# 7 CHILLING r/Nosleep Horror Stories to listen to while counting down the end of days

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 18 Jul 2024, 3 h 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/60728162/7_chilling_r_nosleep_horror_stories_to_listen_to_while_counting_down_the_end_of_days.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORIES- ►0:00 "We thought we had found an abandoned Treehouse. What we found instead was horrifying." Creepypasta ►26:21 "Something lives in the storm" Creepypasta ►48:49 "I found a diary from my future self" Creepypasta ►1:15:32 "Something in my body is trying to escape" Creepypasta ►1:44:18 "One of my imaginary friends wasn't so imaginary" Creepypasta ►2:14:09 "NASA sent us to a collapsing universe, and its God saw us" Creepypasta ►2:43:09 "I am a Former Investigator for the Coast Guard, and I Will Never Forget my Strangest Case" 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 #Creepypasta #Horror #CreepsMcPasta

## Transcript

[0:01] Hey, Nick, can I have some of the popsicles? Please? As
[0:06] she yelled out to me while I was laying on the couch with an ice
[0:08] pack resting on my chest. It was a hot, humid day in the
[0:14] middle of the rural outskirts of upstate New York on a Friday afternoon. My
[0:19] younger brother and I had just gotten home from school, board as hell while
[0:24] we boiled alive indoors and outdoors. No, we have to wait until Wednesday.
[0:31] But it's my birthday, so I should be able to have one,
[0:35] Asher said, in an annoying, entitled tone. Not your birthday till Wednesday,
[0:40] dude, Plus mom and dad said. I was annoyed, uncomfortable,
[0:47] sweating, and felt like a husk. I was fourteen, while my younger
[0:52] brother was turning eleven. We were home alone until Sunday morning while our parents
[0:58] were out on a business trip. Asher closed the freezer door after peeking inside,
[1:03] and lazily walked over to the couch, where he fell over and landed
[1:07] on top of me. Do what the hell get off me? I yelled
[1:11] out. I'm bored. He groaned, Yeah, okay, I literally don't
[1:18] care, I said. I shoved him off the couch and he got up,
[1:23] looking out on to the porch. Can we go look for snakes outside?
[1:27] He asked, you can. I'm tired. I closed my eyes,
[1:34] wanting to take a nap. You're always tired, he said, as he
[1:38] walked over to the glass sliding door. I watched him look out the window,
[1:45] feeling too weak to move. It was so hot it felt like I
[1:49] was melting into the couch. Mom and Dad had all this time to go
[1:55] on dinners, trips, and visits, yet they didn't have time to get
[1:57] someone to fix their conditioning. A knock from the front door echoed to the
[2:06] house, catching Asher's attention. He stood up and went to answer it.
[2:13] Don't answer it, I said, in a weak monotone voice. Why cause
[2:19] it could be a serial killer waiting to make you his next victim. Shut
[2:23] up, Nick, you're not funny. The knock then evolved into multiple fists
[2:29] pounding at the door. It's just the FBI. Open up, you're all
[2:34] under arrest. Jacob's muffled voice yelled from the other side of the door.
[2:39] Okay, open it, I said, annoyed. Asher raced to open the
[2:46] door, letting Jacob and Trevor inside. They were the two closest friends we
[2:52] had, both of them in the same class as me. They raised inside,
[2:57] and the disgusting odor of hot sweat permeated off of them. Nick,
[3:01] you'll never guess what we found in the woods, Trevor excitedly yelled out,
[3:07] we found an abandoned treehouse. Jacob followed up. Trevor elbowed Jacob, and
[3:13] they both looked at me, ready to run back outside. My interest was
[3:19] piqued as I sat up on the couch where at I curiously asked. It's
[3:24] further past the quarry, Jacob said, trying to catch his breath, like
[3:30] a fifteen minute walk past it. I want to go, please, Nick,
[3:34] let's go check it out. As she yelled out, I sighed,
[3:38] getting up off the couch. I looked at the time as though I had
[3:43] something important coming up. At three sixteen pm, the three were staring at
[3:47] me excitedly waiting for an answer. Yeah, all right, I guess,
[3:54] I said, shrugging my shoulders. Yes. Trevor yelled out, all right,
[4:00] let's go quick. Trevor ran out of the house, followed by Jacob
[4:04] and Asher. I jugged towards them and exited the house. They all hot
[4:10] on their bikes that were hastily thrown on the messy, toy covered lawn.
[4:15] Mom and Dad had told us that we needed to clean the front and backyard,
[4:18] but our logic was to wait until the last second before touching anything.
[4:24] We were two geniuses competing with Tesla's IQ. Our house was completely surrounded by
[4:31] miles of woods and a small quiet road. The nearest neighbor was a mile
[4:36] and a half away, so if anything were to happen at home, then
[4:41] we were on our own. I honestly don't know what our parents are thinking
[4:46] during that point of time. Always going out, We drove about a mile
[4:50] and a quarter down the road on our bikes, the wind feeling amazing against
[4:56] my sweaty face. Afterward, we drove to a trail off to the side
[5:00] of the road and continued through the forest. The sun was beaming through the
[5:05] trees, most of which were just barely grown back the leaves. When we
[5:13] finally got to the quarry, Jacob and Trevor slowed down and got off of
[5:16] their bikes. Asher and I shot each other confused glances. Why are we
[5:23] stopping, I questioned them. The treehouse isn't on the trail Jacob said,
[5:30] panting as though he had been running the whole way here. How the hell
[5:33] did you guys even find it? I asked. We were looking for a
[5:38] new spot to catch water snakes. Trevor yelled out as he dropped his bike
[5:43] and quickly walked towards the thick forest. Asher and Jacob, along with myself,
[5:48] quickly followed behind, all eager to see this treehouse. Trevor, Jacob
[5:55] and I had always dreamed about having a treehouse or something of that matter to
[6:00] hang out in and have sleepovers inside, like headquarters for our group. Since
[6:05] this was out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, it would most likely need
[6:11] some touch ups, which we could easily do over time. Ah, I'm
[6:15] tired, Asher whined, Quit being such a baby, I said, not
[6:20] wanting to deal with this crap. You know it's going to be a long
[6:25] walk, I know, but still, can we stop for a second,
[6:29] Asher said, trying to sit down. No, we're literally like five minutes
[6:33] away, Trevor said, not turning to look towards Asher. We continued on,
[6:41] Asher continuing to whind the entire way. He'd always been whinying entitled,
[6:46] but I still felt bad for him since he didn't really have a lot of
[6:49] friends because of it. But unfortunately that's what happens when mommy and daddy don't
[6:56] know how to say no. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited
[7:02] out on my mind to see the tree house, though, but I wanted
[7:05] to look cool and keep calm on the outside. After about twenty minutes in
[7:12] total of traveling through the forest, leaves crunching under every step, birds singing
[7:16] and chirping, accompanied by the noises of a pratty little brother, we finally
[7:23] arrived a very tall, skinny oak tree sat in a small clearing about fifty
[7:30] feet away from any trees. It was a strange sight, but it made
[7:35] sense why whoever built the tree house chose that particular tree. The tree house
[7:42] itself was decent sized, provided enough room for about five kids our age to
[7:46] sit comfortably inside. It wrapped around the tree about thirty feet in the air,
[7:53] and a singular ladder led inside. It seemed as though it had been
[7:57] there for so long that the trees started more around the edges of it,
[8:01] like it was clay. The treehouse was in amazing shape, a little dusty,
[8:07] but no rot overgrowth, nothing at all. Dude, this is amazing,
[8:15] I blurted out. Have you guys gone inside yet? Nah, Drevor
[8:18] said, shaking his head. We wanted to get you guys first. He
[8:24] looked over at us with an excited grin. It was an amazing sight,
[8:30] for sure. The wood of the treehouse was a light color, almost a
[8:35] whitish yellow. Fine details were all over the outside of the walls and windows
[8:39] painted red and dark brown. This was the kind of treehouse that was made
[8:46] by a father who had a passion for craftsmanship, made specifically for his young
[8:50] children to make wonderful memories inside. Yet for some odd reason, it was
[8:58] out there, almost three miles deep in the woods. We didn't question it,
[9:05] though I wish we would have, but we were young, stupid,
[9:09] and naive. At least that's what I keep telling myself. I went up
[9:18] next to the ladder and rested my hand under the tree. However, I
[9:22] instantly pulled it back. The bark of the tree fell off. In fact,
[9:28] it didn't feel like tree bark at all. It was somewhat warm,
[9:33] with a soft, newbug leathery feel. I slowly went to feel again.
[9:39] It was definitely not bark. I couldn't even keep my hand on it for
[9:43] longer than two seconds without feeling disgusted. I honestly thought the tree was rotten,
[9:50] which made me hesitant to climb up the ladder. I didn't say anything,
[9:56] as did not spoil the mood, so I stood back to look back
[10:00] at the treehouse again. Trevor, Jacob, and Asher plabbed about their ideas
[10:05] of what they could do with the treehouse. Treffor and Jacob always tried to
[10:09] include Asher and stuff, which was nice, but I still always felt annoyed
[10:13] with his presence most of the time. Jacob asked who should go up first.
[10:20] Trevor and Ash both instantly said they would, so they did rock paper
[10:24] scissors to settle and who would be the lucky number one? Trevor one,
[10:31] making Asher a bit upset. Trevor smiled and told him that it's best he
[10:35] goes at first, just to make sure it's safe. Asher surprisingly shut up,
[10:41] finally understanding the concerns from someone else's viewpoint other than his own. I
[10:48] was a bit annoyed since he never listened to me, but whatever. Drefford
[10:54] started to make his way up the tall, skinny ladder, all of us
[10:58] waiting in anticipate, patient for what he would see up there. The subtle
[11:03] wind caused the trees to sway in a strange way, like he was doing
[11:07] his best to blend in with the other trees around it, but didn't know
[11:11] how. That's the best way I can describe it. When he finally reached
[11:18] the top, he didn't say anything. At first. We couldn't see him
[11:22] as he had entered the treehouse. What's it look like up there, Jacob
[11:28] yelled out. It's pretty empty, only a couple of cobwebs. Trevor yelled
[11:33] back. Asha then started climbing up the ladder eagerly. I stopped him,
[11:39] and he looked back at me with an annoyed expression. What he whined.
[11:46] I was about to say something, but I tripped over my tongue and couldn't
[11:50] remember what I was going to say. Just let him go, bro,
[11:54] Jacob said, with a face of pity. I motioned for him to go,
[12:00] and he continued up the ladder. In that moment, a strange,
[12:05] cut feeling washed over me, like a primitive instinct was kicking in. I
[12:11] didn't say anything, but I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't want
[12:16] my brother going up there. But what was I going to say, you
[12:20] can't go up there? Because I said so. Yeah. Right after Asher
[12:26] got up there, him and Trevor called out to us to join them.
[12:31] Jacob started climbing up the ladder next, and I was debating if I should
[12:35] follow. After my turn came and I began to slowly make my way up
[12:41] the ladder. I felt much higher than what it seemed from the ground.
[12:46] The soft wind blowing against my face, the sounds of the branches swaying and
[12:52] brushing up against each other echoed through the trees, almost sounding like a deep
[12:58] groan of a sleeping giant. When I finally reached the top, I rested
[13:03] on the floor of the tree house, looking around at the interior. The
[13:09] tree was in the center of the room, with what looked to be faint
[13:11] vomits sanes covering the wooden floor. It even kind of smelled like vomit.
[13:18] Jacob pointed out the smell and said they could bring some air freshness when they
[13:22] came back with some decor. The feeling in my stomach got worse looking out
[13:28] the windows, seeing the seemingly infinite void of trees around us instead of the
[13:33] nice, cozy backyard of a small home made me feel uneasy. Something was
[13:39] off and it was eating me alive, my excitement slowly diminishing. Meanwhile,
[13:48] the others were still geeking out over the place. So what shall we name
[13:52] this place? Jacob asked the cool Kid's club with three ks. Trevor giggled.
[14:00] As they went back and forth, I noticed something on the tree itself,
[14:05] a strange mark, just about three feet wide. It was like a
[14:09] seam in the bark, curved inwards into itself, very similar to two flaps
[14:15] of fat. I've seen some pretty strange tree formations, so I brushed it
[14:20] off. I tried keeping cool, but this pit of my stomach was forming
[14:26] into a black hole. So I made up an excuse for us to leave.
[14:31] Why don't we go back to our place and get some stuff to bring
[14:33] back here, I said, having no intentions of returning. We can bring
[14:37] snacks, Yeah, all right, Trevor said. We can also stop by
[14:43] my place to get my backpack to fit more stuff. Asher was clearly upset.
[14:50] But I don't want to go, he whimpered. We're literally going to
[14:54] come right back, Jacob sighed, So I can stay here and wait for
[14:58] you guys, Asher argued, no, Mamma, Dad told me to keep
[15:03] an eye on you at all times. I argued back, well, it's
[15:05] almost my birthday, he said, folding his arms. After a little more
[15:13] pointless arguing, he begrudgingly agreed to come back down. I was relieved to
[15:18] finally get out of there, But when we got to the bottom, I
[15:22] saw Jacob look at Asher with a guilty expression. It's not his fault.
[15:28] He felt bad for him, even though we were coming right back to cheer
[15:33] him up. He handed Asher a small army knife he got from boy Scouts
[15:37] and told him he could carve all our initials into the tree at the top,
[15:41] so that way people would know it was ours. Asher a little with
[15:46] excitement, and his mood instantly shifted. Why don't I come with you,
[15:52] I said quickly. I can do this by myself. I'm not a baby,
[15:56] Asher said, annoyed with me. I wish I'd stopped him. I
[16:03] wish I could have done more, something, anything more, but I didn't.
[16:11] I watched as he eagerly made his way up the ladder, carrying the
[16:15] knife and honor of marking our territory. Jacob and Trevor cheered him on as
[16:21] I nervously watched. Hell yeah, Asher, Trevy yelled, you caught this
[16:26] birthday boy. Jacob followed after. I didn't know why I was nervous,
[16:33] but I just was like my guardian angel was screaming at me to go and
[16:37] get him. Unfortunately, that would be the last time I ever saw him
[16:45] again. The tree groaned with the wind. Something was definitely off. Asher
[16:55] got to the top and went to carve the names, but I lost sight
[17:00] of him. Yo is everything okay, man, Jeff asked me. Yeah,
[17:06] yeah, I'm good, I replied back. My eyes were dead focused
[17:11] on the treehouse, and I could feel Jacob and Trevor looking at me for
[17:15] a few more moments before turning their gazes back to the treehouse. I was
[17:21] imagining Asher struggling to even leave a mark in the tree with his little noodle
[17:26] arms. Usually I thought like that would make me laugh internally, but I
[17:30] only felt sad, the type of sadness when you see someone who hasn't had
[17:37] a good life or is struggling physically spill their drink everywhere or trip on a
[17:41] treadmill at the gym. As silly as that is, I shook the thought
[17:47] off and looked back up at the treehouse. We waited for a few minutes
[17:52] with no call outs from Asher. Do you need help up there, Jacob
[17:56] called out. Jacob and Trevor chuckled, waiting for a response. A few
[18:03] seconds went by, only to be greeted with nothing. Asher. I called
[18:11] out, we were all waiting for a response, but nothing came. I
[18:18] wanted to assume that he was dead focused on carving those initials, but after
[18:22] we called out some more, we still got no response. Asher, stop
[18:27] messing around, man, Trevor yelled out. I then grabbed a hold of
[18:33] the ladder, making my way up, anticipating Asher jumping out at me at
[18:37] the entrance. As I made my way up, I could have sworn I
[18:42] saw movement underneath the bark, like there was something trying to escape from it.
[18:48] It reminded me of when a snake swallows a rat or something of that
[18:52] size, when you see that lump moving down its throat. However, saw
[19:00] it for about a second, so I assumed that it was the tree swaying
[19:03] in the wind or something like that. I got to the top and looked
[19:10] around but saw nothing Asher, I said aloud, assuming he was behind the
[19:18] other side of the tree. I crawled inside, and the now stronger smell
[19:23] of vomit and bile assaulted my nostrils, causing me to tear up. I
[19:30] crawled all the way around, but he was nowhere to be seen. My
[19:37] stomach dropped. Where could he have gone? I looked at the floor and
[19:42] saw the army knife lying there in a puddle of what looked like greasy yellow
[19:48] slime. I took a good look at it, and then turned my attention
[19:53] towards the tree. The same mark I saw before had slimed, dripped down
[20:00] from the tight crevice, with a new small mark above it, looking like
[20:04] a little scab. The sight reminded me of the close mouth of a toothless
[20:08] old person, so eliva running down their lips. You look like ashes started
[20:15] carving but didn't finish. I just sat there, trying to process what I
[20:22] was looking at. Jacob and Trevor were calling out to me, but he
[20:26] didn't register with me. A thousand thoughts raced through my head. I wanted
[20:33] to throw up. It was at that moment and the screams of Jacob and
[20:38] Trevor yelling out for me to come down finally got through to me. I
[20:42] nearly fell all the way down as I quickly hurried down the ladder. As
[20:48] soon as I reached the bottom, I saw why they were screaming for me.
[20:53] The tree was breathing. It wasn't the wind, it wasn't an illusion.
[21:03] It was literally breathing, letting out a soft, deep gurgled groan with
[21:08] every breath. I couldn't believe it. It felt like a dream, but
[21:15] it was real, as real as you and me. The tree house was
[21:22] alive, and it had made a meal of my baby brother. The strange
[21:27] movement I saw when climbing up the tree was Ash's silhouette trying to kick and
[21:33] escape from its throat as it swallowed him. The thought made me shaken fear
[21:40] uncontrollably. I thought I would pass out driven Jacob ran for it, but
[21:47] I sat there for a few more seconds, with my thoughts racing. I
[21:53] could only imagine the fear Asher had been experiencing at that moment, screaming in
[22:00] terror, calling out for someone to save him, his cries unable to be
[22:03] heard, not being able to escape his claustrophobic fate, being digested alive with
[22:11] no one to help him. Knowing that Mom and Dad didn't know where he
[22:15] was. He had gone up there, excited, thinking that he was finally
[22:19] part of the friend group. Instead, he had been eaten alive by a
[22:26] treehouse, or at least something pretending to be a treehouse. The bark of
[22:33] the tree was squirming, like there was muscle twitching and contracting underneath it.
[22:40] The branches started moving in an alien like way, something I'm unable to describe
[22:45] further than that, the sounds of a deep, monstrous, wet, gurgling
[22:49] noise echoed through the forest. As I followed behind Jacob and Trevor. We
[22:56] made it back to the quarry, where we hopped on our bikes and rode
[22:59] to the nearest police station, about five miles away. What happened after that
[23:07] was a blur. I don't remember much, but what I do remember is
[23:12] that we told the cops that my brother got eaten by something through incoherent cries.
[23:18] We came back to the spot where the police, but the treehouse was
[23:22] now gone, not without leaving a giant crater in the ground. Although they
[23:29] were presented with a strange hole that didn't explain why my brother was missing.
[23:36] We were taken to the police station for questioning. We were separated into different
[23:40] rooms to explain ourselves. The police was stumped. All three of us stories
[23:48] matched up perfectly with each other, so we were either great at lying or
[23:55] we did in fact witnessed something supernatural. Call to my parents explaining the situation,
[24:03] and they rushed over as fast as they could. My mom and dad
[24:07] were heartbroken. They never believed my story, though they rarely went on trips
[24:15] again, and if they did, they brought me along. I'm pretty sure
[24:21] Mom and Dad think I did something to him, and I don't blame them.
[24:26] Asher remains missing to this day. I feel so stupid. It's my
[24:34] fault. I didn't stop him. I want to blame Jacob for giving him
[24:38] that stupid army knife. But deep down, I'm still drenched with the guilt
[24:45] of thinking that I could have prevented everything all by not having him enter the
[24:51] door. Maybe then Jacob or Trevor would be missing, perhaps both, but
[24:57] at least my brother would still He'll be here. As selfish as that sounds.
[25:06] Seventeen years later, I have a child of my own turning nine next
[25:11] week, and a beautiful wife. I rarely speak to my parents, or
[25:15] any of my family for that matter. These events still linger in the back
[25:21] of my mind like a parasite, something I'll never be able to forget.
[25:26] I live about seven hours away from where my childhood home was. Since my
[25:30] wife didn't feel comfortable leaving a hometown, I've decided to write all of this
[25:37] down the best I could remember, because when I got up this morning to
[25:44] complete my daily ritual of making my coffee to stare out the backyard window,
[25:51] I saw something that took me back in time, far out in the true
[25:56] line, past the family of deer eating the grass, stood something unnatural that
[26:04] did not belong there, the same treehouse from all those years ago. I've
[26:22] been trying to tell the truth for so long that our lies become more convenient.
[26:29] There's been countless emails and phone calls, but there's no one to listen.
[26:34] I can't blame them. It sounds insane. If what I told them
[26:41] was even partly true, it had changed the way they looked at the world
[26:45] forever. It started with little lies. I stopped saying I saw something,
[26:52] but even then it was considered in bad taste to even talk about. They
[27:00] thought I was lying or spicing up the truth to hide something even more sinister.
[27:06] And honestly, I've grown tired. I'm so tired of trying to be
[27:12] believed. So for one final time, I'm gonna tell the truth and then
[27:22] just never talk about it again. This has to stop. I never like
[27:30] the term stormchaser. It sounds too much like a fun hobby. Well,
[27:36] it is a term commonly used. It's not just about being a thrill seeker.
[27:41] We provide real and tangible services. The NWS relies on real time updates
[27:47] about barometric pressure, wind direction, rainfall and rate, surface conditions, wind
[27:52] speed and direction, and a dozen other data points. This is information taken
[28:00] into account when providing early onset warnings and to alert emergency services in affected areas.
[28:07] I worked with two other guys back then. We rode in separate vehicles,
[28:12] the two of them up front, with me following in a back up.
[28:17] There was Javert, the gear head. He made sure our cell phones
[28:21] worked even in nasty weather through various cell phone boosters, as well as keeping
[28:26] us updated on satellite radar and mesoscale analysis. He was also in charge of
[28:33] the radio, making sure we were up to date on any info coming in
[28:37] from police, the fire department, emergency services, citizen Band or military frequencies,
[28:45] mostly Air force, but we could get marine as well. Second guy
[28:51] was read this meatball shaped man was a veteran in every sense of the word.
[28:56] He came back from Afghanistan and went, oh, well, let's check
[29:00] out tornadoes. So he did. He educated himself and got a job as
[29:07] a forensic meteorologist. Yeah, that's a thing. Years later he started his
[29:12] own business, one which I was employed at. We were on a data
[29:19] gather job for a storm about six o'clocks north of a small minutes of the
[29:23] town not far from Rochester. Early predictions had put the storm as passing east
[29:30] of Madison, but there had been a sudden western shift. They needed boots
[29:37] on the ground for new measurements, and it was looking to be a nasty
[29:41] surprise. There'd been no weather warnings going out as far as Saint Cloud,
[29:45] and this thing was poffing up into a monster. Rion roaded a quick damage
[29:52] survey as we passed through Wardville. It didn't look like much a couple of
[29:57] bent saplings along the tree line, but we were at the edge of it.
[30:03] This was just early indicators. We could tell service conditions. We're kind
[30:08] of go straight to hell. I was hearing Reid react to it in real
[30:12] time over the radio. Sky's gonna hail. Crap, he laughed. Mark
[30:18] my goddamn word. I in no way, Javier said, ain't that kind
[30:23] of pressure. Boss says it's gonna hail. It's gonna hail. I added,
[30:30] glad I've got at least one agreeable man on my side, or to
[30:33] call him, raise jaser. Javi scoffed, I'm telling you it's not happening.
[30:40] We were breaking the speed limit, but driving in rough conditions kind of
[30:44] comes with the job. Our vehicles go through regular checkups to make sure they
[30:48] can take some punishment. Last thing you want is to get stranded in front
[30:52] of a twister. It's a measure twice cut once, kind of deal.
[31:00] Away through Rochester, heading northeast by way of Kellogg. It was a decent
[31:04] chance we'd have to cross the Mississippi. First arm of the storm was about
[31:08] to pass Maxville. Javert couldn't help but to laugh. It's a quick turn,
[31:15] quick, quick turn. I could almost hear him shaking his head.
[31:19] Hailstorms don't move like that, he added, you're full of it. Reid
[31:25] laughed. You'll see the roads were looking clear as We rolled up on the
[31:30] Wabasher Nelson Bridge. The sun was setting, casting a stark contrast between the
[31:36] dark clouds and the red sky. We slowed down to get a better view.
[31:41] I wasn't sure what I was looking at. That's what hale looks like,
[31:47] said reed. No, that it's clustered, right, Javert sighed,
[31:52] Did the Rockies do it? Ain't no way, I scoffed at the radio,
[31:56] unless the rock Is are somehow out in New England. Girls girls read
[32:01] laughed, you're both pretty. It's fine. There was a rest stop just
[32:07] across the bridge. We turned in to check the weather stations and do a
[32:12] preliminary reading. Javert double checked the power supply. We were running a ton
[32:17] of devices and you don't want any of them breaking in the heat of things.
[32:22] He was reading a checklist out loud as Rudy and I took a sidebar,
[32:27] getting a closer look at the storm. You really think it's hale,
[32:31] i asked, Could just be a nasty downpour? Ah, it's hale,
[32:37] he nodded. You get a feel for it. You can smell it.
[32:42] Smell it, yeah, smell it smells like nonsense, more like it's what's
[32:49] happening. He pointed south, predicting her sharp movement to the west, powerful
[32:55] winds enough to rip away more than just a couple of saplings across the road.
[33:00] We were locking a potentially serious property damage. Checking the weather station confirmed
[33:07] it. Wind direction was shifting fast and picking up speed. We kept going
[33:15] north, heading to Wisconsin, then southeast to the thirty five. We got
[33:21] a better view of the storm, and something just felt off. I had
[33:29] only worked with Reid for about eighteen months, but it's like he said,
[33:34] you can kind of smell it, and I did. We kept going another
[33:39] ten to twenty minutes, stopped by the roadside and updated our readings. As
[33:45] Javert updated the local NWS office, Reid stopped for a cigarette. The wind
[33:52] was picking up another nemometer was picking up speed, spinning faster and faster.
[33:59] Reid was having trouble lighting his cigarette that if anything seemed to worry him,
[34:05] rain or shine, he could light a goddamn cigarette. It ain't looking good,
[34:12] he said, not one bit. What are you thinking. I'm not
[34:17] sure yet, he sighed, cupping a hand around his lighter, looking worse
[34:23] than a hale. We're talking twister. He shook his head. Finally lighting
[34:30] up a spark. Nah, he sighed, that ain't it. We kept
[34:37] going south for another ten minutes or so. The clouds were rolling in fast.
[34:42] I could feel the increased moisture in the air sticking to my skin.
[34:46] I had to turn up the ac We got to stop for another reading,
[34:52] said Javert. We're getting in the thick of it. We're turning back,
[34:57] said Reid. No, chuck old Jever, No, we ain't. That's
[35:01] moving out of We're turning back. We have no idea what we're running into.
[35:07] You got no idea of Javert, You really got no idea you Yeah,
[35:15] read at the pause, hang in the air for a moment. I
[35:19] could feel the tension, all right, said Javert. Yes, we're going
[35:24] back. Ty screeched. As Reid turned, I could see flashes of light
[35:30] in the rear view mirror. Then came the thunder. Yeah, it's picking
[35:37] up. Reid said. So it's not Hale, juggled Javert. I don't
[35:43] know what the hell that is. Told you it ain't Hale. Now it's
[35:46] not the time to be a smug ass ole, Javi, I interrupted,
[35:51] We're we headed red. Figured we could cut the thing off going north through
[35:55] Nelson coming out behind it. As he shared his plans. I couldn't help
[36:01] but to notice Javert going quiet. This was a guy who was more banter
[36:07] than man. Then all of a sudden he wasn't feeling it anymore. Bad
[36:14] sign. We kept sending updates to the local NWS office, and within minutes
[36:21] there was a weather warning going out. I got one too, returned north
[36:27] up the twenty five, hoping we'd get far enough before we struck the brunt
[36:31] of the storm. With a bit of luck, we could get some more
[36:36] accurate readings on the other side and still be home before midnight. But yeah,
[36:43] no, we weren't that lucky. The storm picked up and we ended
[36:50] up in the tail end of the northernmost edge. We got hit by the
[36:53] rain first. I kept my eye on Reed's car, watching the rain drops
[36:59] gather and did disappear with the tic tacking of my windshield wipers. Read and
[37:04] Javert were arguing about the readings, about connection issues, about how the power
[37:08] strip was acting up, overcharging the batteries. I was having trouble hearing them
[37:14] over the radio. I could suddenly smell ozone again. You can smell it
[37:22] just before it happens I bet Reed did too. The first lightning strike came
[37:30] out of nowhere. Now I've seen bad weather, I've lived it, slept
[37:38] in it. But this wasn't just bad weather. It was downright nefarious.
[37:46] Not just rain and thunder, but something else. A split second, in
[37:54] that single heartbeat where the strike lit up the sky and everything was quiet.
[38:00] It's not a person alive that's quick enough to react, giving this eerie,
[38:06] ethereal feel to it. As Reid's car kept sailing straightforward, but in that
[38:13] light, I saw something, shadows cast across the pavement. Something Reed swerved
[38:25] and the road took the wheel. He tried to bring it back, but
[38:30] it was too late. One wheel dipped into a ditch, lurching the car
[38:34] forward, spinning it around and nearly flipping it, ripping it off the road
[38:38] and about twenty five feet into a nearby field. Made it look like a
[38:43] goddamn bumper car. I stepped on the brakes, leaning my car into the
[38:47] side of the road. I didn't even think about it. I grabbed my
[38:52] radio and hurried out of the door. I called out for them to respond,
[38:57] but they were doing the same right back to me. We screamed over
[39:00] one another, in those chaotic first few seconds, in a garbled mess.
[39:05] Finally I stopped to listen. Reid came through. Get back into your car?
[39:13] What Get back into your goddamn car. I wasn't thinking straight. I
[39:21] was heading out into the field with no cover. In a storm, it's
[39:25] safer to be inside the vehicle. It can act as a sort of Faraday
[39:30] cage. I was completely exposed out there. A quick turn of the heel,
[39:36] and I was heading straight back to my car. I threw myself into
[39:39] the passenger seat, and the moment I closed the door, the sky lit
[39:45] back up. A single lightning strike reaching from the clouds and into the windshield
[39:51] of Reed's car. And from that light I could see them. There must
[39:58] have been a hundred people. Burn people, people with exposed bones, cracked
[40:06] skin, missing limbs, all in various stages of decay and decomposition. They
[40:13] were all over covering the street, circling Reid's car, or just standing there
[40:19] in a white light, staring with dead eyes. And in the blink of
[40:23] an eye they were gone. Thunder rumbled as the world turned dark. Javert
[40:31] threw himself out of the car. The strike had cracked straight through the windshield
[40:36] shattering it. I couldn't hear Javert over the radio, but I could see
[40:40] him looking my way, pointing at the driver's seat, where Reid sat read
[40:47] and wasn't moving. Lightning doesn't move like that. It hits the tallest point,
[40:54] not the weakest. But this one wasn't following the rules. Javert bolted
[41:00] for my car, rushing across the field. I left the passenger side door
[41:05] open and crawled into the driver's seat, urging him on, come on,
[41:09] I cried out, come on. He was sprinting at full speed with this
[41:15] wild look in his eyes. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes looked
[41:19] black. He didn't get far another strike, this one piercing straight through him.
[41:30] I could see his muscles contract and burst as his jaw twisted at an
[41:35] unnatural angle, and in that split second burst of light, they came back.
[41:43] They circled him. I could see them across the field in the hundreds,
[41:47] the lightning strike bringing out the image of their form, looking at Javert
[41:52] with dead eyed stairs. But one of them was looking my way. I
[42:00] didn't recognize him at first, but I couldn't help but to notice him.
[42:05] He was the only one of them looking my way read. His eyes had
[42:13] rolled back in his head, and there was a smoldering black spot stretching out
[42:16] from his barrel framed chest, just as dead as the rest of them,
[42:22] looking right at me. I was next. I could barely see as the
[42:32] light faded and the figures faded from my eyes. My head shrieked from the
[42:37] pressure as the thunder shook my car. The world looked gray. I think
[42:44] I was blinded temporarily. Everything looked red. When I blinked, I couldn't
[42:50] even see Chauvert lying out in the field. My first instinct was to take
[42:54] cover. That's what you usually do when you're stuck in a storm. You
[43:00] take shelter and you wait for it to pass. But this was different.
[43:06] It hadn't worked for Reed, and its sure as hell wouldn't work for me.
[43:10] I got out just seconds before lightning rocked my car, burning through the
[43:15] engine block and scorching the pavement underneath. In a flash of light, I
[43:22] saw them. They were all there. Javert too, his jaw still twisted
[43:29] and bent, but now they were all looking at me, waiting for me.
[43:37] I stumbled backwards, falling into a ditch by the side of the road.
[43:40] I got my clothes covered in rain, water, stinging nettles, and
[43:44] discolored sunflowers. The rain was relentless. My first thought was to get up
[43:51] and run, but I couldn't get my legs to move. Instead, I
[43:55] just curled into a ball, covered my eyes and tried to make myself as
[44:00] small as possible. Strike after strike after strike, but it didn't reach me.
[44:13] Now, with every flash, the figures came closer. By the third
[44:16] flash, I was surrounded by the dead, shoulder to shoulder, packed like
[44:22] sardines. They didn't say a word. All they did was come closer,
[44:29] reaching for me. It felt like an eternity, every flash of light making
[44:37] my heart skip a beat. It felt like minutes past, and every instant
[44:40] where the ground was struck. I covered my ears and eyes, but there
[44:45] was just no way not to feel it. It consumes your every sense.
[44:51] You can taste it, smell it. It's so bright it burns through your
[44:55] eyelids, It ripples through the hands who used to cover your ears. It's
[45:00] such immense, ungodly power. I could feel them and, not having the
[45:08] time to grasp me the smell of decay as a hand blinked in and out,
[45:14] trying to strangle me. A flash of pain as someone tried to bite
[45:17] my leg, but the flash was over before the dead teeth could pierce my
[45:22] skin. I couldn't fight them off. There were too many, and it
[45:28] was impossible to tell where they were coming from. I waved my arms around,
[45:32] frantically, scrambling to protect myself. In a fleeting moment, I lugged
[45:39] up. I expected to see the clouds moving and the storm bringing the rain
[45:45] westward. But that's not what I saw. There was an eye up there,
[45:53] and honest to God, I looking straight at me. In hindsight,
[46:01] it must have been as large as a football field. It was such an
[46:06] immense thing that I couldn't comprehend it. It hung there, parting the clouds,
[46:12] and with every blink, another strike came thundering down looking for me.
[46:17] I counted eighteen eighteen lightning strikes in the span of at most a matter of
[46:24] minutes. It felt like I'd been there for hours, every strike lasting longer
[46:30] than the previous. But as the rain passed me by, I was left
[46:37] freezing and shuddering. We grasping hands stopped the biting, the tearing. I
[46:44] was bleeding from cuts and bruises, but I was alive. When I finally
[46:51] got back on my feet, there was nothing but cracked pavement, burnt grass,
[46:57] and two bodies, one still in the driver's seat of his car,
[47:01] the other left face down in the rain. It took me a couple of
[47:07] minutes to call it in. I couldn't believe it. I just sat there
[47:13] trying to breathe. I've been telling people about it ever since. What they
[47:20] call it trauma, like it was all just a big accident waiting to happen.
[47:25] Even people in the business refused to listen, no matter their relation to
[47:30] Read and his company. A terrible tragedy is all they're ready to say,
[47:36] as if a guy like Reid would mess up this bad. Lightning strikes do
[47:42] not aim. It doesn't happen. I tracked it as long and as far
[47:49] as I could, but from what I could tell, it dissolved somewhere over
[47:52] the coast of Norway. I read something about swaths of gulls being pulverized into
[47:59] rains of fathers in the fishing village over the northwestern coast. But that's where
[48:05] the trail ends. I've never had a problem with storms until now. Now
[48:14] I wake up in the middle of the night, imagining I just felt the
[48:17] rumble of thunder. I freak out as sudden light. I can't bring myself
[48:22] to go outside when there's an overcast. I just got this feeling that whatever
[48:29] that was, it didn't like me getting away. Maybe I can tell the
[48:36] next time it's near. I can kind of smell it. I've always kept
[48:51] diaries ever since I was a child. I've documented my daily life in journals,
[48:57] carefully labeled on the sides and covers so to keep them in order.
[49:01] I'm on my one thousand and thirty third journal, and all of them I
[49:06] kept in order on bookshelves. It's basically a ledger of my entire life,
[49:14] or at least it was until my house burned down and I lost all of
[49:20] them, all except for one that I never wrote. My father and I
[49:28] were going through the wreckage. The burnt waters of the house had blackened and
[49:31] charred. The smell of smoke and burning insulations still hung heavy in the air.
[49:37] I looked through the pile of burned paper that had once been my journals.
[49:43] I saw the family photos, all water damage from the fire hoses,
[49:46] at least those not destroyed by the flames. Hey what's this, my father
[49:52] said, Leaning down, we both saw the edge of something rectangular peeking around
[49:58] the edge of the ruined He reached his hand through a destroyed part of the
[50:02] wall and came back out with a dirty, smoke brown journal. Spatters of
[50:08] what looked like dark ancient blood covered the surface. I saw it was labeled
[50:15] one thousand and seventy seven. That is the one thousand and seventy seventh journal
[50:22] I had started to write in since I was six. But that's impossible,
[50:28] I said, more to myself than him. I never wrote that journal.
[50:32] When the fire hit, I was filling out my one thousand and thirty third
[50:36] journal. I knew this for a fact, because I wrote huge numbers and
[50:42] sharpie on the front of each one. My father rolled his eyes. He
[50:47] thought keeping a diary was stupid and only reserved for girls, and he had
[50:52] often told me so. He flipped it open. It looks like you're handwriting,
[50:59] he said, handing in to me, if i'll grind me under my
[51:01] fingers. Its cover sprinkled with small patches of black mold and blood, as
[51:07] well as darkened by smoke, yet all the pages were still legible. I
[51:14] put it in my backpack and took it home with me. It was the
[51:17] only thing that had survived the flames intact that I recovered, and yet I
[51:22] know I never wrote it. I flipped it open to the first page,
[51:29] seeing my own handwriting reflected back at me. I read the entries laid out
[51:35] there with increasing horror. I read them all. April first, twenty twenty
[51:45] five, Today the world ended. I'd driven across Arizona and New Mexico with
[51:53] my fiance, Stephanie. She wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and I
[52:00] always said I would take her. So when I made a couple million dollars
[52:04] in stock options shortened the market. After the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, I
[52:08] decided to quit my job and travel. All around us spanned endless desert.
[52:15] The sun looked down like a blazing, lidless eye, withering everything in its
[52:20] intense heat. Only cacti and desert shrubs stood on the great flat plane.
[52:28] I turned the rady one, but only one station came through. There was
[52:32] some am station talking about the recent Chinese invasion. China has lost an estimated
[52:39] two million troops trying to take the island. The reporter said. In response
[52:44] to the invasion Taiwan authorized air strikes and the three Gorgeous Damn. Yesterday evening
[52:50] reports state that the Chinese Air Force has in fact successfully destroyed it, causing
[52:55] flooding and likely millions more casualties among the civilian population. Taiwan cities are all
[53:01] in flames. As I flipped the radio off, not wanting to hear any
[53:07] more grisly news, I really need to use the bathroom, Stephanie said,
[53:13] breaking my reverie. I looked over Rada, seeing her large blue eyes looking
[53:19] at me. Small beats of sweat broke out, and a light skin her
[53:23] blonde hair ran down past the shoulders in shimmering waves. Okay, why don't
[53:30] I pull over right here, I offered. She shook her head. Oh,
[53:36] I want a real bathroom, she said, I sighed. I haven't
[53:42] seen a house or store in quite a while, I said, But as
[53:46] if fate wanted to prove me wrong, a small wooden building appeared on the
[53:51] horizon. A town sign stood in front of it, Devil's Creek, population
[53:59] fifty two. The building looked like some kind of old timey general store that
[54:05] had been renovated to have electricity and central air conditioning. An ancient man with
[54:09] a face like a raisin, sat in a rocking chair outside, smoking a
[54:15] pipe and reflectively staring off across the great empty desert. I glanced over to
[54:21] see what he was looking at. In the distance, I saw roll after
[54:27] roll of razor wire surrounding a massive fence. It had all sorts of signs
[54:32] with skulls, as well as warnings about violating federal law by trespassing. We
[54:39] pulled up to the store. The man finally looked over. His jellied eyes
[54:45] reminded me of an old dog waiting for the needle. He was a small
[54:51] man, no more than five feet if I had to guess. He wore
[54:54] a straw hat and a shaded flannel shirt, and smelled like sweet pipe tobacco
[55:01] Christ draws. He said, in his fluttering old man's voice. It's sure
[55:07] it's hot out here today. I smiled, agreeing. What's that you're looking
[55:14] at, I asked, pointing to the electrified fence guarding the apparently empty desert.
[55:21] He gave me a serious look. That is where the bombs are kept,
[55:25] boy, he said, the big ones, the H bombs, minute
[55:30] man threes and B sixty ones. Well, so I hear people around town
[55:36] talk. You know, I nodded. I wondered whether silos were Can I
[55:44] use your bathroom, Stephanie asked hurriedly as she came up beside me. The
[55:50] man nodded. Back of the store, young lady, he said in a
[55:54] quavering voice. Then he returned to his pipe and his meditation. Let me
[56:01] know if you need anything else. I decided to sit down next to the
[56:07] old man. When I felt the first quiverings of an earthquake. It started
[56:14] small. I stood there, not knowing what to do. The old man's
[56:19] eyes widened and he dropped his pipe. Embers and blackened tobacco spilled out on
[56:24] the ancient wooden porch. What in the blue blazes? He started to say,
[56:30] when a scream of powerful engines cut him off. A burning chemical smell
[56:37] filled the air. I looked over to the military site and to the ground,
[56:42] pulling itself apart, secret sliding panels covered in dirt opened as enormous missiles
[56:49] slowly gathered momentum, rising up into the air from hidden underground silos. Jets
[56:55] of blue flames shot out of them over everything else in the area, Each
[57:02] sixty or seventy feet tall. Within seconds, they began to move faster and
[57:08] faster, lifting themselves skyward with a screeching of blue flames and smoke. Every
[57:15] minute, more and more came out, dozens and dozens of missiles, firing
[57:21] and rapid succession. Stephanie came out. I grabbed her hand and pulled her
[57:25] to the car. We need to get the hell out of here, I
[57:30] screamed over the cacophony. Her face had turned chalk white. She followed me
[57:37] like a lost child. I pushed her into the passenger seat and got in,
[57:42] turning it on and peeling out of there. If this is a nuclear
[57:46] missile sight, I said, vomiting the words as quickly as I could in
[57:51] the panic of the moment, Then there will probably be an enemy missile coming
[57:54] to tarket it Soon, American missiles continued to streak the the air like fiery
[58:00] dragons, and their way to battle. We drove as fast as my car
[58:06] would go for the next twenty minutes, breaking one ten and then one thirty
[58:09] miles per hour. I had a very bad feeling about this, and then
[58:17] I saw it. The thing I had been dreading. Missiles began to drop
[58:24] down from the sky, not going but now coming. I saw a streak
[58:30] of white shoot across the sky in my rear view mirror. A sonic boom
[58:35] shook the ground, and then the world exploded. Ah. I heard someone
[58:45] say cut what. Then I realized it was my own voice. I opened
[58:54] my eyes. I felt warm blood trickling down my face. My car was
[59:00] flipped over. I saw the endless desert outside now upside down all around us.
[59:07] Great suffocating plumes of smoke rose into the sky. He plotted out the
[59:14] sun and turned everything as dark as night. I looked over at Stephanie.
[59:21] She was still unconscious, or maybe she was dead, I couldn't tell.
[59:29] She hung upside down her seat bye, biting deeply into her shoulder. Geez.
[59:36] I groaned, trying to unbockle my seat belt without falling and smashing my
[59:39] head. I mostly succeeded. I crawled out the shattered remains, and I
[59:45] flipped over car. I rose my legs as wobbly as a baby. Deers
[59:52] jee, A voice said softly from inside the car. He was so subtle
[1:00:00] I could barely hear it. I knelt down next to the broken window and
[1:00:05] saw Stephanie stirring. Ah. She spat a little blood, wiping her mouth.
[1:00:13] Oh okay, yes, baby, I said, with tears in my
[1:00:19] eyes, looking down the road with a mushroom cloud hung over us like the
[1:00:24] blade of a guillotine. We're okay. Luckily we'd been camping prior to this,
[1:00:35] so the car was filled with the sensuals. Inside the trunk, I
[1:00:38] had a tent, sleeping bags, food, water, and toiletries. We
[1:00:45] also had some knives, lighters, and lighter fluid. Stephanie filled her backpack
[1:00:50] with as much as she could carry, still wiping blood out of her eyes
[1:00:54] from a deep gash across her forehead. But overall, I felt like we'd
[1:01:00] gotten fairly lucky. It certainly could have been much worse if we had still
[1:01:06] been in the city. I shudder thinking about it. I wondered if any
[1:01:13] city still stood in the USA. The mushroom cloud continued to grow. It
[1:01:20] had a combination of bright streaks of fire and black plumes of smoke mixing in
[1:01:24] with the scorching cap. Its cap looked like it would go all the way
[1:01:30] to outer space. Soon, the stem of suffocating smoke shot upwards, seeming
[1:01:36] to unspool itself from the inside as it rose. We walked down the dark
[1:01:40] road in a burning world. Jets flew overhead, streaking across the sky.
[1:01:50] The echoing wine of powerful engines followed them. Moments later, sonic boom after
[1:01:55] sonic boom exploded across the dead desert. Where are we going? Stephanie finally
[1:02:02] asked, after an hour of walking through this apocalyptic scene. We hadn't escaped
[1:02:07] the black clouds that hung over the sky, though the smoke had started to
[1:02:13] dissipate as we got further away. I looked back and saw a figure behind
[1:02:19] us. It appeared to be a man casually walking down the road, but
[1:02:24] his eyes seemed to be on fire. They shone with an inner luminosity,
[1:02:30] lit up like the eyes of a jack o' lantern. Something seemed wrong with
[1:02:36] the man, and not just because of his eyes. He walked in a
[1:02:40] jerky, twisted way. His head, which had been looking down ratchet,
[1:02:45] it up to look at me. A shudder ran down my spine. I
[1:02:52] turned away, motioning for Stephanie to look behind us, but by the time
[1:02:57] we looked back again, he had disappeared. Away from that, I finally
[1:03:02] said, pointing to the mushroom cloud, did you see someone just now?
[1:03:08] I think my eyes are plane tricks in me. I could have sworn I
[1:03:12] saw someone following us. Maybe it's another survivor, she said, maybe.
[1:03:20] I agreed, non committally, not telling her about the eyes. He had
[1:03:24] been very far away, but I had definitely seen him. I didn't understand
[1:03:30] where he had gone. There was certainly nowhere to hide unless more secret government
[1:03:37] silos and tunnels ran under the earth. Here he had simply vanished, like
[1:03:40] campfire smoke and a strong breeze. What do you think happened, Stephanie asked,
[1:03:47] and she took a long drink of water. I think we all know
[1:03:52] what happened, I said, bitterly. China started World War three. They
[1:03:57] thought they could contain the fighting to Taiwan, but they miscalculated. Once the
[1:04:01] three gorgeous damn got blown and millions of Chinese and the Yangze River drowned,
[1:04:06] it must have escalated. I don't know who fired first. Were clearly the
[1:04:12] US and China are at war. Maybe the war was over already, she
[1:04:16] said, hopefully. I nodded. It might actually be. If it is
[1:04:25] in all the cities have been hit here and in China and Taiwan, there
[1:04:29] must be hundreds and millions of people dead already, maybe more. Stephanie didn't
[1:04:35] say anything to this, but she seemed to go pale. We need to
[1:04:41] stop soon. I'm tired. We've been walking for hours, Stephanie said.
[1:04:46] After another few hours, I agreed. We hadn't seen a single car or
[1:04:53] person in that time, except for the man with the eyes. My feet
[1:05:00] gleamed at me with throbbing blisters and sharp pains. My cellphone and watch had
[1:05:03] stopped working during the blast. Some electromagnetic pulse from the warhead must have disabled
[1:05:10] all electronics in the area. Some neither of us knew how long we'd been
[1:05:15] walking, with the sky covered in black smoke as far as the eye could
[1:05:19] see, I didn't even know if it was day or night anymore. We
[1:05:27] set up the tent. I crawled in, exhausted. I felt like I
[1:05:31] must have walked for twelve hours. I took off my wet socks, got
[1:05:36] into the sleeping bag, then instantly passed out. I awoke, suddenly,
[1:05:45] confused. Something had scared me. Maybe it was in the dream, but
[1:05:51] no, I still heard it, a scratching sound, light and insistent on
[1:05:59] the outside of the tent. Stephanie still slept soundly next to me. I
[1:06:04] shock her. She grouggly opened her eyes. I looked at my pistol next
[1:06:11] to my pillow, grabbing it up. Its solid metal grip felt real and
[1:06:15] powerful in my hands. But when I remembered the glowing eyes of the thing
[1:06:20] and how it had vanished in an instant, like a puff of smoke,
[1:06:25] it started to feel much smaller. What is she began to say. I
[1:06:30] clamped my hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide. I put my
[1:06:35] finger to her lips. She nodded, and I slowly removed my hand.
[1:06:42] Now I could tell she heard it too. It was like someone was running
[1:06:46] a long, sharp fingernail over the outside of the tent, walking around it
[1:06:53] in circles. Though I didn't hear any accompanying footsteps. It was too dark
[1:06:59] to see any silhouettes or shapes through the thick fabric. We heard a low,
[1:07:05] diseased breathing coming from outside. The rattling breaths seemed to choke on their
[1:07:11] own fluids, like the gurgling gasps of a pneumonia patient. I couldn't take
[1:07:17] it anymore. I grabbed the flashlight from next to the sleeping bag and flicked
[1:07:23] it on with my arms crossed, my gun in one hand and the flashlight
[1:07:27] in the other. I motioned for Stephanie to open the tent. She hesitated
[1:07:32] for a long moment. After taking a deep breath, she ripped it open
[1:07:36] in a single pull. Yet no one stood there. I looked out,
[1:07:45] and the smoke black and starless sky shadows bounced and danced around the cacti and
[1:07:50] cracked pavement of the street. I heard a very subtle sound from my right,
[1:07:56] a slight shuffling of sand in a blur and with barely any sound.
[1:08:02] The diminute of man with the fire in his eyes scampered towards me. His
[1:08:08] shoulders and vertebrae crippled like those of a hunchback. His face only came up
[1:08:13] to the level of my chest, but he seemed to straighten and grow as
[1:08:16] he got nearer. There was a crackling, snapping sound coming from inside his
[1:08:21] body. It sounded like his bones were breaking and knitting themselves back together.
[1:08:28] By the time he reached me, he towered over me. This all happened
[1:08:33] very quickly. In the space of less than a second. My vision became
[1:08:39] filled with a hypnotizing, strobing white light that came from his head, but
[1:08:44] I glimpsed the rest of him too. He had a mouth like an infected
[1:08:48] sore. Pieces of his lips were rotted or torn away, and behind that
[1:08:55] mutilated flesh beheld a gibbering, gnashing mouth. Twisted famberic teeth grew out of
[1:09:01] the tops of his gums, intertwining with those growing from the natural spots.
[1:09:08] These dozens of overlapping fangs each looked as sharp as a scalpel made to slicely
[1:09:14] flesh like butter. His nose was eaten away. In its place, I
[1:09:20] saw a patch of ragged necrotic tissue that oozed yellowish puss and blood. His
[1:09:27] skin was as dark as obsidian and seemed to glow with a similar iridescence.
[1:09:34] Hallo, there, hardener, the gnashing things said in a slow takes a
[1:09:41] straw. I looked away from its inhuman eyes seen Stephanie, petrified in the
[1:09:47] doorway of the tent. She held a long buck knife in one hand and
[1:09:51] a canister of osy tear gas spray in the other. I opened my mouth,
[1:09:58] but nothing came out. What do you want from us, Stephanie asked
[1:10:03] in a quivering voice. The creature's mutilated cheeks parted, showing more clusters of
[1:10:11] teeth growing out of every spot in his gums like a tumor. Everything.
[1:10:17] He said in a slow drawl. I want everything. I raised a barrel
[1:10:28] towards his head, my finger tight on the trigger. You want to rob
[1:10:32] us? Is that it? I asked. The creature laughed, a tortured
[1:10:38] sound like shattering bones and grinding metal. I don't give a damn about this
[1:10:44] crappy look around. It ain't worth a damn to me. I want everything
[1:10:50] from you and the girl. We square on that. I'm going to give
[1:10:57] you three seconds to get out of my sight, I said, Before I
[1:11:00] start. The creature's hand came up on a freakishly long arm. The arm
[1:11:05] seemed to lengthen, breaking and regroan as it twisted towards me and fired.
[1:11:12] As it smacked me hard on the head, I saw stars and went sprawling,
[1:11:16] the pistol flying off and landing on the concrete a few feet away.
[1:11:23] The abomination grabbed a screaming, crying Stephanie from the tent, carrying her under
[1:11:28] one arm as if he were simply moving an irate toddler. He threw her
[1:11:33] in front of him. I saw with horror, and my shot missed him.
[1:11:41] I am the true king of this world, he hissed as he knelt
[1:11:45] down over her. Aye and the endless void between galaxies and the spinning black
[1:11:51] holes that rip apart whorlds ay am forever. Fire poured out of his hands
[1:12:00] and arms like lava. As Stephanie lay on the ground, her eyes went
[1:12:05] wide as the first of the flames bit into her skin. I saw a
[1:12:11] chest and stomach caught fire as if it had been sprayed with gasoline. With
[1:12:15] an animalistic strength, she jumped up, still burning, She tried to grab
[1:12:21] the man in a bare hug. The fires spread to his body, but
[1:12:26] he quickly pushed her away. The fire spread up and down her clothes,
[1:12:30] into her hair. Her face began to melt as she gave an ear splitting
[1:12:35] streak of pure agony. Drops of liquid fat and burnt, sizzling blood ran
[1:12:41] from a crackling, blackening skin. I love to watch them dance, he
[1:12:48] gurgled in a diseased, raspy voice. Stephanie jumped from a leg to leg,
[1:12:55] putting her arms straight in front of her body to try and keep them
[1:12:59] from the flames covered rung a torso with a fire seemed to have an inner
[1:13:02] life spreading across a flesh, as if rivers of napalm flowed over a body.
[1:13:10] I grabbed the gun, running over, I put it into the back
[1:13:13] of the man's head and pulled the trigger. The fire had started to spread
[1:13:17] across his chest, but he had no facial expression. He stood there,
[1:13:24] grinning like a skull. Thick chunks of black flesh burst out in his destroyed
[1:13:31] skull. I saw no blood or organs, with thousands of tiny dark worms
[1:13:36] writhing and slithering. He fell forwards a few feet away. Stephanie also finally
[1:13:44] collapsed, still twitching and screaming, and ran over to her. Pulling a
[1:13:49] water bottle from my backpack. I poured it on her, but it was
[1:13:54] like pouring a bottle of water on a bonfire. It sizzled and hissed as
[1:13:59] it turned to steam, putting out a small portion along her chest for a
[1:14:02] few moments within the fire flickered back up. She gave a choked death,
[1:14:09] gasped seconds later, and stopped moving. Her body had become little more than
[1:14:15] a blackened husk. By this point, I looked at the evil inhuman thing
[1:14:21] that had done this to my horror. I saw his hands clenching and unclenching,
[1:14:29] his legs twitching. The black worms had started to restitch his skull back
[1:14:32] together, the tiny heads poking out through the wound and moving tissue around like
[1:14:39] diligent little laborers. Sickened, I ran. The landscape had started to change.
[1:14:48] Rocky cliffs now loomed overhead, dozens of feet high. I stumbled up
[1:14:55] the rock faces and eventually found a small cave. I crawled in and with
[1:15:00] my flashlight finish this journal. I know this will be my last diary,
[1:15:09] my last will and testament, left in some rocky cave of a destroyed world,
[1:15:15] because the true king of this world is on his way here, and
[1:15:20] he loves to watch people dance. Have you ever experienced something that shock you
[1:15:35] to your very core, something that makes you remember every single little detail of
[1:15:42] your surroundings from that moment in time, even years after, I can remember
[1:15:48] so vividly the moment I've realized something was wrong with me. I was in
[1:15:56] my junior year of high school, sitting in class, just like any other
[1:16:00] day. I remember the smell of the razors and cheap cologne that permeated off
[1:16:04] my classmate who sat next to me. I remember the scratchy tag of my
[1:16:10] T shirt and how I was resisting taking it off in the middle of class,
[1:16:14] just to cut it off. I remember what my teacher, Missus Brown,
[1:16:18] was talking about the fall of Constantinople. My mouth felt dry, and
[1:16:25] I kept looking at the clock, counting down the minutes until I had lunch
[1:16:30] so I could get a soda. The sound of a pen clicking behind me
[1:16:33] was synchronized with the song that was stuck in my head. All those things
[1:16:40] were going through my brain at once. My ADHD mind went a million miles
[1:16:45] per hour. When it all came down to a crashing halt. When I
[1:16:48] felt it at eleven twenty three, I felt what I can only describe as
[1:16:56] a hand grabbing at the inner lining of my stock. It didn't necessarily hurt,
[1:17:03] not at this point. That's not why I got so scared. You
[1:17:09] see, not only do I have ADHD, I also have OCD that manifests
[1:17:15] itself in the fear of anything growing or moving inside me. Even if I
[1:17:20] think about the concept of blood moving in my body or a heart that is
[1:17:25] beating in my chest, I have to think of something else. I've had
[1:17:30] full blown panic attacks because of it. The closest term for this is tocophobia.
[1:17:36] That's technically the fear of pregnancy. I'm a guy, so it's not
[1:17:42] completely accurate, but it's really the closest term. I mean, I also
[1:17:46] have a huge fear of pregnancy, not necessarily of me being pregnant, but
[1:17:51] even though I knew I could never get pregnant, the thought of it made
[1:17:57] me feel sick. I bet you can imagine the terror that overcame me as
[1:18:02] I felt something moving inside me. I made an audible groan and grabbed my
[1:18:09] stomach. The whole class turned to look at me. Even my teacher stopped
[1:18:14] talking to ask if I was okay. I stood up and started to run
[1:18:18] to the nurse's office without even acknowledging my teacher. My first thought wasn't thinking
[1:18:25] that something was actually in my body. Even stomach aches and the feeling of
[1:18:30] gurgling in my stomach made me feel this way before. I didn't have anything
[1:18:35] on hand to help with the stomach ache. Unfortunately, however, the nurse
[1:18:41] always did. I sprinted across the school, hoping and praying that my stomach
[1:18:47] wouldn't make that awful feeling again. Before I got there, I turned the
[1:18:51] corner into the nurse's office with my tennis shoes, squeaking in the process.
[1:18:57] I saw the school nurse, Missus Kennedy, sitting on the couch in her
[1:19:00] office reading a magazine. She looked up at me with a sweet smile that
[1:19:06] quickly turned to worry. Sam, What is it? How can I help?
[1:19:13] She said, as she stood up and hurried over to me, putting
[1:19:15] her hand over mine with just grabbing my stomach tightly. It's it's my stomach.
[1:19:23] Something gets wrong with my stomach, I mumbled with the red face.
[1:19:29] She shuffled away over to a large medicine cabinet and she motioned for me to
[1:19:33] sit down. She asked me questions about my stomach, asking if it was
[1:19:39] pain, grumbling, cramps, nausea, et cetera. As she was asking
[1:19:44] me what my symptoms were and digging through bottles, the feeling happened again.
[1:19:50] However, this time it was different. It felt like fingers grazing against the
[1:19:58] inside of my body. I screamed and wrapped my arms around my torso Missus
[1:20:04] Kennedy ran over to me to comfort me. This seems a lot worse than
[1:20:10] normal. Maybe we should call your parents, she said as she put her
[1:20:14] hand at my back. They felt like some days I saw Missus Kennedy more
[1:20:18] than my teachers. Any small element would distract me so badly from class that
[1:20:26] I had to go see her, sometimes multiple times a day. She knew
[1:20:30] at this point when something was really wrong. Within about thirty minutes, both
[1:20:38] my parents were there with us. That may seem fast, but I'm an
[1:20:43] only child and my parents are very aware of my tendencies. They know I
[1:20:47] can spiral and like to be around if it happens. They kept asking me
[1:20:55] where the pain was. I think they assumed by the way I wasn't responding
[1:20:59] to questions, the pain must have been really bad. The reality was that
[1:21:04] I just didn't know how to tell them what was going on. I got
[1:21:10] so frustrated after they asked me over and over again that I just yelled at
[1:21:15] them, something is inside me, Get it out, Get it out.
[1:21:21] I left my shirt and was ripping at my stomach, leaving rednails, scratches
[1:21:26] and cuts. My mom and dad ran to either side of me to grab
[1:21:30] my arms. Missus Kennedy had seen me go pretty crazy, but this was
[1:21:34] the worst I've ever gotten in front of her. My parents, however,
[1:21:39] had seen a similar situation before, not exactly like this, but they didn't
[1:21:45] skip a beat on trying to help me. Sam breathe, sweetie. Just
[1:21:49] remember everything is in you for a reason. It's keeping you alive. Nothing
[1:21:55] is going to hurt you, my mom said softly to me, trying to
[1:21:59] calm down with the words. My therapist gave her ice cubes. Get him
[1:22:03] ice cubes, she said to missus Kennedy. As I started to hyper ventilate,
[1:22:10] Missus Kennedy grabbed a zip loc bag and started to fill it with ice
[1:22:13] cubes. My mom went over to her and grabbed her an ice cube right
[1:22:17] out of the bag, opened up my hand and put the ice cube in
[1:22:20] it. This worked in the past to distract me. I knew that's what
[1:22:27] she was doing, and trust me, I wanted it to work too,
[1:22:31] But this was different. I kept trying to tell myself that it was just
[1:22:36] a different feeling I hadn't felt before, that it wasn't possible. Something was
[1:22:42] physically inside my body, but I couldn't help it. Everyone in the room
[1:22:49] could see that this was getting intense. I think they assumed it was just
[1:22:55] a mental breakdown and that nothing was physically wrong with my body. But I
[1:23:00] didn't care. I just wanted help. My parents got me into the car,
[1:23:08] with my mom even sitting in the back seat with me. She kept
[1:23:12] trying to distract me with conversation when my mind was only on that awful feeling
[1:23:16] in my stomach. We pulled up to the er and my mom guided me
[1:23:21] in while holding both my wrists. I felt like she was walking me on
[1:23:27] a leash, but I didn't fight it. I knew she was just trying
[1:23:30] to stop me from scratching my stomach. We walked in and I spoke to
[1:23:36] the receptionist. All I said was that I had a terrible pain in my
[1:23:42] stomach. I didn't want to sound too crazy. I just needed a doctor
[1:23:46] to look at whatever was going on. After giving the receptionist my name and
[1:23:53] insurance information, we went to sit down. I was sitting in between my
[1:23:58] parents, and I could see my mom lean back to try and mouth something
[1:24:02] to my dad without me seeing. I didn't think much of it. I
[1:24:08] was way more worried about other things. My dad then went up to the
[1:24:13] receptionist. He pointed over to me and she looked a little concerned. I
[1:24:19] saw her pick up the clipboard that I had my information on it, and
[1:24:23] she started writing something else on it. I asked my dad what he did,
[1:24:29] and he just said not to worry, and that he wanted to let
[1:24:31] her know it was urgent. No more than ten minutes went by and I
[1:24:39] felt a terrible moving sensation. I cringed and grabbed my stomach, immediately followed
[1:24:47] by not just the feeling of her hand grabbing my insides, but also scratching
[1:24:51] and pinching. I yelled out in pain as the other people in the waiting
[1:24:56] room looked at me mortified. A doctor and a couple of nurses came running
[1:25:01] over to me and helped me up, but I couldn't stand up. I
[1:25:06] was in too much pain. They put me in a wheelchair and started to
[1:25:12] head for a room. However, they didn't take me through the normal big
[1:25:15] ear doors that went to the standard examination rooms. They took my parents and
[1:25:21] I through a smaller door to the side that I had a pad lock on
[1:25:26] it. We walked through a white hallway that was very quiet. The doctor
[1:25:32] and nurses showed us to my room and helped me into my bed as I
[1:25:36] was wriggling and wincing. I had one parent either side of me, patiently
[1:25:42] waiting to stop my arms from scratching. The doctor was trying to ask further
[1:25:48] questions, but he could tell it wasn't going anywhere. I knew that my
[1:25:54] dad probably told that receptionist about my OCD tendencies that I needed to go to
[1:25:59] the hide cord, not just to the standard side of the er. I
[1:26:04] couldn't take it anymore and blurted out that something was inside my stomach and then
[1:26:10] it was trying to get out. The doctor just looked at my parents for
[1:26:15] a reaction, and they gave him a sad nod. It was like they
[1:26:19] warned him that this could happen. The doctor didn't just think I was crazy.
[1:26:26] My parents did too. The doctor took a deep breath and came up
[1:26:30] to me. I knew I was about to hear some kind of dumb speech
[1:26:34] about how this was just my OCD and everything was going to be okay.
[1:26:41] As he came closer to me, I pulled on my shirt and he gasped.
[1:26:47] Not only was my stomach scratched aplike crazy, but we saw movement.
[1:26:56] It looked like when a pregnant woman can see a baby kicking, but this
[1:27:00] was much stronger. It was stretching my skin. My parents stood up and
[1:27:08] gasped, while the doctor looked frantic and unprepared. Damn, damn, damn,
[1:27:13] damn, damn, the doctor said, as he backed out of the
[1:27:15] room. Hang on, We're getting this taken care of. Just hang tight.
[1:27:20] Seconds later, a nurse came in to gave me some painkillers. I
[1:27:26] started to feel the pain slip away with something so much worse started to creep
[1:27:30] in. I heard her voice, not my own, not some creepy sounding
[1:27:39] creature, but the voice of a normal sounding man that I'd never heard before.
[1:27:45] But that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was what he was
[1:27:51] saying to me, Get me out, Get me out, Get me out.
[1:27:59] It started in a normal tone, but slowly became more urgent and rushed,
[1:28:03] then demanding. The voice would coincide with a movement inside me. It
[1:28:11] was getting so loud that I was having a hard time hearing the people around
[1:28:14] me. The doctor came in just a few minutes after I last saw him.
[1:28:19] He was red and sweaty, like he'd just run a marathon. He
[1:28:24] told me they needed a zoo, just a few tests and what was inside
[1:28:27] me before taking action. I was trying so hard to pay attention to the
[1:28:32] words coming out of his mouth, but all I could hear was the voice.
[1:28:38] The voice stopped for just a second and changed what he was saying.
[1:28:43] Now he was repeating, cut me out, cut me out, cut me
[1:28:46] out now. I now knew this thing didn't just want out, but it
[1:28:53] wanted out now. I begged the doctor to just get it out now,
[1:28:58] but he wouldn't listen. The voice spoke up again, this is taking too
[1:29:03] long. Don't be afraid. Get me out yourself. I think it could
[1:29:10] feel me resisting him without realizing it. I was looking around the room for
[1:29:15] something. It was like I didn't have control over my head or eyes anymore.
[1:29:20] I knew the voice was looking for a knife, but I was trying
[1:29:25] to ignore the feeling. I knew there weren't any knives around. I was
[1:29:29] in a very safe place. Just as I had the feeling I was safe,
[1:29:35] it was immediately taken away. The thought passed through my head that my
[1:29:41] dad probably had a pocket knife on him. My heart sank. I knew
[1:29:46] this thing could hear my thoughts. I knew what it would try to do.
[1:29:53] The next thing I knew, I was on my feet leaping for my
[1:29:56] dad my body it is luckily it's in pretty good shape for his age,
[1:30:01] and had no problem putting me in my place. He got on top of
[1:30:05] me and pinned me to the ground. All the while I could barely hear
[1:30:10] my mom in the background yelling at my dad to be careful. My dad
[1:30:15] knew something was going on and that I just needed to be on the ground
[1:30:19] until I calmed down. My body tried to flail, but it wasn't successful.
[1:30:26] The whole time. The voice in my head now yelling and screaming,
[1:30:30] not saying any distinguishable words, but just having what felt like a tantrum.
[1:30:36] What made my dad the most uncomfortable was the kicking feeling coming from my stomach.
[1:30:45] After a couple of minutes, the voice calmed down and I felt in
[1:30:48] charge of my body again. My dad slowly got up and attempted to help
[1:30:54] me up. At this point, with an audience of hospital staff the lord,
[1:31:00] it's like they were getting ready to take me somewhere for more tests.
[1:31:04] Just as I stood up, I felt the voice take over and I lost
[1:31:09] all sense of my own body. I felt like a shell of myself.
[1:31:15] My dad gave me a soft, yet worried smile, and in that instance,
[1:31:19] I grabbed him and reached into his pocket. My heart sank as I
[1:31:26] felt his pocket knife. The room started to panic and about five people tried
[1:31:31] to grab it from me. The last thing I remember is plunging the knife
[1:31:36] into my stomach. I felt a blinding pain and everything went black. Several
[1:31:48] hours later, I started to wake up. Everything was extremely blurry and fuzzy.
[1:31:57] I could hear a faint voice telling me to relax. As the minutes
[1:32:01] passed by, things started to get a little bit clearer. I looked around
[1:32:08] and saw I was in a large room with a few other patients. A
[1:32:13] nurse was going up to all the beds and checking in on them. I
[1:32:16] tried to sit up a bit to get more comfortable. I moved my hospital
[1:32:20] gown out of the way and saw a huge scar about six inches across.
[1:32:28] Most of the scar looked very surgical, like what I'd imagine a sea section
[1:32:31] surgery would look like, except where I remembered the knife going in. It
[1:32:39] looked like a bunch of extra stitches had to be added where it went in.
[1:32:44] It also looked pretty bruised. I can imagine that a dull ten year
[1:32:47] old knife that was harshly shoved into a body really wouldn't clean cut through and
[1:32:54] leave some damage. The feeling of shock from looking at my stomach was quickly
[1:32:59] gone when I realized that meant whatever was in me was now gone. I
[1:33:05] didn't hear the voice, I didn't feel a hand in my gun anymore.
[1:33:10] I didn't see that vile kicking anymore. I felt like I could breathe.
[1:33:17] I asked the nurse what they found, and she looked flush. Ah,
[1:33:24] that's something that you are. Your doctor will talk to you once you eat
[1:33:30] something and can speak clearly, she said, as she scurried off, looking
[1:33:33] upset. Shortly after that, I was wheeled into a recovery room and my
[1:33:41] parents came to see me. As they walked in, they had a very
[1:33:46] similar look on their faces as the nurse did. They looked pale and didn't
[1:33:51] want to look me in the eyes. I kept asking them questions about what
[1:33:56] was going on. They said the doctor needed to discuss it with me,
[1:34:00] and he wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling high from the anesthesia. While
[1:34:04] we had the conversation. The doctor didn't come and see me for another ten
[1:34:11] hours, which felt strange. And to add to the strangeness, my parents
[1:34:17] were taking shifts hanging out with me. There was only overlap when they switched
[1:34:23] and the other parent took over while the other one left the room. I
[1:34:29] would understand if they weren't both with me for the whole time. I'm not
[1:34:32] that needy, but they were only both in the room together for about an
[1:34:36] hour. That was the hour before the doctor came to my room. Finally,
[1:34:45] the doctor came in to talk to me. When he walked in,
[1:34:49] the room was cold and quiet. It was evident he didn't feel the same
[1:34:55] relief I was feeling. He seemed awkward, like it was taking way too
[1:35:00] long to get over to me. He grabbed a chair and scooted it close
[1:35:05] to me. Listen, Sam, I know this last twenty four hours has
[1:35:11] been very challenging. I apologize for not explaining what happened during your surgery sooner,
[1:35:17] but we all needed time to figure it out and quite frankly, process
[1:35:23] what happened. We feel we have enough information to let you in on what
[1:35:29] is going on. The silence filled the room if I lu like no one
[1:35:34] was brave enough to break it, and I asked, with confusion, I
[1:35:42] think it'll be easier if we just show you. The doctor, along with
[1:35:49] my parents, helped me into a wheelchair and we started to make a way
[1:35:54] across the hospital to an entirely different section. I couldn't believe all the things
[1:36:00] running through my head and what we were about to see. It felt like
[1:36:05] cruel and unusual punishment to leave me in anticipation and not just tell me what
[1:36:11] I was about to see. When I went around the corner, I couldn't
[1:36:17] process what I was looking at. I thought there were showing me a large
[1:36:21] tumor or growth of some kind, or why would a tumor be in a
[1:36:27] big incubation chamber with tubes connected to ivs and machines coming out of it.
[1:36:33] As I got closer, I started to see human features on it. It
[1:36:40] was mostly just a six foot lump of flesh, but I could see a
[1:36:44] handsticking out of it. It was small, but what made it creepy because
[1:36:49] it looked like a fully developed man's hand, just small. I could see
[1:36:57] a patch of hair coming out of what I assumed was it head. It
[1:37:00] had no discernible facial features, just a few teeth scattered in one section.
[1:37:08] As I looked at it with disgust, coming to terms with this thing,
[1:37:12] I was just in my body. I had a realization I wasn't feeling sick
[1:37:18] at the thought of something being in my body. Sure, I was grossed
[1:37:24] out that this particular thing was just in me, with the thought of bacteria
[1:37:29] in my body didn't make me want to throw up. I thought about all
[1:37:33] the blood pomping through my veins, and I felt normal. Not only was
[1:37:42] the voice and kicking on, but my OCD was gone too. It was
[1:37:46] just this thing trying to find its way out for years. As I was
[1:37:54] staring at the creature, the doctor came and put his hand on my shoulder.
[1:38:00] We believe this is your twin brother. I immediately looked up on my
[1:38:08] parents, who looked very disturbed and upset. I let the doctor finish talking.
[1:38:15] We believe that you absorbed him in the womb, and that he's been
[1:38:18] living inside you your whole life. This is an extremely rare condition called fetus
[1:38:25] and fetu. It seems he didn't quite have the best opportunity to develop normally.
[1:38:30] That's why he looks the way he does. Despite his appearance, he
[1:38:34] has all the organs he needs to survive. Looks like he's missing a lung
[1:38:39] and his gall bladder, also a bit of his liver, but other than
[1:38:44] that, it looks like he will live for at least a few years.
[1:38:48] He won't be able to leave this room due to him needing a feeding tube
[1:38:51] and a few other things that his body cannot do on its own. He
[1:38:56] needs a lot of support just to live. Makes this situation extremely unique is
[1:39:01] that your twin is still alive despite your body not sustaining him anymore, even
[1:39:08] though we have him hugged up to a few ivs and machines. It is
[1:39:12] unexplainable how he is living outside of your body. I was in complete shock.
[1:39:21] I didn't want to believe it. I asked my mom why she never
[1:39:26] told me I absorbed to my twin in the womb, and she said she
[1:39:29] had no clue. It was never a sign when she was pregnant with me.
[1:39:34] He also mentioned that sometimes, even in pregnancies, women will go their
[1:39:39] whole pregnancy without even getting a belly. It's called a cryptic pregnancy. I've
[1:39:45] always had a bit of a gut, but never anything big enough to cause
[1:39:49] suspicion. I guess in my case, I had a fetus feed too,
[1:39:55] and an experienced similar to cryptic pregnancy, even though it was in my stomach.
[1:40:01] At least, that was the doctor's best guess. Although it all sounded
[1:40:05] like BS to me, the doctor or my parents kept trying to explain more
[1:40:12] and more details to me. I don't know why they didn't slow down a
[1:40:15] little bit for my sake. How could they not tell I wasn't processing any
[1:40:20] of this. I noticed something while they were trying to explain things to me.
[1:40:28] He kept calling it he Now, listen, I'm not some kind of
[1:40:34] asshole who won't respect someone who wants to be called a specific pronoun. I've
[1:40:39] never been that kind of person. But this is where I draw the line.
[1:40:45] Not just that, but this thing had a name. My parents named
[1:40:48] it and said it was his birthday. While they told me all this information,
[1:40:55] he didn't look happy about it. It seemed like they were forced to
[1:40:59] do this nonsense, and now it was my turn to be convinced. I
[1:41:04] could tell they were trying to force it. The doctor told me, despite
[1:41:10] it not having a high probability for a long life, that we should still
[1:41:15] try and give it all the love it deserves. Of course, the doctor
[1:41:19] referred to it as a he, but I refuse to. This thing disgusted
[1:41:26] me. This thing tried to kill me and ruined my quality of life for
[1:41:30] so long, and now we're going to treat it like it's some kind of
[1:41:33] prince. No. Absolutely not. Luckily, it seemed like it would never
[1:41:42] leave the hospital, but my parents planned on going to visit it daily,
[1:41:47] visiting it. Are you kidding me? It has no eyes, no ears,
[1:41:53] It's probably miserable, and has no concert of people even being around it.
[1:41:58] I'm refusing to I ever see this thing again or acknowledge its existence.
[1:42:04] I could get in trouble for even talking about this. The hospital or anyone
[1:42:10] involved has signed NDAs to not share any information about this until it officially dies.
[1:42:17] This is because it's a medical anomaly and the first of its kind.
[1:42:21] They want to do the proper research and how this all occurred before coming out
[1:42:27] with a statement. I just have to get this all off my chest.
[1:42:31] I feel like I'm the crazy one here when I know I'm not. I
[1:42:36] don't care if I get in trouble. I'm scared that the doctors are trying
[1:42:41] to force my parents into giving this thing a proper life. I think that's
[1:42:45] why it took them so long to tell me. I think they scared my
[1:42:49] parents into keeping it alive and guilting them, or even forcing them into being
[1:42:55] its parents. I'm all for every life being important and all that, but
[1:43:00] I have a feeling my parents are terrified of this thing, just like I
[1:43:04] am. I'm convinced they gasped at my parents into believing this thing is my
[1:43:11] brother. If there wasn't any sign of him while my mom was pregnant with
[1:43:15] me, could this thing be something else. This all happened about two years
[1:43:21] ago. It's still alive and they're still researching it. My parents continue to
[1:43:28] visit it despite everything. My therapist told me that I'm probably just struggling with
[1:43:33] jealousy now that I'm not an only child anymore and so much are my parents's
[1:43:39] attention is on him now. But it's so much bigger than just jealousy.
[1:43:45] Since this thing showed up and my OCD is pretty much gone, I've hardly
[1:43:50] seen my parents. I know I'm not just jealous. There is something more
[1:43:56] to this, I know it. Something just feels off about this whole thing.
[1:44:03] What is this thing? Where did it come from? And what does
[1:44:10] it want? I had a rough time as a kid. I suffered from
[1:44:24] both hem and geomas and spotty hair loss, two conditions that would go away
[1:44:30] the closer I got to my teenage years. But for those first few years
[1:44:34] I was a social prior. I looked strange, which was enough to draw
[1:44:41] unwanted attention. Some kids thought I had a kind of mange what others just
[1:44:45] didn't like to look at me. My parents didn't make it easier for me,
[1:44:50] forcing me to bring various creams that I had to apply during school hours.
[1:44:57] I ended up trying to make my own fun. I made my own
[1:45:00] friends in my head, and I played a lot of board games on my
[1:45:04] own. My parents were going through a divorce and both swore off having any
[1:45:10] more children, so I ended up as an only child. Most of my
[1:45:15] made up friends were just the plaything. I could tell it was all just
[1:45:20] for fun and that they weren't real. I didn't see them or hear them.
[1:45:26] I made up little stories in my head, trying to imagine what they
[1:45:30] would do if they were there. I could get really into it. I
[1:45:34] had this one imaginary friend who always tried to cheat in games, so when
[1:45:39] I played with him at the table, I'd move the pieces in a way
[1:45:43] he would and thus cheat. Another friend was obsessed with lemonade, so I
[1:45:48] always brought an extra glass for him. When I was seven years old,
[1:45:57] there was a new friend. This one was different. I could really see
[1:46:02] him. I knew he was just as fake as the rest of them,
[1:46:06] as he only appeared when I was alone and playing. But he was strange.
[1:46:14] I hadn't imagined him for a specific purpose. I didn't come up with
[1:46:17] a name for him. I don't know anything about him. Even if I
[1:46:23] would pretend not to know the cheetah and the lemonade enthusiast to try of conversation,
[1:46:28] This one was a genuine mystery. He was scary. He looked like
[1:46:35] a person, but sort of stretched at least seven feet tall, pale,
[1:46:43] flaking gray skin. He was super thin and had this sort of hanging face,
[1:46:48] like his skin was slouching. He reminded me of a wet towel hanging
[1:46:54] off a rack, and his eyes well empty. There was nothing there.
[1:47:03] He was super quiet and rarely moved. I'd usually forget he was even there
[1:47:11] unless he made his little sound, a sort of teeth chatter. It was
[1:47:16] like a tick, sometimes a single click. Other times he'd just stand there,
[1:47:23] chattering excitedly, clack clack clack. At first, I just asked him
[1:47:30] to go away. He didn't talk, and he didn't answer my questions.
[1:47:34] No matter what I played, he refused to participate or even acknowledge me.
[1:47:41] He just wanted to be there. Most of the time, he was a
[1:47:46] nuisance. He'd scare me. I'd wake up to that noise of chattering teeth
[1:47:51] at night, or he did click right next to my ear when I played
[1:47:56] my board games. Over time, from scary to frustrating, he was just
[1:48:04] being a bother. But there was that time in middle school that changed the
[1:48:10] way I viewed him. There was a new kid in school. It was
[1:48:14] an infamous bully, let's call him Ian. He'd been moved from another school
[1:48:19] where it had been a menace. No one really knew what to do with
[1:48:23] him, so they just sort of moved him around, and now it was
[1:48:28] our turn to deal with him, and of course I was a clear target.
[1:48:34] Ian started calling me scabs and it kind of caught on. The sick
[1:48:40] dog of the class now had a name that others clung to, and it
[1:48:44] wasn't a good one. But it didn't end there. One day after school,
[1:48:50] he took things too far, spurred on my cheers and laughter from my
[1:48:55] classmates. I was beaten, bloody. While I was beaten, the others
[1:49:00] went inside to get some scissors. They were gonna cut my mangy hair.
[1:49:06] When it was just me and Ian, I heard that teeth chattering noise again.
[1:49:14] I could see the strange figure in the background. My first thought was
[1:49:18] that he was there to mock me too, but to my surprise, it
[1:49:25] had other plans. It leaned in, unhinged its massive jaw, and took
[1:49:33] a bite out of Ian's ear, tearing it in half. There was instant
[1:49:40] pandemonium. Ian turned around, not looking at me, but straight at his
[1:49:45] assailant. He could see him too, blood and screams panic. Ian scrambled
[1:49:58] like a scared dog, dripping over his own legs to get away. The
[1:50:01] others came running back to but as they saw what had happened, they'd all
[1:50:05] had a collective gasp. Seeing them step back was empowering. They turned and
[1:50:13] ran, screaming and pointing. They hadn't seen what Ian and I had they
[1:50:17] thought I'd done it. He took it, He took it into here.
[1:50:23] The kids ran away, They ran like their heads were on fire. I
[1:50:29] sat there for a moment, my body pulsing with bruises and shock. The
[1:50:34] strange creature approached me. His teeth had stopped chattering, replaced with chewing,
[1:50:42] slowly savoring a meal. For all the hell it had given me, this
[1:50:50] was grotesque. My adrenaline had spiked, and I just said the first thing
[1:50:57] that came to mind. Maybe it didn't really want to hurt me, Maybe
[1:51:00] it was there for some other reason. Either way, I said what I
[1:51:05] said. You're just a big softy, aren't you. I sniffled, You're
[1:51:12] a big softy, Big softy. It wheezed back. It was less of
[1:51:23] a voice and more of a throbbing wind. Its lips didn't move, Big
[1:51:30] softy, It continued, M yeah you are. I nodded, that's you.
[1:51:42] It leaneding close, inspecting me. It didn't breathe name, It hissed
[1:51:51] free. I stared into those hollow sockets, waiting for something to happened,
[1:52:00] a smile, a breath, anything, but no. I blinked, and
[1:52:09] big softie it was no longer there. Sometimes violence solves things. While that
[1:52:18] brawl didn't make me popular, it stopped kids from teasing me. Classmates began
[1:52:25] using my regular name again. Sure there was still whispers and the occasional side
[1:52:30] eye, but that was still an immense improvement. No one spoke about that
[1:52:35] fight, though. I didn't want to get in trouble for the year,
[1:52:40] and he didn't want to get in trouble for bullying me, So we kept
[1:52:44] it to ourselves and never spoke of it again, and seemed fine with sitting
[1:52:48] quietly and not talking to anyone about it. He changed, and Big Softy
[1:52:58] well, he sort of disappeared. It's like he'd done his job and went
[1:53:02] on his merry way. For a couple of years that followed, I thought
[1:53:08] he just might have been a figment of my imagination. Maybe I was the
[1:53:13] one who really bitty and and this whole thing was just a way to cope
[1:53:15] with that trauma. It had to be something of the sort imaginary friends don't
[1:53:23] affect the real world. Then again, giving him a name, even a
[1:53:28] nickname, seemed to have encouraged him was something worse. Most of my afflictions
[1:53:36] cleared up in high school, and I found a solid group of like minded
[1:53:41] youths. Over time, all little dream friends faded from memory. The one
[1:53:46] who cheated, the one who loved lemonade, a hundred others who I can't
[1:53:51] even remember, the way they looked, the way they sounded, their names
[1:53:56] and quirks. They all went away. But Big Softie stayed at my mind
[1:54:03] realer than any of them. The hollow eyes, the chattering teeth. It
[1:54:10] was strange how the most horrifying of all my imaginary friends turned out to be
[1:54:14] the one who stuck around the longest. The time passed, high school turned
[1:54:20] to college, college turned to work, and by the time I was twenty
[1:54:25] seven I had a pretty cozy life going. But even then, despite not
[1:54:30] having seen or heard that childhood friend of mine, Big Softie, still drifted
[1:54:35] in my dreams every now and then. I wish I could end this story
[1:54:42] here. It'd just be a strange anecdote about something that happened to me as
[1:54:45] a kid. Sadly that's not the case. What began as an unusual child
[1:54:54] of curiosity turned into a waking nightmare. In twenty nineteen, and I was
[1:55:01] in a pretty good place. I was six months into a promotion that added
[1:55:05] a flat fifteen percent of my salary, and I was finally getting back into
[1:55:11] dating after a messy break up a couple of months earlier. Nothing serious,
[1:55:15] but it felt good to shake off the cobwebs. I was coming home from
[1:55:19] a long day of overtime and had to stop for gas, nothing I hadn't
[1:55:25] done a hundred times before. I got myself a slim gym and told the
[1:55:29] long haired man behind the counter that I wanted thirty on punt two. I
[1:55:33] handed over my card and checked my phone for a moment, clack teeth turning
[1:55:45] around nothing. I could feel my pulse spiking for no apparent reason. I
[1:55:53] became hyper aware of my surroundings. You have had light and the faint whiff
[1:55:58] of gasoline. That one noise brought me straight back to middle school. It
[1:56:02] sent this cold spike straight into my head, as if I could picture that
[1:56:06] hollowed out face in front of me. I snapped out of it with a
[1:56:12] beat from the cash register. I thanked the cashier and headed for the door.
[1:56:17] Just before I left, I turned back around to them, Excuse me,
[1:56:23] but did you hear something strange just now? No, can't say I
[1:56:29] did. Sorry, did you click your tongue or something. Can't say I
[1:56:32] did, sir, I nodded, of course they didn't. The same sensation
[1:56:40] came back to me on four different occasions, once when I was closing the
[1:56:45] blinds in my bedroom, once when getting the mail at work, another time
[1:56:49] when stuck in traffic, and once when I was about to answer a phone
[1:56:54] call. I ended up missing it. It was such a strange reminder.
[1:57:00] It had it come out of nowhere, and now it was starting to become
[1:57:04] a daily annoyance for the life of me. I couldn't figure out where it
[1:57:11] was coming from. There wasn't really a direction. It was just like in
[1:57:16] my head. He was there everywhere, nowhere and inside clack, and yet
[1:57:27] Big Softy was yet to be seen. I was having trouble focusing on work.
[1:57:33] I couldn't push my intrusive thoughts out, and I ended up doing some
[1:57:38] digging on social media, looking up all the acquaintances from work, folks I
[1:57:44] hadn't seen or heard from in years. Some had started families, others had
[1:57:48] moved far away from work or studies. There were a handful of them still
[1:57:53] left in Minnesota. One face stood out to me, though. Ian turns
[1:58:01] out he was still around. The moment I got home from work, I
[1:58:09] went straight to my computer. I looked up Ian on some of the more
[1:58:13] common social media sites. The man had no privacy settings. Most of it
[1:58:19] was just nonsense pictures of him having beers with the boys, a couple of
[1:58:25] nice cars, group pictures of random people with generic nicknames. This was a
[1:58:30] man that wanted to express nothing more than being hashtag Friday Blest. But looking
[1:58:38] a little closer, there are a few cracks in the facade. For example,
[1:58:43] there are a couple more recent comments he'd made to a few friends of
[1:58:46] his. God doesn't just send angels to protect you, he said in one
[1:58:50] post. Sometimes he sends demons to test you. Looking a bit closer revealed
[1:58:58] a lot more pain. That was Fredley parent Ian was taking medication for schizophrenia.
[1:59:03] He was overcoming a drinking problem. He seemed to constantly be bouncing between
[1:59:09] complete disregard for others and hysterical with regret for his actions. He could be
[1:59:14] fighting for forgiveness in one post and bragging about stealing from work in the next.
[1:59:19] The man was a mess, a complete mess, and that half missing
[1:59:26] ear of his didn't do him any favors. No matter how many tattoos he
[1:59:30] put on his neck to divert the attention. But one particular post caught my
[1:59:35] attention. He was discussing lifestyle challenges with a local youth pastor and old acquaintance
[1:59:43] we had in common, and they were at a disagreement. Ian spat out,
[1:59:48] I don't deny my goddamn problems. I know what they look like,
[1:59:51] I know their names. I see their teeth, see their teeth. Ah.
[2:00:00] Furthermore, no one seemed to have seen him for a while. For
[2:00:03] all intents and purposes, Ian had sort of fallen off the face of the
[2:00:08] earth, leaving behind one last cryptic post. It's getting too real. The
[2:00:15] post said, it's too close, and with that he posted nothing more.
[2:00:23] I checked the dates my notes and made some deductions. The final post of
[2:00:29] this was written the same day I first started hearing the teeth chattering noise.
[2:00:33] Again. That couldn't be a coincidence. It just couldn't. I didn't find
[2:00:42] out anything else about him, and the sound of teeth chattering with horrible timing,
[2:00:47] was getting worse. Once I had to pull over in traffic to start
[2:00:51] my heart from racing, I could have sworn I saw that hollowed out face
[2:00:56] in my rear view mirror. I was so frustrated that I smacked my hands
[2:01:00] on my dashboard so hard I got a bruise. By the time I got
[2:01:05] home, I was nervous and stressed. I threw off my jacket, stormed
[2:01:11] into the kitchen and cracked open a coke. I slammed the door shut so
[2:01:15] hard I knocked one of the fridge magnets on to the floor. A little
[2:01:19] blue sunflower who came with the place. Leaning back against the fridge, my
[2:01:27] heart skipped a beat. Big Softy was right there, just a few feet
[2:01:34] away, looking right at me. Clack clack, clack. I dropped my
[2:01:43] can of coke as it hit the floor. I blinked. In the next
[2:01:47] moment, I was alone again, clutching my chest. I picked the can
[2:01:54] up, wiped up the spill with a couple of paper towels, try my
[2:01:58] best to calm down. This was getting out of hand. I hadn't regained
[2:02:03] my composure before there was another sound and knock on the door. It surprised
[2:02:10] me. I wasn't expecting company. I lumbered over to the door, flustered
[2:02:15] and shaky. I put my hand on the handle then stopped. Maybe there
[2:02:24] was a reason I'd seen that thing. Maybe it wasn't just psychosis. What
[2:02:30] if it meant something? Could it have something to do with whoever or whatever
[2:02:34] was on the other side of the door. I can shoot you through the
[2:02:39] door, A muffled voice said, Open. I froze, one hand on
[2:02:45] the door handle, another hand on my phone. I was stuck. I
[2:02:50] couldn't make myself move. I won't ask again Open. I didn't know what
[2:02:59] to say. I turned the handle and carefully stepped back. Ian he looked
[2:03:06] like he'd gone through hell to get here, un washed hair, unkempt beard,
[2:03:12] and a shiny new handgun pointed at me. His hands were shaking.
[2:03:16] He wasn't kidding around. His fingers trembled. He was trying to pull the
[2:03:21] trigger. Ian I said reflexively, you what do you? Shut up?
[2:03:29] He spat, just shut up. He raised the handgun, staring me down.
[2:03:34] The sound of his own name shook him. It has to end,
[2:03:39] I can't. His aim faltered. He looked away. A second later,
[2:03:45] he pushed me back and entered my apartment, closing the door behind him.
[2:03:51] He led me into the kitchen. There were still wet paper towels on the
[2:03:56] floor from my spilled drink. Sit down, he said, pointing to a
[2:04:00] chair. Keep your hands on the table. I did as he said.
[2:04:06] There was a sudden quiet between us, as if he hadn't planned this far.
[2:04:13] There was a clear uncertainty to his actions, which just made it worse.
[2:04:17] I couldn't tell what he'd do next. I need you to to make
[2:04:23] it stop, he said. It has to stop, It has to I
[2:04:28] just can't. Don't tell me you can't. He raised his gun, stepping
[2:04:31] closer. My whole body felt cooler. His blood rushed to my arms and
[2:04:36] legs. Don't you tell me that, he repeated, Now make it stop.
[2:04:44] Before I got a chance to say, you'll do anything, he sat
[2:04:46] down across from me, gun still pointed in my direction. One wrong move,
[2:04:54] a twitch, anything, and it'd be over my own. Forgot to
[2:05:00] breathe. I know it's yours. It's been yours for always, he continued,
[2:05:06] scratching his hair. But it's too much, it's gone too far.
[2:05:12] So okay, I tried to click my thoughts. You're talking about him with
[2:05:18] the teeth. Don't act like you don't know its name being groaned. Don't
[2:05:24] you dare we looked at one another and said it in unison. Big Softy.
[2:05:35] The moment we said it, I could see him emerging from the shadows
[2:05:40] in the back of the kitchen. I tried my best, not a gasp,
[2:05:44] but look his way. He's in my head every night. I hear
[2:05:48] him all the time. He continued, a damn click, clacking right in
[2:05:56] my ear, sometimes in my face, like he wants to take a bite.
[2:06:01] I'm not controlling that, I said, carefully, picking my words.
[2:06:06] I haven't seen him in decades. Even know how bad you missed up,
[2:06:13] he said, squinting with disbelief. You named it. They saw. They
[2:06:17] need to go off. They need a name, They need to be made
[2:06:23] real. And you. He raised this gun, growing more determined by the
[2:06:28] second you made him real, removed, this time to the bathroom. I
[2:06:36] didn't have any say in the matter, having a gun pointed straight at me.
[2:06:43] Somewhere off in the background, I could see the vague shape of Big
[2:06:46] Softy moving soundlessly from one room to another. I can't control it, I
[2:06:54] said, I have nothing to I don't care, but this is pointless.
[2:06:58] There's nothing. I don't care. If you go away, his name goes
[2:07:01] away. You don't know that. I was pushed through the bathroom door and
[2:07:08] to the back of my shower. I tripped, coming down hard on my
[2:07:12] tailbone. The ceramic tiles felt icy cold against my sweaty palms, and I
[2:07:16] could smell a bit of chlorine from the cleaning supplies. He raised his gun
[2:07:24] and this was it, Big Softy, I said, That's that's all I
[2:07:29] did. I called it a goddamn nickname. I don't deserve to die for
[2:07:32] that. He's resolved, faltered. He scratched his head again, groaning,
[2:07:40] but more so I could see Big Softy just outside the room. Was he
[2:07:45] getting closer? Big Softy? I said again, my eyes darting to the
[2:07:51] door. I was a scared kid. It just slipped out. Don't you
[2:07:56] dare put this on me? He said, don't you dare. I observed
[2:08:01] the creature. It was approaching. Every time I said its name, it
[2:08:07] got a little closer, looking ian dead in the eye. I took a
[2:08:13] deep breath. This was it, Big Softy, I said, Big Softy,
[2:08:18] Big Softy, What the hell? I kept repeating it over and over
[2:08:24] and over. He might do something, he might not. Either way,
[2:08:30] I had to try. But by the sixth time I said it, that
[2:08:33] enormous, looming creature was inches behind Ian. For more so, it was
[2:08:41] changing, not by a lot, but enough for me to notice it was
[2:08:48] smiling. Ian raised his gun at me and pulled the trigger at the same
[2:08:56] time I said the name for verse seventh and final time. The shot went
[2:09:05] wild as an unhinged jaw came down on Ian's shoulder. There was a scream,
[2:09:11] a spurt of blood on the bathroom mirror, a flailing arm hitting the
[2:09:15] light switch, turning a gruesome scene into a shadow theater. Impossibly thin hands
[2:09:20] wrapping around a throat, twisting his neck like a toothpaste cap, crunching,
[2:09:28] ripping, chewing, teeth, teeth teeth, clack, clack clack, laughter,
[2:09:37] other worldly, ethereal laughter. I have no idea how long it went
[2:09:43] on. Ian didn't even have time to beg the handgun clattered to the ground.
[2:09:50] It was just me and this thing alone in the dark bathroom. I
[2:09:58] couldn't speak. I just curled up into a ball and tried my best to
[2:10:03] ignore the viscera running into the train next to me. There was a slight
[2:10:09] creaking sound as old knees bent. A hot breath in my face Big Softy
[2:10:16] could breathe. It seemed nice name, it said. The voice was different,
[2:10:28] real, tangible. I could hear vibrations in his throat. This was
[2:10:33] no longer a figment of my imagination. Going it continued aye, I could
[2:10:46] hear something getting dragged out of the apartment. I heard doors open and close,
[2:10:52] and god knows how long I realized I was sitting there, shaking like
[2:10:56] a dry leaf in the wind. My stomach turned at the idea of turning
[2:11:01] on the light, but I had to. I got up and reached for
[2:11:05] the light switch, almost tripping on the handgun and something slippery clinging to it
[2:11:13] fingers. I flipped the switch and I broke. I won't go into detail
[2:11:22] of what I saw. Most of the body was gone, not all of
[2:11:28] it, but most of it. It was a blood trail leading into the
[2:11:31] hallway, then disappearing just as it reached the front door. I'd brought that
[2:11:39] thing into the world. I'd named it, I'd reinforced it, i'd believed
[2:11:43] it called out to it, I'd made it real. All it had to
[2:11:50] do was answer. You can't unlearn something, And even if I could,
[2:12:00] I think it's too late. I think Big Softy got just enough of what
[2:12:05] he needed to become something else. Entirely, he took a life, and
[2:12:11] now he's got one of his own. Maybe we still have some kind of
[2:12:15] connection. I don't know. I think we do where else he might have
[2:12:20] just killed me too right then and there. Then again, there's no way
[2:12:26] to tell. I've obsessed over this for years, looking through articles about mentions
[2:12:33] of Ian. There were no search parties, no one came looking. Even
[2:12:37] the people who missed him were reluctant to work with the police, and with
[2:12:41] his history of schizophrenia, there was a higher likelihood of him just doing something
[2:12:48] he shouldn't. But I knew better. Ian hadn't been schizophrenic. Big Softy
[2:12:56] had just stuck to him and just tortured him so god knows how long decade.
[2:13:05] Looking back at it, I think that was the plan all along,
[2:13:09] to drive Ian to a point where he would try to kill me. It's
[2:13:13] in their final moments that a person gets truly desperate, and that's what I
[2:13:18] felt on that floor, desperation. I reached out to whoever would answer,
[2:13:26] and I couldn't fathom the consequences. He's out there right now. He probably
[2:13:33] looks like us walks like us and sounds like us. But wherever he is
[2:13:39] and whatever he does, I don't want a part of it. I don't
[2:13:46] know what to say. But if you meet a strangely tall man who does
[2:13:50] that thing with his teeth, just know that there might be more to him,
[2:13:56] a lot more. He is more than just a big softy. In
[2:14:11] my tireless pursuit of answers, I found fresh questions of terror. Comfort is
[2:14:18] an alien notion to me. I've always been afraid, always failing to still
[2:14:24] my brains, ever wearing cogs. But from a young age I aim to
[2:14:31] cease my minds endless worrying. I poured every ounce of my energy into becoming
[2:14:37] an engineer. It has always eased my nerves to fix things. Of course,
[2:14:45] nothing was ever enough. I needed absolute certainty, and I wasn't going
[2:14:50] to find that on our little green rock. Naturally, I looked to the
[2:14:56] stars. In the early two thousands, shortly after graduating from Cambridge University,
[2:15:05] I moved to America and secured a job at NASA. I wanted to be
[2:15:09] part of something bigger than me, an organization focused on exploring the deepest crevices
[2:15:15] of the universe. The date was January second, twenty twenty three. It
[2:15:22] was a day unlike any other. The office was filled with the excitable chatter
[2:15:28] of my colleagues, folk who typically would have their heads silently buried in paperwork.
[2:15:35] The air on this particular day, however, was filled with a jittery
[2:15:39] magnetic energy. Connor You'll never guess what just leaked, Adam eagerly said,
[2:15:46] motioning for me to follow. I shrugged and followed my friend out to the
[2:15:52] office. What's happening, I asked, You're going to lose your mind,
[2:15:58] my colleague replied. We made our way into one of the compound's main facilities,
[2:16:05] a building which housed NASA's assembly line of rockets. I had a hunch
[2:16:09] that Adam's exciting news might be related the d M fifty, the dozen minus
[2:16:15] rockets. After all, the Baulky vessel was nearing completion. No low level
[2:16:22] employees had been given any inkling as to what purpose the spacecraft would serve.
[2:16:28] My colleague and I rounded the corner of the vessel and we found doctor Stanley
[2:16:33] Jacobs talking to a few physicists. He was a graying, pale faced fellow
[2:16:39] with chapped skin, the sort of man who had physically aged beyond his years.
[2:16:46] He could have been sixty four or forty six. The wary faced man
[2:16:50] groaned at the sight of Adam, but my friend didn't care. He was
[2:16:56] fixated on the screen behind the physicist. It depicted various graphs and charts a
[2:17:03] foreign language. To me. Everybody who's been biting Stanley's zero off after he
[2:17:09] mistakenly forwarded an email to Jenny in accounting last year, Jacob's discovered an anomaly
[2:17:15] at the edge of our galaxy. Adam gleefully whispered an unidentified phenomenon that vaguely
[2:17:22] resembles a black hole, though its physical makeup is unlike anything previously discovered in
[2:17:28] human history, and NASA has been intercepting frequencies from the other side using telescopic
[2:17:35] data. They've created musical tones which sound like, well, who knows,
[2:17:41] storms on unseen planets, forms of alien communication, a parallel version of our
[2:17:46] reality. Perhaps this sounds like fiction. Why didn't we hear about it?
[2:17:50] When Jacobs found the anomaly a year ago? I asked my colleague shrugged,
[2:17:58] you know what the media is like this. This could be huge or it
[2:18:01] could be nothing. But Jacobs is suggesting that it might be a tear between
[2:18:05] universes. Hypothetically, I scoffed, though secretly my interest was piqued. Come
[2:18:15] on, Connor, you're always talking about the mysteries of the universe. Well,
[2:18:20] it turns out that there's more than one universe, Adam said, and
[2:18:24] Frank heard that the planning and an expedition were the D fifty. I told
[2:18:28] you something big was happening. Why else would they have contracted dozen minus.
[2:18:33] It's unofficial, highly classified technology. My heartbeat started to quicken as I contemplated
[2:18:43] what my friend had said. Parallel universes? I thought, could these distant
[2:18:48] worlds? After the answer I've always wanted. The small group of physicists eventually
[2:18:54] dispersed and Adam nodded his head at Stanley talked to him about the expedition.
[2:19:01] He didn't want anything to do with me, but this could be your shot
[2:19:03] to see space, my friend whispered, before walking away. May I help,
[2:19:11] Doctor Jacobs asked overhearing us. I does the DM fifty expedition have any
[2:19:18] openings for engineers? I asked the man's side. You shouldn't know about that,
[2:19:26] but you're not the first person to ask. This day has been.
[2:19:31] You're going to explore the anomaly, aren't you, I asked, eagerly,
[2:19:35] interrupting the physicist. Did you hear something? Wait? Are you even an
[2:19:41] engineer? You know, some government servant and a mission to shut down this
[2:19:43] project? Are you? Doctor Jacobs asked, lifting an eyebrow. No,
[2:19:50] I just need to be on that ship. Sir, you likely already have
[2:19:52] plenty of engineers attached to the project, but we do so I wouldn't get
[2:19:58] your hopes up, the man interjected, hacking his briefcase. I won't pretend
[2:20:03] to be some indispensable genius, I said, but this is more than a
[2:20:07] job to me. I don't really care about NASA. I just I've always
[2:20:13] wanted answers to well everything. The man carefully examined me. What's your name,
[2:20:26] doctor Jacobs asked, pulling a piece of paper out of his coat pocket.
[2:20:31] Connor Bridges, I said, composing myself. The physicist nodded and scrupled
[2:20:37] my name. There aren't any official openings, Connor, but I know that
[2:20:43] look in your eyes. It's what guided me to this place too. It's
[2:20:48] what prompted me to chase Harriet's eye. Harriet eye, I asked the man
[2:20:54] solemnly nodded the name of the anomaly. My late daughter, Sorry, I
[2:21:03] quietly replied. Jacobs cleared his throat. The DM fifty could always use an
[2:21:09] extra engineer. My eyes glistened, and I immediately accepted the offer. I
[2:21:18] couldn't quite wrap my brain around the idea of going to space now. Of
[2:21:24] course, months after my voyage of terror, I tried to pretend it never
[2:21:28] happened. After ten months of training, launch day arrived. Doctor Stanley Jacobs
[2:21:39] and doctor Elizabeth Farrow, his research partner, had been developing the logistics of
[2:21:43] the mission for the better part of two years. Our ste health vessel,
[2:21:48] the DM fifty, would venture to the edge of the Milky Way, undetected
[2:21:54] by the people of Earth, and we would send various automated research vessels into
[2:21:58] Harry Eye. Given promising results, a manned mission would follow. It was
[2:22:05] an airtight plan. The launch was a surreal experience. Sitting in a near
[2:22:13] silent ship equipped with cloaking technology, we left Earth behind. Not a soul
[2:22:20] on the ground watched. It was a week long journey. Using dozen minus
[2:22:26] technology, we achieved the impossible. We not only traveled to the farthest reach
[2:22:31] of the Milky Way, but we did so within an unthinkably fast time frame.
[2:22:37] The reason for doctor Jacob's hurry would eventually become horribly clear. From within
[2:22:45] the window of d fifty, the crew surveyed Harriet's Eye with doe eyed,
[2:22:50] blissfully unaware faces, a gaggle of school children dazzled by the mysteries of space,
[2:22:58] and as we approached, the eye grew from a blackened blemish on the
[2:23:01] horizon into a ginormous wound that had splintered the very fabric of reality, a
[2:23:09] hauntingly spectacular sight. The unman vessels were launched. Once we reached a suitably
[2:23:16] near yet safe distance from Harriet's Eye. We watched as the tiny metallic blobs
[2:23:22] jettison from d M fifty. Then, one by one, the three vessels
[2:23:28] were swallowed by the blackened mouth. We found ourselves hovering in space, at
[2:23:33] the edge of oblivion, waiting for the robotic explorers to return. The majority
[2:23:41] of low level workers had nothing to do but twiddle thumbs. We couldn't proceed
[2:23:46] until the data from the unmanned vessels had been retrieved and analyzed. Not quite
[2:23:54] the adventure you imagine, mister Bridges, Stanley Jacobs asked, grinning. The
[2:24:00] two lead physicists sat on the opposite end of the canteen table. I smiled
[2:24:05] at the pair of them, was hurriedly finishing my mouthful of food. It
[2:24:09] wasn't often that lowly crew members would have the opportunity to talk to the ever
[2:24:15] elusive lead physicists. Actually, it's no different from a day in the office,
[2:24:22] sitting around waiting for something to do, I said. Stanley laughed.
[2:24:28] Well, it's just this tedious for Elizabeth and me too, right, But
[2:24:33] I enjoy lunch breaks because I get to spend some time with people other than
[2:24:37] him. Doctor Elizabeth Pharrows chirt. I hate to pry, but well,
[2:24:43] have you made any progress? I asked. I won't pretend to understand the
[2:24:48] physics of this expedition, but don't be so modest, Connor, Elizabeth said,
[2:24:54] you're an engineer. I'm sure you understand more than you pretend to know.
[2:25:00] He's a mysterious egg. Jacobs chuckled. Did you know that he twisted
[2:25:03] my arm to get on this mission? He was almost as determined as me?
[2:25:09] Almost? Elizabeth raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Yes, I seem to remember
[2:25:16] him showing up quite late in training. Were you keen to see action?
[2:25:20] Connor? The woman had kind eyes. Elizabeth was middle aged, possibly the
[2:25:28] same age as Stanley. For the years had been kinder to a soft skin,
[2:25:31] rosy cheeked face. She reminded me of my late mother. Something about
[2:25:39] a velvety voice encouraged me to open up. It wasn't about the adventure,
[2:25:45] doctor Pharaoh. I've just always been afraid, I said, I've always wanted
[2:25:52] answers to unanswerable questions, and this phenomenon seems fundamentally juxtaposed to the reality which
[2:25:58] surrounds it. Before either of the physicists could reply, our food trays slid
[2:26:05] to the right as we did, and everybody cried in confusion as the bodies
[2:26:11] were limply flung to the side of the unexpectedly leaning vessel. My temple connected
[2:26:16] with the edge of the table, drawing blood, and I gripped either side
[2:26:20] of the canteen bench onto my knuckles whitened. Dozens of dazed, injured workers
[2:26:26] clambered to their feet. We all hurry to our respective stations, ready to
[2:26:31] assess the damage. Though the ship corrected its balance, it continued to quake
[2:26:37] uncontrollably, and as we ran to the engineering office, my crew members and
[2:26:43] I shuddered at the sight of complete blackness beyond deem fifties windows. The stars
[2:26:48] and planets had disappeared. Race for impact, a voice shrieked over the ship's
[2:26:54] intercom. The ship's outer body groaned under the strainane of seismic pressure, and
[2:27:01] I tumbled at the office's metallic floor. The other engineers and I clutched that
[2:27:05] any fixed thing we could find, and we braced for our lives. As
[2:27:09] DM fifty finally came to a blunt, jarring hold, everybody lay as still
[2:27:18] as possible. Moments of pain echoed around the office. Light fixtures flicked unstably,
[2:27:24] and various alarms sounded in a climatous cacophony. All personnel report to the
[2:27:31] main bridge, her voice announced over the TURNOI. My fellow wounded engineers stumbled
[2:27:37] weakly to the corridor outside our office, but we did not walk to the
[2:27:41] main bridge. We speechlessly filled the corridor, and each of us stared out
[2:27:48] of the window, and each of us stared out of the windows which lined
[2:27:52] the walkway. Beyond DM fifty there lay a near colorless healthscape. The only
[2:28:00] light stemmed from a luminous blue orb in the distance, a white dwarf.
[2:28:05] One woman said, gasping, do they usually look like that? A man
[2:28:11] asked. The edges of the orb seemed to dance erratically, and the ocean
[2:28:16] beyond us ship was littered with tidal waves of crumbling rocks. Stray pieces clattered
[2:28:22] against the windows of D fifty, and then I realized that one of the
[2:28:26] larger distant rocks was a planet. It appeared to be cleanly split down the
[2:28:31] middle, as if it were two halves of a cracked cocoanut shell. This
[2:28:37] foreign place was not the Milky Way. The very laws of physics seemed to
[2:28:43] contradict our reality. We entered Harriot's Eye. A man whispered, it's another
[2:28:50] universe. Somebody muttered, all personnel to the main bridge. The tannoy voice
[2:28:56] repeated, urgently, snapping out of the existential fever which had seized our bodies.
[2:29:03] The engineering crew hurried through the walkways of the ship, and we joined
[2:29:07] everybody in the main bridge area. Beyond the chatting crowd, I could see
[2:29:13] Doctor Jacobs and Doctor Pharaoh standing sheepishly behind Captain Polton. Quiet The Captain bellowed.
[2:29:22] The entire crew immediately complied. We tried to fixate on our bearded,
[2:29:26] stern faced leader, but our eyes kept wondering to the swirling kaleidoscope of collars
[2:29:33] and bombardment of rocks beyond the bridge's main viewpoint. An unidentifiable force has pulled
[2:29:39] us into the anomaly, Captain Pulton said, we're working towards immediately returning home,
[2:29:45] and we do not know what we might find here. The data has
[2:29:48] not yet been retrieved from the un manned vessels, so these are uncharted waters.
[2:29:54] Anxious murmuring resumed enough. The Captain showered before we attempt to enter the
[2:30:01] anomaly again. We must deem DM fifty to be ship shape. I'll leave
[2:30:07] that to our engineers. But time is of the essence, isn't that right,
[2:30:11] doctor Jacobs? There was a disquieting tension between the lead physicist and the
[2:30:16] captain. Doctor Jacobs cleared his throat. The anomaly is shrinking, we should
[2:30:22] have told you, though. We have a limited window in which to explore
[2:30:26] what lies beyond it. That's not all, Captain Polton growled. Stanley cleared
[2:30:33] his throat nervously, but Elizabeth placed a delicate hand on his shoulder. We
[2:30:39] have entered her dying universe, one that is collapsing on itself, she said,
[2:30:45] prompting a gasp of horror from the crowd. The anomaly is our only
[2:30:48] exit, and it will soon be closed for good. Doctor Jacobs sighed,
[2:30:56] I believe that Harriet's eye might well be more than a rip in the lining
[2:31:00] of reality. It might be the crunch point for this universe. All matter
[2:31:05] in this reality will clyde here. Anarchy ensued. Crew members hurled abuse of
[2:31:13] the physicists, and the few furious individuals lunged at Jacobs. The captain and
[2:31:18] several security officers restrained the enraged crew members. We can't change what has been
[2:31:24] done, Captain Bolton yelled, shoving the mob backwards. When we returned to
[2:31:30] Earth, doctor Jacobs and doctor Pharaoh will stand trial for their crimes. Until
[2:31:35] then, we have one objective, save every last person aboard this ship.
[2:31:41] A crew worked tirelessly over the following hours, but things only worsened. We
[2:31:48] were sitting ducks at the entrance to the anomaly, the ever closing seal between
[2:31:52] two universes that became apparent as the ship's body began to wail painfully. The
[2:32:00] onslaught of rocks aloudened against the metal work and reinforced glass panes. D M
[2:32:05] fifty began to quake on a near constant basis, and whenever I had glanced
[2:32:11] out of the ship's windows, I became acutely aware of a burgeoning light in
[2:32:16] the distance, the sinister, swirling glow of a trillion galaxies converging the in
[2:32:22] coming flurry of long dead planets and moons. The universe was collapsing, and
[2:32:30] we were at the epicenter. I eventually slumped into my bunk bed at the
[2:32:39] brink of exhaustion, but I found myself unable to shut my eyes. Eager
[2:32:45] to busy myself, I switched to my terminal to run a few diagnostics for
[2:32:48] the evening. The sooner we could give the captain the green light to go,
[2:32:54] the better. I was surprised to find a notification in my inbox.
[2:33:01] It was a day old video message from Adam. Hey Connor, I've been
[2:33:07] bored out of my mind. I'm still upset that doctor Jacobs wouldn't let me
[2:33:11] join the crew, so I decided to do some research on the Big Man.
[2:33:16] I talked to Frank in it because he owed me a favor, and
[2:33:20] he let me look at some of the transmissions that Jacobs has been deciphering.
[2:33:24] NASA received signals from the anomaly that seemed communicative, Connor, and it was
[2:33:30] a two way flow. Jacobs responded, he talked to something. You need
[2:33:35] to ask him about that. The thought of receiving a message from alien life,
[2:33:41] whether in our universe or another, had once filled me with such excitement.
[2:33:46] But I was filled with the inexplicable dread by the idea of Jacob's communicating
[2:33:52] with some unseen intelligence. It could have been the secrecy surrounding the communications hadn't
[2:34:00] told anyone that he'd already found something sentient beyond Harriet's eye. Why my gut
[2:34:11] instinct was to confront him. I slid out of bed, got dressed,
[2:34:16] and left the engineering quarters. The ship was eerily quiet, and I walked
[2:34:22] to the main laboratory. Other than the roar of space debris, which had
[2:34:26] become a form of white noise, as expected, I found doctor Jacobs hunched
[2:34:33] over at his desk and busying himself with work. The white glow of the
[2:34:37] screen illuminated the man's gaunt, possessed face. He hardly looked human. Why
[2:34:46] didn't you tell us, I asked, The expedition would never have been green
[2:34:52] lit. Doctor Jacobs muttered, without looking up good I said, we never
[2:34:58] would have faced such horror. Doctor Jacobs removed his glasses and eyed me with
[2:35:03] disappointment. What happened to that young man who wanted answers? We're not going
[2:35:09] to get any answers here, I said, certainly, not about that thing
[2:35:13] you heard in the darkness. Stanley Jacobs froze, eyeing me for a few
[2:35:20] seconds as droplets of sweat collected on his forehead brow. How did you know
[2:35:26] about that? He whispered. He only spoke to me. I shivered.
[2:35:33] He Stanley's frown lifted as he realized that I knew nothing. Go to bed,
[2:35:41] mister Bridges, he said, returning his gaze to the laptop. What
[2:35:46] were you hoping to find? I asked? The man scoffed another universe,
[2:35:52] connor something greater than us, and I calculated that we had no more than
[2:35:58] a couple of years before Harrot's eye would seal forever a couple of I stopped
[2:36:05] him mid sentence. How long do we have before this reality collapses? Jacob's
[2:36:11] months weeks days, Stanley whispered, fists clenching of their own accord. I
[2:36:20] stormed across the lab and towed over the man, who quickly shrank into his
[2:36:24] desk chair. What could we possibly learn in days, Stanley? You brought
[2:36:30] us here to die, I barked. I wanted this to happen sooner,
[2:36:35] he retorted, But the airheads and NASA had to plan carefully on official projects
[2:36:41] are always messy, especially when the resulting countless deaths, I said, the
[2:36:48] normally almost tore the ship in half. We might not even be able to
[2:36:50] fix it. We might die. Don't you care? I have every faith
[2:36:56] in you, doctor Jacob said, returning his gaze to the numbers on his
[2:37:01] screen. And I have every faith in you, I replied. You're lucky
[2:37:05] to even be here. The physicists snarled. As we continued the back and
[2:37:11] forth discussion, our voices gradually raised. It was only after ten minutes of
[2:37:18] running in circles that we realized we were competing not with each other, but
[2:37:24] with the growing sound outside the ship. And when we turned our heads to
[2:37:28] the laboratory windows, Stanley and I gasped in unison. The dying universe's void
[2:37:37] was filling with light at an increasingly rapid pace, and d M fifty's trembling
[2:37:41] foundations felt less stable with every passing second. No, this isn't right.
[2:37:48] We should have time. Stanley breath as he cried, I still have so
[2:37:52] much data to collect. I need to all personnel to stations. The voice
[2:37:58] announced over the intercom. Flight to Harriet's Eye will commence in five minutes.
[2:38:01] Brace for impact. We've barely run fifty percent of the necessary diagnostics, I
[2:38:07] said, Who cares about the ship? Connor, Doctor Jacob's manically cried,
[2:38:13] this is greater than anything in human history. This is what are you?
[2:38:18] The whispy, disembodied voice rattled sharply around my skull, like a coin stuck
[2:38:24] in a jar. It's me, I'm here, Stanley whispered. I did
[2:38:30] as you asked. The physicist noticed my horrified expression, and he realized I'd
[2:38:37] heard the voice too. He was in a special as he thought himself to
[2:38:41] be. I became aware of the fact that all sound outside the ship had
[2:38:48] seized. The terrifying convergence of galaxies continued beyond the window, but there was
[2:38:54] quiet. Only that haunting whisper permeated the silence, a new land to conquer.
[2:39:03] The voicest. Thank you for showing me the door. I want to
[2:39:09] see her, doctor Jacob's wailed, throwing his arms outwards. You said i'd
[2:39:13] see Harriet. She is still in the place of all dead things. Come
[2:39:20] closer, let me show you, the chilling voice said. Outside the window.
[2:39:30] Amidst the multi colored glare of approaching galaxies, I saw two forming bodies,
[2:39:37] red gassy spheres of biblical proportions, And as black specs emerged from their
[2:39:43] centers, I realized what they were, eyes of unfathomable enormity. I tried
[2:39:54] to scream, but my quivering, narrowing throat was unwilling. Could it have
[2:39:58] been strangled, perhaps by that paranormal deity. Black tendrils emerged from the abyss
[2:40:05] of the universe's everneering edge. They curled forwards and took the shape of colossal,
[2:40:11] godlike fingers, fingers that were reaching towards us. The ship suddenly lurched
[2:40:18] forwards. The captain, who had looked upon the horror in the depths of
[2:40:22] space, commenced our voyage into Harriot's eye. Thankful for the slightest hope,
[2:40:28] I looked to the sobbing physicist beside me, Harriot, he cried, you
[2:40:37] promised. With a thunderous clap, The tremendous, ear shattering sound of the
[2:40:43] collapsing universe returned, as if a terrifying entity with eyes like blazing gateways to
[2:40:48] Hell. We were roaring in fury at our attempted escape, whose devastrating fingers
[2:40:54] soared towards our spacecraft, and D fifty began to jolt from side to side.
[2:41:00] A trilliant swirling light soared towards our ship. As the universe's collapse quickened.
[2:41:07] I screamed as I finally fathomed the horror of being crushed by a universe.
[2:41:13] But then the pulling began, the pull of the shriveled near closed anomaly.
[2:41:20] Blackness began to envelop our ship. We were entering Harriet's eye. As
[2:41:28] Stanley and I stated ourselves against the near by desk, I closed my eyes
[2:41:33] and thought of home, a little green rock that I had shunned for my
[2:41:39] entire life. In that moment, it was the only thing I wanted.
[2:41:45] Following an explosion of sound, everything stopped, all sound, all movement,
[2:41:52] and when I opened my eyes, we were surrounded by life we had returned
[2:41:58] to our universe. There were bright burning stars in the distance, fully formed
[2:42:03] planets, serene tides of space had gladly carried us home, a long,
[2:42:09] quiet journey home. I rushed to the laboratory window to eye the fading anomaly.
[2:42:16] Did it close or simply fade from view? I still don't know.
[2:42:24] Part of me believes in the darkened distance of space I might have seen those
[2:42:30] terrible black tendrils slinking through the tear between realities, the hand of a god
[2:42:35] fleeing its dying universe to claim another. Doctor Jacobs and doctor Farrow await trial
[2:42:43] for what they did. I've been denied visitation privileges, but I need to
[2:42:50] see them. I need to understand the last thing he said to me.
[2:42:58] It lives. Hi. My name is Marshall and I was an investigator for
[2:43:15] the Coastguard for over thirty years. Before I begin, I'm not going to
[2:43:20] give any last names or overly personal information for the protection of myself and those
[2:43:26] involved. As I write this using the first names my superior still feels like
[2:43:31] sacrilege. However, following the events of this story, I had signed an
[2:43:37] NDA pertaining to what was uncovered during the investigation. Given that are now staring
[2:43:45] down the barrel of a nasty cancer diagnosis, I no longer care for my
[2:43:48] career or life, but I don't want to hurt anyone else in the process.
[2:43:56] Despite the danger of disobeying a federal NDA, I feel that people deserved
[2:44:01] another truth about what lurks in their coastal waters. During my time as an
[2:44:09] investigator for the Coast Guard, my days was spent stopping drug runners, hanging
[2:44:15] around the docks, and yelling at drunk party boat captains. However, every
[2:44:20] single serviceman or member of law enforcement has a couple of cases which they cannot
[2:44:26] forget, no matter how desperate they are to do so. The S.
[2:44:31] S. Napoli was one of those cases. It was nineteen ninety seven and
[2:44:37] I had been an investigator for the Coast Guard for three years. I was
[2:44:41] stationed in Portland where my partner John and I got the call. According to
[2:44:48] our dispatch, there was a small cruise vessel which had veered into a restricted
[2:44:52] commercial waterway. Having nothing better to do than not wanting to look too lazy
[2:44:58] around our super periods, we made our way to our small patrol boat,
[2:45:03] where we were met by one of the senior investigators named Eric John Marshall.
[2:45:09] You're both late, Eric said as he stood in front of our boat with
[2:45:15] his arms crossed. I didn't know this was going to be so serious,
[2:45:20] John said, as we walked towards the boat. It's always serious. Eric
[2:45:24] said as he stared daggers at John. This search has become a high priority
[2:45:30] and we're just wasting time standing here, so move your asses. After glaring
[2:45:35] at John for another second, Eric turned around and quickly made his way aboard
[2:45:41] the boat. Screw me, John said, as he gave me a look
[2:45:45] of dejection and annoyance. I was really hoping this would be a quick call.
[2:45:50] I looked at John and gave him a shrug as I boarded this ship.
[2:45:56] During my time being stationed in Maine, I had heard from several of
[2:46:00] my colleagues that Eric had a reputation for being a buy the book's hard ass.
[2:46:07] It was his way, or you were just in the way, my
[2:46:09] friend Pete would tell me. I should have known that once Eric had become
[2:46:15] involved in the investigation, that this was going to be more than a routine
[2:46:18] stop. However, even with the knowledge of how Eric conducts his investigations,
[2:46:26] we were all unprepared for the turn that this case would take. It took
[2:46:31] us about twenty minutes to get to the site of the S S Napolis.
[2:46:37] When we got there, we found that she had drifted into a sandbar and
[2:46:41] had gotten stock. Despite this, we could hear the loud sputtering of the
[2:46:46] engine, desperately clinging on for dear life as its rotors were being enveloped by
[2:46:52] sand. Hello, this is the US Coast Guard, Eric stated over our
[2:46:58] boat's pa. Turn off your engines and come out on top of your deck.
[2:47:05] We waited for a minute before Eric repeated the message, This is the
[2:47:09] US Coast Guard. Turn off your engine and come out, or we will
[2:47:13] board your ship. Eric boomed over the loud speaker, clearly annoyed at the
[2:47:18] lack of response. Screw this, Eric said, as he drew his pistol.
[2:47:24] We're boarding now. Eric had John put down our anchor, and the
[2:47:31] three of us boarded this ship. As soon as we stepped aboard, I
[2:47:37] noticed several pile of clothes neatly folded along the deck's edges. Maybe they went
[2:47:43] for a swim, John said sarcastically as he simultaneously avoided looking at Eric enough
[2:47:50] clowning around. Let's go turn off the engine, Eric said. As his
[2:47:54] words trailed off, John and I both looked in the direction where Eric was
[2:48:01] staring and saw a limp hand holding a pistol on the ground. John,
[2:48:09] get to our boat and call this in. We have one confirmed casualty.
[2:48:15] Without saying a word, John quickly leapt from the napolis onto our ship and
[2:48:20] made his way to the radio with his gun drawn. Eric motioned for me
[2:48:24] to follow him, and we quickly breached the helm of the ship. When
[2:48:31] we got inside, we found the heavily decomposed body of a man in his
[2:48:35] mid fifties with an exit wound on top of his head. As Eric radio
[2:48:41] John to relay the man's information, I stared mindlessly at the back wall of
[2:48:46] the helm, which had become adorned with a man's dried blood and brain matter.
[2:48:52] Marshall, Eric yelled, snapping me out of my days. Sorry,
[2:48:56] sir, I said, as I regained my compo and started searching the pocket
[2:49:01] to the man's pants for any identification. And it's okay, Eric said,
[2:49:09] in a surprisingly understanding tone. Let's figure out who this man is and how
[2:49:13] he got here. Reaching into his left front pocket, I found his wallet
[2:49:20] and pulled out his ID, which caused a loose photo to fall in the
[2:49:24] process. Who looks like his name was Wendell Kramer, I said as I
[2:49:31] handed Eric the man's ID. As I went to put the man's wallet on
[2:49:35] the table, I saw the small photograph and picked it up. In the
[2:49:41] picture was Wendell and what appeared to be his wife and two older children as
[2:49:48] they stood in front of the Billaggio in Las Vegas. Looks like he had
[2:49:52] a family too, I said, as I handed Eric the photograph. Wife
[2:49:58] and two kids. Eric said as he looked out the open doorway. How
[2:50:03] many parts of clothing were there? Three? Sir John said as he made
[2:50:07] his way into the helm, stopping just short of the corpse. Christ do
[2:50:13] you think it could have been a murder suicide situation? John said as he
[2:50:18] looked down at the man's body. I think that I need to see the
[2:50:22] living quarters of the ship first before I have any theories. Eric said as
[2:50:26] he walked past John. John, you're coming with me, Marshall. I
[2:50:31] want you to see if we missed anything in the helm. Yes, Sir,
[2:50:35] I said, as Eric and John made their way to the deck below.
[2:50:43] As soon as Eric and John were out of sight, I quickly ran
[2:50:46] out of the hall and threw up over the side of the ship. During
[2:50:52] the first three years as an investigator, I'd only been part of one other
[2:50:56] case involving a death, and it had happened earlier the same day. Never
[2:51:01] before had I ever seen the effects of advanced decomposition on a dead body,
[2:51:07] nor had I ever smelled the blending of the sea water and advanced rock before.
[2:51:13] After composing myself, I made my way back into the helm and started
[2:51:18] searching for any evidence. As I looked back at the wall behind the dead
[2:51:24] body, I noticed that there had been a small circular glare of light at
[2:51:28] head level. Turning around, I saw a VHS camera propped up onto a
[2:51:35] shelf. Sir, I think I found a camera, I said over the
[2:51:41] radio as I picked it up and pressed the eject button. There's a tape
[2:51:46] inside of it too. Thank you for the update, Marshal Eric said,
[2:51:50] come down below and bring the camera with you. Without any hesitation, I
[2:51:58] put the tape back in the camera and made my way down the stairs to
[2:52:03] the living quarters. John and Eric were sitting down at a table in a
[2:52:07] small kitchen. Did you find anything down here, I said as I sat
[2:52:13] next to John and put the camera on the table. Nothing to give any
[2:52:18] probable cause. But we did find four suitcases belonging to two women and two
[2:52:24] men, Eric said as he put two new double A batteries into the camera.
[2:52:30] He also found batteries, John said, as Eric quickly smiled before going
[2:52:35] back to his cold gaze. Are we going to watch the tape? I
[2:52:39] asked as Eric turned the camera on, causing it to sound it startup jingle.
[2:52:46] Of course, it's evidence and we have nothing else to go off of,
[2:52:50] Eric said as he checked the time and the recording looks like there's about
[2:52:54] an hour's worth of footage on air. John and I sat in anticipation as
[2:53:00] Eric put the camera back on the table and hit play on the VHS recorder.
[2:53:05] The first clips started off with a woman were in a black and white
[2:53:09] striped bikini sunbathing on the deck of the ship, while two people could be
[2:53:13] heard having a splash fight in the water. Hi, everyone, the man
[2:53:20] said as he zoomed in on the sunbathing woman. Here is my beautiful and
[2:53:24] not at all cranky Clara. Oh Wendell, stop that, the woman said,
[2:53:30] playfully as she sat up. And this is my not at all annoying
[2:53:33] husband. Ooh burn, the man said, laughing. Dad, I'm hungry,
[2:53:41] yelled a boy in his mid teens as he climbed the ladder to the
[2:53:45] deck, and can we please not have pork chops again? A younger girl
[2:53:48] chimed in. The man then turned the camera to face himself, revealing himself
[2:53:54] to be the same man that we found in the helm. Being a parent
[2:54:00] is such a rewarding experience, window said sarcastically, as he was sprayed with
[2:54:05] water. Hey cut that out. The video then cut to black before starting
[2:54:11] clip two. Hey, assholes, the boy friend before said as soon as
[2:54:16] the second clip began, Today I'm going to be pranking my dad by pushing
[2:54:22] him overboard. Like hell you are, Connor, Wendell said, as he
[2:54:26] grabbed the camera. You couldn't trick me if you tried. Yeah, Connor,
[2:54:31] you'd have to be smart to do that, the young girl said as
[2:54:35] she walked by the camera to sit at the kitchen table. Screw you,
[2:54:39] Sam Connor said, in an annoyed tone. Hey be nice to your sister,
[2:54:43] Wendell said sternly. Ah fine, Connor said, as he sat down.
[2:54:50] Dinner's ready, Clara, Wendell called out, before giving an annoyed look
[2:54:54] to the camera. The camera then went black again. As I watched these
[2:55:01] clips, I couldn't help but think about the man whose lifeless body is lying
[2:55:07] directly over our head. He doesn't get any easier. Eric said, what
[2:55:15] I said as I snapped back to reality. This isn't the first time I've
[2:55:18] had to go through footage like this, Eric said as he gave me a
[2:55:22] sad look seeing someone's ghost, their memories, the life they've left behind.
[2:55:30] Just try not to get too caught up in it. Remember, we need
[2:55:33] to be here for them so they can rest knowing someone was able to tell
[2:55:37] their story. Thanks, Sir, I said, as I looked down at
[2:55:43] my hands. Eric nodded and clicked play on the camera, which started up
[2:55:50] clip three. In this clip, it was now nighttime and the family was
[2:55:56] staring at something off in the distance. Wendell, do you have the camera
[2:56:01] ready, Clara said, in nervous excitement. You have to film this.
[2:56:07] I just turned it on. I'm right behind you, Wendell said as he
[2:56:11] approached his wife and kids. As he got behind them, the camera showed
[2:56:16] four blue orbs of light hovering over the ocean. What are those things,
[2:56:22] Dad Connor asked as he turned to face the camera. I I don't have
[2:56:28] any idea, buddy, Wendell said, as he zoomed in on one of
[2:56:31] the orbs. When he did, you could see that the orb was pulsating,
[2:56:37] as if the mimic of the water below Wendel. I don't like this,
[2:56:43] Clara said nervously. Yeah, that's all. Go downstairs and play some
[2:56:48] board games, Wendell said, with clearly fake enthusiasm. As Wendell started to
[2:56:56] blow the camera down, he quickly froze. Suddenly, a faint sound could
[2:57:01] be heard off in the distance. Is that singing? John said as he
[2:57:07] leaned towards the camera speaker. Come on, kids, let's get downstairs,
[2:57:13] Wendell said, in a more concerned tone than before. The camera once again
[2:57:18] cut to black, leaving us in pure disbelief. You all heard that,
[2:57:24] right, John said, as he quickly looked at Eric than me. Yeah,
[2:57:31] yeah, I think I heard something, I said before being cut off
[2:57:35] by Eric. I didn't hear anything, Eric said as he pressed play on
[2:57:39] the camera. Let's just keep watching, Dad, get the camera quick.
[2:57:46] You need to see this, Sam yelled from the top deck. Winde then
[2:57:50] ran up the stairs to see that the bright lights were much closer. Now,
[2:57:56] what the hell, Wendell muttered under his breath as he stared at the
[2:58:03] pulsating orbs. The singing from the third clip had become much more audible.
[2:58:09] John then paused the recording and turned to face Eric. See don't you hear
[2:58:15] the singing? John exclaimed, The orbs are harmonizing. Eric said nothing and
[2:58:22] press play on the camera. The clip continued with Wendell filming the orbs.
[2:58:28] Suddenly, the song that was being's sung began to shift. When Clara Knor
[2:58:37] Sam the orbs sang. As they sang, it sounded as if they were
[2:58:43] producing multiple octaves of sound at once, producing a rolling sound of harmonies had
[2:58:50] a perfect pitch. As we listened to the track through the VHS, I
[2:58:54] felt the hairs on my arm begin to stand up. Sam, honey,
[2:59:01] let's go to bed. It's late, Wendell said, as he started to
[2:59:05] walk towards his daughter. Sam, having either not heard her father or did
[2:59:11] not care to listen to him, stayed perfectly still as she continued to stare
[2:59:16] into the orbs floating ten feet above her head. Sam Window yelled, snapping
[2:59:22] Sam out of the days Dad. Sam muttered groggily, It's okay, baby,
[2:59:30] Window said, clearly shaken by what had just transpired. Let's get you
[2:59:35] to bed. You were sleep walking again. The clip went to black,
[2:59:41] and John pressed the play button with no hesitation. Eric and I looked at
[2:59:46] each other as the clip began. Clara Connor Sam Window called out as he
[2:59:52] left his bed and entered the living quarters. All around him, the sound
[2:59:58] from earlier had gotten loud, to the point of causing the VHS's microphone to
[3:00:03] start clipping. The blue light given off by the orbos that surrounded the boat,
[3:00:07] causing rays of blue light to cast throughout the cabin. As Wendell panned
[3:00:13] the camera around the room, he heard the faint sounds of talking above deck.
[3:00:20] Hold on, I'm coming, Window yelled, as he ran up the
[3:00:22] stairs. As soon as he reached the top deck and turned to face the
[3:00:26] bow of the ship, he instantly froze. Clara Connor and Sam were standing
[3:00:33] completely nude and facing the ocean. What the hell is going on? Window
[3:00:39] yelled. As he made his way towards his family. He stopped and screamed
[3:00:48] as four creatures began to rise in front of his family. As the skinless
[3:00:52] humanoids began to tower over the three and began to unhinge their jaws and produced
[3:00:58] two black tentacles which emitted the same light blue glow as the orbs. The
[3:01:05] three of us and Wendell watched in horror as three of the creatures pressed their
[3:01:09] tentacles over Clara, Connor and Sam's faces. As their tentacles latched onto their
[3:01:16] faces, they appeared to suck away at their skin. Stay away from my
[3:01:22] family, who freaks, Wendell cried out. As soon as he spoke,
[3:01:26] the fourth creature began to shuffle towards him, walking as though their legs did
[3:01:31] not match their autonomy. Wendell began to slowly back away as the creature made
[3:01:37] a break towards him. The sudden speed of the creature caused me to flinch
[3:01:43] as Eric sat stoically and John sat transfixed. Wendell quickly rushed to the helm
[3:01:50] and slammed the door shut just as the creature was about to grab him.
[3:01:54] Damn it, damn it, what are those things? Wendell muttered as he
[3:01:58] tried to catch his breath while he locked the door. After a minute of
[3:02:03] composing himself, Wendell pointed the camera towards the window and walked off to the
[3:02:09] left side of the screen. From the hatch, we watched as the formerly
[3:02:15] skinless creatures started to take on facial features from the family members, becoming twisted
[3:02:20] versions of the loving family we had seen on TV. The placement of hair
[3:02:26] and the creature's heads were matted and off center. Their mouths, which were
[3:02:31] still unhinged, looked crooked and broken, and the creatures bulged from the skin
[3:02:35] they adorned like a tight fitting suit. As soon as Wendell came back on
[3:02:41] screen and looked out the window, he vomited at the abomination, before recoiling
[3:02:48] due to a loud banging sound from the other side of the door. Wendell
[3:02:54] looked up in horror as the face of the skinless creatures suddenly appeared from the
[3:03:00] other side of the hatch window. It smiled at Wendell as he began to
[3:03:05] bang its head furiously against the door. Take this, Wendell screamed as he
[3:03:11] drew a pistol and fired three shots to the door. As the shots rang
[3:03:16] out, the deafening scream of pain could be heard from the other side of
[3:03:20] the door. Got you, Wendell cheered as he looked out the window.
[3:03:28] As soon as he saw the scene outside, his pride had quickly soured the
[3:03:31] dismay as he began to sob. I don't know how to live without you,
[3:03:39] Wendell said as he stared down the pistol. I'm so sorry everyone.
[3:03:43] I love you so so much. For anyone who finds this, my coordinates
[3:03:50] is forty three point six to minus sixty nine point seven. If you see
[3:03:54] blue orbs over the water run. As soon as he said this, Wendell
[3:04:03] picked up the camera and placed it on the shelf beside the door, out
[3:04:07] of sight of the camera. The sound of the engine wrong to life can
[3:04:11] be heard as a single gunshot exploded through the mic, leaving just the sound
[3:04:16] of the singing from behind the door. Suddenly, after several minutes, the
[3:04:22] sound of banging resumed and a loud crash was heard off camera. After several
[3:04:28] moments of shuffling, the creature that was behind the door appeared and stared directly
[3:04:35] at the camera, causing John to let out a blood curdling scream. What
[3:04:41] the hell? John screamed as he shot out of his chair. The sudden
[3:04:46] reaction caused Eric and I to flinch as John began pacing around the cabin.
[3:04:50] John, are you okay, Eric asked, as he got up its face.
[3:04:58] John screamed, HiT's damn face. I know. I don't think I'll
[3:05:03] ever be able to see that skinless freak. I said, what the hell
[3:05:07] are you talking about? John said, as he stopped pacing and stared at
[3:05:11] me. The creature, I said, in a confused tone. It didn't
[3:05:16] have skin and was all muscle and tendon. It had my face, Marshal,
[3:05:22] you didn't see my face, John pleaded. It smiled at me with
[3:05:26] my own damn face. Eric shot a glance at John before giving me a
[3:05:33] worried look, grabbed the camera. We need to leave now, Eric said,
[3:05:39] but it had my face, Sir, John muttered between fits of crying.
[3:05:45] Now let's go, Eric yelled. Eric stormed out of the cabin as
[3:05:52] I helped an inconsolable John up the stairs and onto our boat. The right
[3:05:56] back from the s s Napolis was tense and silence between John's constant whimpering.
[3:06:03] As soon as we made it back to dark, two members of the Coast
[3:06:07] Guard were waiting to escort John to our field office. As I was about
[3:06:11] to get off the ship, Eric put his arm out to stop me.
[3:06:16] Sir, I said, before being cut off. What I'm about to tell
[3:06:20] you is extremely important, so I need you to listen, Eric said,
[3:06:26] as he looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot. Of
[3:06:31] course, sir, what is it? I asked. You didn't see anything
[3:06:37] to day? Eric whispered. Of course, Sir, I won't tell anyone,
[3:06:43] I replied. Eric just shook his head and stared at me. Even
[3:06:48] if you saw something, you never saw anything, You never heard anything,
[3:06:54] You know nothing. Eric continued. I'm only telling you this because I have
[3:07:00] no choice. For those creatures you saw are sirens like from the Odyssey?
[3:07:07] I asked, similar, Eric said, as it became slightly more relaxed.
[3:07:15] We pray on those who allow themselves to be open to their calls. As
[3:07:20] soon as you leave here, listen to your favorite album, or do something
[3:07:24] to rid yourself of the mark. What about John, I asked, as
[3:07:28] I watched them struggle to walk with his escorts. Watch over him, make
[3:07:35] sure he doesn't do anything stupid, and hope that God's grace is in his
[3:07:39] favor. Eric said as he pulled out a cigar and lit it. Now
[3:07:45] go, You're dismissed, yes, Sir I said, as they gave a
[3:07:50] salute and walked back to the office. For the next couple of hours,
[3:07:58] they took Eric's advice and listened to some music and watched a late night Celtics
[3:08:03] game on TV with my friend Pete and some other colleagues. Justice Bruce Baun
[3:08:09] missed another two point shot. Eric burst into the office, whereas Marshall he
[3:08:16] yelled, I'm right here, Sir I said wearily, as the guys who
[3:08:20] are watching the game with me tried to distance themselves. Follow me now,
[3:08:26] he yelled as he slammed the door and stood in the room confused for a
[3:08:31] second before grabbing my coat and rushing for the door. Poor guy, he
[3:08:37] said, as I rushed out of the room. As soon as I left
[3:08:41] the office and Marshall was waiting for me holding an M sixteen. We have
[3:08:48] a serious issue, Marshall, Eric said, as he handed me the keys
[3:08:52] to the boat. What's wrong, I asked nervously as I eyed the assault
[3:08:56] rifle. John stole one of our boats, and I think I know where
[3:09:01] it's going. Eric said, as he began to briskly walk to the boat.
[3:09:07] Where is he going? I asked, as I tried to catch up
[3:09:11] the coordinates in that video. He's going back to the site where the incident
[3:09:15] happened, Eric said, as he picked up his pace. Why would he
[3:09:20] do that? He was terrified of those things, I asked as we neared
[3:09:24] the boat. Just as we were about to board the boat, Eric turned
[3:09:30] to look at me because he never listens. Marshall. He embraced the song,
[3:09:37] and now they have a hold on him. Eric and I then boarded
[3:09:41] the ship and sped off into the night towards where Wendell had reported the incident.
[3:09:48] By the time we arrived near the location, it had been about an
[3:09:52] hour since we had left the dock. Ahead of us, we saw the
[3:09:56] footlights of a ship in the distance, and to my horror, a bright
[3:10:01] blue orb hovering in the sky. Damn, he might already be too late,
[3:10:07] Eric said as he turned the safety off the sixteen. What's the plan,
[3:10:11] sir, I asked, as the floodlights came closer. We save John
[3:10:16] if we can, and I shoot anything that's not human. Eric said as
[3:10:20] he pulled air plugs from his pocket and handed them to me. As we
[3:10:26] approached the side of the boat, I saw John standing on the bow,
[3:10:31] nude and staring at the sky, while the orb above him was singing,
[3:10:35] just as it had in the video. John, John, John, John,
[3:10:43] What the hell are you doing? Eric yeld. John didn't respond,
[3:10:50] John. If you don't answer me, I'm going to board this boat and
[3:10:52] haul you off myself, Eric yeld as he prepared to disembark. Just as
[3:10:58] Eric was about to board John's boat, the creature started to crawl from the
[3:11:03] water onto his boat. Standing before John was one of the eight feet tall
[3:11:09] skinless sirens. Oh damn, Eric said as he raised his rifle. Before
[3:11:18] he could shoot the creature, John turned around and fired two shots from his
[3:11:22] revolver at Eric, hitting him in the shoulder. As Eric laid bleeding on
[3:11:28] the floor of our boat, John turned back towards the creature as his tentacles
[3:11:33] exploded from his face and latched onto John's skin. As the creature began to
[3:11:39] harvest John's skin, John started to moan with delight. Not wanting to see
[3:11:48] John consumed, I grabbed a medical kit from the helm of our boat and
[3:11:52] rushed over to Eric to stabilize his wounds. Don't worry about me, son,
[3:11:58] Eric said, between gritted teeth, you need to take that thing out.
[3:12:03] I nodded and carefully grabbed the M sixteen from beside Eric. Once I
[3:12:09] had in my hands, I quickly spun around and fired several shots of the
[3:12:13] creature. The creature turned around to look at me, and I saw that
[3:12:18] half of its face now resembled my partner John, while the other half still
[3:12:24] was primarily muscle. It snarled at me, showing off its various rows of
[3:12:30] different sized teeth. When I was able to see this creature up close,
[3:12:35] I realized that it looked like it was made of human beings stacked upon each
[3:12:41] other. Its legs had different joints and knees that did not function. Its
[3:12:46] hands had tens of fingers that didn't move. Its face had several jaws and
[3:12:52] mouths of various sizes moving in unison. It was as if it was a
[3:12:56] Russian nesting doll of flesh and bone. After a moment of staring me down,
[3:13:03] the creature lunged for me. I quickly sprayed the rest of the magazine
[3:13:07] into the creature. As I did, thousands of teeth and bone exploded from
[3:13:13] his face and torso, and the creature fell forward into the sea. Staring
[3:13:20] back at John, I saw him gasping on the floor of his boat,
[3:13:24] drenched in blood and missing several layers of muscle and flesh from his face.
[3:13:30] As he turned to look at me, he smiled before the creature, which
[3:13:35] I thought I had killed, grabbed him by the legs and dragged him below
[3:13:39] the surface of the water. Having no bullets left, I watched in horror
[3:13:45] as the man I had worked with for the last three years was dragged down
[3:13:50] to a watery hell. After a moment of standing, defeated and utterly dumbfounded,
[3:14:00] my way over to Eric and handed him the rifle. You did,
[3:14:03] good, son, he said, as he lit another cigar. But John's
[3:14:09] dead, I replied, barely able to hold back tears. You did what
[3:14:16] you could, Eric said, between puffs. Now let's get the hell out
[3:14:22] of here. I wish I could say that I became Rambow and hunted down
[3:14:30] the creature that killed my friend, but I didn't. I knew that John
[3:14:35] was a dead man as soon as he set sail for those damned creatures.
[3:14:39] But every day I think about all the ways I could have stopped him.
[3:14:46] Eric and I would go on to work together on many unexplainable cases after this
[3:14:50] one, but those are all stories for another day. For now, as
[3:14:56] a former Coast Guard investigator, if you see blue orbs in the sky and
[3:15:01] the open ocean, run like hell and don't ever listen to their song.

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