# 7 SCARY Horror Stories to listen to while we all watch the stock market crash

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 13 Apr 2025, 3 h 48 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65534588/7_scary_horror_stories_to_listen_to_while_we_all_watch_the_stock_market_crash.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORIES- ►0:00 "There's a reason I don't cave dive anymore" Creepypasta ►38:13 "Every first snowfall of the year, we ran" Creepypasta ►1:05:30 "My Daughter's Imaginary Friend Draws Maps to Places That Don’t Exist" Creepypasta ►1:42:44 "We found a German WW2 Bunker in South America" Creepypasta ►2:24:55 "The First Time Felt Amazing. The Second Time, I Lost a Week" Creepypasta ►2:52:41 "I Was Hired as a Transitional Memory Escort." Creepypasta ►3:22:14 "A Midnight Bathroom Break Cost Me My Family. But I’d Do It Again" 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: I hadn't touched the guideline or a harness in years,
[0:05] Speaker 1: not since I left that part of my life behind.
[0:09] Speaker 1: After what happened in the Cathedral caverns, after I saw
[0:12] Speaker 1: what a collapse in tunnel could do to a person,
[0:16] Speaker 1: I'd sworn off cave dive in for good. I thought,
[0:21] Speaker 1: I meant it. That was before I found the hole.
[0:28] Speaker 1: It was late afternoon when I first noticed it. I'd
[0:32] Speaker 1: been exploring the property, familiarizing myself with every hill and
[0:36] Speaker 1: twist in the creek. I had wandered farther than usual,
[0:41] Speaker 1: down a slope covered in thick underbrush, with the ground
[0:44] Speaker 1: dipped into a shallow depression. I thought it was a
[0:48] Speaker 1: natural dip where the rain had eroded the soil, But
[0:53] Speaker 1: as I stepped closer, I noticed the rock. The earth
[0:59] Speaker 1: had crumbled from a limestone ridge, exposing something beneath it.
[1:04] Speaker 1: It took me a few seconds to understand what I
[1:07] Speaker 1: was looking at. The rock had collapsed inward. It used
[1:14] Speaker 1: to be an entrance. I crouched down, brushing away loose dirt.
[1:19] Speaker 1: What looked like a simple dip in the ground was
[1:22] Speaker 1: actually a blocked off passageway. Limestone had tumbled down from
[1:27] Speaker 1: above ceiling, whatever lay beyond a cave. I leaned forward,
[1:36] Speaker 1: peering through the rubble, a small hole, just barely big
[1:40] Speaker 1: enough to fit a fist through. The cold air drifted out,
[1:45] Speaker 1: stagnant and unmoving. I grabbed a handful of loose stones
[1:50] Speaker 1: and pulled them away, clearing the hole a little more.
[1:54] Speaker 1: The darkness inside was absolute. I reached for my flashlight
[2:00] Speaker 1: and flicked it on. The beam cut into the hole,
[2:03] Speaker 1: but not far. The angle was too tight to see
[2:07] Speaker 1: anything beyond the first few inches. I sat back at
[2:11] Speaker 1: my heels. This wasn't on my property map I checked
[2:17] Speaker 1: before buying the land. The agency had provided detailed topography,
[2:22] Speaker 1: listing all the significant features, the stream, the rock formations,
[2:27] Speaker 1: even a few shallow caverns further west. But this was nowhere.
[2:34] Speaker 1: I pulled out my phone and scrawled through my contacts.
[2:38] Speaker 1: After a moment, I clicked on the number for the
[2:40] Speaker 1: real estate office. The line clicked, and after a few rings,
[2:46] Speaker 1: a woman answered Westward Realty, this is Karen, Hey, this
[2:52] Speaker 1: is I paused, realizing I hadn't spoke to anyone from
[2:57] Speaker 1: the office since I bought the place. I bought the
[3:02] Speaker 1: land off Route twelve last year. The ten acre lot,
[3:06] Speaker 1: of course. How's it treating you good? Yeah? I hesitated. Listen.
[3:13] Speaker 1: I was out exploring today and I found something that
[3:16] Speaker 1: wasn't on the survey. Looks like a cave, or at
[3:20] Speaker 1: least it was. It's collapsing, but there's still an opening.
[3:25] Speaker 1: A pause. A cave, yeah, a pretty big one, from
[3:30] Speaker 1: what I can tell. I expected concern, a legal warning,
[3:34] Speaker 1: maybe some spiel about liability and state protections. Instead, she
[3:41] Speaker 1: just sounded confused. Ah, that's strange. We should have that
[3:46] Speaker 1: in the records. I checked the maps. It's not there. Well,
[3:52] Speaker 1: sometimes the surveyor has missed things, she sighed. If it
[3:56] Speaker 1: was collapsed when they did the land inspection, they probably
[3:59] Speaker 1: didn't think much of it. That made sense. I guess
[4:04] Speaker 1: is it stable, she asked. Seems like it, then I
[4:09] Speaker 1: wouldn't worry about it. These lands are full of little
[4:13] Speaker 1: pockets like that. Nothing dangerous. Her tone was light, unconcerned,
[4:20] Speaker 1: like this was just another quirk of the landscape. Maybe
[4:24] Speaker 1: she was right. I pulled my phone from my pocket
[4:28] Speaker 1: and scrolled through my contacts. There was only one person
[4:32] Speaker 1: I could call, Ryan. Ryan answered on the second ring, Geez, man,
[4:41] Speaker 1: I thought you died of something. You're acting so weird.
[4:44] Speaker 1: After cathedral caverns, I smarked, Nope, still breathing. There was
[4:51] Speaker 1: a pause. I could hear the clatter of dishes in
[4:54] Speaker 1: the background. He was probably at the bar he worked at,
[4:58] Speaker 1: killing time between shifts. He always said he was going
[5:02] Speaker 1: to move on from that place, but somehow never did.
[5:06] Speaker 1: So what's up, he asked. I glanced back at the hole.
[5:13] Speaker 1: You're not gonna believe what I just found. Ryan showed
[5:19] Speaker 1: up later that evening, grinning like a kid at Christmas.
[5:22] Speaker 1: The second he saw the collapsed entrance. You're telling me
[5:26] Speaker 1: this isn't marked, he asked, running his fingers over the
[5:29] Speaker 1: weathered limestone, not on any of the surveys. He flicked
[5:35] Speaker 1: his eyes to mine, filled with that familiar, hungry gleam,
[5:40] Speaker 1: the same one that had dragged me into dozens of
[5:43] Speaker 1: near death experiences over the years. Then we've got a
[5:47] Speaker 1: virgin cave, I nodded, and it's ours. We wasted no time.
[5:56] Speaker 1: With gloved hands and a couple of shovels, we started
[5:59] Speaker 1: tearing into the rubble. It was slow work. The limestone
[6:04] Speaker 1: was packed tightly, fused together by time and pressure. Every
[6:09] Speaker 1: time we loosened a slab, dust blowed up in clouds,
[6:13] Speaker 1: making the air thick and dry. After about an hour,
[6:17] Speaker 1: we had widened the opening to the size of a watermelon.
[6:22] Speaker 1: Think we can fit, Ryan asked. I shook my head.
[6:27] Speaker 1: Not yet. The rock walls squeezed in too tight, like
[6:31] Speaker 1: a mouth refusing to open. We kept digging. By the
[6:37] Speaker 1: time the sun was bleeding into the tree line, the
[6:40] Speaker 1: hole had grown wide enough for a person to squeeze
[6:43] Speaker 1: through barely. Ryan crouched beside it, wiping sweat from his forehead.
[6:51] Speaker 1: He grinned at me, then reached into the darkness. Cold
[6:56] Speaker 1: as hell, he muttered. I crouched him and placed my
[7:01] Speaker 1: own hand near the opening. He was right. The air
[7:06] Speaker 1: inside was several degrees cooler. I couldn't stop smiling. Ryan
[7:14] Speaker 1: clapped me on the shoulder. You ready to get back
[7:17] Speaker 1: to work. I looked at the entrance, at the blackness
[7:21] Speaker 1: swallowing the last of the daylight, and I said, let's
[7:28] Speaker 1: do it. I crouched at the entrance, my head lamp
[7:33] Speaker 1: casting a weak glow into the hole. We'd spent hours widening.
[7:38] Speaker 1: Now that we were here, now that we were actually
[7:41] Speaker 1: about to go in, I felt a twinge of nerves.
[7:46] Speaker 1: The familiar pulse of adrenaline, the kind that came with
[7:50] Speaker 1: knowing we were about to step into somewhere completely untouched.
[7:55] Speaker 1: Ryan exhaled behind me, adjusting the strap on his harness. Man,
[8:01] Speaker 1: I missed this feeling. I gave him a sideways glance,
[8:07] Speaker 1: the feeling of what voluntarily wedging yourself into a crack
[8:10] Speaker 1: in the ground, He laughed, slapping a hand against my shoulder.
[8:16] Speaker 1: You can take the man out of cave diving, but
[8:19] Speaker 1: you can't take the cave diving out of a man.
[8:23] Speaker 1: I just shook my head, taking one last look at
[8:26] Speaker 1: the sky before lowering myself on to my stomach. The
[8:32] Speaker 1: entrance was small, even with all the digging. It was
[8:37] Speaker 1: barely wider than my shoulders, forcing me to extend both
[8:41] Speaker 1: arms straight as I inched forward. The first few movements
[8:46] Speaker 1: were easy, gravel and loosened stones shifted under my weight
[8:50] Speaker 1: as I pushed myself deeper. Then the space tightened. The
[8:56] Speaker 1: limestone pressed against my ribs, squeezing inward. My chest was
[9:02] Speaker 1: compressed just enough that I had to time my breathing carefully,
[9:06] Speaker 1: exhaling as I pushed forward, inhaling only when I gained
[9:10] Speaker 1: enough ground. I kept my head lamp tilted straight ahead,
[9:15] Speaker 1: my hands groping for the next available rock to pull
[9:19] Speaker 1: myself through. The deeper I went, the colder, the air
[9:24] Speaker 1: became I heard Ryan grunt behind me as he followed.
[9:31] Speaker 1: Tight fit. Yeah, I muttered. My voice felt too loud
[9:36] Speaker 1: in the enclosed space. Every breath, every scrape of fabric
[9:41] Speaker 1: against stone, every shift of weight seemed amplified. Bouncing off
[9:46] Speaker 1: the rock in muffled echoes. A few feet ahead, the
[9:50] Speaker 1: tunnel widened slightly, not enough to stand, but enough to
[9:55] Speaker 1: move a little easier. My heart pounded with excitement as
[10:00] Speaker 1: I pulled myself forward, my elbows scraping against a rough stone,
[10:06] Speaker 1: then a drop. The tight squeeze suddenly gave way to
[10:13] Speaker 1: open space, the ground beneath me sloping downward. I slid
[10:18] Speaker 1: forward with it, my stomach flipping as I tumbled a
[10:21] Speaker 1: few feet before catching myself. My boots skidded against stone,
[10:26] Speaker 1: my hands finding purchased just in time to stop myself
[10:30] Speaker 1: from going further. Ryan's voice filtered to the tunnel behind me.
[10:36] Speaker 1: You good. I took a moment to catch my breath,
[10:41] Speaker 1: then grinned up at him. You're gonna love this. By
[10:47] Speaker 1: the time Ryan wriggled through and dropped down beside me.
[10:51] Speaker 1: I had already turned my head lamp outward, scanning the
[10:54] Speaker 1: space ahead, and what I saw made my breath catch.
[11:01] Speaker 1: The cavern was huge. The ceiling arched high above us,
[11:09] Speaker 1: its surface lined with jagged stalactites that shimmered faintly under
[11:13] Speaker 1: our lights. The walls were textured with ripples of mineral
[11:18] Speaker 1: deposits patterns left behind by ancient underground water flow. And
[11:24] Speaker 1: at the center of it all, stretching across uneven rock floor,
[11:29] Speaker 1: was a pool of crystal clear water. Ryan let at
[11:34] Speaker 1: a low whistle. Why. We'd explored a lot of caves
[11:42] Speaker 1: together over the years, but there was something different about
[11:46] Speaker 1: this one. It was pristine. Finding untouched caves isn't all
[11:52] Speaker 1: that rare, but one this large. He turned to me,
[11:57] Speaker 1: grinning wide. Dude, we might have just found something historic.
[12:05] Speaker 1: I exhaled. Yeah, I couldn't stop looking. The whole place
[12:12] Speaker 1: was surreal, like a cathedral hidden beneath the earth, frozen
[12:17] Speaker 1: in time. But there was something else too, something I
[12:22] Speaker 1: couldn't quite put into words, the weight of the air.
[12:29] Speaker 1: I shook off the feeling and reached for my guideline.
[12:33] Speaker 1: We had done this hundreds of times before. It was
[12:36] Speaker 1: second nature. In unfamiliar caves, you always marked your way
[12:42] Speaker 1: back a thin, unspoiling rope, anchored at the entrance and
[12:47] Speaker 1: carefully fed through the chambers. We explored a life line
[12:51] Speaker 1: in case things went south. I tied the first anchor point,
[12:56] Speaker 1: securing the line to a sturdy rock formation. Ryan double
[13:01] Speaker 1: checked it, giving the rope a few fern tugs. Satisfied,
[13:07] Speaker 1: we turned back to the cave ahead. The deeper we went,
[13:13] Speaker 1: the more alien the cave became. Some of the stalagmites
[13:17] Speaker 1: rising from the floor were twisted like rope caught in
[13:21] Speaker 1: a slow motion spiral. Others were hollowed out, punctured with
[13:26] Speaker 1: small holes, as if something had bored through them, not water, erosion,
[13:32] Speaker 1: something else. Ryan ran a hand over one. I've never
[13:38] Speaker 1: seen formations like these. I nodded, tracing a beam of
[13:43] Speaker 1: light across a nearby column. The rock was smooth in
[13:47] Speaker 1: some places, almost polished, but in others it was rough
[13:52] Speaker 1: and cracked, like dried skin. It wasn't natural, not entirely.
[14:00] Speaker 1: And then I noticed the bones, not whole skeletons, just
[14:08] Speaker 1: individual pieces. A jaw, bones stripped of teeth, a few
[14:13] Speaker 1: vertebrae so small I almost mistook them for pebbles. Some
[14:19] Speaker 1: were tiny, rodent like, some were longer, thicker. Ryan crouched
[14:25] Speaker 1: beside me, picking one up. He turned it over in
[14:29] Speaker 1: his palm, running his thumb along the brittle edge. Think
[14:34] Speaker 1: an animal got trapped down here? I shrugged, but my
[14:38] Speaker 1: stomach felt tight. I guess so the entrance caved in,
[14:43] Speaker 1: so it makes sense that something ought trapped in here.
[14:47] Speaker 1: We felt quiet for a second, inspecting the bones on
[14:50] Speaker 1: the ground, taking our time to soak in the details
[14:53] Speaker 1: of this place. As I sat, a particular piece of
[14:58] Speaker 1: a jaw I had picked up back down, I heard
[15:01] Speaker 1: a small sound somewhere in our vicinity. I tapped Ryan
[15:05] Speaker 1: on the shoulder, pointing toward the source of the sound,
[15:09] Speaker 1: right behind a rock, a soft, hollow sound, like something
[15:15] Speaker 1: tapping against stone. Ryan swung his flashlight toward the sound,
[15:21] Speaker 1: and I caught the briefest glimpse of something in the dust.
[15:25] Speaker 1: Not much, just a shifting of loose sediment, like the
[15:29] Speaker 1: vibration of something deep beneath the earth. I exhaled, sharply,
[15:35] Speaker 1: pushing away the thought I'd been in plenty of caves
[15:40] Speaker 1: with sound bounced strangely, where simple noises walked into something unsettling.
[15:47] Speaker 1: Ryan let out of breath and grinned, Man, your paranoid's
[15:51] Speaker 1: self hasn't changed a bit. I shook my head, forcing
[15:56] Speaker 1: a smirk, just saying something those bones down here. Ryan
[16:03] Speaker 1: rolled his eyes and stepped ahead. That was when the
[16:08] Speaker 1: flashlight beam hit some sort of drawings. I had seen
[16:14] Speaker 1: petroglyphs before, markings carved into rock by early humans. Their
[16:19] Speaker 1: history preserved and jagged etchings and faded pigments, But those
[16:24] Speaker 1: had always been where you'd expect them, shallow caves, near
[16:28] Speaker 1: water sources. Figures with spears, bows, fire. They were carved
[16:35] Speaker 1: crudely but skillfully, their stick like limbs raised toward animals, deers, birds,
[16:41] Speaker 1: what looked like bison, the kind of thing you'd seen
[16:45] Speaker 1: any prehistoric cave art. But then the drawings changed. The
[16:52] Speaker 1: next few figures were running from something. It was depicted
[16:56] Speaker 1: as a mess of lines, but the long cry stared
[17:00] Speaker 1: the clearer it became. A large figure, body distorted. Its
[17:09] Speaker 1: shape was harder to find, as though whoever it carved
[17:12] Speaker 1: it had tried and failed to capture what they had seen.
[17:17] Speaker 1: Ryan traced his fingers over the grooves in the rock.
[17:21] Speaker 1: He was quiet, his eyes gleaming at the drawings in
[17:24] Speaker 1: front of us. The images continued. The smaller figures fought it.
[17:31] Speaker 1: They jabbed at it with spears torches. In some scenes
[17:35] Speaker 1: the creature was shown bleeding. Dark streets of pigments smeared
[17:40] Speaker 1: across the stone, but it never fell. And then the
[17:46] Speaker 1: final series of drawings, the figures were no longer fighting.
[17:52] Speaker 1: They started fleeing, and they were being chased. The smaller
[17:58] Speaker 1: figures had been forced into a their forms hunched and terrified,
[18:03] Speaker 1: and standing at the entrance blocking their way out. Was it?
[18:10] Speaker 1: And in the final carving, at the very bottom of
[18:12] Speaker 1: the panel was a single figure, alone, trapped inside the cave.
[18:22] Speaker 1: I took a step back. Neither of us spoke for
[18:25] Speaker 1: a few moments. The only sound was our own breathing,
[18:30] Speaker 1: and somewhere distant, the faintest hint of dripping water. I
[18:36] Speaker 1: swallowed and turned my light toward Ryan. How old do
[18:41] Speaker 1: you think this is? He didn't answer right away. When
[18:47] Speaker 1: he finally did, his voice had lost this cocky edge.
[18:53] Speaker 1: I'm not too sure. I think our ancestors had a
[18:56] Speaker 1: few too many of the wrong mushrooms and got themselves
[18:59] Speaker 1: trapped in a care We put the marker down and
[19:04] Speaker 1: kept moving. We stopped at the edge of the passage,
[19:08] Speaker 1: staring into the darkness ahead. The wall in front of
[19:15] Speaker 1: us had a split in it, not tiny by any means,
[19:19] Speaker 1: but we'd have to squeeze ourselves through. Before I could respond,
[19:24] Speaker 1: he was already pushing himself into the passage, head first,
[19:28] Speaker 1: arms tucked in close, his boots scraped against the stone
[19:33] Speaker 1: as he wriggled forward, his body quickly swallowed by the tunnel.
[19:39] Speaker 1: I shook my head, muttering under my breath, reckless asshole.
[19:46] Speaker 1: But I followed. My back scraped against the ceiling, my
[19:52] Speaker 1: ribs pressed against the cold limestone. The walls were rough,
[19:58] Speaker 1: biting into my gear as I forward. Ryan's voice drifted
[20:03] Speaker 1: from upperhead, muffled by the narrow space. Not so bad, right,
[20:10] Speaker 1: I grunted, says the guy who's not claustrophobic. He laughed.
[20:17] Speaker 1: I tumbled out. The flashlight clipped to my chest, swung wildly,
[20:22] Speaker 1: it's beam dancing across the cavern walls. I took a
[20:26] Speaker 1: deep breath, stretching my arms. It felt good to be out.
[20:33] Speaker 1: Ryan dusted himself off, glancing back at the passage tighter
[20:38] Speaker 1: than I thought, but hey, we made it. We were
[20:43] Speaker 1: at yet another massive open space, not too dissimilar from
[20:48] Speaker 1: the clearing we just come from, but still it was beautiful.
[20:57] Speaker 1: Our trance was broken by a sharp, hollow sound. It
[21:01] Speaker 1: echoed through the chamber, faint but distinct, a wheezing noise.
[21:09] Speaker 1: We both froze. Ryan turned his flashlight toward the passage
[21:13] Speaker 1: behind us. What was there? I swallowed, Probably just rock shifting.
[21:26] Speaker 1: Even as I said it, I didn't believe it. The
[21:30] Speaker 1: cave was silent, no tremors, no signs of movement, nothing
[21:34] Speaker 1: to suggest a shift in the stone. The sound had
[21:39] Speaker 1: come from somewhere. Ryan exhaled through his nose. Yeah. Probably.
[21:48] Speaker 1: Neither of us moved for a long moment, just listening.
[21:53] Speaker 1: The sound didn't come again. I forced the breath. Let's
[21:58] Speaker 1: keep moving. We spread out, shining our lights along the
[22:04] Speaker 1: cavern walls, and then Ryan said, whoa over here? I turned.
[22:13] Speaker 1: My brain didn't register what I was looking at, just
[22:16] Speaker 1: a collection of pale, broken shapes nestled against the cavern wall.
[22:22] Speaker 1: But as I stepped closer the details came into focus.
[22:29] Speaker 1: It was a skeleton, human in shape, but larger and thicker.
[22:35] Speaker 1: The skull was broader, the rib cage wider, more robust.
[22:41] Speaker 1: I knelt beside it, brushing away a layer of dust.
[22:46] Speaker 1: The bones were ancient, and some were snapped clean. Ryan whistled,
[22:53] Speaker 1: crouching beside him, damn, looks like a Neanderthal's skeleton or something.
[23:01] Speaker 1: I didn't respond. I was staring at the rib cage.
[23:07] Speaker 1: It was shattered and the entire skeleton was covered in normarks.
[23:13] Speaker 1: Ryan saw them too. His grin faded something hate this thing.
[23:22] Speaker 1: My mouth felt dry. Yeah. We both turned our flashlights
[23:29] Speaker 1: toward the tunnel behind us, the place where we'd heard
[23:32] Speaker 1: the wheezing for the first time since we'd entered the cave.
[23:38] Speaker 1: I felt uneasy. The sound came back, faint at first,
[23:44] Speaker 1: barely audible over the steady drip of water somewhere deeper
[23:48] Speaker 1: in the cave, but it was closer this time. Ryan
[23:54] Speaker 1: stiffened beside me, his flashlight being trembling against the cavern wall.
[23:59] Speaker 1: I turned my flashlight toward the tunnel we had just
[24:02] Speaker 1: crawled through. It was a black void, barely wider than
[24:06] Speaker 1: a person. Nothing moved. Then my light flickered movement, a
[24:17] Speaker 1: blow of motion in the corner of my eye, something
[24:21] Speaker 1: shifting behind the rock formations at the far end of
[24:24] Speaker 1: the cavern. It was fast. Ryan saw it too. He inhaled, sharply,
[24:31] Speaker 1: stepping back. Dude. My flashlight flickered again, the beams shrinking, dimming.
[24:41] Speaker 1: Ryan's did the same, and then it rushed us. It
[24:51] Speaker 1: didn't make a sound. One second, the cavern was empty.
[24:56] Speaker 1: The next, something lunged from the darkness, a twisted shape,
[25:01] Speaker 1: skittering across the uneven stone. My flashlight caught a glimpse
[25:06] Speaker 1: of it, just a fraction of a second before it exited.
[25:10] Speaker 1: The beams filled of view. Skin stretched too tight, pale, patchy,
[25:17] Speaker 1: like something malted but never fully regrew. Ryan screamed. The
[25:24] Speaker 1: thing hit him hard, knocking him sideways. He slammed against
[25:28] Speaker 1: the rock, his flashlight spinning across the cavern floor. I
[25:33] Speaker 1: scrambled backward, my boots slipping on loose gravel. My chest heaved.
[25:39] Speaker 1: I was fighting to process what I had just seen,
[25:42] Speaker 1: what I thought I had seen, Ryan groaned, clutching his arm.
[25:47] Speaker 1: Blood dripped onto the stone. The creature didn't linger. It
[25:53] Speaker 1: was gone in an instant, retreating into the tunnels, disappearing
[25:58] Speaker 1: between the rock formations. It had never been there at all.
[26:03] Speaker 1: Only one sound remained, that mocking wheeze. Somewhere just out
[26:10] Speaker 1: of sight. Ryan sat up, teeth gritted in pain. His
[26:16] Speaker 1: sleeve was shredded, blood seeping through the fabric. I couldn't
[26:21] Speaker 1: tell how deep the cut was, but the way his
[26:24] Speaker 1: arm trembled, I could tell he was definitely rattled. At
[26:28] Speaker 1: the very least. I reached for his shoulder. You're okay,
[26:35] Speaker 1: he excelled, sharply flexing his fingers. Yeah, just a scratch.
[26:43] Speaker 1: His voice was unsteady. I turned my flashlight back to
[26:48] Speaker 1: all the tunnels. Nothing just stone and shadow. Ryan forced
[26:55] Speaker 1: the breath and pushed himself up. We need to get
[26:59] Speaker 1: out now. We turned back toward the tunnel we had
[27:03] Speaker 1: crawled through, and somewhere behind us, somewhere in the dark,
[27:10] Speaker 1: the wheezing started again. We ran, not in a frantic way.
[27:21] Speaker 1: We simply couldn't. The way the cave was laid out,
[27:25] Speaker 1: we could easily slip and fall on jagged rocks. We
[27:28] Speaker 1: had to move carefully, but we moved as fast as
[27:32] Speaker 1: we could. Bryan's breath was ragged beside me, and his
[27:37] Speaker 1: boots scraped loudly against the cavern floor as he stumbled.
[27:40] Speaker 1: I kept her glances over my shoulder, expecting to see
[27:44] Speaker 1: something moving in the dark behind us, but there was nothing.
[27:50] Speaker 1: The wheezing kept echoing from somewhere deep within the tunnels, distant,
[27:55] Speaker 1: then closer than distant. Again who was toying with us?
[28:03] Speaker 1: We reached the opening to the passage We had come through,
[28:06] Speaker 1: the narrow gap that would take us back to the
[28:08] Speaker 1: chamber where we'd found the drawings. The guideline was still there,
[28:13] Speaker 1: keeping us on track. Relief crashed into me so hard
[28:18] Speaker 1: I nearly collapsed against the wall. We could still get out.
[28:24] Speaker 1: Ryan didn't wait. He grabbed the rope and hauled himself forward,
[28:29] Speaker 1: pulling himself into the narrow space. I followed, keeping my
[28:33] Speaker 1: head on a swivel. As I adjusted myself and squeezed
[28:37] Speaker 1: back into the tunnel, the rock closed in on us again,
[28:42] Speaker 1: pressing against our backs our chests. We moved quickly, retracing
[28:47] Speaker 1: our steps through the dark, winding passage. Every inch felt
[28:52] Speaker 1: tighter than before, The air seemed heavier. I could hear
[28:57] Speaker 1: Ryan's boots scuffling against the walls, his breathing coming faster
[29:00] Speaker 1: and harder. Then the tight squeeze the final passageway that
[29:07] Speaker 1: led back to the outside. I dropped onto my stomach,
[29:11] Speaker 1: stretching both arms forward and pulling myself into the tunnel.
[29:16] Speaker 1: I focused on the light ahead, a small sliver of
[29:19] Speaker 1: blue gray at the end of the passage. It had
[29:23] Speaker 1: to be just a few more feet behind me. Ryan
[29:27] Speaker 1: grunted as he followed. The tunnel was just barely big
[29:31] Speaker 1: enough for us to fit. Pressing against our backs and ribs,
[29:36] Speaker 1: we inched forward, dragging ourselves through the confined space. Then
[29:42] Speaker 1: I heard Ryan stop, a sharp, sudden inhale. Dude. His
[29:50] Speaker 1: voice sounded strained. I twisted my neck as best as
[29:54] Speaker 1: I could, trying to look back, but couldn't. What a
[30:00] Speaker 1: beat of silence, then my hand, it's completely numb. Something
[30:09] Speaker 1: in my chest went cold. I couldn't see him, but
[30:13] Speaker 1: I knew what he meant. We'd barely stop to look
[30:16] Speaker 1: at his injury after the attack, too focused on getting
[30:20] Speaker 1: the hell out of there. But it must have been
[30:23] Speaker 1: deeper than we thought. Maybe it had hit a nerve
[30:27] Speaker 1: and he hadn't felt it due to adrenaline. I heard
[30:31] Speaker 1: Ryan shift behind me, trying to pull himself forward. I
[30:35] Speaker 1: can't close my fingers. His flashlight flickered against the stone walls,
[30:43] Speaker 1: making the shadows stretch and shift. Ryan tried again, dragging
[30:48] Speaker 1: himself forward with one functioning hand. His movements sounded awkward, unsteady.
[30:56] Speaker 1: He could still push with his legs, but with one
[30:59] Speaker 1: hand commission his pace slowed. The sound was closer now.
[31:06] Speaker 1: I felt my lungs seize. Ryan must have heard it too,
[31:11] Speaker 1: because his breath hitched, his flashlight jerking as he twisted
[31:15] Speaker 1: his head back toward the sound. Ryan pushed forward, his
[31:20] Speaker 1: boots scraping against the stone, his body jerking with effort,
[31:25] Speaker 1: but without his hand to grip and pull, he wasn't
[31:28] Speaker 1: moving fast enough. My heart hammered against my ribs. The
[31:34] Speaker 1: sound was closer now. I could almost feel the air
[31:38] Speaker 1: shifting behind me. I turned back toward the exit, toward
[31:43] Speaker 1: the open air just a few feet ahead. Ryan grunted, desperate,
[31:48] Speaker 1: now trying to shove himself forward. Then, for the first time,
[31:56] Speaker 1: a breath lo wet just inches behind us. The wheezing
[32:04] Speaker 1: had stopped. Now it was just breathing move Ryan gasped.
[32:12] Speaker 1: His voice was tight with fear. I'm going, I shouted back,
[32:17] Speaker 1: shoving myself forward. My hands scrambled for purchase on the rock,
[32:21] Speaker 1: fingers scraping against sharp edges. Ryan grunted, kicking hard as
[32:27] Speaker 1: he tried to push himself forward. I could hear the
[32:31] Speaker 1: strain in his voice, the way his body trembled against
[32:34] Speaker 1: the stone he was fighting. And then he gasped, sharp, sudden,
[32:44] Speaker 1: then nothing, silence. A cold pit formed in my stomach.
[32:53] Speaker 1: Ryan silence, no more grunting, just the faintest shift of air.
[33:03] Speaker 1: I kicked wildly, thrashing my legs, shoving myself forward with
[33:07] Speaker 1: every ounce of strength I had left. My knee banged
[33:10] Speaker 1: against a piece of stone, but I didn't care. I
[33:14] Speaker 1: had to move. I claweded the rock, gasping, feeling my
[33:19] Speaker 1: body scrape, and cut through the last few inches of
[33:22] Speaker 1: the tunnel. The exit was right there. One last rush,
[33:29] Speaker 1: I threw myself forward, and then I was out. I
[33:35] Speaker 1: hit the ground hard, rolling on to my back. The
[33:39] Speaker 1: night sky was above me, the trees swaying gently in
[33:43] Speaker 1: the wind, fresh air flooding my lungs, burning my throat.
[33:50] Speaker 1: For a moment, I just lay there, dazed, disoriented by
[33:56] Speaker 1: the sheer openness around me. I spun on to my
[34:00] Speaker 1: hands and knees, scrambling back towards the hole, reaching inside. Ryan,
[34:06] Speaker 1: Come on, my fingers grasped an empty space. I swung
[34:12] Speaker 1: my flashlight down, aiming it into the tunnel, expecting to
[34:16] Speaker 1: see him just inches away, dragging himself toward the exit.
[34:22] Speaker 1: I saw nothing, But I heard a noise so deeply
[34:26] Speaker 1: wrong that my body rejected it before my brain could
[34:30] Speaker 1: even process it. A wet, disgusting crunch, the sound of
[34:38] Speaker 1: something tearing through muscle, splintering bone, A muffled, sickening, chewing noise.
[34:46] Speaker 1: I felt my stomach twist violently. I didn't need to
[34:50] Speaker 1: see it. I knew another crunch, then a squelch. Ryan
[35:00] Speaker 1: was gone, a low, grinding groan deep beneath the earth.
[35:08] Speaker 1: The creature led out a scream from inside, and the
[35:11] Speaker 1: entrance shook as it sounded like it pounded its frame
[35:15] Speaker 1: against the entrance. The ground beneath the entrance trembled. The
[35:20] Speaker 1: stones we had pulled loose earlier shifted on their own,
[35:23] Speaker 1: tumbling back into place. The cave was collapsing again. The
[35:29] Speaker 1: hole we had worked for hours to dig through collapsed
[35:33] Speaker 1: inward in a violent rush of stone and dust. I watched,
[35:38] Speaker 1: stunned as our entire entranceway disappeared. Within seconds, the hole
[35:46] Speaker 1: was gone, just solid, rock. I dropped to my knees
[35:52] Speaker 1: and started digging. I claweded the dirt, heaving the loose
[35:56] Speaker 1: stones aside, throwing them behind me. I could barely see
[36:00] Speaker 1: through the dust. My fingers already scraped raw against the
[36:04] Speaker 1: rough limestone. But no matter how much I pulled, pushed, dug,
[36:12] Speaker 1: I couldn't even make a dent. I don't know how
[36:16] Speaker 1: long I sat there before I reached for my phone.
[36:20] Speaker 1: My hands were shaking, my mind still trying to grasp
[36:23] Speaker 1: what I had just witnessed. I stared at the screen
[36:27] Speaker 1: at the emergency call option. What the hell was I
[36:31] Speaker 1: supposed to say? I dialed? The operator answered nine one one,
[36:38] Speaker 1: what's your emergency? I opened my mouth. My mind was blank.
[36:45] Speaker 1: My throat clenched so tight I could barely force words
[36:48] Speaker 1: through it. My friend is missing. We were in a
[36:54] Speaker 1: cave and he's trapped. Sir, can you clarify a cave clap?
[37:00] Speaker 1: Is your friend trapped? I swallowed, yes, it collapsed Another silence,
[37:11] Speaker 1: longer this time. Then stay where you are. We're sending
[37:15] Speaker 1: a unit out now. By the time the police arrived,
[37:22] Speaker 1: I'd gone numb. The officers didn't believe me, not really,
[37:28] Speaker 1: but they saw the dirt on my clothes, the fresh
[37:30] Speaker 1: scrape on my forehead where I must have clipped a
[37:33] Speaker 1: rock on my way out. They knew I was distressed, panicked.
[37:39] Speaker 1: They brought search dogs, more people came, more light, The
[37:43] Speaker 1: digging started, but they never found Ryan, never found anything.
[37:50] Speaker 1: They questioned me for hours. Where did Ryan go? What
[37:54] Speaker 1: exactly happened? How did I get out? If he didn't?
[38:00] Speaker 1: I told them the truth. They didn't write it down.
[38:15] Speaker 1: Every first snowfall of the year we ran. It wasn't
[38:21] Speaker 1: a festival. We were running to survive. The date was
[38:26] Speaker 1: never a mystery. They told us weeks in advance. Who
[38:31] Speaker 1: was printed on billboards, blasted on the news, scrawled across
[38:34] Speaker 1: the bottom of television screens, in read lettering the first
[38:39] Speaker 1: snowfall will arrive on November twelfth. Prepare. People marked it
[38:45] Speaker 1: on their calendars. We didn't question it anymore. The day
[38:51] Speaker 1: before the snowfall, the entire town shut down. Schools closed, early,
[38:57] Speaker 1: businesses locked their doors, deliveries, no flights, no traffic in
[39:02] Speaker 1: or out. It was as if we were preparing for
[39:06] Speaker 1: a storm. But the weather wasn't the problem. It was
[39:13] Speaker 1: what came with it. Everyone had their own preparations Some
[39:20] Speaker 1: packed light bags just enough to keep moving. Others mapped
[39:25] Speaker 1: out faster roots, cutting through fields and back roads to
[39:28] Speaker 1: avoid getting stuck. People checked their shoes, making sure their
[39:33] Speaker 1: laces were tight, their souls weren't worn down. There was
[39:38] Speaker 1: no ceremony, no speeches, no sirens, just an unspoken understanding.
[39:46] Speaker 1: We waited, and then when the first snowflake fell, we ran.
[39:53] Speaker 1: I can still feel it even now, the burn in
[39:58] Speaker 1: my legs, the cold biting at my skin, the rhythmic
[40:02] Speaker 1: pound of footsteps all around me, A thousand bodies moving
[40:07] Speaker 1: in perfect unison, breathless, desperate. There was no pushing or chaos.
[40:13] Speaker 1: We didn't shove a trample. We moved like a flood,
[40:18] Speaker 1: one after the other, single file. There was no greed
[40:23] Speaker 1: or malice from society to be found. Everyone had one mission,
[40:28] Speaker 1: the same goal, because stopping meant you would be gone.
[40:36] Speaker 1: My first real memory of the run is blurred by time,
[40:40] Speaker 1: but something's never fade. The cold, the fear, my mother's
[40:45] Speaker 1: hand crushing mine in a grip. I was five years
[40:49] Speaker 1: old the first time I remember running, too young to
[40:53] Speaker 1: understand why, old enough to know not to ask. We
[40:59] Speaker 1: waited inside until the first flake fell. The moment it did,
[41:04] Speaker 1: my mother wrenched open the front door and pulled me
[41:08] Speaker 1: into the street. The entire town was already moving, a
[41:15] Speaker 1: single file line of people. Shoulders hunched, breath clouding in
[41:20] Speaker 1: the cold, feet pounding against the pavement. It wasn't like
[41:25] Speaker 1: running in gym class or playing tag with the neighborhood kids.
[41:29] Speaker 1: There was no laughing, no stopping to catch your breath.
[41:33] Speaker 1: You moved, or you didn't make it. I remember crying,
[41:40] Speaker 1: tripping over my feet. My mother yanked me forward so
[41:44] Speaker 1: hard my arm nearly dislocated. She never yelled or scolded me,
[41:50] Speaker 1: just squeezed my hand tighter and kept running behind us.
[41:57] Speaker 1: Someone screamed, I didn't look back. No one ever did.
[42:05] Speaker 1: By the time I was old enough to ask why,
[42:08] Speaker 1: I already knew the answer, What happens if you don't run?
[42:17] Speaker 1: No one ever answered. They didn't need to. Every child
[42:22] Speaker 1: knew the stories. The tales were as old as the
[42:26] Speaker 1: town itself. We had no crampas, no bogeymen, no ghost
[42:31] Speaker 1: stories passed down to keep children from wandering too far
[42:34] Speaker 1: into the woods. We had the wolf walkers, and we
[42:39] Speaker 1: didn't tell their stories to scare people. We told them
[42:44] Speaker 1: so people would live because people that were caught would
[42:49] Speaker 1: die and disappear. And I know this for certain because
[42:56] Speaker 1: my father was one of the ones who got caught.
[43:01] Speaker 1: I don't remember much about him, just the smell of
[43:04] Speaker 1: whiskey on his breath, the heavy thud of his boots
[43:08] Speaker 1: as he staggered through the house. He was drunk the
[43:12] Speaker 1: neither the snow came. My mother had tried to sober
[43:15] Speaker 1: him up, but he wouldn't listen. By the time the
[43:20] Speaker 1: snow came, he was too slow. We had to run anyway.
[43:27] Speaker 1: I still remember the sound of him calling after us,
[43:30] Speaker 1: slurring my mother's name. His voice got smaller and smaller,
[43:36] Speaker 1: swallowed by the sound of the wind, the endless stampede
[43:39] Speaker 1: of footsteps. My mother never looked back, and we never
[43:45] Speaker 1: saw him again. By the time I turned nine, running
[43:50] Speaker 1: had become a part of life, just another routine in
[43:54] Speaker 1: the changing of seasons. I no longer tripped over my
[43:59] Speaker 1: own feet or I begged my mother to slow down.
[44:02] Speaker 1: I'd learned the rhythm, the pace that let you breathe
[44:06] Speaker 1: just enough to keep going, but never enough to get comfortable.
[44:11] Speaker 1: Comfort was dangerous. We knew that better than anything. That year,
[44:19] Speaker 1: the first snow came late, the cold had already settled
[44:24] Speaker 1: deep into the bones of the town, and when the
[44:26] Speaker 1: flurries finally started to fall, it was like a held
[44:30] Speaker 1: breath finally releasing. I remember feeling something new that night,
[44:37] Speaker 1: a thing I'd never felt during these runs. Curiosity. I'd
[44:45] Speaker 1: never seen what we were actually running from. Sure, I
[44:48] Speaker 1: knew what they were called, and brief descriptions passed around
[44:52] Speaker 1: the community, but I didn't know. We were told not
[44:58] Speaker 1: to look back, so that night I did. At first,
[45:10] Speaker 1: I thought there were people, figures moving between the snowflakes,
[45:15] Speaker 1: just out of focus, man in thick furred coats, their
[45:19] Speaker 1: heads covered by wolf masks. But then I looked closer,
[45:25] Speaker 1: and I saw their arms thin, rotting, human arms stretched
[45:31] Speaker 1: too long, the skin peeling in places, revealing raw, dark
[45:36] Speaker 1: and muscle. The hands dragged at the sides, fingers twitching.
[45:42] Speaker 1: Their legs were bony, discolored, bent strangely at the joints,
[45:47] Speaker 1: as if their bodies had forgotten how to be human.
[45:51] Speaker 1: The heads were fully wolf, but wrong, too broad. The
[45:58] Speaker 1: snouts cracked and split in place where they shouldn't be.
[46:02] Speaker 1: The mouths were packed with rows of teeth that didn't
[46:04] Speaker 1: fit together properly. Overlapping, twisted, and their eyes. Some were
[46:13] Speaker 1: missing entirely, dark hollow sockets leaking something black. Others were
[46:19] Speaker 1: too white, too wide, reflecting light in an unnatural glow.
[46:25] Speaker 1: They didn't run, not really. They seemed to be one
[46:30] Speaker 1: with the snow, more so, phasing with the falling snow
[46:34] Speaker 1: rather than actually moving. Their forms blurred with the snow,
[46:39] Speaker 1: like they were being dragged forward by something unseen. They
[46:43] Speaker 1: moved as fast as the snow fall. I must have
[46:48] Speaker 1: made a sound, a gasp, a sob, or something, because
[46:53] Speaker 1: one of them turned its head toward me. Its snouts
[46:57] Speaker 1: split open even further, and I saw something pulsing inside
[47:02] Speaker 1: its throat, shifting, writhing, as if it were struggling to
[47:07] Speaker 1: hold its shape. I turned forward and never looked back again.
[47:16] Speaker 1: Years later, the snowfall was predicted weeks ago, November seventeenth.
[47:23] Speaker 1: The warnings were everywhere, once more, news tickers, radio broadcasts
[47:29] Speaker 1: printed on every store front window, a reminder a deadline.
[47:37] Speaker 1: People were already preparing, packing light, mapping their roots, making
[47:42] Speaker 1: sure they had the right shoes. I'd always done the
[47:46] Speaker 1: same until this year, until I realized my mother wouldn't
[47:53] Speaker 1: be running with me. She'd been bedridden for months. Her
[47:58] Speaker 1: body had withered beneath a way of sickness. The strong
[48:02] Speaker 1: woman who once pulled me through the streets now barely
[48:05] Speaker 1: able to lift her own hand. Her voice had turned small, brittle,
[48:11] Speaker 1: like something that could be carried away with the wind.
[48:15] Speaker 1: But even through the weakness, she still tried. She still
[48:21] Speaker 1: begged me to go. You can't save me, she whispered,
[48:28] Speaker 1: run please. I sat beside her, gripping her cold fingers.
[48:36] Speaker 1: I had packed my bag that morning, out of habit,
[48:39] Speaker 1: but I had never slung it over my shoulder, because
[48:44] Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, I couldn't leave.
[48:48] Speaker 1: I couldn't run without her. I couldn't leave her behind
[48:52] Speaker 1: like that, not when she dragged me with her so
[48:55] Speaker 1: many times. She saw it in my face. She knew,
[49:02] Speaker 1: and she cried. I won't leave you behind, ma'am. I can't.
[49:10] Speaker 1: Outside the sky was turning gray, the temperature had dropped
[49:16] Speaker 1: to morrow. The first flake would fall, and for the
[49:21] Speaker 1: first time in my life, I wouldn't be ready. The
[49:28] Speaker 1: first flake fell at five forty six p m. I
[49:32] Speaker 1: watched it drift down from the sky, weightless, delicate, beautiful.
[49:39] Speaker 1: If I didn't know what it meant, then came the sound,
[49:45] Speaker 1: a deep, rolling, home like wind moving through a hollow place,
[49:51] Speaker 1: but heavier, thicker. It wasn't wind. And then the city ran.
[50:00] Speaker 1: The streets irrupted into motion, Doors slammed open. People poured
[50:05] Speaker 1: onto the sidewalks, sprinting into the fading light. The stampede,
[50:11] Speaker 1: a flood of bodies moving in perfect rhythm, breath steaming
[50:15] Speaker 1: in the cold, no hesitation, no second thoughts. I turned
[50:22] Speaker 1: to my mother. She was so small, now so light.
[50:27] Speaker 1: She looked up at me from the bed, her eyes
[50:30] Speaker 1: filling with something I couldn't name. I lifted her into
[50:34] Speaker 1: my arms. She barely made a sound. Her body felt fragile, weightless,
[50:42] Speaker 1: like she had already started slipping away. I stepped outside.
[50:48] Speaker 1: The cold hit me like a wall. The wind sliced
[50:52] Speaker 1: through me, sharp and unrelenting. Snowflakes swirled in chaotic patterns,
[50:58] Speaker 1: dancing through the air, hiding the shapes of those running ahead.
[51:04] Speaker 1: I took my first step, then another. Then I ran.
[51:12] Speaker 1: It was different, this time, harder. I wasn't running for myself,
[51:18] Speaker 1: I was running for both of us. And it was
[51:21] Speaker 1: my first taste of what my mother had gone through
[51:24] Speaker 1: when I was a young child. My legs burned with
[51:28] Speaker 1: every step, the weight in my arms slowing me down.
[51:32] Speaker 1: Every breath was a gasp, sharp and ragged. Ahead, the
[51:38] Speaker 1: crowd was already disappearing into the white. I tried to
[51:43] Speaker 1: keep up, but behind me I could hear them closing
[51:47] Speaker 1: in the change in the air, the way the cold thickened,
[51:52] Speaker 1: like the temperature had dropped ten degrees in an instant,
[51:57] Speaker 1: just moving, a sound so smooth it was almost soothing,
[52:04] Speaker 1: like something gliding over the ice. Then came the other noises,
[52:11] Speaker 1: a soft gnarling, and then the first scream from behind us,
[52:17] Speaker 1: an elderly couple. I didn't stop, but my mother, weaker
[52:23] Speaker 1: than she'd ever been, lifted her head just slightly and whispered,
[52:29] Speaker 1: they're here a head The last of the runners vanished
[52:34] Speaker 1: into the snow. The line was gone. It was just me, me,
[52:41] Speaker 1: my mother, and whatever was closing in behind us. The
[52:48] Speaker 1: city had vanished behind me, swallowed by the storm. I
[52:52] Speaker 1: could barely feel my feet anymore. My muscles were screaming,
[52:57] Speaker 1: my arms ached from carrying my mother's weight, but I
[53:01] Speaker 1: held on. I had to. The snow pounded against my skin,
[53:08] Speaker 1: wind howling through the trees as I stumbled on to
[53:11] Speaker 1: an old, barely visible path leading into the forest. I
[53:17] Speaker 1: didn't know where it led. I didn't care. Slow, labored, rattling,
[53:24] Speaker 1: frost bitten lungs, fising for air. Too close, too close.
[53:32] Speaker 1: I kept moving, but the snow was deepening. My boots
[53:36] Speaker 1: sank into it with every step, making each movement harder, slower.
[53:43] Speaker 1: I was losing. I rest a glance at my mother.
[53:48] Speaker 1: Her head rested limply against my chest, her breath coming
[53:52] Speaker 1: in cold shivers. Her eyes opened half way. Then she whispered,
[54:01] Speaker 1: put me down. I shook my head, the words burning
[54:06] Speaker 1: like a bullet from a gun. No, who can't run
[54:11] Speaker 1: with me? I won't leave you. You have to. Her
[54:17] Speaker 1: voice was weak, but I could hear the desperation in it.
[54:22] Speaker 1: I held her closer, No, not her. The gnarling grew
[54:30] Speaker 1: ever louder. I could hear them now, moving through the snow.
[54:36] Speaker 1: I looked behind to see how much distance stood between
[54:39] Speaker 1: us and them. One of them stood closer than the others, smaller,
[54:45] Speaker 1: perhaps younger, but it sered in on us that much
[54:50] Speaker 1: was clear. The snow bent around the thing, like the
[54:54] Speaker 1: world itself was trying to look away. I snapped my
[54:59] Speaker 1: head back forward, then up ahead. The structure barely visible
[55:05] Speaker 1: through the white out, an old shed broken and sagging,
[55:10] Speaker 1: its wooden door hanging open. I pushed forward, forcing myself
[55:15] Speaker 1: to move faster. The moment we crossed the threshold, I
[55:20] Speaker 1: kicked the door shut with my boot and collapsed onto
[55:23] Speaker 1: the wooden floor, clutching my mother to my chest. The
[55:27] Speaker 1: cold was inside my bones now, I could barely feel
[55:31] Speaker 1: my hands. My heart slammed against my ribs. The wind
[55:36] Speaker 1: howled outside, the gnarling slowed, then silence. I pressed my
[55:46] Speaker 1: hand over my mother's mouth, covering both of our breathing.
[55:50] Speaker 1: I didn't know if the walls were enough, if they
[55:53] Speaker 1: could see us right now, if they could smell us,
[55:58] Speaker 1: But we had to stay quiet. The shed was falling apart.
[56:04] Speaker 1: The wooden walls groaned with every gust of wind, the
[56:08] Speaker 1: roof sagging under the weight of ice and time. It
[56:12] Speaker 1: smelled of rot and damp wood, of something old and
[56:16] Speaker 1: long forgotten. The only thing between us and them was
[56:21] Speaker 1: a thin sheet of splintered timber, and they were right outside.
[56:27] Speaker 1: I pressed my back against the wall, cradling my mother
[56:30] Speaker 1: in my lap, my entire body trembling with exhaustion. She
[56:36] Speaker 1: was barely conscious now, her breathing was weak, her lips pale,
[56:41] Speaker 1: her arms draped over me like a dead weight. I
[56:45] Speaker 1: could feel her heart beat against my chest, faint, sluggish.
[56:51] Speaker 1: She wouldn't last much longer, then neither would I. The
[56:58] Speaker 1: whispers started slow. I never heard them before, never been
[57:03] Speaker 1: close enough. At first they sounded like the wind. But
[57:09] Speaker 1: then the words took shape, cold, weak, not fast enough.
[57:19] Speaker 1: The voices shifted, changing in pitch, in rhythm, some too high,
[57:24] Speaker 1: some too deep, And then one of them spoke, with
[57:30] Speaker 1: my father's voice, you should have run. The door creaked,
[57:38] Speaker 1: My breath caught in my throat. I barely moved, just
[57:43] Speaker 1: my fingers tightening over my mother's wrist, as if holding
[57:47] Speaker 1: on to her would keep us both anchored in place.
[57:51] Speaker 1: Something was coming. I couldn't breathe, and beyond the doorway,
[57:58] Speaker 1: through the swirling snow and shift shadows, I saw it.
[58:05] Speaker 1: It stood just outside, its massive shape, barely visible through
[58:09] Speaker 1: the storm. Not quite a man, not quite a wolf.
[58:14] Speaker 1: The body was too long, too hunched. Its fur was wet, clumped,
[58:20] Speaker 1: hanging off its frame like peeling skin. Its arms were
[58:24] Speaker 1: wrong human hands, but stretched too thin, the skin splitting
[58:30] Speaker 1: around the knuckles, revealing blackened veins pulsing beneath it tilted
[58:36] Speaker 1: its head toward the open door. It knew we were here.
[58:42] Speaker 1: Then suddenly, my mother grabbed my face, her fingers pressed
[58:48] Speaker 1: into my skin, tilting my head down, forcing me to
[58:51] Speaker 1: look at her. I expected, at a whisper, to tell
[58:56] Speaker 1: me to run, to beg me one last time, to
[58:58] Speaker 1: leave her behind, But she didn't. She just smiled, soft, warm,
[59:11] Speaker 1: like she wasn't afraid anymore. Then she moved with the
[59:19] Speaker 1: last of her strength. She pushed herself up onto trembling arms.
[59:24] Speaker 1: Her entire body shook, her legs barely able to hold
[59:28] Speaker 1: her weight. She stood not for long, but long enough,
[59:37] Speaker 1: and then she screamed. The sound tore through the shed,
[59:44] Speaker 1: loud and roar, echoing through the trees, cutting through the wind,
[59:48] Speaker 1: and the whispers her cry of defiance. The creature turned
[59:53] Speaker 1: toward her. It thought she was the only one there.
[59:58] Speaker 1: I stayed frozen, cowering behind overturned furniture, my hands clenched
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: over my own shaking body, unable to move. I wanted
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: to reach for her, to grab her, to stop her,
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: but I couldn't. I was too afraid. The last thing
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: I saw of my mother was a silhouette in the doorway, small,
[1:00:24] Speaker 1: weak but standing. She was gone. I woke up clutching nothing.
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: My hands were frozen into stiff, aching claws, still gripping
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: the air where my mother had been for a moment.
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: My mind was stuck in the in between, the space
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: where I could still feel away to my arms, still
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: hear the echo of a scream in my ears, still
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: believe that when I opened my eyes, she would be there.
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: But she wasn't. The storm had passed. I felt it
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: before I saw it, the stillness, the silence that came
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: after the first snowfall. No wind, no whispers, just the slow,
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: peking crawl of sunlight through the cracks in the broken shed.
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: I pushed myself up onto nominal legs, my body sluggish,
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: like it didn't belong to me any more. The door
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: stood wide open. The world outside was white and empty.
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: I stepped out into the snow. The air was crisp,
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: cold in a way that no longer burned, just settled
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: into my skin like a layer of ice beneath the surface.
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: The sky stretched above me, bright endless blue. Nothing moved.
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: I turned back toward the shed, half expecting to see something. Footprints,
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: a trail, some sign of what had happened, But the
[1:02:11] Speaker 1: snow was undisturbed, no footprints, no bodies, like no one
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: had ever been here at all. They started walking. There
[1:02:24] Speaker 1: was nothing else to do. The pressure in my chest
[1:02:27] Speaker 1: weighed a million tons. By the time I reached the
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: edge of the city, I already knew what I would find.
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: The people would be back in their homes, The streets
[1:02:39] Speaker 1: would be clear, there would be no talk of those
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: who didn't return, like they had never existed at all.
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: I have run every year since that night, even when
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: my legs burned, even when my lungs screened for air,
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: even when I wanted nothing more than to let the
[1:02:58] Speaker 1: snow swallow me whole, I ran. I ran for my mother,
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: and for years I ran for others too. I reached out,
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: pulled stragglers forward, gripped shaking hands, forced people to keep
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: moving when their bodies were ready to give up. Some
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: I saved, some I didn't. But I am old now.
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: My body is not what it used to be. The
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: years have stolen my strength, my speed, My breath is weak.
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: My leg's barely able to carry my own weight, much
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: less someone else's. And the first snowfall is coming. The
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: announcement came last week. It scrolled across the bottom of
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: the television screen as I sat in my chair, hands
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: resting in my lap, bones aching in the cold that
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: never really leaves you. After that long November twenty third,
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: first snowfall expected, it was not a warning, not for me.
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: I lay in bed now, beneath blankets that do nothing
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: to warm me. The night is quiet still. I know
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: what comes next. The air will shift, the first flake
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: will fall, and the world will start to run without me.
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: I turned my head toward the window, waiting. The glass
[1:04:43] Speaker 1: is dark, a reflection of the room behind me. My
[1:04:47] Speaker 1: own eyes stare back, hollow and sunken. Then a shadow
[1:04:55] Speaker 1: passes across the glass, not fast, just moving. It stops,
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: lingers as if waiting, and then a warmth settles over me,
[1:05:10] Speaker 1: a presence I haven't felt in decades. I close my eyes,
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: I smile, and I say nothing. It's strange how grief
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: changes the way you see things. After my wife, Sarah
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: passed away, I couldn't stay in the city anymore. Too
[1:05:43] Speaker 1: many reminders, corners and cafes, Haunted by memories I wasn't
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: ready to face. People kept telling me Ellie was young
[1:05:53] Speaker 1: enough to adapt that kids are resilient, but I could
[1:05:56] Speaker 1: see it in her eyes. She didn't understand why mommy
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: wasn't coming home. Neither did I. So we moved back
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: to Alders Creek, the small town I'd grown up in,
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: to live in the house my parents had left me
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: before they passed. It was a quiet place, nettled on
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: the edge of sprawling woods that stretched for miles. Sarah
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: was never one for the countryside. That was part of
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: the reason we never lived here ourselves, even though we
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: had a house yet. To me, it felt familiar, comforting
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: in a distant, non sort of way. I convinced myself
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: the silence was what we needed, or at least room
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: to pretend that everything wasn't falling apart. I hadn't been
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: back here in nearly twenty years, but some things never change.
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: Old Creek was exactly as I remembered it. One main road,
[1:07:05] Speaker 1: a diner, a grocery store, and clusters of houses scattered
[1:07:09] Speaker 1: along the edge of the thick woodland. The townsfolk were
[1:07:13] Speaker 1: kind here for a bit distant they remembered me vaguely,
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: the kid who left for college and never really looked back.
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: They offered condolences about Sarah with sympathetic eyes and awkward smiles.
[1:07:31] Speaker 1: I tried to keep conversations short. It was easier that way.
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: Our new home was old, wooden, and filled with creeks
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: and groans, but it was warm. Ellie ran through it
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: the first day, exploring rooms and opening cabinets like it
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: was some grand adventure. Seeing her excitement stirred something in me,
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: a fragile kind of hope. It beneath that hope was
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: persistent ache and nagging emptiness that no amount of distance
[1:08:09] Speaker 1: or quiet seemed to fill. By the end of the
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: first week, Ellie started talking to herself. I brushed it
[1:08:20] Speaker 1: off as normal kid stuff, a way of coping, grading
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: her companion out of thin air when loneliness sets in.
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: I had imaginary friends at her age, too, But when
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: I asked her who she was chatting with, she answered quickly,
[1:08:40] Speaker 1: mister matt Maker, she told me, her voice, cheerful yet serious.
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: He's nice, daddy, really smart, but he's very particular about
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: getting things right. I just smiled and nodded, glad she
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: had found something to keep her mind busy. I had
[1:09:02] Speaker 1: no idea how quickly mister map Maker would become so
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: much more than just a comforting illusion. Over the next
[1:09:12] Speaker 1: few weeks, Early didn't stop drawing. If anything, the maps
[1:09:17] Speaker 1: became her obsession. Every evening after dinner, she'd sit cross
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: legged at the coffee table, crayon spread out meticulously before her,
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: and watched silently from the couch, pretending to read, but
[1:09:33] Speaker 1: really I was waiting, wondering what she'd sketch next. She'd
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: hum softly to herself, lost in concentration, talking quietly as
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: if someone were right beside her. No, that's wrong, she'd mumble,
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: mister map maker, says, the leg is deeper here. Most
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: of the maps were innocent, even sweet, to draw the
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: layout of her new house or a rough sketch of
[1:10:05] Speaker 1: her school, But they started changing. She began illustrating places
[1:10:12] Speaker 1: I recognized from childhood, ones I hadn't visited since I
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: was her age, places I hadn't thought about in decades.
[1:10:21] Speaker 1: An abandoned hunting cabin at the edge of the woods,
[1:10:24] Speaker 1: weathered and crumbling, its roof sagging. She dried exactly how
[1:10:31] Speaker 1: I remembered it, right down to the broken shutters and
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: faded red paint peeling from the walls. The thing is
[1:10:41] Speaker 1: Ellie's maps were unmistakably the work of a child. Crude lines,
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: uneven proportions, colours bleeding past the edges. Trees were spindly things,
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: the trunks a scribbled mess of brown, and lakes were
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: heavy smudges of blue white, pressed so hard into the
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: paper that it sometimes tore. She'd label things in big,
[1:11:07] Speaker 1: looping letters. Cabin scrawled messly beneath the red blob of crayon,
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: big tree, next to a shaky green blob. Then came
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: the lake, a stagnant, moss covered pond deep in the woods,
[1:11:24] Speaker 1: so silent and still that kids in Oldus Creek used
[1:11:28] Speaker 1: to dare each other to toss rocks into it, convinced
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: that disturbing the water would wake something beneath. Ellie drew
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: it with eerie accuracy. The surface shaded darkly, her crayon
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: pressing hard enough to tear the paper in places. The
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: edges of the map were smudged with the fingerprints, as
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: though she traced the points countless times before finally getting
[1:11:55] Speaker 1: it perfect. It wasn't just unsettling because of the detail.
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: It was unsettling because Ellie had no way of knowing
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: about these places. I hadn't spoken a single word about
[1:12:11] Speaker 1: them since we moved here, hadn't even thought of them
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: in decades, and yet there they were rendered clearly by
[1:12:20] Speaker 1: my six year old daughter. One evening, while Ellie worked silently,
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: I noticed something else about the drawings, hidden among the
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: trees and buildings, with tiny symbols, strange markings that resembled letters.
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: When I asked Delie what they meant, she only shrugged,
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: not looking up from her work. Mister mapmaker says they're important,
[1:12:51] Speaker 1: she replied softly, her eyes fixed on the paper. He says,
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: they help you find your way back. The implication unsettled me.
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: Back to where Ellie, I asked cautiously. She paused, still
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: gripping the crayon tightly. She didn't look at me, but
[1:13:14] Speaker 1: her voice lowered to a whisper. Back home, Daddy. A
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: shiver crawled down my spine, sudden and cold. Our home
[1:13:27] Speaker 1: was right here, in this creaky old house with its
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: peeling paint and overgrown yard. With a certainty in Ellie's
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: voice made my stomach twist. For the first time. I
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: wondered if home meant something else entirely to her. I
[1:13:47] Speaker 1: gently took the drawing from her hands. Ellie, Sweetheart, why
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: don't you draw something happier tonight, maybe some flowers or
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: your friends at school. She looked away for a second,
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: then back at me, confused as if I'd said something ridiculous.
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: Mister map maker doesn't like those things, she replied softly,
[1:14:14] Speaker 1: almost apologetically, as if explaining the obvious. He says, we
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: have to finish this one first. She turned back to
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: a drawing, the tip of a crayon grinding into the
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: paper again, the silence thick and heavy around us, and
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: I watched the tiny hands move as though guided. I
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: focused on a movement, almost in a daze. I've been
[1:14:44] Speaker 1: staring so long that she had actually finished the map
[1:14:48] Speaker 1: right in front of me, a crude crown line leading
[1:14:52] Speaker 1: through the woods to an old hunting cabin. Then she
[1:14:57] Speaker 1: started writing letters above the cabin. And that's when I
[1:15:02] Speaker 1: snapped out of it and cursed myself under my breath
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: for bothering her for just drawing. The morning I decided
[1:15:11] Speaker 1: to follow Ellie's map started shortly after. I remember standing
[1:15:17] Speaker 1: in the kitchen staring down at the warn folded paper
[1:15:21] Speaker 1: on the counter. Ellie had just finished the day prior
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: the hunting cabin, the spot she labeled in neat, childish handwriting,
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: where Mommy lives Now. I laughed when I first read it,
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: but that laughter had quickly faded, leaving behind an ache
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: in my chest that hadn't dulled since losing Sarah. Elly
[1:15:49] Speaker 1: had seemed so serious when she handed it to me
[1:15:52] Speaker 1: the night before. She looked up at me, eyes earnest, hopeful,
[1:15:57] Speaker 1: even miss as the map maker said, you need to
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: see it, Daddy. He says it's important. And now, standing alone,
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: coffee grown cold in my mug, I felt something settle
[1:16:15] Speaker 1: in my gut. The rational part of me, the responsible adult,
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: the grieving husband who buried Sarah, wanted to throw the
[1:16:25] Speaker 1: map away and scold my child for this. Maybe she'd
[1:16:29] Speaker 1: overheard neighbors talking. Maybe she'd seen a picture somewhere in
[1:16:33] Speaker 1: my parents' photo albums with something darker, quieter. Tugged at me,
[1:16:41] Speaker 1: a whisper that had been growing louder ever since Ellie
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: handed me the map. What if it's real? Of course
[1:16:51] Speaker 1: I had no reason to believe so. But anyone who
[1:16:55] Speaker 1: had ever lost anyone as certainly as I did, would
[1:16:58] Speaker 1: know that you would hold onto any inkling of hope
[1:17:02] Speaker 1: like a lifeline, no matter how otherworldly. It seemed to
[1:17:05] Speaker 1: other people. I dropped Ellie at her aunt's house, barely
[1:17:10] Speaker 1: registering the small dog exchanged in the doorway. My mind
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: was already deep in those woods, following those strange, childish directions.
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: I had to be losing it. Ellie was just imaginative,
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: copying details she'd overheard, piecing together half remembered fragments of
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: conversation she wasn't meant to hear. It had to be.
[1:17:37] Speaker 1: It took me nearly an hour of trudging through mud
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: and bramble before the cabin appeared exactly as she'd drawn it,
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: an old structure, sagging and consumed by moss, half hidden
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: by twisted, skeletal trees. The air was thick, heavy with
[1:17:56] Speaker 1: the smell of mold and earth. I pushed open the
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: creaking door and stepped inside. Shadows swallowed me, broken only
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: by slivers of daylight filtering through cracked walls. I could
[1:18:11] Speaker 1: barely breathe, not from the air, but from the weight
[1:18:15] Speaker 1: of memory, childhood, fears, long dismissed stories whispered between classmates
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: of dark figures and missing people. I almost turned back then,
[1:18:29] Speaker 1: until I saw something glinting on the floor, catching the sparse,
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: dirty sunlight. I crouched, breath hitching painfully in my chest
[1:18:40] Speaker 1: as my fingers curled around it. A silver bracelet, small
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: and delicate, decorated with tiny emeralds. Her bracelet. My hands
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: shook so badly I nearly dropped it. It couldn't be here.
[1:19:03] Speaker 1: I'd chosen it myself for a birthday, buried with her
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: when I'd said my last goodbye. It couldn't be here,
[1:19:13] Speaker 1: but it was. I stumbled out of the cabin, the
[1:19:18] Speaker 1: bracelet clenched tight in my fist, heart thundering in my ears.
[1:19:24] Speaker 1: When I finally reached the car, I sat there, shaking
[1:19:27] Speaker 1: for what felt like hours, staring down at the silver
[1:19:31] Speaker 1: chain coiled in my palm, her memory wrapped tightly around me.
[1:19:37] Speaker 1: By the time I made it back home, Ellie was
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: in bed, but I couldn't wait. I knelt beside her,
[1:19:45] Speaker 1: my voice breaking as I held up the bracelet. Ellie, sweetheart,
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: how did you know about this? She opened her eyes slowly, deeply,
[1:20:01] Speaker 1: like she'd been expecting me. Mister map Maker told me,
[1:20:07] Speaker 1: she said, yawning softly. He knows a lot of things.
[1:20:12] Speaker 1: Did he tell you where he found it? I whispered,
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: afraid of her, answer, yet desperate for it. Her eyes
[1:20:22] Speaker 1: drifted closed, her voice fading into a sleepy whisper. Mister
[1:20:29] Speaker 1: map maker says, Mommy gave it to him. He said,
[1:20:32] Speaker 1: it means you're on the right path. I sat there
[1:20:37] Speaker 1: beside her bed, bracelet clenched tightly, heart hammering painfully in
[1:20:43] Speaker 1: my chest. The right path. I didn't even know where
[1:20:50] Speaker 1: I was going, but something told me it was already
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: too late to turn back. After the bracelet incident, I
[1:21:03] Speaker 1: couldn't pretend it was all coincidence any more. Something was wrong,
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: something bigger than Ellie, bigger than me. I needed answers,
[1:21:14] Speaker 1: but finding them was harder than I expected. I went
[1:21:19] Speaker 1: to see mister Gentry, the owner of the local hardware store.
[1:21:24] Speaker 1: I stopped in under the pretense of needing gardening supplies,
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: lingering until we were alone. As casually as I could,
[1:21:34] Speaker 1: I mentioned the woods behind my property. The friendly smile
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: he'd worn when I walked in vanished instantly, replaced with
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: a careful blankness, his hands pausing over a row of
[1:21:48] Speaker 1: rusty gardening shears. What about em, he asked, voiced cautious,
[1:21:56] Speaker 1: as if I'd just touched on something off limits. Curious,
[1:22:01] Speaker 1: my daughter she's been exploring around here lately, says she's
[1:22:06] Speaker 1: found some interesting places. His eyes flickered away, voice strained,
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: Kids of good imaginations. It's more than that, I pressed.
[1:22:20] Speaker 1: She drew maps, detailed maps. He sat down. The shears heavily,
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: still not meeting my gaze. You keep her close. That's
[1:22:32] Speaker 1: not a place kids should be wondering, he hesitated, his
[1:22:37] Speaker 1: voice quieter, burdened. And you shouldn't be poking around either.
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: Before I could ask why, another customer entered and the
[1:22:50] Speaker 1: conversation ended her properly. I kept trying approaching others. The
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: old woman had the grocery mister Cooper down at the diner,
[1:23:02] Speaker 1: but every time I mentioned the woods, I hit a
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: wall of discomfort. Polite smiles would tighten, friendly chatter turning
[1:23:11] Speaker 1: stiff and strained, and conversation quickly ended. No matter who
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: I asked, I got the same warning, disguised as advice,
[1:23:23] Speaker 1: stay out of the woods. The worst was missus Callahan,
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: who lived at the end of my street. She was
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: ancient even when I was a kid, and time hadn't
[1:23:38] Speaker 1: made her any less sharp or perceptive. The afternoon sun
[1:23:43] Speaker 1: was waning when I found her tending her rose garden
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: and shaking slightly as she pruned dead leaves. Missus Callahan,
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: I called out, trying to sound casual, friendly. She paused,
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: eyes narrowing behind her thick lenses, scrutinizing me closely. I swallowed,
[1:24:07] Speaker 1: pushing through my discomfort. Can I ask you something? She
[1:24:14] Speaker 1: nodded slowly, eyes sharp, ask Benjamin, the woods, the ones
[1:24:21] Speaker 1: behind her eyes narrowed, cutting me off before I could finish.
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: Her voice was stern and quiet, carrying a deep warning.
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: Some questions are better left unanswered. Please, I whispered, desperation
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: leaking through my careful composure. My daughter's drawn maps things
[1:24:44] Speaker 1: she couldn't know. Something's wrong, Something is not something, Benjamin,
[1:24:50] Speaker 1: some one. She took a careful step toward me, lowering
[1:24:55] Speaker 1: her voice further. There's always something in those woods. Oh
[1:25:00] Speaker 1: his has been long before you and long after. It'll
[1:25:05] Speaker 1: still be there. It finds ways of speaking. But the
[1:25:10] Speaker 1: real danger, the real horror, is what it promises. She
[1:25:18] Speaker 1: turned away, sharply, pulling the door shut behind her, ending
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: our conversation with a heavy finality. The silence left and
[1:25:28] Speaker 1: awake pressed in on me deeper than before, as though
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: the air itself had gone still that night, un locked
[1:25:39] Speaker 1: every window, bolted the back door, and double checked every
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: latch and lock in the house. I sat awake in
[1:25:46] Speaker 1: the dark for hours, listening carefully, heart pounding at every
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: rustle of wind and every distant snap of a branch.
[1:25:56] Speaker 1: Ellie slept peacefully down the hall, unaware of the darkness
[1:26:00] Speaker 1: they had taken root around us. I couldn't shake the
[1:26:05] Speaker 1: feeling that it wasn't just the woods I had to
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: worry about. Whatever I'd uncovered in my quest for answers
[1:26:13] Speaker 1: was woven deeply into the heart of this town, an
[1:26:17] Speaker 1: unspoken terror they'd grown up learning to ignore. The woods
[1:26:22] Speaker 1: weren't just forbidden, they were feared. From then on, Ellie
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: wasn't allowed outside without me. The forest loomed at the
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: edge of our property like a silent predator, patient and hungry.
[1:26:41] Speaker 1: No matter how hard I watched Eli, though, the dread
[1:26:44] Speaker 1: remained creeping slowly into my chest like rot in old wood.
[1:26:51] Speaker 1: It wasn't enough. Whatever had gripped Eli was not letting go.
[1:26:57] Speaker 1: Despite her no longer going outside. I couldn't stay in
[1:27:02] Speaker 1: that house anymore. Whatever was reaching out to Ellie, whatever
[1:27:07] Speaker 1: was calling itself mister map Maker, had embedded itself too deeply.
[1:27:14] Speaker 1: I had to get her out, had to get us
[1:27:16] Speaker 1: away from that cursed forest before it swallowed us whole.
[1:27:22] Speaker 1: Ellie fought the idea immediately, so unlike her usual gentle
[1:27:27] Speaker 1: demeanor that it took me by surprise. She kicked and
[1:27:31] Speaker 1: screamed as I carried her to the car, crying out
[1:27:35] Speaker 1: that mister map Maker wouldn't let us leave, that we
[1:27:38] Speaker 1: couldn't just abandon mommy. Her words clawed at me, but
[1:27:44] Speaker 1: I gritted my teeth, determined it was time to put
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: distance between Ellie and whatever darkness had been whispering in
[1:27:53] Speaker 1: her ear. That night, As I packed our bags intense silence,
[1:28:01] Speaker 1: Ellie finally stopped pleading. She sat quietly in the corner
[1:28:05] Speaker 1: of her room, drawing furiously, her tiny hand gripping the
[1:28:09] Speaker 1: crayon with unsettling force. I didn't dare interrupt her, afraid
[1:28:16] Speaker 1: I'd trigger another meltdown. At least she was calm, at
[1:28:21] Speaker 1: least she was safe, or so I thought. Some time
[1:28:28] Speaker 1: after midnight, I woke abruptly, my heart hammering in the silence.
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: Something immediately felt wrong, but I couldn't quite put my
[1:28:38] Speaker 1: finger and what it was, so I looked around The
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: hallway looked just the same as it always had, but
[1:28:46] Speaker 1: it took a moment longer to realize what was wrong.
[1:28:51] Speaker 1: Ellie's bedroom door, usually kept cracked open, was wide open,
[1:28:57] Speaker 1: and the hallway beyond utterly still. I moved quietly, trying
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: to remain calm as I stepped into an empty room,
[1:29:07] Speaker 1: stomach tightening painfully. When I saw the note resting on
[1:29:12] Speaker 1: a pillow. It was another map, far more precise than
[1:29:17] Speaker 1: the others, drawn hastily in the dark strokes of charcoal.
[1:29:23] Speaker 1: The label read simply, mommy is waiting. My breath caught,
[1:29:31] Speaker 1: heart lurching with fear my daughter was gone. I sprinted
[1:29:40] Speaker 1: out the front door into the suffocating blackness of the forest,
[1:29:44] Speaker 1: screaming Ellie's name until my throat burned. Twigs and branches
[1:29:49] Speaker 1: tore at my skin, cutting my face and arms. As
[1:29:52] Speaker 1: I crashed blindly through the darkness, nothing made sense anymore.
[1:29:58] Speaker 1: Trees twisted grotee esquely around me, Paths doubled back impossibly,
[1:30:03] Speaker 1: landmarks shifted into alien shapes, exactly like the twisted images
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: Ellie had drawn. Every step felt wrong, unnatural, as if
[1:30:15] Speaker 1: the forest itself was reshaping around me, leading me deeper
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: guiding me into its heart. Then finally, the trees opened
[1:30:27] Speaker 1: into a clearing I'd never seen before. Moonlight bathed the
[1:30:32] Speaker 1: clearing and pale, ghostly white, But there were no shadows,
[1:30:37] Speaker 1: only stark emptiness, like the light itself, feared to touch
[1:30:41] Speaker 1: whatever stood in the center. Ellie was there, perfectly still.
[1:30:50] Speaker 1: Her face was serene, empty of emotion, eyes staring blankly
[1:30:55] Speaker 1: ahead and beside her standing what must have been at
[1:31:00] Speaker 1: least ten feet tall, its form shifting like smoke and ink,
[1:31:05] Speaker 1: was who I assumed to be mister map Maker, the
[1:31:10] Speaker 1: being Ellie had innocently named and trusted, the monster who
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: twisted her grief into something dark and dangerous. My fists clenched,
[1:31:23] Speaker 1: rage and helplessness swelling in my chest. Let her go,
[1:31:27] Speaker 1: I demanded, my voice shaking. Please, She's just a little girl.
[1:31:35] Speaker 1: Ellie turned her head slowly mechanically and smiled a hollow,
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: distant smile. Mommy says we can all be together again,
[1:31:47] Speaker 1: she whispered. Her voice was soft, gentle, but utterly devoid
[1:31:53] Speaker 1: of humanity. It was a mouth speaking, but the words
[1:31:58] Speaker 1: belonged to someone, something else. The figure beside her shifted,
[1:32:05] Speaker 1: its shape, rippling and unstable as if fighting to maintain
[1:32:10] Speaker 1: its form. When it spoke, its voice crawled from every direction,
[1:32:16] Speaker 1: seeping from the earth, the trees, the very sky itself,
[1:32:21] Speaker 1: vibrated through my bones, settling deep into my marrow. You've
[1:32:28] Speaker 1: come far, it murmured, the sound a twisted mockery of
[1:32:33] Speaker 1: human comfort. You deserve a reward. I don't want a reward.
[1:32:41] Speaker 1: I spat back. Just give me my daughter. You misunderstand,
[1:32:47] Speaker 1: the map Maker said, gently, almost sorrowfully. Everything has a price.
[1:32:55] Speaker 1: To leave with her. You must leave something behind. My
[1:33:02] Speaker 1: breath caught in my throat, heart thundering in my chest,
[1:33:07] Speaker 1: I understood immediately. It wasn't asking for something trivial, not
[1:33:13] Speaker 1: a keepsake or a memory. He wanted something deeper, something fundamental,
[1:33:20] Speaker 1: a trade, an exchange. I didn't stop to think. I
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: couldn't afford to. Instinct seized me, overpowering every hesitation, every
[1:33:35] Speaker 1: shred of fear. I lunged forward, wrapped my arms around Ellie,
[1:33:40] Speaker 1: and yanked her away from the towering silhouette of mister
[1:33:44] Speaker 1: map Maker. The shadowy figure unleashed an enraged, whispering hiss,
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: A thousand voices slithering into my ears, sharp and venomous,
[1:33:56] Speaker 1: but I didn't listen. I turned Ellie to in my grasp,
[1:34:02] Speaker 1: and I ran. Trees twisted inward, clawing branches tore at
[1:34:09] Speaker 1: our clothes and skin, and the very earth beneath our
[1:34:12] Speaker 1: feet buckled, as though desperate to hold us there, to
[1:34:16] Speaker 1: trap us forever. The air filled with screams, raw tortured
[1:34:22] Speaker 1: voices that ripped through my skull, begging, pleading, commanding us
[1:34:28] Speaker 1: to stop. Ell Leas's small body went limp in my arms,
[1:34:33] Speaker 1: my head bouncing weakly against my shoulder. With every frantic step,
[1:34:39] Speaker 1: Terror rose like bile in my throat, nearly choking me.
[1:34:43] Speaker 1: But I couldn't slow down, couldn't falter, not even for
[1:34:47] Speaker 1: a second. My lungs burned, my muscles screamed in agony,
[1:34:53] Speaker 1: but I kept pushing forward, stumbling blindly through the endless
[1:34:57] Speaker 1: maze of woods, desperately seeking some semblance of familiarity. I
[1:35:03] Speaker 1: could feel the map maker behind us, a presence of icy,
[1:35:07] Speaker 1: endless hunger, closing the distance, furious of being robbed of
[1:35:12] Speaker 1: its prize, who whispered harshly, angrily, promising, suffering, promising that
[1:35:19] Speaker 1: we would never escape. But I refused, and let its
[1:35:23] Speaker 1: poison seep into my heart. With a final burst of strength,
[1:35:30] Speaker 1: I barrowed through a wall of dense branches. Pain exploded
[1:35:34] Speaker 1: across my face and arms, but suddenly, blessedly, I broke free.
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: I stumbled forward onto familiar ground, tripping over the garden
[1:35:46] Speaker 1: stones at the edge of our backyard. We clapsed together
[1:35:50] Speaker 1: into the damp grass, blooded, bruised, but alive. The oppressive
[1:35:59] Speaker 1: silence was almost unbearable. The woods behind us were quiet now,
[1:36:04] Speaker 1: as if they'd given up their pursuit, at least for
[1:36:08] Speaker 1: the moment. For several heartbeats, I lay there, chest heaving,
[1:36:14] Speaker 1: gasping for air, just holding Ellie, savoring the fragile illusion
[1:36:20] Speaker 1: of safety. Then I realized Ellie wasn't moving. My stomach
[1:36:30] Speaker 1: twisted violently as I rolled her over, gently brushing her
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: tangled hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed,
[1:36:38] Speaker 1: her skin pale and cold. And shook her gently at first,
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: then with growing panic, desperation tightening my voice, Ellie, Ellie,
[1:36:50] Speaker 1: wake up, baby, Please wake up. I felt sick, every
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: horrible possiblit crashing through my mind at once. Tears blurred
[1:37:04] Speaker 1: my vision, heart hammering painfully in my chest. Then mercifully,
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: her eyes fluttered open, staring blankly toward the night sky.
[1:37:16] Speaker 1: Relief flooded me, powerful enough to make me dizzy, but
[1:37:22] Speaker 1: the feeling was short lived. Ellie's gaze wandered aimlessly, unfocused, confused.
[1:37:31] Speaker 1: When she finally turned to me, her eyes were empty,
[1:37:36] Speaker 1: like she was seeing me for the very first time. Ooh,
[1:37:42] Speaker 1: she whispered weakly, voice trembling and uncertain. Who are you?
[1:37:51] Speaker 1: My blood turned to wise. Ellie, it's daddy, I stammered,
[1:37:57] Speaker 1: trying desperately to keep my voice calm, gentle, it's me, sweetheart.
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: You're safe now. She pulled back slightly, her eyes flickering fearfully,
[1:38:10] Speaker 1: clearly frightened, no memory of the bond which shed since
[1:38:15] Speaker 1: the moment she'd been born. My daughter, the reason for
[1:38:20] Speaker 1: every struggle, every pain I endured, looked at me. I
[1:38:25] Speaker 1: clutched her tightly, my shoulders shaking silently, unable to even cry.
[1:38:32] Speaker 1: The house felt painfully empty as the terrible realization sunk in.
[1:38:38] Speaker 1: I'd saved Ellie's life, but somehow I'd still lost her.
[1:38:50] Speaker 1: The weeks passed, Elly healed physically, cuts faded, bruises yellowed
[1:38:55] Speaker 1: and vanished, but something fundamental inside her never came back.
[1:39:02] Speaker 1: Each morning, I woke to her house that was both
[1:39:05] Speaker 1: painfully familiar and unbearably foreign. Ellie moved through the same routines,
[1:39:12] Speaker 1: ate breakfast in the same chair, slipped in the same bed,
[1:39:16] Speaker 1: but the little girl who would once filled these rooms
[1:39:19] Speaker 1: with laughter and curiosity was no longer there. The doctors
[1:39:26] Speaker 1: had an easy answer, neatly packaged as severe disassociative trauma,
[1:39:33] Speaker 1: losing a parent. It was a blow that could fracture
[1:39:35] Speaker 1: any child's world, they said. But they hadn't been there.
[1:39:41] Speaker 1: They hadn't watched a shadow formed monstrosity, whisper impossible things.
[1:39:46] Speaker 1: They hadn't felt reality itself bend around them. Ellie's memories
[1:39:51] Speaker 1: weren't buried under layers of grief. They'd been torn away,
[1:39:56] Speaker 1: ripped from her as payment, as something older and far
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: crueler than mere loss. We lived in strained silence. Ellie
[1:40:07] Speaker 1: no longer mentioned mister map Maker, and she stopped drawing
[1:40:10] Speaker 1: maps all together, as if that obsession had never existed.
[1:40:17] Speaker 1: But she also stopped calling me Dad. My name felt
[1:40:21] Speaker 1: strange on her lips, polite, distant, like she was addressing
[1:40:26] Speaker 1: someone else's father, like I was no longer part of
[1:40:30] Speaker 1: her story. I tried to bridge the gap, little gestures,
[1:40:36] Speaker 1: reminders favorite meals and bedtime stories we'd read a hundred times,
[1:40:43] Speaker 1: but a response was always the same, a polite, confused smile,
[1:40:49] Speaker 1: as if humorously tolerating the well meaning stranger who kept
[1:40:53] Speaker 1: trying too hard. The house was quieter than ever before.
[1:40:59] Speaker 1: The silence head enough to suffocate, but it was preferable
[1:41:04] Speaker 1: to the alternative, the whispers that lingered at the edge
[1:41:09] Speaker 1: of my dreams, voices echoing softly through the hallways, mocking
[1:41:14] Speaker 1: my choice, reminding me of what I'd sacrificed. Whatever I'd
[1:41:20] Speaker 1: done that night, whatever I'd given away was the cast.
[1:41:26] Speaker 1: Ellie was here, safe, physically unharmed, but I had not
[1:41:31] Speaker 1: brought my daughter home. I had simply traded one horror
[1:41:36] Speaker 1: for another, a monkey Pau's wish. So every night, when
[1:41:44] Speaker 1: I'm alone, I sit in my office and draw maps.
[1:41:51] Speaker 1: I started with random doodles, with no real inspiration, but
[1:41:57] Speaker 1: slowly they're becoming more and more cohesive. I scribble things
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: without thinking, yet they seem to make some kind of sense.
[1:42:09] Speaker 1: I've not seen mister map maker yet, sometimes I feel
[1:42:13] Speaker 1: him guiding my hand in strange ways. Soon I'll have
[1:42:20] Speaker 1: a guide to follow, to lead me back to the
[1:42:23] Speaker 1: spot in the forest where mister map maker makes his trades.
[1:42:29] Speaker 1: I'm going to get Ellie back. I just don't know
[1:42:35] Speaker 1: what it will truly cost. We hagged our way through
[1:42:47] Speaker 1: the jungle like we were appealing back time itself. Every
[1:42:52] Speaker 1: branch and root we cut and stepped over felt like
[1:42:56] Speaker 1: it hadn't been touched in decades, maybe longer. The heat
[1:43:01] Speaker 1: pressed down on us, wet and constant, and the insects
[1:43:05] Speaker 1: came in waves that never seemed to stop. Somewhere overhead,
[1:43:10] Speaker 1: monkeys shrieked and fell silent, just as quickly. That silence
[1:43:16] Speaker 1: always made me pause. None of us spoke much. The
[1:43:21] Speaker 1: machettes did the talking, slicing rhythmically as we followed the
[1:43:26] Speaker 1: barely visible trail. Lewis swore existed. I didn't see it,
[1:43:31] Speaker 1: but he moved with a confidence false or not. We
[1:43:34] Speaker 1: didn't have better options. Around midday we reached the clearing,
[1:43:42] Speaker 1: or more like the jungle gave up for a second.
[1:43:46] Speaker 1: In the middle was a rise of uneven stone, half
[1:43:50] Speaker 1: swallowed up by moss and earth. It could have passed
[1:43:53] Speaker 1: for a hill if not for the exposed edge of
[1:43:56] Speaker 1: something unmistakably artificial withered concrete and the rusted corner of
[1:44:03] Speaker 1: a metal structure poking out like a broken rib. No
[1:44:09] Speaker 1: one said anything right away. Then from behind me, her
[1:44:14] Speaker 1: voice muttered, low and breathless, there it is. We moved closer,
[1:44:22] Speaker 1: rushing back the foliage. The moss came off in heavy sheets,
[1:44:28] Speaker 1: underneath a swastika, barely visible, faint from time and grime
[1:44:35] Speaker 1: was stamped into the concrete, half melted from what looked
[1:44:39] Speaker 1: like an old fire. None of us reached out to
[1:44:43] Speaker 1: touch it. Geez, someone whispered, we'd found it. The bunker
[1:44:51] Speaker 1: wasn't a myth. It was real, and it was here.
[1:44:57] Speaker 1: Lewis stepped forward and ran his hand along the edge,
[1:45:00] Speaker 1: which of the old hatch embedded in the slope, tracing
[1:45:04] Speaker 1: the rusted wheel lock. He pulled gently, and it groaned
[1:45:09] Speaker 1: like something waking up. The door was ajar only slightly,
[1:45:15] Speaker 1: but enough that the smell hit us almost immediately, old oil, mold, metal,
[1:45:25] Speaker 1: and beneath it all something else, sweet and rotting. Ventilation
[1:45:33] Speaker 1: shaft might be clogged, I offered with a chuckle. A
[1:45:38] Speaker 1: flashlight clicked on beside me. No words, just a beam
[1:45:42] Speaker 1: of light piercing down into a dark mouth cut into
[1:45:46] Speaker 1: the earth. None of us said it out loud, but
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: we knew we were going in. The ladder was slick
[1:45:58] Speaker 1: with condensation and rust. I climbed slowly, each wrung groaning
[1:46:03] Speaker 1: under the weight, until my boots hid the concrete floor
[1:46:07] Speaker 1: with a dull, wet thud. The air down there wasn't
[1:46:11] Speaker 1: just stale. It had an artificial weight to it. No power.
[1:46:17] Speaker 1: That much was immediately clear and expected. The ceiling fixtures
[1:46:22] Speaker 1: overhead were shattered, wiring frayed and exposed like vines, brittle
[1:46:28] Speaker 1: and dead. The corridor stretched out ahead of us in
[1:46:32] Speaker 1: both directions. Jonah stepped past me first, hadn't brushing the
[1:46:37] Speaker 1: wall as we moved, concrete still solid, He muttered, reinforced,
[1:46:44] Speaker 1: this wasn't some half baked shelter. We passed a rusted plaque,
[1:46:51] Speaker 1: the German text barely legible. Sector one undercomfed quarters. The
[1:47:01] Speaker 1: rooms were narrow lined on either side of the hall,
[1:47:04] Speaker 1: like cells inside rows of metal bed frames, stripped of sheets.
[1:47:11] Speaker 1: What remained of the mattresses had slumped into soft mounds
[1:47:14] Speaker 1: of black mushrooms had taken root in one another, had
[1:47:19] Speaker 1: the impression of a body long gone, just the shape
[1:47:23] Speaker 1: still there in the stained foam, like a fossilized absence.
[1:47:28] Speaker 1: Some one opened a crate near the far wall. Dust
[1:47:31] Speaker 1: plumed out. Food rations, Jonah said, still sealed. Sasha lifted
[1:47:41] Speaker 1: one and turned it over. They labeled everything by name, date, roll,
[1:47:46] Speaker 1: chloric requirement. She pointed to the faded ink Jane nuss Lane,
[1:47:53] Speaker 1: three thousand calories, night watch, all so precise. The silence
[1:48:00] Speaker 1: in those quarters told another story. Further in, we found
[1:48:06] Speaker 1: a hallway bulletin board. A photo was still tacked up,
[1:48:10] Speaker 1: barely hanging on four men, all in uniform German officers,
[1:48:18] Speaker 1: at least from what I could tell, standing in a
[1:48:21] Speaker 1: cramped hallway right here in the bunker. Their faces were
[1:48:26] Speaker 1: long and drawn, eyes sunk deep. One of them was
[1:48:30] Speaker 1: holding a small child. That's not wartime Germany, Sasha whispered
[1:48:37] Speaker 1: behind me. That's after they arrived here. The hallway ended
[1:48:44] Speaker 1: in a bulkhead door, half of its hinges rusted and
[1:48:48] Speaker 1: bent inward, like something had forced its way through years ago.
[1:48:53] Speaker 1: We ducked inside and found the largest room yet storage
[1:48:59] Speaker 1: maybe though half the shelving had collapsed and a fine
[1:49:03] Speaker 1: film of mold coated the floor. Amid the wreckage was
[1:49:08] Speaker 1: a scorched binder. Jonas flipped it open gently and half
[1:49:13] Speaker 1: of it crumbled in his hands. Manifest, he said, eyes narrowing,
[1:49:20] Speaker 1: look at this tight names in columns, serial numbers, dates
[1:49:27] Speaker 1: of birth, occupation, nine hundred and seventy eight, entries, men, women, children.
[1:49:38] Speaker 1: Sasha leaned over his shoulder, lips moving silently as she scanned.
[1:49:45] Speaker 1: They listed them all nurses, engineers, even barbers. No ranks,
[1:49:52] Speaker 1: I asked, She shook her head. Only functions they were
[1:49:58] Speaker 1: building as self content population. In the far corner we
[1:50:05] Speaker 1: found the radio room, or what was left of it.
[1:50:09] Speaker 1: Shattered glass and twisted knobs lay scattered across the floor
[1:50:13] Speaker 1: like shrapnel. An old broadcasting mike hung from its wire,
[1:50:17] Speaker 1: swinging slightly in the humid draft. Banks of analog equipment
[1:50:22] Speaker 1: were ripped open, fuses missing, wires yanked out in clumps.
[1:50:28] Speaker 1: Doctor Kettley crouched down next to one unit and muttered,
[1:50:33] Speaker 1: this was military grade, stay of the art for the time. Sabotage,
[1:50:39] Speaker 1: I asked. He didn't answer, but the way he stood
[1:50:44] Speaker 1: up told me everything. We lingered in the radio room
[1:50:49] Speaker 1: longer than we should have. No one said it, but
[1:50:53] Speaker 1: something about the broken equipment unsettled us. In a different way,
[1:50:58] Speaker 1: not just because it was this straw, but because it
[1:51:01] Speaker 1: had been intentional, as if someone had wanted to make
[1:51:05] Speaker 1: sure no word ever left this place. Again, we moved on.
[1:51:12] Speaker 1: Sasha suggested we start marking rooms as we went, chalk lines,
[1:51:17] Speaker 1: basic numbering, smart idea. It helped gave the illusion of control.
[1:51:26] Speaker 1: Past the supply wing, we found a heavy door, partially ajar,
[1:51:30] Speaker 1: with a tarnish brass plate above the frame. Officer untercomfed
[1:51:36] Speaker 1: officers quarters. The air inside was different. Still, dust floated
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: in the beams of my head lamp, like falling snow,
[1:51:47] Speaker 1: untouched for decades. Jonas moved toward the desk, opened a
[1:51:53] Speaker 1: drawer empty, another paper scraps, a yellowed photograph of someone
[1:52:01] Speaker 1: blurred and smiling. Nothing useful. Sasha knelt beside the trunk,
[1:52:08] Speaker 1: help me with this. Ironclasped the rusted latch and helped
[1:52:14] Speaker 1: to lift the lid inside her wall. Officer's coat folded
[1:52:20] Speaker 1: beneath it, something wrapped tightly in a stiff brown cloth
[1:52:24] Speaker 1: tied with a leather strap that cracked as she unwrapped it.
[1:52:29] Speaker 1: A journal. The leather was dark, almost black with age,
[1:52:35] Speaker 1: but still intact. A rusted iron clasp held it shut.
[1:52:41] Speaker 1: Sasha took her breath. This might be useful. She worked
[1:52:47] Speaker 1: the clasp bluose. It took effort, it hadn't been opened
[1:52:52] Speaker 1: in years. A sharp metallic snap, then a shudder as
[1:52:57] Speaker 1: the leather flexed. She peeled it open and carefully, revealing thick,
[1:53:02] Speaker 1: yellowed pages, covered in tight, immaculate writing, and on the
[1:53:07] Speaker 1: inside cover scrawled in deliberate blocky script, I am Eric Mahler, Engineer.
[1:53:16] Speaker 1: If these pages are found, know that we are not
[1:53:19] Speaker 1: all willing. We exchanged glances for a long second. No
[1:53:27] Speaker 1: one said anything. Then Sasha turned the page and we
[1:53:32] Speaker 1: began to read. May twelfth, nineteen forty five. I have
[1:53:42] Speaker 1: arrived in South America at last. The journey was as
[1:53:45] Speaker 1: surreal as it was harrowing. After months of uncertain passage
[1:53:50] Speaker 1: by submarine and stolen aircraft, we landed on foreign soil
[1:53:54] Speaker 1: with the promise of salvation. The promise was whispered with
[1:53:58] Speaker 1: fervor by those who orchestrated our passage, a promise of
[1:54:03] Speaker 1: a new beginning away from the ruins of a lost war.
[1:54:07] Speaker 1: Dozens more arrived in the weeks that followed, Scientists with
[1:54:11] Speaker 1: eyes bright from hope and despair, soldiers whose uniforms were
[1:54:16] Speaker 1: as stained with honor as with regret, Families clinging to
[1:54:20] Speaker 1: the belief that they too might start over. We were
[1:54:25] Speaker 1: all immigrants of circumstance, united by the lie of salvation.
[1:54:31] Speaker 1: In time, we began the construction of something vast, an
[1:54:35] Speaker 1: underground complex that stretched out beneath the unforgiving jungle. We
[1:54:40] Speaker 1: labored our hands and backs, broken by ceaseless work. Slave labor,
[1:54:46] Speaker 1: both forced and self imposed, carried bricks and mixed mortar
[1:54:51] Speaker 1: in the dim light of torches. The complex was designed
[1:54:55] Speaker 1: to be our haven. One day we would shelter as
[1:54:59] Speaker 1: many as a thou and souls. Already the numbers grow,
[1:55:04] Speaker 1: and each new arrival reinforces our resolve, though and gnawing
[1:55:09] Speaker 1: doubt stirs at the edge of my mind. June third,
[1:55:15] Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. The days have grown colder, though the
[1:55:20] Speaker 1: jungle remains unyielding in its humored embrace. Communications with Germany
[1:55:26] Speaker 1: have all but ceased. At first, the higher ups maintained
[1:55:30] Speaker 1: that the war raged on a justification to seal us
[1:55:33] Speaker 1: inside this very bunker. But now with every passing day
[1:55:39] Speaker 1: I find my certainty waiver. The radios have fallen silent
[1:55:44] Speaker 1: and the orders we once received from Afar, and nothing
[1:55:48] Speaker 1: but echoes of a past that no longer exists. Inside
[1:55:52] Speaker 1: these walls, the leadership insists we remain sealed in. They
[1:55:57] Speaker 1: assure us that outside chaos reigns, means that our isolation
[1:56:02] Speaker 1: is the only means to preserve the future. Yet I wonder,
[1:56:07] Speaker 1: if the war has truly ended, why must we be
[1:56:10] Speaker 1: locked away in the dim corridors. I hear the soft
[1:56:15] Speaker 1: laughter of children, a sound both haunting and tender. New
[1:56:20] Speaker 1: life has been born here in the dark recesses of
[1:56:24] Speaker 1: this underground world. They grow up, knowing nothing of sunlight.
[1:56:28] Speaker 1: Their only lullaby the hum of machinery and the distant
[1:56:32] Speaker 1: groans of the bunker. I cannot shake the feeling that
[1:56:37] Speaker 1: we are no longer the architects of our fate, but
[1:56:40] Speaker 1: rather subjects in a grand experiment. The silence from the
[1:56:45] Speaker 1: outside grows ever more oppressive, and with each passing day,
[1:56:50] Speaker 1: the control exerted by those of the Helm tightens like
[1:56:54] Speaker 1: a noose. I fear what might come next, and I
[1:56:58] Speaker 1: write these words in the hope that they may serve
[1:57:01] Speaker 1: as a warning should anyone ever find them. September fourteenth,
[1:57:09] Speaker 1: nineteen forty six I have not written in some time.
[1:57:14] Speaker 1: The work has consumed us all. But it is not
[1:57:17] Speaker 1: construction that keeps our hands busy now in his research.
[1:57:23] Speaker 1: Though I am an engineer by trade, I'm often called
[1:57:26] Speaker 1: to assist with logistics and infrastructure. In section three, the
[1:57:31] Speaker 1: medical wing, it is there that the whispers began. They
[1:57:37] Speaker 1: called it Project Morgan Minch, the Man of Tomorrow, Project
[1:57:42] Speaker 1: a rebirth, they say, a better human, a stronger one,
[1:57:47] Speaker 1: one who will be ready when the Reich rises again,
[1:57:50] Speaker 1: if not in this lifetime than the next. I've seen
[1:57:56] Speaker 1: the files. The injections are not just vitimin serums tritional supplements,
[1:58:01] Speaker 1: as they claim in official meetings. There are compounds I
[1:58:05] Speaker 1: do not recognize, radiation laced fluids, growth accelerants, even samples
[1:58:11] Speaker 1: rumored to be derived from fungi found deep within the jungle.
[1:58:16] Speaker 1: Some subjects are brought in at night, barely conscious. Others
[1:58:20] Speaker 1: are volunteers selected with honors, but none of them returned
[1:58:26] Speaker 1: to the dormitories. A man named Dieta, a chemical assistant
[1:58:31] Speaker 1: from Sector two, questioned the project openly last week. He
[1:58:36] Speaker 1: was gone by morning. We were told he had requested
[1:58:40] Speaker 1: a reassignment to an external outpost. I don't believe that
[1:58:44] Speaker 1: outposts exist. Three nights ago, while checking airflow systems, I
[1:58:51] Speaker 1: pause near the ventilation shafts above the lower levels. I
[1:58:56] Speaker 1: heard something, a scream, none of pain, but of pure confusion.
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: It was drawn out in hollow, like someone was trying
[1:59:06] Speaker 1: to scream, all underwater. Then came the thud, something slamming
[1:59:12] Speaker 1: against the dog to work. Once twice they sounded like
[1:59:17] Speaker 1: heavy slaps. I have stopped asking questions, but I haven't
[1:59:23] Speaker 1: stopped writing them down. February seventh, nineteen forty seven, we
[1:59:33] Speaker 1: were lied to. There is no Reich, there is no war,
[1:59:38] Speaker 1: there is no Germany waiting to be reborn. One of
[1:59:42] Speaker 1: the young technicians and communications Rudolph barely twenty, smuggled in
[1:59:47] Speaker 1: a radio from the surface during a supply rotation, a
[1:59:51] Speaker 1: homemade receiver tuned to civilian frequencies. He played a broadcast
[1:59:56] Speaker 1: for US, clear as a bell as they out of Santiago, Chile,
[2:00:02] Speaker 1: A full broadcast in Spanish, music, advertisements, and politics. We
[2:00:09] Speaker 1: lost long ago. The higher ups knew. They have known
[2:00:15] Speaker 1: this entire time. All of it, the isolation, the lockdowns,
[2:00:20] Speaker 1: the rationing, the indoctrination, was to keep us here. To
[2:00:26] Speaker 1: maintain a closed system, a laboratory, not a refuge. When
[2:00:32] Speaker 1: the truth spread, there was panic, yelling in corridors, officers
[2:00:37] Speaker 1: pulling side arms. Rudolph was taken, so were the three
[2:00:42] Speaker 1: others who heard the broadcast directly. They said it was
[2:00:46] Speaker 1: a security breach, that outside voices are contaminated. A few
[2:00:52] Speaker 1: of us discussed mutiny quietly in passing. It lasted two
[2:00:57] Speaker 1: days before someone betrayed us. I was beaten, not enough
[2:01:04] Speaker 1: to kill, just enough to remind. One man was dragged
[2:01:09] Speaker 1: to Sector three. No one has seen him since. I
[2:01:13] Speaker 1: believe now that we are no longer survivors, rather we
[2:01:19] Speaker 1: are subjects. October twenty third, nineteen forty seven. It is
[2:01:26] Speaker 1: happening too fast now. I can hardly keep track of
[2:01:30] Speaker 1: the day's Sickness is everywhere, not just fatigue or malnutrition,
[2:01:37] Speaker 1: but something deeper. Flesh turns soft, almost sponge like, eyes
[2:01:43] Speaker 1: glaze over. Some have developed a sort of fever that
[2:01:47] Speaker 1: doesn't burn the skin but warps the mind. Men forget
[2:01:51] Speaker 1: how to walk, Women scream at nothing, and children are crying.
[2:01:57] Speaker 1: The experiments have escaped contained me, and no one says
[2:02:01] Speaker 1: it out loud, but everyone knows it began with a breach.
[2:02:06] Speaker 1: In Sector three, a door left open, a containment cell damaged.
[2:02:11] Speaker 1: The lights went out for less than two minutes, but
[2:02:15] Speaker 1: it was enough. They don't resemble people anymore. One moved
[2:02:22] Speaker 1: through the upper maintenance corridor last night. I didn't see
[2:02:25] Speaker 1: it fully. It moved in a sluggish pace. I heard gasps,
[2:02:31] Speaker 1: then nothing. When I returned with two others, there was
[2:02:36] Speaker 1: no blood, just clothing. Three men gone, with no sign
[2:02:42] Speaker 1: of struggle, only the scent of salt and bile in
[2:02:46] Speaker 1: the air. Today I opened a sealed supply crate in
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: the communal hall. Inside were plastic wrapped packages. I read
[2:02:56] Speaker 1: the labels, coded sterile, clinical protein units processed, but it
[2:03:04] Speaker 1: was warm. I took a knife and cut one open.
[2:03:10] Speaker 1: They were feeding us the failures. Some knew, some didn't,
[2:03:17] Speaker 1: but we ate anyway. We had no choice. I vomited
[2:03:24] Speaker 1: until nothing came out but bile. I have not eaten
[2:03:29] Speaker 1: since November ninth, nineteen forty seven. This will be my
[2:03:38] Speaker 1: final entry. There is no more order here, only rituals,
[2:03:43] Speaker 1: grotesque imitations of structure. Men still wear uniforms. They marched
[2:03:49] Speaker 1: the halls as if the Reich still listens, as if
[2:03:52] Speaker 1: this place is anything but a grave. I was part
[2:03:56] Speaker 1: of a small group who tried to escape. There was
[2:03:59] Speaker 1: an auxiliar rehatch built during the early days before the lockdowns.
[2:04:04] Speaker 1: We found it behind the water reserves, hidden under rebar
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: and rotten crates. Six of us planned to leave. We
[2:04:13] Speaker 1: never made it out together. Something followed us, a failed subject,
[2:04:20] Speaker 1: if you can even call them that. I saw its
[2:04:23] Speaker 1: face for the first time, a man on one new fissure.
[2:04:28] Speaker 1: I think his skin had melted like wax and re
[2:04:32] Speaker 1: formed in sagging layers. His jaw was unhinged, his ribs
[2:04:37] Speaker 1: pulsed like gills. He moved without urgency, like a predator
[2:04:42] Speaker 1: that knows nothing can escape. He crossed the jurgen against
[2:04:47] Speaker 1: the wall with one arm. I saw bones snap through
[2:04:50] Speaker 1: his thigh like dry kindling, and the screamed until her
[2:04:54] Speaker 1: voice gave out. Then tried to run and slipped on
[2:04:57] Speaker 1: the floor on what remained of some else. We sealed
[2:05:02] Speaker 1: the hatch behind us, but I was injured. My leg
[2:05:06] Speaker 1: is broken. I can't walk. I volunteer to stay. The
[2:05:12] Speaker 1: others are gone, now up that ladder and back into
[2:05:16] Speaker 1: a world that might not even be waiting for them.
[2:05:20] Speaker 1: Maybe they'll make it back, maybe not. I no longer care.
[2:05:27] Speaker 1: This journal will remain with me. If you are reading this,
[2:05:32] Speaker 1: you must understand we were not all complicit, We were
[2:05:38] Speaker 1: not all monsters. We didn't speak right away. After the
[2:05:46] Speaker 1: journal ended, Sasha closed it with both hands, slowly, like
[2:05:52] Speaker 1: it might shatter. She sat back on her heels, mouth
[2:05:56] Speaker 1: slightly open, in a stun silence. Jonas had been pacing
[2:06:01] Speaker 1: in a tight loop near the bed. Doctor Kettley hadn't
[2:06:05] Speaker 1: moved at all. He stood by the desk, arms folded,
[2:06:10] Speaker 1: staring at the floor like it owed him an answer.
[2:06:14] Speaker 1: I couldn't think, couldn't find a thread to hold on to.
[2:06:19] Speaker 1: The words were still echoing. Then Kettley spoke, we can't
[2:06:27] Speaker 1: stop here. I looked at him. What are you talking about?
[2:06:33] Speaker 1: He turned toward us, slow and heavy. This journal is
[2:06:39] Speaker 1: It's only a part of the picture. If half of
[2:06:43] Speaker 1: what he'd described actually happened down there, we owe it
[2:06:47] Speaker 1: to history to see the rest. There could be evidence, proof,
[2:06:51] Speaker 1: biological remnants. You want to find them, Sasha asked, her, voiceless, hoarse.
[2:06:58] Speaker 1: The things he described, I want to know if they're
[2:07:02] Speaker 1: even real, he said. Jonas nodded, arms crossed tightly over
[2:07:08] Speaker 1: his chest. He's right, we're already in. We can't just
[2:07:14] Speaker 1: run now, Jonas, We should run, Sasha said, rising to
[2:07:19] Speaker 1: her feet. This isn't a science project. This is a
[2:07:23] Speaker 1: mass grave, building a lie. There's a reason they sealed
[2:07:26] Speaker 1: it up. She looked at me, eyes raw. Tell me
[2:07:32] Speaker 1: you don't want to keep going. I didn't answer. The
[2:07:38] Speaker 1: air was changing heavier, close to sour. I hadn't noticed
[2:07:44] Speaker 1: until then, but it was there. Clinging to my clothes.
[2:07:51] Speaker 1: Footsteps behind us, we turned to see Lewis duck into
[2:07:55] Speaker 1: the room. His face was pale, a thin sheen of
[2:07:59] Speaker 1: sweat catching the light from his head lamp. He looked
[2:08:03] Speaker 1: at each of us, then down at the journal in
[2:08:06] Speaker 1: Sasha's hands. I read a few more pages, he said.
[2:08:11] Speaker 1: I didn't want to, but I did. He swallowed hard.
[2:08:17] Speaker 1: There's something wrong down here, and I don't want to
[2:08:20] Speaker 1: be a part of it. We're going down, Jonah said.
[2:08:26] Speaker 1: Louis stared at him, then turned to me. Don't go
[2:08:30] Speaker 1: with them. I didn't answer. A minute later he was gone.
[2:08:41] Speaker 1: The air felt colder once he left. The stairs to
[2:08:45] Speaker 1: the lower level had nearly rusted through, but the structure held.
[2:08:51] Speaker 1: We descended, one at a time, Our boots clanging softly
[2:08:55] Speaker 1: against the metal, echoing up the shaft. My headlamp flicked
[2:09:00] Speaker 1: at once and stabilized. The damage was obvious from the start.
[2:09:06] Speaker 1: The walls were warped and bulging in place, like something
[2:09:10] Speaker 1: had pressed from the other side with slow pressure. Entire
[2:09:14] Speaker 1: panels were cracked open, revealing tangled veins of rusted piping
[2:09:19] Speaker 1: and torn cables. One segment of the ceiling had collapsed inward.
[2:09:25] Speaker 1: We dugged beneath it, crawling through to reach the next corridor.
[2:09:30] Speaker 1: As we moved farther down the corridor, the signs of
[2:09:33] Speaker 1: collapse became less like age and more like a struggle.
[2:09:38] Speaker 1: The walls were scarred with impact marks, some shallow, some
[2:09:43] Speaker 1: punched in deep. Sasha brushed a hand across the jagged
[2:09:47] Speaker 1: hole near a doorway. Her fingers came away, flaked with
[2:09:51] Speaker 1: rust and something darker beneath it bullet holes, doctor Kettley
[2:09:58] Speaker 1: said quietly. Close range. We looked around and they were everywhere,
[2:10:07] Speaker 1: pock marked across the hallway, clustered around corners near doorways.
[2:10:12] Speaker 1: Sum heard fragments of brass casings still embedded in the
[2:10:16] Speaker 1: cracks between the floor tiles. Others were surrounded by long,
[2:10:20] Speaker 1: dried splashes of what could only be blood someone, maybe many,
[2:10:27] Speaker 1: had tried to fight whatever got out. The rooms on
[2:10:32] Speaker 1: this level had no beds, just rusted restraints shelves of
[2:10:37] Speaker 1: ruined medical equipment. Doctor Kettley stepped ahead his lamp, tracing
[2:10:43] Speaker 1: an open door. He froze. I turned to ask what
[2:10:49] Speaker 1: he saw, but before I could speak, I heard it breathing, wet,
[2:10:59] Speaker 1: strain like air pushed through mucus and ruined lungs. Then
[2:11:05] Speaker 1: something shifted in the dark. As shape moved at the
[2:11:09] Speaker 1: edge of our light. Gurgling followed, long and low. I
[2:11:15] Speaker 1: felt the breath leave my body as something inside me
[2:11:18] Speaker 1: screamed to run. It was hunched in the corner, facing
[2:11:26] Speaker 1: away from us, a towering shape with limbs bent at
[2:11:30] Speaker 1: wrong angles and skin stretched too far to hold what
[2:11:34] Speaker 1: was inside. It was the shape of a man barely
[2:11:40] Speaker 1: Its skin was wet and sagging, shiny, with dark sweat
[2:11:44] Speaker 1: or fluid, parts of it clinging to the bone, other
[2:11:48] Speaker 1: parts slowing off in folds where its joints met elbows, knees, shoulders.
[2:11:56] Speaker 1: Black fluid oozed freely and pulled on the floor in
[2:11:59] Speaker 1: thin tar like globes. It was wearing something, or what
[2:12:07] Speaker 1: remained of something. A uniform, torn threadbare, stretched unto the fabric,
[2:12:14] Speaker 1: had embedded itself into flesh. The buttons were still there.
[2:12:20] Speaker 1: The collar fused to its body. One barefoot dragged behind it,
[2:12:26] Speaker 1: grotesquely swollen and raw. The heel split open like old fruit.
[2:12:32] Speaker 1: The other foot thudded when it moved, heavy and wet,
[2:12:37] Speaker 1: and its face, no, it wasn't a face, a mound
[2:12:43] Speaker 1: of pale pulp, sagging and twitching with holes where features
[2:12:48] Speaker 1: should have been. No eyes, just dark impressions, like the
[2:12:53] Speaker 1: sockets had collapsed inward long ago. Then it sniffed, wet,
[2:13:00] Speaker 1: rattling inhale that sounded like fluid bubbling in a train pipe,
[2:13:06] Speaker 1: and it turned toward us. Its mouth opened wide. He
[2:13:11] Speaker 1: released the groan, slow and shuddering like a child. The
[2:13:16] Speaker 1: sound echoed off the walls, wet and heavy, and it
[2:13:20] Speaker 1: slapped the wall with one massive hand, leaving a smear
[2:13:23] Speaker 1: of black. Doctor Kettley whispered something I couldn't hear. His
[2:13:29] Speaker 1: light dropped slightly, his hands trembled. The thing stepped forward.
[2:13:37] Speaker 1: We ran. The hallway behind us felt longer than before.
[2:13:43] Speaker 1: Our boots hit the floor with a frantic pace, lights
[2:13:46] Speaker 1: bouncing wildly off the walls. Behind us came the sound
[2:13:50] Speaker 1: of meat hitting concrete, a sound that wasn't quite footsteps,
[2:13:54] Speaker 1: but not quite crawling either. Doctor Kettley tripped near a
[2:14:00] Speaker 1: rogan section of piping. I turned too late. The thing
[2:14:06] Speaker 1: reached him in a blink. One bloated hand wrapped around
[2:14:10] Speaker 1: his waist and lifted him like a doll. Kettley's scream
[2:14:15] Speaker 1: tore through the hallway, then a crack. We kept running.
[2:14:25] Speaker 1: Jonas was ahead of me, nearly at the bulkhead we'd
[2:14:28] Speaker 1: come through when it happened. Jonas reached the doorway. He
[2:14:32] Speaker 1: turned to seal it, tried to pull the reinforced door shut.
[2:14:37] Speaker 1: The creature's arm whipped around the corner like it was liquid.
[2:14:41] Speaker 1: A tendril slid into Jonas's mouth. Fast. His body arked violently,
[2:14:47] Speaker 1: feet lifting off the ground. As he convulsed, His eyes
[2:14:51] Speaker 1: went wide, then rolled back. His limbs flailed once twice,
[2:14:59] Speaker 1: then stopped. He collapsed, twitching once before going completely still.
[2:15:06] Speaker 1: The thing retracted his arms slowly. I backed away and
[2:15:11] Speaker 1: realized I was the only one left. I kept to
[2:15:17] Speaker 1: the left wall, then the right, mentally tracing every turn
[2:15:21] Speaker 1: we took on the way down. My chest burned, my
[2:15:24] Speaker 1: legs wanted to give that something beneath it. All instinct
[2:15:30] Speaker 1: kept me upright, and then I saw the hatch we
[2:15:34] Speaker 1: came from. Relief hit like a punch to the gut,
[2:15:39] Speaker 1: so sharp it made me stagger. I climbed up the
[2:15:42] Speaker 1: ladder and grabbed the iron wheel. Turned it nothing. It
[2:15:50] Speaker 1: didn't budge. I tried again, planted my feet, pulled harder.
[2:15:56] Speaker 1: The bolts groan faintly, but it didn't give. I felt
[2:16:02] Speaker 1: along the edges. There were no brakes, no external damage,
[2:16:06] Speaker 1: no collapse. The mechanism hadn't failed. It had been sealed
[2:16:12] Speaker 1: from the other side. Lewis who must have heard something
[2:16:18] Speaker 1: from the outside, or panicked, or maybe closed it wrong
[2:16:22] Speaker 1: on accident. My fists hid the hatch again and again, pained,
[2:16:28] Speaker 1: booming across my knuckles. I yelled, screamed his name, no
[2:16:34] Speaker 1: response behind me. Moisture, the faintest vibration underfoot, followed by
[2:16:44] Speaker 1: the moan. I shut off my light, backed into the dark.
[2:16:50] Speaker 1: The crawl space I'd found was barely wide enough to
[2:16:53] Speaker 1: fit through an old maintenance shaft, lined with torn conduit
[2:16:57] Speaker 1: and brittle cables. I didn't think about what might be
[2:17:01] Speaker 1: in it. I just dropped on my knees and slid inside,
[2:17:05] Speaker 1: scraped me my ribs against the stone, arms shaking as
[2:17:09] Speaker 1: I pulled myself deeper. I stopped maybe fifteen feet in,
[2:17:15] Speaker 1: tucked between two collapsed pipe junctions, curled as tightly as
[2:17:20] Speaker 1: I could. My chest rose and fell so fast I
[2:17:25] Speaker 1: was afraid the sound of my breathing would give me away.
[2:17:28] Speaker 1: I clamped my hand over my mouth and waited. The
[2:17:35] Speaker 1: thing came into view, slowly, just light at first, bouncing
[2:17:40] Speaker 1: dimly from a lamp still lying in the hallway behind me,
[2:17:45] Speaker 1: Then the sound. There was a strip of fabric barely
[2:17:50] Speaker 1: holding to the remains of a coat or uniform, A
[2:17:54] Speaker 1: piece of cloth fused into the rotten flesh of the
[2:17:57] Speaker 1: creature's chest, barely hanging on a name tag Marla. The
[2:18:05] Speaker 1: lettering was faded, but clear enough, Eric Mahler. It paused
[2:18:12] Speaker 1: near the hatch. I couldn't see it clearly anymore, but
[2:18:16] Speaker 1: I could hear it. It slapped the walls, sniffed the air, loud,
[2:18:22] Speaker 1: gurgling inhales, like a drowning animal struggling to taste something lost.
[2:18:29] Speaker 1: Then he began to speak, not full words, but it
[2:18:34] Speaker 1: tried anyway. Oh hey, mine calm. I squeezed my eyes
[2:18:47] Speaker 1: shut and held my breath. I don't know how long
[2:18:55] Speaker 1: I stayed in that crawl space. My joints had gone stiff,
[2:19:00] Speaker 1: mouth dry as bone, my flashlight had long since died,
[2:19:04] Speaker 1: and even the fear was beginning to thin, giving way
[2:19:08] Speaker 1: to something worse, the quiet belief that this was it,
[2:19:13] Speaker 1: that I would die down here. I'd stopped listening for it,
[2:19:18] Speaker 1: the thing, I thought, maybe it had a lost interest,
[2:19:22] Speaker 1: or maybe it didn't need to hunt anymore. Then light
[2:19:29] Speaker 1: flooding in from the corridor, warm and golden, not the
[2:19:33] Speaker 1: sterile white of her head lamps, but sunlight, pure and alive,
[2:19:40] Speaker 1: crashing through the darkness like a resurrection, and a voice, familiar, human,
[2:19:48] Speaker 1: cracking with panic and guilt. I came back. He pause,
[2:19:54] Speaker 1: I'm sorry I left. Are you there, Lewis? My body
[2:20:02] Speaker 1: reacted before my mind could, but I wasn't the only
[2:20:06] Speaker 1: one who heard him. I scrambled out of the crawl space,
[2:20:11] Speaker 1: half crawling, half tumbling. My legs screamed, blood rushing back
[2:20:16] Speaker 1: into numb muscles as I ran full tilt toward the hatch.
[2:20:21] Speaker 1: The air stank of heat and rot, the moon behind
[2:20:24] Speaker 1: me grew louder closer. The floor shook beneath its weight.
[2:20:30] Speaker 1: Louise's face appeared in the open hatch above eyes, wide
[2:20:34] Speaker 1: flashlight in one hand. Hey, what's going on? He yelled.
[2:20:41] Speaker 1: I threw myself at the ladder, missed the first rung, slammed.
[2:20:44] Speaker 1: My shin climbed anyway. My fingers fumbled for grip the metal,
[2:20:50] Speaker 1: slick with sweat and grime. Lewis reached down, grabbed my arm.
[2:20:55] Speaker 1: He pulled. As my head crested the hatch. I felt
[2:21:00] Speaker 1: the pressure shift behind me, a blast of heat, and
[2:21:04] Speaker 1: a wet sound. The thing was at the base of
[2:21:08] Speaker 1: the ladder, I screamed. Louis pulled harder, and I cleared
[2:21:13] Speaker 1: the opening just as a wet mass lammed against the
[2:21:17] Speaker 1: underside of the hatch. He slammed it shot. The thud
[2:21:22] Speaker 1: echoed like a gunshot, metal shaking under the impact. We
[2:21:28] Speaker 1: stood there in the clearing, both of us heaving for breath.
[2:21:34] Speaker 1: I bent over with my hands on my knees, trying
[2:21:37] Speaker 1: to slow my heart. Louis paced in wide, frantic circles,
[2:21:42] Speaker 1: wiping sweat from his face, mouth working like he wanted
[2:21:46] Speaker 1: to say a dozen things, but couldn't pick one. Then
[2:21:50] Speaker 1: he turned to me, eyes wide hollow. Where's Sasha, he asked.
[2:21:59] Speaker 1: I didn't answer. What about Jonas and the professor? What
[2:22:05] Speaker 1: happened down there? What was that thing? My lips parted,
[2:22:13] Speaker 1: but nothing came out. I opened my mouth again, tried
[2:22:17] Speaker 1: to form words, but it was like they were stuck
[2:22:21] Speaker 1: behind everything I had just seen. Felt Lewis stepped closer.
[2:22:29] Speaker 1: Tell me what happened. They're gone, I finally said, I
[2:22:36] Speaker 1: just they're gone. He stared at me for a long time,
[2:22:46] Speaker 1: like he was trying to read something I couldn't put
[2:22:48] Speaker 1: into words. Then slowly he pulled out his phone. I'm
[2:22:55] Speaker 1: calling someone, he muttered. He stepped a few feet away,
[2:23:01] Speaker 1: murmuring into the speaker, giving what details he could location, injuries, urgency.
[2:23:10] Speaker 1: I just stood there, numb, watching the hatch like he
[2:23:14] Speaker 1: might start rattling again, but it didn't. We left before
[2:23:21] Speaker 1: they arrived. Neither of us wanted to be there when
[2:23:25] Speaker 1: they opened it again, if they opened it again, but
[2:23:29] Speaker 1: we knew we had to stay, and so we did.
[2:23:35] Speaker 1: A few days passed. The authorities came local police first,
[2:23:41] Speaker 1: then federal agents, and finally someone in clean uniforms with
[2:23:47] Speaker 1: no names on their jackets. They wouldn't say who they
[2:23:51] Speaker 1: worked for, only that the site was under investigation and
[2:23:56] Speaker 1: we were advised not to speak to the press. Weeks later,
[2:24:04] Speaker 1: I got a call. Lewis was on the other end,
[2:24:09] Speaker 1: voice low if they found it. He said everything, the bonker,
[2:24:17] Speaker 1: the journal, all of it. And I asked he went quiet,
[2:24:27] Speaker 1: nobody's he said finally, no people, no creatures. I didn't respond.
[2:24:40] Speaker 1: This could have only meant one thing they got out.
[2:24:57] Speaker 1: I'll start by saying that if I hadn't known what
[2:25:00] Speaker 1: this would lead to, I never would have touched it.
[2:25:04] Speaker 1: I would have kept dragging myself through the exhaustion and
[2:25:08] Speaker 1: creeping dread that had settled over my life. I would
[2:25:11] Speaker 1: have let it crush me instead. But at the time
[2:25:16] Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a mistake. It felt like salvation.
[2:25:23] Speaker 1: I was barely keeping it together mentally, physically, and emotionally.
[2:25:29] Speaker 1: Work was draining the life out of me. Every morning
[2:25:33] Speaker 1: I woke up with the same exhausted groan, accompanied by
[2:25:37] Speaker 1: the all too familiar, dull pain behind my eyes as
[2:25:40] Speaker 1: the realization that I had to get through another day
[2:25:43] Speaker 1: of this hit me. My life had become a loop
[2:25:47] Speaker 1: of meaningless emails and passive aggressive meetings. My social life
[2:25:52] Speaker 1: had deteriorated into scrolling through other people's happiness on Instagram.
[2:25:57] Speaker 1: My body felt sluggish, and so did everything else. Then,
[2:26:04] Speaker 1: out of nowhere, I got a text from Jason. He
[2:26:10] Speaker 1: was a guy I used to work with before he
[2:26:12] Speaker 1: burned out worse than me. I hadn't heard from him
[2:26:16] Speaker 1: in almost a year, ever since he quit his job,
[2:26:19] Speaker 1: went through a brutal break up and spiraled into some
[2:26:22] Speaker 1: kind of depressive abyss. He wanted to meet up, and
[2:26:27] Speaker 1: when we did, I barely recognized him when he walked
[2:26:31] Speaker 1: into the bar. Jason had always looked horrible, but as
[2:26:39] Speaker 1: he stood in front of me, he looked like he
[2:26:42] Speaker 1: had been reborn. His skin was clear and glowing, his
[2:26:47] Speaker 1: eyes were sharp and full of life. Even the way
[2:26:51] Speaker 1: he moved was different. I couldn't stop staring. What the
[2:26:56] Speaker 1: hell happened to you? I finally asked. Jason just smiled,
[2:27:02] Speaker 1: leaned back in his chair, and figured it out. He
[2:27:08] Speaker 1: reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, nondescript
[2:27:12] Speaker 1: pill box white. It looked like ibroprofen at first glance.
[2:27:18] Speaker 1: He set it on the table between us. I frowned
[2:27:24] Speaker 1: what's that? Jason slid the box toward me. The answer.
[2:27:32] Speaker 1: I picked it up, popped the lid open. Inside were
[2:27:36] Speaker 1: dozens of small, white pills, perfectly uniform, no logo, no label.
[2:27:43] Speaker 1: They could have been anything. I raised an eyebrow. You
[2:27:48] Speaker 1: selling me drugs now, Jason laughed. No, I don't sell them.
[2:27:54] Speaker 1: I don't even know where to get more. I let
[2:27:58] Speaker 1: out a dry chuckle and told him that this sounded
[2:28:01] Speaker 1: like some rich Silicon Valley guy's new tech bro drug,
[2:28:05] Speaker 1: some tomb artemized performance crap. But Jason just shook his head.
[2:28:11] Speaker 1: So where'd you get them? He hesitated just for a moment.
[2:28:18] Speaker 1: Then he excelled like he'd made peace with something. I
[2:28:23] Speaker 1: can't explain it, not in a way that'll make sense.
[2:28:27] Speaker 1: But I don't need as many as I have, and
[2:28:30] Speaker 1: I don't want to leave without giving you the chance leave.
[2:28:36] Speaker 1: Jason nodded, I'm moving other side of the world. I
[2:28:41] Speaker 1: don't think I'm coming back. That hit harder than I expected.
[2:28:49] Speaker 1: Jason had been one of the few people who understood
[2:28:52] Speaker 1: how miserable our lives had been. I set the pill
[2:28:56] Speaker 1: box down. Jason, man, I don't know about this. He
[2:29:02] Speaker 1: held up a hand cutting me off. You don't have
[2:29:05] Speaker 1: to take them. I'm not pushing anything. Just try it
[2:29:09] Speaker 1: one one time. If you don't like it, toss the rest.
[2:29:16] Speaker 1: He looked so at peace, and I was so tired.
[2:29:23] Speaker 1: I took the pill that night. It was instant. The
[2:29:28] Speaker 1: moment the pill dissolved on my tongue, I felt something
[2:29:32] Speaker 1: unlock inside me. Not a high, not like being drunk
[2:29:37] Speaker 1: or stoned. Clarity, pure, undiluted euphoria. My thoughts became razor sharp,
[2:29:47] Speaker 1: every idea crystal clear. My body felt light. Every single
[2:29:53] Speaker 1: inch of me just worked. I felt entirely unstoppable. I
[2:30:00] Speaker 1: lay back of my bed, staring at the ceiling and
[2:30:04] Speaker 1: realized I was smiling. A deep, unshakable contentment filled my chest.
[2:30:12] Speaker 1: For the first time in years. I felt alive. After that,
[2:30:19] Speaker 1: there was no crash, no sluggish come down, just the perfect,
[2:30:24] Speaker 1: dreamless sleep. The next morning, I had woken up from
[2:30:30] Speaker 1: the best sleep of my life, but better, like my
[2:30:35] Speaker 1: body had been completely reset, Like every ounce of exhaustion,
[2:30:40] Speaker 1: every creeping doubt, every bit of background stress I've been
[2:30:43] Speaker 1: carrying for years had been scrubbed away. I breathed through
[2:30:48] Speaker 1: work like it was nothing, every task effortless, I finished
[2:30:54] Speaker 1: my entire workload before lunch. My boss even pulled me aside,
[2:30:58] Speaker 1: eyes wide. I don't know what's gotten into you, but
[2:31:03] Speaker 1: keep it up. This is some of the best work
[2:31:06] Speaker 1: I've seen from you. It wasn't just work. People noticed more.
[2:31:12] Speaker 1: Conversations flowed easier, my jokes landed harder. I felt sharper, funnier,
[2:31:19] Speaker 1: more confident than I ever had. By the end of
[2:31:23] Speaker 1: the day, my phone was blowing up. Friends I hadn't
[2:31:27] Speaker 1: talked to in months, reaching out, wanting to hang out.
[2:31:31] Speaker 1: I wasn't invisible anymore. That night, as I lay in bed,
[2:31:38] Speaker 1: i'd a thought circling around in my head. Why wouldn't
[2:31:43] Speaker 1: I take another? But I also did not want to
[2:31:48] Speaker 1: depend on this, so I would hold off for a
[2:31:52] Speaker 1: while see if anything went wrong. I'd convinced myself that
[2:31:57] Speaker 1: I would only use it when things got really bad,
[2:32:00] Speaker 1: a boost to get me back on track. Maybe it
[2:32:04] Speaker 1: was even some kind of placebo effect, my brain waking
[2:32:07] Speaker 1: up for the first time in years and tricking itself
[2:32:10] Speaker 1: into feeling superhuman. But the next morning, when I rolled
[2:32:16] Speaker 1: out of bed and felt the familiar drag of exhaustion
[2:32:19] Speaker 1: pulling at me, I knew it had worn off. I
[2:32:25] Speaker 1: hesitated for a while. I even went through the motions
[2:32:29] Speaker 1: of a normal morning, but it wasn't the same. That
[2:32:34] Speaker 1: sharp clarity I felt yesterday was gone, like a door
[2:32:38] Speaker 1: had been shut in my brain. The temptation was there,
[2:32:43] Speaker 1: whispering in the back of my head. Just one more,
[2:32:49] Speaker 1: what's the harm? I gave in easier than I'd like
[2:32:56] Speaker 1: to admit. The second pill, it'd just like the first.
[2:33:01] Speaker 1: There was no slow build up, no waiting period. The
[2:33:05] Speaker 1: moment I swallowed it, my mind clicked into place, like
[2:33:09] Speaker 1: someone had turned the lights on inside my skull. The
[2:33:14] Speaker 1: heaviness in my limbs vanished. I was instantly unburdened by
[2:33:18] Speaker 1: hesitation or doubt. I was alive. Then I blinked and
[2:33:27] Speaker 1: an hour was gone. I stood in my bathroom, staring
[2:33:32] Speaker 1: at my reflection. The last thing I remembered was taking
[2:33:37] Speaker 1: the pill, checking the time, and heading toward the sink
[2:33:40] Speaker 1: to brush my teeth. But now it looked like I
[2:33:44] Speaker 1: had just got done taking a shower. The water was running,
[2:33:48] Speaker 1: and the clock on the wall said it was past eight.
[2:33:52] Speaker 1: I turned off the forrcet and rode to my face,
[2:33:55] Speaker 1: trying to shake off the feeling of something being missing,
[2:33:59] Speaker 1: but I felt better than fine. My body was humming
[2:34:03] Speaker 1: with energy, the same exhilarating sensation I had felt before.
[2:34:09] Speaker 1: Maybe I'd just sowned out or fallen into some kind
[2:34:12] Speaker 1: of hyperfocus state. I wasn't about to overthink it, not
[2:34:19] Speaker 1: when it felt this good. I moved through chores and
[2:34:23] Speaker 1: work like there was second nature. Problems that would have
[2:34:27] Speaker 1: normally taken me hours to work through now came with
[2:34:31] Speaker 1: obvious solutions, as if my brain had already worked them
[2:34:35] Speaker 1: out in the background. When my bar dropped an urgent
[2:34:39] Speaker 1: project at my desk, expecting it to take the rest
[2:34:42] Speaker 1: of the day, I had finished it before lunch That afternoon.
[2:34:48] Speaker 1: He called me into his office. If you keep this up,
[2:34:53] Speaker 1: we might have to talk about a real promotion. I nodded,
[2:34:59] Speaker 1: acting cool, but inside I was thrilled. I had been
[2:35:04] Speaker 1: stuck in this job for years, grinding through the same routine,
[2:35:09] Speaker 1: and now in less than a week, I was suddenly
[2:35:12] Speaker 1: the best employee in the room. The pill was working.
[2:35:20] Speaker 1: I decided to go out with some of the people
[2:35:22] Speaker 1: that had written me off a long time ago, after
[2:35:26] Speaker 1: I had bailed one too many times or let text
[2:35:29] Speaker 1: sit unanswered, and when I showed up, I wasn't the
[2:35:33] Speaker 1: quiet guy in the corner. I was the one keeping
[2:35:37] Speaker 1: conversations going, the one people actually wanted to talk to.
[2:35:43] Speaker 1: That's how I met Mia. It wasn't anything special, at
[2:35:50] Speaker 1: least not at first, just a random conversation at a bar,
[2:35:55] Speaker 1: a mutual friend introducing us over drinks. But unlike every
[2:36:00] Speaker 1: other time I had tried to flirt with someone, there
[2:36:03] Speaker 1: was no awkwardness. The words came easily, the laughter felt natural.
[2:36:11] Speaker 1: By the end of the night, we'd exchanged numbers. By
[2:36:15] Speaker 1: the end of the week, we'd gone on two dates.
[2:36:19] Speaker 1: At night, I stood in front of my mirror, studying
[2:36:22] Speaker 1: my own reflection. I looked so much more confident, the
[2:36:28] Speaker 1: same way Jason had. I wasn't going to stop, not
[2:36:34] Speaker 1: when I had a whole box left. The night I
[2:36:40] Speaker 1: lost the week I was supposed to meet Mia for dinner.
[2:36:44] Speaker 1: I'd been looking forward to it all day. But as
[2:36:47] Speaker 1: I stood in front of my mirror fixing my shirt,
[2:36:52] Speaker 1: I felt something I never wanted to feel again, sluggishness.
[2:36:59] Speaker 1: My limbs felt heavy again, my thoughts weren't as sharp.
[2:37:04] Speaker 1: It was nothing extreme, but it was noticeable, the kind
[2:37:08] Speaker 1: of creeping exhaustion I had all but tried to forget
[2:37:12] Speaker 1: about I knew what I had to do. I grabbed
[2:37:17] Speaker 1: the pill box from my dresser and popped one into
[2:37:20] Speaker 1: my mouth. It sat on my tongue for a moment
[2:37:24] Speaker 1: before dissolving, and just like that, the fog lifted, my
[2:37:31] Speaker 1: heart beat steadied, my mind lit up. That was the
[2:37:38] Speaker 1: last thing I remembered. I woke up in my bed.
[2:37:44] Speaker 1: The first thing I noticed was the morning light bleeding
[2:37:47] Speaker 1: through my blinds. That didn't make sense. My date had
[2:37:53] Speaker 1: been at seven p m. I reached for my phone,
[2:37:58] Speaker 1: blinking against the brightness. The screen showed the date. It
[2:38:04] Speaker 1: was seven days later. I sat up so fast I
[2:38:09] Speaker 1: nearly fell out of bed. My first thought was mea
[2:38:14] Speaker 1: I had missed our date. She must have been furious
[2:38:18] Speaker 1: and work. I had been out for a whole week.
[2:38:22] Speaker 1: My boss was going to kill me. My bills, my emails,
[2:38:26] Speaker 1: my texts, everything was probably in ruins. I unlocked my phone,
[2:38:32] Speaker 1: dreading what I was about to see, but there were
[2:38:37] Speaker 1: no miscalls or panicked messages. I tried looking for a
[2:38:41] Speaker 1: sign that anything was wrong, but I couldn't find anything.
[2:38:46] Speaker 1: I scrolled through my text breath catching in my throat.
[2:38:50] Speaker 1: When I saw an unread message from mere last night
[2:38:55] Speaker 1: was amazing. I feel like I've known you forever. I
[2:38:59] Speaker 1: can't wait I see you again. I stared at the message,
[2:39:04] Speaker 1: rereading it over and over. We had gone on another date,
[2:39:11] Speaker 1: I had been there. I checked my care log, I'd
[2:39:16] Speaker 1: spoken to people, texted them, replied to emails. My work
[2:39:21] Speaker 1: schedule was completely normal, no absences. It was like I'd
[2:39:27] Speaker 1: lived the week perfectly, except I didn't remember any of it.
[2:39:34] Speaker 1: My hands were shaking when I decided to dial my coworker.
[2:39:38] Speaker 1: I had to know what was going on, and I
[2:39:42] Speaker 1: had no other way of getting information that I could
[2:39:44] Speaker 1: think of. He picked up almost immediately. Yo, what's up?
[2:39:52] Speaker 1: I forced the casual tone, Not much, man, just checking in.
[2:39:58] Speaker 1: How was work this week? There was a pause, then
[2:40:03] Speaker 1: a chuckle, rough, but you should know you were there.
[2:40:10] Speaker 1: My stomach dropped. I tried again, Yeah, of course, just
[2:40:15] Speaker 1: you know. It was a blur, But remind me what happened.
[2:40:21] Speaker 1: He started listening off projects, meetings, conversations we'd had. I
[2:40:27] Speaker 1: hung up and called a close friend next, same thing.
[2:40:32] Speaker 1: You good men, They asked, you've been on fire lately?
[2:40:36] Speaker 1: Haven't seen you? This sharpen years. I could barely respond.
[2:40:41] Speaker 1: My mouth had gone dry. Everyone remembered a week that
[2:40:46] Speaker 1: I didn't live. My body had been awake, but I
[2:40:51] Speaker 1: wasn't in it. The next number I called was Jason's.
[2:40:57] Speaker 1: This number is no longer in service. I tried again,
[2:41:02] Speaker 1: and again nothing. Jason was gone, probably already living life
[2:41:09] Speaker 1: in that other country he was talking about. That night,
[2:41:15] Speaker 1: I dumped the pill box into the trash. I wasn't
[2:41:19] Speaker 1: touching it ever again. But the moment I made my decision,
[2:41:25] Speaker 1: my body betrayed me. It started with what felt like
[2:41:29] Speaker 1: a mild headache pressing against my skull. By the next morning,
[2:41:35] Speaker 1: the ache had grown into a full body fever. My
[2:41:39] Speaker 1: muscles felt like they were shredding themselves apart. My skin
[2:41:43] Speaker 1: was too tight, too hot, crawling with a thousand unseen insects.
[2:41:49] Speaker 1: I called up on my couch, drenched in sweat, gripping
[2:41:53] Speaker 1: my stomach as waves of nausea rolled over me. I
[2:41:58] Speaker 1: thought it would pass, but it didn't. By the second day,
[2:42:05] Speaker 1: I couldn't think straight. My brain felt fractured, like there
[2:42:10] Speaker 1: was something inside it trying to dig its way out.
[2:42:13] Speaker 1: My thoughts wouldn't connect, my vision blurred, My hands shook
[2:42:18] Speaker 1: violently whenever I tried to hold anything. At one point,
[2:42:24] Speaker 1: I swore I heard someone whispering my name. I turned
[2:42:28] Speaker 1: my head so fast my neck cracked, but there was
[2:42:31] Speaker 1: no one there. By the third day, I wasn't sure
[2:42:37] Speaker 1: what was real anymore. I stopped showing up to work.
[2:42:42] Speaker 1: The job that had felt effortless now felt impossible. Every
[2:42:47] Speaker 1: email I tried to write came out as nonsense. I
[2:42:50] Speaker 1: would stare at my screen for hours, my fingers frozen,
[2:42:54] Speaker 1: my brain refusing to cooperate. My boss sent me a
[2:42:59] Speaker 1: single message, What's going on with you? You were doing so well.
[2:43:07] Speaker 1: I didn't answer. My friend stopped reaching out. At first.
[2:43:12] Speaker 1: They checked in, asked if I was okay, but I
[2:43:16] Speaker 1: was moody, volatile, paranoid. I would snap at them for
[2:43:21] Speaker 1: no reason, then apologize the next day. Eventually they stopped
[2:43:27] Speaker 1: texting back. Mia was the last to go. She stuck
[2:43:34] Speaker 1: around longer than I expected. She tried to be patient,
[2:43:39] Speaker 1: but I could see it in her eyes. She didn't
[2:43:43] Speaker 1: understand what had changed. One night, she came over, sat
[2:43:48] Speaker 1: next to me in my couch and said, you're different now.
[2:43:55] Speaker 1: I didn't even argue. She left, and I didn't try
[2:44:00] Speaker 1: to stop her. By the end, of the week. I
[2:44:05] Speaker 1: was completely alone. I had lost everything the pill had
[2:44:10] Speaker 1: given me, my job, my friends, my mind, my body.
[2:44:15] Speaker 1: The worst of all, I had lost who I could
[2:44:19] Speaker 1: have been because I wasn't just feeling withdrawal. I was
[2:44:24] Speaker 1: feeling hollow, like whatever had been inside me for that
[2:44:29] Speaker 1: missing week had taken something with it when it left,
[2:44:33] Speaker 1: and the only way to get it back was to
[2:44:37] Speaker 1: take another pill. I held out as long as I could,
[2:44:43] Speaker 1: I really did. I locked myself in my apartment, trying
[2:44:47] Speaker 1: to sweat it out, to fight through it. I promised
[2:44:51] Speaker 1: I wouldn't touch it again. My body moved before I
[2:44:56] Speaker 1: could stop it. I dug through the trash and shaking,
[2:45:01] Speaker 1: tearing open the bag, searching for the pill box. Halfway through,
[2:45:06] Speaker 1: I realized how out of control I was, yet I
[2:45:10] Speaker 1: couldn't do anything about it. I held one of the
[2:45:14] Speaker 1: pills in my palm, staring at it. I didn't want
[2:45:19] Speaker 1: to take it, but I didn't have a choice. I
[2:45:24] Speaker 1: put it on my tongue and swallowed. I woke up
[2:45:33] Speaker 1: to the smell of fresh coffee, inexpensive perfume, soft morning
[2:45:39] Speaker 1: light filtered through the sheer white curtains. The bed beneath
[2:45:43] Speaker 1: me was impossibly soft, the kind of mattress that swallowed
[2:45:47] Speaker 1: you whole. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming.
[2:45:53] Speaker 1: Then I turned my head. A woman was sleeping beside me.
[2:46:00] Speaker 1: Mere My pulls spiked. I sat up too fast, the
[2:46:06] Speaker 1: sheets tangling around me. As I struggled to get free.
[2:46:11] Speaker 1: My body felt different, stronger. This wasn't my bed. The
[2:46:18] Speaker 1: realization settled in my stomach like a stone. I swung
[2:46:22] Speaker 1: my legs over the side and stood up, scanning the room.
[2:46:27] Speaker 1: It was massive, a high rise apartment, modern and sleek,
[2:46:32] Speaker 1: floor to ceiling windows overlooking a glittering city skyline. I
[2:46:38] Speaker 1: had never been here before. There was a walking closet
[2:46:43] Speaker 1: to my left, the door slightly ajar. Inside, racks of
[2:46:49] Speaker 1: expensive suits and designer shoes lined the walls. The shelves
[2:46:54] Speaker 1: held watches that cost more than my rent used to.
[2:46:58] Speaker 1: None of it was mine, but it was. I opened
[2:47:05] Speaker 1: the bedside draw and found a wallet with my ID,
[2:47:09] Speaker 1: my name, my face. I turned to the nightstand and
[2:47:13] Speaker 1: grabbed my phone, fingers trembling as I checked the lock screen.
[2:47:19] Speaker 1: The date stared back at me. One year later. I
[2:47:25] Speaker 1: stopped breathing. A year, not a week, a full year.
[2:47:32] Speaker 1: The room blurred around me, A sudden rush of nausea
[2:47:35] Speaker 1: climbing up my throat. I gripped the edge of the dresser,
[2:47:40] Speaker 1: struggling to keep myself upright. One year I had lost
[2:47:45] Speaker 1: an entire year, but somehow I had still been here.
[2:47:52] Speaker 1: I unlocked my phone with shaking hands, scrolled through months
[2:47:56] Speaker 1: of text messages I didn't recognize. The top was a
[2:48:01] Speaker 1: chat with Mere. My breath hitched I opened it. We
[2:48:08] Speaker 1: had kept dating, We had traveled together. She had sent
[2:48:13] Speaker 1: pictures of us at expensive restaurants, on boats in different countries.
[2:48:18] Speaker 1: There were videos of me smiling, laughing, talking about how
[2:48:22] Speaker 1: amazing life had been. I had proposed to her. There
[2:48:28] Speaker 1: was a photo of her hand, a diamond ring shining
[2:48:32] Speaker 1: against the skin. I read the messages, trying to force
[2:48:37] Speaker 1: a single memory to the surface, but there was nothing.
[2:48:43] Speaker 1: I was looking at someone else's life, a better life,
[2:48:48] Speaker 1: a perfect life, and I hadn't been here to live it.
[2:48:53] Speaker 1: I backed out of my text and checked my bank account.
[2:48:58] Speaker 1: The balance nearly made me draw the phone. Millions. I
[2:49:05] Speaker 1: had become insanely wealthy. Whatever had been using my body
[2:49:10] Speaker 1: for the past year, it had played the part flawlessly.
[2:49:15] Speaker 1: I scrawled through emails. I had a high powered job now,
[2:49:19] Speaker 1: something in finance, something I knew I had never been
[2:49:23] Speaker 1: qualified for. I had clients, colleagues who respected me. I
[2:49:29] Speaker 1: was a completely different person, and nobody seemed to notice.
[2:49:37] Speaker 1: Mia stirred in her bed. I flinched. She sat up, stretching,
[2:49:44] Speaker 1: her hair falling in waves over her shoulders. She turned
[2:49:48] Speaker 1: to me with an easy familiarity, smiling like she had
[2:49:52] Speaker 1: done this a hundred times before. Warning baby, she murmured,
[2:50:00] Speaker 1: heavy with sleep, I felt like I was going to
[2:50:05] Speaker 1: be sick. I stumbled out of the bedroom and into
[2:50:09] Speaker 1: the hallway, my breath coming fast and shallow. The apartment
[2:50:14] Speaker 1: was pristine, enormous. Every service was sleek and polished, every
[2:50:20] Speaker 1: piece of furniture meticulously chosen. I made my way to
[2:50:25] Speaker 1: the kitchen, hands gripping the counter as I tried to
[2:50:28] Speaker 1: steady myself. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't
[2:50:35] Speaker 1: tell anyone. I couldn't say, hey, I actually haven't been
[2:50:40] Speaker 1: here for the past year. Can you tell me what happened?
[2:50:44] Speaker 1: My life was perfect and everything I had ever wanted,
[2:50:50] Speaker 1: but none of it belonged to me because I wasn't
[2:50:55] Speaker 1: the one who had built it. I took a shaky breath,
[2:51:01] Speaker 1: trying to think. Could I fake it, just pick up
[2:51:06] Speaker 1: where my body had left off, learn the routines, read
[2:51:09] Speaker 1: through my messages, figure out how to become this version
[2:51:13] Speaker 1: of me? Or should I try to stop it, find
[2:51:17] Speaker 1: out what really happened, make sure it never happened again.
[2:51:23] Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what the right answer was. But then
[2:51:29] Speaker 1: my hand moved, not on its own. I could feel
[2:51:33] Speaker 1: myself doing it. I was reaching, but I wasn't making
[2:51:38] Speaker 1: the choice. My fingers brushed against something cold and smooth
[2:51:43] Speaker 1: on the counter. I looked down the pill box, the
[2:51:50] Speaker 1: same one Jason had given me, the same one I
[2:51:53] Speaker 1: had thrown away, the same one I had sworn off
[2:51:57] Speaker 1: forever was waiting. I stared at the pill in my hand.
[2:52:04] Speaker 1: I knew what would happen, but even as I tried
[2:52:08] Speaker 1: to resist, I felt it that pull, that impossible temptation.
[2:52:17] Speaker 1: I had taken one to lose an hour, one to
[2:52:20] Speaker 1: lose a week, one to lose a year, and now,
[2:52:26] Speaker 1: as the pill pressed against my lips, I wondered how
[2:52:33] Speaker 1: much would I lose this time. I've always believed the
[2:52:45] Speaker 1: work we do at Neurovia matters, not in the vague
[2:52:49] Speaker 1: corporate mission statement kind of way. I mean it actually matters.
[2:52:55] Speaker 1: We change people in ways no pill or guided meditation
[2:52:59] Speaker 1: app ever could. Neurovia is a company that doesn't advertise.
[2:53:05] Speaker 1: We don't need to. The right people always find us veterans,
[2:53:12] Speaker 1: trauma survivors, end of life cases, people whose brains have
[2:53:16] Speaker 1: been broken in ways traditional therapy can't reach. What we
[2:53:21] Speaker 1: offer isn't healing exactly, It's something deeper, significantly more precise
[2:53:31] Speaker 1: in Layman's terms, rebuild synthetic reconstructions of memory, not just playbacks,
[2:53:39] Speaker 1: full immersions built from neural data eg. Pattern exploitations and
[2:53:45] Speaker 1: psychographic overlays. It's memory, yes, but experience the gain. Lucid,
[2:53:54] Speaker 1: tactile interactive patients are guided into pivotal scenes from their
[2:54:00] Speaker 1: own lives and allowed to observe, process, and sometimes rewrite
[2:54:06] Speaker 1: what's been weighing them down. Usually these sessions are managed
[2:54:10] Speaker 1: by an AI therapist that reacts in real time a
[2:54:15] Speaker 1: kind of memory native emotional companion, and for most patients
[2:54:20] Speaker 1: that's more than enough. But for the outliers, the ones
[2:54:25] Speaker 1: whose minds don't play along or whose traumas resist logic,
[2:54:31] Speaker 1: that's where I come in. They call us transitional memory escorts.
[2:54:39] Speaker 1: The name sounds gentler than the job actually is. We
[2:54:43] Speaker 1: go into the memory immersion with the client like a
[2:54:46] Speaker 1: neural copilot. There's a whole protocol for it. Matched brain waves,
[2:54:52] Speaker 1: synchronized breathing, psychological report testing, and a biometric tether that
[2:54:58] Speaker 1: keeps us linked but separate. I'm not there to fix them,
[2:55:03] Speaker 1: I'm there to keep them from sinking. It's like diving
[2:55:09] Speaker 1: into someone's personal movie, guiding them to the credit. I've
[2:55:14] Speaker 1: done thirty one immersions over the last four years. I've
[2:55:18] Speaker 1: held the hands of women watching themselves lose their children.
[2:55:22] Speaker 1: I've stood beside soldiers forced to relift firefights in infinite loops.
[2:55:27] Speaker 1: One man asked me to shoot him, just to see
[2:55:30] Speaker 1: if it felt real. I didn't. Of course, that would
[2:55:35] Speaker 1: have triggered a lockdown, but I thought about it. You'd
[2:55:40] Speaker 1: be surprised how easily empathy can morph into suggestion if
[2:55:44] Speaker 1: you're not careful. The trick is staying present without becoming
[2:55:50] Speaker 1: a participant, emotionally available but not vulnerable, curious but not
[2:55:56] Speaker 1: too deep. If you get pulled in too far, if
[2:56:01] Speaker 1: you start to believe in the world the system builds,
[2:56:05] Speaker 1: you can lose track of which life is yours. Luckily
[2:56:11] Speaker 1: that's never been a problem for me. The immersion sessions
[2:56:15] Speaker 1: don't last long, a few hours max. The neural link
[2:56:20] Speaker 1: is strictly regulated. Twenty minutes of leading, two hours of
[2:56:25] Speaker 1: guided immersion, twenty minutes of cool down into tight cycle clean.
[2:56:33] Speaker 1: You enter together, you leave together. At least that's how
[2:56:39] Speaker 1: it's supposed to work. His name was Marcus Rell, fifty two,
[2:56:46] Speaker 1: history of substance dependency, confirmed incarceration, suspected but never charged,
[2:56:53] Speaker 1: Involvement in multiple violent offenses, including arson and homicide. His
[2:56:59] Speaker 1: intake file was redacted in all the wrong places. We're
[2:57:04] Speaker 1: not usually given the full story, and I've learned not
[2:57:07] Speaker 1: to ask for it. But with Marcus, there were too
[2:57:11] Speaker 1: many blanks to ignore. The referral came from a private source,
[2:57:16] Speaker 1: name withheld. His eligibility clearance came stamped from above my
[2:57:21] Speaker 1: pay grade, with a kind of formatting we usually only
[2:57:25] Speaker 1: see on government authorized cases. But my supervisor, Devanni, looked
[2:57:32] Speaker 1: and bothered when she handed me the assignment. Try not
[2:57:36] Speaker 1: to read too far into his past, she told me,
[2:57:40] Speaker 1: just keep him on track and guide him out, don't
[2:57:43] Speaker 1: linger I made a joke about not packing a lunch.
[2:57:50] Speaker 1: She didn't laugh. The first time I met Marcus in person,
[2:57:58] Speaker 1: I already didn't like him. He smiled when I walked in,
[2:58:03] Speaker 1: like he'd been waiting a long time for me, specifically,
[2:58:07] Speaker 1: and now that I was finally here, the show could start.
[2:58:12] Speaker 1: Mister Rell, I said, offering my hand. He didn't take it,
[2:58:18] Speaker 1: just nodded and said, escort right, correct, I'll be your
[2:58:24] Speaker 1: tether during the immersion. We'll I know how it works.
[2:58:29] Speaker 1: He cut me off with the same calm tone. I
[2:58:32] Speaker 1: read the packet, watched the videos, took the psychevel. You're
[2:58:37] Speaker 1: the one who watches right, stays beside me. That's right.
[2:58:42] Speaker 1: I don't intervene unless necessary. I'm here to make sure
[2:58:46] Speaker 1: you come back in one piece. Marcus stared at me
[2:58:51] Speaker 1: for a long time. His smile stayed, but his eyes
[2:58:55] Speaker 1: were still unblinking, as if he were counting something in
[2:59:00] Speaker 1: my face. You've got a good life, he said, finally, stable, real, peaceful.
[2:59:10] Speaker 1: What are you? I said, before being cut off by
[2:59:13] Speaker 1: the intercom, letting us know that we were good to
[2:59:16] Speaker 1: proceed on. We ran the final calibration, our vitals aligned cleanly,
[2:59:24] Speaker 1: no sink drift, no cognitive latency. Thenau a bridge was greenlit.
[2:59:31] Speaker 1: He lay back in the chair like it was a
[2:59:33] Speaker 1: vacation lounger. I slid into mine, tightening the cuffs and
[2:59:38] Speaker 1: lowering the interfaced dome. The chamber dimmed, and low frequency
[2:59:44] Speaker 1: hums signaled the initialization of the memory environment. I felt
[2:59:50] Speaker 1: the shift in my chest first, like my heartbeat had
[2:59:53] Speaker 1: been turned into a metronome. Marcus's narrow rhythm pulsed through
[2:59:58] Speaker 1: the tether, close enough to me mimic, but just far
[3:00:01] Speaker 1: enough to remain distinct. Then we dropped in. The memory
[3:00:10] Speaker 1: environment always starts in fragments, like walking through fog that
[3:00:14] Speaker 1: thickens into shape. This one came together slowly, as if
[3:00:19] Speaker 1: reluctant to be seen. We stood on a cracked sidewalk
[3:00:24] Speaker 1: in some half forgotten neighborhood. The street was unfamiliar, but
[3:00:30] Speaker 1: the lamp post beside me was the one from outside
[3:00:33] Speaker 1: my childhood home. The sky looked like a water color
[3:00:37] Speaker 1: version of late October, and the air smelled faintly of
[3:00:41] Speaker 1: hot metal and gasoline. Memory bleed. It's common, a little
[3:00:48] Speaker 1: of me, a lot of him. But the deep we moved,
[3:00:55] Speaker 1: the stranger the hybrid became. The storefronts were labeled with
[3:01:00] Speaker 1: real names. From my life. A corner shop owned by
[3:01:03] Speaker 1: a friend's father, a dentist I hadn't seen since I
[3:01:07] Speaker 1: was thirteen, But inside the windows were flickering images of
[3:01:12] Speaker 1: someone else's nightmares, dark hallways, rotting food, the shape of
[3:01:19] Speaker 1: a body twitching beneath a blanket. I turned a corner
[3:01:24] Speaker 1: and saw Marcus ahead of me, watching a house or
[3:01:28] Speaker 1: a building burn. He didn't react, He just stood there,
[3:01:37] Speaker 1: and then a surge of memories hit my brain. A
[3:01:41] Speaker 1: woman screaming, then yanked backward into black water, her face
[3:01:46] Speaker 1: contorted with rage, not fear. A small child, eyes swollen shut,
[3:01:53] Speaker 1: fists clenched, locked in a closet, scratching the door until
[3:01:57] Speaker 1: the wood blared. A pair of hands Marcus's, I presumed,
[3:02:03] Speaker 1: pressing down on someone's throat. The skin under his fingers
[3:02:07] Speaker 1: changed color as the pressure held, and later needles in
[3:02:13] Speaker 1: a basement, dirt floor, light bulbs swinging overhead. I tried
[3:02:20] Speaker 1: to initiate grounding protocol, pulushed toward the teather's orientation point,
[3:02:25] Speaker 1: a mental beacon I could summon to shift the environment.
[3:02:31] Speaker 1: It didn't work. Marcus turned and looked at me through
[3:02:37] Speaker 1: the firelight. Why would we leave? He asked, voice smooth
[3:02:42] Speaker 1: and distant. This is still the beginning. I didn't answer,
[3:02:50] Speaker 1: but somewhere in the back of my mind I started
[3:02:53] Speaker 1: counting the minutes, two hours max. I just had to
[3:02:59] Speaker 1: keep until the end, until the credits rolled. Once the
[3:03:08] Speaker 1: initial memory clusters stabilized, I initialized the first phase of
[3:03:12] Speaker 1: the tetherback sequence, a gradual withdrawal designed to ease the
[3:03:17] Speaker 1: subject toward detachment. You start by suddenly pulling the environment,
[3:03:22] Speaker 1: shifting colors toward neutral tones, muting ambient sound, encouraging spatial
[3:03:28] Speaker 1: collapse around shared orientation points. The world inside doesn't vanish,
[3:03:35] Speaker 1: it just starts to let go. But Marcus didn't move.
[3:03:43] Speaker 1: This meant that something on the outside was not functioning correctly.
[3:03:48] Speaker 1: He continued, watching the memory a version of his old apartment.
[3:03:53] Speaker 1: I think melt and drift like ash in the wind.
[3:03:59] Speaker 1: I didn't want to do this, he said. I didn't
[3:04:04] Speaker 1: quite know how to interpret those words. So I did
[3:04:08] Speaker 1: or I knew how, Marcus, I said, carefully, keeping my
[3:04:14] Speaker 1: voice calm. We're reaching the end of the window. You've
[3:04:18] Speaker 1: done great work here, but if we stay too long,
[3:04:22] Speaker 1: you get stuck. He finished the sentence for me. Yeah,
[3:04:27] Speaker 1: I know. You people are always worried about time, like
[3:04:31] Speaker 1: it's real. In here, it is neural stability. The grades
[3:04:36] Speaker 1: pass a certain point. If we don't exit within that,
[3:04:40] Speaker 1: I'm not leaving. He looked at me, fully present. You
[3:04:46] Speaker 1: think this idea was mine, don't you? He muttered. I
[3:04:52] Speaker 1: didn't respond. There was no script for this kind of refusal.
[3:04:57] Speaker 1: We were trained for a resistance, confusion, even aggression, but this,
[3:05:04] Speaker 1: this was something else. I tried to summon the hard
[3:05:09] Speaker 1: tether manual override, a beacon pulse meant to force a
[3:05:13] Speaker 1: disconnection in emergency cases. It activated, I felt the jolt
[3:05:19] Speaker 1: through the shared neural thread, but we didn't move. That's
[3:05:27] Speaker 1: when I was certain that someone was interfering from the outside.
[3:05:32] Speaker 1: The world flickered once, like a film real catching, then
[3:05:37] Speaker 1: resumed exactly where it left off. Scenes kept looping and
[3:05:42] Speaker 1: mixing with each other, My memories, Marcus's memories. I'd started
[3:05:48] Speaker 1: to loose grip on which scenes were mine. I stood
[3:05:53] Speaker 1: in a grimy kitchen I'd never seen before, but the
[3:05:56] Speaker 1: counter had the same chip as the one in my
[3:05:59] Speaker 1: first apartment. And I looked out the window and saw
[3:06:02] Speaker 1: a tree, gnarled, diseased, unfamiliar, But I remembered climbing it.
[3:06:11] Speaker 1: I blinked and I was in a back alley. My
[3:06:14] Speaker 1: hand was wet heavy. I looked down and saw blood
[3:06:19] Speaker 1: on my fingers and a tire iron in my grip.
[3:06:23] Speaker 1: I smelled copper sweat rage. Someone behind me was moaning,
[3:06:31] Speaker 1: their voice rasping like they were trying to speak through
[3:06:34] Speaker 1: broken teeth. But I'd never been there, and yet I
[3:06:41] Speaker 1: remembered it. Not like watching someone else's memory, not like
[3:06:47] Speaker 1: walking through Marcus's past. It was mine, my breath, my
[3:06:53] Speaker 1: heart beat, the rage behind my eyes. I remember the surge,
[3:06:59] Speaker 1: the moment of impact, the metallic vibration through my arm. Later,
[3:07:05] Speaker 1: I found myself in a motel bathroom. The mirror cracked,
[3:07:09] Speaker 1: a lighter in one hand and a rubber torniquet in
[3:07:12] Speaker 1: the other. My reflection looked sunken, yellowed, ruined. Every part
[3:07:19] Speaker 1: of my body throbbed with a dull ache. The taste
[3:07:24] Speaker 1: hit me before I realized what I was doing. My
[3:07:28] Speaker 1: eyes rolled to the back of my head and I
[3:07:30] Speaker 1: hit the floor hard. You see, time doesn't pass in
[3:07:36] Speaker 1: a straight line during immersion. It folds, doubles back. You
[3:07:42] Speaker 1: can live through the same moment a hundred times and
[3:07:45] Speaker 1: still be surprised when something changes, and something did change.
[3:07:52] Speaker 1: When I woke up, I was no longer in memories
[3:07:55] Speaker 1: of his. Instead, I watched him in mine. I stood
[3:08:03] Speaker 1: on a beach. I knew my beach from my honeymoon,
[3:08:08] Speaker 1: and Marcus was sitting beside my wife, holding a hand, laughing.
[3:08:13] Speaker 1: I was in my childhood kitchen and he was washing
[3:08:16] Speaker 1: dishes while my mother hummed nearby. I walked into my
[3:08:20] Speaker 1: own apartment and saw him sitting at my table, reading
[3:08:24] Speaker 1: the newspaper with my name on the byline. I tried
[3:08:28] Speaker 1: to speak to confront him, but he looked up at me,
[3:08:33] Speaker 1: calm as ever, and said, you're not my guide. You
[3:08:38] Speaker 1: know that. He folded the paper, stood slowly, and walked
[3:08:43] Speaker 1: toward me. You're my exit. He took another step toward me,
[3:08:51] Speaker 1: his face serene. I backed away instinctively, but the memory
[3:08:56] Speaker 1: space didn't budge. No matter how far I moved, he
[3:09:00] Speaker 1: was always the same distance from me. Like something had
[3:09:04] Speaker 1: decided it liked his gravity more than mine. Marcus, I said,
[3:09:10] Speaker 1: voice slow, that's not how this works. You're right, he said,
[3:09:17] Speaker 1: tilting his head. It's not not. Officially, I've been in
[3:09:25] Speaker 1: prisoned for many decades boy, I can't get a job
[3:09:28] Speaker 1: with this record, let alone fix my life at my age,
[3:09:32] Speaker 1: he spat. So imagine my surprise when a government official
[3:09:37] Speaker 1: reaches out to me, offering a way to not only
[3:09:40] Speaker 1: fix my life overnight, but potentially make it better. I
[3:09:46] Speaker 1: tried to reach for the tether again. Nothing. It was
[3:09:51] Speaker 1: like trying to tug on a string buried in concrete.
[3:09:55] Speaker 1: You don't get to take someone's life just because someone
[3:09:58] Speaker 1: else said you should. He laughed, softly, like I was
[3:10:02] Speaker 1: a child saying something naive. Oh but I didn't choose you,
[3:10:09] Speaker 1: he said, you think I would care to pick any
[3:10:12] Speaker 1: one out of a crowd. He glanced at the newspaper
[3:10:16] Speaker 1: in his hand, then tossed it aside. Ye ever, wonder
[3:10:20] Speaker 1: why you couldn't see my referral, why your clearance flagged?
[3:10:24] Speaker 1: But no one said a word. I didn't answer, But
[3:10:29] Speaker 1: don't worry. You aren't the only one in the dark.
[3:10:33] Speaker 1: Most of your colleagues are clueless as well. They didn't
[3:10:37] Speaker 1: tell me anything either, just that I was approved, that
[3:10:40] Speaker 1: i'd be illegible for neural transition, a new beginning, they
[3:10:45] Speaker 1: called it. His eyes locked onto mine. They didn't offer
[3:10:51] Speaker 1: therapy or prison or peace. They offered this a simple
[3:10:57] Speaker 1: infiltration and practice. You're saying they used you, I said, slowly,
[3:11:05] Speaker 1: used us. He nodded. Once I was dying, he said,
[3:11:13] Speaker 1: not sick, just empty, used up years of noise in
[3:11:19] Speaker 1: my head. They said I could be fixed, but I
[3:11:23] Speaker 1: had to be a useful guinea pig. Useful how They
[3:11:29] Speaker 1: wanted to know if it could work, if someone could
[3:11:32] Speaker 1: be moved, relocated, extracted from their self. They built the
[3:11:39] Speaker 1: tech to guide people back, but what if someone could
[3:11:43] Speaker 1: step forward instead? I stared at him, cold rising in
[3:11:48] Speaker 1: my spine, and you agreed? He shrugged, Like I said,
[3:11:57] Speaker 1: no other options. They gave me a PA and a person.
[3:12:02] Speaker 1: All I had to do was go through with it.
[3:12:08] Speaker 1: He took another step. I didn't move this time. I
[3:12:13] Speaker 1: didn't know who you were, But like I said, you're
[3:12:17] Speaker 1: stable and your mind was quiet enough to let me
[3:12:21] Speaker 1: in without fighting. My voice came out flat. You're making
[3:12:27] Speaker 1: a mistake. His smile widened. Then he leaned forward, voice
[3:12:34] Speaker 1: dropping to a whisper. No iran Or tried to running
[3:12:46] Speaker 1: inside a memory immersion. It's like pushing through a dense
[3:12:49] Speaker 1: wall of smoke. The world doesn't resist you, It just
[3:12:54] Speaker 1: changes the rules. As you move, streets warped hallways folded
[3:12:59] Speaker 1: by into themselves. Every time I turned a corner, I
[3:13:04] Speaker 1: was somewhere. I'd already been, the burning house, the alley
[3:13:08] Speaker 1: with a tire iron, the motil bathroom. Marcus wasn't chasing me.
[3:13:14] Speaker 1: He didn't need to. I reached for the emergency override again,
[3:13:20] Speaker 1: the internal failsafe they build into every escort's tether. Mentally,
[3:13:25] Speaker 1: it feels like grabbing the base of your own spine
[3:13:28] Speaker 1: and pulling upward, a full body signal that says, get
[3:13:32] Speaker 1: me out. Nothing happened, though desperation was pushing me to
[3:13:39] Speaker 1: try again and again. I tried harder. I screamed for extraction,
[3:13:46] Speaker 1: screamed for the external team to sever the link. But
[3:13:50] Speaker 1: a sound that came out of my mouth was wrong,
[3:13:53] Speaker 1: not in pitch, in ownership. It was his voice. I
[3:14:00] Speaker 1: heard Marcus's laugh curl out of my throat and echo
[3:14:03] Speaker 1: back at me. I turned, and there he was, standing,
[3:14:10] Speaker 1: exactly as I was standing, breathing in sync with me.
[3:14:15] Speaker 1: We stared at each other across a memory scape that
[3:14:18] Speaker 1: couldn't decide what it was any more. One second, it
[3:14:22] Speaker 1: was my childhood bedroom, walls covered in peeling posters, then
[3:14:27] Speaker 1: the motel again. He stepped forward. I stepped back. He
[3:14:33] Speaker 1: moved again. I mirrored, and then without warning, he lunged.
[3:14:43] Speaker 1: We collided like two magnets in a vacuum. No resistance,
[3:14:49] Speaker 1: just impact, a full body falling inward. I hit the
[3:14:54] Speaker 1: ground hard, but I didn't feel pain, just disorientation, like
[3:15:00] Speaker 1: I was spinning through every version of myself I'd ever been.
[3:15:05] Speaker 1: We fought with memory. He pulled scenes into the space
[3:15:09] Speaker 1: like weapons. My first kiss now with his face, my graduation,
[3:15:15] Speaker 1: him shaking my father's hand, my wedding, and he was
[3:15:19] Speaker 1: standing at the altar in my place, smiling at my
[3:15:22] Speaker 1: wife like he'd known her forever. I tried to push back,
[3:15:27] Speaker 1: flooding the space with his memories. For a moment, he staggered,
[3:15:34] Speaker 1: but I saw the relief in his eyes. He wanted
[3:15:38] Speaker 1: me to bring it all back, because the more I
[3:15:41] Speaker 1: let his life pass through me, the deeper he sank
[3:15:44] Speaker 1: into mine. My body shifted mid struggle, My hands became his,
[3:15:51] Speaker 1: his shoulders turned into mine. We rolled, twisted, blurred. The
[3:15:58] Speaker 1: space cracked like glass around us, shards of memory slicing
[3:16:02] Speaker 1: through me. I screamed again for extraction, but the noise
[3:16:07] Speaker 1: that came out was a rasp like air pulled through
[3:16:10] Speaker 1: wet cloth, meaningless. And then just as I felt something
[3:16:17] Speaker 1: rip behind my eyes, the light changed. The world tilted
[3:16:23] Speaker 1: and the chamber door opened. Blurred figures rushed towards us, suits, masks, gloves.
[3:16:32] Speaker 1: I heard muffled voices, felt hands grabbing my shoulders, lifting me.
[3:16:38] Speaker 1: Cold metal against skin detachment initiated the neural teather groaned
[3:16:44] Speaker 1: and split like tearing velcrow, and then I was awake.
[3:16:54] Speaker 1: Back in the real world. The transfer room harsh white
[3:16:59] Speaker 1: lights and humming a equipment and recycled air. But something
[3:17:04] Speaker 1: was off. Everything was too heavy, My chest ached, my
[3:17:10] Speaker 1: legs felt longer, looser. I tried to move my fingers
[3:17:15] Speaker 1: and fell to delay, like the signal had to travel
[3:17:18] Speaker 1: further to get there. I looked down, not at my hands, knuckles, scarred, nails,
[3:17:27] Speaker 1: bit into the quick. I tried to speak, just one word.
[3:17:34] Speaker 1: It came out gravelly, damaged. My throat clenched, and I
[3:17:40] Speaker 1: heard the technician beside me, clipboard in hand, smiling faintly,
[3:17:44] Speaker 1: say welcome back, mister Rell, the technician said, almost mockingly.
[3:17:53] Speaker 1: Client emerged clean, escorts stable. She said, hi, integrity sink
[3:17:59] Speaker 1: best numbers we've seen in a month. I tried to speak.
[3:18:05] Speaker 1: I don't remember what I said first, probably stop or
[3:18:09] Speaker 1: help or wait. None of it came outright. My voice
[3:18:15] Speaker 1: wasn't just unfamiliar, it was wrong. They carried someone else's posture.
[3:18:23] Speaker 1: I heard Marcus Rell in every syllable. I tried to
[3:18:28] Speaker 1: sit up, but my movements felt borrowed, unnatural. My center
[3:18:34] Speaker 1: of gravity had shifted, like I'd learned to walk in
[3:18:37] Speaker 1: someone else's shoes, and now the laces were tangled around
[3:18:41] Speaker 1: my ankles. I'm not, I started, and my voice cracked.
[3:18:49] Speaker 1: I looked down at my hands again, hoping I'd imagined it,
[3:18:53] Speaker 1: but the scars were still there. So was the faint
[3:18:56] Speaker 1: prisoning smeared into the wrist. My fingers trembled. Please, I said,
[3:19:04] Speaker 1: turning to Devanny. Run an ID match my neural imprint.
[3:19:10] Speaker 1: I'm not. She raised her hand to quiet me, the
[3:19:14] Speaker 1: same way you'd hush some one waking up from anesthesia.
[3:19:18] Speaker 1: You're experience in post transfer fog, she said, calmly. It's
[3:19:23] Speaker 1: not uncommon you've been deep inside someone else's memory structure.
[3:19:28] Speaker 1: Resist yourself. Image distortion can last up to an hour
[3:19:32] Speaker 1: just breathe. I looked at her, begging, you know me,
[3:19:39] Speaker 1: I said, I've worked here for four years. I trained
[3:19:43] Speaker 1: under Patel. I did the Calahan immersion. Ask me anything.
[3:19:50] Speaker 1: She tilted her head, patient but dismissive. That's part of
[3:19:55] Speaker 1: the overlay, Marcus. Your systems still sorting memory boundaries. I'm
[3:20:00] Speaker 1: sure it'll pass. I shook my head. I'm not Marcus.
[3:20:07] Speaker 1: He took my body. He switched with me. I'm the escort.
[3:20:11] Speaker 1: I'm okay, she said, gently, signaling to a nearby tech.
[3:20:17] Speaker 1: Let's keep him off the reinforcement feet. He's still inside
[3:20:20] Speaker 1: the ark. The tech nodded, type something into a console,
[3:20:26] Speaker 1: and the lights above dim slightly. I stumbled to my feet,
[3:20:31] Speaker 1: ignoring strange, painful sensations littering my body, and started looking
[3:20:37] Speaker 1: for a mirror. I needed something objective, irrefutable. One of
[3:20:44] Speaker 1: the walls held a viewing panel, reflective glass just enough
[3:20:48] Speaker 1: to make out a face. I stepped in front of it,
[3:20:54] Speaker 1: and there he was, the man i'd watched walk through
[3:20:59] Speaker 1: his memories like a ghost in his own life. His
[3:21:03] Speaker 1: face now stared back at me, tired, aged, worn by
[3:21:08] Speaker 1: hollow years. I never lived same pale scar across the temple,
[3:21:13] Speaker 1: even my silence felt like his. A few hours later,
[3:21:19] Speaker 1: a staff member I didn't recognize handed me a manilla envelope.
[3:21:25] Speaker 1: Follow the checklist. You're already pre cleared, she said. There's
[3:21:30] Speaker 1: a transitional housing option and a few job placements that
[3:21:33] Speaker 1: aligned with your She paused, with your profile. I opened
[3:21:41] Speaker 1: the envelope. Inside was a pamphlet printed in soft blue
[3:21:46] Speaker 1: and grays. The title read Rebuilding Forward Employment Opportunities for
[3:21:53] Speaker 1: Rehabilitated Individuals. The back had a phone number, a smiling logo,
[3:22:01] Speaker 1: and my name, Marcus Rail. Life was well. When I
[3:22:19] Speaker 1: wanted a job, I worked hard and got a good one.
[3:22:23] Speaker 1: I wanted companionship and worked through all social barriers until
[3:22:27] Speaker 1: I met the one and settled down. My wife and
[3:22:31] Speaker 1: I wanted a child, and through the shared desire, we
[3:22:34] Speaker 1: had a beautiful girl. We wanted her to grow into
[3:22:38] Speaker 1: an amazing person, and now she's top of her class.
[3:22:42] Speaker 1: In the final months of high school, with a full
[3:22:45] Speaker 1: circle of friends, everything was perfect. Everything I ever set
[3:22:52] Speaker 1: out to do, i'd accomplish. Yet something inside me, deep within,
[3:22:59] Speaker 1: felt hollow. All the happiness I sought only felt surface deep.
[3:23:06] Speaker 1: I felt like something inside me was missing. It was
[3:23:12] Speaker 1: during a late drive from a business trip. It was
[3:23:16] Speaker 1: between two large cities and I was stuck in no
[3:23:19] Speaker 1: man's land, and at the worst possible timing, I really
[3:23:25] Speaker 1: needed to go to the bathroom. Sure, for a number one,
[3:23:29] Speaker 1: you can pull over and wet the side of the road,
[3:23:32] Speaker 1: but what I needed to do required things. But luckily
[3:23:39] Speaker 1: I spotted my salvation. I spotted lights on in a building.
[3:23:44] Speaker 1: It wasn't too far from the main road. However, in
[3:23:48] Speaker 1: the pitch black it glowed like a beacon of hope.
[3:23:52] Speaker 1: I turned in and parked up. Other cars were settled
[3:23:56] Speaker 1: into spots, so I assumed a small gathering of people
[3:23:59] Speaker 1: were there. I gently knocked, hoping someone would answer. However,
[3:24:05] Speaker 1: whatever was going on inside was too noisy for my
[3:24:09] Speaker 1: knocks to be heard, so I took a deep breath
[3:24:13] Speaker 1: and pushed the door open. The attention of the room
[3:24:19] Speaker 1: entirely shifted to me. The first thing I noticed was
[3:24:25] Speaker 1: how old everyone was. Whatever this club was, that was
[3:24:30] Speaker 1: the only shared common feature. There was nothing I could
[3:24:34] Speaker 1: ascertain from this, though, so the club's function was a
[3:24:38] Speaker 1: mystery to me. The room fell dead, silent. A pin
[3:24:42] Speaker 1: drop would echo on the walls. However, before that, I
[3:24:48] Speaker 1: briefly saw what the foss was about. Someone was being
[3:24:53] Speaker 1: celebrated standing in front of an old, ornate door. However,
[3:25:00] Speaker 1: it wasn't some normal door. There was a strange glow
[3:25:04] Speaker 1: from inside, but it didn't look like anything I had
[3:25:07] Speaker 1: ever seen before. But what really caught my attension was
[3:25:12] Speaker 1: the sound. In the brief silence, I could hear it,
[3:25:17] Speaker 1: a strange thumping sound. However, it had a rhythmic pattern
[3:25:22] Speaker 1: to it, almost deliberate, yet felt so natural. It was
[3:25:28] Speaker 1: hard to describe, but I was drawn to it. I
[3:25:32] Speaker 1: wanted to know what it was to feel it. A
[3:25:38] Speaker 1: man in a clean suit cleared his throat and approached me. Welcome,
[3:25:43] Speaker 1: Are you a new applicant to the club, he asked politely. Ah, er, no, sorry,
[3:25:51] Speaker 1: I was just driving through and really needed the bathroom.
[3:25:54] Speaker 1: I haven't seen a service station in so long. Is
[3:25:58] Speaker 1: that okay? His soft smile faded before returning as he
[3:26:03] Speaker 1: guided me to the restroom Arria. While doing my business,
[3:26:08] Speaker 1: I could hear the commotions start all over again. Cheers
[3:26:13] Speaker 1: and celebration rang out through the hall, echoing into the
[3:26:16] Speaker 1: cubicle I was simultaneously demolishing. I was exhausted when I
[3:26:22] Speaker 1: finished my business a double flusher, at least with my
[3:26:28] Speaker 1: hands washed. I headed out, ready to go straight for
[3:26:31] Speaker 1: the door, not wanting to intrude whatever was going on
[3:26:34] Speaker 1: in this remote meeting hall. But all it took was
[3:26:38] Speaker 1: a quick sideways glance for a mountain of intrigue to
[3:26:42] Speaker 1: hold me down. I watched as a man stepped through
[3:26:47] Speaker 1: the ornate door. He practically glowed with positivity, beaming with
[3:26:52] Speaker 1: a pride I had never witnessed before. Others around him
[3:26:57] Speaker 1: celebrated him like he had just achieved world. Even from
[3:27:02] Speaker 1: where I stood, whether it was seeing so many people
[3:27:05] Speaker 1: happy or something from behind the door, I felt it too,
[3:27:10] Speaker 1: in a slight way, a strange elation tingling through me.
[3:27:17] Speaker 1: I would have stayed in place forever, just soaking in
[3:27:20] Speaker 1: this great feeling, even if just second hand, until I
[3:27:25] Speaker 1: felt a grasp at my arm. If your business is
[3:27:29] Speaker 1: done here, you are free to leave. He was the
[3:27:34] Speaker 1: same man from before. He said this with no hostility,
[3:27:39] Speaker 1: a polite smile, sincerely beaming at me. I was ready
[3:27:44] Speaker 1: to leave, However, I was just too curious. I had
[3:27:49] Speaker 1: to ask, Otherwise leaving this stone unturned would haunt me
[3:27:53] Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. What is this place.
[3:27:57] Speaker 1: What's going on here? I asked. This is the place
[3:28:02] Speaker 1: where like minded people meet and share a common interest,
[3:28:08] Speaker 1: he said, However, his pause was too suspicious. What interest?
[3:28:14] Speaker 1: And what's behind that door? I asked back. The answer
[3:28:19] Speaker 1: to both questions are the same answer, he shot back. However,
[3:28:25] Speaker 1: he didn't actually answer the question. So what is it? Then?
[3:28:31] Speaker 1: I probed, I am truly sorry. Only club members can know,
[3:28:37] Speaker 1: he said solemnly. I was ready to get this over
[3:28:42] Speaker 1: with and leave, but I had so many questions. Okay,
[3:28:48] Speaker 1: so how do I sign up? I asked. I figured
[3:28:53] Speaker 1: if it was just a form or a small fee,
[3:28:56] Speaker 1: I could spare it just to satiate my curiosity. Sadly,
[3:29:01] Speaker 1: it is a lengthy ordeal and not an easy one
[3:29:04] Speaker 1: to do, he answered. Witches, I asked, leaving him to
[3:29:10] Speaker 1: fill in the blanks. I cannot answer that, he shot back.
[3:29:17] Speaker 1: I sighed, And why not, I asked, annoying to my tone,
[3:29:23] Speaker 1: I can only say if you are truly dedicated adjoining
[3:29:27] Speaker 1: as a member, he explained. I was done with this,
[3:29:33] Speaker 1: this whole charade. Trying not to cause a scene, I
[3:29:37] Speaker 1: simply said my goodbyes and left for the sight of
[3:29:42] Speaker 1: what I seen The bliss those people were experiencing never
[3:29:46] Speaker 1: left my mind. After five straight days of hell due
[3:29:51] Speaker 1: to work, my mind sought reprieve. I wanted to feel happy.
[3:29:57] Speaker 1: My only relief was my family, watching shows with my
[3:30:01] Speaker 1: wife and daughter and spending quality time with them, But
[3:30:05] Speaker 1: my life felt like it was missing something, something grand.
[3:30:10] Speaker 1: I wanted to feel bliss. Realizing that my life was
[3:30:16] Speaker 1: just travel and work, the idea of joining a club
[3:30:20] Speaker 1: sounded like a good idea. Plus, to even experience just
[3:30:25] Speaker 1: a fraction of the happiness that I saw in those
[3:30:27] Speaker 1: people would be a dream. So I went back. I
[3:30:36] Speaker 1: set out to arrive at a similar time to when
[3:30:39] Speaker 1: I first found the place, hoping that they had a
[3:30:42] Speaker 1: scheduled time, And when I arrived, I saw the place
[3:30:47] Speaker 1: bustling with life once more. When I entered, I was
[3:30:52] Speaker 1: greeted by the same man as before, Welcome back. The
[3:30:57] Speaker 1: bathroom is this way, though, please, he's try to clean
[3:31:01] Speaker 1: up more. After he greeted, saying that last part was
[3:31:06] Speaker 1: the only time I saw his polite smile falter. I
[3:31:10] Speaker 1: guess even the most well maintained personas can crack, But
[3:31:14] Speaker 1: I wasn't there for that. I had something else on
[3:31:17] Speaker 1: my mind. I want to join, I said, a little
[3:31:22] Speaker 1: too excitedly. At this, the room fell silent. Everyone turned
[3:31:29] Speaker 1: to look at me, and their expressions were so tense
[3:31:33] Speaker 1: that I couldn't make out what the vibe was. Even
[3:31:37] Speaker 1: the polite man, his friendly demeanor, ever present, soured his
[3:31:41] Speaker 1: face into a more serious tone. Are you sure about this?
[3:31:47] Speaker 1: This is a very serious thing to accept, and though
[3:31:51] Speaker 1: faltering might be inevitable, the consequences for even just starting
[3:31:55] Speaker 1: can be costly, he said. But I was ready, ready
[3:32:01] Speaker 1: for anything, and accepted on the spot. He formally introduced
[3:32:08] Speaker 1: himself Randal, a name I would never forget. Randal explained
[3:32:15] Speaker 1: to me the conditions. I was to be put through tests,
[3:32:20] Speaker 1: tests of life to see whether I am truly worthy
[3:32:23] Speaker 1: to be a part of the club. However, he couldn't
[3:32:27] Speaker 1: fully explain what the tests were. The tests will come
[3:32:32] Speaker 1: to you. All you have to do is participate, was
[3:32:37] Speaker 1: all he said. The vague, cryptic instruction wasn't the strangest part.
[3:32:44] Speaker 1: There was another step that made me question my decision
[3:32:47] Speaker 1: to join this strange club. Randal went to a case
[3:32:52] Speaker 1: of his stuff and pulled out an odd mixture of materials,
[3:32:56] Speaker 1: a pile of straw, some old looking string, and other
[3:33:00] Speaker 1: things I didn't recognize. As quick as a flash, he
[3:33:04] Speaker 1: fashioned it into a strange looking doll. He handed it
[3:33:09] Speaker 1: to me, and as I grabbed it, he held on too,
[3:33:13] Speaker 1: staring straight into my eyes. Do not let it go
[3:33:19] Speaker 1: at times when you cannot hold it, Keep it on
[3:33:22] Speaker 1: your person at all times. We will know if you
[3:33:26] Speaker 1: fail at this. He released his grip and left it
[3:33:32] Speaker 1: in my hands. The first test. His loss was the
[3:33:38] Speaker 1: last thing Randal said to me. The right back was surreal,
[3:33:46] Speaker 1: the whole scenario playing over in my head. I wondered
[3:33:51] Speaker 1: if the doll had a camera in it, or a
[3:33:53] Speaker 1: censor like those training baby toys new mothers used the
[3:33:57] Speaker 1: train with. It was odd. However, I was never one
[3:34:03] Speaker 1: to back down from a challenge. As soon as I
[3:34:08] Speaker 1: got home, I was hit by a surprise. My wife
[3:34:12] Speaker 1: was still awake, sitting at the kitchen table. I approached,
[3:34:18] Speaker 1: thinking she was just up for some water. However, the
[3:34:22] Speaker 1: look on her face told me whatever she was about
[3:34:26] Speaker 1: to tell me weighed heavy. And when she told me
[3:34:31] Speaker 1: it hit me like a ton of hammers. She was sick.
[3:34:38] Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it was so obscure that I still
[3:34:41] Speaker 1: cannot pronounce its name. But whatever it was, it was
[3:34:47] Speaker 1: too unknown for a cure. The next few weeks were
[3:34:52] Speaker 1: a mess, hospital visits, counselors, care staff, a pile of things.
[3:34:58] Speaker 1: I'd never dreamed of happing until our twilight years. We
[3:35:03] Speaker 1: had planned to spend our whole lives together, and here
[3:35:07] Speaker 1: I was seeing her off so soon. That was a wreck.
[3:35:14] Speaker 1: Explaining it to our teenage daughter was hard. She was
[3:35:18] Speaker 1: old enough to have a concept of death, but way
[3:35:21] Speaker 1: too young to be living through it. It hurt, but
[3:35:27] Speaker 1: my wife stayed strong through it. Despite her failing health.
[3:35:32] Speaker 1: She was still the anchor of the family. The time came,
[3:35:37] Speaker 1: the doctors predicted it perfectly. I was sat at her bedside,
[3:35:43] Speaker 1: holding her hand as she slipped away from the world,
[3:35:47] Speaker 1: still though she was awake enough to be sharing her
[3:35:50] Speaker 1: last moments together. My daughter was on her way and
[3:35:55] Speaker 1: she would arrive perfectly on time. The door creaked open
[3:36:01] Speaker 1: and we both turned in anticipation, but instead a pair
[3:36:08] Speaker 1: of police officers stood where our daughter should have been.
[3:36:12] Speaker 1: What they told me made my world break even more. Apparently,
[3:36:19] Speaker 1: my daughter was worried about coming too late, so she
[3:36:22] Speaker 1: was driving hastily to the hospital. She must have been
[3:36:26] Speaker 1: so focused on making it on time that she missed
[3:36:30] Speaker 1: the truck slipping past the red light, which tea boned
[3:36:33] Speaker 1: a vehicle. Damn this, splitting it in half. She was
[3:36:39] Speaker 1: dead on impact. Tears filled my eyes as the heart
[3:36:44] Speaker 1: rate monitor next to me flat lined. My whole life,
[3:36:50] Speaker 1: everything I lived for, was gone. I was left alone
[3:36:58] Speaker 1: to grieve, to say my goodbye. When I felt a slight,
[3:37:02] Speaker 1: burning sensation. I reached into my jacket pocket and there
[3:37:08] Speaker 1: it was the doll. It was singed black, and as
[3:37:14] Speaker 1: I held it, I felt it heat up in a
[3:37:16] Speaker 1: flash and disappear into a puff of ash. My hands
[3:37:21] Speaker 1: were left black, but otherwise no pain. But this told
[3:37:27] Speaker 1: me what caused all this. The club. I had no
[3:37:32] Speaker 1: idea how they orchestrated everything, but this very much all
[3:37:37] Speaker 1: qualified as loss. I stormed back to the club with
[3:37:42] Speaker 1: no regard of restraint. I grabbed Randal by the cough,
[3:37:46] Speaker 1: demanding he explain everything. However, he never carried a smug
[3:37:53] Speaker 1: lock or a look of deliberate intent. His face carried
[3:37:58] Speaker 1: the same burden I did. I looked around and everyone
[3:38:03] Speaker 1: had the same look. We've all experienced loss. I've no
[3:38:09] Speaker 1: idea what you went through, but I can guarantee we
[3:38:13] Speaker 1: went through the same or worse. This didn't comfort me
[3:38:20] Speaker 1: in the slightest. Why why did you let this happen?
[3:38:25] Speaker 1: You could have turned you away, You could have worn
[3:38:27] Speaker 1: me anything I demanded, because it was worth it, he
[3:38:35] Speaker 1: responded flatly. I wanted to flip out at this and
[3:38:41] Speaker 1: how absurd that sounded, but I didn't. Part of me
[3:38:46] Speaker 1: wanted to see this through, even if to just hear
[3:38:49] Speaker 1: what was next to at least give their death reason.
[3:38:54] Speaker 1: The next task, Randal continued, is one hundred lives from
[3:39:00] Speaker 1: one hundred cities. I frowned at this. Wait, you expect
[3:39:07] Speaker 1: me to what kill? There's no way I could. I
[3:39:13] Speaker 1: was interrupted by another patron approaching me and grabbing my
[3:39:16] Speaker 1: hand Before I knew it. I saw he had a knife,
[3:39:22] Speaker 1: but it wasn't pointed at me, it was being placed
[3:39:26] Speaker 1: in my hand. I didn't have time to pull my
[3:39:29] Speaker 1: hand away at the strange gesture before he spoke up.
[3:39:34] Speaker 1: Don't worry, the first one's free, he yelled excitedly, before
[3:39:40] Speaker 1: forcing my hand tight around the handle and shoving it
[3:39:44] Speaker 1: into himself. He fell to the floor and smiles were
[3:39:49] Speaker 1: had as he pled out on the floor. I was
[3:39:53] Speaker 1: too stunned to respond until fightal flight kicked in and
[3:39:58] Speaker 1: I just fled. I hopped in my car and drove,
[3:40:04] Speaker 1: just drove as far as I could, for as long
[3:40:06] Speaker 1: as I could. Before I knew it, I was at
[3:40:11] Speaker 1: the state lines, soaking everything in. I knew I couldn't
[3:40:16] Speaker 1: go home, not with blood on my hands. Literally. I
[3:40:21] Speaker 1: decided to slip to the next state and stay there
[3:40:24] Speaker 1: for a while, just in case there was heat. When
[3:40:28] Speaker 1: hanging around a low populated area, I noticed a homeless
[3:40:33] Speaker 1: man and the cogs started turning in my head. I
[3:40:38] Speaker 1: was in a new city. No one knew I was there.
[3:40:42] Speaker 1: It would be so easy, it was a sick thought,
[3:40:48] Speaker 1: but I was fully enveloped in the sunken cost fallacy
[3:40:51] Speaker 1: to turn back. Now everything I loved was gone. If
[3:40:56] Speaker 1: I were to stop, it would have all been for nothing.
[3:41:02] Speaker 1: I walked past him and he held out his hand
[3:41:04] Speaker 1: for a donation. I handed him a baked treat I
[3:41:08] Speaker 1: had picked up, then sat at a nearby cafe. When
[3:41:13] Speaker 1: I saw the ambulance hauling away his body in a bag,
[3:41:17] Speaker 1: I knew it had worked. He hadn't noticed what I
[3:41:21] Speaker 1: had slipped in another city, down ninety eight to go.
[3:41:30] Speaker 1: It took years I'd gotten good at it. I took
[3:41:35] Speaker 1: erratic roots, never traveled in a pattern, never used the
[3:41:39] Speaker 1: same method to kill, always mixing things up. I even
[3:41:44] Speaker 1: flew to other countries, sometimes for a point, other times
[3:41:48] Speaker 1: simply spending time there. The point of all this was
[3:41:52] Speaker 1: to never leave a pattern. When there are no motives,
[3:41:57] Speaker 1: it's very hard to track down a killer, and I
[3:42:00] Speaker 1: had no reason at all. All of my targets were
[3:42:04] Speaker 1: picked out at random, and never out of convenience either.
[3:42:09] Speaker 1: I took time, sometimes months, just making sure the stars
[3:42:14] Speaker 1: were aligned to literally get away with murder. I always
[3:42:19] Speaker 1: kept track, never with anything material. Each night, i'd recite
[3:42:25] Speaker 1: myself each hit. I never wanted to want to shoot,
[3:42:30] Speaker 1: or worse, overshoot my goal, and slowly the count rose
[3:42:38] Speaker 1: until I had reached it, one hundred hits in one
[3:42:42] Speaker 1: hundred different cities. I was aged, now, looking like the
[3:42:47] Speaker 1: other guests in the club. I now understood why everyone
[3:42:51] Speaker 1: there shared that in common. I returned a weathered man,
[3:42:57] Speaker 1: stripped of all humanity, broken and praying to anything that
[3:43:03] Speaker 1: whatever was behind that door would make me whole again,
[3:43:07] Speaker 1: because whatever was behind there must have been special. When
[3:43:12] Speaker 1: I witnessed part of the ceremony. Not only was the
[3:43:16] Speaker 1: person emerging from the door elated, so was everyone in
[3:43:21] Speaker 1: the room, something so magical that it radiated to all involved.
[3:43:28] Speaker 1: At this point, I couldn't even imagine the creaks in
[3:43:31] Speaker 1: my face if I tried to smile, an action long
[3:43:35] Speaker 1: since lost on me. So to be able to feel again,
[3:43:40] Speaker 1: to be immersed in joy, would be salvation. I made
[3:43:45] Speaker 1: my way back to the club. It had been so
[3:43:48] Speaker 1: long that the thought of it not being around anymore
[3:43:51] Speaker 1: hadn't crossed my mind until I approached. However, there it
[3:43:57] Speaker 1: was the soft glow of the life, signaling its presence
[3:44:01] Speaker 1: in the blackness of the road. I was greeted by Randal,
[3:44:07] Speaker 1: looking far older than when I last saw him. Some
[3:44:10] Speaker 1: of the members from before were still there, but it
[3:44:13] Speaker 1: looked like many had passed, most likely from old age,
[3:44:18] Speaker 1: but new members had taken their place, fresh faces. The
[3:44:23] Speaker 1: passages of time wrinkled across their faces, however, bearing something
[3:44:29] Speaker 1: I still didn't possess, happiness. As soon as Randal saw me,
[3:44:38] Speaker 1: recognition spread across his face, not only recognizing who I was,
[3:44:44] Speaker 1: but what I had done. He didn't even confirm it,
[3:44:48] Speaker 1: so whether he was somehow keeping tabs on me, or
[3:44:51] Speaker 1: simply from my vibe, he knew the task was complete.
[3:44:58] Speaker 1: Are you here to use the bathroom again? He jested,
[3:45:03] Speaker 1: a joke I would have chuckled at long before, but
[3:45:06] Speaker 1: now my soul felt so sour that I couldn't even
[3:45:10] Speaker 1: muster a polite laugh. Randal gave a signal and everyone
[3:45:16] Speaker 1: immediately started preparing the ceremony. The small crowd moved like clockwork,
[3:45:22] Speaker 1: each person knowing their role in what was about to come.
[3:45:28] Speaker 1: A woman stood near me, excitements spread across her face
[3:45:34] Speaker 1: while everyone was preparing. I turned to her, What's going
[3:45:39] Speaker 1: to happen? I asked. I never expected a full answer,
[3:45:44] Speaker 1: but was at least hoping for some kind of hint
[3:45:47] Speaker 1: towards what was about to come. But all she did
[3:45:51] Speaker 1: was turn to me and smile. She didn't give anything away,
[3:45:58] Speaker 1: not even with a look. I was brought before the
[3:46:02] Speaker 1: door and finally saw the glow I had seen all
[3:46:06] Speaker 1: those years ago seepin through the cracks. Tingles ran through me,
[3:46:12] Speaker 1: and I hadn't even went inside yet. Randal stood in
[3:46:16] Speaker 1: front and ceremoniously opened the door. Light plared around me
[3:46:24] Speaker 1: and I entered. What I saw it was beyond I
[3:46:32] Speaker 1: had spent many nights for years imagining what was inside,
[3:46:38] Speaker 1: if it would all be worth it, The loss, the pain,
[3:46:42] Speaker 1: everything I had been through. It all circled around in
[3:46:46] Speaker 1: my head, haunting me, teasing me. But even the highest,
[3:46:52] Speaker 1: most supreme experience I fantasized, actually seeing it trumped it tenfold.
[3:47:01] Speaker 1: When I emerged, I came out a new man, reborn.
[3:47:07] Speaker 1: Everything I had done felt like so much, such a
[3:47:10] Speaker 1: high cost. However, after going through it, it now felt cheap,
[3:47:18] Speaker 1: like I had made out like a bandit. If I
[3:47:21] Speaker 1: had known what was inside, I would have paid the
[3:47:24] Speaker 1: price many times over. Everyone celebrated me outside the door.
[3:47:30] Speaker 1: It was exactly like I had first saw all those
[3:47:33] Speaker 1: years ago, except now I was the one in the
[3:47:37] Speaker 1: center of attention. Randal didn't say anything to ruin the moment,
[3:47:43] Speaker 1: simply gave me a knowing, not with a smile. So
[3:47:50] Speaker 1: what was inside? Well, here's the thing. I can't tell
[3:47:58] Speaker 1: you cause you not remember.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.