“What do you mean, honey?” The mother replied.

“Well, you’re happier today. You don’t usually sing.”

The mother smiled. Her teeth were less full of plaque today, and her hair was combed out perfectly.

“Do you like it when I sing?”

“I don’t know…”

“Does it soothe you?”

“... Kinda…”

“Then that must be a good thing, right?”

“I was just wondering why. Is something happening?”

He could never know what it meant to her.

“Well, you’re going to have a new little sister soon.”

“Were you this happy when you had Ben? I don’t remember.”

Maybe when I was hoping he would be my little girl.

“Absolutely, my dear. You are my pride and joy. And she will be too.”

The mother brushes the young boy’s hair. She keeps a hand gently cupped against his soft face.

“Everyone I have is so important to me. You are my little rays of sunshine.”

The young boy slouches forward again.

He looks around now and then.

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you hate me…?”

“What?”

“Do you hate me?”

“Why would you ever think such a thing?”

“I just need to hear that you don’t….”

“I don’t hate you. I hate what you are.”

“I hate that I cannot share my art with you, Dahl, up in the attic.”

“I hate that I cannot share my art with your brother Ben.”

“I hate that your father doesn’t look at my art anymore.”

“I hate how you all see me as a mother.”

“I hate how you all see me as a wife.”

“I hate how your father sees me as a pastime.”

“I hate how that is the reason we have so many children.”

“I never wanted you.”

“I wanted daughters.”

“Daughters that could appreciate me for the artist that I am.”

“Daughters that could see me for who I am.”

“Daughters whom I can pass on my work to.”

“I’m tired of being a caged animal.”

“I want to rip you all apart. I want to turn you into beautiful, dripping statues.”

“I would love to turn you into something Michelangelo would wince at seeing!”

“And when I have this daughter, I won’t need anyone else.”

“She will be more perfect than anyone in the world.”

“Just let me have her.”

“I will be your wife and mother and pastime.”

“If you just let me have this one thing.”

“I want to feel love again.”

“I want to know what it’s really like.”

“But I feel none for you.”

…

…

…

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

“You give me purpose in life.”

“And you are the best little tykes that have ever, and will ever, happen to me.”

“Do you understand…?”

The young boy looked back at her.

He softly trembled as he leaned forward once again.

No matter her words, he felt that a portion of the truth was lost.

The mother let out a sigh and leaned back as she finished brushing.

“I think I’ll name her Lisa…”

“She’ll be perfect…”

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It was a dirty, broken town, but it was all I could find nearby.

I passed by rows of houses.

More than one had police tape in front of it.

I locked my doors while I drove.

I parked in front of the complex.

The paint peeled more than when I last saw it.

I climbed the creaking, quaking staircase up to my room.

Unpacking took much longer than I would’ve liked.

My hand hit something in one of the last boxes.

A frame.

Two dancing figures.

Smiling.

Carefree.

Happy.

I let the picture sit in the box.

Cold and alone.

— Did you make it home safe?

— Yes.

— Did you finish unpacking?

— Yes.

— ….

— ….

— Did you eat today?

— No.

— You know I don’t like it when you forget to eat.

— I know.

— Okay.

— ….

— Call me if you need anything else.

I said nothing and hung up.

I stared at the pebbled wall, losing track of time.

I woke up in the middle of the night.

I turned to my door in silence.

I wanted to walk out of my bedroom.

I wanted to turn on the lights for the first time.

I wanted to complain about the peeling paint and the police tape outside.

I wanted to pour out a drink and laugh.

I wanted to go back to bed with weight against my back.

But that never happened.

Instead, I stared up at the ceiling, hoping that a miracle would happen.

It didn’t.

I waited until sunrise.

The new supermarket sold steaks in packs of one.

I hadn’t noticed that before.

They were smaller than the ones Daniel and I used to buy. Individually wrapped beside the larger packs.

I wondered who they were for. Then I put one in my basket.

Pepper steak.

We used to have it on Fridays.

Not every Friday, but often enough that I knew the recipe without thinking.

Butter.

Black pepper.

Cream.

A little too much red wine.

Daniel always complained about the pepper and then added more at the table.

I hadn’t planned on making it.

I hadn’t planned on buying wine either.

But at seven that evening I was standing in my new kitchen, stirring the sauce with one hand and drinking from a glass with the other.

I would probably drink the whole bottle.

That was new too.

There were still boxes along one wall.

BOOKS.

WINTER.

MISC.

The last one had spent nine years in the garage without ever becoming less miscellaneous.

The steak was slightly overcooked.

Daniel would have mentioned it.

That’s when I noticed the lamp.

It was in the apartment across the courtyard.

Tall.

Black shade.

Brass base.

For a moment I thought it was mine.

I actually turned around.

Mine stood beside the sofa.

When I looked back, the other one was still there.

Apparently Mum hadn’t bought the only one in existence.

The apartment looked familiar too.

Same kitchen. Same narrow opening into the living room.

Grey sofa against the far wall.

Television roughly where mine stood.

Close.

Not exact.

Probably.

A man walked into the apartment.

Maybe fifty.

White T-shirt.

He put something down in the kitchen and disappeared again.

I realized I’d been watching him.

When I carried my plate to the sink, he was sitting on the sofa.

The lamp was on beside him.

I washed my plate.

The next morning the apartment was dark.

I noticed because I looked.

I made coffee and used the blue mug.

Around 7:40, I left for work.

By the time I reached the street, I’d forgotten about the apartment.

Mostly.

On Thursday the lamp was on again.

The man wasn’t there.

I was unpacking books.

The bookcase was second-hand.

Five shelves.

A scratch along one side that disappeared if I pushed it close enough to the wall.

Books on the top two shelves.

Nothing on the third.

A white ceramic bowl on the fourth.

The bottom still empty.

Across the courtyard stood another bookcase.

Five shelves.

Books on the top two.

Nothing on the third.

Something white on the fourth.

I went to the window.

A bowl.

I looked at mine.

Then at the lamp.

The sofa.

The table.

The chairs.

I’d bought the table with three black chairs.

The fourth was wooden, from a second-hand shop near work.

Across the courtyard:

Three black.

One wooden.

His wooden chair was pushed slightly away from the table.

Mine wasn’t.

That helped.

I went back to the box.

At the bottom was one of Daniel’s socks.

I held it for a moment.

Then threw it away.

I saw the man the following morning.

He stood in the kitchen drinking coffee.

I was doing the same.

Two strangers in two kitchens, looking out at the same grey morning.

Late forties, maybe.

Grey hair.

Glasses.

Nothing familiar about him.

That helped too.

When I turned back from the fridge, he was gone.

His mug sat on the table.

Blue.

I looked at mine.

– Of course it is.

That evening I deliberately didn’t look.

I made pasta.

Put a load of washing on.

Watched television.

At some point I realized I was sitting on the right side of the sofa. I usually sat on the left.

There wasn’t a reason for that.

The sofa was three weeks old.

Still, the left side had somehow become mine.

I went to the kitchen for water.

The man was sitting on the right side of his sofa.

One leg tucked beneath the other. His arm along the back cushion.

I looked towards my living room.

My place on the right side was empty.

I closed the curtains.

I didn’t want to see what he did next.

I called my brother the following evening.

– Everything okay?

– Yes.

– You sure?

– Why wouldn’t it be?

– You called me.

– I call you.

– Not usually on a Saturday.

I sat at the kitchen table.

– Do you remember the bookcase you helped me pick up?

– Unfortunately.

– There’s one exactly like it in the apartment opposite.

– My condolences to them.

– And the shelves are the same. Same books. Same bowl. Same empty shelves.

He was quiet.

– You can see the titles from there?

– No.

– Then they’re not the same books.

The light across the courtyard came on.

The man entered the kitchen.

– He’s there.

– The man with the bookcase?

– Yes.

– Does he know you’re watching him?

– I’m not watching him.

My brother laughed.

– You’ve just described his shelving system.

– I’m serious.

– I know.

That was worse.

– Have you spoken to Daniel?

– This isn’t about Daniel.

– I didn’t say it was.

– You were going to.

Another pause.

– You’re living alone for the first time in nine years. New apartment. You’re not sleeping properly.

– So I’m imagining furniture?

– Maybe you’re noticing things you normally wouldn’t.

Across the courtyard, the man filled a glass.

– Stop looking out the window for a few days.

– Great advice.

– You called me.

Someone spoke in the background.

– I have to go.

– Sure.

– And leave the poor man alone.

I hung up.

I didn’t.

I started taking photographs.

One in the morning.

One when I came home.

Sometimes one before bed.

I thought photographs would show me the differences.

They didn’t.

On Sunday morning my blue mug stood beside the sink.

His didn’t.

The following morning it did.

Same place.

Same colour.

Almost twenty-four hours later.

I wrote it down.

On Tuesday I left my cardigan over the wooden chair.

The following morning his chair was empty.

When I came home, a dark cardigan hung over it.

About half a day.

I wrote that down too.

On Thursday I came home carrying groceries.

My coat missed the hook and fell to the floor.

I left it while I unpacked.

Milk.

Eggs.

Bread.

Another steak in a pack of one.

That evening the man came home carrying a paper bag.

He put it down.

Took off his coat.

It fell to the floor.

He left it there.

Six hours.

Roughly.

Then he unpacked.

Milk.

Eggs.

Bread.

He opened the fridge.

Moved something on the middle shelf.

Closed it.

I had done the same.

The wine had been in the way.

Then he walked to the window.

He looked directly at me.

I stepped back.

Six hours earlier, I had stood in exactly the same place.

His apartment had been empty.

He wasn’t watching me.

Six hours earlier, there had been no one for me to watch.

On Friday I tested it.

I moved the wooden chair into the middle of the kitchen.

19:08.

Then I waited.

At 21:06 the man walked into his kitchen.

He pulled out the wooden chair.

Carried it into the middle of the room.

Left it there.

19:08.

21:06.

I wrote it down.

Even if I didn’t need to.

At 21:31 I moved my chair back beneath the table.

Then I put on my shoes.

The entrance to his building was across the courtyard.

The stairwell smelled of dust and someone’s cooking.

I climbed to the third floor.

Same floor.

Same position.

The door did not look exactly like mine.

The color was more faded.

21:46.

It had seemed like a better idea before I got there.

I knocked.

Three times.

Nothing.

– Hello?

Still nothing.

I almost left.

Then I knocked again.

Three times.

I wanted him to answer. Tell me I was wrong.

A floorboard creaked inside.

Then a step.

Another.

Someone walking towards the door.

I stepped back.

The footsteps came closer.

I left.

I crossed the courtyard quickly.

Unlocked my door.

Locked it.

Then the deadbolt.

My chair was beneath the table.

His was still in the middle of the room.

21:54.

I poured water.

Spilled some.

Sat down.

I thought about calling my brother.

Leave the poor man alone.

22:03.

I looked at the door.

Then across the courtyard.

His chair was still in the middle of the kitchen.

Mine wasn’t.

Not yet.

19:08.

21:06.

One hour and fifty-eight minutes.

I had moved mine back at 21:31.

Then I thought about the knocking.

– Shit.

I checked the locks.

Closed the curtains.

Moved the small table from beside the sofa into the hallway.

It wouldn’t stop anyone.

I put it there anyway.

At 23:26, I opened the curtains a few centimeters.

His chair was still in the middle of the kitchen.

23:27.

Nothing.

23:28.

The man entered.

He picked up the chair.

Put it back beneath the table.

23:29.

I closed the curtains.

I sat on the floor opposite the door.

My phone beside me.

The refrigerator hummed.

A car passed outside.

23:34.

I tried to remember exactly when I’d knocked.

21:46 outside the building.

A minute or two up the stairs.

Then I’d stood there.

Three knocks.

23:40.

Nothing.

23:43.

Nothing.

There had been no reason for him to move the chair.

Or leave his coat on the floor.

Or look into an empty window.

He had done it anyway.

23:46.

I picked up my phone.

23:47.

Nothing.

23:48.

Nothing.

I felt stupid.

Relieved, but stupid.

Then I remembered.

I had knocked twice.

Three knocks came from the other side of the door.

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“Mommy!” Dahl yelled. My reaction was delayed; I turned my head slowly toward my boy with a bright smile on my face.

“Yes, dear?”

“When’s dinner gonna be done?!”

“In about thirty minutes, dear! Promise!”

My eyes lingered on him as he walked down the hallway with a soft pout. I felt my finger twitch as I ran it along the cutlery in my hand, my pupils darting softly along the beautiful black of the hallway. The color of silence. I kept that smile on my face as I put a kettle on the stove full of tea before going back to cutting the meat. I pushed my knife down harder than before my firstborn came in.

Everyone was gathered around the table by the time I finished plating. I sat across from my father-in-law, Clint, who was ‘visiting’ for a few months. He neglects to tell anyone that this is the third time he’s visited like this since I met Richard. He was pleasant enough and had wonderful table manners. It was comforting not having to clean up after someone else.

“So, you heard about my campaign, right?” Richard said with a confident smile. “I’ve been thinking about running for mayor.”

“Is that right?” I replied with shaky enthusiasm. “Well, aren’t you rising up in the world quickly?! I’m so excited for you, honey!”

“Maybe you’ll keep to it this time, eh?” Clint chimed in. “You used to say that when you weren’t wedded. Maybe she’ll be better motivation for you to follow through this time.” He wheezed after his words rang true.

I glanced over at my husband, and behind the soft chuckle, there was a flare in his eyes– a blow to his ego. He could be so damn soft-skinned sometimes.

“Oh, stop now. You know my Richard is very opportunistic. The past few years probably weren’t good times! Not enough for someone of his talents, anyway.”

“Thanks, hon, but he’s not entirely wrong. I do think it’s about time I followed through on my promises. I do have people I want to do this for.”

Richard’s smile became less cocky and more nurturing as he leaned over to his young boy, who had been distant from everyone else around him. Even when his father spoke to him initially, he didn’t fully pay attention.

“You hear that, son? Your dad’s gonna make it big in this town. Then you’ll have a way bigger house to play in. Bigger toys too!”

“Really?” Dahl’s eyes flipped up finally, filled with sudden awe. If I were a better Mom, I would’ve taught him to be less greedy and bratty than his father earlier.

“Really.” Richard went back to eating after he said that. I didn’t speak any further; my purpose was fulfilled.

After dinner, I collected everyone’s dishes and washed them promptly. I had put another kettle of tea on the stove, primarily for myself that night. As Dahl passed by, I glanced over.

“Hey, lovely boy!” I suddenly exclaimed. It made him jump slightly. “I told you I was going to show you how to paint sometime. Wouldn’t you want to do that tonight?”

“I dunno….” Dahl said, holding onto his arm insecurely. “Daddy told me I should focus on being good in school…”

I stop cleaning for a moment. I sigh and raise my hands from the sink and walk over to him, kneeling to his level. His father is poison and doesn’t deserve him as I do.

The kettle started to steam.

“Dahl… you’re just a boy,” I say. My voice softens from its usual joyful tone. I think like a Mother more than a perfect housewife. “You aren’t going to be working for a long, long time. Yes, school is important for making a big boy smart, but don’t think you aren’t allowed to have fun as a kid. Do what you think would be fun for you.”

Dahl doesn’t look me in the eye at first, but then stares up sincerely at me. “Okay…”

“Within reason!” I flip the switch in my brain again. I raise my finger. “Don’t turn into a delinquent now!” I let out a soft laugh and pat him away. And as he walks to his room, I get back to cleaning. I feel myself zone out while I press a sponge against a crusty plate.

The kettle started to whistle. I didn’t want children. I lay like a dead fish in bed, resigning myself to what I was kept around for. When I came home from the hospital, the kettle’s whistle pitched higher, and I smashed a palette into pieces because I knew that Richard would take my child away from me, make them into a perfect little soldier for him to make into a politician or salesman or someone to help back him no matter how old they were. I wanted a girl. Why couldn’t it have been a girl? We would be perfect together as we painted the world’s pain onto our canvas. We would be ignored together. Why couldn’t we have tha

The kettle whistled loud enough to send a shock through the whole house, steam shooting out of the spout and across the kitchen. I rushed and quickly turned off the stove, the intense whistling and heat starting to fade away after some time. I stood over the tea kettle for some time, taking the top and popping it off, even if it burned my fingertips. I stared at the steaming tea. Richard would love this, wouldn’t he? I remembered all the time I had away from my art. All the time it took to raise a child. All the time it took to keep a house clean. It was expected of me. I had to do it. I had to be good. Or else there would be no more time for me at all.

I drag my hand across my swollen belly, sitting against the wall as I hold my arm around the bundle. I see an image of a bird, pecking its way through my guts. The pain is unbearable, but also rapturous at the same time. I groan, scraping the floor until my nails chip under the pressure and my toes curl. The sharp thunk, thunk, thunk keeps eating its way through the placenta, past the intestines, and against the skin. It lurches within me, like someone pushing their hand from within Jell-O. Then, like a bear mauling someone in a tent. And eventually, it bursts out, shooting the remnants of what it hadn’t eaten across the floor and walls. And like a glorious eagle, it spreads its wings, fully grown and aware, and basks in the bloody aftermath. My torture is unmatched, but I laugh in the final moments before I pass.

But then the image fades, and I’m still sitting here, hand around my little bird.

Please be my little girl.

Or at the very least, be my death.

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It occurred to me that I had been shot before, and as I shifted, I could still feel the pain of where it had entered. The memories all came flooding back– the burning sent through my whole body from being shot by Beckett, my supervisor at the Grant County Police Department, and the man who was the accomplice to the sick freak that, in a twist of fate, was the one who had saved me from dying on the floor of that barn cellar. The image of The Artist, Caesarina Carlson, shoving a chisel through that man’s neck stayed with me as I lay in darkness. I could still see him, writhing on the floor and soaking in his blood as Caesarina stood over both of us, covered in her newest victim’s plasma.

I hadn’t seen true evil until I looked into that woman’s eyes. Even in the darkness of the cellar, they appeared to glow as they looked down at me, charged with a gut-lurching excitement at seeing the man she had been tormenting as her “biggest fan” for so long. Her eyes weren’t lifeless– quite the opposite: they were filled with a desire of the purest variety, as if everyone else’s pleasures paled in comparison to her own. Her pupils almost looked dilated after catching sight of me, like an excited cat staring at its newest prey. She was completely unbothered by the blood covering her face; she knew the feeling of it streaking across her body by now, no doubt. But she looked more alive than ever, despite the almost corpse-like paleness of her skin and the dry yellow of her dirty teeth. More alive than ever.

And that’s what put the fear of God in me.

Suddenly, the world around me stood still. The engine started to pipe down. The sound of a door opening and closing rang out momentarily in my ears, and so did the following footsteps that crunched under their feet. And finally, when there was light, the sun’s rays were hell upon me, and the devil was peering in at me.

“Welcome home, love.~”

Despite my writhing protests, she managed to haul me into the house. It was a rural home in the middle of nowhere, small and out of the way of the town and other homes. And as she dragged me through the house slowly, I could make out the small oddities of grim happenings– dark stains left unclean on the couch, missing steak knives in a storage block, and a few broken chips of cups left untouched. I could only imagine the many kills that we were not allowed to see that Caesarina had committed– the many that were not worth turning into the pieces of art that she so desperately desired to display. A dark swirl stirred in my gut, knowing that even if she were somehow arrested or killed, all of her murders would not be known– the full extent of her depravity would not be known to the world at large.

Eventually, she lugged me into one of the bedrooms and pushed me onto the mattress. She took a handkerchief from the bedside table and patted her face, letting out a sharp exhale. “My, my, you have put me through the wringer today!” She exclaimed. She spoke as if what was happening was so mundane and generic. “Now then, let’s take a look at that wound.” She leaned forward, looking to peel back the bandage on my chest, much to my chagrin. I continued to thrash back and forth, still trying to futilely break out of my bindings while trying to get her away from me. Every time she made a move, every time I glanced at her decrepit face, I was reminded of the endless torment she had put me through– the many sleepless nights caused by a faceless monster. Now that she had a face I could put it to, I was never going to forget it.

Seeing her in full like this was surreal; her skin was as pale as a ghost, and despite being in her 40s, perhaps pushing 50, she was without a single wrinkle, and her hair was without a single gray thread, aside from the odd paint splatter in her hair that came from her obsessive amount of painting, most likely. Her face was peppered with white makeup, and she wore a red wrap frock dress, with heart patterns scattered across it and cute black buttons dancing along the center; it looked as though she was less from the 1940s and more like some kind of twisted caricature of a housewife who lived during that time, made even more apparent by the slightly stained cross across her neck and the hairpin on her hair shaped like a Persian’s head. She was a predator, trying to give off the facade of normalcy and even innocence, when in reality, she was the type of woman to cook you a wonderful dinner with the meat from her latest victims.

“Oh, come on now; don’t be like that,” Caesarina grumbled, getting actively more agitated as she spoke. “I know it hurts so much, but it’s okay! I’m here now, and I will be sure to take very good care of you until your time comes. Now stop moving so I can see!”

Her voice, usually playful and giddy, became more frustrated and aggressive as her arm shot out and held onto my face. She climbed on top of my stomach to anchor me down, eventually moving to peel back the bandage to inspect the gunshot wound. She tilted her head back and forth, her small nose scrunching up slightly.

“Hm… could be better, could be worse. The bleeding has gone away, so that’s all we can ask for. Good. Good good good good good,” she murmured to herself. She eventually pulled the bandage off of me, looking up at me afterwards and pressing two crooked fingers against my temple, nurturingly rubbing the side of her knuckles against me like a tender lover. The feeling made me shiver, hating how supportive she felt; the idea that someone like this could act so deceptively soft made bile rise in my throat. She was a snake, sizing up her prey until she was ready to swallow it whole, and I was the mouse caught in her coils.

She left the room momentarily and came back with fresh bandages, humming softly as she tended to my wound. “You know… I’ve been waiting for this. Ever since I saw you and the others in the barnhouse… your striking reactions to my work. It’s always a pleasure to see. But you… you were so determined to find me. The way you looked at it… it was like you were looking at me; a reflection of my soul! I could see it in your eyes,” she articulated, smiling at me with those decaying teeth. “You reject me, yet you don’t. Why else would you pursue me so much?” Her hand softly caressed along my skin as she was finishing up the bandaging.

“You continue, day-by-day, even with all those nights that you lose sleep.” I continue to shake with the implication until she confirms it outright. “The way you look when you finally sleep… sometimes it’s so peaceful. But when you come back to reality… it all comes crashing down on you. I know how you feel.” She leaned close. The smell of her breath was as foul as the corpses that she dressed up as ‘art’. It made me gag against the tape on my mouth. “I would love to hear your voice and what you think!”

She kept this gaze on me, as if waiting for a reply that couldn’t come. Eventually, she moved to pull out a chisel from under her dress, pressing it as tenderly against my cheek as she did her finger. It was still stained with Beckett’s blood.

“Now… let me take this off you… But if you scream, I’ll have to take your tongue privileges away! As long as you’re good, I’ll be good. Okay?”

I kept quiet, even if I didn’t want to. The only chance I had to stay alive the longest was to play this game of hers. I didn’t speak to her when she cut the tape off initially, and eventually she grew bored and walked into another room. She spent hours away, leaving me to lie there like a deer’s corpse splayed on top of a hunter’s car. I could hear her humming in the other room, carrying the tune of nursery rhymes and children’s songs. The sounds I heard were rather ghastly: doors opening, a loud thump following it, and after that, long moments of screeching and squeaking. It occurred to me some time after hearing this that what she was dragging were bodies. I was left only imagining how many there were, spacing out into the blank white above me, staring at the ceiling in absolute despair.

In those moments of silence, a huge wave of regret washed over me about everything– I ended up coming to the thoughts of my childhood, when I saw so many missing posters all around Grant County. I saw them every day when I rode the bus to school every morning– on the sides of telephone poles, on trees in the local park; hell, a few were sticking to road signs. And as I grew up more and more, seeing that number barely reduce at all, I began thinking of the parents who had to endure the pain of knowing their little boy or girl, and how unfair it was for the parents to get the news after waiting for so long that they’d have to bury their children before they themselves were in the ground. It was what drove me into the situation that I was in at this moment, graduating from the academy to catch all the people who took pleasure in the unfairness of the world.

I was unprepared for the true depths of depravity these people went into. Would I have been happier doing something else with my life? What difference did I make here? Was I the reason more people were killed? How many did she kill in my name? To taunt me? Or out of some strange, sickening love for me as the one constantly chasing her?

At that very moment, I truly wanted to die. I deserved it for being so obsessive. So falsely determined. So weak.

“If you’re going to kill me, just fucking do it already,” I said when she brought me dinner that night, trying to feed me soup with a spoon. I already told her I wasn’t hungry, but she insisted until she started to force the food into my mouth. The question drew a confused look to her face, the unlit, unfiltered cigarette in her mouth nearly falling out.

“Kill you? Why would I do that now? You haven’t even told me how you want to die yet.”

My mind went blank when she said that. “Excuse me?”

She stood up and huffed like a child. She fumbled around in her pocket for an uncomfortably long time, only to take out a lighter and light the end of her cigarette.

“Do you know what Perfect Death is like?”

I held my tongue. My brain wanted to say ‘fuck off,’ but my mouth instead said, “... No. Not at all.”

She smiled, exhaling as a large plume of smoke came out of her mouth. “You’ve seen it before, silly! Or at least, what I’ve considered their Perfect Death. All art is subjective, but they also tell a story, both about the subject and the artist. Is it not fitting for the ending of someone’s life to say something about their lived experience as a whole? And how it’s affected them and others?”

“That’s not for you to decide!” Eventually, I couldn’t hold back any longer. Hearing her voice talk about people like art to be displayed… if I was going to die anyway, I was going to say something. “If art is subjective, then what makes you so sure that you can capture it so well compared to how they see it themselves?! To the people they love?! Is that why you’re killing people?! Just for that?!”

She took another breath as I yelled, filling the room with more haze. Despite her excitable attitude before, she seemed deathly calm here. Straight-faced. Determined in what she was saying. “Richie thought himself to be a bigger shot than he actually was. He’s lost a lot more as a politician than he’s gained, even if he’d lie to himself and say otherwise.” Another breath. Another haze. “The other one you saw, Jenna, always thought positively of her life and of others. But she was unhappy with the position she was in life, playing a role she had dreamed of the best she could, even though that dream was crushed. She just never admitted it to herself and others.” The room’s smokiness grew thick, making me cough loudly the more she obsessively took continued hits from her cig. Her calm demeanor started to falter as she looked at me, her smile growing. “And you… you want to pretend like you’re doing this for the greater good. You know what I see?” She giggled excitedly. “I can see it in your eyes– that dull gaze that comes from accepting the abyss of your obsession. You wanted to find me, so you’d have purpose in that long line of boring cops who break so easily to every whim, but YOU, no, you are so much more different! Look at you! Yelling in the face of your own killer!” She inched closer as she spoke, stirring up an insidious, chittering laughter as she got closer. The cigarette dropped out of her mouth, and she crushed it with enthusiasm. I was still left coughing, both from the lingering smoke and the horrible, cannibalistic breath expelled from her mouth.

“People lie to themselves all the time, Augie. I stopped a looooong, looong time ago, and when I did, oh my GOD, it was glorious for me! And I see it! I see the lifetime of those so clearly!” She paused to take a breath. She looked maniacal, her eyes wide and her breathing hard. She had her hand on my arm, her nails softly digging into my skin. My heart beat rapidly as the devil continued to speak into my ear. “I don’t want to kill you until we find your Perfect Death together, because I want you to take that death into your hands and wear it! Wear it proud ‘till your last fading breath! I wish it could last forever and ever and ever; the endless chase and admiration of one another! You know as well as I that we give each other that great purpose! Oh yes, you cannot imagine what your eyes seeing my soul on the canvas has done for me!” She was losing more and more control, her nails digging deeper while spit and drool were coming out of her mouth.

“I dream of what you see in my work– you see me, ALL OF ME, as I see you! And you chase me down because you know from the bottom of your heart that you want to see all of my soul; you want to see more so you can piece together who the big fat mystery is, huh?! No… You wanted to see me, in all of my glory! You want the full picture, but not for the reasons you think you do! And I know you’ve seen that! You see your soul for what it truly is! I LOVE THAT! I LOVE YOU!” My body shuddered in repulsion, pulling on the restraints involuntarily in absolute terror as she drew herself back a bit and cackled hideously, spit flying onto the floor and her neck lurched forward uncomfortably. Then, suddenly, she halted.

She whined softly, immediately changing her expression in a fleeting mood swing to something more depressing. “And I’m going to miss you so, so much when you leave me. But… you flew too close to the sun. Too close… too close….”

And then… a realization came to her face, a smile slowly starting to creep onto her face. “Yes, yes yes yes… that’s a wonderful idea!”

“What-”

She got close again, moving to run her hand through my hair. “You are absolutely beautiful! You’ve helped bring an idea for your Perfect Death. But I’ll make this special for you. You have been such a wonderful inspiration for me! I wanted you to be more involved in your death… but this is true perfection. But I’ll make it great! Don’t you worry!”

And in a form of twisted affection, she pushed a soft kiss on my forehead even though I recoiled in absolute disgust. “I’ll make sure my biggest fan is taken care of. And you are given a wonderful, perfect death.”

And before I knew it, a sharp pain in my neck hit my neck, and my vision darkened around me.

I came to with a sudden shooting pain flowing through my back, immediately screaming in agony before realizing my mouth had been taped up again. My body wanted to flail, but couldn’t. I looked around, panicked, as I screamed into the tape, seeing that I was now placed in the basement on top of a table, bare and naked. The darkness was disrupted by an orange light behind me, which came with the searing pain that ran through my whole body. My eyes darted around as I sweated profusely from the pain, seeing the silhouettes of legs and hair behind the large shelves and misplaced furniture around me, their obscurity only slightly dissipated by the flash of the hellfire.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, dear,” I heard her say. “I wanted you to be out of it so it would be a little surprise! I promise it won’t be much longer! Just be strong for us.” And she continued immediately after, leaving me wanting to writhe with the pain. At that moment, I didn’t care whether or not she was killing me or not– I wanted to fight some way. I was done being weak. Psychosis had started to hit me, and I just did what popped into my head. My teeth caught a small lip of the tape and bit down on it hard as the pain continued, grinding and pulling more and more, the force giving way for minutes at a time, until eventually, when she struck a particularly sensitive nerve with the flame, I bit down hard enough to break the tape and bite into my lip, the taste of metal filling my mouth. I proceeded to scream out as loud as I possibly could, my vocal cords slowly shattering as my voice may as well have shattered reality itself from the volume at which I had yelled. It was enough to silence Caesarina, making her recoil and causing her to release a streak of that blazing pain across my back and towards my hip, which made me let out another squeal of utter pain. And by the end, I was left panting, seeing the world tilt back and forth as the residual pain of what Caesarina had done to me lingered. My energy to do anything else was fading.

Caesarina stood completely still for a few seconds, though that silence was eternal, and it brought anxiety to my body when I turned my head to look behind me to see her standing there, blowtorch in hand and a small detail painting knife in the other. Her eyes were wide, and her smile had disappeared completely, replaced with a blank stare that shook with the rest of her body. And in a sudden burst of rage, she threw the blowtorch into the wall and slammed her fist on the table.

“How fucking DARE YOU!” She yelled, stabbing her blade with enough force to pierce the table beside me. “Do you know how hard I worked on that just for us?! You ruined our lovely artwork!” Immediately, she grabbed my head and pushed it into the table, pressing her fingers against my lip. I tried to resist her, biting down on her hand until she yelled out. She gritted her teeth and sank the knife into one of my fingers, letting out another hoarse scream as it detached from my hand. I continued to try to pull myself out, thrashing against the table enough to tip it over and crash it into the floor. Even with that show, the restraints still didn’t budge, and the enraged Caesarina pushed her hand against my face to hold it still before slamming my head into the ground repeatedly as she spoke.

“I give you my soul!” *Slam.* “I give you the love of an artist!” *Slam.* “I give you a perfect painting as a goodbye gift for your Perfect Death!” *Slam.* “And this is how you repay me?!” *Slam.* My eye had swelled, and the side of my face fell numb from the force constantly driven into it, and my nose dripped fresh blood as I was forced to look up at her furious face. The tape had mostly peeled from my face at this point, and even in my daze, the words came out.

“What happened… huh…? I thought… you were excited when I talked back to you like this…?” She started to bring the knife up to my lip, but now I knew I was going to die… so what was the point of holding back?

“You told me… everyone lies to themselves… well… you still do. You don’t love me… you’re in love with your own fascinations… you’re in love with capturing people’s suffering… capturing death. You want to act like you’re different, but you’re not… just another killer like all the others here trying to find an excu-” She cut me off with the knife, shoving it against my tongue in her rage as it began to pierce it, filling my mouth with more of that copper taste. I let out a strained cough and groan of pain as she pushed it deeper, more of my blood spilling onto the floor as I tried to pull my head back, but my neck’s range prevented me from doing so.

“Your talking privileges are gone. I don’t want to hear from you anymore. But… what you’re saying right now… It’s so beautiful! I could just die right now! No one has ever spoken to me like that!” She started to giggle as my tongue was practically hanging by a thread, still leaving me choking. “You’re perfect for me! You’re the only one who understands me! Knows me! You say I can’t love, but THIS IS WHAT MY LOVE IS!” She started to laugh again before a shot rang out, and she was immediately silenced. She looked at her shoulder, fresh blood dripping from one of the hearts patterned across her dress. She shuddered, dropping the knife when her arm gave out. Soon, boots rapidly hit against wood as Caesarina screamed out in anger as she was grabbed up by multiple arms, slinging out heinous swears and slurs aplenty as her wrists were cuffed behind her back. I rolled over, and immediately, I saw the face of Erin from the police department looking me in the eye with disturbed concern. Her lips moved, but I could barely register what she was saying. I was losing blood quickly, and eventually, she took it upon herself to start dragging me back up the stairs, likely to the protest of Caesarina’s growing screams.

And as I was pulled out, passing by a bathroom with a mirror, I saw the damage done to my back for a split second, but the image was striking. It made my eyes go wide momentarily. She had burnt an image into my back: the silhouette of a man with angel wings in front of a blazing sun, surrounded by the silhouettes of skulls and corpses beneath him, along with a long streak from the artist’s error when I had startled her with my scream, as if a bolt of lightning had crashed onto the glorified image. A permanent brand of the horror I’ve faced… and even if it was horrifying… the streak that was made, caused by my action…

It was made beautiful.

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And as the years went on, the neglect of the nuns remained, so much so that she found herself having to make herself things to eat, and to find her own time to brush her teeth and shower herself, and to find her own comb to brush out her long, long blonde hair with. She had trouble doing these things since she was so young when it happened, but she tried to keep it up for the sake of herself and the family that she’d one day have.

Then, on the eve of her 16th birthday, a man came into the orphanage– a very important man, he believed himself. Mr. Bael wore a bright smile over his black suit and red tie, a striped shirt beneath the blue collar that rode up his neck. He came looking for someone new to add to his family; someone who would make him very happy. He had passed by many of the children there, finding them particularly drab and boring; as much as he prided himself on being a man of the people, his ego would not allow him to settle for anything less than the perfect person he was looking for here. He had happily agreed to take their biggest problem off their hands– someone he believed would be a wonderful daughter for him. And when he walked into her room to see her, with many wonderful and awful paintings lining the wall, depicting all types of emotion and wonder and introspection in the world, he finally said to himself:

“Yes… this is the child I have been searching for.”

And so he brought his Rapunzel home, letting her paint whenever she wanted. And she did, having stayed up in her room for hours and hours each day, barely coming out to experience the real world, just like she had at the orphanage. But her new father was not displeased; in fact, he was the one who encouraged and actively kept her away from the public eye, and was quite pleased that she was at home for as long as she was. She became a treasure in his vision, something that he had been wanting out of a daughter this whole time. He found her painting hobby to be exotic, something that others would surely pine for. And something he could utilize in the future.

But he also expected her to know how to take care of herself and someone else; he taught her how to cook fine meals, taught her how to clean up after herself and him, taught her how to knit and sew, and showed her how to dye clothes, thinking that she might like it due to her artistic inclination. Though throughout this, she grew irritable; she gazed out her window every day, wondering what she could be doing in that big, wide world out there other than being confined in one room. What experiences was she missing out on being trapped in a tower of everyone else’s making?

To make herself feel better, she snuck out every night through her bedroom window. And when she did, she rushed out into the woods and played by a small river nearly smothered in fallen leaves due to the fall season. Sometimes she would be able to find a small woodland creature, often taking them back home so that she could make a piece of art inspired by them. And every time she did, she would play with them when she caught them. Play with them until the little creatures were too tired to move, suffocated in fun like a bird rolling in the snow.

And eventually, when she was a bit older, Mr. Bael had readied her to be married off to one of his political partners: a shrewd, callous man by the name of Richard Carlson. Mr. Bael introduced her when he arrived to see her, and she smiled at him and played the part of the obedient woman, a role she had taken up at the orphanage where she grew up, one that she continued to uphold as the obedient daughter of Mr. Bael, and one that she knew would soon continue carrying as the obedient wife of Richard Carlson.

Mr. Bael brought him into the house and spoke for his daughter, leaving her with this silent, straining smile on her face.

“She can cook anything that you want,” Mr. Bael explained. “She enjoys her time providing for others in the kitchen.”

Richard scoffed. “Anyone could cook.”

“Of course. Well… she can clean the whole home for you. She enjoys occupying her time while you are hard at work.”

Richard rolled his eyes. “Anyone could clean.”

“Indeed. Hm… she can knit for you, and she can even dye your clothes for you, if you are so inclined.”

Richard raised his eyebrow, but simply sighed. “A tailor is more fitting for that role. I’d go to them for that type of service.

Mr. Bael was left rather puzzled; to him, he figured a more stubborn, traditional man like Richard would be most interested in a woman who was just as traditionally-made as him. He was left rather wordless.

Then, for the first time during this entire conversation, his Rapunzel spoke up.

“I… am an artist… if you would like to see what I make… I can’t explain them in words….”

The moment she said those words, Richard put a finger to his chin in curiosity.

“... That isn’t something I’ve heard before. Let’s see them then.”

And with a slight smile, a genuine one this time, she took his hand, up many flights of stairs, into the attic above. Upon opening it up, Richard was hit with a humid scent, filled with the essence of mildew and dust. It nearly made him cough, but when he set his feet into the dark space, he was left in disbelief at what he saw. Inside that attic, there were dozens of paintings– some beautiful, such as those that were of the countryside at sunset, with a beautiful orange sky set upon the modest small town with young families walking their children to the local park. But most… most were abstract, odd things. One was a swirl of crows, rotting as they seemed to be moving so fast that they were starting to fillet themselves as they moved. Another was of a large, shawled creature with a squirrel’s head standing over a small girl, keeping a tender paw on her shoulder despite its imposing figure. And the last that he had seen was of two suited men, both red-faced with their heads in abstract shapes and eyes on one side of their faces, making them look almost melted; they both were turned to each other, holding hands and appearing to dance beneath a white-tailed deer, who herself was starting to melt along with them and had sunk her neck in absolute resignation.

After seeing this, Richard felt his heart start to pump harder. But it wasn’t out of fear or some kind of anger seeing himself depicted in this way; it was instead a more bubbly feeling, a butterfly that flew out from his stomach and instead fluttered onto his heart repeatedly.

Was this… elation?

He felt almost light-headed, coming back down from the attic with the woman softly following behind after a moment or two. They found themselves right back in front of Mr Bael.

“I… need a moment to think,” Richard said weakly. “May I have something to eat?”

“Of course! My dear, please make our guest something to eat!”

She obliged, proceeding towards the kitchen. She pulled many ingredients from the fridge, along with a cigar box that she had taken out of the attic before she had followed him out. She laid it down next to her cutting board, her mind wandering to the reaction of Richard. Her heart swam at the memory of what his face looked like when he saw her work, and her mind raced with an arousing sensation, leaving her with a permanent smile on her face as she stayed with the thoughts of his widened eyes, his quivering body, and most of all, the way he could barely tear himself away from all of them. It made her shake and shiver, barely able to steady her arms.

She was brought back to the orphanage when the nuns discovered her first painting, just before she had led the dog into the oven with a sweet treat and turned up the oven’s heat. She had loved how they looked when they saw the incoming future of their pet; how their guts lurched, and the vomit rose in their throats, as if they were certain that the premonition she had painted in front of them was all but certain. It was enough to make a girl swoon, wasn’t it?

In the present moment, she felt herself giggling, even if she was trying not to make a sound to conceal her violent presence; that feeling of pure, unadulterated evil that she had been hiding for so long. She could barely steady the knife in her hand as it cut through the meat that had come out of the cigar box, a tender use of her knitting skills, made from the many woodland creatures she had played with. The one thing that she could thank her worthless father for. Now she cut it up, planning to let them enjoy it in another way.

“What is your name, dear?”

She was knocked out of her trance, her smile dropping and her docile nature returning. She halted for a moment, slowly turning her head from the kitchen to the doorway of the kitchen. Her body shifted slightly, making sure the bits of meat she was using were not seen. And they wouldn’t.

No one would tear her from her artwork.

“Caesarina. And… I hope you enjoyed my art, sir. That’s the most I can hope for….”

Support The Artist.

I had started to pin up the drawings that they would send me. I installed a Ring doorbell to try to get some kind of recording of this artist that had taken over Grant County; the artist that I couldn’t get out of my head, and who I saw in my nightmares. The second time they came, I had woken up in a fright, having sprinted to the door as quickly as I could with my gun drawn. But when I got there, there was nothing but an empty street and a flickering street light. I didn’t sleep that night, instead sitting on that porch with the present box they left behind in my hands, looking down at the image of a more finished rendition of the drawing they had given me after their first killing.

I sat outside at night regularly after that. In the dead of midnight, I’d be sitting outside for hours, waiting and watching for some kind of dark figure to lurch out from the shadows and try to have a go at carving me into their next creation. I waited, and I even hoped at a certain point. I would start to see shapes of a lanky figure of indistinct sex standing in the dark behind the light of the street lamps, a sea of hair surging like tentacles. But the image would eventually disappear, a trick that my mind was playing on me, tormenting me like that damned artist.

And the following morning, I would see a present brought to the back of my house. And then when I started sitting out back, with a camera pointed out the front, the present was sent at a completely different time, when I couldn’t take it and passed out from exhaustion. I remember one night when I discovered a new drawing of a black, writhing figure with long fingers lying on its side, no doubt a depiction of the wax woman found at the boxing gym. Her name was Jenna Brahms. She owned a pizza restaurant not far from the gym, and she was described as one of the most gentle women in town. People came to her restaurant for good food and good talk– she had wanted to become a psychologist, but couldn’t find the money to continue school. She still loved to comfort people and talk about any troubles they had. She wasn’t marred in any controversy. She wasn’t suspected of doing anything wrong. And the artist had decided she was the perfect target to be filled with wax; to be bathed in the burning oil while bound and unable to do anything to escape her fate of being turned into some macabre decoration for my viewing pleasure. It made me sick to my stomach that I was part of this in any way, even though I never asked to be someone’s twisted art critic.

The frustration got to me. I smashed a cup against the wall when I walked back inside and found a sketch nailed above the sink. I watched the shards spread across my floor and skitter underneath the sink like spooked rats as I asked myself the question: why me? Why did they choose to keep me alive just to fuck with me, and kill other citizens in my stead? Why not just kill me and get it over with already? Or maybe this was some kind of punishment for being so dedicated to finding this freak.

But I was still here. Miserable, sleep-deprived, and furious, but still here. I needed to go back. Maybe there was something I missed. There had to be.

Late at night, I drove back to that dreaded farmhouse, the one where I found Richard Carlson pinned to the barn above his ceramic-clad family. I parked a distance away in case any officers were still here. Everyone probably thought I was going crazy from everything that had happened– after the fifth drawing sent to my house, and seeing how truly tired I was, they told me to take a short leave so that I could get some sleep and do my duty more effectively. But I know that’s not the full reason why they made me leave– I figured out that it was someone from the Department who was The Artist. They knew I was on to them. They had to try to get rid of me before I found them out. They thought they could get rid of me and throw me out of this. But like hell they were going to get me to stop.

They thought they could keep torturing me and try to get me to roll over and die. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it a few times. I needed rest. I couldn’t sleep during the night, and barely during the day. My heart couldn’t stop palpitating in my chest, and I found myself nodding off in the middle of things I was doing. But I kept hearing their whispers in my ear. Sometimes they were deep and rough. Sometimes they were feminine and wicked. There was no face I could put them to, so they eventually became an amalgamation of the fragments of many faces I had seen before– a Picasso of different people melded together to make the horrific image of the Bloody Artist. Neither man nor woman, and somehow both, and a mixture of Human that was not stitched but clearly not whole. And when they opened their mouth, their voice was like a song from a thousand different birds.

But maybe that was their intention all along– to create an image for themselves that put their real one to shame. To make the perfect piece of art, one that didn’t exist physically, but instead in the mind of some poor sap that was cursed with its knowledge. And that poor sap just so happened to be me, trapped with this moving self-portrait of theirs.

And even after this… I felt as though I would be stuck with that for life. Lucky me.

***

I walked back onto the property, the barn doors covered with police tape; it didn’t seem as though anyone was here, which was both unsettling and relieving. As I walked inside the barn, I was hit with a disgustingly musky scent. Everything inside that I remembered from the crime scene initially had been taken out– even the pigs below Carlson’s hanging body were taken away, likely as pieces of evidence themselves. Inside, there were also markings where the body was, an eerie white outline to replace the visage that was a man’s corpse strewn for everyone to see. I climbed up to the next story similarly to how I did last time, and sure enough, there were also outlines of how the family was sitting. I remember the movement of his old man’s eye from behind the glassy material, which was another vision I kept seeing whenever I closed my lids. Maybe there was still hope for that family once they were pulled out from that prison made out of china. I looked at the floorboards, seeing tiny chips of the ceramic left behind. Not worth taking, I thought– though, glancing down at them, I saw that some were lightly bloody, and others were not. Maybe it was because they fell off at different parts. But it still worried me that the Carlson family could potentially be dead or dying by the time they were released.

I looked far and wide throughout the barn, but found very little else of value that I didn’t already see before. Some parts of the barn had been scrubbed down, which was clear from how bright the wood was compared to other spots. Peculiar, to me anyway. Maybe there was some kind of procedure I was not aware of, but considering this was an active crime scene, I presumed that nothing should be touched until it was all said and done. Just another sign to me that someone from the department was trying to manipulate things behind the scenes.

In my paranoia, I tried to move the straw beneath my feet, only to find it barely budged. I knelt down on the floor, pulling on the straw only to find that it was firmly stuck to the floor. Stuck because of mud or manure? Maybe. But I wasn’t taking my chances. I pulled and ripped at the straw, and when that became too much of a chore, I took out my utility knife and started cutting away at the base of what was keeping them there. As I cut away, I pulled up a clump that had a gray substance at the bottom. It was more solid and smooth to the touch.

Plaster.

I cut where this plaster was most prevalent near the back of the barn. I spent a long time scoring that plaster, just to see if there was something underneath. Or if this was some kind of trick my tired mind was playing on me again. But eventually… I hit something. I stabbed into a crease in the floorboards larger than the others, and after clearing out more of it, I looked down to see a simple trapdoor– a basement afoot.

Without hesitation, I opened it up and walked down the rickety stairs below. Immediately, an oily, acrid scent filled my nose as I started to move more hurriedly. I kept my flashlight up near my head and my gun in the other hand, worried about whether anyone was still held up in here. When I got to the bottom, I was met with a room of horrors– there were paintings, dozens of them. All of them depicted different people; one was a painted rendition of the drawing I first received, the face of a man broken into several different pieces like a glass mirror, with each line being a dusky red along shattering skin. Another was of the woman in black, squirming and struggling in a fetal position with a mouth wide enough to drop to her feet. But then there were the others that I didn’t recognize that scared me the most: one of a man that looked more corpse-like and skeletal, with his eyes straining in their sockets, another with cupcakes on a platter, each one holding the face of a little girl with different facial expressions; some screaming out, some in quiet peace, and some tearfully crying. There were too many to count, and the faces of all these victims started to blend together in my head in a storm. Were there more kills than the ones that we’ve found? How long has this psycho been doing this for? And how long had it been since then that we found the first victims? All of it was so overwhelming.

And as my flashlight whipped around, I shouted in utter terror as my light landed on a piece that made my stomach lurch. Before me, sculpted with a gut-wrenching amount of precision, was a sculpture of meat and bone. The bones had been bent and twisted to fit a cubic art style, resulting in a fleshy swirl that was turned into numerous shapes that were made to elongate and exaggerate the features of the individual. A nose pushed forward to be larger. An ear pushed in to look smaller. Lips shaped with unused bone in order to make a rhombus-like shape. And along it were many eyes. Not just a pair that would come from one person, but instead from many, including those that looked inhuman and animal in shape. The blood below and along it had dried up, though there was almost a moisture still to it that remained fresh, as flies were already starting to buzz around the defiled corpse.

I was left on my hands and knees, holding my stomach as a surge of vomit spilled from my mouth at the sight of the grotesque figure. It made my gut hurt worse than any ache I’ve had in my life. And at the very end, I felt tears welling up; this couldn’t be real. I was hoping that I would wake up from all of this in bed, staring at my ceiling in relief that what I was seeing was all just fake and some delusion in my head. But as this pain washed through my body, I knew it was all too real. And I was forced to accept this twisted creation as a reality.

But as I was finishing throwing up, I heard the sound of a gunshot ring out behind me, which created a whole new sensation through my body. I pushed my hand against my back and felt the warm trickle, starting to feel my throat well up with blood as I collapsed on my side, coughing it out of my mouth as I was left stunned by the weight of my own body. I looked up to see a flashlight shining in my face, and a figure starting to walk towards me from the top of the stairs. As their face got closer to me, I started to shudder. It was my supervisor. The same person who had been chewing me out for going out to this place the first time. The same person who wouldn’t tell me any of the details of other cases like this, so much so that Erin had to be the one who told me about everything. And the same one who had recommended I take a mental-health leave.

“Y-YOOOOOU-!” I let out in a pure, straining shriek of agony and rage before I started to cough out more of my blood onto the floor. My body felt colder, and even with me getting so tired, I forced myself to stay awake.

He looked at me with a stare of utter despair and helplessness. “I-I’m sorry… no one can know. She’ll stop eventually… but you can’t now. She has someone important to me, and I can’t let anyone get in her way while she’s on her tour….”

“H-Her….?” I was left tearful, left with a chilling realization of the situation.

Just as he raised his gun, ready to finish me off, he was suddenly stopped as something suddenly jutted out from his throat– a sharpened chisel, now ripe with red. A slithery voice came from behind my attacker.

“What did I tell you…? You’re not allowed to kill our greatest friend! You should’ve listened, naughty Beckett~.”

The figure’s head leaned forward against his shoulder. The lowermost part of their face was pale, with their teeth yellowed as they smiled.

“... He’s already dead. But don’t worry… he’s immortalized now. With me.”

A tear appeared to stream down his face as the figure yanked the chisel out from his neck and left him to choke on his own blood, writhing on the ground and kicking him aside. She moved to pick up the flashlight. Her voice seemed to come out more cheery than before.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that! You’ve already seen so much, and I’ve hated to see you like this, y’know. I can’t have you overworked and sleepless if you’re going to see more of my work! After all… you are my very special, very favorite fan!”

Seeing her in full, it rocked me to my core as I was starting to fade. Her teeth were yellow, her skin was pale, and her hair was a long blonde curtain that was still pulled together nicely, some parts of it colored with different blacks and reds from different paints she hadn’t bothered to wash out. And behind it were crystal blue eyes, driven by a powerful mania.

“I promise. I’ll take very good care of you.”

There she was. Caesarina Carlson. Wife of Richard Carlson.

And she was The Artist who saved my life.

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So much to her chagrin, she woke up at around 2 AM to a loud bump in the night. She grumbled in her bed, shifting around until she rose from her sheets. She looked around in the dark room with murky eyes before being jolted anew by a loud crash, hearing eerie clinking against the tiles downstairs. Her initial reaction was to stay silent; she was too afraid to even snatch a glance at what was going on down there. She felt like she was a deer caught in headlights until there was a horrible scream and then the silencing of it, followed by a sickeningly wet sound.

That scream came from her father.

It was enough to knock Jenny out of her trance, immediately grabbing the brick of a landline next to her bed and heading into the closet, tears welling up in her eyes and her hands shaking. Though as she dialed the numbers, she could hear footsteps walking up the stairwell….

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Someone broke into my house! They’re coming up the stairs! Please, help me!”

“Ok, Ma’am, where are you located?”

“593 12th Street. Please, hurry, please!”

“Ma’am, I need you to calm down. What room are you in right now?”

“I’m in… my bedroom… Oh God. They’re hitting the door. Oh God. Oh, God.”

“Ma’am, if there’s anywhere in the room you can hide, go in there now. Is your door locked?”

A door slowly creaks open, then softly closes in sync with the banging.

“M’am?”

“Yes… I’m in the closet… please hurry….”

“Ma’am, they are on their way right now as we speak. Now I need you to stay on the line-”

Crack. The sound of wood clattered onto the ground. Soft footsteps could be heard on the other end of the line, along with the unsteady soft breathing of Jenny.

“....”

“M’am…? M’am, are you still there?”

There was silence. And then, slow creaking would fill the receiver, and then a sudden slam of the wall when the door hit it.

“....”

“Please, God.”

“M’am, are you-”

“AAAAAAGGGGHHHH NO! PLEASE! PLEASE, HELP ME! GOD, HELP ME! HEL- Kkh-”

A guttural choking could be heard after the sickening, wet slash of metal against skin. There was a light thumping before light rippling. Eventually, there was a louder thump, and everything went silent.

“....”

“....”

“... M-M’am….?”

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The other kids stayed away from her often, only giving her a nervous glance. They thought she was weird, or maybe some kind of alien from another planet, and if she spoke, her mouth would erupt in tentacles and snatch them all up into a deep, dark abyss. But she was content with this. She enjoyed the quiet because it was better to deal with all the voices in her head alone rather than have others outside coalesce into a symphony that she could no longer recognize.

However, there was a dog in the orphanage. It was a German Shepherd named Caesar, a docile fellow who enjoyed himself around the other kids, happily panting and wagging his tail whenever he got a thousand pets from all the children with their star-struck eyes as though he was the center of the universe. He didn’t avoid the mute girl like the other kids, and sometimes insisted on trying to play with her, as much as she tried to ignore him. Still, he licked her face and rubbed his face against her arm, but he could not reach her.

One night, however, at around 3:30 AM, Caesar had woken up and walked about the orphanage while the other children were asleep. He noticed the door was creaked open, but he thought nothing of it, of course. He walked into another dark room, full of where the arts and craft supplies were. And to his curiosity, there sat the mute girl, spilling paint on top of a canvas. There was a deep, sudden dread that came from him– a nervousness that he had never felt from any child in the orphanage before. His own response was to bark and growl, loud enough that the whole home would hear it. The mute girl turned around. She didn’t even flinch. Her eyes were wide, and her hands were shaking, filled with the same rage in her eyes as when she felt the thought of her mother’s betrayal. That intense emotion, perhaps like a violent aura, shut the dog up and was powerful enough to make him cringe back and whimper.

What was she?

The nuns at the home had woken up when the dog started barking, finding the mute girl in the crafts room and taking her back to bed with worry in their eyes. That violent sensation, however, never faded. And perhaps the nuns felt it too, because their stomachs churned after putting the mute girl back in the bedroom with the others.

They found her painting as well, confused at first. It was a messy blotch of reds and oranges, with a brown and black inferno in the center of it. It was indiscernible what she was trying to create.

The next morning, the kids were excited to play with Caesar outside that day. But much to their shock, Caesar had disappeared. None of them could find him. But the nuns did. But it was only because of how hot it was in the kitchen. With the stove turned up to the highest setting.

And on that day, the mute girl, alone again and walking back to her painting in the craft’s room, smiled with an intense mania, as her anger was being flushed away and imbued into her creation.

“My… lovely… masterpiece….”

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Her teacher, Garrett Holem, was a polite older gentleman who saw the potential in young talent like herself. He was a well-dressed man who appeared in his late 30s, though you may not know it just by looking at his clear skin and admirable stature. No crows feat. No stiffness to his moves in the slightest. Not even a single wrinkle. And when he spoke, it was as if every word was entrancing you to continue the conversation; he could’ve been mistaken for charisma itself.

Initially, Primrose was difficult to control– she whined and fussed and groaned, uncomfortable without her mother’s constant guidance. Holem took notice of her antisocial tendencies and knew she was going to be a handful, but that didn’t stop him. Initially, he had her sit back and watch the other kids perform and learn, both to see if she would grow an interest and to make sure she didn’t disrupt any of the others. This, as you may expect, did not fix the problem. But what did come out of it was the first words that came out of her, because up until this point, she had only made soft murmurs and the wailing sounds that were all too common with her.

“Bored, bored, bored….”

Holem picked up on those words, having left the other girls to his assistant while he spoke to Primrose personally. She flinched when he approached.

“Bored? Why are you bored, Primrose?”

Young Primrose hesitated for a moment, but her emotions soon bubbled over.

“I wanna go home! It’s boring here!”

“Do you think all the other kids are boring too?”

“Yeah. They speak weird. Especially when they play pretend.”

“Well… maybe you’d like to help them play pretend correctly, no?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem like a very smart girl. Very emotional too. You know a lot about playing pretend, whether you think you do or not. So come on. Maybe you can help me show them all what they’re doing wrong.”

And that was it. A trigger.

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“August. I know this is important to you, so get the hell over here. They did it again… that maniac made more art.”

It had been a week since I was sent the letter and drawing from the artist. I didn’t get an inch of sleep that night; it was all too surreal. I stared at the ceiling on my couch for an amount of time I couldn’t recognize, but at that point, I believe a part of me tried to dissociate from the situation. Every once in a while, my hand would drag against the drawing on the nearby table, pulling it back into my sight line before slamming it back down with a dead arm. Why me? Whoever this person was, why didn’t they try to kill me if they knew where I lived and knew I was pursuing them? And how were they able to be there to watch me inspect the family?

Those questions wracked my brain for ages until the sun came up, tiredly putting on my uniform and driving to the station to show everyone at the station the box, the letter, and the drawing. I had to step into another room for questioning regarding the incident, especially since Derrik and Erin never got their own “special gift” after investigating the barn. I told them that the visitor had slammed on my door in the night, and how I didn’t see anyone when I got inside, and only found the box on my doorstep. All I had to show for it was the gift itself, but I insisted that I would have a doorbell cam on from now on. Based on what I told my supervisor, he seemed to be satisfied with that, even though I noticed the side-eye he gave me at the very end. He was still pissed at me for pursuing a case outside of our jurisdiction, but I didn’t care too much. A family in Grant County was always a family of Grant County. I wasn’t going to apologize for caring about one of our own.

“... Tell me where I gotta go, Erin,” I finally replied, pinging myself out of the paralysis I had reliving what had happened a week ago.

“From what I’ve been able to gather, it was over in Greenville again. But it involves someone else from Grant County,” Erin replied, a bit of an unsteadiness in her voice. “It was in an empty spot on Grove Street. It was a gym that got shut down a couple of months ago.”

“Damn specific. Where’d you get this from?” I ask, the phone perched up against my cheek as I frantically pull on my uniform in the middle of the call.

“Derrick’s had the scanner on in Greenville for a while. Chief Briant’s been very hush about the whole situation, trying to get everyone to keep quiet about the whole thing. Maybe it’s not to cause a stir, but it’s still freaking everyone out, especially Derrick. What he saw in that barn has fucked him up a lil’ bit, as you can imagine.”

“Trust me… I don’t need to imagine.”

I drive up to Grove Street, where I’m met with a swarm of police vehicles outside of a plain building. It was brick, and there were outlines of letters where the name of the previous location, “Henry’s Boxing Gym,” originally was placed. It was by no means small, but it wasn’t a place I would say would be easy to conduct a murder. It was in an open plaza surrounded by many other buildings, and it seemed like a fairly busy place, considering there was currently a line on the other side of the street where people were waiting to pick up a burger for lunch, and a supermarket only a few more blocks away. Even at night, I imagined, you would have at least one person who saw something strange.

Though in the middle of my thought, as I was walking up to that dreaded yellow tape, I was stopped by a tall, lean man in a GPD uniform. “R. Bufleur” was on his name tag.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step back,” he said, before eventually recognizing the uniform. He let out a sigh. “I was around the first time something like this happened. With all due respect, this is a Greenville problem now.”

“I was told that it was someone from Grant County who was victimized, so with all due respect, this is going to be both of our problems.”

“It’s not my call to make.”

“Then get your supervisor out here. As far as I’m aware, we got a crazed maniac on the loose in both our counties! And now they know where I live!”

His face crinkled with confusion. “What?”

I grumbled as I explained the situation to him, how the killer sent over a package and was sending drawings of art they were making. I knew it would look strange in the moment, so I left out the part that it was sent to my house personally. I just needed to get in there any way I could– letting this go was not happening any time soon.

Eventually, Bufleur had some kind of a realization on his face. I was not exactly sure what it meant at first, but his tone changed from annoyed to more serious.

“I’ll let my supervisor know you’re here. We’ll go from there.”

“That’s all I’m asking, Mr. Bufleur.”

“It’s Ronald. And don’t worry about it. This’ll be very important.”

Eventually, after explaining to the supervisor the situation, I was let inside with Ronald escorting me– the supervisor seemed to be more than eager to let me in, but he told me to meet with him after we were done. I pushed open the door and saw a mostly empty room, cleaned out of all the equipment that was originally inside the gym. Initially, there was nothing truly of note, aside from a rather oily smell coming from the leftmost side of the room.. I knew that the second I stepped over there, I would be greeted with another horror that I would be seeing in my dreams, no doubt. But with bated breath, I walked over with my palms sweating and a careful step.

What I was greeted with, as I looked over the shoulders of other officers inside the room, was something curled up in the fetal position. It was certainly a body, no doubt, but its appearance was incredibly puzzling. It was all black, with facial features like the eyes and mouth being visible as mere protrusions, with the nose being this large, bulbous thing that stuck in the middle of it. The material was so tight around them at the same time that even when their faces were nearly indistinguishable, their fingernails and some parts of their bodies that showed some scarring were oddly visible. From the protrusions along the chest and the litheness of the body, the victim appeared to be feminine. I silently prayed for this poor woman.

Originally, I thought the material was some kind of latex, but as I drew closer, and knowing the motif of our killer, I noticed a much less malleable nature to the material. And as I drew my knuckle against the body and felt it, I realized this was not latex at all.

It was wax. And by the small signs of fear in her face, she was layered in this wax when she was still alive. . . .

“How did you know they were from Grant County?” I asked, trying to mask my fear.

“We found a note near the body on a canvas. That’s why you were let inside in the first place. They were talking about a man named August, and we had no idea who that was. But considering your story and the fact that you and your buddies were around the last time we found one of these, we figured it had something to do with one of you.”

“Tell him to show it to me. Now.”

Ronald pulled his supervisor from outside, and they brought me to an office across the building. What I was greeted with, apart from a few splattered marks on the walls and floor, was a messy canvas covered in black paint. The splotches across the room, mixed with the frantic strokes in the handwriting, were rather unsettling to look at. They were excited to write this. Ecstatic. Manic.

“Son of a bitch,” is all I could muster to say in that moment. I was quick to leave that room, only because of the flaming anxiety running through my system. I went outside to get some air, breathing heavily as I felt my heart rate spike. A serial killer was stalking my every move, obsessed with everything about me; the thought was enough to make a man vomit, which I was currently trying to hold back. I was starting to spiral. How many more people were going to die until they were satisfied? What type of “special gift” were they talking about? And how were they figuring out so much about me? I had checked the doorbell cam every single day ever since that incident, and no one had shown up to my doorstep once throughout the week; not even a glance had been sent to my house from anyone passing by. So how….

But as I heard Ronald start to step out to look for me, I had a thought at the back of my head.

I whipped my head over to him, much to his sudden shock. He could see how pale I looked, because a look of immediate concern flashed on his face. “Are you al-” was all he could get out before I spoke up, not letting him finish.

“Are there any cameras out here in the lot?”

He nodded, pointing to a dome-shaped cam on another side of the street. “The salon next door has one. We were going to start checking it out around the time you pulled up.”

“Then let’s go. Immediately.”

And not a moment later, we were in a dank security room in the salon. I was rather quick to go back there, much to the owner’s chagrin. Ronald hung back to explain the situation, but at that point, I could not contain myself. I had to know if some part of the theory that was brewing in my head was correct. I could feel myself perspiring more and more, and to the outside looking in, I might’ve started looking a little insane. But I kept those inhibitions at the back of my mind.

I had started to scour footage with an employee there, skipping through hours of footage. They hadn’t been there yesterday. Or the day before. But then, we got to three days prior, around 12:35 AM, and the footage went from an average night to a loud, fuzzy screen until 1:35 AM.

“Damn. They must’ve cut some of it out,” the employee said.

“Go back to 12:35 on the dot,” I replied.

They obliged, rolling back the footage just seconds before. I rapidly tapped the keyboard, moving frame-by-frame. Inch-by-inch. Looking at every single millisecond of footage. Until I saw it. For only a few frames, on screen, rolling up beside the camera was a vehicle. From the black-and-white footage, it was bright. There was something bulbous at the front of it that I couldn’t quite make out fully. But before I could get anything else out of it, the screen would quickly cut to static again. And I played it. Again. And again. And again.

I sat in quiet contemplation for a while, even as I walked out of the salon and back outside. I let the other officers review the footage as I sat in my car in absolute silence. My body felt like it was floating, almost like I was adrift in the abyss as I stared blankly in front of myself. A darkness washed over me, like everything around me had been brushed away by the strokes of my stalker, looming over me and watching me with that manic look in their eye, waiting for and enjoying my every move as if I were their greatest friend.

I drove home, opened the door, slammed it, and sat myself on the couch in absolute silence.

I know what that thing was at the front of that white car. After seeing that footage replay so many times. Both physically and in my head.

It was a push bumper. Something I’ve seen many times before.

There was a killer amongst the police.

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333: A Horror Anthology

We pulled up to the farm as soon as we could, our flashlights scanning the area as evening was turning to night. There was no sound except for the light swish of the wind blowing through the grass and cruising along the soil, untouched by crops for ages. It made the atmosphere all the more intense. Were we too late? Has something horrible already come to pass?

We had truly no idea how horrible it would be.

We eventually came upon the rickety barn, the wood creaking as the wind passed over it. Derrik, Erin, and I took quite a while to push open the sticky barn doors, which refused to move in their old age. Perhaps it was some kind of spiritual sign, because what was inside immediately hit us, not the sight, but instead the smell. The intense scent of rotting wood and flesh, paired with the pungent scent of half-dried blood, was enough to make a man tear up. But more peculiar were the sounds– there were the sounds of grunting and snorts coming from the inside, definitely not of a Human origin.

And when pressing forward into the lair of decay, there it was: the body of a man, spread and pinned up to the barn wall. He was particularly well-dressed, with a freshly-shaven face that had since writhed into an expression of pure pain. The top half of him adorned a torn suit and a tie that had since been tattered into pieces. I say top half because that was all that was left, minus the head, with everything below the gut down completely gone, save for a few dangling pieces that hung loose from the opening where his hips originally were.

Below him was a pit of pigs, freely roaming the barn and blissful, unable to comprehend the horror above them. There were many breeds– Berkshire, Chester White, Duroc, Hampshire– all of which were certainly not of this place. This place had been shut down for years, and all the animals within were more than certainly transported away by the owners and others involved. That was far from the only suspicious thing here.

Not long after we made the grueling discovery, the GPD ushered in. The Greenville police weren’t all too thrilled to have us here, but it was hard for them to argue with me. A man who wasn’t afraid to get yelled at by the boss was a hard man to convince to let things go. After photos of the crime scene, we had to climb up the rickety steps to retrieve the body. I was almost certain that I would fall through, and at one point, I felt the wood crack beneath me. I had plummeted into a stack of hay, making the fall marginally better, except for a few pricks across my arm from the unkempt hay and a few wood splinters. But we eventually were able to pull the man down from his partially crucified position.

The victim was a man named Richard Carlson, a local politician who was planning to run for Mayor later this year. He had made quite a few political enemies, not because his ideals were necessarily bad, but because he was very combative against other candidates. He was a cutthroat competitor, homing in on any and all dirt or unpopular opinions his opponents had and confronting them publicly. He was a man who knew what he wanted and did not make it easy for anyone to take it away from him. But to think that anyone in our or Greenville’s jurisdiction would go to lengths like this to kill him and to make a show of it in this way rather than just quietly putting him away was more than unbelievable, especially to me. There was absolutely something deeper here.

And my suspicions were confirmed with something that was found up in the attic. Covered by a layered tarp that had been gently draped was a collection of china-like dolls. Their skin was smooth and pristine compared to everything around them, though there were many slim cracks along the shining ceramic. There were four of them– among them was a tall woman with a long flowing dress and a sunhat. There was an older man sitting in a chair with a billowing pipe, a plain vest, and a prominent Stetson on his head, along with two twin boys, both dressed in overalls over plaid shirts. All laundered, perhaps even directly out of the box for this very occasion.

And when I walked over to these china statuettes, I was most unsettled by the eyes. They were shining, indicating moisture. And their form, their sunkenness, their naturality… they looked real. As if plucked from the sockets of those that they resembled.

And then the old man’s eyes moved, shifting towards me as I was inspecting them closer.

All of a sudden, I collapsed backwards, left startled and hyperventilating in the face of what I was witnessing here. The other officers in the room, confused, looked to the statues. A few of them caught the movement of more eyes before all of them centered directly on me.

“A-Am I fucking hallucinating?!” I asked. “Please tell me this is just me!”

“No, son,” one of the Greenville officers said. He was an older gentleman, but even he was being rocked by this.

“These… aren’t any ordinary statues.”

“That’s the rest of the Carlson Family.”

I’ve been keeping an eye on this whole case, even when I was told to leave it alone. “This is Greenville’s case,” the sergeant told me. I didn’t say anything during the dressing down I took after leaving that farmhouse. I pretended to listen to the bullshit he spewed in my face about how unprofessional this was. And maybe he was right. But while he spoke, all I could think about were the eyes of those statues– those people. And the silent pleading that came from their faces spoke to me, not calling for me to save them or to find who did this. No. There was nothing but pain and sorrow, and the desire to have that pain taken away. It made me sick just having to replay that moment over and over again, as if I had become part of that inhumane art piece this psychopath had created.

All of the Carlsons were still alive except for Richard himself. They weren’t literally turned into china dolls, but instead, the material had been placed over their flesh. They had all been paralyzed; how, I don’t have all the details, but it was enough to ensure they were still throughout the whole point that they were being used as the sculptor’s personal art project. They had been sitting there for days, maybe even weeks. It was going to take some time to remove all the material from them, as there were many more layers beneath that need to be cracked through without hurting the family. I’ve been watching closely for the day they’re free of that ceramic prison.

The nights following, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of their pained stares, the way that their sorrow had melded into my soul, pulling me into the same agony that they must have been feeling. Shallow breathing filled my ears– whether it was there when I first saw the family or not, I can’t even remember anymore. Whether there were muffled screams behind that clay and quartz, I know that wasn’t there, but my mind thought otherwise. And when I opened my eyes, looking out my window, the series of irises appeared and then blinked away again, leaving me startled and groaning in my fear.

Then one night, after the same scene had played out in my mind again, I jumped up from my bed in a cold sweat while breathing deep and heavy. 1:46.

“... Dammit…”

I rose from my exhausted state, rubbing my eyes as I gazed around the moonlit room. I stood up and walked out to the bathroom, gazing at myself in the mirror in my devastated state. I looked like a mess– sweat dressing my body and tank top, matting along curled hair. I brushed a hand against the side of my tanned cheek, studying myself for some time before throwing some cold water on my face. For a moment, I came to regret what had led up to this point in my life. August Rutherford. A man who thought he was going to change lives for the better, the guy who had been hyping himself up to be the greatest police officer since he was the age of 9. Plenty of people thought I was a naive joke. I was always told, both by family and ‘friends’, that it might not be worth it. That it wasn’t going to be what it was cracked up to be when we were just kids. That I was going to fuck my brain up with the type of depravity that I would see from terrible people. And to an extent, they were right. Especially after today.

But like hell was I going to let this go. Not this one. Not when there was a sick freak like this still out there.

And as if it were some kind of divine, insane joke, I heard a knock at my front door. And then another. Then a louder slam that nearly rattled the whole home. My mind immediately started to race when I heard the sound. Surely no one in their right mind was knocking at my door, not after what I had seen. The paranoia took over at that point, as I rushed out of the bathroom, wet-faced and all, picking up my gun and heading to the front door. I kept my sidearm held up as I looked through the peephole of my front door. No one. I brushed aside my front curtains to see if anyone was in the yard or hiding at the front door. No one. Except, at the corner of the window, I could make out the glint of a box, wrapped up like a present. Confused, I eventually moved back to the door, whipping it open quickly before glancing back and forth to see if anyone was there. I kept looking both ways even after I picked up the package, until I slammed the door behind me.

Afterwards, I breathed out a sigh of relief, despite how tense I still was about the package. After a few moments just staring, wondering what would be inside, whether it be something twisted or just some kind of prank, I eventually worked up the courage to rip it open. Inside, there was a single sheet of paper. On the front was messy handwriting:

When I turned over the page, the gears were starting to turn in my head, and I was left with the most unsettling revelation.

They were there when the bodies were being inspected.

They knew who I was.

And they were taunting me with their crimes.

That’s when I knew for certain that I would find them. No matter what.

Time for the next stage.

He kept it covered with a large tin, as if he was going to treat his fair lady to a fine dining experience. Dana gazed at him with an undying admiration, one that hadn’t unwavered ever since they had married each other for four long years. They were young lovers, Dimitri having taken his vows at the age of 21, while she at 20. And even when they married so early, much to the chagrin of their relatives, they were much happier, they thought, than any of the married couples that had been wedded for many years more than they had. Even though Dana took it on the chin, Dimitri knew deep within his heart that they were jealous. He saw it during the reception– those judgmental eyes following him that told him that he was making the worst mistake of his life. And yet, when she gazed into Dana’s eyes, and her lips laid their soft crevices on the side of his cheek, that rage that he had inside of him was quelled. And there was only her left. It was all he needed.

Dimitri opened the dish for her once he placed it on the table, the plate wobbling some as it was eventually dropped. It was a delectable sight indeed; he had roasted a chicken, having stuffed it to the brim as much as he could for the occasion. The aroma of the golden meat, paired with the suppleness of the breadcrumbs and onions beneath the surface of the white skin, lifted their spirits into the air with the steam coming from their meal.

“Oh, love, you didn’t!” Dana exclaimed.

“Of course I did. And it’s all for you.” Dimitri replied.

“You’re too sweet. You make me feel far too lucky, y’know.”

“Trust me. The feeling is absolutely mutual.”

Dana giggled, leaning forward to give him a soft kiss on his lips.

And so the couple at. There were a few more entrees that Dimitri had grabbed from the counter, and they dined like a king and queen that night, especially on that lovely chicken and everything within. Dimitri had a difficult time holding his fork, but Dana happily pressed her own fork into the interior of the bird and helped him get a taste of the rich stuffing. They savored it, unsure how to feel about it initially. But the more they ate, the more they were drawn to it.

“It’s a little tougher than I figured it’d be,” Dana said, swallowing more of the main course.

“True. But it took some time to get rid of some of the bones. I don’t think they had too much fat in them either.”

“Well, we’ll have much more time for more flavors after this one. I think we’ll enjoy those so much more.”

“I hope so. We’ve been planning this for so long. I want this to be the best time of our lives.”

Dana could see the conflict in Dimitri’s voice. His voice had quivered slightly, and his eyes laid upon the table. He could only think that he was doing something wrong, even if the smallest of details was off. Dana took his hand into hers and smiled.

“You’re doing great. We’ll get through this together. Do you hear me?”

He lifted his head to her, a pleasant grin on his face. “Yes… of course.”

“It will be perfect. It will become easier the second time. And the third time after that.”

Dimitri lifted her hand to give it a kiss. He was truly blessed, in mind, body, and spirit.

They finished eating, and Dimitri took himself to the bathroom. On his way, he grabbed the steak knife, planning to sharpen it once he sat himself down inside. Dana began to clear the table of the empty dishes and spilled sauces. Years into their marriage, their relationship was as healthy as ever. Dana hadn’t been in contact with her family ever since their union, same with Dimitri. Her mother always told her that when she found the right man, she should keep him for as long as possible. She had known this ever since she was a very young girl. But the moment that she found the man who was right for her, her family showed her nothing but disapproval. She could still hear the screaming matches she would get into with her mother over the announcement of her wedding. A part of her could still feel the sear from the slap across her face. It wasn’t the first time her mother had slapped her, but it stung worse than any other time she was hit.

Her mother never showed up at the wedding. And she couldn’t be happier that she didn’t.

Maybe she would’ve finally had the courage to do it if she had made one more scene.

After she finished cleaning, she walked up to the bathroom door, which had been closed. She knocked on the door before eventually pushing it open. Dimitri was sitting in the bathtub, still shaking with anticipation over what was to come. Dana moved closer, sitting on the edge next to him. She was notably shocked that he had taken the knife for himself, but even in this shock, she leaned forward and tried to coax him out of the state he was in.

“Hey… it’s going to be okay… this… this will make us closer than ever before. You want that, don’t you?” She pet his head whilst she spoke.
“Y-Yeah… I know… I’m trying to mentally prepare myself….”

“You know what to do. Take the cough medicine. It’ll make everything more manageable.”

He nodded. She stood up and opened the cabinet beside them, taking out the Vicks and handing it over. Dimitri popped the cap open and drank down half the bottle, gagging at the taste as he pulled it away from his lips. And as they sat and waited, she continued to pet his shoulder and his arm softly. She took the bottle away from this disfigured hand, the same one that had trouble holding the fork now that it had three fewer fingers. His left hand was shaped the same.

After it settled in, Dana gave Dimitri a final kiss on the forehead.
“I love you.”

“I… lve… yu….”

Dana was the one to plant this idea in his head. A way they could be closer, to the point where they would be inseparable. She wanted to do the same to her mother, but she didn’t want that type of poison. She wanted something greater. She wanted someone greater. And he obliged. Even though his fear of what lied ahead was high, even if he didn’t know how he’d feel during, he loved her too much to say “no.” And as he laid in the bathtub, bracing himself for impact, he could only think of both the rage he had felt from the eyes of so many judgmental eyes and the intense heartthrob he had for his lovely wife.

Though there was a small part of him wondering if they were right, as soon as the knife was plunged into his throat, and the splatter hit the side of the wall.

***

Reports came into the Grant County Police Department. There was a loud screaming that had come from 25th Street. It was difficult to get an exact location, but eventually it was determined to be the home of a wedded couple. Police arrived at the house on a Saturday evening. They entered the home, awaiting a terrible sight.

“Grant County Police Department! Is anyone here?!” One officer yelled.

No reply.

They scoured the home slowly, walking past the dining room that had been completely cleaned and cleared. The fridge hung open eerily, and a rotting smell came from it. One of the officers walked into the kitchen and wretched at what he saw. Others soon followed the sound of his coughing to see what made him so sick.

A limb.

The arm of a young man. It appeared to have been thoroughly chopped in a plastic-wrapped container, but it was only partially full. And it wasn’t just limbs either. Police recovered an eye. A foot. Lungs. And one ring finger, brandishing a beautiful diamond ring, was stored at the far back of the fridge.

Most puzzling of all, however… as they crept further into the home and into the bathroom, they saw the feet of a woman, somewhere around her mid-40s, no longer moving. And when the officers began to move towards it, they heard the hideous laughter of a young woman. They immediately drew their weapons.

“Come out with your hands up! Now!”

The officers waited for someone to come out. There was no reply for a while.

Then, as the officer was about to shout again, there was the soft sound of footsteps. And out stepped the woman, Dana, pale and greasy. Her hair was ratty. Her eyes were bloodshot red. She smiled with a manic glee, laughing so hard that her throat became hoarse. It was certainly not by her own choice. She ate something she shouldn’t have.

Hanging out of her mouth was a small piece of him. She had just finished his heart.

She stared at the officers, eventually giggling of her own volition this time.

“He. . . wanted this. It was all. . . for. . .”

“L O V E . . . .”

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Beware of 333. . . .

“. . . .”
“. . . .”

“. . . .”
“Wake up, and be still, Mr. Higgins.”

“What the hell…? What’s happening…? Where am I…?

“Good. The stage has been set. And we can begin.”

“Hey! Help! Someone get me out of here! Can anyone hear me?!”

“Apologies, Mr. Higgins, but no one is going to hear you. Not here. Not at such a crucial moment.”

“Please don’t hurt me….”

“Oh, Mr. Higgins. There will be no pain or suffering. Nothing of the physical type anyway. What happens now all depends on you. Now… be still on your mark. You are the main actor here.”

“The main actor…? Stage…? What is this? Some kind of sick game?!”
“There is nothing sick about it. It’s a game that you all play. A lovely one that should be cherished. But we will get to that soon. I can promise you that. Now, calm yourself, and we can begin.”

“... Okay… what do you want? Money? I can get it for you, if that’s what you need! Please just let me go!

“I want to talk to you about your walk of life, Mr. Higgins. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“My… life?”

“Indeed. That is why I have brought you here today. I want you to help me understand your livelihood from your perspective.”

“. . . .”
“I know this is all foreign to you, but you must do it.”

“What do you want to know…? My life is fine….”

“You lack specifics, Mr. Higgins. Bring them to me!”

“I have a good life! I have a roof over my head, a great family, a beautiful girlfriend; nothing in my life is that bad! I have nothing to hate about my life, and I’m grateful for all of that.”

“And you believe this in the deepest depths of your soul?”

“. . . I do.”

“Hm. Very well. Then tell me a story.”

“What?”

“Tell me a story. Wonderful lives are filled with so many stories. I’ve heard so many breathtaking ones from so many people. And I want yours, Mr. Higgins.”

“Why…? What is this all for…?”

“Again, you will understand very soon. Stories carry so much weight. They tell me more than any description. There are just some things in this world that cannot be projected from just words. And it allows me to see how you really feel. If your words now hold any weight.”

“Now then. Whenever you’re ready, you may grace my ears. You can take as much time as you require. I will be here. Forever and always.”

“. . . .”

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

“Sunday.”

“Hm?”

“It was a Sunday. The worst date of my life.”

“Ah. . . .”

“I took my girl out to a burger joint across campus. It was definitely a pretty shit place for a first date, but for some reason, she didn’t really care that much. We still talked like there wasn’t an issue with it at all. She was always so charitable…”

“Anyway, we bar-hopped after. It was actually my suggestion since me and my sister did the same thing every now and then, and I thought it’d be fun at the moment. And it definitely was. Heh… I remember that we were acting a fool so much that the bartender kept yelling at us to shut up or he’d kick both of our asses out to the street at the same time. And we goaded the poor bastard and we ran our drunk asses out of there as soon as he lunged.”
“We ran as fast as we could, until we could barely see the lights of the street sign. We ended up walking back the long way, through this wooded area with a beautiful creek and a rickety bridge. Something out of a Fairy Tale, honestly.”

“And what is it that you talked about?”

“Everything. How dark it was that night. How Professor Palmer was the biggest dick for giving out the most BS tests. How by the time we were halfway home, dad would’ve been waiting for us on the sidewalk up West Pine Street.”

“Was that all that happened?”

“... No.”

“Do tell.”

“We were sitting by that brook for a while. It felt like hours. I remember that I got all pissy in the middle of it all, whining about not knowing where I was going. I didn’t know where my big destination in life was either. I threw it all her way. I still really regret all that trauma dumping… such a stupid thing for me to do.”

“But… then suddenly, she put my hand on my shoulder, and gave me the sternest look I’d ever been given in my life. And she goes ‘Seemore, you don’t have to worry about shit. Maybe you won’t make it. But that’s okay. All you gotta know is that you did everything you could to make it there. Sometimes the game ain’t fair, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t play.’”
“I stared back at her for a while. She smiled back at me, and she hugged me. It was one of the most profound moments of my life….”

“. . . .”

“And what happened after…?”

“. . . I tried to kiss her. But I saw her lurch back. I remember apologizing so many times… and I just rushed away from her. Even as she was calling my name… I just couldn’t face her anymore. It was… the worst date of my life.”

“And that was it.”

“. . . .”

“. . . .”

“God… I’m so fucking stupid….”

“. . . .”

“. . . .”

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Higgins. Dry your tears. Life comes at us quickly. Your intentions were not malevolent in nature, I have seen that from the way you speak. And in the future, perhaps you would’ve seen that.”

“But, do you still believe that your life was as great as you had said?”

“... I don’t know… I wasn’t going anywhere… and I fumbled the best thing that could’ve ever happened to me…

“....”

“But… maybe there could be a chance… a chance for something better later…”

“Hm… you are a very interesting man to me, Seemore Higgins. So much conflict. So much uncertainty. I find those ones to be the most fascinating to me.”

“So… can I go now…?”

“Mr. Higgins… Do you not see why you are here? Everything that you just described has led to this very moment.”

“... What do you mean?”

“Keep telling your story to me.”

“Well… what else is there to say? I went back to my dorm. I cried for such a long time. I think I downed a whole bottle in the fridge. And I must’ve just passed out.”

“Can you tell me what happened afterwards…? A single thing…?”

“. . . .”

“. . . .”

“. . . .”

“Oh… God…. No….”

“Yes. I know you felt that. That’s what all who come to me have in common. The sudden end to the game. Though for you… it must’ve been so much more peaceful than others.”

“This… this isn’t real. This is just a dream!”

“Though, I prefer not to use the word ‘God.’ God is someone who is revered by many, praised by many as their savior. And most of all, he is in your image as you are in his. I am no such thing, my friend. I operate like this under the notice of all. I am the one who watches you in your dreams– I am the one who stands behind your vision always, and stands in the farthest reaches of your subconscious. To collect your stories. To understand what type of man you are. As well as someone who stands so starkly away from you can, at least. I envy your experience– but I will always listen to your stories. Hearing you tell them all back to me… is such an enriching experience.”

“No no no no no-”

“But the show must end. And I will deliver you into the void with the others. I cannot promise you salvation, but what I do promise is that you may play out that lovely story. Over. And over. And over. As all who fall into the void do. Until that soul of yours has somewhere to go… if it goes anywhere. I am so excited for you, Mr. Higgins!”

“PLEASE HELP! MOM! LYNN! SHAY! ANYONE!”

“Shhh… Gaze into my eyes… and do not be afraid… just remember… sometimes the game is not fair.”

*CRACK*

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play it, my child….”

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

. . . .

The first of many ways Joseph Lotton. He was an executive at the local Southeast Bank just past 23rd Street. He was a man of routine, always brewing a cup of coffee by seven-thirty, dressed in his grey suit by eight, and always made it to the Sunday service at nine on the dot, no more no less. Despite the strict manner in which he lived his life, he presented himself as a gentle man, the type of guy everyone always felt they knew even if they never uttered many words to the guy. The few times I spoke to him after service was over, he had a way with his words followed up by a nickel-slick smile that could’ve charmed me in another lifetime. And every day after that, he’d tell me how nice the flower pins in my hair looked and the choice of long, flowing dress I chose to wear that day.

If I didn’t know any better, I might’ve been pulled in.

My neighbors knew him very well, making comments about how their kids called him “Lotty” and were frequently called to pick them up during soccer practice. He was everybody’s neighbor, he often said. And I think he really meant that with all his heart.

Much to their shock and everyone else’s, judgement day soon came to him. His clothes were found in his office on the 5th floor. No body. No hair. No blood. Not even a speck of dandruff. He had simply left this world without a trace. The window to his office had been shattered, but even then there was still no trace of Lotton in the very few glass shards that were still on the ground when police arrived nor the pavement below.

Not long after, it had been leaked to the police that Lotton had been laundering money for a select few parties outside of the city. The details on it were fuzzy initially, no surprise considering his position in town, but eventually, the news had come out that his primary clients involved a few smaller gangs in the tri-state area, primarily the Soots over in the neighboring capital city, which was the most violent one out of the many alleged. Needless to say, it was a shock to the system for a lot of the people here, especially my neighbors, who had fallen into radio silence for several long weeks after his passing and his subsequent condemnation. He’s no longer Lotty to them at this time, as should be the case.

He was the first of many to be judged by God.

A significant one out of many that followed was a priest, Reverend Clement, who I had known since I was a little kid being taken to Sunday service by my mom. He was an older man, around the age of 53 before he had been called for judgement. My mother and him were quite close for a time, always speaking warmly to one another when service had ended, or whenever she had come to donate some food to the charity box on Thursdays. Personally, I think it was just an excuse for her to see him again. She was the type that couldn’t really help herself sometimes.

When he saw my mother in a warm light, he always looked at me with an obstinate disdain, as if I had been an obstacle in the way. Every recital, every donation I had made, every charitable act I had put in, it never seemed to be enough. It was always a shadow cast from bitterness and frustration when I crossed his view or when we spoke in the short bursts that we did. “Your obligations should be taken more seriously, Lilly.” “The sins you have described to me should be formally-performed, Lilly.” My only regret is that I hadn’t done everything to his liking before he had been spirited away.

Judgement day came for him a few weeks after Lotton. His clothes were found in the confession booth, his glasses having been broken in front of where his tunic was. There was less respect given to him than the likes of Lotton, no mistake at all– considering what was found out about him later, he was not owed anything for his service, and I think God agreed with that sentiment. When the police came, there was the scent of smoke that filled the air, seeing that his clothes had been burnt horribly, perhaps from a chemical, but I believe it to be a type of holy fire that had drowned him out and burnt his body to nothingness.

It truly was an act against a horrific man.

Once again, a leak came out from the news, this time from a personal witness. What came out was very lowkey, with many victims later soon coming out after they had heard of his judgement the day after. They all had worked up the courage to do so after the first came out, but his judgement was even more of a signal for many to come out from the woodwork and tell their stories. I kept track of each of their names– Lena, Candice, Soren, Lacy, Daniel. It was difficult to find their names since the investigation is still fresh and there are some co-conspirators involved in the case, but I intend to speak with all of them more fully when I get the chance to. To see such a wretched sinner gone, and the joy they feel in their eyes when they hear of their liberation fills me with a great amount of pride for my community.

Unless, of course, any of them must suffer their own judgement day.

The latest one to be judged was my mother, Lily Grant. She named me after herself, likely out of a sense of self-importance she never truly had. I knew my father only for a short time– my mother was an adulterer and had been able to gain custody of me in the messy divorce by laying a few alleged charges on my father that she had never gone into full details on. But she couldn’t keep that hidden from me for long– my father never hit me or her, no matter the circumstances. But I had no say in the matter since I was so young. And ever since we moved here, I had never been able to see him again in order to tell him how much I miss and love him. Hopefully one day I will get the chance to do that, but until then… I’ve been stuck in a town of sin for so much of my life.

She always saw me as an object to be paraded around for her own selfish needs. Perhaps she thought that her child would be the key to her success, considering she had been a failure of a restaurant owner and was still recouping from the losses of that, which she constantly reminded me every day of my life. It was why I needed to be so devout. It’s why I must be the perfect woman for someone to marry later in my life. It’s why I needed to be the best at everything when I was in school, in grades and sports. Everything needed to be perfect so that I could be her little moneymaker.

It was a miracle that judgement day hadn’t come for her sooner.

***

The horns of liberation had sounded in my head as her judgement day had arrived. I found her, lying naked in bed in the dead of night, directly on the holy hour I would perform my adoration every night on. The lack of clothes made for less of a hassle, and I was overcome with a sense of relief when I realized I wouldn’t have to remove them myself. I stood with the powerful tool in my hands, shaking with utter excitement as I stood over her body. A twisted smile spread across my face as my body had begun to sweat in this utter anticipation. The string was pulled and out came the roar of the saw.

What came next was her sudden awakening to the tear of the fabric of her blanket and the bloodcurdling pain of the blade pushed into the stomach. The flailing and the screaming only made it worse, as every bit of strength in my arms was being used to tear it up. The wet splatter across my face gave off an astral feeling in my cortex as more had flung against the walls and floorboards. Her screeching mixed with mine, though with the ecstasy flowing through my brain, it soon turned into a hideous laughter as I dragged farther and farther up. And in her eyes, where her fear was most palpable, I looked back until my eyes had begun to dry up, redden, and tear up.

But I made no mistake. There was no sadness. There was only this existential dance I was having with God, who had given me the power for this judgement.

And as savory as it was, it had to end eventually.

The engine started clogging with both fluid and solid matter until eventually, it had slowed down completely, filled with too much red matter that it was too much for it to handle. And once it had finished completely, I had thrown the broken tool down onto the floor. And as the blood of Eve had dripped onto the floor, I dove to the foot of the bed and uttered a soft prayer in His name. I took more of the crimson essence and smeared it through my face and hair as soft, quick words ran from my mouth, as a token of my graciousness for the same blood that ran through my veins.

“OurFatherinheaven, yournamebehonoredasholy. Yourkingdomcome. Yourwillbedoneonearthasitisinheaven. Giveustodayourdailybread. Andforgiveusourdebts, aswealsohaveforgivenourdebtors. Anddonotbringusintotemptation, butdeliverusfromtheevilone.”

And afterwards, there was silence as I stayed knelt in this moist atmosphere, softly dragging my hands along the bloody mess made on the floor, with skin, bone, and all manner of flesh strewn about. I soon stood up and began preparations after this small moment of peace The Lord had given me for carrying out His judgement. I proceeded to walk out, pulling the body with me to the shower to properly clean both of us, and to make sure what was still inside of her body did not spill out. There was a delicacy I still washed her body with, even after such brutality. There was some part of me that remembered my teachings, even after what had been done had been done.

Though, I still enjoyed her in this state much more. Cleaned of her sin. Removed from this world and placed where the soul belonged. That’s how it should be. And soon my time will come.

I dragged her body into the basement with the others, sitting them in her chair amongst the rest of those who partook in judgement, and sat at a long table. She was going to be the first of many brought to the supper. There were so many buried yet to be excavated, like the early Lotton who I had bludgeoned with a bat and pushed from his office window. And such a great memory from the Reverend, who I had sedated and burned with a frail match. The very memory of his judgement brought another Dopamine hit to my brain in that moment, watching his skin sizzle while knowing that later, I could drag his name through the mud on what he did to me. What mother had allowed to happen because she liked him so much more than daddy.

They will all partake in the last supper. All 13 of the sinners I had taken so long to investigate. Because I was made to be perfect in the eyes of mother and God.

But the horns of liberation will sound soon again.

To signal one more judgement day.

My judgement day.

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When I strided into the kitchen, Mom was standing over the stove, softly prodding the steak and sifting it around its pan. I glanced into the pan as she was moving it softly, and what I saw was something more akin to a black mass of char than something that was edible. A confused grimace strewed across my face.

“H-Hey... I know I don’t cook, but I think that’s burnt….”

She turned her head slightly with a calm smile.

“Don’t worry, dear. I know what I’m doing. You just sit down and it’ll be done soon.”

She turned her head back to the pan.

The way she spoke made my hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It was a silky smoothness, so soothing in its timbre. And yet, there was a lack of greater emotion, a strange formality that wouldn’t come from a usually-casual comment, or the typical stopping power that came from a typical sentence. Her voice seemed to linger after her last word, like she was letting out all the breath from her lungs before she could finish.

Still, I did what she asked, having adjusted my glasses as they fogged a bit and sitting at the dinner table in silence for about thirty minutes. The sound of sizzling and the grandfather clock ticking was all that filled my ears. I put my hands behind my head and stayed my own thoughts– the only spot that was safe for me here. The one place she could not reach me.

Eventually, the kitchen had silenced. A few moments later, a plate slid in front of me. I was greeted with a complexion of charred steak, burnt down to the very center with very little seasoning. Surrounding it was a pool of juice, with a few carrot sticks and small pieces of broccoli strewn about and barely wreathing it.

She sat across from me, having her own plate of burnt meat in front of her, but did without the vegetables. I watched her for a few short moments before I took a bite of my own food. She had a more gleeful smile on her face as she took her fork and knife, cutting into the blackened mess with relative ease and with a perfect etiquette. But when she moved to eat the piece on her fork, her head lurched forward with a sudden eagerness, crunching the charred meat without seeming to have any regard for its taste.

She looked at me slowly, her eyes slowly sliding from her plate to me with a disgusting smoothness to the motion of her eyes.

“Cmon, Honey. Eat your food,” She said with careful words. “I made it specially for you.”

Without hesitation, I did as she asked. Even if there was a nervousness rising in me, I knew that no matter what, the best choice was to go along with it. It was a natural instinct to me.

I took my own fork and knife, finding a difficulty in cutting it as opposed to Mom’s clean slice. When I was finally able to cut it and taste it, the bitterness was overwhelming. Every fiber of my body wanted to spit it back out, but I forced myself to chew and swallow it down. No matter what, I could not displease Mom.

I forced a smile through the bits of char still clinging to my teeth and tongue.

“T-This… this is delicious… thank you….”

Her smile widened, clapping softly to herself.

“I’ve been getting so much better. I’m so glad you’re liking it. I’ll try something new tomorrow. This’ll be better than you than that slop you bring from school.”

“Y-Yeah… I guess….”

I start to eat the vegetables on my plate. Compared to the steak, they were like tiny deserts scattered around a pool of gutter filth.

“School all well and good…?”

“Yeah….”

“Good grades?”

“Mhm….”

“No bullies?”

“No Mom.”

“Good. The last one you had was not as coarse as the one before.”

I shuddered at the thought. We still had leftovers of him inside of the fridge. And the one before that was the first I had seen something so vile. He was gone the next day. I used to wonder where she had taken him. At least until I saw that she had a new bedside table. Lamp and all.

I struggled through the rest of the meat and eagerly ate at the raw vegetables that remained. When I was finished, I stood up to go and clean my plate, hoping to get out of there as soon as I could. Though, I stopped like a deer caught in headlights as I heard the sound of her chair sliding across the floor. Her footsteps approached, light yet still echoing in the quiet house. They stopped directly behind me as soon I felt a tender embrace wrap around me, a sharp dread filling my very soul as her arms curled around me.

And what soon followed was the sound of stretching skin, forcefully pulling what should not be possible nor natural. Her smiling face came into view in front of me, and I managed to muster a smile back, trying to ignore her neck in my peripheral. I hated having to look at her in the face. The way her face was almost like a malleable mask the more you stared into it. The way her eyes didn’t reflect any of the light around her, making them look dull and soulless always. And the way her body swayed with excitement despite her well-mannered words. Never taking a misstep. Like playing this role was the most fun thing to her.

“You’ve been such a good boy. I hope you know that….”

I could only silently and shakingly nod.

“Mom is so proud. We’ll go someplace fun after school tomorrow. Until then… keep your door unlocked tonight for me, won’t you?”

I nodded again, unable to properly put words out in my fear. Her face soon moved out of view and she began to loosen her grip, at which point I had quickly left the kitchen.

Once I made my way to the bathroom, shutting the door as I panted in panic, my hands freezing with pins and needles and my face turning pale as I stood over the sink. I gagged, but nothing came up– I was prepared to vomit into the sink, like I had done many times before, but I couldn’t. I had lost so much over so many months that my body was used to this sickening feeling, as though all of this was somehow natural.

The only thing I thought to do at that moment was cry. I stayed in that bathroom for almost an hour sobbing to my heart’s content. It was the only kind of relief I could get in a house that was no longer my own.

After that hour of peace had passed, I left the bathroom and went to bed, feeling completely and emotionally exhausted to the point where the second I collapsed, I was out like a light.

…

…

…

Deep into the night, I had woken up, my eyes nearly bugging out from my skull from the sudden wave of shock that shook me awake. I looked around, only able to move my eyes and only able to see the wall I had been facing when I quickly drifted off.

But I could feel her. Those eyes. The ones that blended deeply into the dark that you’d have to search for them thoroughly. I couldn’t see them. And that was what terrified me the most.

I heard her footsteps against the wood floor. They were heavier this time. Each one made me lose my sanity more and more. Though my body didn’t react– it physically couldn’t, as if it was put into a state of paralysis. Whether it be by fear, or some other force, I could not know.

She moved next to my bed, my heart pounding out of my chest as my body felt as though a thousand pins had been pushed into it. My mouth involuntarily opened as a result from this otherworldly sensation, the only feeling I had throughout my entire body, letting out this mix of a cut-off grunt and a cough. And when she stretched out a hand to softly stroke my hair, her fingers dug into my scalp with a terrifying tenderness. And my skin felt a slight pull, as though it was calling to her in some way, but never was able to pull itself from my flesh in this agonizing moment.

I must love Mom. I must praise Mom. Even with her stolen skin.

I can’t miss mom. I must love Mom.

I must adore Mom.

…

…

…

Maybe soon I’ll be with mom.

A baby is set to be born. The Mother is cared for by a collection of nurses. Their faces are plastic, and their movements are as stiff as their skin. Their bodies move jointly, carrying along tools made to heal, but create a memory made to cut and poke. The Father sweats, sitting in the room as they cut into his wife to extract what is underneath. She lays there, motionless, her eyes full of artificial light darting back and forth as her stomach is numb, her womb still full. The nurses shuffle back and forth to extract what is beneath the surface of the skin, only to pull out the most feared treasure– a bundle of flesh that had been entangled in a mess of wires that is not meant to exist within the nest of creation. It does not move.

The Mother stares into it, but does not cry. The Father shudders, but does not speak.

“It is gone. But rest is still a necessity,” one of the husks bellow.

Its voice rings in her ears, especially. It rattles in her pale head, but she remains hollow as the nurses start to zip the chamber back up, reaching inside of her body to continue taking out and attaching cables that had been misplaced during the pregnancy. One of the nurses scrape a spot that isn’t numbed. The Mother gasps and arches her back, a wheezing coming out from her mouth. She smiles through it– it is the only pleasure that she will experience in this moment, and it won’t be a pleasure that she will remember.

A few days after the incident, the two return to their home nestled between many other messily-constructed apartment buildings, made to house an ever-growing population in the city of Charlotte. They catch a glimpse of the young woman next door, feeding a man, wide-eyed and outstretched on a throne of metal and cables. They pay them no mind.

They pass by a room more akin to a storage closet than a child’s room, tiny clothes and mittens and hats hanging from hangers and sat on shelves. The Mother looks at them briefly, blinks, and moves to the living room.

After eating leftover slop from yesterday’s lunch, the two retreat to their bedroom. The act is loveless but desperate, not out of some emotional attachment, but instead to search for the only pleasure that either of them can feel ever since they had both changed. The two grin and huff throughout still, caught up in the momentary ecstasy despite the return to absolute neutrality afterwards. The bright lights in her eyes shine brightest. His cold skin only becomes slightly more warm when he merges with her. And every time it is over, they resume their muted expressions, blinking at each other before moving to redress and pretend nothing had occurred in the first place.

They have been living for a little over 20 years on this Earth, and they have already succumbed to their fates.

They try and try and try the following days, but what is organic in his body is very weak. It has been ever since he threw some of his humanity to the wind and replaced it with devices similar to hers. Perhaps not as much, but just enough that producing an heir was difficult.

Eventually, they succumb to this too.

They approach a man that they call Darwin at the hospital, one with multiple eyes where one once was, and with a body more like an arachnid than that of a Human. He hears their request, his smile wide and gnarled, each tooth yellowed if it wasn’t already full of stained metal.

Darwin takes them to a room with large, gridded tablets around its epicenter. Above it was a cephalopod of a machine, its many intertwining tentacles moving to form shapes and figures on white palettes. There were other soon-to-be parents tapping vigorously at their keyboards in front of gurneys, ome with more metal in their heads than The Mother. Some of their eyes twitch. Some of them have many more visual orifices that dart back and forth. Some have mandibles that tap the screen ever since the feelings in their arms had been lost long ago, perhaps in an accident, or another procedure that had been run on them in the past.

The Mother taps on the tablet. Her attention moves between so many possibilities. She settles on a few that lay within her mind:

Platinum.

Brown.

173.

Fair.

Joyful. Humble. Easygoing.

Confrontational.

No tears.

And so, it has been set in the grid.

Once the initial selection finishes, The Mother lays back. From the cephalopod, one of its tendrils detaches, filling the tip of its syringe with the formula. The gurney closes on her after she removes what is necessary, and from between the loins, it injects and stays inside until she tests positive. It’s cold and discomforting, and it makes her more gracious to the warmer embrace of her husband. It’s the only thing she thinks to appreciate. It has been rare for many years for anyone married for true love anymore. Now they were more akin to animals, moving their bloodline along because it was simply in their DNA to do so, whether they were worthy or not of parenthood.

The other mothers follow in her footsteps on their own gurneys, having their own experiences. Some good. Some poor. Regardless of which, they are wheeled off in a collective room, sure to be told the amount they owe for this operation. And each one gives a similar lackluster response. They are much too excited for their creations to be brought to them in a few days’ time.

In that short span, the mothers are given food and water in bundles as their wombs grow quickly, taking what should be a progressive multi-month cycle in only a few days. The rapid growth makes them bedridden and unable to move, lest they use up too much energy and peter out too quickly. Some don’t make it through. Some lay dormant for days just for sitting up for too long. As for The Mother, who is lucky enough to have a husband on standby, waits hand-in-foot for her, feeding her and tilting her glasses for her to drink. The Mother and The Father exchange glances every now and then, a light in The Mother’s eye when she looks at him now. Generosity like this only came in a blue moon.

Then, suddenly, deep within the night, there is a scream.

And then another.

And then all in unison, all of the poor women are left with these shrill shrieks that fill the entirety of the hospital.

And as sirens blare around them, those same husks that had announced the miscarriage of her unborn shuffle in, attending to each woman. And as the chorus of bloody screeches sing like a murder of crows dawning upon a corpse, The Father’s helpless as he watches them cut into his wife’s stomach. Anesthesia is not produced in time, so each lifeless nurse moves to recover those within the mothers, as they would otherwise grow past their limit and burst. The chaos that follows is plentiful. Some are ripped asunder as they panic, spasming and rocking in their beds like women possessed until they stop moving altogether, as well as the bundle within them. Others hold on as long as they can before they lay back from the excruciating pain. And as for The Mother, she looks as though she will join the others that had moved in the way of the nurse’s work. But before she could, The Father grabs her hand, squeezing it tightly. In his panic, he grabs her chin and points it to him.

“Look at me. Only me.”

The first words he had spoken to her in months.

She obliges like his word is that of a God, long abandoned but having suddenly dawned from the heavens.

Through the drilling and slicing and slimy, sticky noises, suddenly-

All grows quiet.

Those that scream either perish, faint, or lay back breathing heavily.

The Nurse brings to The Father… The Daughter… dug deep from the nest amidst hell around them.

And even as sirens blare around them, loud and obscene as the smell and moisture created by the blood and bits of warm flesh…

The child laughs.

With flecks of platinum blonde hair.

Large brown eyes.

A narrow body.

Fair yet almost synthetic skin.

A wide smile.

And no tears in sight. And will never be in sight for the rest of her life.

Just as generated.

“... She’s perfect.”

But his life was wildly uninteresting. His modest job hadn’t changed for four years, sitting at a desk and clacking at keys mindlessly, every once in a while having to put on a mask while picking the beige phone beside him, as if some part of him wasn’t withering away each day. And the bland food he ate and the dreary home he laid in didn’t change either– it felt as though nothing was changing in the man’s life. And so, he reached a breaking point, spurring him to take the money he had and suddenly vanish off the face of the Earth. Tom had searched for a long time, calling everyone in the vicinity that could help him find Jeremy, but he never could find him. And Tom lay awake on those nights where Jeremy couldn’t be felt in his castle any longer, wondering if he could have spoken to him about the life he wanted to live outside of it. He had barely uttered a word to him due to how little time they had around each other. He wished that he could have been someone better for him.

He stared into the white spirals that were sculpted into his ceiling, the traces of their spindling guiding his eye until he felt dizzy, though his eyes refused to shut in wake of the thoughts of his own inadequacy. He gazed into the white void sprinkled with snowflakes of dark for hours and hours, until he found himself sitting up in his bed. He felt the cold chill of wind coming through his flimsy window. It called to him like an entrancing song, trying to take his hand and pull him from the safety of his apartment walls to the cold street below him.

And so he walked out into the snowy night, caught in a dead stare that went a thousand miles long. His steps were careful and precise, yet his face remained stone cold like he was caught in the wind’s spell. He walked past the apartment buildings that were now drowned out in darkness. He passed by the office buildings, and the one where Jeremy spent his days slowly crumbling as a Human being and forced to watch himself fall into an abyss of self-loathing and compliance. He passed by the welcome sign to his home city, painted with a blue sky and a fake sunny day that had never come to Jeremy, and which had quickly faded away for Tom.

And he spent hours walking on the side of the dirt road, heading towards the forested mountains that he knew his brother had abandoned him for. Hours felt like days, but the dark of the night was never lifted for even a mere second. The silent droning of the crickets started to meld into a dull buzzing in the mind of Tom, becoming white noise in the background alongside the crunching beneath his feet. Everything around him became a daze– a wave that washed past him but never into him.

He trudged into the forest, where the footprints of many coalesced into a mess of unrecognizable treads that all met each other uphill. And as if in that same spiral, he walked along the side of the mountain, where all the tracks of yesterday’s men and women merged into one abomination. The smear of snow-covered hands and mitts lined the rocky wall, where Tom too dragged his hand in his melancholy. Many-a-stains had lined it, some a soft drag of white, some a scratch of red, and an infected yellow, all mixing into each other to formulate the tales of many who walked the mountain path.

And as he climbed more and more, Tom felt his legs beginning to shake from all the walking. They were screaming for him to stop. For him to go back to that cozy apartment building where nothing got done– where comfort was the reward for complicity in being faceless. Faceless among other faceless that went in and out, to and fro, back and forth. A nauseating mess of bodies that were separate but whole at once, made into networks of nigh-assimilated minds.

No more. There could be no more for him.

And when he hit the valley in the mountain, he saw them all– the many who had traveled up here in that same woe as he and Jeremy had, called by the winter wind to come and join it. He walked past the frostbitten bodies of many, pale vestiges of once broken Humans who had no longer desired that ambitionless comfort. Their faces were contorted, not in peace, but by pain. Some slack jawed with their flesh blue and crystalized. Some still wallowing in that quiet despair with agony as their last memory. Some wide-eyed with pupils contorted into bubbles as they had stared deep into the whispering wind. What it was they saw in the wind was its own secret, sat in their ice thrones in the mountain valley, chairs carved out just for them, and soon connected to their bodies forevermore.

Tom walked past them all, taking a seat beside the man he had thought abandoned him and sat by him. He looked into the starless sky, hearing the intensity of the winds swirl around them, as if to keep him here despite his willingness. He didn’t take his brother’s hand, nor did he even have the strength to look at his frozen vestige. He sat in this despair all his own, watching as his bare, pale, broken mixed with the dirt and rock and blood and ice began to become part of the Earth.

“Are we… still… here…?”

Was all he uttered as the winds took him.

His brother’s eyes flicked to him, as did all the others, before turning back into the dark abyss.

They married after much time of dawdling and worrying. The two had their eyes set on each other for some time, but never had the courage to speak to one another. Instead, they spoke through their work. The Cobbler cut, trimmed, and assembled all day to make a shoe worthy of her dusty, drab dress, and The Weaver prepared, measured, and threaded a fine suit worthy of his patchy, battered shoes. And when The Cobbler came to The Weaver on that fateful day, with the pearly white shoes in hand, and The Weaver came out with a lovely set of red and black cloth in her arms, the two of them were shocked, and then delighted.

“What is a dress as white as fleece and fair as snow without kind and supple slippers to fit the woman?” Asked The Cobbler.

“And what are shoes as tanned as an ox’s mane and as firm as his horn without a thoughtful and fit suit to fit the man?” Asked The Weaver.

And the answer that they gave was many days of walking under fair skies, talking under the taste of baked fish, and weaving and cobbling together under a single roof under a single enterprise. The wedding bells sounded as a reprise to this answer.

When The Weaver and The Cobbler became The Bride and The Groom, they bought a new home on the edge of the town. After the trouble of moving, they had begun repainting a room for a child, one that could help complete their lives more than they had for one another. The Groom had made tiny, modest shoes for the newborn, making them of every color so the child would always be proud of her footwear. And The Bride had wove dresses of many feathers and colors so that the child would never be bored of the dress she wore the next day.

And every night, in the most passionate of throes, they would try for that one day The Bride would feel a lump in her stomach that wasn’t there before, or the feeling of warmth below her heart that wasn’t there before. But unfortunately for The Bride, that day never came. And with each passing day, the couple grew more and more despairful and drained as they realized they weren’t able to have children of their own. Whether it be a curse from the heavens or a plague that was unbeknownst to either of them, no matter how hard they tried, the child never came. And after some time, after another morning of nothing, The Groom had let out a sigh of grief.

“If I am the problem, and I am not able to plant a seed in the ground and have it bloom, would you still love me?” asked The Groom.

“Only if you would love me if I am not able to provide the nutritious dirt and water for that seed to grow in the first place,” replied The Bride.

“Then I still love you.”

“As do I.”

And they laid together in this embrace, finding some solace that their bond was tethered in the completeness that gave one another rather than what heir that one could produce for another.

Then one day, as they were on their way to Cochem for a surprise visit to The Groom’s mum, which he had neglected to do for some odd months after the two had been married, they had seen two children walking alone along the forest trail that they had been traveling. The Bride had looked over and studied the two children.

The girl, who could not have been older than the hour by which the sun stood tallest, wore a beautiful black dress that shifted in its softness as she walked. And in her long braid that nearly draped across the floor with its length, therein lay mums and petals and dandelion flakes, scattered across the river of strands in harmonious straits.

And hand joined with hers, the boy was not even a hair taller than her, nor a wrinkle older. His hair was much darker than hers, cut in a way that framed his small face rather evenly. He wore a black vest to match his sister’s dress, with a white button-up underneath. His trousers were as dark as the boots he stomped across the muddy ground with. And when the two walked, the wind made his vest flutter in the same direction, velocity, and ripple as his sister’s dress. And like his sister, a faint smile crept upon his face with eyes unblinking, despite the faint indication of dirt rubbed against his skin.

When The Bride saw the children, she patted The Groom and pointed in their direction. While The Bride seemed instantly entranced by their sudden mystique, The Groom thought very little of them.

“They must be so tired, walking along the beaten path like this!” Said The Bride. “We should pick them up and bring them home so their feet do not tire from walking!”

“What of it? Their parents could still be around here with them?” Replied The Groom. “What look would it be for an odd couple to scoop up their kids and take them elsewhere?”

“What if their parents had left them on the side of the road, leaving to be fed to the wolves? Come now! They are but children. No children should be left stepping around with the woodland critters alone, no matter the reason!”

“I suppose you are correct, my dear.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

And so they stopped their carriage and let the small children on board. The two children seemed eager to climb aboard without hesitation. Even with their haste, they kept their kind smiles, and moved with the carefulness of a gentleman and a lady. They sat themselves behind the couple, the girl folding her hands atop her lap while the boy sat with a firm posture.

The two bowed one after the other.

“I am Gretel.”

“I am Hansel.”

“And we are grateful for your generosity.”

“Indeed, we are. If you could bring us to Melbrooke just north, we would be even more grateful.”

As the two spoke, there was a certainty to their words. They soon crept their hands atop one another’s in their ever-continued connection. While The Bride felt it charming and cute to see two siblings get along so well, The Groom could only mull over their names in his mind with a curiosity and the slight indication of unease. He could only remain silent as The Bride dawdled on the children, having leaned forward and spoke closely with the two mysterious children from the forest.

And so the group of four rode their way through the forest, which took with it a message through the wind that passed through the ears of The Groom, but flew directly over the head of The Bride. The Groom could feel its message over the goosebumps forming in his skin, which, much to appease his doting wife and the young kids behind them who were not guilty nor suspected of anything. There was simply this message that the forest had kept with him, and he kept it in the back of his mind for later; a handwritten note carved out by the branches that swayed over and sealed with sap.

They soon came upon a small village, which looked quaint upon initial inspection. As they rode in, the neighbors waved and smiled, and the atmosphere felt familiar in a sense. While The Bride waved back, her smile full of joy and revitalized life, The Groom stayed stern and gave a more half-hearted gesture. The Groom continued to watch those around him with an analytical eye. Something, to him, felt off about these people. Sure, they smiled and waved. But the light behind their eyes felt glassy, tired, perhaps lost in a way. And their smiles became more anxious as either of the couple looked away. And as they edged closer to the home of the twin children, everything around them appeared to become more lively. And as the sun shined brighter, the plants around them felt like they were springing to life quickly, being forced to look upon that which gave them their nutrients.

The two stopped at a small cottage, made of proudly-carved stone, whose doors were perfectly rounded, whose windows were perfectly squared, and smelled of the most precious of breads and cakes and cookies. Everything about it was created to draw the nose and the eyes, and once a hand touched the smooth stone, eventually draw the nerves of one’s very body.

The group stepped out of their carriage and the two twins appeared to go inside rather quickly, with The Bride right behind them. The Groom came to his wife’s side, taking her arm.

“We have done our due diligence, my love,” The Groom anxiously noted. “We must make haste back on our way. My mother’s weary heart will be most displeased if we keep her waiting.”

And just as The Groom was about to take his wife’s hand and lead her away from this oddity of a town, the two children stood in the doorway behind them to their kitchen.

“Mum has not come home for us yet,” Gretel said, eyes welled with tears.

“Yes,” Hansel reciprocated. “She said she would come back when she finished a trip to Cochem. But we didn’t wish to stay in that scary forest for so long….”

“What are we to do now?”

And the two children whined with their heads down in unison, weeping and cowering as if their whole world had been torn asunder due to such cruelty.

The Bride walked up and promptly dried the tears of the two children with her forefinger, brushing the top of their heads tenderly.

“You poor tots. How could a mother do that to such lovely twins?” She asked, a tear nearly coming to her eye. “You cannot be left alone. No mother would allow for that to happen! And for that reason, we will stay here until that wicked woman is taught precisely how to treat her innocent children!”

The declaration hit twofold, once to the children, who appeared to immediately cease their mewling and hugged the young woman with utmost grace. However, twice was to The Groom, who was left puzzled at such a declaration being made for him to stay in this situation that caught him so suspiciously. He opened his mouth to protest, before pausing and letting out a sigh of deep remorse. Of course this was not a situation he wished to be in, nor was he fully trusting anything that went within the limits of this village. His lucidity made him all the more suspect of what was going on. But as a man, he knew that it would be wrong of him to deny these children protection if everything they said was true, and he knew it would be wrong of him to turn on his lovely wife and pull her so roughly away from this situation that filled her with such joy. He could see the sparkle in her eye, the eye of a woman who had the chance to raise the children he could not provide, even if it was for a very brief time, and it pained him so dearly that he couldn’t give her the only thing she had ever expected of him; she never asked anything else of him, and he never asked anything of her at all. But at this moment… he could give her that very thing that he couldn’t after those several husky nights.

And so, begrudgingly, he nodded in agreement with his wife. And the four of them embraced for a short time.

And for that time, The Bride had taken the initiative to feed the children, clean them and their clothes that had been muddied from the forest, and play with the young children to keep them entertained. She played and played with the children for so much of the day that the sun would be down before she noticed that the light in the home had gone dim. She had become enthralled by the two quaint children, and they never seemed to tire out at all.

Meanwhile, The Groom had spent the day trying to talk to the neighbors and ask about the woman who took care of the two kids. And while they kept their grinning faces and polite gestures, often their responses would be short and sweet before the door was shut ferociously in front of him without any other thought that he could share. And so, he was left without proper answers, but a pit that continued to grow in his stomach as well.

And when he came home, he searched every bit of the home to look for any clue as to the whereabouts of their mother. The cottage on the inside was as spectacular as its inside, hinted by its sweet scents and lively atmosphere with the sunlight that perfectly shined and illuminated its interior. Its rooms and its treasures were plentiful, with a soft fireplace and two rocking chairs where The Bride would read the two twins stories regularly, though they never sat in the other chair together.

The twins’ slept in one room– a very peculiar one at that. There was a line that separated two sides of the room, one that appeared to be scratched on in white. Gretel would always sleep on one side, Hansel on the other. Each side of the room had a small bed in the corner, along with a chair and a mirror, with a stuffed toy that was sat in the seat aimed towards the doorway. To The Groom’s knowledge, those chairs had never moved apart from one another, nor had any of the furniture even changed even the slightest angle during that first day, even if he had seen one of the two children sit down for a while and play with their toy. Even the toys stayed at the exact angle at where they had last found them.

And when The Groom went to the yard, as the last place he would look, he would find nothing but the freshly laid grass, with a random assortment of flowers laid around them. He walked among the flowers until he came upon two twin crosses in the dirt, or at least what once was one. The crosses appeared to have fallen to the sides, one having fallen in each direction. And in front of those crosses laid a patch of dirt with a very small mound. When The Groom first saw it, he assumed it to be of a relative, or perhaps the children’s father.

Perhaps this was the clue he was looking for– in that moment, he could only think of a day where his bride was no longer with them, arms crossed against her chest within a coffin, wreathed with beautiful pansies and roses to take with her into the sky. He wondered, and hoped, The Bride also thought of a beautiful end to him like this. But how he knew it would destroy him… it didn’t shock him that perhaps the children’s mother had gone mad with grief and left them alone, not wanting a pungent reminder of the man she had once loved. But… on the other hand… he could not forgive someone who would let the last memory of their closest one starve in the woods, let alone relinquish their own flesh and blood that was created through such unrequited love.

He set the crosses upright before he had left the yard. He needed a lead this vile woman….

And soon the first day would go by. And then the next. And then the next. And The Bride would continue to dote on the children. And The Groom would continue his arduous task of asking and searching for any kind of clue to the whereabouts of the children’s mother. And with each passing day, she appeared to have more life flushed into her every single day, her skin starting to give off a new glow that it hadn’t before. The same happened to The Groom, which did not bring him as much happiness as The Bride, but instead made him more certain of the oddities of this place. And he searched more and more throughout the town, asking questions that he never was given answers to.

Then one day, after walking raggedly through town, The Groom would come upon a dirtied shack at the edge of the village. His stamina depleted, he knocked on the door of the dainty abode, hearing the wooden tap echo from within. Slowly, the door would open to reveal a short yet stout old man, looking to be well-beyond his years. Though his complexion betrayed him, his stature was nearing the height of a young child, measuring up barely above The Groom’s knees. His beard had grown to nearly touch the floor, and despite his age, he walked without a cane of any sort, with his arms folded behind his back, as if proud of the state he had made for himself at his old age.

“Ah, young man,” the old man said jovially. “What pleasure do I owe you today?”

“Hello, sir…” The Groom weakly said, his stamina clearly drained from his body. “Do you, perhaps, know anything about the children’s mother that lives in the cottage at the head of town…? No one has given me the time of day.”

The old man paused for a moment. “If you want specifics from me, you shall not get them.”

The Groom sighed, starting to turn rather defeated. However, the old man continued.

“But, know that the others will not. Not because they cannot, but because we all will not.”

The Groom turned. “What in the hell do you speak of?”

“I cannot tell you, for our tongues are sealed. But if you wish to know, you will find the answer below. There, it shall become clear.”

And as soon as he said that, the old man looked both ways and slinked further back inside his home as the door was shut. And even when The Groom pleaded for him, asked of what he was speaking of, he did not get an answer back.

So The Groom was left in silence, as silent as Death in his approach back to the home. And as he thought more and more about the old man’s words and what they meant, and as he turned the doorknob to the cottage and sat himself inside, staring out the window along the perfectly-green grass, staring intently at its glamour, he soon knew what he had to do.

After the children had been put to bed, and The Bride had fallen asleep on her side of the bed that night, The Groom rolled himself out of bed. He stood and looked to his wife on the bed, who had since looked more budding than she had the day before, with any beginning of crow’s feet or blemish in her face having eroded away completely. As he looked down, he noticed his hands, once full of callouses, had become notably more fair and smoothed. He knew by now, for whatever illusion this was, that he needed to act quickly.

He softly stepped through the house, going out the front door. And from their carriage that felt so rusted and bland compared to everything around them up to this point, he took out a shovel– something he had planned to use to help with his own mother’s gardening, but instead had been used for something of greater purpose– and walked to the back of the house. In the pale moonlight, almost like a curtain threaded by God had guided him to it, lay the two crosses on their sides yet again.

And without hesitation, only praying in his mind to those above that he be forgiven for desecrating a grave, dug his shovel into the grave. To his shock, as he dug for only a short time, the dirt appeared to fall through and further into the floor, as if it was a hollow shell that cracked into the center of the earth. And as he looked into the hole, he saw gray, but nothing of complete detail, as well as a drooping ladder into the great below. With great confusion, and quite a bit of anxiety, he swallowed deep as he moved to slide down the ladder below, unsure as to what he had put himself into.

And when he slid down, one of the planks of the ladder had unfortunately decided to give way to the jank entryway, leaving him tumbling down a few feet below. He let out a cough as he landed hard on not the floor, but something frailer.

And when he turned on his side, rolling to his hands and knees.

Bone.

Bone.

Bone.

He had fallen onto remains, which caused him to spring back in absolute terror. The skeleton had been fractured from his fall, but it was so old by this point that it practically folded in on itself. As The Groom, now The Victim, stood on his feet, he looked around himself. His eyes began to adjust in the dark catacomb, but now, he was seeing more splinters of bone that lined the room, more old bodies that were covered in different clothes, some closer to his day, but others sheathed in dated armor. Some in more Victorian-era garb. Some in fancier dresses and ascot-wearing vests.

However, all of the skeletons appeared small. All of them appeared to be a size smaller than he was, at the very least, with evidence of small fractures, bent necks, a shriveled arm and leg here and there, mismatched-sized teeth.

And when it was clear enough to him, the victim walked around for some time until he felt something squish under his foot, which caused him to flinch yet again before his nose was flooded with a horrid stench. When he looked beneath him, he saw them– two children, a boy and a girl, not much older than 12 years old, laying beneath his foot with skin that was gray and beginning to decay. Maggots had begun to find their ways between their teeth and squirm towards their open flesh. Beside the fall from the drop above and the blood that had been spilled from that, now dried in a putrid crystallization, there was no sign of injury on any of them. And most oddly, the two appeared to still be smiling from ear-to-ear, eyes rolled over in an almost drunken state, faces frozen in surreal joy. Their bodies would sometimes twitch and jolt from the many small creatures wiggling inside them, along with the continued process of rigor mortis taking fold.

After seeing this, needless to say, The Victim was now rushing back up the ladder, ignoring the searing pain in his back from the fall and doing everything he could to pull himself out of the catacombs.

And he soon returned to the bedroom, moving to shake his bride awake, his face written with the horror that he had just seen.

“We must leave this land at once!” Yelled The Victim. “We cannot stay here any longer!”

The Bride, now The Taken, woke up with a glassy look in her eye.

“What..? No… we can’t,” mumbled The Taken. “We must take care of the children, my love… we have to wait for their mother to return….”

Her gaze remained vacant, unable to see what was once her lovely-wedded Groom, now only seeing another tool that could be used to care for the children that had entranced her to such a degree.

“Please come with me, my love! Come with me so we may go back to Cochem, and be surrounded by people who will cherish us and help us forget about all of this!” He yelled tearfully. “Whatever spell they have put you under, I won’t let them take you!”

The Taken started to bring her hand to The Victim’s face, caressing it with a gentleness only she knew. “You’re so sweet… but… this is what we’ve always wanted… isn’t it…?

“All of that… was irrelevant to me. The only thing I wanted was you,” The Victim uttered, starting to break down into a tearful reply. “And I am so sorry I could not give you what you wanted… what good is a man like me if he can’t care for the person he loves most…?”

He was left sobbing ugly, taking her hand and pressing it against his forehead, ashamed that he had not been able to bring into this world proper children that they could have fed and played with and sung nursery rhymes to. Whether it really was his fault didn’t matter to him now.

And his wife took his hand and gave him a soft peck on the lips as she stared back at him, her eyes now changing to a palette nearly as pale as the moon. As they did, her lip began to quiver, as did the rest of her weakening body.

“Then… stay with me… I’m scared….”

The two heard a pair of footsteps rushing up the stairs, only to suddenly stop. The two looked to the dark doorway and saw the bright eyes of the two twins, their silhouettes as dark as the night. As The Victim, now The Groom again, had gazed into the darkness and his eyes adjusted, their faces didn’t appear quite right at all. Their jaws were slacked and their eyes looked to be more like chasms that bore into the deepest abyss, no soul in sight. Or rather, one that was splintered and had no direction to go. And they had this slight sway in the darkness, as if there was something to be excited for in the night of such terror. And in the darkness, something squirmed in those empty holes, like a worm on the road after having tasted the moist rain from yesterday, aching for another morsel of that moisture.

The Taken, now The Bride for even the slightest of moments, turned her husband’s head back to her. “Look at me,” she said. “So I won’t forget your face again.”

Even if he wanted to run, even if every fiber of his being was telling him to act on his survival instinct and fight back against whatever was in that doorway… something in his soul was telling him that there was no point in running. Something in his brain was echoing that same hopeless louder and louder as she could hear soft footsteps approach behind him. He kept his gaze on his wife’s eyes, and hers on his as that same echo of despair grew louder and louder. Though, in that despair, there was an attraction as well– an odd warmth that flooded his body that was more like the embrace of parents rather than the coldness grip of beasts.

And as they stepped closer, those steps behind them became heavier. And the warmth of their bodies became greater and greater.

“You love. And you are loved,” The Groom and the Bride heard in their ears. Even if the ones behind them were far away, it was as if it was a whisper in their ears, tender and soft so that they could hear every syllable.

The Groom looked down, tears continuing to stream down his face as the shadow grew in the room.

“I love you.”

“I love y-”

The words soon got caught in The Bride’s throat, as she had a view of what was now hunching over The Groom. Her whole body seized up, caught in a perplexing state of fear and amazement at the same time. Her back had arched as her mouth stayed wide, her eyes flushing with tears and blood as she was exposed to such a beautiful sight.

At that moment, The Groom felt his body fall forward, his skin beginning to shrink in its grown frame, as if someone was pulling it utterly taught around his skeleton. With a sickening jerk and crack, he felt his bones start to push in on themselves, roaring in pain as the marrow twist and turn into a position it had been in years prior. And he laid there, contorting as his limbs began to forcibly shorten themselves, his neck start to shrivel some as a dark ring form around it as he felt himself choking on his own flesh for a brief moment, and blood and flesh start to pull at his feet as it felt like it was being slacked off from all the skeletal melding that was invading his body.

And as The Bride began to also shorten and mold to the whim of a greater will, her pain laid subdued by the awe and seizure she felt at the sight of her new masters, her body numb with that powerful warmth. Warmth that could only be described as love.

And as the bed had flooded with their blood and flesh, and as that greater will had appeared to sink into the bodies of The Bride and The Groom, they laid with one another, gripping each others’ hands in tight unison as a loud thump rang throughout the house, two new bodies having dropped in front of the bed, smiling happily at the absence of their dying vessels.

The Groom held The Bride.

The Bride smiled at The Groom.

Their vision became fogged with the delight of their holy matrimony. Fogged with the mind and memories of many.

They were now Hansel and Gretel, the 99th.