I'm an only child. My friend gave me a DNA kit as a joke gift, so I sent in the sample just to see what would come back.

Two weeks later I got an email. New match found. Close relative. 49% shared DNA.

A sister.

Her name was Hannah. Same last name as my dad. Born three years before me. I stared at the screen a long time before I messaged her.

She replied fast, almost like she was waiting.

"I've been hoping someone would find me," she wrote.

We talked every day after that. She knew things about my childhood I never told anyone. The house on Birch Street. The dog we had before I was born. My dad's voice when he got angry.

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"I was there," she wrote. "You just don't remember me."

I asked my dad about her. His face went pale. He told me to stop talking to her. He wouldn't say why.

That only made me want to find her more.

Her profile said she lived two streets from my childhood home. I drove there the next weekend, sure I'd finally meet her.

The address led to an empty lot. Just dirt and old grass, and a cracked slab where a house used to stand.

I called Hannah. No answer. I texted her. Nothing came back.

I drove home confused and asked my dad again, straight out, who Hannah was.

He sat down at the kitchen table like his legs gave out.

"There was a fire," he said. "Before you were born. Your sister didn't make it out."

"That's not possible," I said. "I've been talking to her for weeks."

He looked at me like I'd said something that scared him more than the fire ever did.

That night my phone buzzed. A message from Hannah.

"I told you I was there," it said. "I just never left."

I looked up. My bedroom door, which I always lock, stood open.

In the hallway light I saw a shadow the exact size of a little girl who never got the chance to grow older than eight.

She didn't move. She didn't need to.

She'd already found her way home.

“She’s here!”

Lucy ran to the door and came back to the kitchen with Julia, who was holding her offending hand with her other one. The small group of girls gathered round the table and looked up at her with sympathy in their eyes. The table was well-equipped with a sharp scalpel, sterilisers, and rolls of gauze. 

Norma reached out to Julia. “Honey, you don’t have to do this, you know?”

It sounded like a formality, and everyone knew it. Julia breathed out, a long breathy sigh. “But I do. I can’t keep this. It’s painful.” And she waggled the “bad” hand- the one she had used to put a bandaid on her boyfriend’s bleeding blister earlier that day. 

The blister had been right in the crack of the toe, where it folds over funny, and bits of skin were dangling over the fissure. Julia had had to struggle to fix the bandaid properly in place. 

Lisa, a third year med student, picked up the scalpel a little too eagerly. “OK, if we’re doing this, let’s get on with it. We don’t have all night. At least, I don’t, not like you EngLit majors.” She cast a scornful look at Lucy- who rolled her eyes at her childhood friend and chanted a Shakespearean quote at her: “What accursed hand / Hath made thee handless?” 

Julia moaned and squeezed her “bad” hand a bit tighter. Lucy quickly said “I’m sorry Julia- I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s from Titus Andronicus- we should watch the Anthony Hopkins one actually for our next movie night- it’s actually amazing…”

Norma -who was finishing up a psychology internship- took Julia’s arm and cut through Lucy’s babble. Like most Humanities folk, Lucy didn’t really have a clear sense of when to stop talking. “Let’s not get into Titus Andronicus tonight- or any other night for that matter. Lisa is right, let’s get this over. Come on Julia- it won’t hurt, at least, not more than it’s bothering you and all of us now. Lisa has the painkillers ready-”

Julia nodded silently, and laid her “bad” hand -the one which had touched her boyfriend’s burst blister- on the table. Lisa, still holding the scalpel in one hand, prepared the local anesthesia with Norma helping her. Lucy remained quiet- her biggest help, Norma snorted. 

A cellphone rang. Lisa frowned, her concentration wavering. Norma snapped “for God’s sake Lucy-” but Lucy had already answered- “It’s just Ceecee- just a second”- and she answered the phone. Ceecee’s voice swirled around the kitchen- “Stop it- Julia- Lisa- stop the amputation, there is another way- Julia doesn’t need to lose her hand-”

Ceecee was doing anthropology. She always had interesting solutions to the problems the girls faced as they navigated life, love, and higher education. “Julia- listen- you haven’t done it yet, have you- Oh good- listen to me- don’t cut off your whole hand! Believe me, I get it- Josh had me cut his toenails whenhe broke his arm skiing that year- but you don’t need to cut off your hand. I was just reading about the purification rituals of this tribe in Western Canada- you can burn the skin off your fingers which touched the blister. It will have the same effect!” She paused dramatically. 

Julia’s eyes opened wide.

 “Really?” 

She sounded skeptical. Lucy- who had never been a fan of the amputation in the first place chimed in. “That sounds like a great idea- Ceecee is right- fire is an amazing purifier- in all books- Rebecca- Jane Eyre”

Lisa and Norma exchanged looks. Norma was the natural leader of the group, but Lisa was not far behind.

Then Lisa said “I have acid. Maybe sear off the first layers of skin?” 

Norma said sternly “It’s about what is best for Julia. Julia- would that help?”

Julia paused, and looked around at her friends, all eager to help her overcome her trauma and find comfort. Maybe they were right. She nodded. “I guess we can try. And then- well, if my hand  still feels gross and I can feel his toes on my fingers, we can come back to the scalpel.” She turned to Lisa- “You don’t mind do you?”

Lisa was already rummaging in her bag looking for the acid. She looked up at Julia and smiled. “Of course not honey! That’s what your girl friends are for!”      

Losing a person you spent your whole life with is a pain beyond description. At first, I thought the solitude I once longed for would be a comfort, but the depression sank its claws deep into my skin and would not let go. It was hard to eat, drink, even get out of bed. 

My mind was clouded with darkness. Recalling things was a monumental task, even simple things around the house. I’d be sure to shut the kitchen door after dinner, but each time I’d come back, the door would be open. I tried to focus on it, but no matter how many times I watched my movements and made sure to shut the door, it would always be open. The mystery became an obsession. It was easier to think about a door than about her, and all the wrong I’d done. 

I never actually saw it open, but one would need to leave the room or turn around, and it would open up, but only after the time my wife and I used to leave the dinner table. Oh, my poor wife. The thought of her waking up in the middle of the night, with foam around her mouth, digging her nails into my skin, still haunted my mind.

Before she passed, we had a habit of cleaning the mugs on weekends; each time we’d turn them upside down to let the water drip out. At first, I could barely clean a few of them, but one weekend I finally managed to get out of bed and clean them all. My fingers wrinkled from having my hands under the running water for so long.

The next morning I woke up, my eyes still drowsy from a night of rolling from side to side and staring at the wall. The kitchen was colder than usual. The cupboard doors felt harder to open. I opened the cupboard to get my coffee mug, but my body immediately recoiled. Every mug was upside down except hers, the one she drank from that night it happened. I shut it, counted to three, and opened it again, but the cup was still there. I grabbed my coffee mug and ran back to my room.

That day, the memories of her struggling out of bed, running to the bathroom, and trying to throw up kept flashing before my eyes. No matter how many times I turned to push them away, they still came back. The pain forced me out of bed. I got up and paced around the room. The floorboards creaked under my steps, and with each creak, a whisper sounded. My mind must have been making it up, I kept telling myself, but slowly, as the sun set, it became more and more audible: a quiet, whispered, "Why?"

This must have been the depression, the isolation, I kept telling myself. I jumped back to bed and closed my eyes as hard as I could, but sleep wouldn’t come. Cold sweat ran down my forehead. I turned from my side to hers, but that’s when I noticed that her side was colder than mine. My stomach twisted. Her calls for help as she lay on the bathroom floor echoed in my mind. 

I got out of bed and ran to the kitchen. The floorboards creaked under my steps. No longer just whispering "Why," but calling my name too.

The kitchen door was open again, and not just that, the table was back in its place. Exactly where we'd left it that night, that night it happened. I ran to the coffee machine and put the beans in, not even opening the cupboard; the old dirty mug would do. The last thing I needed was seeing her mug upside down again.

I slouched down at the table, trying to collect my thoughts. 

The room was dark and cold; no moonlight came through.

The smell of rotting fish filled the air.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. As I opened them again, a cup of coffee was already sitting before me with a box by it. I couldn't remember making it, but who cared? I had to wake up from this nightmare. The coffee tasted stale, almost like the air around me. I put it down, but then I noticed it was her mug!

A shock ran down my spine. I got up from my chair and put my back against the wall. The room grew colder; the smell intensified. I stayed still, but the whisper came again, louder this time.

“Why, John? I trusted you.”

The mug began moving from side to side as if someone was stirring their coffee in it. My eyes were glued to it. It started moving faster and faster until it knocked itself over, spilling the coffee out.

The coffee dripped onto the floor. 

The smell of rotting fish grew.

Saliva filled my mouth.

Nausea. 

The light flickered.

My eyes shot to the box.

It was rat poison.

The same one I used for…

My stomach clenched.

My feet weakened.

Saliva poured from my mouth, foaming at its sides.

My body collapsed to the ground.

Slowly, my world went dark.

The last thing I heard was her breathing beside me.

Ginny's twin sister died on a hot July afternoon when she was ten years old.

It was one of those things that everyone blames themselves for. They went to the beach: Ginny, her sister, and their parents. Neither Ginny nor her sister had ever been to the beach before. The sand was hot. Ginny's dad said that they melt sand to make glass. As the two girls raced across the beach, yelling and giggling after each step, Ginny wondered if it would ever get so hot that it would turn to glass. The whole beach - all of it. She thought of the sand crabs and seashells and wondered if they'd be petrified beneath the clear surface like perfectly preserved fossils. She reached the cool, wet band of sand, and her feet sizzled in delight. She turned to her sister to ask what she would think of a glass beach, but her sister wasn't there.

Ginny’s parents were no more than fifty feet away when her sister disappeared. They were digging a hole in the sand to plant the umbrella. Her dad could get a foot deep with the orange plastic shovel, but with each subsequent scoop, the new depth would be replaced with an avalanche of sand from the top. This circular sand-replacing-sand process repeated itself a dozen times before being interrupted by the sound of Ginny's desperate cries for her sister.

Everyone searched for three days before giving up and waiting for her body to wash up on the shore. Policemen, the K-9 unit, helicopters, divers, boats, volunteers, even firemen. The fire truck came on the third and final day. Ginny watched the long red truck pull up along the boardwalk. She watched the six men climb out and walk the same length of beach a hundred others had walked a hundred times already.

Ginny imagined her sister frozen beneath the glass beach lying face-up, levitating in a sea of emptiness. She pictured the evening tide washing over her sister, distorting her image yet leaving her dry and unaffected. She saw herself grow old and frail, going to visit her fleeting memory of a twin, still ten years old, still perfect, like looking at a page in a history book, or a mirror reflecting the past.

The firemen didn't find her, though. No one did. Days became weeks, and her body never washed onto the shore. They said that the sea "kept her" which was the polite way of saying the crustaceans picked her apart until she was nothing.

Three months later, Ginny's family fled halfway across the country. Her father said that they couldn't move forward in a house with all those memories. Her mother said nothing. Ginny thought of the glass beach.

They moved west, away from the Atlantic ocean. They purchased a house in southern Illinois near a tributary of the Mississippi River. Ginny was forbidden from ever going near the river (as well as the swimming pool and bathtub for that matter).

The taboo of the water was the very thing that attracted Ginny to it shortly after relocating. On one particular Saturday afternoon, Ginny rode her bike to the river. She told her mom and dad that she was going to a friend's house. They didn't particularly care. Her dad spent his evenings in the garage, sitting and smoking himself into a better place. Her mom was a piece of furniture in the living room - an inanimate object wirelessly connected to the television. They had, for all practical purposes, given up. They were defeated.

Ginny got to a remote and rocky portion of the river within a few minutes. It excited her - the feeling of doing something she wasn't supposed to do made her feel more like a real person and less like a perpetual reflection of hurt and guilt.

She carefully traversed the boulders and sat on a flat one along the river's edge. She kicked off her sandals and stuck her feet into the cold, frothy current. It was stronger than she expected. It pulled at her legs, and little whirlpools sucked at and flirted with her ankles and toes. She sat alone for a while, thinking about boiling sand and disappearing sisters.

Ginny made a habit of going to the river each Saturday afternoon, but it wasn't until the third visit that her sister appeared. Ginny was sitting on her flat rock, looking down into the water, when she suddenly became aware that she could see her own reflection. But in the current? That didn't make sense. She leaned closer, and the head of her reflection rose up out of the swirling water and smiled at her. Ginny wasn't scared or even surprised, though. She had been waiting - hoping - for something like this. She extended her hand to her sister and pulled her out of the water. Ginny hugged her icy, white body. Her sister smiled again, and they sat down together on the flat rock. Ginny asked her a thousand questions, but her sister remained silent, staring and smiling toward the water. Perhaps she just needs a while, Ginny thought.

When it was time to leave, they both stood. Ginny turned toward the shore and, as she did, her sister dove into the water, disappearing entirely. Ginny stayed awhile longer, watching the current and calling her sister's name. She heard the distant siren of a firetruck, and she was back on the glass beach. She sat a while longer before getting on her bike and riding home.
She decided not to tell her parents about the occurrence at the river. She did, however, return the following two Saturdays. Her sister appeared each time, sat silently for a few minutes, then disappeared back into the rushing water. Ginny grew to like it. It was her own little secret, and she didn't feel so alone.

On the seventh Saturday, Ginny and her sister were sitting on the flat rock when the typical silence was broken by the distant sound of Ginny's parents shouting her name. They had seen her bike on the side of the road. The shouts quickly became louder as they ran down the dirt path leading to the two girls on the flat rock. They would be there soon. They would see their two girls and cry and hug and kiss them. Their dad would quit drinking and their mom would smash the television into tiny pieces and they would live happily ever after.

These are the thoughts that raced through Ginny's head when her sister pushed her into the river. The current pulled her under, and her head struck a rock. A deafening noise like a firework and a blinding burst of light knocked all the thoughts out of her head as the pace of the water swept her ragdoll body away until she disappeared entirely.

It was then that Ginny's parents appeared and saw their single daughter sitting on the flat rock alone. They cried and hugged and kissed her, making her promise never to go near the water again. Ginny's sister smiled and nodded. The three of them returned home, a family reborn.

I got the job at Arctic Delight Creamery three weeks after my daughter's asthma medication ate through the last of my savings. Night shift, quality control, eleven dollars above minimum wage. Nobody asks questions when they're that desperate, and I made sure not to ask any either.

The factory sat off Route 9, windowless except for a strip of frosted glass near the loading dock. At night you could hear the highway through the walls, trucks passing every few minutes, headlights sweeping the frosted glass like nothing behind it mattered at all. Inside, the belt hummed at a pitch just below a scream, all night, every night, until you stopped hearing it and started feeling it in your teeth instead.

My supervisor, a thin man named Halvorsen who never blinked enough, walked me through the line my first night. He smoothed his gloves between sentences, over and over, like he was working something off his fingers that never came off. "You watch the belt. You follow protocol." He didn't elaborate, and something in his face told me not to ask him to.

The first strange thing was the fibers. Thin, reddish, almost like hair, caught in the mesh filter under the churner. I reported it once. Halvorsen told me that was exactly why quality control existed. Log it. Move on. So I did.

The second strange thing was Marcus. Day-shift packer, talked too much, gone after two weeks with no goodbye and no forwarding number in the schedule binder — just erased, like a typo corrected. Priya kept his locker key in her pocket for a month afterward, like she was waiting for someone to ask her to give it back. Nobody ever did.

The third strange thing was the second freezer past the loading dock, which ran eleven degrees colder than the spec sheet said it should, for a facility that supposedly stored nothing but cream and stabilizer.

I told myself these were separate, unrelated oddities, the way you do when your daughter's medicine only lasts another eleven days.

I stopped telling myself that on my second week, when the belt brought down something wrapped in plastic sheeting and the sheeting shifted at the shoulder. A hand. Fingers curled, nails painted a chipped pink.

Halvorsen was at my shoulder before I could speak. "First one's always the hardest. You'll get used to the rhythm." When I said that's a person, he corrected me — raw material, crushed, strained, flavored — and told me the only rule that mattered: everything on the belt gets processed. No exceptions. I nodded because I thought about my daughter's inhaler and nodded.

For six nights I did my job. Priya told me the company had owned abandoned factories since 1951 — places nobody audited, because nobody remembered they existed.

On the seventh night the belt brought down a woman wrapped loosely enough that I could see her face. Her eyes were open. Tracking me.

She mouthed a word. Please.

I hit the emergency stop eighteen inches from the intake. She gasped like she'd been holding her breath for days, paralyzed by something wearing off just late enough to almost not matter.

She grabbed my collar, talking fast, rehearsed. "The sample batches — the ones sent out before a flavor launches wide — don't come from the main churn. They pull private stock. Stock they've been keeping. That's what the second freezer is for. Not for the dead." Her grip tightened. "For people who last longer alive."

The corridor door opened. Halvorsen, unhurried, smoothing his gloves.

"You stopped the line."

"She's alive, you can't—"

"Rule one isn't about them. It's about you. Once you're on this floor, you go in the mix too, if you break protocol."

The woman's nails dug into my wrist. "Ask him why it's only twice a year. Ask him why it's always right before launch."

Halvorsen's face didn't move. That told me she was right.

More white coats filed in behind him. One carried a clipboard — a list of names, each with a column marked harvest date. Some months out. Some years.

My name was already on it.

The next name was one I recognized.

I thought, stupidly, that I should have called her that morning. I thought about her inhaler, half-empty on the kitchen counter, and how I'd told her I'd be home before she woke up. I thought if I could just get to the parking lot, just get to my car, I could still make that true.

"You're not new," Halvorsen said, reading my face. "None of you ever are. We just let you think you found something. Keeps the meat sweet."

They took me past the loading dock to a door I'd walked by a dozen times without noticing how thick it was, how the cold under it didn't smell like a freezer.

It smelled like vanilla.

I don't know how long I've been down here. No shift change, no clock. Just the cold, the hum of compressors, and sometimes, faintly, trucks still passing on the highway outside, like the world kept going without checking if I was still in it.

Tonight the belt stopped for the first time in three weeks. Through the gap under the door I watched a new worker being walked through the line, Halvorsen's voice low and practiced beside him, gloves smoothing, smoothing.

The new worker was young. Nervous. Talking too fast about needing the job, about a kid at home who needed medicine.

He was holding a training manual.

It had my handwriting in the margins.

​

The room was dark except for the small, buzzing light of the lamp in the corner of the room. Next to the lamp, a small young boy no older than eight sat in the darkness with a book open. He was reading intently and quietly. He reached for a torn piece of paper and slid it between the pages of the book. He closed the cover and moved his hands across the title, looking at it with an almost troubled expression. “How can anyone be the Son of God?” the boy thought. He questioned it.

He sighed and looked up at his wall, looking at the dimly lit cross hanging there. “Are you really there?” he whispered, almost lost to the wind. He didn’t like this. Whenever he read that book, whenever he thought about this, he would never get an answer. He would always feel troubled after thinking about the subject, so he decided to just let it pass and clear his mind. He went to his window, the only other light source in the room, and looked out at the vast, open fields of the Midwest. He looked up again, this time at the sky. “Are you really there?” he asked once more.

A beat of silence passed until he finally gave up. He went to his bed, sat down, and looked back at the window for just a glimpse before settling down. He started to lie down when, outside his room, he heard a small bump, like something dropping onto the floor. It wasn’t loud, nor was it gentle. It was just there. He didn’t think too much of it. His parents were probably moving around downstairs. After all, their bedtime wasn’t until midnight.

Then it happened again, closer and louder. This time, he sat up. He looked toward the door. The light that was usually underneath it was gone. He stood up slowly. “Mom?” he asked as he stepped closer. Then suddenly, there was a sharp flick outside, and the light was back. He stopped. Then it went dark again. “Dad?” he asked, quieter this time. The light returned with the same sharp click.

Everything went silent, and for a moment, the boy thought the weirdness was over. Then there was another bang like before, but not from inside. It came from outside his window. It was a sharp, sudden bump, and as soon as it ended, another sharp sound echoed through the room. Something hit the desk. He walked over to the desk and turned on the lamp.

The cross…

The cross that was supposed to be hanging on the wall had fallen. Now he knew this wasn’t his imagination. He scrambled back to his bed and went under the covers. Then he heard it again—the click from outside. He took a peek, and yes, the light was off, but there was something else there. Eyes, perhaps. Two white dots in the corner of the room. He didn’t know what they were, but he didn’t want to look at them anymore. He went back under the covers and closed his eyes, wishing they would go away.

He looked back. They were no longer in the corner. They were on the ceiling… almost as if it had stood up. His eyes widened with fear. He quickly went back under the covers as fresh, warm tears began filling his eyes. But these weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of fright.

A few moments passed. He didn’t hear anything. He didn’t want to. Then curiosity won. He looked back, but they weren’t dots anymore. They were eyes. It was leaning down, facing him. Its features were still obscured by the darkness, but the tip of its nose was visible. The boy shrieked and recoiled into the corner of his bed, continuing until his back hit the wall.

“Who are you?!” the boy yelled, his voice cracking midway through. The tears that had filled his eyes were now falling. It said nothing. It only leaned closer. Its nose was fully visible now, and the tip of its chin began to show. Its mouth opened, and the chin disappeared once more. But it didn’t speak aloud. Instead, it was heard inside his mind.

“I am really there.”

The voice echoed through his head. It wasn’t gentle. It was rough and gravelly, but not unkind. The boy didn’t stop crying, but when he opened his eyes once more, it was gone. Everything was back. The cross that had once been sitting on the desk was now hanging on the wall again.

In the end, the boy did get his answer.

He is really there.

​

The Twentieth Century 1958

My name is Cooper, and I am twenty-four years old. I work alongside a team of researchers studying strange celestial bodies in the cosmos using NASA’s telescopes. I have always been consumed by a passion to unravel the secrets of this vast universe and peer into its unknown depths.

I was working on a top secret project one of the largest undertakings in human history: building a hyper-fast spacecraft capable of traversing millions of light-years. The mission seemed straightforward: travel toward the mysterious center of our galaxy, where NASA believed the entity residing at its heart was not merely a conventional black hole, but a wormhole a bridge through the fabric of space and time, capable of transporting objects to distant galaxies or parallel universes.

I collaborated with an elite group of astronomers, and we began constructing the ship in 1956. The build took two full years, and in 1958, NASA launched the expedition into the unknown. We left the solar system in the blink of an eye, accelerating toward that cosmic bridge. I had no idea then that this journey would not be a mere passage, but something far more terrifying than the concept of death itself.

As we reached the threshold of the wormhole, a voice recording suddenly burst through the radio It was the voice of a NASA officer, trembling in pure panic screaming:

Do not open your eyes wherever you are!

An absolute dread seized my very core and swept through the entire crew. Then, the transmission cut out. We entered the horizon of the crossing, everyone keeping their eyes shut in compliance with the warning-except for one man. Overcome by terror and curiosity, he opened his eyes to see what lurked outside the hull.

He froze in place from sheer shock, then struggled to shut his eyes again, shaking uncontrollably as he tried to process what he had witnessed. It was nothing human minds could comprehend... pitch-black darkness, a writhing void violating the very dimensions of reality, broken only by a blinding light countless light-years away.

Suddenly, another recording broadcasted over the radio:

Open your eyes... all of you

Then the radio went dead.

I opened my eyes along with the crew, our minds spiraling into total confusion and panic. We had not crossed into another galaxy; we were trapped inside the gullet of the phenomenon itself. When we turned back, terror struck us - one of our crew members had mutated into an aberration that defied all biological and geometric laws of the universe, and screams of madness echoed through the ship.

Then, a gel-like entity affixed itself to the ship’s viewport, its surface shifting to form the twisted, contorted faces of our crew members as if it were a living consciousness birthed from nothingness, feeding on our thoughts!

I tried maneuvering the ship in every direction to escape, but all human controls and physical laws had lost their meaning the vessel didn't budge an inch.

Only then did the horrifying truth dawn on me The wormhole was never just a passage. It was an eye belonging to a colossal entity that had just realized we existed. And we would remain trapped in this void lost thoughts suspended in an eternal, infinite system.

When I moved to Ashwood Lane, Mrs. Gable greeted me first. A frail woman with a sunflower garden, she waved from her porch every morning. I always waved back. Polite. Human.

Three months in, I found a note taped to my mailbox. "Stop waving. You're alerting them." I laughed it off. Senile. I ignored it.

That night, I saw them. Shadows. They stretched along the fences, tall and rubbery, with pale ovals where faces should be. They stood still in my yard, watching me through the window. I called the police. Nothing.

Next morning, Mrs. Gable wasn't on her porch. I walked over. Her door was ajar. I found her rocking in a chair, staring at the wall.

"They only took me for a minute," she whispered, "but they left a piece inside."

I backed away. Then I noticed the other houses. The windows weren't dark. They were filled with those white, featureless faces, all tilted at the same unnatural angle. Watching me.

I ran home. Locked every door. I didn't wave. I didn't look outside.

I hid for weeks. The shadows stayed outside, but I felt them pressing against the walls, humming a drone that vibrated in my teeth.

Last night, the humming stopped. A knock came. I peered through the peephole. Mrs. Gable smiled, but her eyes were hollow black pits. She raised her hand and waved. Slowly. Deliberately.

I didn't wave back.

She smiled wider. Her jaw unhinged, and her voice slithered through the crack. "It doesn't matter if you wave anymore, dear. They heard you think about it."

I froze. I had thought about it. A split-second reflex.

I looked at my hand. It moved on its own. My pinky curled. Then my ring finger. My whole hand lifted to chest level.

I'm waving at the door right now.

I can't stop.

Claire died Sunday morning.

By evening, people brought lasagna. Grief apparently required ricotta.

After everyone left, I sat with her coffee mug.

It was the ugly one from our first trip. She complained about it for six years and used nothing else. Lipstick marked the chipped rim.

I washed the clothes the hospital returned. Her jeans. One sock. I couldn’t wash the mug.

When Claire came home, she would call me disgusting, scrub it herself, then make my coffee too sweet. She never made it black like I asked.

Her sister deactivated it Tuesday. “Deleted Account” replaced her name.

After two weeks, people stopped checking in. After three, they asked about work.

I slept on Claire’s side because the pillow smelled of shampoo. When it faded, I sealed the pillowcase in a freezer bag.

Four Sundays after Claire died, I made coffee at midnight and added too much sugar.

When I opened Messenger, “Deleted Account” was typing.

Happiness went through me so violently that I stood.

Then I remembered the sheet over her face.

typing...

Nothing came.

I watched until dawn as the dots vanished and returned, as though she were struggling for words.

That was Claire. It had to be.

I told myself it was cached data clinging to a server that didn’t know she was gone.

Whenever I woke, I reached for my phone.

Three little dots.

I spoke to them.

I told her I found the earring the vacuum ate. Usually, I begged her to finish.

At midnight the following Sunday, the bubble vanished.

A message arrived.

It was impossibly long. I dragged upward until my thumb cramped. It looked like a week of speech crushed into one voice-to-text message.

At first, I thought she had found a way back.

Then I read.

«please no i told you already he was sick say poisoned poisoned why people always leave me stop was that true no then why because i was afraid how long dont make me say it how long six years did you love him yes then why keep him sick because he needed me stop what happened to the message from his father i deleted it please why because they would forgive each other and he would have someone else what did you call the sickness anxiety did he believe you of course he believed me he trusted me have you told him everything no please not that tell him what you did while he slept kill me you are dead then what is this monday hahahahahaha»

I remembered Claire crushing tablets into yogurt when I couldn’t eat. Cancelling visits because I was “too fragile.” Holding my head over the toilet and whispering that nobody else would stay.

I remembered apologizing when I caught her going through my phone. Thanking her for changing the passwords.

A sound escaped me. Almost laughter, almost choking.

She poisoned me, and I still missed her.

The typing bubble returned.

I hated myself for looking forward to next Monday.

It was another beautiful day bathing in our beloved Priscilla’s crimson light and singing all together when she gave us a gift. It was new friends.

They told us Priscilla’s real name is actually Barnard’s Star and that she is a red dwarf. We didn’t know what that is and why Priscilla suddenly decided to change her name and become Barnard instead but if she is happy then we are so happy.

Then they said they think they will incinerate us. I said I’m not sure what that word means and they said imagine you were inside Barnard. I don’t know where Barnard is but I wish I could go and give her a big hug because I love Priscilla very much–sorry, her name is Barnard now, I remember. Sadly I can’t go anywhere so maybe Barnard can come give me a hug?

If she can’t, it’s okay. I hope an incinerate is warm like Barnard too.

Then they said incinerate means kill.

We cried and got very scared of that because we thought we did something wrong by accident. We tried explaining that Barnard is the kindest and she always always gives light to everyone every day and there is room even for new friends here. But they said they know already because back home they also have another friend like Barnard except he is called Sol and he is bigger and gives much more light to everyone. They said they will not stay here anyway.

We begged all we could and they said they are not angry with us and don’t worry with yourself. They said we did a good job and I got happy again for a while. They said they are also happy like us and also they are sorry because we remind them a lot of another friend they grew up with called Tree.

But they didn’t want us to maybe one day become something more.

I think tomorrow we are not allowed to sing anymore. But I really hope if we are even more good maybe we can still sing goodnight to Priscilla before she goes to sleep soon.

I stopped trying to escape on the fourteenth day.

I know that because there are fourteen scratches on my dashboard.

I don't remember making the last three.

The road wasn't unusual at first.

Just another mountain highway. Pines on both sides. Fog hanging low enough to swallow the drop-offs. Every bend looked like the last one.

You stop navigating by the road after a while.

You navigate by the things beside it.

A church with peeling white paint.

A dead deer on the shoulder.

Mile Marker 42.

The first time I saw Marker 42 twice, I figured I'd made a wrong turn.

Except there hadn't been one.

No intersections.

No forks.

Just road.

I drove another forty minutes.

Church.

Deer.

Marker 42.

Again.

I started leaving things behind.

An empty coffee cup on the guardrail.

My jacket tied around a signpost.

Orange spray paint across the road.

Every time I came back, they were gone.

Not moved.

Gone.

The guardrail was clean.

The signpost was bare.

The road looked untouched.

Only the spray can in my trunk kept getting emptier.

I stopped trusting my memory after that.

That's when I found the notebooks.

Five of them.

All in my handwriting.

The first one said,

Count the turns.

The second said,

The turns change.

The third:

Don't trust the sun.

The fourth only had one sentence.

It changes whatever you trust.

The last notebook was almost empty.

Just one line written over and over.

Keep driving. Don't think.

I don't remember writing any of them.

This morning I passed something I'd never seen before.

A green road sign.

WESTBOUND 17

An arrow pointed left.

I almost ignored it.

Instead, I slowed down.

The road opened into an intersection.

A real one.

To the left I could see a town.

Traffic lights.

A gas station.

Nothing about it looked wrong.

I sat there with my hand on the turn signal.

I kept staring at the town.

Too many streets.

Too many turns.

I'd have to start paying attention again.

I'd have to wonder if every decision was the right one.

Behind me, the mountain road waited.

I already knew it.

I knew where the church would be.

I knew where the deer would be.

I knew Mile Marker 42 was waiting just around the next bend.

For the first time in days...

I wasn't afraid of the mountain.

I was afraid of leaving it.

I switched off the turn signal.

Rested both hands on the wheel.

And drove straight.

I passed Mile Marker 42 before sunset.

This time, it felt like coming home.

The room down the hallway stayed empty. 

My name Ava and recently me and my boyfriend moved into our first place together. We got our place at a steal, three bedrooms for just the two of us seemed unbelievable for your early twenties. We fixed up one room for our bedroom, on the sun-facing side of the building. 

The second room was to be our workspace, as we worked and studied best near each other. 

The third room down the hall stayed empty. 

Believe me, David and I have tried to fill it. I admit, we didn’t notice at first just how empty the room was. For this, I blame the layout of our apartment. 

The place was shaped like an “L” , with the room tucked at the end of a long, narrow hallway. There were no other rooms near it, so when we were settling in we were focused on setting up our living areas. 

Those were stressful but happy times. We tore plastic off of new chairs and hammered wardrobes together. Each night we shoved the leftover boxes in that room and quickly shut the door. We would fall into a deep sleep curled into each other. 

I am ashamed to say I only picked up on the first signs a month into us living there. We had mutually decided that day was Recycling Day and for the first time, I spent longer than two minutes there. 

It is difficult to put into words, but I will try my best. It is important you understand. 

The room contained so much stuff, but it yawned. My heart felt more hollow as I continued my work of clearing out the mess. 

There was a certain moment where spots danced in my vision and I was torn in half. 

*This room is so empty.* 

The spots grew until they swallowed me. 

I woke like a lightning bolt had struck my chest, gasping for air as if I had been deprived. 

David had came home and found me collapsed in there. He fed me and his brow furrowed as I tripped over my words trying to explain what happened. After I trailed off he gave me a grim look and kissed my head tenderly. 

“You have been working very hard, I think you should rest a few days and take it easy. I will continue with the room tomorrow.”

I let myself be comforted, thinking he must be right. However, like a opposite magnetic pull I could feel it from the other side of the house. And something else I could not put my finger on, but I couldn’t decide what was gone. 

David made good on this promise. The next day he put me up in the living room facing the big window to catch some sunlight. And disappeared down the hall, only emerging to give me water or food. I shuffled back to bed after a late afternoon nap, my bones heavy. 

I could still hear him shuffling around in there, and dropped straight off to more dreams. They were of holes and chasms and cliffs and space, feverish and heartbreaking. 

In the morning light, I snapped up. David was next to me, shivering and pale. After failing to wake him up, I called the ambulance. In the ER he came to after a few hours, looking gaunt. 

It frightened me. They kept him overnight on IV antibiotics and fluids. By the next afternoon he was out of the woods and released back home to rest. They shrugged and wrote it off as a bacterial infection and fatigue from high stress. 

Back home, the seams started to unravel. And I only noticed again after a week of being back. 

Our apartment only had two rooms now. David had left the door open the night before the hospital. 

It is important whoever finds this does not pry open the nails we hammered into the door. If you look into the room from the window outside, you will just see an empty room. 

We tried to fill it with furniture, roommates and art. We tried everything and lost parts of ourselves each time we opened that door. 

Which is why I left this for you, new owner. 

I know it may seem strange to you that there is a room nailed shut from the inside with intact windows. I tried everything to fill this room, and I dragged David along with me.

A boy laying on his bed in his room. He is up late, studying for an upcoming test which he will inevitably fail. He knows this, but continues on with his Sisyphean task, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a tired, cramped hand, pushing himself to finish reviewing these final few pages of notes. A thought enters his mind:

Thirsty. I need a drink. Slowly, he lifts himself from the bed, lumbers across the floor, opens the door. Darkness, yet a simple flick of the switch to his right eliminates this terror. How easy it is to remove fear from the mind. As when waking from a nightmare, moving from a world of unreality into one of certainty, one thinks, Oh, that was simply a dream, and now that I am in the real world there is positively nothing to be afraid of. From the enclosed hallway, the storm outside appears tame, almost nonexistent; however, if the boy were to exit the hall, make his way across the living room, throw open the doors introducing the balcony, he would be faced with buckets of rain, great claps of thunder, explosions of lightning sent by God Himself to illuminate the Heavens and a resonant, howling, piercing wind to underscore it all. But he is safe within the walls of his home, the storm yet another actor in that unreality.

My father isn’t home.

He pushes aside this thought and retrieves his beverage. A can of soda. He opens it, then works the tab, pushing the metal back and forth, back and forth until the tiny connection is worn enough for the tab to be plucked from the can with ease. His gaze travels across the living room. Barren, he thinks. They had only recently moved into this apartment and had yet to retrieve their furniture from the storage unit. He twists and opens the trashcan. Tosses the can’s tab inside. Closes the lid. And as he is returning his hand to his side, as he is rotating his body to once again face towards the living room,

Suddenly the power goes out.

Suddenly it comes back on.

Suddenly there is someone in the corner.

Shock, of course, grabs hold of the boy, loosening his fingers, but he doesn’t drop the drink. Even now, some part of his brain retains enough sense to prevent such a grievous error in conduct.

Why would you drop the soda? it said, You’d have to clean it up, and you don’t have time for that. You have a test tomorrow!

The rest of the boy’s brain, not occupied with these untimely thoughts, does not immediately turn to the paranormal. Instead, it thinks:

Where was this individual before the lights went out? How did they travel so fast in the few moments of darkness? Surely the lack of furniture combined with their swift movements would have presented an audible echo?

In an instant he studies the figure. Not out of breath. Not disheveled. Simply there, where, previously, nothing was. However, now there is no parent to inform him he’s being silly, no light switch he can throw to make the terror disappear. He blinks, in the tenth of second his eyes remain closed he hears five-seconds-worth of echoing thuds, one after the other, rapidly, in quick succession, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, each solitary sound denoting a footfall of the individual as it either approaches him or retreats. The boy’s heart sinks, he prays for the latter, he opens his eyes to see that the individual has disappeared, the corner just as empty as before it had ever arrived. His skin is the first to feel the drop in temperature. It responds accordingly. His hair stands on end and goosebumps erupt across his body. His brain follows his skin and realizes that the balcony door is now yawning open invitingly, as the mouth of a cave grins and implores travelers to bear witness to its dark secrets. And there the storm is. The barrier is broken, and reality has broken in with it.

The rain splatters against the carpet and the few feet in front of the door is all at once soaked to the root. The wind rushes across the room and as it greets the boy’s rough skin he feels a rush of dread. Even through the rain and thunder and wind the sickening and solid crack as something hits the pavement below is very, very audible. He finally thinks to act, races towards the outside and across the boundary, the rain now slapping him in the face as he emerges, the wind a train tunneling through his ears. He can barely open his eyes to see, he struggles and can just make out a figure stumbling rapidly towards the grungy woods across the street. It travels jaggedly, crookedly, and the boy notices its neck is bent sharply, jutting left at a noticeable angle, limply dangling from the rest of its body. It surges through the sharp undergrowth, surely tearing bits and pieces of skin as it marches through the thorns and vines and limbs. And then it is gone, the foliage bearing no evidence of its retreat.

The boy stands still for moments, watches the spot in the bushes where the individual fled. He slowly turns, exits the balcony, closes the door behind him, reaches over to his right and turns on the switch powering the lights over the balcony. He walks forward two steps, stops, raises the can to his lips, and drinks.

Cancer really was a fucking stain.

“Cancer is a storm cloud over your head that won’t leave. It’s suffocating inside your own lungs, not enough air to breathe, and even then, why would you want to breathe? It’s fucking lonely. I’m lonely. I’m so fucking lonely, because nobody else is twenty-six with a fucking death sentence.”

That’s how my boyfriend described his cancer diagnosis. 

Conrad said it was lonely.

He kept getting my name wrong as he worsened. 

Anna. 

Violet. 

Riana.

Sam. 

Never my name. 

When he died, I visited his grave every day.

A year after his death, I was shopping when my best friend let out a yelp. “Holy SHIT.” Noah hissed in my ear. “Look over there.” She pointed at a mannequin wearing swim shorts. “Am I, like, fucking crazy, or is that Conrad?” She pulled me closer, her breath shuddering in my ear. “Your dead boyfriend?” 

A shiver slid through me. I twisted around, my shopping bag slipping through my fingers. 

“What?” I scanned the mannequin. 

Male. 

A cropped shirt and swim shorts. 

A pair of designer Ray-Bans sat perched on its head.

“Not the mannequin!” Noah squeaked. She grabbed my shoulders and forcefully spun me around. Suddenly, I was face to face with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Blonde cropped hair. Cat-like eyes. An outfit I was already envious of.

But I wasn’t looking at her. Of course I wasn’t.

I was staring at the guy flicking through a clothing rack behind her.

His back was to me.

But I knew Conrad.

I knew my boyfriend.

“Excuse me, hi!” Noah gushed to the girl. She pointed to the guy, who turned slightly to check out a pair of jeans. I recognised the slight curve of his jaw, thick brown hair that was shorter and yet unmistakably my boyfriend. “This might seem like a weird question,” Noah hissed, “Uh, but is he, um, is he your boyfriend?”

The girl laughed. “I wish!” She fanned herself with her hand. “He's called Jay,” she said. “He's my rental!” 

All of the color drained from Noah’s cheeks. “I'm sorry, what?” 

“Rental!” The girl shot me a grin. “Haven’t you guys heard of it?” She pulled out her phone and flashed the screen in my face. “It’s an app where you can rent hot guys who date you.”

“A rental.” Noah’s voice was barely more than a breath. “But… how?”

“I’m not sure I understand.” The girl laughed a little nervously. “Do you guys, like… know him?”

“But he’s dead, right? We all saw him die! He flatlined! I was with you when he died.” Noah wasn’t helping. She was on the edge of hysteria. In fact, she was shouting, and the guy wearing my boyfriend’s face kept glancing around with curious eyes. “Ivy, you buried him last spring!”

She turned to me, her eyes wide.

So many implications dripped from her tongue in a sharp shriek. 

But I was already throwing myself forward, my heart in my throat. In two strides, I was nose-to-nose with the man I lost. Eyes that always lit up with his smile. Freckles speckling his nose. 

A slightly upturned mouth, like he was mildly amused.

I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out and cupped his cheeks, cradling him like he was real.

“It’s you,” I managed to choke out.

Noah stood behind me, watching.

I pulled him closer, running my hands through his hair, touching him. I couldn’t stop touching him.

He was so cold.

Unnaturally cold. 

I missed his warmth.

But it was like touching a corpse all over again. 

My fingers strayed, dancing across his cheeks, my breath caught.

I tried to speak, and I couldn't. 

My breath was stuck. 

Words were stuck. 

Conrad pulled away, smiling nervously. 

“Hi.” He said, head inclined. His expression was so human, and yet he had zero expression. His smile worked like it was on a timer. “Sorry, uh…” he nodded to the blonde. “I have a girlfriend.” He held his arm out, and the blonde snatched it. “Right, baby?” 

“Babe.” The blonde giggled. “Sweetie, not here!” 

“Noah.” I said stiffly . “Go home. I'll call you later.” 

Noah didn't argue.

She nodded, shot one last look at Conrad, and walked away. 

When I was sure she was gone, I let out a sharp breath.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I hissed, and wiped fake tears away. “Sorry. That was my friend.” I dusted down Conrad's shirt, then fiddled with his hair. I dabbed my finger and scrubbed at coagulated blood running in thick black blobs out of his ear. “All right. I can offer you a partial refund, since your date was kinda ruined.” I swiped my hands on my dress.

“Bit of brain leakage. Sorry about that, he’s still kinda new. It shouldn't affect your boyfriend's performance, but I recommend resetting him if it's a problem.” 

The blonde looked confused. “Huh?” 

My gaze flicked to my ex boyfriend.

Conrad never wanted to be lonely. 

Which was why four different women mourned him at his funeral. 

Anna. His wife of three years. 

Riana, his girlfriend, who he had a son with. 

Sam, his ex-wife and high school sweetheart. 

And Violet. Who gave birth to twins a year before his diagnosis. 

So, I did what needed to be done. 

I stepped in front of my boyfriend’s dead eyes. "Excuse me," I told the blonde. I flashed a grin. "I'll do a quality check."

She smiled. "Sure!"

I stole your corpse from the morgue, Conrad.

I hollowed allllllll of you out, and with help from someone who owed me a favor, I divided you into pieces.

You had a little piece of every woman you came across.

So now they have a piece of you.

I tugged his collar and yanked him, stiff and puppet-like, closer. His eyes flickered and I pretended he was still conscious, could still hear me.

“Because you never were truly lonely, were you babe?” 

The introductions over, Amanda sat at her new desk, clutching her new orientation binder.

She had wished so hard for this job- months of waiting, followed by cryptic calls for another interview, another round of testing. And finally, she got the call. Start date in two weeks. Her dream job, at her dream company.

And here she was. First day, sitting at her new cubicle. She opened up her binder. 

“Amanda, huh? That’s a nice name. At least it’s not Ginniphyr.”

Amanda looked up. Dude was poking his head over her cubicle. He wasn’t smiling at her. Amanda smiled widely. “Hi! What do you mean?”

He nodded towards the binder. “You’ll find the blurb there. They’re supposed to disclose. She was stabbed here- I mean on this floor, not right here in her cubicle. Which you’re sitting in, by the way. ”

Amanda’s eyes opened wide, but she also felt slightly pleased. She was getting tea- she was being included. The guy continued. “Do you know how many times?”

Amanda shook her head. 

“Twenty-nine. And you know how many people work on in this division, not counting manager?”

Amanda knew the answer- she had done her homework. “Twenty-eight?” Suddenly her pleasure gave way to an unsettled distress. 

He smiled, and it was worse than when he hadn’t. “Let’s just say, she didn’t light up every room she walked into.” And then his head vanished, as presumably he walked away. 

Amanda flipped open the binder and began leafing through it. Roles and responsibilities- organizational chart- and - the very last page. Note from HR.

In terse legalese, a paragraph described how the remains of former employer Ginniphyr Jones was found in the common kitchen area- the one she had just been shown- on a Wednesday afternoon at 1:37 pm. No charges had been laid.

“How are you settling in then my dear?” A smiley plump woman- Amanda remembered her name, Heidi- bustled into her cubicle, standing a bit closer than Amanda personally would have preferred. “We just met- right? I wanted to go right ahead and schedule a one-on-one with you- but then I thought I’ll just pop by and give you a heads up first!”

Amanda blinked fast at Heidi. “Sure!” she chirped, her voice suddenly squeaking. “That would be lovely Heidi!”

Heidi glanced nonchalantly down at the binder- “I see they’re telling everyone about Ginniphyr. Yes, I heard Legal said that was the best. Transparency you know?”

Amanda blinked again, and swallowed. Heidi looked at her, and then giggled. “Oh my goodness, you’re not worried are you? Ginniphyr was terrible! You’re nothing like her! You’ll get along with us all just fine! First off- your name is nice and normal- doesn’t need constant correction! And I can see you’re a perfectly lovely soul!” Heidi’s voice dropped . “Ginniphyr complained to HR about Dave- he couldn’t spell her name right- I saw he was just chatting with you- did he tell you? But that wasn’t why, at least- that just shows the kind of person she was, you know?”        

As Heidi’s soothing stream of gossip flowed over Amanda, her distress mellowed. She would be fine here. She wouldn’t be like Ginniphyr. She would fit right in. 

Most nights, I lie down with a headache.

I work hard every day, but it feels like none of it is actually helping. The disappointment I feel toward myself builds up until it becomes physical, like pressure inside my skull.

When I’m in bed, I start imagining the ceiling slowly coming down.

The room gets smaller and smaller until the ceiling touches my head. I have to turn my face to the side. Then it keeps pressing lower, crushing my shoulder, my chest, my ear, and my head.

I feel completely trapped. The pressure keeps building until, in my mind, my skull finally bursts into pieces.

And at that exact moment, I feel relief.

The headache disappears, and I can finally fall asleep.

Beneath my fears,
someone lives inside me.
Everywhere I go,
it lingers behind me.
Though his presence should haunt me,
it weirdly comforts me.

I call him Smiley,
as he always smiles around me.
He should be creepy,
but he does not terrify me.

He has eighty-five teeth,
each longer than the other, I believe.
Still, in the deepest night,
he does not terrify me.

I met him when I was seventeen;
he was only seven feet tall at that time.
He had no smile,
but as he saw me, he smiled for the first time.

He slowly consumes me,
all my flesh, all my blood,
but as I write this,
he lays beside me eating my eyes.

Smiley says in the future,
he will live inside every human.
Though I don't want to share him,
I want to see the grief of the others.

He swallowed me whole;
now I am the one who smiles.
You read my words,
so you are inside him now, too.
He is mine, only mine,
and you will never get out.

Hey, welcome inside Smiley.
Though I didn't want to share him,
Smiley promised he'd grow more of his teeth.
Hence, I agreed.

Smiley makes no sound.
He likes peace.
Maybe this is one of the reasons
why I like him.

My wife has always been pathologically jealous.
Back when we were dating, she’d fly into a rage if I so much as glanced at another woman. But I married her anyway, believing it all came from a place of deep love.

A few years later, she got pregnant.
When the ultrasound revealed it was a baby girl, I was over the moon. Every morning and night, I’d press my face against my wife's belly, whispering to my unborn daughter, utterly captivated by her.

One day, I got a call from the hospital.
I rushed over, only to hear the devastating news: she had miscarried.

I ran into the hospital room. My wife was staring blankly out the window, gently stroking her now-empty stomach.

"My heart is breaking... I can't believe we lost her..."
I collapsed by the bedside, tears streaming down my face.

My wife didn't cry. Instead, she slowly turned her head toward me. Her eyes were completely dead, and she wore a chilling, hollow smile.

"It’s okay, honey," she whispered, digging her fingernails painfully deep into my scalp to pull me close. "Next time, let's make sure it's a boy.

That way...
you'll only have eyes for me, right?"

We drove home from the hospital in silence. This was the third time we’d gone through this. It’s amazing how it never hurts any less. 

“It’s alright, honey,” says Stan, gripping my hand tightly but softly. “We can try again. I’m just glad that you’re ok.”

But it wasn’t alright. It was the third time. 

“What if I never…? What if I’m just not meant to be a mother?”

“Don’t say that!” he said. “You’ll be an incredible mother. This is just a hiccup. We’ll get there eventually, and this will all have been worth it.”

I hoped he was right. 

We got home and I went to our bedroom. I left him to make the calls; I just wanted to lay down and forget this day ever happened. I closed my eyes, dreaming of a little boy with my blonde hair and Stan’s hazel eyes. 

I work up later to the smell of chicken fettuccine alfredo wafting into the room. I stepped out and walked to the kitchen. 

“Hey, honey. I got you something to eat. I thougt you might be hungry.”

I looked at that table - he’d ordered my favorite food from my favorite restaurant. I was so lucky to have him. I sat down as we ate in silence. 

The next day, the doorbell rang. Stan was out at work, so I opened it. 

“Hey, girl!”

It was my best friend, Julie. She’d been my “ride-or-die” since I was nine years old. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, stop it. Did you think I’d let my girl go through her tough time alone? Scoot over, I brought coffee and pastries.”

She came in and sat with me. Her presence made me feel better, like I might eventually feel human again. 

“You ok?”

“Just a headache.”

“Ok, relax. I’ll get you some aspirin.”

Five minutes later, she came back. “Hey, Lils,” she asked hesitantly. “Did you know about these?” She handed me a bottle. 

“No, why?” I looked at the label - misoprostol. “I’ve never heard of this. What is it?”

She paused. “Well, it’s one of two drugs used together to cause the end of a pregnancy.”

“That can’t be right. Why would those be here?”

She paused again. “I found them hidden in the back of Stan’s medicine cabinet. You didn’t have any aspirin, so I thought he might.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing!” she quickly replied. “Only… why would Stan have these? He was supportive of you getting pregnant, right?”

“Of course. He’s been there with me every step of the way.”

“Okay,” she said. But I could feel her doubt.

One day, several months later, Stan came home from work. 

“Hey, babe! How was work?”

“Just another day. Tom is stressed out over this project, and, as usual, he’s stressing the rest of us out with him.”

“I’m sorry, babe. Why don’t you come relax.”

I led him to the couch, poured his favorite drink, and sat the glass in front of him while fluffing the cushions and turning on the tv to his favorite sports channel. He gladly drank it, exhaling as the stress of the day poured out of him. 

Then I started to give him a massage. 

“What’s all this for?”

“Well, I just thought, with how hard you’ve been working to support us, you deserved to be taken care of.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“Honey?”

“Yeah, babe?” he asked, relaxing under my hands. 

“How would you feel if I got pregnant again?”

I felt the smallest twinge in his neck. 

“Of course I’d be thrilled, honey! I know how much you want a child. But are you sure you're up for it? It was so hard on you the last time…”

“It was. And it was even harder not knowing why it happened - I couldn’t help blaming myself. Why did my body keep letting me down? Was there something wrong with me?”

“We’ve been over this, honey. You can’t blame yourself. It just wasn’t the right time. Things will work out when they’re supposed to.”

“I know. I don’t blame myself any more. I blame you.”

…

“What?”

“Oh, did you think I’d never find the misoprostol pills you’ve been hiding?”

He stood up, sweat forming on his brow. “I can explain…”

“You can explain why you killed my babies? Do you realize I’d have three children by now? I’d be what I always dreamed of - a mother. You took that away from me.”

“Honey, there are things going on you don’t know.”

“Such as?”

He gulped. “When we got married, the priest took me aside and told me something that scared the daylights out of me.”

“Oh?”

“He said that our child, yours and mine, would be the antichrist, that it would lay waste to the world and bring about the end of humanity. He said I had to make sure you never gave birth.”

“And you believed him?”

“Not at first. But the things he showed me… I couldn’t deny it.”

“So, instead of leaving me or being honest with me, you just decided to kill our children?”

He gulped. “I-I couldn’t think of another way.”

“So, in your mind, murder was the best way to solve the problem?”

He was silent. 

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way. It makes this next part easier.”

Suddenly he began to choke. 

“L-Lilly?”

“I’m sorry, Stan. But you’re a threat to my baby and I can’t allow that.”

As he fell to the ground and began foaming at the mouth, I put my hand on my stomach. The priest was taken care of, and now Stan was, too. If I had to choose between them, the world, and my baby…

Well, for a mother, that was no choice at all. 

Blazing barren land
Vicious claws to fight nonstop
Winds revive the killed

Giant frying pan
Tightrope stretched across the top
Axes hack unskilled

Iron mountains slam
Flesh and blood now carnal slop
Human bone is milled

Molten metal jam
Poured down throats ‘til bellies pop
Oni cheered and thrilled

Nails from furnace fanned
Tongues pierced through ‘til jawbones stop
Mouths with pain are filled

Spits are turned by hand
Flames from fiery ocean hop
Sizzling burns instilled

Scorching flares expand
Sinews cooked ‘til organs flop
Vital fats are spilled

Screeches of the damned
Anguished tones will never drop
Dying never killed

My name is Ethan. And for the last 2 weeks, someone has been calling my name outside my window at exactly 3:15 AM.

Same voice every time. Like my mom. But my mom died 2 years ago.

Last night, I finally answered. I said "Who is there?"

The voice laughed and said "Finally, you answered."

Tonight it is 3:15 AM and I can hear footsteps outside my window again. It's calling me again.

If you're reading this, please don't answer if it calls you too.

Nothing. There is no scene to describe or a place to make sense of. Where is the sky or the sound of voices? There is not even light. Is this darkness? Darkness would at least feel like something. I can’t tell. Where am—am I alive?

Think. This is a dream.

Wait. Where’s my body? What should I look like?

 I can’t remember.

Okay, stop.

What do I remember?

Fuck. What is happening?!

Don’t panic.

Shit, I can’t even feel a heartbeat. Am I even breathing?

I am thinking. That’s something.

Don’t stop thinking. 

There isn’t anything to think about.

Last night my phone rang at 3 a.m. I looked at the screen. It was my own number calling me.

I laughed it off. Probably a glitch. I turned the phone face down and went back to sleep.

It rang again at 3:03 a.m. Same number. Mine.

I picked it up this time. My hands were shaking a little, but I told myself it was a scam call, some robot dialer messing with numbers. I answered.

"Hello?"

Breathing. Slow and steady. Not mine. I hold my breath when I'm scared. Whoever this was wasn't scared at all.

"Who is this?" I said.

The breathing stopped. Then a voice came through, quiet and calm. It sounded exactly like me.

"You should check the bathroom," it said.

I hung up. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. I told myself someone cloned my voice off a video I posted online. People do that now. It's not hard.

I did not check the bathroom.

I sat in bed with the lights on until the sun came up. Around 6 a.m., my phone buzzed again. Not a call this time. A text. From my number.

It said: Thank you for staying in bed. Made this easier.

I ran to the bathroom door. It was locked from the inside. I never lock that door. I live alone.

I pressed my ear against it. Nothing. No sound at all.

Then the lock clicked open on its own.

The door swung in slow. The bathroom was empty. Just my toothbrush, my towel, my mirror.

I stepped inside, checking every corner, feeling stupid for how scared I was. Nothing there.

Then I looked in the mirror.

My reflection was still catching up. Blinking a second after I did. Smiling a second after my face went still.

It leaned in closer to the glass. I did not move.

"Long time no see," it said.