“How about Venice? I’ve always wanted to go to Venice.”

“If that’s where you want to go, let’s book it,” he replied.

David had just gone into remission, again. For the fifth time. Stage 4 lung cancer. We had a tradition that, every time he recovered, we’d take a trip, and it was my turn to pick the destination. I loved these trips; we’d gone through a rough patch early in our marriage, and these vacations had really brought us closer together again. 

“Great!” I said. “I’ll make the reservations.”

I went online and pulled up some options. Finding a good price on a package (travel points are awesome), I went online to book with our credit card.

Declined. 

That was weird - I knew we had room on the card. I went online and checked the statement. 

I saw the problem. 

“David?”

“Yeah, hon?”

“I forgot to ask, how did your meeting go the other night? The one with your boss?”

“What? Oh, it went fine. You know Jim - always thinking of something else he wants that he didn’t think of in the first place.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how you put up with it. How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Great! Like I was never sick at all! It’s amazing - I had a lot of friends I met when I first got sick who are no longer with us because the cancer came on quickly before the doctors could really do anything. I have others who got lucky and went into remission; some are even still in it. And for some, the cancer came back and they couldn’t fight it off a second time. But to go into remission FIVE TIMES!?! It’s unbelievable! The folks in my support group are asking for my secret. The nurses at the hospital treat me like a good luck charm. Even our friends in church are using me as an example of how God can perform miracles. I can’t explain it, but I’m grateful.”

“That’s great to hear, honey. I’m glad you’re doing better. How’s Allie?”

He blinked. “Allie?”

“Yeah, you know, the new secretary at your office? The one you’ve been banging on the side?”

He froze; I could see him running the calculations in his head. 

“Sweetie, what are you talking about? You know I wouldn’t cheat on you.”

I just looked at him. 

“Ok, yeah, I did at the beginning of our relationship, but that was then. We’ve been so much better since then, haven’t we?”

“I thought we had,” I agreed. “But I also thought the cheating was behind us. I thought your getting through cancer had given you a new lease on life, a new appreciation for what we had. That’s kind of why I did it.”

“Why you did what?”

I looked him in the eyes. 

“Tell me, in all the time you’ve known me, have you ever seen me sick?”

“Come to think of it, no.”

“Have you ever seen anyone in my family sick?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Have you ever wondered why that is?”

“I guess I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Of course not. I have a gift. All the women in my family have it. I can take illness and ‘reallocate’ it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can take a sickness or disease from one person and give it to someone else.”

“Honey, come on. That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Have you honestly never wondered how your cancer disappeared five times? Did you think you were blessed by God?”

“Are you suggesting that you did that?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I did it because I loved you and I thought we had something worth saving. Now I’m wondering whether I was wrong.”

“So where did my cancer supposedly go?”

“Do you remember those sluts you cheated on me with earlier in our relationship? Spoken to any of them recently?”

He stared at me. 

“I heard they all died from cancer. Unlucky, really - I’m told that none of them had a family history of it and that they all suffered a great deal before they died.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to believe this?”

“Believe what you like. By the way, how are you feeling?”

“What do you mean? I—”

His words were interrupted by a racking cough. He looked up at me in terror as he grabbed his chest and fell to the ground, coughing up blood. 

“What… what did you…?” he wheezed. 

“I just felt so bad about taking your cancer away from you, I figured it was only right to give it back.”

Sam passed in the winter, just two months after his mother. The midwife tried her best to save her, but it was over before it started. She gave me a warm hug as she left. I knew Sam wouldn't last long without his mother. I barely had enough to feed myself, let alone a baby. I debated whether I should even name the little boy, but how could I not? He had the most beautiful blue eyes, just like his mother.

Sam passed in his sleep, the best way to go. Some days I wished it were me, but what would Sam do all alone? 

The problem then was arranging Sam's funeral. All the savings had already been spent on his mother's funeral, but Sam couldn't go into the ground without a proper service.

I sold one of the last things I could still sell, my bees. They gave me something sweet to eat in the winter and something to look after the rest of the year, but there was nothing else to sell. My neighbor took them and gave me more for them than he should have. He was a nice man and knew what I'd gone through.

Sam got a nice wooden coffin and a decent place in the cemetery next to his mother.

When the winter came, his cradle and toys were still in the house. My body tightened whenever I tried to get rid of them, but it was okay; maybe I'd have more will in the summer. 

During the long winter nights, I'd often come into his room and play with his toys, just like I thought we would one day. Sometimes they'd warm my heart, sometimes they'd make me cry, and often I'd just fall asleep in the chair right by his cradle.

It was one of those days when I fell asleep crying by the cradle again. When I awoke, the sun glistened on the freshly fallen snow. Everything outside was still, but then something moved in the air. A bee! A queen bee! It flew across the yard and into the hive. I still hadn't moved my hive off the yard. Sam's funeral was too much work.

At first I felt bad. My neighbor owned them now. They had no business being in the old hive, but seeing that familiar creature warmed me. Over the next few days I sat at the window, watching all my bees slowly return.

They stayed inside the hive the rest of the winter, and I stayed by that window each day, watching. Only when the snow started to let up, and the flowers came out from under it, did the bees come out too.

I expected them to stay by the hive, but many flew far away, ignoring the flowers in my garden, and returned at sunset. Some of the bees seemed to be covered in red nectar. 

As the days grew longer, the bees were gone more often, and many more returned covered in that red nectar. 

I had never seen them act or look like this. Moving the hive must have disturbed something, but the good thing was that they still accepted the queen, and the colony seemed intact. 

The red nectar began to accumulate at the entrance, mixed with glowing wax. I was just looking at it out the window when I heard buzzing inside the house. The bees must have been working hard. The buzzing grew, and quietly through it came something like a baby's cry. I gripped the windowsill tightly. Sam used to cry just like that. I opened the window to hear better, but the cry was gone; only buzzing sounded outside.

The next morning I woke up and went right to the window. A strange white object was outside the hive entrance. The bees buzzed around it, pushing it back inside. Before I could get a good look, it was already in.

I spent the rest of the day by the window again. As the sun set, the bees started to return. The buzzing grew again. A cold tingle ran down my back. I closed my eyes and focused. At first, it was quiet, but I knew what it was. It was Sam, crying through the buzzing. I quickly dressed and walked out the door.

The outside air was cold. I had barely been outside since the first snow fell. A few bees still flew around the hive. The buzzing was so loud, and so were Sam's cries. I didn't even have my protective clothes, but I was sure my bees wouldn't hurt me.

I walked to the hive and took off the lid. Warmth and cold ran through my body, mixing into strange emotions. Inside the hive was Sam's body, covered in wax. His hands and fingers slowly moved, but they seemed larger than before. I reached into the hive to caress his small cheeks. His eyes opened. They were still that beautiful blue, but a hint of yellow mixed in.  He opened his mouth; honeycomb filled it, but his cries still echoed in my ears. With tears in my eyes, I picked up his small, sticky body. From somewhere deep in his chest, a thousand bees buzzed, and the hive fell quiet. A sickly-sweet smell rose from his mouth. Two bees crawled out of the wax and onto my hand. I didn't move.

At 12:07 a.m., Aro texted me.

Aro: You awake?

I smiled before I could stop myself.

It had been four days since we'd last spoken properly. Four days of opening our chat, typing something, deleting it, and pretending I didn't care. But now he was here, and within minutes, we were laughing like nothing had happened.

By 1 a.m., we were flirting.

By 2 a.m., the conversation had turned intimate.

By 3 a.m., I felt that familiar warmth again, the little pocket of comfort I'd started missing more than I wanted to admit.

Then he sent a message that made my smile disappear.

Aro: Do you ever feel like someone's watching you when you're alone?

I stared at the screen.

What kind of question is that?

Aro: Forget it. Look behind you.

I laughed nervously. My bedroom was dark except for the blue light of my phone. The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. I lived alone.

I turned anyway.

Nothing.

When I looked back, he'd sent another message.

Aro: Knew you'd look.

I called him.

He declined.

Aro: Don't call. Just text.

For the first time that night, I felt afraid of him.

Then he sent a photograph.

It was my bedroom.

My bed. My curtains. My bedside table with the chipped corner.

And me, sitting on the bed, staring at my phone.

The picture had been taken from inside my room.

I stopped breathing.

I checked the lock. Still locked. I checked the window. Still shut.

I called him again. Declined.

Me: ARO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

His reply came instantly.

Aro: You told me you wanted me around.

I ran out of the bedroom and switched on every light in the apartment. I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the balcony. Nobody.

Then my phone vibrated.

Aro: Go back to your room.

I didn't.

Aro: Please.

Then, after a pause:

Aro: I'm scared too.

That was when I heard it.

Three soft knocks.

Not from the front door.

From inside my bedroom wardrobe.

I backed away, shaking. I wanted to run outside, but my legs wouldn't move. My phone kept lighting up in my hand.

Aro: Don't open it.

The knocking stopped.

Then something inside the wardrobe whispered my name.

I ran.

I reached the front door and yanked it open, screaming into the empty corridor. My neighbour's door opened. Someone asked what had happened. I couldn't explain it.

I showed them the photograph.

They called the police.

By the time officers searched my apartment, there was nobody inside. No broken locks. No open windows. No evidence of an intruder.

But one officer noticed something strange.

The photograph Aro had sent wasn't a photograph taken from inside my room.

It was a screenshot.

A screenshot of a video call.

I stared at him.

"What video call?"

He turned my phone toward me.

The image had a tiny timestamp in the corner.

12:06 a.m.

One minute before Aro had texted me.

And in the reflection of my dark television screen, visible behind me, stood a man.

I couldn't see his face.

But I recognised his watch.

Aro wore the same one.

I tried calling him again.

This time, he answered.

I could barely speak.

"Where are you?"

Silence.

Then his voice, quiet and trembling.

"I'm home. I've been home all night."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted him to tell me it was a joke, a cruel prank, anything that would let me breathe again.

Instead, he said, "Listen to me. I didn't send you that picture."

My blood went cold.

"Then who did?"

"I don't know," he whispered. "But someone sent me one too."

He sent it to me.

It showed Aro sitting on his bed, holding his phone.

Behind him, reflected in his wardrobe mirror, stood a woman.

Her hair was mine.

Her face was mine.

And she was smiling.

I dropped the phone.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Aro whispered, "There's something else."

I picked up the phone.

"What?"

His voice broke.

"The woman in the picture wasn't behind me when I took it."

I stared at the screen.

He continued.

"She appeared after I sent it to you."

A message arrived from his number.

Not a text.

A photograph.

This time, it showed the two of us together, sitting side by side on my bed.

Neither of us remembered taking it.

Beneath it were six words.

Aren't you tired of missing me?

I looked toward the bedroom.

The wardrobe door was open.

And from the darkness inside, my own voice answered—

"Finally. You're both here."

I lost another tooth this morning. Like the others, it didn’t come easily. It was a back molar, I was in the shower, and I felt pressure running through my jaw and under the site, like someone had a pry bar under the root and was slowly wedging it out. I imagine, if you could have seen it, it was pretty, rising out of the gums like a sprouting flower.

I spit it out into my hand when it was done, and then spit out the blood and tissue that came with it.

I read once that when you dream about your teeth coming out, it means you’re scared of losing control. I wonder what it means when it’s happening while you’re awake?

He came into work again today, the man who always wears a three piece suit, with the cleft chin. He comes in once or twice a week and orders a tin of tobacco. Every time I try to make a comment, to catch his eye, a joke. He never responds. He never even smiles. I’ll try next time.

I tell Joe about the man, we are sitting on the fire escape drinking box wine. I make a joke about how uptight he looked, and we drift into another conversation. Joe must have caught on to the fact I keep mentioning this man; I brought him up last week too.

I have to call in sick today. I can’t see well enough to make it in. I woke up this morning with pressure behind my eyes, like something had gotten inside and lived there. They pulsed and bulged when I looked in the mirror, dull and brown. I hate that color.

Throughout the day the pressure on the left eye has been increasing. A few minutes ago the sight went out entirely. I went to the bathroom and looked — through my good eye I saw the left straining at the edge of the socket. I reached up and put my fingers around it, squeezed, and it popped out. I can feel it resting against my cheek now. I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to pull the cord out, or cut it. I’m too scared. So I’ll go lie down and rest my good eye.

I woke up and the cord must have shriveled in my sleep. The eye has fallen off and is resting on the floor, looking up at me. It’s an ugly thing. I pick it up and drop it in the trash with all my old teeth, and step over to the mirror. I have to fight every urge to itch my left socket now, but as I look I can see a small white orb set back, fresh, slowly moving forward, with a beautiful green ring.

Last week, if only I had known where I’d be. We sat on the fire escape, feet dangling, stoned and rambling. Joe talked on and on about how who you are yesterday isn’t who you are today isn’t who you are tomorrow, and I was laughing. I said if that’s the case then why can’t we just change into the person we want to be? And Joe said no it doesn’t work like that — very serious — you are still stuck as you, and besides who would you even be? And, Mr. Three Piece, you slipped out. I said I’d be you tomorrow if I could. And here we are, and won’t Joe be surprised.

I wake up and brush my new teeth, so white and perfect. I lean in to look closely, and touch my left eye just to be certain this is all happening, and it hurts. It’s almost fully in, it’s beautiful. I swish with mouth wash, they say 30 seconds — but I never make it — maybe I will soon? And then I spit it out, and when I bend over there’s a shudder through me, and my body convulses over and over until a large lump falls out of my throat into the sink. The color of kidney beans.

I straighten up, wipe my mouth and my eyes. The skin of my forehead looks loose, like a surgical glove bunched up — I could reach and peel, but I won’t. My eye is in. I have work.

I worry I’ve missed him, but here he is, walking up tall and stately. He orders his tobacco. I ring it up for him. I make some joke, some stupid thing I should have held inside. But he’s looking at me now, leaning in over the counter.

“Your eyes are different colors?”

I shake my head no, but remember, and say “Oh yes, they are.”

He smiles at me. “Like David Bowie.” he says, then he hands me his money and walks away.

My elation, my triumph, is dampened by the realization that his eyes are blue, not green.

At night, I stand before the mirror. The pressure and pain behind my right eye is growing. It’s only a matter of time till it goes. I look closely at the mirror, my left eye green, my right brown. The eye I hated for so long is suddenly set off in a new way, transformed. It’s become so much more — I wish I could keep it this way — I worry, with two new eyes, who will be looking out? Then there’s a surge like a screwdriver underneath the ball, and it hurts, and I know it’s too late. But that’s okay, we can’t be perfect.

I run my hands through the skin that’s collecting around my neck in loose folds, and shake it around. It’s sloughing off. My lower back is a rotating range of dull aches and sharp pain. My hair is coming out in clumps.

I go to lie down and sleep. I have the whole day off.

I can’t wait to see who I’ll be tomorrow.

The sound of footsteps creaking down the hall brought me out of a dead sleep, freezing my taint hair in fear.

Then I heard the kid’s bedroom door opened and I breathed a sigh of relief. It must be one of them heading to the bathroom. Or maybe I was hearing an intruder targeting the kids first. Either way, I wasn’t in immediate danger.

Ow.

Okay, there was a very specific risk: I had midnight morning wood, and my sensitive tip was vulnerable to the slats beneath the box spring. This is why I need to stop sleeping on my back.

I froze again when the bedroom door cracked open. God damn it, Timmy, didn’t you learn to knock after walking in on your parents?

Twice?

And on your dad during his intimate moment with his right hand?

You never did figure out what your mom was doing to that flower pot. But the rest should be obvious to even the dumbest kid.

“Mom?” he croaked. “Dad? I – I think someone opened my bathroom window.”

Oh, shit. This might actually be the work of an intruder.

“From the outside. I found a screwdriver by the broken windowsill.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was my handiwork, not the bizarre shenanigans of some creepy weirdo.

“Um,” Dad breathed, “give me a second. I’ll go check it out.”

The pause hung awkwardly. Damn it, Timmy, can’t you take a hint? Dad sleeps naked and wants you to step aside so that he can cover his balls up.

“Mom? Can you come with me?”

“Sure, just – just give me a second.”

So this kid wasn’t piecing together how frequently naked people appeared in pairs. He just stood by the door and stared.

The mattress squeaked above my head. Suddenly, a little black teddy dropped to the floor right next to me. Oh HO! So they weren’t naked, which would actually have been easier to explain! What an Oedipus Complex little Timmy would develop if he saw his mom in THAT little number.

I gave a good sniff – like a real good one, the kind that clenches your rectum. Then I reached for the teddy and pulled a curly hair from its depths.

Oh my – it tasted just like one of Dad’s! So he was the one wearing the teddy - no wonder they actually preferred Timmy to see them naked instead of whatever weird shit they’d gotten up to!

Dad scurried to the dresser like he was dodging machine gun fire and nearly fell on his ass while trying to hop into a semi-used pair of boxers. Timmy watched the entire time, clearly unaware that gawking was rude.

Damn it, Timmy. You really are an intellectual disappointment.

Dad tossed mom a pair of sweats, which she pulled on beneath the sheets while Timmy just stared at her. Once they had finally hidden their shame, they followed Timmy out of the room.

Just in time, too. All of this anxiety had nearly caused me to shit myself. I wormed out from beneath the bed and made it just in time to the floor vent. Once I remove the grating, there’s a perfect cubic foot for me to use as a defecation station. Since everyone loves the smell of their own shit, I’m filled with happiness when they crank up the heat. Funny enough, they’ve never located the source of the smell; since the poop infiltrates the entire heating system, the reek penetrates the whole house and become impossible to pinpoint.

Oof. Four pounds lighter, four pounds happier.

I had just enough time for a quick Visine^TM enema. Putting the bottle back into the medicine cabinet, I made it look like I was never there. They still can’t explain the conjunctivitis.

“I’m really worried, Bill. You think we should call the cops?”

Aw, nuts. They were already coming back into the room. I moved fast, hitting the ground and sliding toward the bed.

Yikes. I’d once again forgotten about the tender flesh of my tip hitting the slats. My poor member already took enough of a daily beating as it was.

“I don’t get spooked easily, Martha,” Dad answered. “But something isn’t right.”

“You told Derrick that everything was fine.”

“I also told him that Santa was real and Rowdy left to become captain of the police dogs. Let’s get real – if someone’s breaking into a second-floor window, we’ve got a major problem. And what was he hoping to find when he stole everything from our medicine cabinet?”

I gasped.

“Did you just gasp?”

“Huh? Martha, can we please stay on topic?”

This was bad. This was veeeery bad. I didn’t steal ANYthing from the medicine cabinet. All I did was switch the Valium with little Timmy’s vitamin C, then swap Dad’s antipsychotic medication with his Viagra^TM. All of those capsules look the same!

But if someone was stealing the pills, then some sort of creeper must have broken into the house! Horrors!

I cannot let that stand, no-sir-ee. So I waited until after Mom and Dad agreed to call the police in the morning, plucked the teddy off the floor, and made the mattress creak for nineteen seconds. Thirteen seconds after that, I heard snoring and knew it was time to make my exit.

Someone was creeping around MY house. So I slipped into the closet and grabbed my duffy bag, filling it with the bare necessities: a steak knife, steak sauce, twine, KY Jelly^TM, string cheese, blood-stained nipple clamps, well-aged cheese, poorly-aged cheese, a mouse trap, and a rubber ducky that had seen enough shit to give PTSD to the most hardened psychiatrist.

Shit’s about to get real.

I am still haunted by that art exhibit. The small bodies falling down, small black specks at first flailing against the wide striped curves of the Guggenheim, coming into focus as they rapidly approached the floor, dressed in bright clothes, reds and pinks and blues, decorated with Spiderman and Superman and glittery lambs and kittens.

It was never mentioned anywhere that they are dolls. I just assumed they were, obviously. But there was nothing on the posters. Georgie never said they were. So maybe that other person was right. 

About them being children, I mean.

That was the last time I hung out with Georgie. I miss him. He was my only real friend in New York. But we just kind of drifted apart after that visit to the Guggenheim. It happens.

That day, the day we got together and walked those luxe New York streets towards the Guggenheim, he was being especially extra.

“This is absolutely incredible- I know you’re an utter philistine darling, and I’m saying that as your best friend, but I felt you just had to see this - as a soon-to-be-mommy, you know? It says so much about motherhood, and the bond, and- well you know- all the emotional labour you poor women have to do- oh- it has us all in a tizzy!”

I sighed as he tugged on my sleeve, pulling me through the crowds of tourists towards the sleek bulging white and black curves of that incredible building. I didn’t know what “philistine” meant. 

I was so tired, but I felt I had to enjoy something of what New York had to offer, before I was tied down by a never-ending rope of diapers and moist milk-stained towels. I didn’t know about the emotional labour then either, but I have learned since.

Georgie paid for my ticket, squealing “so worth it darling!” and we joined the throngs standing about on the ground floor, dwarfed by the circular spiraling corridors. The atmosphere inside the museum was hushed. An area was marked by neon yellow police tape, right in the middle of the ground floor.

“That is where the baby lands” whispered Georgie, almost frothing with excitement. “I mean, I shouldn’t say baby, I think they’re toddlers. Are toddlers and babies the same? Look- you can see the blood stains, although Stravideri is coming to mop it- here she comes- oh queen, isn’t she fucking gorgeous? Don’t you want to fall on your knees and fucking worship this modern Medea?”

Being Georgie’s friend was exhausting.

A tall woman with a frozen face holding a mop and bucket approached the taped-off area. She was wearing old see-through leggings and a stained sweatshirt. She silently stepped over the police tape, and dipping the mop into the bucket, began washing the floor. Everyone was clicking frantically, Georgie included.

“Georgie- don’t you already have photos?” I asked. The smell of cleaning fluid was making me nauseous.

Georgie turned and looked at me properly. A look of compassion flitted across his delicate features. “Of course darling. Do you want to go up and watch the next fall with me- we can go right up to Stravideri you know. Or just stand here and watch the impact? It’s totally up to darling- you're right, I’ve already seen it a bajillion times. And it works wherever you are.”

I felt comforted. “I'd like to stay here Georgie, I don’t think I’m up to going to the top level.”

Georgie stroked my arm, visibly pleased with himself at being such a good friend. “Of course! I think there's about twenty minutes between each fall- I’ll run get you a coffee.”
“Actually, that would be nice.” I wouldn’t be able to drink it, but I felt I needed a break from Georgie and his “modern Medea” babble.

Georgie left. I watched Stravideri finish mopping up the area, and walk back up in silence, making her way towards the top floor. The barrage of photography continued. Stravideri’s gaze was fixed ahead, and people hastened out of her way. Little bits of priceless art shone on the walls behind her. 

Where was Georgie? Stravideri was on the highest floor now, clusters of artlovers held away from her by burly security guards. Camera clicks echoed through the cavernous museum. I craned my neck. 

Stravideri leaned away from the low wall which separated the high corridor from space, she seemed to be struggling with something. The toddler. A doll, obviously. I heard a cry. Stravideri emitted a very humanlike yet unmotherly growl. The toddler was now perched on the wall. Stravideri wasn’t looking. The child fell.

It screamed as it fell, a very lifelike scream. It turned its head and looked straight at me just before impact. I cradled my belly protectively.

THUMP!

Its small body hit the cold washed floor and lay perfectly still. A tiny amount of blood splattered.

Someone behind me whispered in my ear: “It’s a real child. You shouldn’t be here.”

I gave a shriek which seemed to flit about the silent breathing museum, and looked around frantically. I couldn’t tell who, in the crowd of tourists and artlovers, had spoken to me. 

Georgie rushed up to me holding the coffees. “I’m so sorry darling- the line up- ugh I missed it! Sweetheart, would you mind if I went up and watched the next fall from up there? Oh you’re an angel. Sit here, sip on this nice coffee, and I’ll be with you as soon, ok?”

He rushed away. I sat on the beautiful bench, and burned my tongue on the coffee. I tried not to look at the next fall.

After Georgie came down, he was oddly quiet. He went back with me to my place, but didn’t come in, and when we parted he hugged and kissed me as he always did.
I have never seen him since. And nor have I ever gone back to the Guggenheim.

Being married can be difficult…

Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, Bailey, but we’ve been arguing a lot lately. Not seeing eye to eye. Shouting. I think that fighting is a healthy part of any marriage, but my wife disagrees. She says that I need to start seeing things from her perspective.

“So we take this pill and—what—we just switch bodies?”

“Yes,” said Bailey. “Like that movie with—what’s her name?”

“Lindsay Lohan?”

“I was gonna say Jamie Lee Curtis, but yes.”

I frowned. “I’ll turn back, right? I won’t be stuck as a woman forever?”

“Yes,” Bailey rolled her eyes. “We’ll switch back automatically after six hours. No one will ever know we traded places.”

Bailey gave a long and tiresome speech about walking a mile in each other’s shoes. I wasn’t really listening. I agreed to take the pill to shut her up.

How bad could it be?

“Cheers,” I said, swallowing the tiny pill, and then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes we had switched bodies, but something was wrong. My head ached, and it felt like someone had kicked me in the gut.

“Wow,” said Bailey, she sounded exactly like me. “It actually worked!”

“You didn’t say there’d be side effects,” I said, clutching my stomach.

“Side effects?” Bailey asked. “What do you mean?”

“My stomach’s fucking killing me,” I groaned.

“Oh my god, I forgot to warn you. It’s my time of the month.” Bailey said, suppressing a smile. “You’re having my period right now.”

A million emotions raced through my head ranging from anger to sheer panic.

I scowled and uttered, “bitch.”

“Sucks doesn’t it?”

“How do I make it stop?” 

Bailey burst out laughing.

“It doesn’t work that way. You’re just going to have to go to the store to get some pads and midol.”

“Can’t you do it?” I whined. “I feel horrible.”

Bailey looked at me and crossed her arms.

“Excuse me, but how many times have you gone to the store to get pads for me? Remind me?”

I didn’t answer—didn’t want to answer—because the answer was zero.

“You know I don’t like yucky woman stuff—”

“Well now you are a woman, so you’re just going to have to deal with it. Go experience what it’s like to be me.”

Bailey grabbed the keys to my truck and walked out the front door.

“Where are you going?” I shouted.

“Where do you go when you want some alone time?”

I didn’t answer that—didn’t want to answer that.

“See you when you get back, I guess,” I tried and failed to smile.

Bailey had left me high and dry, to go do who knows what, so I was forced to handle this situation on my own. When she mentioned switching bodies, I have to admit, I did not think that it would be like this.

I drove Bailey’s Camry to the closest grocery store and wandered around until I found the “Feminine Products” aisle.

Holy shit. I was completely out of my element.

“Why are there so many options?” I muttered under my breath.

After grabbing a box at random, I turned around and nearly ran straight into some asshole.

“Here all by yourself, gorgeous?” His breath could have made a sunflower wilt.

“Beat it, prick,” I said, not in the mood for a conversation.

“What the fuck did you say to me?” He screamed, shoving a finger in my face. “What the fuck did you say you fucking bitch?”

I panicked, and tried to turn the other way and walk away from him, but he kept following me.

“Don’t walk away from me you fucking cunt!”

“Leave me alone,” I said, dropping the box of pads and breaking into a sprint.

“How dare you speak to me like that!”

I ran away as fast as Bailey’s legs could carry me. I didn’t stop until I was racing out of the parking lot, my eyes checking the rear view mirror to make sure that weirdo wasn’t following me.

Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It scared the hell out of me. Was that what it was like to be a woman? You just had to be on the lookout for creeps twenty-four seven?

First cramps and now this?

I guess I didn’t realize how tough everyday life was for my wife. It made me think about the way that I treated her, the ways that I had dismissed her feelings in the past. Maybe fighting wasn’t helping our marriage. Maybe understanding each other’s point of view was the first step towards making things better.

I got home and curled up under a blanket, waiting for Bailey to come home. It took a couple of hours, but eventually she waltzed through the front door with a smile on her face.

“I’ve had a hell of an afternoon,” I said, completely defeated.

“Honey,” Bailey said, pointing towards my crotch, “you’re staining my pants. What happened to getting pads?”

“It was a nightmare,” I cried. “I’m sorry, I know it’s only been one afternoon, but I feel like I’ve learned so much. Seeing things from your point of view—I didn’t realize how eye opening it would be. I’m sorry for not being supportive enough when you’ve had a bad day! I’m sorry for arguing even when I know you’re right. From now on, I’ll go to the store to get pads when you want me to! I’m gonna be there for you!”

“Wow,” Bailey said, blinking repeatedly. “You learned a lot, huh?”

I wiped away a tear from my eye.

“What did you get up to?” I sniffled. “Did you learn a lot too?”

“Oh, me? No. I just spent the afternoon with Sidney.”

I froze. How did Bailey know about my mistress?

“You—you what?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out about her? You must think I’m an idiot. She’s dead, by the way, I killed her. Or—maybe it’s more accurate to say that YOU killed her.”

Dear Helpline,

Give me your thoughts on the matter, I can't rest my mind. Don't take me to be judgmental, I am the first to defy convention. No unruly client is easy to protect, no Supreme Court appointment a breeze to turn down without a storm of agony.

They saw every new turn in my life, knew more of my parents than I did, were one of the first to give me a Christmas present, but somehow I still cannot believe in Maud and Harold.

If undying love were to be experimented on scientifically they would not be variables, but definites. The flowers, kisses, poems never cease, so much any young hopeless romantic would be envious. No foreign feet step over the threshold into their home on date-nights, which occur weekly. Dusted-off LPs on an equally-polished phonograph, lit candles and two chairs, the courses and cocktails would make any seasoned caterer stare down at their feet in shame. It's been since high school, the formation of this beautiful coveted world built on the foundations of love pure and refined, as both advance towards their 81st birthdays.

And I still cannot find reasoning behind Maud and Harold.

As with perfect unity comes perfect outcomes. Their first child Starr, who was conceived on the honeymoon, now has four young of her own. Five others, Braxton, Anne, Griffin, Laurie, and Lucas marked the pinnacle next decade of Maud and Harold's marriage, and each has more than paid-off the debt of birth in their own respects. And when Maud could have no more kids, neither could Harold.

Or so we thought.

A few months ago, Harold took the car out of the garage faster than usual. He walked calmly with a hint of urgency in his step. In similar cases calls are made, but tonight Harold called no one. Except God, to give him courage to outrun time and for all to go well as it had in past events like these. He brought Maud, who had gained weight and was in considerable yet familiar pain, from the house. Guiding her into the passenger seat, he got in the other side and backed their Honda down the drive, before gunning it on the road.

At the hospital, the nurses directed Maud to the short-term ward and offered to call a priest, only obeying hers and Harold's pleas for the maternity word after a menstruation occurred. Previously two had entered the hospital and less than 24 hours later, three left.

Acting with the most kindness my heart can muster, I have doted on their new daughter, this gem whose arrival has marked their anniversary milestone. Names such as Judy, Erica, and Eva are in the running for choices. Upon departure and ample congratulations, when I was alone I searched up missing children and any far-fetched example that would lend logic to this miracle.

And only a memory, a dream, keeps screaming to me in my sleep.

My wife, pale, unconscious, on a surgery table. My sobs, accompanied only by the scratch of the coroner's pen and the refuse being cleaned from everywhere like the aftermath carnage of a war. Black failure and tears blinding my eyes as I receive what so rapidly I lost. I pass the tiny bloody form, which only knew life as a seconds-long suffering, up...

...into Harold's waiting hands.

Harold and Maud's daughter has a familiar heartbeat, one I've heard before. And her face, I've saw one other time, those she's a newborn.

Help me understand.

Existing for your answer,

Travis.

The morning sun shone brightly as the two brothers gathered their gear from the yellow jeep parked on the dirt path, surrounded by pristine old-growth jungle.

Douglas smiled as he put on his helmet and climbing harness. The two men pushed through more lush undergrowth until they reached their prize: the mouth of a wide, yawning cave. Anthony tied their line around a large strangler fig tree trunk and threw the rest of the rope down into the dark chasm.

The two brothers rappelled carefully into the cavern, the air growing damp and heavy with the scent of wet stone and bat guano.

At the bottom, they turned on the headlamps attached to their helmets and detached from the line. Thin rays of sunlight filtered into the cavern in a clash of light and darkness. The two brothers squeezed through a few tight spots as they went deeper into the subterranean system.

Douglas called back to Anthony for help when his body was pinned between two rocks in a tight squeeze. Anthony suggested Douglas should rotate while exhaling to clear the passageway. Douglas laughed as his body slipped through the hard granite stone passageway.

After about thirty more minutes of cave diving, the two brothers eventually came upon a large open chamber. Beautiful stalagmites rose from the ground, with white, crusty edges and orange, wavy lines at their bases.

Suddenly, Anthony froze and tilted his head up toward the cavern’s ceiling. Douglas didn’t notice his brother’s stopped steps and bumped into him. “Hey, watch it!” Douglas cried, rubbing the bridge of his nose where it had struck Anthony’s backpack. Anthony remained silent.

Douglas looked up, and his eyes widened as a chill ran down his spine at the sight above.

Dangling from the cavern’s ceiling were hundreds of human bodies tied by their feet, their arms loose and hovering several feet above them.
Before either brother could scream, a deafening roar echoed behind them as a cascade of rumbling boulders fell, blocking the chamber’s narrow entrance. In the suffocating darkness, a strange, rhythmic chittering echoed as numerous red eyes glowed all around them.

Until moments ago, the screams had threatened to overwhelm Cooper Delaney’s voice. But now, the entire crew was gone, and he was finally able to hear how it shook.

“L-ladies and g-gentlemen…” 

It was hard to know what to say. To know if anyone was even left to watch. There was no one to ask, and so little they had managed to find out before their guest had begun working its way through the set. He tried desperately not to look at the pieces of the former crew smeared from floor to ceiling, or the thing standing behind the camera, smiling.

Instead, Cooper focused on the lens. He had no choice but to remain seated behind the desk, unable to move except to speak and tremble. But he knew he had to say something. These would be, after all, his last words. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I will relay what I know to you the best I can, until I am stopped. This is not a prank. This is not a joke. I don’t know if this is an invasion. Or some kind of Doomsday, or parasites, monsters, demons or…something else. I don’t know how many of them there are, but I know this: they are all over the world, everywhere, and they are almost all different. If you smell something horrible, run.  If you see something you can’t explain, run. Take your loved ones and run. Drive. Anything…”

A wave of nausea forced him to pause. The guest had taken two steps forward into the dead air, the smile widening. Tears streamed down Cooper’s cheeks now as he finally saw it, whole. It would have passed for a normal smile, had it not been attached to what it was.

“Gwen, if you’re watching, I love you. And I’m—”

A sound resembling a tuba’s lowest note cut Cooper short, and his attention returned to the show’s uninvited guest, eyes wide with fear. As it bounded towards him, it knocked the camera down, throwing the host from view. Whatever audience was left could only listen as he began to scream. There was a heavy clomping sound, combined with a power drill and the squeak of a clown’s novelty shoe. And then, Cooper went quiet. 

An intense whispering started up from multiple voices that spouted strings of what seemed like nonsense. But as they finished whatever they had to say, Cooper began to laugh. A chuckle at first, but before long, he was shrieking and gasping for air with a laughter so intense it could have been mistaken for that of a madman. 

There was a rapid snipping sound next, followed by something wet slapping the floor near the camera, while blood began spreading across the section of the ground it could still capture.

Cooper’s laughter continued, muted somewhat by the blood that filled his throat. He gurgled and gasped, laughing and laughing as one of the large flaps of meat his guest had begun cutting from his chest made its network debut.

When Anthony was just a child, his mother warned him about what happened to little boys who misbehaved.

The last time Anthony dared to misbehave, he looked down in horror to find only two fingers remaining on his right hand.

“Boys will be boys,” his mother hissed. She snapped her silver scissors in the air, humming a cheerful tune as she glided back into the kitchen, unfazed by what she had done.

By adulthood, Anthony’s hands were a patchwork of stubs, with just one lonely finger left. He counted his toes, one by one, stopping at four. Four little piggies stayed home.

On his 23rd birthday, he decided that he had had enough. Little Anthony took his mother’s favorite scissors and hummed quietly as he cut into the dark space in front of him. He worked slowly and ignored his mother’s screams.

By the time he was done with her, he counted ten fingers and ten toes cradled in the palms of his hands. He then told his mother to hush, “Boys will be boys, mother.” Anthony said with a wide grin on his face.

Years have gone by since the night he took revenge. No one knows where he went or why he took the scissors with him. Legend has it, though, that if you fall asleep with your hands or feet sticking out over the edge of where you sleep, little Anthony may just pay you a visit from underneath your bed.

Snip.

Snip.

The management company called it an acoustic upgrade.

I manage a forty-two-unit apartment building built in 1962. The walls are thin enough that tenants can hear their neighbors unwrap candy. Noise complaints are about half my job.

So when corporate announced they'd hired a company to eliminate sound transfer between apartments, I was relieved.

The first treatment was scheduled for 3B.

Mr. Vale lived there. Retired music teacher, decent guy, played his saxophone most evenings. The woman in 3C had complained about it several times.

Two contractors arrived Monday morning carrying measuring equipment and rolls of gray material.

I offered to let them into 3B.

"No need," one said. "We work from the common areas."

They measured the hallway for about an hour and told me to keep the stairwell clear overnight.

On Tuesday, Mr. Vale was gone.

On Wednesday, so was his apartment.

I don't mean the door was locked or covered over. There simply wasn't a 3B anymore. The doors went 3A, 3C, 3D. The hallway was several feet shorter.

I checked our digital records. Forty-one units. Always had been.

But the old paper rent ledger in my desk still listed Mr. Vale. His payments went back eighteen years.

I found his spare key too. The brass tag said 3B.

That evening, the woman in 3C knocked on my office door.

"The music stopped," she said. "But now there's tapping."

I followed her upstairs.

She pressed her ear against the wall where Mr. Vale's apartment should have been.

We listened.

Three taps.

A pause.

Three more.

Then something dragged slowly along the plaster, producing a thin, squeaking sound.

I recognized it.

Mr. Vale used to play a particular warm-up exercise on his saxophone. Three short notes, a pause, then a long descending one.

Someone was making that rhythm against the wall.

I told her not to report it.

She looked confused.

"I already did. This morning. I thought there were mice."

At 6 a.m. the contractors returned.

I tried to stop them. One politely stepped around me while the other started measuring the door to 3C.

By lunchtime it was gone.

The hallway was shorter again.

I spent the afternoon in the basement, staring at the original floor plans. There were forty-two apartments. I counted them six times.

At four, my phone buzzed.

New maintenance request.

3A. Scratching noises coming from the shared wall.

I ran upstairs.

The man in 3A was standing outside his door, waiting for me.

"Sounds like someone's trapped in there," he said. "You need to send somebody."

I asked if he'd submitted a complaint.

"Of course."

Behind him, the wall made a noise like someone desperately scraping their fingernails across concrete.

Then my phone buzzed again.

WORK ORDER APPROVED.

The man smiled.

"That was quick."

For six weeks, the status migrainosus locked my skull into an unyielding mechanical vice. The intractable aura was not a polite visual flicker, but an internal window tearing open from the inside out, projecting a blinding, jagged electric-white geometric semicircle across the edge of my field of vision. Closing my eyes brought zero relief. Behind my eyelids, that jagged arc burned even brighter against the dark, framing a suffocating pressure that waited for my mind to snap.

By the time I was wheeled into the outpatient clinic under mild sedation for the greater and lesser occipital nerve blocks, the sensory overload had stripped me down to raw nerves. I had not been able to keep food down for days, and the ambient smells in the waiting room, including stale body odor, cheap synthetic perfume, and cleaning agents, felt like physical blows driving straight into my temples. Even the aggressively dimmed lights of the procedure room felt like glass against my retinas as I lay flat on the medical table.

As the four localized needle injections drove deep into the nerve points at the base of my skull, two on each side, the crushing weight inside my brow pressed harder with every heartbeat. The heavy chemical block slammed into the bone, shattering the vice and warping the gateway just enough to freeze the boundary line.

Waking up in recovery, the acute siege had broken, but the damage was permanent. My vision settled into severe, uncorrectable far-sightedness. I do not have physical scars from the needles, but the true mark of the ordeal lives in the temporary spikes. Whenever my optic nerve is overtaxed, that jagged geometric edge flashes back across my sight like a malignant pulse.

Desperate to understand why my vision had cratered, I spent a late night hunting through obscure neurological archives until I tracked down a rare, out-of-print volume titled The Fractured Geometry of Sight.

The book contained no medical theories, only decades of translated asylum logs and clinical case notes. Page after page documented patients across centuries who had stared through the exact same jagged white arc during prolonged sieges. One 1938 entry detailed a young woman whose intractable aura lasted weeks before a crude, unauthorized nerve procedure halted the collapse. She survived, but spent the rest of her life half-blind, tormented by identical visual flashes until she died.

The final pages outlined the cold, unyielding arithmetic of the condition across every recorded file. The siege operates on a strict forty-day threshold, systematically consuming sight day by day. Cross that forty-day mark, and the collapse becomes absolute, plunging the host into total, permanent blindness. Halting the process on the verge of total collapse with clinical needles offers no cure. It only snaps the connection prematurely, locking the patient midway through a harvest that can never be undone.

I sat alone in the dark room, staring at the final text as the house settled into silence. My six-week siege had brought me to day thirty-nine, trailing right along the precipice of total darkness. Then, without warning, the jagged geometric semicircle flared back across my right eye. It was not a fading medical echo, but the permanent hum of a circuit that could never be turned off, confirming that the modern clinic needles and the many desperate interventions tried throughout everything I had read had simply carved out that exact same door, leaving me to watch the world through an optic nerve that no longer belonged entirely to me.

BANG!

The bedroom door slams shut and your gum stabs with pain. You tongue the gap between your bottom teeth, taste blood.

The door opens up to your cousin’s freckled face. His name is Roman. He lives down the street.

This was all his idea.

He holds up your tooth, dangling from a piece of string still tied to the doorknob. “It worked!” he whoops.

Roman guides you to the bathroom mirror, but you’re scared to open your mouth. When you do, your bottom lip starts trembling. You’re six-and-a-half, and for as long as you can remember, everyone’s told you what a perfect smile you have.

And now look!

“Don’t worry, it’ll grow back,” Mason reassures you, with the infinite wisdom of a ten-year-old. “Besides, you’re gonna be rich!”

“Rich?” you mumble, wiping your eyes.

“Well yeah, dontcha know about the tooth fairy?”

As Roman spins his tale, your eyes dry. You forget about your throbbing gum.

“All you have to do,” he says, “is leave your tooth under the pillow.”

It sounds like a fib. You tell him so. You refuse to believe him unless he pinky-promises and swears on his pet tarantula Terry’s life. When he finally does, you know he’s being super serious.

“You’ll see,” he says.

That night, before you fall asleep, you shove that perfect little tooth under your pillow, just like Roman said to do.

…

In the morning, you look under the pillow and can’t believe your eyes. In place of a blood-flecked tooth are 20 shining quarters... and a poorly scribbled note.

ThAnkS 4

thE tooTh

GoT aNy moRe?

:)

You frown at the message, but it slips your mind quickly. You got quarters to spend!

Roman comes over after breakfast. You walk past the park to the corner store to buy a bunch of candy. Again, his idea, but you don’t complain. He’s the one who told you about the tooth fairy in the first place. It’s only fair that he gets to share the spoils.

From the mountains of saltwater taffy, you pick out pink and blue ones and green swirly ones and watch as the lady scoops them into a bag. Mason counts out the quarters, and when the register clicks shut you still have a couple left.

“You muth have really nice teef,” Roman says through a mouthful on the way home. “When mine fell, I only got seven nickels!”

After some back and forth, you both agree that he should be the one to keep the bag of taffy. Roman swears he has a good hiding place. And you don’t trust him, not fully, but your parents don’t allow sweets in the house. If they ever found the stash, they’d toss 'em for sure. Well, a smart six-and-a-half-year-old knows that some taffy is better than none, and you’re no dummy.

You hand the bag over.

…

The next day, you’re surprised to find another note folded under your pillow.

StiLL waiTinG...

DoNt RUiN uR

PeARLy wHiTes

>:(

Later, you show the notes to Roman, who seems to have tooth fairies all figured out. He reads them, squints, and tells you to open your mouth.

“Got any more loose ones?” he asks.

You check up and down, but none have any wiggle.

Roman shrugs. “Well, you’re gonna lose more, but can’t do nothing about it until they’re loose already. Hey—” He motions you closer, grinning. “Wanna eat some more taffy?”

You smile your new gap-toothed smile and nod.

…

You hear your father’s stern voice calling you from the kitchen.

It sounds serious. Your heart skips. Had your parents found out you’d been hoarding sweets? Had Roman broke the code and ratted? You drag your feet downstairs.

When you peek around the kitchen door, you see your mother crying, your father’s arm around her. The phone hangs limply in his other hand. He tells you to sit down at the table.

You obey.

“Your cousin...” he begins, then shakes his head. His brows furrow. “Roman died last night,” he says, the words falling from him like rocks.

“H-how?” you squeak, breath hitching in your throat.

Your parents exchange looks. Your mother’s eyes are wet and pleading, but your father’s are hard stones. He thinks she coddles you. He says you’re old enough to know.

“Poor boy choked on his own tongue. He was asleep. Freak accident,” he says, and almost as an afterthought, “I’m sorry.”

Your blood turns cold. You run upstairs and bring down the small pile of increasingly threatening notes, topped by one you’d gotten this very morning. Like a bad omen, it says:

HoWs uR cOuSin ;)

Im GeTTinG

iMpaTienT

When your mother reads it, she faints.

…

The police are no help.

You can hear them speaking through the wall. Kids process death in strange and funny ways, they say. Just look at the handwriting. Obviously a child had written the notes, not an intruder. Consider a good therapist.

That really sets your father off. His fuck you’s follow them out the door. Afterwards, he gets a shotgun and sets up a recliner in the corner of your room. "If that freak gets in here tonight," he tells you, “I’ll kill him.”

You’ve never seen him so angry before.

It’s hard to fall asleep.

…

You wake up to a dark bedroom.

But wait—

There’s a shadow across the room. You see it in the moonlight slanting through the blinds: a man-shaped monster made of teeth. Slick enamel clicks and shivers as it moves. Closer. And closer.

You pull your covers up. You glance over at your dad, see him sleeping in the chair.

The monster looming over you now. No eyes. Its mouth a black hole. “Gave your old man a good dose,” it rasps, anesthesia spurting from a needle-like finger. The rest are wicked, shining tools. “Apologies for the poor penmanship.”

Those stainless steel appendages reach towards your face.

“Go ahead and scream,” Babyteeth says. “It’d actually make this easier...”

It was December 1999. I was living in a small town. I was a nerd and something of a gamer, and it had been a good year for PC games. Age of Empires II, Homeworld, Grand Theft Auto 2…

I was walking home from school—it was a Canadian winter, so there was plenty of unplowed snow on the sidewalks—when I saw something peeking out from a mound of snow: something blue. I stopped, nudged it with my boot: something of blue plastic. I brushed away the remaining snow with my glove to reveal:

A single 3.5” floppy disk, unlabeled.

(There was a sticker label on it, but the label itself was empty.)

Naturally, I picked it up and took it home, curious to see what was on it.

You'll laugh, but the disk had 1.44mb of storage capacity. As it turned out, that was more than enough to affect the world in ways I still don't fully understand.

When I got home, I didn't put the disk into my own computer. My dad had an old desktop he sometimes fiddled around with, so I used that, inserting the disk carefully into the 3.5” disk drive in the beige computer tower.

I navigated to the drive in Windows Explorer.

The contents of the drive were simple.

They looked like a program or—I secretly hoped—a game.

There was a readme.txt, but it came out as nonsense when I opened it in Notepad, video or sound assets, stuff I couldn't identify, and a single executable file, johannsebastian.bat.

I double-clicked it.

A window opened—black, showing a few white-text commands executing on a command prompt—then maximized into a 16-bit title(?) screen showing a pixelated Gothic castle.

A harsh, classical-inspired MIDI song beeped out of the sound card.

There was no title.

No instructions, no company name, no menu, no options.

The castle was perched atop a cliff.

It was night.

At the bottom of the cliff was a forest of jagged, leafless trees.

A few loops of animation gave life to the scene: wind blowing through the bare branches, flashes of distant lightning, warm flickering light in one of the castle's windows, a bat in flight against a white moon. Actually, that last one wasn't a loop. The bat flew only once, landed on one of the castle's stone towers and disappeared inside.

I clicked.

I was looking at a medieval-ish village now—tightly-packed buildings, a tavern, a tannery, a couple of shops, a church—populated with a surprising number of unique character sprites. Indeed, every character was unique, and they were going about their individual lives.

The sky was a vibrant blue.

Clouds floated pixel-by-pixel across the screen.

But there was still nothing to do; nothing, that is, but watch.

It was like a very advanced screensaver.

After a while, I clicked again.

This time, I found myself in the interior of a large chamber whose stone walls somehow felt cold even through the computer monitor.

The chamber's defining feature, however, was something else: a giant pipe organ whose pipes extended beyond the top of the screen.

A character entered.

He was wearing a white wig, dark, crimson long coat, knee breeches, stockings and buckled shoes. “I feel the sudden desire to compose,” he said, which the game displayed as text in an ornately-bordered text box. “Invite me to play for you."

A cursor appeared for the first time.

A quill.

I was able to move it using the mouse, and I explored the screen.

The character tapped his foot.

The only active area of the scene appeared to be the pipe organ. When I hovered the cursor over it, it changed from a quill to a hand.

I clicked.

The character walked to the organ, sat and began to play the monstrous instrument.

The music was both hideous and awesome, pushing the computer's sound card to the absolute limit. After thirty-or-so seconds, the view suddenly panned upwards, following the organ's pipes—the music continued—following them to the chamber's vaulted ceiling and beyond—through the roof until I was outside and looking at the upper half of the great castle, where the jutting pipes terminated and from whose termini hundreds of pixel bats were emerging… emerging and flying into the background, toward the simplified shape representing the medieval town...

The sky was a deep purple.

Night was falling.

The bats flew and flew and flew…

Suddenly—the music still continuing—the scene cut to the same view of the town as before: except at night: except, instead of following their routines, the character sprites were running, panicked, as the bats swooped, attacking them, attaching themselves to their bodies, necks, sucking their pixel blood; and as the bats feasted, the sprites lost their colour and fell, pale and desaturated…

The sound startled me.

Not from the sound card but from the real world. A screeching, a deafening, rhythmic thumping.

I ran to the window whose blinds I'd closed, and opened them:

It was afternoon but the view was dark, black and shifting. It took me a moment to realize that what I was seeing were bats speeding past. They were obscuring the sun. My home town was as if under an eclipse.

People were running down the street—

Bats were diving—

Some were crashing through car windshields—

Children were screaming—

A bat crashed though the window into the room I was in. It was fanged, crazed. The game music blared from within the computer tower. Before I could run, the bat shot toward me—biting my neck… beginning to drink my blood…

I awoke on the floor.

It was morning. January 1, 2000. It would turn out that nobody in town had any recollection of the preceding weeks.

A television played.

A morning talk show: “...the so-called Y2K bug,” a woman was saying, “ended up amounting to nothing worse than a good nights’ sleep.”

And, ever since, I've wondered why my experience of the present feels in a lower resolution than memories of my past.

The anaesthetic was already in my arm when he leaned over me. "You took everything from me," he said. "So you're going to sleep, and I'll wake you up only when it matters. Count backwards from ten." I made it to seven.

Six was my mother's funeral. My sister held my arm, gray at the temples. That morning she had been twenty-six. "You came," she whispered. Then he was beside me in a dark suit, a needle in my arm, saying, "Ten."

Five was my father's grave. The woman next to me was wearing my wedding ring, and I didn't remember marrying her. She asked me, "Where do you go, Danny?" Ten.

Four was a hospital room. A teenage girl with my chin told me her name. I held her hand while they switched off her mother's machines. Ten.

Three was a coffin with that girl's name on it. Ten.

Under anaesthetic there's no dreaming and no time. Each funeral came straight after the last, as if they were all on the same day.

Two, I was old, and so was he. That was when he told me. Years ago there'd been a girl in a crosswalk that I'd been too drunk to see. I couldn't have told you her name by the trial. "You got to forget," he said. "I never did." Ten.

One was a church again, nearly empty. This time the photo on the easel was his. A lawyer told me he'd left money for my care, and instructions that I was never to be put under again.

I cried for him. I didn't have anyone else left to cry for, and he'd been at every funeral I could remember.

My grandmother passed away in March at ninety-four. Her mind had long since dissolved into dementia, so her death wasn't a shock. The shock was her will.

The attorney handed me the keys to her old two-story house along with a crumpled piece of paper. The notary actually apologized, explaining that my grandmother had thrown a massive fit, refusing to leave until they attached the note to the legal documents.

In her shaky, uneven handwriting, it read:

"Alex, I am so sorry. She made me sign the papers. She choked me at night until I finally gave in. Do not go down into the basement. Not because of the dark—but because of what crawls out of it when the lights go out. And whatever you do, never answer the knocking. In my bedroom, in the top drawer of the old dresser, there is a revolver. Use it if you have to. I couldn't."

I figured it was the delusions of a deeply sick woman. I was getting a house in a great neighborhood, debt-free. Who would turn that down?

The first week went by without a hitch. I scrubbed the rooms, painted the walls, started settling in. I noticed the old windows were completely stuck—painted over and swollen tight—but I figured I'd handle that later. Things were fine for ten days. On the eleventh night, everything changed.

I woke in a cold sweat. There was a sudden, freezing pressure in my chest—the absolute, silent certainty that I was no longer alone in the room.

The house was dead silent. A minute later, I heard a sound beneath the floorboards. Not mice. A heavy, friction-laden scraping. Like a massive, dense weight being forced through a tight crawlspace, catching on every wooden joist. The sound moved under the floor, traveling from the kitchen to the hallway, then stopped directly beneath my bed.

I froze, barely daring to breathe. Then came the knocking.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Three slow, heavy blows. From below, straight through the floorboards, vibrating up through the legs of my bed.

I clutched the blanket. And then a voice drifted up from the dark underbelly of the house. Dry, raspy, like old wallpaper peeling off a wall—but unmistakably the voice of my late grandmother:

"My boy… open the basement door. It is so cold and lonely down here."

Everything inside me went numb. It sounded like her, but the cadence was wrong—mechanical, hollow, as if something else were clumsily playing back an old recording. I didn't sleep a wink until sunrise, lying there listening to whatever was scratching at the wood.

The next morning, armed with a pipe wrench and a flashlight, I went down into the basement. The place smelled of damp earth and rot. In the far corner, behind a rotting wardrobe, I found an old trunk. The padlock was rusted through. I pried it open.

Inside were clothes and personal belongings. My things. My baby rattle. My old middle school notebooks. My first baby teeth kept in a tiny glass jar. And then I found my grandmother's diary, dated back to my childhood. I flipped to a random page and my heart dropped.

"December 13, 1996. She demanded I give the baby back again. She sits on the bottom step of the stairs and howls all night. She says he is her newborn, the one she kept in a cardboard box down there. My God, I just wanted a family… I am raising him as my own grandson. But she doesn't age. She waits. She is feeding on my memories; I am starting to forget my own name. She said if I don't sign the house over to him when he grows up, she will come for me in the graveyard."

My hands shook so violently the diary almost slipped from my fingers. I am not her grandson. I am the child she took from this basement.

Behind me, a sharp pop. The lightbulb overhead shattered, plunging the basement into pitch-black.

From the depths of the dark, right in front of me, that same dry voice spoke again. But this time it wasn't trying to sound gentle. It was a guttural, triumphant whisper that made my ears ring:

"You've returned to the nest. Time for bed."

I turned and sprinted up the stairs, my boots skidding against the old wood. Behind me—a rapid, leathery friction and the manic patter of multiple limbs, rushing up from the bottom of the basement at impossible speed. I slammed the heavy oak door shut just as something massive crashed into it from the other side. I locked all three deadbolts.

Panic blinding me, I ran for the front door. The handle wouldn't turn. I checked the windows—the ones I'd planned to fix later were hopelessly sealed. I was trapped. Not by magic. By neglect. By an old house that had been waiting for this moment.

Terrified, I fled upstairs and locked myself in the master bedroom.

The knocking downstairs stopped ten minutes ago. But now I'm hearing something much worse. The sound is coming from the second-floor hallway. Right outside my door. That soft, fluid dragging—something deflated and heavy shifting its mass.

She is standing right outside my door. And now she is speaking in my own voice. She's practicing. Trying to sound exactly like me, repeating my name over and over, stretching the vowels into a clicking hiss. "Aaa-lex. Al-ex. My-boy."

Then I remembered the note. The revolver. The top drawer.

I didn't look at the door. I lunged for the dresser against the far wall, my fingers tearing the drawer open. My hand closed around the cold steel of the revolver. I turned back to the door just as the handle began to slowly turn.

The floorboards directly above Odette’s bed creaked under the slow, deliberate weight of heavy footsteps. She pulled the covers over her head as her heart raced.

No one should be up there, she thought.

Since the divorce, she had been having difficulty sleeping through the night. She slowly peeked out from under the covers. The room was dark and still, but another creak made her jerk in bed.

Gathering her courage, she slipped into her robe and crept down the dark hallway. Her shadow stretched into a long tail as the streetlamp dimly illuminated her from the far guest bedroom window. She stopped at the attic hatch, her hand trembling as she pulled the string and pulled down the ladder. She froze as a cold wind hit her face and looked deep into the darkened space above her. She clenched her fists and made the journey upwards into the unknown.

As she climbed, a stale, musty scent made her nostrils flare. The attic was pitch-black, shaped only by crossbeams and stacked holiday boxes in the far corner.

Odette pulled out her phone, opened her thermal-imaging security app, and raised the screen to scan the darkness.

The camera feed revealed the background shades of deep blue and purple. Then, as she scanned the center of the room, a localized, nebulous form emerged, shrouded in a dense black silhouette roughly the shape of a human figure. Odette’s breath got caught in her throat. She lowered the phone. The attic was empty. She raised it again, and the cold spot was gone.

Confused, she turned to return to the safety of her bed and let out the breath she'd been holding, only for it to form into a foggy plume as an icy chill consumed her. She raised the phone’s screen, and the visage of a screaming human face made her panic, dropping the phone as she fell backward through the hatch.  

Jason Pruitt was an electrician with a routine you could set your watch to. On job sites he labeled each breaker he touched in careful block capital letters so the next person would not have to guess. Yes, he was that kind of electrician. A creature of routine. In his small Dallas apartment he always went to bed at 9:30pm and awoke at 4:30am. Each night, before he turned off the lights, he filled a glass of water at the kitchen sink, walked back to his bed, and placed the glass on the night stand. He then turned off the lights, got under the covers, rolled onto his right side, and slept.

Goblin had watched this with some amusement for weeks. His often preferred viewpoint was from the gap behind the baseboard. His fascination with Jason was strong enough that he had learned the number of steps Jason took from the kitchen counter to his bed. The vibrations ran through the baseboard and down through Goblin’s body. He had come to like it.

At first, Goblin started small, letting himself be seen at the far edge of Jason’s vision, appearing as a dark shape near the closet door and quickly gone before Jason’s eye could turn. Many times Jason swatted empty air. One day Goblin heard him mutter “Long day,” to the empty room as Jason once again swatted at nothing. Jason then went to sleep as he always did, snoring himself away into a deep sleep.

Goblin knew at midnight Jason sat up half-asleep and drank from the glass he found by feel. Sitting unmoving, Goblin was already waiting on the edge of the pillow. Once Jason lay back down, Goblin crossed the cotton and slipped into Jason’s ear so light that Jason felt nothing. Steadying himself in the walls of the ear canal Goblin whispered softly, “One day I will eat you.” Goblin slipped out just before Jason, still asleep, pushed a pinkie finger into his ear. 

For thirty nights it went the same way, except that Goblin grew bolder, stayed longer, and whispered the same phrase multiple times. Ten days in, Jason started leaving the hall light on. With his phone flashlight he would shine it at shadows in the apartment just to be sure nothing was lurking. And he began to sleep on the left side, with his left ear pressed firmly into the pillow. This meant Goblin started using the right ear canal. 

On the thirty-first night Goblin got bored. He climbed in slowly, the hair on his legs clinging to the ear canal structure and said every word with care and emphasis: “One. Day. I will make you my food.” He stayed long enough, scratching at the ear canal, for Jason to feel something crawling inside his head. Jason’s pinkie came up too late to scoop out anything as Goblin hurried out.

That same night Jason dreamed he was low to the ground with eight legs and a belly full of silk. He spun it across the corner of the kitchen which oddly looked like his own, warm where it left his body and tacky where it dried. And when a cockroach walked into the threads, he felt them shiver and crossed to it, quickly wrapping it up in a shroud. He fed with satisfaction so complete that he woke with his jaw working and saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. 

The dream felt more real than the covers strewn over his body. His ear itched, his mouth tasted of metal, and all through the workday he felt light and hollow. At the warehouse he mislabeled a panel, and his foreman voiced with some concern “You’ve got number four down as the kitchen? You good Jason? That one feeds the garage!” Jason didn’t argue or comment and he fixed the labels on the breakers. At lunch Jason barely ate. The only thing on his mind was that voice. He left the worksite early and drove home. The seatbelt vibrated across his body making him feel as if he needed to crawl onto something.

On Monday Jason called in sick. He called in sick the day after, and the day after that. He slept through the afternoons and dreamed longer each time. The light bothered him so he covered his eyes with a towel. On Wednesday he drove to Whataburger and ordered his favorite breakfast, a jalapeno biscuit with sausage, egg, and cheese, and a small Dr. Pepper. After one bite, the sandwich went straight into the trash. The Dr. Pepper he kept, and drained it through the straw in long pulls until the ice rattled and the cup was empty. It was the first thing that gave him satisfaction in many days. He sat in the parking lot for a long while with the straw still in his mouth taking long pulls of melting ice. 

By the ninth call to complain, a tenant threatened to call the cops if the building manager didn’t take care of the smell coming from 2C. The building manager, Mr. Delgado knocked multiple times, loudly yelled out and then used his key. From the doorway he called out, “Mr. Pruitt?” and when he looked up his first instinct was to puke.

A funnel web filled the bedroom corner, thick and layered, wider than the headboard. Torn clothing lay beneath a shape crouched deep inside. Mr. Delgado covered his mouth and backed out toward the door. Deep inside the shadow of the funnel the shape moved. A creature the size of a cat, rushed toward the funnel’s mouth. Mr. Delgado squealed loudly. A Whataburger cup sweated on the nightstand. Beside the web, a sentence had been written in dried blood, each letter a careful block capital: “I WOULD RATHER USE A STRAW.” 

Cyril always felt he was destined for something greater. That his life had purpose. He just didn’t know what purpose. He didn’t know what greatness he was destined to do.

But he knew that he loved to play the piano. And, every day, when he arrived home to his shuttered apartment from work, before he had anything to eat, or before he unbuttoned his shirt, or before he kicked off his shoes, Cyril would sit at his vintage, out of tune, beaten-down, Fazioli piano and play. For hours.

The beautiful melodies would rise upward toward his younger, four-year-old sister, Silvia – Cyril called her Sil, for short – where she would sit, every night, patiently waiting for the music to greet her at the top of the stairs. She was transfixed by the beautiful sounds in her ears. And she would watch Cyril, mesmerized by his playing, just as lost in the music as him. She would listen until she fell asleep at the top of those stairs, and Cyril would come up and carry her off to bed, before returning to the piano, where he would play until falling asleep on the lightly padded bench. He hated leaving that piano. When he played, he felt like his hands were touched by God.

But he had to show up for work, where he felt like his hands were the slaves of the devil. Sorting packages. Ten hours a day, every day. Place packages to the right for incoming. Place to the left for outgoing. Cyril felt like he had touched every carboard box in the world.

While he worked, he watched his hands. He fixated on them, on their movements. He imagined them dancing over the keys. He imagined his fingers flying through the air landing on notes more and more difficult to reach than the last. He wondered how a part of his body that could be used for something so beautiful, could also be used for something so mundane. But, he continued to imagine. And his imagination carried him through the day, until he could play again once more.

It went on like this for a while. But Silvia was getting bigger. And her clothes were getting smaller. And so, the days sorting packages grew longer. Ten hours gave way to twelve and twelve received an ask for fourteen. Then fifteen. Cyril had less time to play. But little Sil would listen as often as she could, all the same.

Sometimes, Cyril would return home and wonder:

Why does no one else hear my music? Why does no one else applaud my tune?

Inspired by this line of questioning, he began to save, slowly, until he could purchase a small, used keyboard. He was thrilled. Perhaps now he could show the world his talent. All he had to do was set up the keyboard one day, and play.

He asked for a day off from work, explaining what he was hoping to do. He was met with animosity.

“No days off. If you don’t want to work here, you can leave,” his boss put it bluntly.

Cyril pleaded his case. He begged for the playing time. He asked for grace. He asked for understanding.

Cyril was fired.

No matter. He had his keyboard. And so, newly freed from sorting packages, Cyril brought Sil to the busiest part of town. He set out a jar. He sat in front of his small keyboard. He played.

Sil, as transfixed as ever, listened.

And the jar, hour after hour, remained empty.

Cyril played until the sun slipped below the horizon. He played until the night air nipped at his neck. He played until the last person hustled by him, hurriedly. Then, he only played to Sil.

Cyril brough Sil back to their apartment and, throwing the small keyboard aside, sat angrily at the piano bench. He huffed. Then, he looked to the sky and screamed.

Sil backed into a corner, frightened.

Cyril lifted the key cover to the Fazioli and placed his left-hand underneath it. Then brought it down hard on his hand, smashing it. He screamed in agony. Lifting the cover again, he brought it down again. Harder. Bones cracked. He screamed again. He brought it down again. BANG. BANG. BANG. He moved his hand to a different position and crushed it again. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Sil watched from the corner. Curled into a ball. Eyes wide.

BANG. BANG. BANG. He kept going until each of his fingers were broken. The bones protruded our from his knuckles and his pinky. Then, using his mangled left hand, he started the same process on his right hand. Placing it under the cover, then BANG. BANG. BANG.

Cyril kept going until both of his hands were a mashup of crushed cartilage and tendons. Until he couldn’t bend a finger or move a muscle. He fell asleep on the padded bench; shirt soaked through with tears. Keys dripping with his blood.

Sil did not sleep at all that evening.

The doctors would tell Cyril that his hands would heal. As they bandaged him up, they told him that the hands were remarkably resilient to injury. They told him that, although he would unlikely be able to play piano very well ever again, he could certainly get his job back sorting packages.

They told him, he should be grateful to be so lucky.

And Sil, patient as ever, would find herself sitting at the top of the stairs, hoping that music might come to greet her once again.

We live in a forested, mountainous region. Even in the summer, it's sometimes easy to get lost. Once autumn comes and the fog rolls in at noon, it is nearly impossible to get home. That's why our wives call to us from our houses when we head from the pasture. We whistle back, and that's how we find our home again. We make sure to follow only our wives' calls.

Mark, my neighbor, stood in the fog. The man before him just disappeared into it, following his wife's calls. Mark put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, but nothing came back. He whistled again. Nothing. He looked back at me, his brows furrowed.

"Try again."

He put his fingers in his mouth, took a deep breath, and blew the loudest whistle I had ever heard. 

Silence.

"What the hell, Tom? This never happened."

"I don't know. Maybe Mary fell asleep. Let's go to mine. It's right by yours. You'll find your way from there."

"I can only follow my wife's calls."

"That's just a saying."

"Tom."

"Alright, just imagine you are following me, okay?"

He shook his head.

"You have a better idea?"

He looked at me, then back at the fog. It was so dense you couldn't even see the trees around us.

"No."

I stood before him and whistled. A few seconds later, my wife's call came, a simple, melodic tune that broke off at the end. She always missed the last tone.

"That's it."

Mark nodded.

I kept whistling, and my wife kept calling back until we were by our porch. She smiled until she saw Mark come out of the fog too.

"Mark, why aren't you going to your wife's calls?"

"She didn't answer my whistles," he said quietly.

My wife put her hand before her mouth.

"Is she okay? I didn't come and talk to her this morning. I just had too much to do." Her voice shook.

"We'll go check on her now."

"I'll come with you."

"No, stay here. I'm sure everything's alright," I told her.

I wasn't sure, but Mark's eyes were already filled with fear. I didn't want to scare him more.

"Thank you for getting me home, Sally," Mark said and rushed toward his house.

"I'll see you later, love."

"Tom, wait!" my wife called, but I rushed after Mark. He walked so fast. I almost lost him in the fog. It was so dense, you could probably cut through it with a knife.

"Jesus," I heard Mark call a few steps before me. His front door was wide open, and the fog had drifted in, coating his furniture with dew.

"Mary?!" Mark called.

No one answered. 

"Mary?!"

Silence.

He turned to me. His lips quivered.

"Tom, where is she?! Why would she go out in the fog?"

"I don't know, Mark, I…"

Then a melody cut through my voice. The one we both knew. Mary was singing in perfect pitch from the forest in front of Mark's house.

His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The melody came back again.

Mark pushed me aside and ran out. Without thinking, I followed. Twigs kept hitting my face, and mud covered the ground, making me slip.

"Mark, stop!"

But his whistles kept coming, followed by that melodic voice. Only then had I realized how perfectly pitched it was. Mary had never been very good at singing.

"Mark!"

He finally stopped and looked back.

"Mark, we have to think."

"She must be somewhere around here."

"Why would she be in the forest?"

"I don't know, Tom, but she's here!"

The perfect pitch came from right behind us. My feet froze in the cold mud. Mark turned and walked toward it. I raised my hands to stop him.

"Mark, think, we just came from there."

"Get out of the way."

He pushed me to the side. I almost fell into the mud. Mark whistled again, but his whistle didn't echo. Instead, a strange silence came. 

Then Mark's heels lifted off the ground. His body tensed. He tried to put them back down, but his feet rose instead.

"Hey!"

His body floated further up. His face grew red. His eyes flew open. He grabbed his neck and kicked his feet.

"Mark!"

I ran to him and tried to grab his legs, but he was floating too high up. His whole body twisted. His stomach now faced toward the ground. His arms were still at his neck. His pleading, bloodshot eyes stared into mine. I tried to jump and reach him, but my fingers only grazed him. I jumped up again; a sharp, wet crack echoed through the forest, followed by Mark's screams. His warm blood poured onto my face. His arms flailed to the side. He let out a bloodcurdling scream, but in an instant he was gone. His screams echoed in the distance, but slowly died too.

My whole body trembled. I couldn't even move my arms to wipe my face. Then, through the silence, Mary's call came, perfect again, followed by Mark's whistling. This finally unfroze my body. I wiped my face and bolted out of the forest. The fog seemed to grow denser. My legs kept slipping on the mud. Each second, I expected to start floating too, but before I knew it, I was out of the forest, still breathing.

Mark's house stood there, but I looked away and walked back to my place. I kept replaying what happened in that forest, trying to figure out what I would even tell my wife, but as I got to my house, I saw our front door. It was open just like Mark's. The fog had rolled in too. 

From behind me, out of the forest, I heard my wife's call, perfect, just like Mary's. I stood there for a second, thinking, but I knew there was just one thing to do. I turned and whistled back.

While the xenologists, Cherinet and Litskovic, had gone on ahead, the survey team exogeologists, Vinnu and Samaan, hunkered down in their autopods battered by one of the unpredictable cyclostorms that made collecting samples and readings challenging. Coms were mega glitchy during these dust ups, so Vinnu reviewed previously collected data.

The readings were puzzling. From space, the planet appeared to be a rock, a very dusty rock, so Vinnu expected to find high mineral concentration readings in the atmosphere, but it was just the opposite. Organic detritus topped the charts.

If that was the case, where was all the life? The place was bereft, a Saharan world, roiled by cyclonic winds. Anomalous data didn’t sit well with Vinnu, so she didn’t sit on it. She tight-beamed it to her fellow exogeologist and tried the com. “You there, Samaan?”

“Barely,” the voice crackled. “Our pods are almost touching but you sound like you’re at the bottom of a frozen ocean. It might be easier just to tap out some Morse Code. You know, bond over our shared trials on this grumpy planet.”

Vinnu felt a dit-dot ping on her pod. “Not that desperate to bond, Samaan. But I want your thoughts on the data I sent. Did you get it?”

It took a few buffered tries for the data to fully transmit.

While Vinnu waited for Samaan’s analysis, Cherinet’s amped voice broke into their coms, “Shit! Shit! Shit! Move, Litsko! Move! It’s frass! Fucking fraaaasss!”

Vinnu knew panic when she heard it, and for Cherinet to be that alarmed, things had to be bad. Cherinet was an expert on extremophiles, meaning she’d surveyed some of the harshest alien environments and most dangerous lifeforms in the core systems.

“Status?” Vinnu answered, trying to stay calm, trying to remember protocol. “Do you need evac?”

The coms crackled and popped for a long moment, and then Cherinet was there again, but not panicked, just resigned. “Save yourselves. There must be zillions of them. Everywhere, it’s all frass, the entire surface. Save yourselves!”

Then nothing but the rattling interference and the howl of the cyclostorm.

“Samaan, did you hear Cherinet?” Vinnu tight-beamed.

“Yes. We’re in some deep shit, Vinnu. Even worse, deep frass.”

“Frass? Cherinet was freaked by it. What’s frass?”

“It explains why our data seemed out-of-whack. We’ve been expecting mineral readings, yet getting mountains of organic readings. Cherinet found out why. Frass is…Frass is…” The cyclostorm chopped up Samaan’s dread explanation. “Frass is the term for insect detritus: excrement, molted skins and shells, limb sheddings. We thought this was a desert planet. All rock and sand, but it’s really a giant insect pile, a bug world.”

“Holy shit! What do we do?” Vinnu asked, and immediately felt the same resignation she heard in Cherinet’s final transmission, as the tenor of the raging winds changed into a chittering and buzzing that revealed the true nature of the storm they were trapped by.

The world around me sounded like anguish incarnate, unyielding and unjust.

I lean against the outer brick wall of the apartment building, in the thin alley to its right. My legs tremble, my muscles ache, my head pounds, and my lungs sting as though I was breathing needles.

I attempt to calm my breathing, lest they hear me. They must be close; track was never my strong suit. My hand presses into my side, putting pressure on the still bleeding wound. I bite my lip hard to keep my scream of sudden pain inside.

As my breath starts to shallow, I slowly reach for my phone in my pants pocket. I look down, making sure to know exactly where my hand is going. Bubbling ichor oozes from my wound, passing through tensed fingers with more ease than desirable.

My keys are overstuffed in my pocket with my phone and wallet. My father always told me not to do that, even though he had done the same for as long as I can recall. I pinch the top of my phone, pulling it out as slowly as possible with the pain still grasping my nerves.

It catches. Tugging with a small bit of force, it releases along with my keys. The bundle of metal and memories fall to the asphalt below, making more noise than keys could possibly make.

My breathing hitches in fear, my lungs tighten so as not to make a sound. They burn, pleading oxygen, but they would continue to beg. I move my eyes towards the road. Slowly, as if they might hear my cornea rub against my eyelid. The thought of being simply perceived by such monsters fills me with an acidic dread.

Nothing to my left. I start to slowly move them to my other side.

…

Nothing to my right. I’m safe for now.

I decide to leave my keys where they had fallen, they were of no use to me nor anyone else in this damned town. I look to my phone, 1% battery. I quickly open it, not even thinking, just instinctually moving my fingers. That instinct had yet to catch up to my situation. I tapped my phone app, immediately wincing at the stupidity, a call would make too much noise. Back out, open messages, select first option. I just need to get a message out to anyone that might be able to help.

It was my mother. Who had passed last week. Her last message to me was, “I’ll see you at dinner?”. I gave it a thumbs up emoji at the time, knowing full well I wouldn’t be going, opting to go to the Christmas party my dad was throwing at his new place. She suffered from a heart attack the next day.

My phone suddenly died. The black screen reflecting up as tears pelted its glassy surface.

I started to put my phone back into my pocket, with less care than I had but moments ago. It slid on the edge of my pocket and fell out of my hand, hitting the bell on my keys, cracking the screen instantly and making a soft tink noise.

My eyes widen but my body stills. Tears still trickle out, falling on to the now broken phone.

My head slowly lifts, suddenly matching the gaze with the Crowd, now filling up the alley by the hundreds. Maybe thousands…an impossible number in such a short span of time. They stare endlessly with the holes that fill their head where their eyes, nose, and lips should be. My wound pulses with pleasure, yet I feel only anguish unyielding in my heart…though, I don’t think it may be as unjust as I initially consi-