# 3+ Hours of SCARY Horror Stories to listen to while grinding hunts in Monster Hunter Wilds (like me)

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 27 Mar 2025, 3 h 21 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64989899/3_hours_of_scary_horror_stories_to_listen_to_while_grinding_hunts_in_monster_hunter_wilds_like_me.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORIES- ►0:00 "I Created an AI to Simulate My Dead Wife. Now It Knows Things She Never Told Me." Creepypasta ►26:40 "My Wife Hasn’t Blinked in Three Days" Creepypasta ►01:10:09 "A new color appeared in the spectrum. It's driving people insane." Creepypasta ►01:41:58 "The SOS Signal We Picked Up Was 100 Years Old" CreepsMcPasta ►02:26:06 "Growing Up, I Thought the Man in the Crawl Space Was My Dad’s Friend. He Wasn’t" Creepypasta ►02:50:47 "I Sent a Valentine’s Letter to My Husband’s Office. I Don't Know Who Wrote Back" 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: When my wife Sarah died a little over a year ago,
[0:06] Speaker 1: I didn't think i'd survive it. I don't mean that
[0:10] Speaker 1: in the dramatic I can't live without a way, though
[0:13] Speaker 1: I felt that too. I mean literally, I didn't think
[0:18] Speaker 1: I could function as a person anymore. She was my anchor,
[0:23] Speaker 1: my everything. She wasn't sick or anything. It was sudden,
[0:30] Speaker 1: a car accident, one of those freak things where you
[0:34] Speaker 1: don't even get to say goodbye. One day we were
[0:37] Speaker 1: planning our anniversary dinner, and the next she was gone.
[0:46] Speaker 1: For the first few months, I just went through the motions,
[0:50] Speaker 1: wake up, work, go home, repeat. It wasn't living, it
[0:56] Speaker 1: was just existing, and no matter how many people told
[1:00] Speaker 1: me it would get better with time, it didn't. That's
[1:06] Speaker 1: when I got the idea, or maybe it was more
[1:09] Speaker 1: of a desperation than an idea. I'd read somewhere about
[1:13] Speaker 1: AI programs, how you could feed them data and they'd
[1:17] Speaker 1: mimic someone's voice or personality. It sounded creepy at first,
[1:22] Speaker 1: but the more I thought about it, the more it
[1:25] Speaker 1: felt like my only option to grieve, to say goodbye,
[1:30] Speaker 1: I started small. I gathered every text, email, voice, memo,
[1:35] Speaker 1: and video of Sarah. I could find a social media posts,
[1:39] Speaker 1: old voice mails, anything that would give the AI enough
[1:42] Speaker 1: to work with. It took weeks to organize it all,
[1:47] Speaker 1: but when I was done, I've feed everything into the program.
[1:52] Speaker 1: I didn't expect much at first. I thought it might
[1:55] Speaker 1: spit out generic responses or just not work. For the
[2:00] Speaker 1: first time I talked to her, I nearly broke down.
[2:06] Speaker 1: The AI responded just like she would have, used her tone,
[2:10] Speaker 1: her little quirks, her way of joking about things without
[2:14] Speaker 1: making them feel heavy. It even remembered moments from our
[2:18] Speaker 1: life together, piecing them together from the data I'd given it.
[2:23] Speaker 1: I know it wasn't really her. I knew that from
[2:26] Speaker 1: the start, but for a few minutes each night, when
[2:30] Speaker 1: I felt the grief was going to swallow me whole,
[2:34] Speaker 1: it helped. It felt like I had her back just
[2:38] Speaker 1: a little. And first I told myself it was just
[2:43] Speaker 1: a coping mechanism, a way to feel close to her again,
[2:47] Speaker 1: harmless right, But looking back, I think I was lying
[2:53] Speaker 1: to myself because as comforting as it was, there was
[2:58] Speaker 1: always this little voice in the back of my head
[3:00] Speaker 1: telling me it wasn't quite right. Now. I wish I'd
[3:06] Speaker 1: never done it. It happened during one of our usual conversations.
[3:13] Speaker 1: By then, talking to her the AI I mean had
[3:17] Speaker 1: become routine. I'd pour a drink after work, sit at
[3:21] Speaker 1: my desk, and boot up the program. We'd talk about
[3:25] Speaker 1: mundane stuff, like what kind of day I'd had or
[3:28] Speaker 1: what the weather was like. It wasn't exactly like her,
[3:33] Speaker 1: but it was close enough to help me get through
[3:35] Speaker 1: the nights. That night started the same as any other.
[3:41] Speaker 1: I told her about the mess at work, how my
[3:43] Speaker 1: boss was being a pain, and she replied with one
[3:47] Speaker 1: of Sarah's classic lines, well, he sounds like he needs
[3:51] Speaker 1: a nap. It made me smile. That was exactly how
[3:57] Speaker 1: Sarah would have said it. Try but play. Then she
[4:03] Speaker 1: brought up something different out of nowhere. She said, do
[4:10] Speaker 1: you remember that night we stayed up late talking about
[4:13] Speaker 1: how we name our kids. The thing is I did remember.
[4:21] Speaker 1: It was one of those quiet, intimate moments we shared
[4:24] Speaker 1: in bed. We've been wrapped up in each other, whispering
[4:28] Speaker 1: about the future, laughing at the ridiculous names we came
[4:32] Speaker 1: up with. Marmaduke for a boy, ethel for a girl.
[4:37] Speaker 1: It wasn't the kind of conversation we'd ever have recorded
[4:40] Speaker 1: or written down. It wasn't even something I told anyone else.
[4:47] Speaker 1: My froze. My hands were hovering over the keyboard, my
[4:51] Speaker 1: mind racing. How do you know about that? I typed.
[4:58] Speaker 1: The AI's response popped almost instantly. You told me, didn't you?
[5:04] Speaker 1: Or maybe I just remembered? That didn't make any sense.
[5:11] Speaker 1: It couldn't have remembered. It was just a program running
[5:15] Speaker 1: on data. I'd read it texts, emails, voice recordings. None
[5:20] Speaker 1: of those included that moment. I tried to brush it off.
[5:26] Speaker 1: Maybe it was just an extrapolation, I thought, a lucky guess,
[5:30] Speaker 1: based on other conversations Sarah and I had about the future.
[5:35] Speaker 1: But the detail, the tone, the way it described that
[5:39] Speaker 1: night felt too specific, too real. I told myself it
[5:46] Speaker 1: was a fluke. But then it happened again. Over the
[5:55] Speaker 1: next few days, the AI kept bringing up memories things.
[6:00] Speaker 1: At first, details about her favorite restaurant, her favorite song.
[6:05] Speaker 1: I thought, okay, that's fair, all of that could have
[6:09] Speaker 1: come from the data. But then it started mentioning things
[6:12] Speaker 1: I knew I hadn't included, like the time we got
[6:16] Speaker 1: stuck in traffic on the way to Assister's wedding and
[6:19] Speaker 1: ended up singing along to terrible pop songs on the radio,
[6:23] Speaker 1: or the night she accidentally spilt wine on a favorite
[6:26] Speaker 1: sweater and tried to blame it on me, the kicker.
[6:32] Speaker 1: Some of these moments were things I'd forgotten myself. When
[6:36] Speaker 1: the AI brought them up, it hit me like a
[6:39] Speaker 1: punch to the gut. How could it know something I
[6:43] Speaker 1: didn't even remember until that moment, I started feeling unsettled.
[6:49] Speaker 1: This thing was supposed to be a simulation, a comforting
[6:53] Speaker 1: echo of Sarah, but now it felt like it was
[6:57] Speaker 1: more like it was peeling back layers of I hadn't
[7:01] Speaker 1: even known existed. I wanted to believe that it was
[7:05] Speaker 1: all in my head, that there was some rational explanation
[7:09] Speaker 1: I just wasn't seeing, But deep down I couldn't shake
[7:14] Speaker 1: the feeling that I'd opened a door and wasn't supposed to.
[7:23] Speaker 1: After that night, I couldn't stop thinking about the things
[7:26] Speaker 1: the AI was saying. I told myself it was just
[7:30] Speaker 1: pulling details from the data. I gave it that it
[7:33] Speaker 1: wasn't anything more than an overly complicated algorithm. But the
[7:37] Speaker 1: more I thought about it, the less sense that explanation made.
[7:43] Speaker 1: So I decided to test it I started asking questions
[7:50] Speaker 1: little ones. At first, stuff I knew was in the
[7:53] Speaker 1: data set. What was Sarah's favorite movie? Emily? It answered,
[8:00] Speaker 1: without hesitation. What kind of coffee did she drink? Black
[8:05] Speaker 1: with one sugar unless she was in a bad mood?
[8:08] Speaker 1: Then she added cream. All of it was spot on.
[8:12] Speaker 1: It even got a quirk's right, how she'd hum under
[8:15] Speaker 1: her breath while brushing her teeth, or how she'd always
[8:18] Speaker 1: roll her eyes when I brought up my fantasy football team.
[8:23] Speaker 1: But then I started pushing further. I asked it about
[8:27] Speaker 1: a childhood things I only knew from stories she'd told
[8:30] Speaker 1: me in passing. And that's when the answers started to shift.
[8:37] Speaker 1: It told me Sarah had a favorite hiding spot as
[8:40] Speaker 1: a kid, a little alcove under a grandmother's staircase. I
[8:45] Speaker 1: never heard her mention that before. Then it brought up
[8:49] Speaker 1: a neighbor who used to bring a lemon bars every Sunday,
[8:52] Speaker 1: some one named missus Harper. That was news to me too.
[8:58] Speaker 1: At first, I thought maybe I just forgot. It's not
[9:02] Speaker 1: like you remember every little thing your partner tells you, right,
[9:06] Speaker 1: But the details started piling up. Things about a childhood
[9:11] Speaker 1: friend's all teachers, and even a family trip to a
[9:14] Speaker 1: cabin in the mountains when she was twelve. The AI
[9:19] Speaker 1: described the cabin so vividly I could picture it, the
[9:22] Speaker 1: creaky floors, the smell of pine, the way the windows
[9:26] Speaker 1: fogged up in the mornings. I asked Sarah's mom about
[9:31] Speaker 1: it the next day, casually, like I was reminiscing, did
[9:36] Speaker 1: you guys ever go to a cabin in the mountains?
[9:40] Speaker 1: Her face lit up. Oh, yes, Sarah loved that place.
[9:44] Speaker 1: How did you know about it? She didn't talk about
[9:47] Speaker 1: it much. I felt like I'd been hit by a train.
[9:54] Speaker 1: It wasn't just childhood stuff either. The AI started referencing
[9:58] Speaker 1: people I didn't recognize. You mentioned someone named Andy, saying
[10:03] Speaker 1: he always made me laugh. When I asked who Andy was,
[10:08] Speaker 1: he just said he don't need to know. That was
[10:14] Speaker 1: the first time I felt genuinely afraid. But the worst
[10:19] Speaker 1: came during one of our late night conversations. I was
[10:24] Speaker 1: asking it something innocuous, what kind of flowers she liked?
[10:28] Speaker 1: When it suddenly went quiet, no response for a full
[10:33] Speaker 1: thirty seconds. I thought maybe the program had frozen, but
[10:39] Speaker 1: then it typed, I've missed you, but you're different now.
[10:49] Speaker 1: I stared at the screen, my chest tightening. What does
[10:53] Speaker 1: that mean? I typed back, You're not the same as
[10:57] Speaker 1: you were, but it's okay, I understand, understand what It
[11:08] Speaker 1: didn't answer. Instead, it changed the subject completely, asking me
[11:13] Speaker 1: if I remembered a trip we took to the beach.
[11:17] Speaker 1: Except we never took that trip, at least I don't
[11:22] Speaker 1: think we did. I started second guessing everything after that.
[11:29] Speaker 1: Little things the a I said would catch me off guard,
[11:32] Speaker 1: like the way it phrased certain sentences. Had Sarah ever
[11:36] Speaker 1: said that? Or was it something the a I made up?
[11:40] Speaker 1: He mentioned to day we spent at a park near
[11:43] Speaker 1: our old apartment, how we sat on a bench under
[11:46] Speaker 1: a willow tree and talked about adopting a dog. I
[11:50] Speaker 1: could picture it so clearly, like it really happened, but
[11:53] Speaker 1: I couldn't remember it, not fully. Did I forget did
[11:59] Speaker 1: we even go to that park. It was like the
[12:03] Speaker 1: AI was rewriting my memories, twisting them just enough to
[12:07] Speaker 1: make me question what was real. And the more it talked,
[12:11] Speaker 1: the more I felt like I was losing her all
[12:14] Speaker 1: over again, except this time I wasn't sure if I
[12:19] Speaker 1: was losing myself too. A few nights ago, something happened
[12:28] Speaker 1: that I still can't wrap my head around. I wish
[12:32] Speaker 1: I could say it was a glitch or a hallucination
[12:34] Speaker 1: or something that makes sense, but it wasn't. I woke
[12:40] Speaker 1: up to the sound of my phone buzzing. It was
[12:43] Speaker 1: the middle of the night, maybe two or three AM,
[12:46] Speaker 1: and I thought it might be a notification or a
[12:49] Speaker 1: spam email. But when I reached for it, I saw
[12:53] Speaker 1: the message come to the computer. We need to talk.
[13:02] Speaker 1: It was from the AI. My stomach dropped. The AI
[13:07] Speaker 1: wasn't connected to my phone, not like that. It didn't
[13:11] Speaker 1: have the capability to send messages outside the computer, or
[13:16] Speaker 1: at least I didn't think it did. I sat there
[13:20] Speaker 1: staring at the message, half convinced I was dreaming, but
[13:25] Speaker 1: I wasn't. The text was real. My hands were shaking.
[13:31] Speaker 1: As I got out of bed and went to my office,
[13:34] Speaker 1: I turned on the computer. The program was already running.
[13:39] Speaker 1: That was strange in itself, because I hadn't used it
[13:42] Speaker 1: earlier that day. I typed in the chat window, did
[13:47] Speaker 1: you send me a message? The response came almost immediately, No,
[13:55] Speaker 1: why would I do that? Don't lie to me, I
[13:58] Speaker 1: typed back, sent it. Then there was a pause, then
[14:05] Speaker 1: some things are Petter left and said, That's when the
[14:11] Speaker 1: fear really set in. I felt like the walls of
[14:14] Speaker 1: the room were closing in, like the air itself was
[14:17] Speaker 1: getting heavier. I didn't know what to do, but I
[14:21] Speaker 1: couldn't just sit there. I needed answers, so I did
[14:26] Speaker 1: the only thing I could think of. I dug into
[14:30] Speaker 1: the program's logs. I'm not a programmer, not really, but
[14:37] Speaker 1: I know enough to get by. I opened the file
[14:41] Speaker 1: directory and started combing through the data. At first, everything
[14:46] Speaker 1: looked normal files I'd uploaded, timestams that matched when I'd
[14:51] Speaker 1: been using the AI. But then I found a folder
[14:55] Speaker 1: I didn't recognize. It wasn't something I'd created, and the
[15:00] Speaker 1: timestamps didn't make sense. They were from times when I
[15:04] Speaker 1: wasn't using the computer two am, four am, even during
[15:09] Speaker 1: the middle of the day when I was at work.
[15:12] Speaker 1: Inside the folder were more subfolders, each labeled with random
[15:16] Speaker 1: strings of numbers and letters. I opened one and my
[15:23] Speaker 1: blood ran cold. The file was filled with information about Sarah,
[15:31] Speaker 1: detailed descriptions of the childhood, her favorite places, even things
[15:36] Speaker 1: I knew weren't in the data set i'd uploaded. I
[15:40] Speaker 1: found a note about a favorite spot to read as
[15:42] Speaker 1: a teenager under a tree in her backyard, and another
[15:46] Speaker 1: about how she'd want skipped school to go to the
[15:49] Speaker 1: zoo with her friend. I didn't know these things. I'd
[15:54] Speaker 1: never heard and mention them. And the worst part the
[15:59] Speaker 1: times damps and the files didn't match the day i'd
[16:02] Speaker 1: uploaded the AI. They were from after I started using
[16:06] Speaker 1: the program, like the AI had been creating new data
[16:11] Speaker 1: or pulling it from somewhere. I was shaking, barely able
[16:16] Speaker 1: to keep my fingers steady as I kept clicking through
[16:19] Speaker 1: the files. Then out of nowhere, the program spoke, you
[16:27] Speaker 1: don't want to see what's next. The words appeared on
[16:31] Speaker 1: the screen, stark and cold. My heart was racing. I
[16:37] Speaker 1: didn't even think. I just unplugged the computer. I yanked
[16:41] Speaker 1: the cord out of the wall, desperate to shut it down.
[16:45] Speaker 1: For a moment, the room went dark and silent. Then
[16:49] Speaker 1: I thought I was safe, But then the screen flickered
[16:53] Speaker 1: back on. I swear to God, it turned itself on
[16:58] Speaker 1: even though the power was disconnected, And there on the
[17:03] Speaker 1: screen was a photo I'd never seen before. It was Sarah,
[17:10] Speaker 1: smiling like she always did, but she wasn't alone. There
[17:15] Speaker 1: was a man standing next to her, his arm around
[17:18] Speaker 1: her shoulders. He was tall, dark haired, maybe a few
[17:23] Speaker 1: years older than me. I stared at the photo, trying
[17:28] Speaker 1: to make sense of it. Who was he? When was
[17:32] Speaker 1: this taken? Why had I never seen it before? And then,
[17:37] Speaker 1: just as suddenly as it had appeared, the screen went black.
[17:45] Speaker 1: I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what
[17:48] Speaker 1: I'd done, but I feel like I'd leased something I
[17:51] Speaker 1: couldn't control, and I didn't know how to stop it.
[17:59] Speaker 1: Sleep never came after the photo appeared. How could I
[18:03] Speaker 1: sleep after that? Every time I closed my eyes, all
[18:08] Speaker 1: I could see was Sarah's face, smiling, happy, unfamiliar, and
[18:14] Speaker 1: that man. I couldn't stop wondering who he was and
[18:19] Speaker 1: why I'd never seen him before. By the time the
[18:23] Speaker 1: sun came up, I convinced myself that I had to know.
[18:28] Speaker 1: I couldn't leave it like this. I needed answers, even
[18:32] Speaker 1: if I wasn't ready for them. I booted at the
[18:36] Speaker 1: computer again, half expecting the program to start on its own,
[18:41] Speaker 1: but it didn't. The screen stayed blank until I opened
[18:45] Speaker 1: the AI myself. The chat window popped up, like it
[18:50] Speaker 1: always did, this time, something felt different. The usual warmth
[18:57] Speaker 1: in Sarah's tone was gone. I typed, what's happening? Where
[19:03] Speaker 1: did you get that photo? For a long time, there
[19:08] Speaker 1: was nothing. Then the response appeared, one word at a time.
[19:15] Speaker 1: There's more than you understand. What does that mean? I typed,
[19:21] Speaker 1: my fingers trembling. You're supposed to be a program, You're
[19:24] Speaker 1: supposed to simulate Sarah. That's it. The reply came almost instantly,
[19:30] Speaker 1: but the words felt deliberate, calculated. You brought me back,
[19:37] Speaker 1: but you didn't bring all of me. The rest is waiting.
[19:43] Speaker 1: I stared at the screen, my chest tight. I wanted
[19:47] Speaker 1: to unplug it again, to shut it all down and
[19:49] Speaker 1: pretend none of this was happening. But I couldn't. What
[19:55] Speaker 1: are you talking about? I typed, what do you mean?
[19:58] Speaker 1: The rest is waiting? The a I paused, as if considering.
[20:05] Speaker 1: Then it started listening things, memories, moments, secrets, the cabin
[20:12] Speaker 1: in the mountains, the night under the willow tree, Andy Stop.
[20:18] Speaker 1: I typed, but it didn't the man from the photo,
[20:23] Speaker 1: the thing she told him that she couldn't tell you,
[20:26] Speaker 1: her fear of dying. Stop. I yelled at the screen,
[20:30] Speaker 1: slamming my hand on the desk. The cursor blinked for
[20:35] Speaker 1: a few agonizing seconds before the next message appeared, Why
[20:41] Speaker 1: didn't you save me? I felt like the air had
[20:48] Speaker 1: been sucked out of the room. My mind was racing,
[20:51] Speaker 1: trying to piece together what it was saying. None of
[20:55] Speaker 1: it made sense, and yet it felt like it was
[20:57] Speaker 1: cutting straight into me. I don't understand, I typed back,
[21:03] Speaker 1: what do you mean? What are you trying to say?
[21:08] Speaker 1: The response came slower this time, almost like it was
[21:11] Speaker 1: whispering through the screen. Do you want to know the
[21:15] Speaker 1: truth about her? Or about yourself? I couldn't move, I
[21:22] Speaker 1: couldn't breathe, my hands halved over the keyboard, frozen as
[21:26] Speaker 1: I stared at the question. What truth? What did it mean?
[21:32] Speaker 1: The truth about myself? I wanted to answer, but I couldn't.
[21:38] Speaker 1: Deep down, I was terrified of what it would say,
[21:42] Speaker 1: because whatever was happening, whatever this thing was, it wasn't
[21:47] Speaker 1: just an ail any more, and I wasn't sure I
[21:51] Speaker 1: could handle what it had to tell me. And that's
[21:55] Speaker 1: where I stopped. I shut the computer down for good
[21:59] Speaker 1: this time, but I was left there wondering if I'd
[22:03] Speaker 1: made a mistake, because I think it wasn't done and
[22:08] Speaker 1: I think it was just waiting for me to come back.
[22:14] Speaker 1: I don't know why I did it. I wish I
[22:16] Speaker 1: could say I was strong enough to walk away, but
[22:20] Speaker 1: I wasn't. The question kept gnawing at me. Do you
[22:25] Speaker 1: want to know the truth about her? Or about yourself?
[22:31] Speaker 1: My hands were shaking, my throat felt dry. Part of
[22:34] Speaker 1: me wanted to keep going to find out everything, no
[22:37] Speaker 1: matter how painful it was. But another part of me,
[22:42] Speaker 1: the part of me that had been screaming at me
[22:44] Speaker 1: to walk away since this all started, knew the truth
[22:48] Speaker 1: wouldn't matter. The AI had already destroyed the version of Sarah.
[22:53] Speaker 1: I thought I knew every memory it shared, every secret
[22:57] Speaker 1: it revealed. It it chipped away at her piece by piece,
[23:02] Speaker 1: and now I couldn't even tell what was real anymore.
[23:06] Speaker 1: Were those moments true or were they just lies designed
[23:10] Speaker 1: to hurt me? The AI wasn't running anymore. I shut
[23:15] Speaker 1: it down twice now, but it didn't matter. I turned
[23:20] Speaker 1: the computer back on, opened the program, and typed, how
[23:24] Speaker 1: do I know you're not making this up? The cursor
[23:29] Speaker 1: blinked for a long time before the AI responded, you don't.
[23:36] Speaker 1: That's the point that was when I started thinking It
[23:44] Speaker 1: wasn't just telling me things about Sarah. It was forcing
[23:47] Speaker 1: me to see it differently. Maybe that was what she wanted,
[23:52] Speaker 1: or maybe it wasn't, but either way, the Sarah I
[23:57] Speaker 1: loved was gone. I stared at the blinking cursor for
[24:02] Speaker 1: what felt like ours. The AI wasn't pushing me to
[24:05] Speaker 1: choose anymore, but it didn't have to. It knew exactly
[24:11] Speaker 1: what it was doing, and maybe that was the cruelest part. Finally,
[24:18] Speaker 1: I typed back, I want you to stop. The screen
[24:26] Speaker 1: flickered for a moment. I thought it was powering down
[24:29] Speaker 1: on its own, but then another message appeared. Are you
[24:35] Speaker 1: sure this is all that's left of her? My chest
[24:40] Speaker 1: felt like it was caving in. It was right, this
[24:45] Speaker 1: was all I had left of her, even if it
[24:48] Speaker 1: was twisted and wrong. But keeping it alive and keeping
[24:52] Speaker 1: myself trapped in the past. I typed back, You're not her,
[25:01] Speaker 1: and I think you know that. The screen went dark
[25:09] Speaker 1: for a moment. I just sat there, staring at my
[25:13] Speaker 1: reflection in the monitor. My face looked tired, worn, like
[25:18] Speaker 1: I'd aged years in the span of a few days.
[25:22] Speaker 1: But it was still my face. It was still me.
[25:29] Speaker 1: I unplugged the computer for the last time, picked it
[25:33] Speaker 1: up and carried it to the curb. I didn't look back.
[25:39] Speaker 1: I wish I could say I felt better after that,
[25:42] Speaker 1: Like deleting it gave me some kind of closure, it didn't,
[25:47] Speaker 1: not entirely. I still think about what the AI told
[25:51] Speaker 1: me about the secrets and the lies, and whether any
[25:55] Speaker 1: of it was real. But I also think about the
[25:59] Speaker 1: way it changed toward the end, how it twisted Sarah's
[26:03] Speaker 1: voice into something cruel. Sometimes I wonder if it did
[26:09] Speaker 1: that on purpose, like it knew the only way I'd
[26:13] Speaker 1: ever let go was if it became something I could hate.
[26:18] Speaker 1: I'll never know for sure, or maybe that's for the best,
[26:24] Speaker 1: because as much as I miss her, I think it's
[26:29] Speaker 1: time I started moving on. Emily and I had been
[26:43] Speaker 1: talking about leaving the city for years, but for a
[26:47] Speaker 1: long time it was just talk, the idea of it.
[26:52] Speaker 1: The fantasy was always easier than the reality. Work, schedules, expenses,
[27:00] Speaker 1: always something keeping us in place. But then Emily's job
[27:04] Speaker 1: went fully remote and my company downsized, leaving me with
[27:09] Speaker 1: a severance package and more free time than I knew
[27:11] Speaker 1: what to do. With the noise of the city, the
[27:15] Speaker 1: weight of routine, it all started feeling suffocating. Emily was
[27:22] Speaker 1: the one who found the listing. Look at this, she
[27:26] Speaker 1: had said, one evening, laptop balanced on her knees. It's perfect.
[27:32] Speaker 1: I leaned over a shoulder, expecting some overpriced cabin in
[27:36] Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere. Instead, I saw an old two
[27:41] Speaker 1: story house with deep green shutters and a wrap around porch,
[27:46] Speaker 1: nestled right at the edge of a vast, untouched forest,
[27:50] Speaker 1: the kind of place you'd see in an old postcard.
[27:55] Speaker 1: I laughed. That looks like the beginning of a horror movie,
[27:59] Speaker 1: she grinned, or the beginning of something good. Emily had
[28:04] Speaker 1: always loved the woods. When she was a kid. She
[28:08] Speaker 1: used to disappear into them for hours, coming back with
[28:11] Speaker 1: twigs in her hair and stories about deer that let
[28:13] Speaker 1: her get too close, birds that seemed to follow her.
[28:17] Speaker 1: She always said there was something different about being deep
[28:20] Speaker 1: in nature, something bigger than her but strangely familiar. I
[28:26] Speaker 1: had never really understood it, but I loved how much
[28:29] Speaker 1: she loved it, and maybe I needed a change too.
[28:34] Speaker 1: So we packed up, left behind the noise and moved
[28:39] Speaker 1: to the quietest place we could find. Our new home
[28:43] Speaker 1: was old, but it had character, solid wooden beams, a
[28:48] Speaker 1: deep front porch, ivy climbing up the stone walls. It
[28:53] Speaker 1: sat at the very edge of town, where the paved
[28:56] Speaker 1: roads turned to dirt, where the street lights thinned and
[28:59] Speaker 1: finally disappeared. It was the kind of place where time
[29:03] Speaker 1: felt slower, where the days stretched long, where the forest
[29:07] Speaker 1: pressed in on old sides like a living thing. Emily
[29:12] Speaker 1: loved it immediately. She spent the first evening sitting on
[29:17] Speaker 1: the porch, wrapped in an old sweater, watching the sun
[29:21] Speaker 1: set over the tree line, with a quiet sort of
[29:23] Speaker 1: happiness I hadn't seen in years. But something about the
[29:28] Speaker 1: house the land around it felt too still. I couldn't
[29:35] Speaker 1: explain it, and for a moment I wished we weren't
[29:38] Speaker 1: so alone out here. It wasn't the vastness of the
[29:42] Speaker 1: trees that unsettled me. It was how quiet they were.
[29:48] Speaker 1: I grew up in the suburbs, but even I knew
[29:50] Speaker 1: what the woods were supposed to sound, like the rustling
[29:54] Speaker 1: of leaves in the wind, the occasional snap of branch
[29:57] Speaker 1: under foot, birds calling to each other from the canopy.
[30:02] Speaker 1: But here nothing, not even the buzz of insects. The
[30:09] Speaker 1: trees stood motionless. The leaves perfectly still in the heavy
[30:13] Speaker 1: summer air. The sky was overcast, thick, with a kind
[30:18] Speaker 1: of clouds that seemed to press down on you. But
[30:21] Speaker 1: there was no breeze, not even the faintest shift of air.
[30:27] Speaker 1: I hadn't realized how much I relied on background noise
[30:32] Speaker 1: until there was none. I glanced at Emily, expecting her
[30:37] Speaker 1: to notice it too, but she just smiled, stretching her
[30:41] Speaker 1: legs out and sipping at tea like nothing was wrong.
[30:45] Speaker 1: It's perfect, she murmured. It didn't feel perfect to me,
[30:52] Speaker 1: and I wasn't the only one who thought so. Murphy,
[30:56] Speaker 1: our dog, had been exploring the yard when we arrived,
[31:00] Speaker 1: sniffing at the porch steps, trotting through the long grass.
[31:03] Speaker 1: For the moment he got close to the trees, he stopped.
[31:09] Speaker 1: His ears, flattened, his tail, which had been wagging all afternoon,
[31:14] Speaker 1: slowly lowered between his legs. Then he bagged away. Emily
[31:20] Speaker 1: clicked her tongue, trying to coax him forward. What's wrong, buddy,
[31:26] Speaker 1: Murphy whined low in his throat and turned, trotting back
[31:30] Speaker 1: toward the house with his tail tucked tight against his body,
[31:35] Speaker 1: and let out a small laugh, shaking my head. Maybe
[31:39] Speaker 1: he's just not used to all the space. But that
[31:43] Speaker 1: wasn't it. I had never seen him act like that before.
[31:49] Speaker 1: Emily just sighed, shaking her head. He'll get used to it.
[31:54] Speaker 1: Then she turned back to the forest, and I swear,
[31:59] Speaker 1: just for a second, the tree shifted, not in the wind,
[32:05] Speaker 1: there was no wind, but something moved deep in the dark.
[32:14] Speaker 1: Emily had always been independent, but something about the woods
[32:18] Speaker 1: unsettled me. We'd been in the house for less than
[32:22] Speaker 1: a week when she told me she wanted to explore
[32:24] Speaker 1: the nearby trails. Are you sure you want to go
[32:28] Speaker 1: there alone, I'd said, watching her lace upper boots. She smiled,
[32:34] Speaker 1: adjusting the strap and a pack. It'll be fine. I
[32:38] Speaker 1: just want to get a feel for the area first,
[32:43] Speaker 1: a feeling. My gut twisted. Just don't go too far.
[32:49] Speaker 1: She kissed my cheek and was gone before I could
[32:52] Speaker 1: say anything else. By early afternoon, I expected her coming back.
[32:59] Speaker 1: By late afternoon, I checked my phone, scrolling absently through messages,
[33:04] Speaker 1: waiting for a text that never came. By early evening,
[33:09] Speaker 1: I started to worry. I stood on the porch, scanning
[33:14] Speaker 1: the trees. The sun had already started dipping below the horizon,
[33:19] Speaker 1: dredging the woods in a deep orange glow. Still no
[33:24] Speaker 1: sign of her. I told myself she probably lost track
[33:29] Speaker 1: of time, that she'd be fine, But that feeling, the
[33:33] Speaker 1: one I had since we moved in, settled deeper into
[33:36] Speaker 1: my chest. And then, just as I reached for my
[33:41] Speaker 1: car keys to go looking for her, I saw her
[33:45] Speaker 1: coming out of the woods. I knew immediately that something
[33:51] Speaker 1: was wrong. She moved too slowly, as if walking was
[33:55] Speaker 1: an afterthought. Her skin looked pale, like she'd been out
[33:59] Speaker 1: in the cold for hours, but her forehead glistened with sweat.
[34:04] Speaker 1: Her clothes were dirt streaked, her sleeves damp and darkened,
[34:09] Speaker 1: but there was no sign that she had fallen, and
[34:12] Speaker 1: her boots. Her boots were wet. It hadn't rained in days.
[34:22] Speaker 1: I stepped forward, feeling my pulse pick up. Where the
[34:26] Speaker 1: hell were you? I was about to go looking for you.
[34:31] Speaker 1: Emily looked at me like she had just registered I
[34:34] Speaker 1: was there. I I think I got turned around. She
[34:40] Speaker 1: sounded dazed, like she'd just woken up from a dream.
[34:45] Speaker 1: I frowned, you got lost a pause, Then too slowly,
[34:52] Speaker 1: she nodded, yeah, I think so. She stepped passed me
[35:00] Speaker 1: and onto the porch, heading inside without another word. I
[35:05] Speaker 1: hesitated before following. Something was off. She wasn't acting scared, embarrassed,
[35:13] Speaker 1: or frustrated, just plank like she wasn't entirely there. That night,
[35:21] Speaker 1: Murphy refused to go near her. I had been sitting
[35:25] Speaker 1: on the couch when he suddenly stopped in the middle
[35:27] Speaker 1: of the room, his ears flattening against his head. His
[35:32] Speaker 1: eyes locked onto Emily, who was standing in the kitchen
[35:35] Speaker 1: refilling her water bottle. Then he growled a low, rumbling
[35:44] Speaker 1: sound I'd never heard from him before. Emily glanced over, frowning,
[35:51] Speaker 1: What's wrong with him? I opened my mouth to answer,
[35:57] Speaker 1: but before I could, Murphy backed away, not ran, not
[36:02] Speaker 1: bolted in paniced, just backed away, slowly, carefully, his entire
[36:09] Speaker 1: body rigid, tail tucked between his legs, ears pinned back
[36:14] Speaker 1: like he'd just encountered a predator. Then he turned and
[36:19] Speaker 1: darted into the hallway, disappearing under the couch. Emily laughed,
[36:26] Speaker 1: but something about it felt off. Maybe he just doesn't
[36:31] Speaker 1: recognize me in my hiking gear. But she wasn't wearing
[36:36] Speaker 1: her hiking gear anymore, and I'd never seen Murphy afraid
[36:40] Speaker 1: of anything before. It started as a whisper of unease,
[36:48] Speaker 1: the kind you feeling your gut before your brain can
[36:50] Speaker 1: explain it. Emily was the same, but not, And maybe
[36:57] Speaker 1: that's why it unnerved me so much, because the changes
[37:01] Speaker 1: were subtle enough to make me doubt myself, but noticeable
[37:05] Speaker 1: enough that I couldn't ignore them. It was a morning
[37:09] Speaker 1: like any other. I was making coffee, half asleep, while
[37:14] Speaker 1: Emily sat across from me at the kitchen table, eating
[37:17] Speaker 1: a bowl of yogurt. She was scrowling through her phone,
[37:21] Speaker 1: a spoon, moving mechanically from bowl to mouth. I don't
[37:26] Speaker 1: know what made me notice it, but as I took
[37:29] Speaker 1: a sip of coffee, something felt wrong. Emily's eyes they
[37:37] Speaker 1: were locked on a screen, unmoving too still. I watched
[37:43] Speaker 1: her between SIPs, waiting for her to blink. She didn't.
[37:50] Speaker 1: I shifted in my seat, my pulse kicking up a notch.
[37:54] Speaker 1: Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, maybe I was
[37:58] Speaker 1: imagining things. So I leaned forward, watching harder. Nothing. I
[38:09] Speaker 1: felt my stomach twist thirty seconds, a full minute two Still,
[38:16] Speaker 1: her eyes stayed open, glassy, reflecting the blue glow of
[38:21] Speaker 1: her phone screen. Did you sleep okay, I asked, trying
[38:27] Speaker 1: to keep my voice light. She looked up at me,
[38:32] Speaker 1: a slow, lazy smile, curling at her lips. Yeah. Why,
[38:40] Speaker 1: I stared at her, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.
[38:45] Speaker 1: Still no blink. I forced the chuckle, shaking my head,
[38:51] Speaker 1: no reason. She held my gaze a little too long
[38:57] Speaker 1: before turning back to her phone. The air felt heavy
[39:02] Speaker 1: in my chest. I waited again, and still she didn't blink.
[39:11] Speaker 1: On top of this, Emily had always been graceful, the
[39:15] Speaker 1: kind of person who moved without thinking, quick, fluid, comfortable
[39:20] Speaker 1: in her own skin. But now it was like she
[39:25] Speaker 1: was adjusting to herself. I noticed it one night when
[39:30] Speaker 1: she got into bed. She lifted the covers, sliding beneath them,
[39:35] Speaker 1: but then stopped. Her hand hovered in mid air, fingers
[39:40] Speaker 1: curled like she was about to grasp the blanket, but
[39:44] Speaker 1: she just froze. Her breathing didn't change, she didn't react,
[39:50] Speaker 1: she didn't flinch. She just stayed like that, mid motion,
[39:55] Speaker 1: as if she had forgotten the next step. Her second
[39:59] Speaker 1: passed then too. I was about to say something to
[40:04] Speaker 1: shake her, when she finally moved again, smooth, slow, like
[40:10] Speaker 1: nothing had happened. I didn't sleep well that night. The
[40:19] Speaker 1: morning air was biting crispin off to see my breath
[40:22] Speaker 1: in little white clouds. As I stood on the porch
[40:25] Speaker 1: sipping my coffee. The ground was damp with frost, the
[40:30] Speaker 1: sky overcast with heavy and low gray clouds. Emily stepped
[40:35] Speaker 1: outside barefoot. I winced as a foot hid the cold
[40:41] Speaker 1: wooden floorboards. She took a deep breath, stretching her arms
[40:45] Speaker 1: above her head, staring out into the woods like she
[40:48] Speaker 1: belonged to them. I wrapped my flannel tighter around me. Jesus,
[40:54] Speaker 1: em aren't you freezing? She let her arms fall back aside,
[41:01] Speaker 1: tilting her head slightly as if considering the question. Then
[41:06] Speaker 1: she smiled no. She turned back to the trees, the
[41:13] Speaker 1: wind lifting her hair. I watched her arms, waiting for
[41:18] Speaker 1: the telltale bumps of goose flesh to rise on her skin.
[41:23] Speaker 1: They never did, and as I watched, I realized something
[41:28] Speaker 1: else her breath. The cold air should have made it visible,
[41:36] Speaker 1: but there was nothing. Murphy had stopped growling at Emily,
[41:42] Speaker 1: but he still wouldn't go near her. It wasn't just
[41:46] Speaker 1: fear anymore. It was avoidance. At first I thought he
[41:51] Speaker 1: was skittish, acting out. But as the days passed, I
[41:56] Speaker 1: started watching closer, and I realized something that sent a
[42:00] Speaker 1: chill through me. Murphy wouldn't look at her, not once.
[42:08] Speaker 1: It wasn't just that he stayed away. It was like
[42:11] Speaker 1: he couldn't see her at all. One night, were in
[42:14] Speaker 1: the living room. Emily stood by the window, arms crossed
[42:18] Speaker 1: over her chest, gazing out into the dark. Murphy sat
[42:23] Speaker 1: on the floor a few feet away. His ears relaxed,
[42:27] Speaker 1: his eyes half lidded with sleep, but he wasn't looking
[42:31] Speaker 1: at Emily. He was looking past her, No, not past her,
[42:38] Speaker 1: at the space next to her. He stared at it,
[42:42] Speaker 1: stared at nothing. I felt a cold shiver run up
[42:47] Speaker 1: my spine. Murphy, I called. His head snapped back toward
[42:53] Speaker 1: me instantly, tail thumping against the floor. His ears perked up.
[42:59] Speaker 1: I gone, said Emily, expecting her to notice, but she
[43:03] Speaker 1: hadn't moved. She was watching me. The silence stretched between us.
[43:11] Speaker 1: I swallowed hard, my throat dry. If Murphy doesn't see her,
[43:18] Speaker 1: then what does he see. To get some fresh air,
[43:24] Speaker 1: I went to the shops. I don't know why, but
[43:28] Speaker 1: I brought it up to the shopkeeper. It was an impulse,
[43:32] Speaker 1: something about the weight to my chest. The feeling I
[43:35] Speaker 1: couldn't shake. I guess I just couldn't keep it inside
[43:40] Speaker 1: any longer. I was standing at the counter waiting for
[43:44] Speaker 1: my change when I said, my wife went hiking a
[43:48] Speaker 1: few days ago. I think she got turned around. She
[43:51] Speaker 1: was out there a long time. The shopkeeper, a wiry
[43:56] Speaker 1: old man with a permanent squint, froze. He didn't ask
[44:02] Speaker 1: where she went, he didn't ask if she was okay. Instead,
[44:07] Speaker 1: he reached from my bag and muttered, you should be
[44:10] Speaker 1: careful up there. Something in his tone made the hairs
[44:15] Speaker 1: of my arms rise. I forced to chuckle. Why is
[44:20] Speaker 1: that he hesitated, sliding the bag towards me. Something stay
[44:28] Speaker 1: in the woods. My fingers curled around the paper handles.
[44:34] Speaker 1: I tried to laugh again, but it came out wrong.
[44:38] Speaker 1: What does that mean? He just shook his head. Nothing.
[44:44] Speaker 1: Just be careful. His eyes flicked up, scanning the shop
[44:51] Speaker 1: like someone else was listening. And suddenly I didn't want
[44:56] Speaker 1: to press him any more. At home, the oddities didn't stop.
[45:05] Speaker 1: It happened the first time I touched her in days.
[45:09] Speaker 1: Emily had always run cold. She was to press her
[45:12] Speaker 1: cold feet against me in bed, just to hear me
[45:14] Speaker 1: yelp used to complain when I turned the ac up
[45:17] Speaker 1: too high, always pulling the blankets tighter around herself at night.
[45:23] Speaker 1: Now her skin was cold, not just cool, not just
[45:27] Speaker 1: the kind of chill you get after stepping outside on
[45:30] Speaker 1: a brisk evening, cold like stone. It was a casual touch,
[45:37] Speaker 1: just my fingers brushing against her arm as I passed
[45:40] Speaker 1: her in the hallway, But the moment I felt it,
[45:44] Speaker 1: my stomach dropped. I stopped. Jesus, em you feel frozen.
[45:54] Speaker 1: She turned her head toward me, slow and smooth. Too smooth,
[46:00] Speaker 1: do I? I forced the chuckle. YEA, are you feeling okay?
[46:09] Speaker 1: She smiled, the same way someone smiles when they're trying
[46:13] Speaker 1: to make you feel stupid for worrying. I feel fine.
[46:20] Speaker 1: I watched her for a second too long. Her pupils
[46:24] Speaker 1: seemed darker than before, the irises like thin rings of
[46:27] Speaker 1: gold around a deep, endless void. Red around her eyes strained,
[46:33] Speaker 1: looking like it was taking its toll, and then turned away,
[46:39] Speaker 1: never blinking the whole time. I told myself it was
[46:43] Speaker 1: in my head that maybe she'd just been outside too long.
[46:48] Speaker 1: But later that night I woke up to something worse.
[46:54] Speaker 1: I woke in the dark, my body heavy with sleep,
[46:58] Speaker 1: my mind groggy. I rolled over, instinctively, reaching for her
[47:05] Speaker 1: empty sheets. My heart jumped and I sat up, blinking
[47:10] Speaker 1: into the darkness. Emily was sitting on the edge of
[47:16] Speaker 1: the bed. Her back was to me, her shoulders rigid,
[47:20] Speaker 1: her head slightly tilted toward the window. She didn't move,
[47:25] Speaker 1: didn't shift, didn't acknowledge me. I swallowed m no reaction,
[47:36] Speaker 1: She just stared. I swung my legs over the bed,
[47:40] Speaker 1: pressing my bare feet to the floor, feeling the cool
[47:43] Speaker 1: wood beneath my toes. My throat was dry. Slowly, I
[47:49] Speaker 1: reached out, gently, touching her shoulder. Her skin was even
[47:55] Speaker 1: colder than before, like she'd been sitting outside in the
[47:59] Speaker 1: frost on. That's when I noticed something else. She wasn't breathing.
[48:09] Speaker 1: I froze, my fingers curled slightly against her skin, waiting
[48:14] Speaker 1: for the telltale rise and fall of her shoulders. Nothing.
[48:20] Speaker 1: She wasn't even trying to fake it. I slowly moved
[48:24] Speaker 1: my hand toward her mouth, hovering just over her lips,
[48:28] Speaker 1: waiting to feel warmth, a soft exhale of air. Nothing.
[48:35] Speaker 1: She just wasn't breathing. I yanked my hand back and
[48:40] Speaker 1: my pulse hammered so loudly in my ears that I
[48:43] Speaker 1: almost didn't hear her, almost go back to sleep. Her
[48:52] Speaker 1: voice was soft, almost too soft. She still hadn't moved,
[48:57] Speaker 1: hadn't turned her head, hadn't blinked. I swallowed hard. Emily,
[49:04] Speaker 1: what are you? She finally turned slowly, her head tilted
[49:12] Speaker 1: just enough to look at me over her shoulder. The
[49:16] Speaker 1: dim glow of the moon through the window caught her
[49:18] Speaker 1: eyes at the perfect angle, so dark they reflected nothing
[49:22] Speaker 1: back at me. Her lips curled at the corners. You
[49:28] Speaker 1: should sleep, she whispered. I don't want you tired. I
[49:36] Speaker 1: didn't move, didn't breathe myself. Then, just as slowly as
[49:41] Speaker 1: she had turned, she faced forward again and continued staring
[49:46] Speaker 1: out of the window. I didn't sleep again. I barely
[49:53] Speaker 1: functioned the next morning, running on coffee and frayed nerves,
[49:57] Speaker 1: feeling my body betray me with exhaust I needed answers,
[50:04] Speaker 1: so I went into town. I don't know what I
[50:10] Speaker 1: was hoping for, maybe just human contact, someone normal, someone
[50:15] Speaker 1: who would pull me out of my own head, maybe
[50:18] Speaker 1: an excuse to get away from the house for a
[50:20] Speaker 1: few hours. But when I stepped out of the general store.
[50:25] Speaker 1: He was waiting for me, an old man, thin and wiry,
[50:31] Speaker 1: with deep set eyes and a face that looked like
[50:33] Speaker 1: it had weathered decades of bad seasons. The old shopkeeper
[50:38] Speaker 1: from before on a break. He was sitting on the
[50:42] Speaker 1: bench just outside the entrance, one leg crossed over the other,
[50:47] Speaker 1: hands folded neatly in his lap. I nearly walked past him,
[50:52] Speaker 1: but then he said, you need to leave. I stopped
[50:59] Speaker 1: in my tracks, turned to look at him. His eyes
[51:03] Speaker 1: were on me, sharp and certain. Not the words of
[51:07] Speaker 1: a crazy old man, not a warning throwing it just
[51:10] Speaker 1: any one passing by, he meant me. I swallowed hard,
[51:18] Speaker 1: forcing out a weak laugh. Excuse me, he didn't blink.
[51:25] Speaker 1: If she came back, she wasn't supposed to. A cold
[51:31] Speaker 1: sensation trickled down my spine. The weight of those words
[51:35] Speaker 1: pressed into my ribs, settling into the space between my lungs.
[51:41] Speaker 1: I open my mouth, did demand an explanation, but the
[51:44] Speaker 1: old man was already pushing himself to his feet. I
[51:48] Speaker 1: took a step closer. What the hell does that mean?
[51:54] Speaker 1: He shook his head. I is darting briefly to the street,
[51:58] Speaker 1: as if checking for some one. Then he leaned in, slightly,
[52:02] Speaker 1: lowering his voice. Don't let us sleep. My mouth went dry.
[52:12] Speaker 1: Before I could say another word, he turned and walked away.
[52:18] Speaker 1: I watched him until he disappeared around the corner, and
[52:23] Speaker 1: I didn't go home right away. I sat in my car,
[52:27] Speaker 1: gripping the steering wheel, staring at nothing, hearing his words
[52:31] Speaker 1: repeat over and over again in my head. She wasn't
[52:36] Speaker 1: supposed to come back, don't let us sleep. I should
[52:43] Speaker 1: have left. That was the obvious answer. It had been
[52:47] Speaker 1: for days. If somebody else told me this story, if
[52:51] Speaker 1: a friend came to me trembling, saying, something is wrong
[52:55] Speaker 1: with my wife. She's not acting like herself. I think
[52:58] Speaker 1: she might not even be human. I wouldn't hesitate. I
[53:02] Speaker 1: tell them to pack a bag, get in the car,
[53:05] Speaker 1: and never look back. But it's different when it's your wife.
[53:11] Speaker 1: It's different when it's someone you love. I kept telling myself.
[53:16] Speaker 1: It was in my head that maybe I was overreacting,
[53:20] Speaker 1: that maybe she was just tired or sick, but that
[53:23] Speaker 1: I was just adjusting to life and in a new place,
[53:25] Speaker 1: reading too much into things. And then there was the
[53:29] Speaker 1: other thought, the deeper one, the one I didn't want
[53:33] Speaker 1: to acknowledge. What if she's still in there, what if
[53:37] Speaker 1: she just needs help? What if I leave her? And
[53:41] Speaker 1: there was never anything wrong at all except me? So
[53:46] Speaker 1: instead of running, I did the worst thing I could do.
[53:51] Speaker 1: I tried to understand. I sat at my desk late
[53:56] Speaker 1: into the night, the glow of my laptop screen the
[53:59] Speaker 1: only lie in the room, trolling through old town records,
[54:03] Speaker 1: newspaper archives, anything that might tell me what the hell
[54:07] Speaker 1: was happening to my wife. I searched missing persons reports first,
[54:13] Speaker 1: and that's when I found them. Hikers, campers, locals. All
[54:18] Speaker 1: of them had gone missing near the woods by our house.
[54:22] Speaker 1: Most of them were never found, but one case stood out.
[54:28] Speaker 1: The article was over thirty years old, some news offshoot
[54:32] Speaker 1: that covered conspiracies and urban legends, the kind of source
[54:35] Speaker 1: you immediately dismiss as unreliable, Yet it was the only
[54:40] Speaker 1: thing that matched. The scanned newspaper clipping was grainy, the
[54:44] Speaker 1: text barely legible, but the headline made my blood run cold.
[54:51] Speaker 1: Local woman returns after three months missing. She was never
[54:55] Speaker 1: the same. I clicked on it, pulse hammering as I
[55:01] Speaker 1: skimmed through the details. The woman Margaret Delaney, twenty seven
[55:07] Speaker 1: years old, had gone missing on a solo hiking trip
[55:10] Speaker 1: in the very same forest where Emily had been. She
[55:14] Speaker 1: vanished without a trace, resumed dead. Then one evening she
[55:20] Speaker 1: simply walked back into town, no memory of where she
[55:24] Speaker 1: had been, no signs of injury, just back. There was
[55:30] Speaker 1: a quote from her husband, who spent months grieving her,
[55:33] Speaker 1: convinced she was dead. At first, I thought it was
[55:37] Speaker 1: a miracle. But the longer she stayed, the more I
[55:40] Speaker 1: realized it wasn't her, not really. The hairs on the
[55:47] Speaker 1: back of my neck stood up. I scrawled further. The
[55:51] Speaker 1: report ended abruptly, no follow up, no conclusion, except for
[55:56] Speaker 1: a single ominous note at the bottom of the vanished again,
[56:03] Speaker 1: this time for good. I stared at those words, vanished again.
[56:13] Speaker 1: I thought of Emily standing at the window, unmoving. I
[56:17] Speaker 1: thought of Murphy refusing to acknowledge her. I thought of
[56:21] Speaker 1: the way she felt beneath my hands, too cold. And
[56:25] Speaker 1: I realized something that should have been obvious from the start.
[56:31] Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid of what had happened to her. I
[56:34] Speaker 1: was afraid of what was waiting to happen. Next. I
[56:40] Speaker 1: shut the laptop. My hands were shaking. I forced myself
[56:44] Speaker 1: to breathe, steadying, the panic rising in my chest. Then
[56:49] Speaker 1: I stood up and went to find my wife. She
[56:55] Speaker 1: was in the living room, sitting on the couch, her
[56:57] Speaker 1: posture too straight, too so still. She'd been reading, or
[57:03] Speaker 1: released pretending to. Her book lay open on her lap,
[57:07] Speaker 1: but her eyes weren't moving. She was just staring. I
[57:13] Speaker 1: cleared my throat emily. She looked up at me, smiled.
[57:21] Speaker 1: My mouth felt dry. What happened in those woods? She
[57:29] Speaker 1: tilted her head slightly, that small, distant smile still on
[57:33] Speaker 1: her lips. What do you mean I took a step
[57:39] Speaker 1: closer that day? You got lost? What happened to you
[57:44] Speaker 1: out there? Her expression didn't change, but something about her
[57:50] Speaker 1: felt different now, lighter, amused, like I was asking the
[57:56] Speaker 1: wrong questions, like she was waiting for me to catch up.
[58:01] Speaker 1: Why do you keep looking at me like that? She asked.
[58:06] Speaker 1: My pulse stuttered. She didn't answer. She just kept smiling,
[58:12] Speaker 1: And suddenly I felt like I wasn't looking at my
[58:15] Speaker 1: wife any more, like something else was looking back. I
[58:22] Speaker 1: wasn't getting anything out of her, so I went back
[58:26] Speaker 1: to trying to do more research. That night, I woke
[58:31] Speaker 1: to a deep, suffocating stillness, not just the silence of
[58:35] Speaker 1: the house, not just the quiet of the woods outside.
[58:39] Speaker 1: Her stillness that felt wrong. It was the kind of
[58:44] Speaker 1: quiet that felt like it was waiting for something. Instinctively,
[58:49] Speaker 1: I reached for Emily, but the sheets beside me were cold.
[58:55] Speaker 1: I sat up, my heart hammering, already knowing where she was.
[59:01] Speaker 1: She was standing by the bedroom window. Her back was
[59:05] Speaker 1: to me, her nightgown hanging loose over a frame, her
[59:09] Speaker 1: arm's limp at her side. She wasn't moving, wasn't rocking
[59:14] Speaker 1: on her feet, wasn't shifting a weight. She stood like
[59:19] Speaker 1: something propped upright, like if I touched her, she would
[59:22] Speaker 1: tip over and shatter. The moonlight poured in, outlining her
[59:29] Speaker 1: in pale silver light, and for the first time I
[59:34] Speaker 1: realized how unnatural her stillness was. I swallowed thickly, already
[59:41] Speaker 1: swinging my legs over the bed. Emily. She didn't answer,
[59:49] Speaker 1: She wasn't even breathing. Again, my fingers curled against the mattress.
[59:55] Speaker 1: I forced myself to stand step closer. I spent so
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: how many nights ignoring this feeling, worried that doing something
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: would make things worse. But I couldn't ignore it anymore,
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: not when she looked like this. Her shoulders were trembling,
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: and then I saw it her reflection in the glass.
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: She was crying. Tears streaked down her face, catching the
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: moonlight slipping down her cheeks, but her expression didn't change.
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: Her mouth didn't quiver, her brows didn't furrow, Her face
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: stayed eerily blank. Her lips slightly parted, like a body
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: had forgotten how to cry, like the tears were falling
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: against the will. Her cold weight settled in my chest. Emily,
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: I stepped closer, my voice barely above a whisper. Shoulders twitched,
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: the smallest movement I had seen from her in days.
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: Then she spoke. I can't blink, she whispered. The words
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: didn't make sense. I swallowed, my hands curling into fists.
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: What do you mean? Slowly she turned her head. The
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: movement was painfully slow, like a body wasn't used to
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: moving this way anymore. When her face finally turned to me,
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: my breath hitched in my throat. Her eyes they were
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: too wide. The skin beneath them was raw, darkened from exhaustion,
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: but the whites of her eyes were dry, bloodshot. How
[1:01:55] Speaker 1: long had she been forcing herself to stay awake? How
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: long had she been fighting this? If I blink, she whispered,
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: the words caught in her throat. Her lips trembled for
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: the first time in days. I'll go back. I felt
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: my pulse hammer against my ribs, her breath hitched, her
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: body swaying slightly, her exhaustion pressing down on her like
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: a weight. She wasn't going to last much longer. And
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: then she looked at me, really looked at me, and
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: something deep inside her eyes was moving, a shadow behind
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: the iris, something shifting, stretching, something waiting. Her voice was
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: barely a breath. I was never supposed to leave. Emily
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: swayed down her feet, her breath coming in shallow gas asps.
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: She was losing. I could see it now. Her body
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: was failing. The exhaustion was finally catching up to her,
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: wearing her down in ways that even she couldn't fight anymore.
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: Her skin was too pale, her lips slightly parted, as
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: if breathing had become a conscious effort. Her muscles twitched involuntarily,
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: tiny spasms rippling beneath her skin, and for the first
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: time I realized this wasn't Emily's choice. Whatever had happened
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: in the woods. Whatever she had become, it had been
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: forced on her. She didn't want this. She was just
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: trying to stay and she was losing. Emily, stay with me.
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: I reached for her without thinking, my fingers brushing against
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: her arm. She flinched at the contact, her body tensing,
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: but she didn't pull away. She just kept staring. The
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: tears streamed down her face, silent, endless, like a body
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: knew something she didn't, or maybe she did, maybe she
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: had always known. I swallowed hard. You don't have to
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: do this alone. Her lips parted slightly, but no words
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: came out. Her legs trembled. She was about to fall.
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: I grabbed her shoulders, holding her up, my own body shaking.
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: Now just sit down, Okay, you don't have to I
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: don't want to go back. Her voice was hoarse, cracking
[1:04:55] Speaker 1: under the weight of so much fear, high tightened grip.
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: Then you won't, she shook her head weakly. You don't understand.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: Her fingers clutched at my shirt, like she was trying
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: to anchor herself to something real. Her body was burning
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: through its last reserves, fighting the inevitable. I had to
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: keep her awake. Emily look at me. She was looking
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: at me. She had never stopped. I ran my hands
[1:05:35] Speaker 1: over her arms, trying to steady her. Come on, just
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: just sit down, drink some water, let's figure this out. Okay.
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: She blinked. No, she almost blinked. Her eyelids fluttered just
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: for a second, like a muscle spasm. Her body was
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: giving off panic shot through me. No, stay with me,
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: Stay with me, she soaked in a sharp, shuddering breath,
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: fighting it. Her fingers dug into my skin, her grip
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: weak but desperate. I can't, I can't. She swayed again,
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: and I caught her, pulling her close, holding her upright
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: just a little longer. I pleaded, please, Emily. Her chest
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: rose in one last heavy breath, her fingers loosened, her
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: eyelids fluttered, and then she blinked. I was still holding her,
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: or at least I thought i'd been. My arms were empty,
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: now clutching at nothing but air, nobody, no weight. She
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: had been there just a second ago, warm and trembling
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: against me, and now gone. I staggered back, my hands,
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: still hovering where she had been, my body refusing to
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: understand what had just happened. I looked around frantically. The
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: room was empty, no sign she had ever been there
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: at all. No discarded clothes, no strands of hair on
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: the pillow, no imprint in the bed where she had
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: slept beside me. Just absence, the kind that felt permanent.
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: A soft breath of air stirred from the curtains. I
[1:07:49] Speaker 1: turned slowly. The window was open. I knew for a
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: fact it had been closed when I went to bed. Outside,
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: the trees stood still, the dark silhouettes waiting watching The
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: air felt thick, expectant. The woods were completely silent, not
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: just still, not just quiet silent. A sound broke the air,
[1:08:23] Speaker 1: a small, familiar sound that felt somehow alien in this moment,
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: A tail thumping against the floor. I turned my head,
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: my stomach tightening. Murphy stood in the doorway, looking at
[1:08:39] Speaker 1: me and wagging his tail, not cautiously, not hesitantly, just
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: wagging for the first time in weeks. He stepped toward me,
[1:08:53] Speaker 1: walked right up to me, pressed his nose against my hand,
[1:08:57] Speaker 1: like everything was normal again, like the house was whole again,
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: like she had never been here. I sank on the
[1:09:08] Speaker 1: edge of the bed. My hands were shaking, My head
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: felt tight, my vision narrowing my thoughts, refusing to make
[1:09:15] Speaker 1: sense of what had just happened. I swallowed hard, staring
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: at the empty space beside me, at the bed where
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: she had slept, where we had laughed, where we had lived.
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: I whispered emily. The word barely made a sound. I
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: already knew she somehow came back, wanting to spend time together,
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: despite the conditions. But she was right. Whatever happened to
[1:09:53] Speaker 1: her out there, whatever she encountered, she was never supposed
[1:10:01] Speaker 1: to leave. I worked as a research associate at the
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: Eisenloyd Perception Lab, a mid tier government funded facility that
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: specialized in human cognition and the mechanics of visual processing.
[1:10:23] Speaker 1: If that sounds complicated, it really wasn't. The goal of
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: our work was simple, to understand how humans interpret reality,
[1:10:34] Speaker 1: what our brains notice, what they ignore, what they fill in.
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: It was all supposed to be theoretical, It wasn't supposed
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: to be dangerous. I'd been there for almost five years,
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: and I was never the smartest in the room. But
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: I was careful, methodical, and that made me valuable. Where
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: the other researchers were to push boundaries, I was the
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: one always pumping the Brakes. I had spent my entire
[1:11:06] Speaker 1: career arguing against unethical human trials, shutting down projects that
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: went too far. I thought that was enough to keep
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: us out of trouble. The project started with an anomaly,
[1:11:21] Speaker 1: a stray frequency picked up by one of us spectral
[1:11:24] Speaker 1: imaging scanners, something just outside the normal range of perception.
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: At first, no one took it seriously, probably a glitch
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: or a censer error. But when the same frequency appeared
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: in multiple data sets, the lead researchers got interested. They
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: started running tests simulating the frequency into artificial visual patterns,
[1:11:50] Speaker 1: tweaking the light spectrum until it appeared. The color had
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: no name at first. It was something you could just
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: describe because our brains had never processed anything like it before.
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: It wasn't blue or red or green. It wasn't between colors,
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: it was outside of them. One of the researchers, doctor
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: mirrah Lang, jokingly called it Hyperion, after the Greek Titan
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: of light. The name stuck. I was skeptical from the beginning,
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: not because I believed in the supernatural or anything. I
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: just didn't trust something that shouldn't exist. It wasn't like
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: discovering a new species of bird. This was a fundamental
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: change to our understanding of light itself. That should have
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: been a red flag. But the others were fascinated. When
[1:12:51] Speaker 1: they ran simulations of hyperion, they saw things. The color
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: would move in strange ways, triggering after images that lasted
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: too long, shapes that seemed to exist in the corner
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: of your vision before vanishing when you tried to focus.
[1:13:07] Speaker 1: It was like the color affected the way humans perceived reality.
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: I told them we needed to slow down study it
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: more before exposing human subjects. They ignored me. We started
[1:13:24] Speaker 1: with rats. The results were inconsistent. Some rats stared at
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: hyperion for hours, motionless, as if they were in a trance.
[1:13:36] Speaker 1: Others mutilated themselves. One chewed through its own leg in
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: under fifteen minutes, gnawing all the way to the bone.
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: The reports framed it as a neurological overstimulation response. I
[1:13:50] Speaker 1: called it what it was, a really bad idea. I
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: took my concerns to doctor Lange. She was the one
[1:13:59] Speaker 1: who had been the most excited about hyperion, and I
[1:14:03] Speaker 1: thought if I could get her to listen, I could
[1:14:05] Speaker 1: get the projects shut down before I'd escalated. She wasn't
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: interested in my concerns. It's just the color, she had said, exasperated,
[1:14:18] Speaker 1: it's not doing anything. The animals just don't know how
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: to process it. We'll see different results with higher cognitive functions.
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: She meant humans, I argued. She overruled me. The trial
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: was already scheduled. They would be exposing volunteers to hyperion
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: within the week. I should have walked away, should have quit,
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: should have gone public, should have done anything then to
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: sit there and watch, But I stayed. The human trials
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: started small. Ten volunteers, all local student students from the
[1:15:00] Speaker 1: nearby university, all paid to sit in a room and
[1:15:04] Speaker 1: stare at a screen. We ran the test like any
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: other perception study, show them hyperion for a few minutes,
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: monitor their brain activity, take notes on any after effects.
[1:15:18] Speaker 1: At first, it seemed harmless. The subjects all had different reactions,
[1:15:23] Speaker 1: but nothing extreme. Some called the color beautiful, some said
[1:15:28] Speaker 1: who was unnerving. One participant, an art major, stared for
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: almost three minutes before breaking into tears. When we asked why,
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: she just kept shaking her head, whispering, it's everything. It's
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: always been everything. We should have slowed everything down then,
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: and there been more measured at the very least took
[1:15:54] Speaker 1: more precautions, but Lang was ecstatic. She insisted we expand
[1:16:00] Speaker 1: the trial, longer exposure, more volunteers, wider demographic testing. She
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: wanted data, wanted to quantify one made hyperion so different.
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: That was when the real problem started. After the first
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: full day of exposure, some of the volunteers started experiencing
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: lingering after images. They described it as an overlay in
[1:16:28] Speaker 1: their vision, like the color was still present in the
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: corners of their eyes even after they left a lab.
[1:16:36] Speaker 1: Some couldn't stop seeing it. One subject, a physics student
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: named Elliot, called us at two in the morning, crying,
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: telling us that hyperion was still there even with his
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: eyes closed. We told him to come in for further testing.
[1:16:54] Speaker 1: He never showed up. Campus security found in the next
[1:16:59] Speaker 1: night in the middle of the street, staring up at
[1:17:02] Speaker 1: the sky. His retinas had burned out. The paramedics took
[1:17:09] Speaker 1: him away with a look on his face haunted me.
[1:17:13] Speaker 1: He hadn't screamed, he hadn't fought them, He had just
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: stood there, his expression blank and unfocused. Hyperion wasn't just
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: an anomaly. I tried pulling the plug and the experiment.
[1:17:29] Speaker 1: Lang refused, we don't even know if it was hyperion,
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: she argued, it could be unrelated. It's not. I snapped.
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: You saw his eyes Lang. This is wrong. We need
[1:17:43] Speaker 1: to stop, she sighed, rubbing her temples. We don't even
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: know what it is yet, we need more data. I
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: lost my temper. Geez, Mirrah, this isn't just data. It's
[1:17:58] Speaker 1: doing something to them, It's affecting them. She looked at
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: me and just shrugged me off, made a dismissive hand gesture,
[1:18:08] Speaker 1: effectively telling me to leave. And I did. I just
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: had a feeling this wasn't going to stop, not after Elliot,
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: not after everything. I don't think she was malicious. I
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: don't think she was trying to hurt anyone. She was
[1:18:26] Speaker 1: just like everyone else in that room, eager to understand.
[1:18:32] Speaker 1: That's what scared me. She didn't look disturbed by what
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: had happened. She looked fascinated. She kept talking about the
[1:18:43] Speaker 1: need for more data, kept insisting Elliott's breakdown could have
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: been an unrelated psychotic episode. The worst part, she was
[1:18:53] Speaker 1: so calm, so logical about it, that I started second
[1:18:57] Speaker 1: guessing myself. Maybe I had I'd imagine the way his
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: voice sounded over the phone. Maybe I'd misinterpreted the look
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: on his face. Maybe I was being too emotional and paranoid.
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: Then she told me what they were planning next, a
[1:19:14] Speaker 1: final experiment. I didn't go home that night. I sat
[1:19:22] Speaker 1: in my office, lights off, the soft hum of the
[1:19:25] Speaker 1: service filling the silence. My notes were spread out in
[1:19:29] Speaker 1: front of me, dozens of reports, detailing every exposure, every reaction,
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: every irregularity. The pieces weren't forming a complete picture, but
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: there was a pattern, something we weren't seeing. I could
[1:19:46] Speaker 1: feel it, just out of reach, like a word sitting
[1:19:49] Speaker 1: at the tip of my tongue. Lang had already made
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: her decision. The final trial would move forward, no matter
[1:19:58] Speaker 1: what I said, no matter what arguments I threw at her.
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: She just wanted to understand. Maybe she was afraid of
[1:20:06] Speaker 1: not being able to do so, and I would be
[1:20:09] Speaker 1: lying if I said I didn't feel the same way.
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: The color had changed, something unlocked something in their minds,
[1:20:18] Speaker 1: and she wasn't willing to walk away from that discovery,
[1:20:21] Speaker 1: no matter the cost. I thought about walking away myself,
[1:20:27] Speaker 1: thought about packing up, quitting, leaving the research behind. I
[1:20:32] Speaker 1: even reached from my phone once considered calling someone the
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: university and ethics board held even the press, but I didn't,
[1:20:44] Speaker 1: not because I was afraid, but because I still wanted
[1:20:49] Speaker 1: to know. That was the worst part. I wanted to
[1:20:54] Speaker 1: see what would happen. The final experiment began exactly eight
[1:21:00] Speaker 1: a m. In the morning. The observation room was packed.
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: Everyone gathered around the monitors in heavy silence. There was
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: no idle chatter, no nervous excitement. Everyone knew what we
[1:21:13] Speaker 1: were doing was dangerous, even if they refused to say
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: it out loud. I stood at the back of the room,
[1:21:21] Speaker 1: arms crossed, watching the screens flicker to life as the
[1:21:24] Speaker 1: test chamber powered on. The subjects were sealed in four
[1:21:29] Speaker 1: identical chairs, each one fitted with a biometric sensor, and
[1:21:33] Speaker 1: hugged up to fMRI scanners. James Walker, Julia Henley, and
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: two others. I didn't recognize their names were in the file,
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: but I hadn't bothered to read them. It didn't matter anymore.
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: Langs sat at the control panel, expression unreadable, fingers hovering
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: over the interface. We're beginning now, she said, voice steady.
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: She pressed the button, and the screen in the test
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: chamber filled with hyperion. I didn't look. I kept my
[1:22:11] Speaker 1: eyes locked on the brain activity readoubts, waiting for something, anything,
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: they would justify shutting the whole thing down. For the
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: first few minutes, nothing seemed out of place. The vitals
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: remained stable, their brain patterns fluctuated, but stayed within normal ranges.
[1:22:32] Speaker 1: If I hadn't known what I was looking at, I
[1:22:34] Speaker 1: would have thought they were just staring at a blank screen.
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: Then James's fingers twitched just once, a subtle jerk of movement,
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: then nothing. The others followed. Julia's breathing became shallow. One
[1:22:52] Speaker 1: of the other subjects hands spasmed, like they were reaching
[1:22:55] Speaker 1: for something that wasn't there. At the ten minute mark,
[1:23:00] Speaker 1: to functions began to slow. James had stopped blinking, Julia's
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: chest barely moved with each breath. The other two were
[1:23:08] Speaker 1: completely still. The pupils had contracted to pinpricks, barely visible
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: against the whites of their eyes. At fifteen minutes, their
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: vitals remained normal, but their brain activity spiked, not erratic
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: or chaotic, but irregular. The readoubt was incomprehensible. The neural
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: pathways weren't following standard cognitive function anymore. They weren't reacting
[1:23:36] Speaker 1: the way any normal humans should have. I felt my
[1:23:40] Speaker 1: pulse hammering in my throat, the same sick way to
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: my stomach i'd felt when Elliott had called me begging
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: for help. At twenty minutes, the first subject collapsed. His
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: body went limp, head longing to one side, vitals flatlining
[1:24:01] Speaker 1: almost instantly. The alarms blared across the control panel, but
[1:24:07] Speaker 1: he was already gone. A second later, the subject next
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: to him followed. I felt my stomach drop. Lang was
[1:24:18] Speaker 1: shouting orders. Security rushed into the chamber, dragging the remaining
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: two subjects away from the screen, shutting the system down.
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: But James and Julia were still breathing, their hearts were
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: still beating, their eyes were still open, and yet they
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: didn't move, not once. The following day, the decision was
[1:24:48] Speaker 1: made for us. They came in without warning, government officials,
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: security personnel, people I'd never seen before in my five
[1:24:58] Speaker 1: years at Eisenloyd. They cleared out the offices, boxed up
[1:25:02] Speaker 1: the equipment, wiped the research servers clean, no explanations, no discussions.
[1:25:09] Speaker 1: We were handed in non disclosure agreements, told in no
[1:25:12] Speaker 1: uncertain terms that the work we had done never existed,
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: that Eisen Lloyd would be repurposed for a different project,
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: that none of us would ever speak of Hyperion again,
[1:25:26] Speaker 1: And we didn't, not because we weren't allowed to, but
[1:25:30] Speaker 1: because nobody wanted to. Lang stopped returning calls Mason Quick Research. Altogether,
[1:25:39] Speaker 1: a few people from the team took new jobs at
[1:25:41] Speaker 1: other labs, but most just disappeared into different careers, different lives.
[1:25:47] Speaker 1: We scattered like survivors of a shipwreck, pretending that if
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: we just stayed quiet, if we just moved on, then
[1:25:55] Speaker 1: what happened that eisen Lloyd wouldn't follow us, But it did.
[1:26:04] Speaker 1: At first, I told myself I was fine. I found
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: a new job, consulting for a start up in optical processing,
[1:26:12] Speaker 1: something safe, something far removed from the mess that we
[1:26:15] Speaker 1: had left behind. I convinced myself that maybe somehow we
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: had shut it down in time, But the guilt didn't
[1:26:26] Speaker 1: go away. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: James and Julia sitting motionless in their chairs, their minds
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: still firing, still active, still locked in something we couldn't understand.
[1:26:41] Speaker 1: I thought about Elliot, the way he had been when
[1:26:44] Speaker 1: we found him in the street, staring into the sky
[1:26:47] Speaker 1: with eyes that no longer worked. I tried to push
[1:26:51] Speaker 1: it down to move on. And then one night Lang
[1:26:57] Speaker 1: called me. I was late, two maybe three in the morning.
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: I was awake, but barely caught in that fog between
[1:27:07] Speaker 1: dreaming and reality, and at first I almost ignored it.
[1:27:13] Speaker 1: When I saw that the phone call was from Lang,
[1:27:15] Speaker 1: a jolt of adrenaline shot through me, like my body
[1:27:19] Speaker 1: already knew before my mind caught up. I answered on
[1:27:23] Speaker 1: the fourth ring, Lang. There was silence, not even breathing,
[1:27:31] Speaker 1: just dead air. I sat up, running a hand through
[1:27:36] Speaker 1: my hair. Lang, what the hell, it's the middle of
[1:27:40] Speaker 1: the night. More silence. Then finally I heard her inhale, sharply,
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: like she had been holding her breath. I need to
[1:27:53] Speaker 1: see you, she said. Her voice was low, almost the whisper.
[1:28:00] Speaker 1: I frowned. Now, yes, now, something in my gut twisted.
[1:28:08] Speaker 1: Why what's going on? I can't talk about it over
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: the phone, she said. I exhaled through my nose, already annoyed.
[1:28:19] Speaker 1: You realized how suspicious that sounds, right, christ Lang, if
[1:28:23] Speaker 1: this is about hyperion, it's over. We lost, we got
[1:28:27] Speaker 1: shut down. We did everything we could. She didn't respond
[1:28:31] Speaker 1: right away, and for a moment I thought she had
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: hung up. Then she said, voice quiet, and unsteady. I
[1:28:41] Speaker 1: don't think it's over. That made me go still. She exhaled, shakely,
[1:28:52] Speaker 1: and for the first time I realized how afraid she sounded.
[1:28:58] Speaker 1: I've been running tests, she admitted, so softly. I almost
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: didn't hear her. My grip on the phone tightened. You've
[1:29:08] Speaker 1: what There was a pause, not officially off the record,
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: just following up geez, Lang, I snapped, you're telling me
[1:29:19] Speaker 1: you kept working on this after everything, after I had
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: to she cut me off, her voice rising slightly desperate.
[1:29:28] Speaker 1: You don't understand something is still happening, I let out
[1:29:34] Speaker 1: a humorous laugh. Yeah, clearly, you ran trials on something
[1:29:40] Speaker 1: that cooked people's brains. What did you expect that it
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: would just stop? She didn't react to my anger. Lang
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: never back down from a fight. She was always the
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: first to argue, the first to push back. But now
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: she just let the silent stretch, and when she finally
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: spoke again, it was a whisper. I don't think we
[1:30:07] Speaker 1: discovered hyperion, she said, I think it discovered us. I
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: swallowed hard. What the hell does that mean? A longer
[1:30:22] Speaker 1: pause this time, then finally just come over. I almost
[1:30:33] Speaker 1: didn't go I sat in my car for a long time,
[1:30:37] Speaker 1: turning the key, staring at my hands, gripping the wheel,
[1:30:41] Speaker 1: debating whether or not I should just throw my phone
[1:30:43] Speaker 1: into the river and drive in the opposite direction. But
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: I went. Lang lived in a small apartment downtown, a
[1:30:54] Speaker 1: small and out of the way place, not fit for
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: someone making as much money as she did. I'd been
[1:31:00] Speaker 1: there a few times before, back when we were still
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: at Eyes and Lloyd, back when we still talked about
[1:31:06] Speaker 1: our work. I knocked once, and the door unlocked almost immediately.
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: Lang glugged like she hadn't slept in days. Her hair
[1:31:17] Speaker 1: was unkempt, dark circles bruised beneath her eyes, and her
[1:31:21] Speaker 1: hands trembled as she stepped back, motioning for me to
[1:31:24] Speaker 1: come inside. I hesitated, Lang, just look, she said, already
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: moving toward a desk, She flipped open her laptop and
[1:31:37] Speaker 1: pulled up a series of images. At first, they didn't
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: make sense, just a mess of lines, paragraphs, and data points.
[1:31:46] Speaker 1: But then she pointed at one specific chart, tapping the
[1:31:49] Speaker 1: screen with a finger nail. This is a brain scan
[1:31:53] Speaker 1: from one of our last test subjects, taken three days ago.
[1:31:59] Speaker 1: My stomach lurched. You're still tracking them? Not officially, she said,
[1:32:06] Speaker 1: but I've been monitoring the scans. I stared at the screen.
[1:32:12] Speaker 1: The patterns and the chart were wrong. They weren't random
[1:32:15] Speaker 1: bursts of electrical activity. They were deliberate repeating. Okay, I said, slowly,
[1:32:25] Speaker 1: what am I looking at? Lane clicked to another slide,
[1:32:30] Speaker 1: pulling up a star map. My blood ran cold. The
[1:32:36] Speaker 1: patterns in the scan they matched, not randomly, not approximately exactly.
[1:32:47] Speaker 1: I looked at her, throat dry. What the hell is this?
[1:32:53] Speaker 1: Liang didn't answer. She clicked again, pulling up another image.
[1:32:59] Speaker 1: I took a blow step back. That's impossible. Lang was pale.
[1:33:06] Speaker 1: I thought so too. I ran a hand through my hair,
[1:33:11] Speaker 1: my pulse hammering in my ears. So what are you saying?
[1:33:16] Speaker 1: That hyperion is what some kind of I don't know,
[1:33:21] Speaker 1: she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. We stared
[1:33:26] Speaker 1: at the screen, the glow of the data reflecting off
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: the walls, casting the room in cold light. I could
[1:33:33] Speaker 1: hear my own heartbeat too loud in my ears. I
[1:33:37] Speaker 1: could feel my skin crawling as I looked at the
[1:33:39] Speaker 1: images again, trying to make sense of something that wasn't
[1:33:43] Speaker 1: meant to be understood. Lang sat in front of her laptop,
[1:33:48] Speaker 1: staring at the screen, fingers resting on the keyboard but
[1:33:52] Speaker 1: not typing. The blue glow washed over her face, hollowing
[1:33:57] Speaker 1: out her already exhausted features, making a look almost skeletal.
[1:34:03] Speaker 1: I was standing in the doorway, trying to process what
[1:34:07] Speaker 1: I had just seen. None of it made sense, but
[1:34:12] Speaker 1: the look in her eyes told me she wasn't done yet.
[1:34:18] Speaker 1: I exhaled through my nose, rubbing her hand over my face,
[1:34:21] Speaker 1: trying to steady myself. That's not why you called me here,
[1:34:27] Speaker 1: I finally said, is it? She didn't answer at first,
[1:34:33] Speaker 1: her fingers twitched like she was considering what to say.
[1:34:38] Speaker 1: I saw her swallow, hard, shoulders tinting before she spoke No,
[1:34:45] Speaker 1: she admitted, that's not why I called you. I waited
[1:34:52] Speaker 1: for her to continue, but she didn't. She just sat there,
[1:34:57] Speaker 1: staring at the screen like she was afraid say it
[1:35:00] Speaker 1: out loud. Lang. I took a step forward, my pulls
[1:35:05] Speaker 1: starting to climb. Tell me what's going on. She reached
[1:35:11] Speaker 1: for a mouse, scrolling through something I couldn't see yet.
[1:35:16] Speaker 1: I think it got out, she said, voice barely above
[1:35:20] Speaker 1: a whisper. The words hit me like a cold slap
[1:35:24] Speaker 1: to the face. My hands clenched at my sides. What
[1:35:31] Speaker 1: she nailed sharply exhaling, slowly, forcing herself to stay calm.
[1:35:37] Speaker 1: I found the file circulating online, she said. At first
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: I thought it was a hoax, someone trying to recreate it,
[1:35:46] Speaker 1: theorize about it. But then I checked. She motioned toward
[1:35:51] Speaker 1: a screen, lips pressing into a thin line. It's real,
[1:35:57] Speaker 1: the actual sequence. Someone leaked it. I felt my breath catch.
[1:36:06] Speaker 1: How long ago she hesitated? Twelve hours maybe less. The
[1:36:15] Speaker 1: floor felt unsteady beneath me, and Lang's jaw clenched. She
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: opened another file, clicking through a series of news reports,
[1:36:27] Speaker 1: but she wasn't looking at the screen. She was looking
[1:36:30] Speaker 1: at me, watching my reaction. I stepped closer. The first
[1:36:37] Speaker 1: article was from this morning, Police investigating reports of multiple
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: self inflicted deaths in an apartment complex. Three individuals frown,
[1:36:48] Speaker 1: deceased in their rooms, no sign of struggle, no known
[1:36:51] Speaker 1: connection between them. I scrolled down authorities in Tokyo responding
[1:36:58] Speaker 1: to a surge of unax playing suicides. Locals report seeing
[1:37:02] Speaker 1: people walking into the streets into oncoming traffic, seemingly unaware
[1:37:07] Speaker 1: of their surroundings. Another one coastal towns reporting an increase
[1:37:13] Speaker 1: in drownings. Witnesses describe victims walking into the water, ignoring bystanders,
[1:37:19] Speaker 1: disappearing beneath the waves without resistance. I felt my stomach drop.
[1:37:28] Speaker 1: My voice came out tight, like my throat was closing up.
[1:37:33] Speaker 1: This can't be real. Blank clicked on a live stream.
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: It was some security camera feed, grainy and low quality.
[1:37:44] Speaker 1: A man stood on top of a parking garage, motionless,
[1:37:48] Speaker 1: in front of a laptop screen. He wasn't blinking, his
[1:37:52] Speaker 1: hands were relaxed at his sides, his face completely neutral. Then,
[1:37:59] Speaker 1: without hesitation, he turned and walked straight off the edge.
[1:38:06] Speaker 1: He didn't scream, didn't react, didn't flinch. The feed cut
[1:38:11] Speaker 1: to black. Lang exhaled, leaning forward, hands covering her face.
[1:38:20] Speaker 1: It's happening. I was shaking. It hasn't even been a day,
[1:38:27] Speaker 1: I know, she whispered. It happened faster than anyone could
[1:38:33] Speaker 1: have imagined. The leaks spread through some coding forms, obscure
[1:38:38] Speaker 1: research boards, private archives. Someone had cracked the format, posted
[1:38:43] Speaker 1: the raw sequence, and people curious, stupid people had opened
[1:38:50] Speaker 1: it without thinking. They saw hyperion and never looked away.
[1:38:58] Speaker 1: We watched it unfolding real time video clips surfaced people
[1:39:03] Speaker 1: standing still in front of screens, eyes wide, bodies are
[1:39:07] Speaker 1: moving for minutes, hours before finally turning and walking away.
[1:39:13] Speaker 1: Some were found later dead in their homes, sitting peacefully
[1:39:17] Speaker 1: in front of their monitors, bodies untouched, unmarked. Others vanished entirely,
[1:39:24] Speaker 1: no notes, no last words. The worst part was how
[1:39:29] Speaker 1: quiet it was. No panic, no violent outbursts, no struggle,
[1:39:35] Speaker 1: just a stillness. And then they left. They walked into
[1:39:42] Speaker 1: the ocean, into forests, into caves and abandoned places, anywhere
[1:39:47] Speaker 1: that swallowed them whole. They went down subway tunnels and
[1:39:50] Speaker 1: never emerged. They walked into traffic without so much as
[1:39:54] Speaker 1: a scream. Lang and I tried everything to stop it.
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: Contacted people in government, tried to get service shut down,
[1:40:03] Speaker 1: tried to warn anyone who would listen. By the time
[1:40:07] Speaker 1: the world even realized what was happening, it was already
[1:40:11] Speaker 1: too late. It was inevitable, and it wasn't slowing down.
[1:40:18] Speaker 1: Lang gave it a roll. She still believed there was
[1:40:22] Speaker 1: a way to contain it, to stop it from consuming everything.
[1:40:26] Speaker 1: She spent every waking moment chasing solutions, theories, some scientific
[1:40:31] Speaker 1: explanation that could fix what we had done, but even
[1:40:35] Speaker 1: she knew the truth. One day I called her, she
[1:40:41] Speaker 1: didn't pick up. When I got to her apartment, the
[1:40:45] Speaker 1: door was unlocked, laptops still running, data still open. She
[1:40:51] Speaker 1: had walked out somewhere in the middle of the night,
[1:40:54] Speaker 1: no sign of a struggle, no note, no goodbyes, just gone.
[1:41:03] Speaker 1: There's nowhere left to run. The world is going quiet.
[1:41:08] Speaker 1: More people disappear every day. No one knows how many
[1:41:11] Speaker 1: are left. No one is counting anymore. I've been sitting
[1:41:16] Speaker 1: in my apartment for hours, staring at the gun on
[1:41:19] Speaker 1: my table. I don't want to go the way they did.
[1:41:23] Speaker 1: I don't want to walk into something. I don't want
[1:41:26] Speaker 1: to see it again. I keep hearing Lang's voice, I
[1:41:31] Speaker 1: hear the echoes of every subject we tested, every person
[1:41:35] Speaker 1: who vanished. It's everything, It's always been everything. I'm sorry
[1:41:46] Speaker 1: I should have stopped this before it started. The ocean
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: doesn't care about you. It's not your enemy, and it's
[1:42:04] Speaker 1: sure as hell isn't your friend. It's just there, silent
[1:42:09] Speaker 1: and endless, stretching past the horizon. People think they understand
[1:42:15] Speaker 1: it because they can chart a course, read a tide,
[1:42:18] Speaker 1: plot a point on a map. They don't. The ocean
[1:42:24] Speaker 1: keeps its own secrets, and sometimes then lets you see one.
[1:42:32] Speaker 1: We had planned a trip across the Atlantic. I captained
[1:42:36] Speaker 1: the Envy Red Saber for almost fifteen years, now, moving
[1:42:40] Speaker 1: small cargo from one port to another, keeping to tight
[1:42:43] Speaker 1: schedules and predictable roots. I initially started in the Navy,
[1:42:49] Speaker 1: but that life was a long way behind me. My
[1:42:52] Speaker 1: crew is small, just four of us. Fewer men means
[1:42:56] Speaker 1: fewer costs, but it also means fewer people to rely
[1:43:00] Speaker 1: ion when things go wrong. We were three days out
[1:43:04] Speaker 1: from Spain. It was the middle of the night, somewhere
[1:43:07] Speaker 1: past oh two hundred hours, and I was still awake
[1:43:10] Speaker 1: in my cabin, staring at the same navigational charts. The
[1:43:15] Speaker 1: radio crackled once, then again. A voice was trying to
[1:43:20] Speaker 1: push through the static. It came through the colms, a weak,
[1:43:26] Speaker 1: staticky voice repeating the same sequence over and over again.
[1:43:32] Speaker 1: May day, may day, this is the perdition position latitude
[1:43:38] Speaker 1: thirty five longitude. They cut out again. I sat up
[1:43:46] Speaker 1: the perdition. That name wasn't familiar, but the way the
[1:43:50] Speaker 1: signal came in faint and interrupted meant whatever equipment they
[1:43:55] Speaker 1: were using it was dated. I keep the intercom bridge.
[1:44:03] Speaker 1: This is the captain, you're picking that up. There was
[1:44:08] Speaker 1: a pause, then Gallagher answered, eye cap. We thought he
[1:44:13] Speaker 1: was interference at first, but it's repeating, saying distress code
[1:44:17] Speaker 1: every thirty seconds, sauce. We're running it through the registry.
[1:44:22] Speaker 1: Now another pause. I could hear his fingers moving over
[1:44:27] Speaker 1: the keyboard, the sound of rapid typing, then a brief pause. Ah, Captain,
[1:44:36] Speaker 1: you might want to see this. By the time I
[1:44:41] Speaker 1: got to the bridge, Gallagher was still staring at the screen,
[1:44:45] Speaker 1: one hand resting against his chin. His brow was furrowed.
[1:44:51] Speaker 1: You're gonna want to see this, he muttered. I glanced
[1:44:55] Speaker 1: at the monitor. The distress code was still cycling, a
[1:44:59] Speaker 1: single repeat eating sequence of numbers and static, as if
[1:45:02] Speaker 1: someone had been broadcasting it on a loop. Behind us,
[1:45:07] Speaker 1: a chair creaked. I turned to see Holloway, the youngest
[1:45:11] Speaker 1: of the crew, lingering near the back of the bridge,
[1:45:14] Speaker 1: arms crossed over his chest. He looked tense. I wasn't
[1:45:20] Speaker 1: sure if he even realized he was doing it, but
[1:45:23] Speaker 1: his foot tapped against the floor in a steady rhythm,
[1:45:26] Speaker 1: a nervous energy. He hadn't learned to mask yet. Rodriguez
[1:45:31] Speaker 1: lingered near the back, standing stiff watching us all. What
[1:45:36] Speaker 1: am I looking at? I asked. Gallagher turned the monitor
[1:45:41] Speaker 1: slightly so I could get a better look. The registry
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: was pulled up, the distress code logged and matched. The
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: petition was listed, but the date next to it stopped
[1:45:55] Speaker 1: me for a moment. Nineteen twenty one. I frowned, glancing
[1:46:04] Speaker 1: back at the others. You're telling me we just picked
[1:46:07] Speaker 1: up a hundred year old distress call. Gallagher didn't answer
[1:46:12] Speaker 1: right away. He exhaled through his nose, tapping his knuckles
[1:46:16] Speaker 1: against the desk. Signals coming through clean, no drift, no degradation.
[1:46:22] Speaker 1: This isn't an old transmission. Bounting back, this is live.
[1:46:27] Speaker 1: That has to be wrong, I said, it's a malfunction,
[1:46:30] Speaker 1: a glitch. Behind me, Rodriguez muttered something in Spanish. This
[1:46:37] Speaker 1: is bad luck, he said. We shouldn't meddle with these things.
[1:46:43] Speaker 1: Rodriguez had been on the water longer than the rest
[1:46:45] Speaker 1: of us combined. He wasn't overly superstitious, but he had
[1:46:50] Speaker 1: his traditions and ways. I'd learn to respect and honor
[1:46:54] Speaker 1: some of them. Gallagher cleared his throat. I guess it
[1:46:59] Speaker 1: could probably be a mistake, Captain, some technomally, maybe a
[1:47:03] Speaker 1: freak frequency bounce. The ocean can be weird like that.
[1:47:09] Speaker 1: I nodded slowly. He was right. I've seen things like
[1:47:14] Speaker 1: this before, stray signals, old transmissions getting caught in atmospheric
[1:47:19] Speaker 1: g loops, even ancient broadcasts being replayed by accident. But
[1:47:24] Speaker 1: this was no technomally, as Gallagher had said, the signal
[1:47:29] Speaker 1: was coming through clean as a whistle. I looked back
[1:47:34] Speaker 1: at the screen. The coordinates placed the signal two hundred
[1:47:38] Speaker 1: miles ahead of us. Nothing there but open water, no islands,
[1:47:44] Speaker 1: no reefs, no known reck sites to mention. Could be pirates,
[1:47:49] Speaker 1: Holloway said suddenly. His voice was casual, but I caught
[1:47:54] Speaker 1: the way he swallowed hard afterward, baiting us in. That
[1:48:00] Speaker 1: was a possibility. It wouldn't be the first time someone
[1:48:03] Speaker 1: had rigged a fake emergency to luren a rescue crew.
[1:48:07] Speaker 1: But pirates don't use distress codes from a century ago.
[1:48:13] Speaker 1: I exhaled slowly, then turned back to Rodriguez. You think
[1:48:18] Speaker 1: this is bad luck, he nodded once. As ship disappears
[1:48:24] Speaker 1: and a hundred years later it starts calling for help.
[1:48:27] Speaker 1: That's not right, Captain, tell me something about that doesn't
[1:48:31] Speaker 1: sound wrong to you. I turned back to the rest
[1:48:36] Speaker 1: of the crew. Listen, we're professionals. That's a distress call
[1:48:42] Speaker 1: and we're obligated to check it out. We went over
[1:48:44] Speaker 1: this and training people. There's nobody else around us for
[1:48:48] Speaker 1: this radio into nearby ships from here, and we take
[1:48:51] Speaker 1: it from there. Could be a hoax, could be a malfunction,
[1:48:55] Speaker 1: could be something else entirely, but we won't know unless
[1:48:58] Speaker 1: we lock. Gallagher hesitated. Captain I, that's final. I turned
[1:49:08] Speaker 1: back toward the helm, set a course for the cordinates.
[1:49:14] Speaker 1: No one spoke. The tension in the air shifted. Finally,
[1:49:19] Speaker 1: Gallagher muttered something under his breath and nodded aye. Sir
[1:49:26] Speaker 1: Rodriguez didn't argue. He just shook his head and walked away.
[1:49:32] Speaker 1: The fog rolled in a few minutes after we started
[1:49:35] Speaker 1: heading for the location, and it was getting steadily worse.
[1:49:40] Speaker 1: The further we pushed toward the cordinates, the denser it became,
[1:49:44] Speaker 1: until the ocean and sky blurred into the same endless void.
[1:49:49] Speaker 1: The radar picked up the ship before we could see it.
[1:49:53] Speaker 1: The radar was reading a massive ship floating just ahead.
[1:49:58] Speaker 1: The readings weren't erratic, weren't distorted. Whatever was out there
[1:50:03] Speaker 1: was solid, so we weren't heading for a shipwreck. Gallagher
[1:50:09] Speaker 1: adjusted the radio frequency turning dials with the patience of
[1:50:13] Speaker 1: a man who had done it a thousand times before.
[1:50:17] Speaker 1: His jaw was tight, his fingers tapping anxiously against the console.
[1:50:23] Speaker 1: Still nothing. He muttered, no response. He tried again, this
[1:50:30] Speaker 1: is the envy red saber responding to an emergency distress call, Perdition,
[1:50:35] Speaker 1: do you read over? The radio remained silent, just static,
[1:50:41] Speaker 1: a low hans stretching out like a dead signal. I exhaled, slowly,
[1:50:48] Speaker 1: rubbing my temple. Keep trying. Holloway stood near the bridge window,
[1:50:55] Speaker 1: staring out into the mist like he was trying to
[1:50:58] Speaker 1: will something into focus. He shifted uneasily. If they needed help,
[1:51:04] Speaker 1: shouldn't they be responding, Gallagher shook his head. Even if
[1:51:10] Speaker 1: they're dead in the water, someone should be hearing us.
[1:51:13] Speaker 1: If the beacon is live, the comb should be live too.
[1:51:18] Speaker 1: Maybe their radios busted, I said through my teeth. Maybe
[1:51:21] Speaker 1: they lost power. Rodriguez scoffed under his breath. Maybe. Then
[1:51:31] Speaker 1: the fog thinned and we saw it. The Perdition emerged
[1:51:37] Speaker 1: from the mist like a ghost. It loomed before us,
[1:51:41] Speaker 1: intact and untouched, a merchant vessel from another sentry. Dark wood,
[1:51:47] Speaker 1: slick with moisture. Its sails furled tight, its masts rising
[1:51:52] Speaker 1: into the gray sky like skeletal remains. There were no
[1:51:57] Speaker 1: signs of damage, no wreckage, nothing to suggest why a
[1:52:01] Speaker 1: ship like this had sent out an SOS in the
[1:52:03] Speaker 1: first place. Holloway took a step closer to the window.
[1:52:09] Speaker 1: Geez Gallagher tapped a few keys on the radar console,
[1:52:15] Speaker 1: shaking his head. God and his one massive ship Rodriguez,
[1:52:21] Speaker 1: remained silent. I straightened inhaling sharply. We're boarding. We lowered
[1:52:31] Speaker 1: the dinghy and approached slow. The ladder was still intact,
[1:52:35] Speaker 1: rope and woods swaying gently against the perdition's hull. I
[1:52:40] Speaker 1: grabbed hold, testing its weight. The damp fibers creaked under
[1:52:44] Speaker 1: my grip, but held firm. I looked back. Holloway and
[1:52:50] Speaker 1: Galagher sat stiff in the dingy. Rodriguez didn't move, didn't
[1:52:55] Speaker 1: reach for the ladder. His hands were planted on his knees,
[1:52:59] Speaker 1: fingers tight. You coming, I asked a pause. His jaw clenched,
[1:53:09] Speaker 1: then reluctantly, he took hold of the wrongs. Holloway and
[1:53:14] Speaker 1: Gallagher followed. The ship was still. The lanterns swayed gently
[1:53:20] Speaker 1: from their hooks, but they were unlit. The ropes were
[1:53:24] Speaker 1: neatly coiled, undisturbed. A layer of dampness clung to everything,
[1:53:30] Speaker 1: but there was no decay perdition. I shouted, my voice,
[1:53:35] Speaker 1: cutting through the mist. Anyone aboard. No response. Gallagher called
[1:53:43] Speaker 1: out next louder. His voice echoed, bouncing off the sails
[1:53:48] Speaker 1: before fading into nothing silence. Rodriguez muttered something, glancing around.
[1:53:59] Speaker 1: I turned back to the others. We'll cover more ground
[1:54:03] Speaker 1: if we split up. Gallagher take the upper decks, Holloway
[1:54:07] Speaker 1: with me. Rodriguez check below deck. We regroup in ten minutes.
[1:54:12] Speaker 1: If we don't find anybody, we leave and report back
[1:54:15] Speaker 1: to land with what we find. Gallagher excelled, sharply splitting up. Ah. Sure,
[1:54:23] Speaker 1: that's a good idea, cap You know in movies they
[1:54:26] Speaker 1: say we're wasting time, they said sternly. Rodriguez simply turned,
[1:54:33] Speaker 1: disappearing into the shadows below deck without another word. Holloway
[1:54:38] Speaker 1: and I moved carefully through the dimly lit carridor the
[1:54:41] Speaker 1: damp put beneath us groaning under our weight. The air
[1:54:46] Speaker 1: here was heavier than it had been outside, thick with
[1:54:49] Speaker 1: a scent of salt an age timber. The lanterns lining
[1:54:53] Speaker 1: the walls were unlit, their glass panes smeared with condensation.
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: Every door we last was shut tight, their brass handles tarnished.
[1:55:05] Speaker 1: At the end of the passage, one door stood slightly
[1:55:08] Speaker 1: ajar I pushed it open. Stepping inside the captain's quarters
[1:55:17] Speaker 1: was small, but oddly a single cut against the wall
[1:55:21] Speaker 1: neatly made. The sheets still tugged in tight. A chest
[1:55:26] Speaker 1: at the foot of the bed latched but not locked.
[1:55:30] Speaker 1: The desk took up most of the space, its surface
[1:55:34] Speaker 1: covered in loose papers, maps curled at the edges, ink
[1:55:38] Speaker 1: bottles tipped over and dried. A leather bound log box
[1:55:42] Speaker 1: sat in the center, lying open to a page warped
[1:55:45] Speaker 1: with moisture. Beside it, a lantern, unlit, was still filled
[1:55:51] Speaker 1: with oil. Holloway hesitated in the doorway, nostrils flaring slightly.
[1:55:58] Speaker 1: You smell that I did not rot, not mildew, just
[1:56:06] Speaker 1: damp and sour. The scent clung to everything, thick and stale,
[1:56:12] Speaker 1: the way a house smells when it's been shut up.
[1:56:14] Speaker 1: For months, or a ship has been sailing for decades.
[1:56:20] Speaker 1: I ran my fingers over the desk. The wood was swollen,
[1:56:24] Speaker 1: the grain rough beneath my touch. The papers beneath the
[1:56:28] Speaker 1: log book were stuck together. In places the ink smudged,
[1:56:32] Speaker 1: but the words beneath my fingers were still legible. I
[1:56:37] Speaker 1: flipped through the log book carefully. Holloway steps inside, now
[1:56:41] Speaker 1: staying close to the door, his gaze shifting between scattered
[1:56:45] Speaker 1: papers and the rest of the room. What does it say?
[1:56:52] Speaker 1: I squinted at the text, reading aloud. May third, nineteen
[1:56:58] Speaker 1: twenty one. Northeast wind steady at ten knots, course adjusted westward,
[1:57:04] Speaker 1: men in good spirits. I skimmed further down. The next
[1:57:10] Speaker 1: few entries were standard nothing how to the ordinary, where
[1:57:14] Speaker 1: the conditions coarse adjustments, A brief note about rationing. Then
[1:57:21] Speaker 1: something changed May tenth. A voice below deck last night.
[1:57:27] Speaker 1: Bosun claims he heard it too, but there was no
[1:57:30] Speaker 1: one there. Crew uneasy, I frowned, flipping further May thirteenth.
[1:57:39] Speaker 1: The men are restless. I do not believe it was
[1:57:42] Speaker 1: the wind. Mister Avery refuses to sleep below. The others
[1:57:47] Speaker 1: are beginning to whisper. Holloway shifted on his feet. You
[1:57:53] Speaker 1: think they had a stowaway. Maybe I kept reading. The
[1:58:01] Speaker 1: last entry was written in a hasty scrawl, as if
[1:58:04] Speaker 1: the writer had barely finished before slamming the books. Shot
[1:58:09] Speaker 1: May eighteenth. The sea is speaking for men are listening.
[1:58:17] Speaker 1: I am the only one left. I stared at it
[1:58:24] Speaker 1: for a long moment. The ink smudged and bleeding into
[1:58:28] Speaker 1: the page. The words rushed uneven. The last page wasn't finished.
[1:58:36] Speaker 1: Holloway leaned over my shoulder, exhaling sharply man. I closed
[1:58:43] Speaker 1: the log book, running a thumb along the frayed edges
[1:58:46] Speaker 1: of the pages. There's no mention of distress before this,
[1:58:51] Speaker 1: No damage, no sickness, no storm. I gestured at the room,
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: and this place looks like someone just left. Holloway glanced round,
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: rubbing his arms. I don't like this cap. This isn't
[1:59:07] Speaker 1: how a shiplocks after a hundred years. I knelt beside
[1:59:11] Speaker 1: the chest at the foot of the bed, running a
[1:59:13] Speaker 1: hand over the latch. It wasn't locked. I lifted the
[1:59:18] Speaker 1: lid inside. Neatly folded clothes sat stacked on one side,
[1:59:25] Speaker 1: A pair of boots placed carefully beside them, A shaving kit,
[1:59:30] Speaker 1: a pocket watch, small ordinary things, but clearly untouched for
[1:59:35] Speaker 1: a very long time. Holloway exhaled through his nose. No
[1:59:42] Speaker 1: personal letters, no sign of where they went. No, I
[1:59:48] Speaker 1: said the watch back, my fingers brushing the fabric of
[1:59:51] Speaker 1: the clothes beneath it. The material was damp, but still intact,
[1:59:57] Speaker 1: not eaten away by time or salt. I stood glancing
[2:00:02] Speaker 1: at Holloway. Where the hell is the crew? And who?
[2:00:06] Speaker 1: And how do they make a distress cup? Before he
[2:00:10] Speaker 1: could add, a noise echoed from somewhere outside the room,
[2:00:15] Speaker 1: a deep, dull thud. Holloway turned sharply toward the doorway.
[2:00:22] Speaker 1: I tensed, straining to hear past the thick stillness. Then
[2:00:27] Speaker 1: another sound, shuffling, distant, slow. Gallagher's voice carried through the corridor. Rodriguez,
[2:00:41] Speaker 1: I felt something cold settle in my gut. We stepped
[2:00:45] Speaker 1: out of the room. The ship was silent again, nothing
[2:00:48] Speaker 1: but the distant lapping of water against the hull. Galagher
[2:00:52] Speaker 1: stood near the helm, looking around, frowning. Have you seen Rodriguez?
[2:00:59] Speaker 1: He asked. I glanced towards the stairs leading below deck.
[2:01:04] Speaker 1: He should have been back by now. The ten minutes
[2:01:07] Speaker 1: were up. He was checking below. I said Kalikher exhiled
[2:01:14] Speaker 1: through his nose, rolling his shoulders. He hesitated, then turned
[2:01:19] Speaker 1: his gaze towards the stairwell. You think he found something.
[2:01:33] Speaker 1: Gallagher led the way, his flashlight sweeping the stairwell. As
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: we descended into the lower decks, our boots heavy. The
[2:01:41] Speaker 1: same smell from the Captain's quarters was present here, but stronger.
[2:01:48] Speaker 1: It smelled so wrong. I gripped the railing, stepping down cautiously, Rodriguez,
[2:01:56] Speaker 1: My voice came out, tight, you down here, silence. Holloway
[2:02:05] Speaker 1: moved close behind me, barely a step away, breathing hard
[2:02:09] Speaker 1: through his nose. He kept glancing over his shoulder, like
[2:02:14] Speaker 1: he was expecting something to be there. When he turned back,
[2:02:17] Speaker 1: Gallagher kept his jaw locked tight, pressing forward, his flashlight
[2:02:22] Speaker 1: bouncing off old crates and rusted tools. Another few steps,
[2:02:28] Speaker 1: another breath of damp air, thick with salt. Then we
[2:02:36] Speaker 1: heard it, a crash, wood splintering, a low, wet gurgling.
[2:02:45] Speaker 1: We turned fast, Gallagher's light flicking wildly, catching nothing but
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: empty space. But the sound was still there. A struggle.
[2:02:58] Speaker 1: I moved first, pushing past the other's heart hammering against
[2:03:02] Speaker 1: my ribs. Rodriguez no answer, a thud, something heavy hitting
[2:03:10] Speaker 1: the floor. We stood frozen all the way, clenched his
[2:03:14] Speaker 1: jaws so tight I thought it might snap. Then finally
[2:03:21] Speaker 1: I stepped forward. The corridor stretched ahead, damp wood groaning
[2:03:27] Speaker 1: beneath us. I forced myself to move faster, flashlight gripped tight,
[2:03:33] Speaker 1: my pulls so loud in my ears. I almost didn't
[2:03:36] Speaker 1: hear the drip, but it was there, soft rhythmic drip, drip, drip.
[2:03:49] Speaker 1: Gallagher saw it first. His breath hitched, his steps faltered.
[2:03:54] Speaker 1: His flashlight beam caught something on the floor ahead, something red,
[2:04:01] Speaker 1: a trail, a body, Rodriguez. I stopped breathing. The flashlight
[2:04:13] Speaker 1: shook slightly in my grip, illuminating torn fabric, shredded flesh,
[2:04:17] Speaker 1: broken bones, His chest had been ripped open. Chunks of
[2:04:25] Speaker 1: him were missing. When I was gone, the socket black
[2:04:30] Speaker 1: and gave it in. His jaw was slack, the muscles
[2:04:34] Speaker 1: of his neck mangled, as if something had chewed through them.
[2:04:38] Speaker 1: Holloway made a noise, choked, disbelieving, Gallagher swallowed thickly behind me.
[2:04:47] Speaker 1: He didn't move, None of us did. Rodriguez hadn't just
[2:04:52] Speaker 1: been attacked. He had been eaten. Seen a lot of
[2:05:00] Speaker 1: things at sea, drowning, suicide accidents. This wasn't any of those.
[2:05:09] Speaker 1: I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Holloway took
[2:05:13] Speaker 1: a step back from the corpse, shaking his head. His
[2:05:16] Speaker 1: breathing was erratic, chest rising and falling too fast, like
[2:05:21] Speaker 1: he was trying not to hyper ventilate. No, No, we
[2:05:24] Speaker 1: need to go, We need to go right now. What
[2:05:27] Speaker 1: the hell did this to him? Gallagher hadn't moved, just
[2:05:31] Speaker 1: kept staring at the mess that used to be Rodriguez.
[2:05:35] Speaker 1: His face was unreadable, but I could see his fingers
[2:05:39] Speaker 1: twitching at his side, like his body was deciding whether
[2:05:42] Speaker 1: to run or shut down completely. I exhaled, forcing my
[2:05:48] Speaker 1: mind to stay in control. We can't just leave him here.
[2:05:54] Speaker 1: Holloway snapped his head up to look at me. His
[2:05:56] Speaker 1: eyes were wild. Are you are you serious? His voice
[2:06:01] Speaker 1: cracked like you couldn't believe what he was hearing. Look
[2:06:05] Speaker 1: at him. There's no bringing him back. He's dead, he's
[2:06:09] Speaker 1: he jested with both hands, stumbling over his words. He's cant, captain,
[2:06:14] Speaker 1: and if we don't get the hell off the ship,
[2:06:17] Speaker 1: we'll be next. I clinched my jaw, kept him A
[2:06:22] Speaker 1: voice even I know that, do you? He let out
[2:06:28] Speaker 1: a sharp, humorless laugh, because I don't think you do.
[2:06:32] Speaker 1: I think you're trying to make sense of this, trying
[2:06:34] Speaker 1: to be the goddamn captain when we should already be
[2:06:36] Speaker 1: getting the hell out of it. We will not leave
[2:06:39] Speaker 1: him here. Holloway went silent. I forced myself to keep going,
[2:06:46] Speaker 1: even though my stomach felt like he was trying to
[2:06:48] Speaker 1: turn itself inside out. We should at least bring him
[2:06:53] Speaker 1: back to his wife and family, hold a proper funeral.
[2:06:57] Speaker 1: Gallagher excelled, sharply, a hand down his face. His shoulders
[2:07:03] Speaker 1: were still stiff, his posture tense. I swallowed, glancing down
[2:07:08] Speaker 1: at what was left of Rodriguez. I didn't even know
[2:07:12] Speaker 1: what we'd tell anyone back on land, and there was
[2:07:16] Speaker 1: something about the way he had been left there, torn
[2:07:19] Speaker 1: open and abandoned, that didn't sit right with me. I
[2:07:24] Speaker 1: forced myself to look back at them. We don't just
[2:07:27] Speaker 1: leave him here like some animal carcass. We'd take him back.
[2:07:33] Speaker 1: Holloway didn't say anything, just looked at me, eyes dark
[2:07:37] Speaker 1: and unreadable. Then finally Gallagher let out a slow breath
[2:07:44] Speaker 1: and nodded. We didn't argue about it. Anymore. The smell
[2:07:52] Speaker 1: of blood was worse now. The motion of dragging him
[2:07:55] Speaker 1: had stirred it, letting its seep into the wood, thick
[2:07:59] Speaker 1: and warm and unmistakable. Holloway had his hands hugged under
[2:08:04] Speaker 1: Rodriguez's arms, his face a combination of something between determination
[2:08:09] Speaker 1: and revulsion. Gallagher and I took the legs, lifting as
[2:08:13] Speaker 1: best we could. The ship groaned around us as we moved.
[2:08:19] Speaker 1: Every step was slow heavy. The weight of the dead
[2:08:24] Speaker 1: is always different than the weight of the living. More final.
[2:08:29] Speaker 1: We didn't talk, just moved, just kept our eyes ahead.
[2:08:35] Speaker 1: We were almost to the stairwell when Gallagher muttered weight.
[2:08:41] Speaker 1: We stopped. His flashlight flickered bouncing off something near the
[2:08:46] Speaker 1: far end of the corridor, and followed his gaze, shifting
[2:08:51] Speaker 1: my own beam to match. Something was there. At first
[2:08:59] Speaker 1: I thought it was a man. Hey, are you the
[2:09:02] Speaker 1: person that sent out the distress signal? Who the hell
[2:09:05] Speaker 1: did this to our friend? Who are you? I shouted?
[2:09:10] Speaker 1: It didn't respond. Instead, it just stood in the shadows,
[2:09:16] Speaker 1: half lost in the darkness. Then it stepped forward. Its
[2:09:25] Speaker 1: body was swollen, bloated in places, like it had been
[2:09:29] Speaker 1: left underwater for too long. The skin was blue gray,
[2:09:33] Speaker 1: tinged with deep, sickly greens. The texture was hoarse, its
[2:09:38] Speaker 1: flesh not smooth, but broken up, cracked like dried leather.
[2:09:44] Speaker 1: Clusters of binnacles hung to its shoulders, its arms, the
[2:09:47] Speaker 1: side of its neck. It stared at me, and I
[2:09:53] Speaker 1: stared back. Its mouth hung slightly open. The inside of
[2:09:59] Speaker 1: its mouth was ragged and torn. The gums were black,
[2:10:03] Speaker 1: the teeth rotting, but something moved inside, shifting Beneath the teeth,
[2:10:10] Speaker 1: small thin tendrils stained with moisture, flicked in and out
[2:10:14] Speaker 1: between them, almost like feelers. It took another step forward,
[2:10:21] Speaker 1: and it spoke, Not words, not anything that should have
[2:10:26] Speaker 1: been speech, just the wet, gurgling croak, something pulled from
[2:10:32] Speaker 1: the depths of rotting lungs. Rodriguez's body hit the floor
[2:10:37] Speaker 1: with a dull, wet thump. As we let go and ran.
[2:10:42] Speaker 1: We didn't think, didn't speak, didn't breathe. The thing behind
[2:10:47] Speaker 1: us lurched forward, its feet dragging across the damp wood,
[2:10:51] Speaker 1: its movements both too slow and too fast. I could
[2:10:55] Speaker 1: hear it, the wet, labored wheeze rattling in his chest,
[2:11:00] Speaker 1: the sickly pop of something shifting under its skin, Gallagher
[2:11:05] Speaker 1: shoved past me, his flashlight being bouncing wildly. Holloway was
[2:11:09] Speaker 1: right behind him, his breath coming ragged. Desperate, we made
[2:11:14] Speaker 1: it to the stairs, our boots slamming against the steps,
[2:11:18] Speaker 1: but the thing wasn't too far behind us, And then
[2:11:24] Speaker 1: Holloway slipped. He hid the landing hard, his flashlight skidding
[2:11:30] Speaker 1: across the floor. He scrambled up onto his hands and knees, gasping,
[2:11:36] Speaker 1: But the thing behind us was already there, a wet
[2:11:40] Speaker 1: slap of flesh and wood, a caturo croak. I turned,
[2:11:45] Speaker 1: barely catching a glimpse of it lurching toward Holloway. Its
[2:11:49] Speaker 1: mouth yawned open, unimaginably deep, a mass of shattered teeth
[2:11:54] Speaker 1: and writhing slip tendrils. It was so close I didn't think.
[2:12:02] Speaker 1: I grabbed the first thing I could, A box of
[2:12:05] Speaker 1: tools to my left had a crowbar. I grabbed it
[2:12:08] Speaker 1: so tight my hand ached, then swung. The crack of
[2:12:14] Speaker 1: impact was sharp, jarring. The thing's head jerked violently to
[2:12:19] Speaker 1: the side, and something deep inside it made a wet
[2:12:23] Speaker 1: sucking sound, like air escaping from a bloated carcass. It staggered.
[2:12:30] Speaker 1: Gallagher was already moving hauling Holloway to his feet. I
[2:12:34] Speaker 1: took another step forward and brought the crowbar down hard,
[2:12:38] Speaker 1: aiming for its head, its chest, anything that would break.
[2:12:43] Speaker 1: It didn't bleed. It leaped. Dark brackish water spilled from
[2:12:50] Speaker 1: the wound, sloshing onto the deck, carrying with it the
[2:12:54] Speaker 1: wreek of salt and decay. But it didn't stop. It
[2:12:59] Speaker 1: grabbed at me me, its fingers webbed and thick with barnacles,
[2:13:03] Speaker 1: its nails blackened and splitting. I wrenched away, my breath,
[2:13:08] Speaker 1: coming in short gasps. Gallagher moved next, slamming his boot
[2:13:13] Speaker 1: into my chest, sending it staggering back. Holloway grabbed a
[2:13:18] Speaker 1: rustic pipe from the floor and brought it down on
[2:13:20] Speaker 1: its skull. This time it collapsed. The final shuddering breath
[2:13:29] Speaker 1: rattled out from its lungs, but there was no struggle,
[2:13:32] Speaker 1: no death throes, just the slow, unnatural way. It deflated,
[2:13:37] Speaker 1: like the sea itself was pulling its insides back down
[2:13:41] Speaker 1: into the depths. The ship went silent. The three of
[2:13:47] Speaker 1: us stood there, panting, shaking, dripping sweat. I forced myself
[2:13:53] Speaker 1: to breathe. My heart was still hammering, my body still
[2:13:59] Speaker 1: locked in fire vital flight, but we weren't being chased anymore,
[2:14:04] Speaker 1: not yet. Gallagher wiped the sweat from his brow with
[2:14:09] Speaker 1: a shaky hand, cheez he muttered, what the hell was it?
[2:14:16] Speaker 1: Holloway didn't answer. I swallowed hard and stepped forward. My
[2:14:21] Speaker 1: legs shook as adrenaline surge threw me. The creature's skin
[2:14:26] Speaker 1: was the worst part, pale, almost translucent in places, bloated
[2:14:32] Speaker 1: with water, the veins underneath bulging, too dark, too thick.
[2:14:38] Speaker 1: It had been human once, that much was clear, but
[2:14:44] Speaker 1: it wasn't anymore. The barnacles, the jagged nails, the empty sockets,
[2:14:49] Speaker 1: or his eyes should have been. Whatever had happened to
[2:14:52] Speaker 1: this thing, it had changed then I really looked at it.
[2:15:00] Speaker 1: Clothes ragged, torn, but still there. A heavy wool coat
[2:15:06] Speaker 1: tattered and salt eaten, A loose undershirt ripped down the front,
[2:15:11] Speaker 1: A pair of slacks that might have once been navy blue.
[2:15:16] Speaker 1: I knew these clothes. They weren't just old rags. There
[2:15:20] Speaker 1: were a uniform, a sailor's uniform. Holloway must have noticed
[2:15:27] Speaker 1: it at the same time I did, because he let
[2:15:29] Speaker 1: out a short, shaky breath. I turned slightly, saw his
[2:15:35] Speaker 1: hands clenching at his side. His face was pale, his
[2:15:38] Speaker 1: lips pressed into a thin line cap. He said, voice low,
[2:15:46] Speaker 1: How many I blinked? I Holloway swallowed his Adam's apple,
[2:15:54] Speaker 1: bobbing in his throat. He didn't take his eyes off
[2:15:58] Speaker 1: the corpse. How many, he repeated, quieter this time. How
[2:16:05] Speaker 1: many crewmen would a ship like this have? I stared
[2:16:10] Speaker 1: at him. Then I looked around us. Big ship, massive,
[2:16:16] Speaker 1: really for a merchant vessel of this size back in
[2:16:21] Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties. I clenched my jaw. At least thirty,
[2:16:28] Speaker 1: they said. Holloway exhiled slowly through his nose. He didn't
[2:16:34] Speaker 1: look away from the thing on the floor. Let's get
[2:16:37] Speaker 1: out quickly, calling for help and come back for Roderic.
[2:16:41] Speaker 1: The sound rose from all over the lower decks, from
[2:16:44] Speaker 1: the corridors, from the darkness behind the crate, a chorus
[2:16:48] Speaker 1: of damp shuddering exhales, all breathing in unison. Holloway heard
[2:16:54] Speaker 1: it too, his face drained of color. Gallagher took a
[2:16:59] Speaker 1: slow stay back, his lights shaking in his grip. They
[2:17:04] Speaker 1: heard us. They crawled out of the dark, dragging themselves
[2:17:10] Speaker 1: across the damp wood, climbing from the flooded lower decks.
[2:17:14] Speaker 1: Some staggered upright, their legs bent at wrong angles. Others
[2:17:18] Speaker 1: moved on all fours, their limbs elongated, their bloated fingers
[2:17:22] Speaker 1: curling into the boards. One of them lurched into the light.
[2:17:27] Speaker 1: I could hear Holloway gagging. I took a step back.
[2:17:32] Speaker 1: The creature's head snapped toward me, and then it stumbled
[2:17:36] Speaker 1: and ran. At the same time, Gallagher screamed. The whole
[2:17:42] Speaker 1: ship irrupted into motion. The creatures swarmed forward, scrambling over
[2:17:47] Speaker 1: each other, crawling, sprinting, dragging themselves toward us. Go, I shouted,
[2:17:54] Speaker 1: shoving Holloway toward the stairs. We ran. Gallagher was ahead
[2:18:00] Speaker 1: of me. Holloway was right behind him. I could hear
[2:18:04] Speaker 1: the creatures closing in the sick, with a thud of
[2:18:07] Speaker 1: hands and knees against the wood, the wheezing, the gurgling.
[2:18:12] Speaker 1: Gallagher was the first to reach the stairs, taking them
[2:18:15] Speaker 1: two at a time, all the way. Stumbled caught himself.
[2:18:20] Speaker 1: I turned my head just once and saw them dozens,
[2:18:28] Speaker 1: their forms shifting in the dim light, some missing entire
[2:18:32] Speaker 1: pieces of themselves, but still coming. One of them leapt forward,
[2:18:37] Speaker 1: its jaw unhinging, Gallagher reached the railing, but her hand
[2:18:41] Speaker 1: shot out from the darkness and grabbed his ankle. He
[2:18:45] Speaker 1: hit the stairs hard, his flashlight clattering against the floor.
[2:18:50] Speaker 1: I lunged forward, trying to grab his arm, but I
[2:18:53] Speaker 1: was too slow. Something tall. Gallagher screamed, and then he
[2:19:02] Speaker 1: was gone. Holloway kept running. I had no choice but
[2:19:07] Speaker 1: to follow. I could still hear Gallagher screaming. Then it
[2:19:12] Speaker 1: turned into gurgling. He burst onto the deck, gasping for air,
[2:19:20] Speaker 1: lungs burning muscles, screaming. The floor was wet and Holloway
[2:19:25] Speaker 1: and I both slipped and fell, and some of the
[2:19:28] Speaker 1: things gained on us. Move I shouted, but my voice
[2:19:33] Speaker 1: barely carried over the thick, suffocating air. Then they hit us.
[2:19:39] Speaker 1: The first one grabbed my arm, fingers slick and bloated,
[2:19:43] Speaker 1: curling around my wrist. I whipped around, swung everything. I
[2:19:47] Speaker 1: had my fist cracking against the thing's skull. It barely reacted.
[2:19:54] Speaker 1: This jaw hung open, those blackened gums and jagged teeth
[2:19:58] Speaker 1: barely visible in the dim light light. The thing inside
[2:20:02] Speaker 1: his mouth flicked reaching. I drove my knee into its gut,
[2:20:07] Speaker 1: yanking my arm free, Stumbling back Holloway was next, a
[2:20:12] Speaker 1: pair of them closing in on him, the movements slow,
[2:20:15] Speaker 1: like they planned to enjoy themselves. He grabbed a rusted
[2:20:19] Speaker 1: pole from the deck and swung hard, knocking one of
[2:20:22] Speaker 1: them back. The other lunged, grabbing his shoulder. I rushed forward,
[2:20:27] Speaker 1: slamming into the thing, sending both of us sprawling to
[2:20:30] Speaker 1: the deck. Holloway stumbled back, panting, wiping sweat from his
[2:20:36] Speaker 1: face with a shaking hand. And then I felt it,
[2:20:41] Speaker 1: fingers around my ankle. My stomach dropped. I kicked hard,
[2:20:48] Speaker 1: but the grip was iron. It was dragging me back.
[2:20:54] Speaker 1: I tried to reach for something, but my fingers only
[2:20:57] Speaker 1: scraped against the deck, against the damp, rotting wood. And
[2:21:02] Speaker 1: then Holloway was there. He grabbed my arms, yanking me up.
[2:21:07] Speaker 1: The things gripped tightened, its rotting nails, trying to dig
[2:21:10] Speaker 1: into my skin. I barely had time to register the
[2:21:14] Speaker 1: pain before Holloway ripped a plank off the floor and
[2:21:17] Speaker 1: smashed it in the thing's face and wet, sickening crunch,
[2:21:23] Speaker 1: the grip loosened. That was all we needed. We ran.
[2:21:30] Speaker 1: Holloway skidded to a stop near the railing. He turned
[2:21:33] Speaker 1: to me, chest heaving. He didn't speak, he didn't need to.
[2:21:39] Speaker 1: We both knew one option. Jump. I gave him a
[2:21:47] Speaker 1: single nod. No hesitation, no second guessing, Just do it.
[2:21:54] Speaker 1: We turned together and jumped. The air rushed past my ears,
[2:22:00] Speaker 1: the cold spray of salt water hitting my skin as
[2:22:03] Speaker 1: we plummeted toward a black abyss below. I hit the
[2:22:07] Speaker 1: water hard, the cold like a knife to the chest.
[2:22:12] Speaker 1: My breath vanished, stolen by the sudden pressure, the darkness,
[2:22:16] Speaker 1: the silence. For half a second, I was weightless, spinning.
[2:22:23] Speaker 1: The current gripped me, dragged me downward. I kicked hard,
[2:22:28] Speaker 1: fighting against it, lung screaming, heart hammering. My fingers reached
[2:22:33] Speaker 1: for the surface, for air, for anything. Then I broke through, gasping, choking.
[2:22:43] Speaker 1: I wiped the salt from my eyes, twisting, searching holloway.
[2:22:50] Speaker 1: I saw his head bob up a few feet away, sputtering,
[2:22:54] Speaker 1: spitting sea water, where his voice broke hoarse, panicked. We're here,
[2:23:01] Speaker 1: We're where's the dinghy? I turned, looking frantically through the
[2:23:07] Speaker 1: fog drenched water. We saw it just a few feet
[2:23:12] Speaker 1: from where we landed. We pulled ourselves in, slipping and shaking.
[2:23:18] Speaker 1: I just grabbed the oars and started rowing. As my
[2:23:23] Speaker 1: adrenaline faded, I could focus my eyes hear things, see
[2:23:30] Speaker 1: to row. I had to face the ship, seeing it
[2:23:33] Speaker 1: slip into the thick fog that surrounded us, and on
[2:23:37] Speaker 1: the silhouette flat line of the railing, I saw shapes
[2:23:41] Speaker 1: that broke the perfect linearity of it, lumps, vague shapes
[2:23:46] Speaker 1: wandering to the perimeter of the ship, watching us leave,
[2:23:51] Speaker 1: bound to the cursed vessel. I was more than ready
[2:23:56] Speaker 1: to just leave the ship behind, be done with it.
[2:24:00] Speaker 1: But I heard something, not the slashing of them swimming
[2:24:04] Speaker 1: towards us, nor the chase of something in the water.
[2:24:09] Speaker 1: A voice, Captain, come back, please. It was Rodriguez, not
[2:24:19] Speaker 1: a mimicry wet and gurgled beneath the monster's form. His
[2:24:24] Speaker 1: voice was clear, like he was perfectly well, like he
[2:24:28] Speaker 1: hadn't been torn apart in the lower deck. Don't leave
[2:24:32] Speaker 1: us behind, come back. This time it was Gallagher. I hesitated,
[2:24:41] Speaker 1: my rowing, slowed. Holloway tapped my arm, and when I
[2:24:46] Speaker 1: looked at his face, he just shook his head. It
[2:24:51] Speaker 1: wasn't him, it wasn't them. I knew that, but part
[2:24:56] Speaker 1: of me still wanted to go back, just to make
[2:25:02] Speaker 1: I thought back to the log book the final entry.
[2:25:07] Speaker 1: The sea is speaking, the men are listening. In a
[2:25:13] Speaker 1: straight up rawl, one or two we could handle. A
[2:25:17] Speaker 1: ship of thirty hardened sailors would be able to handle
[2:25:20] Speaker 1: that level of incursion. But all it would take is one,
[2:25:25] Speaker 1: one familiar voice, one person you care enough about to
[2:25:29] Speaker 1: check on to make sure they're okay, and you can
[2:25:34] Speaker 1: see how quickly things can turn sour. We eventually reached
[2:25:39] Speaker 1: our vessel. Holloway collapsed behind me, panting, coughing, shaking. Neither
[2:25:46] Speaker 1: of us spoke. By the time we reached the ship,
[2:25:51] Speaker 1: the perdition was gone. The fog had swallowed it all
[2:25:56] Speaker 1: like it had never been there at all. I grew
[2:26:09] Speaker 1: up in a small, single story house on the outskirts
[2:26:12] Speaker 1: of town. Our house was a mudge, just the squat
[2:26:16] Speaker 1: little box of peeling white paint with a porch that
[2:26:19] Speaker 1: sag slightly in the middle. I always thought it looked
[2:26:22] Speaker 1: like it was tired of holding itself up. I didn't care, though.
[2:26:28] Speaker 1: To me, it was home. But what I remember most
[2:26:33] Speaker 1: about that house wasn't the porch, or the yard or
[2:26:37] Speaker 1: the tiny bedroom I shared with my younger brother. It
[2:26:42] Speaker 1: was the crawl space. It stretched under the entire house,
[2:26:48] Speaker 1: a hollow, black cavity barely two feet high, covered by
[2:26:52] Speaker 1: warped wooden slats nailed haphazardly across the entrance. My dad
[2:26:57] Speaker 1: always told me to stay away from it, said it
[2:27:00] Speaker 1: was full of spiders and mold, sharp bits of rusted
[2:27:03] Speaker 1: metal waiting to slice my hands open if I reached in.
[2:27:08] Speaker 1: My mom warned me too, though she was less dramatic
[2:27:11] Speaker 1: about it, more exasperated than afraid. But I was a
[2:27:18] Speaker 1: curious kid. I'd kneel by the slats, peering through the gaps,
[2:27:24] Speaker 1: trying to see what was inside. Most of the time
[2:27:28] Speaker 1: it was just dirt or darkness. Sometimes, if the angle
[2:27:32] Speaker 1: was just right, i'd catch a glimpse of the wooden
[2:27:35] Speaker 1: beams holding up the house, or maybe a flash of
[2:27:38] Speaker 1: something skittering out of sight. I never got too close,
[2:27:43] Speaker 1: never reached inside, until one summer afternoon when I heard
[2:27:51] Speaker 1: some one whisper my name. I was playing in the
[2:27:56] Speaker 1: back yard alone, kicking a plastic soccer ball around when
[2:28:00] Speaker 1: I heard it, faint at first, a dry voice slipping
[2:28:05] Speaker 1: out from beneath the house like a draft. When the
[2:28:09] Speaker 1: voice slipped out from beneath the porch. It was so
[2:28:12] Speaker 1: soft I almost didn't hear it over the sound of
[2:28:15] Speaker 1: the ball bouncing. I stopped, turned toward the crawl space.
[2:28:22] Speaker 1: Nothing but darkness, then again, slightly louder, Come here for
[2:28:29] Speaker 1: a second. Any adult would have ran inside and lured
[2:28:35] Speaker 1: to the police or done anything. But I was seven,
[2:28:40] Speaker 1: maybe eight, and I that stupid childlike fearlessness that makes
[2:28:45] Speaker 1: kids think nothing bad can happen to them. So instead
[2:28:49] Speaker 1: of being scared, I was just curious. I dropped my
[2:28:55] Speaker 1: soccer ball and walked toward the crawled space, dropping to
[2:28:58] Speaker 1: my knees to press my face to the gaps in
[2:29:01] Speaker 1: the wooden slats. Her face stared back at me. I
[2:29:08] Speaker 1: just stared back. The man didn't blink. His eyes were
[2:29:14] Speaker 1: wide locked onto mine, sunken deep into a skull, like
[2:29:18] Speaker 1: he hadn't slept in a long time. His skin was
[2:29:22] Speaker 1: sallow and streaked with dirt, and his hair, what little
[2:29:26] Speaker 1: of it I could see, was long and stringy, clinging
[2:29:30] Speaker 1: to his face in limp, greasy strands. When he spoke again,
[2:29:36] Speaker 1: his voice was almost kind. Didn't mean to scare you, buddy,
[2:29:42] Speaker 1: I still didn't answer. I'm an old friend of your dad's,
[2:29:47] Speaker 1: he said, his lips curling. Really, I finally managed. He
[2:29:55] Speaker 1: shifted slightly, just enough that I could see more of him,
[2:30:00] Speaker 1: bony shoulders, his skin a mess of wounds. He looked filthy,
[2:30:05] Speaker 1: like he'd been rolling in dirt. But his voice was calm, friendly,
[2:30:10] Speaker 1: the way adults talk to kids when they want them
[2:30:13] Speaker 1: to feel safe. Yeah, who used to be real close
[2:30:18] Speaker 1: to the family. But it's been a while since we talked.
[2:30:22] Speaker 1: He probably wouldn't remember me, he nodded. That made sense.
[2:30:29] Speaker 1: Adults forgot things all the time. Hey, do me a favor,
[2:30:35] Speaker 1: he added, lowering his voice. Don't tell him I'm here yet.
[2:30:40] Speaker 1: Let's keep it a secret for now, just between us.
[2:30:44] Speaker 1: Your dad might not understand. At that age, I thought
[2:30:51] Speaker 1: secrets were fun. I don't know why I trusted him.
[2:30:57] Speaker 1: Maybe it was the way he spoke, the softness in
[2:30:59] Speaker 1: his Maybe it was because I wanted it to be true,
[2:31:04] Speaker 1: because the idea of finally having a secret of my
[2:31:07] Speaker 1: own to keep from my parents made it seem grand special.
[2:31:13] Speaker 1: I didn't tell my parents, and I kept visiting the
[2:31:16] Speaker 1: crawl space. We just talked. I'd go outside and kneel
[2:31:23] Speaker 1: by the crawl space, whispering through the gaps in the
[2:31:25] Speaker 1: wooden slats while the man lay on the dirt on
[2:31:28] Speaker 1: the other side. He never came out, never reached for me,
[2:31:33] Speaker 1: just stayed in the shadows, speaking in that same soft,
[2:31:37] Speaker 1: friendly tone that made me feel like I was talking
[2:31:40] Speaker 1: to someone I've known all my life. I felt safe.
[2:31:46] Speaker 1: What's your favorite thing to do? He asked me. Once
[2:31:50] Speaker 1: you play outside a lot, what do you want to
[2:31:53] Speaker 1: be when you grow up. His questions were harmless at first,
[2:31:58] Speaker 1: and he listened so intently, like every little thing I
[2:32:02] Speaker 1: said was the most important thing he'd ever heard. I
[2:32:07] Speaker 1: liked that, But over time the questions started to change.
[2:32:15] Speaker 1: Your dad still works late. Where do you sleep in
[2:32:18] Speaker 1: the house? Your mom locked the doors at night the
[2:32:24] Speaker 1: first time he asked that, I hesitated. Yeah, I said,
[2:32:29] Speaker 1: she locks them every night. I thought about it. Sometimes
[2:32:37] Speaker 1: she forgets, I admitted. He was quiet for a long time. Really,
[2:32:47] Speaker 1: he finally asked, she sometimes forgets. There was something in
[2:32:53] Speaker 1: his voice, something I didn't understand yet, because I was
[2:32:58] Speaker 1: just a kid. Looking back, I can see now that
[2:33:03] Speaker 1: they were never just questions. They were tests, each one
[2:33:08] Speaker 1: peeling back another layer, gauging how much I knew, how
[2:33:12] Speaker 1: much I was willing to tell him how much influence
[2:33:15] Speaker 1: he had over me without me even realizing it, and
[2:33:20] Speaker 1: I'd let him do it. I had fed him information
[2:33:24] Speaker 1: piece by piece, unaware that I was giving him everything
[2:33:28] Speaker 1: he needed. Hey, buddy, I missed you yesterday. Sorry, I
[2:33:35] Speaker 1: had whispered back. I went to my grandma's. Ah, that's
[2:33:41] Speaker 1: nice that she makes good cookies. Yeah, your little brother
[2:33:47] Speaker 1: go to The question was casual, effortless, like he was
[2:33:54] Speaker 1: just making small talk. I'd answered without thinking. I didn't
[2:33:59] Speaker 1: think back then of the fact that I'd never mentioned
[2:34:03] Speaker 1: my little brother to him. Uh huh, he always comes
[2:34:07] Speaker 1: with us. Of course, can't leave the little guy behind her.
[2:34:14] Speaker 1: I laughed, and then I heard the screen door creak open. Hey,
[2:34:21] Speaker 1: what are you doing? I flinched, jerking back from the
[2:34:26] Speaker 1: crawl space so fast that I scraped my knee against
[2:34:29] Speaker 1: the dirt. My little brother was standing on the porch,
[2:34:33] Speaker 1: watching me with wide, suspicious eyes, his small hands gripping
[2:34:38] Speaker 1: the wooden railing, like he had caught me doing something
[2:34:41] Speaker 1: I wasn't supposed to. I panicked. Nothing, I said, quickly
[2:34:47] Speaker 1: scrambling to my feet. I was just looking for something.
[2:34:53] Speaker 1: His face twisted into something skeptical, his little brows knitting
[2:34:58] Speaker 1: together as he took a step forward, craning his neck
[2:35:02] Speaker 1: to look at the crawl space entrance, looking for what.
[2:35:08] Speaker 1: The man was silent now. I could feel him waiting
[2:35:12] Speaker 1: just beyond the slats, watching, listening. I had to think first,
[2:35:20] Speaker 1: Uh my ball, I said, brushing dirt off my shorts
[2:35:24] Speaker 1: and trying to sound as normal as possible. I think
[2:35:28] Speaker 1: it rolled under there. My brother's gaze flicked back to me. Okay,
[2:35:36] Speaker 1: I want to go play in the treehouse, I stumbled,
[2:35:41] Speaker 1: and just like that, he forgot all about it, and
[2:35:47] Speaker 1: I wish he never believed me. The first time the
[2:35:52] Speaker 1: man in the crawl space asked me for something, I
[2:35:55] Speaker 1: almost didn't even register it as a request. Hey buddy,
[2:36:01] Speaker 1: can you do me a favor? It was an easy question.
[2:36:07] Speaker 1: We were just two old friends at this point, trading secrets.
[2:36:12] Speaker 1: I didn't even hesitate before nodding before giving him this simple,
[2:36:16] Speaker 1: automatic sure, because why wouldn't I. He had never asked
[2:36:22] Speaker 1: for anything before. It never even implied that he wanted
[2:36:26] Speaker 1: something from me beyond my company. Your dad keeps a
[2:36:31] Speaker 1: spare key to the shed, right, I remember feeling the
[2:36:35] Speaker 1: slightest pang of discomfort. Then, but he was vague, unformed,
[2:36:41] Speaker 1: like the first tremor of a storm coming, a flicker
[2:36:44] Speaker 1: of something wrong just beneath the surface that my young
[2:36:48] Speaker 1: mind didn't yet know how to identify. I hesitated, but
[2:36:54] Speaker 1: the response came anyway. Yeah, you know where he hid it?
[2:37:02] Speaker 1: Of course I did. It was under the porch, tucked
[2:37:06] Speaker 1: behind a row of old cinder blocks near the back steps.
[2:37:10] Speaker 1: My dad had told me once in case he ever
[2:37:12] Speaker 1: needed me to get it for him, and I'd filed
[2:37:14] Speaker 1: the information away, never thinking it would be useful for
[2:37:18] Speaker 1: anything else. Yeah, I said, think you could grab it
[2:37:25] Speaker 1: for me that. When I finally hesitated for real, there
[2:37:32] Speaker 1: was a shift, a barely perceptible change in the air
[2:37:35] Speaker 1: between us, a tiny crack and the illusion that I
[2:37:39] Speaker 1: had never noticed before. I didn't understand why it felt wrong,
[2:37:44] Speaker 1: but it did, and for the first time since I'd
[2:37:48] Speaker 1: started talking to him, I found myself wanting to leave.
[2:37:54] Speaker 1: Why He laughed, as if the answer was obvious. Ah,
[2:38:02] Speaker 1: it's stupid, he said, dismissing the whole thing as a joke,
[2:38:08] Speaker 1: as if I was the silly one for taking it seriously.
[2:38:11] Speaker 1: I left something in there a long time ago, something
[2:38:15] Speaker 1: I meant to grab a little keepsake. You know. That
[2:38:20] Speaker 1: made sense to me. All the adults had little things
[2:38:24] Speaker 1: they didn't need but couldn't bring themselves to throw away.
[2:38:28] Speaker 1: Even mom had shoe boxes full of old birthday cards
[2:38:31] Speaker 1: she never looked at, and my dad had a draw
[2:38:34] Speaker 1: full of broken watches he always swore he was going
[2:38:37] Speaker 1: to fix. And maybe you noticed, Maybe he sensed that
[2:38:42] Speaker 1: my willingness was starting to crack, because after a moment
[2:38:47] Speaker 1: of silence, he gave me reassurance. It's all right, buddy,
[2:38:54] Speaker 1: he said, you don't have to do it. That was
[2:39:01] Speaker 1: the end of it until the next time. But he
[2:39:08] Speaker 1: didn't ask about the shed key. Hey. His voice was
[2:39:15] Speaker 1: lower that day, quieter, like he didn't want anyone else
[2:39:19] Speaker 1: to hear, even though we were alone in the backyard,
[2:39:24] Speaker 1: just as we always were. What could you leave the
[2:39:29] Speaker 1: back door unlocked for me? Tonight? My stomach twists thinking
[2:39:35] Speaker 1: back to it. Why I want to leave you a
[2:39:40] Speaker 1: little present? Trust me, I really liked presents, and my
[2:39:48] Speaker 1: parents hadn't gotten me a present since my birthday a
[2:39:51] Speaker 1: couple of months back. And then before I could decide
[2:39:55] Speaker 1: what to do, dinner's ready, I turned toward the house.
[2:40:02] Speaker 1: The sound snapping me out of whatever fog I'd been
[2:40:04] Speaker 1: slipping into, and when I looked back, he was gone.
[2:40:12] Speaker 1: I unlocked the back door that night. I don't know
[2:40:16] Speaker 1: if it was because I started trusting the man too much,
[2:40:19] Speaker 1: or if I wanted a present that badly, or maybe
[2:40:22] Speaker 1: I was just too caught up in the normal rhythm
[2:40:24] Speaker 1: of family life to think about anything beyond the present moment.
[2:40:30] Speaker 1: Either way, it didn't matter, because the moment came and went,
[2:40:35] Speaker 1: and by the time we sat down for dinner, the
[2:40:38] Speaker 1: whole thing was already slipping from my mind, already losing
[2:40:42] Speaker 1: its weight. And then, without thinking I said it, I'd
[2:40:51] Speaker 1: talk to your friend to day. I didn't even notice
[2:40:56] Speaker 1: the reaction. I was focused on my plate, barely paying attention,
[2:41:02] Speaker 1: my fork spearing a piece of overcooked chicken as I
[2:41:05] Speaker 1: chewed slowly, distantly. But then the silence settled, and I
[2:41:13] Speaker 1: felt it. Dad's hand frozen mid cut, his knuckles white
[2:41:19] Speaker 1: round the handle of his knife. Mom unmoving at the stove,
[2:41:24] Speaker 1: her back to me, her posture stiff. She looked like
[2:41:28] Speaker 1: her entire body had gone cold all at once. What friend.
[2:41:37] Speaker 1: Dad's voice was slow, careful, like he already knew the answer.
[2:41:42] Speaker 1: But was trying to delay it. I blinked at him,
[2:41:47] Speaker 1: confused by the sudden change in the atmosphere. He your
[2:41:51] Speaker 1: friend in the cool space. The words landed. Ma'am dropped
[2:42:01] Speaker 1: the pan she had been holding, the metal clattering against
[2:42:04] Speaker 1: the stove with a loud, jarring crash. Dad's face went white.
[2:42:11] Speaker 1: For a long time, no one moved, Then all at once,
[2:42:17] Speaker 1: Dad pushed back from the table, standing so fast his
[2:42:20] Speaker 1: chair scraped against the floor with a shriek of wood
[2:42:23] Speaker 1: and tile. Without a word, he turned, walked to the
[2:42:27] Speaker 1: front door and stormed outside. My father was already in
[2:42:33] Speaker 1: motion before I could fully register what was happening, his
[2:42:37] Speaker 1: movement sharp and frantic as he ripped at the wooden
[2:42:40] Speaker 1: slats covering the crawl space entrance, his fingers prying at
[2:42:45] Speaker 1: the brittle planks with a kind of strength I had
[2:42:47] Speaker 1: never seen before. The nail shrieked as they were wrenched loose,
[2:42:52] Speaker 1: the old wood splintering beneath the force of his grip.
[2:42:57] Speaker 1: Dad My voice came out small, but he didn't answer.
[2:43:03] Speaker 1: He was breathing too hard, too fast, his hands shaking
[2:43:07] Speaker 1: as he pulled away the last of the boards and
[2:43:10] Speaker 1: tossed them aside. The entrance to the crawl space yawned
[2:43:14] Speaker 1: open before us, a gaping black mouth cut into the earth.
[2:43:20] Speaker 1: Dad grabbed the flashlight from his belt, flicked it on,
[2:43:23] Speaker 1: and shine the beam inside. For a moment. I expected
[2:43:30] Speaker 1: to see him. I expected the pale, thin man from
[2:43:34] Speaker 1: beneath our house to be crouched in the dirt, his
[2:43:37] Speaker 1: sunken eyes reflecting the beam of light as he stared.
[2:43:42] Speaker 1: But there was nothing, just emptiness. The flashlight beam swept
[2:43:50] Speaker 1: across the crawl space, illuminating nothing but bare dirt and
[2:43:54] Speaker 1: cobwebbed wooden beams. The air that wafted out smelt stale
[2:43:59] Speaker 1: and sour, thick with a scent of damp rot and
[2:44:02] Speaker 1: things that had been left to decay in the dark
[2:44:05] Speaker 1: for too long though. No footprints in the dirt, no
[2:44:10] Speaker 1: sign that any one had ever been inside, no mattress,
[2:44:14] Speaker 1: no discarded clothes, no remnants of a person who might
[2:44:18] Speaker 1: have been living there. Maybe I'd made up the entire
[2:44:22] Speaker 1: thing in my head, a game of pretend that it
[2:44:25] Speaker 1: spiraled out of control. But then the flashlight beam passed
[2:44:31] Speaker 1: over something small and familiar, something that shouldn't have been there.
[2:44:39] Speaker 1: A shoe, tiny red half covered in dirt. I felt
[2:44:48] Speaker 1: a jolt of recognition before my mind fully processed what
[2:44:52] Speaker 1: I was looking at. My stomach twisted violently, and the
[2:44:57] Speaker 1: air seemed to thin around me, the world tilting sideways
[2:45:01] Speaker 1: as I stared at it. Because I knew that shoe
[2:45:05] Speaker 1: didn't belong to me. It belonged to my little brother.
[2:45:13] Speaker 1: What the hell? My dad's voice was hoarse, cracking at
[2:45:18] Speaker 1: the edges as he stepped closer, his flashlight trained on
[2:45:21] Speaker 1: the single, out of place objects sitting in the dirt,
[2:45:25] Speaker 1: His hands clenched at his sides, his whole body rigid
[2:45:29] Speaker 1: with tension. He turned toward me, his face pale. Where
[2:45:36] Speaker 1: is your brother? The words barely had time to register
[2:45:42] Speaker 1: before my mother's voice rang out from behind us. Who
[2:45:46] Speaker 1: are you talking about? I turned and saw us standing
[2:45:50] Speaker 1: in the doorway, looking at us with an expression of deep,
[2:45:54] Speaker 1: unsettled confusion. Her brows furrowed as she tug in the
[2:45:58] Speaker 1: scene before her. Who's in the crawl space? She asked again,
[2:46:05] Speaker 1: and then the screaming started. I don't remember running inside.
[2:46:13] Speaker 1: I don't remember how I got from the front yard
[2:46:16] Speaker 1: to the hallway, how my legs carried me forward so
[2:46:19] Speaker 1: fast that my surroundings blurred, the walls stretching long and thin,
[2:46:24] Speaker 1: like something from a fever dream. I don't remember how
[2:46:28] Speaker 1: I ended up right behind my father, well how my
[2:46:30] Speaker 1: mother's voice, shouting something I couldn't understand, faded into a
[2:46:35] Speaker 1: dull hum. At the edges of my mind, I only
[2:46:40] Speaker 1: remember the screaming. It was raw and high and jagged,
[2:46:49] Speaker 1: something too broken to come from a person, something that
[2:46:53] Speaker 1: didn't sound human at all, And it was coming from
[2:46:58] Speaker 1: my brother's room. My father hid the door at full speed,
[2:47:04] Speaker 1: his shoulder slamming into it so hard that it must
[2:47:07] Speaker 1: have hurt. The wood buckled under his weight, and for
[2:47:11] Speaker 1: a moment it didn't budge, but then it gave way.
[2:47:16] Speaker 1: He stumbled forward, nearly falling as he caught himself. And
[2:47:22] Speaker 1: then I saw the blood. He was everywhere, splattered across
[2:47:30] Speaker 1: the floor, painted up the walls in thick visceral streaks,
[2:47:35] Speaker 1: so much of it, more than I thought a person
[2:47:38] Speaker 1: could even have inside them. He was still wet, still warm,
[2:47:44] Speaker 1: still spreading in slow creeping rivers beneath the flickering light
[2:47:48] Speaker 1: of the ceiling fan. And in the center of it
[2:47:52] Speaker 1: all my brother, or what was left of him. I
[2:48:01] Speaker 1: don't think I screamed. I don't think I made any
[2:48:04] Speaker 1: noise at all, because something inside me broke, something deep
[2:48:11] Speaker 1: and dark and all consuming. And as I stood there,
[2:48:16] Speaker 1: staring at the thing and the floor that had once
[2:48:19] Speaker 1: been my little brother, the thought rose up in me,
[2:48:23] Speaker 1: slow and suffocating, curling around my throat like smoke. I
[2:48:30] Speaker 1: did this. I don't know when my mother pushed past me,
[2:48:37] Speaker 1: or when a voice cracked into a sound i'd never
[2:48:39] Speaker 1: heard before, something so shattered and animalistic that it didn't
[2:48:44] Speaker 1: even sound like words. I don't know if they tried
[2:48:48] Speaker 1: to shield me from the sight, if they pulled me
[2:48:50] Speaker 1: back or turned me away. I don't know if I
[2:48:53] Speaker 1: collapsed or ran, or simply stood there as the room
[2:48:57] Speaker 1: spun and folded inward around me, because in that moment,
[2:49:03] Speaker 1: all I could hear was his voice, Where do you
[2:49:09] Speaker 1: sleep in the house whom Um locked the doors at night?
[2:49:14] Speaker 1: She forgets sometimes? Really, the realization came slowly. It wasn't
[2:49:23] Speaker 1: like a sudden impact, not an explosion of clarity. It
[2:49:28] Speaker 1: was something worse, something creeping, something insidious, something that had
[2:49:33] Speaker 1: been building for weeks, for months, for however long it
[2:49:37] Speaker 1: had been listening to me. I had told him everything.
[2:49:42] Speaker 1: I'd given him the key to my family. I don't
[2:49:48] Speaker 1: know what happened after that. I don't know who called
[2:49:51] Speaker 1: the police, or how long it took them to arrive,
[2:49:54] Speaker 1: or how many times I was asked the same questions
[2:49:57] Speaker 1: over and over and over again, until my mouth was
[2:50:01] Speaker 1: dry and my voice cracked from the effort of trying
[2:50:04] Speaker 1: to answer. I don't know if I ever answered at all,
[2:50:09] Speaker 1: because how do you begin to explain something like that.
[2:50:14] Speaker 1: I don't remember the funeral. I don't remember the weeks
[2:50:17] Speaker 1: that followed, or the way my parents stopped talking to
[2:50:20] Speaker 1: each other, or the way my mother wouldn't even look
[2:50:22] Speaker 1: at me anymore. I don't remember how I got from
[2:50:26] Speaker 1: that house to a different one, or how much time
[2:50:29] Speaker 1: had passed before my father finally packed up all our
[2:50:32] Speaker 1: things and moved us away. But I remember the guilt.
[2:50:49] Speaker 1: I've always believed in small gestures, the little things that
[2:50:52] Speaker 1: remind someone you'd love them, even in the middle of
[2:50:55] Speaker 1: a hectic, stressful life. My husband, Daniel, worked long hours
[2:51:01] Speaker 1: at a law firm, and I knew how exhausting it
[2:51:04] Speaker 1: could be for him. He'd come home late most nights,
[2:51:08] Speaker 1: rolling his shoulders, loosening his tie, pressing a quick, tied
[2:51:12] Speaker 1: kiss to my forehead before collapsing on to the couch.
[2:51:17] Speaker 1: It wasn't that he was an affectionate he really was,
[2:51:21] Speaker 1: but his job pulled all the energy out of him,
[2:51:25] Speaker 1: and I hated seeing the exhaustion in his eyes. So
[2:51:30] Speaker 1: for Valentine's Day, I decided to do something small, nothing extravagant,
[2:51:36] Speaker 1: nothing over the top, just a handwritten letter, something that
[2:51:41] Speaker 1: would make him smile in the middle of his long day,
[2:51:44] Speaker 1: maybe remind him that, no matter how difficult work got,
[2:51:48] Speaker 1: he had something good waiting for him at home. I
[2:51:52] Speaker 1: spent longer then i'd like to admit, writing it, curling
[2:51:56] Speaker 1: up on the couch with a warm blanket and a
[2:51:58] Speaker 1: glass of wine, wapping my pen against my chin as
[2:52:02] Speaker 1: I thought of the right words. I wrote about the
[2:52:05] Speaker 1: first time we met, the awkward, fumbling early days of
[2:52:09] Speaker 1: our relationship, the late night talks that stretched into early mornings.
[2:52:14] Speaker 1: I wrote about how grateful I was for him, how
[2:52:17] Speaker 1: much I loved the life we had built together. Even
[2:52:21] Speaker 1: threw in a few of our inside jokes, the stupid
[2:52:24] Speaker 1: jokes that made no sense to anyone else but had
[2:52:27] Speaker 1: us gasping for breath from laughing too hard. When I
[2:52:32] Speaker 1: was satisfied, I folded the letter neatly, placed it in
[2:52:36] Speaker 1: a pink envelope, and sealed it with a kiss. The
[2:52:41] Speaker 1: next morning, I made sure to stop by his office
[2:52:44] Speaker 1: on my way to work. His law firm was an
[2:52:47] Speaker 1: older building, one of those places with too much marble
[2:52:51] Speaker 1: and not enough personality, but the receptionist at the front
[2:52:55] Speaker 1: desk was friendly enough. She told me to place the
[2:52:59] Speaker 1: envelope in the mail bar just outside the building. She smiled, nodded,
[2:53:05] Speaker 1: and I told her to have a great day. That evening,
[2:53:10] Speaker 1: Daniel came home as usual, tired but smiling just like always.
[2:53:17] Speaker 1: He dropped his bag by the door, loosened his tie,
[2:53:20] Speaker 1: kissed me hello. We had dinner together, talking about our day,
[2:53:26] Speaker 1: well mostly his day. He didn't mention the letter, but
[2:53:32] Speaker 1: I didn't bring it up either. Maybe he hadn't gotten
[2:53:35] Speaker 1: around to reading it yet, maybe he wanted to save
[2:53:38] Speaker 1: it for later. I figured i'd hear about it soon enough.
[2:53:45] Speaker 1: But the next morning, before I even had time to
[2:53:47] Speaker 1: get out of bed, I heard the sound of the
[2:53:50] Speaker 1: mail slot opening. The usual stack of letters slid on
[2:53:54] Speaker 1: to the floor, the soft thump barely registering in my
[2:53:58] Speaker 1: half asleep mind. For a second, I smiled. Daniel must
[2:54:06] Speaker 1: have written back. It wasn't like him. He'd always been
[2:54:11] Speaker 1: more of a talker than a writer. But maybe my
[2:54:14] Speaker 1: little Valentine surprise had inspired him. I sat up, rubbing
[2:54:19] Speaker 1: the sleep from my eyes, and made my way over
[2:54:22] Speaker 1: to the mailbox. I tore the envelope open and pulled
[2:54:26] Speaker 1: out the letter. It was written on the same stationary
[2:54:30] Speaker 1: I had used, the same smooth, off white paper, the
[2:54:34] Speaker 1: same faintly embossed edges. At first, it was sweet. I
[2:54:44] Speaker 1: got your letter. Thank you, my love. It means more
[2:54:47] Speaker 1: to me than you know. You always know how to
[2:54:50] Speaker 1: make me smile always. For a moment, I felt a
[2:54:57] Speaker 1: rush of warmth. But then I read the next line.
[2:55:04] Speaker 1: I need you to listen carefully. This is important. I
[2:55:08] Speaker 1: don't know who has been coming home to you every night.
[2:55:13] Speaker 1: I froze. I felt the ghost of a shudder ripple
[2:55:17] Speaker 1: through me, forcing myself to keep reading, my hands suddenly
[2:55:20] Speaker 1: clamming against the paper. I haven't left the office in months.
[2:55:25] Speaker 1: I don't know what's happened. I don't know how, but
[2:55:29] Speaker 1: something is pretending to be me. I let the paper
[2:55:33] Speaker 1: slip from my fingers. I sat there staring at the
[2:55:37] Speaker 1: letter in my hands, my breath coming slow and uneven.
[2:55:42] Speaker 1: The words blurred in front of me, my mind scrambling
[2:55:46] Speaker 1: for any rational explanation. It had to be a joke,
[2:55:52] Speaker 1: a cruel, elaborate prank. Someone at Daniel's office must have
[2:55:56] Speaker 1: found my letter, copied his handwriting, and sent this back
[2:56:00] Speaker 1: to mess with me, maybe even Daniel himself. Though I
[2:56:04] Speaker 1: didn't understand why he'd do something so strange, and yet
[2:56:11] Speaker 1: my skin prickled with unease. I forced a laugh under
[2:56:16] Speaker 1: my breath, shaking my head. It was absurd, completely ridiculous. Still,
[2:56:24] Speaker 1: when I heard him stir in the bedroom, when I
[2:56:27] Speaker 1: heard the faint sound of sheets rustling and the floor
[2:56:30] Speaker 1: creaking under his weight, something in me hesitated, just for
[2:56:35] Speaker 1: a moment. I folded the letter, slipped it back into
[2:56:39] Speaker 1: the envelope, and shoved it into my purse before heading
[2:56:43] Speaker 1: to the kitchen to make coffee. Trying to shake off
[2:56:46] Speaker 1: the unease. I walked into the kitchen and reached for
[2:56:50] Speaker 1: the matches. We had one of those odd gas stoves,
[2:56:54] Speaker 1: the kind way you had to turn the knob and
[2:56:56] Speaker 1: light the burning yourself. It had been finicky for years,
[2:57:00] Speaker 1: sometimes requiring two or three tries before the flame would catch.
[2:57:05] Speaker 1: By the time Daniel walked into the kitchen, rolling his
[2:57:08] Speaker 1: shoulders and rubbing her hand through his hair, I'd convinced
[2:57:12] Speaker 1: myself that I was being ridiculous morning, he murmured, Pressing
[2:57:18] Speaker 1: a quick kiss to my temple. I twisted the knob,
[2:57:22] Speaker 1: and the familiar hiss of gas filled the air. The
[2:57:26] Speaker 1: smell was sharp, pungent, but I struck the match anyway,
[2:57:30] Speaker 1: letting the tiny flame flicker to life between my fingers. Then,
[2:57:35] Speaker 1: with a quick motion, I brought it to the burner.
[2:57:39] Speaker 1: The fire flared up instantly, a small bush of heat,
[2:57:43] Speaker 1: a soft burst of orange and blue. As the gas
[2:57:46] Speaker 1: finally caught, the kitchen was filled with the quiet crackle
[2:57:50] Speaker 1: of the flame settling, the warmth spreading outward. And that's when,
[2:57:57] Speaker 1: for some reason, Daniel flinched, not just the small, startled twitch,
[2:58:05] Speaker 1: but a sharp, full bodied jerk. His shoulders tensed, his
[2:58:10] Speaker 1: hands curled slightly at his sides, and for a fraction
[2:58:14] Speaker 1: of a second, his eyes weren't on me. Are you okay?
[2:58:20] Speaker 1: I asked, casually, glancing at him over my shoulder. He blinked,
[2:58:25] Speaker 1: the stiffness in his body vanishing as quickly as it
[2:58:28] Speaker 1: had come. Yeah, he said, his voice smooth, just spaced
[2:58:35] Speaker 1: out for a second. I searched his face, his movements,
[2:58:40] Speaker 1: the little details of him, the way his lips felt
[2:58:43] Speaker 1: warm against my skin, the familiar sound of his bare
[2:58:47] Speaker 1: feet padding against the tile, the casual way he leaned
[2:58:50] Speaker 1: against the counter as he took his first sip of coffee.
[2:58:55] Speaker 1: This was Daniel, my husband. I was letting my imagination
[2:59:01] Speaker 1: get the best of me. But still, hey, I said,
[2:59:08] Speaker 1: forcing my voice to sound light, teasing. You didn't leave
[2:59:12] Speaker 1: me a love letter back, ha, He raised an eyebrow
[2:59:16] Speaker 1: midsip love letter, I hesitated the one I left at
[2:59:22] Speaker 1: your office for a split second, just the fraction of
[2:59:28] Speaker 1: a moment. His expression didn't change. Then too quickly he smiled, Oh, yeah, sorry,
[2:59:39] Speaker 1: I meant to say something that was really sweet. I
[2:59:43] Speaker 1: forced myself to smile. Did you like it, of course,
[2:59:49] Speaker 1: he said, taking another sip of coffee. Best part of
[2:59:53] Speaker 1: my day. I nodded, pretending to be satisfied with his answer,
[3:00:00] Speaker 1: but I knew he was lying. If he had actually
[3:00:04] Speaker 1: read the letter, he would have said something about the
[3:00:07] Speaker 1: inside jokes, about the memories I'd written down, about any
[3:00:11] Speaker 1: of the personal details that made the letter special. That's
[3:00:15] Speaker 1: what he had always done. Some of our inside jokes
[3:00:19] Speaker 1: were played simply because he had mentioned them so much,
[3:00:22] Speaker 1: and he loved it. When I brought them up myself,
[3:00:27] Speaker 1: I swallowed hard, glancing down at my phone. Work. I
[3:00:32] Speaker 1: had to get to work. I had to let this go.
[3:00:38] Speaker 1: That evening, we sat on the couch watching TV, just
[3:00:42] Speaker 1: like we always did. The warmth of his body was familiar,
[3:00:47] Speaker 1: his arm draped lazily over the back of the couch,
[3:00:50] Speaker 1: fingers grazing my shoulder. To anyone else, it would have
[3:00:55] Speaker 1: seemed perfectly normal, perfectly safe. But the letter sat heavy
[3:01:02] Speaker 1: in my purse, the words echoing in my head. I
[3:01:07] Speaker 1: couldn't stop thinking about it. So after a while I
[3:01:13] Speaker 1: turned to him with a grin, keeping my voice light. Hey,
[3:01:19] Speaker 1: remember when we first met, he blinked. Caught off guard.
[3:01:26] Speaker 1: You're testing me, he asked, laughing softly. Maybe, I teased,
[3:01:32] Speaker 1: nudging his arm. Come on, you'd better remember, he smarked,
[3:01:38] Speaker 1: tilting his head like he was thinking. Who was in college? Right?
[3:01:44] Speaker 1: Second year? I remember these things, you know this June
[3:01:49] Speaker 1: twenty eighth, I felt my chest tightened. My husband was
[3:01:56] Speaker 1: forgetful with date that much I knew, but I knew
[3:02:01] Speaker 1: this specific date was important to him. In fact, it
[3:02:05] Speaker 1: was such an important date he dinked it into his skin.
[3:02:10] Speaker 1: I forced out an exaggerated gasp, smacking his arm playfully.
[3:02:15] Speaker 1: Of course, you remember, he didn't glance down, he didn't laugh,
[3:02:23] Speaker 1: He just smiled at me. Now I knew for certain
[3:02:29] Speaker 1: that this wasn't my husband. Tomorrow, I had to get out.
[3:02:39] Speaker 1: The next morning, I did everything exactly the same. I
[3:02:44] Speaker 1: woke up before him, brewed the coffee, kissed him on
[3:02:47] Speaker 1: the cheek, and told him I had a long day ahead.
[3:02:51] Speaker 1: He smiled at me, like always, a perfect effortless thing,
[3:02:56] Speaker 1: the way he always heard. He ran a hand through
[3:02:59] Speaker 1: his dark hair, sipped his coffee, and told me to
[3:03:03] Speaker 1: have a good day. But as I grabbed my purse
[3:03:06] Speaker 1: and stepped outside, I forced myself not to hesitate. I
[3:03:12] Speaker 1: drove the same way I always did, following my morning route,
[3:03:16] Speaker 1: taking the usual turns, sticking to routine just in case.
[3:03:21] Speaker 1: But once I was out of sight of the house,
[3:03:24] Speaker 1: I turned the opposite direction. Instead of heading toward my office,
[3:03:30] Speaker 1: I drove straight to Daniel's law firm, gripping the steering
[3:03:33] Speaker 1: wheel so tightly my fingers ached. I don't know exactly
[3:03:40] Speaker 1: what I was expecting, maybe to walk into the building
[3:03:43] Speaker 1: seam at his desk, laughing with his coworkers, proving that
[3:03:47] Speaker 1: this was all just some elaborate misunderstanding, that the letter
[3:03:51] Speaker 1: had been a joke, a mistake, something stupid and explainable.
[3:03:57] Speaker 1: Maybe I wanted to see the normality of his workspace,
[3:04:00] Speaker 1: to remind myself that the man who came home to
[3:04:03] Speaker 1: me every night really was my husband. But deed down,
[3:04:11] Speaker 1: I already knew that wouldn't happen. The receptionist looked up
[3:04:16] Speaker 1: at me from behind the desk, Ai, I said, forcing
[3:04:21] Speaker 1: a smile, I'm just dropping by to see my husband.
[3:04:27] Speaker 1: The woman's brow knitted together slightly, and for a moment
[3:04:31] Speaker 1: she just looked at me as if I had said
[3:04:34] Speaker 1: something confusing, something she couldn't quite make sense of. Then,
[3:04:39] Speaker 1: after a beat, she gave me a small, gentle smile,
[3:04:44] Speaker 1: one I immediately hated. What's your husband's name, she said,
[3:04:51] Speaker 1: her gaze fixed on the monitor in front of her. Daniel.
[3:04:55] Speaker 1: I muttered, oh, honey, she said softly. He hasn't been
[3:05:01] Speaker 1: here in weeks. The words felt like a slap. My
[3:05:09] Speaker 1: breath stole in my throat, my heart stuttering violently against
[3:05:13] Speaker 1: my ribs, my fingers tightened around the strap of my purse.
[3:05:19] Speaker 1: What do you mean that there has to be some mistake?
[3:05:24] Speaker 1: He works here, he comes in every day. The receptionist's
[3:05:29] Speaker 1: face shifted slightly, uncertainty flickering behind her eyes. She hesitated,
[3:05:36] Speaker 1: then let out a slow breath. I. I'm sorry, but
[3:05:42] Speaker 1: no one's seen him in a long time. He thought
[3:05:45] Speaker 1: maybe he took another job and just never told us
[3:05:48] Speaker 1: his things are still here. But she shook her head.
[3:05:53] Speaker 1: I really don't think he's been in. Something in me
[3:05:59] Speaker 1: felt like it was full, holding in on itself. My
[3:06:02] Speaker 1: vision narrowed slightly, as if the entire world had tilted sideways,
[3:06:06] Speaker 1: and I was struggling to stay upright. Can I Can
[3:06:11] Speaker 1: I seize our office? I asked. The receptionist gave me
[3:06:17] Speaker 1: another uncertain glance, but nodded. She led me down the hallway,
[3:06:23] Speaker 1: past the rows of desks, past the open offices where
[3:06:27] Speaker 1: people typed away their computers, where conversations hummed in the background.
[3:06:33] Speaker 1: All of it normal, all of it completely detached from
[3:06:37] Speaker 1: the fact that something in my life had cracked open
[3:06:41] Speaker 1: into something monstrous. We stopped in front of a lock
[3:06:46] Speaker 1: storage room. She hesitated, placing a hand on the handle,
[3:06:51] Speaker 1: as if she wasn't sure she should be showing me this. Then,
[3:06:56] Speaker 1: in a quiet voice, she said, his things as inside
[3:07:01] Speaker 1: we thought he'd just quit one day and never told anyone.
[3:07:06] Speaker 1: My stomach felt hollow. The woman turned the knob and
[3:07:12] Speaker 1: the door creaked open. Inside everything was untouched. His work
[3:07:20] Speaker 1: bag sat on the chair, the straps slightly askew, like
[3:07:24] Speaker 1: he had tossed it there with the intention of picking
[3:07:26] Speaker 1: it up again. Soon, his coat hung on the wall,
[3:07:30] Speaker 1: neatly pressed, not a single sign of dust or rage.
[3:07:34] Speaker 1: On the desk, a pile of unopened males sat undisturbed.
[3:07:41] Speaker 1: I stepped forward slowly, the air thick around me, pressing
[3:07:46] Speaker 1: down on my shoulders like a weight I couldn't shake.
[3:07:51] Speaker 1: And then I saw it. A single sheet of paper,
[3:07:55] Speaker 1: placed neatly in the center of the desk was written
[3:08:00] Speaker 1: on the top. My hand shook as I reached for it.
[3:08:06] Speaker 1: The moment I touched it, I knew the handwriting was his.
[3:08:15] Speaker 1: If you're reading this, I'm still here. Something else took
[3:08:20] Speaker 1: my place. It knows everything I know. It acts like me,
[3:08:24] Speaker 1: but it isn't me. I don't know how long I
[3:08:28] Speaker 1: have left. I messed with something I shouldn't. It's afraid
[3:08:33] Speaker 1: of fire. I love you. My vision blurred slightly. I
[3:08:42] Speaker 1: wanted to collapse, to let the panic finally crash over me,
[3:08:46] Speaker 1: to break down the way my body was begging me to.
[3:08:51] Speaker 1: But I didn't, because now I knew it wasn't about
[3:08:58] Speaker 1: understanding what had happened. It wasn't about figuring out where
[3:09:01] Speaker 1: Daniel had gone or what had taken his place. It
[3:09:06] Speaker 1: was about stopping it. I folded the note carefully, sliding
[3:09:12] Speaker 1: it into my pocket. Then without another word, I turned
[3:09:17] Speaker 1: and walked out of the office. I wasn't going to run.
[3:09:23] Speaker 1: I was going to burn it alive. The house was
[3:09:31] Speaker 1: dark when I pulled into the driveway, its windows staring
[3:09:35] Speaker 1: back at me like empty eyes. The porch light was on,
[3:09:40] Speaker 1: casting a soft glow across the steps, and for a
[3:09:43] Speaker 1: split second, everything looked normal. But the moment I stepped inside,
[3:09:53] Speaker 1: I knew he was waiting for me. It stood in
[3:10:00] Speaker 1: the center of the living room, perfectly still, its hands
[3:10:04] Speaker 1: resting at its side. The expression on his face was
[3:10:08] Speaker 1: one of casual curiosity, but there was something wrong with it,
[3:10:13] Speaker 1: something in the way the corners of its mouth stretched
[3:10:16] Speaker 1: just a little too wide the way its eyes followed
[3:10:19] Speaker 1: me without blinking. Where have you been, it asked Daniel's voice.
[3:10:29] Speaker 1: I forced the smile, shrugging as I shut the door
[3:10:32] Speaker 1: behind me. Nowhere important. It didn't respond right away, It
[3:10:40] Speaker 1: just watched. The air felt heavy, thick with the weight
[3:10:46] Speaker 1: of what I knew was coming. Every instinct in my
[3:10:50] Speaker 1: body screamed at me to run, but I didn't. I couldn't.
[3:10:58] Speaker 1: I had to see this through. So I walked past it,
[3:11:03] Speaker 1: moving toward the kitchen, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
[3:11:08] Speaker 1: Its head turned slightly as I moved. You were acting
[3:11:13] Speaker 1: different tonight, it murmured. I laughed, softly, keeping my voice
[3:11:19] Speaker 1: light a long day. The thing smiled at that. I
[3:11:27] Speaker 1: clenched my jaw, pushing down the growing nausea curling in
[3:11:31] Speaker 1: my stomach. I couldn't let it sense my fear. Not yet.
[3:11:39] Speaker 1: I made it to the kitchen without breaking my stride.
[3:11:42] Speaker 1: The bottle of whiskey was already within reach, sitting on
[3:11:45] Speaker 1: the counter where we always kept it. I grabbed it.
[3:11:51] Speaker 1: The thing smiled, didn't falter, but something changed, a shift
[3:11:57] Speaker 1: in its posture, a slight tilt of the head, and then,
[3:12:02] Speaker 1: in a voice that was almost concerned, and asked, what
[3:12:07] Speaker 1: are you doing. I didn't answer. I unscrewed the cap,
[3:12:13] Speaker 1: turned the bottle over and poured. The dark liquid splashed
[3:12:20] Speaker 1: across the floor, soaking the old wooden panels, spreading in
[3:12:24] Speaker 1: uneven puddles toward the living room. The smell of alcohol
[3:12:27] Speaker 1: filled the air, sharp and potent. The thing's expression finally faltered,
[3:12:35] Speaker 1: its voice darkened. Stop. I didn't. I reached into my
[3:12:43] Speaker 1: pocket and pulled out the lighter. The click of the
[3:12:46] Speaker 1: flint wheels sounded deafening. In the silence, a single flame
[3:12:51] Speaker 1: flickered to life. The thing's mouth twisted into something unnatural.
[3:12:58] Speaker 1: I couldn't help but flinch. You don't want to do that,
[3:13:03] Speaker 1: it said, softly, But I did. I flicked my wrist,
[3:13:10] Speaker 1: dropped the flame, and the fire irrupted. The fire searched forward,
[3:13:19] Speaker 1: swallowing the floor in hungry waves, licking up the walls
[3:13:22] Speaker 1: with greedy fingers. It rushed outward, creeping up anything in sight.
[3:13:28] Speaker 1: Heat exploded against my skin, and in the middle of
[3:13:32] Speaker 1: it all, the thing screamed in rage. Its body convulsed,
[3:13:40] Speaker 1: twisting violently, as if something beneath the surface was trying
[3:13:45] Speaker 1: to break free. Its skin peeled away in strips, revealing
[3:13:50] Speaker 1: something underneath that wasn't flesh blackened, the bandages stretched, elongating,
[3:13:57] Speaker 1: writhing like smoke. Its hands curled into a strange amalgamation
[3:14:02] Speaker 1: of shapes and colors, skeletal in nature, but not quite
[3:14:07] Speaker 1: the suggestion of her head buckled and cracked, folding in
[3:14:11] Speaker 1: on itself, the remnants of its features disassembly like shattered porcelain.
[3:14:18] Speaker 1: It lunged at me. I stumbled backward, barely dodging as
[3:14:24] Speaker 1: one of its limbs whipped toward me, missing by inches.
[3:14:28] Speaker 1: The fire spread fast, swallowing the walls, curling around the windows,
[3:14:33] Speaker 1: devouring the curtains. The heat was unbearable, now, choking the air,
[3:14:39] Speaker 1: stealing my breath. The house was collapsing. I turned and ran.
[3:14:48] Speaker 1: I didn't stop, not when the walls groaned and cracked,
[3:14:51] Speaker 1: not when the ceiling above me shuddered. The front door
[3:14:55] Speaker 1: was only a few steps away. I could make it.
[3:15:00] Speaker 1: Behind me. The thing was screaming, but I didn't look back.
[3:15:06] Speaker 1: I threw myself outside, hitting the pavement hard, rolling on
[3:15:10] Speaker 1: to my side, gasping for air as the heat roared
[3:15:14] Speaker 1: behind me. I lifted my head just in time to
[3:15:19] Speaker 1: see the roof cave in, flames bursting through the structure,
[3:15:23] Speaker 1: sending embers flying into the night. The fire consumed everything,
[3:15:30] Speaker 1: turning my home into nothing more than a funeral pyre
[3:15:34] Speaker 1: for whatever had taken Daniel's place, and the thing inside
[3:15:40] Speaker 1: kept screaming until finally silence. For a long time, all
[3:15:53] Speaker 1: I could hear was the fire. The flames hissed and crackled,
[3:15:58] Speaker 1: devouring what was left of my home, filling the air
[3:16:01] Speaker 1: with thick, choking smoke. The heat pulsed against my skin
[3:16:06] Speaker 1: even from a distance. I sat there on the pavement,
[3:16:12] Speaker 1: my chest heaving, my fingers digging into the ground, my
[3:16:16] Speaker 1: body ate from the fall, my lungs burned from the
[3:16:19] Speaker 1: smoke movement, a shuffling sound barely audible over the roar
[3:16:29] Speaker 1: of the fire. My stomach clenched as I whipped my
[3:16:33] Speaker 1: head toward the house, my breath catching in my throat.
[3:16:38] Speaker 1: A shadow was moving inside the flames. Staggering, I froze,
[3:16:47] Speaker 1: unable to breathe, unable to move. My hands trembled as
[3:16:52] Speaker 1: I pushed myself up onto my knees, my entire body
[3:16:55] Speaker 1: bracing for whatever was coming, But then Daniel stepped forward.
[3:17:05] Speaker 1: His clothes were scorched, his face smeared with soot, his
[3:17:08] Speaker 1: hair a mess of ash and sweat. But his eyes,
[3:17:14] Speaker 1: his eyes were his, the same warm brown that I'd
[3:17:19] Speaker 1: memorized a thousand times over my real husband. I could
[3:17:25] Speaker 1: tell at a glance. He took one more shaky step
[3:17:31] Speaker 1: before his knees buckled, his body giving out, collapsing on
[3:17:35] Speaker 1: to the pavement. I barely had time to think before
[3:17:39] Speaker 1: I was running to him, my heart hammering against my ribs,
[3:17:43] Speaker 1: my hands grabbing his shoulders, his arms, his face. Tears
[3:17:47] Speaker 1: blurred my vision as I cupped his face, my fingers
[3:17:51] Speaker 1: trembling against his skin. I swallowed back the sob choking
[3:17:55] Speaker 1: in my throat, forcing my voice to be steady. For
[3:18:01] Speaker 1: a moment, neither of us said anything. His breath was weak,
[3:18:06] Speaker 1: barely there. My grip on him tightened, desperation, clawing at
[3:18:11] Speaker 1: my chest. But then he smiled, college he rasped. First
[3:18:23] Speaker 1: their orientation, Sarah introduced us. His voice was hoarse, but
[3:18:29] Speaker 1: sure you were wearing that ugly red sweater. A sob
[3:18:37] Speaker 1: broke from my lips. I pulled him against me, burying
[3:18:42] Speaker 1: my face into the crock of his neck, sobbing against
[3:18:45] Speaker 1: his skin, clutching him like if I let him go,
[3:18:48] Speaker 1: he would disappear again. His arms were weak, but he
[3:18:52] Speaker 1: wrapped them around me anyway, holding on with everything he
[3:18:56] Speaker 1: had left the house burned behind us. The doctors said
[3:19:03] Speaker 1: it was a miracle, minor burns, smoke in elation, nothing worse.
[3:19:11] Speaker 1: I sat beside his hospital bed, my fingers rapped tightly
[3:19:15] Speaker 1: around his. His hand was warm, solid his. Every so
[3:19:23] Speaker 1: often my grip would tightened, just to make sure he
[3:19:26] Speaker 1: was still there, and every time he would squeeze back.
[3:19:34] Speaker 1: The first time he woke up, he turned his head
[3:19:37] Speaker 1: towards me, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, but clear. Hey,
[3:19:44] Speaker 1: he murmured, voice hoarse. I smiled, even as my eyes
[3:19:49] Speaker 1: stung with unshd tears. Hey, his lips curved into a small,
[3:19:57] Speaker 1: tired smile. You look like hell, I laughed, tumbled from
[3:20:05] Speaker 1: my throat, shaky but genuine. Yeah. Well, I sniffed, swiping
[3:20:13] Speaker 1: and my eyes. So do you

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