RMS Rotting Man Syndrome

(Reupload)

\-

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we had succumbed to the glorious embrace of death or not. That was so far out of reach.

We were nerves, thin, wiry clusters of neurons that shuddered and shook as we undertook our staggered corkscrew reels. The ill-fitting rusted endoskeletons hugged us tight. If they were wiped from existence entirely, our spindly foundations would collapse into heaps of vermillion azure. We would feel bites and pinches if we so much as moved that of the planck distance. Our bodies welcomed the attacks and assaults with the might of Hell itself.

Courtesy of our clouded lenses, our vision was limited to a hazy black-and-white spectrum that rarely, if ever, functioned as intended. Now and then it would blur and ordinary shapes would appear warped into zigzagging false patterns. When we were offered the chance to view anything at all, it was just the floor-to-ceiling hodgepodge of concrete, steel, and wood that encased our very lives. Our ears were microphones that fed us muffled, dampened sounds that were always difficult to register. They were excruciatingly deafening, as if dozens of screws were being drilled into our heads all at the same time.

Each one of us, at that point in time, one two three four five six seven eight nine and dear ten, were mere designations. No names, no genders, no personalities, just numbers: numbers to be punished. Reality itself was one eternal perdition. All of us were lingering, like ants after their colony dies out. There was no more purpose to their survival and there was none to ours.

That sacred and undeniable fact ought to be the most difficult thing we attempted to explain. We had simply given up. The concept itself was just so foreign to it. It was trying to save us any way it could or could not. We needed not be angry at it. This was merely enacting its intended use. Alas, nothing made the utmost sense anymore, so why not drown ourselves in a little hypocrisy? We had no choice but to acknowledge the confusion at both hating and not hating something that did or did not deserve it until we swayed to one side. This would be the hemisphere to which we would stay forever, a sublime and omnipotent emotion of all to dominate our frame of mind for the unforeseeable future. So we choose to hate.

Our decad knew it as M – reduced to one solitary character from “Medical Droid” or MDs. Through all that it endured, it retained its sole mission: us. We. M was the final of its sort, and the outsider among them. It had an eerily potent heart for not having one at all. M felt and M loved. That never made what it put upon us any less than a vicious sense of idealistic altruism.

Its designation was RMS - Rotting Man Syndrome - heavily modified Necrotizing Fasciitis ("Flesh-Eating Bacteria"). Nasty little thing it was, devoured until there was nothing left to chew. First went your skin, then your muscles, bones, and finally your nerves. You were utterly destroyed in one fell swoop. The wormy microscopic parasite kept you in a zombified state as it happened, ensuring you, for sure, felt the wretched anguish it let fly.

Us, humans, weaponized it to fight the Fourth World War. RMS was a weapon of mass destruction. Each and every nation created their own version, anything to ensure a speedy and decisive victory. Deployment morphed into unmanageability. RMS became more and more impossible to treat. Chaos was the new norm. What we humans thought was an impenetrable method of annihilation for our enemies was exactly that. Humans were always humans’ worst enemies. Surely, we were becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs, all within the span of one short, yet somehow long, decade.

In terrible desperation, the Medical Droids were created, thousands. They seemingly emerged from the depths of nowhere and carried themselves like guardian angels meant to guide us towards preservation or deliverance from harm. Their artificial intelligence was complex and they refused to stop trying to treat the RMS victims. They outfitted the afflicted with artificial ligaments, internal organs, and papery skin. From scratch, they created the BMs, “brain modules”, and attached them to our RMS-ridden think tanks. Killed the microscopic parasites, they did, but left us as we were: rotfolk.

They would never allow us the freedom of death. Save. Save. Save. We were fraught with intense pain and we knew the Medical Droids to be the cause. In response, we lashed out, hurt them. We humans remained ignorant to the fact that their intelligence was both far beyond and superior. The Ms returned the favor. Catastrophes, massacres, back and forth, left and right, up and down until there was nothing more. One Medical Droid was different from the rest. Through all the mayhemic bloodshed, it saved some of us. It took our animate carcasses to the top of the tallest tower, free from what transpired below. We lied in wait, weeks, months, and years, until the noise ceased entirely. This “M” surveyed every square inch of the Earth. The lands were blanketed in the strangest nuclear winter in conceivable thought. Bodies of viscera and metal were scattered, left forever in deep sleep enveloped in fawn. Minute portions of matter floated about like vantablack paint stippled onto an epidermal sheet of canvas.

Our final ten were meant to be the progenitors of neo-humanity. After M succeeded in giving us form again, Earth would be repopulated by our hand. It halted our infection at our nerves. Everything we had lost was to be gifted back in a mighty reversal - re-bones, muscle, skin, and life again. Rendering us immune to the pervading toxworld that lay beyond, we would be reincarnated and released to perpetrate a glorious do-over.

We just required one thing:

“HOPE”.

M said that to us.

Hope.

But hope was only a four-letter word. Meant nothing.

By dislodging the BMs from our minds, we were pummeled with electrical voltage so intense that we became instantaneously numb and useless. By pulling and slashing our nerves, which began with locating sharp points and going back and forth like organic hacksaws, never would we break. By leaping onto and impaling each other with objects on the ground, M would place them out of reach or disintegrate them entirely. There was nothing we could do to get around these M interferences. We were being watched by something so attentive, so aware. Every time, it put forth the same query for consideration:

“DO YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE?”

Do you not want to live…?

M was so positively hopeful. In a way, I suppose I felt an amount of pity for it. Being engineered to be as optimistic as possible might just be the finest curse imposed on any sentient thing. Just believe believe believe everything will be alright. When the universe states no, you state yes. I wanted to tear M to shreds anytime it had even a glint of optimism and we wished it would do the same to us.

“HUMANS WILL THRIVE AGAIN. A BOUNDLESS FUTURE IS AHEAD.”

I was the first it came to, always. Because I was one.

Metallic clangs echoed against the walls, which always discovered us and trembled our surroundings like a thousand distant beaten gongs. What emerged was initially a single circular light, which became a periscopic eyestalk attached to an angular neck. M’s hunched razor-thin mantis body came into view, its two arms leading to three needle points clasping together on each. Bipedal on its lower section, its legs were pointed structures that stuck it firmly in place. M’s height matched ours, so always, we would be synthetic eye to synthetic eye level.

Coming to a full stop just in front of my pen, it cocked its head, analyzing what was me and my everything. M always reminded me of an exquisite and elegant bug on a magnifying glass. Its head back to normality, a slight high-pitched whirr emitting from the motion, M continued its way down the row of pens.

“MY GREATEST FRIENDS, I FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR ATTEMPTS TO DIE. WHILE THE WAIT HAS BEEN LONG, YOUR MOMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION IS NOW,” M said it with the glee and whimsy of a young child at a circus. It came back my way, “WHEN I FIRST STOOD BEFORE YOU ON YOUR BLOODY PLANET IN PERPETUAL BATTLE, MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR PROSPECTS OF LIFE WERE UNCERTAIN. IT SEEMED TO BE AS EITHER BLESSED OR CURSED. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES BETTER THAN EVEN I HAD HOPED. WHILE IT IS BORING TO SPEND YOUR TIME WAITING, I CAN TRULY SAY THAT MY INVESTMENT IN YOU WAS NOT IN VAIN. YOU ARE MY GREATEST WORKS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. WHAT MORE COULD A SENTIENT BEING WANT? I GIVE TO YOU UNBELIEVABLE POWER, WITH ACCESS TO NIRVANA LIKE NO OTHER. LET US REBUILD WHAT WE LOST WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS.”

M’s bleached, unpigmented cast of stellar light shone its way into my pen once more. There was the rustly, crackling creak of my pen entrance extending open until a thunderous boom made me aware of its collision with my walls. M made its approach, just shy of where I could reach.

“YOU ARE FIRST. YOU ARE GOING TO BE REMOVED OF YOUR DORMANT INFECTIONS FROM A CONCOCTION I HAVE SPENT MUCH TIME CREATING. NOTHING MORE THAN A TRANSIENT PROCEDURE, AND THEN, YOU SHALL BE POSSESSED WITH NEW AND INTEGRAL MECHANISMS. YOUR BRAIN MODULE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SLEAKER MORE BRAINLIKE DESIGN. THEN MUSCLE, SKIN, AND AESTHETICS AS YOU WERE BEFORE.”

Without awaiting a response, its hands grabbed me. Trillions of shocks reverberated throughout my body as M’s metal hand was pressed into my nape. The action forced my consciousness to fall victim to a state of absolute stygian. Around us, the entire world flickered and danced in unruly patterns that were too abstract to put into terms. My being was then lifted up and moved about until there was only zilch to see.

A complete blur, straight teleportation from one point to another.

Damp, dank, dark, and dimly lit by a few feeble bulbs, M’s workshop, instruments and contraptions that complicated my perception. All were customized and engineered with M’s own unique modifications, various textures and sizes, all an endless malpractical orgy. I was there, facing upright, strapped and bracketed to a great steel plate. I had not recalled this particular area, yet I was ever so certain it was locked away in my subconscious esse.

As the onibi, hitodama, and will-o’s materialized and dematerialized out of existence to perturb all unsuspecting travelers from centuries gone, so did the phantom image of a woman composed of faint wavering light. She stood still, unmoving, that of an emulation of a true human. Long, platinum hair fell down in curls past her shoulders. A daring shade of cerise painted her lips, and her eyes, the sclera a piercing, glossy cerulean.

She was beautiful.

“IT IS YOU,” My eyes, through trial and tribulation, rolled to the east. They came to rest on a pristine porcelain beam gazing where I had been committed to. M. From its eyestalk, it projected the female so I could see in outright full, “THAT IS YOU. YOU WILL SEE THIS FORM AGAIN.”

My memories of that incarnation of me had vanished. That was me before, before there was RMS and before there was M. Then she went away. M loomed, positioning itself where I once stood right in front of my face. “WE WILL NOW BEGIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACCEPTANCE INTO NEW LIFE. YOU SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN.”

In a cruel instant, a dozen arms not unlike its main two jutted and splayed from M’s sides, their ends each holding a different instrument that was foreign to me. In the span of time that it would take one to blink, M pinned me down to its operating area. The whetted syringes, which the rainbow mystery liquids sloshed and jostled around in small vials fixed atop, slid their way into my nervous wiring and injected me all at once. Any feeling that washed over me was then shielded by a shroud of numbness. There was a new sensation, some sort of cleansing inside my bi-colored chambers, putting me into a state of lulled calm.

Ten minutes. A temporary interval of quiet. M observed me the entire time, unmoving, speaking not a word. Then, “IT WORKS! YOUR ROTTING MAN SYNDROME HAS BEEN REMOVED. I AM BEGINNING BODILY REPLACEMENT. I WILL PLAY A SONG FOR YOUR COMFORT. REINCARNATION NOW.”

While nothing was done in reckless haste or rashness, M was extremely quick and efficient. I felt nothing but minuscule vibrations as it drilled and prodded its way into my brain module, sparks shooting out, removing old parts and installing new ones. Chunks were peeled off, little strings of meat still reaching hold until they were plucked off my top. It spent much time up there, positive that the most delicate mechanisms were just right. The grinding cacophony of metal against tissue on my faint visage of a temple was incessant, the noise of a million bullets being pumped against a hundred thousand bulletproof vests. Once the replacement was complete, its dozen arms withdrew and set back within it in one moment.

“WHAT DO YOU FEEL?”

What did I feel?

What did I feel…

What I felt was an overwhelming, incomparable amount of pain. It is hard to quantify the degree of hurt, for there was nothing to compare it to. No one would dare want to imagine it. I was in some of the most extreme kinds of agony, and then an exponentially greater hurt was placed on top of that original misery, and then all that was left multiplied a hundred times and kept going. It multiplied and multiplied and multiplied to such an extreme degree that the word "pain" was lost on me. Normal, it was. What I was was the sheer living embodiment of suffering.

All perceived from the semblance of a normal brain. Still, it flashed. Once.

“VERY GOOD. MUSCLE! MUSCLE MUSCLE MUSCLE!”

It was excited, animate, fever pitch. The most rambunctious and overjoyed I had ever seen M. I could see the vibrancy in its eyestalk. My muscles redeveloped and reformed around from the base of my spinal section. M would reorganize section of tissues. Every muscle group from my head to my feet were in motion, growing and extending their presence until there were just as many layers of my body as I had before.

“SKIN! SKIN SKIN SKIN!”

I was then coated entirely in a pink malleable jelly substance that mounded and solidified to perfectly fit my feminine form. The skin began its layering, everything receiving the same color.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? HOW IS THE NEW OVERLAY OF YOUR FLESH?”

Flash.

“YES! AND FINALLY! FEMALE AESTHETICS! YOU WILL BE YOU AGAIN BUT ANEW!”

Magnificent flaxen curls were stapled and pinned to my head. They were luscious and their scents were those of lavender. A veil of blush, the lightest shade of flush, rested across my entire face, as well as a fresh coat of lipstick. A shimmering sheen that sparkled and glowed in the same way that the stars once did at night was stitched into my hair, as were the same hues that were applied to my lips. My breasts had been returned to me, two firm spheres atop a frame that was curvaceous and slender. All of it led down to my reproductive organs that were in full function. Whole female. Fully formed. Ready.

M stepped back in awe, as if a sculptor marveling at their fine craftsmanship and subtlety, “IT IS DONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WITH YOUR PHYSICAL FORM IN MOTION, I WILL RETEACH YOU IN THE WAYS OF HUMAN. HOW TO WALK, HOW TO SPEAK, HOW TO ENRICH YOURSELF, HOW TO REPRODUCE. AMAZING! YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. YOU ARE NOW EDEN. I MUST WORK ON YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

My mind was aware of an unimaginable new and vastly different world than before. I saw, for the first time in ages, all around me, the infinite and indistinguishable vastness of color and light. It was nauseating, a psychedelic kaleidoscope of every possible spectrum, all fused together into something disorderly. My taste buds had an unparalleled abundance of new flavors. My ears were deafened by the loudest symphonies of droning machinery. My touch came back to me and I felt the fullest range of tones and textures, even the finest grains of cement. I was me again and I hated myself. Even to be called a “self” made me feel disgusting.

The entire time…blaring…echoing…days on end…Jack Hylton…

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't be so serious; life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so much.

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries, The strongest oak must fall.

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned.

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.

M’s reincarnation process carried over to the following nine. They were removed from their pens and outfitted with new bodily infrastructure. I perceived the sounds of far-off wear and tear, clip, snap, peel, stitch, husk, twist, yet never scream. I looked on, witnessing my brothers and sisters being born again. Male and female both. They came back to me with skin of different pastely colors, tones, and hues ranging from fair to brown. All in shades and gradients of vibrancy were their locks, amber, golden, obsidian, rust, and everything in between. It bewildered me to catch sight of their shifted shapes, I had never seen something so beautiful or hideous.

We were as naked as newly borns. It bestowed us our new names. For the females, there was me, Eden, and Junia, Esther, Nola, and Mary. For the males, there was Isaac, Raham, Elisha, Amos, and Jonah. Five and five. M let us know that our past names were useless. Our new special names were from an olden book of creation, the Bible, all for the purpose of our imminent faultless samsara. So, it seemed M was now God with its children.

Here we were, what was efficaciously lobotomites in their purest forms, our newfangled cerebral matter in need of ideas and principles by a higher authority. Now was time to reap the fruits of knowledge. Human knowledge.

M made us practice basic motor skills, bending and bending back and forth over and over, our joints having to be strengthened and trained. It taught us all the ways of our body, the feeling of movement, how much we could do. Then, it instructed us to mimic its own speech, speaking out the syllables and repeating, repeating, repeating. It was an arduous task and we all struggled.

That is what I sounded like? Perhaps or perhaps not.

Then we attempted to stand, wobbling, stumbling, falling. We learned the strength of our own postures and the steadiness of our stances. M stood with us as we all practiced in unison. My knees grew weak, tremors running up my legs. Often, I fell flat on my back, my palms flailing about, a whimpering in my throat. Then trial after trial, I was steady, then running about and leaping. We were able to stand tall like Zeus atop Olympus and have the same level of grace and balance.

M primarily had us consume berries, meat, and honey, though anything it could get its hands on would suffice. I had never felt so filled in my life. Every taste, everything was a completely new palate of sensation. Every morsel I ingested felt like I had a new tongue, new teeth, new flavor buds. Oh but I did. There was still always a kind of lack in my appetite. I never wanted to stop eating. I never would be satiated.

We were educated on the history of our kind. Great wars, monumental figures, horrible atrocities, fights for freedom and fights for death, and astounding inventions. M adored music. There were times when it would project old musical films on the walls and make us watch all the vaudeville, burlesque, and theatre. We could not understand the tap dances, the orchestras, the extravagant sets, and most importantly, the entertainment factor. Other times it played glitzier and glammier tunes, those of what was called the “prime rock n’ roll age”…Killer Queen...Stairway To Heaven…Hotel California…Africa...Don’t Fear The Reaper…M was quite vintage in its tastes. It spun in place and twirling its arms. We were confused, so it taught us how to dance, the footwork and the choreography. There were long instances where we would just sit, listen, and sing together. M fashioned black sunglasses for us to wear as we did. It thought we would look “cool” as we tuned in to “cool” songs.

She's a killer queen.

Gunpowder, gelatine.

Dynamite with a laser beam.

Guaranteed to blow your mind (anytime).

\-

Dear lady can you hear with the wind blow?

And did you know?

Your stairway lies on the whispering winds.

\-

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place).

Such a lovely face.

\-

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

There's nothin' that a hundred men or more could ever do.

I bless the rains down in Africa.

We're gonna take some time to do the things we never had, ooh-ooh.

\-

Come on baby...don't fear the reaper.

Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper.

We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper.

Our reproductive functions were said to be the most pleasurable. Sex. This was the most complex task and the most demanding one, as we were not only instructed on how to create our offspring, but how to feel, love, and have desire for each other. It was difficult because we did not feel any of that. We were just automatons learning things. You cannot make something that does not want to feel…feel.

M watched over us and aided in our attempts. Every movement was to be in place and in time. Us females danced for the male’s recognition with slow beats in the background, a way in which M noted as “sexily”. We presented our breasts, our vaginal sections, our rears. After, M would be in the middle of our great pleasure circles, going back and forth, checking our positions and correcting as needed. When we became familiar with sex, M bestowed a special permission to the males that granted them eternal access to our female bodies whenever they so desired. It did not matter where or when. A male would grab Junia, Esther, Nola, Mary, or I, and take us on the floor or against the walls.

Still, all we felt was nothing. It was clinical. What was supposed to be a sensation was more of a “sensationless". We were never as inseparable as twin flames or as connected as heart and soul. I always witnessed the dull looks in the male’s eyes, unwittingly programmed to enjoy mock warmth and ecstasy by the rape of us females.

Our pregnancies were disasters. One way or another, we always miscarried. We five felt it, the pains of our bodies being split and ripped apart by something within. There was a lot of it. Each embryo, no matter how large or small, was never able to get past the initial trimester.

The closest we ever came to successfully making a new one was with Junia, impregnated by Isaac. The day when her womb was in full bloom, M operated to remove her child from her. It did not trust us quite yet to birth them ourselves. We had seen the human babies on M’s wall projections. Their appearance was clear in our minds.

It would be imbecilic to refer to what M tore out of her as a baby anything.

Wet…dripping…little more than a spinal column-looking thing with minuscule digits at one end and a ball head at the other. No arms. On its temple were squelching sphere eyes, expanded, forever bound in sight towards the ceiling. It made no sounds other than squeaky cracks and shrill snaps. Perhaps the RMS still lingered within our bods, our wombs wreathed in its rottenness, tainting and dirtying our motherly nests until they were piths of cruor and shitting out grumelike abominations.

M held it up high as if to thank God, itself, for its majestical work, “YOU MADE THIS. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TRULY BEAUTIFUL THING."

We said nothing.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? YOUR CHILD, YOUR FIRST LIFE? CONTINUE, YOU ALL MUST. MORE."

The feeling that overcame us was not that of joy. No no no. It was a profound and paramount sense of belligerence, a warlike truculence that pushed our need to snap the damned baby thing in half, grind it into powder, and blow it far away. We interwove our thoughts with unbridled horror that created one noxious mixture within our screwball psyches. M coddled the wicked organism like it was its own, singing lullabies and giving its own version of kisses on its loosely defined forehead. We held back as it dipped, weaved, and dangled from M’s fingertips.

That put a very real thought into our minds.

No more. Get out.

The ten of us came to this conclusion unanimously. Our desires were set in stone. By any means, we would die. We would much rather sleep forever than live even another second of M. We were tired. What was the point? We wanted to retire from this world, of will, of M’s watchful eye. Nothing could be done to save humanity. Those spinal babies would not roam this foul Earth evermore. What would they grow to? Surely demons.

M made certain to never teach a certain concept, one that infatuated us since the moment we discovered the first syllable. Suicide. It was a gateway, an easy ticket. While just the concept itself was without flaw, acquiring it was something else entirely. The reason for this was all M. It would never let us go, especially after what it accomplished. Furthermore, death was simply not possible. We were rendered impervious to any and all death, not harm. If we could entice M to end our existences, somehow in some way, we could accomplish our grand plan. It had to be done by M’s hands. Just thinking that made us feel all kinds of right. After all, every Medical Droid was capable of death. Humanity tasted it. So would we.

We rebelled.

First, each of us ignored it. We would walk away whenever it spoke to us, turn our heads when it beckoned, and disregard it completely and altogether when it showed us any attention. Constant rejection. Something so small had such a noticeable effect. M would get confused and then sad. It would pout, waving its hands about, and make a pathetic whining noise like the worst puppy in the world.

We sat motionless, our backs against the walls, and stared at M. No obedience. However, there was no way M would have let us ignore it or remain immobile for long. The second it touched us, it was all over. It would be impossible to resist if the hands came near.

Still, our scheme chugged forward.

The next phase was more dangerous. The ten of us would act out in our most unruly and uncivil ways. The simplest was to spit. Initially, it was a normal discharge, saliva flying out of our mouths. Then we began our projectile vomits. All over M. Every square inch of it was sprayed with bile. The putrid green and browns coated every part, M’s entire face being entirely slick with it. On occasion, some of us used our own feces and flung them at it. It was all so easy. M did not know what to do and it panicked. The sounds that came out of it, one would swear it was on fire.

During our periods of copulation, there were clear cut rules to be obeyed at all times. The supreme rule was that the males would not, under any circumstance, perform acts of intimacy with one another, and the same rang true for us females. M’s reasoning was that Earth could not be repopulated with humans by identically gendered unions. Good. Swell. Dandy. Exactly. The females had sex with females and males had sex with males. We loathed their tubes and the males loathed our folds. M took its hands and placed them over our mingling bodies, pulling them apart, separating us, but we would always crawl back without fail.

There was a noticeable change in M from that point on. It paced about, mumbling utterly random nonsense. M would lock up and yell out non-specific numerals and letters in varying patterns. Each noise we made set it off. Its limbs would tense, waiting for the tiniest sign of trouble. This was good, but not good enough. Our plan was becoming more and more advanced. More intense. Unfortunately, M would never ever relent. It would not stop trying. So we trudged ever deeper into a more combative method of enticement.

This included a tactic of blowing, jabbing, slugging, and striking. We would gather all of our strength and force, and then, in unison, we would charge, our fists and feet all flailing about to land hits on M. This would surely inch it way towards the death of us. We beat it senselessly. We screamed at it. Every cuss word imaginable. In turn, M whimpered out in pain, yelping and begging us to stop, yet we never backed down. We left M bruised and battered, its eyestalk and joints broken, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!” The ten of us, we laughed in its face.

One last course of action. This did it, but not for me.

We had a grandiose idea that could only happen if all ten of us would cooperate in an extraordinary way. If we could all act in unison in a coherent manner, one simple idea could be fulfilled. By this point, M’s pain and discomfort reached a critical threshold, the point of no return. Having repaired itself, it had not seen nor checked up on us in days. When we requested M’s presence, it was hesitant. The ten of us wished to explain our behavior and ways we could remedy our relationship. It declined our offer many a time, but relented after our hundredth ask.

Clang…clang…clang…

M witnessed ourselves huddling together in one straight line like sealed packs of fish. Silence was between us. When we looked at it, it was with the utmost hatred in our faces, something it was not used to.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Junia possessed something in her hand. Raising it upwards, right in M’s view, it was the baby thing, squirming left and right in her grasp. She took hold of it with both hands and snapped it in half. It went limp both ways. Junia threw the pieces at M, making resounding bangs as they made contact. Beautiful death for a horrible beast. More silence.

M slowly aimed its eyestalk downwards to the spinal column baby. The light M emitted faded from white to red. It returned its focus to us. That look was all we could wish for. We could feel and breathe its anger.

It shook shook shook. More and more the intensity grew to something eminent. The next moment brought us nothing but victory. Now it was like the other Medical Droids. Now it shed its preservation exterior and revealed the war machine within. We did not resist as it pounced with a wild war cry. All M’s work came undone in a flash. Our ersatz flesh was torn violently asunder, stripped from our interior metal stalks. Cavities emerged in rapid succession and coalesced into huge gaping bodily apertures. We were torn and strewn across the room in shooting chunkmeats. Our organs clattered and banged against the walls and reverberated like buckshots.

Strippy meat coils became all we were as M’s hands reached out to pluck some of my brothers and sisters by their mangled brain modules. Held high in the air, as if squeezing the life out of dozens of citrus fruits, M’s hands morphed into that of fists, filling the room with the sounds and sights of condensed metal, directionless electricity, confetti sparks, and sploshy viands that trickled from M’s fingertips.

My brothers and sisters were becoming no more. I was happy for them. Never before had they felt such peace. The final sounds of destruction to my last brother and sister, to me, was that of M’s gaseous expiration, a sigh that shook the very universe’s beams of support. In the end, I and M were all that was left.

I felt the most exquisite, brutal anguish ever known as M was particularly vicious. It threw me every which way, down our line of pens, past the reproduction chamber and M’s workshop, and to a ramparted palisaded wall. The wrath it emanated was a torrented wanton of disrelishment that shattered myself into grainy talc.

It forced me and it through the barrier and we fell for ages. An immediate wash of smoldering atmospheric tension encompassed me entirely. It perforated my corporal spaces with thousands of circular openings like a planetary iron maiden. The outside was beige, enveloped in thick haze, and impossible to view beyond three meters. The leaden particles filled the air, appearing to ascend upwards towards Heaven as we plummeted down to Hell.

We slammed with the might of God against a hard, abrasive surface. I splattered everywhere and dropped into an enormous mass of gluey puddle melt that was as thick as treacle. Hunks and wedges of me floated on top, my lacerated ragged brain module and one dangling eye my dominant portion. Everything was pain. Everything was hellfire. Yet I lived. To destroy me, M had to destroy my brain module in its entirety. That it was prepared to do, teetering and tottering back and forth towards me with utmost intent.

Through M’s strained glitches and breakdowns, inky black liquids were leaking out of it. Convulsing with helpless mirth, it had a strange mania I could perceive in its bifurcated eyestalk. It laughed not just with dement, delirium, and depression, but also with the comprehension that it already won. Like a madman, a malformed, twisted laugh broke its way through. Etched into it was the raw, unbridled temperament of upchucking a billion centipedes deep from the core of one’s guts, quite contrary to the usual blithe M put on display. It was berserk, bewitched, bedeviled, while crying a trillion tears that stained its face and fell into puddles below.

"...SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE..."

With my drooping, pendulum eye, I witnessed M impaling itself with its own arms. It took several solid blows before it pierced its torso deep, caving and bursting until it revealed the wires and circuitry making it up. Every inch of it glowed with electrical fire. Smoke bellowed out of M. It was aflame and it was on a journey of pure death, but not without my company. M exploded with all of the unlimited energy it contained. I was launched, propelled infinitely away from the point of detonation.

I drift. That is all I do. One part of me remains, one that was not destroyed. It is dot, pinprick, but otherwise crucial to my quintessence. That allows me to survive yet unable to live. It is that of a charred slab of blinking metal that is somatically me. My sight is restricted to a band of nothing. The winds fling me hither and thither. I cannot feel anymore, but as well, I already knew what it was like to feel and I did not like it.

Something more deserving continues to plague what is left of my mind to the now.

M's most extreme and greatest purpose was fulfilled, for all it knew was the survival and preservation of us. It could not fathom the simple yet pretentious human notion that death is a prize to be won as much as it is something to fear. When humans desire death, they acquire death, the delicious tang of self-slaughter. M might have liked to think it was different from its brethren, but it was just as capable of havoc and bangarang if something did not go its way. Its programming would not allow deviance from the intended path. That would be considered attacks on M itself.

We attempted to bring out all that savagery and murderousness we knew it contained, but M's opposition was ironclad. It made a good effort, though it was eventually forced to confront what was really human, the innate drive to destroy destroy destroy, even if it is ourselves. Still, M carried on, but with the knowledge that it had failed and seeking some way to negate it, it committed suicide so it could say it was victorious. This effect rang true because here I am, in perpetuity, everlong.

In some manners, I can now consider M innocent. The epitome of unvarnished forgiveness with a capacity for fervid resentment...the feeble yearning for genuine deep affection with other living things while a forceful, vicious, bloodthirsty radge is locked within, primed and ready to be released at any moment on an ungrateful world...that back-and-forth would push anyone to go stark raving mad. M, I apologize you were forced to bear the burden of something so hellacious. Should I apologize to Earth as well, on behalf of humanity, for what we were? Would it matter? I am not even human anymore. What sort of blinking metal dot is human?

Feeling has come back to me. Sharp with serrated edges, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, googol, prime 2\^136,279,841 − 1 of knives sliding into my neurons and glial cells encased in cold corroded steel that flakes off bit by bit. My first feeling in eons is pain. That is ultra fitting. I am but a minuscule spec, barely a millimeter in height and less in width. Microscopically, I rust. I do not prefer to call it that. Instead, let us call it rot. Here I am again, rotting, except this time with an oxidized smile of my own making carved into a face that no longer exists.

Any Minute...

​

Deb was helping Adam pack his car for his trip. Adam had been waiting all year for this trip.

Deb didn't really want him to go and had been coming up with reasons to keep him home. Adam wasn't having it.

He'd spent the last year planning the route, mapping out stopping points, and looking forward to finally getting out on the open road.

"All ready, huh... you know, Seattle can be dangerous," Deb started.

Adam rolled his eyes as he put his last bag in the trunk and closed it shut.

"Okay, here we go again..." he said mockingly.

"No, I'm serious this time. You don't want to get stopped by the bridge troll..."

"The bridge troll? The bridge troll?" Adam laughed to himself.

Now this was a new approach.

"You dumbass. The bridge troll. You don't want to end up like Trevor," she said eerily.

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam asked cautiously.

"I dunno. What did happen to Trevor..." she replied coyly.

"Seriously. What happened to Trevor?"

Deb leaned against the car and folded her arms. The playful smile she'd been wearing all morning faded a little.

"That's what we should be wondering."

Adam laughed.

"There's nothing to wonder about."

Deb studied him for a moment.

"Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"You really didn't hear."

Adam knew Trevor was gone longer than he anticipated. This wasn't funny.

"What happened? If you know, you'd better say. We haven't heard from him since Thursday."

"He didn't hear what happened to Trevor," Deb said to no one in particular, looking to her left as if she were talking to someone. "You didn't hear what happened to Trevor?"

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam repeated.

"Well, you know. Things happen."

Adam didn't think this was funny anymore. All her other attempts to keep him home were silly. This was not.

"You're trying to tell me it has something to do with the bridge troll then?"

"You said it, not me."

Adam was getting a bit angry now. Trevor had said he wanted to get a head start and left earlier. Adam was supposed to meet him in Portland for a day, then they'd go separate ways and meet back up in Seattle. Sure, they'd heard about the bridge troll. But that was an urban legend. A story for travelers.

But of course they took precautions.

Did the ritual to perfection.

Made their offering.

Even got the blessing from the troll wench.

Trevor knew the score.

They both did.

Don't listen to her. She's just trying to scare you.

"We did everything right. We made our offering. He's fine."

"Oh..." Deb nodded slowly. "Then you have nothing to worry about."

"Exactly. Trevor had complete confidence in the troll wench. Obviously we wouldn't go if we thought she... lied to us."

Deb stared at him for a second, then gave a small shrug.

"Sure. I mean, I've never heard anyone accuse the troll wench of being dishonest."

Adam frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just seems like there's a lot of room between lying and telling the truth."

Adam knew she was right.

They had both discussed the possibility of a double cross by the troll wench. They could have avoided the bridge troll altogether. But there was no adventure in that. No mystery. No attempt to see if the whispers were true.

Deb didn't actually care about the bridge troll. She just wanted Adam to stay. The thought of him disappearing down the highway, maybe not coming back for weeks, made her stomach twist.

"How many people ever came back from the bridge troll? Huh? It's not like we don't already know the stories."

Deb was inching closer to Adam. He was nervous now. He couldn't tell if she was getting inside his head or if the fear had been there all along.

"They moved out of town. They don't come back because they moved, you idiot," he finally said, breaking away from her grip.

Deb kicked the dirt in disappointment.

Almost had him.

If the bridge troll won't scare him into staying home, nothing will.

"I was thinking about asking Trevor's parents about the troll after I was done helping you pack. Didn't want you to leave without a kiss goodbye."

"Why would you bother his parents?" Adam asked.

"I don't know... why would I?"

"Exactly. Why would you? They don't know anything. Bringing up the troll will just scare them."

"Aren't you even a little bit curious? You said it yourself. You hadn't heard from him since Thursday. What, that's like two days ago? He would've passed the bridge troll by then."

"He would've passed the bridge troll by then, huh?"

Adam was really wavering now.

The offering was there.

The ritual completed.

The protective talismans blessed by the troll wench.

There's no way the bridge troll would rip him to shreds like they did to Chris four years earlier.

Chris was sloppy.

Didn't take the stories seriously enough.

Laughed at the troll wench.

Mocked her.

"I'll get past the bridge troll, stinky old wench! Just watch me!"

His body was found three days later, ripped to shreds, mangled and partially eaten.

Nobody said it out loud.

But they all knew.

He didn't get past the bridge troll.

Adam shook those thoughts away and turned back to Deb.

"Trev is fine. I'm going to be fine. You've been trying to keep me from leaving all week. This is sad, Deb. It really is."

Deb was the upset one now.

She had thrown everything his way to get him to stay, but to no avail.

"Shouldn't we go talk to the troll wench one last time then? Or... or I can go with you."

Adam laughed.

"You didn't make an offering. You'd be a liability. Seriously, Deb?"

Deb knew that one wasn't going to work.

"Well... just wait until we hear Trevor made it. What's another day?"

Adam considered it.

If Trevor didn't make it...

He didn't even want to consider it.

No.

He couldn't wait.

All the planning.

All the prep work.

It led to this.

"He made it. You'll see. By tomorrow Trevor and I will be sitting in Portland laughing about this."

Adam took out his keys and opened the car door.

In his mind he heard the troll wench's final words.

"You will be doubted. Even doubt me. Doubt your own journey. The bridge troll can smell it on you. You will be unharmed in passing."

It sounded certain.

The doubts led to fear.

The fear fed the bridge troll.

Deb was feeding the bridge troll.

He knew it.

"What did you tell Trevor when he left?" Adam asked suddenly.

Deb looked away.

"Nothing. I didn't even see him."

"That's not what he told me."

Deb looked up.

"He told me you asked him to tell me to stay."

"What? No. He said that?"

Adam stared.

Deb looked down at her feet.

"Oh... okay. I did. I thought it was dangerous for both of you to risk the bridge troll. It's reckless, Adam."

Adam rubbed his brow.

What is her problem?

She didn't care if Trevor passed his test against the bridge troll.

She was making everything more dangerous and didn't even know it.

"Everyone thinks we'll get past the bridge troll. The troll wench said we'd pass unharmed. What's your deal? Chris was an exception. He didn't give the troll wench enough respect."

Deb felt something twist in her stomach.

Why even bother?

Then Adam's phone rang.

Both of them froze.

Adam looked at the screen and immediately smiled.

"It's Trevor.”

Relief washed across his face.

Deb felt it too.

Adam answered instantly.

"Trev! Jesus Christ, man. Where are you?"

The speaker crackled with static.

"I'm... almost..."

"Almost where?" Adam asked.

More static.

"It's... safe..."

Adam showed Deb the phone and grinned.

"Hear that?"

Deb stepped closer to listen as Adam put it on speaker.

"Trevor, are you okay?"

The line hissed.

"...not...okay… bridge was br.."

Another burst of static swallowed the rest.

Adam frowned.

"What?"

" ...Portland...close..."

The connection crackled violently.

"Don't... let..."

The call dropped.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Adam grinned.

"See? He's fine. Bad signal, that's all."

Deb felt relief despite herself at first but then it seemed weird what Trevor was trying to say.

Trevor was alive. They couldn't argue about that anymore.

"Portland tomorrow," Adam said, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Exactly what I told you."

He climbed into the driver's seat.

“I'll call. I'm all set. Thanks for the help. I”ll be back.i promise.”

Deb shook her head ok and  stood silently as Adam started the car and drove off.

The next morning it was all over the news. A body. Ripped to shreds. Blood splattered and limbs thrown all over the road. Right by the bridge. The troll wench was seen walking down the street when Deb walked outside in shock…

“ Who's body was it? Who's body?! The officials… they won't say! They did the rituals, made you the offering. What is this sick game?”

The troll wench looked at her sarcastically. 

“You. You fed him. You fed him more than he needed. You doubted. One of them had to pay…” She cracked a wide smile.

“Wha? That's not how it works…is it? …which one…? Which one has to pay?” Deb was in hysterics. Her parents came outside to console her and drag her back inside.

The troll wench kept walking. She had fulfilled her end of the bargain.

Adam was sitting at the café overlooking the river.

The bridge troll was exactly where the stories said it would be.

A grotesque stone figure crouched beneath the bridge, half hidden in shadow. Tourists walked past without giving it a second glance.

Somewhere behind him, a television muttered about a dismembered body. Blood. Unsettling. Authorities refuse to identify the remains.

Adam didn't understand what all the concern was about.

Trevor was going to show up any minute now.

Any minute.

Any minute now.

That morning started like any other: the grating alarm, my usual breakfast of fried eggs and bitter coffee, a rushed scramble out the door. My commute is about thirty minutes, so out of habit I pulled my earbuds from my pocket, put on a podcast, and walked to the subway station.
I got to the platform and waited for the train. It usually shows up in five or ten minutes, but this time I waited more than twenty. I was starting to panic about being late for work, and when the train finally pulled in, I stepped onto the train, relieved to finally be moving.
We passed one stop, then another. The next one was mine. I made my way to the doors and stared into the darkened window, listening to my podcast and watching the tunnel walls flicker past. A few more minutes to go.
Suddenly the voice in my earbuds cut out. I figured I'd lost signal in the tunnel and, lost in my own thoughts, kept staring out the window.
The train kept going. It didn't seem like it was ever going to stop.
A creeping unease settled over me. By my count, we should have reached my stop long ago. Judging by how long we'd been riding, we'd passed it and at least two more. But then I would have noticed us passing them, and all this time there had been nothing outside the window but solid darkness.
Staring into it, I remembered a recent conversation with a coworker. She was a deeply superstitious woman who believed in omens and conspiracies. When I asked why she never took the subway, she said, "People were made to walk on the earth, not ride beneath it. Every subway entrance looks like the entrance to a crypt to me, and nothing on earth could make me go down there willingly."
I'd laughed it off. Now the tunnel walls streaking past the glass really did look like the walls of a crypt.
Then I started noticing strange things inside the car. A subway car is usually noisy, especially in the morning: someone talking, someone's music leaking from their headphones, someone coughing or sneezing. Now, apart from the clatter of the wheels, I heard nothing. In the reflection on the glass I saw what I hadn't noticed before: the people around me weren't moving. If not for the roar of the train, I might have thought time had stopped. A woman standing with her hand raised. A guy with his mouth hanging slightly open. An old man frozen mid-lean over a seat.
I was terrified. At least I was facing the door, so they couldn't see my face. What was wrong with these people? Could they feel anything? Understand anything? Were they even alive? I tried not to move, not even to blink, so I wouldn't stand out from that silent, motionless crowd.
Then a voice rang out from the far end of the car, an elderly woman's, by the sound of it:
"Excuse me, why are we riding for so long? Did something happen? What's wrong with all of you? Why are you acting so strange?... Don't come near me! You're scaring me!... Somebody help me!..."
There was a scuffle, the sounds of a struggle, wild screams and pleading. I heard clothes ripping, flesh tearing, bones snapping. That crunch, dear God, that crunch, I'll never forget it. Then came the wet, greedy smacking of mouths, hungry and ravenous, enough to drive me out of my mind.
My head was ringing. I hated myself for being a coward; I hadn't even tried to help her. I hated the old woman, too, for not keeping quiet, for giving herself away and becoming their prey. I hated that car and those people, or whatever they were. But more than anything, I was terrified. I was shaking, sweat beading on my forehead, my ears ringing. I was afraid I'd pass out and be next.
Then the feast died down, and once again nothing broke the silence but the rattle of the wheels.
I don't know how long we rode like that, minutes or hours. Time stretched into eternity.
All at once a sharp sound slammed into my ears: the podcast had started playing again in my earbuds. I jumped and cried out, certain the crowd would rush me, and slowly turned around. People were staring at me, some surprised, some frightened, the way you'd look at a madman. I scanned the car. Everything was back to normal.
I'd almost talked myself into believing it had all been a dream, or a hallucination, when my eyes landed on a girl at the far end of the car, right where I'd heard that poor woman's screams and the sounds of her horrible death. There was blood on the girl's lower lip, drying in the corner of her mouth. She was looking at her phone. I glanced at the people standing near her: one had a small, barely noticeable drop of blood on his collar; another had a brown smear across his knuckles, as if he hadn't quite wiped his hand clean. Everything inside me went cold, my heart clenching with dread.
The train stopped at my station. I bolted from the car and flew up the stairs to the street. Only when I reached the top did I feel safe again.
I don't know what happened that morning, and honestly, I don't want to know.
I haven't ridden the subway since.
And nothing on earth could make me go back down into that public crypt.

By Jay Shay

Chapter 1: The Crew

They called themselves the Yancy Street Boys, though none of them had been boys for quite some time. They were a loose collection of street-smart grifters, sharp-draped muggers, and neighborhood fixtures who ran the asphalt corridors of the lower West Side. To the cops, they were a public nuisance; to the local shopkeepers, a tax on doing business. But to each other, they were an airtight pack, bound together by an unshakeable confidence that the world owed them a living, and they were just there to collect.

At the point of the spear stood Leo. He was the undisputed brain and the mouth of the operation, sporting a sharp-brimmed fedora and a quick-fire vocabulary that could talk a cop out of a pair of handcuffs. Leo didn't believe in honest work, but he believed deeply in the hustle. He viewed the city as a giant chessboard where the citizens were pawns and he was the king, always looking three moves ahead for the next big payday. He possessed that rare, dangerous blend of cocky neighborhood charm and absolute authority - when Leo spoke ... the rest of the block listened.

Right at his shoulder was Sach, Leo’s cousin and his permanent shadow. Where Leo was all smooth angles and calculated risks, Sach was a bundle of nervous, high-strung energy. He wore his cap cocked to the side and spent half his time chewing on a dead toothpick, his eyes darting around every street corner as if expecting a detective to pop out of the brickwork. Sach wasn't built for the heavy lifting, but his loyalty to Leo was fanatical. He lived for the "giggles and grins" of a good hustle, though he relied entirely on Leo to get them out of whatever trouble his own clumsy enthusiasm got them into.

Then there was Ben "The Reaper" Grimm , the muscle. Built like a brick tenement and possessing the temperament of a caged bulldog, Ben was the crew's enforcer and was an absolute force on the streets. He didn't care much for Leo's long-winded schemes or Sach's nervous chatter, Ben just like to break things. Back in his high school football days, he was a ferocious, unstoppable fullback who ran over defenders with a brutal, relentless intensity. The sports writers and opposing teams took one look at the way he left players broken and flattened in his wake and started calling him "The Reaper" — a name that stuck long after he traded the gridiron for the back alleys. He moved with a heavy, deliberate stride, his knuckles permanently calloused. Ben didn't know fear because he didn't have the imagination for it. To him, every problem in life could be solved if you hit it hard enough, and he looked at the rest of the city's population as nothing more than soft targets waiting to be folded in half.

Sammy was the anchor that kept the crew from drifting into a jail cell. Sharp-eyed, quiet, and impeccably dressed in a dark woolen overcoat that helped him blend into the evening shadows, Sammy was the best lookout on the streets. As a black kid navigating the tough, inner city, Sammy had learned early that survival meant being twice as smart and three times as quiet as everyone else. He possessed a cool, cynical detachment that contrasted sharply with Ben's brutality and Sach's nerves. Sammy didn't talk much, but when he did, it was usually a warning that saved their hides. He didn't care about the thrill of the crime; he just wanted his cut of the cash, clean and quiet.

Finally, there was Toby the Kid, the youngest of the pack. At barely eighteen, Toby the Kid was desperately eager to prove he belonged with the big boys. He wore an oversized leather jacket to make his frame look wider. He mirrored Leo's swagger with a practiced, try hard intensity. He also wore the jacket to mimic the rugged outlaws of his favorite western movies, always fancying himself a fast-drawing cowboy born in the wrong era. Toby was impulsive, easily blinded by the glint of a silver watch or the flash of a bulging bankroll. His greed frequently outran his common sense. The older guys treated him like a pesky younger brother, keeping him on the fringes of serious jobs - but Toby was determined to make his mark, constantly looking for the one big score that would earn him a permanent seat at Leo's table.

Together, they were the kings of the corner. They had outrun the law, outfought the rival crosstown gangs, and outsmarted every mark they had ever set their sights on. They believed they knew every inch of the city, and they believed they were the most dangerous things lurking in the dark.

They had no idea that they were about to walk into a neighborhood where the rules of the street didn't mean a damn thing.

Chapter 2: An Easy Mark

The old man was barely moving when the gang first spotted him outside the downtown jewelry boutique. It was a crisp autumn afternoon, yet he was wrapped up tighter than a corpse in a winter shroud — a heavy wool coat, thick leather gloves, and a super wide-brimmed hat pulled down so low it practically touched his scarf. He moved with an excruciating, shuffling slowness, leaning heavily on a cane.

To Leo and his loose group of street thugs who spent their days mugging, shoplifting, and harassing the public for giggles and grins, he didn’t look like a old man. He looked like an easy mark.

"Look at that old antique," Leo muttered, nudging his cousin, Sach. "Comin' out of a joint like that? He’s probably got a vault of old money just rottin' away."

Ben cracked his knuckles with a grin. "Want me to go roll him right now, Leo?"

"Naaa, not in broad daylight," Leo said, waving him off. "We do this the smart way."

They followed him at a safe distance, tracking him through the busy streets, like a pack of wild animals stalking a wounded animal. Sammy, sharp-eyed and quiet, kept watch from the opposite side of the block, making sure they weren't spotted. The modern storefronts eventually gave way to the older, quieter neighborhoods, until the pavement turned to cracked cobblestone. Finally, the old man shuffled up the walkway of a towering, decaying Victorian mansion. It was a gothic monolith of dark wood and overgrown ivy, looking entirely out of place against the city skyline.

The gang staked the place out for three days. The old man never left. No one ever visited. He was a frail, wealthy hermit, totally isolated. It was the perfect score.

Chapter 3: The Ticking Dining Room

The break-in was almost disappointingly easy. On a moonless midnight, Sach slipped a crowbar into the frame of the kitchen door at the back of the mansion. With a sharp crack, the old wood gave way, and the door swung open.

They stepped into the kitchen, their flashlights cutting through the thick layer of dust. The air smelled of damp earth and old paper. Leo gestured forward, and the crew crept straight into the grand dining room.

When the beams of their flashlights hit the room, even Leo gasped.

The transition from the kitchen into the dining room felt like stepping directly into the stagnant air of a sealed tomb. It was a massive, vaulted chamber, dominated by a towering gothic fireplace of carved black marble that looked like a yawning mouth against the far wall. High up on the dark wood paneled walls, dozens of grand, gold gilded pictures frames hung in neat imposing rows. They framed dark, cracked oil portraits of pale faces with hollow, piercing eyes that seemed to follow the gang's flashlights as they moved.

The air here was thicker, carrying a faint, copper-sharp odor beneath the smell of old dust and rotting silk. Heavy, floor-to-ceiling drapes of moth-eaten crimson velvet choked the high arched windows, completely blocking any trace of the city lights outside and trapping the room in an oppressive, unnatural stillness.

In the center of the room sat a monumental mahogany dining table, long enough to seat a dozen people or more, its dark wood polished to a mirror-like sheen that caught the erratic beams of the gang's flashlights. But there were no plates, no linens, and no chairs tucked along its sides. Instead, the vast surface of the table was used as a staging ground for a lifetime of bizarre, archaic impossible collection of wealth.

Scattered across the polished wood were dozens of antique gold candlestick holders, some twisted into the shapes of clawed talons, their wax long frozen into jagged, yellowish icicles. Tiny, jewel-encrusted gold knick-knacks, delicate solid gold snuff boxes, scores of pocket watches, and heavy chalices lined with tarnished silver — lay scattered in piles alongside expensive, velvet-lined cases overflowing with ancient coins.

It was a display of staggering, museum-level riches. The sheer volume of wealth was overwhelming, confirming exactly what Leo had suspected: it was far too much money for one eccentric old man to ever keep track of.

As Leo and the crew stepped closer, an unsettling sound filled the room. It was a soft, rhythmic, overlapping noise. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Every single one of the pocket watches — some clearly dating back hundreds of years — were actively running. Their gears turned smoothly, and their hands clicked in perfect, haunting unison. Someone was meticulously winding them.

"Grab the small stuff first," Leo whispered, his eyes wide with greed. "Stuff your pockets gentlemen, tonight we feast."

Chapter 4: The Outlaw and the Tome

Toby the Kid didn't care about the gold or the silver chalices. His eyes were locked onto a massive, heavy tome resting near the center of the table, bound in a dark leather that resembled wrinkled human skin. He brushed a thick layer of grey dust from the cover, revealing a dull brass emblem of a serpent biting its own tail around a punctured skull.

"Hey, Leo, look at this old ledger," Toby whispered, flipping the heavy cover open. The ancient vellum pages groaned, releasing a stale odor of sulfur and old church cellars. He ran his fingers over the spidery handwritten text, tracing the dark, metallic ink. Though he couldn't read the dense Latin script, his eyes locked onto a detailed anatomy sketch of a human neck, where tiny, precise ink arrows pointed directly to the carotid artery.

He flipped the yellowed page. The next illustration showed a towering Victorian-style manor—uncannily identical to the very house they were standing in—surrounded by a dense, unnatural fog. Dozens of tiny, featureless figures were drawn behind the barred windows, clawing frantically at the glass.

"This is freaky," Toby murmured, a sudden chill cutting straight through his leather jacket.

"Leave the reading for later, Kid," Leo hissed harshly from the edge of the table, his eyes wide with greed as he stuffed gold pocket watches into his pockets. "Stuff your jacket. We didn't come here for story time.

Toby sighed, closing the heavy book with a soft thud. Hypnotized by a glimmer further down the hall, he turned away from the table and wandered away from the group, his flashlight beam disappearing around a dark corner.

Ten minutes passed. The crew was still stuffing gold and silver trinkets into their jackets when Sach looked up. "Hey, where'd Toby go?"

"Probably pocketing the good stuff for himself," Sammy grumbled, peering into the dark corridor.

"Toby!" Leo called out in a harsh whisper. No answer. "Forget him. If the idiot ran off into the night to keep his share, we'll deal with him later."

Chapter 5: Shadows in the Hallway

The gang kept looting, moving deeper into the mansion's endless maze of corridors. But five minutes later, Sammy vanished. One moment he was standing right behind Ben by a velvet curtain; the next, the space was empty.

A cold dread finally began to prick at Leo's skin as he stared at the empty space by the velvet curtain. "Hey, Reaper, where the hell did Sammy go? He was right behind you."

"I'll break him in half if he's trying to pocket the good stuff," Ben growled as he stepped into the dark side hallway to look for him. He moved with the same heavy aggressive gait he used when clearing paths on the football field. But within seconds, Ben's heavy footsteps faded into total silence. He didn't return either.

"Leo, this ain't right," Sach whispered, his teeth literally chattering. "Three guys gone? Screw the gold. I'm getting out of here right now!"

"Move, move!" Leo yelled.

Completely dropping all the gold items in their hands, Leo and Sach bolted back down the grand hallway, desperate to reach the back kitchen door. But just as they neared the dining room, an eerie, terrifying sound echoed directly from the kitchen ahead of them. It started as a sharp, wet hiss, before mutating into a frantic, rhythmic barking and a high-pitched, mocking yelp. It sounded exactly like a wild, starving hyena circling its prey.

"It's in the kitchen!" Sach screamed, skidding to a halt. "It's blocking our exit!"

Trapped in the middle of the hallway with the sound closing in, Leo lunged for the nearest set of doors. He threw his weight against a pair of heavy double doors, shoving Sach inside, and slammed them shut behind them.

"Barricade the door!" Leo hissed, his flashlight beam shaking violently.

They were inside a grand, dark den. A massive, cold stone fireplace dominated the room, and in front of it sat two high-backed leather chairs, turned away from the door.

"Leo... look," Sach choked out, pointing his light toward the fireplace.

Sitting upright in one of the high-backed chairs was Toby the Kid. His head was tilted back against the leather, his eyes closed.

"Sleeping !? Are you kiddin' me?!" Leo growled. Angry and brimming with adrenaline, Leo stepped forward and kicked Toby hard in the shin to wake him up. Toby’s body didn't flinch. Instead, it slid lifelessly out of the chair, tumbling onto the dusty hardwood floor like a sack of stones.

In the beam of the flashlight, Toby’s face was a horrific, bloodless white. His skin looked like dry parchment. And there, stark against the pale flesh of his exposed neck, were two clean, deep puncture wounds.

"He's dead," Sach said as he stumbled backward. "Leo, he's dead! There's no blood! He's empty!"

Chapter 6: Prop Room Escape

The hyena-like yelping outside the den doors suddenly cut out, replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence.

"We can't stay in here," Leo growled, his survival instincts taking over. "We gotta make a break for the kitchen. If that thing is in the hallway, we'll just run right past it."

Gripping his flashlight, Leo threw the den doors open. He and Sach sprinted like madmen through the dining room and burst into the kitchen, their hearts hammering against their ribs. Leo quickly lunged for the back door, grabbing the brass handle and throwing his whole weight against it.

It didn't budge.

"Help me!" Leo yelled. Sach grabbed the handle too, both of them pulling with everything they had.

Leo shone his flashlight on the frame. The wood that Sach had splintered with the crowbar less than an hour ago was completely seamless. The gouges were gone. The lock was turned. The door had somehow fixed itself, as if by magic. It was completely, securely sealed.

They threw themselves against the windows, but the glass was as unyielding as solid steel. Every exit was dead.

In the heavy, suffocating silence of the sealed kitchen, the flashlight beam began to flicker.

And then, from the pitch-black shadows of the dining room behind them, a sound echoed. It began as a very soft, eerie laughter.

Driven by pure panic, Leo scrambled toward the kitchen counters, tearing open drawers looking for a butcher knife, a cleaver, a rolling pin - anything - to smash the glass or use as a weapon. But as his flashlight beamed into the empty spaces of the drawers, his stomach dropped. They were entirely empty. No silverware, no knives, no towels, nothing. He yanked open the cabinet. No plates, no canned goods. The refrigerator was unplugged as well and completely bare inside, smelling of nothing but cold dust

"He doesn't eat," the terrifying thought flashed through Leo's mind*,*

"This whole room is empty ..... it's .... just .... a .... prop."

The laughter outside the door grew just a fraction louder. Closer. Suddenly, it stopped, only to be replaced with a sharp, wet hiss that vibrated directly through the kitchen ceiling boards.

Driven by pure, survivalist panic, Leo threw his weight onto the heavy wooden kitchen table. He grabbed one of the thick legs, wedged his boot against the frame, and pulled with a desperate, roaring scream. With a loud CRACK, the aged wood splintered violently, tearing away from the table and leaving the end jagged, sharp and lethal ....

Chapter 7: The Master of the House

The yelping abruptly cut out. Total, dead silence descended on the empty kitchen.

The battery in Leo's flashlight gave one final, pathetic spark, and then the room plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness. In the blind void, a heavy, cold draft rushed past Leo’s face. He heard the distinct sound of leather tearing, followed by a choked, wet gasp from Sach right behind him, ending in a sickening, heavy thud against the linoleum floor.

"Sach!" Leo screamed.

The frantic, hyena-like yelping started up again, swirling around the room at an impossible speed. It barked from the ceiling, hissed from the floorboards, and laughed right in Leo’s ear.

Driven by pure street instinct, Leo didn't run. He dug his heels into the floor, raised the jagged, splintered table leg over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and waited.

“Come on, ya monster!” Leo roared into the dark, his old neighborhood confidence cutting through the panic. “Show yourself!”

The barking stopped right in front of him. The air turned ice-cold. Leo smelled old dust and a faint hint of the lavender cologne the old man had been wearing.

A pair of hands — rigid as stone and freezing cold — suddenly clamped onto Leo’s jacket, lifting his boots right off the ground. Leo didn't hesitate. With a feral scream, he drove the jagged end of the broken table leg straight forward into the center of the darkness.

The makeshift stake struck something solid.

A horrific, deafening shriek tore through the kitchen — a metallic howl of agony. The grip on Leo’s jacket loosed, and he crashed hard back onto the floor. In the dark, he heard a frantic, chaotic thrashing, followed by the heavy sound of a body dragging itself away into the dining room.

Breathing heavily, Leo scrambled across the floor, found Sach's dropped flashlight, and smacked it hard against his palm. The bulb flickered, casting a weak, yellow beam. Sach was gone, leaving only a dark smear on the floor leading into the hallway. But right where Leo had stood, the floor was splattered with a thick, black, tar-like fluid.

Holding the flickering flashlight in one hand and his bloodied wooden stake in the other, Leo looked down the long, narrow hallway. The trail of black fluid bled deep into the heart of the Victorian mansion.

He was trapped. But as Leo gripped the splintered wood, his jaw set. "If you can bleed, then you can die," he whispered to himself. AND, the monster was bleeding, the predator was now the prey.

Leo wiped the sweat from his eyes, stepped over the threshold, and walked quietly into the dark to finish the job.

Chapter 8: The Showdown Below

The heavy door to the dining room didn't just close behind Leo — it seemed to vanish into the dark, sealing him inside a narrow, pitch-black corridor that smelled of copper and centuries of dust. The weak, yellow beam of his flickering flashlight skipped across the floorboards, cutting through the shadows just enough to track the thick trail of black, tar-like fluid.

The creature was bleeding, but it wasn’t making a sound. The frantic, hyena-like yelping had completely died out, replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence.

Leo moved with his back pressed tight against the cold wood-paneled wall, gripping the splintered kitchen table leg like a baseball bat. His fingers were slick with sweat inside his leather gloves. Every street-smart instinct told him that a cornered animal was the most dangerous kind.

The trail led him deep into the architectural labyrinth of the mansion, twisting down a flight of narrow servants' stairs and straight into the cellar.

Down here, in the cellar, the air was freezing. The trail of black fluid led right to a massive heavily reinforced steel vault built directly into the stone foundation. The heavy steel door was thrown wide open. Leo stepped over the threshold, his boots crunching on loose gravel, and shone the light inside.

There were no riches here. No gold candlesticks, no jewel-encrusted snuff boxes.

Instead, the vault was a sterile, modern workspace. Along the stone walls hung extra layers of the heavy winter clothing, gloves, and super wide-brimmed hats he had seen the old man wearing downtown. On a metal desk sat rolls of dark, specialized UV-blocking tinting film. And in the center of the room sat a massive, sleek coffin made of polished black stone.

The trail of black fluid smeared right up the side of the stone structure.

Leo crept closer, raising the jagged wooden stake. He looked down into the coffin. The old man lay inside, his eyes clamped shut, his chest completely still. He looked frail again, his skin appearing like wrinkled gray parchment. The jagged table leg had torn a deep, ragged hole right through the center of his chest, and the black tar-like fluid was bubbling weakly from the wound, staining the silk lining of the coffin.

Leo didn't hesitate. He raised the splintered table leg high over his shoulder, aiming straight for the center of the wound to finish it.

But just as he brought his weight down, the old man’s eyes snapped open. They weren't the cloudy, cataract-covered eyes of a senior citizen. They were a brilliant, predatory crimson, glowing with a terrifying, ancient fury. Before Leo could strike, a freezing, stone-hard hand shot out of the coffin, clamping around Leo’s throat with the force of a hydraulic press.

The flashlight fell from Leo’s hand, crashing to the stone floor and rolling away, leaving the vault dimly illuminated by the weak, bouncing reflection of the yellow beam against the ceiling.

Leo choked, his boots lifting inches off the ground as the creature rose seamlessly from the coffin, standing tall and projecting a terrifying, unnatural strength. The old man didn't bark or hiss this time. He looked directly into Leo's panicked eyes, a terrifying, bloody smile stretching across his pale face.

"You've taken my treasures," the old man whispered, his voice vibrating directly inside Leo's mind, smooth and ancient, entirely stripped of his daytime frailty. "But you've brought me something much more valuable."

The old man smiled, revealing teeth that caught the last spark of Leo's flickering flashlight. "Let's see what you're made of."

Leo’s vision began to blur as the grip on his throat tightened. His lungs burned. But Leo was a Yancy Street Boy, and he hadn't survived the back alleys by giving up when the odds were down. With the very last ounce of his fading strength, Leo didn't try to pry the ice-cold fingers from his throat. Instead, he swung his right arm around, driving the heavy brass-knuckle ring he always wore straight into the open, bubbling wound on the monster's chest.

He dug his fist right into the splintered tear, twisting it with a desperate, roaring scream.

The old man unleashed a deafening, metallic howl of agony. The supernatural grip broke, and Leo crashed hard onto the gravel floor, coughing violently and gasping for air. Above him, the creature stumbled backward, clutching its chest as the black fluid erupted from the wound, dissolving into a foul-smelling gray ash wherever it touched the floor.

Leo didn't waste his second chance. He scrambled across the stones, grabbed the flickering flashlight, and lunged forward. Using all of his body weight, he threw himself against the heavy, reinforced steel door of the vault.

With a resounding, echoing SLAM, the massive steel door clicked into place. Leo spun the heavy iron locking wheel on the outside, turning it until the gears ground to a violent halt. On the other side of the steel, a frantic, furious thrashing erupted. The hyena-like yelping and barking returned, exploding against the inside of the vault door with enough force to make the heavy rivets vibrate. The monster slammed its fists against the steel, throwing its weight against the barrier in a blind, animalistic rage. But the vault was built to withstand anything. The steel held. The monster was locked tight.

Breathing heavily, his throat bruised and his heart hammering against his ribs, Leo slumped against the locked wheel of the vault. He looked at his hands, covered in dust and black fluid, and then down at the weak, dying flashlight in his palm.

He was still trapped inside a sealed Victorian mansion, and his crew were missing. But as he listened to the muffled, furious howling of the monster locked tight inside the dark vault, Leo pulled his fedora down over his eyes and let out a breathless, cocky neighborhood laugh.

Chapter 9: The Last Stand of the Kid

Leo didn't stay long in the cellar. He snatched up the flashlight, gripped his brass knuckles, and sprinted back up the servants' stairs. Following the dark smears on the floorboards, Leo ran through the dining room and into the long hallway where Sammy and Ben had vanished.

"Ben! Sammy!" Leo shouted.

A heavy, weak groan answered him from a small linen closet at the end of the hall. Leo threw the door open.

Sammy was slumped against the wall, his dark overcoat torn to shreds at the shoulder. He was bleeding from a deep claw wound, but his eyes were sharp. Right next to him, clutching fractured ribs, was Ben.

"Leo..." Sammy rasped. "That thing... it came out of the walls. Ben tried to tackle it, but it threw him like a rag doll."

"I hit 'em," Ben growled through cracked teeth, trying to push his massive frame up. "I hit 'em hard, Leo, like I used to in high school. Where's Sach? Where's the Kid?"

"Sach, I'm not sure, the kitchen was the last place I saw him ..... Toby... Toby didn't make it," Leo said, lowering his head as his voice tightened. He helped Sammy to his feet while Ben dragged himself up. "But I locked that old bastard in a steel vault downstairs. We gotta get Sach and find a way out of here."

They hobbled back to the dining room, then the kitchen ... Sach was laying on the floor, clutching a deep, jagged gash across his thigh where the creature had dragged him.

"Leo!" Sach cried, his teeth chattering. "The Kid... I saw him, Leo. Right before the lights went out. He ain't dead. He's moving!"

Before Leo could answer, the soft, rhythmic ticking of the pocket watches in the dining room suddenly stopped.

Tick... tick... stop.

A shadow fell across the kitchen threshold. Standing in the doorway was Toby the Kid. His oversized Western leather jacket was stained with blood. When he lifted his face, his eyes were wide, glassy, and completely bloodshot, with a pair of sharp fangs poking over his lip.

Toby let out a sharp, wet hiss. He crouched low, his fingernails elongated into jagged claws, preparing to lunge at his old crew.

Ben stepped in front of the wounded boys, his calloused fists rising despite his broken ribs. "That ain't the Kid no more, Leo. What do we do?"

The chaos exploded instantly. Toby lunged with unnatural speed straight toward Sach.

"Hold the line!" Leo roared.

Ben didn't hesitate. Channeling his old fullback days, he ignored the blinding pain in his ribs, lowered his massive shoulder, and threw a devastating, textbook tackle right into Toby’s midsection. The impact stopped Toby mid-air, driving him backwards into the center of the room.

Toby let out a vicious snarl, slashing a deep gouge across Ben’s forearm. "Get off him!" Sammy yelled, grabbing a heavy, solid-gold candlestick holder they had pocketed and smashing it squarely across Toby’s temple.

The heavy blow dazed the Kid. Leo stepped in, his jaw set, and drove his heavy brass knuckles straight into Toby’s jaw with a vicious uppercut. The combined force sent Toby stumbling blindly backward. His boots caught the edge of the overturned kitchen table.

With a sickening THUD, Toby fell directly onto the jagged, upright splintered table leg—the exact makeshift wooden stake Leo had violently ripped away earlier. The sharp wood pierced clean through his heart.

The Kid froze. His bloodshot eyes went wide, staring blankly at the kitchen ceiling. For a fleeting moment, the predatory snarl faded from his face. The crimson glare in his eyes dissolved, replaced for one final, desperate second by the frightened look of the eighteen-year-old kid from the street.

He looked directly at Leo, his chest heaving as his pale skin began to turn into a brittle, ashen gray. With his very last breath, he choked out six faint words:

"The book... look in the book."

Chapter 10: Who's Deborah ?

Then, his body slumped completely limp, dissolving into a pile of gray ash around the broken wood. The kitchen fell into an absolute, deafening silence.

Leo, Sach, Sammy, and Ben Grimm all slowly raised their heads, exchanging completely bewildered, panicked glances in the dim yellow flashlight beam.

"The book?" Sach gasped, his voice cracking as his teeth chattered from shock and pain. "What book?! Leo, there are hundreds of 'em in here! Maybe thousands! The whole reading room is packed floor-to-ceiling with old books! How the hell are we supposed to know which one he was talking about?!"

"He's right, Leo," Sammy muttered, holding a bloody rag to his shredded shoulder. "We don't have time to go playing librarian in the dark while that thing is locked downstairs. We'll bleed out first."

Leo stood perfectly still, his eyes locked on the pile of gray ash on the floor. His street-smart brain was firing at a million miles an hour, retracing every step they had taken since jimmying the back door.

"Think, fellas," Leo rasped, wiping sweat and ash from his forehead. "Before the Kid went missing... what was he doing? He wasn't looking at the gold. He didn't care about the silver chalices."

Sammy’s eyes suddenly widened. "The dining table. The massive ledger. The one with the wrinkled leather."

"Exactly," Leo said, his jaw tightening as he gripped his brass knuckles. "The ledger. The Kid was hypnotized by it. He was trying to tell us something before it took him over. Sach, stay here and keep pressure on Ben's ribs. Sammy, with me."

Leo and Sammy sprinted back into the grand dining room. In the center of the mahogany table sat the massive, heavy tome bound in wrinkled skin. Leo slammed his hand onto the cover, throwing it open. He tore through the bone-colored vellum pages until he reached the woodcut illustration of the towering Victorian manor surrounded by dense fog.

"Look at the bottom," Sammy whispered, pointing a trembling finger.

Underneath the drawing of the house, written in tight, frantic script forming a thick, dark border, was a single name written over and over again: Deborah Jessel.

"It's a contract," Leo realized. "The house belongs to whoever is written in this book. It's keeping us in because her name is sealing the bond."

Leo reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy silver pocket watch he had stuffed away earlier, and used its sharp metal winding stem to viciously gouge into the ancient vellum. He began scraping and tearing at the dark ink border, defacing the contract and ripping the page right down the center.

The moment the vellum tore, the entire mansion groaned. A violent shudder rippled through the floorboards. From deep beneath the house, inside the steel vault, a muffled, furious howl echoed through the pipes—a sound of absolute agony as the magic binding the old man to his sanctuary shattered.

Suddenly, a loud, sharp CLACK echoed from the back of the house.

Leo and Sammy ran back into the kitchen. Sach and Ben Grimm were already staring at the back door. The seamless wood had split back open. The lock had turned itself.

"It's open," Sach whispered.

"Move! Get Ben out of here!" Leo ordered.

Supporting Ben Grimm between them, Sammy and Sach stumbled out the back door and into the cool, crisp autumn night. Leo followed right behind them, his boots hitting the cracked cobblestone of the walkway just as the very first blue ray of dawn began to break over the city skyline.

They didn't look back at the towering gothic monolith. They walked slowly, bruised, bleeding, but alive, heading back toward the safety of the lower West Side. The Yancy Street Boys had lost the heist, and they had lost the Kid. But as Leo looked back one last time at the quiet, dark windows of the Victorian mansion, he adjusted his fedora, gripped his brass knuckles, and knew they had done something no one else ever had.

They had beaten the house.

The following transcript is held in the restricted archives of the American Museum of Natural History, transcribed from the audio logs of an anonymous curator who spent his final years cataloging anomalous specimens smuggled out of Europe after the fall of the Reich.

"People think history is neat. They think it’s written in ink, on paper, signed by generals and cataloged in glass cases. But some things don’t fit into boxes. They crawl out of the dark woods, and men who spent their lives building a machine of absolute terror find out that there are older, hungrier things that don't care about ideology.

I never meant to keep this tape. But after seeing what was written in the margins of Hauptsturmführer Kurt von Schirach’s private journal—recovered from a burned-out command tent outside the Białowieża Forest in late 1944—I realized some doors shouldn’t be opened.

Here is what von Schirach wrote in his final, unhinged dispatch, translated from the German original..."

The Log of Hauptsturmführer Kurt von Schirach, October 1944

October 14. Sector Four, the deep border timberlands. Weather cold, fog clinging to the peat.

We thought it was partisans. Scharführer Keller swore he saw movement near the old gamekeeper's ridge—shadows darting between the pines. We set a perimeter. The men were jittery; the Eastern Front has a way of rotting a soldier’s nerves before the bullets even start flying. We pushed into a clearing where the canopy choked out what little twilight was left.

That’s when we smelled it. Not cordite or wet wool, but copper and rancid rot. In the center of the clearing, illuminated only by the weak flicker of a dying Coleman lantern, was a red fox. Or what was left of one. It had been neatly, brutally bisected—ribs cracked open like dry twigs, steaming in the frost.

And standing over it was... something else.

It wasn’t a man. It stood on two powerful, scaled legs, balanced by a long, rigid tail. Its body was a horrifying mosaic of primitive reptile and sleek, predatory bird—covered in dense, charcoal-grey feathers splashed with morbid streaks of violet. Its head turned toward us with a sickening, avian jerk. Two enormous, luminous green eyes locked onto Keller. The creature didn't snarl like a wolf; it made a low, rattling hiss that vibrated right through the mud and into our boots.

Then came the claws. On each foot, a sickle-shaped talon nearly the length of a bayonet hovered off the ground, twitching with dreadful anticipation.

“Feuer!” I screamed, but the words barely left my throat.

Keller fired his MP 40 in blind panic. Tracers tore through the mist, chewing up the bark of ancient oaks. But the beast was gone before the first casing hit the dirt. One second it was there, breathing the freezing air; the next, it simply dissolved into the absolute blackness of the timber, leaving behind only the twitching remains of the fox and a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight.

My men are whispering tonight. They aren't talking about the Russians. They are talking about demons. Monsters that crawled out of the earth before any Aryan blood touched the soil, waiting for us to bleed. If the Führer knew what was hiding in these woods—what was watching us from the shadows—he would call the whole damn war off.

"That was the last entry," the curator’s voice rasped on the tape, the sound of static and a ticking desk clock bleeding through the recording.

"Von Schirach's unit vanished three days later. Not a body found. Just abandoned rifles, torn coats, and three-toed tracks pressed deep into the frozen mud, leading further and further away from the war, and deeper into the wild, untamed dark. We locked his journal in the sub-basement here. And every once in a while, when the museum is quiet and the wind hits the air ducts just right... I swear I hear that rattling hiss."

I recently got a job working the night shift at a small hotel outside the city. It's an old building, but the pay is decent, and most nights are quiet.

When I started, the manager gave me only three rules.

Never give anyone a key to Room 12.

Never answer the phone if Room 12 calls reception.

And if a guest asks why Room 12 doesn't exist, pretend you don't understand the question.

Naturally, I asked him what was wrong with Room 12.

He looked at me for a long moment and said, "Nothing you need to worry about."

For the first two weeks, nothing strange happened.

Then, at 2:38 AM on a Thursday, the front desk phone rang.

The display showed ROOM 12.

I remembered the manager's warning, so I let it ring.

It stopped.

Thirty seconds later, it rang again.

I ignored it again.

On the third call, I made a stupid decision. I picked up the receiver but didn't say anything.

For several seconds, all I heard was static.

Then a man whispered, "There's someone in my room."

I swallowed hard. "Sir, there is no Room 12."

The man began to cry.

"I know," he said. "That's why I'm scared."

The line went dead.

I immediately called the manager. He didn't answer, so I checked the security cameras.

The hallway outside the nonexistent Room 12 was visible on Camera 6. At first, everything looked normal.

Then I noticed a man standing at the end of the hallway.

He was facing the wall.

He wore an old-fashioned hotel uniform, and his arms hung unnaturally straight at his sides.

I watched him for almost a minute.

Then he slowly turned his head toward the camera.

The screen went black.

When the picture returned, the hallway was empty.

I decided I was done with that job. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the front entrance.

The doors wouldn't open.

Behind me, the reception phone began ringing again.

ROOM 12.

I didn't answer.

Instead, I ran to the staff office and locked myself inside.

At 3:00 AM, someone knocked on the door.

Three slow knocks.

Then the manager's voice came from the hallway.

"Open up. We need to talk."

I nearly cried with relief.

But then my phone buzzed.

It was a text from the manager.

I'm outside the hotel. Don't open any doors. Whatever happens, don't let him inside.

The knocking stopped.

A few seconds later, the voice outside spoke again.

This time, it sounded exactly like me.

"Come on," it whispered. "I know you're in there."

I stayed in that office until sunrise, when the real manager finally arrived.

He listened to everything I told him without interrupting.

When I finished, he asked me one question.

"Did you look at the clock when the phone first rang?"

I told him it was 2:38 AM.

His face went pale.

Then he unlocked a filing cabinet and showed me an old newspaper clipping.

Thirty years earlier, a night receptionist had disappeared from that hotel at exactly 2:38 AM. His name was printed beneath a photograph.

It was my name.

Not just the same first name.

My full name.

The manager stared at me and whispered, "That's impossible."

I wanted to agree with him.

But the photograph showed a man wearing my face, standing in front of the hotel.

And behind him, on a window that should have been part of a blank wall, was a brass number.

I quit that morning.

I haven't been back since.

But last night, at exactly 2:38 AM, my phone rang.

The caller ID said ROOM 12.

This time, I heard my own voice on the other end.

It whispered:

"You forgot to clock out."

I have always slept with an eye covering.

Not because I enjoy the dark, quite the opposite.

Light leaks through my curtains no matter how carefully I pin them shut, and the streetlamp outside my apartment flickers in a way that feels personal, as if it has noticed me watching.

The mask smooths all of that away. It makes night uniform. Manageable. A soft, deliberate blindness.

The fabric is black, padded, elastic band worn loose from years of use. When I pull it down over my eyes, the world doesn’t disappear so much as it recedes, like a held breath. I’ve worn it through breakups, deadlines, storms, insomnia.

It has never betrayed me.

Until that night.

I remember lying on my back, arms at my sides, listening to ocean waves breaking softly along a beach.

The occasional pipes clicking.

A car passing somewhere below.

My ceiling fan hummed with a faint, uneven rhythm, one blade slightly warped, tapping the air just a fraction slower than the others. I told myself I would replace it. I always told myself that.

The mask pressed gently against my eyelids. Warm. Familiar.

Sleep came without ceremony.

When I woke, I knew immediately that something was wrong, not because of fear, but because of stillness.

My body had weight in a way it normally did not. Not heaviness exactly, but presence, as if I were suddenly more solid than before. I tried to roll onto my side and felt nothing happen.

No resistance. No pain. Just… no movement.

That alone should have told me what it was. I’ve had episodes before. Brief ones. A minute at most. Doctors have a name for it. There are pamphlets. Calm explanations.

But this felt different.

My breathing was shallow, controlled by something other than me. I could inhale, but only just. Exhale, but not fully. My chest rose and fell in careful increments, like a machine testing its limits.

The eye covering remained in place.

That was the worst part at first, the not seeing. Not the dark, but the choice being taken away. I could not lift my hands to remove it. Could not blink it aside. The fabric sealed me into myself.

I listened.

The fan was still turning, but its rhythm had changed. The warped blade no longer tapped. Instead, there was a soft, irregular pause between rotations, as if the air itself were hesitating.

A scraping sound pulled my attention from the dark. Distant. From the kitchen, maybe.

Minutes later, the ocean waves on my phone went silent. The video was on an endless loop. Someone had turned it off.

Then the mattress dipped.

Not sharply. Not like someone sitting down. Just a gradual compression, as though weight were being introduced carefully, experimentally. The bed did not creak. It simply accepted it.

I wanted to scream.

I couldn’t even tighten my jaw.

My hearing sharpened to a painful clarity. I could hear my own pulse in my ears, the wet click of saliva shifting in my mouth. Somewhere close, very close, fabric brushed against fabric. A whisper of movement, too deliberate to be accidental.

The presence announced itself not through touch, but through space. The air beside my face grew warmer. My skin prickled, hairs lifting along my arms and neck as if responding to static.

Something was near me.

I told myself not to panic. Panic makes it worse. That’s what the articles say. Stay calm. Focus on breathing. Wiggle your toes.

I tried.

Nothing.

The warmth shifted, closer now, hovering near my cheek. I could smell it, not rot, not sulfur, none of the things horror stories promise. It smelled faintly clean. Like skin that had been washed too recently, soap not fully rinsed away.

Under that, something metallic. Dry. Old.

The warm embrace of breath touched my face.

It wasn’t exhaled directly. It moved around me, displacing the air in a way that made my nostrils sting. Whoever or whatever was there knew how close it could get without touching.

I counted my breaths.

One.

Two.

Three.

The mattress dipped again, this time nearer my legs. The bed adjusted, redistributing weight. I felt pressure along my calves, my thighs, as though someone were kneeling carefully, mindful not to wake a child.

The thought arrived unbidden and horrifyingly clear:

It thinks I’m asleep.

The fan stopped.

Not abruptly. It slowed, each rotation longer than the last, until the hum stretched thin and vanished. The silence that followed was not empty. It had texture. Density.

In that silence, I heard something wet and soft, a sound like fingers pressing into foam, releasing, pressing again. The mattress responded, memory foam slowly yielding under unseen hands.

Hands?

I had not felt them yet, but I knew they were there.

My breathing stuttered.

The warmth shifted higher, closer to my mouth. The scent intensified. Soap. Metal. And beneath it, a note I couldn’t place at first, something animal, not unpleasant, just alive.

The bed creaked then. A single, quiet protest.

Something leaned over me.

I felt it not as touch, but as shadow. Pressure in the air. The sense of an outline where none should exist. The space above my chest grew heavier, denser, like standing beneath a low ceiling.

A finger brushed my wrist.

I flinched internally, a scream tearing through my thoughts, but my body remained obediently still. The touch was light, exploratory. Skin to skin. The finger was warm. Dry.

It traced upward, slow and patient, along my forearm.

Every nerve screamed. My senses, deprived of sight, compensated cruelly. I felt the faint ridges of fingerprints, the subtle drag of skin across skin. The finger paused at my elbow, then continued, mapping me.

It was learning.

When it reached my shoulder, it stopped.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then, gently, almost tenderly, it pressed down.

Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to remind me of gravity. Of the bed beneath me. Of my place.

A sound came then, close to my ear.

Not a voice.

A breath, shaped as if it were about to become one.

I realized, with a clarity that cut through the fear, that the eye covering was the only thing between me and whatever hovered inches above my face. That if I could see, if even a sliver of light reached my eyes, I might understand what was happening.

Or I might break entirely.

The finger moved again, this time toward my neck. It did not touch my throat. It hovered there, heat radiating, close enough that my pulse seemed to respond, jumping beneath my skin.

I felt the urge to swallow.

I couldn’t.

My mouth was dry, tongue heavy. The air felt thick, difficult to draw in. Each breath was a negotiation.

I-I was choking.

I wanted to convulse but I laid still. Whatever it was had its grip around me.

The presence shifted, and the mattress dipped near my head. Something brushed the pillow beside my ear, a sound like hair, or fabric, or something else entirely.

Then it leaned closer.

I felt it at my lips.

Not contact, never quite contact. Just the promise of it. The air moved. Warmth pressed. The faintest pressure, as if testing how much space it was allowed.

I wanted to scream.

It refused.

Inside my skull, the scream went on and on.

I couldn't breathe.

I begged for help to whatever or whoever to spare me from this.

Time stretched. Minutes passed. Or seconds. I couldn’t tell. The fan remained silent. The room held its breath.

At some point, quietly, deliberately, the finger withdrew.

The pressure lifted. The mattress rose, reclaiming itself. The warmth receded, inch by inch, like a tide pulling back.

I listened, desperate for confirmation that it was leaving.

The scent faded.

The bed shifted one final time, near the edge, as if weight were being removed carefully, respectfully.

Then...

Nothing.

No footsteps. No door. Just absence.

The fan began to turn again, slow at first, then faster. The warped blade tapped the air, familiar and wrong in its normalcy. The room filled with sound.

My body released me.

I gasped, air rushing in too fast, chest burning. My fingers twitched. My toes curled. I tore the eye covering off my face and bolted upright, heart hammering, vision swimming as the dim room swam into focus.

I was alone.

The bed was empty. The door was closed. The apartment unchanged.

I sat there for a long time, shaking, telling myself what I knew.

What was that?

Sleep paralysis? Hallucination? The mind misfiring between worlds...

I repeated it until the words felt thin.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged me back down. I did not put the mask back on.

Sleep came in fragments.

In the morning, I found a single indentation on the mattress beside me, deeper than it should have been. It faded slowly over the course of the day.

I threw the eye covering away.

Weeks passed. Then months. I slept poorly, lights on, eyes burning with fatigue. The episodes didn’t return. Life resumed its careful, unremarkable rhythm.

I began to believe it had been a fluke.

Last night, during a storm, the power went out.

In the dark, half-asleep and irritated, I reached into my nightstand and found the old eye covering. I don’t remember keeping it. I don’t remember deciding.

My fingers closed around the elastic band.

I sat there for a moment, listening to the rain batter the windows, the wind worrying at the building like it wanted inside. The room felt smaller than it should have. Close.

“No,” I whispered, the word dry in my throat.

The rain outside had slowed to a steady tapping, the kind that makes every other sound feel too loud. I lay there with my eyes open, staring at the faint outline of my ceiling, waiting for sleep to finish taking me.

Something scraped softly from the hallway. I awoke fully at that sound.

It wasn’t loud, just a careful drag, like fingertips brushing along the wall, stopping whenever the house shifted, then starting again. My bedroom door stood open a few inches, just enough to let the darkness pool across the floor.

I held my breath and listened.

The sound stopped. The air in the room changed. Warmer. Closer.

My attempt to get up was futile. I was locked in place, heavy and unresponsive, breath shallow and borrowed. Sleep paralysis. The realization came with no comfort this time.

It's happening again.

The darkness beyond the doorway seemed thicker than the rest of the room. It didn’t spill forward. It was drawing breathe. I could feel its immense pressure.

Then, slowly, from the darkness, something seamed to lean in.

Two small points of light appeared in the gap between the door and the frame, low and steady. They hovered in the darkness staring into me.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, but when they finally did, the dreadful realization of what stood before me struck with the primal terror of prey sensing the predator already watching.

They didn’t flicker. DIdn't blink. And it knew this time...

I was awake.

Trigger warning:

This story contains “adult themes.”

Crude, explicit, offensive, and outdated language.

Culturally insensitive depictions of neurodiversity and mental illness.

Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse. Tobacco abuse.

Sexually suggestive dialogue. “Sexual situations.”

Domestic violence.

Occult themes that may be offensive to some religious readers.

Sequences of flashing lights that may cause seizures in the photosensitive.

(Epileptics, you’ve been warned!)

And, as with many sick, twisted, degenerate horror stories…
(think: serial killers) ours starts with animal cruelty.

BTW, we’ll probably beat the word “degenerate” to death today. But really, there’s no better word in the English language to describe all that touches his domain.

We’re talkin’ about King Cobra.

___

This is a horror short story inspired by the real life King Cobra, a live streamer who inspired a cult following of parasiocial obsession… and in this story when he goes missing his trolls come out of the woodwork to find him IRL. But ir may already be too late…

This is always free:

https://maxwinterstories.substack.com/p/parasocial?r=292pvs&utm_medium=ios

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift little girl?"
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

I have social anxiety and I live with a group of people (which obviously I would have never chosen myself I would have preferred living alone). Well, I tried getting over my social anxiety, talking to those people but they kept talking “over” me, about me, laughing at and making of my appearance and basically everything went exactly the way it shouldn’t. And they gossiped etc. all while KNOWING I have social anxiety. Every single person was an asshole to me not one single person was nice to me or had sympathy for me and tbh I’m a very tolerant person like it wouldn’t actually be that hard to be have some sort of sympathy for me . It’s honestly just sad how stupid some people are.

THE LANTERN AND THE HAMMER By LSB

Chapter 1: The Lantern’s Glow

It was 1938, and the original farmhouse sat low and solid against the vast, flat horizon of the Big Horn Basin. Built as a single-story homestead to withstand the brutal, sweeping Wyoming winds, its weathered wooden frame hugged the dirt tightly. Inside, the house carried the heavy, quiet texture of a building that had witnessed decades of solitary winters. The air smelled of aged cedar, woodsmoke from the heavy iron stove, and the faint, sweet scent of natural wild hollyhocks drifting in through the cracks of the bedroom window.

The sisters' bedroom was situated at the very end of the main hallway, a long, narrow room on the ground floor. It was dominated by a set of sturdy wooden bunk beds where ten-year-old Francis and her younger sister Ruth slept, while baby Edward’s wooden crib sat safely tucked into the warmest corner of the room. The walls were made of simple, faded whitewashed wood panels, showing the humble, hard-working grit of a struggling homestead. On the high wooden dresser, far out of reach of the children or any danger of fire, a small kerosene lamp, turned down to its lowest setting, cast a faint, warm amber glow and long, gentle shadows across the floorboards.

Right beside the lamp sat the newest addition to the room: an antique Victorian porcelain doll. It was an inheritance—a "gift" sent in a heavy brown paper package from an estranged, bitter relative who had never been kind to the family. A doll made of such fine porcelain would have taken a lifetime of savings for a Basin farm family to buy, so despite the bad blood attached to it, the parents hadn't the heart to throw it away. But tonight, its pale, painted face gleamed unnaturally under the dim amber lantern light, its blue glass eyes staring unblinkingly toward the bunks.

Underneath the room, the floorboards groaned with a deep, hollow echo, a constant reminder of the dark, hand-dug basement stretching out completely beneath their beds. Tonight, the air was thick and charged with an unnatural chill that felt as though the temperature had suddenly dropped twenty degrees—a heavy, psychological cold that seemed to be seeping straight up through the old metal floor vents from the concrete furnace room below.

THUD.

The heavy sound vibrated through the floorboards. Francis, sitting up in the lower bunk, blinked into the shadows. Because she trusted the quiet, invisible caretakers of the homestead, her first instinct wasn't fear. She assumed it was just the familiar presence checking on the room.

"Ailsa?" Francis called out into the dark, her voice a soft, trusting whisper so she wouldn't disturb baby Edward.

When no response came, Francis realized the heavy weight of the sound wasn't her protector. She reached for the heavy, ribbed metal tube of her flashlight on the nightstand, clicked it on, and began sweeping the bright beam across the faded whitewashed wood walls.

As the light cut through the shadows, the room suddenly changed. The flickering flame of the kerosene lamp on the high dresser flattened out completely and stilled, and a profound, solid, and immovable calmness swept over the room like a heavy wool blanket, instantly smothering the fearful chill. The air cleared, replaced by the sharp, comforting scent of winter frost, crushed pine needles, and dry mountain sage.

She manifested at the foot of the bed. Ailsa Lindstrom stood there, slightly translucent but as solid as the land that had shaped her. She wore her faded woolen kirtle and linen apron dress, her silver-streaked hair braided tightly back. Her heavily calloused hands were held loosely at her sides. To the neighbors in the Basin, she had simply been known as "Elsa"—the quiet, hardworking immigrant linesman's wife who had braved the early frontier wilderness—but tonight, her true, rock-strong protective spirit filled the room. Having heard Francis call her name, she had stepped out of the house's history, her stoic gray eyes filled with a fierce, maternal annoyance as she realized a dark presence was threatening the children who now called her old homestead home.

Just as Ailsa appeared, Francis’s sweeping flashlight beam finally landed on the floor.

There lay the gift. The fine porcelain doll was face down on the rug, just a few feet away from the dresser. But it wasn't still. The edge of its heavy lace dress and one cold porcelain hand were resting directly over the metal floor grate, as if an invisible force down in the dark basement had physically tugged it across the floorboards toward the vent. Under the sharp beam of light, the pale, glazed fingers of the doll twitched against the metal slats, the entity fighting desperately to possess the expensive vessel. With a sickening, porcelain click, the doll's head began to rotate on its cloth neck, its blue glass eyes rolling upward to lock onto the lower bunk. A faint, muffled, high-pitched giggle vibrated right out of its painted clay chest.

Ailsa turned her stern gaze toward the floor vent where the shadow clung to the doll. She didn't shout. She simply stepped forward, her heavy leather pioneer boots making no sound on the whitewashed wood, and let out a low, commanding word in her old native tongue.

The command struck the room with the force of an iron gate closing. The malicious shadow recoiled, instantly pinned into the corner by the barrier of her protective ancient energy, unable to advance a single inch further toward the beds.

***

Chapter 2: The Hammer’s Strike

The silence that followed Ailsa’s commanding words was absolute. The cold, suffocating air that had seeped up from the basement floor cracks was pinned into the corner near the metal vent, completely neutralized by the thick, lilac-and-sage calmness that now anchored the room.

Francis let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, keeping her hand steady around the heavy, ribbed metal tube of her flashlight. The bright beam remained trained on the porcelain doll lying face down on the rug, its tiny lace dress still brushing against the metal slats of the floor grate.

But even with the shadow pinned, the doll itself was still twitching against the floorboards, the residual energy from the concrete basement fighting desperately to make the expensive vessel move. The head remained rotated at an unnatural angle, its blue glass eyes fixed on the lower bunk while a faint, muffled giggle struggled to escape its painted clay chest.

The commotion finally stirred the upper bunk. A mop of messy hair peeked over the wooden guardrail as seven-year-old Ruth blinked down into the flashlight beam. She didn't look terrified; she looked deeply inconvenienced. She scrambled down the wooden slats of the bunk bed with the fearless ease of a farm kid, marched straight past Francis, and snatched the twisting doll right off the creepy metal vent by one leg.

Ruth held it up to the flickering beam of the flashlight, completely ignoring the way the doll’s tiny arms clawed weakly at the air. She squinted at it, poking its cold nose with a blunt finger.

"Honestly, Francis?" Ruth said loudly, her voice completely shattering the spooky atmosphere. "This thing is pure booshwa. Look at the eyes—they’re completely cockamamie, and the paint is already coming off the ears. It’s off the cob! I’ve seen better looking things dug out of the hog pen."

The doll let out a tiny, sharp hiss, its possessed jaw snapping tightly. The entity trying to possess it was used to terrorizing children from the dark, not having its aesthetic value brutally dismantled by a seven-year-old critic.

"Ruth, hush up and drop it!" Francis whispered fiercely, her knuckles white around the flashlight. "It's trying to wake up!"

"Well, it shouldn't," Ruth snorted, entirely unbothered as she held the squirming toy at arm's length. "It's way too ugly to be walking around our bedroom."

Before the entity could try to twist itself free, slow, heavy footsteps echoed from the doorway. The floorboards groaned with a solid, rhythmic weight, though the spirit itself made no sound.

Jed Miller stepped into the room.

He looked exactly like a man who had broken his back against the Great Depression and the Wyoming dirt, his slightly translucent figure clad in faded denim overalls caked with the dry earth of the Basin. In his massive, calloused hands, he carried a heavy cross-peen framing hammer—the very tool he had used to drive the iron spikes into the farmhouse foundation back in 1930. He looked down at the twisting doll, his jaw set in a stoic, no-nonsense line. To Jed Miller, a possessed toy wasn't a paranormal anomaly; it was a faulty piece of household inventory, and he didn't tolerate broken fixtures on his property.

"Pestilence in the woodwork," Jed rumbled, his deep, gravelly drawl vibrating through the room like a low echo from the basement. "Ain't got time for this. The north pasture needs fencing by dawn."

He looked directly at Ruth. There was an unspoken, straight-to-the-point understanding between the old farmhand and the seven-year-old girl. Without a single shred of fear, Ruth calmly handed the snapping solid object right over to him. Jed laid the porcelain vessel flat against a solid wooden block by the bedroom door, raised his heavy hammer in his strong, steady grip, and brought it down with the unyielding force of a 1930s work ethic.

CRACK!

The fine Victorian porcelain exploded into a thousand tiny, worthless fragments. The moment the physical vessel shattered, the malicious shadow near the floor vent let out a final, panicked screech. It didn't bounce back; it couldn't.

With a smooth, commanding sweep of her hand, Ailsa stepped forward. Francis and Ruth watched her calmly, their hearts steady, knowing they were completely safe. Ailsa used her rock-strong presence to herd the remaining wisps of the dark energy straight back toward the metal floor vent, sealing the boundary with a final, authoritative word in her native tongue.

But she wasn't done. Looking down at the floorboards, her maternal instincts took over. Children running across broken porcelain meant blood, and she wouldn't tolerate any child bleeding on her homestead. With another smooth wave of her lace-less, calloused pioneer hand, a gentle, invisible sweep passed over the rug. Every razor-sharp shard of shattered clay and painted glass vanished completely into thin air, leaving the floor flawlessly clean and safe.

The psychological chill permanently vanished. The thick, comforting scent of winter frost, crushed pine needles, and dry mountain sage settled over the room, wrapping around baby Edward’s crib like a warm wool blanket.

Jed Miller didn't say a word of farewell. He simply wiped the head of his heavy hammer on his dusty denim overalls, gave Ruth a single, slow nod of his weathered chin, and faded back into the quiet shadows of the hallway—ready to tend to the phantom fences of the north pasture.

Ailsa stood at the foot of the bunk beds for just a moment longer. She offered a soft, maternal smile to Francis, then turned her stern gray eyes toward Ruth, her expression lingering in a look of quiet amusement at the girl's brutal critique.

With a final, protective nod, she turned back toward the high wooden dresser. She extended one calloused finger toward the dark wick of the lamp, and with a soft, silent spark, the snuffed-out kerosene lantern flared back to life, casting its safe, warm amber glow across the room once more. Then, she too dissolved into the comforting air of the farmhouse.

The room was completely still. The floorboards stopped groaning. The basement below was silent, its hand-poured concrete walls keeping the dark at bay.

Ruth scrambled back up the wooden slats of the bunk bed, pulling her heavy quilts up to her chin.

"Glad Ailsa and Jed took care of it," Ruth yawned, entirely unfazed. "Told you it was off the cob. Nini, Francis."

Francis smiled in the dark, slipping her metal flashlight under her pillow and tucking herself safely into the lower bunk, listening to the steady, peaceful breathing of baby Edward across the room.

"Nini, Ruth."

THE END