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If you find The Crimson Carnival, don't stay past sunrise.
I had read the list of instructions thousands of times. The Crimson Carnival can only be found by following a series of specific directives, as outlined by those who had successfully ventured there in the past. Just as described by the moderators of the private online forum, I found it at 3:53AM on a Friday the 13th far out in the countryside after a series of meandering twists and turns that I had followed meticulously as outlined by those who had journeyed to the carnival before me. The detailed instructions were specific and required pain and personal sacrifice, but I was willing to do what I had to. My palm still stung from where the blade had pierced it, and I had intentionally left the wound undressed. Again, another necessary part of the journey. Blood poured from it all over the steering wheel. This seemed distant and unimportant now. I had found the place. After years of hearing about it, reading about it, researching, and building up the courage, I had actually found it. I turned off the engine and got out of the car, the cool night air crisp and fresh as I breathed in. Walking towards the entrance of the fairgrounds, I saw no one else around. The outside of the place was empty and devoid of visitors. Forsaken. The moon was a sliver in the dark night sky above. Sounds of activity could be heard from within the fair, carnival barkers and rides, the loud DING DING DING of someone winning a prize. Everything that would make you think it was a regular carnival. An ordinary fair. A clown was at the entrance, his face was painted bright red around the eyes and mouth, his hair and round nose also crimson. He wore yellow pants with suspenders and welcomed me, waving an oversized white-gloved hand as I approached. “HOO HOO HOO hoo! I’ve got a surprise, it’s true! Who found the Crimson Carnival? What a delight, it’s you!” The clown with the yellow pants was there. Just like all the reports had said. “You've found the place, my friend! Get inside and have some fun! Your time now very soon will end. The crimson death can't be undone.” His face was a toothy grin, all smiles and giggles as he recited the welcoming rhyme. All but the last line, which he said in a low growl. Following that he looked serious and angry. I was taken aback. He was supposed to say, “The Crimson fair leaves with the sun,” as the final line in the rhyme. He was supposed to be the cheerful welcome clown. No scary shit yet. Not yet. But instead he had said, “The crimson death can't be undone,” in that terrifying low rumbling voice and I couldn't help but wonder if I had made some mistake in the ritual. His upper lip quivered as he continued to growl at me. He was supposed to keep smiling, waving, and looking friendly. The dark, really creepy shit was further in. Out by the entrance the carnival was reported to look bright and welcoming. It didn't usually reveal its true form until you were well inside the fences. I just stood there, sweating, panicking, retracing my efforts. I had made no errors, though, I realized as I went through each part of the instructions in my head and pictured myself in my memory doing exactly as instructed. Suddenly I realized I had been standing there for a while, thinking, and the clown was still staring at me. The reply came to me immediately, after years of study I had not forgotten. The cut on my palm still bleeding, I asked the question deliberately and verbatim. Word for word as described online. “All I have is a nickle. Will that cover the fare?” I held up the rare coin and it glittered red with my blood like a ruby in the moonlight. “It lets you in. It lets you through. The bloody nickel, true true true.” He was smiling again and I let out a sigh of relief. Just a little different for a second, but back on track now, nothing to be worried about. I walked past him and through the turnstiles. Looking back I saw he was still smiling his wide toothy grin and took that for a good sign. He waved his white-gloved hand at me and then was swallowed up by darkness and fog. At least he had stopped growling like a rabid dog after the toll had been offered. Something about that had really terrified me. Not that I wasn't already petrified, but when I had run through this in my mind (approximately a million times) things had always gone to plan. According to the descriptions I had read over and over, memorizing them. No one had ever mentioned an alternate ending to the welcome rhyme. Was the place changing? Evolving somehow? No. That was impossible. Through all the years and all the visitors it had stayed the same. Why would it change now? Sarah would still be there, I told myself. She had to be there. Otherwise this was all for nothing. I could handle being scared, as long as it meant getting her back. I had to get her back. Her absence in my life was like a missing appendage, the memories of her a phantom limb that ached incessantly. She was there. I could feel her somehow, as unlikely as that sounds. I felt like with every step I got closer. The sounds rose up loudly around me from every direction as I entered the midway. First one man shouting, “STEP RIGHT UP, STEP RIGHT UP, TRY YOUR HAND AT THE DARTS! You sir! You look like a man who knows how to win, how about taking a toss at the red balloons!?” then a woman asking, “How'd you like to win a prize? Get the ball in the barrel and take home the bloody big bear!” She pointed up and I caught myself following her finger and looking at the giant stuffed bears which hung suspended from the ceiling. Each one had a noose around its neck, with eyes red and bulging. The eyes looked real, though, and I could have sworn I saw one swollen bear-face look down at me, pleading and terrified. Red fluid seeped from their mouths and dripped down onto the counter below. I dropped my gaze and reminded myself not to get distracted. Everything here was meant to steer you from your goal, nothing was as it seemed. Keeping my head down, I continued to walk deeper into the midway. “Cotton candy!” “Hot dogs!” “Get your ride tickets here! Ride the Ferris wheel with your true love by your side! A date she'll never forget!” I walked past and heard him say quietly from behind me, “She will stay here. Sarah will live and die and live again, here. Always here. She will stay here. You will stay here.” My heart nearly stopped in my chest. That definitely wasn't supposed to happen. The carnival workers were not supposed to talk out of character to visitors. They were always supposed to stay in character. I tried to control myself but ended up running over to him, fighting my anger and hatred and fury and pushing it down deep, stopping myself somehow from leaping over the counter and grabbing the man. “What did you say??” His mouth opened and closed like a gold fish but he said nothing. “What the FUCK did you just say!?” “Ride the salt and pepper shaker! You'll get all mixed up until you don't know up from down!!” “No. Sarah. You said something about Sarah. I’m looking for her. Please, just help me. Tell me where she is.” “Why, Lady Luck? She's just around the corner at the spinning wheel of chance. Place your bets there and win your heart’s desire!” I nearly screamed at him but managed to restrain myself. It would serve no purpose other than wasting time. I checked my watch and saw I had already been inside for half an hour. The time was going fast. The man was just another distraction, meant to keep me here longer, to keep me from my goal. To keep me from Sarah. Moving on, I kept my head on a swivel, looking every possible direction, checking every face. None of them were hers. Far ahead in the distance, I saw the giant red canopy tent at the center of the fair. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go in there. That’s where all the most horrifying sights were, according to those few who had seen it and escaped. The cannibal killer clowns in their little car that drove around and stopped randomly, piling out and murdering and subsequently devouring whoever was nearest and then clambering back in and driving off. A polar bear on a unicycle that would cause similar damage during its rampages, when it got inevitably bored of riding around. Chainsaw-wielding trapeze artists that swung down unexpectedly and cut you in half before you could even think to run away. And further in, at the very center, who knew? No one had seen it. Only the most extreme thrill-seekers tried for the canopy. It was reserved for the most dedicated and experienced. I shuddered to think of going in there. I had planned to avoid it at all costs. I checked my watch again. This was taking longer than expected. The place was drawing out every second of my time, even the ground beneath my feet was sticky and muddy and each step forward came with an increasing effort. My eyes darted around, looking in every booth and at every carnival worker. There were no other guests so that made it a little bit easier. I walked past more carnival barkers and booths. After walking around a corner, I was confronted by a man shouting in my face, “TEST YOUR STRENGTH!” He was huge, wearing a leather vest and holding a massive sledge hammer in both hands. Turning around, he swung it and hit the bell, causing the machine to light up and ding incessantly. Turning away from him, I scanned the faces of every carnival worker standing behind their counters. A ring toss booth was just ahead, and I began to walk towards it, thinking the woman inside looked a bit like Sarah, when I heard the voice of the man behind me. He had silently followed me, and now stood directly behind me with the hammer held high over his head. “SHE IS OURS!” The sledge hammer came down hard and I ducked out of the way just in time. My heart pounding, I stumbled to the ground, off balance. I rolled away as a second swing of the giant hammer nearly missed me again. I got up to my feet as quickly as I could and backed away from the man. He was pursuing me still, and I turned and ran. The muddy ground caused me to slip as I turned a corner to get away from him, and found myself heading towards the giant canopy at the center of the fair. I checked my watch. Still nearly an hour until sunrise. Plenty of time. No. Can’t think like that. You’ve wasted half your time and you haven’t found her yet. That means you’re behind. You need to spot her quick and get her the hell out of here. I felt myself struggling to think clearly as adrenaline took over and something else as well, an unfamiliar feeling like the naïve recklessness of a young man, which I no longer was. I wanted to live, and yet I found myself abandoning reason and self-preservation the more time I spent there. And yet, the giant canopy tent drew me in like a moth to a flame and I went to it, no longer looking at the other carnival workers. Every part of me was saying to go inside. That’s where she would be. Looking back, I saw the man with the sledge hammer was no longer pursuing me, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he was getting reinforcements, though, and that would be trouble. Feeling like a piece of iron filament being drawn towards a powerful magnet, I walked towards the huge crimson red canopy tent. Up this close it was obvious how massive the thing was now. Inside would be a space lit up with lights and full of morbid wonders and curiosities. It loomed before me, dwarfing me in size and I realized I was standing right before the entrance, every part of me saying to go inside, to look and see what could be found within. And then I heard her voice. “Try your luck at the spinning wheel, sir?” I stopped in my tracks, afraid to turn and look, afraid it wouldn’t really be her, that it would be just some trick again, some attempt to stall me. But then I did and it was her. It was really her. No mistaking it. She gave a shaky smile and lifted her hand to wave. I walked over to the booth and looked at her, my eyes filling with tears. “I missed you so much,” was all I could say. “I missed you too. Every day I missed you.” And then some other force took over and her smile widened like it was being pulled at the corners by unseen strings, causing her to show her teeth. Her voice changed and became that of a carnival barker trying to grab your attention as you pass by. “TRY YOUR LUCK AT THE SPINNING WHEEL, SIR!?” I was stunned, and didn’t know what to say for a second. “Sarah… Let’s get out of here. Come on. Take my hand.” Reaching over the counter, I saw her eyes flash back to her own for a second, but then they became full of hatred and murder. She hissed at me like a cat, her eyes now crimson-red. Then she swiped at me with her nails, scratching my arm badly and leaving four long gashes there. She attacked my face next, flailing at it with quick lashes in succession, leaving me bleeding from her nails. I recoiled, terrified and in pain. Blood poured from my face and my arm and I was suddenly having trouble seeing out of one eye. My vision was turning red and then black on that side. “Run,” she said, her face turning back into her own for an instant. “You can’t save me. Just run. If you stay past sunrise you’ll be stuck here with the rest of us.” And then her eyes flicked back to that crimson red shade and I saw her laughing at me. “You can’t save her. She’s ours now.” Other carnival workers started to come out from behind their booths and were now stalking towards me. A clown popped his head out from the giant canopy tent nearby and then when he saw me came running with a duck-legged stride in his oversized floppy shoes. Following behind him was a man on giant stilts, who had to duck to come through the doorway. He was juggling bowling pins that were set ablaze and threw one at me, nearly missing my face with it. Sarah stayed stubbornly put where she was, as if the carnival knew that I wanted her to chase me, to come after me. But no, it had plenty of others to do that. I backed away at the sight of the blood-thirsty carnies approaching, then turned and ran back towards the entrance, my instinct to survive suddenly taking over. Running half-blind through the midway, I saw more carnival workers leaving their booths, following after me, their eyes blank and zombie-like. Looking back, I saw dozens of them now in pursuit, breaking into a slow jog and then running as they followed after me. Increasing my pace, I felt my heart booming in my chest, sweat pouring down my face. My eyes were wide and terrified, darting around, looking for potential threats everywhere. “Candy apple?” the elderly woman was wearing an eye patch and as she threw the boiling hot caramel sauce at me she smiled, her teeth rotten and black. Some of the liquid sugar hit my face and I screamed as it burnt me. I knew that would scar me for the rest of my life but didn’t have time to think about it. I had a moment of pity for the woman, knowing now that she was just another victim of the carnival, the same as Sarah. No one from the online forums had ever considered that the carnies were themselves past visitors who hadn’t been able to escape before sunrise. It was always assumed that they were a part of the carnival itself and had been since the start. My feet slipped in mud and I nearly fell as I raced past the man with the sledge hammer. He jumped up and began to chase after me with the others, carrying his heavy mallet in both hands and screaming at me. Up ahead I saw the turnstiles and picked up my pace, seeing the faint glimmer of a sunrise on the horizon. The clown was there, appearing out of the fog once more, and as I got closer I saw he was waiting for me. He held a small axe in his hand and chuckled when I got near. “THE CRIMSON GLOW CAN’T BE UNDONE. THE CRIMSON GLOW CAN’T BE UNDONE. THE CRIMSON GLOW CAN’T BE UNDONE.” The voices of others drawing closer from behind rose in volume joining his and I realized they were very close now. I had no choice. I would have to take my chances with the clown. I ran at him full speed, knowing I didn’t have much time left. Once the sun came up I was stuck here with the rest of them. No one was coming for me. Nobody knew I was here. The only reason I knew where Sarah had disappeared to was because of her obsession with the online forums related to the crimson carnival. She had become more and more involved until it completely took over her life, nearly ruining our relationship in the process. Then one day she had said that she was going to find the place for herself. She had left in the middle of the night, leaving me a note while I was sleeping. She had never come home after that and I had always regretted not going with her. She had even given me the coin, saying that she wanted me to go with her, to experience it alongside her. She said not to lose it. That there were only a few left out there, and that they were exceedingly rare and valuable. But now I had lost it, just like I had lost her. The fucking clown had it. I had an idea at the last second as I ran towards him. The mud slipping beneath my feet made me think of when I was a kid, playing soccer. How after scoring a goal or winning a game on a rainy day, we would slide around on the grass, in the mud, celebrating. Diving forward at full speed, I landed on my belly in the muck. It knocked the wind out of me, and since I wasn’t a kid anymore it hurt like hell, but it had the desired effect. My forward momentum took me under the turnstiles and I surprised the clown by knocking out his legs from beneath him. He went flying into the air, his axe spinning and shining in the faint light before landing a few feet away. Dozens of coins came flying out from his pockets also. They landed scattered on the ground in the mud, and I grabbed a handful of them before racing off back towards my car. I heard the clown screaming at me until his voice cut out suddenly in an instant as the sun peeked out from behind the horizon. Looking back with my one working eye, I saw that he was gone, and so was the carnival. But in my hand, the blood-red nickels from past visitors remained, proof of my visit. Same as the long red scratches on my arm and on my face. The scars and burns I would wear for the rest of my life. And yet still, staring at the muddy, bloody coins in my palm, I knew I would be back. I had no choice. JG TCC
If you visit The Crimson Carnival - Don't go inside The Fun House!
Part 1 When I escaped the Crimson Carnival the first time, I knew I had to go back. It didn’t matter that I had almost died, that I had been badly injured, half-blinded, and burned. Sarah was there. All these years I had felt certain, but had no way to prove it. As it turned out I had been right all along. She had found the place and it had trapped her there, along with hundreds of others. Thousands maybe. The secret ritual needed to get into the place was shared via an online forum and now I had real suspicions about who had planted those “tips”. I had the feeling very few other people had actually been there and escaped. The only reason I had gotten out was that Sarah had seen me and warned me about the true nature of the place. Even then I had barely made it. It had me in some sort of trance, I realized. The time had passed quickly at first, but the longer I stayed the more it sucked me in and consumed me. Hypnotized me. I went home and immediately read the sticky post from the moderators at the top of the main page. After scanning it again, there was no doubt in my mind the whole website was a trap being used to lure people in. Here is what it read: CRIMSON CARNIVAL MODERATOR TIPS - Don’t worry about tracking the time too much! Although “The Crimson Fair leaves with the sun” that doesn’t mean you have to find your way back to the exit before that. Most people stay and watch as the carnival evaporates like smoke at the break of dawn – the grand finale of the fair, as it were. Speaking as someone who has seen it I can tell you, it’s quite a sight and not to be missed! There were plenty of other tips as well, some useful, but most were outright dangerous in retrospect. The whole thing was just a ploy to get people to go to the place, it seemed. To trap them there. And it had worked. Judging by the looks of the midway, filled with entrapped workers, the bait was working and the carnival would continue to grow. Unless someone stopped it. I suddenly had a vision, thinking about the giant red canopy tent at the center of the place. I pictured a massive beating heart in the middle of it, veins and arteries extending out from it, feeding poison to the entire place and everyone trapped there. At the very center of the canopy, I had no doubt now, was the creator of the whole thing. The master of it all. The one who controlled everything and had caused all this chaos and heartache. How many other families had been torn apart? How many relationships destroyed? Husbands and wives, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters – how many lives had been ruined by the monstrosity that was The Crimson Carnival? Somehow I had to stop it. I was maybe the only one who could. I vowed to return, and marked on my calendar the next Friday the 13th, so I would be ready. What I didn’t expect was another person to be waiting in the gravel parking lot to visit the carnival. Another thrill-seeker like my wife, I assumed at first. It turned out they were more like me. “You might want to rethink your visit,” he said after rolling down his car window. “This place isn’t as advertised.” “Tell me about it. I barely got out last time. I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.” He raised his eyebrows and looked at me solemnly, then got out of his car and went around to the trunk. He pulled out a small bag which he slung over his shoulder. “I’m Gary, what’s your name, kid?” “Jordan.” “You’ve always got a choice, Jordan. Don’t go back in there. It’s no good. It’s got me and it’s gonna get you too if you keep coming back here. Maybe you can still have a life if you go now and don’t come back.” I thought about what he said for a few seconds before responding. He looked serious, and genuinely worried. Was this some trick of the carnival? Did its reach extend this far out? I decided probably not, or else the carnival workers would have pursued me to my car the last time I escaped, instead of staying within its boundaries. “How many times have you done this?” I asked. “Maybe we can help each other.” “Hmm.” He rummaged in his trunk and grabbed a larger backpack and slung that over both shoulders with his bloodied hand leaving red stains everywhere in the process. Next he withdrew a gun belt which he put around his waist. He loaded a large revolver with bullets and shoved it down into the holster. “Kind of old school, isn’t it?” I asked, pointing at the pistol with its wooden grip. I knew nothing about guns and had never fired one myself, but knew they had much more sophisticated weaponry for sale these days. Things that could hold more than six bullets. “Old school doesn’t jam. Old school fires straight every time. It’s that new shit that doesn’t seem to work in there. Almost got killed the first few times until I figured that out.” A thought occurred to me. “Wait a second, those are real people in there! You can’t kill them, this isn’t their fault.” “Listen kid, there’s two types of carnival workers. Those who can be saved and those who can’t. We’re here for the ones who can be. Who is it they got of yours? Girlfriend, I’ll bet.” “Fiancée, actually.” “Well, did you find her? I’m guessing by the look in your eyes you did. So what did she say? Did she recognize you?” “Yeah. She did. For a minute, until something else took over. She came back again for a second, told me to run and never come back.” “You shoulda listened.” He shook his head, gazed up at the sky and seemed to think about it for a few seconds. Letting out a deep breath he admitted, “That means she can still be rescued, though. I think, assuming I’m right, anyways.” “How? She attacked me when I tried.” I pointed a thumb at my eyepatch. “Ha! Yeah I bet she did. Did you see the tubes?” “What tubes?” “Think intravenous tubing. It comes up out of the ground and it’s drilled into their legs. She’s hooked up to the thing at the center of it all, just like the rest of them. Take a look next time, a real close look. The ones who already belong to this place don’t have them, because they’re already full of the poison. Like the welcome clown for instance. Or the ‘Test your Strength’ guy with the sledge hammer.” I recalled with a shudder how that gentleman had nearly murdered me. So that was how they were changing them. The place really was poison. It was taking Sarah’s life force and replacing it with some dark toxin and converting her into a minion of the carnival. A mindless vessel forced to do its bidding until death and beyond. “Come on, we’re wasting time. You got a nickel?” I pulled out the handful of bloody coins I had stolen the last time after I tackled the bastard at the entrance. “Holy shit! Maybe I underestimated you, kid. What did you do, kill the welcome clown or something?” “Ha-ha, no, I… Actually I sort of tackled him.” He let out a short whistle of respect. “Alright. Let’s do this. You got a weapon?” I showed him what I had brought with me. He laughed pretty hard at that. “Oh, shit. You’re serious.” I nodded, and walked forward, approaching the welcome clown. “HOO HOO HOO hoo! I’ve got a surprise, it’s true! Who found the Crimson Carnival? What a delight, it’s you!” The clown seemed not to remember me, he was jovial and happy again. Until the end of the next part of his rhyme, which he said through gritted teeth, in a dark and deep voice full of malice and hatred. “You found the place, my friend! Get inside and have some fun! Your time now very soon will end. The crimson death can’t be und-“ BANG! I looked over in surprise to see that Gary had just shot the welcome clown in the head. He was holding the revolver out and smoke and steam misted from the end of the barrel in the early morning air. He loaded a fresh bullet and flicked a nickel at the dead clown’s body. I couldn’t help but notice the hatchet the clown held in his hand, concealed behind his large baggy pants. I did the same as Gary, tossing a nickel from my shaking, bloodied hand. We had both cut our palms before arriving at the place, and now began to wrap them in makeshift bandages as we proceeded through the turnstiles. “Well, that should make it easier to get past him on the way out,” I said, still in shock. “I learned a while back that the ones who belong to this place don’t die. It doesn’t matter what you do to them. They aren’t human anymore.” “How the hell do you know? What if we can kill the thing responsible for all this? Maybe we can bring them all back to reality!” He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. It appeared he hadn’t thought of that possibility. “Alright. I’ll try not to kill anybody else,” he conceded. “Unless I really, really have to.” “Thanks, I appreciate that.” As we got into the carnival, I looked around in surprise to see that none of the stalls were the same as the first time. It was like we were in a completely different midway. “Shoot out the star and win a prize!” a man said from a nearby booth where air-rifles were set up on stands and positioned to point at crimson red stars drawn on paper. I saw a ring toss booth, another with green glass bottles lined up on the floor, and rides just ahead to the left where previously there had been food stands. “What the hell is going on? It’s all different…” “Yeah, the place changes every time,” Gary said, pulling something out of his bag. I saw it was a map. It showed a star with five points, a circle around the outside of it. A pentagram. “It’s a giant star. The pentagon at the center is the canopy tent. The circle around the outside is the fence. Every time you come back, it spins around and you get a different entrance. The clown stays the same, he never changes, no matter which entrance you come in through.” I saw writing on the map and realized he had put little symbols in places. A Ferris Wheel. An apple. A balloon. Each on a different part of the star. “This is the section with the rides. See the Ferris wheel symbol?” He pointed up ahead and I saw the giant wheel, lit up and glowing red just ahead of us. “Do you remember what you saw when you came in last time?” “Let’s see… There was the sledgehammer guy, can’t forget about him. And the darts game where you try to hit the balloons. Sarah was at the Spinning Wheel of Fortune near the entrance to the canopy, I remember that.” His eyes lit up and he smiled, looking relieved. “Well, ain’t that a coincidence? Looks like we’re headed to the same place. My partner Bruce is over at the ticket counter in that area. So we can stick together if you want. Help each other out?” “Sounds good to me,” I said. “You seem to have this place pretty well figured out…” “I wish. Every time I come here it manages to surprise me.” We were walking the whole time as we talked and proceeded past the Ferris wheel and “The Kraken”, “The Gravitron”, and a mini roller coaster. Our route took us near the entrance to “The Funhouse”, and that was where things began to go downhill. Just as we were walking past the stairs leading up to that place, I noticed that the entire carnival had gotten quiet suddenly. No one was shouting at us to visit their booths. The rides had all stopped and so had the music. All I could hear was the sound of our footsteps in the mud. And then others joining in, getting louder as they neared us. Suddenly there was a dozen carnival workers approaching us from all sides. They walked towards us in unison, silently, their eyes glowing red in the darkness. “Shit. They’ve never done this before. I don’t think they like that we’re teaming up.” I looked back over my shoulder and saw more coming from that direction. The only way to escape was up the stairs and into “The Funhouse”. We both went that way without thinking, as they closed in on us from every direction. Once we got inside, I was immediately disoriented. I felt the reflective walls with my hand and followed after Gary, trying not to lose track of him. The first section was a maze made of mirrors, and I found myself running head-first into a few of them, causing my nose to bleed. The shapes of them made everything warped and distorted. My absent left eye was not helping, thanks to my newfound lack of depth perception. “OW! Fuck.” “You alright back there, kid?” he asked. “Yeah, just great. Are we almost at the exit of this place yet?” “Not sure. I haven’t been in this one before.” I heard footsteps in pursuit behind us and my heart began to hammer with fear again. They were following us closely and by the sounds of it they knew this place a lot better than us. “Hurry, they’re right behind us,” I said, pushing him forward. Finally we got out of the disorienting darkness of the house of mirrors and arrived at the next section. The walls and floors were slanted and I stumbled trying to walk towards a door that seemed further away than it actually was. The lines on the walls didn’t help, as they seemed purposely drawn in such a way as to confuse the eyes. A strobe light began to flash, making me feel even more sick and disoriented, as we stumbled along through the wonky space. I saw the corridor was narrower the further along we went, until I was breathing rapidly with increasing panic and claustrophobia. Soon we were on our knees crawling through a tight space, and then we began to slide without warning downwards and around bending corners like a spiral slide in a waterpark. Only this one had no water and I found my knees beginning to burn and ache from the friction of movement. We picked up speed and began to go up and down in wavelike motions as the slide became steeper and steeper. Faster and faster, until the walls were a blur and I felt my stomach drop sickeningly with each rise and fall of the floor. Finally we reached the bottom and I felt completely weightless, sailing off a ramp and flying through the air, screaming, to land in a giant ball-pit. At first it was a relief, since I didn’t die from the impact of my fall, but then I began to sink and kick, trying to find the bottom. It wasn’t there. “Oh fuck. I don’t like this.” I looked over and saw Gary panicking as well. The ball-pit seemed to have no floor underneath it. You had to actually swim in it to stay afloat, pushing off against the resistance from below to keep your head above the surface of it. “I can’t swim, kid,” he said desperately. “Help!” His head went under and he flailed and kicked and came back up again, his face red and looking deprived of oxygen. “Shit. Just pretend you’re on a bicycle, Gary. Kick with your legs and… I don’t know, make kind of like arcs in front of you with your hands, okay? You can do it, just keep kicking and moving your arms.” I could see his head going beneath the surface. I knew if I went to save him I would be dragged under with him. People drowning usually have a tendency to take other people with them, unfortunately. “Come on, Gary. This way,” I said, trying to lead him away from the slide and towards solid ground off in the distance. There was a sign marked “exit” that way as well. “We’re almost out of here!” His eyes became large all of a sudden, and his head disappeared below the surface in an instant, as if something very large and strong had just grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him below. I took a moment to stare in shock at the space where he had just been before I heard the sounds from behind me and my instinct to survive kicked in again. I started to swim out of the ball-pit and towards the exit, just as the carnival workers came careening down the slide. I saw knives and axes and other weapons glinting in their hands in the dull light. Kicking with my legs as hard as I could, I swam towards solid ground through the ball-pit. My heart was hammering loudly in my ears and my mouth and throat were dry. Music began to blast from speakers above so I could no longer hear my pursuers. It was the song of the circus – the classic we all know but have never bothered to look up the name of. “Entry of the Gladiators” is what it’s called if you’re interested. The music that blasted from all angles was jarring and disorienting. I felt something sharp bite into my leg and looked back to see a woman with a pierced nose and her hair done up in a bun with a bone stuck through it. She was smiling widely and her eyes glowed red as she slashed the air and missed me just barely with her knife. Screaming in pain, I kicked at her face and tried to move away from her towards solid ground, which was still not nearly close enough. Looking in that direction, I saw now there were several clowns holding knives waiting for me there. They stood salivating, their shoes squeaking as they paced back and forth watching me and waiting for me to get near enough to them. Gary was dead, and with the carnival workers closing in on me, and nowhere else to run, I had a feeling I would be next. That was when I felt something grip my ankle, hard, nails biting into my skin like talons. It began to pull me down, down, down, into the darkness below. Part 3 JG TCC
My neighbor had air trapped in jars. Last night, I broke into his home to free it.
If air had a will of its own, it couldn't have thrown itself any harder against my window pane. That's what I remember thinking when I woke up to raindrops carried by strong gusts of wind repeatedly clashing against my bedroom window at two thirty in the morning. There hadn't been a single cloud in the sky all day and when I'd gone to bed earlier, it had been cold but not stormy at all. In fact, it had seemed almost as though the air outside itself had frozen and was still in place, unable to move or even shiver. Sitting up in bed, I noticed I had to go to the bathroom. I slid out from underneath my blanket and staggered into the hallway. There was a window at the end of the corridor too. I almost walked past it without paying it any mind, but just as I did, I realized that something was wrong. I couldn't hear the wind howling or rattling the frame around it anymore. I carefully opened the window to look outside only to be met with icy cold air. Cold air, but no wind. Frowning, I shut it again and made my way over into the bathroom. After I was done, I inspected the window in there. I stuck my head out of it only to realize it was the very same as the one in the hallway. The bathroom and the bedroom were on the same side of the house, just separated by a small junk room. Their windows opened to the same side though, so I should have been able to witness the storm blowing outside my bedroom from the bathroom as well. I figured maybe it had simply stopped very abruptly so I rushed over into the bedroom to check. When I heard the wind and rain clashing against the glass pane though, I knew something was wrong. With bated breath, I reached out and tentatively opened the window. The gust of wind that forced its way into my house was so strong that it almost knocked me to the ground. I stumbled and grabbed onto the edge of my table to keep my balance. In just a second, it was all over though. The chilly air that had flooded my room stopped stirring and for some reason I did not feel like I was alone anymore. At first I thought it was just the open window, but when I straightened up and let my gaze wander the room, I spotted something bright and shiny on my desk. It was a person–a tiny, shimmering person hardly any taller than the pencil they sat next to. A gasp of shock died in my throat when they moved. I reached for one of the books resting on my table, a suitable weapon against a threat this small, and I held it up in front of my chest like a shield. With shaking knees, I bent down to get a better look at the creature. The person, who had now risen to its full yet not very impressive height, looked to be a man with bleach blond hair and light skin. I couldn't tell if he had an actual body or not–his form seemed to flicker and waver like a candle in the wind. He was staring up at me with a look akin to that of a deer in the headlights, ready to flee at any second. Still apprehensive but not wanting to scare him off, I slowly lowered the book. The tiny man's shoulders dropped in relief but were soon shaken by silent sobs and cries. The air in the room began to whirl around me again, giving off a howl I can only describe as a fusion of a person weeping and a raging storm. Papers on my desk were sent flying off, the pencil rolled down and landed on the floor and the alarm clock on my nightstand was knocked down. Ignoring the panic and the sting of the cold, I dropped my book and reached out for the wispy figure, offering it my hand. I hadn't expected him to climb up on it, but that's what he did. At least it appeared to calm him down. When he stopped crying, the storm eased and the chill got milder. I lifted him up to face me. Even though I could feel his feet on my palm he was incredibly light; it was almost like holding an empty plastic cup. I swallowed, fumbling for words. What's there to say in a situation like this? I figured since this couldn't get any weirder, I gave him a gentle shove with my finger, just to see what he'd do. He fell over. "Oh God, I'm so sorry," I stammered. I tried to pick him up again with my other hand, but he gestured for me to stay away. "What are you?" I finally pressed out. Now that I'd broken that barrier of silence, the words started to sputter out of him. He was stuttering and at first, I could hardly understand what he was saying at all. It was like he was trying to get it all out so fast that he couldn't focus on stringing the sentences together properly. "He made me kill him!" That was the first thing I heard him say clearly. Despite him being so tiny, it sounded like he was talking right next to my ear. His voice was a panicked, shaken whisper. "I never wanted to hurt him, I swear, but if I hadn't done what he told me, he would have killed my sisters." He had to stop to catch his breath, but it only took him a second or so. "He's had us trapped for weeks now. You can see what he's done to me, but my sisters…" He was interrupted by his own sobs, but I could hear him try to speak up again through his tears. "It's okay," I whispered, placing my other hand behind his back as if to shield him from something I couldn't see. He went on in that same hushed, frightened tone, his speech just slow enough for me to comprehend though he was clearly struggling. "You have to do something to help us, please! I only did what he told me because I couldn't see my sisters suffer any longer… the things he did to them… he hurt them, he cut them…" He was having trouble breathing now. I could see his tiny chest rapidly rising and falling and his hands wandered up to his neck and remained hovering above it, like he was unsure of what to do with them. "Shhh," I uttered, hoping to soothe his nerves. "Who hurt your sisters?" "The man who lives next door to you." The shiny man had finally caught himself a bit. He was breathing normally again, his voice raspy and weary from having cried so much. "You were the only one to let me in… I tried it with some of the other houses on my way here too, but nobody seemed to notice…" "I'm a light sleeper," I explained with a half-smile as I went to shut the window, the flickering shape still sitting on my palm. "So you're saying my neighbor captured you and forced you to kill someone? Who?" "I don't know… it was another man, older guy, lives in a really large house on the other side of town. He said I had to kill him and if I'd try to flee or disobey somehow, he'd… keep doing what he does to my sisters. He said he'd make sure I'd never see them again." "How'd you kill him?" "I slipped into his body through his mouth when he was laughing. Then I made him choke." He said this with such a grim expression I almost expected him to break into tears again. "I swear I didn't want to." He looked up at me with wide eyes. "I believe you," I replied. In regards to my quick acceptance of this situation despite its strangeness, I have to admit I was partly convinced I was dreaming at that point. The man straightened up and grabbed onto my thumb as if to put emphasis into his following plea. "Can you help us?" "I can try." "Will you?" I sighed. "I will. What do you need me to do?" "You just have to go over there and get us out. He's been keeping us in jars. We could leave if it weren't for the way he's set them up. He's been using spells to bind us. We're not actually small, this is just a form he's pressed us into so he can hold us prisoner like he does. I'd thought the kind of magic he's using died with the old gods a long time ago, but he's gotten a hold of it some way." My head was spinning. None of what he had just said made any sense to me. He seemed to see it in the way I was frowning at him since he hurried to go on. "You only have to break the jars. We cannot touch them, but you can. The glass they're made of has been enchanted, so once it's all destroyed, everything will go back to normal for us. We'll be free." "So that's it? I just have to break into his house and shatter a bunch of jars?" I said this with some relief, seeing as it sounded rather manageable. "I can do that." "Thank you." The response came out as more of a sigh than anything else. He stared at me with a thoughtful look on his face. "I'm Ariel." "The house… It's the one to the right from yours. He lives on his own and he hasn't left his house since the day he bound us to the jars. He doesn't work, I think. He'll either be in the living room on the ground floor or down in the basement most of the day. That's where he keeps us. In the basement." His form flickered, almost like he was shivering. "How will I get in? Is he asleep right now?" I asked hopefully. "He doesn't sleep. Or maybe he does and he just keeps one eye open somehow, I don't know. My sisters and I… we've all tried to flee at one point but it's not easy. He jumps at every noise, and when he catches us trying to do anything he'll always take it out on Fei." He paused. "She's my little sister. The youngest one of them." I sat the shimmering man down on my desk again and started to put on some clothes. "You're taking a large risk by looking for help then." "I know." Ariel walked up to the edge of the table which I was leaning against when I pulled on my pants. He took a leap and grabbed onto my shirt only to climb up and stand on my shoulder. "But if this goes on for any longer, we'll all be dead either way." It was even colder outside. Snow covered the ground and I stomped my way through it with the shiny man in my hand. There was not a soul out in the streets anymore. Everything was silent. "Shouldn't I try to get down into the basement right away?" I asked in a hushed tone. The glowing figure didn't respond but gave a light shrug. "It's around the back, isn't it? Is there a window?" "I think so," he replied. "Yes, yes, I've seen it. You'd fit." We sneaked around the fence and eventually reached the back of my neighbor's house. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see my tracks in the snow. I hoped I could somehow wipe them out on my way back. The window was small, but large enough for me to climb in. It was shut though. I crouched down and began fumbling around with it, trying to find a way to get it open, but I knew it was futile. On top of that, my hands had already grown so cold that my fingers were almost completely numb. "Wait," Ariel told me. I turned to see that he was standing on top of the snow, or rather floating above it. His feet left not the tiniest print in it when he walked up to the window. "I can do this. But you have to listen first. The second you're in there, you go straight for the jars. He's going to hear us for sure. If we're lucky he won't be close. Anyways, break the empty one first. That's mine. If I'm free I can… I mean, you'll still have to break the other ones. Just do mine first." I told him I understood and he nodded. Stepping up to the window, he bowed down to examine it. "With these old houses, the rooms are never really sealed," he muttered, sounding like he was explaining it more to himself than to me. "There's always a tiny little… crack." With that, his form suddenly vanished. It was like he had been sucked in from somewhere behind the closed window. My jaw dropped when I saw him appear on the other side. I watched his light flicker and float about through the milky glass until I suddenly heard the faintest little click. The window moved up a sliver, just enough for me to push my fingers in and carefully slide it open. Ariel was waiting for me in mid-air, looking around frantically and motioning for me to stay quiet. I tried to make as little noise as possible, but when my heavy snow boots met with the basement floor, the silence was broken. Ariel flinched but didn't stop me, only whispering a little "Go!" as I instantly made for the shelf in the corner of the large room. Before I even reached it, I could already hear somebody shouting upstairs. It was the voice of my neighbor. I had never bothered to learn his name but I did recognize him. His slew of curses was followed by loud steps thundering above our heads. Describing the contents of the jars I saw will take longer than the actual time I took to look at them. The first one I got my hands on held a tiny little girl. She was sitting down and hugging her knees, her back pressed up against the glass. She hadn't so much as lifted her head upon our entrance. Without thinking, I threw the jar on the floor with all my might. The second it shattered though, the young woman inside flew up into the air, escaping the impact. She gave me an incredulous look before rushing out of sight. Remembering what Ariel had told me, I scanned the shelf for an empty jar while already reaching out for the next one. Apparently the flying man had had the same thought as he turned to me with a look of horror on his face. "It's not here!" I broke the other jar I'd grabbed and another shining woman came out. The footsteps were getting louder and louder, he was coming for us. The last jar on the shelf was a much smaller one and it contained an even smaller person, too. The sister inside was a child, I could tell as much taking just one look at her. She was bleeding from her back. I could make out two tiny pieces of blue tissue on the bottom of the jar right next to her feet. I quickly leaned in to get a closer look only to realize it was a pair of butterfly wings. There was still some skin stuck to where they had once connected to her back. I dropped the jar mostly out of shock. When it hit the ground it cracked, but it didn't shatter. I had to bend down, pick it up and smash it down with full force for it to break. And then the door to the basement at the top of the staircase sprang open. My neighbor was staring at me with wide, confused eyes. He wasn't an evil-looking guy. You wouldn't expect him to tear a little girl's butterfly wings out if you saw him. "You," was the first thing he said. He didn't sound angry, just puzzled. Then he looked down and his eyes fell onto the broken jars and Ariel beside me. "No," he uttered. "No, no, no, what are you doing?" His voice had risen to a scream. He hastily staggered down the stairs and I saw he was clutching something in his left hand. I think he'd expected me to head for the window again since it took him by surprise when I lunged at him, trying to reach for the jar. He stumbled backwards at the very last moment. "Don't you–" he hissed, swiftly moving around me and grabbing me by the hair. I struggled, still trying to get ahold of Ariel's cage, but he placed it on the washing machine which stood right beside us. He dragged me away from it, shooting the shimmering man hovering next to me a dirty glance. "I'm so fucking stupid," he muttered. "Just you wait." Turning to me, he began to speak in a slightly softer voice. Even his grip on my hair loosened a little. "I don't want to hurt you. You live next door, right? Please, go home. Just leave, please trust me." "Why are you doing this?" I whimpered. "Because they're not like us, don't you get it? Can't you see what they could do if we let them run free?" He moved his hands down to my shoulders, shaking me a little as though to chase some bad influence out of my body. That's all he said before I kicked him in the shin. He let out a cry of pain and I dashed forward, grabbing the jar from the washing machine and hurling it against the wall with all my might. The last thing I heard before the howling of wind filled my ears was my neighbor screaming something like "no" or "don't". That was just mere seconds before the objects in the room were swept off their shelves and began whirling around. I saw bottles, loose pieces of wet clothing and stashed-away household appliances fly by right in front of me. Miraculously, none of them hit me. It was like the storm was avoiding me. The wind grew colder and stronger by the second. I heard a man scream somewhere within it. I figured it was my neighbor but I couldn't see anything anymore–there must have been snow coming in through the window since now, flakes of white were dancing amidst the chaos. Some of the objects thrown around were broken by the sheer force working on them, but even those small, sharp pieces didn't come near me. I thought I could see streaks of blood, literal drops of thick red blood being dragged through the air, but I was in too much shock to even scream. And then, suddenly, everything came to a halt. Boxes, broken glass and chunks of plastic all dropped to the floor, soon to be covered by a fine layer of snow that settled on top of it all. In the center of this mess, the man who had held Ariel captive was lying motionless on the ground, his eyes wide open, like his stomach. Above him stood Ariel himself, but tall this time, much taller than me. His shape remained wispy and strangely luminescent, but he looked so much stronger now, so much less helpless. He turned to me with a thin smile on his lips. He glanced down at himself, gesturing to his stretched body and his smile grew. "I bet you regret this," he began, sounding slightly amused. "Well, you don't have to. You're a good person. Thank you so, so much. We'll never forget what you've done for us tonight." He walked towards me and suddenly picked me up, effortlessly, the way you would a child. He carried me up the stairs and all the way through the house until we were outside. I was too dazed to do or say anything. My head was aching. "Don't worry," Ariel said softly. "You haven't unleashed some kind of evil tonight, you barely put a force of nature back where it belongs. My sisters and I, we've always been free. We don't belong in jars, no matter how dangerous some people might think us. This guy, he read a few books and thought he had to save humanity or something, but see, you can't control nature. You have tsunamis, earthquakes, avalanches… storms." We were out in the snow again now and he carefully sat me down. He still had his arms around me, hugging me like he wanted to comfort me but didn't know how. "And you have to live with all of that, you can't avoid it or control it. The earth doesn't want to kill you though, the earth loves you people a lot." He finally let go of me and took a step back. "This is really awkward. Everything's okay though, I promise. He wasn't a good person. He thought he could do all these things to us just because we aren't human… so I promise you didn't assist me in killing an innocent person. Will you be okay?" I didn't respond. What's there to say in a situation like this? "Alright," he muttered. "You should go home now. My sisters have left already and I won't stay for long. But I need to do something to his house first, okay?" He paused, waiting for me to answer but I still couldn't. "Okay," he finally said. He gently placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around, proceeding to walk me over to my front door. "Again, thank you. And I'm sorry if I scared you earlier." I plopped down in the snow with my eyes still large and my heart pounding in my chest. I watched as Ariel trudged over to the other house again. He pulled his legs up into the air, but instead of falling to the ground, he began to float. He started growing even larger, but as his form was stretching and rising, his shape began to waver until it gradually became one with the night sky. The storm that destroyed my neighbor's house took place when I was safe inside my own. It laid waste to the building completely. Any traces of me having been there were wiped out and I was left with the strangest feeling. I would have gladly believed it all to be a dream but the next morning, the house was still in ruins. Who knows, maybe it actually was a dream and the storm was simply a huge coincidence. I went outside because a bunch of my other neighbors were standing around talking. I haven't really done anything today because I'm so dazed. But when I went to take a walk earlier, I swear I heard the wind whisper "I owe you" over and over again. X
“Will you be out long?” Sev asked from his armchair. Ever since his children had moved out, he kept a constant eye on me as if scared I’d run off too. “We need new generator parts,” I reminded him as I put on my sandals. “If I don’t go today, someone else will buy them. And then you’ll complain that you have to repair it every week.” “I know!” Sev snapped and turned away, pretending to read the local paper. “I was just asking when dinner will be ready.” The same old excuse. He was too proud to admit he wanted me nearby and too selfish to keep silent about it. With age, the line between complaints and compliments had eroded to the point where most couldn’t tell the two apart. “I’ll be back before dark.” I straightened my dress and opened the door. “Do you want anything from the market?” I glanced over my shoulder. “Nah,” Sev grumbled, hiding his face behind the paper. “See you later.” “And get some antibiotics!” Sev shouted as I stepped outside. “But don’t pay too much!” “Sure thing.” I waved over my shoulder. The grass tickled my toes as I walked. After a few minutes I took off my sandals. Sev would have a tantrum if he ever found out; last time, he went on a tirade about the dangers of walking barefoot. I promised never to do it again, but we both knew it was a lie. I liked walking barefoot, especially here in the countryside where glass and asphalt hadn’t left their mark. Maybe I should pick some flowers on my way back? Sev would come up with some excuse how they were making his allergies flare up, but still find a reason to keep them. Then, when he thought I wasn’t looking, he’d quietly go to his room and take out the old family pictures he was hiding. Flowers would always make him think of his granddaughter. She used to bring them as a child, when her parents let her visit. That was before she had decided to join the fleet as part of the war effort. Sev had broken all ties with her ever since, and she hadn’t made any attempts to change that. It was an hour’s walk to the market. A single path passed through the forest, nothing to speak of but enough for the colonial authorities to put it on the map. There was talk of adding light posts, though I hoped that they didn’t. It would be nice if things remained as they were for a bit longer. The forest cleared after a while, giving way to a wide plain between the mountains. The transport station stood like a steel block in the middle of a field that stretched for miles. In the early days, locals and off-worlders had used the spot as a barter area away from the city, where goods could be exchanged and deals made without too much scrutiny. With the years it had grown to become a trading hub with its own spaceport outlet. The rural frontier charm still remained, but things had become more regulated. A single ship was visible on the other side of the trade station. From this distance it looked like a small metal tower rising uncomfortably over the other buildings. For the most part we’d only get shuttle shuttles moving to and from the city, but every now and again a cargo vessel would land bringing tech that wasn’t locally available. I checked my datapad for the meeting location. The merchant had changed the spot to lot five—the one closest to the station—a perfect excuse to go through a few stalls and also to get a closer look at the ship. By the time I reached the edge of the market, the crowds were starting to ebb. Most of the makeshift shops were closing as their owners prepared to head back to the city. Mostly stalls remained, covered with local produce. Lot forty-one, lot thirty-nine, lot thirteen… I made my way to the meeting spot, glancing about as I did. Most of the fruit stock was going out of season. The prices were twice their normal rate. Another few weeks and they’d start disappearing altogether. It didn’t bother me. We had more than enough processed food to last the rainy season. Sev would complain, of course, but he always complained. Lot five. I stopped at the edge of the market. The trader hadn’t bothered to set up a tent, instead he leaned against a large metal container, reading from his datapad. The moment he noticed me, he stood up. “Elcy?” he asked. “That’s me.” I offered a smile. “I was expecting someone older,” the man said with a nod. He was in his late thirties, short and pale, standing out like a snowstorm in summer. I could tell he has spent considerable time flying in space aboard a small ship—his muscles weren’t used to normal gravity, making him gasp for air as he spoke. “I get that a lot.” I put my sandals on the ground and took out Sev’s credit card. “Did you come here just because of my order?” “Nope.” He took the card and brushed it against his datapad. “Sold most my stuff before you arrived. Your parts are the only thing left.” He handed me back the card and lent me the datapad so I could input my confirmation code. I typed it in then turned to look at the ship. Not the typical cargo vessel. I could tell it was retrofitted from another class, though wasn’t able to recognize the model. It was impossible to tell whether it had a conscience core. “You don’t get a lot of cargo ships here, do you?” “We manage.” I put the card away. “There isn’t that much we need off-world. What’s the name of your ship.” “Electra Blue.” He smiled. It was clear he thought well of her. “Nineteen-year cargo veteran. Gravity’s a bit harsh on her, but she has it where it counts.” I paused for a moment. The hull scarring suggested the ship had seen her share of debris. “Was she in the war?” I asked. “Eh?” “Your ship. Was she in the war?” “Not that I know.” He glanced up in the ship’s direction. “Why?” “The design has been changed. I thought she might be a retiree.” “Oh?” I could sense some interest in his voice. “Nothing was said when I bought her. You think she could be a warship?” “No,” I shook my head. “She’s too small for that. A transport maybe, or something in logistics transport.” “Fancy that. I’ll have to ask her about it.” “Conscience core?” “No. Just advanced AI. I couldn’t afford a core. It’s not worth the money for a small gig.” “I suppose you’re right.” I sighed. It would have been nice to talk to a ship. Maybe I’ll get a chance next time. “Maybe it’s better this way. Cored ships don’t like landing on planets.” “You sure know a lot of interesting facts,” he laughed. “You like ships a lot?” “I should.” I looked back at him, smile on face. “I’m one of them” The laughter hung hollow in the air. The smile remained on the man’s face, but now it seemed slightly stretched. People reacted differently when realizing I wasn’t human. Most of the locals thought of me as a sort of android. Those that had spend a large amount of space, though, knew differently. “Well, handle with care.” The merchant tapped the crate. “I’d offer to help you carry it, but...” he didn’t finish the sentence. We both knew what he meant. “Maybe see you in a few years.” He waved then headed for the transport station. I remained a while longer looking at the ship. It was just a refit AI vessel, but even so I would have liked to exchange a few words. In the end, I decided not to. It was getting late and I still had an errand to do. There were no cheap antibiotics at the marketplace. Only a few of the stalls still working sold meds and the prices they offered were so high that Sev would get mad at me just thinking about it. I imagine him pacing the room as he grumbled about the good old days. The antibiotics would have to wait a few more weeks. “Time to take you home.” I picked up the crate I was carrying. It felt light for its size, though bulky and uncomfortable. Thankfully most of the people had left making my walk through the market easier. As I made my way through the fields something flickered in the sky. I looked up. A shining grain of light passed above the sunset, leaving this world for another. Maybe it was the merchant I’d bought the parts from? From this distance there was no way to tell. As I looked, I felt a shiver pass through me. I used to be like that once. Even after all this time I still missed the touch of vacuum...
Advacc System, External Patrol zone — 638 A.E. (Age of Expansion)
“How are you holding up, girl?” Cass asked. She had been my captain for half a decade, ever since she graduated the academy. “Surviving the boredom of patrol?” “Barely,” I responded while performing a deep sensor scan. “I still don’t approve of you bringing your family along.” “Command gave the okay. Besides, what do you care? After this flight I’ll be transferred off and you’ll get a new replacement to annoy.” I shut off all the lights on the bridge. Cass only laughed. She knew my tricks, just as she knew I wasn’t being serious. When she was first assigned to me, I couldn’t stand her. She was a bratty cadet fresh from the academy that didn’t know up from down, while I had been recalled from the front line so full of holes that asteroids could float clean through my hull. My previous captain had survived along with the majority of the crew, but in light of the catastrophic events we’d experienced had put in a request that I be reassigned to patrol duty. I appealed, but it didn’t make a difference. The opinions of a ship were rarely considered in arbitration. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft.” Cass turned the lights on manually. “Of course not,” I protested. “I’m worried about the civilians. I don’t want them to suffer because of your decisions.” “Heh. I bet you just don’t want them scurrying through your decks.” That wasn’t entirely untrue. I didn’t like having civilians in me. No battleship did. “Thanks, though.” Cass patted her control panel. “It means a lot coming from you.” “Now who’s getting soft?” “Do you think about it? Getting decommissioned, I mean. Humans are easy—most of us don’t get more than one tour in space. You stay on.” “They call us space ships for a reason.” “I know, but is it worth it? You’ve been through two decades of wars, nearly got destroyed twice, had more captains than I’ve had boyfriends... don’t you think it’s time to retire?” Cass had no idea what she was talking about, and how could she? She was human, more different than the patrol ships I had been forced to serve with. War and void for her were reduced to images on a screen. “I like the touch of vacuum,” I evaded the question. There was no point in getting her upset on her last day. “Are we good to jump to the next waypoint?” “Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?” Cass performed a manual deep space scan. Security protocols required that both ship and captain did the scan of each zone before moving on. “All seems good. Ready for jump?” “Very funny.” She was the only one with authority to initiate the jump, and still she’d ask me every time. It was as if she was trying to establish something deeper than the standard captain-ship partnership. Cute, but useless. In a few hours she’d be gone and I’d have to restart the cycle with some other newbie from the academy. “Here we go.” A single tap of the button and reality twisted around me to infinity. A second later my hull exploded. The shock threw Cass out of her seat as I went into full diagnostic mode. Life support, structural integrity, and system stability were checked and rechecked—all were in the green. Long-range scanners, though, were completely in operational. Immediately I launched all physical and AI countermeasures, while my subroutines continued to assess the damage. “Sev.” I heard Cass groan as medbots surrounded her. The impact had cracked two of her ribs. “Don’t speak, your family is fine,” I lied. A large part of my internal sensors were unreliable, preventing me from knowing for certain. “And don’t move. You might have complications.” “What happened?” “Mines.” I tried to send out a distress call, but couldn’t get a signal out. The mines were probably equipped with jamming technology. According to my short-range scans there were eighty-seven of them, scattered all throughout the jump zone. “Standard diversion tactic. The Cassandrians want to disrupt logistics by cutting off our jump routes.” How did they get so deep in the buffer zone? Someone on the front must have dropped the ball. “I’m not reading any ships nearby. The mines are jamming us, so we won’t be getting reinforcements.” “Fun,” Cass said through her teeth. The painkiller cocktail the bots had injected her with hadn’t kicked in yet. “What are our chances?” “For me, zero.” I didn’t have to go through the numbers. Neither side took ships prisoner. “For you, depends on whether you’re still onboard when they take me down.” Medbots roamed through my corridors searching for surviving crew members as my subroutines attempted to activate the emergency escape pods. Considering the simulations the chances Cass making it were less that point-three percent. If she died, I would have spent more time alive than her, and that felt wrong. I always expected that I would die on the battlefield, fleet statistics confirmed it. Cass, though, believed she’d enjoy retirement surrounded by her children and grandchildren. The universe had a nasty habit of mocking us all. I ordered the medbots to sedate Cass. I knew that if panic hadn’t set in yet, it soon would, especially when she found out what I was about to do. Humans always claimed that they were the ones to act based on personal goals and desires. I too had goals...
The spaceship vanished in the evening sky. I gazed on a few minutes more. I hadn’t exactly achieved my goals, not truly. I had chosen to take a gamble and ram through as many mines as necessary to open a hole in the jamming grid. I had then sent a signal to Command warning them if the situation. My actions had earned me praise, the chance of instant reinstatement to the battle fleet, yet I refused. The incident had left Cass psychologically crippled and her husband dead. Those memories remained part of me. The sun sunk beneath the horizon. Sev was probably pale with concern right now, as he was each time I was away for too long. Grabbing the container, I hurried through the field. Sev was waiting in front of the house as I arrived. The moment he saw me, he turned around slowly making his way inside. “Sorry I was late.” I put the container in the yard. “I saw a ship flying away so I thought I’d look at it for a bit.” “Bah!” Sev grumbled as he made his way to the armchair. “I got the parts. No antibiotics, though. I’ll try to get some cheap ones tomorrow.” “Heh. Antibiotics, who needs them?” Sev grabbed the paper. “That ship... was it anyone you knew?” “Getting soft in your old age?” I laughed on my way to the kitchen. “It was just some ship. I didn’t get to see it up close. You just read your paper and I’ll get dinner ready. Okay?” “Let’s hope I don’t starve by then!” He turned the page. “And don’t undercook it this time!” “I won’t.” I grabbed a pot from the cupboard. After all, I promised Cass I’d always take care of you. Next
My uncle found a podcast on our school website and it’s got me paranoid. I don’t think I’m safe.
“The downfall of man is the arrogance that we are all above the many forms of evil, simply by ideal alone.” My lungs burn, and I had only been running for a good 2 minutes. I really need to stop skipping Sunday-gym. No time to think. Don and Rob were on my tail, running through campus. A car bumps my side. Damn thing really struck me. I slide over the hood like a spy agent. Though, it probably wasn’t nearly as smooth as I imagine it in my head. “This is not what you think it is. If anyone is listening, you’re in the jaws.” I make it inside the building, I curve at the front desk. The lady behind it yells at me to slow my roll, but I ignore. Class 126 of side B in Jimena Hall. Almost there. I bust my ankle ignoring a “wet floor” post which caused me to slip and slide as if I were running on Nickelodeon slime. “If you’ve come for dreams, I wholeheartedly apologize. First victim was before even the very first semester. That girl…they couldn’t even wait.” I busted through the classroom door. The horns shriek, a baritone rips in an upper octave, a guitarist plucked a string. “Hey, what the fuck is this about? Out,” The instructor yelled. There’s another door to the far-left corner. We get in and it’s this storage room for instruments. We’re probably breaking shit as we drop cases in our frantic search for what ‘the man’ told us. There’s a sink with a cabinet under. “Under sink, right corner. The small keys will be there. I leave those keys every morning between the hours of 11:00am and 12:00pm.” It’s not there. I’m searching but it’s not there. “Well, is it there, bro?” Don said. “I doubt it. *******, it’s not there isn’t it? I told you, little man. This is crazy,” Rob said. The instructor was tomato faced. “Is there something you’re looking for, Mr. Henderson?” “No, we’re just leaving. I’m so sorry, Mr. Kay. This is embarrassing behavior,” Rob pleaded. “Just get this fucking lunatic out of my class or I’m calling it in.” Rob grabbed me by the arm while I’m still searching thin air. “Come on, little man. We’ll talk about it later.” As we exit, I take a look at the students. Of course, I’m a bit blue in the face. I do a fake cough and say something like: “Sorry, guys.” Some snickered, others are looking at me like I’m- well, what Mr. Kay said. There’s one that stood up, he wore a green hoodie, green beanie and green pants. Looked at me with his mouth open, a state of bewilderment. Thinking back, it was more a: 'It’s been 3000 years,' type of face. “What a fucking drama-queen. Never got your class interrupted by some paranoid freak?” I think to myself. We get back to my dorm, Rob and Don get me to breath at a normal rate. False alarm. Rob looked at me with the type of glare I hadn't received since childhood. “Are you done acting like a crazy person?” “This was a whole new side of you, my man,” Don said. “I like it, you should do it more often.” “I know what I heard,” I ignored Don and responded to Rob. “We all heard it. I told you, it's just random bullshit or a prank. I thought you were a levelheaded fellow.” Rob was right. Don too, I’ll admit. I must’ve been going nuts. He stayed with Don and I for a while after my little breakdown. We chatted about school, played games, and he helped me with some lab work. It’s evening, I unhook the chain lock and let him out. “…And if you hear any other spooky things: try not to freak out, will you? I don’t get why that shit is there, but it’s nothing to be paranoid about. Got it?” I looked at my feet. “…Got it?” Rob said. “Got it." Don went back to texting on his bunkbed, and I went back to my room. My laptop: still open. Whenever I look at it, can sense a migraine form and I have to look away for a moment to rub my temples. Won't opt to go for another round of deciding which tabs are safe to execute, and which ones I might need at a sooner date. Screw it, I pin all those mother fuckers in one fell swoop. It’s good that I have Uncle Rob here with me. Yes, he’s my actual Uncle. He’s been aspiring to be a technician for years and decided that it would be best to head back for a Bachelors. He always slept on it, as most people do. They say: “I’m gonna go back to school, get my degree, and be back on better footing!” It’s rare that it’s acted on. However, no one in their right minds would have turned this place down at such low cost. Yes, my actual Uncle just so happened to make it to the same college. It also happens that his friend’s daughter, Diana, also made it into the college. That’s one of the things about my university I didn’t get at first. Everyone here knew each other. Not to imply every woman and man here is familiar with one another or grew up in the same neighborhood. No, I just mean that if you see a group of friends, they’ve probably been a group of friends since high-school or even further than that. Was crazy too me. The way I worked it out in my head was that they used familiarity as an incentive for people who’ve been selected to try out the school. A brilliant marketing tactic, but an odd one for a school that should be at the caliber of a Harvard -- at least in the aesthetics department. It suggested that if someone were to sign up, that increased the odds of your friends also being selected if they signed up too. Like, for example: I didn’t know Diana all too well, but Rob knew Diana, and I know Rob very well. Rob doesn’t know Don, but I know Don very well -- so on and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool. It was cool. It’s also…almost too convenient. Of course, that’s the cynic in me. People like me, and I guess people like Brittany Flowers – a former classmate of mine - are always gonna look for the endless “Side-affects may include:” label. My laptop’s calendar displayed Election Day on November 5th, 2019. Great, spoiled my nice, holiday off over that fucking cursed podcast Rob found on our school website. Lemme tell you about it. Toward the end of August, the first semester of sophomore year kicked off. To say the least: it wasn’t off to the greatest of starts. If the year before was a piñata full of treats, sophomore year was like opening one of those cookie jars in your grandma’s house, but lifting the lid revealed some useless appliances instead. There was nothing more quintessential to this than our students & staff website. There, it was normal to see updates that ranged from just about everything. Schedules of activities, classes, your grades, finances, due dates, and my favorite: checking my photography club statuses. Some of the images we took would even appear as wallpapers for layouts and such. All the categories listed on top, you could change how you wanted thumbnails to appear, seamless loading, and Professors responded in record breaking time. There were even these sweet little biographies of every single attendant. Had it all, and it could have still had it all if proper maintenance was consistent. There lies the problem. Updates became slow or nonexistent. On several occasions, I would wake up late for a class, book it there, and upon arrival, I would be greeted to a notification saying the professor wouldn’t be arriving. Witnessed Brittany Flowers roast the living shit out of Mr. Hamilton because he mistakenly put the testing date as a day before it was gonna happen. I can be pretty forgetful, but I refuse to believe that my password was entered wrong 50 times but was magically correct on the 51st. Uncle decided he had enough and attempted to hack into the school’s website to see what was truly going on behind there. He done it with ease -- managed into the website’s scripting, and as he suspected, it was a disjointed mess. He couldn’t believe a school could back something so faulty. It truly was the case that this website was thrown together on a whim, and they could care less what happened to it. In no time, it would be a waste of internet space. There was something interesting he stumbled upon, though. There was some key text labeled: “J1M1NEY P0DCA5t.com”. He was about to click off and wouldn’t have noticed had it not been in all caps and in a different font.No joke, the URL brought him to a podcast. If that seems random or too unbelievable, it definitely is. It was called “Jiminy and the Cold Boys.” According to Rob: these guys were hilarious. Said there wasn’t a minute he wasn’t grasping his stomach from a lack of air, and all his time that morning was spent listening to them. They streamed every morning at 10am, when discovered, it was about 6am, so he saw a message that said: “we will begin at 10:45am, your time.” I gave it a whirl. Got up early, put in the URL on my phone, and tuned in. Jiminy, the host, would introduce himself and the rest of the cast. “Rise and shine stay-at-home sluts, because I know darn too well the husbands are too busy workin’ that 9-to-5 than be listening to this crap in the early bird.” Explosion noises popped off. “I kid, I kid, don’t trip, don’t trip. The spook-time is ridin’ on up through this lovely Monday morning. Of course, ain’t no rodeo without my main men Pete and…what the fuck is your name again? Always forget.” “Yeah, screw you, Pal,” The man who hadn’t been introduced said. Talks of pop culture, new movies, their college experiences, and politics. Also, Rob was right, they were hilarious. Over the next month and a half, I was a regular viewer of their website. It became something of a morning routine, a coping mechanism through first semester, and it helped there was a new stream daily. I would put the URL on my phone, head out with headphones on, and laugh my way over to a lecture. So, it was October 28th, 2019. I’m in the library at Peter Hall waiting for my next class to start. Their stream would end at noon, so it had about 30 minutes left of runtime. Perfect, cause that’s also when I go toward Jimena building, around the corner, for Music History. Their usual schtick of commentary, jokes and mocking each other continued. Would have it on when I studied or did application fill-ins for part-time job offers at the university since they wouldn’t allow you to have one outside of it. “I tell you what, Pete,” Jiminy said. “What’s it to ya, Jim?” “We got so caught up talking about that shit-bird celebrity, I almost forgot about that new scandal. We can’t end this without talking about that.” “Wait, what Scandal? I never heard anything about that, I wanna know,” the third crewmate of their show said. His name was Reso. He always sounded like he was eating but talked with his mouth open. “Say, how come you only tell Pete?” “Reso, cause you take nothing seriously. This is for Pete. That’s why I go to you for the jokes, and Pete for the drama. You probably looked at the divorce papers your wife handed you the same way legally blind senior citizens look at parking tickets.” “You know what, Jiminy? I’m fed up with your shit,” Reso said in between chewing something. “Believe me, Reso, when I say none of us doubt that you’re being fed. Look, there’s this jackass kid, right, Pete? There’s also this old ass bank clerk whose daughter had recently been kidnapped. Sweet little red head named Dia. Now, no one knows who kidnapped Dia. Some theorize it could be apart of some sex trafficking case. Scary shit. Back to this kid. He calls this guy, this clerk, while he’s working. Well, first he called the bank, and they gave him the phone. This kid is also using some payphone, thinking he’s a smart cookie. Tells this poor old fella that he’s the one who has his daughter. If he wants her back, he needs to pay a hefty price. I’ll give it to the knucklehead; he wasn’t too overzealous. He asked for $40,000. Average yearly earning. The old man pleads, begs, but the deal wasn’t happening any other way.” “That’s insane, what kind of evil bastard would do that?” Pete said. “Oh, c’mon. Ya mean to tell me that old man really believed him? No proof?” Reso added. “Yes, also no. Gotta understand, when you have a daughter – something you wouldn’t comprehend, Reso – you would be willing to do anything for ‘em. Anything. The guy already believed the kid, but kid was prepared. Now he was just rubbin’ salt in his wounds. Daughter was a blogger, constant updates on them social medias. He spliced up and edited voice clips of her, played the clips for the old man. You get me? To make it seem like she was asking her daddy to save her. He was convinced, or at least willing to risk it all, but he didn’t have the money in pocket.” “Don’t tell me the old man…He didn’t,” Pete said. “Oh, yes he did. Right under the bank’s noses. No one suspected a thing. Who would? Been there for decades. Old man was caught before the transaction could go through.” Pete cleared his throat. “So…kid got caught?” “You bet your sweet candy ass. The police did a darn simple procedure. His mistake was his usage of the pay phone. I don’t know the mumbo jumbo, but they had a record of the call. It was a matter of checking databases for electrical grids that matched the signals, then using that knowledge to dig up any surveillance of payphone booths within the grid’s radius. They matched the date & time -- caught the sucker.” Pete played a clapping effect from the soundboard. “Hurray for justice. But I can’t believe it’s that easy in 2019 for a clerk to swindle a bank.” “It’s an old story,” Jiminy said. “Huh? You said it was recent.” Jiminy chucked. “It is.” “What?” Pete said. “The story is old, yes. But I reckon the themes are relevant today. In fact, as relevant as it ever will be. Moral of this tale: if it’s too good to be true, don’t take the bait.” After Jiminy said that, he got really close to the mic like someone leaning over a campfire. “But that ain’t where the story ends, folks. Because there’s a twist. See, near closing of the investigation, the police went over to the old man’s house. They heard a ruckus from beneath his floorboards, like vibration or machinery. They went down to his basement, and what they found became the reasoning two out of those three cops retired that same year.” “Well, what is it? What did they find?” Pete asked. “In horrific irony, it turns out that the old man was…actu-…daug-...wome-…h-hosta-...but-…” What shit timing. There was a static hum that brewed over Jiminy’s voice. My pencil laid flat over my homework, my laptop on rest. I refreshed the page, but the static continued. Perfect, perfect, it must be the Wi-Fi acting up. Another stupid thing about sophomore year: the Wi-Fi was twice as shitty. The voice I heard after a few minutes wasn’t Jiminy’s. It wasn’t his crewmates either. Within the static, I could make out distant vocals. Sounded like another man. Turned up volume and paid attention. It was a voice line on repeat. “D-a…Tel-…hear-…” Took every ounce of my concentration to make out anything. “Dia is a Tell-Tale heart, Dia is a Tell-Tale heart, Dia is a Tell-Tale heart, Dia is a Tell-Tale heart.” Okay then… “Red-head too vocal, Red-Head too vocal. She sways opinions.’ Here I thought the college website was buggy, what the hell is this about? “Every day…like clockwork… behind Jiminy’s big sickle… she yells. Same complaint everyday…demands change…” That was the last thing said. Jiminy’s voice return as the static faded. “And so, the investigation came to a close.” “That’s the most terrifying story I ever heard. The world is truly filled with evil,” Pete said. “It sure is, Pete. It sure is.” Great, I’d missed whatever the hell he said. It was noon, their podcast ended, and I was off to my next course. I stepped passed the library doors which triggered a life-sized witch prop that spewed some typical ‘I’m gonna put a curse on you,’ automated line. She held a broom and would look right to left. Threads of spider web fabric decorated the exit of the building with a large tarantula above the sliding doors. I’ll give the school some credit, at least they had still known how to be festive. Most buildings in our little town of a University carried the same decorative theme. Skeletons at the end of every street, carved pumpkins littered the grass mixed with autumn leaves. At Jimena Hall, there was a reaper with a big scythe that haloed the top of the entrance. Inside wasn’t as crowded as usual, thank goodness. I climbed the stairs, and on my way to Music History, I could hear a voice shouting from across the hall. “Don’t make me call my daddy and have him talk to you lot. I guarantee he would not enjoy this crummy B.S.” I recognized the voice. ‘Is that little fireball, Brittany, arguing in one of the finance offices?’ I walk pass and have a peak through the door’s glass. Was right. I got the jest of what had upset her. Among the plethora of ‘things that have gotten worse’ list, our tuition spiked by a couple thousand dollars. I have zero clue if that shit is even legal. She was giving it to them, along with a bunch of other students. They were all in this debate, threats were flown left and right by both Brittany’s led crowd of over-worked students, and irritated staff. I only ever heard her argue with Hamilton, so it was interesting to witness her combat something else for a change. The words “red-head too vocal” from the podcast popped up in my mind. I laugh. “Yes, red-head very vocal indeed.” Then the rest of my day proceeded. The fall sky was dark, I’d returned to my dorm, and Don’s home. I drag my feet to my room and ask Don for some peace and quiet for the rest of the night. He made no promises. Laying my head on a pillow, I stared at the ceiling. After Don had brought Diana over back in September, and she wounded up missing due to some strange circumstances, I spent as much time outside as possible. At that point, I had no idea what happened to her. Then the podcast came up in my mind. That story Jiminy decided to tell -- It was quite random. He wasn’t the type of guy to go off on random tangents like Pete was. ‘And that static interruption? What the hell was that about?’ I still wanted to know what happened at the end there. An idea sprouted. I’d call Rob and ask him. After all, he listened to it too. “Top of the evening, little man,” Rob said. “Hey, you watched the podcast, right? I mean today?” “Yeah, it was funny.” “Yeah, well, my thing screwed up while Jiminy was telling that story at the end. Did you hear what happened with the old man?” Rob goes on to tell me that he wasn’t paying too much attention. Was much too busy helping some freshman out with a “Raspberry Pi” project. However, he recalled hearing some static over the reception so he wouldn’t have heard it either. “Wait, you actually heard it too? Really?” “A little bit. Again, I wasn’t too focused on it, so I turned my volume down when it came.” “There was a voice of a man. I don’t think you would have heard that, though. He said random things. Like…Di-…Dia is a Tell-Tale heart?” “Okay,” he said. I felt he might have been shrugging. “Well…wasn’t it weird?” “I don’t know. Was it?” He wasn’t buying what I was selling, and his demeanor was starting to make me wanna bang my head against the wall. “Okay, listen, never mind. I’ll talk to you later.” When it’s late in the night, I get in the pensive mood. You guys know what I mean, right? Like shower thoughts, almost. You start thinking about things in your daily life, other people’s lives, or even about the universe. Maybe sometimes you look at events that happen to you throughout your day, and you connect dots, for better or for worse. You do this until you get bored, fall asleep without realizing, or most times, until you start getting that sudden “bu-dum” sensation in your heart. Like a jolt that burns your chest, and it makes you go: “okay, that’s enough for now”. Telling yourself that usually doesn’t work. Now, that -- only some of you reading this will get me on. “Dia is a Tell-Tale heart”. Curious. What did it mean? I had zero clue. I re-read Edgar Allen Poe’s story that night. Not that I needed to, everyone knows it. A story about a maniac who kills someone, then hides their body beneath the floor. In the end, the man who committed the deed confessed due to a guilty conscience. My thoughts ran rampant, searching for ideas: ‘Rob heard it too. The static, at least. Was their podcast hijacked? Man, Jimena will be so flipping upset if that’s what happened. It’s gonna be hilarious-‘ Ba-dum. ‘Wait. Jimena? Right, I meant Jiminy. Jimena Hall…Jiminy. Coincidence? Of course.’ ‘But wait. Pete…Peter Hall? Another coincidence, duh.’ “Behind Jiminy’s big sickle, she yells.” ‘Big sickle…like a scythe? The reaper at Jimena’s entrance has a big sickle.’ Bu-dum. ‘You’re thinking too much. Alright, stop thinking. Sleep, you need to be up early.’ Bu-dum. ‘Who’s ‘she’ then? The red head. Brittany was a red head. Brittany was yelling behind Jiminy, or Jimena, building’s big sickle in the finance office. She’s very vocal.’ Ba-dum. Before I knew it, I woke and it’s 2pm in the afternoon. I’m in a cold sweat, but I’m also hot as shit. That burning sensation had never ceased either. “Fuck, I overslept." I get a text from Uncle. “So I heard your little static man.” I respond, still groggy. “What are you talking about?” “I don’t know, you tell me. Was watching Cold Boys, static played, and I heard a voice. Said some weird things.” “Well, what did he say?” “Hard to tell.” “You must’ve made out something. Rob, what did he say?” I said. Was sounding a lot more demanding than I intended to, and I didn’t know why. “Relax, relax, Nephew. He said something like…” “Like…?” “Like get your ass out of bed, into class, right now.” …Sheesh. In all seriousness, he had heard it. When I met up with him, only then would he tell me. Here’s what he heard: “They hide in plain sight...they hide in plain sight…you’re too comfortable.” “Shakespeare…the red head’s paradise…something evil's lurking in the dark...with the dancing zombies…I’ve tied it there at the closet shelf. Find…” It seems that ‘cryptic’ was the name of the game for these podcast interventions. As my uncle and I parted ways after the calculus we shared, it still lingered. Okay, what if I were to play with the idea? I had a two-hour break, there’s nothing to do but study or take pictures for our broken website. Harmless thought game. If Jiminy as in Jimena Hall, Pete as in Peter Hall, and red head as in Brittany, then what would Shakespeare represent? Hmm. As it happens, there is a Shakespeare statue at Monroe – a Hall for theatre. Inside, there’s a well-known drama class, I’ve attended shows there. From the little I knew of Brittany, she wanted to be a famous actor. The building with the Shakespearean statute, for theatre, would be Brittany’s paradise. Ludicrous, absolutely ridiculous. I laughed my way over to Madison. The Shakespeare statue: a stunning piece of magnificence in the afternoon gleam – is what I would say if I wore a scarf, a beret, and had Art as a major. I walk inside. Always loved the way it smelled in there, like a new box of shoes. Probably not the best comparison, but it’s all I got. There’s two adjacent staircases at the far left and right of the room. In the center, there’s a downwards stair that led toward a theatre. It sounded like there was a show or movie playing in there, so walking in was a no-go. Upstairs, there was a corridor that led to a dance class. Even so, how could I approach this? Can’t just barge in and demand to look in their closet. Tried coming up with a bunch of excuses. Until, on the wall, I spotted a list of students from that class who will be in a “Michael Jackson: Thriller” Halloween special. Could this have been the “dancing zombies"? Recognize one of the names. Tommy: a friend of mine. Like a creep, I stare through the glass to see if I could spot him. By lucky odds, he hadn’t shown up that day. Perfect. I walk inside. Everyone stares at me with their tattered outfits and rotted makeup. “Sir, is there an issue?” The lady instructor said. “My friend Tommy is having a sick day, but he said he left something very important in your closet...? Sent me here to pick it up. If you need me to wait, I’ll wait. Sorry for the interruption.” If she'd known why Tommy wasn't there, this plan was gonna fall right on my face. “Seems unlikely. You a friend?” What kind of stupid question was that? Ugh, come on lady, bite. “Yes.” Instructor looked at me like she were looking at the hands of a magician. I wanna take a quick second to mention that the person in the red & black jacket - the person who was supposed to play the part of Michael - would not, not for a second, quit his dance during this interaction. All this while making as much eye contact he could manage. “Fine,” She said while digging in a desk. She tossed a pair of keys to Jackson. He goes “hee-hee”, does a 360 spin, and caught it. He proceeded toward the closet door in fashion of the smoothest impression of the moonwalk I’ve ever witnessed. Like gliding on air with ice skates. I might be remembering this next part wrong, but I swear he managed to toss the key into the lock, like how Michael tossed the coin in the slot. Door open, he did that classic MJ spin away from it. I stepped in. A variety of outfits ranged from mid-west cowboy vest to ballerina blouses hung on the rails. My eyes jumped around from one useless junk to next. “Found what you’re looking for?” Instructor lady said with an unreasonable amount of sass. Shit, I was about to look like an idiot. My brain decided to remember a detail. “I’ve tied it there at the closet shelf.” Tied up, right? At the far end of the shelf, there’s a tied up green plastic bag underneath some books. Took a gamble in grabbing it and exited the closet. Waited to hear the “what are you doing with my—” whatever the hell. However, no one seemed to have a comment about what I had in my hands. Also, the Jackson clone was still spinning, and I have no reason to believe he ever stopped since he opened the door. I hadn’t planned on showing up to that done-to-death Thriller show, but if that crazy fucker would be there, may have reconsidered. “Is that it? Okay, you may go now,” She said. I got outta there. On my way out, wouldn’t you have it, I pass by Tommy. Guess he had been running late. “Oh, wassup man? What are you doing around these parts? Watcha got in your hands?” “Nunya,” I responded. Walked past him while staring at the bag I obtained. Was sure I’d get some flack later over that stunt, but it was trivial. Later that night, I’m home sitting on Don’s bottom bunk since he wasn’t back yet. Finally, I’d get to open this thing and see how much I wasted my time. It was a CD player. Don’t know which model. It was a green, rectangular box. Were some cords at the bottom, a remote, and a disk. I set it up at the living room TV then pressed play. A whole lot of nothing, at first. Top right, the title of the video was labeled as: “Tell-Tale, part one.” There was movement, lots of background fuzz. If you ever tried to record something but didn’t wanna let it be known, you can get the jest. When the camera pulled up, I saw a white room. Busy, but not crowded. Made out some women in lab coats. One of them set off bells. Paused the video on her face, motion blurriness made me take a second to figure it out. This woman looked just like Counselor Burlesque. Before any point or subject of the video could be made, the screen went black. I waited…nothing. I wanted to slap myself. Probably stole someone’s cinema project. I decided it would be best to return it the next day. If you been paying attention thus far, you can guess that’s not what I did. Instead, during a midnight spiral, I dove into more irrational possibilities. Without knowing it, I had set off a cycle that would end up catapulting me into a world of shit. Every day was the same after that. I’d wake up, listen to the podcast, wait for static. There would be a new clue, a new hint, or at least I’d consider them as such. I would pull these mental gymnastics in order to decipher these cryptic locations. After classes, I’d get to each new update. “The King at the library of Reso, I’ve had 110 dreams.” In Residence Hall’s library, I found a CD in a Martin Luther King Jr. biography, on page 110. “Pete found glory in the tiger’s eye.” In a box of CD’s under a cabinet of my Music History class, I took the disk out of Survivor’s “Eye of the tiger” album case. The tape didn’t have any artwork or label. “Is this it?” The disappearance of Brittany Flowers turned the burning coals fueling me into ash. This Easter Egg hunt lasted for a week straight. During that week, she had gone missing after Don brought her over from a Halloween party. Was last seen in our dorm when she mysteriously vanished. Somehow. “Red-Head too vocal. She sways opinions.” Had I been warned about Brittany before it happened? There were twelve of these things. Twelve of these hints I had to decipher and find the prize. I stopped getting CD’s after the tenth. I’ll tell you what the last two were, but for now, I’ll tell you what the CD’s looked like when all together. I got Don to watch them with me. The tapes showcased more of the same, at first. Familiar looking people walking around in lab suits. The person holding the camera was still being discreet. Don was trading glances between his phone screen and the TV. The next tapes are when Don put his phone down. Guy or girl with the camera showed a metal plate, then they plopped something on it. It was the size of a newborn, it was white, its eyes are a yellow color. It stuck like a slug, on it’s back, and it gazed at the camera. “Cool…” Don uttered. “This like a found footage horror?” The next tape started out with the ‘thing’ again. Its eyes stared at the camera. It brought its hands together. ‘What is it doing?’ In slightness, it titled its arms back and forth with every position shift of whoever was holding the camera. The ‘thing’ was that of a mime attempting to give off the impression of interacting with a physical object. ‘Why was it doing this? Why was it copying the cameraman?’ The last tape was the same, almost. It was the ‘thing’, but the cameraman held up a separate camera. He looked around, no one was watching him, he took a picture of it. The flash made it blink rapidly. After a few minutes of studying, it stopped cooperation. ‘Thing’ put its hands down, got still, and then the next moment it fucking exploded. Even Don jumped. It wasn’t loud. There were no blood, goo, or bits flown. It was a silent explosion. An explosion of gas, it turned into steam. Had the camera not been panned on it, we would have thought it vanished into thin air. The cameraman flinched, an audible gasped escaped him. Tape ended there. As I said, there were two more codes to decipher that hadn't led to tapes, so I’ll tell you about those now. The next day: “Reso has big curtains. They conceal the evil eye. Do you hear our hideous heart beats?” It didn’t take me long to make the connection that he was talking about the auditorium in Residence Hall. I made my way there, climbed the stage's staircase and explored behind those red curtains. Spent a good five minutes going in circles, until I spotted a door. It had a pin device on it – a passcode. A key lock on the direction of it. I went to grab it, but then felt a grasp on my shoulder. A security guard pulled me away and escorted me out of the building. That must have been it. All the other messages gave me specific locations in vague ways, but this gave me a general location. There must be something behind that door. ‘Why would he bring me to a door that I had no way of entering?’ The twelfth message is what will bring this update full circle. Rob came over in the early morning with plans to help me with lab work. I asked him about the podcast. He hadn’t known about my scavenger hunting. When I told him about it, he checked me for signs of brain injury. Told him about the tapes too, but he wasn’t having it. He said that I had an opportunity, I should be focusing on school instead of idiocy. He spent half an hour arguing with me that everything I found had been some dumb, elaborate prank. Don sat back and ate imaginary popcorn. “Just forget about it. You have responsibilities, you don’t have time for this shit. Your mother would be furious if she find out how you were kidding around here,” Rob said. “Uncle just hear me out for two seconds. Listen to the podcast with me. We’re gonna hear the message, and we’re gonna decipher what he’ll say. Come with me and you’ll see. I feel like I’m so close to figuring out something.” “About what?” “About this school. You don’t think it’s weird? This entire University is so shady, it’s so illusionary, isn’t it? Who even owns this property? All these benefits, all these opportunities to people who wouldn’t have ever deserved it. How the hell did Don and I ever make it to this place? Yeah, things have degraded this year, but it’s still leaps and bounds over what we deserved.” “Hey, I’m stupid smart,” Don said. We ignore him. “You’re just like your dad, little man,” Rob said. “Always gotta look at the thorns for the roses. A little open arms and you melt like ice cream.” “Just once,” I said. With a sigh, Rob folded. “I’m game,” Don said. “I wanna know what the hell you guys are talking about. Not like you to leave me out of shit, ******.” Rob sat down. “So, what have you ‘deciphered’ so far?” “Pretty much everything,” I explain. “It’s been flawless. Once you get the language down, it’s almost predictable. Wait, I lied. There is one that has me stumped. It’s the very first one that I told you about. ‘Dia has a Tell-Tale heart’.” I explained to them my thought process, how the different names of the podcast crew correlated with the names of our different Halls. Didn’t wanna show him the tapes yet, I needed him to be sucked into my cold world. “That’s the basics of it,” I said. “Still have no idea what ‘Dia’ is and what Edgar Allen Poe had to do with it. I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. There aren’t any areas here I can think of that start with D-I-A.” Rob spared some moments of thought, fed my ideals. That’s when Don popped out of nowhere. “Dia…Dian-…a?” Ba-dum. “What?” I said. “Sorry, that was fucking stupid. Shouldn’t have said that. My fault,” Don said. “No, Don, you brilliant fool. You might be on to something,” I said. Diana is a Tell-Tale heart. A story about a killer who hid someone’s body underneath floor. In open-house, Diana fell through the floor. She then saw something that copied her “every movement”. Something white with yellow eyes. The ‘thing’ in the tapes, the mimicking, the lab, the silent explosion into steam – I’m so close. On cue, Jiminy’s voice came from my phone. We sat through it. At the end, the static came in per usual. Only this time, he had a lot more to say. “The downfall of man is the arrogance that we are all above the many forms of evil, simply by ideal alone.” “If you’ve come for dreams, I wholeheartedly apologize. First victim was before even the very first semester. That girl…they couldn’t even wait. This is not what you think it is. If anyone is listening, you’re in the jaws.” “Jimena Hall, B side, class 126. Under sink, right corner. The key to her heart will be there. I leave those keys every morning between the hours of 11:00am and 12:00pm.” That was the first time he wasn’t cryptic. Rob was stunned, Don had a smile on his face like he just joined a secret club. I checked the time. He said from 11:00am to 12:00pm. It was 11:40. Before anyone could say a word, I bolted out of our apartment and headed towards where he said. You know the rest. We make it there before twelve o’clock, interrupt a band class. Whatever he insinuated didn’t turn out to be there. Looked like an idiot. On our way back to my dorm, Uncle and I talked. “What’s been up with you, lately? Off your rockers,” He said. I confessed everything, about the impacts of Diana’s and Brittany’s disappearance on our watch. How it affected me. He put his hand on my shoulders. “Still tearing yourself up over that? You put too much weight on your back. If only I knew this was still the problem, I would have remembered to tell you sooner. Figured someone must have informed you already. I'm sorry, nephew. Thought it stopped being a bother to you a while ago. Just like your dad, flawlessly making it seem like everything is fine and dandy.” “Tell me what?” “Go talk to Sal, her roommate. She knows more about what happened than I do. She works at that little café you like. Diana is fine. I talked to her mother just a few days ago. As for Brittany, I don’t know. But you said the security people weren’t worried about it, right? Give it a rest.” It took me some time to get around to it. I needed things to go back to normal for a minute before I worked up the courage. The podcast had also stopped airing, the website no longer available. No clue why, but it was a blessing, I was able to take my mind off of everything. I stopped by the Café on November 17th, Sal and I talked for a while, and she gives me confirmation of Diana’s whereabouts. Even showed me a recent photo of her back home. She was safe. Made the past week seemed almost pointless. It was almost enough. If you’ve read the first post in this series, you know that Sal’s explanation nearly brought everything to a sense of bliss. The tapes, the website, the codes – strange? No doubt. That didn’t matter. During that week of diving into that podcast, I couldn’t eat more than one meal a day. I’d fall asleep with a burning chest and wake up exhausted. My own dorm was a lion’s den for my mental state. Communication with Don dwindled, like I were living with a stranger. If things were going to get back to a regular program, I needed to take uncle’s advice and shove everything behind me. I was gonna shut up, get through the days, study hard, and the years until graduation would pass in no time. As I walked home after meeting with Sal, I decided that would be my dream moving forward: move on. A dream shattered when I grasped the knob to my home and made a realization about the chain lock. A dream shattered when I walked into my apartment, headed for my room, but noticed the sound of footsteps come from behind me. As I looked back at the apartment door and saw shadows of feet scurry across the bottom light line. On the ground lied an envelope, an envelope someone slid from underneath. I picked it up, hearing the steps get further away from my dorm. On the heading were the words: “My favorite color is green. Your lucky numbers are: 2, 2, 5 and 1.” I opened it. Inside remained a small key. Part 4 Part 2 Part 1
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