Tales From The Dark Forest
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Before that day's festivities began, he called me into his personal chambers. As the guard shuffled me through the door, I looked up and saw him. My breath caught in my throat. The effect the Savior had on people was striking. The Savior sat behind a giant mahogany desk with expensive silver statues of archangels and demons, neatly arranged around a stack of paperwork. He continued looking down at a piece of paper, frowning, his brow wrinkling. He then looked up at me. The Savior had burned scars covering his scalp, the back of his neck and his arms. Folds of shining, key-loid scar tissue crisscrossed the top of his bald scarred head. Yet his face was totally untouched. He had striking green eyes. They shone with a muddy radiance. The color of those eyes reminded me of a swab filled with hidden venomous snakes. Some fetid waterhole that hid bones and rotting bodies. His face was aristocratic and chisel. He had a small, straight nose with high cheekbones. His chin looked as if it was cut from stone, strong and jutting. His eyelashes looked like those of a camel's. The combination of powerful charismatic elegance and nightmarish scarring marked the Savior in both personality and appearance. He was the unifier of opposites in the flesh, the towel, the bra man and the deathless shelf. "Adam," he said to me, his deep voice booming throughout the chamber. I gave a weak, anxious smile and bowed my head. "Good morning, Savior. Did you wish to speak with me?" I had absolutely no idea what this man wanted. He stood up showing off his towering stature. He must have been at least six foot six. He nearly always dwarfed at everyone around him, except for the freakishly large bodyguards he kept close at hand at all times. "Today is the day, yes?" he asked, giving me a faint smile. I saw his sparkling white movie star teeth through the parting lips. As I stared into his eyes, I started to feel strange, almost hypnotized. Sounds seemed far away and everything felt slow. "Today is your initiation into the fold." "I feel weird," I said. He nodded, as if expecting this. "Did you already take the sacrament?" he said, referring to the piece of round flatbread, the high priest put in the mouths of everyone participating in the ritual. I tried to say something, but my tongue seemed to cling at the top of my dry mouth. I just nodded. "Yes, I see." The sacrament contains a very powerful substance, Adam. It's called LSD. "Do you know what God gave us LSD?" He sent it at the same time as a nuclear bomb. "It was clearly a message to humanity," God said. "Here is the path I have sent you." LSD, the path to spirituality and understanding of the divine. "Here is the other path I have sent you," atomic weapons, the path to annihilation and incomprehensible horrors. After the sacrament had taken effect in the congregation, men dressed in the garb of Roman soldiers dragging the Savior out. He had on a purple robe and a crown made of thorns, rivulets of slow-moving dark blood ran down his cheeks. The soldiers, speaking in Latin and laughing amongst themselves, looked at us. Their eyes seemed to flash with an inner light for a moment. I wondered if these were actors, and if so, where the Savior had found them. The soldiers went over a rack of torture tools, looking at various screws, bludgens, axes, and whips. Finally, laughing, one of them chose a whip with vicious metal tips, an ancient-looking version of the Kato Nine nails. He showed it to the others. They grinned back at them, their eerie smiles seeming too wide, their teeth too sharp and numerous. They beating kicked the Savior until blood streaked from his nose and mouth. His eyes began to swell shut, and they tied him to a wooden stockade. A particularly brutish, large Roman soldier walked forward with the Kato Nine tails, grinning at the crowd. His teeth seemed to grow longer, sharper, more and more like those of a predator. Now I knew it wasn't some trick of the drug or the light. His eyes really were turning crimson, a strange inner radiance rippling through them. The other soldiers around him began to transform as well as they tortured the Savior. The whip sliced deep into his back until the bones of his spine and ribs began to shine through the wounds, white and gleaming under all the blood and torn flesh. I looked on in horror. Those bones, so pure and clean under all that mutilation and damage, shone through like sunshine through a parting storm. Finally, after the Roman soldiers had their fill, they pulled the whimpering, bleeding man up to his feet. The Savior looked like a boxer before a knockout. He wavered on his feet, weaving and stepping from side to side. His face a mask of agony, then he fell. The soldiers laughed, kicking him in the face and neck as he called out to God for someone to help him, to kill him, to make it stop. But no one came. I saw the cross nearby. They dragged him over to it and pulled out the wicked silver nails that would do the deed. The Savior had taught us that the final judgment was near, and that to survive and become gods, we must worship both Jesus Christ and Satan. "Not only must we worship them," he said, "but we must guide them towards reconciliation. Armageddon was very near, and the only way for the universe to survive was to unify the two long lost brothers." Jesus Christ and Lucifer, twins born from the primordial Godhead at the genesis of creation. If we could succeed in bringing Jesus Christ and Satan back into one inevitable being, if we could convince them to fuse their divine powers, then we could single handedly prevent the apocalypse. The Savior called the path to summon angels and demons for power, the process. I had seen the effects on the rites many times growing up. Sometimes the summoned beings appeared in human form, yet their eyes always betrayed their true nature, glowing red or turning black during the sacrifices. Our church never tried the summoned Christ or Lucifer directly. We always use emissaries to communicate with the divine ones. After the Savior had died on the cross, his lips changing into cyanotic blue, the demonic soldiers began to pull his body down. A death gasp escaped the Savior's lips, a long choking wheeze. The soldiers cut the ropes that bound his arms and legs to the great bloody cross. I saw his palms rip in two as the full weight of his body came down on his hands suddenly. The nails inserted through his feet tore through the flesh as the momentum of the falling body pulled against them. The Savior's eyes stared blankly up at the sky, his pupils dilating as deaths cold touch annihilated the last of his life energy. I looked back at my parents' faces. They stood directly behind me in the roaring crowd of believers. My parents' eyes had rolled back in their heads, and they swayed on their feet like sunflowers and a light breeze. With the whites of their eyes showing in their mouths hanging open, I couldn't tell if their faces showed expressions of transcendence or of mortal terror. The members of our church cried and wept, formed in a circle around the ritual. Time seemed to slow down. I noticed the way the skies seemed to change colors above us now, flashing with red and orange light. Soon, lightning bolts started to smash into the nearby trees and bushes, twisting and blazing with blinding radiance. I could no longer discern the effects of the drug from what was truly real. The soldiers' faces began to drip and melt, revealing demonic features underneath. Spiralling black horns emerged from their skulls. Pale, bone-white skin glistened on their muscular bodies. Their legs reminded me of those of a rhinoceros, flat and round at the bottom. Their fingers appeared long, twisted and vampiric, with claw-like nails the same color as their horns, shining like jet stone. The demons had shed their Roman garb and human masks completely now. They stood around the Savior's body, mostly naked except for the silver armor covering around their waste and torsos. I saw strange symbols engraved into the metal, symbols from a language I had never seen before. It looked like no written script developed by humanity. The letters seemed to morph and shift before my eyes as they dragged the Savior towards the cave. They stopped occasionally to kneel down and suck the blood from his wounds. Their sharp, serrated white teeth turning crimson. Then they threw him into the cave and rolled the heavy stone in front of the opening. Sometime during the night, after all the members of the church had gone back to the compound where we slept in eight, the stone rolled away from the mouth of the cave. The Savior now completely uninjured and unscarred except for his previous burns stepped out. In his purple robe, he could have been an ancient emperor. He had stepped over the boundary a death before and came back, but every time, it changed him a little more, ate away at some fundamental like a corrosive acid. But it wasn't until hours later that I'd found out just how demented the Savior had become over his life, performing these insane occult rituals and drawing forces to our group that he could never fully understand or control. The next morning, the Savior called me into his office. I hadn't slept all night. Whatever drugs they had given me had kept me wide awake. I saw shadows morphing into the silhouettes of people, trees reaching out like arms like an octopus, clouds forming together and breaking apart in the blink of an eye and wrapping patterns. As I sat in bed with my eyes closed, I kept seeing those grinning demons wearing the masks of ancient soldiers, speaking in perfect Latin. It felt like a movie playing behind my eyelids, a movie that looped and repeated in all the worst and most disgusting parts. "Adam," the Savior said, smiling at me. "How was your first experience with the divine?" I didn't know what he expected me to say, so I stumbled through a vague answer. "Oh, just great, so beautiful," I said, lying, returning his smile. Yet inside, my heart quivered with anxiety. My hands trembled, and I could barely keep my teeth from chattering. I felt very cold all of a sudden. "How would you feel about expanding your role in the church?" He asked. I shrugged. "Okay, I guess," I said. I actually wanted nothing less, but I knew the Savior was a very dangerous man. "That's perfect," he said, showing his wide teeth in a wide reptilian grin, his eyes sparkled with an inner light and fanaticism. "Because we are trying to get a crew together for some very special missions." "Yes, I think these are the most unique missions imaginable. I like to call them "creepy-crawly missions." The word gave me an impression of a child's game, yet it had some sinister undertones. "What's a creepy-crawly mission?" I asked, genuinely curious. "Well, it's a bit of a game, like hide and seek. We here at the church give our members pure black clothing and some knives and guns and send them out to the world to bring back some fuel for the rituals. They do what they have to do to get inside a house, cut the screen or reach through the doggy door or whatever else gets the job done. Then they just have to capture people at the house, tie them up and bring them back here. They are offerings to the ancient ones. Some, such as the angel of death, will not come without such as these. He paused for a long moment, staring straight into my eyes. Human offerings, you understand. We cannot fulfill the rituals to bring the ancient ones without human sacrifices. "You're killing people?" I asked, horrified. My mouth hanging open. He gave a wave of his hand at this. "Adam, you have to understand. There's no such thing as death. The only thing that dies with the body is the ego. We are liberating these people to an infinite higher plane. We are allowing their primordial consciousness to return to the oneness from which all things emerged. Everything that occurs in this world is like a mirage in front of eternal timeless eyes, peering out from behind the curtain of reality. If you think about it like that, we are actually helping these people." He gave me a subtle wink. "To tell you the truth, Adam, I have died many times. I have always come back stronger and more powerful than before. Death is natural. It is beautiful. When it comes, it is like a black hole, or an empty space between galaxies. It is cold and black, yes, but also infinite. The powerful." "So, can I count you in? Your parents are already planning on attending tonight." "I decided I needed to escape the compound as soon as possible, but this was no easy task. There were cameras, security guards, stores of automatic rifles and grenades and much else besides too content with. That night, I got out of my bed, putting on extra shirts for warmth. I put on all black clothing and a black hat with black shoes, as to disguise myself in the shadows. I was creeping out of my room when I saw three silhouettes in front of me standing in the dark hall. I saw my parents, also dressed in all black, both holding knives with carved silver blades and carved opal handles. On the handles, I saw the faces of angels and demons. My father also had a pistol strapped to his waist. The saviors stood next to them in his impeccable purple robes. A smile of enlightenment and peace spread across his proud, aristocratic face. "My father had a lunatic expression on his grinning face. My mother constantly trembled. Her pupils dilated, her eyes constantly flicked to the left and right. I wondered whether the saviour gave them drugs before a creepy crawly mission." "Ah, good," the saviour said. "I see you've already dressed for the occasion. We were just coming the check on you, Adam. It is time to prove your loyalty to the church once and for all. It is time to take your first life. It is I could assure you a God-like feeling. After all, if God has power over life and death, why shouldn't we who seek to become like him?" My father nodded along like a puppet. My mother simply trembling at a side. The long, wicked knife clenched tightly in her shaking hand. The saviour reached into his robes and pulled out a similar knife. I saw it had an opal handle, finely crafted and glistening like rainbows. He handed it to me, bowing his head slightly and extending the handle out. "Your time has come, Adam. It is time to prove your worth to the church." My parents and another man from the church went on the mission. I drove the car, a dark inconspicuous sedan. They said I was to stay in the car during the actual creepy crawly mission, at least for the first time. I was to be the driver and look out, but more importantly, they said I should watch and learn. "The saviour says to grab a child for the ritual," my father said grinning. "But the rest of the family can be slaughtered like pigs. No witnesses can survive." They instructed me towards a rich area of the city. Soon I was on high mountain streets with suburban homes looking down upon the ghetto far below. This is where the rich people lived, I knew. I could tell by looking at the mansions and the giant swimming pools around every house. My father instructed me to pull over on a secluded dark house at the end of a cul-de-sac. I parked the car, with a pounding heart. I watched them get out and climb the gates, nimbly reaching up like salamanders and pulling themselves over. A few minutes later, I saw a half-dressed man and woman run out of the front door. Their underwear and shirts were soaked in blood. They had deep slash marks on their face, their neck, their chests and arms. Rivulets of it ran down their naked legs and feet. Behind them, I saw three dark grinning silhouettes walking slowly and laughing. I started the car and drove away quickly after seeing the bodies collapse on the lawn. The figures standing over the limp bodies no down and stabbed them over and over dozens of times. This was the last thing I saw as I turned down off the street, hyperventilating, a rising sense of panic overtaking my mind. I quickly got lost. I just kept driving until the car ran out of gas. By then, I had driven for a few hours and somehow ended up in the next state over. A massive state park bordered the town where I found myself. I walked for a while and found a cabin with no one inside. I smashed a window and got in, but I didn't know if it was far enough away. I feel like there's eyes running over my back, like the next shadow I see will turn out to be the church member dressed in all black and waiting for me. Because the Savior has many more fanatics and he is sending them all out on creepy crawly missions. And soon, they may be coming to a house near you. I looked down at the professionally wrapped box sitting on the wraparound porch. The wrapping paper was read with little Christmas trees all over it. A large blue bow sat at the top, shaped like a spiked naval mine. Next to the bow, I saw the cheery looping cursive of my stalker. I knelt down, reading the tag, never knowing what it would say. To my best friend, from the cleaner. I sighed, picking up the package. I heard something wet sloshing around inside, drops of blood started leaking out of the cardboard lining as I carried it. He left a trail of crimson in my wake. I went to the kitchen, grabbing a sharp knife. Inhaling deeply, I unwrapped the paper before slitting open the cardboard box underneath. I peered inside. Two cloudy, lifeless eyes stared back at me. The smell of decay and death became so thick as soon as I opened that box that I could taste it in the back of my mouth. I backed away quickly, but even when I closed my eyes, the mental image stayed with me. He had sent the decapitated head of a child. Its blue lips pressed tightly together as if in an expression of disapproval. Squirming larva ate at the stump of his neck and came out of the child's ears. Next to the head, I saw a DVD case. On the front cover and huge spiky letters with the words, "Watch me." I sat in front of the TV, the DVD spinning rapidly in the player. The black screen rippled with static. A jarring cacophony emanated from the speakers, and then a second later, a face appeared. The valley ripper always wore the costume of a bathamite in these videos. He had on a black robe. On his face, he wore a mask that made him look like a goat. Two giant black horns twisted from its head. The eyes of the mask looked bleached white and dead. "I have sent you a present," he said, using a synthesizer to change his voice. It came through as deep and demonic. "Our game is not yet over. Do you know why I have chosen you?" "Because you're a frickin' psycho," I whispered to myself. "Because you have potential. I sawed in you the first day we met. You are not like the others. Within you, you have the seeds of the overmen. You have the seeds of greatness." For the last ten years, I have tried to push you towards self-realization. You have the same power within you that I do, but I did not realize it on my own. My father took what was a formless lump of clay and folded it into a masterpiece. I see now I have to do the same with you. I felt nervous about the ominous promises he made on the video. Moreover, I mourned the loss of life. But most of all, I knew these deaths were all my fault. Because in reality, I could have helped stop the valley ripper at any time, but I didn't. I reflected back on how I had gotten myself stuck in this quagmire. The first time I met the valley ripper, I had been roaring drunk. I drank constantly back then, every night I would pass out. Undoubtedly, I was an alcoholic. I stopped drinking a few years ago. But not before that poison did a nestinable damage to my life and liver. If it weren't for rehab in AA, I strongly believe I would be dead. I remember driving home from some concert. I can't even remember the band now. A friend from work had invited me, and I never missed an opportunity to drink socially. I never missed an opportunity to drink period now that I think about it. My friend Ellis pounded me on the shoulder as I downed my second shot of imported Russian vodka. "Puts here on your chest," he yelled, trying to be heard over the jarring music. He started laughing. The bright, multicolored lights flashing off his glasses. I motioned to his shot. "You're next," I said. He took it down without expression, slamming the empty shot glass on the wooden counter. Ellis was a huge man, nearly seven feet tall. He had a dark brown mustache, matching wavy hair ran down from his forehead. Thick muscles covered his arms and legs. His skin looked as white and pale as powdered milk. The bartender brought out two long island ice teas. I started chugging the delicious, boozy concoction. I could feel total release just around the corner, an impending blackout. The music blared in our ears, the metal guitar solo's blasting a rapid succession of cords. "I think I'm gonna head out," I shouted loudly in Ellis's ear after I finished my drink. "If I stay here much longer, I'll be way too drunk to get home, and I have work tomorrow." Ellis nodded yawning. He got up and threw some money on the counter. I did the same. "Alright, let's go," he said. "It's only a 10-minute drive anyways." Ellis lived close, only about a three-minute walk from my house. As I walked outside, the cool air swept over my skin. I felt the sweat start to evaporate like light mist and a breeze. "So you watched the news lately?" Ellis asked conversationally. My ears still rang from the shrill whine of guitars and the harsh shrieking of the vocalist. I shook my head. "I don't own a TV," I said. He looked at me in amazement. "Really?" He said. "Why not?" I shrugged. "It's a waste of money, and it makes you stupid." I read books mostly. Ellis nodded at this. "So you didn't hear the latest news?" He asked in a hushed, secretive tone. "Without waiting for an answer," he kept talking. "I guess there's a serial killer nearby." I rolled my eyes. "There's probably always been a serial killer nearby," I said. "There's over 300 million people in this country. What are the chances there are no psychotic murderers in a 50-mile radius where hundreds of thousands of people live?" "Pretty low, I think." We had gotten close to my car, a fully restored Ford Thunderbird. Ellis always complained about the lack of space and legroom and in his defense. He did kind of look like a clown in a clown car when I put the top down. "Yeah, you're probably right, but this is no ordinary serial killer," Ellis continued. "He's a real-life Satanist, like something out of a horror movie." "How do you know?" I asked. He laughed sarcastically at this. Everyone knows it's all over the news. He's done three houses so far. At the first house, he found the husband in his bed. The guy saw him breaking in and the killer slit his throat. The husband still fought like a madman though, even with the slit throat. There was a sign of struggle and his knuckles all looked bruised. This is all according to the media anyways, so take it with a grain of salt. I nodded. So the guy goes in the houses and takes all their most valuable stuff, like any money or jewelry. He seems to kill randomly. In some houses, he kills everyone. But at the first house, he let the wife live and only killed the husband and children. The wife said she was crying and pleading with him. She apparently didn't know the rest of her family was dead, as he bound and blindfolded her downstairs, where she was sleeping in front of the TV. She said that she would give him anything he wanted if he didn't hurt her kids. She started swearing to God and he slapped her. "No bitch," he growled. "Swear to Satan." "Swear to Satan?" I asked appalled. Alice nodded grimly. Yeah, apparently the guy is a real-life Satanist. He believes Satan protects him. He worships the devil and offers him sacrifices. And since those sacrifices are all suburban, rich people, you can imagine the uproar. It would be different if he was killing people in the inner city. No one would give a crap. Alice laughed at that, though I didn't see the humor. I drove down the dark country roads as we talked about the valley ripper. The booze made my head feel light and empty. All my problems seemed to have dissolved and I was just happy to be alive, until the woman started walking in front of the car. I was trying to light a cigarette at the time. If I hadn't drunk so much, I might have been able to save the situation, but by the time I looked up, a collision had come inevitable. "Look out!" Alice screamed in panic, looking up from his phone at the last possible second. I braced for impact. The woman's body smashed into my front passenger side headlight. I heard a tinkling of breaking plastic and glass, accompanied by a revolting cracking sound as the woman's bones shattered. Her body rolled, spinning in midair and denting my hood. Then she hit the windshield, leaving jagged cracks like lightning bolts. She flew over the car and landed with a nauseating thud on the cold empty street behind us. I pulled over, putting on the hazard lights. Alice looked like he was in shock. "Is she dead?" he asked, gulping heavily. I opened the driver's door and vomited on the pavement before stumbling out of the car. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode, and I had a whining ringing sound in my ears. I started walking back to the woman. Yes, she was very dead. I could see her neck shutting out the side at a 45 degree angle, like a bird with its spine broken. A long gasping exhalation escaped her body, opened lips and then she laid still. She looked like she was in her mid 20s with long black hair and blue eyes. She had on all sorts of rings and necklaces, many of them with the cult symbols. I saw upside down pentagrams, the Ouroboros, the black sun and the O.M. symbol. A rather crazy collection, I said to myself. "Oh shit," I whispered to myself, suddenly feeling very sober. 8,000 thoughts ran through my head a second, and all of them seemed worthless. Ellis stood by my side, one hand on my shoulder. He tried giving comfort, but I only felt desiccated and scared. "You have to report this," Ellis said, trying to be comforting. A moment later, his head disintegrated before my eyes. I heard a deafening gunshot. The stump of his neck continued to pump blood for a few seconds before his body fell. His hand sliding down my back as it went. I started screaming, trying to run, but I hadn't gotten more than a ten feet when a hand grabbed me by the arm and spun me around. I saw a man standing there in a black robe with a goat-like mask over his head. He had a sniper rifle slung around his shoulder and a pistol in his right hand. He tilted his head slightly, like someone curious about a new arrival. "Do you know who I am?" He asked in a deep, almost robotic voice. He had no inflection on his word or change in cadence, and gave his voice a reptilian quality. "The valley ripper?" I said, feeling very cold. Goosebumps began rising all over my skin, and I started shaking my hands trembling. He nodded slowly. "That's what the media calls me, so I hear. It's as good as name as any." He knelt close to me. "I've been watching you, John. You scam your own co-workers, family, and friends. Steal their money and leave town. How many times have you done it? How long until you got him, too?" He pointed at Ellis's nearby headless corpse. I gaped at the man. "How did he know so much about me?" "Don't get me wrong. I admire what you do." The serial killer continued. "There is no such thing as right and wrong. The only right in this world is what serves the strong, the only wrong as weakness." "You have exploited the weakness of others. This is only natural for superior beings like you and me." "I'm nothing like you," I said, spitting the words at him. He didn't seem the slightest bit affected. "Then why haven't you called the police yet?" He asked. "You just killed a girl. You're just gonna let her rot here? Are you planning on driving away?" "No," I responded slowly. "Actually, I didn't know what I planned." A rising sense of panic and dread had nearly convinced me to just hop in my car and get far away from the accident. "Look, it's not entirely your fault," the man said. He noted Glee in his voice. "I did happen to drug her and send her out into the road when you were near. I figured with the amount you drank, you would plow right into her, crack and smash and bang." He shrieked with laughter at the image. "And you did. Right on cue, brother. Right on cue." "I'm not sure what you want from me," I said. A flash of anger rising and dissipating within my chest. "I don't understand why you're doing any of this." "Because you have potential, and I want to talk to you and make a deal." He pointed at the two corpses on the road. I was grateful that almost no cars traveled this way at night. The town we found ourselves in only had a few hundred people in it, and when it got late, the roads looked like ghost towns. "I'll clean up this mess, but no, I have the entire thing on video. Even right now, you're being recorded." I recorded the incident from multiple angles. "You and your license plate are visible in every single one." I gawked at the man. This entire encounter seemed impossible. "What I want from you, in exchange for my silence and help, is simply this. I want someone who could look at my work and appreciate it for what it is. Every Christmas, I will send you a present in a videotape. I want you to open the present and watch the tape. If you don't, oh no. And I'll send a copy of this little incident to the police." "Okay, okay," I said, backing away. I expected the man to shoot me at any moment. "Whatever you want, if you want to send me Christmas presents, you could have just asked. You didn't need to set up this whole insane charade. The man clucked his tongue condescendingly." "We'll see about that," he said ominously. "I decided I had had enough. I changed my life over the course of the last 10 years. I no longer went around doing Ponzi schemes and stealing people's life savings. Though I really didn't want to go to prison, I figured I needed help from the authorities at this point, and that would only happen if I gave a full confession. I tried putting it off for a mere couple days. I got home from work later that night, stomped through the snow to get to the front door. Freezing and wet, I quickly unlocked it and went into the house. The light from the living room streamed into the kitchen. Odd, I thought. I never left the lights on. I went into the living room seeing the black robed man standing there. In front of him, I saw a middle-aged man strapped to a fold-out table gagged and chained. His eyes rolled wildly, looking from me to the ominous killer who stood before us like an angel of death. "You have become weak," the killer said, a note of disappointment in his voice. "I thought you were different from the others. It seems to me you have swallowed their poisoned morality and become a sheep, and the only things sheep are good for, my friend, is slaughtering." He pointed to the bound man on the table. "I want you to kill him. I want you to prove your worth to myself and Lucifer. Give thanks to Satan and cut his throat." "No," I screamed. "I'm done with this game." The killer shook his head slowly. "Are you sure?" he asked. I nodded, suddenly feeling very afraid. I began to take a step back, intending to turn around and run. The killer pointed a gun at me and fired. It made a soft popping sound. I looked down the sea and dart in my chest. "Don't worry," he said, a note of Mirth and his voice. It's just a tranquilizer gun. "I'm sorry that we have to do this the hard way." He took the sharp knife from the table next to the man, raising it high and plunging it into the victim's throat. The man's eyes widened. A bubbling, gurgling sound came as he choked on his own fluids. The world began to spin and go black. I remember falling on the kitchen floor, trying to crawl away and then... nothing. I awoke in prison, surrounded by countless guards and police officers. They all gave me looks of disgust and hatred. "We've got 'em," one said. Finally, we caught the valley ripper. We found all the knives, guns and rope used in the house and even the body of one of his victims. They had also found videotapes, including the one of me hitting the woman. They had found the black robes and mask he used. No one believed me when I protested and tried telling the story. I barely believe it. It's too fantastic. Too bizarre. I'm writing this from prison. My lawyer grudgingly agreed the sharet. Even though no one will believe me, I want to let people know. Because the valley ripper is still free, and I don't know what he's going to do next. There was a screeching outside like the wind through the castles of hell. I sat straight up, looking out the window. I saw a strobing, flickering cascade of red, orange and yellow hues. For a moment, I thought I was still stuck in some sort of inescapable nightmare. A gaunt oval face staring in through the window. It didn't register how bizarre this was for a few seconds, until I remembered I lived on the third floor. I jumped out of my bed. Long, bony fingers curled into a clenching fist tapping lightly on the glass outside, dragging a sharp knuckle across the window. From his eyes, there spun a web of luminescent lights flashing like fire. I looked straight into them for a moment, feeling blinded as if I had looked straight into the sun. I quickly turned away, seeing shapes streaming past my closed eyelids from the explosion of light they had suffered. Everything looked white with a bare silhouette of the grinning creature with the spiral eyes, burned into the back of my retinas. I stumbled away, blinded hitting the nightstand and sending the lamp smashing to the ground, breaking it. I ran into my father's room, crying and screaming about the monster outside my window. He got up sign, but he grabbed his pistol and went into my room. A few moments later, he called me. "Come here, Roland," he said in a gruff, harsh tone. "I want to show you something." With my heart still hammering, I wandered back into the room. In the window, I saw melted into the glass two swirling spiral patterns, hints of red, yellow and orange still glimmered in the circles, like cinders sparkling above a bonfire. "Did you eff up this window?" he asked, clenching his fists. "And you broke your damn lamp," the gun laid at his side. "No, Dad, I swear, there was someone outside." I started to say, a stinging slap smacked me across the face. "Don't you lie, you little shit," he growled. "I work hard for this family, and you have your vapors and little lunatic episodes and wake me up for no reason." I felt warm rivers of blood streaming from my nose. I cringed back, trying to avoid what I knew was coming. But my father was extremely fast, and he had built up muscles over years of labor. Old man's strength, my friend Frankie calls it. I felt a fist smash into my stomach. I doubled over, retching. He elbowed me hard in the back, and I fell to the ground, gasping and crawling away. "Now don't freakin' wake me up again," he yelled as he walked out, slamming the door behind him. I couldn't sleep after that. I kept looking out the window, but that night, the eldritch creature didn't show his face again. I watched the sunrise a few hours later, totally exhausted. I got up getting ready to go to middle school. I felt as if I was walking through water, with everything seeming slow and unreal. I noticed a lot of kids were missing from our classes. In some of my classes, nearly half of the kids were absent. I asked a couple of friends about it. Most of them didn't know any more than I did, but a few of them heard rumors. "I've heard there's some outbreak and some weird disease going around." My buddy Frank told me in the hallway. My brother works as an EMT, and he says 911 was getting flooded with calls. He didn't tell me exactly what was wrong with the people, but he said it was horrible. "What made it so horrible?" I asked. He shrugged. They keep bleeding from their eyes, their noses, their mouths, everything. I don't know what the hell causes that. But the doctors at the hospitals couldn't find anything wrong with the people, besides the fact that they were bleeding to death for no reason. "So did they die?" I asked, horrified. He nodded. "Yeah, a few. Most of them didn't, though. I don't really know the details, man. He was pretty vague about it. He looked more scared than I have ever seen him before, though. And he's dealt with a lot of crap at that job. Lots of dead people, gunshot victims, overdoses, everything. But he said he's never seen anything like this before. That night, I fell asleep quickly from exhaustion. I awoke, confused, streams aligned flashing in my eyes. I looked out the window and saw the same creature from before, floating in the air. His face looked stretched out, like a giant egg. Two cyclonic eyes sent out streams of light, spinning like spiral galaxies in the void. The hues of fire that shone from those eyes looked beautiful and hypnotizing, but also blinding. I saw a massive, grinning mouth that constantly shattered and two small reptilian holes for a nose. His teeth looked very small and straight, like a child's teeth. But he had far too many of them. Hundreds of the small white pearls shone in that grin, embedded in sickly yellow gums marked with black spots. From his back, two black ragged wings stretched out, filled with holes and rippling slowly in the breeze. They reminded me of a bat's wings. Jet black was sores that leaked dark fluid down to the grass far below. I watched as inhuman blood drip off the sharp angles of the wings, thick like oil and glistened like rainbows. They ended in a point like a scalpel. "Don't be afraid, Roland. My name is Mr. Welcome," the creature said in a voice like thunder. "And I am your guardian angel. I am here to help protect you from the evil that now invades your town, for without my help you will most certainly die." Mr. Welcome told me many things. His booming voice seemed to shake the floor, and I wondered if he would wake my father up. But Mr. Welcome assured me that the only person he spoke to would hear him. "Our communication occurs in your mind and my mind, though it may sound like it comes from outside of you. It is within you. You may hear your heart beating in your ears after all, but that is still inside you. And I am the same, for you and I are one. In a way, I am closer to you than your own heartbeat. I could see all the dark pits in your soul were black, twisted things growing in the shadows. And we all have that, Roland. It should be embraced, not shunned. "But also as your guardian angel," he said, "I have to tell you some bad news. There is an outbreak of Satan's leprosy in your town. I repressed and urged to laugh." "Satan's leprosy?" I said bemused. "Is that an actual disease?" The more I stared into Mr. Welcome's eyes, the more I felt myself trusting him, opening up to him. I couldn't believe how scared I had been before. In an alien kind way, he looked beautiful, and the more I watched him, the more I felt myself accepting his presence. And yet, a small piece of my mind locked away far in the back still questioned many things he claimed, including being my guardian angel. But the more he spoke, the more I felt myself slipping away and falling under his spell. "Oh, yes, Roland, yes," he said slowly. Satan's leprosy is the worst disease, the mark of cane, the touch of the devil. His eyes flickered and strode, sending shadows like black grasping hands dancing across the room. Everything seemed dreamy and unreal. "I will do all I can to protect you, Roland," Mr. Welcome said. "But soon, you may have to start fighting on the side of the good. You may have to prove your skill in killing demons. Do you think you could kill some evil, filthy demons, Roland?" A series of visions ran through my mind, knights on a holy crusade, saints sending out evil spirits, priests burning witches. "I can try," I said, giving Mr. Welcome a friendly smile. The next day, school got canceled. Things began to grow strange in my town, and not just because of Mr. Welcome. I started seeing suspicious black SUVs with tinted windows hanging around the borders of the town that morning, and then my friend Frankie ran over to my house, knocking frantically at the door. My dad was a mechanic who owned his own shop, and he had already left for work, so a school now canceled. I found myself home alone for the day. Frankie's dark brown eyes looked excited and wild. They gleamed with terror and adrenaline. "My parents," he said breathlessly. "There's something wrong with my family, they won't stop bleeding in their eyes, their faces, they're all wrong, Roland. Something bad is happening." I thought back to Mr. Welcome's warning about the Satan leprosy and my stomach churned with anxiety. "What do you mean, their eyes, their faces?" I asked, taking a step back. He had sweat running down his chubby face. His long hair hung over his forehead and wet clumps. He was breathing fast, bent slightly over. It's like their eyes slid halfway off their faces during the night. When they woke up, their faces were sideways, their mouths drooped down to the right, and their noses looked like stretched out worms. Their bodies were just turning in the jelly, and the blood would not stop coming out of their eyes and mouths and noses. It soaked the floor. He began the cry, hyperventilating. I thought he might pass out. "You've got to be kidding me," I said, a sense of disgusted nausea rising in my abdomen. "No disease does that to a human body. That's physically impossible," he shook his head. It wasn't just my family. My neighbors too, their kids got sick. I tried calling Angela and Mike and a few other people, and none of them are answering their phones. At that moment, I heard the revving of many engines. I saw the black SUV's with the tinted windows driving slowly down every street. They began the play a pre-recorded robotic speech from some hidden speakers. A 24-hour curfew was now in effect for this area. A cold robotic female voice said, "This town is now quarantined. Anyone found on the streets will be subject to immediate arrest. Return to your homes and stay inside. Do not leave for any reason. Agents will soon come to talk to you and explain everything. Please remain calm. Return to your homes and stay inside. Do not leave for any reason." I pulled Frank inside, slamming the door and locking the deadbolt. I had a feeling my father would not be coming home today. The sun set early that day, sending red streaks like blood from a crime scene across the clouds. Franky and I sat at the table in the kitchen. The cable had gone down, so there was no TV. Moreover, our phones no longer worked, but the electricity kept running. We were eating the perishable foods first, in case it also went out. I had a package of sliced turkey, mayo, cheddar, lettuce, bread, and milk. We kept eating and drinking as much as we could while we waited, not knowing how long we could end up trapped here or whether food could come in. While we ate, I told Franky about Mr. Welcome. He had eyes like an angel, I told him. At first I was scared, but after he talked to me and explained everything, well, I don't feel scared anymore. Franky gave me a weird look. "I thought angels had white wings and swords that looked like Leonardo DiCaprio." Franky said, frowning. "Your angel sounds like some sort of monster, no offense." I laughed. "That's all Hollywood crap," I said. "Mr. Welcome says all the angels look like him. Maybe you will see your own guardian angel before all this is over," Franky shuttered. "If he looks anything like your guardian angel, I really hope not," he said. "And what did he mean by killing evil, filthy?" A loud slam at the door made us both jump. I got up from the table and ran over to the people. Standing in front of the door, I saw Franky's older brother, Jesse. He stood in his mechanics uniform still, splotches of blood stained the white cloth, tiny splatters covered his hands and feet. His dark eyes shone with fear and excitement. He ran a blood-stained hand over his freshly shaved head. I ripped the door open, noticing how black the empty the sky looked behind him. "Jesse, what are you doing here?" I asked, surprised. He pushed past me. "Is my brother here? Where's Franky?" He said. He noted panic in his voice. "Franky came out of the kitchen, a half-eaten sandwich still clutched in one hand." "Oh, thank God, Franky. You're still alive." "Yeah," Franky said through a mouth full of turkey, chewing slowly and raising an eyebrow. "So far so good. My goal is to live forever after all, and I've done a pretty good job up until now." "Stop effing around," Jesse yelled, making us both jump. "Do you two idiots not know what is going on outside? Everyone is dying. We need to get out of this town immediately. Look, the roads are blocked off, but I don't think they've blocked off the woods yet. At least, I hope not." The government agents, or whatever they are, are still organizing. And we need to get out before the town gets fully surrounded. There's a deer trail next to Witskull that leads to the highway. It's probably eight or nine miles. But we don't really have a damn choice. We need to follow it and get out of town before everyone gets locked in and slaughtered like pigs. "What do you mean everyone is dying? How's my mom and dad?" Franky asked, his eyes growing wet. Jesse shook his head. His earring of a snakefang jumped back and forth. "We need to go right now. Hurry up, both of you. Grab food and water and anything else you need. Are there any guns in the house? We really need guns and ammo as much as possible. I have a 38 on me," he said, raising his shirt to show a holstered pistol. "But I only have one spare magazine. That's not going to cut the mustard." I nodded. "My dad keeps a few guns here," I said. He always keeps his colt on him, though. But I think we have a 12-gauge shotgun and a scrapped little 22 rifle upstairs. He usually keeps a boxer to a buckshot and 22 bullets for target practice. I shrugged. "I guess that's better than nothing," Jesse groaned. "A 22?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Really? Well, go grab it." "I got the guns from my father's closet, bringing down all the ammo I could find, which was only amounted to the partially too empty boxes." Jesse groaned even louder when he saw that. "Okay, which one of you is a better shot?" He asked me and Frankie. We looked at each other. "I guess I am at least with a BB gun," Frankie said. Jesse shoved the 22 and ammo in his direction, giving me the shotgun and remaining buckshot. "Then you should have the shotgun," Jesse said to me. "You only have to point in a general direction and shoot. It will spray pellets that will rip through the skin like butter." "Why do we need guns?" I asked, feeling anxious. "You haven't even told us what's happening?" Jesse looked up sharply. "Haven't I? Well, there's not much time. We need to go now. I could tell you on the way." We walked out into the dark moonless night. I saw the glinting of many teeth in the shadows of the backyard. "Mr. Welcome," I cried relieved. Jesse and Frankie spun the look at the creature. He stepped out of the hidden alcove next to the chimney. His emaciated body standing ten feet tall. His eyes started spinning with their hypnotizing light. His bat-like wings moved up and down in the light breeze. "I am so happy to see you." Jesse and Frankie backed up slowly, their eyes filled with horror. "Rollen," Mr. Welcome said. "I will never leave your side, Roland. I am here to protect you." I walked forward, as if sleepwalking, putting my arms out to hug Mr. Welcome. He puts his hands on my neck, pulling me forward. They felt like cold, melting gloves of candle wax pressed against my skin. As I hugged his flesh tightly, I felt blood draining from his rotting skin like soapy water from a wrung-out sponge. I sensed the dark, oily fluid running down my bare hands and arms, smelled the rancid odor like rotting meat, but still, I only felt total love for Mr. Welcome. "Rollen," a deep, growling voice said from behind me. I turned, seeing my father scaling the back fence. He looked at Jesse and Frankie, dismissing them with his eyes. Then he turned to me and Mr. Welcome. He had his cult revolver in one trembling hand. "Step back from the demon." I looked closely at my father. Blood streamed from his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth. His eyes had begun to slant, as if the skin had melted at an angle off his face. His words came out slurred, his lips swollen. "Don't you see what it is, Rollen?" My father cried louder. "Look at it. Look at the damn thing. It's not your friend." He fired a shot, but his trembling hand couldn't aim for crap. I saw Frankie's chest explode in a blossoming flower of blood. Frankie grabbed the bullet hole, surprise coming over his face. He fell back. Now is the time, Rollen. Mr. Welcome's voice roared through my mind. Killed the demons. Killed this evil, filthy, disgusting demons. Shoot 'em dead, both of 'em. I raised the shotgun and fired twice. Mr. Welcome and I walked down the deer trail, hand in hand. Love filled my heart, and I felt a sense of peace. I knew I was protected. We had found a couple agents in the forest, trying to monitor the trail. When they saw us, they raised their guns and shouted, but Mr. Welcome flew forwards, his wings beating the air like mini cyclones. He grabbed both of their heads and twisted. I heard the sound like the snapping of tree branches during an ice storm, and they fell down, their faces backwards. I know Mr. Welcome comes from God. I have resolved myself to follow him like a holy night on a crusade. Mr. Welcome is my guardian angel, and his voice always guides me to safety. A voice like rushing water. You know the conspiracy. The moon landing was faked. It was a Hollywood studio set. It wasn't even filmed alive. All true. You might feel vindicated, knowing that the televised broadcast was an elaborate ruse. However, I wouldn't smugly don that tin foil hat. The 1969 broadcast was fabricated because the real moon landing uncovered unworldly horrors. In 1992, as a fresh-faced NASA employee, I experienced this organization's classified initiation process. I was privy to the knowledge that the iconic moon broadcast had been a hoax. I felt pity for Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins. If the technology had been ready, they could have walked on the moon, I sighed. Nobody deserves that mission. Dr. Penny Bradshaw muttered. I ignored the scientist as she wasn't the most socially adept person. "Do you know about the first tape?" she continued. I sighed, realizing the conversation could not be avoided. "Huh?" I asked, attempting to mask my annoyance. The first tape, Penny repeated. "I don't know what you..." "We went to the moon," Penny said. The Apollo lunar module went to space, but it was the Aldo module which landed. It was the scouting module. Enclair and Smithson were the first men on the moon, and the Apollo module would have landed too, but... a second module? I scuffed, but deciding to entertain the old woman's wild story. And why wouldn't these astronauts receive the credit for landing first? Snapping back into reality, Bradshaw flushed. "Oh, I shouldn't have talked about this." "Forget what I said." "Dr. Rowland told me we never landed on the moon," I said. "Why would he lie?" "Why would he spin an even taller tail?" "He could have allowed NASA employees to continue believing what the rest of the world believes." "We distract you from the truth. Some things aren't worth knowing. Before the moon landing, we had no idea what we were going to find." Dr. Bradshaw explained. But there were murmurings about the unsettling frequencies. They received signals which had driven several scientists to abandon the project entirely. Many of the higher-ups didn't want us to send a manned mission to the moon, but the Russians were stubborn about pressing onwards. We had to beat them. "I don't understand, Dr. Bradshaw," I said, not believing a word of her tail. People saw things, Daniel. Things they couldn't explain. The radio signals drove them insane. One man took his life, but they didn't talk about that. And they didn't talk about what really happened on the moon. "They didn't tell us any of this," I said. "And if it were true, they wouldn't tell us." She sighed. "You have no idea about the things they hide from you." Aldo 11 was a black operation off the books. It ran alongside the Apollo 11 mission. It was intended to prove to NASA that Armstrong's manned mission to the moon would be safe. "Right," I sighed. "Ignoring me," Penny Bradshaw continued. "We had the contingency to utilize a pre-recorded tape from the studio. And when Aldo 11 failed, that's exactly what we did." "What are you saying?" I asked. "We went to the moon, but the real tape was never televised?" Penny Bradshaw nodded. There were two teams, Armstrong's team, and the team who saw a horror beyond your wildest imagination. I was nothing more than a newly graduated boy, and I knew that hazing was common in many workplaces. But in the case of Penny Bradshaw, I knew she didn't have a vicious side. I thought she had simply lost the plot. She was an elderly, near-senile scientist who ended up retiring less than a year later. It was a well-known fact that Bradshaw was suffering from the early stages of dementia. But she had secured a steady position at NASA. She had status. I should have respected that. I should have respected her. But I didn't think about what she said until the Clementine mission in 1994. It was a disastrous expedition, intended to observe the moon and 1220 geographicals, a near-earth asteroid. But it was the case with many lunar missions. It ended with a devastating spacecraft malfunction. Yet with this particular failure, all I could think about was what Penny Bradshaw said, "A horror beyond your wildest imagination." If that were so, why would NASA return to the moon? Perhaps I had wisened in my two years at the organization. Whatever the case, I found myself entertaining the idea she had planted in my head. "Hey, Frank," I said. Frank Perez was known as the man who could get things done. Things that weren't strictly within the bounds of the company policies. Things which often weren't legal beyond company policy. The IT specialist didn't even name a price for the favors. If he were a close friend, he would just do about anything off the record. He loathed NASA, though he still works for them to this day. "Daniel," he said, throwing his arms wide. "This is a late shift for you. How is about the head home?" I embraced my friend and cut directly to the point. "I've been thinking about the moon landing." "Well, that's an interesting opener," he smirked, twirling in his creaking desk chair. "I've been thinking about the truth." "Ah, the greatest Hollywood story never told," he chuckled. "But that's not the truth, is it?" I replied. "We did go to the moon, and just didn't show what really happened." The squeaking of Frank's desk chair ceased, and he twisted the face me. "Did someone tell you something, Daniel?" he asked. I nodded. Frank sighed. "And what makes you think I'd know anything about that? I'm just a lowly... nice try. You always know everything, Frank," I interjected, grinning. He smiled. "I do like that reputation. Of course, that doesn't mean I should know the things I know, just as you shouldn't." "Is it true?" I gasped. "They double-bluffed us?" Frank nodded. "Why would they tell us that they faked the moon landing?" I asked. "Why not continue with the normal narrative? Why are they so determined to bury the truth of the astronauts who really walked on the moon first?" They fed us a phony secret that keep our eyes off the real one. Frank answered. "It's the sort of maneuver I would expect from the conniving worms on the board, of course. But I fix their computers, Danny, and their security is abysmal. I've seen their secrets. They may know a lot about physics, but I know more about hardware that runs this place." "What did you see, Frank?" I asked. The man shiftly cast his gaze from left to right, ensuring that everyone in the office had gone home for the night. Then he beckoned me closer. "The real 1969 tape," he said. "Though I knew nothing at that moment, the whispery tone of his voice iced my body." "What was on it?" I asked. Frank's eyes grew distant. "Death." The computer expert padded a desk chair beside him and I sat down. "I have the file, you know. I shouldn't, but I do. And I'll show you," he said, starting the type. "But the contents of that tape change you." I shivered, but my lips moved with their own volition. "Show me," I said. Frank nodded, having already entered prism into the explorer's search bar. "One final thing," he paused, hovering the cursor over a file entitled 0-1-1 tape. I sighed. "Come on, Frank. It's okay. I know what." "You don't know anything, and you'll know even less after seeing this. It will corrupt your dreams for nights to come," he interrupted. After I saw the footage, I had visions, Daniel. Awful visions. I made it through the ordeal, but I don't know what happened to me. The same thing that is reported to happen to anyone who watches it. I rolled my eyes. "Come on, Frank. You watch too many films." You may be a man of science, Daniel, but in 10 minutes, you won't be. There are various classified documents concerning the tape. These reports detail the things that Enclair's team found, and even 30 years later, we still don't understand it. Nightmare's hallucinations. I'm ready, Frank. This is the opportunity to witness a pivotal point in human history, something few people had ever seen. I said, "I won't let this opportunity pass." "But," Frank started. "You survived it," I interrupted. "I'll be fine. I'm willing to take the rest, Frank." Curiosity got the best of me. I don't believe that a tape causes hallucinations or feverish dreams, but I certainly hope it gives answers. He sighed. Some questions don't have answers, Daniel. Nevertheless, Frankie Perez clicked on the file, and the tape began to play in a small video. The video contained grainy blurred footage of a metallic ladder leaning towards a rocky cavernous surface. This is Enclair, a man with a sturdy French accent announced. Status report on the Apollo 11 module. "Enclair, this is mission control. Apollo 11 module nears arrival, awaiting your verdict." A static voice responded. "Roger," Enclair replied, "taking my first step now, and the weather's looking fine." "You are the first man on the moon," Commander Lewis Enclair. "Congratulations," the voice responded. "Thank you, control," Enclair responded. "Smithson is joining me now." "Second man on the moon," Smith said joyously laughed. The pair floated aimlessly for a few minutes, reveling in the truth that they were the first two people on the moon, though nobody outside of NASA would ever know. I could only imagine the elation they must have felt. "Readings do not match those of unmanned missions," Enclair said. "No radio interference. Coast is clear." "Negative. Picking up readings near the surveyor one site, Commander," Smith said, visibly hopping in the distance. "Copy, Smithson. Do you copy? Mission control?" Enclair asked. "Copy, Enclair," the static voice said, analyzing the transmission now. Unidentified radio signal confirmed. It matches the surveyor one data, referring with primary mission controller, waiting for the go-ahead to continue. Continuing exploration mission control, Enclair announced. The warped footage depicted the two-man crew bounding slowly across an ever-darkening lunar surface. Their craft had landed towards the dark side of the moon. Enclair steered the camera towards Earth for a brief moment. And a white block was visible in the distance, the official Apollo 11 module. "Commander, are we clear to proceed?" Smithson said. The second in command pointed an eager-gloved finger towards a lightless opening in the face of a mountainous ridge. Enclair and Smithson, this is mission control, a wayed instruction from controller. "We have not cleared you to keep." "Negative," Enclair interrupted. "I won't go home without seeing what's in there, sir," Smithson, were heading into the cove. Enclair, the mission controller, has the static voice started. Return, ship, Aldo 11 crew. Another voice intermittently growled. That, in order. The second man sounded much stirner than the first, but the transmission was so choppy that he was barely intelligible. Enclair took advantage of that situation. Did not copy your last two messages mission control? Enclair said, hopping ever forwards. Entering the crater. Commander Enclair and Smithson roared into the blackened mouth of the untowered cavern. Dim lights fitted to their suits guided the way, but the camera's footage seemed to deteriorate with every passing second. "Did you hear that?" Frank asked me. I had been so immersed in the recording that I hardly noticed my friend and I were sitting in the dark empty office. I had truly believed myself to be on the moon with Enclair and Smithson. But I heard it. "The crackling?" I asked. Frank nodded. That interference from the radio signal. "What is this signal that they keep mentioning?" I asked. Frank's face turned pale, but he didn't respond. He simply nodded his head at the footage of the astronauts floating through the narrow, lightless, underground tunnel. "Commander Enclair, do you see that?" Smithson shouted. The commander gently sprang towards his friend, and the camera revealed a domed room. Oddly, smooth walls enclosed the tiny space. It all looked manufactured somehow, unnatural. "What is that?" Enclair whispered, as the two astronauts swam towards the center of the room. "I realized that the light was no longer coming from the astronauts. I distinguished a translucent, glossy object in the heart of the room, a triangular prism that emitted a throbbing glow. The recording was so damaged that it was painstakingly difficult to discern the visuals or the audio, and yet something about that object was crystal clear. It was immeasurably vibrant, distinct from its surroundings." "This is the source of the signal," Smithson said. "I told you we were right to land here." "Excellent works, Smithson," Enclair said. "Mission control, do you copy?" "All to eleven crew, do you receive this transmission? Return to your module now," the static voice repeated. "Roger, we lost you for a minute there," Enclair lied. "It's beautiful, isn't it, Smithson? We'll go down in history for discovering this. Could it be evidence of alien life? God, who knows. Future scholars will decide." Smithson didn't respond. "Smithson?" Enclair asked. "The unresponsive astronaut hovered before the prism, transfixed by the inexplicable light it cast from its invisible innards." "Smithson, we're going to return to the module, do you copy?" Enclair asked. "They might still allow the Apollo 11 mission. We've proven that there is no danger here." "I didn't used to understand," Smithson whispered, seemingly oblivious to his commander's presence. "I do now." Enclair gliding closer, filming the bright object. The audio interference increased in severity. "Smithson, are you okay?" Enclair asked. "All to eleven crew, return to your lunar module," Mission Control repeated. "And then something happened which, to this day, I have not been able to rationalize." The prism's front face reflected something I recognized. A man standing beside Commander Enclair. "My dead father," I exclaimed in horror and the tape froze. "What is this?" I asked, panting heavily. But Frank, like Smithson, didn't hear out of his own head. "I'm sorry, Amelia. I'm so sorry." I was staring at something beyond any scientific explanation. In a 1969 tape on the moon, I saw my father. That tall, terrifying man from my childhood. A malignant man. A man who somehow eyed me from the prism's surface. An object filmed 30 years on an ancient, cursed film. I had long suppressed the memory of what my father did to me. The merciless beatings. The night on which he tried to kill my mother. My tenth birthday. But his bulky black eyes bore into my soul. That painful prism provided clarity that I never wanted. Never needed. It reminded me of what happened that night. How I saved my mother. It revealed the knife in my hand. The blood staining the serrated edge after I sliced his throat. I had to do it. I convinced myself. Eyes swelling with fearful tears. The prism tape on froze. "Smithson?" Enclair cried. Enclair's camera was no longer in his hands. It floated in the cavern. As it slowly rotated, the angle captured Smithson repeatedly plummeting his commander's body against the rocky wall. The de-arranged astronaut fumbled for the clasp beneath Enclair's helmet. "No!" Enclair screamed, trying to resist the stronger man. The helmet released. Enclair seized an agony for a dozen seconds before losing consciousness. And Smithson stiffly watched his friend motionlessly float before him. It sounded as if he might have been crying. Was he still there? Did he feel remorse? It was impossible to ascertain what happened. As for Enclair's unsheltered head, the footage was, thankfully, too distorted to replay the detailed horror of his oxygen starvation. The tape ended. The prism vanished. But on the glassy surface of Frank's monitor, barely discernible against the desktop background, the reflection of my father remained. Terrified, I tried the move. I tried the face Frank. The spectral father grew in the screen's reflection and his face smoothed before caving inwards, transforming him into an eyeless entity. Following the clarity, there was distortion. The prism had shifted its focus, and we were slaves in its perspective. Using all my might, I managed to stab my neck free of its paralysis, and I turned to see wide eyes on my friend's face. It was only supposed to be a dream. He whispered breathlessly. The fluorescent light bursted above our heads, and we plunged into darkness. However, unexpectedly regaining control of our limbs, Frank and I fell from our chairs. "What did you see?" Frank panted. "My father," I whispered, "and he's disappointed," a voice hissed. I twisted my head to see my father, a man's frame who scraped the ceiling tiles. He was scarcely illuminated by the moonlight, but I could feel those eyeless sockets surveying me. "Run!" I yelled. We stumbled to our feet, and the nightmarish depiction of my father swung hopeful fingers in my direction. He caught the nape of my neck, and I cried in agony as I felt flesh peel away, burned beneath decaying nails. But I didn't stop to lick my wounds. I pushed Frank forwards, and we navigated the labyrinth of cubicles. "It never seemed real to me," Frank started, as we breathlessly ran towards the exit. "Keep moving," I screamed. I didn't dare look back, but I heard furnishings and office equipment crumble beneath the boundless limbs of my mouth-formed father. The prism prayed on my darkest thoughts. It depicted Dad the way I had always seen him as a child. Frank burst through the exit, and the light from the hallway spilled into the office. We stumbled out of the blackness, and I spun the slam the door on the abomination pursuing us. Then, with baited breath, we waited for the creature to tear through the flimsy door, before undoubtedly tearing through us. But nothing came. The sound of footsteps tapered away. I pictured my father silently waiting on the other side of the door, baiting me, must as he always had done during my childhood. But there was only silence. It must have been about ten minutes later when one of us finally dared the move. The IT specialist shakily crept towards the office door. "Don't," I whispered. "Let's just leave." Frank shook his head. "We have to be sure, Daniel." The man threw the door open, and he flicked on the main lights. They illuminated an empty office space. My father was gone. "She's not here," Frank whispered, wiping tears from his face. "Who?" I asked. I saw her when I first watched the tape, Amelia, my Amelia. She was my wife. Frank explained. I saw her in my dreams, nightmarish hallucinations, but never anything real. Nothing that came for me. This time, she was angry. Frank, I began. It was my fault, Daniel. Frank interrupted. I took my eyes off of the road, and I didn't see the truck coming. I didn't. It should have been me who died. That's what she kept saying to me as we ran. It should have been you. And she was right. She was telling the truth. "That wasn't her, Frank," I said. "I know," the man whispered. "And it wasn't your father either." "What is it?" I trembled. The prism, Frank replied. Everybody sees something different. "A person's darkest moment," I said. Frank nodded. "But it's never been real before, Daniel. It's never been anything like that. Look at your neck. That's no hallucination." I gingerly touched the bloody gashes behind my head, wincing as the adrenaline wore off, and the pain finally came to my forefront of my senses. "Why did Smithson kill Enclair?" I groaned. "I don't know why he did it. I don't want to imagine what he saw," Frank shuddered. Afterwards, he took his life, immediately following the horrors which unfolded in that cavern. NASA aborted the mission. Apollo 11's lunar module returned home, and the pre-recorded tape was broadcasted on live TV. "What about the prism?" I asked. NASA left it up there, right? "I hope so," Frank whispered. "I've worked at NASA for almost 30 years. Long enough that I got to see the ISS get put in orbit." It's generally regarded as one of the biggest things we've ever done, and I agree. The amount of scientific data, discovery, disaster observation, it's just priceless. We would be living in the worst world without that hunk of metal orbiting our planet. It's a strange feeling to see everyone talking about taking it out of the sky. On one hand, the thing is getting pretty old. It was built for 15 years of operation, but it's been functional for 21 now. On the other hand, I'm, well, a little sentimental. Maybe all the talk of dismantling it is making me feel old. Pre-text first. There are many things I'm not going to tell you about myself for obvious reasons, but I could tell you my experience with NASA. They're very open about things, inside the agency as well as outside. A lot of people like to think NASA is holding some serious secrets, but that's just not true. Sometimes you can't walk 20 feet without hearing a young excited scientist nerding out about some new discovery or theory to their colleagues. Management puts it how it is because it's the line of work everyone needs to know, and if anyone miscalculates it could mean disaster. All big scientific discoveries are put on paper within 24 hours and released to the public. You all get the picture. Point is, in 30 years of working here, I've never encountered much dishonesty unless a politician walked in the door. I know everyone really well, and we all get along just fine. Recent events have changed everything. The excited chatter has mostly stopped. The US government has people in suits crawling all over the place. In the higher ups, obviously, haven't gotten sleep since it was announced that the ISS was to be decommissioned. Despite all this, we're to continue like its business as usual. But every now and then, one of us will get called up to an interview with the suits. Sometimes they'll be gone for a few minutes. Sometimes they'll be gone for hours. But when they return to work, we would ask what was going on. Every time we would get the same answer, the suits would bring them into a room with the table, ask them some confusing, uncontextual questions, and let them go. It's not hard for us to connect the dots. Something happened in regards to the ISS. Some of us are closed off from upper management now, and those who could talk to them have that look in their eye. They look begging you not to talk to them, but they can't tell you not to. Everyone else is as confused as I am, and work has slowed to a crawl. Occasionally, we'll get an exciting announcement that renews our wondrous exploratory childish minds. But for the most part, it's become dreary. A few days in, I got pulled into a room with the suits. There were a lot of formalities to get through, like my name, age, place of birth, etc. But then the questions started. Their demeanor changed on a dime as soon as the first word was spoken, and given what that question was, I would have laughed if I hadn't been dragged into a room with government agents. What is your opinion on the color green? I didn't know how to respond at first, but eventually I said, "I guess it's an okay color. I mean, it's not my favorite, but it's nice." I remember feeling like I was back in elementary school with the entire class talking about what color was the best. It was awkward, and due to the situation quite jarring. Below, I've got the rest of the questions and the responses that I remember. Agent, do you have any aspirations besides working in NASA? Me, I've got a bucket list, skydiving, seeing the world, that kind of thing. Agent, do you believe you will come to complete that bucket list? Me. Well, yeah, got a retire at some point, right? Agent. Good. Do you wish upon falling stars? Me? What? No, that's ridiculous. Agent, if you did, is there anything you'd wish for? Me. Well, I don't know. Biological immortality? Agent. Do you hang posters in your room? Me. Not since I was a kid, no. Agent. What is one thing you consider objectively good? Me. Kittens. I said it in just, of course. Sometimes I try and break tension with a little comedy, and it was out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying. Even so. I at least expected a slight smile before I was scolded, but the only thing the agent did was straighten his tie and repeat the question with a somehow even more serious look. Me. Fine, fine. Make sure those around you live their best life, I suppose. Agent. You suppose? Me. No, I figure of, not that doesn't apply. Listen, this is awkward. I stick by what I said. Final answer. Can we move on? It was at this point I realized that the agent had straightened his tie. It had changed from a formal black to a dark green. Either the agent had just pulled a magic trick with this smoothness of someone from Vegas, or I just hadn't realized it had been green the entire time. The brain has a tendency to find patterns and lie to you, so in that moment I brushed it off, but the other two agents in the room still had black ties on. Agent. Yes, we can. Tell me, what is sound? Me. Well, airwaves, specifically vibrations. Right now when you speak you are sending air particles crashing into each other, sending them to me and my ears are picking them up. Agent. Do you mind if we take your temperature? Me. No, I had mine taken at the door but I guess you can't hear too. It was true. The agents had been taking everyone's temperature at the door these days. I didn't know why they needed to do it a second time, but I wasn't about to argue. One of them walked over and used an unbranded digital temperature gun. After they had finished, the agent nodded to the others and I was escorted back to my floor and told to have a pleasant day. I was bombarded with questions from my colleagues, as was everyone else who had gotten interviewed, but I didn't really have much of anything new to say. After that day I started doing a bit of investigating. I'd only been interviewed for a few minutes, so I started asking for specifics from those who had been taken for far longer. As far as the questions themselves, I had gotten no luck. They were still ridiculous. Things like, "Have you tasted dog water, or have you ever gone hiking?" But there were some consistencies too. When I brought up the green tide they said they saw the same, but brushed it off for the same reasons I did. The temperature check. It happens at the end of every interview to everyone regardless of time, but for those who got interviewed for over an hour, there was another through line. All of them were asked what the international space station was to them. At this point I knew for absolute certain that something was being kept from us regarding the ISS. No more rumors, no more speculation, no more conspiracy theories. The agents were interested in our space station too. I had to get to the bottom of this, so I contacted the guys in charge and doing the math for weight on the next supply run to the ISS. Did I mention that they're still sending things up there? Because they are. Apparently we were in a tough spot. Usually you know exactly what is going into space. You have to for literally hundreds of safety reasons, but the agents have been interfering since they appeared. They'd say that something new had been added to the list. Tell them to weigh and then inform them that they needed to update their math to include the mystery item. It was some against code that they tried to take it up to management several times, but every time management shot them down. I was told that one guy was considering quitting in protest due to how unsafe just randomly adding unknown things to a spacecraft was. But the next day someone else showed up in his position. The kid was friendly, excited, and under the impression the position had been left vacant for a while. He had no idea he had just replaced someone. I tried to get in the contact with a person who was fired, but no dice. The phone number must have been bad, but I didn't know him well enough to get in contact any other way. Deciding given the situation, it was a bad idea for me to do so anyways. Those agents kept giving me stairs when I started asking for his number, but I had been working here for 30 years and I had my contacts. Decided they hit up some of the old ISS crew members. I was buddy buddy with a few of them, even taking them out for drinks on occasion. I had been joking with a few of them not even a few months ago, and while our current predicament probably had nothing to do with them, I had to be certain. I went through every single number, but they all went to voicemail. I know people sometimes changed their numbers, but all of them? I branched out beyond the US. Wasn't too close to these guys, but I'd still share a beer with a few of them. Still, nothing. Not a peep. Nothing but the robotic voice telling me to leave a message after the tone. At this point, I was anxious. Not a single ISS astronaut was answering the phone. I knew where a few of them lived and started compiling the addresses, but while searching them up I came across their pages. They all had Google profiles of course, but now all of them had death dates. I sat there shocked as I saw my co-workers, friends, and associates, all described as having died while in the woods, and gas explosions, car accidents. Even a serial killer had gotten one of them. I read into that one by the way. Someone had broken into their home, family of four. I'll spare you the details, but by the time the police arrived it was too late for any of them. Allegedly, the killer was high on several narcotics and died of an overdose while being arrested. Several murders had been linked to him after the fact. I was shocked and heartbroken. No one had ever told me. And the way the guy went out was devastating. But when I looked at the date of the murder, I had to check my calendar. But there it was. I had taken the astronaut, his family, and several co-workers out to a movie, not three days after the article he had died. It was to celebrate his full recovery after staying on the ISS so long. Things didn't line up. And while most of the death dates made sense, some others didn't correlate with my calendar either. After I compiled all the addresses, I took a looking at the properties. All of them were closed down due to one thing or another. Gas leak had burned one down. One of them had left a stove on. A local forest fire had destroyed another. Every single house was gone. At this point I had to see it all from my own eyes. After work the next day, I went on a half hour drive to one of the closer residences. It had been a month or so since the property was owned by one of my closer buddies. So it wouldn't have been strange to see me around the area. Sure enough the house was a smoldering ruin. Didn't even look like it had happened that long ago, maybe a day at most. There was even a fire truck still outside with firefighters sorting through it all. I was going to pull up and ask what had happened, but then I spotted the black van across the way. More government agents. I didn't want to be seen there so I just drove by like anyone else would and didn't make eye contact. Could have been my paranoia, but I swore I could feel their gaze burning into the back of my skull. Now I knew. Every single ISS crewmate was gone under mysterious circumstances. I think it's the government itself, but I don't understand why. I like to believe they aren't actually dead, just in a holding cell somewhere until this all blows over, but I just don't know. To make matters worse, I was approached to work the next day. Agents of course. They didn't bring up any specifics, just saying the same thing they have been saying from day one. Don't interfere with their business and everything will be just fine. Then they left, and the day continued as per usual. Scared me half the death though. My mind was running through the possibility that they were going to make me disappear too, and it took every ounce of mental strength I had not to look like I was caught. Not even sure I did look normal that day to be honest. I had lost a lot of sleep and was living off a coffee. As of now, rumors about weapons being smuggled onto the ISS are circulating. No one is allowed to go to the upper floors now, and people are starting to get replaced faster and faster. One of my colleagues who had been doing some investigating of his own said that he looked at the ISS through his telescope and swears to God that it was spinning out of control and half covered in something black. Took a look myself, but I couldn't find the station at all. It's definitely not on its projected orbital path. No one outside the agency is talking about this. For all the public knows, NASA plans to decommission the ISS in 2031 and land its remains at Point Nemu, which I will add as the furthest point from human civilization on the planet. They even denied letting museums keep the pieces of it, opting to just get rid of the darn thing. I'm too afraid to go press on about it. I don't want to be replaced because I'm pretty sure everyone who does isn't just going back home unemployed. And those agents? They've asserted even more control. I pretty much directly report to them now, and they're the only ones who go upstairs. No one has seen anyone from upper management in weeks. To make matters worse, I haven't even seen the agents express a hint of remorse, or any emotion really. It's just the stone cold stare 24/7. I'm starting to think they're robots. I'm also starting to think I'm going crazy. Like I've been cooped up in a cage for far too long with the eyes on me at every waking moment. Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I need to get out of this before I end up in a cell, or worse. I think they know I'm looking into it. I don't know what I'm gonna do. My friends are gone along with half my colleagues. I just feel helpless. I somehow survived. I'll make a part too. It's here. It's been a long time now. Somewhere along the lines of eight months since I posted this here, I had been advised, rightfully so, not to talk about what had transpired until 2031. But right now I feel like a bird in a cage left in the basement of a recently deceased owner. There's a good chance I won't even live until 2031. So here goes. Shortly after I made my initial post, I was on high alert for any indication that the agents knew it was me who leaked the info online. I figured they'd publicly act like it didn't exist and that was fine. But I had no idea if they would be able to trace everything back to me. I had planned a fake passport and an emergency exit with one of my last remaining connections at work. I had planned a live feed camera to record the event if it ever came to pass. I'd plan to do my best not to go quietly as everyone around me was. Instead, I woke up without control of my own body. I didn't even notice it first. I got up and did my morning routine, checked everything I wanted to check and went to work. At first it was the little things, brushing for precisely two minutes, driving with just a little more precision, my math coming just a little faster than usual. The biggest change? Usually when you're afraid of something, your body reacts. Even the most practiced actors give some indication and usually were able to at least determine the emotional reaction to a threat. That instinct was gone. An agent walked by and felt nothing. It was as if the agent was just another coworker. Thinking this was odd, I tried to move towards the bathroom to think, but I didn't. I just didn't. My muscles didn't contract or expand. I wasn't being held down or anything. Any command I sent my body simply didn't register. And suddenly my brain was separated from it, watching helplessly as I casually conversed about my work with that aforementioned last contact. My body didn't even act like I wasn't in the situation I was in. It brought up concerns about the agents, ensured my back door was still open, even hinted at the destruction of my ISS buddy's house. It was then I noticed one last detail. The tree leaves outside were absent despite it being spring, and the ties of the agents were invisible to me. I panicked, screaming out for even a door or wall to appear in my mind's eyes so I made pound on it. My perfectly imitated actions removed, even the pulsating of my heart was no longer my own. Slipping away into madness seemed easy in the moment, frighteningly easy looking back on it. And that's what I did, at least until I was stabbed in the back by a needle and dragged kicking into a janitorial closet. My screams were muffled by several hands, yet more arms wrapped around me as I lashed out in blind rage. I'd never been a violent person, but let me tell you. In that moment, punching someone square in the jaw of my own violation felt godly. Coming to my senses I realized I had nailed the janitor. Two other people were restraining me. One was a kid that had been reluctantly hired. The same one I had been talking to about the load to and from the ISS. The other was an agent, but his sunglasses had been removed, and his expression was not one of complacency, but the hardest, deadliest stare I had ever received. His eyes told me everything, and I immediately stopped resisting. The story I heard afterwards shocked me to the core. The kid and the janitor were related, grandpa and grandson I think. Both were extremely conspiracy theorists. And when I say that, I mean straight up flat earth, aliens are real, we live in a stimulation stuff. Apparently the janitor took up his post over a decade ago to try and figure out if anything fishy was going on. And once this whole fiasco kicked off, his grandson squeezed his way into working here. Don't know how he pulled it off, but I suspect that conspiracy insanity only bolstered his intellect like a bloodhound catching wind of ascent. Being the guy who did all the calculations on what went to the ISS, he had access to all of it. They were transporting and assortment of things. A few weapons, strange color-based test cards, but most notably a few containers of green liquid. That same green liquid was the stuff injected into my back to bring me back, but there was a limited supply. The agent, who was now typically going by Smith, picked up the threads of the story. Smith had been assigned here due to an arising emergency on the ISS. The situation started with one of the astronauts starting to act strange, asking several questions of the crew that would have already been known like. Why are we here? Who are you? What is that? In reference to Earth. It had become extremely obvious that the crewmate wasn't acting like themselves at all. But being highly trained professionals, the astronauts kept calm and contacted base. What ensued was a string of experiments, and a line of questions that aimed to both figure out what had possessed the man and bring their friend back. It didn't work. Soon after the funding went through to get the astronauts everything they needed, contact with the ISS was lost. It flew off its trajectory and started to fly around the night sky with no regard for momentum, or the thrust and maneuvering needed to make the twists and turns it was making. Supernatural reports started to pop up everywhere. It was pieced together that this "thing" was inhabiting people's bodies and controlling them for an unknown purpose. Its secret, a national state of emergency, was declared. An agent like Smith were dispatched everywhere, armed with little data the astronauts had sent back to identify a possession. An obliviousness to the color green and the lack of understanding about, well, how anything worked. It was deemed that an alien entity of some kind was to blame, and the work to contain it had been extensive and ripe with turmoil. It soon became evident to the agents that with every passing possession, the entity became more and more able to cover its tracks and hide, and eventually the interview became grounds for the entity that studied the agents right back. Soon Smith found himself playing his part perfectly while stuck in his body like I was. It was pain that brought him back, pain inflicted on him by the conspiracy crew. Apparently the sensation was quite the surprise to the entity, and it recoiled in a matter of speaking when any of its hosts were injured. Someone had figured this out before even the people had, as the green liquid was starting to burn through my veins. "At first a small jab is enough to release you." It was explained to me, but the entity adapts to the pain in return. The liquid would gradually increase the amount my blood boiled to keep my actions my own, but I was on a time limit. At some point the pain would be too much, or the entity would catch up. Just looking at Smith's clenched hands and strained brow, I could tell he was struggling. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't the guy who went up in the shuttle with nerves of steel. I did math. Luckily, everyone else did. The top floors were completely occupied by the entity's puppets now, and while Smith had been controlled, he saw his colleagues constructing something, given that everyone didn't have long left as it was, and information was limited. They had resolved to get up there and figure out what was going on once and for all. They roped me in because not only did I have higher clearance, but I have been working there for a very long time and might have some insights to give as they went. That wasn't going to protect us though. Smith had learned the hard way that the entity knew when it had lost control, and also knew how to send agents after him. The big green screen sheet, the conspiracy crew had commandeered however would. Yes, that was the plan. Cloak ourselves in a green sheet and make our way up like a band of fake YouTube vloggers. I realize now in hindsight that there is an element of comedy in that, but all I could feel in that moment was the steady slow progression as we bobbed and weaved between people and objects like we had an invisible cloak. Worst part was that unlike an invisibility cloak, you can't see through a green screen. We had to do everything by ear and what we could see by our feet. Smith and I managed to navigate us farther than anyone would ever been able to possible, landing ourselves onto the entrance to the top floor. The green liquid was starting to make me feel like my internal organs were being scolded, making every step stomach churning. I think what got me to that point was knowing that Smith was in twice as much pain, but had yet to break. Though having only met briefly, I'd come to admire his grit, but then disaster struck. I had to give credit where credit is due to the conspiracy duo. It's very likely none of us would have ever broken free of this thing had they not decided to indulge in their crazy fantasies in their heads. Well, a crazy fantasy that I now lived, but freaking out after dropping your tinfoil hat due to fear a possession right next to an agent was a stupid move. We covered the janitor's mouth swiftly. And for a moment, everyone on the floor stopped moving. You could have heard a pin drop, but what broke the silence was a flurry of violence. Smith threw off the green screen and slapped the nearby agent in the face to at least momentarily free him. The agent was consumed by the same rage I had been. And while he lashed out at Smith, reengaged his earpiece and announced to any free agents that the entity had control of the building in that pain could break their spell. Everything erupted into chaos. I would learn later that the revelation had caused excessive discord on the lower floors as the entity drew guns on the free agents. One moment, you're sharing a cup of coffee with your pal. The next that pal shoves a gun in your face. We didn't get that treatment. Everyone on this floor was controlled, and therefore we were subject to a hail a gunfire. It only took one bullet from Smith. The first controlled agent to be hit lashed out against the one closest to him. Then the agent next until the cascade of freshly shot suits lined the ground. It all happened so quickly. I barely had time to register that I had been shot myself. The janitor was lying in a pool of blood covering the kid, and Smith was clutching his chest where ten holes had been opened. The pain from the green liquid had reached a point where getting shot was only a little bit worse. And now that hiding was no longer life or death, we all started to groan and scream. The mere thought that the entity was attempting the clots way back in was enough for me to take action. I told the kid to get out of there and began to stumble my way forward, Smith just behind me. No, I don't know how he kept moving. It'll forever remain a mystery to me. At this point, I was seeing the building through tears, but I saw it well enough. Parts of the walls and electrical wiring had been removed and reallocated into the center of the floor where more entity-controlled people were. They were my bosses, their bosses, and probably their bosses after that. Along with them were many of my friends and colleagues that had gone missing. All of them were hunched over desks, scribbling nonsense, or sorting out materials from crates onto the floor. I recognized the crates as being designed for the ISS, now repurposed. The most striking thing, however, was in the center of all of it. It was like some kind of sickly and slimy black net pulled into a ball shape, wiggling and writhing as if floating in the air. Inside the net portion was a series of black shapes and nothing else. What this thing was started to click to me, but what happened next only cemented my thought. Smith stomped forward with the rage of a dying man. With nothing to lose, he leveled his weapon at the entity and screamed out his command for it to release all it had possessed. While there was no answer, he opened fire, or at least he tried. After two clicks of his handgun, only to realize he didn't have a clip in the gun in the first place, or a clip in his belt for that matter. The handgun suddenly vanished from his hand, and then Smith started the follow suit. I say started because it's important to point out how he went. It was like layers of him were being deleted all at once. First his skin, his muscle, his bones, and finally his nervous system, all stolen from reality. Smith didn't stop crying until the last vestige of his body had been taken, his voice ringing from every direction at once before fading away. First of course was the paralyzing realization that I knew the general concept of what this entity was now. The second was the paralyzing fear of that concept. When we drew a stick figure on a piece of paper, we don't think much of it. It doesn't think much of us either, as if we were to be alive it couldn't comprehend our existence. It knows up, down, left, and right, but forwards and backwards? The stick figure couldn't leap into the third dimension without assistance from a human. It had been long, then, theorized that there was a fourth dimension. Not time, of course, don't get confused. I'm talking about a fourth spatial dimension. I've studied the fourth dimension and what it could possibly look like as a hobby, along with other scientifically related things I'd come across on my path to NASA. How I'd seen Smith vanish lined up almost one-to-one what passing into the fourth dimension could look like. A theory made manifest. I, standing in that room in the unbelievable pain, was that stick figure. A stick figure that could not comprehend the dimensions around me, or the entity that now stared down at my page free to erase me at will. I had nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. In that moment I felt I only had one option. I ran at the small portion of itself that the entity had made known at the center of the room, and then I touched it. It's extremely hard to visualize for you what happened next. I was both falling and ascending through a plane of factual contradiction. Light flashed in unknown angles and sound reverberated through my head. In my mind I knew I just launched myself into the fourth dimension and a fit of fear, and I had a lot of trouble coming the terms with not only that, but everything around me. I saw things. Black amalgamations of concept itself. I could only sense the eyes now falling upon me as the structure of reality itself closed in around my very being. Then a second presence. I found myself the subject of communication, like something that stuck a spike into my head and fed me a crude binary code. Then I found myself in Australia. The sun was rising above the ocean next to the beach I had appeared on. The word like feelings of a fourth dimensional entity still processing in my head. Roughly it was an apology and a scolding of a younger entity. My eyes were forced to gently glance at the ant hill a few meters away. Then I looked up, now in control of my eyes, and saw a blazing comet falling from the sky. The ISS had fallen out of orbit and was burning up in atmosphere. Officially, NASA is still business as usual until 2031, when the ISS officially gets decommissioned. But I'll never come to terms with the reality I now find myself in. We were ants played by a malicious child from beyond our understanding. Nothing but toys and a fleeting moment of boredom for it, a terrifying rational emergency costing hundreds of lives for us. And the worst part, it could happen again at any moment. The fourth dimension exists, and we are powerless to stop it. Shoot. The two faces sitting opposite me and the booth looked up at my curse, staring with quizzical amusement. The first, an extremely attractive woman who was about 19, smurked as she saw me gazing at my watch. Once the matterbilly, she asked. Her voice carrying a thick British accent with which I had become used to the last few weeks. You gonna turn back into a pumpkin at midnight? Her companion, a guy about the same age, choked slightly at the pint of beer he had been downing. Dropping it in the wooden table with the clunk, he wiped in his mouth with the sleeve of his jumper, still sputtering. For my part, I simply continued to stare at my watch, as if willing the two hands to begin running backward. Finally, I lowered it and stared at the two. "I didn't realize how frickin' late it got," I said, my mind beginning the race. The woman Courtney gave a small shrug. "So, what's the big deal? This place won't close for another hour or so." I shook my head. "You don't get it. I promised my folks. I'd get my ass back no later than 1230. This is the first time they've ever let me stay out so late. If I don't get back there, I'm toast." Both of them let out barks a laughter. "What is with the American parents being such bloody killjoys?" Eric said. "I had no answer to give." I simply shook my head as I pulled my wallet out and withdrew a ten-pound note from it. Tossing it down, I slid to my feet, the world tilting slightly from the alcohol in my system. I honestly don't know, man, but I do know I got a vamous before I end up screwed, especially if the three of us still want to hit the movies this weekend. At my words, Courtney jerked her head up to look at me. A sly smile slowly slid across her face, and she leaned over slightly, sliding her hand on top of mine as her blue eyes twinkled. "Then you better get yourself home, haven't you?" she said, her voice taken on a slightly husky tone. "Because your cute ass is going to the pictures with me to see Godzilla one way or another." I felt my cheeks burn slightly at the flirt, then found my voice. "Yeah, I should. You have the phone number and address I gave you." She nodded, pulling a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. Satisfied, and with a final exchange of later, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed for the exits. As soon as I stepped outside, I was hit with a torrent of rain. "Great. Still downpouring." "Sign. I flipped the collar of my leather jacket up and began jogging." It was the summer of 1998, and my parents had decided to take my two younger siblings and I to see my aunt and uncle in London. It was our first time visiting another country, and to me at least, it felt like visiting a parallel dimension. One where the same language was spoken, but everything else was different. At first, I loved the tours of places like the Tower of London and St. Paul's Cathedral. But I quickly tired of it, wanting to get out of my own and experience it as only an 18-year-old on the loose could. And after much pleading and promising to behave, I finally been given the go-ahead. "I was given 50 pounds to spend, along with fare for the trains and buses and told to have fun. But my mother had begun, her tone deadly serious. My father and I expect you back here no later than 1230. You break curfew, and you could forget being let out on your own again, am I clear?" "I agreed enthusiastically, promising I would. And in truth, I had fully intended to keep my word. I just hadn't intended on meeting Courtney and Eric at Trafalgar Square. But when I locked eyes with the blonde bombshell across the square, sitting on the edge of the fountain in a tight skirt, I couldn't resist." The three of us spent the rest of the day just walking about the city, hitting up stores and eventually ending up at a pub, where they were delighted and buying me my first ever legal alcohol I've had. And now, here I am, running about like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to find my way back to Chelsea before I end up dead meat. I shook my head, trying to clear my slightly fuzziness in my vision, as I raced towards the bright lines and blaring car horns a Piccadilly Circus. A moment later, I was awash in the neon signs advertising Foster's Beer, Sanio Electronics and Coca-Cola. This late at night, the square had emptied out considerably, though a number of people still streamed around, their faces hidden under umbrellas as they pushed past me. My eyes flickered first to the red double-decker bus as it passed by, then a black cab which was letting out the most goth couple I had ever seen. I felt a slight anxiety, even though I knew full well I was legally able to drink, years of being raised in the States and constantly reminded of what would happen if I was to be caught drinking before turning 21 nodded me. I don't exactly feel comfortable taking a cab tipsy, and don't even know how to get one of the buses to stop. Feeling the anxiety began to fill me as I glanced at my watch, I spared a final look around. That's when my eyes fell upon the sign for the underground across from me. As soon as I spied the large red circle with white lettering showing the way, I remembered the ticket in my pocket. Of course, I took it to get here, and since it's an all-day ticket, I could use it until midnight. My mind made up, I stopped to let the jeep pass through the intersection, then jogged across to the stairs. As I reached the top, I stopped to spare one final glance around. Despite the time crunch, I smiled, almost feeling truly like an adult for the first time in my life. See you tomorrow. I whispered to nobody in particular, then hurried down the steps. The sounds of the world above dulled as I entered the hallway, my footsteps echoing off the tile walls. Passing by posters for plays and movies, I followed the winding path until it opened into a large welcome area. As I entered, I was hit by the small wave of surprise. Where the hell is everyone? Even this late at night, and with the amount of activity above, I expected there would at least be a few other people rushing for a train home. But as I stared around the large circular room, I saw no sign of life. The only sound was the soft hum of the fluorescent lights on the walls and columns. I glanced around for a moment longer, then began walking, my footfalls again echoing loudly back at me. Fumbling into the pocket of my jeans, I retrieved the crumpled ticket, smoothing it out as best as I could as I approached the gates to the platforms. Oi! The call from behind me made me freeze for a moment, all semblance of thought fleeing. Oh, shit, man. Memories of my mother talking about taking the New York subway as a teenager flooded my mind. Stories about having the watch for armed robbers who had corner helpless passengers and steal everything from them at knife point. I began the speed walk towards the gates. Stop! I forced myself to turn towards the voice and began to softly laugh, filling with relief at the side of what had to be a metro cop striding towards me. He appeared to be in his mid 40s, strands of brown hair peeking from under his cap. I shot a look at the name stamped into his vest. D. Giddens. As he approached, he caught sight of the look on my face, and the hardened expression he wore softened as he raised his hands. "My apologies, I startled you," he chuckled. I nodded, swallowing before answering. "Honestly, yeah, you did, officer. I didn't see anyone else down here when I entered." I gave a strained smile. Kind of scared the hell out of me. He let out a chuckle of his own as he finished making his way over to me and flashed a smile. "You're an American tourist, aren't you?" I nodded again. "Yes, sir." Turning, he pointed at the clock hanging from the ceiling. "Well, you might not know it, lad, but the station closes in about twenty minutes. The underground doesn't run after midnight or so." A small spike of worry rose at his words. "Crap, it doesn't?" I asked. He shook his head, rubbing his beard as he looked at me. "Where are you needing to go?" "I need to get back to Chelsea. I took a train from Sloan Square. But that was a different line than this, I think." At my words, a pleased look crossed the officer's face. "You might actually be in luck," he said, pointing at the signs over the escalators heading farther down. The Piccadilly line doesn't stop at Sloan, but it does stop at South Kensington. Roughly a ten-minute walk to Chelsea. The last train for Baker low line is already gone. But there's one final westbound train for Piccadilly due in ten minutes. "If you hurry down, you should make it. Just follow the signs." I gave a sigh of relief and nodded, this time giving the cop a genuine smile. "Thank you. Thank you so much, sir." He nodded, then motioned for me to hurry. Giving him one final look, I turned and stepped up to the gate, sliding my ticket into the slot. It spat it back out, and I quickly slid through and jogged the escalator. Stepping onto it, I leaned against the railing and closed my eyes. A rhythmic metallic clang filled my ears as I descended. Opening them as I felt it level out, I stepped off and hurried down the corridor. There were three hallways that branched off the main one. The one to the right was already barred off by a gate, and the same with the left branch of the fork straight ahead, which left only one choice. "Welp, guess I'm going this way." Taking the hallway to the right, I turned left and descended a set of steps. A moment later, I stepped out onto an empty train platform. I felt another wave of confusion. The sign at the top of the stairs said this was for a bake-low platforms, but the cops said the follow the signs for a picadilly lane. Where the hell am I supposed to go? The answer came as I turned to the left, spined the sign which pointed into yet another hallway. "Ah," I muttered, feeling a bit sheepish. I started towards it, feeling a bit sureward that I would make it back in time to my aunt and uncle's house on Bernsall Street. Scrape. I stopped, almost mid-step as the sound came. It echoed off the tiled walls of the station for a moment, then died away. For a moment, I simply stared ahead, waiting to see if anyone would emerge. Nothing moved in the stillness. "Come on, dude. You gotta get to the other platform before the train arrives." I began the move forward again, my boots clapping on the floor. Scrape. This time I froze like a statue. The first time the sound had come, I couldn't figure out exactly where it came from. The echo had been distorted. But this time, it had been much clearer. It had come from ahead, seemingly where the empty platform disappeared around a bend. I felt my pulse quickened slightly and swallowed. For a moment, I contemplated saying nothing, then I spoke. "Hello?" My voice echoed off the walls, bouncing back as it died away. "Why the hell did you just do that? Haven't you seen enough horror movies?" But I shook my head, pushing the thought away. This is real life, not a horror movie. For a moment, I continued to stand there, waiting. Nobody answered my call. A mental image of the cop flashed through my mind. Maybe he had come down to set a stairs for employees, making sure I'm not going to spray paint the walls or anything. The thought made me call out again. "Officer, is that you?" Again, my voice echoed away into the emptiness, dying away and answered by no one. As I stared, a feeling suddenly fell over me. That one alone on the platform was not pleasant in the least. The feeling of being watched. I felt my pulse began the quicken as it grew, shooting a look over my shoulder to make sure I wasn't being snuck up on. But nobody emerged from the hall behind me. I swung my gaze back, feeling a mixture of weariness and trepidation. And then suddenly a loud noise caused me to jump. My heart almost stopped as a booming man's voice shattered the silence. "Attention! The final westbound Piccadilly lane train will arrive at the station in three minutes. I repeat, the final westbound Piccadilly train will arrive in three minutes." The sound of the inner calm flicked off, and I let out a low, soft laugh as the realization hit me, bending over and putting my hands on my knees. "Frickin' hell, man." After a moment, I stood back up straight and headed for the hall. As I reached it, I spared one final look down the hall. That noise had to be a frickin' rat or something. You are getting way too jumpy, Billy. Shaking my head, I entered the hallway, quickly descending a final set of stairs. Quickly scanning the two maps, I found South Kensington on the right and stepped onto the platform. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was now a quarter to midnight. The map said that my stop would only be a few stations ahead. That meant a train ride of only about five or ten minutes. After that, it would be a quick climb topside, and according to the cop, another five minutes to walk the Chelsea. I'll be home well before curfew. Smiling, I walked over to a bench and sat down, placing my backpack on my lap and waiting. Inside the pack, I had a Sony Discman, for which I purchased two CDs while out with my new friends. But I'd made the decision to wait until I was on the train before breaking it out. As sure as I felt the noise had been something harmless, I didn't want to defen myself. Not yet. Glancing at my watch, I saw a minute had passed. Feels like hours instead of seconds. Sign, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Scrape. My eyes flew open again at the sound, now distant and echoing from the upper platform, filtering down to me. I slowly turned my head, looking towards the out-of-sight alcove about fifty feet to my right. A moment later, it came again. I snorted, shaking my head. See? It's either a rat or just some sounds of the underground late at night. But as much as I repeated the thought over and over, I couldn't quite make myself believe it. I couldn't say why, it just sounded off. As the noise came a third time, something occurred to me. Is it just me or is that thing getting louder? I glanced at my watch again. Another minute had passed. If the announcer had been correct, the train should be pulling into the station in about sixty seconds. Thank God, I began the stand, but froze as a new sound came. Thunk. Every muscle in my body tensed and I flashed up lightning quick. What the? For a moment, the air remained still. Then. Thunk. I suddenly felt my blood run cold as it came a third time. My mind replaying the last few minutes of my journey down. The scraping sound had been one I couldn't place. A sound I had never heard before in which I could shrug off. But this noise, a very human one, was one I'd heard not even three minutes ago as I descended to the platform. It was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Shit. At six foot and well built from years on the swim team, not to mention three years of self-defense classes, I felt confident I could hold my own against someone. But the fact I was tipsy in an unfamiliar space, combined with how brazen whoever it was to not even try to be quiet, was sending off all kinds of alarm bells in my head. A fourth thunk came and I made a split decision, deciding to try to intimidate whoever it might be. I opened my mouth. All right, whoever's on the frickin' stairs, if it's some kind of joke, I can assure you it's not the least bit amusing. Instantly the sound stopped, the platform going silent once more. But this time, it wasn't any normal kind of silence. This one was that held a palpably tense atmosphere, one so thick you could easily cut it with the knife. For what felt like an eternity, but in reality was likely no more than 10 seconds, it hung over my head like a noose, then I forced myself to speak again. My voice sounding as tough as I could and try not to slur my words. You keep this up and I'll report this. That is if I don't kick your frickin' ass first. For a few more moments, there was silence. I couldn't tell if they were attempting to quietly make their way up the stairs, or simply staying still and making their mind up. I shot another glance at my watch. Come on man, where's the frickin' train? As I lifted my head again, the sound suddenly sprang up again. Only this time, they weren't coming slowly one after another. They were coming rapidly. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. My eyes widened as I suddenly realized how big a mistake I had made. You frickin' moron, you just pissed them off. I began the back pedal down the platform as the sounds drew closer. Oh shit, oh shit. I kept repeating the two words. Fear suddenly coursing through my veins. As I reached the halfway point, they reached the bottom and stopped. I stopped as well, freezing and straining my ears to hear anything. No new sounds disturbed the eerie silence that had descended onto the platform, but all that meant was that the person was standing just at a sight, waiting. For what? The mental question made the fear and anxiety well up like a hot spring, as images of being rushed filled my mind. I swallowed hard and took another step back. That was when I felt a large puff of air hit me, causing me to sway slightly on my feet. It was followed by a loud echoing sound which rapidly intensified. For a moment, I didn't understand what was happening. Then relief like I had never felt before came as the train bursted out of the tunnel, the platform filling with the sound of its breaks. Even so, I kept shooting looks towards the stairs. I gave a silent thanks as I saw nobody appear. The train finally came to a complete stop, the doors opened with a whoosh. A speaker inside let out a small ding, followed by a soothing woman's voice. This train terminates at Heathrow Terminal 4. I shot another glance down at the other end of the platform. Then I began to move towards the open doors. As I was about to enter, something came flying out of nowhere, smacking itself square into my chest. For a moment, panic consumed me before I looked down, and let out a shaky chuckle as I realized it was some sort of paper, likely blown about by the train. Pulling it from my chest and holding it with one clenched hand, I spared a final look towards the alcove. Then I quickly stepped inside. The doors slid shut a moment later, the loud humming sound of the train powering back up filling my ears. Feeling the floor below me jerks slightly, I slid the paper into my pocket and quickly sat down on one of the benches. The platform began sliding by outside, and was replaced a few seconds later by the blackness of the underground tunnels. For a moment, confident that I hadn't been followed, I allowed my shoulders to slump as all the fear and tension I had felt flowed out of my body like water. A huge sigh escaped my lips. "Holy shit, dude," I muttered softly, then let out a equally soft, strained laugh. Taking another few deep breaths, I finally allowed myself to look around. Aside from myself, the car was completely empty. Abandoned newspapers laid where people had discarded them, and what looked like a styrofoam coffee cup rolled lazily under one of the pattern seats. Leaning around, I saw through the glass doors to both the jointing cars that they too were empty. "You're safe, man," the thought further reassured me, and I set my backpack aside and stood up, holding on to the metal bar running along the ceiling as I studied the map on the far wall. My eyes moved along the line. "Okay, three stops before Kensington," I said, making a mental note to them. Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, and Knightsbridge. Sitting back down in my seat as I felt the adrenaline which had filled my body began the recede, replaced with a sudden tiredness. I reached over and unzipped my bag, pulling out my disc man and the two new CDs I'd bought. Depeche Mode or Tears for Fears? I settled on Depeche Mode, popping the CD inside the disc man. Placing the headphones onto my head, I hit play. A moment later, my ears were filled with the sound of Dave Gahan's voice as he began the sing "World in My Eyes." Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes. As I listened, feeling my body rock slightly with the train. I decided that I wouldn't tell my parents what had happened to me. The news that I had been accosted by an unseen presence would send them off the deep end. I'd absolutely be forbidden from going to the movies with Courtney this weekend. Like hell, that's happening. I felt the train began the slow. Opening my eyes and lifting one headphone, I watched as the empty platform rolled into view. The train stopped and the doors opened. A woman's voice came from the train's speakers again. This is Green Park. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. After about 10 seconds, the doors closed and the train began the move again. I slid the headphone back over my ear and relaxed again. The process repeated as the train rolled into Hyde Park station. As the doors closed, I slid my headphones back on and leaned back. Closing my eyes as enjoyed the silence began blasting into my ears. One more stop. Thank you, God, for watching out for me tonight. Behind my eyelids, I could still faintly see the glow of the lights. As I began to bob my head back and forth to the music, I suddenly realized they had winked out. They came back on a moment later. I guess the London Underground does like the New York subway. Certain spots they hit and the light flickers. As the thought finished, they again flickered. In any other situation, and after a lifetime of riding the subway back home, it wouldn't have bothered me. But after my close call, it began to make me feel nervous again. My mind suddenly recalled the paper I had been hit with. And to try to take my mind off things, I pulled it from my pocket to look at it. It was a program for a play similar to the one my parents and I received a few nights ago when they had dragged me to a theater back in West End. The top of the program gave the name of the theater in dark red font. Her Majesty's Theater. Haymarket SWY. I swung my gaze down to the title, reading it out loud. Jack Hilton presents Diana Dors and Dickel Henderson and remains to be seen. I shrugged my shoulders. Never heard of it before, or either the actors. Local talent likely. My eyes fell further down to the bottom and I began to read the line which stated its opening date. And froze. I blinked my eyes a few times, as if doing so would change what I saw. But it didn't. The small black lettering remained. First performance Tuesday 16th December 1952. My mind raced. What the? How in the hell is something as old as this still floating around down here? It doesn't even look 46 years old. It looks new. Feeling my head begin the spin. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. As I attempted to make sense of it, the lights again flickered for a moment, plunging the car back into darkness before flashing on again. As soon as they did though, I felt my body tense. Something in the train car now felt different. I snapped open my eyes as the feeling intensified. I looked to my left. There was still nobody inside in the next car. I let out a sigh. It's your nerves from earlier, man. Nothing more. Forcing another sigh out my mouth. I swung my head to the right and had the clamp of my mouth tightly shut to keep from screaming. I wasn't alone anymore. Someone sat at the far end of the car. Their face was hidden by the hood of a sweatshirt. One of the zip up styles the kids in my school loved to wear. They appeared to pay me no attention, but the vibes they were giving off was putting me extremely on edge. Not to mention. Where exactly the hell did they even come from? Nobody got on board at the last stop, and I would have sensed someone entering from one of the other cars. A thought suddenly warmed its way forward. As much as I attempted to force it away, it remained. It's the person from the platform. The idea suddenly caused every ounce of fear and weariness to return with a vengeance. The same threatening aura I had felt staring at the alcove was unmistakable, cementing the notion. But I forced myself to stay still. Acting like I either hadn't noticed them yet or simply didn't care. Just keep looking like you don't give a damn billy. Show some of the apathy that the New Yorkers are famous for. I slowly shut off the music, pulling the headphones from my head and placing it back in my backpack. Reaching over, I picked up one of the discarded newspapers from the seat next to me, flipping it open and pretending to read. I kept it just far enough for my face to glance at the figure out of the corner of my eye. They continued to sit there, the only movements being the slight rocking of their body. As I continued to flick my gaze back and forth, I felt the train began to slow again. We were arriving at the next platform. The woman's voice came over the speakers again. This is Night Bridge. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. Sure enough, the platform slid into view a moment later, the train rolling to a stop and the doors opening. As I stared at what felt like salvation, I mentally argued over what to do. I could just get out, dash to the stairs, and try to make it to the street before he catches me. But for all I know, doing so could make him rush me. Besides, turning your back on this guy, where he appeared like frickin' Houdini on the train, doesn't just feel like a big mistake. It feels like it might be a fatal one. To this very day, I wish I hadn't fought with myself. I wish I had simply jumped up, grabbed my bag and ran. The choice was made for me as I hesitated a moment too long. The doors slid shut, and the train began the hum and jerked forward. We slid back into the dark tunnels. The woman's voice came on the speaker again. The next stop is South Kensington Station. Far from making me feel better, the announcement caused the fear to further intensify. If anything was going to happen, it would be between now and the next station. I kept calm, turning the page in the newspaper. I spared a look over at the figure, and couldn't help but stare. They had pulled something out of their pocket, something dark red, rectangular, and about the size of their hand, with three circular rings in the top left corner. As I watched, I saw the person tap their thumbs against the other side of it for a moment, then stopped and gazed at it. I caught a split second glimpse of what looked to be some kind of logo stamped on the back. Then they replaced it back into their pocket. Confusions swept through me. What the hell was that thing? I forced my gaze away, turning to continue pretending to read. I'd already felt afraid to begin with at the figure's sudden appearance. After that bizarre spectacle, it had ramped up a few notches. And it was furthered as the lights flickered again, sending the train into darkness. My heart beat furiously against my chest, feeling as though it would burst out at any moment. The lights returned, and I casted my eyes to the side. The figure still sat where they were. The lights flickered again. I gave a fake exasperated sigh, as if annoyed my reading had been interrupted. The lights flickered on again, and I shot a glance to the right and froze. The seat where the figure had been, not even five seconds ago, was empty. My eyes darted around every possible area that they could have hidden between the few seconds they had. But I saw no feet poking out from the bottom of seats. Hello. A voice. A man's came from directly in front of me behind the newspaper. Shiver after shiver shot up my spine. Fear and terror filled every fiber of my beam, and I saw my hands begin to shake violently. Slowly, I lowered the paper, my breath coming in ragged gaps as I looked up. The hood still hid the upper half of his face, but I could clearly see the psychotic grin which adorned the lower. The horrifying realization hit me like a Mack truck. This isn't any ordinary nut job. This guy is giving off frickin' serial killer vibes. And then my gaze fell to the man's right hand, or should I be more specific, when he had held in his right hand. A knife. Its serrated blade curved wickedly upwards. My eyes widened as far as they could go. For a few moments, neither of us moved. Then I spoke, my voice coming out in a weak tone. Oh shit. I exploded into motion, using all the muscle in my legs to sprint forward and off to the side. From the corner of my eye, I saw the figure lunge towards where I had just been, the knife stabbing the seat, tearing it apart like it was paper. That was going to be me. The thought sent a new burst of adrenaline into my system, and I leapt to my feet as a figure pulled back, whirling the face me. All the knowledge from my self-defense class has flooded back to me, and I moved into positions, centering my legs. The man's grand widened as he watched me, and he chuckled. Good. Been a while since I had a bit of challenge. Then he charged at me again. I spun on one heel, whirling around and allowing the man's momentum to carry him past me. As soon as he was, I lashed out with my other foot, the steel-toed boots slamming him into the back of the man's calf. He let out a grunt as he fell to one knee, almost dropping the knife. Then he sprang back to his feet, whirling around and slashing at me. I backpedaled hard, having the jerk my upper body back a few times to avoid the blade. As soon as I saw an opening, I pivoted, bringing up one foot and slamming it hard into his chest. Conned by surprise, he let out a bit of a yell as he almost went ass over teak-headle, only stopping as he grabbed the railing. Pulling himself up, I saw his grin widen further. I'm impressed. He chuckled again. My blood ran cold at his next words. I'm truly going to enjoy gutting you. I backed up again, ready for the man's next charge. What happened next? I still can't fully explain. One moment, the man was ready in his next charge. The next, it was as if he had simply appeared directly in front of me. Shock stunned me and I hesitated just a moment too late. A searing pain filled my left shoulder and I stumbled back, clapping my hand to it as I felt blood began to drip profusely from the slash. I snapped my head to look up at the man who now held the knife out towards me, the blade dripping with blood. My blood. Play times over kid. He said through insane giggles. As he began to move forward, a small hopeless voice entered my mind. I'm going to die. I'm not fast enough. I'm going to die here. As I felt despair began to overtake me, the sound of the announcer's voice filled the train car. This is south Kensington station. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. The realization of how close I was to the platform suddenly banished away the voice telling me to give up, instead replaced with a furious determination I didn't realize I possessed. I saw the first light to the platform appear, but I remained still. I have to time this perfectly, just one single misstep and I'm dead. The knife rose, ready to slice into my jugular and I made my move. I exploded into motion, first pivoting and lashing out with my right foot. A moment later, a sickening crack filled the train car as his leg either snapped or popped out of its socket. At the same time, I snapped up with my left elbow aiming for his right wrist. Again, my aim proved true, and the knife flew out of his hand, embedding itself into the seat beside him. I heard him begin to let out a howl of pain and rage, but I wasn't through yet. I had one final move to keep him down long enough for me to escape. My left hand lashed out, grabbing the front of his hoodie and my right hand bald into a fist. I pulled back, putting every ounce of strength I had into it, and swung. The blow connected with the man's head, sending him flying backwards. There was a tearing sound, and I felt the hoodie split as I continued to hold it in a death grip. It tore from my grasp, and he fell to the floor in a heap. The hood sliding from his face as it fell apart. His eyes flew up the meat mine, insanity filling them as he continued to grin. My jaw dropped open. For a moment, I felt rooted to the spot as my eyes flicked back and forth, unable to look away. I only snapped out of it as I realized the man was beginning the attempt to stand up, and I heard the whoosh of the doors opening. I didn't hesitate any longer. I leapt over the man and grabbed my pack, sprinting for the doors as I heard the ding signifying they were about the clothes. I leapt through them, falling to the floor of the platform in a heap, and spinning to see them close. From inside the car, just audible over the hum of the train powering up, I heard the man let out another scream a rage, rage at having lost his prey, and then the train pulled away. A few moments later, it disappeared into the blackness of the far tunnel. For a few moments, I stared. Then I slowly climbed to my feet, holding one hand tight to the still bleeding gash on my shoulder. That horrific night was 26 years ago. After I got up, I raced topside, where I found the nearest photo box and called the police. Quite a few of them showed up, more than I assumed, along with an ambulance. They took my story extremely seriously, sending some of the men down to the station as they ordered armed police to Heathrow. Then they took me to the hospital. It took almost 70 stitches to sew up my shoulder. They also called my parents. I still remember how mom cried as she clutched me like a shipwreck victim to a life ring. Neither have I ever seen either one of them that afraid. Courtney had a similar expression when she came to visit a few days later, after showing up unannounced to my aunt and uncle's house. The only good thing that came out of my stay in the hospital was it was where she and I had our first kiss. The first of many. The cops never found him. They were waiting to check every cop car topped the bottom when it arrived at the final stop. But they never found a trace of him, aside from the shredded seats. I knew they wouldn't, not after what I had seen. And when an officer came to take my statement again, it was confirmed as he admitted something. "What am I about to tell you, son, stays between you and me? We've had unsolved murders occur at this tube for at least the past 70 years, if not longer. They never made the paper, and they've always had the same MO. Person goes into the station late at night, is caught on cameras talking to someone, then goes down to a platform. The last place any of them have been seen alive as entering the train. I'm 44 years old now, as odd as it may seem, and despite what had happened. I ended up moving to London after graduating college. Courtney and I ended up marrying one another, our summertime fling leading to a love that lasted almost 30 years, along with three amazing kids. Every day I spend with them, makes me thankful I never gave up that night. But I don't take the underground anymore, I never will. And I forbid Courtney or any of our kids to take it either." You see, the police ran a check after I told my story, and they found that there was no man with either the Metropolitan Police or the Transit Police named Dee Giddens. There never had been, but it makes sense. The best way to gain a person's trust is to look like an authority figure. That's why when the hoodie toward his face snapped up to glare at me, I couldn't help but gasp as I recognized him. The same green eyes and beard. I was never able to figure out what he had been doing though, what he had been tapping on before he came to me. No one I spoke to could either. I honestly ended up thinking I had just been seeing things, but I don't anymore. Because my wife brought home a birthday present from our oldest daughter today. When she was presented with the box, she let out a squeak of delight that caused me to smile. But it was wiped away as she opened it and pulled the smartphone out, one that had a very familiar shape with an equally similar logo adorning the back. Even though it was a brand new iPhone, I had seen it before decades ago. They say in modern times, it's becoming harder for serial killers to operate without being caught. All the advancements and forensics, all the cameras everywhere, and the social media had created a world in which they can't get away with their crimes as easily. But what if they didn't have to? The thought makes me terrified, not for the future, but the past. Why? Because of the last thing I saw that night as I stared down at my attempted murderer, at the shirt he wore under the torn hoodie, one which advertised the grand opening of some business in July, 2025. History is full of great discoveries from cave paintings to ancient ruins, from unearthed skeletons to roads hidden for centuries. The archaeological world is simply full of history that turns the current understanding of ancient times on its ear. I've found just such a discovery. It will change the way mankind understands our history, how ancient people may have traveled to new lands and even built structures in the most unlikely of places. Like an ancient temple in a remote place called Sneedville, Tennessee, but I will never return there, ever. I will give you, whoever is reading this, clear and concise directions to get there if you feel inclined to check it out yourself. However, I would warn you to read this post in full before you pack up your things and head out. You need to know what you are walking into. Sneedville, Tennessee is a small, and I mean small farming community in the northeast corner of the state. Steep rolling hills and hard-cut valleys permeate the area. With almost every piece of flat, dry land, you see having been tilled for crops. In the most God-forsaken section of this rule area, there is a small, one-lane dirt and stone road called Black Valley Road. This is not to be confused with Black Valley Road less than one mile from it. Sneed villains are not that creative in naming these roads it seems, if you could even call Black Valley Road a road. It's a twisting and turning death trap. With a steep mountain on one side of your car, while a sheer drop is on the other. If you sneeze and twitch the wheel in any wrong direction, you can die. This is not an exaggeration, and if you head out the check if all of what I tell you is true, you will see that it is just by driving down this death-defined road. You said one lane, so what if a vehicle comes the other way, you might ask? Three choices. You die? You reverse until you find a spot to pull off, or the other car reverses. These are the only options. Remember, you are a hair's breath from a cliff that will lead you to certain death while you are backing up. Those familiar with the road do not seem defazed by it, as they take it at 50 miles an hour. I guess it just adds to a little spice to their lives. So if you head west on Black Valley Road, the way is not that bad. If you head east, make peace with your god. Either way, a few miles in, heading west, or a bit longer heading east, you will see on the north side of the road a pleasant looking cabin. Almost a house, snuggled on a hilltop with a winding driveway made of gravel that passes an old 1800s tobacco barn, now used to hold a water tank in old tools. A new barn is on the other side of the cabin, all metal and shining. A garish clash between the old and the new. It is behind this cabin halfway up the mountain that I found it. The cabin is owned by a family friend, and I have been here dozens of times. I enjoy traversing the woods at little streams, climbing to the top of the mountain and scampering back down, try not to twist an ankle. It's a rustic, peaceful, and almost beautiful place. You could feel it one with nature. Though I have visited many times, I had never visited in the fall or winter. Normally, the thick trees are so laden with leaves the entire mountainside looks more like a lush green carpet than a forest. But in that late fall, last week to be precise, the trees were barren, and I could see so much more of the mountainside than I ever had been able to before. It was this and sheer dumb luck that let me find it. The Entrance I decided on Wednesday morning to hike up the mountain to the top. It is a rough, arduous hike, and the older I get, the harder it is to do, but my ego won't let me quit. As I walked up behind the cabin, following an old, rutted path that wound its way past a small pond, filled with koi that had been put there by the owners of the property, I decided that instead of plowing straight up the mountain, I would follow the paths that had been cut out years before. These switchbacks started from the right side of the pond and meandered upwards, then switched sharply to the left, and so on, almost all the way up the mountainside. It was on the third switchback where I dropped my phone. I pulled it out to turn on some music for the climb when it fell from my clumsy fingers, and started the bounce back down the mountain. Cursing, I jumped after it, and finally found it as it came to rest next to a large white rock. Now to be fair, the mountain is covered with large white rocks. They are everywhere you look, but this one, when I got close, was different. I noticed it pulled slightly away from the mountainside, revealing a small gap with darkness beyond. A cave. This cave was impossible to see from below, and impossible to see from above. It was only if you were right in front of it that you could see it, and if it was springtime, the bushes and leaves would have been so thick even that might have been very, very difficult to notice. I turned on my phone's flashlight and shown it at the entrance. I saw a large cave big enough for me to walk in without hitting my head. Go straight back into the heart of the mountain. I was thrilled. My day's plans changed on the spot. Knowing that these caves may have rattlesnakes in them, I decided to head back, get some protection and better light, and then explore. After arming myself with a large sturdy flashlight and a machete, I headed back up. I tried in vain to see the entrance as I stood by the pond, but it was impossible. I did notice, however, that the mountain was very angular. I always knew it was steep, but I was just noticing how steep it even was. It almost looked like a pyramid, a pyramid in the middle of the mountain range that just blended in with all the other peaks and valleys. Pushing these thoughts past my head, I went back to the cave entrance and could not find it. Not right away. I was even standing less than 12 feet from it and didn't see it. If you go here to see for yourself, trust me, it is there, just not easy to see. Finally, I found it again and stood at the entrance. What was inside? My thoughts raced with possibilities. An underground lake, hidden confederate gold, a skeleton of some poor lost soul, or just snakes and spiders. Laughing to myself, I headed inside, turning on the powerful light as I did so. Certain I was the only one going, certain I was only going to find snakes and spiders. Oh God, how wrong I was. The cave went directly into the side of the mountain, heading slightly downward. It made no turns, which I thought was odd for a cave, but it was spacious and wide enough not to feel constricting. I constantly shone the light around, but mostly downward looking for any rattlesnakes. I saw none. Soon, the cave floor became even, the walls and ceiling too. This was man-made. Smooth bricks lined the walls and floor, and the ceiling was stone from the mountain, but ground or honed flat and level. Oh man, I wasn't thralled. Man-made. My thoughts of confederate gold grew stronger by the second. Who else would put all this work into a cave in the middle of nowhere? Why else would it have been built? I hurried down the corridor, or path, or tunnel, or whatever it was for a long time. I had to be deep in the mountain before the tunnel ended. I shone the light on a large heavy square stone blocking the way. It was a different color than the stone of the walls and floor. It was made from one giant slab. On the left side of the slab about waist high, there was an alcove in the stone, just big enough to fit your hands in. My heart was pounding. I really found something here. My thoughts went back to how this entire mountain peak looked more like a pyramid than anything else, and my heart beat even faster. I'd read that there was still findings of unknown pyramids in Mexico that had been overgrown and had been mistaken as hills or mountains, so why not here? If this was a pyramid, I made the greatest discovery in North America and ages. A part of me wanted to head back and make some calls, but I didn't want to look like an idiot. If this was just a Confederate catch, or some previous landowner's version of a nuclear bunker, I would look like a fool. I had to be sure. I shone the light around the stone door. It had symbols chastled in it. They were not hieroglyphics, but more like icons or Icelandic ruins. I could not make heads or tails of most of it, but I saw a few I could tell what they were. The first one I recognized threw me for a loop. Incas, Mayans, and even Egyptians did not use an icon of a sword hilt. They did not use icons of shields with more crosses and would look to be writing in Latin. They did not use icons which looked like a cup with rays of light shining off of it. They did not use ruins that looked like they came off of the appendix of the Lord of the Rings. Yet all these were etched into this giant stone door. My eyes kept going back to the alcove, which was certainly a handle of some type. I had seen enough Indiana Jones movies to know one thing for certain. That was not putting my hand in there blindly. I did, however, use my machete to pry in there and feel around. With a loud metallic clang sound, the door unlocked. I stood at the door for a while, excited to go in, and worried by doing so, I could be tainted what could be an epic find. Scientists and white Tvek suits and 300 different cameras should be exploring this cave, not some awkward buffoon with a flashlight and a machete. It was the thought that if it was a pyramid or if it was a catch, if there was any treasure in it, the government would claim it and that would get squat. That decided it for me. Screw that. I pushed gently on the stone door into my utter amazement. It pivoted open with just the slightest pressure. The stone had to be 12 tons, but it moved with just two fingers. I shone the light inward, and it showed the tunnel continuing downward. I stepped through as the large door slowly started to close behind me. In a panic, I grabbed some small stones and rumble to block the door open, always leave an exit. When I was confident the door would not close on its own, I started to explore. The complex was massive. I walked miles upon miles up and down staircases, past tunnels and chambers. It still felt I only explored a tiny fraction of this structure, which I was more and more sure with each passing second that, in fact, was a pyramid. I always returned to that stone door just to make sure it was still open, and I could reset myself to explore in a new direction. It was here that I started to explore a tunnel that led downwards at a pretty decent angle. This corridor was different than the others in that the symbols and icons were prevalent on the walls. No other tunnel I explored had this. I traveled for what felt like a quarter of a mile. I started to hear noises coming from below. Not loud. Just sporadic sounds drifting up from below. By the time my lights shone on another massive stone door, I could tell the noises were coming from behind it. A rustling sound. The sound of metal clanking on stone, which sounded like moans. All of these came from behind the door. I stood at the door for a while. I convinced myself that this was another exit to the pyramid, and some animal had made this tunnel it's den for the winter. I quietly used the machete again, prying at the alcove of the door, when with a loud metallic clank, the door unlocked. I listened carefully. The last thing I wanted to do was open this door to see a bear looking back at me. Silence. Not a rustle. Not a sound. I slowly pressed on the door, and as soon as it slid open, two things happened. I saw the glitter of gold and firelight, piled in heaps across the floor, and off to my right, where I could not yet see, something screamed and thrashed. I heard the unmistakable sound of chains being tossed around, the screech of some beast echoing in the chamber. My heart froze at the sound, and all the thoughts of gold, treasure, and a life of luxury disappeared. This screech was unlike anything I had ever heard. It filled me with a terror I had never known. I was unable to move as the door continued to open inwards. I saw more and more treasure being revealed, and on a pedestal with swords leaning against it was a small cup. The creature, whenever it was, was thrashing with untold fury. And then I heard the sound of a chain snapping. The creature roared with triumph, and here I turned and ran. As I ran, I heard another chain snap and hit the floor, then another. I ran as hard as I could back up the tunnel to the exit, and then I heard it coming from me. It, whatever it was, was free. It was racing up the tunnel towards me, screeching the entire time. It ran on two legs, but God helped me. I heard hoofs heading the stone. What in the hell ran on two legs that had hoofs? My heart was pounding with both fear and exertion as I reached the door. The creature was close behind me. Whatever it was, cast a flickering light off the walls, as if it carried a torch or it was on fire. I ran through the opening, kicking the rumble and stones I had placed a block and open as I did, and slammed all my weight against it. It pivoted and clicked. I heard, as if from a distance, the creature hit the stone door. I swear I saw some of the ruins flash with a blue light, then fade the darkness. The creature threw itself again and again at the stone slab, but it did not budge. It did not even twitch. The last thing I heard was the creature screech as I ran up the tunnel, and I swear, in that long drawn out scream, I thought I almost could make out words. This was six days ago. I am now safe in my home state, twelve hours from that creature. I was in the car and flying down Black Valley Road less than a half an hour from when the door closed and saved my life. I am going to tell you what I know and tell you what I believe. I know this cave is to the entrance to an ancient pyramid. It has to be ancient for the forest to grow on it like it has, and hit it from prying eyes all these years. I know how to get to it. Behind the cabin, turn right on the pond, go up the third switch back and halfway down the path, head downwards and look down until you find the entrance. It is not easy, but it is there. I know there is treasure in there. It is also an archaeologist wet dream. I know there is something else in there, something that lives for thousands of years, not human, not animal, something else entirely. I believe that the pyramid was built by someone other than the Mayans, the Incas or the Egyptians, someone with Christian icons as part of their religion. I believe that what was inside, well, well, it was a demon. Two legs, hoofs, flames, screeching in an unknown language, and a desire to kill, because let me tell you, if that thing caught me, I would be dead. I want this pyramid to be found and left alone at the same time. I want the treasure I saw, but no amount of money will ever get me back there. I fear for humanity if that thing is ever set free. But someone captured it, chained it up. It might be able to be killed. But if you want to try it, be my guest. You know where it is, how to get to it and what rewards await you. But something else waits as well. Good luck. 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