Morse Code

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s Morse Code!” Erik shouted, talking more with his hands than his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot. His clothes smelled like weed. “Listen!”

“Erik…” Jacob sighed. “You really gotta lay off the green, man.”

“Short short short, long long long, short short short.” Erik put his lips together and hummed along to the small office fan. “S.O.S. You gotta hear it.”

Jacob did not hear it.  He slapped at the fan, which was, by all accounts, completely normal. Black plastic, three speed, a thin wire cage to let air out but not fingers in. If he got real close and blew into it, he’d sound like a budget Darth Vader.

“It’s not Morse code, dude. It’s just dirty. Clean it and it’ll stop.”

Erik shook his head. “No dude, something BAD is about to happen. The fan knows.” Erik laughed, hiccupped, and then grew exhausted. He sat his on his bed. “I bet it’s aliens.”

“You always think its aliens.”

“It always is!”

“It never is, you idiot. Now lay off the weed for a few days, okay? I honestly think it’s frying your brain.” It’s like Erik had been leaking IQ points over the last month and a half. And Jacob was sick of his apartment smelling like a weed dealership. When it came time to move, they were not getting their deposit back.

“Short short—”

“Do me a favor. Let’s take it apart and clean it.”

“Why?”

“I dunno? Because the aliens fucking said so.”

Erik thought on this before nodding. “Can we eat first?”

*Two hours later*

Jacob and Erik arrived back from the hardware store with two plastic bags, one containing a single screwdriver, the other three meals from McDonalds. It turned out neither of them owned any tools.

“Alright,” Jacob said. “Let’s crack this thing apart.”

“Food first.”

“You’re gonna get fat, dude.”

Erik unwrapped a Big Mac. The sweet scent of grease and processed meat filled the apartment. “Do you want me to eat yours, too?”

“Give me that.”

*Forty minutes later*

The fan came apart much harder than either expected, partly because the screws were rusted to hell, and partly because Erik lost his mind when Jacob pulled the flat head out to use the Phillips one. However, the fan was now in tatters, its blade lying on the floor, the six screws in a little pile of shame. The wire cage was buried under a mound of McDonald’s wrappers. Jacob chiseled at the motor shaft with the screwdriver, trying to get Erik’s hair off.

“Jesus dude, how the hell is this this dirty. Your hair isn’t even this long!”

“I dunno,” Erik mumbled. He crawled into bed and hugged his pillow. “I’m tired.”

“No shit. You ate two full meals, drank half a gallon of Coke, and then spent twenty minutes on the toilet because you’re stomach hasn’t had a vegetable in over a year.”

“Ha.”

Jacob almost stabbed his friend with the screwdriver. “It’s not funny, dude.”

“It’s probably aliens.”

“Idiot.”

Jacob went back to cleaning the fan, and after a few more minutes of hard elbow grease, managed to de-hair it. He looked at Erik, sighed, swore, and then thought about stabbing him again. But no, it wasn’t worth it.

*Six hours later*

Erik woke with a mouth that tasted like eight pounds of cotton, a nasty headache, and his fan pulsing in a very alien way. It was no longer saying S.O.S. but spouting a full-blown sentence. He scrambled out of bed and ran to his desk for a pen. If he closed his eyes, he could just make it out.

“Slow down, for fuck’s sake,” he mumbled. “I feel like shit.”

To his surprise, the fan slowed. The shorts and longs became recognizable. Erik scribbled the words out as best he could. He’d decode it later.

“Fuck, maybe I am smoking too much weed.”

After ten minutes of writing what appeared to be the same pattern over and over again, Erik looked at his alarm clock and crawled back into bed. He could be an hour late tomorrow. His boss wouldn’t fire him for that. At least, he hadn’t yet.

When he realized it was too hard to sleep with a fan jabbering alien code, he turned it off and rolled on his side. The room’s silence stole over him, thick and suffocating. Erik began to sweat, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something evil waited in his closet.

“Fuck,” he hissed. His head throbbed. “Fuck.”

Erik went to the living room. He turned the T.V. on, sprawled onto the couch, and quickly fell asleep.

*Two hours later*

“Dude, get the fuck up!” Jacob shouted. For some reason, he was holding the screwdriver again, Phillips head out. It was pointy. “If you’re late again—”

“Shit, shit shit,” Erik cried. He rolled off the couch in a useless pile of limbs. His face was pale, and for a split second, Jacob wondered if he should take his roommate to the hospital. But no, this was the weed and the junk food. Sympathy was for people who were actually sick.

“If you get fired, I swear I’m kicking you the fuck out.”

“I’m going!” Erik shouted. His eyes were so bloodshot he looked like some kind of fantasy vampire. “Fuck!”

Jacob watched him scramble out of the house, fully dressed but not showered. Erik stuffed a piece of paper into his pocket before he slammed the door.

*Nine hours later*

Erik crawled into the house feeling like a robber. He tiptoed through the living room, coughed into his elbow, and then every-so-slowly made his way to his bedroom. The door tended to squeal, so he left it open. Better to do this quietly, in case Jacob started asking questions he really did not want to answer. Like how he got fired for showing up to work late for the fifth day in a row. Well that and steeling a candy bar. Stupid grocery store.

He unwrapped his note and sat at his computer desk, ready to decode it. It was a long note, or at least longer than the previous one, but Morse Code was a strange language. A bunch of dashes and dots might only be one single word. Hell, for all he knew, his fan wanted him to drink his Ovaltine!

Erik giggled. He was high again.

There were perfectly good translators online, but Erik decided to translate this by hand. The aliens would be really upset if he took shortcuts. He pulled up a website that defined every letter by its dots and dashes and got to work. After an hour of squinting, giggling, and almost falling asleep, he had his directive.

Get clean. Mother is coming.

“Fuck,” Erik said. “The aliens know I’m a pothead.”

This caused him to laugh so hard that Jacob barreled into his room, and the two proceeded to have a very loud, very violent fight that ended in a broken door, a busted lip, and an eviction notice. Or what Erik considered the threat of an eviction notice. His eye stung, but really, Jacob was being an asshole. He refused to believe that Mother was coming, that the only explanation was this: Mother was a mothership.

“I’m going to space,” Erik said to his bathroom reflection. His reflection bled.

*Eight hours later*

Jacob woke up to the toilet flushing. This wouldn’t normally be a cause for alarm, but one flush turned into two which turned into three. Erik had a bad stomach, but not that bad. Jacob looked at the clock, which read 9:00, and swore himself out of bed.

“Motherfucker.”

He barreled into the bathroom not giving a goddamn shit about privacy, and almost fell over.

“What ARE you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Erik said with a plastic grin. “Mother is coming.”

“What?”

Erik dumped a glop of green into the toilet and flushed it. Jacob watched $20 worth of weed swirl around until the black hole sucked it away forever. The toilet gurgled.

“I think there’s something living in my closet,” Erik said. “I looked this morning and didn’t see anything, but it was there last night.”

“Right.” Jacob slumped against the wall. On the one hand, he wanted his roommate clean; on the other, he was legit worried now. Erik would never throw away weed. Ever. “What happened yesterday after we got done … talking.”

Erik shrugged. “I gotta go to Target to get a new fan. Mine is broken. You need anything?”

“We could use more toothpaste.”

“‘K.”

Jacob watched Erik shuffle out of his room, looking more like a zombie sober than he ever did stoned out of his mind.

*Twelve hours later*

Erik plugged in his new fan and thanked God it wasn’t speaking in alien. He didn’t feel good. If he was being honest with himself, he was downright terrified. It was stupid, so stupid, but he didn’t just make that pattern up. It was there, and it had a message for him. Mother was coming.

He looked at his closet and knew something waited for him.

“Go away,” he whispered. “Just go away. I don’t feel good.”

His old fan turned on. Erik yelped. It wasn’t even plugged in. It pulsed, and with his mouth twisted in a silent scream, he listened to the Morse code. It was a complex pattern, yet he memorized it after two cycles. It seemed to go on forever. Then the fan turned off, and he was left sweating ice and desperate to vomit. He rushed to the toilet and could smell the remnants of his pot floating in the bowl.

“Maybe I’m still high,” he pleaded. “Please.”

After a half dozen fruitless dry-heaves, Erik returned to his room and scribbled out the pattern he thought he heard. It couldn’t mean anything because he was just dumb and stoned, but it did look like Morse code. He opened his website and began to translate.

See you tonight.

Erik’s blood ran cold.

*Tonight*

“Please,” Erik sobbed. “Please you have to fucking stay here tonight. You have to.”

“I will—”

“No, not in the house. HERE! In my room. You have to, because the aliens are coming and—”

“Dude!” Jacob pushed Erik onto the bed. He felt as terrified as his roommate looked. It was fun to joke about Erik losing his mind over cheap weed and junk food, but awful to see in action. He didn’t know what to do. The few friends he had on Facebook told him to just call the cops, but Jacob was afraid he’d get arrested as soon as they got here. The place reeked of pot.

“Please, man. You gotta protect me.”

Jacob put his hands on Erik’s shoulders. “I will. And tomorrow, we’re gonna … I dunno, go to the hospital or something. You look awful, dude. Like really awful. Did you eat today?”

Erik shook his head. “I don’t think I can keep anything down.”

Jacob perched at the end of Erik’s bed. It was 10:00 at night, way too early for either of them to be in bed, but Erik couldn’t stop yawning. His arms were sticks, his eyes craters, like he was slowly turning into a skeleton.

“Can’t we just, go into the living room? Play some video games or something. Whatever tonight is, it can have the whole apartment.”

Erik shook his head. “I’m tired.”

“Maybe we should—”

“It’s in the fucking closet, dude!” Erik jabbed his finger at the brown sliding door. “Right in there. Can’t you feel it? It’s watching us.”

Maybe it was the paranoia or the stress, but now that Erik said it, Jacob did feel it. Something was behind that door. He gripped his screwdriver until his knuckles turned white.

“She’s mad at me,” Erik said, his voice threatening to break. “It’s all my fault.”

“Who?”

“Mother!”

Jacob wanted to scream. This was stupid, and he needed to call the police. Damn the weed; it was better that than whatever the fuck was going on. And why the fuck did he have a screwdriver?

Erik’s old fan kicked on. Its cord was nowhere near an outlet. It pulsed in a pattern, first S.O.S. then letters Jacob didn’t recognize. Erik must have, because he began to scream. Something slammed inside his closet.

“What the fuck!” Jacob shouted. He brandished the screwdriver like a knife.

“Help me!” Erik pleaded.

Jacob looked to his stoner friend, to the fan, and then to the thing sliding out of the closet. He dropped his screwdriver. He screamed. He ran.

*Two days later*

Jacob slumped in the hard chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. Two police officers looked at him like he was absolutely out of his mind. Maybe he was. He felt out of his mind. He hadn’t slept in two days. Not with Mother about.

“And you expect us to believe that?” the first cop asked. He had his arms crossed and his sunglasses balanced atop his head. His face was shaped almost like a perfect square.

“Yes,” Jacob said. “It was a monster.”

“We found your screwdriver covered in blood,” the second cop said. “And about thirty stab wounds on your ‘friend.’ So try again, please. We have all day.”

“I didn’t do it!”

“Sure. But try again anyways.”

Jacob sobbed. Why wouldn’t anyone believe him? He felt sick, and he was so pale he might as well be a ghost. He hugged himself with stick-like arms. They had been perfectly muscled yesterday.

The ceiling fan spinning inside the interrogation room began to rattle in a pattern. Short, short, short, long, long, long long, short short short. Mother was coming.

It Hates The Dark

“Bob … what the fuck is that?”

“Uh—”

Leslie pointed. “No seriously, Bob. What the fuck is that?” It looked like a cross between a grapevine and a dinosaur. The branch part was leathery and covered in scales, like a brachiosaurus neck, and the two large bushels of grapes looked kind of like fossilized raisins. There were leaves too. Sort of. Leslie thought they looked like stegosaurus plates. Leslie liked dinosaurs.

Bob tossed a tarp over the terrarium. “It’s something I’m hoping you can help me get to the airlock before anyone notices.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

The botanist sighed. “Okay, you remember how two months ago Collin was arrested for making a mutagen?” Leslie felt her stomach drop. Collin used to be OPAC’s chemist. “Well, the janitor found a vial of it underneath a desk, and for $200 dollars, let me have it.”

“Goddamnit why!?”

Leslie knew the answer though. On a space station, the botanist was largely a glorified farmer. Oh sure they promised scientific fame. Discover what plants do in space! Breed corn with lettuce! Make your ex jealous by being an astronaut! But the truth was, plants and artificial gravity didn’t mix, so Bob’s hopes of winning the next Nobel had to be shelved alongside all the frozen food byproduct. His real job was to keep the tomatoes alive long enough for the cook to turn them into spaghetti sauce.

“I just wanted to help,” Bob said, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He was bald and fat, and with his white coat buttoned up to the collar, looked a bit like an egg.

The terrarium shook. Leslie jumped, and Bob slapped at the glass cage. The tarp slid back to the floor. The dinosaur thing twitched, and Leslie swore the stegosaurus scales had gotten bigger. Sharper too.

“It doesn’t like to be covered up,” Bob said. “Probably because it’s a plant.”

“We need to call security.”

“I’ll go to space jail!”

“You deserve to be in space jail!”

First Bob’s face grew beat red, and then it paled to the same color as his coat. He was an egg about to crack, and Leslie felt bad for him. And it’s not like she didn’t get it. She was the space station’s researcher, an advanced position that involved taking notes and answering questions the ship’s AI didn’t think were important. She had an office smaller than the janitor’s closet and a computer slightly faster than the cook’s, but only by a little bit. The most exciting part of her day was going to bed.

“Please?” Bob asked.

Leslie pictured yoke sloshing around in his guts and sighed. “Fine. Keep it hidden, and I’ll be back tomorrow with a plan.”

*

The best part about being a researcher, Leslie believed, was that she attracted knowledge like the Cretaceous period attracted a meteor. Everyone needed to know something right now, but no one wanted to do the legwork. So they’d ask her. She’d then dive into complex books, journals, or even the occasional archived internet thread, and spit out an answer. Most of the questions were—worryingly—about the lack of structural stability of OPAC and how easy it was for the station to simply explode, but others were more mundane, like how to breed cats. OPAC was a no-pet zone, but someone in construction didn’t seem to care.

Still, some questions involved security, which meant Leslie knew how to bypass most of the doors on the ship. She could also operate the airlock despite it not being anywhere near her field of study.

“Okay,” Leslie said as she stormed into the botany lab. Bob leaned over a microscope, looking at a yellow swatch of something. He had a coffee cup by his hand, which either contained a latte with so much milk and sugar it was basically dessert, or peppermint schnapps. Leslie grabbed it and gave it a sniff. Schnapps today.

“Hey!” Bob said as Leslie dumped the drink on the floor. “I need that.”

“You need to not be stupid,” Leslie ordered. “Now where is it?”

Bob gestured to a corner that was too cluttered to appear natural. Carts filled with bags of seed and fertilizer lay stacked around something, keeping it hidden yet begging more questions than answers. The light above the corner shined at its brightest setting. Bob was very bad at this.

“Okay, let’s grab that tarp and start wheeling.”

“It doesn’t like the dark,” Bob said with a shake of his head. “We have to wheel it uncovered.”

Leslie shook her own head. “I told security the mining supervisor was trying to hack the vending machines again, which gives us fifteen minutes to take your monster to the airlock and toss it out. We’ll pass a dozen security cameras on the way there. We will be seen.” She pointed to the corner. “I’d rather look suspicious than outright guilty.”

Bob nodded. He didn’t have a choice.

*

It was upsetting how much the terrarium shook. The floor was polished so smooth it was practically a slip hazard, and the wheels were all 3D printed with a metal alloy that rarely went bad, which meant despite Leslie’s best efforts to blame the cart, she knew it was the monster. It really didn’t like the dark.

“Can we go faster?” she asked. Her heart never fluttered like this when she was looking up books for people. “Please?”

“I’m going as fast as I can!”

If they were found sprinting, someone would stop them and ask why. Or worse call security. But the terrarium wanted to get up and walk, and Leslie was more afraid of it than space jail.

“Listen, let’s—”

The terrarium jumped to the floor. Leslie watched it fall wondering how a glass box could jump when glass boxes did not have any means of propulsion, and then she wondered what the fuck that was.

It looked like a quivering mess of dinosaur parts all stitched together, if dinosaur parts came in a size small. There were scales and boney plates and claws, and even a few triceratops horns. The fossilized raisins were also bigger, and on the whole, the monster had grown to the size of a barstool in a matter of minutes. Leslie backed away.

“It’s okay,” she told herself, hoping she just might believe it. “It’s okay.”

Bob responded with a thoughtful scream, and then the raisins contorted into mouths filled with needles and screamed back at him. Leslie responded with her own scream. The ship’s alarm then sounded, the AI eager to join the party. All the lights in the corridor dimmed and flashed red.

Leslie had just enough time to think, “Well that’s not okay,” before the monster whipped one of its boney plates into Bob’s stomach. The egg that was Bob cracked, though his yoke was not yellow.

“Bob!” Leslie yelled! “Bob!”

A second plated tendril slapped at Leslie, missing her face by inches and gouging a line into the metal wall. She stumbled, fell, and started crawling away as Bob screamed at the hole in his stomach. Leslie covered her ears. The monster wrapped a clawed vine around Bob’s neck and squeezed. The botanist stopped screaming. Leslie did not.

*

The monster absorbed gunfire with the stoicism of a plant and not a dinosaur. It did not bellow in pain or try to run away; it did not charge. What it did do was eat Bob. Leslie watched it all in a daze, too tired to continue begging for help. When a hand grabbed her shoulder and began dragging her to safety, she almost passed out. Let someone save her today, and if she woke up in space jail tomorrow, well, at least the monster would be dead. Maybe she’d get a chance to ask Collin what the fuck was wrong with him.

A stray bullet struck the raisin chomping on Bob’s left kneecap and bounced into the light right above it. The corridor darkened.

Leslie tried to yell, “Lights!” at the top of her lungs, but the gunfire was too loud, and no one was listening anyways. The monster thrashed in response. The monster grew.

It was in the dark, and it did not like the dark.

The monster snapped one clawed vine at the nearest security guard, tripping the man and taking his leg in the process. He screamed, and someone rushed to save him, only to have a stegosaurs plate wedge into his collar bone. The monster dragged both victims towards its raisin mouths. A third security guard dropped his gun and ran. Above the gunshots and sirens, the AI ordered everyone away from sector G. Meanwhile, the monster swelled. Its vines tore at the walls and ceiling, taking out more lights.

The remaining members of security team no longer seemed interested in saving Leslie, so she reached for a rifle. She knew how to use them, had needed to look up schematics for one poor bastard who didn’t know how to clean his own gun and was too scared to ask his CO for help. Leslie wondered what happened to him. She glanced at the bodies, but they all looked the same.

Gun in hand, Leslie backed away from the monster, heading down a parallel hallway towards a maintenance shaft. She could still suck the thing out of the airlock and save the station. She glanced back, afraid the thing was chasing her, and almost crashed into a very frightened janitor and three people from med bay looking horribly confused.

“You,” she said, pointing at the janitor with her gun. The man raised his arms above his head. “Go get lights. The brightest lights you can find, and shine them on the thing. It’ll calm it down.”

“But—”

“Do it!”

The janitor ran off, though it was hard to tell if he was following his newest order or trying to hide.

“What about us?” one of the triage nurses asked. “What should we do?”

Leslie didn’t know; however, before she could make something up, a purple raisin the size of a basketball rolled into view. It balanced itself on a scaly stem, cracked into a grin filled with teeth, and then clamped onto the nurse’s waist. She screamed, and Leslie opened fire. Most of the bullets missed, tearing the nurse apart. Those that hit bounced off, taking out more lights.

Cursing, screaming, and really wishing she could just pass out and let someone more qualified take over, Leslie sprinted for the maintenance shaft. She could hear the raisins feasting behind her.

It took ten, agonizing minutes for the researcher-turned-space-marine to reach the airlock. She found the janitor waiting for her, standing behind a wall of LED lights.

“Will this really work?” he asked.

Leslie nodded. “It doesn’t like the dark.”

“Neither do I.”

“I’m gonna open the airlock,” she said. “Suck it right out. I can bypass the security on the doors, and then…” she paused as a new terror occurred to her. It grew in the dark, and space was very, very dark. What if it continued to mutate and grow, just swell and expand until it was the size of a planet? What if it got so big even a sun wouldn’t be enough to make it stop? What if it became a solar system, or even a galaxy? It would float throughout space and eat everything.

“You okay?” the janitor asked. “Look like you seen a ghost.”

A tendril snaked into view. Leslie pointed her gun, shrugged, and then dropped the weapon. It wouldn’t hurt the thing. The vine that looked kind of like a brachiosaurus neck sprouted another set of raisins, horns, and teeth, and the janitor pulled out a cigarette. Leslie wished she had a book, a real one with pages that smelled like a library. She hated all the bright screens and cold technology.

The monster eased forward, and then it stopped. Bathed in the bright light of the LED wall, it calmed down. The purple rocks capable of eating people did not scream or jump to life.

“Huh,” the janitor said. He took a drag on his cigarette. “It worked.”

“Fuck,” Leslie said. The janitor didn’t argue with that.

*

Leslie lay crunched in her office, scrolling through her favorite book on dinosaurs. It was almost all pictures, the one she fell in love with when she was a little girl. She liked the t-rex the most.

Outside her little hole of safety, OPAC floated, every inch of the station lit as bright as a sun. She and the janitor were taking shifts fabricating more LEDs in case any went out. They had twenty in reserve with another ten on the way. After that, they’d be out of materials.

The lights were long-lasting though. All they needed to do was make it two years, and they’d be close enough to the nearest star to let a sun take over. The monster would stay soothed until it burned out.

Leslie flipped a page. The hadrosaur was next, with its goofy duck face and big belly. She knew they were basically cows, but she could never make herself believe it. Dinosaurs were too cool to be cows.

OPAC was a dead ship. Leslie and the janitor were all that remained, with everyone else becoming food or trying their luck with the life rafts. Even the AI had left, though Leslie wasn’t sure how. She’d find a file or book on it, probably. She was good at that.

She turned another page. Velociraptor! She liked those too. She smiled. What if in a few hundred million years, someone stumbled upon this ship, fossilized and floating around a lone star? Would Bob’s monster be dead? Would pictures of it wind up in a book for children? Would they find her, too?

Leslie hoped so. She liked the idea of becoming history, even if it was as a fossil. She hoped they’d find her holding this device, reading this book.

In The Glass Desert

In the glass desert, the sky is always a sunset. It is burnt orange, and it is dark purple. It is black with muck. For the skeleton who has no eyes yet still sees, it must be a sunset. A sunrise would bring him joy. A sunrise would not smell like poison. He hefts his bag and shuffles into the desert to face the ending day.

The skeleton prays for night.

The desert glitters with false stars, and a cold breeze blows over the uneven ground. Dirty shards patter with the current. It sounds like rain, but sometimes, on bad evenings, it becomes song, a thousand wind chimes playing all at once, clicking together to block out the sobs of the dead. It is a sad song. He prefers not hearing it.

Globes of yellow-green fire float by as the wind threatens to take the skeleton’s bag. It is a frigid evening, though he does not notice it. He is too busy, his eyes focused on the ground looking for pieces of glass. He knows he shouldn’t expect any this close to home, but the wind is always blowing, always ready to unearth some new gem for his work. He sees a piece the size of his palm and bends to pick it up.

The glass is too small to use, but it has a rosy color that marks it as treasure. He likes the rose glass. He doesn’t know why. He puts this piece in a smaller satchel wrapped around his waist. The skeleton has a collection of rose glass, a corner of his home piled to the ceiling with misshapen fragments and half-finished projects. He wishes he could remember, wishes he knew why he hoards this one specific color, but all he can do is shake his head and believe this find is a good omen. Today’s sunset will be a good one. A productive one. This evening, the song will not play.

Hours shift by, and more glass glitters.

Once upon a time, the desert used to move like the ocean, its sand dune waves made of soft grain. Once upon a time, the desert used to teem with life, stout cacti that swelled with water, lizards that always kept one foot up, off the heat and ready to run. Once upon the time, the skeleton had been a man. But once upon a time was long ago, and the skeleton has problems catching those memories. They fly while he remains trapped on the ground.

The colors are prettier now though. The skeleton is sure of that.

Eventually the skeleton reaches the end of his worn road, where uneven glass turns into windowpanes of shrapnel. He sets his bag down with care and crunches to a large pile of twisted shards, ready to excavate.

Even after all these years, the skeleton is picky. His work demands the finest pieces of glass, the clearest ones. Cracks can be mended, but anything smoky or opaque must be tossed aside. He scrutinizes each piece like an archeologist, looking for flaws, patterns, and stories. One piece is from a building that no longer exists, maybe a home. Maybe his home. Another is made of bone, humans fused together and then transformed all in a second. A third is simply melted sand and animal fats. He throws that one away. It doesn’t smell right.

“Caaaaw! Caaaaw!”

The skeleton looks up. “Hello,” he says. The word grinds in his throat. “Come to watch again?”

“Caaaaw!”

A dead crow flaps out from a burrow of glass shards. It stumbles along the ground, scratching red lines into what little flesh it still has left. Its colors are dead grey and infected crimson, and the sunset makes the small bird glow.

“Caaaaw!”

“And good evening to you,” the skeleton says.

The crow jumps and struggles with its wings, trying for lift but failing. Too many of its feathers have withered away. The skeleton appreciates that it tries though. Perhaps one day it will work. He used to pray for the bird, but God did not answer, and the skeleton fears he has only so many prayers left before God will stop listening. Best to not waste them.

He does like the bird though. He wishes he could smile at it.

Satisfied that today is not a good day for flight, the crow hops over to the skeleton and taps at a piece of glass. The skeleton picks it up, shakes his head, and tosses it back. The bird cocks his head.

“A trick of the light,” the skeleton says. “It is not rose. I’m sorry.”

“Caaaaw!”

“Try that pile over there.” The skeleton points, his hand blackened and scarred from his chosen line of work. “I bet you’ll find some there.”

The crow does as it is asked, though not with fineness. It is a creature made to fly. The skeleton turns to his own pile and shoves his hands inside, not afraid of sharp points or disease or pain. He is a creature made to work, and that is the difference he believes. It’s why he is still around. Someone has to rebuild. Someone has to pray for night.

Sometimes he wishes there were others though. He is lonely, and he is tired.

“Caw,” he says, and the crow backs out of a glass tunnel. Blood trickles into its face. The skeleton chuckles from somewhere within his ribcage. “Just checking,” he says.

The bird cocks its head. “Caaaaaw!”

“I prefer your voice to mine.”

“Caaaaw! Caaw! Caaw!”

The skeleton shakes its head. Glass fragments glitter as the wind howls, and together, they threaten to play their sad song. The dead below scream for help, and wind chimes begin to twinkle.

“Tell me a story, please,” the skeleton says, afraid the song is about to start. “Tell me what it was like to fly.”

“Caaaw!” the crow says. It hops, flaps its wings, and falls to the ground, gouging a line into its belly. A green ball of flame floats by, slowly turning to turquoise.

While the crow struggles with his story, the skeleton reaches back into the pile, making harsh movements that crack and clatter. Together, he and the bird keep the song at bay.

It is work, the skeleton knows, and hard work too. The city used to be huge, a jewel that housed hundreds of thousands. It had roads and shops, fresh fruit and trees whose leaves changed with the seasons. It had people. It had music that was not sad. It had water! The skeleton knows it can have those things again; it’s why he is here. It’s why God spared him. And yet he is afraid of what might happen next. What if he has to make more than just a city? What if he has to rebuild the state or even the country? What if he has to rebuild the world?

“There’s not enough glass for that,” he says, though he knows it isn’t true.

Underneath him, the dead sob, and all around him, wind chimes sound. The skeleton works, and the crow digs for rose-colored fragments. They are loud, but not loud enough. Soon the song begins, out of tune clangs that catch the one memory the skeleton wants to forget. The skeleton puts his hands to his head, but he cannot block out the noise. He has no ears. He has no flesh.

He falls to his knees, grinding glass into powder.

It wasn’t God but bombs, and it wasn’t fate but dirty magic. The skeleton remembers seeing the mushroom cloud on T.V. and holding his breath, terrified of what would happen next. He remembers turning to his wife and daughter. He remembers the color rose. He remembers the terror and shock of the days that followed, and when the next bomb went off, he remembers the pain of giving up. There was nothing anyone could do, only watch and pray. Neither helped.

The third bomb was an accident, but the fourth and fifths were on purpose, made to be the biggest the world had ever known, made to turn souls into glass. By then, no one could remember what they were fighting for, only that they had to finish what they started.

The sixth and seventh contained poison. The eighth contained magic. Nine through twelve contained nothing but were launched anyways. It would be a waste not to use them, not to turn every inch of the sky into sunset.

The thirteenth bomb was a dud. The last man alive died before he could launch the fourteenth.

“Caaaw!” the crow says, and the skeleton gets up. He shakes, and a pane of glass slips from his hands to shatter into a thousand pieces. “Caaaw!”

“Sorry.”

Tired though not thirsty or hungry, the skeleton reaches for his sack and slings it over his shoulder. It is heavier now. The glass inside clinks. He does not smile for his face is stuck, but this sunset was a productive one, a good harvest. Each pane is just right for his project. He will mend any cracks, and then his bellows will spread heat into the world. He will work.

The skeleton turns back, and though he is far from his home, he can see the glittering line of his city. Each building is made out of glass, perfectly sculpted as it once was. One day the entire place will be finished, and then maybe the dead will stop sobbing. Maybe he won’t be alone.

The crow carries over another piece of glass and drops it at the skeleton’s feet. He taps at it with his beak. It is the wrong color, not truly rose but reflecting the burnt sunset, but the skeleton reaches for it anyways. He does not want to offend the small bird.

“Good,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Caaaw!”

“I’ll see you next evening.”

The crow tries to fly one last time before giving up and returning to its glass burrow. The skeleton sighs. He has many hours to walk, and then many hours to work, and when he is done, he will get into his glass bed and pray. He will then pretend to sleep.

Maybe God will answer this time. Maybe tomorrow, the sun will set.

The song begins to play as the skeleton walks home.

The Mirror Man

TMM Episode 1: I’m Pretty Sure He’s a Ghost

Uh, hey everybody, thought I’d jump on that podcasting bandwagon … thing. I’m…. Hmm. How should I put this? My name is Sam, and I’m about to start a very personal research project, and I want to catalogue it. This seems easier than writing.

Gonna try and keep these short.

So ever since I can remember, I’ve always seen a man in the mirror—and no, not myself. This man stands off to the side, over my right shoulder. He never ages. Well, let me pull back a bit. He looks … normal. Okay that’s a bad description. His hair is mostly grey though there are streaks of brown in it, so I guess at one point he was young. His eye is hazel like the best coach on The Voice, and he’s about two inches taller than me. That would put him around 5’10. I’m kind of short.

I say “eye” because he only has the one. The other is a flower. I’m not sure what kind. I will say though, it isn’t as creepy as it sounds, but maybe I’m just used to it.

He is very … apathetic. By that I mean he just kind of stares at me. I talk to him pretty often, but he never talks back. Doesn’t shake his head or smile or anything like that. I’ve tried naming him a few times, but nothing ever sticks. I don’t think he wants one.

Let’s get this out of the way: I am not crazy. I guess that doesn’t mean anything coming from me, but it is true. Also, this isn’t one of those “creepypasta but in podcast form” things. Is that even a thing? Probably should be.

Anyhow, the man. The man has been around forever. I see him in every mirror, meaning he follows me. No one else can see him.

And that’s … that. I’m committing this year to figuring out who this person is, or was. Always wanted to, just never got to it. Something always kept me from really starting, but work is slow and … I dunno. Let’s see where this goes.

 

TMM Episode 2: Libraries are Boring

Hey everyone, I’m back. Wow, some of you actually found this show! That’s cool, but you could be a bit less … mean about it. I’m sorry the audio quality is bad—I don’t know what I’m doing! Also no, I’m not lying. This is real.

And let me explain a bit. When I say “Every mirror” I mean every mirror. The one in my bathroom. The one in the bathroom at work. The one in my ex’s bedroom. That made sex a little awkward, by the way. But it’s not limited to mirrors. I can see the mirror man in any reflective surface, like off TVs or even metal spoons if I catch the light just right. He’s just always there. Hell if I hold up my phone right now and tilt, I can catch a glimpse of him.

Say, “hi” Mirror Man!

He didn’t say, “Hi.”

It sounds like I’m haunted, and maybe I am, but I’ve never felt threatened by him. It’s just an odd thing that’s happened to me. Or is happening to me.

Anyhow, I went to the library this past week and decided to poke around some old records, and I mean old. They call them microfiche. I wanted every news story I could find on my family house and the street it was on. I figure this man died there, haunted it, and then decided to latch onto me for whatever reason.

Guess I’m just that charming!

The good news is people did die on that street. Quite a few, actually. I guess that’s bad news for them, but none were murders. Old age rules out some, the Mirror Man isn’t that old. Sickness hit the others. Two were African American, so they’re out. The other was a woman, and the last was a man named Phillip Skinner.

He died of rabies in 1934.

I think I’m onto something!

 

TMM Episode 3: Who is Phillip Skinner?

Hey everyone. I’m trying a new microphone this week since I got more complaints. This one is called a Yeti. Cost me about a $100 so I hope it sounds better. Also I didn’t realize I make so many odd movements with my chair while I record. I guess I’ll try and get rid of those this time.

Podcasting is hard. I should have just started a blog.

So Phillip Skinner. Well, the first thing I did was ask the Mirror Man if that was his name. He didn’t respond. He did … I dunno. Glower? I mean he didn’t, but something felt different for a bit. Probably my imagination. Uh, the next thing I did was hit up Google. No dice. I threw the last name into Facebook, but I couldn’t make myself message any of the results. It all seems too … farfetched.

Basically, I got nothin’.

Seriously! Someone help me! The name is Phillip Skinner. He died in 1934 in Lake City Wisconsin, which funnily enough, isn’t on a lake! Gotta love the Midwest.

That’s all I got for now. See you next week.

 

TMM Episode 4: I Found the Flower!

Hello, hello, hello! Episode four. Boy, I can’t believe it’s been a month! I guess this new microphone must be better, because I have about half the amount of comments as before. Without the complaining, most of you don’t have much to offer.

Still waiting for help on Phillip Skinner.

Until then, I dug deep into flower taxonomy, which is a fancy way of saying, “I Googled pictures of flowers until I found the right one.” I am nothing if not fancy.

So! The flower is a foxglove. It’s a purple cone-shaped … uh … flower. Droops a bit. They aren’t very big from what I can see, and can be poisonous. That’s a bit spooky, if I’m being honest. Wish I didn’t know that.

However, they are used in some medicines, so that’s cool. That began in the 1700s, so if my ghost really is Mr. Skinner, then maybe he had some kind of connection to the plant as a heart medication.

Or maybe he just thought it was pretty. I dunno. It grows damn near everywhere, though I’ve never honestly seen it. One of those flowers.

Neat. Wonder what we’ll find next!

 

TMM Episode 5

I think the Mirror Man is upset. I’m … I’m honestly a little worried. I’ve never been afraid of him before, but I don’t like the way he looked at me this morning. It’s like he knows. I guess that doesn’t make any sense, but don’t expect an update for a bit.

Gonna just … export and post.

 

TMM Episode 6: And we’re Back!

Hey everyone. Sorry for the delay. I uh … well, I don’t know what happened. One minute I was feeling really paranoid, and now a few weeks have passed, and I’m back to normal. I didn’t do any research in those missing weeks, so I don’t have any updates other than I’m feeling better. I think work is just stressful.

I’ve had a ton of questions come in since I last did an episode though, so let’s talk about some of those.

• What’s the creepiest thing about the mirror man?

Hmm. Well, pets don’t see him. I don’t have any, but that girl I mentioned back in what, episode two? She had a dog, and he never went crazy or anything whenever I was around. Just sniffed my hand and wagged his tail. Cute dog.

• Can you see him if you take a picture?

Nope. Tried that. Many times, actually. He never shows up, and I can’t even see him through a camera at all. I can see him if I have sunglasses on though.

• Do you really watch The Voice?

Yes! And Kelly Clarkson is the best host!

• Have you ever told anyone?

Good question! And yes I have. When I was young my parents thought it was an imaginary friend. Makes sense, right? As I got older and I suppose wiser, I began to notice how offput they were about the whole thing. I basically stopped bringing it up around age seven or eight because by then, I knew seeing things that weren’t there was bad.

It’s one of those, when kids call you crazy and you realize that’s a thing you could be and they take you away from your family for it. Don’t know who “they” is, but I was afraid it would happen.

I’m not crazy though. I feel like I need to keep bringing that up.

Honestly, the Mirror Man has felt like a friend. He’s been someone nice to talk to, someone I could vent or ask questions or just think out loud. I remember when I broke up with that girl, I talked to him a lot then. We were pretty serious for a bit.

Talked to him a lot in middle school too. Lot of bullies in middle school.

Gonna stop here. I know there are more questions, but I still want to keep these short. See you in a week or two. Might slow up the episode releases a bit. Give me time to research more.

 

TMM Episode 7: Lake City Wisconsin

And with a big yawn, I return to this podcast. Sorry. It’s early in the morning, and I’m tired, but I want to get this done before work because plans and whatnot. Mirror Man still seems normal, though I think the flower in his eye is different. I mean, I’ve seen it every day for my entire life, but it’s only recently that I’ve really paid any attention to it. It’s a bit less purple. Or maybe the lighting in the bathroom was just bad today.

Regardless, I haven’t found anything new about Phillip Skinner, but my search has widened to the rest of Lake City. I figure now might be a fun time to talk about the town.

So, Lake City Wisconsin is about thirty miles north of Green Bay. It gets cold as all hell in the winter, hot as all hell in the summer, and holds about 6,500 people. It’s not on a lake, but it does have a lot of hills. It’s actually a really popular tourist spot in the winter for people who like to ski.

City was founded by a Portuguese immigrant and his family before Wisconsin officially became a state. His name was Joaquim Abreu Laca, which is where the “Lake” comes from. We pronounce it wrong. Imagine that.

It’s a nice city though. Has a rather large Hmong population, which means some of the best egg rolls you’ll ever have. I’ll die on that hill, too.

The economy is built around a Trane plant that builds industrial air conditioners and then ships them across the country. Lot of people work there. Also a Menards across the street. Lot of people work there, too.

Uh, what else. Outskirts is mostly farmland. Uh … aw crap. I have to go. I’ll try and add more to this later.

 

TMM Episode 8: Everyone is Sick

I have a fever. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Last night I dreamed I jumped from an airplane, but instead of sky I was falling through a shifting field of foxglove flowers. They were all the wrong color.

When I woke up and looked in the mirror, the Mirror Man’s flower was the wrong color, like from my dream. He looks sick.

I’ll uh … I’ll see you in a month or so. Maybe not.

 

TMM Episode 9: It’s Not Phillip Skinner

Hey. I wasn’t going to do anymore episodes, but I got an email from someone who works at ancestry.com, and she sent me some information that proves the Mirror Man isn’t Phillip Skinner. Not a great update, but oh well.

I … I don’t know where to go from here. Part of me wants to keep looking, because this has been fun, but I’m worried too. The Mirror Man still looks sick. I think it’s my fault.

Hate to end here, but I care about him more than you guys.

 

TMM Episode 10: The Last Episode

Okay, yeah, I’m back. Been about six months, so I doubt most of you are even subscribed anymore. That’s okay. Uh … the Mirror Man looks better. Flower is back to normal.

But this is the last episode. And I’m only doing it because I stumbled upon something fun—I wasn’t even looking for it!

So I was at my parent’s house, not for research or anything, just to visit. They do still live there, which is why I’ve been coy on the location. Anyhow, I was having dinner with my mom and we were joking about spaghetti because it’s got a bit of a story to it in my family. See, when I was like four months old my mom was eating spaghetti and holding me, and she dropped damn near all of it on my head. The great part though, is that my dad had a new cam corder, and he got the whole thing on video.

Well, my mom decided we should find that tape. It had been at least a decade since anyone watched it.

It took about twenty minutes, but we did find it. Found her old VHS player, too. We put the tape in, rewinded—haha—and pressed play. Picture was grainy and not flattering, but there was infant Sam covered in spaghetti. My dad laughed so hard he almost dropped the cam corder.

But he didn’t stop filming. Instead he followed my mom into the bathroom where she planted me on the sink and started filling the bath with water. And I watched myself look into the mirror, not at my face but a few inches to my right. I watched myself stare at the Mirror Man. He was there. Even when I was an infant, he was there.

He’s been there all my life. I don’t know who he is, and I don’t think I ever will, but … well, that’s okay. I’m glad to have him. I really am.

The Paper Room

On the whole, Sam was getting pretty damn sick of this “hazing” thing. It’s not that he expected the best stories right away—he understood the pecking order—but this was his fourth roadside attraction in as many months, and Virginia was deep in a governor scandal that would soon be national news. God Sam wanted a piece of that pie. Dutchett was owned by big mining, not just buddybuddy but fucking owned, and Sam could prove it. He was a good journalist.

But first he had to visit a haunted underground city that didn’t exist. Because he was the new guy. He got the stupid stories like the world’s largest corn cob or interviewing Virginia’s oldest woman. What was her secret? Three parts God and seven parts vodka. Hunter made him downplay the alcoholism, too.

“Fuck this state,” Sam said.

“At least it’s not storming out,” Jase said. “Hey, remember when it flooded last month and you had to march across that pond?”

“Don’t remind me.”

Jase laughed. He was WFL’s new camera man, a lean guy in his 40’s with more tattoos than empty skin. It’s why they put him behind the camera. “You still got athlete’s foot?”

“No,” Sam lied. His hands tightened on the wheel, and it occurred to him that any one of these trees would make for a good head-on collision.

“Well, I’m sure they’ll give us something good soon.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Tell you what,” Jase said, opening his laptop. “There’s a bar about ten miles down the road. Once we finish, we can have beer for lunch and tip the waitress into coding it as cheeseburgers. WFL is buying.”

“That,” Sam said. “Sounds perfect.”

*

The ancient city of Aranaia lived on the corner of 1436 Creek Road and an offshoot dirt path that only found its way to an interstate if you cut through Mr. Jackson’s farm. Ignore the barking dogs please, and if you see a coyote, try and run it over. They kept killing his chickens. The grand entrance to this civilization was a rusted cellar door in the middle of a barren patch of otherwise forest-y land. Truly a Virginia miracle.

“Okay Ms. Malherbe, just look at me and we’ll have a little back and forth, and then you can take me on a tour.”

Ms. Malherbe, co-owner of Aranaia, was a spry woman of 68 with dirty blonde hair. Sam figured she dyed it. She wore a baggy floral dress, large hoop earrings, and a ring with a giant quartz stone. Sam also figured she was a hippy.

“Oh can’t do that,” she said, and her partner nodded. “Only one group at a time. I just give you the rules, and if you don’t come back in an hour, well, then I guess the ghosts got you.”

“Right.”

“Oi,” Jase said from behind the camera. “Smile a bit more. I’m filming this.”

Ms. Malherbe put on a big grin. Ms. Albright did too. She was of a similar age and dress to Malherbe though six inches shorter and leaning on a cane.

“Can you tell me how you found this underground city?” Sam asked through a smile so fake it actually hurt his mouth.

“Oh sure sweetie!” Ms. Albright said. “We was walking through the forest looking for mushrooms. I make a delightful mushroom soup you know, and then we saw this door. I says to Flora, well I says, ‘Flora, what do you suppose that is?’ And she says, ‘Well I don’t know, dear. Why don’t we go have a look?’ So we do, and it’s an entire city under the ground!”

“That’s right,” Ms. Malherbe cut in. “Only it wasn’t mushrooms we were looking for but oak leaves. It was the middle of autumn, and I wanted a bright yellow one for my scrap book. I keep one yellow—”

“We was looking for mushrooms!”

“Well I was looking for leaves.”

Sam wanted to look for a drink. “And what did you find when you went down there?”

The women exchanged a look, and after some serious whispering, Ms. Malherbe said, “Lots of stone passageways. There are little rooms with stone bowls in them, too. And places where we think people slept.”

“And kept dogs!” Ms. Albright said. “Because of all the bones.”

“Right,” Sam said again.

“Dogs like bones, you know.”

Not sure how to respond to that, Sam simply nodded.

“It gets very cold down there,” Ms. Albright went on. “So you can only stay an hour. We have a gift shop, too.”

Like with every stupid fluff story so far, Sam fought with what he considered his basic journalistic integrity and his desire to drink himself into a blackout nap. He should ask about the ghosts mentioned earlier, and he should bring up the fact that there were no stone-dwelling civilizations in the entire state. Odds were these two women stumbled upon an old bunker built during the Cold War, spruced it up a bit, and decided a city was in the eye of the beholder. That’ll be $25, please.

But Jase promised him a lunch of Miller Light and Jack Daniels if they were feeling extra special pissed off, and early was better than later.

“Wonderful,” Sam said. “Now why don’t you tell me about these rules, and me and my friend here will have a look into this marvelous find of yours!”

*

“This is stupid,” Sam said.

Jase whistled. “I dunno, it’s kind of creepy down here.”

“Stupid.”

The long-lost city of Aranaia was a lopsided stone tunnel that went down at a steep angle before leveling into a wide cavern. Eight passageways branched out from there, not following any logical progression that Sam could see. LED hung from the ceiling, giving everything a bright plasticy look. Sam stamped his foot expecting a hallow thunk and was surprised that the floor was indeed stone. The walls though, those were plastic. Or maybe it was stone-patterned wallpaper. He didn’t believe for a second that any of this was real.

“You rolling?”

“Yup,” Jase fumbled with his camera, and Sam saw the telltale red light appear. “We’re good to begin.”

“We’re here in Virginia’s own hidden city of Aranaia,” Sam said with his same painful smile. He took a casual step to the side and gestured at the cavern. “As you can see, it all appears to be made of stone, which is very uncommon for this part of the country. All the local archeologists I’ve spoken to don’t believe it’s possible, but thankfully, we’re here with a camera crew! Let’s see what we find, and you be the judge.”

“Shit,” Jase called. “That was corny even for this station. You want to do another take?”

“No.” Sam nodded at the closest passage. “I want to get this over with. Let’s just try this one and be done.”

“Gotta watch out for the white room though!”

Sam laughed. The two women had concocted quite the spooky story for their roadside city. They were, if nothing else, good salesmen. Rule 1: Don’t touch anything. Rule 2: Only stay an hour. Rule 3: No flash photography. Apparently flashes bother the ghosts, though the bright LEDs do not. Rule 4: If you see a white room, run for the exit, no questions asked. The white room is cursed! Rule 5: No dogs.

“Bet every damn room is white to keep people from staying down too long and figuring out this is all bullshit.”

“Probably,” Jase agreed. “Still, it’s not the worst roadside we’ve been to. At least this one feels like an amusement park.”

They entered the first passage, Sam out front, Jase balancing a camera on a steadycam. The hallway was narrow and short, and both had to huddle to keep their heads from scraping against the LED lighting.

Sam ran his hand along a wall, and Jase made a hissing sound. Sam shrugged. “Feels like stone.”

“No touching! I just filmed you break one of their rules.”

“Tell Hunter it’s off the record.”

The passage continued until it became a small stone staircase. Sam tested one with his foot. “Sturdy,” he said. “Seems too elaborate to be a bomb shelter.”

“Spooky,” Jase said.

The staircase ended in a small, stone room. It was both bland yet strange, brightly lit and while not empty, strangely furnished. A stone bowl was carved into the equally stone floor and filled with dark water. A razor-sharp stalactite dripped over it. Sam wasn’t a geologist, but he knew that big stalactites meant old stalactites, and this one was as wide as his waist. It predated the Cold War by a few thousand years.

It was, if Sam was being honest, really creepy.

“Alright,” he said. “Room one, take one.”

*

“Well, we’ve been here about half an hour,” Jase said. “You ready to call it quits and drink?”

Sam shook his head. “One more tunnel.” This was interesting, more of a story than he initially thought. He wanted to know more.

“Come on man, it’s fucking creepy down here.”

Sam ignored the cameraman and picked another tunnel. Jase followed. It was more stone, ancient and strange. Sam wasn’t sure what to make of it. He didn’t believe in ghosts or hippie bullshit, but Aranaia was more than what it seemed. He just had to figure out what.

“Should have been real archeologists that found this,” he said to the camera, not caring if Hunter cut this bit of editorializing. “Not some old women bent on making a few easy dollars.”

“You really talk to local archeologists?” Jase asked. “We never filmed that.”

Sam shook his head. “No. That’s from Wikipedia.”

“Oh.”

“But this is some Stonehenge shit, right? Like we’ve seen two rooms now, and this stone is old.” The real question was: Who lived here? Sam knew just enough about Native Indians to know they didn’t deal with big stone structures. He also knew the Aztec stuff was a thousand miles to the south. He tried to recall what he knew of Virginia folklore but could only dredge up Civil War racism.

“We’ll have to find one,” Sam insisted. “A real archeologist. Hell, maybe we can turn this into a big story. Fuck politics, right? This is better.”

Jase shuddered. “Whatever you say.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means whenever you think you got a big story, you get really excited, and then you think about it for a bit, and maybe it’s not such a big story after all.”

Sam scowled. “This about that Dutchett thing? Because I can prove it. And if you don’t believe me you can—”

“Then let’s get the fuck out of here and go prove it!”

“Why, you getting scared?”

“Yes!” Jase shouted, and Sam turned to look at his tattooed cameraman. Jase was shaking so hard his steadycam couldn’t save the footage.

“You okay?”

“When did it get freezing down here, dude? And why is this tunnel like half a fucking mile long?”

Sam had no answer to that. He shrugged, sighed again, and saw that his breath fogged like cigarette smoke. “Let’s go,” he agreed. It was cold. “We got enough.”

Jase turned, no longer caring about his footage, and Sam followed. He cared, but it could wait until tomorrow. He’d find a team, and if Jase didn’t find his courage, then he’d find another camera man too. This was too big to ignore.

They marched back through the tunnel until Jase stopped and swore loud enough to wake the dead. His camera pointed to the ground, his hand to a room Sam was sure they hadn’t seen on their way in.

From top to bottom it was pure white, almost blinding. Sam had to squint to see in. A single LED clung to the ceiling, turning the small living space into a glare of four white walls and a dustless floor. Every square inch was covered with flat, blank paper. There was no furniture.

Sam walked into the middle of the room and turned around.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Jase shrieked.

Sam readied a speech, some lie about ghosts and thousand-year old marble, but Jase had his camera pointed to the floor, and Sam figured he had more important things to worry about. Why had those crazy old women glued over the walls with computer paper? Did they damage the stone? Was this a ritual room or truly part of their stupid roadside attraction?

“We need to get out of here,” Jase called.

“Just a second.”

Now that he was closer, maybe the paper wasn’t quite blank. It was 8.5” x 11”, only as terrifying as the local Staples, but Sam couldn’t tell if there was writing on it or not. He blinked, focused, and then pressed his nose to one wall, until the paper was all he could see. Squiggles became letters which became words which then became names. Jase mumbled a few more warnings, and Sam breathed fog.

“Flora Malherbe,” he said. “And Nettie Albright is here too. They typed their names.” Sam skimmed over the pages, reading what felt like a thousand names in the span of seconds. There were Smiths and Muhammads and Johnsons, and there were surnames so foreign he wasn’t sure he could pronounce them. What there wasn’t was order—just typed chaos.

Eventually Sam found his own name. He didn’t remember walking over to the leftmost wall and crouching, but there it was. Sam Ripley Rockwell. First, middle, last. One in a sea of millions.

“Look,” he shouted, elated to be included. “My name is here!”

“Please man,” Jase begged. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Are you still filming?”

“Please!”

“I wonder if your—”

Sam heard the punch more than he felt it. First he was looking at a piece of paper, and then he was staring at the floor. It too was covered in paper, thousands and thousands of names right before his eyes. Was Jase William Broker here? He was sure he could find it.

If not, he could write it down. He had a pen on him.

The second punch hurt worse than the first, and the white room grew dizzy.

*

They were in a shitty dive bar called Mancavetos, where everything was covered in the kind of grime that looked crystal-clean but felt dirty. It was 12:38. The place was packed with factory workers hoping to sneak a beer during lunch, and the service was glacially slow. Sam and Jase sat in a corner booth, the former nursing a bruised jaw and his second Jack-n-Coke while the latter zoomed around on his laptop, taking their most recent footage off his camera.

Neither had bothered to start with beer.

“How’s it look,” Sam asked.

“Eh,” Jase shrugged. “If we chop your ranting and raving its fine. Looks kind of cheap and stupid, but that’s what happens when you don’t have proper lighting.”

“Tell Hunter it’s found footage.”

The cameraman nodded. “There’s no writing in that white room though. I didn’t get great shots of it, but it’s just white paper and you going crazy. Sorry bud.”

Sam sighed. Now that he was out of the place, all his big talk and even bigger hopes rang fucking hallow. It was just another roadside. He felt like an idiot, but thankfully Jack-n-Coke could fix that.

“Delete it. Hunter already thinks I’m a tool. No reason to give him more evidence.”

“What about the shirt?”

Sam held it up. It was gift-shop garbage, a white shirt with black text. Ms. Albright let him have it for free, said he earned it. Jase, however, didn’t get one.

It read, “Cursed in Aranaia” on the front and had his name on the back.

“Gonna drink until I forget it exists.”

“Still creepy,” Jase said.

“Whatever.”

Sam gulped his drink and flagged the waitress for another. He thought about the Dutchett thing and tried to convince himself he was a good reporter. He then wondered why he had been too afraid to ask Ms. Albright why she had made a custom t-shirt just for hm.

 

Going Down

Lewis Corvel looked a bit like a rabbit: He had a twitchy nose, a thin mouth, eyes that some might call beady (though never to his face), and ears set just a little too high on his head. He moved quickly, a laptop bag slung over one shoulder while his index finger made rigorous demands of the elevator’s “Open” button. Like another famous rabbit, Lewis was late, and while he had never met the senior partners, he was pretty sure they didn’t tolerate tardiness.

He looked at his watch, an expensive piece of jewelry with only one hand and no numbers, cursed at the slow elevator, and then yanked out his phone. 2:45. His meeting was at 3:00 sharp, and while fifteen minutes should be more than enough travel time, Life Pool was 80 floors tall. The senior partners meanwhile … well, Lewis wasn’t sure how they would react. Not a single person on his floor had ever met them—though come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he knew anyone in the building that had.

Lewis decided to try the “Down” button next, and after pressing it, the doors slid open. The elevator was spacious, its walls a sleek black with strips of ocean blue on each corner and a floor made of yellow tiles. Lewis stepped inside and hit the “Top Floor” button, which was located right above floor 79.

“Strange,” he mumbled, it now occurring to him that the topmost floor wasn’t actually numbered.

The elevator began its ascent, and at a pace Lewis found adequate. He smiled, checked his watch again, and then checked his phone. 2:48. He would not be late!

He still had to present his findings to the senior partners though, which meant replacing one anxiety with another. His research wasn’t positive. Their new prosthetic limbs were indeed hackable as every major news outlet claimed last night, and they weren’t responding to their newest software updates, either. This wasn’t Lewis’s fault of course, but messengers had been shot for less.

Lewis chanced another look at this phone, because worrying about the time was better than worrying about being fired. He frowned. It still read 2:48, though it had to be closer to 2:52 now. He tried his watch but wasn’t sure that thing had ever worked.

“Can’t be,” he said. The screen dimmed, and Lewis tapped it again. 2:48. “But I’m late!”

As soon as the words were out, Lewis wished he could take them back. His anxiety flared, and he reached into his pocket for a GABA pill. He had been popping the supplements like candy these last two weeks. Every day seemed to be more bad news, more disasters and upset shareholders.

First there was the leg that simply stopped working in the middle of a crosswalk. The lady wasn’t hurt, but it stopped traffic long enough to get a story in the local paper. Social media then turned it into a national headline.

Then there had been the boy petting a dog with his Life Pool hand, the newest model capable of transferring sensations through artificial nerves. “I can feel the fur” turned into “It’s too tight!” One dead dog later, and Life Pool’s legal team was taking more than GABA pills to get through the day. That boy’s mother did not want to settle out of court.

Lewis threw back a pill, which he began to chew. His jaw felt tight, and if he didn’t know any better, the elevator was moving even faster.

“You’re fine,” he said to the buttons, which refused to light up. Normally they showed him what floor he was on. “You’re fine. Just having a …” A what? A stroke? A hallucination? He checked his phone, but his phone refused to help. No bars. No WiFi. He was in a dead spot.

As a senior member of the marketing department, Lewis considered panic to be completely beneath him. Words and numbers could solve every problem, and what they couldn’t fix, money could. Yet a stroke wasn’t something to reason with, and it certainly couldn’t be purchased. Lewis needed a doctor, and he needed one right now. He slapped the “Emergency Stop” button. The elevator responded by increasing its speed.

“Help!” Lewis roared. He smashed his fist against the control panel, hitting buttons at random. “Help!”

The elevator was now a rocket, and any second it would crash into the ceiling. Lewis flinched, expecting the worst, but after what felt like another five minutes, he was still shooting upwards. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t even be in the building anymore.

He threw back another GABA pill and leaned against the back wall. It was cold, and it felt good. Sweat soaked the armpits of his suit, and he clutched at his chest, positive he was having a heart attack.

Lewis slid down the side of the elevator and closed his eyes. His head hurt. His chest did too. “Phone,” he said, loud and clear. “Phone call the police.”

“Dialing 911,” his phone said in a soothing voice. Lewis smiled. See, this really was a hallucination. He was fine, probably stuck between floors 64 and 65. Any second now, someone would come find him, and then he’d go to the hospital where money would buy him the best medication on the market.

“Just a few more minutes,” he mumbled.

“No signal,” his phone responded.

Lewis opened his eyes. His phone still read 2:48. His battery was at 20%.

“What do you mean no signal?”

“No signal.”

“Call me an ambulance!”

“No signal.”

Pain stabbed Lewis in the chest. He groaned, and his sitting position became a sideways one. His heart felt like it was going to explode. He was going to die. He was in the world’s most advanced medical facility, the place where Alzheimer’s was cured, the place where ALS was turned into a disease as easily treatable as diabetes, and he was going to die of a stupid heart attack. He squinted, and he frowned, and then he laughed a very shrill sound.

Let the reporters have a field day with this!

Twenty minutes later and Lewis was forced to conclude that he was not dead. He got back to his feet. The elevator continued to rise, and his phone continued to read 2:48. The battery was now at 16%.

“I don’t understand,” he said to the black walls.

It wasn’t that the elevator was still shooting up at the speed of a rocket but the fact that he was hungry. This was a hallucination, him going crackers after years of stress, yet what kind of person needed to stop mid crazy to have his 4:00 granola bar? It made no sense!

That being said, Lewis popped open his bag and dug to the bottom where he kept his emergency snacks and a small bottle of “Drink Me” sports water. Lewis was quite proud of that slogan. It’s what landed him the job at Life Pool.

Midway through his break, the elevator dinged as if it were about to open, and an enormous sense of relief washed over Lewis. This nonsense was finally over. He was free. However, the elevator showed no signs of slowing down, and if anything, was beginning to speed up again.

“Stop!” Lewis roared. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. He shouldn’t even be here! None of this was his fault.

And then the doors did slide open. Or they must have, because the elevator was now filled with smoke, and Lewis got the impression that he wasn’t alone. He stumbled against the wall, which was no longer cold but very, very warm. It felt relaxing, like a dip in a hot tub.

“Who are you?” said a voice. The voice then proceeded to cough.

“What?” Lewis asked. Was this a senior partner? “I’m Mr. Corvel, sir. I’m late for the 3:00 meeting.”

“Oh. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that.”

“What?”

“Care to enlighten me?” Life Pool was a very American company, yet Lewis thought he heard a slight British accent in the voice. It didn’t make any sense, but nothing did at this point. At least it was someone to talk to.

Lewis held out his hand until the smoke cleared enough for him to make out an enormous, snakelike shape standing before him. He coughed, swallowed his last GABA pill, and retracted his hand.

He then screamed until he tasted blood.

The creature was an enormous caterpillar, emerald green from top to bottom, with a top hat on its head and a silver vape pen in one of its many hands. It popped the pen into its mouth, inhaled, and then exhaled an amount of smoke that would make a dragon jealous.

“Well that was quite unnecessary,” it said.

“What … What’s going on?” Lewis stammered.

“Not on,” the caterpillar corrected. “Up. We’re going up.”

“But I don’t want to go up.”

The caterpillar made a tsk tsk noise. “Well then, you’ll be late for the party, won’t you?”

“But—”

The large bug took another puff on his pen and filled the elevator with smoke. Lewis slipped to the floor. The caterpillar looked like it wanted to say something, and Lewis was afraid to interrupt it again; however, when the time dragged on from 2:48 to 2:48, Lewis decided it might be best to just take a nap. He’d wake up in a hospital, and all of this would be behind him. He took out his laptop and punched the bag into something resembling a pillow.

“It’s very rude,” the caterpillar said, exhaling another round of dragon smoke, “to ignore someone mid conversation, but I shall be here when you wake up, and perhaps you will dream up some manners in the meantime.”

Lewis shook and sobbed. He told himself the talking bug wasn’t real, that none of this was real, but it didn’t stop him from knowing the caterpillar was watching him. It didn’t stop him from being terrified and lost.

When sleep did find him, it did not bring comfort.

He dreamed of yesterday’s massacre. Olympic athlete Chris Orlando was at a shooting range with his friends, nervous yet excited too. Reporters converged on him, taking pictures and asking questions. He smiled, bid them step back, and then picked up a rifle. He hit every shot.

“What’s it like,” one reporter asked. “How do you feel?”

“Great!” Chris said, and he looked great too. His smile was the kind of image Life Pool could use for decades. “Never thought I’d get to shoot again after the accident.” He rolled up his sleeve to show a metal arm that went to his shoulder. “Works like a dream.”

“Will they let you compete with that?” a different reporter asked.

Chris shrugged. “Don’t see why not. It’s me aiming, not the software.”

After that a different reporter handed him a pistol, and Chris scored six bull’s-eyes. He reloaded the gun, prepared to score another six, when his arm jerked the pistol up, towards his neck. He had time to shout before the gun went off. His body fell to the ground, but his arm continued to swivel, pointing to each of the reporters. Even dead, Chris had pinpoint accuracy.

Lewis woke feeling empty. The caterpillar was still there, and the elevator was still zooming up, to some party in another galaxy. Or maybe another dimension.

“Pleasant dreams?” the caterpillar asked. He was poking at Lewis’s laptop.

“No.”

“Well make yourself useful and help me with this game. I don’t understand it.”

Lewis inched over and looked at his screen. He expected work emails and documents and was surprised to see solitaire. He was positive that new IT intern had removed all the games from it two months ago.

“Move the Red Queen there,” Lewis said, pointing at the card. “Then you can move the black jack.”

The caterpillar smiled. “So you did find some manners. Ready to come to the party?”

Before Lewis could answer, the elevator doors slid open. The top floor of Life Pool was oddly bland, with clean white floors and wooden walls devoid of anything but the company logo. At the end of the hallway was a door, though it wasn’t tiny or huge but normal. It was where the senior partners were waiting, each with bad news on his lips.

His phone read 3:01.

Lewis looked at the elevator buttons. He was at “Top Floor,” but a new one had appeared above it, this one labeled “Party.” He pressed it.

“Good,” the caterpillar said. “Good, good.”

Lewis smiled as the two of them zoomed away.

Stolen Colors

The waves sucked and pulled, smearing the horizon into rolling hills and little bubbles of fire. A siren blared. Max tread water and watched the 200 meter cruise ship sink, his mind stuck on ten minutes ago. He had been dry then. Safe, too, his eye stuck against a telescope while meteors streaked across the sky. It was the biggest shower he had ever seen, each meteor like a streak of white paint. He had taken notes. He had smiled and thought of the paper he could write. He had—

There was no sign of the shower now, nor of his telescope. He kicked at the water, his clothing sticking to him like a second skin, and listened to people panic. Some wore life vests, others paddled in random directions hoping an orange raft would come and save them. A cruise ship of this size should have at least a hundred, yet they were all gone, or maybe just hidden behind the fires and smoke. Max wiped at his eyes and spat water that tasted uncomfortably salty.

At least the water was warm.

The Delight rose from the ocean at an angle, its bow pointed at the sky. Or was that the stern? Max didn’t know much about ships, only that he had been on the left side, near the railing when everything became rushing water. He could remember what happened, yet he couldn’t grasp any of the details. They had hit something, he was sure of that. It had sounded like an explosion, but it felt like a bad car accident. But then what? And what had they hit? The Delight was sailing the Pacific, far away from the nearest ice berg and too far out to sea for rocks or other pieces of wreckage.

Max continued to kick at the water, his shoes making the movements slow and uncomfortable. The Delight drifted further away. The word “riptide” passed through his head, and for the first time, it occurred to him that he might die. He couldn’t see a single life raft, and there were fewer and fewer screams. Where was everyone?

“You okay?” a voice asked from behind. Max splashed around to see an old woman with long, grey hair. Her skin was pale and covered in brown marks, and her cheeks hung loose off her jaw. She looked positively normal, someone on vacation, yet her eyes were the most piercing shade of blue Max had ever seen, almost like gemstones.

She smiled, and her teeth were rotted brown.

“I dunno,” Max said, truly not sure. Now that he wasn’t alone, panic seemed one step further back. If this old woman was fine, then he would be too. All they had to do was wait for a rescue.

The woman chuckled. “Same, same. I was here for a reason, and now that reason is gone.” She stared him down, the glare bluer than the ocean. “But maybe I’ll still get what I want.”

“Sure,” Max said, suddenly wishing someone else had found him. He didn’t know why, but this woman scared him. Her eyes weren’t real.

“Any idea what happened?”

Max shook his head. “No. One minute I was looking at the meteor shower, the next I was in the water.”

“It was the right shade of white.” The woman frowned. “And now it’s gone.”

Max nodded, not sure how else to respond. He gave a few heartier splashes, hoping it looked like he was trying to float and not swim away. For every stroke of his arms though, the ocean brought him closer to the woman.

The woman smiled, and Max felt something stir underneath him, a movement that wasn’t a wave. A new fear waltzed through his head: There were sharks in the Pacific. He looked down, expecting a cavernous mouth filled with teeth, but all he saw was dark, choppy water.

“You okay?” the woman asked.

“Sure,” Max said, feeling anything but. “Just … my shoes are still on. Makes it hard to swim.”

“What color are they?”

“What?”

The woman smiled, showing the tips of her rotted teeth. “I like colors.”

Max shuddered, but when the woman let the pause stretch into uncomfortable, he answered her. “Uh, white, I guess. They’re just tennis shoes.”

“Good.” The woman said. “I need that one.”

“We need to swim. Get closer to the ship. There has to be a life raft. Has to be.”

The woman nodded. “After you.”

Max wasn’t a strong swimmer, but he could keep himself afloat and move in a straight direction. He pumped his arms and squinted every time a large wave crashed into his head. The woman followed close behind, barely moving yet keeping pace. He was surprised at how strong she was, but that didn’t seem to matter. The Delight refused to get closer. After ten minutes, his chest ached and his ankles hurt from his sopping shoes and socks.

“Everything alright, dear?” the woman asked when they had stopped. It occurred to Max that she never blinked, even with all the water splashing in their faces.

“I—” Max froze. Whatever was underneath the water was following them, and it was big. He could feel it lurking, moving the currents. “I—”

“Maybe you should take your shoes off,” the woman suggested. “It’ll make swimming easier.”

Max nodded. It didn’t make sense, but neither did how far away the Delight was. They hadn’t even been in the water more than half an hour.

“I can help, if you want.”

“Okay.”

The woman brushed a sopping strand of grey hair away from her face and reached for Max’s feet. He told himself not to move, not to be afraid, but her hands were hard like concrete, and he was positive there were sharks swimming below them. Or just one giant shark.

“Hmm,” the woman said, holding up one of his ruined shoes. “Not very white anymore, though the plastic on the laces is alright. Still, it’s not good enough.”

She tossed the shoe away and didn’t go down for the second.

Max watched her, how she barely moved yet could stay afloat. How her eyes never seemed to change color even though the sky had grown darker now that the fires were further out. Everything was wrong—the Delight was now so small he could hold it in his hand. Smoke hung heavy in the sky, and the waves slapped at his shoulders and neck, threatening to take him underneath.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“I’m tired,” the woman said, though she didn’t look it. “Can you help me?”

“Uh…”

Without waiting for an answer, the woman lunged at Max. He yelped. Her hands were so cold they sent a shiver through his body, and below, he could feel the ocean stir. Whatever was beneath them was still there. Or maybe it had always been there, like a spider with a web the size of an ocean.

“What are you—”

“Your eyes turn a very brilliant shade of white when you are afraid.” A wave crashed over Max’s head and thrust him below the water. Everything became murky dark, and then he was above the surf, choking on salt water. The woman smiled.

“Stop,” Max gasped. “Please. We have to swim to the ship. We have to—”

Another wave thrust him down, and now he could hear the thing below them, moving through the water like sludge. It was so big. He opened his mouth to scream and tasted more salt. It felt like it had been a year since he had last taken a breath. His head grew light, and another word tiptoed through his head. This one was drowning.

The woman yanked Max above the surf. He coughed on his scream.

“Be more afraid!” she roared. “They can get whiter!”

“Help!”

She squeezed his shoulder until it became bright pain. “Again!

“Hel—”

A third wave took Max below the surf. He struggled against it, but it kept dragging him lower and lower, until everything was dark. He wanted to scream but needed to breathe, and he wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t seem to. His heart roared in his ears, yet he was so tired now, so sleepy. And the water was so warm.

“Yes,” the voice of a god said from somewhere all around him. “That is the white I seek.”

Something brushed against Max’s face, something that he first thought was hair and then plastic. It folded as it passed, a floating dent that controlled the tides. As Max struggled to find another breath, the dark oceans gave way to color. There was green, and there was black, and both were the most pure shades of anything he had ever seen. Even the darkness of the ocean couldn’t hurt them. The green reminded him of finger-painting when he was a kid, and the black was like the first time he had ever looked through a telescope at the night sky. They were comforting colors.

The green spread all around him, pressing against him or floating just out of reach. It was soft, and instead of hair he thought of a nice blanket. He could go to sleep in this green, and he wouldn’t have to be afraid ever again.

Max exhaled, and as he did, he saw himself floating in the green. He was smiling, and the whites of his eyes were gone, replaced with rotted brown.

And as everything shifted into the very essence of grey, it occurred to Max that this was the real color the woman was looking for.

Still Breeze

The cave breathed in short, sobbing huffs that sent chills down Aiden’s spine. In, out, in, out. The smell was dry and stale, the temperature lukewarm. He approached it slowly, afraid of what might happen if he was noticed, but the cave ignored him. In, out, in, out. The opening was large, big enough for a bear or mountain lion to call it a rich home, but Aiden knew it would be empty. It’s how he knew he was going in the right direction: Not even bugs would approach.

Left hand on the hilt of his sword, Aiden stepped into darkness. A breath blew against his face, and despite his fear, he smiled. It was the first gust of wind he had felt in over ten long years.

*

Scholars and magicians called the day the wind stopped, “Normal,” and for some, it was normal. People moved about, tending fields and selling wares. Students studied, the king ruled, and the wind blew—until it didn’t. For Aiden, however, it had been storming. The clouds were jet black, the rain like pelting stones. He stared out the window with his mother and father and watched their crops crumble.

“Can’t keep this up for long,” his father said. “Give it a few more minutes, and we’ll go check the damages.”

“Dear, what do we do if it floods?” his mother asked.

His father grunted. Aiden did too. It seemed like an appropriate response. Lighting splintered across the sky.

After a long pause, his dad said, “Up to the Gods, I guess.”

“Let’s go pray,” his mother said, tugging on Aiden’s arm to follow. They went into their small living room, avoided the buckets collecting water from their leaky roof, and knelt to ask for guidance. Sometimes the Gods listened.

They didn’t this time though, because this wasn’t about the Gods or magic or men. This was about the wind and how it had simply stopped blowing.

*

Aiden set foot into the cave and despite himself, drew his sword. It was a short, rusty thing, not even sharp enough to shave with, but someone once told him all great adventurers had magic weapons, and this was all he could afford. It couldn’t cast spells or burst into flames, but the blade did attract metal, could even pick up nails with a simple touch! It was a neat parlor trick and not much else.

The wind continued to suck and blow, and Aiden felt himself walking to match the pace. His torch danced with the breathing. In, out, in, out. There was a kinship in it, or maybe he had been alone for too long. At least it wasn’t mosquitoes.

When Aiden reached his first fork, his torch went out. He held his breath and tried to relight it, but the wind breathed for him. Terror eased along the rocky ground, slimy and black and ready to bite. Aiden fumbled. The sparks weren’t even bright enough to cast shadows.

“Go away!” he begged, and the breathing ceased. Aiden felt the blood drain from his face. His voice echoed down both passages, bouncing through time and distance. How long had he been here? How much further did he have to go? Could he escape?

It took Aiden a few more tries to light his torch, and he cursed himself for being a fool and a bad adventurer. He was not cut out for this, but everyone else had moved on.

The flames billowed bright, throwing lights and shadows around the cave, which had narrowed into two passages the size and shape of doors. Aiden checked for hinges, though there weren’t any. The left doorway was smoother than the other though, its edges almost like river stones. Its ground too was smooth, as were the ceiling and walls. Without the wind to call its direction, Aiden chose the stranger of the two paths.

Hours came and went. Silence stalked Aiden’s heels. He tried to keep his footfalls quiet, though he had never quite mastered the adventurer’s walk. His feet were more suited to heavy boots and grassy farmland, of being caked with dirt and things a bit dirtier than dirt. But when the wind stopped, so too did the farms. Without the wind there could be no rain, and without rain, no crops. Fresh-grown food was now so expensive most couldn’t afford it.

The great mages of the land spent all their time conjuring grain and fake apples instead of battling dragons or doing whatever it is mages do. Even now, Aiden still didn’t know, and he had talked to hundreds of them, many unhappy to be forced into the profession.

They were, on the whole, an unhelpful bunch of people. Well, except one.

*

“As to that,” a woman with blue hair was saying as she picked at a scab on her elbow. “I can tell you what doesn’t work, but not what works.”

“Why not?” Aiden asked. They were standing in her shop, which was filled with wooden shelves stocked high with bland, bread-based products. There were even conjured butters and cheeses, neither of which would get moldy no matter how long they were left out. They would, however, vanish after a week if not eaten.

“Because nothing works!” The woman succeeded in tearing her scab off, which she put in her apron pocket. “For later,” she said.

“Right.”

“Listen, if the best mages couldn’t figure it out, I don’t know what makes you think you can.”

Aiden scowled. Every mage had said something similar, though he had yet to find one of these fabled “Best.” People were starving to death, and half the planet was becoming a burnt desert, and Aiden couldn’t understand why no one else was trying to fix it.

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“Depends. You going to buy something?”

Aiden turned to leave. He had been through this song-and-dance before, and was tired of it. There were other people to talk to, ones that couldn’t cast spells. He’d just have to find them. But the woman grabbed him by the arm and held him fast. Her grip was oddly strong, like a blacksmith’s vice.

“The birds stopped migrating this way in the summer.”

“What does—”

“Probably nothing! But it’s strange, isn’t it? The wind stopped blowing, but north and south are still north and south. But the birds migrate differently, the robins. I never see them anymore. Noticed it last year. Even wrote the Guild a message, but no one seemed to care. Robins aren’t magical, just stupid.”

Aiden nodded. “I don’t think it’s a magical problem.”

“I think … I think you might be right.”

*

The cave continued, its noises reduced to Aiden’s footsteps and dripping water from stalactites. Thus far there was only the one direction, and his torch lit it well enough. Quartz crystals glittered bright pink, and a strange metal Aiden had never seen before glittered an entire rainbow. For a brief moment he wondered if he was traveling into another dimension, and for a brief moment he wondered if something would jump out and devour him.

Mostly though, he wondered if he’d always be alone.

Aiden had been alone for a long, long time.

After disease had killed his parents, he was drafted into the mage program along with every other person between the ages of 12 and 19. He didn’t want to be a mage, but food was short and conjuring bread was a spell so simple most anyone could perform it. Aiden was not most anyone. A gnarled man in a black robe had asked him to leave, and before Aiden could open his mouth, he was teleported outside the large tower, its door barred shut. His pack appeared at his feet a few seconds later.

After that he had simply … wandered. He was a farmer in a land devoid of farm country, unable to read or write. He could dig irrigation ditches, and he could dig for wells, but both were backbreaking work that wouldn’t bring the wind back. No one seemed to care that the wells would dry up and the rivers would shrink. It was a problem for next year, or the year after. At one point he had tried to sign up with a fishing vessel, but that too was a failing industry. All the big ships were gone, most still stranded out at sea as floating graves, and those that made it back to shore needed at least two mages to man. Conjuring waves was a lot harder than conjuring bread. The rest were rickety rowboats incapable of leaving sight of the shore, and there were more people begging for work than actual boats. Aiden was overlooked.

He couldn’t be overlooked here though, because he was the only thing in this cave. Him and the wind.

*

Two more torches later, and Aiden stopped to have supper. The ground had turned into polished stone, so smooth it was slippery, and the walls glowed with quicksilver. Or maybe it was regular silver. A real adventurer would know the difference. Whatever it was, his sword didn’t seem to like it. It shook in his hands. Some magical swords did that to alert their owner of danger, but Aiden was pretty sure his wasn’t that smart.

He fumbled with his flint, ready to light a proper fire to cook his food, and dropped it. The sound bounced around the narrow walls.

Aiden dropped to his hands and knees and searched as quietly as he could, hoping that if he didn’t make a sound, the sliming darkness edging closer would stay in his imagination. He ran his hand along the stone, surprised at the lack of cracks or seams. It was like one polished piece of marble. He blinked, and the cave seemed all the darker.

An adventurer better than Aiden had once told him to pack multiples of everything important. Aiden took this to mean food, knives, and boot strings. It only now occurred to him that two flints were better than one.

“Please,” he said, happy to hear a voice, even if it was just his own. There was a ring of anxiety in it. “Please where are you.”

The breathing returned.

Aiden almost screamed. His hand jerked to his useless sword. The breaths were stronger now, closer, and there was a mildew smell in them. The wind was close. Aiden moved his sword and felt it vibrate. He then heard a loud clink.

“Oh,” he said to himself, his startle replaced with relief. His flint had metal in it, and his sword attracted metal. He plucked the useful tool from the useless one and lit another torch. The room glowed silver.

The breathing grew harder, more labored. The wetness was thick and heavy, almost like a gargle. It reminded Aiden of his dead parents and his drowned village. It reminded him of mosquitoes.

Supper forgotten, Aiden trudged on.

*

The cave narrowed until Aiden was forced on his hands and knees. His stout shoulders, normally perfect for hauling bales of hay or nudging horses in the right direction, scraped against rainbow metal. He inched forward, his torch blinding the path with both bright yellow and grey smoke. He coughed. Fear stalked in, so close it bit at his feet. He was afraid something would grab him from behind, and he was afraid the heavy breathing would grab him from out front. He was afraid the cave would bury him.

When the passage opened, it wasn’t to another giant, glittering cavern but a small stubby one lined with sharp edges. Aiden had to stoop to enter, and his torch felt too bright. The breathing stopped. Aiden did too. He had found the wind.

The figure was small, childlike, and huddled in one corner of the room. It curled into a ball and clutched at its legs with its arms, its face buried into its knees. It had no skin but was instead made up of what looked like grainy lines that shifted in a thousand different directions at once. It had no eyes or face. It had no toes or fingers.

Aiden didn’t know what to do. Part of him was afraid, but more of him wanted to cry. He approached the wind and sat down, cross legged and with his back bowed.

“I found you,” he said.

The wind responded by inching further away, pressing itself against the back of its little cave. A stubby stalagmite poked through its body.

“Are you okay?” Aiden asked.

The wind shook its head, but its breathing resumed, short and huffy.

“Me neither.”

They sat in silence until Aiden’s torch burned low and the room filled with smoke. His thoughts were a windless storm, his lips tasting words right before they spilled onto the floor unsaid. Tears welled in his eyes, and imaginary mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, and the wind sat, and so did he.

“At least we’re not alone anymore,” he said.

The wind didn’t respond. The smoke thickened. The cave continued to breathe—in, out, in, out—but Aiden had to cough. His eyes burned from the smoke, and his throat felt like it was getting smaller. Or maybe he was getting smaller. That made the most sense.

“I miss you,” he whispered.

The wind gasped, and Aiden felt a gentle breeze surround him.

And then the wind was gone, taking the smoke with it. Aiden waited in silence, not sure what to do, not sure what to think. Eventually he lit another torch and started his way back to the surface. He kept his sword out front, because he could hear creatures lurking in the dark.

He was no longer alone.

Questions and Answers

Mary sat, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, while the very dead Nora Thomson tried to scramble a pair of eggs. This was proving difficult as her incorporeal form was not capable of picking anything up for more than two seconds. Four clusters of broken shell sat on the floor, each oozing whatever it is that eggs ooze, and she was going for a fifth.

“Cars!” she said as she shoved her hand through the pantry door. “Still can’t believe it.” She looked over her shoulder, though not at Mary for an answer but further back, towards the wall. It was a nervous tick of hers, probably related to her death, though it had grown worse of late. A lot of things had grown worse of late.

“Please stop.”

“I got this. Just need,” the ghost brightened, yanked, and Mary heard an egg smash against the inside of her pantry. “Woops.”

Mary sighed. She wanted to put the candle out and cancel the séance completely, but they had to rehearse for the big show tonight. Last time they played it by ear, Nora got a little too rowdy for common decency and armed guards had to escort them to the Vermont state line. Her, her ghosts, and her ghost’s ghosts were never allowed back on penalty of death, which made about as much since as anything else in the state.

“Hate Vermont,” Mary muttered.

“There!” Nora clapped her hands, which were the only things on her body that didn’t make noise, and picked up the pan. Inside was one perfectly cracked egg, ready to cook. “Just gotta—” The pan fell from Nora’s fleeting grasp and clattered to the floor, making it six eggs for Mary to clean up. “Woops!”

“You say that a lot.”

“I could say it ghostlier for the show.” Nora screwed her face into something that looked constipated. “Wooooooooooooooooooooooops” She shrugged. “Like that.”

“No.”

“You’re no fun today.”

Mary massaged her temples. That was the problem. This used to be fun, and now it wasn’t. Now it was scary. Mary watched Nora look over her shoulder, now at the stove. It was Nora’s secret, but all she had to do was ask. The ghost was incapable of telling lies. “Fucking Vermont.”

Nora scowled in response, and then twirled in a slow circle. She was thin and beautiful, or had been at one time. Her hair was a translucent brown, her eyes translucent green. She had died wearing a white linen shirt, light blue skirt, and a dark brown bodice skewered with yellow circles, though strangely no shoes.

“Well I miss dancing,” she said. Dancing was why they were no longer allowed in the great mountain state. “Miss a lot of things, but I miss dancing the most. I was a good dancer.”

“Yeah. Everyone saw.”

“You know what else I miss?”

Mary’s heart skipped a beat. Questions led to answers. “Shut up!”

Nora stamped her foot. “You shut up! You think I want to keep doing this?”

And there it was. Mary looked at the candle. One puff of air and Nora wouldn’t have to. But then she’d be all alone. She didn’t want to be all alone, not now, not ever. Nora looked behind her, and Mary did too. Empty. Without her, the house might as well be haunted. A floorboard creaked from the living room, though it wasn’t from ghosts but mildew and warping.

“Please don’t blow out the candle,” Nora whispered, “I don’t want to go back.”

Mary got up. “I won’t.” She knew she should, but she had never been good at doing what she should. Instead she grabbed a rag and ran it under the sink.

“Let me,” Nora said, though she trailed off. They both knew she couldn’t clean up the mess.

Mary sighed. “It’s fine.” She knelt, making sure her skirts wouldn’t trail into the spilled food, and began to wipe the floor clean. “Just a few eggs.”

“It’s not fine.” Now it was Nora’s turn to look at the candle. The blinds were up, the windows open. The flame danced, barely shedding light into the bright kitchen. It was her lifeline to the Earth, her only one. “I don’t like being dead.”

A familiar chill ran down Mary’s spine. First the chill, then the questions, then the answers. She needed to stop, needed to put out the candle. Instead she asked: “You sure you aren’t in hell?”

“There is no hell. No heaven, either.” Nora blinked. For a moment, her voice had changed, had grown deeper and flatter. “Mary, don’t. Please don’t.” She looked behind her, though there was nothing there. “I just want to remember what eggs taste like, or how cats purr. I just want to—”

“What’s it like?”

“Cold. Bitter and cold. The cold you get used to, but the bitterness is forever.”

“Can you escape?”

Nora spread her arms out, and her voice was normal when she said, “I’m right here.” She looked at the candle. It was almost burnt to its ivory stand. Mary needed to buy a new one. “I’ll have to go back though. And then I’ll have to wait for you to summon me again. To conduct another séance.” She wiped at her eyes. “You will, right? You’ll bring me back?”

“I….” Mary didn’t know. Her act hinged on Nora, but the act wasn’t fun anymore. It had taught her that there was more to the afterlife than simple ghosts, and she hated having that information. She hated being terrified of the dark, of her creaky floorboards. She hated knowing.

“Please,” Nora said, and she even got on her knees, the front of her skirts phasing through the floor. “Please don’t let me stay dead forever. Please.”

Mary pursed her lips. “What’s chasing you?”

Nora’s face screwed up into something terrible, hurt and sad and desperate. A sob choked through her translucent throat, and with it came the sound of an angry bird. Mary grabbed the candle. “Please,” the ghost repeated. “Please.”

Mary brought the flame to her lips. The candle shook in her hand. “I’m going to die someday, and I’m scared. You made me scared.”

“I’ll find you!” Nora said. She grabbed Mary by the shoulders. For two seconds, the grip was tight, painful, but then it was gone. “You won’t be alone. You won’t have to face him alone.”

Mary tried to blow out the candle, but all that came out of her mouth was, “Who is him?”

“Him,” Nora said, her voice steady and low, all the emotion gone. She looked over her shoulder. “Him is nothing. Him is a stopped clock. Him is cold.”

“What does—”

“Stop!” Nora screamed. “Don’t make me do this!”

“What does He want?”

Nora stiffened, and the tears ceased running down her face. Her eyes narrowed, and then her smile cracked into a grin, one that showed the tips of her teeth. “Why Mary,” she said, her voice cold and bitter. “Why would you ask a silly question like that?”

Mary stepped back, her face pale. The chill down her back was so cold it felt like her spine had turned into an icicle. “Stop,” she ordered, brandishing the small candle. “Stop.”

“But Mary,” Nora said. She reached for the candle and put her hand through the flame. “I haven’t—”

Nora’s face distorted into an angry sob, one of black tears and the sound of a thousand birds flapping giant wings. Mary screamed, and Nora knocked the candle to the floor. It shattered, spraying ivory shards and hot wax everywhere. Nora vanished.

Mary fell, her breaths shallow and useless. “Nora!” she sobbed, but Nora was gone. One day, she would be too.

Something knocked at her door. Mary gasped. It was not a human knock. It was a bang, like a car ramming into a brick wall. Her door shook in its hinges, the knocks growing louder and louder until they were an endless series of throbbing headaches. Her house shook.

Somewhere outside, a crow cawed.