# 3+ Hours of CHILLING Horror Stories to lay your head and rest to. Maybe sleep if you want. Up to you

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 10 May 2025, 3 h 28 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/66025816/3_hours_of_chilling_horror_stories_to_lay_your_head_and_rest_to_maybe_sleep_if_you_want_up_to_you.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORIES- ►0:00 "There's something horrific hiding in the Austrian Alps" Creepypasta ►42:21 "I’m a Private Train Conductor. These Are the Rules I Have to Follow" Creepypasta ►1:20:56 "I Was an Urban Explorer. I Should Have Turned Back at the Basement Door" Creepypasta ►1:55:03 "My childhood friend and I did a ritual. It worked too well" Creepypasta ►2:19:11 "Why I No Longer Shower With My Eyes Closed" Creepypasta ►2:54:48 "My Uncle's GPS Is Still Updating From Deep in the Wilderness" Creepypasta Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The train pulled into Slangming station under a pale, graying sky,
[0:07] Speaker 1: snow lined the tracks, packed tight and dirty, with a
[0:11] Speaker 1: wind that pushed it against the platform. I stepped out first,
[0:16] Speaker 1: drawing a deep breath of air that felt sharper than
[0:19] Speaker 1: anything I was used to. Will was right next to me,
[0:23] Speaker 1: dragging his stuffel bag by his shoulder strap and grinning
[0:26] Speaker 1: despite his nose already turning pink. We took a shuttle
[0:32] Speaker 1: from Slanding upped Aramseau and d Eystein, which clung to
[0:36] Speaker 1: the edge of the alpine slope. Every building looked older
[0:40] Speaker 1: than it probably was, with sharply pitched roofs thick with snow,
[0:45] Speaker 1: wooden balconies stacked with chopped firewood, and narrow windows that
[0:49] Speaker 1: glowed faintly orange. As evening settled over the ridge, the
[0:54] Speaker 1: main street was quiet. A few bundled up figures walked
[0:58] Speaker 1: with purpose, but didn't linger. Every step we took echoed
[1:03] Speaker 1: between the buildings. The air smiled faintly of pine and smoke.
[1:10] Speaker 1: Albin and Marcus were already waiting at the guesthouse when
[1:13] Speaker 1: we arrived. They stood near the steps, both taller than
[1:17] Speaker 1: I expected. Albin wore a heavy black coat zipped to
[1:21] Speaker 1: his throat, a thick beanie pulled low. Marcus looked more relaxed,
[1:27] Speaker 1: leaning against the wooden railing, smoking a cigarette, his backpack
[1:31] Speaker 1: at his feet. Meeting them for the first time felt surreal.
[1:37] Speaker 1: We'd spoken for almost a year online, but there was
[1:41] Speaker 1: still something odd about standing face to face. You get
[1:45] Speaker 1: so used to that screen buffer that seeing your online
[1:49] Speaker 1: friends in real life is almost uncanny. Will went right
[1:54] Speaker 1: up to shake their hands, already launching some sort of
[1:57] Speaker 1: joke aft, though I could tell it was more polite
[2:02] Speaker 1: than genuine. We were the odd ones out, and it
[2:08] Speaker 1: showed they were the outdoor kids and we were the
[2:12] Speaker 1: indoor type. I kept my hands buried deep in my
[2:16] Speaker 1: coat pockets, trying not to look too obvious. We checked
[2:22] Speaker 1: into the guest house. I remember sitting down on the
[2:25] Speaker 1: bed and peeling off my gloves, the tip of my
[2:28] Speaker 1: fingers numb and slow to respond. I was in use
[2:32] Speaker 1: to this kind of cold. Marcus brought out the maps,
[2:37] Speaker 1: unfolded one across the table between us, and we all
[2:41] Speaker 1: crouched around it. The trail they picked out looped around
[2:45] Speaker 1: the base of Hue Dashstein, curving through steep sections of
[2:49] Speaker 1: alpine forest before veering off into more isolated ridge lines.
[2:55] Speaker 1: It would take several days, but nothing they claimed we
[2:58] Speaker 1: couldn't handle. We double checked our gear before dinner. Everyone
[3:04] Speaker 1: had the basics. Insulated jackets, thermal base layers, crampons that
[3:10] Speaker 1: we wouldn't actually need, ultra light sleeping bags, collapsible cookware,
[3:15] Speaker 1: freeze dried meals, snow goggles, and small fire starting kits.
[3:21] Speaker 1: Each of us carried a knife, nothing large, just those
[3:25] Speaker 1: small practical blades meant for wood shaving, rope cutting and
[3:29] Speaker 1: food prep. Mind fit in the side pocket of my pack,
[3:34] Speaker 1: half the handle wrapped in red tape to make it
[3:37] Speaker 1: easier to find by torch. That night, we walked through
[3:42] Speaker 1: the quiet village and stopped at a small restaurant tucked
[3:45] Speaker 1: between a bakery and a church. Inside it was warm,
[3:51] Speaker 1: a stark difference compared to the outside. The food was heavy,
[3:56] Speaker 1: rich with gravy, and the portions looked fit for men.
[3:59] Speaker 1: Twice sighs. The locals didn't speak much, and when they did,
[4:05] Speaker 1: their tone was clipped and curt They weren't rude, but
[4:10] Speaker 1: there was no welcome in their eyes either. You could
[4:14] Speaker 1: tell they'd forget about us as soon as their eyes
[4:16] Speaker 1: wandered somewhere else. Still, none of us cared. We could
[4:22] Speaker 1: tell they weren't being rude. That's just how it was
[4:26] Speaker 1: around here. We were set to head out the next day.
[4:32] Speaker 1: Everything was packed, charged, checked, and sorted. We were ready,
[4:39] Speaker 1: or at least we thought we were. Morning came with
[4:46] Speaker 1: a hard chill that clung to my neck even after
[4:49] Speaker 1: I layered up. The sky outside the guesthouse window looked
[4:53] Speaker 1: washed in pale blue, broken only by faint streaks of
[4:57] Speaker 1: serious clouds that barely moved. We ate quick loaded our
[5:02] Speaker 1: packs and met in the narrow gravel lot out front.
[5:07] Speaker 1: Marcus checked his watch and gave a nod as if
[5:10] Speaker 1: to formerly signal the beginning of something. I tightened the
[5:15] Speaker 1: straps of my pack, and glancing at Will, who looked
[5:19] Speaker 1: too pleased with himself for some one who hadn't hiked
[5:22] Speaker 1: more than a few city parks, We set out through
[5:26] Speaker 1: the village on foot, snow crunched beneath our boots, packed
[5:30] Speaker 1: just enough to give way with every step, but not
[5:33] Speaker 1: deep enough to slow us down. The trailhead sat just
[5:38] Speaker 1: past the line of spruce trees on the edge of town,
[5:41] Speaker 1: marked with a worn wooden post and a frost bitten
[5:44] Speaker 1: map encased in fogged plastic. Their poles clicked rhythmically against
[5:50] Speaker 1: the frozen path. Will and I trowled slightly behind, mostly
[5:55] Speaker 1: because we kept stopping to take pictures. He'd pause every
[6:00] Speaker 1: few minutes to make some stupid comment about posing against
[6:03] Speaker 1: the trees or pretending to fight off imaginary bears. I
[6:08] Speaker 1: told him to save the battery, but he kept doing
[6:11] Speaker 1: it anyway. The forest around us grew denser as we climbed,
[6:17] Speaker 1: The wind stayed still, branches drooped under the weight of
[6:21] Speaker 1: snow that looked older than the season. I began to
[6:26] Speaker 1: notice that the snow was getting deeper. It hadn't looked
[6:30] Speaker 1: that thick when we left the village, but up here
[6:34] Speaker 1: it gathered around our ankles and sometimes higher. Marcus called
[6:39] Speaker 1: back to make sure we were keeping pace, and I
[6:42] Speaker 1: gave him a thumbs up without saying much. I didn't
[6:46] Speaker 1: want to admit how quickly the cold was biting through
[6:49] Speaker 1: my gloves were how my calves had started their ache already.
[6:54] Speaker 1: Then we saw a rusted metal sign nailed to the
[6:58] Speaker 1: side of a pine tree. After the right of the trail,
[7:02] Speaker 1: snow had crusted around its edges, bending against the face
[7:05] Speaker 1: plate where the metal had bowed outward. It wasn't bright
[7:10] Speaker 1: enough to reflect anything, but it caught our attention because
[7:13] Speaker 1: it didn't match the wood markers we'd been following. Marcus
[7:18] Speaker 1: stepped off the trail first and cleared some of the
[7:20] Speaker 1: snow with his gloved hand. The red lettering emerged beneath it,
[7:25] Speaker 1: streaked with rust Geschlausen Vigan on Vetta geffar close due
[7:32] Speaker 1: to severe weather. We stood there for a moment. The
[7:37] Speaker 1: sky above remained crystal clear. Albin gave a short laugh
[7:43] Speaker 1: and said someone had forgotten to take it down after
[7:45] Speaker 1: the last tourist season. Will nodded along, already pulling his
[7:50] Speaker 1: phone from his pocket to take a photo of it,
[7:53] Speaker 1: saying it would make a great inside joke. Later, we'd
[7:58] Speaker 1: been delayed by nearly two weeks. Flights got canceled whether
[8:02] Speaker 1: elsewhere turned unpredictable. Marcus said most trails this high didn't
[8:07] Speaker 1: see real traffic this time of year anyway, so some
[8:10] Speaker 1: one forgetting to take this down wasn't too weird. The
[8:15] Speaker 1: trail beyond the sign dipped slightly before rising again toward
[8:19] Speaker 1: a distant line of trees. Snow covered rock jotted up
[8:23] Speaker 1: beyond the forest, and above that the pale crown of
[8:27] Speaker 1: the mountain sat framed against the sky. We stepped past
[8:32] Speaker 1: the sign and kept going. It just looked like a
[8:35] Speaker 1: short cut, and we wanted this trip to be memorable,
[8:39] Speaker 1: so why not do the stupid thing. We'd been walking
[8:44] Speaker 1: for nearly two hours when Will slowed down beside me
[8:48] Speaker 1: and pointed toward the ground ahead. I looked where he gestured,
[8:53] Speaker 1: squinting against the glare. There in the snow, just past
[8:58] Speaker 1: the sloped patch of trail, where the trees thinned, a
[9:02] Speaker 1: set of footprints curved gently off to the left. The
[9:06] Speaker 1: edges were sharp, the indentations clean, not yet softened by
[9:11] Speaker 1: wind or drifting snow. The pattern suggested boots, maybe slightly
[9:17] Speaker 1: smaller than Albin's but deeper than mine. They cut across
[9:23] Speaker 1: the slope and disappeared into a thicker patch of forest
[9:26] Speaker 1: that veered away from the main trail. Marcus was already
[9:31] Speaker 1: moving toward them before any of us spoke. He crouched down,
[9:36] Speaker 1: pressing two fingers into the nearest print, and nodded to himself.
[9:42] Speaker 1: Someone came through recently, he said, lifting his hand and
[9:46] Speaker 1: brushing off his glove. Probably this morning, Albin came up
[9:52] Speaker 1: beside him and followed the line of tracks with his eyes.
[9:57] Speaker 1: Looks like they were heading northwest. Might be going to
[10:00] Speaker 1: that outer ridge. Will and I exchanged the glance. We
[10:06] Speaker 1: were excited. Every step we took on the empty trail
[10:11] Speaker 1: gave the impression that we were moving through something abandoned.
[10:14] Speaker 1: I mean, we knew it wasn't, but given the fact
[10:18] Speaker 1: that we arrived here during the off season, we had
[10:20] Speaker 1: already kind of accepted that we wouldn't be seeing too
[10:23] Speaker 1: many hikers here. Seeing footprints, even from a stranger, meant
[10:29] Speaker 1: someone else was out here. We were excited to make friends,
[10:33] Speaker 1: meet new people, and hear new stories. Will gave a
[10:38] Speaker 1: grin and said we should tried to catch up. He
[10:41] Speaker 1: said it would be good to meet someone who actually
[10:43] Speaker 1: knew these paths. I agreed, though part of me suspected
[10:49] Speaker 1: he just wanted a break from trailing behind Marcus and Albin,
[10:52] Speaker 1: who barely seemed winded, while Will and I already felt
[10:56] Speaker 1: the ache in our legs. The path feared gradually up here,
[11:00] Speaker 1: but there were no trail markers in sight. The ground
[11:04] Speaker 1: was uneven and covered in layers of snow that looked
[11:07] Speaker 1: older than what we'd been hiking through earlier. Branches lay
[11:11] Speaker 1: half buried in the snow. Many snapped at their middles,
[11:15] Speaker 1: as if from weight rather than age. The trees grew
[11:19] Speaker 1: closer together here the light filtered through in a canopy
[11:23] Speaker 1: that seemed lower than before, despite the fact we were climbing.
[11:29] Speaker 1: Marcus stayed ahead, eyes down, occasionally checking the spacing of
[11:33] Speaker 1: the Prince. Albin troiled close behind him. Will and I
[11:38] Speaker 1: moved slower, watching our footing through the sections where the
[11:42] Speaker 1: snow dipped into holes beneath tangled roots. The air had
[11:47] Speaker 1: changed as well. I hadn't noticed it until then, but
[11:51] Speaker 1: the breeze had faded. There was no wind brushing across
[11:55] Speaker 1: my ears. Every now and then I looked up and
[11:59] Speaker 1: scanned the fire, expecting to see movement between the trunks
[12:03] Speaker 1: or hearing distant voices. Nothing. Whoever walked through here must
[12:11] Speaker 1: have been experienced, I thought to myself. Before princes showed
[12:15] Speaker 1: no signs of backtracking or double checking. Eventually, Will muttered
[12:22] Speaker 1: that we should have caught up by now. He wasn't wrong.
[12:26] Speaker 1: The prince had looked fresh when we found them. They
[12:29] Speaker 1: should have led us to someone really showed signs that
[12:32] Speaker 1: the person had stopped. There had been nothing. Still, none
[12:39] Speaker 1: of us said we should turn back. The idea of
[12:42] Speaker 1: meeting someone, anyone had become a silent goal, so we
[12:47] Speaker 1: kept walking, eyes locked on the tracks, boots pressing into
[12:52] Speaker 1: snow that had only been disturbed by one person before us.
[12:58] Speaker 1: The climb began to wear on us. After another hour,
[13:01] Speaker 1: the slope had steepened gradually enough, though it was barely noticeable,
[13:07] Speaker 1: the air had thinned, and each breath started to carry
[13:10] Speaker 1: a raw edge. Will was the first to speak up.
[13:15] Speaker 1: He stopped and lean forward, hands resting on his knees,
[13:18] Speaker 1: his breath fogging him burst as he looked over at Alban.
[13:23] Speaker 1: We need a break, he said, not quite out of breath,
[13:28] Speaker 1: but close. Albin didn't argue. He dropped his pack into
[13:33] Speaker 1: the snow and pulled off his gloves to flex his fingers,
[13:37] Speaker 1: red from cold. Marcus, who had been ahead by a
[13:41] Speaker 1: few meters, turned back and raised an eyebrow. I could
[13:46] Speaker 1: see from his expression that he didn't want to stop.
[13:50] Speaker 1: He looked back down at the trail, then at me,
[13:54] Speaker 1: as if asking for confirmation. The prince still looked fresh.
[14:00] Speaker 1: The snow around them hadn't softened or filled in whoever
[14:04] Speaker 1: we were following couldn't have been far. I told him
[14:09] Speaker 1: we'd keep going just for a few minutes. If we
[14:13] Speaker 1: didn't see anything soon, we'd turn around and meet back here.
[14:18] Speaker 1: Will looked up and gave a lazy wave. Already digging
[14:21] Speaker 1: in his pack for a protein bar, Albin muttered something
[14:25] Speaker 1: about starting a small fire. While they waited, The forest
[14:31] Speaker 1: grew denser with each step. The trees were spaced more tightly,
[14:35] Speaker 1: their branches reaching inward, creating a canopy that filtered the
[14:39] Speaker 1: light and gave everything a dull gray tint. Some of
[14:44] Speaker 1: the trunks had twisted and broken unnaturally, Bark peeled in strips,
[14:49] Speaker 1: and several trees sagged in the middle, as if something
[14:53] Speaker 1: heavy was on top of them. Heavier than snow. Branches
[14:58] Speaker 1: lay broken across the path, not snapped by storm or wind,
[15:03] Speaker 1: but fractured at clean angles. Many buried half way beneath
[15:07] Speaker 1: the snow, as though they had dropped vertically. If I
[15:12] Speaker 1: didn't know any better, I'd have assumed a monkey was
[15:15] Speaker 1: climbing around here. The branches dropping and snapping under the weight.
[15:21] Speaker 1: Then the prince stopped. We both saw it at the
[15:27] Speaker 1: same time. Marcus slowed, then came to a full stop.
[15:33] Speaker 1: I stepped forward to join him and stared at the
[15:35] Speaker 1: snow ahead. The trail had continued in a clear pattern
[15:40] Speaker 1: until this point, deep indentations in a single line. Heeled
[15:45] Speaker 1: to toe, spaced evenly, and then nothing. The track simply ended,
[15:54] Speaker 1: a clean line of prints that led into untouched snow.
[16:00] Speaker 1: I crouched down and brushed at the powder with my glove.
[16:03] Speaker 1: The surface resisted. There was no hidden depressions beneath. I
[16:09] Speaker 1: looked left and right. The snow in both directions stretched
[16:14] Speaker 1: out without disturbance. Marcus spoke up and gave a sturdy explanation.
[16:21] Speaker 1: Snow must have fallen in that section earlier. Maybe a
[16:24] Speaker 1: small drift had covered them up. It was plausible. Marcus
[16:31] Speaker 1: glanced behind us, then turned and started walking back. I
[16:36] Speaker 1: followed without speaking. The forest around us creaked slowly. Somewhere
[16:43] Speaker 1: far off, a branch cracked. When we got back, the
[16:50] Speaker 1: forest had started the dim The light no longer filted
[16:55] Speaker 1: cleanly through the trees, shadows had stretched across the clearing,
[16:59] Speaker 1: and the smoke from the fire drifted unevenly in the air.
[17:04] Speaker 1: Albin crouched beside the flames, turning something over in a
[17:08] Speaker 1: small steel pan, the handle wrapped in cloth to keep
[17:11] Speaker 1: it from freezing fingers. Will sat on a fallen tree trunk,
[17:17] Speaker 1: gloved hands copped around a plastic mug, steam rising from
[17:21] Speaker 1: whatever he had mixed inside. They had already pitched the tents.
[17:27] Speaker 1: They stood a few meters from the fire, staked into
[17:31] Speaker 1: the packed snow, with robes strung around buried stones. Will
[17:36] Speaker 1: looked up as we stepped into the light of the
[17:38] Speaker 1: fire and raised his eyebrows. No lock. Marcus shook his
[17:45] Speaker 1: head and dropped his pack next to a tent. Tracks
[17:50] Speaker 1: just stopped. He said, looked like snow covered them. That
[17:56] Speaker 1: explanation satisfied. Everyone handed us balls and divided the food.
[18:03] Speaker 1: Some dehydrated stew he had rehydrated with melted snow. It
[18:08] Speaker 1: tasted overly salty and the texture left something to be desired,
[18:13] Speaker 1: but none of us complained. The heat settled into my stomach,
[18:19] Speaker 1: pulled the tension I hadn't realized had built up. We
[18:23] Speaker 1: drank from metal cups filled with warm, powdered cider that
[18:26] Speaker 1: Marcus had packed for morale. The taste reminded me of
[18:30] Speaker 1: something from a childhood field trip, though I couldn't remember where.
[18:36] Speaker 1: Will tried to tell a story, but eventually started forgedin
[18:39] Speaker 1: where he was going with it, which made it funnier.
[18:43] Speaker 1: Alpin snorted through his nose, which nearly spilled his drink.
[18:49] Speaker 1: I caught myself smiling while we were conversing. It had
[18:55] Speaker 1: started the snow. It didn't fall heavy. The flakes drifted
[19:00] Speaker 1: down in slow spirals, catching the light of the fire
[19:04] Speaker 1: and tumbling through it before landing soundlessly around us. The
[19:08] Speaker 1: flames flickered orange and yellow, casting moving shadows into the trees,
[19:15] Speaker 1: then out of nowhere. Conversation was interrupted. Sh shut up,
[19:25] Speaker 1: The words cut through the laughter. We all stopped moving.
[19:31] Speaker 1: The only sound for a moment was the hiss of
[19:33] Speaker 1: the melting snow on the edge of the pan. Then
[19:37] Speaker 1: I heard it, faint but clear. Crunch, crunch, crunch. It
[19:47] Speaker 1: came in slow intervals, snow compacting underweight, not loud enough
[19:53] Speaker 1: to be something big, but still close enough to be dangerous.
[19:59] Speaker 1: They circled the sound, moved behind the trees, disappeared, then
[20:04] Speaker 1: returned again from another wrangle. Marcus stood, He looked toward
[20:10] Speaker 1: the direction of the sound, eyes narrowed, postured tight. Hey.
[20:16] Speaker 1: He shouted, something moved a thooding scramble pressed into the
[20:22] Speaker 1: snow and broke it apart four point rhythm heavy enough
[20:27] Speaker 1: to echo off the surrounding trees. I glimpsed the shadow
[20:31] Speaker 1: moving between trunks, long enough to scense mass. Then it
[20:36] Speaker 1: was gone. No one moved for several seconds. The forest
[20:42] Speaker 1: turned to stillness, its wolves. Albin said he didn't try
[20:49] Speaker 1: to dress it up. Will open his mouth, probably to joke,
[20:55] Speaker 1: but closed it again. He looked at me, then at
[20:59] Speaker 1: the tree line. We decided to sleep. Soon after that.
[21:06] Speaker 1: No one wanted to say it out loud, but a
[21:09] Speaker 1: presence like this was enough for us to want to
[21:11] Speaker 1: cut this specific hike short. We could go to a
[21:15] Speaker 1: different trail, and being in the presence of wolves while
[21:19] Speaker 1: off trail didn't seem like a fun time. When morning came,
[21:31] Speaker 1: I stepped out of the tent, boots crunching as I
[21:34] Speaker 1: shifted weight onto half frozen ground, and I saw them prints,
[21:42] Speaker 1: dozens of them, all around the tent. The snow had
[21:47] Speaker 1: recorded every step in perfect detail. Some had pressed so
[21:51] Speaker 1: close to the nylon that I could see whether paws
[21:54] Speaker 1: had shifted mid stride. They circled in low, looping arcs.
[22:00] Speaker 1: Some approached the tent directly, then turned away again. A
[22:04] Speaker 1: few branched off into the woods before rejoining the others.
[22:09] Speaker 1: Marcus walked up beside me and led out a low breath.
[22:14] Speaker 1: Albin came out next, squinting in the morning light, then
[22:19] Speaker 1: staring at the ground. Will followed and whistled through his teeth.
[22:25] Speaker 1: Let's move. We packed in silence. The tents came down quickly,
[22:32] Speaker 1: my hands moving with more speed than coordination. We started moving,
[22:38] Speaker 1: and after about two hours of walking, we finally admitted
[22:43] Speaker 1: what we didn't want to the original trail we had followed.
[22:48] Speaker 1: The prints we had chased were gone. The snowfall had
[22:54] Speaker 1: raised them. Not even a partial indentation remained. There was
[22:59] Speaker 1: no path to retrace. Marcus adjusted the strap across his
[23:06] Speaker 1: chest and looked north. We followed the sun we head low.
[23:13] Speaker 1: None of us had a better idea, so we walked.
[23:20] Speaker 1: We moved in silence for the rest of the day.
[23:23] Speaker 1: The snow had deepened again, and each step sank further
[23:27] Speaker 1: than the last. The slope dipped in places, then rose
[23:31] Speaker 1: without warning, forcing us to stop and catch our breath
[23:35] Speaker 1: more often than before. The sunlight filtered through the trees
[23:39] Speaker 1: in pale shafts, but none of it felt warm. Everyone
[23:45] Speaker 1: stopped speaking. At this point. Will had not said anything
[23:49] Speaker 1: for over an hour, which felt unnatural coming from him.
[23:54] Speaker 1: Albin occasionally looked behind us. Marcus walked ahead, his shoulders squared,
[24:00] Speaker 1: presumably in an attempt to fake confidence. I began to
[24:05] Speaker 1: notice movement. It started with a flicker just outside my
[24:10] Speaker 1: filter vision, something moving between the trees. I couldn't make
[24:16] Speaker 1: out exactly what it was, but I knew it was there.
[24:21] Speaker 1: The shape appeared again, further along a bulk, sliding from
[24:25] Speaker 1: one trunk to the next, then freezing. When I looked
[24:28] Speaker 1: at it, the others had seen it too, I could tell.
[24:35] Speaker 1: Will walked closer to me than before. His eyes fixed ahead,
[24:39] Speaker 1: though they twitched toward the sides. When he thought no
[24:42] Speaker 1: one was watching, he rubbed the back of his neck.
[24:46] Speaker 1: His mouth opened once, then closed again, without saying anything.
[24:52] Speaker 1: We continued on without speaking, our boots dragged. No one
[24:56] Speaker 1: looked behind us anymore. We knew we were being followed
[25:01] Speaker 1: by the wolves, but running was out of the question.
[25:05] Speaker 1: We were too afraid of them giving chase. It was
[25:11] Speaker 1: Albin who stopped first. His legs gave out on a
[25:15] Speaker 1: patch of uneven snow, and he dropped to one knee.
[25:19] Speaker 1: He didn't curse or complain. He just stayed there, shoulders
[25:24] Speaker 1: rising and falling. The rest of us gathered around him
[25:28] Speaker 1: without deciding to. We had reached our limit. The clearing
[25:35] Speaker 1: we stopped him was only a small gap between the trees,
[25:38] Speaker 1: with the slope leveled out for a few meters. It
[25:42] Speaker 1: wasn't much, but it was enough. Marcus set down his
[25:47] Speaker 1: pack and began unpacking the tent without waiting for agreement.
[25:52] Speaker 1: There was no discussion this time. We were all feeling
[25:56] Speaker 1: the pressure. We didn't split off into separate tents. We
[26:01] Speaker 1: needed to be in one place. We didn't cook. No
[26:05] Speaker 1: one gathered firewood. We opened vacuum sealed meal packs and
[26:09] Speaker 1: chewed through them without warming them up. The food was
[26:13] Speaker 1: dense and cold. My teeth ached with every bite. Will
[26:18] Speaker 1: passed around a canteen of melted snow mixed with sugar tablets.
[26:23] Speaker 1: Four bodies pressed into one space with barely enough room
[26:27] Speaker 1: to stretch out. Our bags lined the edges, our boots
[26:31] Speaker 1: remained on. Each of us kept a knife in our hand.
[26:36] Speaker 1: The fabric walls moved faintly whenever the wind pushed through
[26:40] Speaker 1: the trees, and I watched the seams, with a growing
[26:43] Speaker 1: certainty that something stood just beyond them. I woke up
[26:52] Speaker 1: sometime in the early hours. My body throbbed from the
[26:56] Speaker 1: awkward angle I'd been lying in in the air inside
[26:59] Speaker 1: the tent had cooled into something sharp. My breath turned
[27:03] Speaker 1: into mist and faded just above my face. I remained
[27:08] Speaker 1: still ears, straining. Something had woken me up. There was
[27:17] Speaker 1: movement outside. I heard the sound of paws pressing into snow,
[27:22] Speaker 1: one step, then another, slow, measured It moved in circles
[27:29] Speaker 1: around us. Once more I could hear it, or them sniffing.
[27:37] Speaker 1: I turned my head. Will was awake, so was everyone else.
[27:42] Speaker 1: Their eyes were wide, their faces expressionless. Marcus had his
[27:47] Speaker 1: knife in one hand, held just beneath the sleeping bag.
[27:51] Speaker 1: His knuckles had gone pale. We all turned our heads
[27:55] Speaker 1: in unison as a tearing of cloth rang out in
[27:59] Speaker 1: the tent. Cloth was pulled tight, threads separating. A line
[28:05] Speaker 1: opened along the corner, slow at first, then wider. The
[28:10] Speaker 1: cold surged inward. A shape pushed through the teir. The
[28:16] Speaker 1: wolf's head appeared. At first, its eyes caught what little
[28:20] Speaker 1: light came through the snow, reflecting a dull liquid yellow.
[28:25] Speaker 1: Its muzzle opened, I saw the teeth just before it lunged.
[28:30] Speaker 1: It clamped down on my shoulder with sudden weight, and
[28:33] Speaker 1: heat exploded across my collar bone. My scream rang out
[28:37] Speaker 1: in my own ears. The tent collapsed into chaos. Everyone
[28:44] Speaker 1: moved at once, arms flailed, blades flashing. I stepped through
[28:48] Speaker 1: the dark with my free hand, the knife barely penetrating
[28:51] Speaker 1: through thick fur and skin. The wolf snarled, its body jerking.
[28:58] Speaker 1: Albin hit it in the side. Marcus drove his knife
[29:01] Speaker 1: into its ribs. Will stabbed at the shoulder and trembling.
[29:05] Speaker 1: The cuts were shallow, but they came fast and wild.
[29:10] Speaker 1: The wolf twisted, trying to pull back its legs, kicked,
[29:14] Speaker 1: its jaw loosened. I kept stabbing until my arm gave out.
[29:18] Speaker 1: Blood covered the floor of the tent, soaking into my
[29:21] Speaker 1: shirt and pulling in the folds of the sleeping bag.
[29:26] Speaker 1: Then the animal fell. Its body went limp, its mouth
[29:31] Speaker 1: hung open. I couldn't tell if it was breathing. As
[29:38] Speaker 1: we waited for another one of them to enter the tent,
[29:41] Speaker 1: all of us shaking from adrenaline, we turned our attention
[29:44] Speaker 1: to a noise we hadn't noticed during the scuffle, but
[29:48] Speaker 1: was present all throughout, thrashing, thumping, then whining, then silence
[29:56] Speaker 1: again side the tent. We did not speak. We waited.
[30:06] Speaker 1: No one moved. For several seconds after the wolf went silent.
[30:11] Speaker 1: My breath came in short bursts, each one shorter than
[30:15] Speaker 1: the last. Blood soaked the left side of my jacket,
[30:18] Speaker 1: hot where it had spread cold in some places. The
[30:22] Speaker 1: knife in my hand felt heavy, slick, and unsteady. Albin's
[30:27] Speaker 1: arm trembled beside me, the blade in his fist still raised,
[30:32] Speaker 1: though his eyes were locked on the tent wall, waiting
[30:35] Speaker 1: for another sound, but nothing ever came. Will leaned forward first,
[30:44] Speaker 1: his fingers reached out hesitant and gently pulled at the
[30:49] Speaker 1: corner of the torn tent wall. The flap peeled open, slowly,
[30:54] Speaker 1: held together by threads that had not fully ripped. He
[30:58] Speaker 1: peeped through just a narrow glance at first, then widened
[31:03] Speaker 1: the opening with both hands. He did not speak. Marcus
[31:10] Speaker 1: leaned over and looked. Alban moved next. I stayed still,
[31:15] Speaker 1: pressing one hand into the bite of my shoulder, the
[31:18] Speaker 1: other gripping the tent pole for balance. When they stepped
[31:22] Speaker 1: out into the snow, I followed the ground surrounding our
[31:28] Speaker 1: camp had been torn apart. A single branch lay at
[31:32] Speaker 1: the ground at the edge of camp, one that wasn't
[31:34] Speaker 1: there when we got here. Wolves lay scattered across the
[31:39] Speaker 1: snow in every direction. Some had been thrown against trees,
[31:43] Speaker 1: Others were collapsed in contorted positions, limbs bent at angles
[31:48] Speaker 1: that suggested violent force. Fur was matted with blood and
[31:53] Speaker 1: patches of ice. One had its rib cage split open,
[31:57] Speaker 1: and another lay without a jaw. A third was missing its
[32:01] Speaker 1: front legs entirely. Their bodies stretched beyond the perimeter of
[32:06] Speaker 1: our camp. The snow around them had been trampled. Massive
[32:11] Speaker 1: prints stamped into the crust, some deeper than others, forming
[32:15] Speaker 1: erratic patterns. They were roughly human in shape, though the
[32:20] Speaker 1: spacing and depth made no sense. Some stood close together,
[32:25] Speaker 1: others stretched meters apart. Albin stood near the edge of
[32:31] Speaker 1: the clearing Markers paced in a slow circle around one
[32:35] Speaker 1: of the larger corpses. Will just stood with his arms
[32:38] Speaker 1: hanging at his sides, the knife still dangling from his hand.
[32:44] Speaker 1: I sat on the packed snow and pulled my jacket
[32:46] Speaker 1: off slowly. The wound throbbed beneath my shirt. The skin
[32:51] Speaker 1: had been punctured in three places where the teeth had
[32:54] Speaker 1: broken through. Albin knelt beside me and opened the medkit.
[33:00] Speaker 1: He poured water over the bite, wrapped goree around the arm,
[33:03] Speaker 1: and tied it in place with strips of clean fabric.
[33:07] Speaker 1: Marcus stood guard without speaking. We didn't even wonder about
[33:12] Speaker 1: the human footprints around. We had no more energy or
[33:16] Speaker 1: will power to ask questions. We just started moving solemnly again.
[33:23] Speaker 1: We left our tent there. We just walked without a
[33:26] Speaker 1: clear direction for what felt like ours. We saw something
[33:31] Speaker 1: familiar in the snow. Ahead of us. A narrow set
[33:36] Speaker 1: of footprints ran parallel to our path. Human, the edges sharp,
[33:43] Speaker 1: just as the last ones had been. Hope did not
[33:47] Speaker 1: need to be acknowledged. It passed between us at a
[33:50] Speaker 1: shared current, carried by the possibility of someone ahead, a
[33:56] Speaker 1: trail to follow, a direction to believe in. We stepped
[34:01] Speaker 1: into the line of print and followed them through the trees.
[34:05] Speaker 1: We didn't even ask one another what another human was
[34:08] Speaker 1: doing here, or how the footprints just appeared in the
[34:11] Speaker 1: middle of nowhere without any prior tracks. The trail curved
[34:17] Speaker 1: slightly ahead, then narrowed. We walked for fifteen minutes, maybe more.
[34:24] Speaker 1: The prince continued in a clear path. Then they stopped.
[34:33] Speaker 1: The ending came abruptly, just like before. We paused for
[34:39] Speaker 1: a moment, contemplating our next move. It was Marcus. We
[34:46] Speaker 1: saw it first. His arm rose slowly, fingers stiff, and
[34:53] Speaker 1: he pointed upward. We followed his gaze. There so spended
[35:00] Speaker 1: between the highest limbs of a pine several meters ahead.
[35:05] Speaker 1: Something watched us. Its forms stretched unnaturally broad through the chest,
[35:11] Speaker 1: its shoulders round it with thick cords of frozen muscle,
[35:15] Speaker 1: completely frostbitten. The surface of its body was torn and pitted.
[35:21] Speaker 1: Segments of skin looked burnt or blistered, with patches missing entirely.
[35:27] Speaker 1: Coarse fir clung to sections of its frame, but most
[35:30] Speaker 1: of it had been rubbed away or never grown at all.
[35:35] Speaker 1: Long antlers covered in moss, and what looked like veins
[35:38] Speaker 1: of black frost jotted from either side of its head.
[35:43] Speaker 1: Its eyes met mine. They were green, unmoving and wide.
[35:53] Speaker 1: Its legs hung beneath it, short and pale, but unmistakably human.
[36:00] Speaker 1: They swung slightly in the breeze, too small to support
[36:04] Speaker 1: something of that mass, as if borrowed from something else,
[36:08] Speaker 1: and crudely attached. The branches creaked beneath its weight. Then
[36:16] Speaker 1: they broke. The thing dropped. It struck the ground with
[36:21] Speaker 1: a blunt thud that sent snow upward in a ring
[36:24] Speaker 1: around it. The limbs absorbed the fall, then flexed. The
[36:29] Speaker 1: body shifted towards us. It reached out with both arms,
[36:34] Speaker 1: gripped Marcus by the waist, and lifted him into the air.
[36:39] Speaker 1: He didn't even have time to scream. The creature slammed
[36:43] Speaker 1: him into the snow once twice, then flung him against
[36:47] Speaker 1: the tree trunk. His body folded and broke at the base.
[36:53] Speaker 1: We ran in different directions, each of us, driven by
[36:57] Speaker 1: the instinct to survive, moved before my thoughts caught up.
[37:02] Speaker 1: The air tore past my face, thick with snow and
[37:05] Speaker 1: the sharp scent of blood. I did not call out
[37:09] Speaker 1: or checked to see where the others were. Branches tore
[37:13] Speaker 1: at my sleeves, The terrain blurred, trees passed in rapid succession.
[37:19] Speaker 1: I tripped once, fell into a bank of snow, then
[37:22] Speaker 1: scrambled out without feeling the pain. My shoulder burned from
[37:26] Speaker 1: the wound, every cholt, sending a wave of nausea up
[37:30] Speaker 1: to my neck. I could not stop, I could not
[37:34] Speaker 1: breathe without hearing the echo of that thing hid in
[37:37] Speaker 1: the ground. At some point, the slope began to descend.
[37:43] Speaker 1: The snow thickened underfoot, and the trees opened into a
[37:47] Speaker 1: familiar pattern. I recognized the broken trunk on the right,
[37:53] Speaker 1: a line of disturbed snow running through the clearing. I
[37:57] Speaker 1: knew the scorch marks and the tree the first fire
[38:00] Speaker 1: had been built. I had returned to the first camp.
[38:06] Speaker 1: The tent still stood in fragments. Blood had frozen in
[38:10] Speaker 1: streaks along the entrance. The bodies of the wolves had
[38:13] Speaker 1: begun to settle into the snow, their outlines softened by
[38:18] Speaker 1: frost and time. Nothing moved. I dropped to my knees
[38:26] Speaker 1: beside the tent and crawled inside. The sleeping bag remained
[38:31] Speaker 1: in a heap, twisted from the fight. I found the
[38:35] Speaker 1: one I had used and pulled it around me. The
[38:38] Speaker 1: zipper barely functioned, jammed from the torn lining. I shoved
[38:43] Speaker 1: myself deep into the fabric, got into the warmest shape
[38:46] Speaker 1: I could manage, and tried to slow my breathing. Outside
[38:53] Speaker 1: the forest remained silent. I waited in the shadows until
[38:57] Speaker 1: my muscles refused to respond. The first sound I heard
[39:03] Speaker 1: came with a crunch of packed snow and the low
[39:06] Speaker 1: hum of an engine. I remained still, at first, unsure
[39:12] Speaker 1: if I had imagined it. Then I heard voices, one male,
[39:18] Speaker 1: one female, speaking German, Moro Austrian. Then a second engine closer.
[39:27] Speaker 1: I pushed my head from the sleeping bag and looked
[39:29] Speaker 1: toward the torn edge of the tent. Two figures approached
[39:34] Speaker 1: on foot. The jackets bore patches mountain patrol. Behind them,
[39:41] Speaker 1: a snowmobile idle near the edge of the trees, its
[39:45] Speaker 1: tracks buried in a swirl of powder. One of them
[39:49] Speaker 1: knelt beside the tent, then leaned back and called over
[39:52] Speaker 1: a radio. The other moved toward me, Crouching low. He
[40:00] Speaker 1: spoke to me, calmly, asking my name, asking if I
[40:04] Speaker 1: was alone. I nodded. He asked if I was injured.
[40:10] Speaker 1: I pointed to my shoulder. I tried to speak, but
[40:15] Speaker 1: the words came out hoarse and correct. I started to explain.
[40:20] Speaker 1: I told him about my friends, about the creature and
[40:23] Speaker 1: what it had done. He listened, but his face did
[40:28] Speaker 1: not change. He placed the hand of my wrist, told
[40:33] Speaker 1: me to stay still, and wrapped a blanket over my back.
[40:40] Speaker 1: Later I would learn why they had come. The wolves
[40:45] Speaker 1: we had encountered belonged to a monitored pack. Each carried
[40:50] Speaker 1: an implant tracker used by conservation authorities to study movement
[40:54] Speaker 1: and behavior. According to the data, the signals all stopped
[41:00] Speaker 1: within the same thirty minute window. That kind of mass
[41:04] Speaker 1: failure had never occurred before. They assumed poachers. They dispatched patrols,
[41:12] Speaker 1: and they found me. I somehow ended up getting a
[41:16] Speaker 1: lawyer who spoke and clipped English, told me to cooperate
[41:20] Speaker 1: and say as little as possible. An article would come
[41:24] Speaker 1: out later. Taurus, accused of a legal wolf killing, faces
[41:30] Speaker 1: sentencing on Friday. They said trauma had distorted my memory
[41:37] Speaker 1: from what they theorized. Cold and blood loss created hallucinations.
[41:42] Speaker 1: My judgment was fractured after experiencing a traumatic event. The
[41:48] Speaker 1: conversation laws were strict. Wolves in this region were protected
[41:52] Speaker 1: under the national and EU policy. Killing even one carried
[41:57] Speaker 1: prison time, and I had been found in a camp
[42:02] Speaker 1: surrounded by corpses. My story was never considered. I served
[42:11] Speaker 1: twenty months. The job offer came as an email with
[42:26] Speaker 1: no company logo, no sender information beyond a string of
[42:30] Speaker 1: numbers and a subject line that just read conductor position,
[42:35] Speaker 1: private contract. I'd been out of work for months, barely
[42:40] Speaker 1: scraping by and scam emails for nothing new, But when
[42:45] Speaker 1: I opened it, the details made me pause. The pay
[42:51] Speaker 1: was astronomical, six times what I'd ever made running freight
[42:55] Speaker 1: trains for a single ride. The hours were vague, but
[42:59] Speaker 1: the message emphasized discretion, reliability, and the ability to work alone.
[43:07] Speaker 1: There was a number at the bottom. I called, half
[43:11] Speaker 1: expecting a disconnected line or a robotic scam message. Instead,
[43:18] Speaker 1: a man entered on the first ring. He introduced himself
[43:23] Speaker 1: only as a recruiter for a private client and asked
[43:27] Speaker 1: if I was available to meet the next day. No
[43:31] Speaker 1: company name, no office address, just a location, a roadside
[43:36] Speaker 1: diner off a highway. I went, of course. The diner
[43:43] Speaker 1: was nearly empty when I arrived. The man was waiting
[43:47] Speaker 1: for me, sitting at a booth near the back. He
[43:51] Speaker 1: wore a black suit, a crisp tie to match, and
[43:54] Speaker 1: a dull expression. He didn't even introduce himself properly, just
[44:00] Speaker 1: gestured for me to sit. There wasn't any small talk.
[44:06] Speaker 1: He slid a contract across the table. You'll receive a
[44:11] Speaker 1: list of instructions, he said, voice flat, read them on
[44:15] Speaker 1: your job site. They are non negotiable. Ah, all right,
[44:21] Speaker 1: what kind of instructions? A pause? Then I tried again.
[44:30] Speaker 1: I looked up at the recruiter. What kind of train
[44:33] Speaker 1: is this? His expression didn't change. Just follow the instructions.
[44:41] Speaker 1: Everything else is self explanatory. Then he pointed to something
[44:47] Speaker 1: in the middle of the contract, a single bolded line.
[44:52] Speaker 1: If you break any instructions, press the red button on
[44:56] Speaker 1: the center console immediately. Someone will tell you what to do.
[45:03] Speaker 1: I almost laughed. And if they don't, the recruiter didn't
[45:08] Speaker 1: blink or say a word, just stared. After a long silence,
[45:15] Speaker 1: he tapped the contract again. Sign The private station was
[45:23] Speaker 1: nothing like I expected. It was tucked away in a
[45:27] Speaker 1: dead end road beyond an industrial lot, surrounded by rusted
[45:31] Speaker 1: fences and half collapsed buildings, no signs or employees, just
[45:37] Speaker 1: the set of old but pristine tracks and a sleek,
[45:40] Speaker 1: immaculate train waiting for me in the dark. The train
[45:45] Speaker 1: looked like it belonged in a billionaire's collection, long streamlined,
[45:50] Speaker 1: gleaming under the dim platform lights. The exterior was spotless,
[45:56] Speaker 1: not a single scratch or sign of wear, boarded the
[46:00] Speaker 1: conductor's entrance and stepped into the control cabin. The cabin
[46:06] Speaker 1: smelled like fresh polish. Every dial, switch and lever was
[46:11] Speaker 1: perfectly placed, modern yet oddly unfamiliar. There was no dust,
[46:17] Speaker 1: not a single clue to indicate this train had ever
[46:21] Speaker 1: actually been used. The chair was stiff and the seat
[46:25] Speaker 1: belt untouched, and the passenger cars were almost completely empty.
[46:31] Speaker 1: No boarding crew or a bit of luggage here and there.
[46:35] Speaker 1: No clients were anywhere to be seen. I had no
[46:39] Speaker 1: idea where I was going, who owned this train, or
[46:43] Speaker 1: what I was transporting, if anything. I sat down on
[46:49] Speaker 1: the chair and picked up a laminated sheet sitting on
[46:52] Speaker 1: top of the control panel. The instructions the train must
[46:59] Speaker 1: never stop, no matter what happens. Keep moving. Do not
[47:04] Speaker 1: open any passenger doors. No one should be on board.
[47:09] Speaker 1: If you hear knocking from inside an empty car, ignore it.
[47:14] Speaker 1: If some one appears on the tracks, do not slow down.
[47:18] Speaker 1: Do not look at them in the rear view mirror.
[47:21] Speaker 1: At exactly two thirteen a m. Turn off all cabin
[47:25] Speaker 1: lights for three minutes. Do as instructed. Thereafter. If the
[47:31] Speaker 1: intercom comes on but no one speaks, respond by saying
[47:35] Speaker 1: we are on schedule. Then do not speak again for
[47:39] Speaker 1: exactly five minutes. One of the train cars will be
[47:43] Speaker 1: filled with passengers. Do not acknowledge them, do not look
[47:47] Speaker 1: at them. Do not enter the car. If you see
[47:51] Speaker 1: some one sitting on the conductor's seat. When you return
[47:54] Speaker 1: from a break, leave the train immediately. You will not
[47:58] Speaker 1: be able to board again. You may see another train
[48:02] Speaker 1: running parallel to yours. If this happens, do not look
[48:06] Speaker 1: at it for longer than ten seconds. If you break
[48:10] Speaker 1: an instruction, press the red button immediately. Someone will call
[48:14] Speaker 1: you with further instructions. I read them once, then again.
[48:22] Speaker 1: My first thought was, what kind of sick joke is this?
[48:28] Speaker 1: I glanced around the cabin, expecting cameras, some hidden speaker
[48:32] Speaker 1: system ready to blare out a voice laughing at my reaction,
[48:37] Speaker 1: But I was only met with ornate and beautiful decorations
[48:41] Speaker 1: that adorn the corners and walls of the control cabin.
[48:46] Speaker 1: I scoffed, shaking my head. I'd heard of companies testing
[48:50] Speaker 1: new hires to see how much crab they'd put up with,
[48:54] Speaker 1: but I wasn't sure. A scare tactic, maybe some over
[48:59] Speaker 1: the top to keep conductors focused on the job. But
[49:03] Speaker 1: why the hell, woere they need to? It's a train.
[49:08] Speaker 1: You follow the schedule, watch the tracks, and keep things moving.
[49:14] Speaker 1: What was all this about knocking doors and not looking
[49:17] Speaker 1: at passengers? I rubbed my temples. Whatever if they wanted
[49:24] Speaker 1: me to play along, and I'd play along as long
[49:28] Speaker 1: as the paycheck cleared, they could put all the weird
[49:31] Speaker 1: rules they wanted. The train pulled out of the station, smoothly,
[49:39] Speaker 1: gliding over the tracks with barely a tremor. The engine
[49:43] Speaker 1: was quieter than anything I'd operated before, smooth to the
[49:48] Speaker 1: point I couldn't even tell when I was moving when
[49:50] Speaker 1: I closed my eyes. I barely had to touch the
[49:54] Speaker 1: controls for the first hour, not much to not tappen,
[50:00] Speaker 1: and just endless stretches of empty fields and dense forests
[50:05] Speaker 1: rolling past under the dim glow of the moon. The
[50:09] Speaker 1: rails were calming. For a moment, I actually thought this
[50:14] Speaker 1: might be the easiest job I'd ever had. Then the
[50:20] Speaker 1: intercom crackled a burst of static, sharp and sudden, filled
[50:25] Speaker 1: the cabin. I turned instinctively, waiting for an announcement, for
[50:31] Speaker 1: some kind of instruction. I frowned, tapping the panel, flipping
[50:37] Speaker 1: a few switches to clear the channel. Still nothing. My
[50:45] Speaker 1: eyes wandered to the list of rules sitting next to me.
[50:49] Speaker 1: Number six. If the intercom comes on but no one speaks,
[50:54] Speaker 1: respond by saying we are on schedule, then do not
[50:58] Speaker 1: speak again for exactly five minutes. I almost hesitated. It
[51:05] Speaker 1: was stupid, right, just a dumb corporate rule, a test
[51:10] Speaker 1: to see if I would comply. I was sure of it.
[51:14] Speaker 1: I cleared my throat. We uh, we are on schedule.
[51:23] Speaker 1: Something had changed, but I couldn't tell what it was. Immediately,
[51:28] Speaker 1: some sort of pressure started rubbing against my skin. The
[51:32] Speaker 1: hum of the engine felt further away, like I was
[51:35] Speaker 1: sinking underwater while everything else drifted above me. I stared
[51:41] Speaker 1: straight ahead, forcing myself to focus on the tracks. Four minutes.
[51:49] Speaker 1: The longer I sat there, the worse it got. My
[51:52] Speaker 1: head started ringing and I couldn't keep my eyes focused.
[51:57] Speaker 1: Three minutes, the hairs and my arms stood up. The
[52:02] Speaker 1: air smelled different, now charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm.
[52:09] Speaker 1: Two minutes I was entirely hitched in place. One minute
[52:18] Speaker 1: the feeling past, just like that. The weight lifted, the
[52:24] Speaker 1: engine sounded normal again. I checked the clock. Five minutes exactly,
[52:32] Speaker 1: I exhaled slowly, what the hell was that. My mind
[52:39] Speaker 1: started wondering with ideas from conspiracy theory documentaries. I've been
[52:43] Speaker 1: watching brainwashing people into specific radio waves and such. But
[52:48] Speaker 1: I brushed it aside and kept moving. The train sped forward,
[52:54] Speaker 1: the night stretched out ahead of me. A blur of
[52:59] Speaker 1: my movement flashed just ahead, right as I was starting
[53:03] Speaker 1: to relax and put the strange feeling aside. I concentrated
[53:09] Speaker 1: as the shape moved out of the trees to the
[53:11] Speaker 1: left and right onto the tracks, fast enough that I
[53:16] Speaker 1: couldn't properly register it. The headlights cut across the rails,
[53:22] Speaker 1: and my stomach lurched. Someone was standing right on the tracks,
[53:30] Speaker 1: a man. His clothes were loose, billowing in the wind,
[53:34] Speaker 1: even though the night was clear. His outline was blurry,
[53:39] Speaker 1: but I was closing in on him quickly. He didn't move.
[53:46] Speaker 1: My fingers twitched toward the brakes. I had to stop.
[53:52] Speaker 1: I remembered number four. If someone appears in the tracks,
[53:58] Speaker 1: do not slow down. Do not look at them in
[54:01] Speaker 1: the rear view mirror. Every muscle in my body screamed
[54:06] Speaker 1: at me to hit the brakes, but I willed myself
[54:09] Speaker 1: to stop. I don't know what made me think hitting
[54:13] Speaker 1: a man with a train was going to be justified
[54:16] Speaker 1: by any instruction or rule. But I'd no time for
[54:19] Speaker 1: second thoughts. The train plowed through him, no impact or thud.
[54:29] Speaker 1: I looked around, panicking. I couldn't believe what I'd just done.
[54:34] Speaker 1: My heart hammered, and I snapped my gaze to the
[54:37] Speaker 1: rear view camera, then stopped myself. I couldn't look. I
[54:45] Speaker 1: forced my eyes back to the controls, gripping the levers tightly.
[54:49] Speaker 1: The train rattled slightly as it shot forward, speeding into
[54:53] Speaker 1: the black. I let go of the levers, pulse raising.
[54:59] Speaker 1: It was fine, just the trick of the light, astray
[55:03] Speaker 1: thor getting tangled with the night. If I had actually
[55:07] Speaker 1: hit something, the results would have been catastrophic. I was
[55:12] Speaker 1: going ninety five miles per hour. A train this size
[55:15] Speaker 1: going at that speed would make some sort of noise,
[55:18] Speaker 1: hitting even a leaf. I led out a slow breath,
[55:23] Speaker 1: trying to shake the tension off, reminding myself of the
[55:27] Speaker 1: money waiting for me at the end of it. These
[55:31] Speaker 1: rules were making me forget that I'd been doing this
[55:33] Speaker 1: exact job for years. This was going to be no different.
[55:38] Speaker 1: I was just nervous and overanalyzed everything, so I guess
[55:43] Speaker 1: the rules worked. My mind started to wonder. There wasn't
[55:50] Speaker 1: much to do while the train ran, just miles of dark,
[55:54] Speaker 1: empty landscape stretching out ahead. My mind drifted, skimming over
[56:00] Speaker 1: the rows of dials and switches, then settling almost absent mindedly,
[56:05] Speaker 1: and the passenger monitors. Someone was sitting in one of
[56:10] Speaker 1: the previously empty chairs, same loose, billowing clothes, same blurred,
[56:16] Speaker 1: indistinct face, the same man I'd seen on the tracks.
[56:23] Speaker 1: I blinked hard. What I had checked the entire train
[56:28] Speaker 1: before departing. Every car was empty. I would have seen him.
[56:34] Speaker 1: There was no way I missed someone had he been
[56:37] Speaker 1: here the whole time. There had to be a logical explanation.
[56:42] Speaker 1: Maybe I'd just been too focused on the startup sequence,
[56:46] Speaker 1: going through the motions without really seeing the empty cars.
[56:50] Speaker 1: It wouldn't have been the first time. Or maybe I'd
[56:53] Speaker 1: just spaced out long haul conductors to it all the time.
[56:58] Speaker 1: You get used to the routine, your mind drifts and
[57:01] Speaker 1: things blur together. Yeah that was It didn't matter. Chances
[57:10] Speaker 1: were this was some rich big shot I was transporting,
[57:15] Speaker 1: and he wanted a train all to himself, maybe even
[57:18] Speaker 1: hid from me somehow, on purpose. I shook the tension
[57:23] Speaker 1: from my hands and calmed down. The train was moving,
[57:27] Speaker 1: everything was running, and I even had a passenger. Now
[57:32] Speaker 1: I knew what I was transporting. As long as I
[57:35] Speaker 1: followed the schedule, I'd be fine. Outside the world slipped
[57:43] Speaker 1: by in streaks of dark green and silver, thick forest,
[57:46] Speaker 1: stretching endlessly into the night. The hum of the engine
[57:51] Speaker 1: filled the cabin, steady, and even a rhythmic pulse beneath
[57:55] Speaker 1: my finger tips miles of emptiness ahead, miles of emptiness behind.
[58:04] Speaker 1: Then out of nowhere, a slow, steady tap, tap tap
[58:11] Speaker 1: against one of the cabin doors. I straightened in my seat,
[58:17] Speaker 1: eyes flicking toward the control panel. The passenger cars were
[58:21] Speaker 1: still empty. Apart from the man. Nothing had changed, and
[58:28] Speaker 1: yet the knocking persisted. I reread the rules, rule three.
[58:36] Speaker 1: If you hear knocking from inside an empty car, ignore it.
[58:42] Speaker 1: I did my best, the focus forward, pretending it wasn't happening,
[58:48] Speaker 1: but the knocking grew louder, bam bam bam, like someone
[58:53] Speaker 1: was hammering their fists against the metal, trying to break through. Desperate,
[59:00] Speaker 1: I felt a sensation in my chest, a deep frustration,
[59:04] Speaker 1: I was tired, I was irritated, and I was done
[59:08] Speaker 1: playing along with these stupid rules. They had driven me
[59:12] Speaker 1: to such delusion that I thought I'd hit someone. I
[59:17] Speaker 1: stood up. My boots thudded against the floor as I
[59:21] Speaker 1: strode back into the passenger cabins, heart pounding as I followed.
[59:25] Speaker 1: The sound the knocking led me to cast six. I
[59:32] Speaker 1: hesitated the rules says to ignore it. I inhaled sharply,
[59:39] Speaker 1: my hand hovering over the latch. What was I expecting
[59:44] Speaker 1: a prank, a malfunctioning door. If it was any of those,
[59:49] Speaker 1: I was entirely ready for the consequences. These rules were
[59:54] Speaker 1: taking a toll on me, making me imagine things that
[59:57] Speaker 1: weren't even there. I just break this one rule, proved
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: myself right, and get on with my shift. I unlatched
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: the lock and swung the door open. The cabin was
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: completely empty. No people, no luggage, no sign of life
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: at all, except for the footprints. They stretched across the
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: floor in a perfect trail, starting right in front of
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: me and disappearing into the next car. The footprints were dirty, muddy,
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: like someone had just stepped inside. A shiver crawled up
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: my spine, A feeling deep inside me, screaming that I
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: had just made a mistake. Before that thought could fully manifest,
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: I was thrown off balance. The train started slowing down.
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: The air around me lurched, and I grabbed the doorframe
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: to steady myself. The train was losing speed, but I
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: hadn't touched anything. I spun, rushing back to the control cabin,
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: my breath coming faster now. My eyes flicked to the dashboard.
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: Every system was still active. The speed should have been constant,
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: but the train was steadily slowing down. The radio crackled again,
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: a burst of static, followed by a voice warped and distorted,
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: like it was dragging itself through the speakers. Why did
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: you stop, my palls hammered against my ribs. I I didn't.
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: The brakes when engaged. The emergency systems weren't triggered. The
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: train was stopping on its own. I grabbed the controls,
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: yanking the throat, trying to force it back to speed.
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: It wouldn't respond. Outside the front window, the landscape crawled by,
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: slower and slower, until the train finally completely halted silence.
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: Shortly after movement beyond the trees, just at the edge
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: of the dim platform lights. Figures were emerging from the darkness,
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: dozens of them, tall and thin, the limbs stretching at
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: unnatural angles as they moved toward the train in slow,
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: balanced steps, not rushing, just walking. A mechanical hiss cut
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: through everything. I snapped my head toward the monitors, a
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: cold pit forming in my stomach. The train doors were
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: opening once again. I hadn't touched the controls. My hands
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: were still clenched around the throttle, my knuckles white. The
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: system hadn't even indicated a stop. We weren't supposed to stop,
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: and yet the door slid open smoothly. Outside the figures
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: stepped forward. One by one. They emerged from the trees,
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: their shapes flickering against the dim glow of the train's lights.
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: They moved like they had all the time in the world.
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: The first one stepped inside, then another, and another, filling
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: the empty cars. I could see them on the monitors,
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: standing in the aisles, in the seats, occupying every available space,
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: yet never moving. I swore quietly, my finger flying over
[1:04:00] Speaker 1: the dashboard, searching for anything, some kind of override, an
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: emergency restart that failsafe. Nothing worked. I tried the radio.
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: I flipped the breakers. I jammed the throttle forward, no results.
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: Outside the figures had started boarding. The doors remained open
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: none how the figures did anything but stare blankly forward.
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: I felt panic rise up in my chest, real panic.
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: My pulse roared in my ears. Why is the train
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: not moving? My eyes darted to the red button. I
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: slammed my palm against it. The radio crackled a life instantly, Hello,
[1:04:53] Speaker 1: My voice came out sharp, panicked. I didn't do anything.
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: The train stopped on its own. You broke a rule.
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: My throat tightened, but before I could say anything, the
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: voice continued, Do not acknowledge them, they are the passengers.
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: Now keep driving until the last stop, and do not
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: break any more rules. Stay vigilant. A low clunk echoed
[1:05:25] Speaker 1: through the cabin. The door slid shut. I tried moving
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: the train again, and as smoothly as the first time,
[1:05:35] Speaker 1: it started moving forward. I press my lips together, keeping
[1:05:41] Speaker 1: my gaze locked forward. The intercom stayed silent, and the
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: train sped back into the night. The tension never left
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: my body. My fingers remained locked around the controls, stiff
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: and aching, my forearms hurting from the strain. I refused
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: to look back, not even a glance. There was an
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: overwhelming sense that if I did, if I so much
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: as acknowledged their existence again, I would not be in
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: for a good time. After a while of total stillness, monotony,
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: and paranoia from my end, something shifted at the very
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: edge of my vision. Moving alongside the train keeping perfect pace,
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: another flicker, a break in the darkness. A second train
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: was running parallel to mine. The sight of it made
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: no sense. There had been no crossings or signals that
[1:06:46] Speaker 1: another set of tracks even existed beside my own. Yet
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: there it was, keeping speed effortlessly, its steel body gleaming
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: under the faint moonlight, and through the windows I saw figures.
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: They appeared dark, the interiors shrouded in shadow. But as
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: I looked closer, I realized there were dozens of them,
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: maybe more, pressed harshly against the glass, each one wearing
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: the same wide grin. Their faces were frozen, their eyes
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: locked directly at mine. They looked just like the passengers
[1:07:27] Speaker 1: that had just joined my own train number nine. If
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: you see another train running parallel to yours, do not
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: look at it for longer than ten seconds. I wouldn't
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: make the same mistake again. The presence of the other
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: train lingered in my periphery, but I didn't acknowledge it again.
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: I just kept driving. The intercom shot to life with
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: sudden bursts of status, made my shoulders jump, the tension
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: in my body snapping tight. For a moment, there was
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: only empty noise, the same cold emptiness that had filled
[1:08:11] Speaker 1: the radio the last time I pressed the red button.
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: Look at the time. Slowly, I glanced at the digital
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: clock on the control panel, two twelve AM, number five.
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: At exactly two thirteen a m. Turn off all cabin
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: lights for three minutes. Do was instructed. Thereafter, I paused
[1:08:39] Speaker 1: and reached for the switch. My fingers trembled slightly as
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: I flipped it down. The cabin was plunged into absolute darkness.
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: I blinked, trying to adjust, but there wasn't anything to
[1:08:54] Speaker 1: adjust to. It was so dark that everything was swallowed whole.
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: No outlines, no faint glimmers of control lights, no reflection
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: of the window. Just avoid. The intercom came through again.
[1:09:12] Speaker 1: This time there was no prelude to it, just a clear,
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: short sentence, do not move. A new sound filled the air.
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: I heard it before, I felt it, A slow, painful
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: movement against the metal floor. Not footsteps, but something dragging
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: itself forward, joints popping, a strange, slithering scrape beneath the
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: clatter of the train. Whatever was making that noise, it
[1:09:50] Speaker 1: was in the cabin with me. Then came the wheezing.
[1:09:59] Speaker 1: It was deep, uneven like. Whatever it was had several
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: lungs that were inhaling, in staggered burst. Each breath pulled
[1:10:07] Speaker 1: at the air, filling the cabin with a thick, humid
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: heat that stuck to my skin like mucus. The smell
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: followed her second later. It wasn't like anything I'd ever
[1:10:21] Speaker 1: encountered before. It was sharp, medicinal hoemost, but undercut with
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: a sticky sour scent, like burnt plastic mixed with harsh chemicals.
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: The stench made me want to throw up, but I
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: kept perfectly motionless. It crawled closer, still shifting near the
[1:10:44] Speaker 1: control panel, sniffing its breath, rasping against the levers. A
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: single clawed scrape against the console made my entire body
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: lock up. It circled me, the warmth of its breath,
[1:11:00] Speaker 1: shifting from one side to the other, something brushing against
[1:11:04] Speaker 1: my shoulder, but not quite touching my chest burst, but
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: I didn't dare do so much as exhale. Three minutes
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: I counted in my head, trying not to let panic
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: take hold. I couldn't move, I couldn't react. I could
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: only sit there, locked in place, as whatever was inside
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: the cabin decided whether or not I was worth noticing.
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: In a split second, with no sound at all, it
[1:11:41] Speaker 1: was gone. The heat in the air lifted, the smell faded,
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: a low click, the cabin lights flickered back on. I
[1:11:55] Speaker 1: was still too terrified to move, unwilling to take any chances.
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: After a while, I was confident enough to adjust myself
[1:12:04] Speaker 1: and my chair. I shoved down the lingering nausea and
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: pressed my hands against my lap, trying to stop them
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: from shaking. The digital clock blinked two sixteen a m.
[1:12:20] Speaker 1: I saw the words appear in the main display final stop,
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: arrival imminent. The station lights emerged from the darkness ahead,
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: cold and unwelcoming, but still the most welcoming thing possible
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: to me. The train didn't slow as it approached. I
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: calmly pulled the brake, but it wouldn't budge. We were
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: getting closer. I pulled the lever until My arms felt
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: like they'd rip off my body. I fumbled with the controls,
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: smashing the red button into my palm. Throbbed, but nothing gave.
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: We rushed toward the platform at a great speed. I
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. Adrenaline searched through my body
[1:13:07] Speaker 1: as my legs started shaking, and before I could even
[1:13:11] Speaker 1: take precaution impact the first jolt sent me flying forward,
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: slamming my chest into the console. A crunch from inside
[1:13:23] Speaker 1: me followed. It hurts so badly, I thought I'd die
[1:13:27] Speaker 1: then and there. The windshields shattered as steel and concrete collided,
[1:13:32] Speaker 1: the deafening snap of metal ripping through the cabin. The
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: sound was unbearable, screeching, tearing, the agonized wail of the
[1:13:42] Speaker 1: train collapsing in on itself. Sparks exploded across my vision
[1:13:47] Speaker 1: as the front cars crumpled like a soda can, the
[1:13:50] Speaker 1: force of the impact buckling the walls inward. The entire
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: world turned sideways. I was thrown backward, hitting the wall
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: before rolling on to the floor. My ears rang, my
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: ribs ached. The air was thick with smoke and dust,
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: filling my lungs with every ragged breath. Somewhere beyond the
[1:14:14] Speaker 1: ringing in my skull, I could hear the train's last
[1:14:18] Speaker 1: desperate groans, the final shuddering lurch as it came to
[1:14:23] Speaker 1: a violent grinding hold. I lay there, stunned, my hands
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: trembling against the cold floor. I was still alive, somehow,
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: despite the crash, despite the sheer destruction I just experienced,
[1:14:44] Speaker 1: I was fine. Slowly, painfully, I pushed myself up. The
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: cabin was intact, no shattered glass, no twisted wreckage, no
[1:14:58] Speaker 1: clapsed walls. The train sat perfectly parked at the station,
[1:15:04] Speaker 1: as if it never even moved at all. The console
[1:15:07] Speaker 1: was unscathed, the windshield unbroken. Even the faint hum of
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: the engine had returned steady, like it had been running
[1:15:16] Speaker 1: this whole time. But I knew what I felt. The
[1:15:21] Speaker 1: bruises falling on my arms. I had been in that crash.
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: My injuries weren't as fatal as I was sure they
[1:15:30] Speaker 1: were just moments ago. But the train had collided with
[1:15:34] Speaker 1: the station had collapsed around me, that I was sure of.
[1:15:41] Speaker 1: Yet here I was unharmed. I turned toward the passenger
[1:15:46] Speaker 1: monitors to see empty rows of seats, the train finally
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: rid of its impossible travelers, my stomach tightened the moment
[1:15:57] Speaker 1: my eyes landed on him, the figures from earlier had
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: all disappeared, but the man remained. His clothes waved around
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: as he walked. There was a fluid grace to him.
[1:16:10] Speaker 1: As he rose from his seat and began walking forward.
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: His movements were so smooth that they were hypnotizing. My
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: body tensed, my instincts screaming at me to move, to run,
[1:16:24] Speaker 1: to get out before something happened that I couldn't undo.
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: I staggered toward the door, but it was locked. No
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: matter how much I pulled or pushed, I couldn't open it.
[1:16:38] Speaker 1: The weight of the moment was suffocating, and for the
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: first time since this nightmare began, I finally had a
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: moment of clarity, and I realized just how wrong everything
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: had gone. I snapped out of my days and slammed
[1:16:56] Speaker 1: my hand against the red button. The radio remained silent,
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: and I headed again, harder, this time, my palms sweating
[1:17:05] Speaker 1: against the plastic. No response. The man kept walking. I
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: pressed the button again harder. Desperation crawled up my throat
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: like bile. The doors behind me opened. A deep mechanical
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: noise filled the cabin as the last remaining entrance slid
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: open with agonizing slowness, revealing an empty black voiead beyond it,
[1:17:35] Speaker 1: he stepped into the conductor's cabin. I was trapped, my
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: back pressed against the console, every muscle in my body
[1:17:45] Speaker 1: locked in place as he stopped just a few feet
[1:17:48] Speaker 1: from me. Up close, his shape was even more wrong,
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: his proportions slightly off, his arms too long, his posture
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: just a fraction to rigid. It was like someone had
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: built the idea of a man without ever having seen one,
[1:18:07] Speaker 1: a close approximation that almost fit, but missed something fundamental.
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: For the first time, he turned his head slightly, as
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: if acknowledging me directly, and in a voice there was
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: neither deep nor high, neither young nor old, neither kind
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: nor cruel. He spoke, thank you for the ride. He
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: looked at me a moment longer, his featureless face betraying
[1:18:41] Speaker 1: no emotion. Then, without another word, he turned and opened
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: the conductor room door, the one that I couldn't open
[1:18:51] Speaker 1: no matter how hard I tried. Then stepped out. A
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: new sound pulled my attention away. Footsteps I turned toward
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: the platform the recruiter was waiting. His hands were clasped
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: neatly in front of him. I practically jumped out of
[1:19:13] Speaker 1: my seat and straight toward the man. Who What the
[1:19:18] Speaker 1: hell was that? What the hell was I transporting? What
[1:19:22] Speaker 1: just happened? The recruiter didn't answer immediately. Instead, he glanced
[1:19:30] Speaker 1: past me toward the train, his gaze lingering on the
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: now empty cars. He exhaled and barely their sound before
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: finally speaking, what did you think of the job. There's
[1:19:46] Speaker 1: another Riote schedule for tomorrow night. You did a splendid job,
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: bringing the train all the way to the last stop.
[1:19:55] Speaker 1: I quit, I rasped my voice, raw. I don't care
[1:19:59] Speaker 1: about the money, I don't care about whatever this is.
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: I'm done. The recruiter smiled, not smuggly, though, just the
[1:20:10] Speaker 1: warm and welcoming smile. Then he gave me a slow nod.
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: You were transporting the dead. I didn't ask any more questions.
[1:20:26] Speaker 1: As absurd as what he had said just sounded. I
[1:20:29] Speaker 1: was too tired to care or rationalize anything else. I
[1:20:34] Speaker 1: walked away from the train, from the recruiter, from the
[1:20:38] Speaker 1: nightmare I had barely survived. I just knew one thing
[1:20:43] Speaker 1: for certain, I would never set foot on a train again.
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: I don't remember the first time I watched an urban
[1:21:01] Speaker 1: exploration video. I don't think it started as a lightning
[1:21:05] Speaker 1: bolt moment. It just sort of crept in little by
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: little until it was the only thing I watched. Most
[1:21:14] Speaker 1: kits around me were obsessed with gaming videos and things
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: like prank channels, But me, I ended up on channels
[1:21:22] Speaker 1: where people walked through empty malls and long forgotten tunnels,
[1:21:26] Speaker 1: with water dripping down the walls and silence stretching for miles.
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: It fascinated me. These were places people had once depended on,
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: places that held stories without ever telling them directly. I
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: wondered what had happened to them, why they had left,
[1:21:46] Speaker 1: why no one had come back. Even at ten, I
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: found comfort in those silences. Something about those forgotten corners
[1:21:56] Speaker 1: of the world felt honest to me, raw, untip by
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: the polished garbage the rest of the Internet churned out.
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: While my classmates were trading memes and game clips, I
[1:22:08] Speaker 1: was mapping out places I wanted to visit one day.
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: I'd dream about it at night, wondering endless concrete hallways,
[1:22:17] Speaker 1: no sound but my own breath and the scuff of
[1:22:19] Speaker 1: my shoes, flashlight beam jittering across crack tile. I wanted
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: to be there more than anywhere else. I didn't wait
[1:22:30] Speaker 1: long to try it for myself. There was a gas
[1:22:34] Speaker 1: station just off the interstate, a place that had shut
[1:22:37] Speaker 1: down five or six years earlier after a truck slammed
[1:22:40] Speaker 1: through its front windows. My friend Josh dared me to
[1:22:44] Speaker 1: go there after school one day. I told him I
[1:22:47] Speaker 1: had already planned to. That was a lie, but it worked.
[1:22:53] Speaker 1: We brought our bikes and ditched them behind the dumpsters.
[1:22:57] Speaker 1: The building looked small behind the road close it stretched deep.
[1:23:02] Speaker 1: The windows were covered in faded boards, and someone had
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: spray painted something unreadable in green across the siding. We
[1:23:10] Speaker 1: stepped behind the counter and found the freezer still half open.
[1:23:15] Speaker 1: Inside were candy bars that had sagged into themselves. The
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: labels were faded, their insides bloated. Being in one of
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: these places felt amazing, more so than I'd ever imagined.
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: It felt like I was stepping into a memory I
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: was never supposed to be a part of. It was
[1:23:35] Speaker 1: one thing to walk through a place and wonder who
[1:23:37] Speaker 1: used to be there. It was another to be a
[1:23:40] Speaker 1: piece of them. I remember Josh making a joke something
[1:23:45] Speaker 1: stupid about ghosts. But I wasn't really listening to what
[1:23:49] Speaker 1: he had to say, And that was the moment it clicked.
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: I wasn't just breaking into places. I was doing the
[1:23:58] Speaker 1: closest thing to time traveling as possible, stepping sideways into
[1:24:03] Speaker 1: someone else's story. We left after that, but I came
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: back alone a few times. Never told Josh I didn't
[1:24:13] Speaker 1: need his or anyone's company. A couple years later, I'd
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: find Grayson Vance. His videos were really simple. He'd start
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: with a quiet drone shot over a deserted property, then
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: ease in the narration. He felt more like a documentary
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: than a vlog. I'd never seen him try to do
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: that whole ghost story cliche that most content creators seemed
[1:24:42] Speaker 1: to try nowadays. His camera did the talking. I found
[1:24:48] Speaker 1: his channel late one night, while watching a video about
[1:24:51] Speaker 1: an abandoned power station in the Balkans. YouTube AutoPlay kicked
[1:24:55] Speaker 1: in and landed me on Grayson's tour of a sunken
[1:24:59] Speaker 1: hotel half the coast of Italy. The whole thing was
[1:25:03] Speaker 1: underwater at high tide, and he'd gone at dusk, wading
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: through flooded hallways with his camera above the waterline, narrating
[1:25:11] Speaker 1: it like it was a love letter. I binged watched
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: his entire catalog that week. He explored old prisons in Iceland,
[1:25:21] Speaker 1: war bunkers in Belgium, collaped schools in the deserts of Chile.
[1:25:26] Speaker 1: He never acted like it was braver than anyone else.
[1:25:29] Speaker 1: He moved through every place with respect. I wanted to
[1:25:35] Speaker 1: do that, too, wanted to be that. I started practicing
[1:25:40] Speaker 1: with a phone camera in empty parking garages, trying to
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: mimic his pacing. I studied his videos, replayed them over
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: and over, tried to figure out what he looked for.
[1:25:53] Speaker 1: I followed every platform he posted on, commented on everything,
[1:25:57] Speaker 1: hoping one day he'd notice. I didn't even feel like
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: a fan of his. If I'm being honest, he felt
[1:26:05] Speaker 1: more of a teacher to me, guiding me to a
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: future I was destined to reach. It was a Tuesday night.
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: If I remember correctly, I should have been working on
[1:26:18] Speaker 1: a labrite up for chemistry, but I had already convinced
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: myself it could wait. I had my phone propped against
[1:26:25] Speaker 1: a glass of water on my desk, headphones in my lamp,
[1:26:29] Speaker 1: the only thing keeping the room from going black. I
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: was scrolling through video suggestions in that half focused trance
[1:26:36] Speaker 1: I always seemed to fall into. That was when I
[1:26:41] Speaker 1: saw it. Grace and Vance abandoned a hospital as p usual,
[1:26:48] Speaker 1: a simple title and thumb nail. Grayson's voice came on
[1:26:54] Speaker 1: almost immediately. Who We started the same way with a
[1:26:58] Speaker 1: brief intro, a few quiet cuts of him walking the perimeter,
[1:27:02] Speaker 1: showing the outside before slipping inside. I felt my chest
[1:27:08] Speaker 1: tightened with excitement as I realized I recognized that place.
[1:27:14] Speaker 1: I knew those gates, the vines climbing the outer brick wall,
[1:27:18] Speaker 1: the sign half swallowed by overgrowth. I paused the video,
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: dragged the time bar back, and looked again. Then I
[1:27:28] Speaker 1: opened a tab and searched for images of old Florence
[1:27:32] Speaker 1: Hill Hospital. It matched. My mom would always drive past
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: it when I was younger. The place had been locked
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: up for decades, boardered tight and fenced off, though rumors
[1:27:47] Speaker 1: always floated around about kids getting in through a loose fence.
[1:27:52] Speaker 1: Mose said he was used as a psych word. Some
[1:27:54] Speaker 1: claimed it was a treatment scent of a violent offenders.
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: But regardless, Grayson was inside. He moved through it, slowly,
[1:28:05] Speaker 1: panning across doorways and peeling walls. The audio picked up
[1:28:10] Speaker 1: the creak of his boots on the tile, the quiet
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: drip of water hitting metals somewhere in the distance. I
[1:28:18] Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. He was only thirty minutes from where
[1:28:22] Speaker 1: I lived. Grayson reached the hallway. One of the walls
[1:28:28] Speaker 1: had collapsed inward, but he edged around it, ducking under
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: a reebarre and dry wall to step into a room
[1:28:35] Speaker 1: that looked like an old kitchen or freezer storage. A
[1:28:39] Speaker 1: row of broken industrial shelves leaned against the wall behind them,
[1:28:44] Speaker 1: half hidden by a stack of topple boxes with something
[1:28:48] Speaker 1: metallic embedded in the floor. He adjusted the focus, stepped closer,
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: and knelt beside it. A hatch bolted down on one side,
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: though the rust made it impossible to tell if it
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: was still sealed properly. The camerangle dipped as he brushed
[1:29:07] Speaker 1: dirt away with his sleeve. Then his voice came through again.
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: What do we have here, he said? Huh, goud be
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: some runoff tunnel or a different section of the hospital.
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: He tapped it once with a knuckle. Tell you what, guys,
[1:29:28] Speaker 1: If this video hits a thousand likes within twenty four hours,
[1:29:31] Speaker 1: I'll come back and go down there. He stood up.
[1:29:37] Speaker 1: The video cut a few seconds later, replaced by his
[1:29:40] Speaker 1: usual closing title card. I paused the screen, open the
[1:29:46] Speaker 1: common section, then scrolled back to the like counter one
[1:29:51] Speaker 1: point two K. I refreshed the page. No new video
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: had checked his Twitter new announcements. Where was the video?
[1:30:07] Speaker 1: I kept thinking about how close it was. How many
[1:30:11] Speaker 1: years I'd spent watching videos of buildings in countries I'd
[1:30:14] Speaker 1: never afford to visit, and now the biggest one of
[1:30:18] Speaker 1: all might be sitting right outside my town waiting for
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: someone to explore it. I was almost mad at myself
[1:30:26] Speaker 1: for not thinking to go there. But if Grayson was
[1:30:30] Speaker 1: taking his sweet time, maybe I could go first, maybe
[1:30:35] Speaker 1: even catch him there in the middle of filming. The
[1:30:39] Speaker 1: thoughts started as a fantasy, but it didn't stay one
[1:30:43] Speaker 1: for long. Just a few minutes later, I had dug
[1:30:49] Speaker 1: out my dad's old camcorder from the top of the closet.
[1:30:53] Speaker 1: The battery was swollen, but it had a backup pack
[1:30:56] Speaker 1: from a second store I used once for a film project.
[1:31:00] Speaker 1: I charged them both and tested the mic in my room.
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: The flashlight needed fresh batteries, too, so I biked to
[1:31:07] Speaker 1: the gas station near the highway and picked up a
[1:31:10] Speaker 1: six pack. I wrote a note and left it on
[1:31:14] Speaker 1: the fridge so my mum wouldn't be worried something about
[1:31:17] Speaker 1: group study. Every few minutes, I would imagine running into
[1:31:24] Speaker 1: Grayson down there. What I would say, How I'd play
[1:31:27] Speaker 1: it cool, maybe help him film, maybe even scare him
[1:31:31] Speaker 1: a little and record his reaction. He'd laugh, we'd talk gear,
[1:31:36] Speaker 1: He'd realize I was serious about this stuff, that I
[1:31:39] Speaker 1: wasn't just another fan trying to leach off of his name.
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: I packed everything into my school bag and zipped it tight.
[1:31:49] Speaker 1: Before I left the house, I stood in front of
[1:31:51] Speaker 1: my mirror, held the camera up to my eye, and
[1:31:55] Speaker 1: practiced an intro. The words felt weird in my mouth,
[1:32:00] Speaker 1: but I got through it. This could be the start
[1:32:04] Speaker 1: of everything I'd ever dreamed of. The sun was starting
[1:32:11] Speaker 1: to set when I got there. It hung behind a
[1:32:14] Speaker 1: screen of clouds, turning the sky into the color of
[1:32:17] Speaker 1: copper tarnish. I left my bike stashed beneath a clutter
[1:32:21] Speaker 1: of dog woods across the road and crossed the gravel
[1:32:24] Speaker 1: shoulder on foot. The outer gate had collapsed inward, its
[1:32:30] Speaker 1: posts bend and the chains slack enough to dug beneath
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: the hospital loomed ahead. The windows had been busted out,
[1:32:40] Speaker 1: while remained of the glass clung to the frames in
[1:32:42] Speaker 1: jagged patterns, catching the last light and reflecting it. I
[1:32:48] Speaker 1: pulled out the camcorder and switched it on the battery,
[1:32:54] Speaker 1: held steady. The light on the side blinked to life,
[1:32:57] Speaker 1: casting a small circle ahead of me. I hit record
[1:33:02] Speaker 1: and held it at chest level. All right, I said,
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: I'm standing just outside Florence Hill Hospital. I'm here to
[1:33:12] Speaker 1: see if I can find the spark Grace and Vance
[1:33:14] Speaker 1: filmed in his latest video. There's supposed to be a
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: hatch in the basement or storage wing. He said he'd
[1:33:21] Speaker 1: go down next time, Bun. I figured, I wait. The
[1:33:28] Speaker 1: intro came out stiff, but it felt good. I stepped
[1:33:33] Speaker 1: inside through a doorway where both doors had been torn off.
[1:33:38] Speaker 1: The floor inside had walked from years of neglect. Dust
[1:33:42] Speaker 1: and leaves had gathered into piles along the edges, and
[1:33:46] Speaker 1: most of the tiles had cracked. The air hit me
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: at once, wet, stagnant, and full of mildew. It clung
[1:33:56] Speaker 1: to the inside of my nose and sat heavy in
[1:33:59] Speaker 1: the back of my throat. Graffiti covered the walls in
[1:34:04] Speaker 1: bursts of neon and black marker. A lot of it
[1:34:08] Speaker 1: was nonsense tags, cartoonish faces, crude jokes, but a few
[1:34:14] Speaker 1: names repeated across different wings. I used those to orient
[1:34:19] Speaker 1: myself checking Grayson's video game following where the camera panneda
[1:34:23] Speaker 1: cross doorways or the way light had come in through
[1:34:26] Speaker 1: broken window panes. I stopped every few minutes to get
[1:34:31] Speaker 1: my bearings and film another few seconds of commentary, though
[1:34:36] Speaker 1: my voice kept slipping into whispers without meaning to. The
[1:34:42] Speaker 1: deeper removed the darker it got. Most of the corridors
[1:34:46] Speaker 1: were blocked by fall and ceiling panels or crossed furniture,
[1:34:51] Speaker 1: but the root from the video matched just enough for
[1:34:53] Speaker 1: me to follow it. After fifteen minutes, I started to
[1:34:59] Speaker 1: recognize the the pattern of damage from his footage, the
[1:35:02] Speaker 1: watermarks and the ceiling. I was close the hallway at
[1:35:09] Speaker 1: the end of the service wing, curved slightly to the
[1:35:12] Speaker 1: left and kept going until I hit a dead end.
[1:35:16] Speaker 1: I had to double back and rewatch part of the
[1:35:19] Speaker 1: video again. Grayson had veered off behind a broken freezer
[1:35:23] Speaker 1: unit next to a side door labeled Storage three C.
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: I retraced my steps and found it. This time, the
[1:35:34] Speaker 1: freezer door had rusted off its hinges and now leaned
[1:35:37] Speaker 1: sideways into the wall behind it, past the tangle of
[1:35:41] Speaker 1: old shelving and a disassembled mop SYNC sat the hatch.
[1:35:48] Speaker 1: It already stood open, which fuelled me with excitement. The
[1:35:54] Speaker 1: hatch itself was round, heavy looking, with a series of
[1:35:57] Speaker 1: bolts plunged into one side and scorch marks fanned out
[1:36:01] Speaker 1: across the floor. I angled the camera toward it and whispered,
[1:36:07] Speaker 1: this is it. This is the hatch from the video.
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: Grayson is probably down there as we speak. The hatch
[1:36:13] Speaker 1: is even still open. I reached forward and brushed my
[1:36:18] Speaker 1: fingers across the handle. It was worn from the heat
[1:36:22] Speaker 1: trapped in the room. Let's do this. I pointed my
[1:36:29] Speaker 1: flashlight down. The beams struggled to touch the floor. Only
[1:36:35] Speaker 1: part of it was visible through the narrow gap in
[1:36:37] Speaker 1: the concrete, just enough to show a ladder mounted to
[1:36:41] Speaker 1: the far wall, stretching into shadows. The rungs were metal
[1:36:47] Speaker 1: and bolted into place, though half of them looked eaten
[1:36:50] Speaker 1: by rust. Several bolts had sheered away from the surrounding concrete.
[1:36:57] Speaker 1: One side of the ladder swayed freely when I tapped
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: it with my foot. I stared at it for a while.
[1:37:06] Speaker 1: The camcorder was still recording. I brought it up and
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: whispered to the mic, this thing is barely holding on.
[1:37:14] Speaker 1: If it snaps, I'm screwed. I turned the flashlight between
[1:37:22] Speaker 1: my teeth and lowered myself down. The metal flakes beneath
[1:37:27] Speaker 1: my hands. Each rung felt slick and uncertain. The bolts
[1:37:32] Speaker 1: moaned with even the slightest shift of weight. A few
[1:37:36] Speaker 1: crumbled around the edges when I grabbed them. My fingers
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: burned from holding on so tightly. Half way down, I
[1:37:46] Speaker 1: paused to a just the camera angle, but I nearly
[1:37:49] Speaker 1: slipped doing it, so I just let it dangle on
[1:37:53] Speaker 1: its strap instead. I could hear my breath echoing off
[1:37:57] Speaker 1: the walls. When I reached the floor, my boots hit
[1:38:02] Speaker 1: uneven concrete. The walls on either side stretched into opposite directions.
[1:38:09] Speaker 1: The flashlight beam bounced off metal shelving and fragments of
[1:38:13] Speaker 1: painted wall. I took a slow breath and turned slowly.
[1:38:21] Speaker 1: I was in the room was enormous concrete stretched beneath
[1:38:36] Speaker 1: me in long, uneven slabs. Some sections had sunken, leaving
[1:38:41] Speaker 1: shallow dips filled with stagnant water. Rusted shelving units leaned
[1:38:46] Speaker 1: against the brick walls, their contents either collapsed or covered
[1:38:51] Speaker 1: in sheets of decomposing plastic. A gurney rested upside down
[1:38:56] Speaker 1: near the center, one of his wheels spinning slowly before
[1:39:00] Speaker 1: locking in place with a soft metallic click. I whispered
[1:39:05] Speaker 1: into the camera. Bigger than I expected. Definitely not a
[1:39:10] Speaker 1: storage closet. Let's see where Grayson is. My light followed
[1:39:17] Speaker 1: a long pipe overhead, thick with corrosion and patched with
[1:39:22] Speaker 1: what looked like duct tape and rubber fittings. Below it,
[1:39:26] Speaker 1: the moisture had pulled into a discolored stain, slick and
[1:39:30] Speaker 1: pulsing with slow drops. Each one landed with a clip
[1:39:36] Speaker 1: at the far wall. Something caught my attention. I walked
[1:39:41] Speaker 1: toward it slowly. My boots sent wet crunches into the dark,
[1:39:47] Speaker 1: echoing back against the walls. The beam of my light
[1:39:51] Speaker 1: lit up the last stretch of space with the concrete
[1:39:54] Speaker 1: gave way to older brick. The transition was uneven, almost
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: as though the building had been expanded downward after the
[1:40:03] Speaker 1: original structure had already been built. The wallpaper here peeled
[1:40:08] Speaker 1: away in thick, soft curls behind it, water stained plaster
[1:40:14] Speaker 1: gave way to a painted mural blue clouds, yellow suns,
[1:40:19] Speaker 1: animals drawn in past those shapes. A lion with cartoon
[1:40:23] Speaker 1: eyes stood next to a duck wearing a nurse's cap.
[1:40:27] Speaker 1: A giraffe was curled into a bed with a thermometer
[1:40:30] Speaker 1: in its mouth. I scanned across the floor in front
[1:40:35] Speaker 1: of it. The dust of the floor was scattered around,
[1:40:40] Speaker 1: revealing footprints and what looked to be drag marks. Grayson
[1:40:46] Speaker 1: was definitely here. I moved through the corridor as quietly
[1:40:52] Speaker 1: as I could. The walls here narrowed, there were fewer
[1:40:57] Speaker 1: open rooms. The hall turned left and then again to
[1:41:01] Speaker 1: the right, forming a horseshoe path around a closed off
[1:41:05] Speaker 1: surgery wing. At least that's what the faded lettering said
[1:41:09] Speaker 1: and the signs overhead. I kept imagining. I would turn
[1:41:13] Speaker 1: a corner and seemed crouched over a tripod. Eventually I'd
[1:41:19] Speaker 1: find his camera in a brake room. It sat on
[1:41:24] Speaker 1: a metal cart near a vending machine. The camera's glass
[1:41:28] Speaker 1: had been cracked, but it still functioned. The logo blinked once,
[1:41:33] Speaker 1: then faded. I could still navigate the video menu. I
[1:41:39] Speaker 1: leaned closer and whispered into my own camcorder, barely containing myself.
[1:41:45] Speaker 1: It's his, Let's see what I can find on it.
[1:41:49] Speaker 1: He probably got spooked by some rat and dropped it.
[1:41:52] Speaker 1: Poor guy. I smiled at the lens. My fingers hovered
[1:41:57] Speaker 1: over the playback button before I was able to hit play,
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: and alert popped up, letting me know the battery was low.
[1:42:08] Speaker 1: Navigating the menu was slow, the button stuck. A couple
[1:42:13] Speaker 1: of video philes sat in the memory. I selected the
[1:42:17] Speaker 1: most recent one and hit play. The footage opened with
[1:42:23] Speaker 1: Grayson already exploring the basement, but the screen was entirely black.
[1:42:30] Speaker 1: I thought maybe the file had corrupted, but the audio continued.
[1:42:36] Speaker 1: A wet, slithering sound dragged across the speakers, something heavy
[1:42:41] Speaker 1: scraping against concrete, then something else. Shallow breathing metal clattered
[1:42:51] Speaker 1: in the background, followed by a wet cough, then gurgling.
[1:42:57] Speaker 1: It sounded close to the mic. I leaned in. I
[1:43:03] Speaker 1: moved to rewind. I was curious as to what had happened,
[1:43:08] Speaker 1: but the display blinked once, then shut off. The battery
[1:43:13] Speaker 1: died in my hands. I could have left then and there,
[1:43:21] Speaker 1: maybe even should have, but I didn't. Grayson was down
[1:43:27] Speaker 1: here somewhere. Maybe something has spooked him into hiding. But
[1:43:31] Speaker 1: I just imagined myself doing something that scared even the
[1:43:35] Speaker 1: most popular urban explorers. I saw an opportunity. This was
[1:43:42] Speaker 1: my one and only chance to be a part of it.
[1:43:48] Speaker 1: So I walked. Dust turned to grime. Drawings on the
[1:43:53] Speaker 1: wall transitioned to a pale green beneath layers of peeling white.
[1:43:59] Speaker 1: I passed the rust wheelchair with two broken foot rests
[1:44:02] Speaker 1: and a dried smear along the cushion. Beyond that, a
[1:44:07] Speaker 1: row of cracked observation windows stared out into padded cells.
[1:44:12] Speaker 1: The batting had been torn open, foam exposed. Some of
[1:44:16] Speaker 1: it was darkened with rot. I stepped carefully, trying to
[1:44:21] Speaker 1: keep my breathing. Even the camera picked up everything. I
[1:44:27] Speaker 1: made sure of it. The hallway ahead sloped slightly to
[1:44:32] Speaker 1: the left, its walls warped from years of water damage.
[1:44:37] Speaker 1: I moved slow, careful. Where I stepped, my boots sank
[1:44:41] Speaker 1: into patches of soggy paper that had melted into the tile.
[1:44:46] Speaker 1: The beam of my flashlight shook across chipped paint and
[1:44:50] Speaker 1: empty door frames. I turned the corner. That was when
[1:44:57] Speaker 1: I saw him. A figure stood at the far end
[1:45:01] Speaker 1: of the corridor, motionless back to me, feet spread apart,
[1:45:06] Speaker 1: shoulders squared. He didn't move. I froze the light from
[1:45:14] Speaker 1: my flashlights sat on his back. He was too far
[1:45:18] Speaker 1: away to make out detail, but his silhouette was visible enough.
[1:45:24] Speaker 1: My first thought, without hesitation, was that it was Grayson.
[1:45:31] Speaker 1: I whispered into my camera. I think I just found him.
[1:45:37] Speaker 1: The figure remained completely still. I switched off the flashlight,
[1:45:43] Speaker 1: swallowed the tightness in my throat, and crouched behind an
[1:45:46] Speaker 1: overturned gurney. The glow from my camera screen cast a
[1:45:51] Speaker 1: dull blue over my hands. I angled it toward my face.
[1:45:57] Speaker 1: All right, I whispered, I'm getting the scaring camera. He
[1:46:01] Speaker 1: probably has no clue I'm even down here. I stood slowly,
[1:46:08] Speaker 1: careful not to let my shoes drag. I inched forward,
[1:46:13] Speaker 1: heart hammering in my ribs. The silence stretched, my mouth
[1:46:18] Speaker 1: had gone dry. I kept one hand steady on the camcorder,
[1:46:23] Speaker 1: the other clenched in my chest. I crept behind him,
[1:46:29] Speaker 1: close enough now to make out the seams on his jacket.
[1:46:34] Speaker 1: Then I jumped yo. The figure whipped around faster than
[1:46:43] Speaker 1: anything I had ever seen. I caught a glimpse of
[1:46:47] Speaker 1: the bandages, thick strips, yellowed with age and grime, wrapped
[1:46:52] Speaker 1: tightly across his head. Only his eyes were visible, red
[1:46:57] Speaker 1: and bursting from blood vessels that had ruptured beneath the lid.
[1:47:02] Speaker 1: Before I could step back, he slammed into me. His
[1:47:06] Speaker 1: forehead cracked against my cheek bone with a thud. I
[1:47:10] Speaker 1: hit the floor. My camera had tumbled across the tile,
[1:47:14] Speaker 1: pouncing into a pile of torn insulation. My flashlight clattered
[1:47:18] Speaker 1: near my hand. I gasped and rolled, grabbing for the light.
[1:47:24] Speaker 1: When I found it, I twisted the switch until it
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: clicked back on. He stood only a few feet away,
[1:47:32] Speaker 1: swaying slightly. The folds of his straight jacket heavy with
[1:47:36] Speaker 1: sweat and filth. The straps wound tight across his chest,
[1:47:41] Speaker 1: soaked through. His face was covered in bandages that had
[1:47:45] Speaker 1: melted away around the mouth, exposing jagged teeth and gums
[1:47:50] Speaker 1: coated in black rot. Dark puss clung to his lips
[1:47:54] Speaker 1: and dripped into the collar of his jacket. His breath
[1:47:59] Speaker 1: wheezed through clenched teeth. The sound reminded me of water
[1:48:03] Speaker 1: caught in a clogged drain. I launched myself upright and ran.
[1:48:11] Speaker 1: My boots slipped on the slick floor. I nearly lost
[1:48:14] Speaker 1: my footing At the first corner behind me, I heard
[1:48:18] Speaker 1: him or it scream, wet shrill, cracked in the middle,
[1:48:25] Speaker 1: and then the crash of his body slamming into metal.
[1:48:30] Speaker 1: He was chasing me. Gurney shattered as he ran through them.
[1:48:36] Speaker 1: I heard wheels spinning, furniture scraping across the floor, something
[1:48:41] Speaker 1: heavy hitting the wall. He made no effort to move
[1:48:45] Speaker 1: around anything, just slammed through them, tearing it and himself
[1:48:49] Speaker 1: apart in the process. Every corner turned, I expected him
[1:48:55] Speaker 1: to cut me off. I heard him gag, then cough,
[1:48:59] Speaker 1: then dragging an another breath through mucus and bile. His
[1:49:03] Speaker 1: body slammed against the corner I had just cleared, and
[1:49:06] Speaker 1: he recovered fast. Another screech, this one higher, almost animal.
[1:49:12] Speaker 1: I barrowed through a doorway and nearly tripped over a table,
[1:49:15] Speaker 1: flipped on its side, and vaulted it behind me. I
[1:49:20] Speaker 1: heard his body hit the edge and roll across it.
[1:49:23] Speaker 1: The screech of nails or teeth or something sharp dragging
[1:49:26] Speaker 1: over the surface, followed by a thump, then more footsteps.
[1:49:33] Speaker 1: I glanced over my shoulder just once bent forward. Face
[1:49:39] Speaker 1: slack drewel mixed with black fluid, trailing behind him in globs.
[1:49:44] Speaker 1: His shoulders rocked with each step, but his legs kept moving.
[1:49:49] Speaker 1: Foam lined his jaw. Now I ran harder. Upper head
[1:49:55] Speaker 1: lights spilled in from the shaft above the hatch the ladder.
[1:50:02] Speaker 1: I was almost there. It still dangled from its rusted bolts,
[1:50:07] Speaker 1: swaying slightly. The top half clung to the concrete wall,
[1:50:11] Speaker 1: the bottom half hung loose. The screws along the right
[1:50:15] Speaker 1: side bent nearly to the point of snapping. I jumped.
[1:50:21] Speaker 1: My hands caught a rung near my chest, and I
[1:50:24] Speaker 1: hauled myself upward, my boots slamming against the wall. As
[1:50:28] Speaker 1: I found a foothold, the metal rattled under my weight.
[1:50:32] Speaker 1: The rung shifted beneath my palms, slipping half an inch
[1:50:36] Speaker 1: before catching again below me. I heard him. His feet
[1:50:43] Speaker 1: slapped the tile. Then something heavier his full body, probably
[1:50:50] Speaker 1: thrown itself forward. A choking gargle echoed upward, long and strained.
[1:50:57] Speaker 1: When I glanced down, I saw him burn through the corridor,
[1:51:01] Speaker 1: head tangled across his face, the bandages flaring outward as
[1:51:05] Speaker 1: his jaws widened, his arms still bound in the jacket
[1:51:10] Speaker 1: thrashed at his sides. He shouldn't have been able to climb.
[1:51:15] Speaker 1: I thought I was safe, but he jumped. His head
[1:51:22] Speaker 1: snapped upward, mouth opening wide. He sank his teeth into
[1:51:26] Speaker 1: the rung just below my foot. His jaw clenched. Then
[1:51:32] Speaker 1: his legs kicked off the floor, and he began to swing.
[1:51:36] Speaker 1: He climbed on tight, using his molars and cracked in
[1:51:39] Speaker 1: sizes to hold himself steady. His feet scraped against the wall,
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: searching for traction. Somehow impossibly, he started to pull himself
[1:51:51] Speaker 1: higher by his mouth. The ladder shook hard, dreamed, and
[1:52:00] Speaker 1: climbed faster. My knees struck the rungs. My shoulders scraped
[1:52:04] Speaker 1: the edge of the hatch. I could hear the metal
[1:52:07] Speaker 1: wrenching below, one of the supports, snapping with a sharp twang.
[1:52:13] Speaker 1: I looked down once more. He was inches from my boots.
[1:52:18] Speaker 1: Lips peeled back, blood leaking from his gums where metal
[1:52:21] Speaker 1: had cut into his jaw. His eyes rolled upward, wide
[1:52:26] Speaker 1: and straining. I swung my foot out and kicked hard.
[1:52:32] Speaker 1: The ladder gave the top bolt snapped free. The structure
[1:52:36] Speaker 1: lurched to the side. He fell. I pulled myself through
[1:52:43] Speaker 1: the hatch as the ladder tore away, crashing down into
[1:52:46] Speaker 1: the dark. The impact echoed to the shaft, shaking the
[1:52:51] Speaker 1: walls beneath it. I heard a wet, snapping sound and
[1:52:57] Speaker 1: something low and guttural, a moan maybe, or a final breath.
[1:53:04] Speaker 1: I didn't stay to find out. I ran until I
[1:53:08] Speaker 1: couldn't feel my legs. The hospital doors passed in a blur.
[1:53:13] Speaker 1: The light outside had shifted to blue just before dawn.
[1:53:19] Speaker 1: The air stung my lungs as I pushed past the
[1:53:22] Speaker 1: crumbling fence, falling to my knees in the weeds before
[1:53:26] Speaker 1: crawling through the gap and stumbling onto the road. I
[1:53:30] Speaker 1: made it halfway down the road before my legs finally
[1:53:34] Speaker 1: gave out completely. I collapsed onto a patch of gravel
[1:53:38] Speaker 1: beside a rusted mar marker and lay there until my
[1:53:42] Speaker 1: heart stopped hammering. At some point I reached the bus
[1:53:46] Speaker 1: stop near the edge of town. I sat on the bench,
[1:53:50] Speaker 1: hand shaking, shirt soaked through with sweat. I thought about
[1:53:58] Speaker 1: calling someone, thought about telling the police, leading them to
[1:54:02] Speaker 1: the hatch. I even pulled out my phone and started
[1:54:05] Speaker 1: the dial. Then I stopped. They'd ask why I was there,
[1:54:13] Speaker 1: why I didn't call earlier, why I didn't stop when
[1:54:16] Speaker 1: I first heard something they'd touched the hospital. It would
[1:54:20] Speaker 1: all come back to me, whether that thing in the
[1:54:23] Speaker 1: strait jacket was human or not. I killed it, and
[1:54:30] Speaker 1: so I just went back home. Grayson never posted again.
[1:54:38] Speaker 1: His channel remained untouched. Comments slowed over time, then stopped completely.
[1:54:45] Speaker 1: People moved on. New explorers took his place, and I
[1:54:51] Speaker 1: never when urban exploring again. I'm serious this time, Cody said,
[1:55:09] Speaker 1: leaning across the cracked picnic table. His breath smeled like
[1:55:13] Speaker 1: sour candy, and his eyes looked huge behind his bent
[1:55:17] Speaker 1: up glasses. It's a real ritual, real real I didn't
[1:55:22] Speaker 1: just find it on Google or YouTube this time. I
[1:55:25] Speaker 1: had to go through this whole creepy website you can't
[1:55:27] Speaker 1: even find unless you do this thing with your computer.
[1:55:31] Speaker 1: It's called a hidden browser or something. I snorted and
[1:55:36] Speaker 1: picked at the peeling paint on the table. Yeah, just
[1:55:40] Speaker 1: like the real ritual where you made me eat a
[1:55:42] Speaker 1: crayon and told me my future would come true if
[1:55:44] Speaker 1: I pooped out the whole thing in one piece. Cody
[1:55:48] Speaker 1: shoved me with his elbow, but it barely counted as
[1:55:52] Speaker 1: a shove. He was skinny, always had been, with elbows
[1:55:57] Speaker 1: so pointy he could probably stab someone if he wanted.
[1:56:02] Speaker 1: That was a joke. This is different. I did research
[1:56:05] Speaker 1: this time, real research. Hows of it. I leaned back
[1:56:12] Speaker 1: and squinted at him, trying to keep a straight face.
[1:56:17] Speaker 1: Cody doing research usually meant he found some kid on
[1:56:21] Speaker 1: a forum who told him how to summon a ghost
[1:56:23] Speaker 1: with a spoon and a prayer. Thing was he was
[1:56:28] Speaker 1: my friend, always had been, ever since kindergarten, when he
[1:56:33] Speaker 1: wore a cape to school for three weeks straight and
[1:56:36] Speaker 1: told everyone he had wizard blood. Cody had this thing
[1:56:41] Speaker 1: about creepy stuff, monsters, spells, ghost stories, you name it.
[1:56:48] Speaker 1: He collected weird facts the same way normal kids collect
[1:56:50] Speaker 1: baseball cards. Every week he had a new ritual, or
[1:56:55] Speaker 1: a new monster, or a new story about a haunted
[1:56:58] Speaker 1: road he read about somewhere on a blode. Since I
[1:57:02] Speaker 1: had stuck with him through all of it, most kids
[1:57:05] Speaker 1: lumped me into the same weird bucket. We were the
[1:57:09] Speaker 1: spooky kids, the ones who made paper mache monsters in
[1:57:12] Speaker 1: art class instead of finger painting flowers. Teachers thought we
[1:57:17] Speaker 1: were harmless, but other kids mostly kept their distance. I
[1:57:22] Speaker 1: think They figured if they stood too close, they might
[1:57:25] Speaker 1: catch whatever weirdness we had. Cody could be annoying sometimes.
[1:57:33] Speaker 1: He always thought he knew more than everyone else. He
[1:57:36] Speaker 1: had this thing where he would keep secrets on purpose,
[1:57:39] Speaker 1: just to drive you crazy enough to beg him for answers.
[1:57:44] Speaker 1: But he was my best friend. So when he looked
[1:57:49] Speaker 1: at me with that dopey, excited face and said, come on,
[1:57:54] Speaker 1: it'll be awesome, I swear, I sighed and gave him
[1:57:59] Speaker 1: a fist bump across the table. Fine, I said, but
[1:58:04] Speaker 1: if I end up eating another crayon, I'm never speaking
[1:58:07] Speaker 1: to you again. Cody grinned so hard I could see
[1:58:12] Speaker 1: the spot. Whereas to the chip, last summer deal, and
[1:58:17] Speaker 1: if it does work, this is the last one. Swear
[1:58:21] Speaker 1: in your Pokemon cards. He agreed, and that's when I
[1:58:26] Speaker 1: knew he was serious. We met up after school and
[1:58:34] Speaker 1: got on our way. Cody beat me off the starting
[1:58:37] Speaker 1: line by a mile, his sneakers slamming against the pedals,
[1:58:41] Speaker 1: his bike rattling across the potholes so bad I thought
[1:58:44] Speaker 1: his front wheel was going to pop off. I pushed harder,
[1:58:49] Speaker 1: standing on my pedals and leaning into the race, but
[1:58:52] Speaker 1: Cody had that manic energy you only get when you
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: think you're about to do something historic through the neighborhood,
[1:59:00] Speaker 1: fast enough to make old ladies walking their dogs yell
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: at us. Lawns blurred past, and I could smell fresh
[1:59:07] Speaker 1: cut grass and someone grilling hot dog somewhere. Cody whooped
[1:59:12] Speaker 1: when we hit the downhill slope by the abandoned video store,
[1:59:16] Speaker 1: arms outstretched, coasting like he was flying. His house came
[1:59:21] Speaker 1: into view at the end of the block, squat and square,
[1:59:25] Speaker 1: a saggy basketball hoop clinging onto the garage by a
[1:59:28] Speaker 1: single bolt. The lights were off. They were always off.
[1:59:34] Speaker 1: His mom worked nights, sometimes entire weekends. His dad was
[1:59:40] Speaker 1: never in the picture. Cody never said why, and I
[1:59:44] Speaker 1: never asked whatever had happened. He left Cody half wild
[1:59:49] Speaker 1: and half grown up in a way no one else
[1:59:52] Speaker 1: our age really was. He pretty much raised himself on
[1:59:56] Speaker 1: serial and horror movies. We dumped up bikes in the
[2:00:00] Speaker 1: dirt patch by his porch. The kickstands so useless it
[2:00:04] Speaker 1: was a miracle they stayed up at all. Cody fumbled
[2:00:08] Speaker 1: with his keys for a second before he got the
[2:00:10] Speaker 1: door open. Then he turned and grinned at me. Prepare
[2:00:16] Speaker 1: to be amazed, he said, puffing his chest out. I
[2:00:21] Speaker 1: followed him. Inside. The house smelled a little dusty, a
[2:00:26] Speaker 1: little sweet, probably from the mountain of snack wrappers Cody
[2:00:30] Speaker 1: never got around to cleaning up. We headed straight for
[2:00:34] Speaker 1: the basement door. Cody threw it open with a dramatic
[2:00:38] Speaker 1: sweep of his arm, motioning me to go first. I
[2:00:43] Speaker 1: took one step down and froze. The whole basement had
[2:00:52] Speaker 1: been transformed. There were candles arranged in neat little circles
[2:00:57] Speaker 1: around a massive chalk pentagram drawn right into the concrete floor.
[2:01:02] Speaker 1: Bowls of salt sat at every point of the star.
[2:01:07] Speaker 1: We had chunk, broken mirrors, little bones. Stacks of torn
[2:01:11] Speaker 1: book pages sat all over the place. The air felt heavier,
[2:01:16] Speaker 1: almost sticky, and it smelled like burnt matches and something else.
[2:01:22] Speaker 1: Cody bounded past me and let down the last few
[2:01:25] Speaker 1: steps two at a time. He grabbed a crumpled bag
[2:01:29] Speaker 1: of chips from the arm of a ragged chair and
[2:01:31] Speaker 1: tossed it my face. Armor up, soldier, he said, ye
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: cannot battle age and evil and an empty stomach. The
[2:01:42] Speaker 1: bag hit me square between the eyes and dropped to
[2:01:45] Speaker 1: the floor. I bent down to pick it up, feeling
[2:01:48] Speaker 1: my heart thump a little harder. This was way beyond
[2:01:54] Speaker 1: anything Cody had ever done before. Again, usually his rituals
[2:02:01] Speaker 1: meant chanting into a bathroom mirror with the lights off,
[2:02:04] Speaker 1: or making me stack a bunch of river rocks in
[2:02:06] Speaker 1: a circle and whispered to them until we got bored.
[2:02:10] Speaker 1: One time, when he really tugged it up, he confessed
[2:02:14] Speaker 1: afterward that he had made the whole thing up because
[2:02:17] Speaker 1: he thought it would be funny to tell people we
[2:02:19] Speaker 1: thought a ghost by hitting it with plastic baseball bats.
[2:02:24] Speaker 1: But this looked real. I crinkled the bag chip in
[2:02:30] Speaker 1: my hands and gave him a look. He went full
[2:02:34] Speaker 1: psycho for this one. Hah. Cody just grinned wider, bouncing
[2:02:40] Speaker 1: on the balls of his feet, candles flickering behind him.
[2:02:45] Speaker 1: Only the best for my last ritual ever, he said,
[2:02:49] Speaker 1: swear it. Cody plopped down, cross legged at the edge
[2:02:54] Speaker 1: of the pentagram and motioned for me to do the same.
[2:02:58] Speaker 1: I settled into the spot across from him, cradling the
[2:03:02] Speaker 1: bag of chips he had thrown at me earlier. Crumbs
[2:03:05] Speaker 1: stuck to my fingers already, and I knew he would
[2:03:08] Speaker 1: yell at me if I touched anything important. So I
[2:03:12] Speaker 1: wiped my hands and my jeans first. Okay, Cody said,
[2:03:18] Speaker 1: pulling a rumpled piece of notebook paper from his hoody pocket.
[2:03:22] Speaker 1: The lines were crooked and written in his messy, tilted handwriting.
[2:03:27] Speaker 1: He smoothed it out on the floor, squinting at it
[2:03:30] Speaker 1: in the candlelight. You gotta read these lines together. You
[2:03:35] Speaker 1: gotta mean it too, or it won't work. I stuffed
[2:03:40] Speaker 1: a handful of chips into my mouth and gave him
[2:03:42] Speaker 1: a thumbs up. He cleared his throat, and together we
[2:03:47] Speaker 1: started mumbling through the words. It sounded like total nonsense.
[2:03:55] Speaker 1: Some of it was in Latin, or at least what
[2:03:58] Speaker 1: Cody thought Latin sounded like. Other parts were weird gibberish phrases,
[2:04:04] Speaker 1: things about opening doors and trading names. I mumbled along,
[2:04:09] Speaker 1: half hearted, crumbs falling into my lap, trying not to
[2:04:13] Speaker 1: crack up when Cody got super intense and threw his
[2:04:16] Speaker 1: whole chest into the weirder parts. Every now and then
[2:04:20] Speaker 1: he would stop and scurry around the circle, fixing a
[2:04:23] Speaker 1: candle that burned too low, or pushing the salt line
[2:04:26] Speaker 1: back into shape with the side of his shoe. His
[2:04:30] Speaker 1: forehead was shiny with sweat, and his face had that
[2:04:33] Speaker 1: scrunched up serious luck he got whenever he played board
[2:04:37] Speaker 1: games or made spaghetti by himself. I was halfway through
[2:04:42] Speaker 1: another handful of chips when it happened. The pentagram on
[2:04:47] Speaker 1: the floor pulsed. At first, I thought it was my
[2:04:52] Speaker 1: eyes playing tricks on me. Maybe the candles were flickering
[2:04:55] Speaker 1: weird because of the traft from the basement door. Then
[2:05:00] Speaker 1: I pulsed again. A faint red glow crawled along the
[2:05:04] Speaker 1: lines Cody had drawn. I blinked and leaned forward, wiping
[2:05:09] Speaker 1: my hands again, trying to make sure I was not
[2:05:12] Speaker 1: just seeing things. Cody sat back on his heels, mouth
[2:05:17] Speaker 1: hanging open, eyes huge. I told you, he whispered, bouncing
[2:05:24] Speaker 1: a little where he sat. I told you. The glow deepened,
[2:05:31] Speaker 1: steady and low, and the candles began to tilt, not flicker, tilt.
[2:05:39] Speaker 1: Every tiny flame bent inward toward the center of the pentagram,
[2:05:44] Speaker 1: like little soldiers getting pulled by invisible strings. The air
[2:05:49] Speaker 1: got thicker. It pressed against my skin, against my ears,
[2:05:53] Speaker 1: almost buzzing. I could smell something new, now sharp and metallic,
[2:05:59] Speaker 1: under the bar much smell. Cody clapped his hands once beaming.
[2:06:05] Speaker 1: It's happening. Finally, did you use glowing the dark chalk
[2:06:10] Speaker 1: or something? I quizzed. He jumped up, ignoring my question
[2:06:16] Speaker 1: and started pacing outside the circle, waving the crumpled notebook
[2:06:20] Speaker 1: paper around. Okay, okay, okay, So there's some rules, he said,
[2:06:27] Speaker 1: excitement pouring out of him. But trust me, it's worth it.
[2:06:31] Speaker 1: I mean, you have to follow the rules, duh. But
[2:06:34] Speaker 1: there's a reward at the end, and it's supposed to
[2:06:36] Speaker 1: be awesome, like life changing awesome. He darted back to
[2:06:41] Speaker 1: the edge of the circle, crouching low. His voice dropped
[2:06:45] Speaker 1: to a whisper. Even though we're alone and there's a
[2:06:50] Speaker 1: fail safe, I can end it whenever, so don't freak out,
[2:06:53] Speaker 1: all right, I'm not going to tell you what it
[2:06:56] Speaker 1: is yet, though I know you you're chicken out the
[2:06:59] Speaker 1: second you feel wreising your neck or something. I opened
[2:07:04] Speaker 1: my mouth to argue, but the words froze in my throat.
[2:07:11] Speaker 1: Something was moving behind Cody. I stared, heart hammering so
[2:07:17] Speaker 1: loud I could hear it in my ears. A shape black,
[2:07:23] Speaker 1: rising slow out of the glowing center of the pentagram,
[2:07:28] Speaker 1: arms unfurling like smoke, but heavier It towered over Cody
[2:07:33] Speaker 1: without making a sound, just this huge, awful silhouette, when
[2:07:38] Speaker 1: nothing had been a second ago. I tried to yell,
[2:07:43] Speaker 1: tried to say his name. My tongue fumbled around in
[2:07:46] Speaker 1: my mouth, pushing out broken pieces of words that did
[2:07:50] Speaker 1: not make sense. Cody frowned at me, confused, his eyebrows
[2:07:56] Speaker 1: scrunched together. Dude, what do you do? He never finished
[2:08:02] Speaker 1: the sentence. The thing behind him moved fast. There was
[2:08:08] Speaker 1: a sound, sharp and wet and cold. His head snapped
[2:08:12] Speaker 1: sideways and tumbled off his shoulders before his body even
[2:08:17] Speaker 1: knew what happened. His body wabbled for a second, knees
[2:08:22] Speaker 1: knocking together, and then it collapsed in a heap beside
[2:08:26] Speaker 1: the pentagram. Blood sprayed across the floor, across the chalk line,
[2:08:32] Speaker 1: across the toes of my shoes. I hit the basement
[2:08:38] Speaker 1: stairs so hard I barely touched the steps. My shoes
[2:08:42] Speaker 1: slipped against the wood, and I slammed my shoulder into
[2:08:45] Speaker 1: the wall. It scraped along the old, chipped paint, but
[2:08:48] Speaker 1: I barely noticed. I kept moving, grabbing for the hand
[2:08:54] Speaker 1: rail and yanking myself up faster. The second the basement
[2:08:58] Speaker 1: door came in to reach, I threw it opened so
[2:09:01] Speaker 1: hard it banged against the wall behind it. I tore
[2:09:05] Speaker 1: through Cody's living room, knocking over a lamp with a
[2:09:08] Speaker 1: crash that exploded behind me. My chest burned already, but
[2:09:13] Speaker 1: I could not stop. I skidded out the front door
[2:09:17] Speaker 1: and sprinted for my bike, yanking it upright so hard
[2:09:21] Speaker 1: the kickstand snapped off and skittered across the sidewalk. I
[2:09:25] Speaker 1: threw myself onto the seat, peddling before I had both
[2:09:28] Speaker 1: feet planted, knees wobbling, tires spitting gravel. As I took
[2:09:33] Speaker 1: off down the street, my lungs heaved against my ribs.
[2:09:37] Speaker 1: My legs screamed. My teeth were clenched so hard my
[2:09:41] Speaker 1: jaw ached. It's fake. It's fake. He's pranking me. The
[2:09:50] Speaker 1: words pounded against the inside of my skull with every
[2:09:53] Speaker 1: spin of the pedals. Cody had set it up. He
[2:09:57] Speaker 1: probably hired his older brother or some one from the
[2:10:00] Speaker 1: high school to wear a costume to pull some sick
[2:10:03] Speaker 1: horror movie trick on me. He'll be standing in his
[2:10:06] Speaker 1: driveway tomorrow morning with a video on his hand, laughing
[2:10:09] Speaker 1: so hard he could barely breathe. He would show everyone
[2:10:13] Speaker 1: at school The street lights buzzed overhead, casting puddles of
[2:10:19] Speaker 1: orange across the sidewalk. As I tore through them, I
[2:10:23] Speaker 1: blew past Missus Redfield's prize rose bush and clipped the
[2:10:27] Speaker 1: edge of mister Tanner's garbage cans, sending them rolling out
[2:10:30] Speaker 1: into the road behind me. I finally skidded into my driveway,
[2:10:36] Speaker 1: tires squealing against the crack cement. My legs gave out
[2:10:40] Speaker 1: halfway off the bike, and I stumbled to the front door,
[2:10:44] Speaker 1: fingers fumbling with the handle. Before I managed to shove
[2:10:47] Speaker 1: it open. The sound of my parents arguing hit me
[2:10:53] Speaker 1: before I even stepped inside. It was the same fight.
[2:10:57] Speaker 1: They always had money schedules who forgot to pay the
[2:11:02] Speaker 1: water bill? This time their voices tangled together into one long,
[2:11:07] Speaker 1: messy noise that filled the house and rattled the windows.
[2:11:12] Speaker 1: I bolted up the stairs two at a time. My
[2:11:15] Speaker 1: hands shook so bad I could barely grab the railing,
[2:11:20] Speaker 1: but I made it to my room and slammed the
[2:11:23] Speaker 1: door behind me. I crawled into bed, still wearing my shoes.
[2:11:29] Speaker 1: I yanked the blanket over my head and curled up
[2:11:32] Speaker 1: as small as I could get, pulling my knees to
[2:11:35] Speaker 1: my chest. The smell of sweat and dirt clung to
[2:11:38] Speaker 1: my clothes. My heart thudded against my ribs so hard
[2:11:42] Speaker 1: it hurt. He pranked me. That was all it was.
[2:11:48] Speaker 1: He scared me so bad. I thought it was real.
[2:11:52] Speaker 1: That stupid, stupid glowing the dark pentagram, that fake monster suit.
[2:11:58] Speaker 1: That blood was probably just catching up or something he
[2:12:01] Speaker 1: bored at the Halloween store. He was going to laugh
[2:12:04] Speaker 1: about this forever, he was going to tell everyone. I
[2:12:08] Speaker 1: was going to be the joke of the whole school.
[2:12:13] Speaker 1: I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my breathing.
[2:12:17] Speaker 1: Tomorrow he would text me. Tomorrow, he would say gotcha
[2:12:23] Speaker 1: and send me the video, and I would hate him
[2:12:25] Speaker 1: for a week, and then we would be fine again.
[2:12:29] Speaker 1: Tomorrow this would all be over. My parents kept arguing
[2:12:40] Speaker 1: over groceries, just another part of the night I could
[2:12:43] Speaker 1: ignore if I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough. I
[2:12:47] Speaker 1: wanted to wait for them to quit arguing and then
[2:12:50] Speaker 1: ask about Cody. Maybe they go check just in case.
[2:12:56] Speaker 1: Then my dad's voice changed. It cracked, pitched higher, a
[2:13:03] Speaker 1: sound I'd never heard him make before. Something slammed downstairs hard.
[2:13:10] Speaker 1: Something else toppled over right after it. Glass shattered, thick
[2:13:14] Speaker 1: and ugly. My body went stiff under the blanket. I
[2:13:19] Speaker 1: gripped the fabric tight enough that my knuckles popped. Another slam, louder,
[2:13:25] Speaker 1: this time something heavy hitting the wall. Then nothing. Silence
[2:13:34] Speaker 1: pressed against my ears until I could hear my own breathing,
[2:13:38] Speaker 1: rough and shallow under the covers. I stayed frozen for
[2:13:42] Speaker 1: a bit. My parents never fought. I didn't really know
[2:13:49] Speaker 1: what to do, so I sat waiting for my mom's
[2:13:54] Speaker 1: voice to come cutting through the quiet, waiting for to
[2:13:57] Speaker 1: yell at my dad again, for the fight to pick
[2:14:00] Speaker 1: where it left off. Nothing came. I pulled the blanket
[2:14:07] Speaker 1: off my face, Moving slow, I slid off the bed,
[2:14:11] Speaker 1: feet hitting the floorboards so soft they barely made a sound.
[2:14:17] Speaker 1: I crept tow'ard the door and pressed my ear against it.
[2:14:21] Speaker 1: Still nothing. My fingers trembled against the doorknob. The hallway
[2:14:29] Speaker 1: outside stretched, shadows pooling at the edges, with the light
[2:14:32] Speaker 1: from my room did not reach. I took one step out,
[2:14:38] Speaker 1: then another. I leaned over the banister and looked down
[2:14:43] Speaker 1: into the living room. For a second, my brain could
[2:14:49] Speaker 1: not make sense of what I saw. The couch was
[2:14:53] Speaker 1: overturned cushions split open, stuffing spilling across the floor. The
[2:14:59] Speaker 1: coffee tape had been smashed into splinters, pieces of wood
[2:15:03] Speaker 1: sticking up in every direction. Blood soaked into the carpet,
[2:15:09] Speaker 1: a deep, dark stain that spread all the way to
[2:15:12] Speaker 1: the walls. My parents were in the middle of it,
[2:15:17] Speaker 1: twisted and broken, their faces stared up at the ceiling
[2:15:21] Speaker 1: with wide, glassy eyes, mouths frozen open like they had
[2:15:25] Speaker 1: been mid scream. Blood pulled under their bodies, seeping into
[2:15:30] Speaker 1: their clothes, their skin already pale. I stumbled back a step,
[2:15:37] Speaker 1: my hand clamping over my mouth before a scream could
[2:15:40] Speaker 1: tear loose. In the far corner of the room, crouched
[2:15:46] Speaker 1: low near the fireplace, something moved. It was hunched over,
[2:15:53] Speaker 1: folded in on itself, head cocked at an angle that
[2:15:56] Speaker 1: made my stomach turn. Its skin was stretched, almost black
[2:16:02] Speaker 1: against the shadows. Then it lifted its head, its eyes
[2:16:08] Speaker 1: locked onto mine. I knew without a doubt it was
[2:16:14] Speaker 1: the same thing from the basement, the thing that had
[2:16:17] Speaker 1: taken Cody's head clean off his shoulders without a sound.
[2:16:22] Speaker 1: It had followed me home. Cody had promised he could
[2:16:26] Speaker 1: end it whenever he wanted. He had said there was
[2:16:29] Speaker 1: a fail safe, a way to stop it. But Cody
[2:16:34] Speaker 1: was dead and I had no idea how to end it.
[2:16:40] Speaker 1: I turned started running again, slipping once on the wood
[2:16:44] Speaker 1: and smashing my shins so hard I almost fell. I
[2:16:48] Speaker 1: caught myself on the railing and stumbled forward, crashing through
[2:16:52] Speaker 1: the hallway, barreling down the stairs so fast my shoulders
[2:16:56] Speaker 1: slammed against the wall at the bottom. The creature had moved.
[2:17:01] Speaker 1: I could hear it behind me now, something scraping across
[2:17:05] Speaker 1: the broken floor. I hit the front door full speed,
[2:17:09] Speaker 1: shoulder first. Then it popped open so hard it bounced
[2:17:13] Speaker 1: off the outside wall. Cold air slapped against my face.
[2:17:19] Speaker 1: Pain shot up through my legs, but I kept going.
[2:17:24] Speaker 1: Tears blurred against my vision until the trees at the
[2:17:27] Speaker 1: edge of her backyard became one big smear of black.
[2:17:32] Speaker 1: I headed straight for them, gasping so hard my chest
[2:17:36] Speaker 1: felt like it would tear open. The old shack sat
[2:17:40] Speaker 1: half hidden in the woods. It had been there since
[2:17:44] Speaker 1: before I was born, left over from whoever owned the
[2:17:47] Speaker 1: land before our house was built. It smelled like wet
[2:17:51] Speaker 1: wood and mold and raccoons. Cody and I used to
[2:17:55] Speaker 1: play there when we were younger, before we got too
[2:17:58] Speaker 1: old for secret forts. I dove inside, tripping over the
[2:18:03] Speaker 1: broken threshold, landing hard on my hands and knees. I
[2:18:08] Speaker 1: scrambled o'er the darkest corner, curling up behind a pile
[2:18:11] Speaker 1: of rotten beams and torn up insulation. The air in
[2:18:16] Speaker 1: the shack was colder than outside. It scratched at my
[2:18:20] Speaker 1: throat with every breath, dust stuck to the sweat of
[2:18:24] Speaker 1: my face. I pressed my forehead against my knees, trying
[2:18:28] Speaker 1: to fold myself into a ball so small nothing could
[2:18:32] Speaker 1: find me. My heart beat against my ribs so hard
[2:18:37] Speaker 1: it made me feel sick, every thump louder than the last,
[2:18:42] Speaker 1: until it filled my ears and drowned out everything else.
[2:18:48] Speaker 1: I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe without
[2:18:51] Speaker 1: making a sound. I don't know what it is. I
[2:18:57] Speaker 1: don't know what it wants. I don't even know how
[2:19:02] Speaker 1: to stop it. I graduated college three months ago, and
[2:19:16] Speaker 1: it already felt like a lifetime. The ceremony had been
[2:19:20] Speaker 1: small and awkward. My parents hadn't flown in. I stood
[2:19:25] Speaker 1: there alone, clutching a piece of paper that had cost
[2:19:28] Speaker 1: me nearly seventy thousand dollars, wondering how it was supposed
[2:19:32] Speaker 1: to fix anything. The degree was useless communications, some vague,
[2:19:39] Speaker 1: frilly word that had sounded smart when I was nineteen
[2:19:42] Speaker 1: and sounded absolutely idiotic now. Every interview ended with a
[2:19:48] Speaker 1: half apology about experience requirements or budget freezes. I finally
[2:19:54] Speaker 1: landed something entry level in the city, but the pay
[2:19:57] Speaker 1: barely scratched the minimum wage. I had enough in my
[2:20:01] Speaker 1: checking account for a single tank of gas and maybe
[2:20:05] Speaker 1: two decent meals. My savings, what little I had hoarded
[2:20:09] Speaker 1: through part time jobs during college, disappeared faster than I
[2:20:13] Speaker 1: could even feel it. Leaving the car became my home.
[2:20:19] Speaker 1: I'd been sleeping in the back seat for the past week,
[2:20:22] Speaker 1: folded up awkwardly across cracked faux leather that stuck to
[2:20:25] Speaker 1: my skin. Every morning I showered at the gym, I
[2:20:30] Speaker 1: kept my interview clothes folded on the passenger seat to
[2:20:33] Speaker 1: keep them from wrinkling too badly. I told myself it
[2:20:38] Speaker 1: was temporary, but every night, staring up through the cracked
[2:20:42] Speaker 1: windshield made it harder to believe. The affordable apartments I
[2:20:49] Speaker 1: could reach were two hours away by bus from my job.
[2:20:52] Speaker 1: If the bus even arrived on time two hours each way,
[2:20:58] Speaker 1: four hours of my life every single day, wasted before
[2:21:02] Speaker 1: I even clocked in. My body already ached by the
[2:21:06] Speaker 1: time I finished my shifts, and the thought of sitting
[2:21:09] Speaker 1: stiff and sweaty in a plastic seat while the city
[2:21:12] Speaker 1: crawled past the windows crossed whatever energy I had left.
[2:21:19] Speaker 1: There was another option, a building ten minutes from work,
[2:21:24] Speaker 1: tucked between a broken laundromat and an abandoned Peter shop,
[2:21:28] Speaker 1: dirt cheap, less than half the rent of the units
[2:21:32] Speaker 1: across the river. The photos online made the place look rough,
[2:21:37] Speaker 1: but at that point I would have slept in a
[2:21:39] Speaker 1: closet if it meant a roof and a locked door.
[2:21:44] Speaker 1: I barely hesitated. Pride was for people who had choices.
[2:21:49] Speaker 1: I signed up for reviewing. The next morning. The landlord
[2:21:54] Speaker 1: met me out front, a thin man with nervous hands
[2:21:58] Speaker 1: and a sweat damp collar. He looked at me the
[2:22:01] Speaker 1: same way somebody might look at a problem they could
[2:22:04] Speaker 1: not avoid. His greeting was short, almost mumbled. I followed
[2:22:10] Speaker 1: him up the cracked front steps and through the main hallway,
[2:22:14] Speaker 1: which smelt sharply of bleach that had failed to mask
[2:22:17] Speaker 1: a deeper, more sour odor. Every doorway passed seemed slightly
[2:22:23] Speaker 1: off its hinges, and there were dark patches and the
[2:22:26] Speaker 1: ceiling that looked suspiciously fresh. The unit he showed me
[2:22:31] Speaker 1: was on the third floor. He fumbled with the keys
[2:22:35] Speaker 1: before getting the door open. The walls had been painted once,
[2:22:39] Speaker 1: maybe a decade ago, but the color had faded into
[2:22:43] Speaker 1: a sickly yellow green. Chunks of paint curled up near
[2:22:48] Speaker 1: the corners of the rooms. The floors were stained soft
[2:22:52] Speaker 1: in places where water must have gotten underneath. The living
[2:22:57] Speaker 1: room held a single ceiling van that sagged down onward,
[2:23:00] Speaker 1: spinning slowly and unevenly. The windows were cracked at the corners,
[2:23:06] Speaker 1: patched up poorly with clear tape. There was no furniture,
[2:23:11] Speaker 1: no appliances, beside a dented mini fridge shoved against the
[2:23:14] Speaker 1: far wall of the kitchen. I wanted to turn around
[2:23:19] Speaker 1: and leave, but there was nowhere else to go. Sleeping
[2:23:25] Speaker 1: in the car for another week meant risking parking tickets
[2:23:28] Speaker 1: I could not afford, or worse, I kept my mouth
[2:23:33] Speaker 1: shut as we tore the bedroom, which was just large
[2:23:36] Speaker 1: enough for a mattress and a pile of regrets. When
[2:23:41] Speaker 1: we reached the bathroom, the landlord hesitated. He touched the
[2:23:46] Speaker 1: door frame with his finger tips, then gave me a
[2:23:49] Speaker 1: stiff smile. You should take a look at this, he said.
[2:23:57] Speaker 1: I stepped past him and peered inside. The bathroom was small,
[2:24:03] Speaker 1: narrow enough that stretching both arms would have hit either wall.
[2:24:08] Speaker 1: The floor was lined with cheap linonium tiles and cracked
[2:24:12] Speaker 1: mirror hung over a rustained sink. The toilet looked usable,
[2:24:16] Speaker 1: but sat slightly uneven, as though the floor beneath it
[2:24:20] Speaker 1: had sunk inward. My eyes finely landed on the shower,
[2:24:27] Speaker 1: a small box in cabin with frosted tempered glass walls
[2:24:31] Speaker 1: that had gone cloudy with age at the bottom near
[2:24:35] Speaker 1: the drain. Near the drain, there was a jagged crack
[2:24:38] Speaker 1: stretching across one panel, sealed over sloppily with silicone colk.
[2:24:44] Speaker 1: The patch job was so obvious it almost drew the
[2:24:47] Speaker 1: eye before anything else. The landlord cleared his throat softly
[2:24:52] Speaker 1: behind me, but said nothing. I nodded stiffly, pretending to exact.
[2:25:00] Speaker 1: I meant the rest of the room, but I had
[2:25:03] Speaker 1: already made my mind up. It did not matter. I
[2:25:08] Speaker 1: had no other options. I signed the lease that afternoon.
[2:25:17] Speaker 1: The building was already humming with muffled voices and the
[2:25:21] Speaker 1: occasional slam of a distant door. When I unlocked the apartment,
[2:25:25] Speaker 1: the door scraped against the floor as I pushed it open.
[2:25:29] Speaker 1: I stepped inside and dropped my duffel bag onto the
[2:25:32] Speaker 1: cracked floorboards.
[2:25:34] Speaker 2: Dust puffed up in.
[2:25:35] Speaker 1: Little clouds where it hit. I did not even bother unpacking.
[2:25:42] Speaker 1: I kicked the door shut behind me and went straight
[2:25:44] Speaker 1: for the bathroom, tugging my shirt over my head as
[2:25:48] Speaker 1: I went. The floor of the bathroom was called against
[2:25:51] Speaker 1: my bare feet. I twisted the shower knob and waited,
[2:25:56] Speaker 1: half expecting the water to come out brown or not
[2:25:59] Speaker 1: at all. Instead, a weak but steady stream poured from
[2:26:04] Speaker 1: the shower head. It was lukewarm at best, but after
[2:26:09] Speaker 1: days of jim showers and cold gas station sinks, it
[2:26:13] Speaker 1: felt almost luxurious. The cracked patch near the drain caught
[2:26:18] Speaker 1: my eye again, but I forced myself to ignore it.
[2:26:23] Speaker 1: The water patted against my skin, washing away three days
[2:26:27] Speaker 1: worth of grime. In exhaustion, I leaned against the wall
[2:26:31] Speaker 1: and closed my eyes, letting the sound of the water
[2:26:34] Speaker 1: drown out everything else for the first time in days
[2:26:40] Speaker 1: may be longer. My muscles loosened. The worry, the fear,
[2:26:46] Speaker 1: the constant hum of hunger and anxiety that lived behind
[2:26:50] Speaker 1: my ribs eased just a little. I do not know
[2:26:55] Speaker 1: how long I stood there before it happened. At first
[2:27:02] Speaker 1: I thought it was the pipes, a faint noise buried
[2:27:06] Speaker 1: under the rush of the water. Then it sharpened, heavy
[2:27:11] Speaker 1: frantic shuffling sounds, as if someone were dragging themselves back
[2:27:16] Speaker 1: and forth across the bathroom floor. Behind that, rising up
[2:27:21] Speaker 1: in broken waves, came the unmistakable sound of screaming. Faint
[2:27:27] Speaker 1: were filled with a raw, ragged panic. My eyes snapped open.
[2:27:33] Speaker 1: I stumbled backward, slamming my shoulder into the wall of
[2:27:37] Speaker 1: the shower cabin. The sound stopped instantly, cut off mid scream.
[2:27:44] Speaker 1: All I could hear was the water splashing against the
[2:27:47] Speaker 1: plastic floor and the frantic pounding of my own heart.
[2:27:53] Speaker 1: There was nothing now, no shadow moving under the crack
[2:27:57] Speaker 1: of the door, no handle rattling, no shape looming in
[2:28:01] Speaker 1: the steamed up mirror across the room, as I'd feared.
[2:28:05] Speaker 1: It took a full minute before I managed to breathe
[2:28:08] Speaker 1: properly again. I wiped the water from my face and
[2:28:11] Speaker 1: gave a short, humorless laugh. It had to be stress,
[2:28:16] Speaker 1: sleep deprivation. Maybe something I had read online was playing
[2:28:20] Speaker 1: tricks on my brain. I remembered to read it thread
[2:28:24] Speaker 1: buried deep in a horror of bread it where people
[2:28:27] Speaker 1: talked about hearing strange noises if they closed their eyes
[2:28:30] Speaker 1: too long in the shower. Still, it made more sense
[2:28:35] Speaker 1: than anything else. I finished rinsing off as quickly as
[2:28:40] Speaker 1: I could. I dressed and crawled onto the bare mattress
[2:28:44] Speaker 1: I had dragged into the bedroom. The ceiling van creaked
[2:28:47] Speaker 1: and shuddered with every rotation. Sleep came slowly, weighed down
[2:28:53] Speaker 1: by a knot of her knees, and I could not
[2:28:56] Speaker 1: shake loose the next time. Day at work was worse
[2:29:01] Speaker 1: than anything that had come before. My boss, a red
[2:29:06] Speaker 1: faced man with a voice like a broken radio, found
[2:29:09] Speaker 1: new ways to humiliate me. Every mistake, every misst memo,
[2:29:15] Speaker 1: every delayed email was met with a fresh round of
[2:29:18] Speaker 1: public berating. I spent the whole day swallowing my words
[2:29:23] Speaker 1: and smiling through clenched teeth. By the time my shift ended,
[2:29:29] Speaker 1: I was barely upright, my feet ached, my spine felt
[2:29:34] Speaker 1: as if it had been compressed into half its size.
[2:29:37] Speaker 1: My head pounded with the dull pressure of a migraine
[2:29:40] Speaker 1: creeping in. I needed a shower. I needed to scrub
[2:29:45] Speaker 1: away the stink of the day before it soaked into
[2:29:47] Speaker 1: my skin. My body moved on autopilot. I peeled off
[2:29:53] Speaker 1: my work clothes, tossed them into a sad heap in
[2:29:56] Speaker 1: the corner, and stepped into the bathroom. The sh groaned
[2:30:00] Speaker 1: when I turned the knob, the lukewarm water drizzled out,
[2:30:05] Speaker 1: and I stepped in, letting the spray hit my face
[2:30:08] Speaker 1: and chest. I closed my eyes. The screaming hit almost immediately.
[2:30:16] Speaker 1: It clawed at my ears, shuffling heavy, dragging footsteps just
[2:30:21] Speaker 1: beyond the shower door. Before I could even react, a
[2:30:26] Speaker 1: loud thud echoed through the tiny bathroom. It was as
[2:30:30] Speaker 1: loud as what I'd imagine a grenade going off is like.
[2:30:34] Speaker 1: I jerked my head up, so burning into my eyes,
[2:30:38] Speaker 1: blinking against the sting, I saw my shampoo bottle lying
[2:30:42] Speaker 1: on the floor of the cabin, spinning slightly as it
[2:30:46] Speaker 1: leapt bright blue. My heart pounded. I wrenched the door
[2:30:51] Speaker 1: open and stepped out into the bathroom, dripping water everywhere,
[2:30:56] Speaker 1: Searching for something, anything. I stood there for a long moment,
[2:31:02] Speaker 1: breathing so hard my vision blurred around the edges. There
[2:31:07] Speaker 1: had to be an explanation, so I decided to check.
[2:31:15] Speaker 1: I started with the apartment upstairs. If someone was messing
[2:31:19] Speaker 1: around up there, making noise, it would explain everything. I
[2:31:24] Speaker 1: trudged up the narrow staircase, the carpet crunching. I knocked, waited,
[2:31:32] Speaker 1: knocked again. The hallway lights flickered weakly overhead. No answer.
[2:31:40] Speaker 1: I knocked louder, my hands stung with the effort. Still nothing.
[2:31:48] Speaker 1: A door downstairs creaked open. I headed back downstairs and
[2:31:53] Speaker 1: saw a woman poking her head out, white hair pulled
[2:31:57] Speaker 1: into a messy bun, glasses perched on her nose. She
[2:32:02] Speaker 1: looked at me with a curious tilt of her head.
[2:32:06] Speaker 1: You looking for someone, dear, she asked. I cleared my throat,
[2:32:12] Speaker 1: suddenly feeling foolish. Yeah, sorry to bother you. Just trying
[2:32:18] Speaker 1: to figure out if anyone lives right above me. I
[2:32:21] Speaker 1: thought maybe there was some noise coming from that unit.
[2:32:25] Speaker 1: She smiled, a soft, patient smile and made her look
[2:32:29] Speaker 1: even older. Nobody's been up there in months, empty. You
[2:32:35] Speaker 1: must have heard something else, I nodded, feeling heat rise
[2:32:41] Speaker 1: into my face. She introduced herself, said her name was
[2:32:46] Speaker 1: Missus Cartwright. She lived across the hall from me. She
[2:32:51] Speaker 1: mentioned her grandkids used to visit, but they had moved
[2:32:54] Speaker 1: away recently, and now it was just her. I think
[2:32:59] Speaker 1: to quickly said something about needing to get to work,
[2:33:03] Speaker 1: and retreated down the hall before the embarrassment could root
[2:33:06] Speaker 1: itself any deeper. Back inside my apartment, I locked the
[2:33:12] Speaker 1: door and leaned against it, breathing out slow. If the
[2:33:17] Speaker 1: place upstairs was empty, and if the place next to
[2:33:20] Speaker 1: mine housed an elderly woman who needed help caring her groceries,
[2:33:25] Speaker 1: then who had been making those noises? I chewed on
[2:33:29] Speaker 1: it for the rest of the day, even at work
[2:33:32] Speaker 1: the next day, while my boss barked orders and slammed drawers.
[2:33:36] Speaker 1: The thought gnawed at me from underneath. By the time
[2:33:41] Speaker 1: I got home, I decided to test it. It felt stupid, superstitious,
[2:33:48] Speaker 1: but there had been a pattern, and I had ignored it.
[2:33:53] Speaker 1: The noises only ever came when I closed my eyes.
[2:33:59] Speaker 1: Every single time it started. The moment my vision went dark,
[2:34:04] Speaker 1: that had to mean something. I stripped down, stepped into
[2:34:09] Speaker 1: the shower and twisted the knob. The water sputtered and
[2:34:14] Speaker 1: spat before settling into a weak stream. I let it
[2:34:18] Speaker 1: run over me and kept my eyes wide open, staring
[2:34:23] Speaker 1: straight ahead at the fogging walls. Nothing happened. The minutes
[2:34:30] Speaker 1: dragged on, the air grew heavy with steam. My arms
[2:34:34] Speaker 1: prickled from the temperature drop every time. The water pressure stuttered,
[2:34:39] Speaker 1: but the bathroom stayed silent. I let out a slow
[2:34:45] Speaker 1: breath and decided to push it. I closed my eyes instantly,
[2:34:54] Speaker 1: the bathroom exploded into chaos. Screaming, furious, desperate rattled the walls.
[2:35:02] Speaker 1: Heavy dragging footsteps stumped around the outside of the shower.
[2:35:07] Speaker 1: The shampoo bottle bounced off the floor with a sharp crack.
[2:35:10] Speaker 1: Once again, I yanked my eyes open. The sound vanished
[2:35:15] Speaker 1: so fast and left a hollow ringing in my ears.
[2:35:21] Speaker 1: I had proven something to myself, but it did not
[2:35:24] Speaker 1: feel like a victory. It felt worse, if I'm being honest.
[2:35:30] Speaker 1: But I was stubborn, and admittedly I was curious. I
[2:35:37] Speaker 1: decided to try again. This time, I would keep my
[2:35:41] Speaker 1: eyes closed longer. Maybe it would stop, maybe it would
[2:35:46] Speaker 1: burn itself out. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tighter
[2:35:51] Speaker 1: to brace against the expected noise. The screaming came fast,
[2:35:56] Speaker 1: roarer than before, as if whatever it belonged to who
[2:36:00] Speaker 1: had been waiting for me to test it. It built
[2:36:03] Speaker 1: into a frenzy. The temperature around me dropped sharply, cutting
[2:36:07] Speaker 1: through the steam with a damp, icy edge. I felt
[2:36:12] Speaker 1: something brush against my back, a cold, wet hand that
[2:36:16] Speaker 1: smeared water across my skin. I flinched, but kept my
[2:36:21] Speaker 1: eyes shut, muscles locked. Then came the pain, A sharp,
[2:36:30] Speaker 1: raking sensation tore across my upper back. It was deep
[2:36:35] Speaker 1: and hot, blooming into immediate agony that stole the breath
[2:36:39] Speaker 1: from my chest. I screamed and staggered forward, slamming into
[2:36:44] Speaker 1: the shower wall. My hand scrambled for the door handle.
[2:36:49] Speaker 1: I shoved it open and tumbled out, falling onto the
[2:36:52] Speaker 1: cold linonium of the bathroom floor. I gasped for air
[2:36:57] Speaker 1: every inch of my back, screaming at me. Water splattered
[2:37:02] Speaker 1: onto the floor beside me. My hands shook as I
[2:37:05] Speaker 1: pushed myself upright, moving straight for the mirror above the sink,
[2:37:11] Speaker 1: I turned, craning my neck. Three long scratches ran diagonally
[2:37:19] Speaker 1: across my back. The skin was torn in uneven lines,
[2:37:23] Speaker 1: angry and red, already starting to bead with a thin
[2:37:27] Speaker 1: trail of blood. I pressed the towel against the wound,
[2:37:32] Speaker 1: wincing as the fabric stuck to the blood. My mind
[2:37:36] Speaker 1: spun with explanations, each one weaker than the last. There
[2:37:43] Speaker 1: had to be a reason, There had to be a
[2:37:45] Speaker 1: way to understand. It was the shower haunted. I hated
[2:37:52] Speaker 1: using that word. I had already started feeling like a
[2:37:55] Speaker 1: lonesome reditor, screaming into a dead subbredded about ghosts. Yet
[2:38:00] Speaker 1: I couldn't deny what was going on, not when I'd
[2:38:03] Speaker 1: just been attacked physically. I did not sleep that night.
[2:38:10] Speaker 1: Every time I closed my eyes, even for a second,
[2:38:14] Speaker 1: I felt the memory of the scratches burn across my skin.
[2:38:19] Speaker 1: Morning came slowly bleeding through the cracked blinds in sickly
[2:38:23] Speaker 1: strips of light. I got up, already dreading the day.
[2:38:31] Speaker 1: I sat at the kitchen counter. If the battered slab
[2:38:34] Speaker 1: of plywood could even be called that, and opened my
[2:38:38] Speaker 1: banking app, I knew it would be bad. I had
[2:38:42] Speaker 1: been ignoring the low balanced alerts for days, pretending that
[2:38:46] Speaker 1: if I did not see the number, it would not
[2:38:49] Speaker 1: be real. Thirteen dollars and seventy three cents. I stared
[2:38:56] Speaker 1: at the screen until the numbers blurred. Reent was come up.
[2:39:00] Speaker 1: Food was becoming a luxury. Gas for the car was
[2:39:04] Speaker 1: hanging on by a thread. There was no money for
[2:39:08] Speaker 1: anything else, not even small indulgences. Forget moving out. I
[2:39:14] Speaker 1: was trapped in a place that was clearly haunted. I
[2:39:19] Speaker 1: pulled up a search bar and typed in cost of exorcism.
[2:39:24] Speaker 1: The results made me laugh, short, brittle laughter that cracked
[2:39:29] Speaker 1: and died in my throat. Hundreds of dollars for consultations alone,
[2:39:35] Speaker 1: thousands for anything serious. Half the websites looked scammy. The
[2:39:40] Speaker 1: other half looked worse. I slammed the laptop, shot and
[2:39:45] Speaker 1: rested my forehead against the counter. I could not leave,
[2:39:50] Speaker 1: I could not fix this. I could barely afford to
[2:39:53] Speaker 1: stay alive. The next few days blurred into something heavier
[2:39:58] Speaker 1: than exhaustion. I went to work, I came home. I slept.
[2:40:03] Speaker 1: I avoided the bathroom unless it was absolutely necessary. I
[2:40:08] Speaker 1: stopped showering. At first, it was manageable, deodoran, wet wipes,
[2:40:15] Speaker 1: anything I could find to scrub away the worst of it.
[2:40:19] Speaker 1: But as the days stretched on, the smell clung to me.
[2:40:23] Speaker 1: It wrapped around my clothes, settled into my skin, buried
[2:40:27] Speaker 1: itself into every inch of fabric and hair. I caught
[2:40:32] Speaker 1: people at work wrinkling their noses when I passed. My
[2:40:35] Speaker 1: boss started mentioning personal hygiene standards during meetings, staring pointedly
[2:40:40] Speaker 1: at me when he spoke I no longer had a
[2:40:44] Speaker 1: gym membership. I thought I was going to be fine
[2:40:47] Speaker 1: now that I had a place, but clearly I was wrong,
[2:40:51] Speaker 1: and now with rent, I could no longer have forward one.
[2:40:57] Speaker 1: I felt it. I felt every minute. It a sickly,
[2:41:01] Speaker 1: oily grime that no amount of wiping could scrub away.
[2:41:06] Speaker 1: It made my skin crawl. Still, the thoughts of stepping
[2:41:11] Speaker 1: back into that shower have closed my eyes, even for
[2:41:15] Speaker 1: a second. While trapped in that narrow coffin rooted me
[2:41:18] Speaker 1: in place. I told myself I would figure something out.
[2:41:23] Speaker 1: Maybe find a cheap motel for a night, Maybe find
[2:41:26] Speaker 1: a public pool where I could sneak a rinse. One night,
[2:41:31] Speaker 1: after another shift, spent awake and fully miserable, I collapsed
[2:41:36] Speaker 1: onto my mattress and opened my phone without thinking. A
[2:41:40] Speaker 1: notification blinked at the top of the screen. Her friend
[2:41:45] Speaker 1: request her name, jolted something in my chest. Allison. We
[2:41:52] Speaker 1: had shared two classes during my second year of college.
[2:41:56] Speaker 1: We had laughed over terrible group projects and late night
[2:41:59] Speaker 1: coffee runs. We had made promises to keep in touch
[2:42:02] Speaker 1: after graduation. I hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Then
[2:42:10] Speaker 1: I accepted. The messages came fast, Hey, long time, no see.
[2:42:17] Speaker 1: How have you been? What are you up to these days?
[2:42:22] Speaker 1: I lied, said work was keeping me busy. I said
[2:42:25] Speaker 1: the city was treating me well. Before I could second
[2:42:30] Speaker 1: guess it, she asked if I wanted to grab a
[2:42:32] Speaker 1: drink sometime, catch up properly. She would be my part
[2:42:37] Speaker 1: of town over the weekend. I stared at the message,
[2:42:41] Speaker 1: heart hammering. I thought about the shirt tucked in the
[2:42:45] Speaker 1: back of my chair with dried sweat. I thought about
[2:42:48] Speaker 1: the sour, greasy smell that clung to me so stubbornly
[2:42:52] Speaker 1: I could barely smell anything else. I did not have
[2:42:56] Speaker 1: a choice. If I showed up like this, I would
[2:43:00] Speaker 1: be dead in the water before the night even started.
[2:43:05] Speaker 1: I kneaded a shower. I naded a step into that
[2:43:09] Speaker 1: cursed rotting shower. I tossed my phone on to the
[2:43:13] Speaker 1: mattress and stared up at the ceiling counting the slow,
[2:43:17] Speaker 1: uneven rotations of the ceiling van until I could convince
[2:43:21] Speaker 1: myself to stand. I peeled off my clothes, feeling my
[2:43:26] Speaker 1: stomach twist into knots. Every step toward the bathroom door
[2:43:30] Speaker 1: felt heavier. My hand trembled. When I reached for the knob,
[2:43:36] Speaker 1: I pushed it open. The air inside was thick and heavy,
[2:43:41] Speaker 1: still damp, even though I had not run the water
[2:43:43] Speaker 1: in days. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
[2:43:50] Speaker 1: I twisted the knob on the shower. The water came
[2:43:54] Speaker 1: spluttering out, colder than usual, but steady enough. I waited
[2:43:59] Speaker 1: and till the cabin filled with steam, before stepping in.
[2:44:04] Speaker 1: The door clicked shut behind me. I told myself I
[2:44:08] Speaker 1: would keep my eyes open the entire time. I would
[2:44:12] Speaker 1: not let them close, not even for a second. I
[2:44:17] Speaker 1: repeated the promise in my head as I reached for
[2:44:19] Speaker 1: the shampoo bottle, as I scrubbed the layers of filth
[2:44:23] Speaker 1: that coated my skin. As the water poured down steadily,
[2:44:28] Speaker 1: I tilted my head back to rinse out the SuDS,
[2:44:31] Speaker 1: careful to keep my eyes open. Soaps stung, the foam
[2:44:36] Speaker 1: slid down into my lashes. My eyes stung and my
[2:44:40] Speaker 1: body almost betrayed me, but my eyes stayed open. The
[2:44:45] Speaker 1: cabin shook slightly as I managed to keep my vision going.
[2:44:49] Speaker 1: That surprised me a little things would only happen when
[2:44:53] Speaker 1: I closed my eyes, never when I had them open.
[2:44:58] Speaker 1: Minutes crawled by, I washed, I scrubbed, I rinsed, and
[2:45:04] Speaker 1: through it all I kept my eyes wide open, fixed
[2:45:07] Speaker 1: on the walls. Reliefs started to creep in at the
[2:45:12] Speaker 1: edges of my mind, a dangerous feeling, but I could
[2:45:16] Speaker 1: not help it. I was almost done. I could towel off,
[2:45:21] Speaker 1: get dressed, leave this nightmare behind me. I reached for
[2:45:26] Speaker 1: the forrcet to shut the water off, and suddenly the
[2:45:31] Speaker 1: pressure in the shower changed. The steady stream faltered, stuttered,
[2:45:37] Speaker 1: then surged back stronger, Hammering down against the floor, something
[2:45:44] Speaker 1: shifted in the air. The temperature dropped hard enough to
[2:45:47] Speaker 1: suck the breath from my chest. A scream irrupted from
[2:45:51] Speaker 1: all around me. It sounded furious and almost sad. The
[2:45:59] Speaker 1: wall around the shower shuddered, vibrating so hard I thought
[2:46:03] Speaker 1: they would tear themselves apart. Was this thing mad that
[2:46:07] Speaker 1: I kept my eyes open the entire time. The floor
[2:46:11] Speaker 1: underneath my feet jumped and twisted. Bottles shot off the shelves,
[2:46:16] Speaker 1: slamming into walls and the floor with heavy, wet cracks.
[2:46:20] Speaker 1: Something dense and heavy banged against the outside of the
[2:46:23] Speaker 1: shower door, over and over again, loud enough that the
[2:46:28] Speaker 1: entire cabin shook under the force. Ice cold water was
[2:46:33] Speaker 1: getting into my eyes, blurring my vision. The drain beneath
[2:46:37] Speaker 1: me gurgled, heaving upward instead of pulling the water down.
[2:46:42] Speaker 1: Thick clumps of hair, long and matted with something black
[2:46:46] Speaker 1: and sticky, twisted free and floated up toward the surface.
[2:46:51] Speaker 1: Small jagged objects bobbed up alongside it, teeth tiny and cracked,
[2:46:58] Speaker 1: some still speckled with dry blood. Something red rose in thick,
[2:47:03] Speaker 1: slow bubbles, staining the water in white pink streaks that
[2:47:08] Speaker 1: swirled around my ankles. The cabin floor pitched under me,
[2:47:13] Speaker 1: and I nearly slipped. I forced my fingers against my
[2:47:17] Speaker 1: water filled eyes and rubbed them hard enough that bright
[2:47:20] Speaker 1: spots exploded across my vision. It hurt, but I managed
[2:47:25] Speaker 1: to keep them peeled open. The world came back into focus.
[2:47:32] Speaker 1: Pressed against the inside of the shower door, directly in
[2:47:35] Speaker 1: front of my face, a palm flattened itself against the
[2:47:40] Speaker 1: tempered glass. The skin pulsed faintly, as if breathing. There
[2:47:46] Speaker 1: was no arm connected to it, just the pale, bloated
[2:47:50] Speaker 1: hand flexing his fingers against the door. I fumbled backward
[2:47:56] Speaker 1: until my spine hid the opposite wall of the cabin.
[2:47:59] Speaker 1: The water kept pouring from the shower head above me,
[2:48:02] Speaker 1: colder than ice, now soaking through to the bone. It
[2:48:06] Speaker 1: stung across the half field, scratches on my back, and
[2:48:10] Speaker 1: made my teeth chatter so violently I could hear them clacking.
[2:48:15] Speaker 1: I reached for the knobs to shut the water off.
[2:48:18] Speaker 1: My fingers slipped once, twice, three times, but I finally
[2:48:23] Speaker 1: managed to twist them both shut. Nothing changed. The water
[2:48:30] Speaker 1: kept blasting at full force, roaring against the cracked floor,
[2:48:34] Speaker 1: splashing high enough that it sprayed over the door frame.
[2:48:38] Speaker 1: The drain only vomited more filth up into the small,
[2:48:41] Speaker 1: confined space. Hair wrapped itself around my ankles, tightening with
[2:48:46] Speaker 1: every shift of my weight. The water level was rising.
[2:48:53] Speaker 1: It climbed past my ankles up to my shins. The
[2:48:57] Speaker 1: cold bit deeper with every inch. I grabbed the door
[2:49:01] Speaker 1: handle and he yanked. It did not budge. I pushed harder,
[2:49:07] Speaker 1: using both hands, now throwing all my weight against it.
[2:49:11] Speaker 1: The shower door groaned under the strain, but held. I
[2:49:15] Speaker 1: slammed my shoulder against it once, twice, three times. Still nothing.
[2:49:22] Speaker 1: Another handprint bloomed beside the first one. The fingers splayed
[2:49:26] Speaker 1: wide across the surface, some longer than others, joints bent
[2:49:31] Speaker 1: at strange angles. The prince pressed in, dimpling the plastic,
[2:49:36] Speaker 1: as though something immense leaned on them from the other side.
[2:49:40] Speaker 1: Who was trying to trap me in here? I screamed
[2:49:45] Speaker 1: high and panicked, raw air tearing out of my throat.
[2:49:49] Speaker 1: I punched the door, paine, lancing up my arms as
[2:49:53] Speaker 1: my fists met the unforgiving glass. My knuckles split on
[2:49:57] Speaker 1: the rough edges. Blood smeared across the door and messy
[2:50:00] Speaker 1: broken arcs. I punched again again. The water rose past
[2:50:07] Speaker 1: my knees, swirling with hair and teeth and bits of
[2:50:11] Speaker 1: something too small to name. The hand prince did not
[2:50:16] Speaker 1: pull away. They pressed harder. I could barely fill my
[2:50:21] Speaker 1: fists anymore. My knuckles throbbed with every heartbeat, slick with
[2:50:25] Speaker 1: a mixture of blood and water. The shower filled up
[2:50:29] Speaker 1: highre lapping up toward my waist, the freezing water numbing
[2:50:34] Speaker 1: everything it touched. The hand Prince leaned in harder, the
[2:50:39] Speaker 1: plastic bowing inward under the pressure. I knew I could
[2:50:43] Speaker 1: not keep hitting the door. My arms were spent. I
[2:50:47] Speaker 1: needed to do something else. I braced against the wall
[2:50:52] Speaker 1: of the cabin sucking in a breath so cold it
[2:50:55] Speaker 1: burned the back of my throat. I lifted my knee
[2:50:58] Speaker 1: and slammed it against the crack section near the bottom
[2:51:01] Speaker 1: of the door. The impact sent a sholt through my bones,
[2:51:05] Speaker 1: rattling my teeth together. The crack widened, spider webbing across
[2:51:10] Speaker 1: the surface and jagged, uneven lines. I pulled back and
[2:51:15] Speaker 1: did it again, putting every shred of strength I had
[2:51:18] Speaker 1: into it. The third hit split the tempered glass completely.
[2:51:24] Speaker 1: The pressure of the water burst the door outward with
[2:51:27] Speaker 1: a violent pop, sending a tidal wave crashing across the
[2:51:30] Speaker 1: bathroom floor. I was carried with it, thrown against the
[2:51:35] Speaker 1: base of the sink. My head cracked hard against the cabinet,
[2:51:39] Speaker 1: and for a second the world spun into dizzying, colorless shapes.
[2:51:46] Speaker 1: I crawled backward and shaking, hands and knees, slipping across
[2:51:50] Speaker 1: the flooded lenonium. Gasping for air, my body shuddered, uncontrollably,
[2:51:56] Speaker 1: soaked through to the bone, every muscle twisted up tight
[2:52:00] Speaker 1: with fear and cold. The bathroom lights flickered overhead. Somewhere
[2:52:08] Speaker 1: behind me, the water sputed to a stop from a
[2:52:11] Speaker 1: broken shower, the last of the water pouring across the
[2:52:15] Speaker 1: floor in steady, unstoppable waves. I pressed myself into the corner, panting,
[2:52:23] Speaker 1: watching the shattered door swing uselessly on its broken hinge.
[2:52:29] Speaker 1: When I finally stood, my knees buckled. I grabbed the
[2:52:32] Speaker 1: doorframe for support and staggered into the main room, leaving
[2:52:36] Speaker 1: a trail of wet footprints behind me. I did not
[2:52:41] Speaker 1: step back into that bathroom again. The next morning. I
[2:52:47] Speaker 1: made a decision. It was not a proud one, it
[2:52:52] Speaker 1: was not a brave one. It was what I had
[2:52:55] Speaker 1: to do. I knocked on missus Cartwright's door or standing
[2:53:01] Speaker 1: awkwardly in clothes that smiled faintly off panic. She answered
[2:53:05] Speaker 1: quickly and knitted shawl wrapped around a narrow shoulders. Her
[2:53:10] Speaker 1: face softened when she saw me. I asked if she
[2:53:14] Speaker 1: needed any help around the house. Grocy runs heavy lifting
[2:53:19] Speaker 1: anything at all I told her I'd be happy to
[2:53:22] Speaker 1: do it. I told her it was no trouble. She
[2:53:27] Speaker 1: smiled a real smile, the sort of smile that lit
[2:53:31] Speaker 1: up a whole face, and said she could use her
[2:53:35] Speaker 1: hand now. And then I mentioned, as casually as I could,
[2:53:40] Speaker 1: that my shower was broken. I asked if she would
[2:53:44] Speaker 1: mind letting me use hers once or twice a week
[2:53:47] Speaker 1: until I could get it fixed. She agreed without hesitation.
[2:53:53] Speaker 1: From then on, I spend as little time in my
[2:53:56] Speaker 1: own bathroom as possible. I brush my teeth the kitchen sink.
[2:54:01] Speaker 1: I used the bathroom only when I absolutely had to. Luckily,
[2:54:07] Speaker 1: the date went well. Alison did not seem to notice
[2:54:11] Speaker 1: the faint stiffness in my posture. I returned home and
[2:54:16] Speaker 1: decided to hang up curtains just past the kitchen sink
[2:54:20] Speaker 1: so I wouldn't have to look at the shower anymore.
[2:54:24] Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell my landlord about the damage,
[2:54:27] Speaker 1: but he'd have to deal with it. I'm sure he
[2:54:31] Speaker 1: knew the place was like this, and he never decided
[2:54:35] Speaker 1: to tell me, so I won't tell him either. I've
[2:54:50] Speaker 1: been surrounded by conspiracy theories my whole life. I don't
[2:54:55] Speaker 1: mean that I believe in them. Most of them are ridiculous,
[2:54:59] Speaker 1: some of them dangerous. I only ever got into that
[2:55:04] Speaker 1: stuff because of my uncle. When you grew up visiting
[2:55:08] Speaker 1: a man who owns more black and white photocopies of
[2:55:11] Speaker 1: underground based schematics than he does shirts, it starts to
[2:55:15] Speaker 1: rub off on you. I never cared much about bigfoot,
[2:55:19] Speaker 1: but more people and pigeon robots. It was interesting to
[2:55:23] Speaker 1: listen to my uncle. Warren was that relative, the one
[2:55:29] Speaker 1: everyone keeps at arm's length during the holidays, the one
[2:55:33] Speaker 1: people warn their kids about before they visit. He didn't
[2:55:37] Speaker 1: do anything wrong, not ever, but there was always something
[2:55:41] Speaker 1: about him that made others uncomfortable. He had a disorder.
[2:55:47] Speaker 1: It had walked his jaw since birth. His teeth jotted
[2:55:51] Speaker 1: out at an angle, like a row of warped fence posts.
[2:55:55] Speaker 1: He had to wear these weird rubber mouthguards at night
[2:55:58] Speaker 1: just to stop them from cutting into his cheeks. He
[2:56:02] Speaker 1: also had diabetes, and that was a constant battle for him.
[2:56:07] Speaker 1: He kept sugar tabs in his shirt pocket and always
[2:56:09] Speaker 1: smelled of insulin and peanut butter crackers. He wore shirts
[2:56:14] Speaker 1: that had been washed until the graphics faded into pale ghosts,
[2:56:18] Speaker 1: jeans with cracked belt loops, and a windbreaker that had
[2:56:21] Speaker 1: probably been navy blue twenty years ago. His glasses were
[2:56:26] Speaker 1: too large for his face. His hair had receded before
[2:56:29] Speaker 1: I was even born. Most people didn't give him a
[2:56:34] Speaker 1: second chance. The ones who did usually looked away. But
[2:56:40] Speaker 1: to me, he was great. He wasn't just a family weirdo.
[2:56:47] Speaker 1: He was brilliant. He knew how to fix things, build things,
[2:56:52] Speaker 1: explain things. He could talk about sub sonic weapons and
[2:56:56] Speaker 1: hollow earth theories in the same breath he walked me
[2:56:59] Speaker 1: through fixing a blown capacitor. He was patient, He had
[2:57:03] Speaker 1: time for me. I didn't get that from many people.
[2:57:07] Speaker 1: Growing up. His house felt like some kind of time capsule.
[2:57:13] Speaker 1: Old wallpaper, flickering fluorescent lights, carpet that had gone stiff
[2:57:17] Speaker 1: at the edges. But what always pulled me in was
[2:57:21] Speaker 1: the back room. He called it his workshop. No one
[2:57:26] Speaker 1: else ever went back there. I think my mom saw
[2:57:30] Speaker 1: it once and refused the step inside again. It was
[2:57:35] Speaker 1: cramped and packed wall to wall with shells full of
[2:57:38] Speaker 1: scrap parts, tools, plastic tubs, and print outs that had
[2:57:43] Speaker 1: yellowed into brittle curls. It had cathoed monitors stacked on
[2:57:48] Speaker 1: top of a filing cabinets, each one hooked into something different.
[2:57:53] Speaker 1: One of them looped footage from a cave in Turkey.
[2:57:56] Speaker 1: Another displayed seismic readouts. I'd sit at his work bench
[2:58:01] Speaker 1: while he soldered or rewired something. The smell of burned
[2:58:05] Speaker 1: plastic and machine oil always stucked my clothes after I left.
[2:58:11] Speaker 1: He had this Motorola flip phone with a thick black antennor.
[2:58:15] Speaker 1: He clipped it to his belt like it was a badge.
[2:58:18] Speaker 1: I once asked him why he didn't just get a smartphone,
[2:58:21] Speaker 1: and he looked at me like I had asked him
[2:58:23] Speaker 1: to put a tracking device in his skull. The only
[2:58:28] Speaker 1: thing about him that I found strange was his obsession
[2:58:32] Speaker 1: with mole people. He didn't picture them as cartoonish or
[2:58:37] Speaker 1: green or wearing goggles. He imagined them as pale, sightless things,
[2:58:42] Speaker 1: humanoid but not entirely human, adapted to a place where
[2:58:47] Speaker 1: light never touched. Here, theories about how their society worked,
[2:58:52] Speaker 1: what tools they used, how they might hear our movement
[2:58:55] Speaker 1: from beneath the crust and respond with coded vibrations. He
[2:59:00] Speaker 1: rarely even wanted to use light outside of his home,
[2:59:04] Speaker 1: and that really shined through the time I went camping
[2:59:06] Speaker 1: with him. I tried to set up a fire. I
[2:59:10] Speaker 1: had gathered kindling, stacked it carefully, even brought a fire
[2:59:14] Speaker 1: start to cube because I was proud of thinking ahead.
[2:59:19] Speaker 1: He stopped me the moment I could light it. He
[2:59:22] Speaker 1: didn't yell, He just stared at the pile for a
[2:59:25] Speaker 1: long moment, then told me gently to leave it alone.
[2:59:31] Speaker 1: He said fire draws attention. He said some things can't
[2:59:35] Speaker 1: handle sudden brightness, that it confuses them, hurts them. That
[2:59:41] Speaker 1: when you're near their domain, you should respect their rules.
[2:59:47] Speaker 1: I didn't understand at all, but I just let it go.
[2:59:52] Speaker 1: Months pasted. After that, we fell out of touch for
[2:59:56] Speaker 1: a while. I got busy. Life crept in as it
[3:00:00] Speaker 1: does slowly at first, then all at once when you
[3:00:06] Speaker 1: start working full time. Checking in on your eccentric uncle
[3:00:10] Speaker 1: doesn't always top the list, but I still thought about him,
[3:00:15] Speaker 1: especially when I saw something odd on TV or read
[3:00:18] Speaker 1: a weird headline online. I always think Warren would have
[3:00:23] Speaker 1: something to say about that. Then one day I heard
[3:00:29] Speaker 1: from my mom that he was gone. She said it offhand,
[3:00:35] Speaker 1: like it wasn't worth more than a sentence. Oh, By
[3:00:39] Speaker 1: the way, your uncle hasn't been home in weeks. Your
[3:00:42] Speaker 1: cousin Todd went to check. He wasn't there. That was it.
[3:00:48] Speaker 1: No missing person fliers or searches, just the call to
[3:00:52] Speaker 1: the authorities and a casual shrug passed around the family
[3:00:55] Speaker 1: group chat. Everyone had an explanation ready. He'd probably gone
[3:01:01] Speaker 1: off chasing one of those rabbit holes. He did that
[3:01:04] Speaker 1: once years ago, spent three weeks in New Mexico because
[3:01:08] Speaker 1: he thought the government was digging under old reservations. Turned
[3:01:13] Speaker 1: out he just wanted to try desert photography. But even
[3:01:17] Speaker 1: then he'd told me before he went. Todd had apparently
[3:01:22] Speaker 1: driven over, walked round the house, once, tried the door,
[3:01:26] Speaker 1: peered through the blinds, then left said everything looked fine.
[3:01:31] Speaker 1: That was enough for them, but something about it sat
[3:01:36] Speaker 1: wrong with me. I couldn't explain it. I hadn't seen
[3:01:41] Speaker 1: him in months, and I had no reason to assume
[3:01:44] Speaker 1: the worst. But I knew him. He wouldn't vanish for
[3:01:48] Speaker 1: weeks without at least leaving a note taped to the
[3:01:51] Speaker 1: door or a voicemail filled with static and obscure hints.
[3:01:56] Speaker 1: He was weird, not careless, So I went. I didn't
[3:02:03] Speaker 1: tell anyone. I got in my car early one morning
[3:02:07] Speaker 1: and drove out to his place. The further I got,
[3:02:11] Speaker 1: the heavier it felt. When I pulled up to the house,
[3:02:17] Speaker 1: it looked the same as always. I went up to
[3:02:20] Speaker 1: the mailbox to retrieve the spare key. Uncle had told
[3:02:24] Speaker 1: me about where he kept it in case I need
[3:02:26] Speaker 1: to grab something from his workshop when he's sleeping or away.
[3:02:31] Speaker 1: His car was parked in the driveway, right where it
[3:02:34] Speaker 1: always sat, but the porch light bulb had burned out.
[3:02:39] Speaker 1: I noticed that as I climbed the steps, a tiny
[3:02:43] Speaker 1: bulb dead and cold in its fixture. I un locked
[3:02:47] Speaker 1: the door and stepped inside. I moved through the living
[3:02:51] Speaker 1: room slowly. My shoes made no sound on the old carpet.
[3:02:56] Speaker 1: Something in me didn't want to break whatever spell was
[3:02:59] Speaker 1: holding the place since suspension. I stepped into the kitchen.
[3:03:04] Speaker 1: That's when I saw his medication. It sat in its
[3:03:09] Speaker 1: organizer on the counter, color coded labeled by day Sunday
[3:03:15] Speaker 1: through Saturday, each compartment still full. His blood sugar monitor
[3:03:21] Speaker 1: was next to it, turned off. The testing strips were
[3:03:24] Speaker 1: still sealed. I stared at it for a while. My
[3:03:30] Speaker 1: uncle had never missed the dose in his life, He
[3:03:33] Speaker 1: treated his condition with an almost ritualistic precision. It had
[3:03:38] Speaker 1: been drilled into him. Skipping intolin wasn't just irresponsible, It
[3:03:44] Speaker 1: could kill him. I followed the faint electric buzz toward
[3:03:50] Speaker 1: the back of the house, A sound I knew well.
[3:03:54] Speaker 1: It was always there when I visited. The workshop ran
[3:03:57] Speaker 1: in its own circuit, something he wired himself. Even when
[3:04:03] Speaker 1: he wasn't home, he left certain things running. The world
[3:04:07] Speaker 1: doesn't pause just because I step out, he used to say.
[3:04:12] Speaker 1: Across the threshold and stepped inside. The air inside was
[3:04:18] Speaker 1: heavy with solder and paper. The whir of a low
[3:04:21] Speaker 1: powered van came from the corner. Dust hung in shafts
[3:04:25] Speaker 1: of afternoon light filtering through the narrow window. My eyes
[3:04:30] Speaker 1: moved across the space, automatically, picking up old landmarks, the
[3:04:35] Speaker 1: metal rack of spools and wires, the blinking VHS converter,
[3:04:39] Speaker 1: and the shelf above the filing cabinet. The digital thermometer
[3:04:43] Speaker 1: which between two brakes and the floor. But something was
[3:04:48] Speaker 1: different this time, the sound a beeping. I moved toward it,
[3:04:56] Speaker 1: but I didn't reach for it yet. My eyes caught
[3:05:00] Speaker 1: something else first. The chalkboard covered almost the entire wall.
[3:05:06] Speaker 1: He had bolted it directly into the studs. Years ago,
[3:05:10] Speaker 1: I remember watching him do it, sweating through his shirt,
[3:05:14] Speaker 1: mumbling about how dry wall was the enemy of permanence.
[3:05:19] Speaker 1: Now it was covered in layers of overlapping diagrams, notes, sketches,
[3:05:24] Speaker 1: and pin photographs. The usual chaos was there, but this
[3:05:30] Speaker 1: time it was all focused. Everything pointed to one subject,
[3:05:38] Speaker 1: more people. There were diagrams of hand structures, claw curvature,
[3:05:44] Speaker 1: and comparative models against known borrowing mammals. There were skeletal
[3:05:49] Speaker 1: projections showing how a human spine would have to evolve
[3:05:53] Speaker 1: to function primarily in a crouched lateral motion. Heat mapping
[3:05:57] Speaker 1: charts had been overlaid with seismographs, readings with annotations in
[3:06:02] Speaker 1: read ink, he'd written detailed estimates on hearing ranges, potential
[3:06:07] Speaker 1: hive networks, and low frequency signal behavior. Pinned to the
[3:06:13] Speaker 1: center of the board was a photo black and white,
[3:06:18] Speaker 1: grainy taken from above a depression in the earth. The
[3:06:24] Speaker 1: soil looked compressed inward with unnatural symmetry. Below it, he'd
[3:06:30] Speaker 1: written a date, a coordinate set a single phrase too
[3:06:36] Speaker 1: consistent to be weather. I scanned the rest of the wall.
[3:06:42] Speaker 1: A long timeline stretched across the upper edge. All of
[3:06:46] Speaker 1: it converged. He had found something. I realized he had
[3:06:52] Speaker 1: gone to find proof. The beeping grew louder as I
[3:06:59] Speaker 1: moved toward the bench. It was coming from a hand
[3:07:03] Speaker 1: held GPS receiver. The screen was small and monochrome. A
[3:07:08] Speaker 1: single blinking dot pulsed on the display. Next to it
[3:07:13] Speaker 1: was a folded piece of paper torn at the edge,
[3:07:17] Speaker 1: written in sharp block letters. I recognized this handwriting immediately.
[3:07:25] Speaker 1: I'll assume you'll be the one to find this, nephew.
[3:07:29] Speaker 1: I knew it'd be you. I finally found something, and
[3:07:33] Speaker 1: I want you to see it. Follow the signal. I'll
[3:07:36] Speaker 1: finally prove myself right to you. I picked up the GPS.
[3:07:44] Speaker 1: The signal was holding steady, still transmitting. I took a breath.
[3:07:50] Speaker 1: My throat felt dry. I took the medicine into my bag,
[3:07:55] Speaker 1: pocketed the GPS unit, and walked out the front door.
[3:08:00] Speaker 1: The GPS coordinates pointed somewhere deep in the northern Range,
[3:08:03] Speaker 1: far beyond cell towers or road markings. I had to
[3:08:07] Speaker 1: stop twice to recheck the route, and once to talk
[3:08:11] Speaker 1: myself into continuing. I packed carefully, water, flashlight, the insulin,
[3:08:19] Speaker 1: extra batteries, snacks. I stared at the receiver for ten
[3:08:24] Speaker 1: minutes before I even turned the ignition. There was no deadline,
[3:08:30] Speaker 1: but it felt like I was already running behind. I
[3:08:35] Speaker 1: couldn't tell if it was guilt or something heavier. Maybe
[3:08:38] Speaker 1: I'd waited too long, Maybe I had already missed him.
[3:08:43] Speaker 1: But if he was alive, if he was just stranded
[3:08:46] Speaker 1: or hurt, or waiting for someone to show up, then
[3:08:49] Speaker 1: I couldn't waste any more time. The last stretch of
[3:08:55] Speaker 1: road turned to gravel, then gravel gave out entirely. I
[3:09:00] Speaker 1: parked beneath a canopy of thin, brittle trees, the leaves
[3:09:04] Speaker 1: scorched from a summer that had lasted too long. The
[3:09:08] Speaker 1: signal still blinked on the hand held. I walked for
[3:09:12] Speaker 1: over an hour, boots crunching through rock and shale, the
[3:09:16] Speaker 1: sky dimming above me. When I finally reached the destination,
[3:09:22] Speaker 1: I thought at first I had gone the wrong way.
[3:09:26] Speaker 1: There was nothing there, just a low ridge of broken
[3:09:29] Speaker 1: stone and a slope that dropped off into a dry gulch.
[3:09:34] Speaker 1: The quarry was just beyond it, old and half reclaimed
[3:09:38] Speaker 1: by moss and brush. I almost turned back to double
[3:09:42] Speaker 1: check the coordinates, but something caught my eye, a seam
[3:09:47] Speaker 1: in the cliff side. It was in a cave mouth.
[3:09:51] Speaker 1: It was more of a split between two walls of stone,
[3:09:54] Speaker 1: vertical and narrow. Some one could walk past it and
[3:09:58] Speaker 1: never notice. I stepped closer, shining the light into the space.
[3:10:05] Speaker 1: The beam hit nothing just there that meant depth. The
[3:10:13] Speaker 1: crack was just wide enough to squeeze through. I just
[3:10:17] Speaker 1: died the strap of my bag and stepped forward. The
[3:10:20] Speaker 1: walls pressed close around my shoulders, rough and uneven. Bits
[3:10:25] Speaker 1: of stone scraped at my sleeves. I kept one hand
[3:10:29] Speaker 1: on the rock and the other around the flashlight, angling
[3:10:33] Speaker 1: it downward to avoid blinding myself. I could get through
[3:10:37] Speaker 1: without too much issue, but a small laugh bottled out
[3:10:40] Speaker 1: of me as I thought about Uncle squeezing through here.
[3:10:45] Speaker 1: My chest tightened as the gap narrowed further, But then
[3:10:49] Speaker 1: after about twenty paces, it opened, not completely, but enough
[3:10:57] Speaker 1: to stand comfortably. The space beyond the crack was colder still.
[3:11:04] Speaker 1: The sound of my boots echoed softly, bouncing from surface
[3:11:08] Speaker 1: to surface, dust coat to the floor in a thin layer,
[3:11:12] Speaker 1: disturbed only where my footprints had cut through. I saw
[3:11:16] Speaker 1: the first one just ahead of me, a boot print,
[3:11:21] Speaker 1: then another, the heel worn unevenly, the flashlight being trembled
[3:11:28] Speaker 1: in my hand. I steadied my breath, tried to listen. Nothing,
[3:11:36] Speaker 1: just the hum of air deep underground. A breast on
[3:11:40] Speaker 1: following the prince. They curved inward, deeper into the passage.
[3:11:46] Speaker 1: The air grew heavier. The light from the entrance had
[3:11:49] Speaker 1: disappeared entirely. My flashlight was now the only thing keeping
[3:11:54] Speaker 1: the dark from swallowing me. The tunnel widened slightly, then
[3:12:00] Speaker 1: narrowed again. The ceiling dropped just enough to make the duck.
[3:12:05] Speaker 1: I moved slowly, scanning every inch with the light. Something
[3:12:10] Speaker 1: crunched beneath my boot. I crouched, brushing away dust. A
[3:12:17] Speaker 1: plastic wrapper, torn open, corners folded inward, dust clinging to
[3:12:23] Speaker 1: the sugar residue. I picked it up, one of those
[3:12:28] Speaker 1: glucose shoes. He always carried strawberry flavor. He used to
[3:12:33] Speaker 1: say they tasted worse than cardboard, but they worked fast.
[3:12:38] Speaker 1: A few steps later I saw the glove, fingers stiff
[3:12:43] Speaker 1: with dirt. The wrist strap was still cinched. I turned
[3:12:48] Speaker 1: it over. A tear had opened across the palm, the
[3:12:52] Speaker 1: kind that comes from bracing a fall. The ground here
[3:12:56] Speaker 1: was uneven and covered in loose stones. His phone was
[3:13:01] Speaker 1: much further from there. It sat balanced on a ledge
[3:13:04] Speaker 1: of rock, screen glowing faintly in the dark. The plastic
[3:13:09] Speaker 1: casing was scuffed, and the rubber and tenor leaned slightly
[3:13:12] Speaker 1: to one side. The signal bar pulse gently, battery at
[3:13:17] Speaker 1: twenty three percent. I reached for it and stared at
[3:13:22] Speaker 1: the home screen. I held the phone for a moment
[3:13:25] Speaker 1: longer before slipping it into my pocket. Now I know
[3:13:30] Speaker 1: for sure he was here. I stood still and called
[3:13:34] Speaker 1: his name once, then again louder. I saw it just
[3:13:43] Speaker 1: past the bend in the tunnel, tugged against a stone
[3:13:46] Speaker 1: wall where the cave curved. The sleeping bag looked old,
[3:13:50] Speaker 1: almost sunken into the ground, but I recognized it immediately,
[3:13:56] Speaker 1: faded green canvas with a broken zipper. He had owned
[3:14:00] Speaker 1: it for decades. I remember him using it in the
[3:14:04] Speaker 1: woods when I was still too young to carry my
[3:14:06] Speaker 1: own pack. He used to say that newer ones trapped
[3:14:10] Speaker 1: too much moisture. I moved fast, boots scraping against loose grit.
[3:14:17] Speaker 1: My chest tightened with something close to hope. My voice
[3:14:21] Speaker 1: came before I even reached him, Uncle Warren, I heard
[3:14:26] Speaker 1: myself say, it's me. I brought your meds. What the
[3:14:29] Speaker 1: hell are you doing down here? The beam of the
[3:14:34] Speaker 1: flashlight wavered slightly as I knelt beside him. He hadn't moved.
[3:14:40] Speaker 1: The top half of the bag was pulled up to
[3:14:42] Speaker 1: his shoulders, his arms resting across his chest, hands tucked
[3:14:46] Speaker 1: beneath the flap. His head leaned against the cave wall
[3:14:50] Speaker 1: at a slight angle. His glasses were still perched on
[3:14:54] Speaker 1: his forehead, pushed up the way he always wore them
[3:14:57] Speaker 1: when working on something close range. I reached out and
[3:15:02] Speaker 1: touched his shoulder. The fabric was damp, My throat closed.
[3:15:10] Speaker 1: Before I could call his name again, I shifted the
[3:15:14] Speaker 1: light downward, trying to get a better look. That was
[3:15:19] Speaker 1: when I saw the color of the fabric change from
[3:15:22] Speaker 1: green to black, stained through the canvas. Wasn't folded in
[3:15:27] Speaker 1: at his stomach. It had collapsed. I gripped a zipper
[3:15:33] Speaker 1: and pulled it back. His chest had carved in where
[3:15:36] Speaker 1: the sleeping bag had dipped. Flesh and bone had been
[3:15:40] Speaker 1: torn apart. His torso was still whole. Above his ribs,
[3:15:44] Speaker 1: skin pale and drawn, but everything below that had been opened,
[3:15:50] Speaker 1: not by a blade. There was no clean line. The
[3:15:54] Speaker 1: wounds looked jagged, pulled apart. His adomen had been torn
[3:15:59] Speaker 1: open and wide. Uneven ridges, muscles, and viscera were exposed
[3:16:04] Speaker 1: beneath the shredded fabric of his shirt. The blood had
[3:16:08] Speaker 1: soaked into the bag long enough to turn it thick
[3:16:10] Speaker 1: at the seams. The skin along his side had deep
[3:16:15] Speaker 1: indentations when something had clamped down or hooked in. I
[3:16:20] Speaker 1: saw striations in the torn flesh, shallow grooves, shaped and
[3:16:24] Speaker 1: arcs too round to be teeth. His hands were still
[3:16:28] Speaker 1: crossed at his chest, but the onand to his left
[3:16:31] Speaker 1: was missing its pinky. The stump had gone gray. The
[3:16:37] Speaker 1: air around me changed. Then the smell reached me rot,
[3:16:42] Speaker 1: first sharp and acidic, then iron, thick enough to taste
[3:16:48] Speaker 1: behind it something else, a damp sweetness, the scent of
[3:16:54] Speaker 1: compost that had been turned too late in the season.
[3:16:58] Speaker 1: I climbed a hand over My mouth turned and doubled over.
[3:17:03] Speaker 1: My stomach clenched, and bile forced its way up. Before
[3:17:06] Speaker 1: I could stop it. It hit the rock floor in
[3:17:09] Speaker 1: a splash. I stayed bent over, gasping a flashlight shaking.
[3:17:15] Speaker 2: In my hand. I couldn't look back at him, not yet.
[3:17:23] Speaker 2: I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my nose.
[3:17:26] Speaker 2: I tried to hold on to something else, anything else,
[3:17:30] Speaker 2: but all of it was drowning under the smell and
[3:17:33] Speaker 2: the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears.
[3:17:38] Speaker 2: And forced myself to step back from the body. My
[3:17:41] Speaker 2: legs moved, but my eyes didn't want to leave him.
[3:17:45] Speaker 2: I had to blink a few times to break whatever
[3:17:47] Speaker 2: spell I had fallen under. The flashlight trembled in my hand.
[3:17:52] Speaker 2: I wiped the back of my wrist against.
[3:17:53] Speaker 1: My mouth and breathed through my teeth. Then I heard
[3:17:58] Speaker 1: it faint, scrape something against the rock. The sound came again,
[3:18:06] Speaker 1: then another higher, pitched from a different direction. I froze,
[3:18:12] Speaker 1: my grip on the flashlight tightened. I turned slowly, shining
[3:18:17] Speaker 1: the beam toward the sound. Nothing. I took one step back.
[3:18:25] Speaker 1: The beam shifted. I was when something darted across the
[3:18:30] Speaker 1: far wall, just outside the edge of the light. I
[3:18:34] Speaker 1: blur gray and low. I turned the light quickly, but
[3:18:39] Speaker 1: it was already gone. Another shape followed, cutting across the
[3:18:44] Speaker 1: dust ahead of me. My eyes couldn't track it fast enough.
[3:18:50] Speaker 1: There was more than one I kept my feet planted,
[3:18:56] Speaker 1: trying to count the echoes of movement, maybe four. None
[3:19:03] Speaker 1: of them made a sound I could identify, just the
[3:19:06] Speaker 1: soft scrape of nails and the drag of their limbs
[3:19:09] Speaker 1: brushing loose gravel. With these the things that had done
[3:19:13] Speaker 1: this to Uncle, I couldn't know for sure. I crouched
[3:19:19] Speaker 1: slightly and angled the light across the walls. They weren't climbing,
[3:19:24] Speaker 1: but they were getting closer, hugging the edges of the chamber,
[3:19:28] Speaker 1: staying just outside the illumination. Wherever they were, they didn't
[3:19:35] Speaker 1: want to be seen. I thought of something Warren once
[3:19:39] Speaker 1: told me. Most animals don't want to fight. If you
[3:19:44] Speaker 1: scare them, they wait, but if you run, they chase.
[3:19:51] Speaker 1: It had been drawing a story about a coyote that
[3:19:53] Speaker 1: followed him for two miles. I remember the way he
[3:19:56] Speaker 1: had spoken, then, calm, like it was more important to
[3:20:00] Speaker 1: think than to react. I could hear scuttling again, louder now,
[3:20:07] Speaker 1: so I stayed calm and tested my theory. I flicked
[3:20:12] Speaker 1: the flashlight off. The darkness was instant, complete, just pressure
[3:20:19] Speaker 1: and sound. The scratching grew sharper, closer. I could feel
[3:20:25] Speaker 1: them now, small, displacements in the air, loose pebbles shifting
[3:20:30] Speaker 1: near my boots. Clenched my jaw, counted silently to four,
[3:20:36] Speaker 1: and snapped the beam back on. The light cut through
[3:20:41] Speaker 1: the dark like a blade. One of them froze mid movement.
[3:20:47] Speaker 1: For a split second I saw it. It had crept
[3:20:53] Speaker 1: within six feet of me, crouched low, body compressed in
[3:20:57] Speaker 1: a tense arch. It skided it off when the light
[3:21:00] Speaker 1: hit it. Its limbs locked in place for a fraction of
[3:21:04] Speaker 1: a second. Muscles coiled but frozen. The skin on his
[3:21:08] Speaker 1: back was patchy and raw, hairless, pink and gray. The
[3:21:14] Speaker 1: skin across the skull had been stretched. It looked almost
[3:21:17] Speaker 1: human from the silhouette, but it had no eyebrows or cheekbones.
[3:21:22] Speaker 1: The flesh sat low, sagging slightly under its weight. It
[3:21:27] Speaker 1: reminded me of moles we used to see in the garden,
[3:21:30] Speaker 1: but wrong in proportions. The head was too large, the
[3:21:35] Speaker 1: jaw too wide. The eyes were small, swollen and dark
[3:21:40] Speaker 1: with the sclarer had a watery gleam. They didn't reflect
[3:21:44] Speaker 1: the light. They resisted it. I watched as the pupils
[3:21:49] Speaker 1: constricted into pinholes. It shrieked, not loud, but high and shaking.
[3:21:58] Speaker 1: Then it turned and vanished into the rock behind it,
[3:22:01] Speaker 1: slipping through a narrow gap I hadn't seen before. A
[3:22:05] Speaker 1: moment later, another shape followed it, then another. My hands
[3:22:11] Speaker 1: were soaked in sweat, even through the fabric of my sleeves.
[3:22:16] Speaker 1: My heart hammered so loud I almost missed the next sound.
[3:22:21] Speaker 1: I turned and ran. All those quiet lessons about staying
[3:22:28] Speaker 1: calm and holding your ground evaporated. Every animal documentary, an
[3:22:33] Speaker 1: educational video i'd ever watched, crumbled under the sound of
[3:22:37] Speaker 1: claws skittering against stone. I ran hard, light, swinging in
[3:22:43] Speaker 1: frantic arcs across the tunnel walls. The beam flickered against
[3:22:47] Speaker 1: rock and dust and things I could not name. My
[3:22:51] Speaker 1: bag clipped the side of the cave. I stumbled, caught myself,
[3:22:55] Speaker 1: and kept moving. I heard them hiss behind me. A
[3:23:00] Speaker 1: sharp click followed close to my left, then another above.
[3:23:06] Speaker 1: One of them was moving across the ceiling. I heard
[3:23:09] Speaker 1: the scrape of its limbs and the dull thood of
[3:23:12] Speaker 1: its body repositioning overhead. I couldn't look. I didn't want
[3:23:18] Speaker 1: to see how close it was. My lungs burned, my
[3:23:22] Speaker 1: throat felt raw. The air was heavy and damp and thick,
[3:23:26] Speaker 1: with the scent of something. I could see the narrow
[3:23:30] Speaker 1: path ahead, the one I had come through the tunnel.
[3:23:34] Speaker 1: I never felt so long. The beam of my flashlight
[3:23:38] Speaker 1: hit the rock just ahead. That was when one lunged.
[3:23:45] Speaker 1: It came from the dark on my right, a blur
[3:23:48] Speaker 1: of pale limbs and teeth. I turned just enough to
[3:23:52] Speaker 1: avoid it. Its claws raked the cave wall and sent
[3:23:55] Speaker 1: a cascade of dust across my shoulder. I threw my
[3:23:59] Speaker 1: weight forward, pushed off the ground, and ran harder. Then
[3:24:04] Speaker 1: another dropped from above. I screamed. It missed barely. It
[3:24:12] Speaker 1: hit the floor behind me and skidded, claws dragging. I
[3:24:17] Speaker 1: didn't stop. I knew they were closing in. I felt
[3:24:21] Speaker 1: the weight of them behind me, pressing the air forward,
[3:24:24] Speaker 1: shrinking the distance between us. Then claws wrapped around my leg.
[3:24:33] Speaker 1: My body slammed into the ground. The impact drove the
[3:24:36] Speaker 1: air from my lungs. The flashlight bounced out to my
[3:24:40] Speaker 1: grip and rolled across the stone. The beams swung wildly,
[3:24:44] Speaker 1: strobing through the cave in broken fragments. I kicked my
[3:24:49] Speaker 1: heel caught something the grip and my leg tightened, pulling
[3:24:54] Speaker 1: I clawed at the ground. My fingers found nothing but
[3:24:57] Speaker 1: dust and sharp gravel. Another shape moved in from the left, crawling,
[3:25:02] Speaker 1: low eyes leaking, its jaw clicked open, saliva dripping from
[3:25:08] Speaker 1: the mouth of a mole. A distorted melody warped by
[3:25:13] Speaker 1: decades of overuse, blasted through the cave. Mechanical static layered
[3:25:19] Speaker 1: over digital tones. The motor roller it had slid from
[3:25:25] Speaker 1: my jacket pocket when I hit the floor. The antenna
[3:25:29] Speaker 1: stuck at an angle. The screen glowed. We were close
[3:25:34] Speaker 1: enough to the surface. Now it had found a signal.
[3:25:39] Speaker 1: Everything it had missed, calls, voicemails, alert had come through
[3:25:45] Speaker 1: at once, dozens, maybe hundreds. The speaker vibrated against the stone.
[3:25:52] Speaker 1: Every sound echoed through the tunnel, magnified tenfold. I'd always
[3:25:58] Speaker 1: marked the ring tone, a broken remix of old midiphiles,
[3:26:03] Speaker 1: layered with sirens and overlapping voice prompts. It sounded awful.
[3:26:10] Speaker 1: The thing on my legs shrieked and let go. Its
[3:26:13] Speaker 1: arms snapped up to shield its head. The one crawling
[3:26:16] Speaker 1: towards me recoiled, clawing at its skull. Both of them
[3:26:21] Speaker 1: backed away from the phone, their bodies twisting against the walls,
[3:26:25] Speaker 1: trying to escape the sound. One slammed into the rock
[3:26:30] Speaker 1: so hard dust exploded from the ceiling. Another scraped at
[3:26:34] Speaker 1: its own ears, tearing shallow furrows into the sides of
[3:26:38] Speaker 1: its head. The ring tone kept playing. The cave vibrated
[3:26:43] Speaker 1: with it. Loops of distorted melody collided with incoming alert
[3:26:48] Speaker 1: and static grid and voicemails. I pushed myself up and
[3:26:53] Speaker 1: grabbed the flashlight. The beam caught one of the creature's
[3:26:56] Speaker 1: mid turn. It screamed and scrambled back into the dark.
[3:27:02] Speaker 1: The crack of the cliff side was ahead. I threw
[3:27:06] Speaker 1: myself through it, shoulders, slamming into the stone on either side.
[3:27:11] Speaker 1: The cold air outside hit my face and chest like
[3:27:14] Speaker 1: a tide. I dropped to my knees on the gravel
[3:27:17] Speaker 1: slope just beyond the entrance, but above me sunlight. I
[3:27:26] Speaker 1: looked up and saw the sky. I never found the
[3:27:32] Speaker 1: courage to go back. I wish I could say I
[3:27:35] Speaker 1: went back in there retrieved my uncle's body, but I
[3:27:39] Speaker 1: was scared. I gave an anonymous tip to the police.
[3:27:44] Speaker 1: They found the body, and later the cave was sealed
[3:27:48] Speaker 1: off because it was deemed too dangerous. The official story
[3:27:53] Speaker 1: was a lonely hermit, losing his life in a cave.
[3:27:59] Speaker 1: But I knew better.

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