phone and dialed Amanda's number. It took three rings for her to pick up.

"Amanda? Who was sitting next to you at my wedding?"

"Oh, hi Jess," she said in her slow, southern drawl. "Oh, well you sat us with Uncle Bob and Aunt Margie--"

"No, at the ceremony."

"Well, I was sitting alone, dear. I purposely chose to. Didn't want my kids hasslin' anyone."

"No. There was a woman in the same pew as you. Tall, black hair…"

"No, dear, it was just me and Will and the kids. I mean, at least I don't remember seeing anyone else."

I talked to Amanda another ten minutes, then said I had to go. I collapsed onto the couch next to Jeff, leaned my head against his shoulder.

Jeff reached over and rubbed my shoulders. My eyes flickered closed, and my breathing slowed.

"Don't worry about it, babe."

*Don't worry about some woman creeping on you at your wedding?*

"It's all okay."

I didn't know what was going on, but I didn't like Jeff's tone. The way he was speaking to me like something fragile, easily broken. "I'm going to take a shower," I said, getting up from the sofa abruptly.

I slammed the bathroom door behind me and started to run the water. Peeled off my clothes and stared at myself in the mirror. Steam clouded out from the shower, and I stepped in. The hot water hit my back, running down my body, and the stress began to fade away.

I reached for the shampoo. Scrubbed it in. Rinsed it out. Stood under the stream of water and let it run over my face for seconds, minutes. Then I turned off the water and began to step out.

I glanced down—and froze.

Collecting around the bathtub drain was a tangled clump of black hair.

Before I could react—thin, cold fingers grabbed my shoulder. Pushed. I slipped on the wet ceramic, my body falling with a painful *crack.* Pain shot through my body like fire.

As I pulled myself up, grimacing in pain, eight words repeated in my head.

*Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue.*

The silver barrette I borrowed from Jeff’s mom. The one she insisted I borrow, saying it was a family heirloom. That she said Jeff’s sister refused to wear, and it would mean the world to her if I carried out the tradition.

The one that had a few straight, black hairs stuck [in it.](http://www.reddit.com/r/blairdaniels)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: We were stuck in construction traffic for eight hours. We finally found out what they were building. (Finale)
 
 Assistant: [0](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/b5tyjo/im_a_janitor_and_i_accidentally_participated_in/)

[Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bvy4vv/weve_been_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8/)

[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/bxoscy/we_were_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8_hours/)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/byqo1k/we_were_stuck_in_construction_traffic_for_8_hours/)

&#x200B;

When I was a kid, I watched my best friend die.

There was a stream in the middle of the woods behind my house. It marked my parents’ property line. Then, on the other side of the stream was an old tree house. I don’t know who put it there, but I never saw anybody else come near it, so Silas and I claimed it as our own. It was in rough shape when we found it, but it had good bones, and over the years we patched in the rotten parts with bits of wood from dad’s workshop. 

Each summer, Silas would come over nearly every day and we’d go to that tree house. We had all sorts of forbidden things there, stashed in an airtight plastic bin. A pint of whiskey, a pack of smokes, a few of dad’s old Playboys… things like that. We’d work on repairing the tree house, taking breaks now and then to look through the artifacts from the strange, alien world of adults, and make up stories.

One year, when we were 12, we got a late start. I went on a two week vacation with my family right after school was over, and by the time I got back, spring was in full bloom. By the time we finally got to work, the path back to the tree house was overgrown, and we had to spend a couple of days clearing it with old, dull army-navy store machetes. When we did make it back, we saw that there were a few new spots of rot, but otherwise, she looked in good shape. We decided that we’d make the repairs later, because we were eager to make up for lost time. We wanted to get back to the enclosure of the tree house… *our* world.

I started climbing the ladder.

“Careful,” said Silas from below. “That next step looks rotten.”

I saw that he was right, so I skipped that step, and finally made it to the top. I unlatched the door, pushed it open, and stepped inside, feeling that thrill of having something that nobody else in the world has, or even knows about.

A minute later, I saw Silas’ head appear, and then he was all the way up on the platform, outside the tree house. He was smiling, and then, suddenly, he was screaming, clutching his neck, running inside and slamming the door behind him. He swatted wildly at his neck, his eyes wide with fear, and cried out in pain.

“What’s wrong?!” I shouted.

“Something *stung* me,” he said. “But I think I got it. It *hurt*.”

Then we heard it, through the door. The buzz of an angry swarm of hornets.

“Oh ****!” I said. “There’s gotta be a nest around here. They sound *pissed*. What do we do?”

Silas wiped his eyes dry, where a few tears had formed. “They can’t get us in here,” he said. “They’ll go away after awhile. Then we sneak past them, get some spray, and nuke the assholes.”

But he was wrong. They *could* get us in there. I don’t know how exactly they got in… but they got in. Before we knew what was happening, we were both covered in hornets. I twisted in pain from dozens of stings, unable to escape, unable to think.

I saw Silas stagger back, and then he was up against a rotten section of the wall, and then the wall collapsed, and he was falling down.

I ran to the opening that Silas’ body had created and *jumped*. I landed on my feet, a few yards beyond Silas. His head was resting on a rock, with a stream of blood forming, and his neck was bent at an odd angle. He wasn’t moving.

I had lost some of the hornets in the jump, but still others were crawling on me, jamming their stingers into my flesh.

“Silas!” I screamed, but I knew that he was dead. “Come on man! *Run!*”

I ran, in unbelievable pain, through the woods, back to my house, with tears and snot streaming down my face. I kept imagining a swarm of hornets following me. 

And for many years afterwards, I would have nightmares about them. I would see one slip in through the crack under my bedroom door, then another, and then dozens, hundreds, thousands… The door would swing open, and Silas would be there, dead, but still somehow standing, covered in hornets….

\*

Lauren and I are back on planet Earth. We didn’t **** the Professor. He is still there, in that horrible world, with his minions… and he is *pissed*, with the fury of ten billion hornets from ****.

\*

We decided to talk to the Judge first. We found her sitting under a tree, thoughtfully chewing on a green fruit, the juices dripping down her chin. 

All around us, people were walking in the sunlight, holding hands. Some of them were still in their riot gear. It was a very strange sight.

“Mind if we join you?” asked Lauren.

“Sure,” said the Judge. “Have a seat. It’s so beautiful here, isn’****?”

It was, and I had to keep fighting that feeling of deep peace to stay focused on our mission.

“Yes,” said Lauren, sitting down next to the Judge. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” said the Judge.

Lauren lowered her voice. “Well, you’re supposed to be this amazing judge of character. So… what do you think of the Professor?”

The Judge frowned. “What do *you* think of the Professor?” she asked.

I started to get nervous. On the way over there, we could hear little flashes of conversation from the people walking around the fields. Much of it was “Professor this” and “Professor that,” all about how great he was. Like they were brainwashed, or under some kind of spell. It seemed dangerous to share our plan with other people. At the same time, I knew we couldn’t do it alone.

“Lauren,” I said. “Maybe we shouldn’****’s alright,” said Lauren. Then she turned back to the Judge. “What do I think of the Professor? I think that at a minimum he’s not telling us the whole truth. And he’s probably lying about everything. I don’t trust him. At all.”

I held my breath as the Judge looked around silently for a moment. Then she spoke. “Thank ****. I thought I was the only one. My name’s Darci, by the way, and I run a bookstore in Michigan. Or I *did* anyway. The only thing I’ve ever judged is a pie contest, so I can tell you I don’t know where all this ‘Judge’ stuff is coming from. And another thing I can tell you is that that Professor guy is a creep. No, he’s a *monster*, killing all those people. Even if what he says is true… there was no need for that elaborate massacre. The guy is sadistic. I know that much.”

I let out my breath in relief. “Then you’re with us?” I asked.

“With you?”

“We’re going to… stop him. We’re going to stop the Professor, and then get out of this place.”

Darci laughed. “And what’s the plan? The three of us roll in that death hut of his and ask him nicely to stop, and let us go?”

“Well,” I admitted, “we don’t have much of a plan right now. We’re going to talk to the Engineer next. I’d *like* to get one of the guards on our side… but I think their brains are too fried. I think maybe they got a special treatment from the Professor that we didn’t get.”

“But what matters is that you’re with us,” said Lauren. “That you understand what has to be done.”

Darci nodded.

“Good,” said Lauren, standing up. She pointed across the field to our hut. “We’ll gather as many as we can, and meet at that hut, at midnight. You’ll be there?”

Darci nodded again. Then she reached down, picked a fruit off the ground, and tossed it to Lauren. “Here,” she said. “Tastes like ****, but I think it’s what they make those drinks from. It’ll give you energy, keep you alert. You’ll need that.”

“Thanks,” I said, and we headed off to find the Engineer.

\*

We tried several huts before finding him. He swung the curtain open, and there he was, standing completely **** with a huge grin on his face.

“Hey!” he said. “The Gatherer and the Gardener! Come in, come in! You guys want to do a four-way? I got one of those guard chicks in the bathroom taking a shower. I bet she’ll be good to go once she comes out. We’ve already been at it three times. This place **** *rules*.”

“Lauren…” I said.

“It’s okay,” she said to me, before addressing the Engineer. “We need your help.”

“Sure, sure! Whaddya need?”

“What do you think about the Professor?”

“The Prof? ****, that guy’s cool. Look, in that other place… the New World or whatever… I was a mechanic. A car mechanic. Wasn’t a bad life as far as lives go over there… but listen, I haven’t been laid in about a year. Now the **** is throwing itself at me over here. I’m some kind of big shot, I guess. You guys too. Everybody’s talking about how great we all are.”

“Doesn’**** bother you?” asked Lauren. “All those people that died? All those people we’re supposed to *kill?*”

The Engineer shrugged. “Sucks to be them. Some guys get all the luck. Looks like this time, we’re those guys.”

“Lauren,” I said, “we should go.”

Before she could respond, the curtain to the bathroom slid open, and there was a **** woman, dripping wet, standing there. I recognized her. Amelia… now guard 802. She was the one we’d talked to before going in to see the Professor.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” said Amelia, “don’t.”

“Huh?” said the Engineer. “So you’re *not* into a four-way? I thought for sure you would be.”

“They’re planning something,” said Amelia. “They’re plotting against the Professor.” Then she turned to Lauren. “This is your only warning.”

“We need your help,” said Lauren. “Whatever he did to you… somewhere deep down, you *have* to know that it isn’t right. Any of it. You’re not a killer, Amelia. But that’s what he would have you do.”

“My name is 802,” said Amelia. “You had better leave now. And if I so much as catch another *whiff* of this, you’ll be dead. I don’t care how important you are. No one is more important than the Professor.”

“Think it over,” said Lauren. “Search your heart. And if you do that, and find what I know is there, we’ll be meeting at…”

“Lauren,” I said, “for **** sake, *stop!*”

“…we’ll be meeting at our hut, near the fish pond, at midnight.”

“Let’s go *now,*” I said.

“So, uh… no four-way then?” asked the Engineer.

\*

A bit after midnight, Lauren and I sat alone in our hut, with Hankie and Hattie sleeping on the bed. Nobody had showed.

“Maybe the Professor is telling the truth,” I said half-heartedly. “Maybe this really *is* for the best. Maybe not for *everybody,* but for enough people that it’s justified.”

We sat in silence for a minute, then Lauren spoke up, seeming so sad and tired. “We’ll have to do it ourselves.”

I frowned. “How are we going to do that, baby? How are we going to take on the Professor, and his pet monster, and all the guards who are now no doubt watching us like hawks after your little chat back there with Amelia… sorry… 802? How?”

“I’ll tell ya what I’d do,” said a voice from the doorway. I looked up in shock to see the Engineer. “I’d blow up that machine thingie that he’s got everything hooked up to. Seems like the engine of this whole operation. Name’s Jeff, by the way.”

“You came!” said Lauren, standing up and giving him a hug. Thankfully, he was wearing some clothes now.

“And then we put several bullets in his brain,” said a voice from behind Jeff. It was Amelia, and she was, in fact, holding several guns.

“And you!” said Lauren. “You searched your heart.”

“Sort of,” said Amelia. “Jeff and I were getting some… er… outdoor exercise when we saw it. Those plants. They’re not really plants. Or they are. But then they turn into… something else. They turn into those monsters. The headless ones, with the snake bodies, and the black bone arms and legs. *That’s* what the Professor is up to. I don’t know why. But he’s raising an army of those things, and… it can’t be for anything good.”

“Pretty **** up ****,” said Jeff. “Gave me the heebie-jeebies. I couldn’t even come after I saw it happen. Just sort of dead in the water at that point.”

The curtain to the hut slid open one more time. “Sorry I’m late,” said Darci. “What’s the plan?”

The room fell silent, except for the snores coming from Hattie, as we thought it over.

“We do it tomorrow,” I said, “when Lauren and Darci are supposed to go through the wormhole. We wait until *after* the wormhole opens, so we have a way out if it goes sideways. First, we get the Professor. Shoot him in the head. Then Jeff gets the machine, while the rest of us cover for him. I don't know what it is, but I don't think we want to leave it behind. Then we get the **** out of here.”

It sounded almost easy when I said it like that.

\*

The next evening, we were gathered together again in the Professor’s bone hut. As before, there was the machine sitting on a table, wired up to four people strapped to chairs, and then the cat, and finally the Professor. A few guards were in there with us, including 759, who had been with us since the traffic jam, and 802, our woman on the inside. And the monster. The headless snake-bone monster was in there was well.

I felt the pistol pressed up against my tailbone, and prayed that it didn’t make a visible bulge.

“In a few moments,” began the Professor, “the wormhole will appear, three feet to my right. To clarify, and because I believe in full transparency, I am able to predict where the wormhole will open in *this* world with 100% accuracy, far in advance. That is why I chose to construct my hut here. I have been planning this for some time. As to where the hole will open on the other side… that is less clear. But I have narrowed it down to somewhere in New Mexico.”

I looked over at the Engineer. Jeff. He was trying to act casual, leaning against the machine, but he looked obvious to me. Sweat was pouring down his face.

The Professor went on. “It is imperative that we do this now. The Gatherer and the Judge will make their way to the New World, accompanied by the present guards. I do wish that I had more time to brief you, but the next wormhole will not open for some time, and our work here is urgent. You will learn your roles as you go. There’s nothing to it, really, and I know that you’ll all catch on in no time.”

The first person in the row of chairs began to shake, at first gently, and then more violently.

“It is beginning,” said the Professor.

“Wait,” said Lauren. “I want to say goodbye to my cats first. They’re just outside.” That wasn’t any secret. We could all hear them wailing away. “The Gardener and I have decided that they will stay here, so that at least he can send messages to me.”

The Professor shrugged. “That’s fine, but please hurry. And there’s no need to worry about communication, as we have implemented a very sophisticated system. But I agree that the cats will likely feel more at home here.”

“I’ll be right back,” said Lauren. And that was the signal. Or it was supposed to be.

“Wait,” said Darci.

I saw Lauren shoot her a panicked look. This wasn't the plan. My heart was up in my throat as I reached behind me for my pistol.

The second person in the line of chairs started to shake, as the first person gushed blood from his nose.

“They’re going to try to **** you, Professor,” said Darci. She sold us out.

At once, the seven guards in the room raised their guns, and pointed them at various people, including me and Lauren. Amelia played along.

“Is that so?” asked the Professor, grinning. “Who was planning on killing me?” He looked at me first. “Say it ain’t so, chief.”

Darci opened her mouth to speak. Then there was a *bang* and a mist of blood sprayed from the side of her head. She dropped to the ground. Then there were six guns pointed at Amelia, who had fired the shot.

“802,” said The Professor, shaking his head. “That’s too bad. You would have made a fine soldier. But I may let you live yet. Tell me, who else was planning on killing me? The idea is laughable, but can’t go unpunished.”

“Just me,” said Amelia. “What you’re doing… I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what those plants turn into. They turn into *them.*” She pointed at the monster in the corner. “You lied. To me and everyone else.”

I had my hand behind my back, on the grip of the gun. I didn’t know what to do.

“Is that true?” asked Lauren, in an amazingly calm voice. “Is that why you would have me gathering pure hearts for you? To turn them into monsters? Why?”

“799,” said the Professor. “Shoot 802 in the head.” There was a gunshot, and then Amelia was dead.

“Have you been lying to us?” Lauren pressed. “All of us? Your soldiers too? Have you told *them* what you’re doing?”

The third person in the line of chairs started to shake.

“It’s not a lie,” said the Professor. “If you do as I say, you’ll know glories unlike you can possibly imagine, dear.”

“Do the plants turn into monsters?” asked Lauren. She was in litigation mode. She had the **** up on the stand. I just hoped it would work.

“They’re not monsters, Gatherer. They’re beautiful.”

“But that’s what you’re doing, right? Raising an army of them? What are you going to do with that army?”

The fourth person in the line of chairs started to shake, as the previous three bled profusely from their noses.

The Professor sighed. “I’m going to take over the world,” he said. “*We* are going to take over the world. Not this miserable world we’re in now, with its empty parlor tricks. Earth. The real deal. We will rule over it justly, for the first time since it came into existence.”

I could see the confusion spread over the guards’ faces as I gripped my gun tighter.

Off a few feet to the Professor’s right, I saw a pinhole of pure blackness appear in the air. The wormhole was opening.

“Is that true boss?” asked 759. “That’s what the game was this whole time? Raise an army of these things to bring over to the other side?”

“Yes,” said the Professor. “But everything I’ve told you is *true*. Once we conquer it, Earth will become a paradise.”

The monster in the corner of the hut took a step forward out of the shadows. For the first time, I saw the head clearly. It was the head of Silas, my childhood friend who had broken his neck when he fell from the tree house. When I saw its face, I felt a terror unlike I had ever known.

“Please,” said the monster, walking towards me. “We can be together again. Forever. We can all be together forever. We don’t have to die. We can live again and again and again.”

I pulled the gun out without thinking, cocked it, and fired it straight into where I guessed the thing’s chest would be. The bullet hit. The monster let out a terrible shriek and shriveled up on the ground.

That shot set off a blur of events. The guards began shooting, some at each other, others at the Professor.  Some at me. I felt a sharp and incredible pain in my shoulder, like ten thousand hornets stinging me at once, and I knew that I’d been shot.

On impact, I dropped my gun and fell to my knees.

The wormhole was getting bigger. Some of the guards were falling down, dead. The Professor was shaking as bullet after bullet hit him… but he wasn’t dropping. Lauren was rushing towards me, and shouting something. “Jeff!” she was saying. “Do it! NOW!”

My eyelids felt heavy, but I struggled to keep them open. I watched Jeff unload his pistol into the whirring machine, where all of the wires were coming from. Sparks flew through the air, and there was a burst of light as the machine exploded, and then Jeff was flying through the air, on fire.

“We have to go *now*,” Lauren said, pointing at the wormhole.

The gunshots were still going off. Guards were coming in from outside, and everyone was shouting.

I forced my eyes open with a great effort, and I saw it. The Professor dropped to the ground. As soon as he did, the room fell into shocked silence. Until we heard the first *pop*. 

I looked over and saw that, next to the smoldering machine, the first person in the line of chairs had a spaghetti mess of blood and brains where his head should have been. I actually saw it happen to the second person… her head popped like a balloon.

“*Now*,” said Lauren. “The wormhole is starting to close!”

I saw that it was in fact starting to get smaller now, as the third head exploded.

“What about the cats?” I asked. “We can’t leave them here.”

“****,” said Lauren. “You’re right.” She shoved her gun in my good hand and told me: “Stay here.” Then she ran out of the hut.

That’s when the Professor arose.

Black bones began tearing out of his skin, dripping with green slime. Bones grew out of his chest, his arms, his back. The most monstrous one of them all had revealed his true form. He roared, as a volley of gunfire tore into him. One by one, he began tearing the guards apart, easily, with long black claws, as if they were junk mail. Soon, they were all dead, and he turned to me.

“You really **** the pooch here, chief,” he said, smiling with hideous black fangs, dropping a string of green drool. “We could have had it all. Now I’ll have to plant your heart myself.”

He reached a clawed hand toward my chest, as I fired a few useless rounds into his. Just as I was prepared to die, I saw a flurry of motion, and heard some wild sounds over the ringing in my ears. Then I saw what was happening. 

Hankie and Hattie were attached to the side of the Professor’s face, tearing away at it, and he was howling in pain.

“We have to go!” screamed Lauren, back at my side. “The wormhole’s almost closed, and outside… it’s… there are *millions* of those monsters out there, closing in. We have to go *right now!*”

“We can’t leave the kitties,” I said.

“*We have to!”*

Lauren grabbed me and lifted me to my feet with an amazing strength. She shoved me into the wormhole, and the last thing I saw before going through to the other side was 759 rising to his feet, with his guts hanging out, and charging at the Professor.

\*

On the other side, I saw Lauren start to emerge. But the hole was closing too fast. She was too big. I grabbed onto her with both arms, though my right arm was in such incredible pain that I don’t know how it was still moving.

I pulled with all of my strength, and, inch by inch, she came through, all the way.

I looked up at the rapidly closing hole, and started crying.

Hankie and Hattie.

The hole was about the size of a watermelon now. There was nothing that could be done.

Then, a ball of fur emerged from it, gripped by a human hand. The hand had a tattoo on it. 759. The furball dropped to the ground. It was followed quickly by a second one. Then the hand was gone, and so was the wormhole.

\*

I’m at a hospital somewhere in New Mexico right now, recovering from my gunshot wound. Lauren is at a nearby hotel with our cats. I am so grateful that we all made it out, but I can’t stop thinking about those who didn’t.

And my nightmares have taken a different shape. I'm back in my childhood room, and there, like before, is a hornet coming in under the door. Then thousands of them. The door swings open, but this time, it's Silas as the snake-bone monster, and behind him is an army of them... millions upon millions. I feel something behind me, and whip my head around. It's the Professor, in his monstrous unholy form. His black fangs are dripping with green slime. “Hey there chief….”

It’s not wise for me to be posting this. The Professor has agents in this world. I don’t know how many. I *think* that we destroyed his main means of communication when we destroyed the machine, but who knows? I was able to post across worlds just by my cat rubbing on my phone.

It’s not wise for me to be posting this, but I have to. First, I have to let you all know that we’re okay… or at least alive. So many of you showed such warm concern for us throughout this… I can’t let you down by going silent before I tell you how it’s turned out.

The other reason is that I need you to be prepared. The Professor is still there, I think, alive and fuming in that other world. And he has an army. A massive army of monsters. His plan is to bring them here, and take over this world. We have slowed him down, I think, but we haven’t stopped him.

Thank you all. If I find out anything major, I will update again. Until then, take care.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I'm a criminal psychologist and I interviewed a man a few years ago who shot his friends at a crowded marina because he thought they were monsters. He may have been telling the truth.
 
 Assistant: As a criminal psychologist I've heard it all. Virtually any outrageous reason you can think of for why someone committed the crime they did, I've heard. Now, when I say I believe someone who told a preposterous story, it's because I do believe that is the reason they did it. Do to whatever mental illness they might suffer from, there's times I believe them when they say a leprechaun told them to **** their neighbor. Obviously I don't believe an actual leprechaun manifested itself to this person and that they actually only did what they did because they are crazy, but in my line of work you have to talk to the person as if what they were hallucinating about actually happened. This case was different though. I think I believe his story and not because he thinks that's what happened, but because I've had a feeling for a long time he was not suffering from any mental affliction and might actually have been telling the truth.

I'm going to post the transcript from my interview with him here on nosleep, there will of course be some redacted information, names were changed, and I've cut out a lot of my trivial interjections in the interest of flow and pacing. Any interjection from me will be in (parenthesis) and it will otherwise be told from his first person perspective. I'll leave it up to you all to decide if he's crazy.

A little about him before we start. He was a PhD educated professor of biology, anatomy and pathology and serves as the chairman of the Biology Department at the local university. He had no personal or familial history of any kind of mental illness.

\----

(Please introduce yourself and why you are here)

"My name is Michael <redacted> and I shot my friends Dave <redacted> and Gary <redacted> right outside our personal science lab at the docks near <redacted> Marina."

(Start from the beginning)

"It all started a few days ago when the school year concluded, we were taking our annual camping trip to celebrate the end of exams. It was me, Dave, Gary, and John, all fellow biology department professors. We go to <redacted> Provincial Park in <redacted> Canada every year. We spend a few days at a campground and then we go to a deep woods wilderness camp site that we have to use our canoes to get to. That is our favorite part, the deep woods, there's never anybody there and we're all alone."

"The vacation went well at first. Once we found a nice site in the back woods that started off great too. I'm SCUBA certified and we had never been to this part of <redacted> Lake before, we were more backwoods than we'd ever been. I was eager to dive here."

(How's the visibility, most lakes I've heard like this the visibility isn't great or there's nothing to see)

"True there's not much to see. It's the same kind of fish you can see in a city park pond, but there's something about diving in a body of water few people ever touch. It's mostly unsullied by people's garbage and whatnot."

(Tell me what you saw down there)

"I didn't dive until our second day. It was very uneventful but part of the enjoyment for me, like I said, was being 30 feet down and not seeing any trash or anything man-made at all."

"I went out further towards the center of the lake. Visibility was low so I didn't see it right away, it kind of crept up on me. At first I thought it was a small propeller plane or something but I quickly realized it was too big. It was irregularly shaped for sure and had a large shaft toward what I figured was the rear of the craft protruding upwards that had a small "fin" at the top. The fin was probably about 15 feet or so below water level."

"I swam to what I thought was the front of the craft and saw a rounded area sitting atop the otherwise  pointed bow. It had a little window that I thought must be the cockpit, the glass was broken and it was impossible to see anything inside. I quickly came to the conclusion based on the design of this vessel it did not appear to be any man-made craft of any kind that I had ever seen or heard of and that I was potentially looking at a UFO."

"I reserved full judgment on whether or not this was a UFO until I got a second opinion. John was also a diver and had brought a tank. I would have him go down with me to investigate further. I really shouldn't have been diving by myself anyway."

"John was immediately intrigued when I told him I had found an aircraft at the bottom of the lake and it didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. He was ready to go in minutes. We took a canoe out to where I thought it was to save air and we went down. We found it relatively quickly."

"He did as thorough a swim-around as I did. Seeing it again it was kind of shaped like a large arrowhead. Look up an F-117 Nighthawk, that's kind of what it looked like though it looked much more...'alien' in design. It wasn't flat underneath, it had a bulkier cargo area or something below."

"John found a large opening in the hull underneath what appeared to be the left wing of the craft. He was ready to enter but I stopped him. My air was too low and it was getting dark. I motioned for him to meet me at the surface so we swam back up. I told him I needed to switch to my other tank, each of us had brought two tanks, if there was any chance of us entering the craft. I also told him it would be much better to wait until morning."

"We spent that night telling Gary and Dave what we had seen. Gary immediately became paranoid, he was of the mind since we even knew this craft existed that we were in danger from the Government. If we swam into the aircraft and actually found an ET (the pilot), we were as good as dead."

"We eventually decided we were indeed going in. We toyed with Gary saying the pilot was probably long gone. He swam out the back, assimilated into human form and probably replaced, and is now living as, the Queen of England. We eventually went to bed but I hardly slept at all. I don't think John did either."

"The next morning John and I went down again. We approached the hull breach, it was more than large enough for us to fit in one at a time. It's important to note the exterior of the aircraft was metallic but it was difficult to say what material. What I found interesting is that the outer hull was completely free of aquatic fungus or algae or even rust, anything that would indicate it had been there a while. This led me to believe this may have been a recent crash and that made me nervous."

"We secured a rope near the outside of the craft so we could follow it to find our way out if we got turned around at all. Once we got inside the interior told a different story. The inside was very dilapidated, nowhere near the almost pristine nature of the outer hull. Judging from the aquatic plant life and algae that we could see growing and the amount of fish that had settled and were darting out of every crevice we swam by it appeared this vessel had been down here for some time."

"We appeared to be in some sort of cargo area. There was an open doorway near the back we looked in and it appeared to be an engine room. We examined what we believed to be the engine but rubble and pillars had fallen and it blocked our access to the greater part of the area. We proceeded down a narrow corridor towards the bow."

"We swam right and we came to a ladder. This ladder went up a few feet and we saw what appeared to be a hatch that was closed. We swam up to it and examined it. We pushed on it first to no avail and searched around the area until I saw what appeared to be a lever off to the side. I motioned to John and he motioned for me to pull it. I did so and we heard something near the hatch mechanically release, which also released a large amount of air bubbles into the water, but the hatch remained closed."

"We puzzled over it for a few seconds before John pulled out his diving knife. He attempted to slide it into one of the edges on the right side of the hatch and was able to **** a few inches. He worked it for a few minutes and the hatched inched open slightly before the blade snapped. It had opened just enough for us to get our fingers in so we tried pushing and pulling. There was much resistance but with our combined efforts the hatch slowly began to open."

"We swam up into what could only have been the cockpit. I saw the broken window I had seen from the outside. John swam ahead and around what appeared to be a large chair, probably for the pilot. I heard him let out a muffled cry of extreme surprise and he swam back towards me faster than I had ever seen him swim. His mouthpiece had fallen out of his mouth and he had to put it back in."

"His eyes were wild. He pointed to the chair and he made  back and forth motions with his hands like he was turning a steering wheel. I was slightly confused but then he pretended he was using a joystick and made muffled sounds with his mouth. I realized he was pretending to fly a plane and the sounds he was making were supposed to be the machine guns. I then realized he was trying to tell me the pilot was still sitting in his chair."

"I motioned for him to calm down. I was afraid as well but I knew I needed to see this. I motioned to him that I was going to go and look for myself. I motioned for him to stay but he shook his head. I then proceeded to swim slowly around the chair and he followed behind me."

"Any doubt that this was a UFO was then extinguished. The being sitting in the chair was humanoid but definitely not human. Its head was about 20% larger than a humans I'd say and it was probably about 4 feet tall. Its arms were floating lifelessly in the water and were disproportionately long. I took note immediately about how there appeared to be no rot or skin breakdown on this being despite the length of the time the cargo area indicated this craft had been underwater."

"I knew John and I needed to actually speak so I motioned for us to retreat. We returned to the surface and discussed our options. After the initial 'holy shits' and 'what the ****,' we discussed our next options. The first was to simply leave and not tell anybody, including Gary and Dave, what we had seen. We knew we'd never be able to keep that secret so that was out."

"We discussed a few more options before I realized what we needed to do. Or I should say, what I badly wanted to do. I told John we needed to get it back to our lab we had at the docks and perform an autopsy. He looked at me like I was a complete idiot. He asked how the actual **** we were supposed to get it back to the states. I told him my plan and he said it might just work. We then retrieved the body carefully and loaded it into the canoe. I rowed back to shore while John swam, I don't think he wanted to sit in the boat with the body."

"Unsurprisingly, Gary and Dave absolutely flipped their **** when we got back. I told them we were leaving right now, going back to the car and driving straight home. They were confused at first but then John told them what was down there was not only a UFO but the pilot was in the canoe. Gary turned white as a ghost when he saw it and Dave was intrigued."

"I then laid out my plan. We drove an oversize cargo van. There was on bench seat in the back that sat about a foot off the floor so you could put **** underneath it. My plan was to leave the body in the canoe, pack it with ice and cover it up, then put the canoe in the back with us instead of on the roof. It would just fit since the front end would be able to fit underneath the bench seat in the back. We then drive straight to our lab."

(What kind of lab is this, you just have your own lab?)

"We use it for ourselves. It's rented space in one of the warehouses. We mostly use it to set up lab assignments for students or test new assignments we think of to make sure they are actually a viable assignment."

(Ok. Please continue)

"Gary freaks out and almost loses it. He says if we get 'randomly' searched when crossing the border back into the states they'll find the body and we're all as good as black bagged. Dave tells him that as long as everyone shuts the **** and only the driver talks we'll be fine. We all argued for about 20 minutes about it before it was settled: we were taking this body back to our lab."

"We got everything packed up and ended up leaving some things we could replace later since we were in such a hurry. It was a three hour drive, but only one hour to the border. We just had to get across. I would be the driver and would do all the talking. Gary was a nervous wreck as we watched cars seemingly at random get beckoned over to a separate drive area to be inspected. He held it together somehow."

"We crossed over without incident. Gary about had a mental breakdown as we pulled away from the station and were home free. We changed the ice several times but otherwise the canoe cooler held up. I drove slightly below the speed limit since we certainly didn't need to get pulled over. We got to our lab at about 2:30 in the afternoon."

"We smuggled the cadaver into our lab and set it up on the table. We locked all the doors and made sure the windows were drawn as well. I realized at this time we were at a point of no return. We were about to perform an unauthorized autopsy on an alien lifeform. We had no idea how we were supposed to publish our results or what we were supposed to do when we concluded. We were all likely to get black bagged if this was something the Government wanted to keep secret but we had come this far and there was no way we were going to stop now. We video recorded the entire thing."

"My initial examination revealed the ET did not have a sternum similar to humans. It had two large sternum-like bones on the left and right sides of its chest but its center was soft, making it an easy choice for a first incision. We cut deep in order to open it up. It was fascinating. It appeared to have all the same internal organs as we do, just in different spots of course. It was hard to tell what was what aside from the lungs. We concluded they must be the lungs because they were filled with water, initially indicating the cause of death was drowning. There did not appear to be any trauma anywhere else on the ET's body so we also concluded it may not have actually crashed as initially thought."

"While we had it opened we labeled all the organs we thought we could. Whether or not it was actually correct we obviously had no idea, but for the sake of completion we assigned everything and came to the conclusion the ET had a heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and possibly a spleen."

"We then moved to its head. Its brain was similar to humans in that it looked similar and as far as we could tell consisted of several different lobes, though the main difference was that it appeared to be triangular in shape, as if it were a pyramid sitting within its skull. There was also a small, unknown gland situated near the base of the brain itself. We had initially deduced the brain stem was already accounted for, so what this other gland was we had no idea."

"It was at this point in the procedure that Dave stated the gland was 'beating.' I asked how that could possibly be since this creature was clearly dead but upon inspection myself I too noticed it did appear to be beating, very slowly. I placed my hand softly upon the gland and felt it pulse. I noticed immediately a silvery, metallic-looking bodily fluid of some kind on my glove that this gland appeared to be secreting. Not only did it appear to be still pumping this substance through the body somehow, it also secreted it into the cavernous spaces of the skull and down its spinal column. Using a syringe I pierced the gland and was able to aspirate a significant amount of the fluid. It was a silvery liquid that looked similar to mercury but lacked the shine. It was a very dull silver in color. I placed it into a vial for further research."

(Was it its blood?)

"I don't know. I don't believe it was simply because the next day we found out what it did."

(What was that?)

"We spent all day theorizing over our findings. We spent the night at the lab and didn't call our families. We weren't due back for a few days anyway. We woke up the next morning to a shocking finding on the cadaver: the incision I had made in its chest was in an advanced state of healing. We didn't equate this substance to this healing until after we discussed how an incision so large as to open the entire front of the torso could possibly look this healed in a little over 18 hours. We deduced the mystery gland with the mysterious substance was the only thing still functioning on this cadaver somehow despite its deceased status. We decided we needed to test this hypothesis."

"I could talk for days about our experiments so I'm going to have to break it down to the most important parts. We decided to inject this substance into lab mice to see how they reacted. The first three mice we injected appeared to die but they didn't actually perish. Clinically they appeared dead, meaning the fluid was incompatible to the point of causing death in the subject, but after declaring them dead they were found to be active again after a short time, though they seemed almost rabid. They viciously attacked the other mouse in the pen and killed it immediately and appeared to begin to cannibalize its corpse."

<I want to take this time to interrupt the transcript to say I have never heard anything this thought out, intricate, and scientific in my entire career. I am absolutely hooked at this time and despite it being an appropriate time to break, I don't>

"We then attempted to terminate the rabid mice using an injectable toxin. We have euthanized many mice using this method and this is the first time it did not have any effect on any of the three of them. I then doubled the dose and injected them again. They should have been dead in less than a minute but they remained as active as before. Dave took over at this point. He took the tongs that we used to hold them in place and proceeded to pierce their skulls with the syringe. This method effectively resulted in their deaths."

"John then suggested  we inject a few more mice but keep them all separate. I agreed and proceeded to inject three more mice with the fluid."

"It was at this time we decided to test our hypothesis that this substance was providing the cadaver a healing property despite it being dead by removing the gland. We extracted more of the silvery fluid since we feared removal of the gland would result in loss of the fluid production itself. After the gland was removed a large incision was made to test our hypothesis. After nearly 8 hours the incision had not healed at all, thus proving our hypothesis: whatever this fluid was, it had a tremendous healing effect on this ET's body. That must have been why there was no trauma on the body from the crash, it had been healed. We also theorized that this substance could not actually bring the ET back to life should it perish, as it appeared to have drowned and died."

"I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly after euthanizing the lab mice we performed an autopsy on one of them. Though they had been dead only about 15 minutes its internal organs told a different story. Atrophy and shrinkage of the internal organs indicated the mouse had been deceased for several hours. Knowing this could not possibly be we examined its brain, where a large concentration of the silver fluid had accumulated. We had no explanation for this and after lots of conjecture we hypothesized that with the amount of this fluid located in the brain of this mouse that it somehow retained its healing property and despite the apparent toxicity of this substance it somehow kept the mouse's brain active, though on a very primitive level, while it caused the rest of the body to waste away as if it had expired. We felt this was an appropriate hypothesis given the toxin we used had no effect on the mouse and only after we pierced its brain did it finally expire. We then did an autopsy on the other two mice which produced identical results."

(What happened with the other set of mice?)

"This is kind of the beginning of the end. Two of the mice proceeded exactly as the first three had, they appeared to die only they did not and became rabid, immediately attempting to attack our fingers when we pressed them up to the glass. The third mouse however exhibited something else entirely. Long after the other two had gone rabid this mouse appeared to be completely unaffected by the injection of this fluid."

"We knew we had to be very careful with this mouse in how we proceeded, as it was not exhibiting symptoms of toxicity from this fluid we needed to ascertain whether or not this mouse's body had accepted the fluid and was now capable of regenerating from physical injury or if it was simply carrying this fluid in its body."

(Carrying as in the medical sense with disease?)

"Correct. This mouse could simply be immune to the toxicity or incompatibility and not be able to regenerate from injury, it just carries this fluid in its body."

"Unfortunately John got ahead of himself. Seeing the mouse appeared to be perfectly fine he picked it up. It bit him hard enough to pierce his glove on his left thumb. He dropped the mouse and it scampered away. Gary and Dave immediately tore the place apart looking for it as did I while John began scrubbing and decontamination. We were not able to find it, we had lost our only successful specimen."

"We advised John to go to the hospital immediately but he declined. It was his fault we lost the mouse and he was determined to continue searching for it. We should have insisted harder than we did that he go. We never found the mouse."

"We spent most of that day in conjecture and hypothesizing our findings. By the evening we were still going over notes and making journal entries. At about 6:30pm John had an uncontrollable coughing fit. He looked pale and diaphoretic and we knew it was because of the mouse biting him. His thumb also looked disgusting. We were all biologists, we should have known to stop what we were doing and take him in right away, but we just couldn't peel ourselves away from what we were doing. Gary volunteered to take him to the local ER while Dave and I stayed behind. I never saw John again."

"While we were alone Dave mentioned we needed to test the fluid on something other than a mouse. It was at this point I realized we had all gone too far. We should have just left the crash site alone and certainly shouldn't have entered it. Dave was starting to become fanatical, bordering on unethical. He started to offer picking up a stray dog or cat and when he mentioned a homeless person it was at that point I knew we were all in serious trouble. I told him there is no way any of us could possibly partake in something so unethical."

"He reiterated the fact that somehow we needed a human test. Maybe it was just something with the mice, if a human host accepted this fluid it could potentially be synthesized to create the most powerful healing agent known to man. Sickness and disease could be eradicated if it worked."

"I repeated to him 'if it worked.' We would be responsible for the death of a human being if it didn't. It would absolutely be ****."

"After a few minute or so I realized we did have a human test: John. I told Dave just look at John, he's showing the same symptoms of decline the mice did. He then told me that can't be considered a true test. The mouse couldn't possibly have passed on the mystery fluid through a small, simple bite. A full injection needed to occur."

"I began to realize with John's condition that this fluid appeared to be acting like a true disease. If it were to be able to be transferred via a bite and then cause a rabid insanity in anyone who was incompatible we could be looking at a major outbreak. I felt like I needed to call the hospital to warn them."

(Did you?)

"I didn't get the chance. Gary came back at that point and said John appeared to look even worse after only 20 minutes in the car. I informed in what I had talked to Dave about and he immediately concurred we needed to stop what we were doing. We went back to the lounge room we have, we rented out several other small offices in addition to the area we use for our lab, and found Dave was missing. Fearing the worst we immediately went back to the lab and found him with a tourniquet on his left him, he was injecting the silver fluid into his arm."

"Gary asked him '*what the **** did you do?!*' and I had some choice questions myself. Knowing he had just signed his own death certificate I knew we needed to involve the police at that point. I was not optimistic that his body was going to accept the fluid as the mouse's had."

"We discussed our options at that point. I reiterated my theory on how this fluid acted almost like a virus. All but one of the mice had succumbed to the incompatibility and eventually went insane. It was my theory that one of two things occurred in the mouse that did not: either for reasons unknown the mouse accepted the fluid and was now a 'super mouse,' or the mouse was simply acting as a carrier, meaning its body was unaffected by the fluid and it was simply carrying it. Either case it would still be capable of transmission via bite."

"Gary was a virologist and he mentioned one other thing. Some viruses cause mutations of the host genome. Nothing like you see in the movies where they turn into hulking monsters, but we had to consider two things: This wasn't actually a virus, it just appeared to act like one, and if this fluid did cause a mutation there's no telling what that would mean."

(You shot him so obviously he went bad, and I'm guessing you wouldn't have mentioned this mutation thing if that's not what happened)

"That's what happened. I guess we'll just skip to the main event, I could ramble on about theory and our scientific shenanigans all night. We didn't get much sleep that night on account of Dave. We drew some blood and did an analysis and his blood was loaded with some sort of antigen, no doubt a product of the introduction of that fluid. It seemed liked it was rewriting his genome somehow. By midnight he was *noticeably* taller, as if his growth plate had been reopened by this antigen. This did not happen in the mice, so this was intriguing. But he was also declining visibly. He was pale, his color was leaving him and he was diaphoretic. His decline was much slower than the mice and John as well. We'd virtually forgotten about John by that point."

"We had old hospital restraints in our equipment room, Dave said we should tie him down. He said he was starting to lose it, he looked like ****, like death. And he was huge, he was Arnold Schwarzenegger and getting bigger. His left hand was starting to contort and deform into this horrid claw. It was far too late to take him to the hospital at that point so I knew we were ****."

"We tied him down, claw and everything, though I didn't think that was going to matter. It didn't. Gary and I fell asleep like idiots. I woke up and it was about 6:15 in the morning. I nudged Gary telling him to wake the **** and we checked on Dave. He was dead. I instantly got a tremendous feeling of dread. How long had he been dead? Was he actually dead? He could reanimate any second."

(Did he?)

"Yes. Gary was examining the body and he was way too close. I told him to back up but it was too late. Dave reached over faster than I'd seen anyone ever move and had Gary by the throat. He snapped the restraints we had him in as if he was tied down with toilet paper. He then bit a huge chunk out of Gary's shoulder and then broke his neck. Pretty sure that was just on accident though on account of his new strength."

"I ran for it as he threw Gary away. Dave stood up and had to be about 6'5, he was 5'10 or so previously. I went to the lounge, we had a .45 hidden there. Just in case, there were nights we were there late. The Docks can gather its shady characters at night."

"Anyway, I had the lights off and I was hiding behind the desk. I could hear Dave's heavy footsteps outside. His respirations were like a chainsaw, I knew he was looking for me. The door to the lounge opened and I heard heavy footsteps enter the room. I'm shaking uncontrollably as I hear him stop. I ask myself have his senses heightened? Can he hear me or even smell me?"

"I hear a few more steps and suddenly the desk lifts up into the air like it weighs nothing and Dave's claw is holding it up with just the one arm. His clothing was torn and tattered and his skin looked like it was rotting off. I don't know if he was startled or what but what I did next was straight out of a ridiculous kid's movie: as he stood there holding the desk up I simply crawled between his legs out behind him and ran for it. I heard the desk smash into the wall behind me like he had thrown it. I made for the door outside but then I realized something: I have to stop Dave here and now, if he gets out how many people is he going to **** and then infect?"

"I went back towards our lab. I had seven shots, I would get as close as I could and put all seven in his head, head trauma is what finally stopped the mice. I slowly entered the lab just in time to see Dave wind up and punch a hole through the wall, after which he stepped out into the sunlight and into the marina. I followed as fast as I could."

The early birds were all out on the docks and the marina getting their boats ready, ripe for the picking. I hollered DAVE as loud as I could as I ran up to him. He spun around with a growl that would make a lion jealous. This caught everyone's attention of course and they all turned to see me run up to him and put two in his face. He stumbled and swayed before falling back. I then put three more in his head and it pretty much exploded. The shrieks of bystanders filled the area as everyone scattered."

"Running on pure adrenaline and nearly insane myself, I ran back into the lab. Gary had been bit, he needed one in his head too. As I got back into the lab I saw Gary start standing up again, he turned fast. I put two in his head as well."

"No sooner did I drop the gun in pure shock that I heard rushing footsteps behind me followed by '***get on the ground now!'*** and here we are."

<End of transcript>  

\---

So let me tell you why I think I believe him. I asked him about the crime scene and if anyone saw Dave as a creature and he had no idea. He had no idea what became of the lab and all their research either nor did he know anything about John. He was very educated but he also had street smarts, he told me at that point that any day now once it came out what had happened the Government would be stepping in and he'd be black bagged. He was right.

A couple days later I was approached at the station by men in suits, FBI for sure, and they told me my services were no longer required in this case and I was to turn over all materials related to it. I turned over the tape but I had already saved it elsewhere so I wasn't to **** about it. I asked the arresting officer and detectives assigned and they told me they too had been reassigned and that the case was being handled "externally." I decided to do some investigating of my own.

First thing I checked was their lab in one of the warehouses at the docks. This was at least a week after the event and I could still see men in hazmat suits entering and exiting the warehouse, which seemed to be completely closed off, not just the areas they rented. I needed binoculars since you could barely go anywhere down there without being stopped and redirected by men who were most certainly mercenaries.

Next thing I checked was the hospital. I have a couple doctor friends. I asked the ER doc and he said he'd never seen anything like it. They shipped him up to the floor real quick. Luckily the admitting doc on the floor was also a friend, he told me they put a gag order on him so we met in person. No traceable, electronic conversations of any kind.

He told me that John died shortly after he was admitted. He told me he had pronounced him himself, he was stone cold dead. He said as soon as they bagged him up John then sat up and started thrashing and snarling and growling. They called security and then called the cops after a nurse aide got bit trying to open the bag. They were able to zip the bag back up without anyone else getting bit. A security guard supposedly lost it when he saw John's dead body going crazy and biting a fellow employee so he hit him with a portable oxygen tank over the head, apparently enough trauma to **** John, again. A few days later the aide "turned in" her resignation via email and was never heard from again. He also told me John's chart was later deleted entirely. He told me you can't just "delete" a patient's electronic medical record, whoever did it would have to be *way* high up. As for John's body someone from the Coroner's Office came to get the body but my friend didn't recognize them, he knew all the pick up guys. They also drove away in an unmarked van, city vehicles were all clearly marked.

Lastly I went to the campsite myself where they went. I used my GPS to find the lake they said they went to and took the back road to where they launched their boats. It was completely blocked off and not only were there angry "no trespassing" signs up, but there was even one saying intruders might be shot.

I'm hoping it's been long enough that it's blown over and nobody is bothering with me any more so I can tell this story. As for Michael I never heard from him again either. I tried looking him up in the system and his file with the local department had been deleted as well, police records are another thing you can't just "delete" entirely. All four of their Facebooks have been deactivated and Google searches only bring up people with similar names, it doesn't even bring up anything from the University. Michael was black bagged for sure, as were the other three postmortem.

I don't know about you, but this has conspiracy written all over it and the more I think about it, the more I actually think this all happened, exactly as Michael said. One other thing I can't help but think about was that mouse that got away. Is there a genetic super mouse somewhere down at the marina, or did those Government wackjobs find it? If they didn't we all better hope he lays low, it seems like major outbreaks throughout history always start with rodent carriers.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The previous tenant left a survival guide. The flat isn’t new anymore and I need a better guide.
 
 Assistant: It’s been a long time since I moved into this apartment, picked up that **** note from the tenant before me and unlocked a world of demon window cleaners and vile, rat-like creatures that live in the communal lift. 

If you don’t know me, my name is Kat and months ago I found myself living in a home filled with unusual occurrences, you can [start here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ci94do/the_previous_tenant_of_my_new_flat_left_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) if you want to know more. If any of you do remember me, I’m back again, begging for your help.

I don’t even really know how to begin this but I think I owe you all an apology. You warned me, gave me advice and tried to stop me from making the biggest **** mistake of my life. I didn’t listen. Instead, I let my emotional immaturity get the better of me. I really wish I’d listened. 

I’m sorry I ghosted you all. I was embarrassed. I know I disappeared without a word and for that I really am sorry. I can’t blame any of you for comparing me to Prudence. 

The events following my moving into the block had me in such an emotional place. You have to understand, it was a lot to take in, no one can be truly equipped to live somewhere like this, it was bound to catch up with me eventually. 

The months since I last updated you have been hellish and now I’ve found myself in further trouble. It wasn’t long after my last post that I caught Jamie. I enticed him into the flat with cat food left out by the door. I ran the risk of being mauled alive by the remaining lift creatures to capture my monstrosity of a boyfriend. 

He was smaller than I thought. I expected him to be much larger than Lyla because of the age difference, but he wasn’t. Maybe as big as a large dog. Something I missed about Jamie more than anything was his once huge stature, an odd quality to consider, I know, but he was 6’3 and his cuddles felt like the safest place I’d ever been. 

Looking at the small, deformed, humanoid creature, hunched over, crunching on cat biscuits with its sharp, jagged teeth tucked under a grotesque rodent nose made me feel sick. I instantly knew that I’d made a mistake, that the love of my life was gone for good, but *that thing* had Jamie’s eyes, they were unmistakable. 

Suddenly Prudence’s need to keep Lyla around made sense. I could see an entire life in those eyes that had been ripped away from me and I was too selfish to let it go. I suppose in that respect I’m exactly like her. Exactly what you all think. A monster. 

I fashioned a place to keep him hidden in the large built in wardrobe of our bedroom. It wasn’t like Lyla’s cage was - cold and restrictive - it had space, lights and photos of us before everything happened. 

It was like a walk in wardrobe, ironically it was something that originally attracted me to the flat. The only similarity to Lyla’s tiny cage was the large padlock that secured it. 

I tried everything to bring that little piece of Jamie left inside the creature out, I really did. I sat with him for hours, talking about our lives, reminiscing and trying to feed him his favourite meals. He would make awful raspy noises when I spoke to him at first; grunting and wheezing as if he were struggling to breathe. 

I received more than a few bites and scratches and he refused to eat anything that I gave him, opting for scraps instead. 

I thought about killing him. A lot. It’s a position I never thought I’d be in when we were searching for a home together and at some point I realised I consider it daily. I’ve come close to attempting it more than a few times but every time I look at those **** eyes I can’t. I’m weak.

So I’ve tried to cope. I’ve taken the best care of him that I can. I’ve gotten involved with my neighbours, I babysat Terri’s twins twice a week at her place while she slept and I’m actively involved in the residents committee. 

I never told anyone what I did, aside from all of you. There’s only two people I feel I could admit my mistakes to; one was locked in my wardrobe, whilst the other was seemingly gone forever. 

Despite this, I kept the garden immaculate in the hope that one day Derek would return and it kept me sane. I even managed to revive one of the shrubs that Prudence tried to butcher during her attack, but no matter how much love I gave, it just wouldn’t flourish and the bench remained empty. 

All this whilst I kept my deepest shame in my bedroom cupboard. 

Regardless of all the anguish this place has bought me there’s nowhere else in the world I would consider home anymore. I’ve never felt more connected to a place in my life. So I’ve stayed, I’ve coped and I kept busy. 

The tower block may be special, and it’s residents may often live in another world but we weren’t completely immune to the outside. Government lockdown hit us recently too. With lockdown came the loss of routine as we knew it. 

The whole building went into chaos and I was no exception. Being trapped in the flat with *him* all day undid months worth of self distraction and denial in a matter of hours. I’d never been more aware of what  an abhorrent thing I’d done than those first few weeks.

The other residents were going through their own crises. Terri hadn’t slept in weeks, we FaceTimed regularly and I missed her and the kids terribly, every time I spoke to her she looked awful. There was wailing at night, banging at all hours of the day and a whole buildings worth of inhabitants struggling. 

When they deemed window cleaning non essential it sent that *particular pest* into chaos; he still appeared on the balconies but instead of the relentless niceties he just scratched desperately at the window. I tried not to open the curtains I finally got round to buying a few months ago, I couldn’t take his pleading eyes. 

The residents committee tried to put things in place to keep the block going. We were running zoom meetings and a number of us started collecting essentials for the elderly and vulnerable residents of our floors. Having socially distanced chats with them from the corridor as we drop off. To be honest, it was as much a lifeline for me as the elderly residents... anything to get out of the flat, away from him.

I was allocated three residents from my floor, living in flats 48, 51 and 43. 

Percy and Sylvia live in flat 43, they’re next door to me and generally very pleasant. Sylvia has a breathing problem so they had to isolate. They’re older, but very independent, most of the time they just needed a few essentials and didn’t want to chat. 

Mr Prentice from flat 48 was easy too, he’d been an intensely private man since I’d known him and lockdown hadn’t changed that. He did seem to make more of the animalistic noises I’d come to know him for, but I think being trapped inside would do that to anyone with his particular afflictions. Since he trampled Prudence I’d been much more tolerant of the sounds anyway. 

The only thing I really learned about him from doing his shopping is that he loves a drink and there’s often a bottle of whiskey in the bag he carries home with his newspaper inside. 

Once a week he asked me to drop off an envelope of cash to the pub he drinks in, *The Pickled Gnome*. He said that the owner is a good friend and he worries about her getting by financially with the pub shut at the moment. It warmed my heart. He’s such a lovely man. 

Flat 51 was different from the other two. I hadn’t ever met the occupant, despite having lived here for almost a year now. I’d seen a young man going in and out occasionally but he never stayed long. 

The flat was occupied by Ms Esther Beckman, a blind, elderly widow. The man visiting was her son, who had his own profoundly disabled child and couldn’t support his mother through the pandemic. 

The first time I knocked on her door I was nervous. I wasn’t sure why, I just felt uncomfortable trying to help someone I knew nothing about. I knocked and stood back, it took a few moments for Ms Beckman to answer. 

Esther had wild greyed hair, she hadn’t cut it like most older ladies tend to, she’d allowed it to grow and it had formed spectacular waves. She was well presented and I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t expect that from a blind person. She wore a satin blue dressing gown over the top of a white day dress and had a pair of comfortable looking slippers on, that perfectly matched the colour of her dressing gown. 

“Are you the girl Molly phoned about? I told her I’m fine but the interfering old bat insisted.” She greeted me with, rummaging in the pocket of her dressing gown for a packet of cigarettes, I watched her open the pack and light the last one. 

Her brash attitude didn’t put me off, I liked people with a bit of tenacity and I wasn’t particularly fond of the residents committee’s chairperson, Molly Thompson, either. 

“I’m Kat. Although I’m sure Molly will have referred to me as Katherine... not my name by the way. Anyway, I’m happy to pick up anything that you need, and I’m here if you just want to chat.” I stumbled a little as I spoke. Esther laughed.

“See, even interfering in something as personal as your name. I never liked that woman.” She paused and took a few drags of her cigarette, hesitating before she continued.

“I don’t need much. If you could grab me a pack of cigarettes and a microwave meal every day I’m fine. I don’t like to ask, but my son can’t come and without a smoke I think I’d go ****.” She took another long drag of her cigarette and reached into her pocket to pull out some change and a twenty pound note. She winced a little as she asked for help, it clearly wasn’t something she was used to. 

“Throw me the packet, so I know which brand to get.” I answered. 

Ester threw me the empty carton after shoving her money inside and I barely caught it. She smoked the same brand I did so I reached into my pocket and pulled out 3 or 4 individual cigs and tossed them back. They hit the floor. ****. She’s blind, I thought, mortified. 

“There’s a few cig’s on the floor in front of you... sorry... I didn’t think. But they’re the same as yours, they should keep you going until I get back.” As I said that she smiled properly for the first time. 

“You’re alright, aren’t you. Thanks. Before you go, just a bit of advice for you, take the route through the park instead of round.” She answered. 

I thought it was strange but everything in the tower was. I told her that I would and said my goodbyes. The stairs that constantly skipped weren’t kind to me that trip, the 7 flights became 18 and by the time I reached the bottom my thighs were burning. 

I exited the building and thought about Esthers suggestion. The route around the park was quicker, but I decided a pleasant wander through the trees would only keep me away from Jamie for longer so without any further hesitation I took her advice. My legs were sore from the stairs but it was a beautiful day. 

About halfway through the park I heard a loud crash and the screeching of car tyres followed by screaming. I sped up and when I finally reached the exit I turned the corner towards the shop and the source of the noise. It was utter carnage. A car had slammed into a motorbike at a zebra crossing and caused a devastating accident. Crowds gathered, with multiple people on the phone to emergency services.

I was shaken entering the shop, I couldn’t stop thinking about the poor people involved in the crash. Esthers words echoed in my mind as I thought about the fact that had I taken the usual route I would have probably been crossing at the crash site as it happened. 

The realisation that Ms Beckman’s suggestion had saved my life sent my mind into overdrive. I know that many of you think I learned nothing from my experiences moving into the block, but I did learn that there are no coincidences here. She had known exactly what was going to happen. 

I left the shop and chose to go back through the park, I was leaving nothing to chance, but it frustrated me that I couldn’t get back home quicker. When I reached the building I flung the main door open and started to climb the stairs. They must have sensed my urgency, because they only made me climb 4 flights this time. 

I stared at the numbers on the flat door. 51. Why had I never met her before? Why had she been hiding in her flat? I placed the shopping bag close to the door, rapped **** it with my knuckles and shouted.

“Ms Beckman!” A few moments passed. I knocked again. 

“Give me a chance to open the door Kat. And please. It’s Essie. Or would you prefer I called you Katherine?” She opened the door and replied, scoffing as she said Katherine. 

“How did you know?” I demanded.

“Know what?”

“You know what. You saved my life. The crash!” 

“I didn’t save your life. I knew that if you walked around the park you’d be in trouble. I had no idea there would be a crash, I just made a suggestion. You saved your own life when you took it.” She said flippantly. 

“So you can see the future?” I asked, desperate for answers. 

“Don’t you dare! Blind woman... second sight. My whole life the residents of this block have tried to reduce me to a walking cliche and I’m not doing it anymore! I don’t *see* anything, I’ve been blind since birth. I’ve just always had a particularly accurate instinct.” She spoke with passion. I could see why she locked herself away, if the other residents knew about her talents I’m sure she was hounded. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I haven’t been here long, these things still surprise me. Thank you for sharing your instinct. I would’ve been squished if you didn’t.” 

“Well I’m glad you weren’t.” She reached down and picked up the shopping bag, taking out the packet of cigarettes to open and light one. “Thanks for this, she said rustling the bag with her fingers. What flat do you live in?”

“Number 42.” I answered. Essie beamed. 

“Hah! I overheard someone saying that the old witch was dead but I wasn’t sure I believed them. I thought Prudence Hemmings would ride out a nuclear apocalypse like the cockroach she was.” I cringed at the sound of her name. I try not to think about her too much, or what she put me through. I try to focus on what I love about the block. Essie could tell she struck a nerve. “Did I hit a sore point?” She continued, noting my discomfort. 

“I wasn’t a fan of Prudence either. The idea of her coming back with cockroach antennae’s in the night will keep me awake now.” I answered, trying to lighten the mood. 

“You’re funny. If antenna would’ve benefitted that woman she’d have done anything to grow them. It’s nice to have some young blood in this place. It was all starting to get a bit old and stale. Take care Kat.” We said our goodbyes and she closed the door. 

That night I thought about Essie. I imagined introducing her to the twins, I was sure she would love them, and I thought of trying to get her involved in the block again when all this was over. It made me smile. Unfortunately, my happy thoughts were soon interrupted by Jamie. 

I sat on my bed with a cup of tea and could hear him from the cupboard, scratching and wheezing. I went and opened it up to **** him a few times. Saliva dripped from his sharp teeth down his deformed jaw. It disgusted me. 

I shut my eyes and tried to imagine my once gorgeous boyfriend, arms round me on the mattress on the floor of the flat for the one night that we got to spend here together. I wished every day to go back to that, but it would never happen. When I opened my eyes there he was... that *monster.*

I got close to Essie over those first few weeks. I got her cigarettes and a microwave meal every day and we chatted at the door. After a few days I was taking my morning cup of tea to sit in the corridor and talk to her. I started making enough food for two so that she could have something home cooked. She hated my lasagna, but she was grateful. 

She had lost her husband young, not long after she had her son and never dated again. Her life was fascinating. She’d spent years as a social worker before she retired. She said that her instinct helped her give great advice to her clients and she’d managed to help a lot of people out of bad situations. Essie may have been older, but she was full of life. 

I asked her why I never saw her, why she never came to committee meetings or got involved. As I suspected, she’d grown sick of the whole block hounding her for predictions about their lives. She told me that once Molly had begged her to tell her the gender of her unborn grandchild before the child’s mother had found out so that she could hold it over her. 

It sounded like it got intense. People were offering to pay for the winning lottery numbers, or the bank details of Bill Gates. They didn’t want to listen when she tried to tell them that it wasn’t how it worked; so she kept a distance, saw her son and that was about it. 

It made me sad, I vowed that even after this lock down was over I was going to keep spending time with Essie. I didn’t want to think of anyone hauled up at home all the time without anyone to talk to. I told Terri about her, and she remembered Essie being friends with her parents while she was growing up. Terri told me she’d been a resident forever.

I dropped Essie’s shopping at the door and sat down in the corridor to chat as usual one afternoon. We spoke about music and her love of Jazz. It was pleasant. Just before I left she stopped me and told me that she had an instinct that she needed to tell me about. It was unusual, she didn’t like to share them and I didn’t like to pester, but she insisted it was important. 

“Kat, one of your friends needs help. You need to know that it is possible, it won’t be easy but if you look hard enough you will find a way.”

That was all she said. She claimed it was all she knew, but I think Essie liked to hold things back sometimes. Either way it was cryptic and confusing. I lamented her for it.

“That’s all your giving me? What am I supposed to do with that?” I quizzed her. 

“Haven’t got a **** clue.” She replied lighting yet another cigarette. “I got an instinct and I told you. What more do you want? There’s others in this block that would **** for one of Essie Beckman’s famous instincts.” She laughed and flipped her wild hair mockingly. 

I sat in the corridor outside hers for a while, even after she closed the door. I thought about what her instinct could mean.

When I finally gathered up the stomach to enter my flat I thought of Jamie. What if it meant I could help him? What if what I’d done was reversible? What if there was hope? 

Or maybe it meant that killing him really was the only way I could help him, and if I  looked at myself hard enough I’d finally find the strength to follow through. 

I struggled to sleep that night despite trying to go to bed early. Every scratch, wheeze and gasp from the cupboard sent me bolt upright and it took until just after 1am before I finally drifted off.

When I woke in the morning I had 5 missed calls from Terri, 2 from 3am and 3 from that morning. My heart dropped. The kids. I knew Ellie had been going through a stage of trying to get out of the flat and I was terrified something had happened to her. 

I could barely hold the phone as I dialled back. Thankfully, she answered quickly. 

“Terri! Are you ok? What’s happened? Are the kids ok?” I practically screamed at her down the microphone. 

“Kat. I’m fine, we’re fine! But I have to tell you something.” Terri was serious, she was never serious. 

“What is it?”

“Last night, Ellie got out. She made it all the way up to your floor to try and visit you by the time I caught up with her. As I was about to march her downstairs I spotted something. It’s Ms Beckman, Kat....She was walking into the lift.” Her words cut into my soul. I let out a gentle sob. 

“I’m sorry Kat. I tried to stop her, I screamed her name but she didn’t turn. She just walked in. I couldn’t do anymore, I had Ellie there and when I checked the time.... it was quarter past 2. I’m so sorry.” 

And that’s where this predicament begins, in an ironically similar place to before, with me [mourning the loss of a loved one to the lift.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePickledGnome/comments/g1pldj/the_story_so_far/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)


[the next part](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/h8t5o9/the_previous_tenant_left_a_survival_guide_when/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: 1ST NOVEMBER, 1984.
 
 Assistant: Often there are signs that foretell the coming of the worst times. For me, it was the letter 'S' hastily painted on the cracked wooden panel of our front door. I didn't know at the time what that meant or why it was there. But I understood - instinctively - that something was wrong, and my suspicions were confirmed when I entered the house and found my parents huddled together in front of the ancient radio, fear etched upon their faces as they listened to the static laden voice blaring from it.

Mother gasped when she saw me. "Where were you?"

"Out playing cri…" 

She slapped me. "I told you not to leave the house today, didn't I?"

I looked at her, stunned. It was not the first time I had disobeyed her and done something behind her back. But she'd never hit me before. Not once. "Leave him alone." She shot my father an angry look when he made that comment and then whirled back around, grabbing me by the shoulders. "Don't do that again!" She shook me. "Things are not normal right now, okay? You can't act like this... You must listen to me! It's not safe outside..." 

Father cut her off. "Don't scare the kid. Leave him be." 

She was about to snap back at him, but thought better of it. "Go to your room." She snapped her fingers and pointed upstairs. "And come back down only when I call you for dinner." I caught snippets of their conversation as I stomped upstairs, upset at having been hit. I had no idea what was going on, or why they seemed so agitated.

"We should tell him…" 

"No. There's no need to.." 

"It's already started. They marked our house.."

The faint sounds of their argument followed me as I went up into my room and crashed onto the bed. It was 7 pm on 31st October 1984. More than four months had passed since the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had ordered the Army to invade the Sikh holy place *The Golden Temple* to flush out Sikh separatists, an operation that desecrated the shrine and led to the deaths of hundreds of innocents. And it had been more than 10 hours since Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. As a young Sikh boy I had no idea of the significance of those events or what horrifying impact they would go on to have on my life the very next day.

Dinner was a quiet affair that evening. I could sense a strange tension in the air. Father had locked all the doors and windows, barricading them to the best of his abilities. The radio played from its perch atop a book on the dining table, bringing irrelevant news from halfway around the world. Father grunted and shut it off. We ate in silence. I was sent to bed early, and Mother was extra affectionate that night - crying and clutching at my ribs like an eagle, as if she was afraid that something bad was going to happen.

We were woken up the next day by loud, incessant banging on the front door. I slipped out of bed and tip-toed over to the top of the staircase to watch Father peer through the peep hole before opening the door. It was Mr. Sharma, Father's friend. "We need to leave!" He shouted, beads of sweat rolling down his balding head. "Now! They're coming. Thousands of them. They're just around the corner." Father's eyes widened. He called for Mother. She was already running out of their room, a small bag clutched tight in her hands. She grabbed me by the arm and we rushed downstairs.

"They got here so fast," Mr. Sharma said as we began exiting the house, "they know where all the Sikhs live. I've heard they've been passing around government issued voter lists, to pinpoint houses owned by sikh families to hunt them down."

A manic cheering erupted from somewhere down the garbage riddled street. Thick plumes of smoke were rising in the distance. We spotted a couple of men armed with swords and sticks shouting in a jubilant frenzy. Their vicious happiness sent shivers running down my spine. "Back up." Mr. Sharma yelled. "Quick. Before they see us!"

We doubled back, with me clinging to my mother, frightened out of my wits. Father slammed the door shut behind us aftet Mr. Sharma had made it in. "What now?" Father asked, breathless. "We can't stay here. We'll soon be trapped." Mr. Sharma ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "To the roof. We'll move up there and make our way to my truck." 

The cheering got louder, closer as we climbed up to the roof. The murderous mob had arrived on our street and would soon start going door to door, burning down houses with an 'S' painted on the front door and murdering the occupants within. "Get down." Father whispered and Mother forced me down on my hands and knees. I crawled, fighting back tears and trying to ignore the sharp stench of smoke and what I later learnt was charred flesh. Anguish filled screams overtook the cheering and filled the neighborhood. Some other family hadn't been as lucky as us and had already been caught by the mob.

I wiped my eyes and continued crawling, the rough concrete surface scraping against my knees and hands. I was bleeding. I wanted to cry. Wanted Mother to comfort me. But I knew we didn't have that luxury, so I fought through the pain and moved forwards. Mr. Sharma was the first one to leap over the parapet onto the roof of our neighbour. He helped Father, and then it was my turn. I looked down. We were only two floors up, but to me that day it seemed far higher. "Look at me!" Father said, his arms wide  and reaching out for me. "Focus on me. That's it." I took a deep breath and got ready to jump. Mother pushed me and Father pulled me over. By the time she made it on to our side, we began hearing loud banging right below us. The mob had reached our house. We had just missed them by a hair's breadth.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop got easier from then on, though the fear never fully went away. There I was, a boy barely 10 years old, fighting for my survival. Hatred and revenge were robbing me of my childhood. But despite the violence around me, the thing that truly shook me to my core was the utter terror I saw on my Father's face. I had never seen him this frightened - this helpless.

"We're here." Mr. Sharma whispered as he began climbing down the staircase that was carved into the side of the house at the end of the street we now found ourselves at. Father began descending next, and as he did I risked a quick glance behind us. Down there, about a dozen houses away, there was a Sikh man being killed in the middle of the road. I recognised him. He used to sell us vegetables from his rickety cart. Now he was ****, his turban torn from his head, his matted locks sticking to his sweaty shoulders. The tyre of a truck had been doused in kerosene and thrown around his neck before being set on fire. The rubber contracted and constricted as it burnt, wrapping itself around the screaming man like a melting boa. I blinked back tears and looked away. What sort of hatred drives a man to such cruelty? To this day I don't know the answer to that question.

When we had all reached the ground, Mr. Sharma motioned at us to follow him. He led us through the narrow alleys, past houses that were all locked shut, the voices of the mob trailing after us. Our neighborhood looked like a ghost town, one that was being haunted by a blood thirsty mob of demons. On our way, I noticed corpses in the drain, their broken limbs jutting out of the black sludge. I still think about those bodies, dishonoured even after a violent death. "There it is!" Mr. Sharma exclaimed as he pointed at an orange truck parked on the side of the road, it's back half covered by tarp. "Get in!"

Father climbed in first, pushing aside a couple of cartons of fruit to make way for us. We pushed further in, reaching a dark corner near the driver's seat and wedging ourselves in the shadows between crates of fruit and vegetables. Mr. Sharma slid into the driver's seat and moments later the truck roared to life. It trundled onto the main road, and we began moving away from it all. Our home. Our lives. And especially the violent mob **** bent on seeking revenge against people who had nothing to do with the death of their goddess like leader.

There was a crack in the side of the truck near where I was sitting and I used the tiny slit to peer outside, even as Mother sat next to me, shivering in fear and shock. I saw signs of carnage outside, scenes that still haunt me to this day. Blood and gore splattered on the ground, shops and houses burnt black as charred bodies littered the street. Mr. Sharma ran into various makeshift blockades on the way, little choke points on the road set up by the mob only to trap Sikhs in. They only let him go because of his religion. But not without checking the back of the truck. Each time I sat as silently as I could, my heart hammering in my chest, trying to listen to the footfalls of those who inspected the back of the truck. Three times the mob stopped us, three times Mr. Sharma made excuses about wanting to protect his product, and three times we came within an inch of being discovered and violently murdered. I whimpered as I imagined Father or Mother being killed in a horrific manner. But it didn't come to pass. 

We made it out of the stifling confines of the neighborhood and onto the main road, exhaling in relief, thinking that we were safe. Little did we know that the worst was yet to come. 

It was a police checkpoint, right where the suffocating tightness of Old Delhi spread out into the luxurious spaciousness of New Delhi. The checkpoint was a long iron pole laid out horizontally, dangling a couple of feet above the ground, blocking our way. There was just one police car there. And two cops, who stopped Mr. Sharma and asked for a bribe. He gladly paid, but the cops wanted to check the back of the truck as well. He reluctantly agreed, praying that this one would be like the previous occurrences and we wouldn't be spotted. 

I was young and innocent at that point, raised by movies that taught me the police were always the good guys. I couldn't even have imagined that not only were the cops aiding the mob, but in some cases they were actively committing the killing themselves. We were unlucky enough to have come upon such a duo. 

One of the cops climbed up onto the truck, using his almost two metres long bamboo stick, his *lathi*, to beat on the crates. His footsteps echoed in the truck as he leisurely sauntered towards us, chatting with his partner along the way. He grew closer. And closer. And closer, until I could see his polished boots. He stopped, merely inches away from me. I held my breath and sat motionless. He stood for a second or so, before deciding to leave. 

But then he was back, ducking with a sharp motion and appearing in front of my face. He grinned, his bushy moustache quivering with the action. I shrank back in fear as Mother screamed. He grabbed me by the hair and began dragging me outside. I sobbed, yelled for Mother and grabbed onto the crates for support causing splinters to stab my fingers but I couldn't stop the man. We were at the edge of the truck when Father roared and charged at the cop, taking his dagger out and stabbing him in the back multiple times. It was a ceremonial dagger, the *kirpan* that orthodox Sikhs carry that saved the day. The man keeled over and Father pushed him outside. He tumbled and fell on the ground, causing his partner to shout and bring his gun up to aim at Father. 

My eyes widened. I could see it happen. Just a slight pull of the trigger, a small cloud of smoke and Father's life would be snuffed out forever. 

The cop never got the chance to do it, as Mr. Sharma  swung a tyre iron at the back of his head. The cop went down, and Mr. Sharma kept on swinging until his skull cracked open and bits of brain matter poured out on the asphalt, his brown uniform soaked with his own blood. "You okay?" Mr. Sharma asked Father, his voice shaky. Father nodded and turned around to look at me. His hands, slick with blood, trembled as the events of the past couple of minutes seem to flash through his mind. He rushed at me, wrapped his arms around me and cried his heart out.

It was relatively safe from that point on. Crouched uncomfortably in the back of that truck, we escaped the city and travelled to Punjab, a state where Sikhs had a significant presence. Thousands of Sikhs had been killed and almost 50,000 had been made homeless on just one day. And if it hadn't been for the bravery of Father's best friend and some good luck, we would have been a part of the former statistic and not the latter.

[M](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mandahrk/) || [T](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrypticCompendium/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was a part of Queen's Guard in England - One of the rare jobs where you aren't allowed to move, no matter what stands in front of you.
 
 Assistant: This happened to my brother-in-law two years ago. I am telling the story exactly the way he told me it. He appeared very genuine when telling it, and, you know what, after all that's happened to me, I have no reason not believe him. And as for you, well, you be the judge. 

------------------

I was in the English army, you know? Two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. My mom absolutely hated the life I chose, and I can’t really blame her. But you know what? The **** up part is that the biggest horror I’ve ever experienced wasn’t in one of those **** eastern places, no, it was in the very center of European “civilization”, London.

After I finished my third tour, I was awarded by the army. Apparently, surviving fighting Taliban in the mountains is reason enough to be honored. They offered me a spot in Queen’s Guard. I’m not sure how much you know about that, but in England, it’s a pretty big deal. And I hated it. I was permanently stationed at home, and as a reward for my “bravery” I was now standing in front of buildings motionless while annoying Chinese tourists tried to make me laugh. I wanted out, but the honor of the position, combined with my mother’s happiness that the biggest danger I could ever face would be an Asian tourist, I had no choice but to do it. Only if I knew I’d be safer in some cave in Kabul…

So I was stationed to work at the Tower of London few shifts a week. Shifts were usually 2-3 hours long, depending on how many people worked that day. Gotta tell you, that job gets old quickly. **** people who try to mess with you along with annoying tourists who think they’re the first ones ever to try to make you laugh, you just want out of your own skin. But it was a job, and it paid, so I shut the **** and did it. 

Now, this one day, this one day in 2012 started boring as any other day. I had a few French guys trying to mess with me (**** they’re the worst, and you can’t do **** unless they threaten you), then I had a group of **** Russian chicks which wasn’t so bad. The heat was just starting to melt that **** hat into my skull when a huge group of tourists showed up. Some sort of a guided tour, I assumed. They all did their standard spiel, pictures, “funny” faces, jokes, etc. They all had their cameras out, and they all wore same t-shirts, some Big Ben tour ****. All but one. I noticed her standing in the back, just staring at me. She was a good looking woman, probably early forties, really dark long hair and somewhat pale, which made me think she was English. She did seem to be the part of the tour as she stood with all of the others. 

After the group finally took enough pictures and realized I wasn’t gonna laugh, they started moving on. Except the pale woman who stayed and kept watching me.
Now, I’ve seen my fair share of people doing all kinds of **** stuff to get a reaction out of me, but this was a new one. Not only that, this lady was committed. Two hours and hundreds of tourists later, she still stood in the very same spot, just staring at me. The day got pretty hot and there was no way she was comfortable, but I **** you not, she was calmer than I was. She wasn’t smiling which was strange because I assumed she was trying to make me react. About thirty minutes later, when the crowd around me slowly died out, she took a slow step towards me. Then another one. “Here we go, joke incoming” I thought as she took her sweet time walking up closer. 

She stopped about two feet away from me. She was looking straight into my eyes. Tilted her head to the left, then to the right, which I assumed was her attempt at making me laugh. Then I realized this woman wasn’t here to joke around. Still standing at two feet away, she started leaning towards me. There was something just so **** up about her mannerisms that made me extremely uneasy. She never lost an eye contact with me. She kept leaning towards me while her feet never moved. Her face stopped just short of touching mine and her position seemed unnatural at that point. Her head started slowly shaking, like when you get out of the pool or a shower and are freezing, you know?

 And then, then she scared the **** **** out of me. I had people screaming in my face, I even had a **** trying to fight me, but what she did was by far the worst. She opened her mouth as if she were about to let the loudest scream at me, but nothing came out. Nothing. She just stood there, leaned at an unnatural angle, inches from my face, letting a **** silent scream or whatever that was out of her wide open mouth. And the speed of her shaking increased. Now, I’m not gonna lie, even though it was really hot that day, I started feeling cold and goosebumps ran under my uniform. I finally got myself together and started marching away from her – we are allowed to do a 10-step march occasionally. 

When I got to the end of one way, I stopped and closed my eyes.  I just wanted her to be gone when I turned around. As I made a 180 degree turn, I instantly froze. She was right in front of me; leaned all the way to my face, mouth open even wider, head now shaking uncontrollably. I was so taken aback, I was unable to react. Noise, screaming, and other stuff I can deal with, but this silent creepy **** behavior was honestly intimidating me. 

“Make way for the Queens Guard!” I yelled. We are allowed to say that when someone is in our way. She didn’t react, but she did lean farther to about an inch from my face.

“MAKE WAY FOR THE QUEEN’S GUARD” I yelled even louder, hoping my voice wouldn’t break.

She had absolutely zero regard for my orders. Unwilling to deal with the **** any longer, I stepped back and pointed my bayonet at her. That was our last resort for annoying tourists. 

She immediately closed her mouth and leaned back into a normal human position. I wasn’t going to wait for her to do whatever she was about to do, so I started marching around her. When I got back to my post, I turned around and stood still. I couldn’t see her in the corner of my eye which gave me a huge relief. “Jesus, this **** job” I thought to myself “I’m gonna have to look into…”

“10, 9, 8” someone whispered in my right ear. It must be her. She was behind me.

“10, 9, 8” whispers came from my left side. Goosebumps were at an all-time **** now. Hilarious, isn’****?  Combat vet, killed more people than he’d ever want to admit, is now scared to **** of some batshit tourist lady. 

“10, 9, 8, 10, 9, 8, 10, 9, 8” she sped up her whispering. Then walked in front of me. “10, 9, 8, 10, 9, 8” she was now whispering incredibly fast. Actually, whispering doesn’t describe it properly. It was like yelling, but in a whisper tone, if that makes any sense. It was surreal. She leaned towards my face again, whispering those **** numbers franticly. 

I was about to break my orders. I couldn’t take it anymore. There was something **** up about this woman, and I couldn’t deal with it. 

“Ma’m,” I spoke in a voice of the biggest scared ****, “Ma’m will you please step…”

And then, a huge group of loud tourist ran up to us. The crazy woman leaned back, still looking at me. She whispered “10, 9, 8” one more time while never losing an eye contact. Then she walked away, as slowly as she moved around me. It was so strange watching her slowly disappear into the crowd. All that was left was a strange feeling of something unnatural. That, and a group of life-saving Asian tourists. Never thought I’d be so happy to see a Nikon-snapping Chinese guy.

After my shift was done, I went into our base and told the story to a couple of guys. They all had some experience with creepy people, but never on this level. When our shift commander came, guys jokingly told him how I was “abused” on duty. He wanted some laughs, so he asked for the full story. But when I started telling what happened, he quickly lost his smile.

“Stop, stop,” he said. “Did you talk to her?”

“Sir?” I asked intrigued.

“Son, did you or did you not speak to this woman?”


I wasn’t gonna lose my weekly pay over breaking that **** no-talking rule, so I lied. “Of course not, sir.”


He seemed to calm down. “Good. And if she ever comes back, never talk back, understood? And that goes for all of you.”


Joking atmosphere quickly died out in the break room. I was puzzled, but I was even more tired, so I decided to go home and sleep instead of worrying about crazy **** tourists. 

Next few shifts went by as boring as they were supposed to be. Woman was nowhere to be seen, and since my girlfriend was about to visit me all the way from Netherlands, I forgot about the incident.

Tuesday night around 3am, I was awoken by loud banging at the door. For some strange reason, the first thought that crossed my mind was that **** up woman from a week ago. 

“Babe, would you mind peeping through the hole to see who it is?” I lazily mumbled as I gently pushed my girlfriend. She was dead asleep; I swear nothing could wake her up. Semi-conscious, I stumbled through the hallway and to the door. “Who is it?” I muttered while peeking through the hole, but it was too dark outside. That sobered me up. “Who is it?” I asked again, but the only answer I got was louder banging.

“**** it” I thought as I took a deep breath and opened the door.

There are about million things I’d rather see standing in front of me at that moment. And there was only one person I did not expect to be at the door. 

My girlfriend. 

I was supposed to pick her up tonight.

I nearly lost all control of my legs. Thousand things raced through my mind which was having trouble comprehending what in the **** was happening.

“Thanks for picking me up at the Heathrow, ****,” my girlfriend said as she slammed the carryon on my chest. I was still speechless.

“So, I travel all the way from Amsterdam to see you, and you forget? Really?” 

I wasn’t hearing it. I knew I was half asleep when I got up, but there WAS someone in my bed. I wasn’t dreaming for **** sake.

“Stay here” I mumbled as I handed her the bag back.

“What’s wrong?” 

“Just stay here.”

Not knowing where I got the courage to walk to the bedroom, I slowly made my way.

I know what you’re thinking – in movies and books, guy walks into the room and boom, its empty, right? I **** wish.

I walked into my room and it was completely dark. But I could hear breathing. Heavy breathing. My pulse was so high I was sure I was gonna pass out, but I flipped the switch.

“7, 6, 5, 7, 6, 5” whispers came from the corner of the room where she stood. That same **** woman. She stood almost glued to the corner of the room, her back to the wall. She was looking straight at me. And though I was sure I lost the power of speech, I managed to squeeze out a “What the ****”.

“7, 6, 5” she said as she took the first slow step towards me. Her mouth was always wide open, as if she were letting out that **** soundless scream. Every step she’d make, she’d close her mouth enough to say “7, 6, 5”. 

I couldn’t move. Nothing in this world existed besides this woman slowly walking towards me. What a creepy and unsettling feeling. Like, I wasn’t physically afraid of her, right? I could take her down – and was ready to. But this kind of fear was something foreign to me. Seemed like I was afraid for my, ****, I don’t know, soul? You know what I mean? I knew she couldn’t hurt me physically, but I was stills scared. Not to mention I **** somehow slept in the same bed with this whatever the **** she is. 

She came incredibly close to me. The familiar lean. An inch from my face. My breathing was so irregular and loud, it was the only noise in the room. 

“7, 6, 5.” 

Suddenly, something about this had a strangely familiar feeling. 

“WHAT THE ****?!” scream came from behind me.

My girlfriend. 

I snapped into reality, turned around and grabbed my girl. “Run!” I yelled as we escaped the room. We ran to the kitchen where I grabbed one of those “As seen on TV” steel-cutting knives. My girlfriend was just silently weeping at my side, unable to even ask questions. 

I could hear footsteps. First, I saw her shadow, then I saw her calmly walking through the hallway. Her mouth was now so unnaturally wide open, and she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking at the ceiling as she slowly made her way to the door. Her head was shaking very fast. It was abso-****-lutely surreal, I’m telling you. I mean, just imagine, this woman, who creeped you out a week ago, is now walking through your place at 3 in the morning, staring at the ceiling with mouth impossibly wide open. Not to mention you slept next to her for who knows how long.

When she finally walked out, I ran to the door and slammed it. Girlfriend was still unable to speak. When we got ourselves together, I was afraid she’d think I cheated on her with this woman, but she didn’t. She saw that horror walk through out hallway and she knew something was wrong. 

I was terrified, but I didn’t let it show. The scariest part of everything was that I had a job that required me to stand still and not react to my surroundings. I told my girlfriend about my experience with this **** up woman, but I didn’t mention her “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5” whispers. I didn’t want to scare her any further.  

Because , what could those whispers be if not a countdown?

----------------------------------

Continuation of the account can be found [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/27vz69/i_was_a_part_of_queens_guard_in_england_one_of/).

For updates, join me [here](https://www.facebook.com/Inaaace?ref_type=bookmark).

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Son Was Always a Poor Sleeper
 
 Assistant: My son was a poor sleeper. Several nights a week he’d stumble out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes and struggling to fight off tears. I was always awake, usually watching late night TV while my wife dozed beside me. It’s not like I didn’t want to sleep. Of course I did. But I was a patrol cop and an insomniac.  Sleep barely came at the best of times. Those years weren’t anywhere close to the best of times.

“Are you okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, bud. I’m okay.”

“I saw something scary.”

I’d go into his room and make a big show of checking his closet, under his bed, and his window. The window really scared him. “There’s a bad guy out there,” he always said.  “I’m gonna help you get him.”

Noah was big on getting bad guys. Not at all surprising; I’ve been a cop since before he was born. He told me all the time that he was going to grow up and get bad guys, too. 

I stopped checking his room around his fourth birthday. He would still toddle out, lip quivering, and asked the same question: “Are you okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, bud. I’m okay.”

“I saw something scary.”

“It was just a nightmare, honey. Go ahead and go back to sleep.”

Noah blinked sleepily. One eye was always squinty; he could never quite open it til he’d been awake a good ten minutes. So he looked at me, one eye closed like a little pirate, then nodded and stumbled back to bed.

It was the same script, night after night. Maybe I handled it wrong. I always wondered if it’d be better for me to ignore him, or even get angry. But other than this late night ritual, he slept on his own just fine. Most of the time, he didn’t even remember waking up. 

These nights blended together into a warm, rosy continuum. It was selfish of me, but I looked forward to them. I worked third shift with a fair scattering of graveyard overtime. Due to sleep and work, I rarely saw Noah. That’s what made our nighttime ritual was so precious. It was the only time we really had by ourselves. 

My wife was always asleep whenever Noah came. Between her illness, caring for Noah, and general stress, she had no energy.  So most nights off, I’d sit awake into the wee hours, watching TV in a pointless bid to suppress the darkness that was eating me alive.

Noah pushed the darkness back. Not by much, but enough to keep me from sliding headlong into that pit.

It went like this for almost two years, night after night. The very last time he had a nightmare, the ritual finally changed.

Noah bumbled out, rubbing his eyes. They were teary and his face was puffy. “Daddy, are you really okay?”

“Yeah, bud. I’m okay.” The words – almost a chant by this point – visibly soothed him.

“I saw a bad guy in the window.”

“It was just a bad dream, honey.” 

Next to me, my wife shifted.

“I want to stop the bad guys.”

“You will when you’re grown up. Until then, I’m here.”

He released a last shuddering breath. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Go ahead and go back to sleep.”

I never saw him again.

Early the next morning, my wife took Noah for a drive. He loved being in the car. It was his favorite thing. The drive was almost over. They were three blocks from home. She waited until the light down at the intersection – a good two blocks away - turned red. Waiting for the flow of traffic to stop is the only safe way to do it. That’s what she did. That’s what she always did. 

But this one time at the exact wrong moment, someone sped through the red light at seventy miles an hour, hitting the passenger side and killing Noah. It pulverized him. We couldn’t even have an open casket funeral. 

My wife never recovered. I didn’t treat her well in the aftermath, either. She had a lot of chronic pain from her injuries, and on top of her health problems couldn’t function without medication. I didn’t quite dare to openly blame her for Noah’s death, but I ridiculed her for her painkillers. Called her dead weight. A drug addict.

We divorced and never spoke again. She died a few years ago from complications related to her illness. I miss her every day. I never told her, and now I never can.

I try to tell myself she wouldn’t care, but I know that’s a lie.

After the divorce, I rose through the ranks at my job pretty quickly for a while. But I stalled out at senior detective. The department assigned me to the **** crimes unit, and kept me there for ten years.

I’d thought patrol had eaten me alive, but this was a whole other monster. I made a lot of enemies, some in high places. Even uncovered a couple of my fellow officers, including my best friend. I became a functioning alcoholic and withdrew from everyone. Friendships and relationships weren’t worth it. How could they be, when there was no way to tell who was good and who was a monster?

In the end I wanted to die. Every night, before the drinking commenced, I unholstered my gun and set it on the coffee table. Then I prayed that I’d get **** enough to finally **** myself.

Occasionally I got close. But whenever that happened, I’d wake up from the haze and for just an instant I’d be 31 again, with my wife dozing beside me and my son tromping down the hall to ask if I’m okay.

Those moments are what I live for now.

I was trying to get to that point a week ago. I sat in the living room like always, splitting my focus between the TV and my gun while steadily drinking myself into a stupor.

Somewhere in the house, a door creaked open. I didn’t pay attention. The house was old when we bought it. It’s incredibly drafty and I haven’t exactly been keeping up on repairs. It creaks and whistles all the time

But then something rustled in the hall. I turned as a small, familiar voice asked:

“Are you okay, Daddy?”

And there he was: Noah, four years old with a big head and red pajamas, squint-eyed and rubbing his face as his lip trembled.

For a delirious minute, I could almost believe that the past twenty years had been a bad dream. “Yeah, bud. I’m okay.”

“I saw something scary.”

“It was just a nightmare, honey. Go ahead and go back to sleep.”

He nodded and stumbled back to his room.

After a few minutes, I got up and checked the room. Empty. Cleared out, just as it had been for two decades.

I slid to the floor. Cracking joints, sore muscles, and alcohol nausea drove home the fact that I was very much fifty and very much alone. No bad dreams for me. Only a bad life.

I cried myself to sleep.

Noah came to me for several nights after that. Stumbling out of that empty bedroom, squinty and weepy. Same script. Same words. 

“Are you okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah, bud. I’m okay.”

“I saw something scary.”

“It was just a nightmare, honey. Go ahead and go back to sleep.”

I quickly learned not to check his room afterward.

It wasn’t much. I know that. But in all honesty it’s about as much as I had when he was alive. If I could have this ritual – just this ritual – for the rest of my life, I’d be happy.

But last night, he came out crying. “Daddy, are you really okay?”

“Yeah, bud. I’m okay.” 

“I saw a bad guy in the window.”

“It was just a bad dream, honey.” 

“Daddy, I want to stop the bad guys.”

My mouth went dry. Profound despair bloomed in my chest. So this was the end. Barely a week, and already done. “You will when you’re grown up. Until then, I’m here.”

“No! I want to stop them now!”

A series of muffled thumps suddenly came from Noah’s old room.

All the hair on my body stood on end. “Come here, Noah.”

Noah shook his head, inconsolable. “No.”

More thumps and a muffled curse.

My gun gleamed on the coffee table, ominous and inviting. I picked it up and crept into the hall. 

Heavy footsteps emanated from his room. The **** rattled and the door creaked open.

The muzzle of a shotgun came first, followed by the intruder. He froze when he saw me. His eyes glinted strangely, reminding me absurdly of lacquered porcelain. 

I shot him.

The back of his skull exploded, coating the door in blood and dull curls of brain matter.

I turned to Noah, ready to sweep him up and comfort him. But he didn’t need comforting. He was radiant. Tears were dry and he was smiling. He’d never smiled during our ritual before. 

That told me everything I needed to know. My heart broke again.

“I got the bad guy.” He stumbled sleepily down the hall to his room.

“You did,” I said.

He stopped at his bedroom door and released a contented sigh, oblivious to the corpse crumpled on the threshold. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too.” My throat seemed to swell, choking off the words. Noah waited patiently. I struggled to get myself under control. We had a routine. A ritual. And I owed it to him to finish it. “Go ahead,” I whispered. “And go back to sleep.”

He went into his room.

After an agonizing second I ran after him. Of course it was as bare as ever. The emptiness destroyed me in a way nothing else ever has. I crawled to the corner where his bed used to be and wailed. 

I called 911 a few hours later. I apologized for the delay, said I had a panic attack and blacked out. No one cared. I’m on a routine internal affairs investigation, but that’s just for show.

My would-be killer was a guy I’d put in jail years ago. Child abuser, **** of the earth. I didn’t even remember him. I don’t want to.

I know I won’t see Noah again. My son slept poorly for twenty-four years because of me. He got the bad guy and saved his dad, so I'm sure he's resting now.

And wherever he is, I hope there aren’t any bad dreams.


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I work as a receptionist at a hospital. A very strange woman walked in one night. If she asks you this one question, always answer no.
 
 Assistant: “Ah!”

What a pleasant way to begin my 3:00 AM shift at Mercy Hospital. The first thing I did as I sat down was cut my finger. It was a paper cut. And despite working at one of the largest hospitals in the state, I couldn’t find a single band aid laying around.

I **** on my index finger like a vampire while I scrambled my desk for that band aid. I found one. Purple.

I’m a hospital receptionist, and all that means is I greet visitors, make appointments, and look nice. Well, as nice as a thirty-year-old man who hasn’t slept in hours can look.

That night - as we call it - it was just me and a few nurses on the floor. Other than that, it was ghost-quiet. Except for the heavy, heavy rain.

I sat back on the cheap recliner chair all receptionists get the honor of using. While adjusting my band aid, I listened to the television mounted on the corner of the wall as it broadcasted a seemingly important message.

“Authorities say the woman was last seen on Cedar Avenue.”

I looked up to see if the television was showing any images of this strange woman. None. It was yet another crazy person with no name and no face who we were supposed to look out for. Not creepy at all.

“Authorities also say the woman was reportedly walking around and asking people very, very bizarre questions.”

I focused back on my desk and continued working, but still listened as the news anchor went on and on. She continued,

“The following statement was issued by an unidentified government official: *Listen carefully, folks. Whatever she asks you, answer no. Do not, under any circumstances, answer yes.* Officials won’t comment further as to why, citing security clearance. Police are asking that you immediately call 911 if you deem anyone suspicious.”

I thought that part of the coverage was quite odd.

But I wasn’t sure anything could scare me anymore. Working here at the hospital, I thought I had seen it all. At the flash of the ruby-red ambulance lights, I’ve seen people come in with severed arms, legs, fingers, people who somehow managed to scoop out their eyes, failed suicide attempts, and much, much more. You get used to it.

My head was practically sunk into my desk as I filled out paperwork. That’s when I heard something very subtle - initially. I heard it coming from the front doors, the entrance. The automatic doors opened and closed, opened and closed, slamming against each other and sounding an obnoxiously loud thud each time. The very dim lighting I had surrounding my desk flickered incessantly.

“Hello,” I called out, seated behind the safety of my desk.

Only the whistling wind responded.

“Hello,” I called out again.

I felt obligated to check if someone was there, especially since it might have been someone who was injured and needed our attention. I reluctantly picked myself up from my chair and walked over to inspect.

I nearly slipped and cracked my head open as the entrance floor was almost flooded from the rain. I noticed foot steps, wet shoe marks that seemed to come inside the hospital and then back out. I stood near the doors, poking my head outside, and looked. All I heard were the distant sounds of sirens and honking cars. The rain poured harder.

The peace and quiet was disturbed within moments of me sitting back down. The automatic doors started again, opening and closing, slamming shut and letting in more rain as they did. But this time, I heard gentle footsteps make their way towards me, tapping closer and closer. Someone slowly emerged from the darkness between the entrance and front desk.

A woman with drenched black hair approached, wearing a dark-brown rain coat and a pair of boots that were too large for her toothpick legs. Her face was inundated with wrinkles and wet makeup, her black eyeshadow smudged. Despite the heavy rain outside, she didn’t seem to have bothered wearing her hoodie.

“Hello. How can I help you, ma’am?”

She didn’t respond. She looked around, scanning and observing an unimpressive hospital.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

Still nothing. We engaged in a brief stare down, which she won.

I looked down and pretended to gather important paperwork. “Are you here to visit someone?”

Then finally, she responded. Without talking. She simply nodded and then took a few steps forward, her hands hanging down her side. Her posture was unnatural, almost uncomfortable.

“Okay, for now, I need you to sign here. Then you’ll have to wait a few hours for visiting time to begin,” I said, pushing forward a sheet of paper and pen.

She raised her arm to sign and then abruptly stopped. She seemed startled by something on the desk.

She looked at me, tilted her head and, with a smile that was as wide as her eyes, said,

“Would you please move that for me?”

I was confused at first, and then she pointed at it with her index finger, as drops of rain-water tapped against my desk while her arm hovered over it. I took the little crucifix we had on the front desk and put it in a drawer.

The woman proceeded as if she was going to finally sign the paper and then stopped before writing anything. She dropped the pen on the ground and stood there again, staring at me.

She asked me a question.

“Do you reject the trinity?”

“I’m sorry?” I replied.

For a few more uncomfortable moments, the woman stood there like an ancient statue. I had no idea what she meant by the question.

“Ma’am, who exactly are you here to see? Family, friend? What’s your relationship with the patient?”

Before I could finish talking, midway through my question, the woman turned around and walked out the door, still smiling, and her eyes as wide as I’d ever seen on a person.

I went back to work and tried to move on, but her creepy mannerisms were trapped in my mind throughout the night.

At around 4:00 AM I spotted one of the children in our hospital walking down the hallway.

“Nina? Is that you?” I called out.

All the kids in the hospital knew me. I was proudly considered one of the cooler employees. I let them break the rules, I brought them snacks upstairs, and even told them scary stories, despite their predictable regret later on. The nurses would get angry with me every time I held one of my scary story nights. They always had a bunch of bed sheets to change the next morning.

I only did these things for the kids when I wasn’t busy, when it was a quiet night. And this was one of those uneventful nights, which of course was a good thing.

Anyway. It was very odd to see Nina awake at that time, walking down those shadowy halls. She was absolutely terrified of the dark, and yet there she was.

“Nina, is that you?” I squinted my eyes as I walked towards her.

“Sorry, Matt,” she began, “I don’t want to be there anymore.”

She had dragged her blue blanket along with her, which was her way of gesturing to the staff that she wanted to move to another room.

“The other kids bothering you again?” I asked. I took hold of her hand and began walking her back to the elevator.

“Matt, please don’t make me go back up there. I don’t like the new nurse.”

I stopped walking.

“What?” I said, kneeling to Nina’s level.

“She keeps asking us the same question over and over. I said no, so many times. I kept telling her no. But everyone else kept laughing with her and saying yes to her. Please, I don’t wanna go back up there.”

Nina’s words immediately played flashbacks inside my tired, overworked mind. Something about a strange woman going around and asking even stranger questions. I didn’t pay enough attention to that broadcast to notice the woman, but even if I had, I thought she had left the hospital.

I ditched the elevator and ran up a flight of daunting stairs, stomping against each step with all the force I could muster. I probably woke up all those sleeping employees I was so loud. I opened the door to the children’s room and couldn’t believe my eyes.

I checked each room. Each one on each floor. I woke up my coworker and asked about the children. She couldn’t find them either.

We looked everywhere and put the hospital on lockdown. We set off all possible alarms and other emergency procedures. We didn’t find them.

They just... disappeared. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My friend and I found a portal to a world where Homo sapiens never evolved. We saw what the world became without us. It shocked us. PART 1/2
 
 Assistant: I came home a year ago. Alex didn’t. He was my best friend, the only one I could share everything with. Now I have no one but you, strangers on the internet. Sometimes it feels like I didn’t return from that place either, at least not as myself. A part of me – perhaps my desire to live – stayed behind. I guess you could say I’m depressed.

It isn’t until now I feel ready to tell anyone about what happened to us. We went through something so unfathomable that it’s difficult for me to put it into words, but I’ll do my best. Back when it happened – almost two years ago – my best friend and I were both studying anthropology in France and we were both avid cave explorers.

During summer break, we had explored the most famous cave systems in France and studied all of the well-known cave paintings and remains from the neolithic era. We both lived for this, so it was a no-brainer for both of us to spend our summer break doing the same kind of thing as we did at the university.

We had followed established guidelines, but the last week before we returned to our university town we decided to explore Regourdou in search of caves that hadn’t been discovered yet. This was a bit irresponsible since none of us were experienced enough for such an undertaking, but we were both thrill-seekers and even though we didn’t believe we would find anything the search itself was exciting enough for us to keep going.

However, we *did* find something. It was Alex who saw it first. He yelled at me from where he was doing his business:

“Hey, Lester, come check this out!”

“What is it, you want me to see you ****?”

I laughed at the thought of it.

“No, man, I think I found something…”

I got up from the rock I was sitting on and walked over to him.

“So… What did you find?”

“Look, look at that boulder next to the cliff… Do you see it?”

I did see it. There was a small entrance behind it.

“No way!” I said, but then I collected myself so that I wouldn’t get too excited. “Do you think it’s possible? I mean, do you think it might lead to a larger cave?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “There’s only one way to find out, right?”

“I guess…” I said, feeling my heart rate increase. “It could be nothing… I find it hard to believe that no one would have discovered a cave system in this area. We aren’t that far away from the main road.”

“It’s so small…” Alex said. “It’s easy to imagine it could’ve been missed. Anyway, shut up and help me move this boulder.”

We had to use all of our strength, and some of our equipment, to push it aside. We crouched down and looked inside the entrance. I expected it to be nothing more than a small recess, but it was deep.

“Hello!” Alex yelled into the hole in the cliff and the echo slowly faded away somewhere far inside the bedrock.

We debated what to do next, but the excitement in our voices made it clear we had already decided. The responsible thing to do would have been to report our findings and let professionals map out the cave, but we weren’t going to just hand over a finding like this to someone else. Instead, we put on our gear.

We crawled our way inside of the cave. Had we been just a tad bit bigger we would never have fit, that was how small the opening was. I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia – if I did I wouldn’t have been a cave explorer – but I didn’t enjoy small passages like this. The thought of getting stuck still made me cringe. I had read enough horror stories about cave explorers getting killed that way to do my best to avoid crawl spaces, but in this case, I made an exception.

Alex went in first and I followed close behind him. A few meters in, a cold wind reached us.

“Are you feeling this?” Alex said as he pushed his body through the small cave. “That’s a cross-breeze!”

“Good,” I said with some relief in my voice, “that means there’s an opening somewhere further ahead.”

The cold air coming from inside the cave smelled fresh. It was exactly what we needed after having spent the entire day under the scolding heat outside. A short while later, however, we began to freeze. I asked Alex if he knew how it could be so cold – it seemed way too cold to be explained by the airflow – but he was as clueless as me.

“Is it getting tighter or wider?” I asked. “I can’t tell.”

“I’m not sure either,” Alex said.

We kept going. My body ached. In some places, it was so narrow that I thought I would have to break my ribs to get through. The cave went upward, forcing us to climb, then it went down until it turned sharply and continued to the south. The total absence of light except for our headlights felt suffocating. We came across a pitch, a steep section that we had to use our ropes to get down. We had never tried cave diving before, and I felt really **** doing it now given how risky it was. A few more dangerous squeezes followed. The dust on the ground kept getting into my mouth. By now, I was exhausted.

“I think we should turn back,” I said. “I’m getting too tired, and frankly I’m starting to worry a little bit. We’ve been here for more than an hour. Perhaps we should try again tomorrow…”

“Don’t give up, Lester,” Alex said. “It will be extremely difficult to go back the way we came, there’s nowhere to turn around. Our best shot is to keep going and try to find the other opening.”

I could hear fear in his otherwise confident voice, something that scared me just as much as our predicament. Just moments later, Alex spoke again:

“There’s an opening ahead, it leads to a larger room… Just a few more meters.”

I had to push Alex to press him through the opening and as soon as he was out he pulled me out.

The room was big enough for us to stand in. It was only illuminated by our flashlights and headlights. Looking back at the hole we just came out of, it was clear that it was too small for us to enter. Squeezing yourself out of a tiny hole is one thing, crawling inside of it another. Realizing this, my heart almost stopped. If the hole that let the cold air in was too small as well – if there was such a hole at all – we would die in here.

I pointed my flashlight at Alex’s face. His frosty agitated breath told me he was just as terrified as I was. Slowly, we tracked the walls with our flashlights. To our relief, there was a second opening big enough for us to enter. Before I had time to cool down, something inside of the opening caught my eye.

It was a skeleton, covered in some dark clothes. The lower part of its body was still inside the hole, meaning he or she must’ve died trying to crawl out of it and gotten stuck.

“****, Lester,” Alex said.

“It’s good news,” I said with a shaky voice. “It means we’re going to get out…”

We sat down next to the remains, first to examine it and then to move it so that we could enter the small opening. The skull was lying face down, but based on the color of the bones we immediately saw that this skeleton wasn’t prehistoric. There was no soft tissue left, but as far as skeletons go it looked rather fresh. Alex reached for the skull and carefully picked it up and held it in front of us.

“Give me some light,” he said.

I shone my flashlight on the face of the skull. It almost looked like it was smiling at us, a big horrific grin.

“Put it away,” I said.

“Wait,” Alex said. “Look at it. There’s something…”

“What?” I asked in a whisper.

“Can’t you see it?” he asked rhetorically.

I was too stressed to see anything particular with it.

“It’s surprisingly elongated…” He turned the skull around. “The back of its head is massive. And look at the top… not very globular, you see?”

I began to see what he was talking about, but my mind didn’t grasp what he was trying to tell me.

“So…?” I said.

He turned the skull around so that the face was staring at us again. “Look at its **** structures… very pronounced.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Its eyebrows are heavy… Look, Lester, I know this is going to sound crazy but I think we are looking at the skull of a Neanderthal.”

“That *is* crazy,” I said, although I could clearly see the similarities from the skulls we had been studying in class. “Look at the bones, it must have died *at least* within this century.”

“I know,” Alex said, “and yet this is clearly the skull of a Neanderthal. I mean, I know Neanderthal DNA in humans can affect the shape of the skull but this is something else.”

“Do you think the environment in the cave could’ve helped preserve the bones this well?”

“I don’t know, that would be pretty crazy as well but I can’t think of any explanation right now that wouldn’t be completely bonkers.”

With a mixture of fear, confusion, and excitement we decided to carefully move the remains away from the opening and leave the cave so that we could report our findings to the university.

This passage was larger and we could make our way through it with ease. The worry disappeared from our voices as we crawled and the excitement over what we had found took over. We did fear what the faculty would say about our amateurish expedition, but surely our discovery would compensate for our foolishness to some degree.

We saw the light at the end of the cave, but strangely enough, it was still cold. Alex got out first.

“Something is wrong,” he said as I exited the cave.

I saw what he meant. There were patches of snow in the grass. This was in late August and it had been one of the warmest summers in recent memory. Dumbfounded, we looked around trying to figure out what was going on. In front of us, there was a set of large boulders obscuring the view. We slowly walked past them and entered the forest. It seemed thicker than before.

“How much time did we spend in that cave?” Alex said, trying to make it sound like a joke although he was obviously frightened. “It’s winter, or… I mean… It’s early spring, at least.”

I looked up at the sun, filtered behind a cover of clouds.

“The sun is where it suppose to be,” I said. “Whatever is going on, this is the same day…”

I reached for my phone. The time and date were as expected but there was no reception or internet connection.

We tried to walk around the cliff we had come out of in an attempt to find our camp, but on the other side, there was nothing to be found. The disorientation I felt trying to comprehend what was happening almost gave me a panic attack, but there wasn’t any time to panic. A gunshot echoed through the forest. Two more followed. We decided to walk toward the sounds in the hopes to find someone to talk to. However, we moved slowly so that we would see them before they saw us.

We came to a small hill. Sounds of voices came from the other side of it, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying. We climbed up on the hill, lay down on top of it and peeked down. On the ground beneath us, there was a large dead animal covered in thick fur.

“That’s…” Alex began.

“That’s a mammoth!” I continued.

A group of people, holding rifles, stood around the dead animal. Four of them were smoking, as far as I could see. They were covered in black cloths, similar to the one we had found in the cave, and they all had hoods on them which made it difficult to see their faces. They didn’t speak any language we had ever heard before. It reminded us of a Khoisan language, but instead of the clicking sounds normal for those languages, it sounded like knocking sounds coming from the bottom of their throats.

Both Alex and I had the same impossible thought: that they belonged to the same species as the individual we had found in the cave. One of them blew a whistle. It didn’t make any sound that we could hear, but a minute later four large animals came out of the woods.

“What are those?” I whispered.

They were big as grizzly bears but had wolf-like faces. Some of them began barking.

“I… I think they’re dogs,” Alex said.

“Have you ever seen dogs like that before?” I said.

“Look around you, Lester…” Alex paused, as to think of the best way to explain it to my frantic mind. “Don’t you get it? I know it’s **** insane, but just consider what all of this is pointing to. Those people aren’t humans, man.”

“What are you on about?” I said, trying to deny his conclusion to the bitter end. “Are you really saying…”

“They had – have – a language! And, going by the way they’re moving their hands, parts of it are sign language.”

Alex was way ahead of me already.

“Are you suggesting we have traveled back to the neolithic age?”

“No, no, they have guns. As you said, this is the same day… It’s just… just not the same Earth. I don’t think **** sapiens led them to extinction here. This is incredibly fascinating, Lester. I can’t believe it! It feels like I’m dreaming, but you’re seeing the same thing, right? I mean, I’m not lying in that cave slowly dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, am I?”

“N-no, I’m seeing it too,” I said.

“Well, look at them… They domesticated the dog, but they bred them into something different than we did. And look, they didn’t exterminate the megafauna. That points to a smaller population like we always suspected.”

I still didn’t know what to think, but I began to entertain the idea.

“It could explain the weather as well,” I said while I watched how one of the presumed Neanderthals petted one of the huge dogs. “A smaller population of hominids during 40 000 years would have meant a much smaller amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and…”

Something growled behind us, and then it barked. Our blood ran cold. I looked behind us. One of the large hounds had found us.

“Lester…?” Alex whispered as our eyes met.

The beast charged at us. We had no choice but to run down from the hill, right into the arms of the cloaked men.

They gathered around us, pointing their rifles at us. They were huge, much larger than a typical man… or rather, than a human. Their knocking sounds – coming from deep inside their throats – was mixed in with deep sounds that didn’t resemble any language I had ever heard. From what I could tell by their hand movements and agitation in their voices, they seemed just as distressed as Alex and I. Their faces were shadowed by their hoods, but I could still see that they had the typical Neanderthal **** structures. My thoughts – still having trouble accepting what was happening – was in a disarray.

“What will they do?” I heard myself ask.

As soon as I opened my mouth, one of the Neanderthals yelled something at us:

“Halufska!”

We both interpreted it as something similar to “hands up!” and fell on our knees and raised our hands.

“It all depends what happened to **** sapiens in this world,” Alex whispered. “If they see our species as mortal enemies we might be doomed, but if we died out thousands of years ago they’ll probably want to keep us alive.”

The man that had yelled lit what looked like a mixture between a cigarette and a cigar with a large match. I tried to assess their level of technology. The rifles, clearly made for hunting, didn’t have scopes, only iron sights. My first thought was that this indicated a lower technological level than the one we had at home, but then I realized that it might rather be a result of their larger eyes and areas of the brain devoted to vision. Maybe they simply didn’t need scopes because of their superior sight.

They talked for some time, and then one of them went away for a while and came back with some ropes that they used to tie our hands behind our backs. They didn’t intend on killing us, not right away anyway. If this said anything about the fate of **** sapiens in this world was unclear though. They led us away, seemingly abandoning the animal that they had just killed. Maybe finding us was more valuable to them.

“They’ve invented the combustion engine!” Alex exclaimed.

He was right. A vehicle stood on a dirt road in front of us. It had eight wheels, six at the back and two in the front, and resembled a diesel locomotive more than a truck. It was completely black, just like their clothes. They opened the back doors and pushed us inside the storage space. There was a smell of dead animals and gasoline. We were placed next to each other on a bench attached to the wall and two of the Neanderthals sat down in front of us, looking at us constantly. The only light came from two small windows on the back door. The truck began to move.

“I wonder what they’ll think about our cellphones,” Alex said.

The Neanderthals each lit one of those big cigarettes and the glow from them lit up their strong faces. One of them had green eyes.

“They’re smoking a lot,” Alex whispered. “Research shows that Neanderthal DNA may account for nicotine addiction…”

“Yes,” I said. “And depression… You think they’re depressed?”

Alex smiled, but the fear in his eyes didn’t go away.

We couldn’t see anything outside – except that the sun was setting – but we felt the bumps in the road as the truck drove forward at a pretty high speed. After some time, the road became smooth. Had we reached a highway? It was hard to tell. We couldn’t hear any other vehicles outside. Wherever we were going, it was far away. We didn’t stop until three or four hours later. It must have been in the middle of the night, but we didn’t get to see the night sky. When the back doors were opened, we stepped out inside of a large garage. There were a lot of black vehicles parked under the high ceilings, but none of them looked like the one we had come with. These vehicles were smaller, like cars. All black. I guessed that this place wasn’t where they usually went. The architecture was similar to Soviet-era brutalism and was as devoid of colors as everything else in this place. After what we had already seen, I wasn’t surprised to discover that they had mastered electricity. However, they didn’t use fluorescent lights as in a modern garage but rather pretty dim, but still large, lamps hanging from the ceiling. Again, I came to think of their better vision.

One of the hunters used a radio attached to the dashboard of their truck. After half an hour or so a small door opened, the sound of it echoing through the garage. Three people, a bit smaller, walked out of it. The group that had captured us pushed us in our backs so that we would straighten our backs. This seemed to be important to them, as they did it themselves as well. The new people didn’t wear the same clothes as our capturers. They still covered their faces, not with hoods but with thin black veils. As they got closer to us, I could tell that they were women.

They looked at us, obviously fascinated. One of them picked up what looked like a walkie-talkie and said something to it without taking her eyes off us. Carefully, her colleague reached out and knocked on my helmet that I was still wearing.

We must have looked completely alien to them in our colorful gear and equipment. Although the women were smaller than the men, they were still much stronger than us. One of them led the men to another door, perhaps for questioning, and the other two – holding what looked like electric batons – took me and Alexander back to the door they had exited.

We stepped into an elevator. Unlike the elevators we were used to, this one was merely a platform. My clothes scraped against the gray concrete walls of the shaft as we went up. Looking up, I could tell the building was tall. One of the women controlled the elevator with a lever rather than just pressing a button. It was all clunky and cumbersome, but remarkably effective.

They took us to a small room, similar to an interrogation room, and had us sit down on two large chairs. A commotion took place outside of the room. People were running back and forth, talking to each other and into their radios. This scenario was nothing they had planned for. Different women entered the room from time to time. Some of them tried to talk to us, some just wanted to take a look. We sat in this room for hours. After that, two male guards took us to yet another room. It looked like a locker room that had been cleared out for our sake. They seized our belongings. Alex took his helmet off and gave it to the woman who had knocked on it, and then he carefully turned on the headlight to show her how it worked. They didn’t seem too surprised by it. Most likely they had similar devices. The colorful plastic interested them much more, which I took as a sign that their technological level was maybe a hundred or fifty years behind ours.

“Plastic,” Alex said without being understood.

They stripped off our clothes and pointed at a couple of showers in the middle of the room. We placed ourselves there and one of the guards turned on the water. It was too cold, but overall they didn’t seem to want to cause us any pain. After the shower, we were given a pair of yellow overalls to wear. In the next room – this one looked like a classroom – we were brought to the desk at the front. A group of women – wearing protective masks – had put our smartphones on the desk.

Alex took his phone and unlocked it. This was the first time these people would see our level of technology.

“If they see this,” he said to me, “if they see how advanced we are compared to them, they’ll let us live.”

He tried to be as pedagogical as he could, showing them the display as he pressed on the different apps. Of course, there wasn’t any internet connection so he couldn’t show them anything online. Their eyes were transfixed on the colorful display. The males, who didn’t seem to be allowed to do anything else but to stand guard, peeked down at the display in wonder. Alex smiled at the attention, almost as if he was proud, but I felt severely uneasy. He opened his gallery and showed them a video he had taken at a large climate change protest he had attended in New York. The Neanderthal’s fascination turned into worry as they watched the skyscrapers and the hundreds of thousands of people marching down the streets. After this, one of the women looked at us suspiciously as she picked up a phone on the wall and called someone.

After some deliberation, two women with batons led us into the elevator again. This time, we stopped at the last floor, maybe two-hundred meters above the surface. They took us through a corridor with what looked like office doors to the side. To my disappointment, there were no windows. A few other women stepped out of their offices and looked at us as we passed, equally mesmerized as they were scared.

At the end of the hallway, there was a door that led into a room of greater importance than the other rooms. There was some text next to the door. I couldn’t tell if the characters were phonetic or logographic, but at least they didn’t look like hieroglyphs. One of the women pressed a button in the middle of the door. It didn’t make any sound but was probably some sort of doorbell. While we waited for the door to open, a faint alarm could be heard from somewhere nearby – probably outside – and one minute later the building began to shake a little. I looked at Alex who looked back at me, but it didn’t seem to faze the Neanderthals.

The door opened automatically. We were pushed inside the room. It was big, just like everything else. A black carpet – the skin of some animal – covered the floor and a heavy desk stood in front of us. Behind it, another woman was sitting. Unlike the others, she didn’t cover her face. Her hair was red and her eyes were blue. She wore something similar to a jumpsuit, not black but light gray.

She inhaled the smoke of a wooden pipe, rather than from one of those cigarettes, and as she exhaled I could smell that she was smoking a mix of tobacco and marijuana.

Behind her, there was a large window, but nothing but darkness could be seen outside. There were no electric lights, which meant we weren’t in a city. Perhaps, I thought, they didn’t even have cities.

The women who brought us here placed their batons at the fold of our knees, giving us an electric shock so that we fell in front of the massive desk. Alex yelled out in pain but didn’t look as scared as I was. My body trembled with fear. The woman sitting behind the desk got up from her chair and walked over to us. They spoke over our heads while we remained silent. They wouldn’t understand us anyway.

“They won’t harm us,” Alex said. “We’re too valuable for them.”

“I don’t want to be locked up in a laboratory!” I said.

“We will find a way—” Alex began, but was interrupted by the woman that seemed to be in charge.

She gestured toward us in a way that made it clear she wanted us to stand up. Alex got up, but for some reason, I couldn’t move. One of the women grabbed my arm and more or less lifted me up on my feet in one swift moment. Their commander, or whatever she was to them, said something. The context didn’t allow us to figure out what it was, other than maybe a question.

She led us to one of the walls. Between two bookshelves – filled with what looked like **** bound books – there was a world map. At first glance, it didn’t look like Earth. Alex took a hesitant step forward and when the woman didn’t seem to mind I did too.

“I don’t get it,” I said, way too stressed to think clearly.

The woman said something to us again, but this time it sounded more like a command. She probably wanted to know where we came from. Alex put his finger on the map.

“This is Africa,” he said.

It wasn’t until he said that that I saw it. The map had a completely different orientation. Firstly, it was a south-up map, meaning upside down from our perspective, secondly it was a little bit off-center – putting central Europe right in the middle – and thirdly the sizes of the landmasses were displayed a bit differently.

Since we couldn’t explain where we came from, Alex tried to give the woman the location of our species origin instead. By the look of her face, she didn’t seem to believe us. Still, she let us study the map while she studied us.

“Look,” Alex said. “There are no borders.”

“They don’t have countries,” I said. “But what about these… these pictograms?” Small black skulls, displayed from the side, was spread all over the map. Dotted circles of different sizes surrounded them. “Are they some kind of dead zones?”

“You’re anthropomorphizing… I don’t think they symbolize death here, but rather themselves. Maybe they’re cities or some kind of city-states. And look there…” He pointed at what would have been Russia in our world. “Those skulls are red, and… Wow. They’re different, you see?”

“What does it mean? Are you suggesting…” I asked.

“Denisovans! It makes sense if you think about it. With a smaller population, the Neanderthals never drove the other hominid species to extinction. This is *unreal*.” Alex’s fascination overshadowed all of his fear. “Look, there’s a red line going alongside the Ural Mountains and behind it, the Denisovans live.”

“All the way to Australia,” I said.

“But look here,” Alex said without listening to me. He placed his finger at Indonesia. “This blue region… The skulls there are different too. Can you see it?”

“**** floresiensis,” I whispered.

“You bet!”

The black skulls, the Neanderthals, dominated Europe, Africa and most of the New World, while the Denisovans seemed to rule Asia (and some parts of the west side of South America) together with the small area dominated by **** floresiensis. The ice caps were, as expected, larger than in our world but it didn’t seem to prevent the Neanderthals from living close to the North Pole. They even had cities in Greenland, although their total amount of cities was smaller than the amount in most countries in our world.

The woman, watching us carefully while we inspected the map, took a puff of her pipe and blew the smoke in our faces, then she returned to her desk and picked up what looked like a mouthpiece and made a call with the device it was connected to. She spoke aggressively to the person at the other end of the call.

The alarm from outside that we had heard earlier – sounding like a mechanical Swedish cowhorn – came back again. This time it sounded louder, probably because we stood so close to a window. The woman didn’t seem to care about it, but she raised her voice a little to compensate for the noise. Some electric lights turned on outside, but they didn’t reveal much. About a minute or two later, huge flames erupted a couple of hundred meters away, and a few seconds later a rumble reached us.

“A rocket!” Alex exclaimed.

We couldn’t see the body of it in the darkness, but the flame beneath it indicated a launch.

“The question is,” I said, “is it headed for space or the Denisovans?”

After this meeting, the purpose of which we couldn’t understand, we were taken to a large cave system beneath the tower structure. It soon became apparent to us that it was a mine combined with a subterranean prison camp. The conditions were, to say the least, hellish. There were hundreds of cells carved out in the bedrock, covered with prison bars, some of them filled with four to five people. They were all wearing yellow overalls, just like us, which made my heart sink to my stomach.

“Denisovans,” Alex whispered.

He was right. Most of the prisoners weren’t Neanderthals. They looked at us, with what looked like confusion in their eyes, as we walked past the cells. It was dark, the only light coming from small lamps hanging from lines in the ceiling, and it smelled of burnt rubber, tobacco and excrements. Prisoners walked in columns while cloaked Neanderthal men whipped them from behind, ordering them to move forward. They were all carrying shovels, pickaxes, hammers, chisels, and pans.

“Do you think they’re done with us now?” I said. “Do you think this is where we’ll end up?”

“They have seen the proof, they know about our world… Either they might try to reach it themselves and discard of us, or they might need us to help them with their mission. I don’t know, Lester.”

They unlocked a cell, that had a pretty good view over the mine, and pushed us inside. During the night, all we could do was to listen to the echoes of the pickaxes, the whips, and the Denisovans’ screams.

“Poor beings,” I said.

“I’m sure there’s a similar cave in Asia filled with Neanderthals,” Alex said. “There’s a certain balance here, you know?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Everyone has their corner of the world,” he said, “the animals aren’t being systematically brought to extinction and the environment isn’t being destroyed. It just took a few **** sapiens escaping Africa to ruin all of it. We spread like a wildfire…”

“What happened to us here? I mean… to our species?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Perhaps we never evolved.”

We talked about this the entire night until a prison guard came by with some water and food. The food resembled porridge and had no meat in it aside from a few larvae. It was utterly disgusting. We lived like this for about three weeks, unable to leave the cell. We had to do our business in a bucket that was emptied once a week. It was as humiliating as it was repulsive. I feared we would die from dysentery.

Finally, one of the women from the tower – accompanied by a group of armed prison guards – came down to us. She looked at us with dismay in her eyes, although it was difficult to know exactly what emotions the Neanderthals were showing with their expressions.

They led us outside. The daylight hurt our eyes, even though it was filtered through a thick mist. We stepped out on a large square beneath the tower. I looked up and saw the structure – completely black – disappear into the fog above. A group of Neanderthal men – maybe fifty – stood in formation in the middle of the square while a woman stood in front of them, talking and gesturing. These Neanderthals dressed differently from the ones we had seen so far. They had black metal helmets and were armed with rifles with somewhat shorter barrels. Soldiers, I thought.

“My ****!” Alex said as he pointed at the sky.

Out of the mist, accompanied by the deep sound of a horn being blown not far from us, a huge airship – resembling a pitch-black zeppelin – descended. Some of the soldiers spread out and grabbed the lines that were thrown down from the airship and helped it land in the middle of the square. The rest of the soldiers formed two lines next to the entrance of the ship and their commander placed herself in the middle, ready to welcome the people who had just arrived. We were led forward until we stood behind the commander. It became clear the ship had arrived because of us. Most likely, it was a group of higher-ups that wanted to investigate us by themselves.

We looked on with anticipation as the doors opened. Another group of women exited the ship, dressed in red uniforms that looked a bit more decorated than the ones we had seen so far and walked toward us. The commander in front of us saluted them by bowing, as did the soldiers. By reflex, I did the same thing, but Alex remained still. The new group examined us closely. One of them stared Alex down while she grabbed his chin and turned his face left to right.

I was scared out of my mind. I couldn’t imagine a way out of this. A group of soldiers came out of the airship, joining the others. It was clear that our arrival was considered a high priority and that the security at this site was being enforced. Another black vehicle, this time the size of a bus, drove up to us from an arched opening at the other side of the square. We were forced to enter it together with the women and five soldiers.

This time, we could see out the windows. They didn’t drive us very far, just to another location on the site. The large dark buildings, including the tower, felt desolated and dismal. Further away we could see another rocket being moved to the launchpad.

“Looks like a V2,” Alex whispered. “Probably a missile.”

“I wonder what the payload is,” I said.

“It’s probably not made for mass destruction,” Alex said. “There aren’t any large populations here. Think about that for a second. They’ve probably never encountered an army of more than ten thousand soldiers, maybe not even that. They never had their Battle of the Somme! Look at their weapons. They aren’t automatic. I don’t think they’ve ever had a reason to massacre thousands upon thousands of enemy forces with machine guns, you know?”

The bus stopped on a metal platform, patrolled by one of the prison guards, that descended into the ground. It took us to an underground road – as broad as a highway – that was illuminated by dim green lights in the ceiling.

The bus drove over a bridge. Tons of water flowed down from above on both sides. The roar of the waterfall was deafening and the mist rising from underneath engulfed the vehicle.

“It’s amazing how much they’ve built,” Alex said.

“Using slaves, you can accomplish anything,” I said sarcastically.

The bus stopped on the other side of the bridge. First I didn’t understand why, since we were still in the middle of the road, but then I noticed the small door to our right side. One of the women got up and pointed at Alex. A confusion came upon his face. A soldier stood up and grabbed his arm, saying something to him we couldn’t understand.

“Wait, where are you taking him?” I asked naively as they took him off the bus. “Alex! Alex!”

“It’s okay!” Alex yelled. “They won’t harm us, we’re too valuable. You know where I’m being held. Find me!”

He was halfway out when he finished his sentence. I put my hands on the window as I watched them enter the room with him. “Alex!” I yelled and then I whispered to myself: “Oh, ****, oh ****, oh ****…”

I did my best to memorize everything I saw, and in what order I saw it, so that I could find my way back to that door. Further down the road, a group of Denisovan slaves had to step aside to let the bus pass. Their faces were covered with soot and sweat.

Ten minutes later the bus entered a smaller road, blocked by a road boom barrier that opened after one of the soldiers stepped outside and pulled a lever. The road ahead was a downward spiral that led to what looked like the garage from earlier, except this one was guarded by soldiers. Why had I been taken to such a secure location when Alex was taken to a small anonymous room? I couldn’t figure it out, but my gut told me it wasn’t a good sign

After going down a few floors with an elevator, I was brought to what looked like a scientific facility. The walls were white here, rather than the typical gray, and a lot of the personnel wore red protective masks. They placed me in a small chamber, dressed me down completely and washed my malnourished body with a large hose. The cold water made my body shudder and numb. When they were done they sat me down on top of an examining table in another room. My teeth chattered against each other. I felt hopeless and began to cry. The last time I cried was when my girlfriend broke up with me in seventh grade. The Neanderthals took a step back when they saw me bawl my eyes out. One of the researchers took a cotton swab and collected some of my tears.

They checked all the basics: my reflexes, my heart, my ears, my eyes and embarrassingly enough my genitals. Aside from the last part, it wasn’t much different from a checkup at the doctor’s office. The officers consulted with the researchers for a few minutes and then I was taken to yet another room. It was completely circular. It didn’t have prison bars – just a large window made out of enforced glass – but it was clearly a cell. It only contained a bunk bed and a big stool that I soon figured out was a toilet. Luckily, I was able to flush it. As soon as I had entered the room, the door was locked behind me. I stepped up to the window. They were all standing on the other side, watching me. One of the officers lit a cigarette. A loudspeaker in the ceiling crackled to life, and a voice began speaking.

“I can’t understand you!” I yelled.

Of course, they knew that. Most likely, they were only testing the system.

I had studied the remains of their species for years, always imagining them in a neolithic context, as troglodytes wielding spears. Now, as they looked down on my **** body dressed in their fancy uniforms, the tables had turned. Here, I was the prehistoric caveman reappearing from a long-forgotten [past](https://www.youtube.com/c/OddDirections).

[PART 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/dh11jg/my_friend_and_i_found_a_portal_to_a_world_where/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I killed myself to be with my dead wife and daughter. As it turns out, heaven is not a friendly place.
 
 Assistant: If I timed the 911 call just right, the paramedics could revive me before I kicked the bucket for good. At least, that was the hope. Any number of things could go wrong, especially when it came to asphyxiation. I didn't want to die, per se; I just needed a way in, and this was the only thing I could come up with, however foolish a plan it may have been.

*I better be careful about this. Charlotte would never forgive me if I died this way. Get yourself in there and stick to the plan.*

Before I could talk myself out of it, I dialed the number, gave the operator my address, and told her what I was about to do. After ending the call, I inhaled a deep, preparatory breath, placed the bag over my head, secured it around my neck, and then released the valve on the helium tank. Maybe it wasn't the best way to go about taking my own life, but it sure as **** beat slicing up my arms and praying the ambulance would arrive before I bled out on the carpet. As a bonus, it would be completely painless; like falling asleep, if my research was to be believed.

As the gas filled the plastic bubble around my head, my vision began wavering. Darkness crept around my eyes and soon filled my entire field of view. Within moments, I lost consciousness. The last thing I remember was the faint sensation of my body going limp and my head falling against the back of the armchair.

This was it. I only hoped it wouldn't be the end of me.

\*\*\*

For what seemed like an eternity, there was nothing but blackness. Just an endless void that lacked any and all light. That's how I perceived it, anyway; it's possible I was seeing the back of my eyelids from a gurney on its way through the emergency room. I just knew I was conscious; at least in some fashion, but with no access to my physical body. An orb of awareness floating through a sea of nothing.

Panic overtook me as I drifted.

*What if there is no afterlife? What if I did die and this is all there is to it? Am I doomed to remain this way forever?*

These worries were soon put to rest by a dim, white light, visible in the distance. It grew larger in size as the moments passed, indicating that it was getting closer; or that *I* was getting closer to *it*. Before long, it enveloped me, bringing with it a soothing warmth, the likes of which I had never felt before.

The feeling subsided almost as quickly as it came, and the light dissipated, revealing my new surroundings.

I was in a white room with a single door at one of its walls. Not white really; I suppose *blank* is a better word for it; like a brightness with no color. It seemed to breathe as well. The walls, the floor; they expanded and contracted as translucent waves of glowing energy resonated throughout. The only dissonance was the view above. No roof or ceiling; just pitch black as far as the eye could see.

Seeing as the door was my only viable means of progressing, I gathered my wits and approached it. To my surprise, before I could even reach for the handle, it opened, and a man stepped out from within.

"Hello, Jack."

He was an older gentleman. Late 50s, gray hair and mustache.

"How do you know me?" I asked, alarmed by his arrival.

He snickered a bit before replying.

"Oh Jack, I've known you for quite some time, and I know exactly why you're here."

He snapped his fingers and they appeared on either side of him. My wife and daughter.

"Charlotte! Leslie!"

I took a step forward, but the man put out his hand to stop me.

"They can't hear you, Jack. They are shells of their former selves."

I wasn't quite following.

"What the **** is going on here? How do you know me? What have you done to my wife and daughter?"

"You're a lucky man, Jack. I'm going to tell you everything. Secrets no mortal was ever meant to know."

He leaned in a bit before divulging his truths.

"Your kind call us guardian angels, but we don't protect you; we just observe and make sure things go according to plan. You are the three I've been assigned to since Leslie's birth. It used to be one per human, but there are less of us now than ever before. Now it's one to a family."

Confusion washed over me as my mouth opened, but no words came out in response. In truth, I didn't know what to say.

"And this, if you haven't guessed by now, is what you humans so lovingly refer to as heaven. The afterlife, if you will.  An assortment of rooms, each with their own deceased. It's a glorified museum of souls, really."

Looking down at my battered wife and daughter, my patience wore thin.

"That doesn't explain what you've done to my family!"

He threw me an arrogant smile.

"When a person's been here long enough, we take their life force - extracting every last remnant of their soul."

"And then? What do you do with the souls you take?" I asked.

His lip curled up a bit before answering.

"We devour them. You humans need air, food, and water to live; we need souls. It's the only thing keeping us alive. This system of ours has been in place since the dawn of time and will continue long after the universe has folded in on itself. Charlotte and Leslie's tickets are up. I've been picking away at them bit by bit. It's a long and tedious process - one that's *very* unpleasant for the soul's host. They're damaged goods now."

My blood boiled at every word that fell from his lips. Without hesitating, I took a swing at him. My fist met the side of his face and then went right through; like punching a ghost.

"Nice try, Jack."

My anger only grew.

"Why are you even telling me any of this?!"

His face wrinkled into a more serious look.

"It's simple, really. I want your soul. Fresh meat is hard to come by these days. When a person dies, we have to wait to consume their essence; a grace period of sorts. From birth, all humans have a divine protection on their souls - a bothersome trait of your evolution. It lingers, even after death. We can only feed after it wears off. By dinnertime, the soul is stale and tasteless - barely enough to maintain our strength. We're like vampires feeding on cows."

"Then how do you plan on taking mine?"

His face lit up at the question.

"You are a curious case, Jack. Taking one's own life is the only thing that voids that pesky barrier. That means your soul is now available for consumption. Unfortunately, even we have our rules."

He no longer looked so enthused.

"Meaning what, exactly?" I asked.

"You're not dead. Not completely. There's still a chance you'll be saved. That means, while you're in this cross-section of life and death, I cannot retrieve your soul. Not without your consent."

He couldn't touch me. Not without my permission. That one fact gave me hope that the current could still shift in my favor. It was something I could potentially use to my advantage.

"So what is this then, you want me to just hand it over? Why on earth would I ever agree to that?"

He smiled and looked down at Leslie and Charlotte.

"These are - what's the phrase - my bargaining chips?"

My eyes widened and my heart sank. I was undoubtedly fearful for their safety in all of this. Whatever he was up to, he certainly had my attention now.

"I know all about your haphazard rescue mission. But it was doomed from the start. Even if you somehow managed to escape with them, they have no bodies to return to. They were cremated after the accident. ****, if I didn't show up when you arrived, you would have never even found them in this godforsaken maze! It's larger than the universe itself."

He was right. It was my desire, all along, to bring them back with me, but I didn't have much of a plan after getting in. The idea was to find whoever was in charge and beg for their help. I thought, at the very least, I would be allowed to communicate with them and make sure they were okay; maybe even ask for their forgiveness.

"So what are you saying? You can give them their bodies back? Make them alive again?"

"That's not possible. Look at them, Jack. They're well past dead. Not even I have the power to rectify what's been done."

I took a closer look. Charlotte adorned a pair of empty eyes and pale skin, stuck in a zombie-like stupor. Even Leslie, who had always been so vibrant and full of life when she was alive, was now still. As still as she was on that slab in the morgue after the accident.

I looked away, tears now rolling down my cheeks. I just wanted to bring them back. My wife and my sweet little girl. It was my job to protect them and I failed. I'm the one who did this. I was the one behind the wheel. It should have been me instead.

"I'm so sorry... It should have been me, I just-"

The man interjected.

"I can offer you a ceasefire of sorts. If you agree to let me absorb your soul, your family here will get a little break. Let's say, one hundred years before their final extraction?"

It was probably a good deal, but I couldn't bear the thought of my family being hurt in any way, even if it wasn't for another century.

"No."

He placed his hand to his chin in contemplation before dislocating it and tossing me a stern look.

"Okay, how about a thousand?"

That wasn't good enough. He needed something I had. So long as that was true, I could haggle for something better, like my family's freedom.

"I want them alive again. If you can do that, we have a deal."

He scoffed at my counter-offer.

"Even if their souls were in perfect condition and bodies unscathed, resurrection is not an option. It's far outside the range of my capabilities."

I glared at him in disbelief.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"You don't have to believe me, Jack, but I'm not lying. One thousand years is the best I can do. Take it or leave it."

Maybe he *was* being honest. Even so, I didn't like the offer. If I accepted, I would be knowingly throwing my wife and daughter's souls to the beast. They would be chewed up and swallowed like table scraps. No. I couldn't let that happen.

"No."

The man let out a sigh of disappointment. He then waltzed over and put a condescending hand on my shoulder.

"Come on, Jack. Can't you put your family first for once?"

My hands were now clenched; the tips of my nails almost breaking skin. I took another swing, but, much like before, my hand passed right through with no resistance whatsoever. He was toying with me and knew just what buttons to push.

"How dare you. How dare you stand there and judge me when you're the one tormenting innocent people - leveraging two lives to bargain for a better meal."

"It's about survival, Jack. A fresh soul like yours could keep me alive for thousands of years. I can't afford to be empathetic when my very existence is on the line!"

I turned away, completely disgusted, but half-considering his offer. It was, after all, the only one on the table. Even if they were going to have their souls desecrated, I could at least delay the inevitable.

"You know what, Jack. I'm going to make you one final offer. Your family gets a thousand years, and in addition, you will get a severance package. While your soul is being ripped from your vessel, I will put you in a trance. You won't feel any pain. You'll be locked away in your own memories, free to relive the best moments of your life again and again until your time is up."

I stood silent for a moment, thinking it over.

"I like you, Jack. I really do. This could be beneficial for the both of us. Here, let me show you."

The man placed a hand on my forehead. In an instant, the room faded, and I was transported into my car, driving down the back roads of our old neighborhood, Charlotte and Leslie in the backseat, looking out the window at Christmas lights. It was a memory of mine from last winter.

Just then, the man from heaven appeared in the passenger's seat.

"This is one of my favorites. You were so happy back then."

"What the **** are you doing here?" I asked.

"Don't worry, they can't see me. I'm in total control. Please Jack, humor me. Look at them."

I stole a glimpse of Charlotte and Leslie through the rearview mirror. They were smiling, happily looking out at all the decorated houses. It wasn't really my wife and daughter; just a memory, but it felt so good to see them like this. It was peaceful.

"I can make it feel like years in here, Jack. Just say the word and it's yours."

It was a tempting offer. More than tempting, actually. It took every fiber in me not to accept right then and there. The only thing I wanted more than to live in a fantasy like this was the real thing. More than that, I wanted my family to be safe.

"Why can't you just let them go? I'll give you my soul. I just want them to be safe."

"I told you, Jack. It's not within my power. Their souls have been thoroughly shredded."

"AND WHO'S FAULT IS THAT?!" I yelled.

He shook his head in disapproval.

"Yours, if I remember correctly. You're the one who swerved off the road and killed your family. I was just feeding to stay alive. Survival is a basic instinct that isn't unique to just humans, you know!"

We sat quiet for the rest of the ride, both seething with anger. Once the memory ran its course and I pulled into our driveway at home, the man turned to me and placed his hand on my forehead again, putting me in another memory. This time, I was in a hospital.

"PUSH! PUSH!"

I heard Charlotte screaming, and all at once it came back to me. This was the day Leslie was born.

"Beautiful, isn't it. Gross, but beautiful."

The man from heaven was now at my side, watching the moment unfold. After all was said and done, a nurse came over and handed me a newborn Leslie.

"Congratulations, sir. It's a girl."

She didn't cry. Instead, her eyes opened, she took one look up at me, and then placed her tiny hand on my chest. She was mine and I was hers. My little girl. In the years that passed since this day, I had almost forgotten how much this moment affected me. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, the happiest day of my life.

The man from heaven placed a hand on my back and offered me a smile.

"Congratulations, Jack."

I looked back down at Leslie, but she was gone. In looking up, the whole room was now empty; no doctors, nurses, or staff. All life had vanished from the hospital. There was just me, the man, and a harrowing silence.

He sat down on the hospital bed where Charlotte had just given birth.

"These precious moments are all you have left now. You should take them while you still can."

A single tear fell from my face. It started happy, rolling down my cheek at the sight of my daughter, so precious and loving. It ended sad when she disappeared, grazing my chin and hitting the floor with a heartbreaking splash. It reminded me of the day she was taken from me. The day I lost both of them.

"What'll it be, Jack? The clock is ticking."

It was probably the best offer I would get, but the image of Charlotte and Leslie, lifeless and broken, stayed with me. If there were ever a moment to fight for my family, this was it.

"Save my wife and daughter and I'm yours."

The man's face turned sour as he stood up and marched over to me.

"I have just about had it with you! Do you know how many people in the world would die for an offer like this? You killed yourself for your family and you can't even lift a finger to help them in their time of need?!"

"I am helping them. It's simple. You need my soul and I need their safety. Not for a finite period of time, and not in here. Down there, on earth, far away from things like you. Figure out how to make it happen or no deal."

His lips contorted into a mad grin.

"You know what? I have a better idea!"

He placed his hand on my forehead once more and transported us to another memory. This one was all too familiar.

"No... it can't be..."

Charlotte was in the passenger's seat. Through the rearview mirror, I saw the man sitting in the back, next to Leslie.

"Oh yes, Jack, it can. This is the night you killed your family."

I immediately attempted to stop the car, but my body's movements were out of my control.

"No! You can't do this!"

"Of course I can! Now pipe down, I'm trying to watch the show!"

Eventually, I swerved and we crashed into that damned tree. That cold pillar of wood whose image would forever be etched into my mind, plaguing my every nightmare. The sound of my daughter's screams echoed all around before giving way to the shattering of glass and the loud crunch of deforming metal. The abrupt silence that followed was sickening. Just as I had on the day in question, I craned my neck back and saw Leslie, covered in blood and shrapnel. Charlotte was even worse. Her airbag failed to go off, so she ricocheted off the windshield, breaking her neck. Her head was hunched over; bent farther back than I thought humanly possible.

Shortly after witnessing the aftermath, I passed out, and the horror continued.

I awoke in the car at the same moment as before. Charlotte was next to me and Leslie was in the backseat next to that twisted angel and his piercing smile.

"So, what'll it be Jack? Take my offer or we relive this crash indefinitely. Even if the paramedics revive you down there on earth, I can make this feel like a lifetime or more. You can have a thousand years of peace for your wife and daughter, or a thousand years of this. Can your fragile mind even handle that? Let's find out!"

The car swerved, my daughter screamed, and my family died. Then it all started again.

"Come on, Jack! Just say yes. It's that simple. Give me your soul!"

No. I had to fight for them. They were worth the anguish.

"Save them and you can have it."

"Alright Jack, have it your way."

Swerve. Screams. Tree. Death. It kept happening; an endless loop of torture. I must have experienced it over fifty times without pause. I wasn't sure I could hold out much longer.

"I have to hand it to you, Jack. You have a formidable will on your side. Still, you will be crushed beneath the weight, it's just a matter of time."

It must have been the hundredth crash or so. It took me that long to notice it. I must have repressed the memory, or maybe it was knocked loose in the crash, but on this particular replay of events, out of the corner of my eye, I  was able to catch a quick glimpse of what it was I was swerving to avoid.

It was a man, standing in the middle of the road. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what.

A dozen more crashes came and went, each more devastating than the last. To distract myself from the pain of losing my family again and again, I focused on that man in the road, trying desperately to identify what it was I recognized about him. It was difficult in the pandemonium; his outline distant and out of focus, but eventually, it came to me. I knew exactly where I had seen him before.

Another loop started.

"I'm growing bored of this, Jack. Let's strike this deal and be done with it."

"It was you. You were the one standing in the road. You're the one I was avoiding when I swerved. It was you, this whole time."

Looking at him through the mirror, I watched him become visibly nervous when I finally put the pieces together.

"Like I said, Jack. Survival. If I waited any longer for any of you to die, I would have perished myself. It was nothing personal."

The car came to a stop and my family vanished, leaving just me and him behind.

"What's going on?" I asked.

I turned to see him staring out the car window, defeated.

"This little outing of ours had to be sanctioned with the higher-ups. They've been monitoring everything. I thought I tampered with your memory well enough for you to forget. Now that you know, they know too. I'll have to stand trial. It won't be long now before-"

In this moment, a beam of light penetrated the car and engulfed the man, effectively vaporizing him before my very eyes. A few flakes of ash danced through the air and settled on the seat below. Afterwards, another man appeared at my side in the passenger's seat.

"Hello, Jack. How are you today?"

Startled, I fell back against the car door.

"Who are you?"

"One of the higher-ups *he* was talking about."

He pointed at the pile of ash in the backseat.

"Is he... dead?" I asked.

"Yes, more dead than anything in this universe can be, in fact. I saw to it myself."

Having seen what I just saw, I cowered a bit while conversing with this new danger.

"May I ask... *why* you killed him?"

"Certainly. You see, Jack, he broke one of our cardinal rules. It's true that we feed on the souls of humans we're assigned, but, no matter how hungry we get, we are not allowed to interfere in the natural order of things. You and your family were meant to live long lives, but he caused a premature disturbance, nudging your wife and daughter into the hereafter so he could feed."

It was all becoming clear now. That man ruined my life. He was to blame for everything.

"He put self-preservation before our laws and that can not go unpunished. No trial. No questions. Please, accept my apology on his behalf."

A wave of anger overcame me as I sat upright to meet his gaze.

"Apology? My wife and daughter are dead and their souls tarnished, all because you couldn't keep one of your own in line? Keep your apology! It means nothing to me."

His friendly demeanor turned cold as I said this.

"You know, people who speak to someone like me in that sort of tone usually end up like him."

Again, he pointed to the backseat. I returned to a cowering position, realizing I may have just crossed a powerful, celestial being.

He sighed and then smiled.

"It's okay, Jack. I will set things right."

Like the man before him, he placed a hand on my forehead. After that, my sight was overtaken by a familiar darkness. A vast void where I could do nothing but drift. Then, I saw it. It was faint at first, but its glow became more visible as time went on.

It was a light, and soon it enveloped me.

\*\*\*

I awoke in a hospital, the rhythmic pang of my pulse emanating from a monitor at the side of the bed.

*Did he... bring me back?*

A nurse passed by the room and did a double-take before entering.

"Oh my gosh, you're awake!"

She dashed over to my IV and replaced the fluids while checking my vitals on the monitor.

"How long was I out?"

"Oh, about three days or so."

*Only three days? It felt a **** of a lot longer.*

"You're going to be on suicide watch after that stunt you pulled, just to forewarn you."

"It beats being dead, I guess."

"You've got that right, Mister."

I hadn't fully gathered my composure yet, but the nurse's next words woke me right up.

"Oh. You have some visitors. It's your wife and daughter."

*Charlotte and Leslie? What? But how?*

"I'll send them in."

A few minutes later, I saw them. My heart nearly stopped right then and there.

"Jack!"

Charlotte ran over pulled me into a tight embrace. Leslie followed behind.

"We missed you, Daddy!"

I don't have words for how I felt. They were back. My family, in my arms again.

"Is this really happening? How are you here?"

"It was this man, Jack. He came and patched us up and then sent us back. It's like we never left."

She was crying. Happy tears, not sad ones.

"It's a miracle, Jack."

I took them in my arms and cried too, an enormous smile stretched across my face. This was now the happiest day of my life. I finally had my girls back, and I wouldn't let anyone or anything take them away ever again.

\*\*\*

Whenever that day does come and we have to move on to the next world, I will be prepared. Mark my words; somehow, I will find a way to protect their souls from harm. No one will lay a hand on my family; not while I'm around.

[I won't allow it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChristopherMaxim/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Reincarnation Is Real
 
 Assistant: Around eight years ago my daughter went missing. I remember the morning I lost her like it was yesterday. I woke up before my husband, only to find the front door ajar. Panic ran through my veins as I went to check my little girl’s bedroom, but Sara was gone. She was four years old.

The police searched for months. There was an amber alert for her. We put out hundreds of missing persons posters. There were thousands of tips called in, but none of them yielded anything of value. I just couldn’t believe that was happening to us. How could the world be so cruel?

I, of course, was destroyed. I couldn’t sleep, and I barely ate. It got to a point where I was hardly functioning. If it wasn’t for my husband, I don’t think I would have gotten through it. He was my rock, and while I knew on the inside he was upset, he stayed strong for me. We couldn’t both break down, and thankfully he never lost it like I did. Not in front of me, at least.

“We’ll get through this,” he would say.

“Do you think she’s still out there?” I asked.

He paused before he answered, “I’m not sure.”

I don’t know what hurt worse, the possibility that she was alive but forced to endure an awful situation, or the possibility that she was gone completely. My husband didn’t like to talk about it, he shut me down every time I brought it up. We all grieve in our own way, I suppose.

Somehow, the hardship brought us closer. While this kind of horror would tear most couples apart, it only made us stronger. It was the way he was there for me, the way he picked me up when I was down. *I made the right choice in a partner*, I thought through it all.

A few years later I found out I was pregnant again. I was nervous, feeling as though I’d failed once before. My husband reassured me of course.

“This time will be different,” he stated as though it was a fact.

I gave birth to another daughter. We named her Jennifer Sara, after her sister. As she grew, I noticed there were odd similarities between the two. They looked so much alike, they even had similar birthmarks on their cheeks. When I’d pulled out a few of Sara’s old toys, it was like Jennifer recognized them. She even gave her dolls the same names that her sister had. They also liked the same foods, loved the same shows, and would even want me to read the same bedtime story. I felt like I was blessed with a second chance.

Jennifer was closer to me than she was with her father. He didn’t mind of course, it gave him more time to focus on his work. He was present as a father, but he wasn’t really fond of ‘babysitting’ as he would call it. To be honest I think the similarities were too much for him. Maybe it was too painful. I didn’t mind though. I know it’s selfish, but I liked the fact she preferred to spend all of her time with me. Once her father had even offered to take her to the park, but she refused. She wanted me to go instead.

Yesterday something very alarming happened. I took Jennifer to the park. It had a large play structure which she enjoyed, and was surrounded by peaceful woods, which I enjoyed. I watched as she played the same way Sara did when I used to take her there.

She was headed down the slide when a buzz on my phone distracted me. I pulled it out and saw it was a text from my husband. He was wondering what we were going to do for dinner. I replied quickly, then returned my gaze to the play structure. To my horror, my child was nowhere to be seen. I swear I had only taken my eyes off of her for a second.

“Not again,” I whispered as I frantically began to search for her.

After running aimlessly through the woods while calling her name, I finally found Jennifer. She was underneath a tree, and was digging for something.

“Jennifer!” I shouted as I rushed to her.

“Mommy?” she said as she turned.

Her hands were covered in dirt, and she looked worried.

“What were you thinking?” I asked as I grabbed her by the shoulders, “Do you know how much you scared me? You could have gotten hurt, do you understand that?! Never run off like that again!”

“I-I’m sorry!” She frowned.

I hugged her and sighed in relief.

“What are you doing out here?” I questioned.

She pointed to the hole she had started to dig. I raised my eyebrow curiously, and walked over to the shallow pit.

“Don’t play in the dirt,” I said.

“I have to keep digging!” She exclaimed, “I have to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Mommy, just keep digging, you have to see. It’s a deep hole.”

I don’t know why, but I felt like I had to listen. We stopped by the house, and grabbed our shovel.

“Do you want to stay here with daddy?” I began, “I’ll be right back.”

“No mommy, please don’t leave me. I have to be there,” she pleaded.

“Okay, but you need to stay right next to me,” I relented, “No running off, you really scared me.”

“I know. I’ll stay close this time, promise.”

The two of us headed back to the park. We walked through the woods and found the shallow hole Jen had dug. I began to shovel at it. I don’t know how long it took me before I hit something, maybe it was hours. Little Jennifer did as she was told. She stayed nearby, eating a sandwich and the snacks I had packed her.

I dusted off the hard surface I had struck, only to find something that was an off white color. I dusted away the dirt, until I could make out what I was looking at. There in front of me was a child-sized skull. Beside it I saw something shining in the light. I picked it up to reveal it was a butterfly earring, one from a set I’d bought Sara a few days before she went missing.

“Wh-what the ****?” I stammered, “What the **** is this?”

“It’s me mommy,” Jennifer started with a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, “That’s where daddy left me after he put me to sleep.”

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Nobody is coming to my best friend's wedding
 
 Assistant: My best friend Melissa is getting married, and of the 100 people she invited, I'm the only one who's going. The other 99? Total crickets. Not one single yes OR no after the invites went out. At first we thought they might have gotten lost in the mail or she used the wrong stamps. But when she texted everyone to ask if they received the invites and to remind them to RSVP, they ignored her completely.

&#x200B;

And then two weeks before the wedding, Melissa told me her fiance Seth was missing.

&#x200B;

So here's the thing: I had never met Seth. In fact I had only known Melissa for a few months. We met when her car broke down in front of my house, and I offered her my front porch to sit on while she waited for the tow truck. Melissa told me her fiance Seth was on a business trip and that he would be back the week before the wedding.

&#x200B;

And why wouldn't I believe her?

&#x200B;

Melissa and I were instant best friends. I could not wait to meet Seth at the wedding. She talked about him so much that I felt as if I knew him already, and I can honestly say I looked forward to the wedding as much as she did.

&#x200B;

Or maybe, even more.

&#x200B;

Because I loved her very much. I wanted her to be happy. And I could see that wedding planning was stressing her out so bad that she was losing sleep. Even before she broke down in tears and told me nobody was coming, even before Seth went missing, I could see that she was slowly losing her mind.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

Melissa told me she filed a police report but wasn't expecting much from that end given that Seth was an adult male. I thought sadly that she was probably right. She said she was talking with a private detective and he was looking into it for her.

&#x200B;

A week before the wedding, Melissa came to my house in the middle of the night to tell me she knew where Seth was but we had to move fast. Next thing I knew we were speeding down the highway going out of town.

&#x200B;

I kept asking her what was going on and she kept saying she'll explain when we get there. We drove for hours, stopping once to **** and another time to get gas. It was before sunrise when we started and we were still going when the sun went down.

&#x200B;

Now, I'm not good with maps and wouldn't be able to find my way out of a paper bag, but I can read signs. And even I could tell we were going in circles.

&#x200B;

She first drove across state lines, and then five hours later, she drove back across the same state lines. I remembered the same rest stop we passed in the morning because of a red car that was parked there.

&#x200B;

"Melissa, what is going on?" I said, but she wouldn't answer me.

&#x200B;

She drove faster and faster. We sped past every other car on the road, and people rage honked at us screaming obscenities. We were going 75 and then 80 and then 90. The car was shaking like a toy and Melissa seemed to be in a trance. She was mentally somewhere else and I was numb, paralyzed with fear. I did not know what to do. I prepared myself to die and then it occurred to me.

&#x200B;

Maybe Seth was dead, maybe she had received news of his body being found and she had gone crazy.

&#x200B;

She swerved in front a truck and I knew it was all over, I felt it in my bones. I wasn't even scared.

&#x200B;

But she hadn't crashed us, only took an exit ramp. And then we were driving slowly down a residential street. She stopped the car in front of a house where a girl was smoking on the porch.

&#x200B;

Melissa turned to me and said, "They have Seth in that house. His life is in danger. We have to get him out."

&#x200B;

"That girl?" I said, incredulous.

&#x200B;

She looked about ninety pounds soaking wet. I could probably take her down myself.

&#x200B;

"There's a whole gang in there," said Melissa, "and she's one of them."

&#x200B;

And because I was tired and hungry and frightened and confused, I believed her.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

It was way past midnight when we got back to town. Melissa stopped in front of the all night diner and we went in to get some food. My legs were shaking but she seemed perfectly normal. I tried to act normal too, trying to forget what she had done.

&#x200B;

What *we* had done, a small voice said at the back of my head.

&#x200B;

The events of the previous hours were a blur. Things had happened so fast that it was as if they had happened to somebody else. I still didn't understand and I had a feeling I was never going to. The whole day was like a bad dream.

&#x200B;

I felt faint as we sat down and I pretended to peruse the menu. Even though I loved food more than anything in the world, and I hadn't eaten in the last 20 hours, I had no appetite whatsoever.

&#x200B;

The server gave us a look and then whispered something to another server who got somebody from the back who looked like a manager. The three of them looked at us and seemed to be discussing something. Were the police looking for us? Already?

&#x200B;

The manager came up to our table and said, "Hey Melissa, long time no see."

&#x200B;

Melissa said, "Oh hey, I didn't know you were working tonight."

&#x200B;

The guy laughed and said, "I work every night. Who's your lovely friend?"

&#x200B;

A real charmer.

&#x200B;

Melissa introduced me and then she asked him outright if he was coming to the wedding. A shiver went down my back. Her fiance was missing. What wedding was she talking about? He glared at her and then he looked at me and said, "Want a drink? You look like you could use one." And then he scurried off like he couldn't get away fast enough.

&#x200B;

Melissa told me that was her cousin.

&#x200B;

When we were done eating, the manager cousin guy came by and said his shift was over and he'll drop us off on his way home. Melissa said she had her car and he was like, "You shouldn't be driving." They stared at each other so hard I thought there was going to be words between them. But he said nothing and left the restaurant.

&#x200B;

Melissa and I had a few more drinks, and then went outside to the parking lot and got in her car. She started the car and the car ... didn't move.

&#x200B;

The engine was going but the car wasn't. We got out to investigate and found one of the tires was flat as a pancake even though it was fine when we drove in. And then the manager guy her cousin was somehow right there behind us, scared the **** out of me. He looked me straight in the eye and said with a smirk, "Looks like you'll need a ride after all."

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

He dropped Melissa off first. I followed after her because I didn't want to be alone with her creepy cousin, but Melissa went inside her apartment and slammed the door behind her as if she had forgotten I was there.

&#x200B;

I was so surprised I just stood staring at the closed door wanting to kick it down and make her tell me what the **** was going on. Her cousin tried to lead me back to the car but I was like I'll walk.

&#x200B;

"It isn't safe, it's midnight, get in the car," he said, or more like, commanded.

&#x200B;

He was a big guy and I knew I wouldn't have a chance if he tried anything funny. So I pretended to get in the car but when he went around to the driver side, I ran away down an alley. I could hear him shouting after me, but I hid in a dumpster until he gave up and left.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

On the day of the wedding, or the day the wedding was supposed to be, Melissa showed up at my place as if nothing had happened. She said her family was having a BBQ get-together and asked me if I wanted to come.

&#x200B;

Everything in my head screamed no. I no longer trusted her after what she did that night, and I never wanted to see her again. Looking at her made me feel sick. She had told me the girl knew where Seth was. She had told me the girl was in on it and Seth's life was in danger. She had told me there was a whole gang.

&#x200B;

But there was no Seth and no "gang," just a girl in an empty house. And then the blood, so much blood...

&#x200B;

As the days went by, I had began to wonder and then to suspect what exactly I had helped Melissa do. Her entire story had more holes than a cheesecloth. The fact was I barely knew her. She was a mystery to me, and it had been that way from the beginning.

&#x200B;

I hated her and was beginning to be legitimately afraid of her. But something in my heart still belonged to her.

&#x200B;

Anyway, I was wildly curious to meet her family.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

Melissa's creepy cousin was there at the BBQ. In broad daylight, surrounded by adoring nieces and nephews, he didn't seem so bad, but I reminded myself neither did Ted Bundy.

&#x200B;

Everything was going fine until Melissa started talking about Seth and how the police hadn't done jack ****. To be honest, I was surprised nobody had mentioned it until then. Melissa was working herself up into a real rage and everybody was like they didn't know where to look. Some stared at their phones, a few others left, and her creepy cousin looked ****. It was a weird scene.

&#x200B;

It was only Melissa's Mom who reacted in a way that made any sense at all. She put her arms around Melissa and told her it was alright. But this was apparently the wrong thing to do because Melissa started screaming for them to leave her alone and ran out of the house. Her mom was like oh my **** and started going after her, but the creepy cousin stopped her and said, "Let her get it out of her system."

&#x200B;

"What if she gets in the car," Melissa's mom said.

&#x200B;

"I have the key," the cousin said, showing her the key.

&#x200B;

"Thank ****," said her mom.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

"It's the wedding day," Melissa's mom said, "it's like this every year."

&#x200B;

"Every year?" I said.

&#x200B;

Last three years, her cousin said.

&#x200B;

Her mom said, "It happened three years ago. We thought she would get better, come around."

&#x200B;

"So Seth's been missing for three years?" I said.

&#x200B;

Her mom stared at me while the others looked embarrassed and fidgety. "He's not missing," she said quietly.

&#x200B;

Her cousin said, "Melissa was driving, there was an accident, and he died on impact."

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

"They're lying," Melissa said. "They think I'm crazy, but they're the crazy ones, and now you too."

&#x200B;

I had mentally prepared myself to ignore her **** **** and I did. I asked her to take me to the police station so I can see the missing person report she said she had filed, and of course she refused. She said I had no right to ask her (which was true), and that she had thought I was different (appealing to my vanity), but actually I'm just like the rest of them (since vanity didn't work let's try guilt tripping).

&#x200B;

I didn't know what to think.

&#x200B;

Or rather, I knew. For in my obsession with her, I had allowed myself to do evil.

&#x200B;

And then as if she had read my mind, she said: "You better not tell anybody."

&#x200B;

And then she smiled.

&#x200B;

And that was how I knew she was not crazy: she was evil.

&#x200B;

"You did it on purpose," I said.

&#x200B;

"He was dead asleep when I put him in the car. It was too easy," she said. "Even if they suspected anything, there wasn't enough left of him to autopsy."

&#x200B;

"And the girl -" I couldn't continue.

&#x200B;

But I already knew, and it was as if I had known all along.

&#x200B;

"I told her to stay away from him," Melissa said, " Seth was mine. But she didn't listen. You know how they say revenge is best served chilled? Do you think three years was a long enough time?"

&#x200B;

She cackled, and then she came towards me. We were in her apartment. It was midnight and not a single soul knew I was there.

&#x200B;

I said very casually I had no idea what she talking about, and that it was late and I was going home. She shoved me against the wall and slammed my head against it hard. She was so much stronger than she looked.

&#x200B;

"You're the only one who knows," she said. "Don't you see how that can be awkward for me?"

&#x200B;

I thought of the girl that night, the look in her eyes when she saw Melissa, as if what she had feared all her life had come true at last. And in the end, she had seemed almost relieved. I now knew how that poor girl felt. It was exhausting being afraid all the time, looking over your shoulder, waiting for it to happen.

&#x200B;

When Melissa hit me again, I didn't resist and let myself slump against the wall. I knew what she was going to do to me. She had practically told me. I would have gotten into the car myself if only she had asked me, but she wasn't the asking type. She just took. A life here, a life there, it was all the same to her. And the weird thing was, I still couldn't hate her.

&#x200B;

When she pushed the needle into my arm, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I was so tired after everything. The last thing I remember thinking about was my cat Ernie I had when I was a kid. Ernie died of renal failure at 18. He died in my arms, and had made biscuits on my sweater up until the end when the vet came to our home to do the euthanasia. My mom wanted to delay it another day because he seemed so content, but Ernie had lost so much weight my father said it wasn't fair to him and the vet agreed with him. I remembered how peaceful Ernie looked afterwards, as if he was sleeping.

&#x200B;

And now, I thought, I will go to be with him.

&#x200B;

"It won't hurt at all," a woman's voice said. "You won't feel a thing."

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

"She gave you just enough to make you sleep," Melissa's cousin told me.

&#x200B;

"And you saved me," I said, "again. How did you know what she was going to do?"

&#x200B;

"I had been keeping an eye on her every night ever since you guys showed up at the diner, so it wasn't so much luck as perseverance," he said. "I knew she was planning something, I could tell."

&#x200B;

"So you suspected her?"

&#x200B;

"All along. She killed my dog when we were kids, and I guess I saw through her unlike most people."

&#x200B;

He told me he had been inside her apartment that night, and had used his phone to record her admitting she killed Seth. He hadn't expected her to try to **** me. But when she pushed the needle into my arm, he panicked and realized just as I did that she was fixing to do to me what she had done to Seth. He fought her to the ground and told her he would tell the police who killed Seth, and then he took me to the ER to make sure I was okay. When he went back to Melissa's apartment to confront her again, the police were everywhere. Apparently, she had driven her car into the wall of the parking garage and had died on impact.

&#x200B;

"What about me?" I said. "What I did?"

&#x200B;

His face became blank and **** looking. "I don't know what you're talking about. Melissa's gone, what more can justice ask for?"

&#x200B;

"You saw through her, it's funny you don't see through me too," I said.

&#x200B;

"I see that she lied to you and you fell for her **** just like all the others like I've been seeing my whole life. She was my dog's favorite human and she killed her for nothing."

&#x200B;

"But if I told you..."

&#x200B;

But he didn't want to hear it.

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

We've been married now for ten years and he still refuses to talk about it. I can feel him look at me sometimes, as if he was doubting his own eyes. One night he told me I looked like Melissa.

&#x200B;

"You were in love with her weren't you," he said, just a little accusing.

&#x200B;

"She was my best friend," I said.

&#x200B;

"No, I don't mean in that way. I mean, you really loved her. Like a lesbian thing," he said.

&#x200B;

I laughed. "Did you just say 'like a lesbian thing'? What're you, fourteen years old?"

&#x200B;

\*

&#x200B;

"Maybe," I said, "you were a little in love with her yourself. You know, like an **** thing."

&#x200B;

He didn't deny it.

&#x200B;

"I mean, why else would you help her **** her fiance," I said.

&#x200B;

See, ten years is a long time, long enough for me to have finally figured out some things.

&#x200B;

"And she was the only one who knew so you killed her," I went on. "I bet if there had been anything left of her to do an autopsy on, they would have found some pretty interesting stuff."

&#x200B;

He didn't say anything and neither did I.

&#x200B;

And so we were even.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Everyday i'm visited by two birds. One brings good news. The other brings bad.
 
 Assistant: They were there ever since I could remember. As a child, I would awaken to the soft chirping of birds filling my room. I would rustle in my blanket until I was falling the two that sang to me, perched on the window-sill. I'd lay in bed until their song was over and I was able to start my day, but their song carried more than just a pretty tune, they brought me predictions. 

One of the birds was a dove, its beautiful snow-white feathers caught the light of the sun so gracefully. It's bright blue eyes, deeper than any ocean, would observe me as I listened to its song. The dove always sang first and within its song, would be the prediction of something good that would happen in my life. 

The birds didn't actually say anything but when their song reached my eardrums the predictions acted like memories. I could recall things that happened that day, even though they hadn't happened yet.

The other bird was a raven. Its ruffled feathers were darker than the spaces between the stars and seemed to soak up the sun. It has beady red eyes that reminded me of the blood moon. After the dove was done the raven would sing when its song reached me I would have a memory of something bad that was going to happen that day.

No one ever believed me about the birds. I would try to call my parents into the room as they were singing but my parents never saw them. Even if they were in the room at the same time, so my parents started referring to them as imaginary friends. Since no one else ever saw these birds I started to believe them. It didn't matter what I believed though, the birds would continue to visit me like clockwork and tell their tales.

Their predictions always came to pass. When I was younger the predictions were simple and generally innocent. Like when the Dove sang that the school would be serving pizza for lunch and the Raven retorted that I would get a papercut in math class. Sure enough, I would walk to school and at lunch, I'd be given two slices of pizza. I'd be so content from lunch that I would carelessly pull my textbook from my backpack and a loose page would slice my finger open.

It just goes to show you how simple middle school really was, even back then 'bad news' wasn't typically that bad, the cut hurt but it healed in no time. The Dove even told me the next morning that I'd get ice cream for being such a brave little girl, the Raven said I'd forget my pencils at home.

Even if the predictions were things I could easily alter, I never seemed to be able to. Like the day I just mentioned, I made a note to grab my favorite pencil before I left. I was so focused on remembering to do it that eventually, I sort of just thought I did until I got to school and discovered no pencils in my backpack. 

As I grew older I came to understand that what the birds considered to be 'good' or 'bad' news was relative to my outlook. For example, when I moved with my family and was forced to attend a new high school two years into my high school education, I was a bit of an outcast. You know the story, new kid in school becomes the target of ridicule from the queen bee. This Queen was named Casey Matthews and I grew to hate Casey.

One morning I sat up in bed and listened to the day's news. When I heard that Casey Matthews was going to fall in Gym I was a bit surprised. I thought it was weird that the Raven went first as the Dove always took the lead. When I turned to the birds however, the Raven had just started its song and told me that I got a failing grade on the science test. I didn't want to think I was the type of person who would relish in another's pain so I dismissed it as a fluke.

I had done worse than just getting a failing grade on my test, I had gotten the lowest score in the class and was called out by the teacher for it. I could hear Casey snickering to her friends at the other end of the room. It put me in such a foul mood as we shuffled off the gym-class, we had to play basketball, something I was no good at.

Everyone was running back and forth as I slowly paced from one end of the court to the other, I was watching Casey like a hawk. I wasn't even thinking of the prediction, I was just so fed up with her attitude. Even as everyone was trying to play the game she mocked some of the heavier students all while barely participating. She caught me looking at her and I shot her a fake smile, she rolled her eyes and turned away. As she turned the basketball whipped by her head and while it didn't hit her, it did throw her off balance. 

I watched as Casey Matthews frantically attempt to keep herself upright but only managing to make the fall even worse. Her legs flew out from under her and even though she was able to put her hands in front of her face, the meeting between her face and the ground was audible throughout the large room. I couldn't help but genuinely beam at the event, biting my lip to stifle the laughter that was trying to crawl out. A few of the students ran over to help her up and when they pull her face from the floor thin trails of blood trickled from her nose.

Even from where I was standing I could tell it had broken and would create a nasty yellow bruise all over her face. That made me happy, the Dove knew it was something worth singing about, Casey Matthews, was a ****.

Up until now, I have kept the appearances of my birds to myself, ever since my parents labeled them as imaginary. Lately, however, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the songs they have been singing to me. Just about a month ago I lost my mother to an extensive battle with cancer, I knew before I even left the bedroom that she had died. The Raven made sure of that. What did the Dove sing for that day? That my mother was no longer going to suffer. Guess one event can carry multiple weights.

After she passed, I and my dad tried to carry on, it was hard to live life without her but we decided she wouldn't want us to dwell. The birds were kind to me, The Dove would sing of something grand that would take place, like my uncle taking me on a short road trip. The Raven's song would carry only small irritations, like getting something stuck in my teeth. I needed time to heal and the birds knew that.

Until my father got sick too. Only two weeks after my mom had passed her started going in and out of consciousness and had to be hospitalized. I was so angry, I am still so angry. I couldn't understand why I would have to lose one parent only to watch the other start to fade. I became bitter from all of this and would lay in bed, clutching the fabric of my sheets and when I woke in the morning I would hear the birds singing. The Dove would sing to me that 4,307 people were going to die in a car accident that day.

I was shocked that this is something that the Dove would tell me until the Raven informed me that dad had to spend another week in the hospital. I'd have to suffer another week without my dad at home but he wouldn't be driving home that day like he was supposed too. The news boiled down to “A lot of people are going to die today, but your dad won't”. The way it was delivered is what worried me and it only got worse.

The next morning the Dove told me that I would get a present in the mail and I was pleased that the Dove's song was actually pleasant. The Raven, however, informed me that I wasn't the only thing that could hear their songs. I was perplexed but I couldn't do anything about it, I can't converse with the birds, I can only listen. I wondered why that would be bad news.

When I went to leave the house I saw the present the Dove mentioned sitting right outside the front door. A small package poorly wrapped in hideous green and blue paper that was dotted with various snowflakes. I brought the gift inside and pulled the paper away from the box, sliding a knife through the tape that held it shut I revealed the contents.

I stood for a while looking at the snow white feather that laid on the brown cardboard, a feather that held the light of the sun with a familiar grace. The day flew by, I could only think about the songs I heard in the morning, about what else was listening to the songs. I became so concerned that something was invading this moment that I thought, made me special. These birds were mine and no one else was supposed to listen to them. I wanted to get home, I wanted to sleep so I could try to get more information from their songs.

With the help of a few sleeping pills, I was able to get to bed earlier than usual, my dreams were vivid. They were of the dark, but the dark was made from the feathers of the Raven, they danced by me and tickled my face until I sprang up in my bed. Immediately I turned to the birds sitting on the window as the Dove began to sing. It told me that I was going to live to see another morning and the Raven informed me that, it was getting closer. 

I got up from my bed and started walking towards the window but as I approached the birds took off and vanished from my view. I stood and watched out of my window, the world was unmoving like nothing wanted to earn my ire. Looking down at the window-sill I observed something I had never noticed before. The tips of my fingers ran over the small grooves that had been etched into the wood by the birds taking off and landing every day. I knew then that they weren't just something from my head, the birds are tangible but other people just don't see them.

Foolishly, I had forgotten that the news the birds deliver to me is based on my state of mind and what's relevant to me. So as I continued to stress over what the Raven was referring to, they continued to sing about it. The Dove was right, I'd live to see another morning, several in fact. Another few days went by and no here I am.

In the past few days, the songs went something like this. The Dove sang that I wouldn't have to water the garden. Which was true, the rain that day did it for me. The Raven told me that It was going to find me that day. I don't know if that played out but the Raven was no liar.

The next day, the Dove told me that my dad was going to call. He did, he told me how proud of me he was and that he hopes he gets well enough to come home soon. The Raven sang to me, while I was fidgeting with the feather that had been delivered to me. That I was going to forget to lock the back door. Which, I regrettably did. When I left the room after those songs I walked downstairs to find tracks of mud all through the house leading to my door. 

I couldn't decide on what the tracks were, they didn't look like anything a human could leave behind but the path it took didn't seem like an animal. It ignored the garbage, dirty dishes in the sink and the fridge. All things I assume a scavenger would be interested in. I couldn't figure out why it had stopped at my door. I still don't know.

Yesterday, the Dove sang to me and told me that it- the Dove told me that it would always watch over me. The Raven said that they couldn't protect me. The birds didn't leave the window for a while after their songs. They just kept chirping away, like they wanted me to remember what they sounded like. 

All of yesterday, I did my best to be productive. I went to see my dad, we talked for a long time and he asked about the birds. He asked me what they said would happen. I told him they didn't really say anything too special. He laughed, and then he asked me about the dog. For a minute I was confused, I thought possibly his mind was wandering so I pressed about it. 

He told me that before I told them about the birds at my window, I would wake them up crying every night about the dog in my room. He couldn't remember how I described it with my limited vocabulary, only that it was as horrific as a child could make it. He told me he and mom would console me every night. 

I started to remember as he went over the details, the memory playing in my head as if sung by the birds. The black pajamas my dad would wear, the white flowing gown mom wore to bed, how I would run to their room every night. How they both held me and told me that they would always watch over me. My parents always tried their best to keep me safe, my mom taught me to see the brighter side of things and my dad, always stern, taught me the negatives were important too. 

After my mother passed away, the birds started to get weaker and with my dad's fading health, I just don't think their songs are loud enough anymore. I left the hospital and returned home to finish cleaning the house. Every inch of it spotless. As I sat in my room last night and watched out the window I could see it in the yard looking back at me.

I understood why as a child I called it a dog. That was probably all I could come up with and even now I don't know what else to call it. I couldn't see it too well in the dark but whatever it is was hunched over on all fours but its body was large and looked to have scraps of skin peeling off of it. The things eyes were yellow and glowing like spotlights, I'm glad I didn't have to see it in great detail. 

I wanted to write this all down before it gets too dark, this morning I woke up and listened to the songs my birds sang to me. I tried not to spend all day in bed, I tried to think of some way to go against the predictions but it's never worked before. So I did my best to make peace and try to get down what I could, put it out there. I called my dad and told him I loved him and now here I am. The songs playing in my head over and over.

The Raven sang to me that the creature would be in my room tonight like it had been when I was a child.

The Dove told me, that I would be with my mother, once more.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I remember a horrifying VHS tape from my childhood and I'm hoping to find it again
 
 Assistant: I don't like horror movies. In fact, I don't like anything horror. The sensation of being scared doesn't appeal to me. If I had to elaborate on why, and I typically did as a teenager when friends wanted to watch scary movies, I would say I saw enough as a kid and now they bore me. 

Except that wasn't entirely true. The truth was there was a VHS that contained a strange mixture of cartoon and live action scenes that I watched at my grandma's house as a kid – and they horrified me. If I had to guess on the release date of the footage, I would have to say sometime from the 1920s-1930s. I would sometimes ask friends if they knew what I was talking about and I would receive a glimmer of recognition and understanding in response. Who hasn't seen a creepy old black and white cartoon after all? 

But when I continued to explain what I remembered from that old VHS tape, the recognition would slowly disappear from their face. Even while I described it, I knew it didn't make much sense: A egg-shaped man walking down the road with his arms waving all around the sky. A swan who's neck sways back and forth to the music in the background. Then, intermittent flashes of terrifying live action footage. The audio consisted of mostly music with heavy static except for that one moment with the screaming man.  

It was nonsensical and similar to describing a dream that has all the importance to you but little meaning to anyone else. People would shrug their shoulders and say they don't recall anything strange like that...oh was it *Roger Rabbit*? No, this was not *Roger Rabbit*. 

Regardless, I loved visiting my grandma when I was a kid. My mom would drop me off Saturday and come back for me Sunday, giving me and grandma all weekend to do fun things together. 

She had a garden in the backyard where she grew a lot of different fruits and vegetables; so a fair amount of our Saturday morning was spent there. If my mom tried to get me to eat a tomato at home, I would balk, but my grandma's tomatoes were delicious when fresh off the vine. Even a six year old boy could know quality when he tasted it. 

Then there were the mall trips which were too exciting for a sugar loving kid like myself. We'd go to one of those colorful candy shops where she'd buy me a small bag of gummy worms. Then it was to the clothes store which always made me groan and try to convince her that I never again needed a new wearable piece of fabric. But I had to go through the motions of trying on a pair of shorts here and a set of pajamas there. 

As the sun set we would be back in her house. My grandma always had to go to bed early and to keep me entertained, she would direct me to her comfy floral couch and turn on the tube TV that was on top of a tall stand. She'd go to the bookcase where she kept her VHS tapes and choose the tape that was specifically for me. This was the one with the strange footage that she always showed me. 

As a child, you tend to go with the flow. I shake my head looking back at how accepting I was when she would put the TV on and stick the VHS in the VCR. She'd pat me on the head and say she's going to bed. I nodded and braced myself while also hoping that magically, this time, something else would be on that TV. She'd press play and then would leave for her bedroom.  

The TV flickered in its usual way and the title card appeared, but I couldn't read the words at that age. That old sounding music kicks in and the egg-shaped man comes strolling down the white road, waving his spaghetti arms around.  His mouth is in an O-shape and his arms reach so high up it goes past the top of the screen. In front of him walks the swan with the neck that looks uncomfortable when it bobs and bends to the music – which sounds almost like pure static with some trumpet.

I was always mesmerized at this scene. The flowing animation and the bad audio. Something about it made you keep watching.

Then the cartoon cuts out and a real human skull fills up the TV screen. This is the point I would jump in my seat no matter how ready I was for it. The gaping eye sockets and the jaws that – like all human skulls – had a terrible expression that looked like an excited smile. 

The camera would pan out and slowly reveal the rest of the skeleton. There's no music now and the only audio is the sound of static popping noises. The video starts to zoom out and you see the entire skeletal frame on the screen. I was positive the skeleton would jump up or try to talk. It looked so alive with its jaw partially agape. 

At this point I would grab my legs and look over my knees. When you're a kid, basic things seem out of reach. The entire house had its lights turned off and getting up would mean walking into the depths of its darkness. There was no light near me and even the thought of turning the TV off was terrifying. As though I'd upset some system and something – or someone – would be angry. Plus, I don't even think I could if I tried with how high up it was on the TV stand. 

The screen goes back to the cartoon: the broken-necked goose and the egg-shaped man (still waving his arms around) with the poor audio recording of the horns. At this point, a dancing bow-legged skeleton appears. They move about the dimensionless white space. The nonsensical dancing goes on for minutes before the music stops and all you can hear is the static popping sound again. All the characters look at the viewer – as though to make sure you were still watching. 

A deformed face appears. 

No longer a cartoon again, the face's lips were curled back and it was groaning on the screen. Looking back I wonder if it was a sick man. As a child I saw it as a zombie: Its skin all decaying and missing in areas around his eyes and checks. The camera slowly zooms out and it shows that it's walking towards the camera, groaning and stumbling. 
	
Now my knees are tight against my chest and tears are making their way down my cheeks. I imagine the zombie grabbing me and rubbing its face against me. It will **** me this way and it will take me somewhere horrible and dark – far away from everyone I know. 

The zombie disappears and it's back to the cartoon. A mummy has joined in on the meaningless movements: the swan continues to sway; the egg-shaped man waves his arms; the bow-legged skeleton dances; and the mummy begins to unwrap itself. The latter rocks back and forth while taking the bandages from around its midsection to its neck. I felt like they could see me. I was positive their pupils were watching me and making sure I was paying attention so that I'd witness the next live action interlude:

The screaming man. 

He's covered in blood and yelling “no...please...no” while something off screen hits him. The camera is too close to his face to make out what is actually happening and his scream sounds like a primal guttural sound that I've never heard from any other human.

I would rock and sob freely at this point. I'd think of what I'd give to not have to watch this. I would give my favorite action figure to have grandma wake up and interrupt this; even if only to use the bathroom, so that a light could be turned on. Anything to break up the images on the screen. 

The cartoon would come back and all the characters are gone save the mummy. He's hanging from a  noose at top of the screen made with his own bandages. He sways slightly and a title card comes on that reads: *The End*. 

After laying in the subtle light of the television's static, I would eventually fall asleep on the couch. The next morning my grandma would always ask me why I didn't make it to the guest bedroom. I'd say I fell asleep watching TV, but in actuality I was too terrified to make the impossibly long nighttime trek to the bedroom. 

Sundays were spent around the house. She'd give me crayons and I'd show her what I drew. Mostly houses and stick figures of people with the occasional shark. While relaxing like this at the kitchen table my mom would pick me up and back home we would go. 

I went there about once a month and every time I went it seemed like a brand new excursion. I wouldn't think about the cartoon until she was ready to retire for the night. 

On one of the days when my mom went to come get me, her and grandma ended up in the bedroom arguing. They kept it fairly quiet so I couldn't make out what they were saying from the kitchen. I lazily drew some fish around my shark when my mom came out in a huff and told me to say goodbye. I gave my grandma a hug and we got into the car and drove home. 

Like most kids, I didn't keep track of familial visits and it took a while before I realized I hadn't seen my grandma in years. When I was a few years older I asked my mom if she still talks to her. She looked up from the *Better Homes and Gardens* issue she was reading, “Grandma has a lot of things going on in her life and visits are hard for her.” 

I could tell she did not want to talk about it. I vaguely missed her, but at the same time it was easy to accept the reasoning that she was too busy for visits. Nine-year-olds will believe most explanations. 

It wasn't until I was thirty-six that I went back there again. My grandma had died from a **** and I received word from my mom that I could take a walk-through of the house to see if there was anything I wanted. 

I couldn't believe I would see the inside of that house again. Even as an adult I still remembered those cartoons, but not as vividly; they seemed more like memories from a dream. Maybe I could find the strange VHS and see it through an adult's eyes. The thought made me oddly excited regardless of the chill that went through my body. Even seeing that couch again would be unreal. 

I went there with the copied key my mom had given me and walked through the front door. Immediately the smell of the house sent me back to all those years ago of picking tomatoes and drawing with crayons. I remembered the house being so large, but now it seemed cramped and small. I made my way through the kitchen and stopped for a moment to look at the round table and reminisced those lazy Sundays. 

I then went to the living room and sat down on the couch. No HDTV, the tube TV was still here. Being in this house again with the same furniture was surreal. How could so little change? 

I went to the bookshelf to try to find that tape. Above the row of a vintage hard-cover encyclopedia set was a row of VHS tapes. I looked through it and found some old classics like *Gone With the Wind* but couldn't find a tape that matched what I was looking for. I made sure it wasn't hidden behind any of the other tapes or books before I moved on to my grandma's bedroom. 

Why I thought it might be in there I'm not sure, but I didn't want to think it was missing. I searched through the closet and some drawers. I looked under the bed but it was just shoe boxes filled with old letters and cards. I sat on the edge of the bed and scanned around the room. I saw something that only an old lady would have: a makeup table and chair set. I sat down in it and looked through the drawers in the table. Some half used and new makeup but no tape. 

I continued to sit there and started reconciling the fact that I wouldn't find it when my shoulder rubbed up against a picture frame with pressed flowers on the wall. It was a strange place to have a picture considering it was only four feet above the floor. I picked it up to look at it closer and that's when I noticed behind it were two small holes in the wall; a faint light was coming out of them. It looked like someone took a long electric screwdriver and stuck it through twice.

I looked through the two holes and in perfect view was the floral three-cushioned couch where I used to watch that horrifying cartoon. I sat back in the chair and thought for a moment. It's possible these holes would be seen on the other side if you were looking, but the flowery wallpaper surely camouflaged them well. I looked through the holes again and saw the couch and television a washed in the morning light rays. Very different from how I experienced it. 

Staring at this scene, a realization swept over me. I began to feel very cold and didn't want to consider the idea anymore. I looked at the picture frame I had taken down: pressed red carnations arranged in a flattened bouquet. I placed the frame down on the floor besides me. 

I leaned over and put my head down into my folded arms on the makeup table. I wanted to stop my train of thought but I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, the terrible images kept making their way to me: 

All I could see was a scared little boy sitting on that couch. He was wet from his own tears and hugging his knees to his chest. He was desperately hoping for grandma to come rescue him, but deep down, he knew she never would.  

[****](https://www.reddit.com/user/ExitiumElements/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Fuck oranges
 
 Assistant: We were at the bar for Connor's twenty-second birthday when the world first began to fall apart. It started with an absurdly small detail; I ordered two Blue Moons for us like always, but he picked the orange slice off the rim of his glass with a frown. I looked down at the one on *my* glass and asked, "Something wrong?"

His frown momentarily changed to a look of disgust. "I hate oranges."

That was odd, since it had been our ritual since his twenty-first birthday to always get that brand together when we were out at the bar because *fruit's good for you! Therefore, this beer is healthy!* But it was his birthday and he could do what he wanted, so I didn't ask about it. Rebecca, however, had already had a few. She cut past the group conversation to proclaim, "But isn't the orange the healthiest part?"

Connor shook his head. "No way. Oranges are gross."

Across the table, Dan said, "Oranges are great, man. They're nature's candy!"

Rebecca's older sister Shannon was with us that night; she countered, "No, *beets* are nature's candy." When we stared at her blankly, she asked, "Doug? You know, the Nickelodeon show Doug? With the dog, Porkchop? Best friend Skeeter? Everyone in that world loved beets?" When we only vaguely recalled the show she was talking about, she threw her hands out in defeat.

Near us, an older regular was watching a television above the bar. He sneered. "Man, I'll tell you what's wrong with this country. It's them." He pointed at the screen. "I hate 'em." Around him, fellow regulars cheered, and he grinned with pride. He held his hands up high and said, "Round of shots for the whole bar! On me!"

And that was all I really remembered of the first night things began to unravel. After that, my memories got blurry, and I woke up under a villainous beam of sunlight with overwhelming nausea and a killer headache. My first mighty act of willpower was to close the blinds and hide us from the monstrous Sun; Dan was on the floor of my room under my computer table, and Rebecca was in the hallway swaddled in every single blanket the house had to offer.

With relief, I saw that Connor was propped up on his bed by an array of pillows that kept him on his side. A trashcan below him was filled halfway up with ****, and Shannon sat in the corner on her phone. Upon seeing me, she said, "Oh, does your head hurt? Good. He's all yours now. I'm going home and going to sleep."

I was left to take care of the birthday boy, which admittedly was much easier now that he was half-awake. The one thing I did ask him during his stupor was: "Do you really hate oranges?"

"Always have, man," he groaned.

And I was left feeling as if our roommate ritual for the entire last year had been some weird sort of lie that he'd grown tired of carrying on. I stewed on that feeling for the rest of the day. What if he didn't really consider me a friend? What if he was just humoring me because we were roommates? It felt as if my entire position in the group was in jeopardy, as if the way I thought of myself was under threat. It was a gnawing, lonely, and terrible feeling that kept me up all Sunday night.

On Monday, I downed coffee and sat morosely at my computer. This was my first job after graduation, and I was finding it unfulfilling. Did we even do any real work? While my coworkers spent most of the day huddled around a meeting room television watching the news, I could only think about the orange issue. By the end of the work day, I'd decided to cave.

I was the first one at the bar that evening, and Dan sat next to me about twenty minutes later. He looked at my stout and said, "No Blue Moon today?"

"I, uh, hate oranges," I lied with a grimace.

To my surprise, he said, "Me too."

That was weird. "Didn't you say they're nature's candy?"

"Not even close." He looked to be rather offended. "Oranges are the highest carrier of disease among all fruits and vegetables."

Mortified, I asked, "Seriously?"

He folded his arms. "Yup. Absolutely disgusting fruit."

That was a bold enough claim that I put down my stout and picked up my phone. After a few searches, I began to grow very confused. "Citrus greening, citrus canker, citrus black spot, *gross*. Sweet orange scab. How have I never heard of these diseases before?" The pictures were horrifying. "Oh, but wait, these only affect oranges and are not dangerous to humans."

Dan just shrugged. "Science says a lot of things are safe, then suddenly they find out they're not. I'm not eating *anything* that looks like that."

I didn't agree with him, but the images had still unsettled me. Maybe there was a reason to avoid oranges after all. The rest of the gang showed up soon after, but the disturbing images never truly left my awareness.

Later that night as we all spilled out of an Uber in front of my place, we were laughing and joking again as normal, and I was starting to feel a little better. I'd overblown the whole issue, really. There was nothing to worry about. These people didn't secretly hate me, and I did belong.

Across the street, one guy began yelling angrily at another. The Uber pulled away, removing the barrier between our group and the guys; we saw them push at each other, scream back and forth, and then begin trading punches. This was a nice college-age neighborhood where nothing of the sort had ever happened before. What were they thinking? We stared until they noticed us. Abruptly, they stalked off and returned to their separate houses—next to each other. They were neighbors.

"How ridiculous," Connor said with a laugh before leading us inside. "We'll have to make sure not to invite them over next time we have a party."

He didn't seem to be in any sort of deceptive or bad mood, so, once we were all sitting around the kitchen table drinking water, I took the opportunity to ask him about what had been bothering me.

"Yeah, I do hate oranges," he told me. "You'll never catch me eating the **** things. They're like, the biggest carrier of disease among all fruits and vegetables."

"Never?" I joked. "What about the last year of us getting Blue Moons?"

He tilted his head at that. "I never get that beer. It comes with an orange slice, and I hate oranges."

That was when it finally occurred to me that something was seriously wrong—either with my memory, or with the world. No longer smiling, I said, "We've been getting that beer every time we go out since your birthday last year when that hot girl that night thought your joke about it being healthy was hilarious."

His expression darkened. "That never happened. I don't drink Blue Moon."

"That's how I remember it," I insisted flatly.

"Then your memory's messed up," he retorted, growing strangely angry. He balled up a fist between us. "I never drink that ****. I *never have.* You stop saying that **** now. Oranges are disgusting."

Rebecca and Dan watched us in awkward silence. I figured I had one more back and forth within the bounds of politeness; I decided to make it count. "Dan, you remember us getting the orange slices with our beer, don't you?"

Dan stiffened in his chair. "Oh don't bring me into this. I hate oranges too, always have. I wouldn't hang out with people who didn't."

I stared at him. "*What?* What the **** does that mean? Since when is this such a big deal?" I turned to Rebecca. "You remember, don't you? That whole exchange with your sister about oranges versus beets on Saturday night?"

She kept her eyes on her water and did not reply.

Connor stood and approached me with menace. "Look man, you've been a good friend for a long time, but you're gonna have to cut this **** out if you wanna keep hanging with us."

Was he serious? How could he possibly be serious? I looked to Rebecca and Dan, but neither one met my confused gaze. "I was just joking," I finally told Connor. "You know, messing with you guys."

His face immediately lit up. "Oh, ****, you got me good!"

"Ahh, yeah," I laughed with him, secretly terrified.

Rebecca and Dan finally looked up, relieved, and the mood immediately went back to happy and carefree. I hung out and pretended to be normal until everyone finally went to bed—Rebecca in her room downstairs, and Dan and Connor in the hallway next to my room—before I finally had a chance to investigate. For the first time in months, I closed and locked my door. The wonderful atmosphere that our house full of friends had started with was now one of fear and suspicion. I sat in the dark in front of my computer and began to scour the Internet in search of answers.

I'd seen enough science fiction to hazard a few guesses. Was I in the wrong reality somehow? Was my timeline changing for some reason? I didn't know enough particulars about history to see if anything was different on Wikipedia. No. This was my room. My credit card worked, and my social security number was correct. If reality or time had changed in even the slightest way, those randomly-generated numbers would have been different. This was my world—just *changing* for some reason.

And because of that small and utterly inconsequential change, my home life and friends group were on the line. Was I going crazy? The only conclusion left was that *I* was the problem. Something was wrong with my memory or belief that had left me at odds with those I cared about.

Just then, as I sat in the dark, I heard my door **** turn—and fail to open, since I'd locked it.

Someone had just tried to come into my room.

And something told me it wasn't for cuddling. It had been a subtle and stealthy attempt. On a horrified hunch, I quickly and quietly opened my window and slid out into the night. Five houses down, I saw a roof ablaze—someone's house was on fire! What the **** was happening?—but I couldn't worry about that at that particular moment. Peering in another window, I saw a silhouette of darker darkness move near a gleam of metal.

Someone had just tried to come into my room—with a knife.

The silhouette disappeared into deeper shadow, leaving me with no identity beyond the fact that it had to have been one of my roommates. How in the ever-blazing **** had a like or dislike of oranges come to such a point? This was *not* normal. This was *not* natural.

Crouched out there in the chilly night, illuminated only by the house-fire five lots distant, I was forced to face the only conclusion left: something supernatural was going on. As soon as I truly entertained that notion, the fire-lit darkness felt suddenly far less solitary. Were eyes upon me? Was something watching me even then? I found it hard to believe that hating oranges was the primary goal of whatever was happening—rather, just the side effect of a slowly creeping insanity or possession of some sort.

There was nothing to do about it at that particular moment. I didn't feel safe outside, but I didn't feel safe back in my room, either. I barricaded the door and windows and found only the least satisfying half-awake form of sleep. In that odd mix of dreaming and waking, images of diseased fruit tortured my awareness.

I didn't get a chance to catch Rebecca alone until Wednesday. She was the first to show up to the bar that evening, like Dan had been on Monday, but she seemed uncomfortable and apprehensive. After she looked over her shoulder for the third time at the entrance to the bar, I asked quietly, "Are you afraid, too?"

Her gaze spoke volumes; she bit her lip, looked at the door again, then told me, "Just stop **** around with the oranges thing, alright?"

"What *is* the oranges thing?" I demanded in a whisper. "What is going on?"

Half-panicked at my questions, she insisted, "Just tell them you hate oranges, alright? Just freaking tell them you hate oranges! Stop asking about it, stop poking at it! I like my life! I like you guys! I like my house! Stop disrupting everything!"

I grabbed her hand as it lay on the table between us. "I just want to *understand.* Where did this hatred for oranges even come from? What is going on that is making our roommates act like this?"

She finally looked me in the eyes, and I saw bloodshot exhaustion there.

"Wait," I whispered. "Have you been sleeping poorly, too? Bad dreams?"

Her eyes opened a little wider; she went to speak, but she saw someone come in the back door of the bar and quickly pulled her hand away from mine. Connor fell upon me rather forcefully from behind, but only to wrap his arm around my shoulder and neck. "Ooh, what are you two lovebirds up to?"

He knew we weren't a thing anymore. What was his problem? Following the cue from Rebecca's masked terror, I said, "Just talking about how much we hate oranges, bro!"

Connor **** his neck toward her. "Is that so, Rebecca?"

She didn't speak. She just forced a smile and nodded weakly.

"Awesome, awesome," he said with genuine relief. He let go of me and sat between us. "I knew you two would come around."

Dan arrived soon after, complaining of a vendor selling oranges he'd seen on the way over. "Grossest pile of disease you've ever seen." He shuddered.

I looked to Rebecca, but she silently warned me to just go with it.

And I did. For the next hour, I carefully observed Dan and Connor, trying to figure out what was going on with them. It wasn't until I went up the bar to get Rebecca and myself more drinks that I saw something that chilled my soul. A girl took a picture of three of her friends to my left; the angle was such that my table was in the background. While waiting for the drinks, I happened to glance at her phone.

My table was indeed in the background. There was Rebecca, there was Dan, there was Connor—

And someone else.

I only saw her phone for an instant before she turned away, but I was certain enough to surreptitiously turn around and pretend I was texting while I angled my camera up at my friends.

There, among the crowded patrons of the bar—and shown only in choppy frame-by-frame rendering—was the shadow of a person bent down near Connor's ear.

As I stared at my phone in paralyzed terror, that shadowy head tilted up, as if it was looking at me with concern. Rather than react and give myself away, I shouted to my friends, "Picture time!"

The silhouette turned a half-step and vanished as if a gust of wind had dissipated it in one fell swoop. My friends smiled and made faces; the flash irritated a few surrounding patrons, but I'd gotten away with it.

And there *was* something among us. Holy Christ, a literal shadow whispering in Connor's ear—murmuring insidious words of hatred, no doubt.

But why oranges?

That Wednesday night, at 8:42 PM EST, a runaway car crashed into the front of the bar, smashing all the windows and killing a woman. I know the exact time because the police forced us all to give statements before we could go. We'd been across the entire bar and had only seen the aftermath, really, but I was still pretty unhelpful. All I could think about was the shadow lurking among us.

As the Uber pulled onto our street that night, I absently studied the blackened shell of the house that had caught on fire five lots down. It was still smoldering, and it looked like nobody had come to put it out. In fact, it looked like nobody lived there at all. Looking left and right, I noticed that half of the houses on our street had no cars in their driveways. We weren't so fancy as to have garages.

Was the lurking shadow driving people away? Why hadn't anyone said anything? Were they even conscious of the shift in tone of our community? It had been the best time of my life until suddenly neighbors were getting in fistfights in broad daylight, my roommates had developed a random weird hatred, and houses were burning down without anyone calling the fire department.

We sat in silence around the kitchen table for at least ten minutes. Shaken by the car crash that had killed someone across the bar, Rebecca finally spoke. She murmured, "I hate oranges, too."

Dan and Connor moved to her and hugged her tight. "It's alright. You're one of us. We'll always be here for you." As they held her, they glanced at me a few times, and I joined the huddle to avoid starting another fight.

I wondered if the shadow was there with us, embracing us the way we were embracing Rebecca. I could even feel the issue clouding in my mind. Did I hate oranges, too? I mean, everyone else did. And those pictures of diseased oranges *were* disgusting. Had I really liked orange slices with my beer this whole last year? If I had, I might have just been horribly mistaken. Misled, even, by beer advertisements. Those ads never said anything about the diseases oranges could catch. That was odd, wasn't it? It was like they didn't want me to know. It would hurt their sales for me to know.

These thoughts plagued me that night and all the next day. At work on Thursday, while my coworkers randomly cried in their cubicles or had hushed discussions that broke up as soon as a manager neared, I sat on my computer and researched paranormal possessions and hauntings.

One of the things I learned was that *demonic* beings—that is, entities from a religious sphere of ideas—hated signs of **** and good, and tried to get those they were trying to possess to destroy crosses and pour out holy water and the like.

That made sense.

But if the being haunting my friends, my house, and my street was not from the religious sphere, but perhaps a different space—what if *oranges* were a representation of the things that made it vulnerable? If this was some sort of anti-nature spirit, maybe it was pouring hatred of oranges into my community because oranges could drive it away.

But that was crazy. I actually laughed out loud in my cubicle as I internalized the idea, and one of my crying coworkers looked at me like I was a monster. "Oh, sorry!" I told her, grimacing awkwardly. "I was just thinking about something else." She glared and rotated away in her chair.

Thursday night wasn't one of our usual bar nights, so I was at home when Rebecca's older sister Shannon stopped by. It was for something trivial, but on the way out, I caught her on the porch. I needed reassurance. "Hey, Shannon, you remember that whole conversation about oranges versus beets last Saturday?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah. What about it?"

I gulped. "So that *did* happen?"

"Yeah..."

"And Connor and I have been joking about orange slices for the last year?"

Narrowing her eyes, she said, "Yes. Why?"

"I don't know," I told her truthfully. "I'm just starting to doubt my own reality. I had to be sure."

She scrolled through Facebook on her phone, then showed me a picture. "Look, it's the two of you on his twenty-first birthday last year, when I was designated driver *as usual.*"

In the picture, we were both holding our beers forward, orange slices on full display. The hot girl who had sparked the entire tradition was sitting next to Connor, exactly like I remembered. "It's real." I looked up at her. "How do you *feel* about oranges?"

She grimaced, but not out of disgust. "What? Why? They taste alright I guess."

"Seriously. What's your opinion on oranges, beyond just whether you personally like their taste?"

"Neutral?" she replied. "I literally don't care. Why would anyone have an opinion on oranges unless they're like, a botanist or a farmer or something?"

That was an incredible point, actually. "I wish I knew."

As she turned to leave, we began to hear a commotion at the end of the street closer to campus. We were only a few blocks away from campus, and still close enough that street vendors often passed this way. When I saw an older man pushing a cart of oranges being surrounded by a group of my peers shouting profanities, I knew exactly what was happening.

And I could see Dan and Connor among them.

Rebecca came out onto the porch at hearing the violent shouting, and the three of us stood staring as the mob began to push at the unfortunate cart owner. We started running toward the fray after Dan sent a wild punch—and the man fell. The mob was screaming with furious bloodlust and stomping en masse by the time we got there.

But the cart owner was fine, if shaken.

The mob was stomping his oranges.

It was some eerie otherworldly version of a group ****. Bits of orange peel flew this way and that with the force of the stomping below, and fruit juice splattered across clothes in every direction. The gore would have been ****-inducing had it been human; as it was, I was still mortified by what was happening. These people, my friends and neighbors, had become rabid animals full of irrational hate.

Shannon looked at me in confused askance.

I shook my head. I had no idea.

But Rebecca, terrified as she was, chose to join in. Running forward, she started screaming profanities and stomping on the last of the oranges while the others began cheering. Soon, they would notice that we had not joined in.

"Shannon, you better go."

She took my advice immediately and began walking away toward her car.

Covered in the juice-blood of his victims, Connor glared at me with the eyes of a devil. "Why aren't you helping?"

"I got here too late," I lied lamely.

Dan, his gaze red with anger, fixated on me as well. "There's one left." He held his arms out. "Everybody leave that one." He pointed down. "Come on."

I needed to buy time for Shannon to escape, but I also knew I had to live with—and sleep near—these people. The thought of that silhouette with the knife promised no good end for anyone that defied the group. It might have been the shadow itself that had picked up the knife—but it also might not have been.

The cart owner looked at me in terror from down on the sidewalk as I approached his last orange. "Please, no, why you do this? *Why you do this?* I just sell orange. Please no!"

I closed my eyes and stomped.

The orange splattered under my shoe, and arms grasped me from every angle as my neighbors jeered and cheered. I opened my eyes and shook with shame as the cart owner got up and ran off. Dan lit a match and set the wooden cart on fire while the others began dancing. I had no choice but to dance with them. They wouldn't let go of me. They shook me and made me chant with them and tested me constantly to make sure I wasn't faking. To get through it, I had to temporarily convince myself they were right and that oranges were an abomination. To get through it, I had to give up part of myself, and, after, I returned to my room, locked the door, and sat crying under my computer table.

But then, I got angry.

I got *mad.*

I was not going to let my community be consumed by this madness. The entity whispering in our ears would *pay.* I was a *man*, goddamnit, no longer a boy, and I didn't have to grin and bear it. These people weren't my parents.

I got in my car and drove the way the cart owner had gone. I found him five blocks down, forlorn and sitting at a city bus stop. He began to panic as he saw me, but I held up my hands peacefully and asked him a question that immediately changed his mood.

I didn't make enough to save any money, but I had a credit card. I bought the entire rest of his inventory, and took it all home with me. When the crates didn't fit, I just plain dumped the oranges in my trunk and back seat. My car would smell like fruit for months, I was sure, but it had to be done.

When Dan got home that night, I caught him behind the front door and held a knife to his throat. "Sit down," I directed, tying him up on a chair in the kitchen.

He shouted when Connor got home, but it was too late. I put Connor in a chair, too, and tied him up. Then, I stuffed clean socks in their mouths so they wouldn't warn Rebecca.

I didn't grab her. I didn't tie her up. I simply held the knife and said, "Sit."

She nervously took the third chair.

I'd thrown the oranges from my car all about the kitchen. They were on the table, on the floor, and in the sink. I picked one at random, peeled the skin off, and held it in front of Connor. "Eat it."

"Why don't you make me?" he spat.

"I won't." I told him. "But I also won't let you out of this chair until you take a bite of a **** orange."

"They're disgusting!"

"We used to eat them all the time."

"That didn't happen!"

"It did." I showed him the picture on my phone of his birthday the year before.

He frowned. "Is that photoshopped?"

"It happened!" I screamed in his face. "Eat the orange!"

He pulled his head away. "They're the highest carriers of disease among all—"

"Yes, yes I know the sound bite," I yelled. "It's wrong! Those diseases aren't dangerous to humans, and this orange isn't diseased! *Eat the orange!*"

"But we hate oranges," Connor insisted, indignant. "Right guys?"

Dan bit down on the sock in his mouth. "Mm-hmm."

Connor looked to Rebecca.

About to cry, she hid her face and did not respond.

Connor seemed more shaken after that. After gulping down hesitation, he warily took a bite from the orange. He blinked. "Oh. It's... fine."

Dan seemed surprised, and Rebecca just cried harder.

I pulled the sock out of Dan's mouth and held the other side of the orange. "Try it. If you hate it, that's fine, I'll let you go either way. Just try it."

Seeing Connor break, Dan hesitantly tried a bite, and then pushed back in his chair. "That doesn't taste like I remember. I swear it used to have a horrible antiseptic taste."

"No," I told him. "Our heads are being messed with! We just attacked a street vendor and stomped on his oranges because we've been worked up in a frenzy of hate. Does that make any sense to you objectively?"

Blinking as if waking up from a dream, Dan began to look horrified. "Oh my ****, we did do that, didn't we? What were we thinking?"

Connor looked up at me with the same guilt. "Oh man, I—" He cut off as his eyes jumped to something behind me.

That warning gave me just enough time to shift to the side. The knife went into my left shoulder, and I slipped on rolling oranges and fell to the floor on top of a splatter of my own blood. Above me, I could see a knife dripping with red—and the shadow of a man beyond it. Its hollow eyes were red.

Dan and Connor began screaming and fighting their bonds as the shadow stepped near, but I'd tied them in too well. The shadow's red eyes moved from me to their squirming bodies, as if it was deciding which of us to **** first.

"What do you want?" I screamed at it. "What the *fuck* do you want?"

Those red eyes swung to me and seemed to bore into my soul. A sinister chill raked across my senses as it whispered, "*Buy lemons.*"

I stared. "Buy lemons?" I hesitated. "Why would you even care about that?"

"*I don't,*" it rasped, bringing the knife nearer. "*It is simply what my master wishes.*"

It couldn't be so absurd as that, could it? Had some lemon-farming company hired a demon-worshipper and summoned an entity from beyond our world just for *profit?* Had they brought the incarnation of Hate among us just to *make money?*

But it was that simple. It had always been that simple. Why else would anyone do anything?

It moved to stab me—but Rebecca leapt against it, and a piece of the shadow tore out where she passed. It screamed in pain, dropped the bloody knife, and grasped at the hole she'd made. Darkness sifted out of its wounds like black sand falling from a sideways hourglass; it flared its red eyes, hissed venom, and vanished.

It had gone.

The demon that had been among us and whispering in our ears all week had gone.

We all remained frozen in shock for thirty seconds before Dan snapped out of it and said loudly, "Would someone *please* untie me already?!"

We did, and then we patched up my arm.

As a group, we didn't know what else to do, so we went and sat at our regular table at the bar. It was early on a Thursday, so few other people were there. We didn't get Blue Moons, but not because we hated oranges—no, our house was full of hundreds of the fruit, and would smell forever.

"I can't believe it almost got us to go from loving oranges to hating them in less than a week," Connor murmured sadly, crouched over his drink.

I shook my head. "I even doubted myself there for a minute. Did things I'm not proud of."

Dan looked up at us. "What even hurt it? Why did a being made of Hate get wounded by Rebecca just moving through it?"

She looked at me; I looked at her. We both looked back down at our beers. She'd hadn't just moved through it. She'd jumped at it because of me. We both knew the answer, but that was private.

Near us, an older regular was watching a television above the bar. He sneered. "Man, I'll tell you what's wrong with this country. I hate—"

The four of us shouted in unison. He jumped in his chair and looked over at us.

"Don't," I told him calmly and sadly. "Please. Just don't."

He watched us for a moment, then, subtly embarrassed, he gave a slow haunted nod and turned back to his drink.

---

[Blog](http://mattdymerski.com/) [FB](https://www.facebook.com/MattDymerskiAuthor/) [Tw](https://twitter.com/MattDymerski)[.](https://imgur.com/a/wdqgV)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My dad sold my soul to the devil
 
 Assistant: Yup, just about as crazy as the title sounds. 

My dad is what they call a "macho man". 

All he wanted was sons. He lived and breathed for "another Keller boy." Naturally, when my older brother was born, he was overjoyed. Three years later, he begged my mom to have another son. When he found out we were twins, he was excited to have three sons. So when my brother and I came out, and he saw that I was a girl, he was despaired. I've always been his least favourite kid, and he never tried to hide it. 

While he named my brothers Anthony and David, which mean priceless and beloved respectfully, he named me Lilith, which literally means night monster. 

While my brothers and mom tried to soften that direct punch to the gut by calling me Lili, he insisted on us all calling me Lilith, so I could "feel the disappointment that he felt the day I was born." 

Clearly him and my mom did not stay married, and quite unfortunately he signed for full custody when Anthony was five, and David and I two. Things just got worse from there.

If he took Anthony and David out to eat or to see a movie, I was to stay home. He spent all his time playing sports with my brothers, and wouldn't let me join even though I, as a girl, actually showed a genuine interest in what he was doing with my brothers.

When I was four, dad got cancer. And from what I heard, it was supposed to be terminal. 

That's where the title of this story comes into play. 

Yup, he made a deal with Satan. 15 more years of life if he sold one of his children's' souls. And big surprise, he chose me. So once I die, it's off to ****, no matter how little I sin or how much I pray. 

The first time I remember something happening to me was about a month after my dad made that deal.

I was in my tiny, cramped room, trying to sleep on a bed I outgrew years ago, while my brothers and dad watched a movie downstairs, when I saw it.

This thing in my closet. 

It was pale, with gaunt, sunken eyes and a gaping mouth. It's long and bony fingers wrapped around my closet door. 

There was no question that this thing was a demon. 

I immediately cried for my dad, who stormed up the stairs and gave me a proper beating for interrupting his movie night with his kids. After that, he called me a little girl for crying and locked me in my room. 

As I cried all that night, the demon simply watched me from the closet, unmoving. 

Demons watching me were pretty normal from then on. 

Sometimes it would be the pale gaunt thing in my closet, other times a dark figure hovering over my bed. And on bad nights, a horned figure with glowing red eyes would stare at me, taunting me through the window. 

After a while, I stopped being scared of them.

One night when I was nine, the gaunt creature was back in my closet, staring at me while I read. He began to make this really weird growling noise, to which I shushed him. He then did something he never did before. While he would occasionally wrap his hand around my slightly ajar door, he never actually came out of my closet. Until that night. In one swift movement, he tore open my closet door and stood up fully, revealing he was taller than the ceiling itself. He bent his neck in an abnormal way to fit under the roof.

I rightfully should've been **** my pants at this moment, but for some reason, I just wasn't that scared. We locked eyes for a while, which was more awkward than scary, so I just went back to reading my book. 

He just looked at me curiously for a while, until my dad decided he wanted to be a horrible person again, and threw open my door to yell at me for something or other. The entire time the demon just watched. Thankfully my dad left after slapping me across the face, but I was crying again for the rest of the night.

The demon, who now looked at me with something more than curiosity, looked back at my closed door, trying to see my dad. As I did nothing but sob, the demon just sat down beside my bed, towering over me. Neither of us looked at each other the rest of the night, I cried while he just stared off in the distance, but I wasn't alone, and that was all I cared about. 

From then on things changed. 

I wasn't just not scared of the demons, I welcomed them. Especially the gaunt looking one who sat by me that night. He would sit with me whenever my dad was bad to me, or whenever I had boy troubles at school. He never talked at me, and barely ever looked at me, but all I cared about was that he was there for me.I even gave him a name. 

Papa. 

I remember this one night, I was fourteen, and upset because Jacob, the boy I liked, didn't invite me to the Valentine's Dance at our school. On top of that, my dad had gotten into one of his moods, and had thrown a chair at me. 

When I ran into my room, I was almost relieved to see Papa crouched by the closet. 

"Papa!" I cried, running to him. It was ****, I know, I was calling a literal demon papa, but I had nobody else. He was the only one who had ever shown me any sympathy. 

At first he stepped back, but as I cried even harder, he looked at me in the eyes, maybe for the first time since that night he stepped out of the closet. 

Then he did something surprising.

He hugged me back.

 As I felt his icy cold hands wrap around me, I should've been terrified, but I was filled with love. Love, for finally finding a dad who loved me. 

But one night, as I was reading To **** A Mockingbird for my school project, I made a mistake. Papa looked curious, so I decided to read out loud to him. I guess I made too much noise though, because David opened my door.

"Lilith, who the **** are you- WHAT THE **** IS THAT!?" He screamed, and my dad came rushing up. Papa couldn't hide in time, and now, Anthony, David, and my dad all stared him down. 

He stood up, revealing his giant stature, and David began to cry, while Anthony froze in place and my dad ran off to get a vial of holy water he had kept by his bed ever since the deal was made. 

As I tried to run away with Papa, he stopped me and shook his head. We both knew it was too late. I cried as I hugged him goodbye, and as my dad approached us with the holy water and sprayed it on Papa, he let out a blood-curdling screech that could've been heard across the country. 

I watched in horror as Papa, who had stayed by my side all these years, faded to nothingness. 

"There." Dad said. "It can't hurt us anymore, sons." He said, embracing David and Anthony in a hug.  I just laid over Papa's lifeless body, uncontrollably sobbing. We were all so caught up in our own worlds we didn't notice something come up behind us. 

He was large, even bigger than Papa, and had two large horns, a goat's head, and a large stick in his hand. 

Dad turned around slowly, looking to this thing as he glared down at my abuser. 

"Your majesty, I-"

"We had a deal, Stanley. I granted you 15 more years of life, on two conditions. TWO!" It boomed, and I noticed David had wet himself. 

"It was a misunderstanding, sir, my daughter-" 

"You were granted 15 more years of life, on the conditions that I get your daughter upon her death, AND... you never harm anyone, ever again. Do you understand?" It asked.

"Yes, and I haven't. Promise." 

The creature laughed. "First you break a promise, and now you lie? To his Satanic majesty himself? Seeing you have not only harmed your daughter her entire life, but have killed one of my best minions, you have broken my trust. I'm breaking off the deal." 

My dad got down on his knees. "NO, please I'll do anything." He begged.

Satan looked at me. "There is one way; if Lilith, your daughter and the one you cursed, forgives you. I will set you free, and you will live the rest of your life."

My dad slowly turned to me, and put on a smile. "Hey, Lili, what about it? Look at me, I'm your dad. Your papa. I raised you. Don't you love me? I'm your dad, for fuck's sake!" He said, getting more agitated as I stared at him.

"It's up to you, Lilith." Satan said.

I looked to Papa's body on the floor, then back to my dad. 

"Come on, you gonna believe Satan, or your dear ol' dad?" My dad said, pleading to me.

I glared at him. "My dad is dead, ****. You killed him." I said. "I don't forgive you." 

And with that, Satan dragged my dad down to the netherworld, my brothers and I hearing his screams until it was far away enough that it faded away, to where he could never hurt me again. 

As my brothers cried in the loss of their dad, I walked back to Papa, on the ground, and kissed his forehead. 

"Goodbye, Papa. Thank you."

 Human: write a story with the theme title: The Russians dug the world's deepest hole, now I know why.
 
 Assistant: _On the 24th of May 1970, the Soviet Union started a project that would be known as the Kola Superdeep Borehole (Кольская сверхглубокая скважина). Although it has been long since abandoned the hole still exists today, and measures about 40 000 feet in depth._


_Be it for research or whatever claim have been told; The Kola Borehole is not the only time Russia dug further than they should have, and several holes can still be found today, unprotected in the desolate Russian wilderness._


___The biggest mistake of my life is going down one of these holes.___


***


A year ago my work took me to a small Russian fishing village located in Siberia. It’s a tiny place populated by no more than 200 people, most of them fishermen or hunters.


It wasn’t the first time being a scientist had gotten me into strange situations. I’m a geologist, which is not important for the purpose of this story, but I have experience in search and rescue operations back home in the United States.


My Russian language abilities were less than satisfactory, and considering only two people beside my crew spoke English in the village, it was a challenge to say the least. However, with the right spirit and willingness to share a bottle of ****, they were some of the friendliest people I’d met in my entire life.


I particularly enjoyed the company of the village’s only ‘police’ officer, Vadim, who happened to speak at least a basic level of English. His job mostly consisted of escorting people home after they had a bit too much to drink, although he oftentimes partook in the drinking rather than stopping it. Needless to say, we quickly became good friends. 


We rather enjoyed ourselves in such a bizarre world, cut off from civilisation. At least we did until the ninth month of our deployment.


___One of the local’s seven year old daughter had gone missing.___


Her name was Daria, and she had been out playing with her friends around an old abandoned building widely believed to be a soviet era silo. The whole structure had been closed off for almost forty years and forgotten, yet the children loved hanging out in the area.


On that particular day the ‘silo’ was open. The doors were broken down which revealed a large room full of ancient equipment, and a large, dark hole in the centre. 


The hole measured about 50 feet in diameter, and the depth was unknown. There was a basic elevator platform in the centre of the hole, like something used for descending mines. All that could be seen was endless darkness reaching into the abyss, Daria had fallen into it.


I immediately knew in my heart that the fall had killed her. A fall that deep, even if the bottom was a pool of water, it would be lethal. 


The other children insisted that Daria had called out for help after falling into the hole, which gave out false hope to the terrified mother. 


It was the first time I had seen Vadim efficiently work to put together a rescue operation. Calling for official aid so far out was a hopeless task, even if they sent help they would arrive too late. 


Seeing as I had some experience in that field, alongside basic first aid, I volunteered, as did one of my colleagues, Stanley.


While the mechanics attempted to revive the old machinery, Including the elevator, I attached a sinker to a line in hopes of measuring the depth. The line wasn’t long enough to determine where the bottom was, even though the longest ropes combined measured almost 1000 feet.


After a couple of hours the mechanics announced that the elevator was ready, but they had found some sort of protective suits. According to the few documents found in the facility, the atmospheric pressure was quite high and the temperatures reached up to 150°F. 


I knew then we would retrieve nothing but the body of a little girl for the family to bury. 


“Gotov, ready?” Vadim asked us. 


The suits were poorly fitted to our slightly untrained figures and chafed in places I didn’t know it was possible. We entered the lift, which was protected by a rusty metal cage full of holes. 


We were given only one walkie-talkie to communicate with the people on the surface, in addition to some old flashlights. 


“We’re ready, lower us down.” Stanley said.


The gears running the elevator platform started churning, a clunky sound echoed through the room down the hole. There was a small screen on the elevator with numbers signifying the depth. It was an excruciatingly slow process, no more than a foot per second. However, the change in atmosphere was imminent. 


___We descended…___

_100 feet:_  
Darkness had already enveloped us, the weak flashlights we had brought along hardly provided any comfort.


“You think this is dark, wait till you see winter in village.” Vadim said, his usual dull humour.


Me and Stanley both faked a chuckle.


“Would you please check if the radio works, Vadim?” I asked.

“It works, no worries.” He responded.


_500 feet:_  
The walkie sounded for the first time since our descent almost ten minutes ago, the Russian was heavy and the static made it incomprehensible to a novice such as myself.


“What was that, Vadim?” I asked.

“Oh, they just ask how deep we are.” 

“Shouldn’t we be able to hear them talking? We’re only 500 feet down.” Stanley asked.

“Yes, something strange here.” Vadim said.


Other than the electrical hum of the ancient elevator, and the sound of Stanley nervously shifting his weight, we couldn’t hear the chatter of people just above us.


“Very strange.” Vadim mumbled to himself.


Something about Vadim seemed off. I had never seen him worried like that before.


“Guys, is it getting really warm here or is it just me?”

“Yeah, I’m sweating bullets already.” I responded.


_1000 feet:_

_“Pomogite!” A soft voice cried out from the depths below._


“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?”

“Someone called for help from below.”

“I hear nothing.”


I put a finger to my lips, gesturing for silence while listening attentively. Then I heard the voice again.


_“Help!” The same voice, but slightly louder._


“There it was again!”

“Yes, I heard it.” Vadim said. 

“Hold on, they called for help?”

“Yes, you heard it too?”

“Of course, but it was in English.”


It wasn’t too unusual for the children to pick up on an English word or two while we were visiting, but this wasn’t that, it didn’t make sense for a young girl to know that word, not in a tiny Siberian village. 


Vadim called out for the voice, but no one responded. 


“**** it, can we make this thing go any faster?”


_4000 feet:_  
More than an hour had passed and we couldn’t see the bottom yet. It had been quite some time since we heard the voice and I had developed a throbbing headache from the heat.


If someone had really called out from the bottom we should have reached it already.


“Guys, I see light!” Vadim announced. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Light, at bottom, look!” He frantically jumped up and down while pointing towards the darkness below. 

“There’s nothing there, Vadim.” Stanley said. 

“How can you not see, it’s so bright!”


I glanced over at Stanley in confusion. My first thought was that Vadim was going crazy due to the heat and darkness. 


_5000 feet:_  
None of us had said a single word since Vadim told us about the light. Our moods were descending much faster than the elevator, on top of that my headache was almost killing me.


Out of nowhere the elevator stopped, shaking violently in the process. It knocked me straight to the floor and I was out in an instant.


A few seconds passed while I came back to it, and I saw Stanley lying unmoving next to me. Vadim, however, was nowhere to be found. 


“Stan, are you alright?” I shook his shoulder. 

He grunted as he sat back up. “What the **** just happened?”

“I don’t know man, but Vadim’s gone!”

“What, where did he go?”

“I don’t know, he just vanished.”


We looked around, there was no way out of the elevator, although there were a few holes in the metal cage surrounding us it would still be impossible for a large man such as Vadim to get through. 


“Hey, I found the walkie.” Stanley said. 

“Try calling the surface.”


He called for help, but static was the only response. We tried to call out for Vadim, but he was far gone. The elevator started descending again. 


“**** this, let’s go back up.” Stanley pleaded. 

I clicked a few buttons on the panel.

“How? The controls are broken, only the ones at the surface work.”


He started screaming for the people up top to bring us back, but we both knew there was no way they could hear us all the way down there.


_10 000 feet:_  
It had taken more than four hours to get that deep, the heat getting worse for each feet descended. I had already passed out a couple times from dehydration, despite having brought an ample amount of water. 


“Why haven’t they brought us back up yet?” Stanley asked with a weak voice. 


He was quite a bit older than myself, so he was rapidly deteriorating from the heat.


“I don’t know. Is it even possible to be this far down?”


Stanley didn’t respond. He had fallen unconscious, but I lacked the energy to wake him up. 


I was about to pass out for the nth time myself. I was only jolted back into consciousness by what sounded like singing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, in Russian and I didn’t understand what it was about, but it was so serene, so pure. 


“Stan.” I called out with my fading voice. “Can you hear that?”


“Who’s singing?” He mumbled, half asleep.


A light appeared in the depths, and the singing got louder. 


“I see it! The light!” I said.


The elevator stopped once more. Stan was gone. Just like Vadim he had vanished into thin air, but the light remained, the beautiful warm light. It started moving towards me, and the closer it got, the more at peace I felt.


The light ascended until I saw nothing but the brightness surrounding me. 


Then there was nothing…


***


I woke up in a hospital one week later. I had been found in the middle of a forest in eastern Russia, by a pair of hunters. I had no documentation or proof of who I was, and as they claimed: My story didn’t add up. 


No such hole existed according to public records, which wasn’t much of a surprise, but when I dug deeper I realised the village I had stayed in for the better part of a year wasn’t even on the map. 


The ordeal had taken a toll on my mind, leaving several gaps in my memory, though I could recall a few phone-numbers for my colleagues. 


When I called them their numbers were all either disconnected or reached completely unrelated people. 


After a lengthy investigation I was allowed to travel back to the United States on an emergency travel document, my finger prints matched some documentation of my existence, which helped; Not criminal records mind you. 


When I returned home I discovered that my house was owned by someone else, and had been for at least ten years. It took me a long time to figure out what had happened, but some changes were too big to be a horrible coincidence. 


Putting aside the personal changes I’ve experienced here, even world history doesn’t match what I remember studying. Geography is vastly different, heck there’s an entire continent missing from the map. 


Denial is a powerful tool. It took me months to come to terms with a very simple, yet complicated fact…


[___…this is not the world I belong to.___](https://www.facebook.com/richard.saxon.author/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I’m a dentist for monsters and last night I took on a new patient.
 
 Assistant: I’m going to get straight to the point. Monsters are real. All of them. You might think you know a lot about them but you don’t. The stories and legends got so much wrong and I’ve had the privilege of getting to learn the truth about most of them. 

For example, no self respecting vampire would be caught dead - or alive - standing at your door waiting for an invite. And shapeshifters do not change once a month and howl at the moon. That’s just ridiculous. And the popular ones are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Do with that information what you will. 

One thing that the stories did get right, however, was the teeth. Sharp, crowded, tall, tiny. They all have them, and sometimes they need attention. A monster without teeth loses a huge percentage of its scare factor in an instant. It’s something they pay handsomely to avoid. 

That creature that’s haunted your nightmares, the one with a few too many teeth? Real. And probably in acute **** pain. 

My name is Dr Dayna Danworth and I own a dental practice for the paranormal. 

It wasn’t what I expected when attending dental school, to be sometimes shoulders deep in some of the most putrid and awful smelling mouths you’ve ever seen. But the opportunity fell into my lap and it more than pays the bills. The money is worth the risk and I get to live very comfortably.

Regardless, the risk is very real. I was reminded of that last night during my appointment with a new patient. It left me somewhat shaken; a rarity in my field.

Some of my patients are able to present as human for at least enough time to make it to the practice without issue. To the general public it looks like your average, private, city dentist and the daytime patients are generally the easier ones to deal with. 

This particular patient was not able to feign humanity. This meant overnight work, something that I was no stranger to but that I always detested. Overnights and the rare *home* visits generally always yielded difficult patients. 

Thankfully I was able to charge double for the inconvenience, triple if I had to travel. Often the astronomical price turned out to be entirely justified and this was no different.

My receptionist, Coco, had booked him in. I love her to pieces and she’s a true friend, who has the best of intentions, but she’s truly terrible at the basics of her job. She never collects the relevant information for new sign ups and doesn’t ask any questions that might prepare me. 

If it weren’t for her relentless charm I would have fired her years ago. But Coco has been with me from the beginning, has her own skill set and despite my frustrations she’s here to stay. 

Mr Eurastix was booked in for 11pm. He wanted the full cover of darkness for his arrival. That was all Coco knew. Blackout blinds down I prepped the room, knots forming in my stomach. 

“Dayna, do you want a coffee?” Coco shouted from the front desk, where she watched the security camera waiting for our arrival. 

“Water’s fine.”

“You’re mad aren’t you. I’m sorry Day. How the **** are you supposed to ask someone what kind of monster they are? I feel rude.” Coco was always worried about offending, it was sweet, but useless. 

“You could at least ask what the problem is! Didn’t you learn from the incident with the woman of the water. Traipsed me all the way out to a rock pool with a bag of tools and no informa-“ 

My rant was cut off by the sound of the buzzer. My patient had arrived and he was stood just outside. Coco shot me a guilty and apologetic look and approached the door to unbolt it.

Within milliseconds she was floored and totally winded. The door was left swinging with not a soul to be seen. Great. 

I squinted, searching for a minuscule creature, or something translucent perhaps, but nothing. Instead there was a sinister, high pitched voice from behind me, inches from my left ear. It sounded like one of those cringe worthy, over enthused children’s tv presenters and it made my skin crawl.

“Nice to meet you Doctor! My name is Mosaph Eurastix. You can call me Mo if you prefer.” 

His presence cooled the immediate area around me and Coco wrenched herself up from the ground to bolt the door shut. I would’ve gone to help her, but I assure you she’d faced much worse whilst working with me and I felt there were more pressing matters in the moment. Instead, I turned to face my newest patient. 

I understood immediately the need for darkness. 

Mo wasn’t a big, hairy creature. He was far more humanoid than I expected from a patient requesting an overnight appointment. He wore a floor length hooded cloak swamping his seemingly average body. 

But Mo had a fleshy face.

He had striking red irises, with pupils that were shaped differently to a human. Over the top of his eyes was a thin, fleshy layer that created a veiny, translucent veil. As if an eyelid had formed but never separated, leaving him with his own protective eye windows. 

The same paper thin skin veiled the opening to his mouth, ever so slightly muffling his high pitched words and failing to conceal a perfectly circular arrangement of small, razor sharp teeth. His mouth didn’t move like you would expect, instead the voice projected from the back of his throat and through the skin. 

Where most people would be horrified, I was fascinated. There’s a certain point in an industry like mine where you’re entirely desensitised to the horrific sights of these monsters. I’d never seen one like Mo before. I wasn’t scared, more curious.

“Welcome Mo. I think you owe my employee here an apology don’t you?” I stared him firmly in the eyes. “Dr Danworth.” I stretched out a cautious hand. This was something I did often, I was always fascinated to see their hands. Mo’s were like mine. Except for the thin, veiny pieces of skin that connected each finger. It made a change from the array of claws I’d become accustomed to. 

“I do apologise, I was merely concerned that I might be seen. I didn’t mean to cause any harm! That could’ve caused some trouble.” He laughed.

The excess skin was everywhere. The more I looked at him the more I noticed. It covered his ears, connected his lobes to his head, covered his nostrils and seemingly his actual skin beneath it and even webbed his chin to what I presumed was his chest under the cloak. It was a mess. 

“Can I get you a coffee sir?” Coco beamed, unfazed as ever. It was the kind of moment that reminded me why I kept her around. Top notch customer service, however useless her admin was.

“Not for me, thank you. In fact that’s partly why I’m here, as you can see I have some restriction drinking at all.” He lifted his webbed hand, flesh covering the fingernails and stroked the delicate skin that covered his mouth. 

“Let’s get straight to it then, follow me.” 

I lead Mo into my treatment room, winking at Coco as a signal for her to keep an eye on the treatment room camera. He took a seat on the chair and I turned my lamp on. The bright light shining through the flesh made for quite a sight, illuminating the perfectly circular jaw underneath the clung on skin and creating ghastly shadows. 

“Please tell me a bit about yourself and what I can do for you.” 

“Woah. I wasn’t expecting a date doctor. What do you want to know?” His voice was cheeky and came laced with giggles but something about it still made my skin crawl. It was as if Mo **** all the joy out of the room; some of them had that effect. 

“And you aren’t going to get one. But I need to know about your specific afflictions and diet etcetera in order to treat you correctly.” I watched as Mo became visibly uncomfortable at the prospect of explaining what he was. “Don’t worry, there’s no judgement here.” 

“Well doc, I don’t always look like this for a start. It’s never gotten this bad before. Usually the skin appears... then it hardens and... I eat it.” 

He looked at me as if I was supposed to be in some kind of deep shock, but I’d kept geckos as a kid. When a gecko sheds its skin it does it in one go like it’s taking off a tiny cardigan, then they consume the remains. It’s highly nutritious. Mo’s red eyes were quite reptilian. I stupidly thought at that stage that I had him all worked out. 

“So you need some assistance with removal? I work with teeth Mr Eurastix, not the rest of the anatomy.”

“You just need to cut this, doc.” He nonchalantly pointed at the flap of skin stretched across his circular jaw. “The rest should dislodge easy then you can get to work on the teeth.” 

“And what appears to be the issue with those?”

“Isn’**** obvious? I did tell your receptionist.” Mo rolled his red eyes behind their horrendous fleshy windows.

*For **** sake Coco.*

That’s what I thought but I didn’t say it. I would never lament her in front of a patient. I inspected what I could see of the rounded jaw and gathering of pointed teeth through the lamp and tried to ponder what he could possibly want. 

“I’m sorry, Mr Eurastix, but I haven’t worked with anyone with your particular afflictions before. You will have to bring me up to speed.” 

“Well I don’t subsist entirely on my shed, doc. My teeth were designed for a purpose but they’ve lost their... edge. Part of the reason I’m dealing with all of... this.” His eyes brightened with a ravenous hunger and he pulled at the skin connecting from his chin.

“So you’re looking for a sharpening? May I ask what you eat?” 

I was curious. I make it my business to catalogue each monster that I work with for my own personal research, but I couldn’t liken him to any other. He wasn’t reminiscent of even an old urban legend. I couldn’t place him but over the years I’d come to understand that most were defined by their bite. It was always a good starting point.

“I eat brains.” He answered in the most unassuming voice I’d ever heard. 

I’d had worse, but this was new. Was he what your average person might describe as a zombie? I had been certain that they were nothing but a myth. I would’ve regretted it had I not asked the question but that still didn’t prepare me for the answer.

“No!” Mo laughed a high pitched, false and cold laugh. “What I am is *far* worse than the laughable construct of a zombie. All we share is diet. Nothing more. Now I think it’s time you got to work, doc.” 

I gulped but didn’t respond. I picked up my scalpel and prodded at the excess skin covering his rounded jaw with the point. Despite its delicate appearance, even with force it remained infallible. Within minutes I found myself viciously stabbing at my patients mouth. 

Yet another occurrence I hadn’t expected in dental school.

I placed the scalpel down and walked over to the locked cupboard in the corner of the room. It was the one I used to house my *special* tools for special cases. Mo didn’t even flinch when I returned with a diamond tipped drill in my hands. 

My second attempt was more successful. The drill met some resistance and created an awful noise in the process, but after breaking a sweat it finally pierced the layer, sending grotesque blood and unidentifiable matter across the floor.

The smell that filled the room was indescribable. I dropped the drill on the side as I heard Coco gag at the front desk. It almost stunned me enough to stop me catching Mo’s next move. 

Each flap of excess skin started to pull and tear away from its position on his face and hands, moving upwards from beneath his cloak and making it very apparent that he was covered head to toe in the stuck shed. 

He **** in with the ferociousness of an angry Henry hoover as he consumed his own flesh as it ripped to reveal fresh, raw skin. The scene was truly horrific. But as the thin windows of skin peeled away from Mo’s eyes to reveal a brilliant scarlet he looked truly satisfied.

That’s what I want right? Satisfied patients. 

Placing a new face mask over my mouth and nose I attempted to combat the smell that had saturated the first one. 

“Better?” I asked, as Mo slurped the final bloodied pieces of himself down. He nodded with glee. 

“I can’t wait for a real meal now. I’ve been sooo hungry.” He looked at me like dinner. I held in **** as I tried to get a look at his now unobstructed teeth. 

“Well if you want to enjoy a real meal then you won’t make one of me before you’re teeth are done.” I laughed nervously and he delighted at my discomfort. 

“Are you scared of me Dr Danworth? I thought you were experienced. You came highly recommended by the Beast of Cordyline Hill.” 

Of course I did. I **** hated that guy. He was the patient I always dreaded and now he’d sent me another living nightmare. 

“Not at all Mo, just a joke. Shall we move on with the sharpening?” 

I could see that he knew I was lying. Although he couldn’t contort his circular mouth it was in the eyes. I’ve found that even in the most monstrous of eyes there is emotion. People say that they’re windows to the soul, but they’re also windows to the soulless. 

I picked up my file and got to work. 

The jaw was solid and perfectly fused into its shape. Lining the entire edge were around 80 roughly three inch long, incisor shaped teeth. They had clearly been blunted with time, but it didn’t make them or him any less intimidating. 

They sharpened up with ease. Grinding against them I felt like some sort of Classical Greek sculptor. Carving my masterpiece.

I tried not to give too much thought to the poor victims that would fall prey to those particular teeth. I couldn’t work out how he got to the brain but I was certain that it wasn’t pretty. Nasty, but natural. Think of it like the food chain of the animal kingdom; it’s just the part no one talks about.

I put my all into my work and soon found myself faced with a perfect set of monster gnashers - if I do say so myself. 

“You’re all done Mr Eurastix. Would you like to take a look?” I lowered the circular mirror slowly and he snatched it from my hands at a similar speed to how he’d entered the practice. It took me aback a little. 

With his red raw hands he ran his fingers along the jagged edges of his teeth, checking that each individual one was to his liking. It made me incredibly nervous, watching him scrutinise my masterpiece. 

“They’re perfect.” He uttered under his breath. 

I smiled sweetly, determined to get the patient out of my practice and into the world... away from me.

“I’m glad you think so, you can make payment at the front desk with Coco.” I turned my back to him to tidy my equipment for mere seconds. A rookie mistake.

Seconds were more than enough.

I felt a harsh pulling on my hair accompanied by suckling noises. It was painful, each individual strand being tugged hard from the end, roots snapping. ****. I screamed. The slurping noises coming from behind me intensified. 

*THUD*

With one final tug on my hair Mo hit the floor and I turned to see Coco standing over him with a large ceramic tooth that usually decorated reception. She dragged him out of the treatment room and into the entrance as I tried to tidy my hair with my fingers and compose myself. 

I tried to remain professional but I found myself hyperventilating.

“What do you think you’re doing sir? The doctor here provided you a service, now please pay up and leave.” Coco bit at him the moment he opened his creepy eyes. These were the moments that I was best reminded of the reasons she retained her job. 

Mo looked up at her in shock, steadying himself on his raw hands.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me doctor. I’m just so hungry, and I’m sure you’ve got such a juicy brain.” He stared me dead in the eye with his bright red irises and extended an equally bright red tongue, licking each sharp tooth gently. Menacingly. 

His tone wasn’t genuinely apologetic at all. Desperately shaken I waited with baited breath as he reached into his cloak pocket and handed a stack of cash to Coco. 

“It’s time you leave Mr Eurastix. I can recommend a colleague in the industry for further appointments but I won’t be continuing to treat you.” I opened up the bolted door and gestured for him to leave. 

“Oh doctor, whether or not you treat me we will meet again, I assure you.” 

After a lingering glare Mo lifted his hood to cover his face and stepped outside into the dark night. 

My relief soon turned sour. I hadn’t noticed the drunken gentleman walking along the path, but Mo certainly had. 

I watched in abject horror as he grabbed the man by both shoulders and latched on hair first to the back of his head. The man screamed in pain, pleading. The awful slurping noise was unbearable. 

I ran towards my patient but before I could make it outside to try and help he latched his ring of fangs around the man’s scalp. The bite was followed by an almighty crunch, deadening the screams. 

There was no hope for the man. 

Mo slurped at the inside of his crunched skull as if it were a delicious fresh oyster. He moaned and groaned with intense pleasure as he chomped down on the contents of the head. When he was finished he dropped his victim to the ground, hollowed out, and turned to me.

“Thanks doc, I feel so much better now. I’ll tell the Beast you said hello.” 

He practically chirped those words. Then he was gone. Disappeared. 

Mo had moved so fast and destroyed the passer by with such deadly precision; I realised that if he had wanted me dead then I would have been. And his final words, about the Beast. It made me wonder if the Beast of Cordyline Hill had sent him in the first place. 

Coco made a call to PSEC, or for those who don’t know *The Paranormal Services Emergency Cleaners* to dispose of the body. They were swift and professional... as always. 

It’s terrible, but this hadn’t been the first fatality on my watch because of a patient, and my guilt was unfathomable. 

Today I’ve spent hours pondering why I continue to do this job. Why I put myself at risk of death on a nightly basis. But in all honesty it’s quite simple. My fascination just won’t allow me to quit. 

Adding my notes on Mosaph Eurastix to my research files I felt electrified. [Another monster for my collection, and I can’t wait to find the next one.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePickledGnome/)

[The old hag.](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/i02zeh/im_a_dentist_for_monsters_this_patient_was_a_real/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: Weird shit I've seen as a Marine 1
 
 Assistant: Growing up playing video games and watching war movies, I didn't think twice about joining the Marines so I could be in the infantry. I went through all of the training and unwelcome hardship that makes you *really*  reconsider your decision. Anyway, I got stationed to a desert base known as 29 Palms - the largest piece of militarily controlled land in the US. It covers approximately 930 square miles in total. It's **** huge, in Southern California, and a few hours from Mexico. When you're out that far, you start to see some ****.

Anyway, fast forward to my first field op and me losing my ****. To put things in perspective as to how far away we are from civilization... the closest man made object is a 3 hour ride away. This day was particularly hot because it broke 130 as if the sun said "I told I could!", so we spent all day hiding under camouflage netting getting classes about various military tactics. Once the sun set, we set off into night to get some hard realistic training done.

At night, we practice using our night vision optic to do simple **** like reloading and reading maps. It produces an image off of ambient infared light so you can actually see a lot more **** than the **** eye. The sky is absolutely cluttered with stars. I can see a shooting star every few seconds. The Milky way. It's pretty darn cool. Finally, after roaming around aimlessly for what felt like forever, we head back and we're granted a few hours of sleep. I lay down and start to drift off.

I'm suddenly woken up after what felt like 10 minutes and I get up instantly.

"Get up ****, you're on watch."

****.

I get dressed and I stand my post dutifully like I'm told at the checkpoint. I'm given a radio and told to only lift the barbwire after it gets approved over the radio. It's maybe around 2am and everyone else in my company is dead asleep except for myself and an officer in the comm truck. All I can hear are the coyotes. I decide to start looking at the stars with my night vision. I hear a coyote yelp off in the distance and think nothing of it. A few minutes later, another Marine comes over a small hill in front me. Nothing crazy, probably taking a dump. He walks towards me but his eyes don't really reflect light. Rationally, one of us is probably dehydrated so I think nothing of it. He approaches me and after a few seconds of staring at me, he simply says:

"Can I come in?"

His voice didn't sound right. No inflection or questioning tone. Weird. I ask him what his name was and why he was out so far taking a dump. He tells me his name, Sgt Wright, and he ignores my dump question. Same weird voice. Granted, I'm new to the unit so I don't know anyone named Sgt Wright but I still had to verify it.

"Main, this is Roadguard 1. There is a Sgt Wright requesting entry. Over."

"Roadguard 1, this is Main. There is no Sgt Wright in this company and the closest unit is 25 miles away. Make sure- **** get the **** back here right now. Don't let him or even look at him. Run.."

As the weird dude started to hear this, his face changed to severely angry. Like he wanted to rip my throat out and drink my blood. By the time I got back, everyone is awake. All of the vehicle lights are turned on and everyone is packing up. Scrambling into the trucks. We leave a lot of **** behind like the tents, water, and food  and drive the entire 3 hours back. I never got an explanation from anyone but my squad leader who was a simple, backwoods kind of guy, who bluntly said that whatever I saw, wasn't asking to get through the gate. I never really understood what he meant by that until I discovered this sub.

More to come. Trying to do these in chronological order as fast as I can. As you can guess, they get crazier as they go.


Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/7vjnux/weird_****_ive_seen_as_a_marine_2a/

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I hooked up with a hot girl, but she has some weird rules she wants me to follow
 
 Assistant: My friend Alex loves partying. He organized a party at his parents' place for New Year’s Eve and wanted to make it the biggest one yet, since his parents were out of town. He invited a bunch of friends and told them to invite their own friends, with the only condition being that they should bring some booze. His parents have a luxurious house, which has enough room for two entire football teams, so Alex wasn’t overly concerned about the place being crowded.

When I arrived around 10:30 pm, the music was already blaring three blocks away and most of the people were pretty ****. I joined in on the drinking and soon enough got tipsy. It was around this time that I noticed one girl at the party, who seemed to be standing next to the wall on her own, holding a cup in her hand. She immediately caught my eye because she was otherworldly beautiful. She had long, blond hair and blue eyes. The blue dress she wore prominently showed her sultry figure and it was all I could do not to stare. She seemed to catch my gaze and smiled, as she took a sip from her cup.

“Yo Darryl, you havin’ a good time?” half-drunken Alex wrapped his arm around my shoulders, almost spilling his drink on me.

I leaned in and shouted in his ear, so that he could hear me over the loud music:

“Yeah, man. Hey listen, who’s that girl over there?”

“What?” He raised his eyebrows and leaned in closer.

I repeated my question and once he glanced at the girl, he said:

“I don’t know her name, man. But Matt’s been with her, says she’s a beast in bed.”

“Huh.” I said, catching the girl’s gaze once more.

I had just ended a 3 year-long relationship, so I wasn’t really looking for anything serious. A one-night stand sounded like a perfect way to end the **** year that was 2019. Alex leaned in to shout something in my ear:

“Hey, but even though she **** like a nymph, Matt said he’d never interact with her again.”

“Why?” I asked.

Alex shrugged:

“No idea. He just said that inviting her home was the worst idea. Hey, Jamie!”

His attention went to another friend that passed by and I was left alone with my own thoughts, as difficult as they were to be heard in such a loud place. Matt was pretty picky with women, so having another girl that isn’t to his liking was no big news. I realized that the girl was still staring at me with a seductive smile, so I allowed the alcohol in my blood to give me the surge of courage I needed to approach her.

We introduced each other and made some shallow small talk. She said her name was Melissa and after a few brief exchanges, I asked her to dance. She said yes, spurring me to try and take things even further. As we danced, things started getting more heated between us and at one point, Melissa wrapped her arms around my shoulders and leaned in, as she said:

“Do you have a place? We can take this somewhere more private.”

She bit her lip as she said so and continued dancing gently.

“I got an apartment. Not too far away, we can use my car.” I said, my **** practically talking instead of me.

She nodded and before anyone noticed, we were out of Alex’s house. We barely managed to enter my apartment with our clothes still on and as soon as I locked the door behind us, she stopped kissing me and said:

“Wait. Wait. Before we do this, there are some things you need to know about me.”

“What things?” I said, kissing her neck, not caring about talking right now.

She gently pushed me away, blushing and panting and said:

“Please, this is very important. Listen to what I have to say and I promise I’ll let you do anything you want with me later.” She ran her hand across my inner thigh.

I was so **** at that moment I just wanted to jump on her, but I nodded and agreed to let her speak. She sat upright on the couch and exhaled, before she said:

“Alright, so. There are a couple of rules you need to follow, because otherwise you may put yourself in danger”

*Oh great*, I thought to myself. She has STD or something. She continued:

“The first thing you need to know is now that we started this, we need to finish it to the end. If we don’t, you’ll have eight years of bad luck. If you ask me to leave after we’ve had ****, something even worse may happen.”

I frowned in confusion, but before I could ask anything, she continued:

“If you see my eyes turning red during ****, close your own eyes, but don’t stop. You’re going to hear me making deep, guttural noises, but they should be gone within a minute or so. Again, just don’t open your eyes during that time. I can’t be responsible for what happens to you if you do. If you feel that you might lose your ****, try to focus on something to hold it, at least until the weird noises stop.

If you feel my grip getting painfully firm on you, like claws, stop moving and I’ll gradually let you go. After we are done having ****, I will ask you some questions, like how it was for you, have you had any better partners, how many girls you slept with, etc. I will need you to answer this as truthfully as possible. I’ll know if you lie.

Once we are ready to go to bed, put a piece of any kind of raw meat out of the fridge on the counter and leave it there overnight.

We’ll be sleeping in the same bed, so if you touch me during the night and I feel ice cold, ignore me. I may wake up and try to coax you into speaking to me, by asking you a question or becoming hysterical. Whatever I do, just ignore me. I won’t hurt you, so as long as you pretend I’m not there, you’ll be fine.

If you wake up and find me staring through the window, get out of the apartment as quickly as you can. Don’t bother getting dressed, just get out.

If you wake up and I’m not there, call out to me. You’re going to hear one of the following things – either me saying that I’ll be right back or calling you to come out. Ignore the latter, that’s not me.

And last, but most important rule, make sure to set your alarm and wake up at exactly 6:06 am. If you see me still in bed by then, covered with the blanket over my head, get out of the apartment as quietly as you can. I will be out of your apartment by 6:05 am, no exceptions.

That’s all.”

She exhaled, staring at me in anticipation. I stared back, with mouth agape. I hadn’t even realized how dumbfounded and breathless I was until she finished.

“So, do you have any questions?” She shrugged.

“Um, no. I mean, everything is clear. Give me a moment please, I need to use the bathroom.” I fumbled to form a sentence and excused myself to the toilet.

While there, I texted Matt.

*Hey bro, you know a girl named Melissa?*

His response came almost immediately:

*Yeah, why?*

I said:

*Well I hooked up with her, but I heard you said there was something wrong with her. What’s her problem?*

Matt read my message right away, but responded only after a minute:

*Did you invite her home?*

The message made me feel uneasy. I started to type, when his next message came through:

*Bro, please tell me you didn’t invite her home.*

*I did*. I responded, my hands practically shaking by this point.

*Fuck. **** Matt replied.

*What is it?* I asked, now starting to feel full-blown panic.

He said:

*You have to go through with her rules now. Don’t kick her out before she decides to leave on her own. She will be out of there by 6:05 am.*

*Bro, what are you talking about? I’ll just tell her I’m not feeling well and send her home.*

*DON’T DO THAT! LISTEN DO ME, DON’T **** DO IT!!* He immediately responded.

*Why?* I asked.

He typed for a moment, before saying:

*Because my friend Kit did it. And they found him dead in his bed two days ago.*

Just then, three slow knocks resounded on my bathroom [door.](https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBorisBacic/)

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I was born deaf, but had my hearing restored. I’m now hearing things I’m not supposed to.
 
 Assistant: 
I never minded being deaf, and in fact, I preferred it as I got older.  I know that I was expected to feel lonely, even isolated, but I loved the silence, it allowed me to move through life without distraction.  I only had to turn on Fox News to be glad, and reminded, that my genetic predisposition was saving me from a massive headache of all the unnecessary noise in the world. 
 
My parents, on the other hand, saw my disability as some sort of personal slight to them.  As if **** was sticking out a thick middle finger when I was born. Barbara and Lewis Cascade with their perfect upper-middle class existence were not supposed to have a deaf daughter.  I was exactly how they wanted me to look, with cornsilk blonde hair, porcelain skin and bright blue eyes, but to them I was like a beautiful piece of pottery with a large, unsightly crack down the middle.  Useless.  They tried everything, surgeries, naturopathic doctors, acupuncture, anything that might fix me.  When nothing did, they conceded.
 
There was always that lingering feeling of disappointing them, even though I excelled at school, had a great job and married a dream of a husband, named Teddy.  I think that is why I agreed to the surgery. I wanted to finally make them happy, give them the daughter they always wanted.  A perfect daughter, that could hear.
 
It was a restorative experimental procedure, that was to be performed by a renowned Otolaryngologist named Doctor Wilson Hubbard.  Who was based near my hometown, on the outskirts of Seattle.   The Doctor was very clear, there was a high probability of failure, and that he was still working on the nuances of the operation.  At my parent’s insistence, and pocketbook, he agreed to take me on as a patient, clearing his schedule.  It all happened so fast, that Teddy was unable to get off of work, so I was forced to fly out of Boston by myself, greeting my hopeful but anxious parents in Seattle.  We went to the hospital where Dr. Hubbard dumbed down the surgery to the most pedestrian of terms.  I nodded along, not really taking in anything he was saying.
 
The night before the operation, I lay on my old bed, facetiming Teddy.  I had become acutely skilled at reading lips over the years.  “I love you too.” I said signing with my hands, before turning off the lights and drifting to sleep.
 
I was given anesthesia and when I awoke from the surgery a nurse was there to help me, calling
my parents and the Doctor to let me know I was conscious.
 
“How are you feeling Callie?”  Said Dr. Hubbard, stroking his white beard, he reminded me of a slimmed down version of the KFC Colonel Sanders.
 
“I’m okay, there’s some pain in my…” I stopped, and Dr. Hubbard gave me an amused smile.  “I…I can hear my voice.” I stammered.  “Oh my ****.”
 
  
My Mom began crying, as her and my Dad wrapped their arms around me brimming with joy.  “Thank you Dr. Hubbard! Thank you!” Mom said in tears, she sounded like I expected her to, high-pitched and jarring.  My Dad’s voice on the other hand was low and smooth, pleasant.
 
We went back to my parent’s house, and I called Teddy, to let him know that the surgery was, as far as I could tell, a success.   “That’s amazing!” He said, and I was so glad to find his voice melodic.  “I’m swamped at work, but I’ll try to get out there as soon as I can.  Promise.”
 
When my parents and I sat down for dinner, I could still feel a bit of pressure in my ears, but overall felt normal.  I was talking excitedly about some of my new favorite sounds, when I heard something, it was like my Mother’s voice, except in the faintest of whispers.  “It’s a shame she still has the same voice.”
 
“What?” I said, and both my parents looked at me.  “Did you just say something about my voice?”
 
My Mom’s face turned ashen, “No dear, nobody said anything about your voice.” She gripped her glass of Chardonnay, taking a long sip.
 
I turned my attention towards her, and could hear something else, it was a sound that I would later identify as a squeaky wheel, a low ambient noise, almost undetectable.  There was something else too, a hushed but warm hum, “Bum, bum, bum, a bum, bum, bum.  Mashed potatoes.”  I looked over to my Dad who was heaping another spoonful of potatoes on his plate.  I caught his glance, and he gave me a small wave.
 
Over the next few days, I came to discover, it wasn’t just my parents that I could hear, but everyone.  That each person carried with them their own individual and unique sound, most of the time just a background noise that was so faint, I could barely hear it.  I would occasionally come across a thought in words, but for the most part it was just an audible sensation.
 
I spent my days on YouTube listening to as many sounds as I could, so that I could identify the noises that I heard from the people around me.  Mrs. Tucker, a pleasant woman across the street who was a wonderful cook, had a noise that I could best describe like teeth being sunk into fried chicken.  The mailman’s sound reminded me of rain falling on stones.  Roger, my parent’s gardeners, sounded like a deck of cards being shuffled.
 
 They weren’t all pleasant sounds though.  I ran into an old English teacher of mine from school, Mr. McGrath, a surly man, who sounded like a choir of farts.  A mixture of small ****, and wet thundering rips.  I had to suppress myself from laughing, listening to the ricocheting flatulence, as we made small talk.
  
A few people had music as their sound, not the simple rhythm of my father, but complex wonderful arias that left me speechless.  I was  walking down the street, and stopped in front of our neighbor Leah Silverstein’s house, an older woman, and holocaust survivor.  I could hear her sound even at a distance, a devastating and hauntingly beautiful music that left me standing still, unable to move as tears fell down my face.

My favorite sound though, belonged to children.  I’m not sure why it was, but I found that all children had the same sound, unlike adults.  It was a mixture of giggles and laughter, hearty and cheerful.  If I went by a playground or a school, I could hear the collective noise of joy and happiness, a magnificent orchestra that made my heart swell every time. 
 
I was shopping in the downtown area marveling at my new reality, a life full of sounds.  All I had to do was shift my focus to a person and I could hear them.  Tug boats, wolf howls, rustling leaves, the sound of milk being poured onto Rice Krispies.  Snap, crackle, pop.  Then I heard something, a vociferous boom that rang throughout my head paralyzing me, it was like nails against a chalkboard.  I could hear a word, cutting through, clear and awful, repeating,“hurt, hurt, hurt.” I held my breath, my mind spinning, as I staggered in the direction the noise was coming from.  The closer I became in proximity to it, the more pain I felt, like spikes were being lodged into my temples.  Sweat poured down my face, and I felt like I might collapse.
 
I looked up from the ground, to find myself standing in front of a dilapidated hotel, the kind that looks like it charges by the hour instead of the day.  In front of me was a door, marked with the number 3.  I called the police, giving them my location, lying and telling them I could hear screaming from inside the room.
 
When they arrived, I stood back, watching as they knocked on the door.  An unremarkable older man answered, as he opened the door, I could hear another noise, the soft sound of piano being played, and an undeniable word, “Help.” 
 
“There’s someone in there!” I screamed, unable to contain myself.  The police officers pushed through, much to the man’s protest.  From where I was, I could see her, a young girl, bound to the bed, in just her underwear, a plastic bag covering her head. 
 
I saw the man arrested, and the girl, whoever she was rescued.  To my relief,  as the bag was removed, the music that was so faint, increased in volume.  I left before the police could ask me any questions.
 
Although I didn’t tell anyone, not even Teddy about my new found abilities, I made the decision to confide in Dr. Hubbard after the incident at the motel.  I sat in his exceptionally clean white office during my check-in and told him everything.  He sat back listening, his owl-like eyes, studying me intently.
 
“Just curious, what is my sound?” He said.
 
“It’s like the crunch of fresh snow underneath boots. It’s lovely.” I said with a smile, this made him chuckle.
 
“The ear is a fascinating thing, and I can only surmise at what you’re experiencing, or why for that matter.  The procedure is reversible though, Callie.  I would be happy to…” He trailed off.
 
I shook my head, “No. There’s so many wonderful things about it.   I couldn’t imagine shutting it off now.”
 
It was not long afterwards though, that I thought differently about the sounds.  

 I was in my parent’s kitchen making lunch and chatting with their cleaner Anita, who sounded like coarse hands being rubbed together, when it hit me.  It was a sound that took my breath away, children screaming and crying in pain, as if they were being tortured and maimed.  I could hear them yelling in anguish, it was excruciating, the noise penetrating and inescapable.  It enveloped me, and I could physically feel the sound, like knives tearing away at my flesh, I began to cry, a wave of nausea crippled me and I sunk to the floor. 
 
In front of me I saw the front door begin to open, Teddy’s beaming smile came into view.  “Surprise!” He called into the house.  There was a look of concern as he saw me braced on the floor, he came over.  “Callie?  Are you okay?  What’s wrong?”
 
I looked at him in horror, the children’s cries echoing in my head, even louder now.  My beloved Teddy, my husband, and bearer of the worst sound in the world.

 Human: write a story with the theme title: My Amazon Alexa does more than just laugh.
 
 Assistant: Two nights ago, I was home alone when Alexa laughed. I’d read about the software issue the devices had been having all over the world, so it wasn’t that big a shock. Thank **** for that, too, because I would’ve jumped out of my skin otherwise. Still, I was unsettled. It’s creepy to hear laughter when you think you’re alone.

“Alexa, shut up,” I instructed. The blue ring on top flashed, and the laughing stopped. 

I went back to my book.

Twenty minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alexa’s blue ring illuminate - as if she’d received a command. I studied her for a few seconds and shrugged it off.

Thirty seconds later, her light came on again. This time, she said, “okay Peter, J.A. Henckels five piece stainless steel knife set is on its way. You should have it in a couple days.”

“Oh come on,” I complained. I put my book down and grabbed my laptop. I navigated to Amazon and checked my order page. It was empty. Then I checked my account information in the Alexa device, wondering if my Alexa had paired with someone else’s account. It hadn’t.

“Great,” I thought. “Free knives. Thanks Pete, wherever you are.”

I went back to my reading. It probably wasn’t the best subject matter to be consuming when I was already a little shaken. Far too many mushrooms and people peeling off their skin. Gross.

As I reached the end of my chapter, Alexa laughed again. It sounded different than it had the first time. The first time, it was mechanical and emotionless, just like her voice. This time it was lower. Deeper. As if it had breath in it. The hairs on my arms stood on edge.

“**** this,” I thought, and got up to shut her off. As I crossed the room, her lights flashed. 

“Okay Peter, four units of Clorox bleach, 121 oz. bottles, is on its way. You should have it in a couple days.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared at the device.

“This is ****,” I said to myself. “You’re freaked out because of that **** book and you’re letting it make you superstitious. Don’t be an idiot.”

I turned around and checked the time. It was almost midnight. I needed to take a shower before bed. I sighed and headed for the bathroom.

After a quick shower, I was toweling off and thinking about what I had to do at work the next day when Alexa started to talk again. I couldn’t hear her very well through the bathroom door, but I recognized her voice. It didn’t sound like she was reciting another order. It almost sounded like conversation.

I cracked open the door and listened. The voice stopped. I could see her blue light reflecting off the wall.

“Alexa,” I called. “What are my active orders?”

“You have no active orders, Valerie,” she replied. “Is there something you’d like to get?”

“No,” I said. Her light went off.

I watched TV in bed for a little while, hoping I’d get tired enough to fall asleep. It wasn’t working. I couldn’t stop thinking about the **** device. I wasn’t going to shut it down, though. I wasn’t going to give in to my baseless fear. I’m an adult, **** it.

During my third Frasier rerun, I finally felt myself getting ready to sleep. I turned off the TV and closed my eyes. 

“Okay Peter, Sunshades Depot 5’x7’ tarp is on its way. You should have it in a couple days.”

My eyes snapped open. 

“Enough of this,” I muttered, and bolted out of bed. When my feet hit the floor, Alexa began to laugh again. It was loud this time, and just as deep as it had been the last time. She sounded like a large man cruelly laughing at an offensive joke.

The blue light was so bright in my eyes as I reached for the plug.

“Okay Peter, Osborne International wire brush is on….”

I tore the plug from the outlet and Alexa went silent. The light went out.

I stormed back into my room and slammed the door. I think I slept for about an hour.

The next day, when I got home from work, I ran into my landlady. We’re friendly with one another; she’s only a few years older and we have drinks every so often. I invited her in, telling her I needed a few beers after what I’d dealt with the night before.

“What happened?” Toshi inquired, sitting down at the kitchen table and cracking open the beer I’d given her.

“You know that Amazon Alexa thing?” I asked, pointing in its direction.

“Oh yeah,” she replied. “My sister has one. Did you hear about how some people are reporting that it laughs?”

“That’s what mine does!” I exclaimed.

“No way!” Toshi said, laughing. “That must’ve scared the **** out of you.”

“...maybe,” I admitted. “It feels silly to be scared of something like that.”

“No way,” she insisted, and took a swig of her beer. “I would’ve thrown it out the window.”

I laughed. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it. Especially with the other things she said.”

Toshi’s eyebrows perks up. “Other things? Like what?”

“Oh, nothing as creepy as the laugh,” I replied. “It was just announcing orders from someone else’s account. I think wires got crossed somewhere.”

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Toshi said. “Do you know whose account?”

“Some guy named Peter. He was ordering knives and brushes and stuff.”

Toshi paused mid-drink. She looked at me, her smile slipping from her face. “Peter?” she repeated.

“Yeah. Why, do you know him?”

Toshi stood up. The expression on her face was the polar opposite of what it had been only seconds ago. She looked frightened.

“Tosh, what’s going on?”

“Val, before you moved in, I rented this apartment to a guy named Peter.”

“Yeah? And?”

She stared into my eyes, almost like she didn’t want to say.

“Tosh?”

“I… it’s just… Val, he killed himself about six months before you signed your lease here.”

My blood went cold. “He killed himself here? In this apartment?”

Toshi nodded.

“Why? What happened? Was he depressed?”

She shook her head. “No. Worse.”

“Tell me, Tosh!”

She paused and took a deep breath. I glared at her insistently. “He killed himself when the police found his pregnant girlfriend’s body in the swamp on the other side of town. She’d been stabbed to death and wrapped in a tarp. Later on, the investigation showed he drained all her blood in the bathtub and tried to clean it up with bleach.”

I felt myself getting dizzy. “Tarp?” I parroted. “Bleach?”

Toshi nodded and stared at the floor. 

“I… I can’t stay here,” I whispered.

My landlady didn’t say anything. We stood in shocked silence for a minute or two. Toshi went to the fridge and got another beer. She popped the top and took a drink, then opened her mouth, as if she were about to speak. Before she could, though, a hideous, earsplitting laugh exploded through the apartment. 

It was Alexa.

And she was still [unplugged](https://unsettlingstories.com).


 Human: write a story with the theme title: I kill my wife every morning.
 
 Assistant: The first time was an accident. 

We were fighting. All couples fight, but this was different. Lucy was screaming at me. Waving her hands in my face, pounding my chest with her hands. Was it my fault there had been layoffs at work? Was it my fault that she was too LAZY to try and get a job herself? I was on the computer all day, from morning to night, job searching. And I was the **** one? I was the failure?

I wrapped my hands around her ****, fleshy throat, and I squeezed. Just a little, not even hard. All I wanted was for her to shut up. I just wanted some peace and quiet, for once. 

She stopped screaming. 

I took Lucy’s head in my hands and I told her I didn’t mean it. Told her I was sorry. Asked her to please wake up. She didn’t. 

I panicked. I took the body into the backyard and buried it in the flowerbeds. Resting amongst her beloved rosebushes. Lucy might have found that poetic. 

I went back inside, and puked into the kitchen sink. 

I had no plan, no cover story. Some nosy neighbor might have spotted me digging, or heard Lucy screaming. I spent most of the afternoon alternating between the bottom of a bottle and sitting on my bed sobbing, waiting to hear sirens. I downed half a bottle of pills only to throw them up minutes later. I was losing my mind. At some point, I must have passed out from exhaustion. 

The next morning, I awoke to the smell of frying bacon. 

You can’t possibly imagine my surprise when I walked downstairs to find Lucy waiting for me. Alive and well, not a scratch on her. I couldn't believe my eyes. 

At first I thought the events of the previous day had just been a terrible nightmare. I sat down at the kitchen table, torn between shock and overpowering relief as my wife set a steaming plate of pancakes down in front of me. She went on and on about some nonsense she had seen on TV the other day and I nodded along absentmindedly. Everything seemed normal. I almost fell for it. 

I hadn’t touched my food. Something about the lingering image, real or not, of burying the dead corpse of my wife had robbed me of my appetite. Lucy kept encouraging me to eat, but I just wasn’t in the mood. However, I noticed that she wasn’t eating either. I commented on it, but she just kept rambling on about TV like she hadn’t heard me. 

Finally, I decided that I needed to get back to work searching for jobs. I stood up from my uneaten breakfast, waving off Lucy’s protests, and started for the living room. On the way, I stopped to grab a beer from the fridge. 

As I went to throw the cap away, I noticed a shiny bottle in the trash can. RAT POISON was written on the label. Wondering where Lucy had seen rats in the house, I turned to ask her.

Just in time to see her lunging towards me with a knife.

I don’t completely remember what happened next. There was a struggle. The next thing I knew, I was standing over the body of my wife, who lay motionless on the kitchen floor. My arms and wrists were covered in cuts, but the knife was buried in the stomach of Lucy. Blood was everywhere. 

I checked for a pulse, but she was gone. For the second time, I had murdered my wife. 

As I tried to staunch the flow of my own blood, I was terrified. What was going on? Why had Lucy tried to **** me? 

Didn’t she know that I had already killed her?

After I bandaged my arms, I checked the pancakes on the kitchen table. I couldn’t tell for sure, but after cutting them open and examining them closer, I thought I could smell a faint trace of rat poison. I was unsure what to do now. I almost called the police.

But then I realized the body was gone.

Blood still covered the kitchen, but there was no sign of Lucy. I searched the entire house, wondering if she had somehow managed to survive and crawl off, but there was no sign of her. 

The next morning, Lucy was sleeping peacefully next to me in bed when I awoke. Again, no wounds, no sign of injury at all. In fact, she looked… beautiful. More beautiful than she had in years. 

Her eyes opened. “Good morning, honey,” she said, smiling. “I have a present for you.” She went to reach for something next to the bed.

I grabbed my pillow and smashed it down over her face. I held it there, long after her frantic movements had ceased. After I was certain she was dead, I looked at what she had been reaching for. 

A loaded gun lay on the nightstand. 

I took a shovel out to the backyard. I tore up the flowerbeds, as fast as I could. Soon, I found what I was looking for.

Lucy’s rotting, decomposing face grinned up at me. Maggots wriggled over her, and the stench was overwhelming. She had been dead for days. 

I covered my face in my hands and screamed. 

I have killed my wife 12 times. Every morning, she returns, tormenting me. I haven’t slept, haven’t left the house. She could be waiting around any corner, watching. Awaiting her vengeance. 

Please, stop. Lucy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I DIDN’T MEAN IT. 

Please, [just stay dead]( https://www.reddit.com/user/Seabiscuit131/).  

 Human: write a story with the theme title: thispersondoesnotexist.com
 
 Assistant: This website is real, trust me. Try going on it, if you don’t. You can generate faces of people who don’t exist, via an AI. Sounds cool, cat-fishing bait, etc. I thought so too.

I was fascinated by it, and I kept reloading it to see new faces, wondering how these very realistic people didn’t exist at all. Maybe some day a human would be born looking exactly like a face the AI generated, but maybe not. With the endless possibilities of faces, we would never know.

Or so I thought. An hour ago, I was sitting in my bedroom, alone and I hit refresh. My face was staring back at me. At first I was sure it was a coincidence, but then I noticed, that exact same mole on my cheek. Everything about that face was the same as mine, and it was smiling at me, knowingly. I would be lying if I said I didn’t freak out right away. But I convinced myself that it was accidental, and that I should just take a walk. As I got out of my room, I saw my boyfriend sitting on the couch, looking at his phone. All I needed was some company, my mind was playing games on me.

I walked up to him, and sat down, my head on his shoulders. He didn’t flinch, I wondered what engrossed him so much. “Hey, you”, I muttered. Nothing. What the **** was wrong with him. I shook him, again nothing. 

There was a knock on the door and he got up, like I wasn’t right there. As he opened the door, my throat felt choked, as I realised that to him, it seemed like I didn’t exist. A beautiful girl walked in, and they kissed. It was so painful to watch. I ran into the bedroom again as they settled on the couch.

I looked at my messages, my gallery. All empty. Was this some cruel joke? Was my boyfriend pranking me for Valentine’s Day? Would he kiss another girl for a prank? Knowing him, and his dedication to his foolhardy ways, he probably would.

Deciding that this was the only plausible solution, I walked out, when I noticed that all the pictures were of him and her. Things we had done together, memories we had created, were all with her. Photoshop, maybe? I hoped. But then it hit me, I had been home before him. He’d come in a couple of hours ago, and we were together till about ten minutes before I walked into the bedroom and opened that godforsaken site. He couldn’t have done all of this in ten minutes!

I guess it was just wishful thinking then, but I went upto him, shook him and said, through sobs, “I know it’s a prank. I’m crying now, please stop it.” The one thing he wouldn’t ever do is let me cry, and when he didn’t react at all, I knew that there was no prank. 

I couldn’t understand it. I knew I existed. I don’t think anyone else did though. And then, when I tried to recall my name, I had no idea. I opened Facebook, there was no login. No email accounts either. Panicking, I opened reddit. I am still logged in here, I guess anonymity has its benefits. I have no way of finding my name or anything that identifies me from this account. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I don’t know if I will always just be around, being no one and nothing, or if I will vanish by the time you all read this. All I know, is that I exist. And hopefully, some internet strangers know now too. Help me find me. 

 Human: write a story with the theme title: I kill one person per year, it's my job.
 
 Assistant: “So, you think your husband is trying to **** you?”

“Yes! He is, I know it. I know he took life insurance policies out of me. Well, we did it together, actually…”

“But how does that prove that he’s trying to **** you?”

“He is, just trust me. You’ll be paid really well!

“Listen, I don’t trust people who are trying to **** someone else. You have to prove to me that one, you have proof that he’s trying to **** you, and two, prove that his life insurance policy is real as well.”

“Okay, well here are the documents from the insurance company, and I found a loaded gun that he purchased recently in our bedside table. Here is the picture.”

“That still doesn’t prove he’s trying to **** you.”

“Well then can you do some surveillance on him or something?!” She stood up, slamming the desk.

“Mrs. Goodrim, we are here in a place of business. If you don’t like my services, you can ask any of the other hunters in this place, but if you are being rude to me, then consider yourself refused.”

She sat back down, looking down, showing some sign of remorse.

“I apologize, I just want him dead before me.”

“Well, do you have the money?”

“Yes. 20% of the life insurance policy, right?”

“In cash.”

She reached into her purse, and pulled out 10 stacks of $10,000.

I counted them, totalling $100,000.

“Alright, now do you have any other proof that he’s trying to **** you?”

She pulls out her phone, and begins going through her text messages to her husband.

“Read this. This is proof.”

*Honey, do you want to go for dinner tonight? Maybe Lalabella restaurant on Fifth, maybe around 7:30PM?*

“How is this proof? This just shows a man offering to take his wife out for dinner…”

“Do you not understand? He’s trying to lure me to a restaurant!”

“Yeah, a public restaurant, with many people around. He wouldn’t try to **** you there if he doesn’t want to go to jail…”

I looked at her, questioning my own stupidity, asking myself if I could be more **** than she was… But I wasn’t here to judge, I guess.

“He doesn’t care, he’d get to cash in my life insurance policy! Do you not understand?!”

“Look… Mrs. Goodrim, I’m just here to do a job. Whether you can prove to me that this case is a legit one is up to you. Whether I decide to take the job is up to me.”

“Listen, you mongrel. I put $100,000 on your table to **** my husband, and I expect him to be dead by the morning.”

“Alright, well. I’m just going to reach over here, to grab my big red DENIED stamp, and press down into the ink…”

I looked up at her, and she was fidgeting. She wanted to play chicken, trying to put her balls on my table. I think she thought that with $100,000 sitting in front of my desk, I would just go ahead and say yes, but it doesn’t work that way. I only **** one person per year, and expect to get the highest payout.

“I’m going to life my stamp off the ink, and move it clo----”

“Alright, wait.” Mrs. Goodrim looked at me with anger, as if she just lost a bet worth $100,000.

“Just do the job, okay? You can take my phone, take my bag. Here, you can have my 7 carat Diamond Tennis Bracelet as a tip, okay?”

“Well, I still have to make sure that this is a sound case to take on.”

I stand up from my chair, and step out of the room, closing the door behind me.

“Cher, send it to the client please.”

After about five minutes…

&#x200B;

***Ding***

*Andrew Goodrim*

*00002.png*

&#x200B;

I step back in the room, and look at Mrs. Goodrim.

“Here, take this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s so that I can begin the assignment. Take it if you want to proceed.”

Without a second thought, she takes the pill and puts it in her mouth, takes the water bottle and gushes it with water before swallowing it.

“Okay, now what?”

“Well, let me show you something.”

I pull out my phone, and show her the picture that her husband sent me.

On the left, it showed that her life insurance policy paid $1,000,000 and that I would get a 25% cut. On the right was a hand-written note saying that she was deathly allergic to peanuts. Below was a transcript of the conversation that his wife and I were having, prepared by my secretary, which proved that she was trying to **** him.

“This is proof that someone is trying to **** him. This is the proof I needed.”

She put her hands up to her throat, grasping it tightly. She was choking.

“What was… you give…?”

“It was just a peanut in a dissolvable capsule.”

“Epipen… In… Purse…”

“Oh, the purse you gave me earlier? I’m sorry, but this is just business, your life insurance policy paid more.”

She collapsed on the ground, lifeless, in front of me.

I sit down, and begin to count the payment.

“One, two… Ten. One hundred thousand plus… This bracelet. It looks nice on me.

&#x200B;

"*Ma’am, Andrew Goodrim has wired the money. The total was $250,000.”*

&#x200B;

“Thank you, Cheryl. Here's a tip. Clean up after, will you?”

&#x200B;

I throw one stack at her.

&#x200B;

“I’ll see you next year.”

&#x200B;

[9](https://www.reddit.com/user/nuttypeasant)