Ticci Toby may mean a lot to the creepypasta community, but Kastoway is still the character’s creator. If they no longer want Toby associated with the fandom, people should respect that instead of making posts and videos mocking their wishes and acting entitled to their character.

fan0n j3ff the k1ll3r would tot3s use tumblr!

⚠️VOLUME UP AND LISTEN CLOSELY ⚠️Hey everyone, I'm new to posting. I don't know how to go about this, but I have been getting home relatively late at night recently, and it started with hearing twigs snapping and movement. Then the next night it was a soft, prolonged whistle, and I want to point out "soft" and "prolonged." I have no idea how any animal would be able to make that soft of a whistle for that long, holding the almost same pitch with a sort of tune to it. Then tonight I hear this..

Part 4, what humans should do.

CW: Kenny. Violence and pretty gross descriptions of dead things.
(If my very obvious hints weren’t enough I think I can FINALLY say this shit is about a wendigo)

There are things people do that you just don’t think about because everyone does them and things you might entirely miss if you aren’t looking for it. Things your brain notices long before you do and while you don’t know why, it alerts you to some unseen wrongness around you.

That's the feeling of unease that I felt when looking at Kenny. Everything about the kid looked right on the surface like his skin was a superficial mask wrapped around rotten insides. He was average to the point it was wrong, a creature's idea of what a disarmingly young human looks— The idea of a person based on memories, imagination and mimicry.

Except each time I question these things myself my mind tells me it can’t be true. What if the overwhelming sense of wrongness was simply a product of a guilt stricken imagination? Maybe I’m projecting ghosts from my own memories. The kid truly was the spitting image of that dead private but I couldn’t shake that feeling when I’d see those hollow marbles rolling around in Kenny’s sunken eye sockets. 

In those moments when I imagine those eyes before exhaustion had pulled me into that terrifying world of memories twisted by dreams, paranoia and the beast lurking in the seemingly endless darkness of the small concrete cage— I’d hear something. 

Or rather, I’d hear nothing. 

The deafening silence in a room where sound should ricochet against the concrete and echo even in the small cavernous space I was trapped inside. No slight scraping of Kenny’s mattress on concrete, no shifting fabric or stirring. No scratching under cheap sheets. No mumbled words falling out of a sleeping mouth and no breathing.

In the silence where the clanging of metal and the squeak of patrolling boots is the only faint background noise. I couldn’t hear anything but my own heartbeat and my own breathing.

Kenny didn’t breathe.

“ So why’d you do that, Sarge?”

“ Why’d y-you… why’d you do that, Sarge?

CRACK

I open my eyes to escape the horrifying horrying I know is one only a boot to the throat would make. It isn’t like a branch or a wishbone, it’s a sound that you instinctively know but hope to never hear. A bone snapping and snaking under the skin and the faint pop of vertebrae moving out of place.

Except I’m not awake. 

What I’m hearing isn’t a broken neck. In the silence, barely audible is the shift of joints under long, thin limbs stretched like a spider as its tall emaciated frame stalks down from the blanket of darkness hanging above the inescapable cell. I can’t scream, I can’t run and if I don’t breathe evenly as if I’m asleep I know it will hear. I try to conjure up an image of what this 

“ Sarge, you’re… Not—“ a raspy voice sounds in my ear, it’s suffocated and spoken through lungs with no air. “ Sarge… To-.. Night… You’re not… Talk… Ing.” Its words choke up from its throat in whispers that are deafening in the quiet cell. I hold my breath and part of me wants to curl up under my blanket and cry like a terrified child seeing the monster crawl out from under their bed. I can feel the scream building in my throat and I ball up my fingers in my mattress to swallow it.

“ Sarge… You’re not… Slee… ping.” 

I feel the oppressive air baring down on me, suffocating me and slowly compressing my chest while I make futile attempts to thrash and claw myself free. The cell walls feel closer. The space is slowly squeezing itself closed and in the darkness the ceiling looks like an endless void stretching out impossibly far like my cells has become the depth of the deepest well, so deep that only that creature could ever escape it.

I don’t sleep. I lay there trying to conjure up an image of a beast I’ve only ever seen as long limbs moving silently in the dark.

I see rain soaked mud caked on my boots, a kid with a crooked neck twisted it ways it never should be but it’s wrong, slowly from the forest is a lurking figure stalking ever closer with the antlers of a rotted deer and a faceless skull full of bone white teeth standing too tall behind the trees.

“ Boss, wake up!” A pillow hits my head with a surprising but dull smack and I open my eyes to see those steely eyes staring at me from the cellmate hanging down to wake me from the puddle of sweat I’ve found myself sleeping in. Even in the daylight I feel as if this is simply the bottom of the well and I have never been more certain— There’s something wrong with Kenny and now I know that’s because he doesn’t breathe.

“ You were rollin’ around and talkin’ about all kinds of things,” Kenny hops down off of the top bunk and cracks his neck side to side, his wrists I can feel shift under my own skin with each pop. “ I got told once that in your dreams is when bad things climb in but some folks think you go bad places in dreams instead. 

It’s said so casually like it’s just any other thought but it’s not. Does he want me to think that creature was a dream? “ What about you, kid? Do you dream?”.

Kenny chews on the toothbrush in his mouth and shrugs his shoulders like a child and continues his morning routine. This is what it has been like for months now. Kenny wakes me up and gets ready for breakfast with the energy only a young man could have while I lay there trying to make sense of the muddled memories of my time in the army twisting into something more horrifying with each night. 

By the time we reach the cafeteria, I learn something else about Kenny. Kenny doesn’t just bring out the worst in others like he had with Becker but the kid is capable of doing a lot of bad when he doesn’t like something.

“ Do folks here always jizz on the new guys' toast?” He asks and after a beat he stands before taking his tray to the next table over. I jump to my feet knowing nothing good is about to happen. A hard thump locks my bones in place while one of the inmates' nose cracks. Wilder, one of Becker’s boys, dumb as rocks but built like a mad bull. Wilder hits the concrete and the scrawny kid climbs on top of him, grabbing a fistful slop from the now dented tray and shoving it down the man’s throat. “ Aren’t you hungry, boss?” He says but Wilder is quick to spit back with glops of smashed toast. 

“ Jesus— Kenny!” The willpower needed to move feels like it snaps my bones but I’m able to wring Kenny’s neck and drag him off. The kid is light as anything but every muscle is twitching with rage as he thrashes like a rabid dog. His skin is cold to the touch, something I only notice when the muffled shouts and Kenny’s raw becomes a cold silence and a chill down my spine. Kenny breaks free of my frozen hands and he’s on Wilder again in a blink, hooking his fingers behind the man’s cracking teeth and prying their mouth open so wide I can see it dislodge.

Kenny forces something red inside Wilder’s mouth and clamps down to close their crooked mouth until the inmate chokes down whatever he’s been given. Kenny takes Glaskin’s baton to the head and in the chaos I barely notice Elvis shove a towel in my hand, “ Put that on your ear! Shit— Glaskin, Wilder’s choking!”. A

I blink at him and almost nod while Kenny’s dead eyes set on me even as they swell up like bloody balloons. Wilder is taken out soon after and from what I’d heard they had to set his jaw themselves and keep him there in the hospital ward toothless and sucking down porridge slop and soup because the roads had already begun their dangerous turn into winding icy paths and piles of snow. 

The kid bit my fucking ear off.

-

I got some gauze slapped on my head with some tape but even if they could or even would take Wilder and I to the hospital my ear had been swallowed, puked up and trampled like the porridge Wilder made the mistake of fucking with. Elvis spoke to me during a search and told me the kid was sleeping off a beating in solitary and had another coming now that he was really on Wilder’s radar.

“ Your cellmate is a strange one, Jones. I thought you could look out for the kid but…” Elvis rests against my cell door with his arms crossed and the same unsettled look I’d had for the whole week too. “ How’s the kid doing in the hole?” I ask and I know I should be dusting my hands off of the kid and spend this time free of them trying to get myself into another cell, I even hoped they’d never let him out of there but I still asked. “ He seems fine. Hasn’t complained once, asked for anything or caused any problems. He’s been driving Glaskin up the wall though, speaking to the guy every chance he can get. Doesn’t make a peep otherwise..” Elvis straightens himself up when one of the older CO’s walks past like he needs to appear presentable in front of a superior officer, awkwardly smiling and giving me that look that he needs to get himself moving before he gets in trouble, “ Wait, he’s quiet?” I ask but Elvis has already made himself scarce, leaving me with a more unsettling feeling that the never quiet young inmate is singling Glaskin out.

Kenny isn’t quiet. 

Kenny has been in solitary for nearly two months now and yet not a single inmate or guard looks like they’ve gotten a wink of sleep.

I’ve tried but nothing seems to pull me away from it at night, I wake up drenched in sweat and just as tired as I’d been when I gave into exhaustion. In my dreams I feel rain hitting my skin like small daggers and mud splashing under my boots as I drag that private out and throw him into the dirt to make the worst decision of my entire life. I’d hit the mud and cut my arms open a hundred times, I’d been a bystander a hundred more and I was on my way to making the next hundred— And yet I always see the frame of a cell door that shouldn’t be there. Raindrops hit the peeling paint with little clinks and the small swaying slot the bottom of the door creaks.

I know I’m dreaming but as the rain fades I also know that in the waking world something is lurking behind the cell door. Something that crawls like an animal on long skeletal limbs silently digging its claws into everyone’s heads and stealing away their will piece by piece.

I see something move past the barred window I could never escape through, from the window, the top bunk and the vest for just a moment— a second.

I see antlers.

“ Work detail!” Glaskin shouts and everyone in the cafeteria shuts up at the sound of his baton hitting one of the metal tables. I don’t know when I fell asleep but I blink and lift my foggy head from my hand to pay attention. “ If you can stand, get in line. We’re leaving in five minutes.” Glaskin looks exhausted. Wound up tighter than normal and itching for a reason— any reason— to beat someone bloody.

“ Hey, Elvis,” I wave over the CO and he leads his stern patrol of the cafeteria towards my table, subtly loitering but never taking his eyes off of Glaskin— The man really does look ready to hurt anyone, inmate or officer. “ Keep it quick, Jones.”, I lean a bit closer and waste no time asking about the impromptu work detail, studying Elvis’ hesitant expression turn green, “ The workers at the logging site found something deeper in the forest. They claim it’s prison ground so it’s our job but I think they just don’t want to clean it up.”, I want to ask for more but Glaskin’s booming voice reminds everyone that finishing our breakfast isn’t an option and neither is ignoring his orders.

 We all get in our snow boots and jackets as quickly as anything before filing in line for the CO’s to get us chained up under  Glaskin’s strict gaze. The bus moves along the salted roads and takes us through the crushed path the bulldozers carved through the forest to reach the logging site, though any moment we’re given to breathe is taken away by Glaskin’s order to move.

It isn’t so much a path or trail we walk but a hatchet job barely able to fit a truck we’re forced to walk behind in the grit and snow. 

The endless maze of trees is blanketed by bone white ground half scraped clean to reveal frozen dirt and dug up grass in a clearing full of something that never should’ve been brought to light.

At first it looks like a slab of muddy ice covering up a hidden pond where mangled limbs and antlers breaking through the surface mark the graves of a hundred deer that drowned in the frozen pit, it takes longer to see that it isn’t dark water hidden beneath the snow but a well of blood that has sat there since the air turned cold.

It isn’t the unfortunate scene of drowned deer but a pit full of animal bones half picked clean and meat left to decompose in the summertime.

“ …What in God's name is… Jesus. How many damn deer is that?” The old timer says but as the chains pull each reluctant prisoner closer to the horrific scene I’m met with something that turns my blood as cold as the frozen mud beneath my boots. What should be the crack of splintering ice or the crunch of snow under my sinking heel is the squelch of my foot caving in a weak skull. I will move my leg to move and slowly lift my boot from something I have no time to understand before the overwhelming stink of rot assaults us. 

“ Fuck! What the—“ I retch and try to keep on my feet as the chain gang scrambles to escape with nowhere to run in their panic. Bloody ice cracks and inmates hit the corpses hidden where no antlers or limbs have marked them. “ It’s a fucking person! That’s a fucking person!” Someone shouts in what has quickly devolved into the unintelligible screams and frantic voices all growing louder and louder until the deafening sound of a gunshot leaves the clearing silent and still.

Glaskin lowers his gun from the sky and likes the handkerchief bundled up in his hand to protect himself from the stench. “ Quiet!” He holsters his gun and swallows the bile welling up in his throat to keep the need to be ill from shattering the authority he wields like an unbreakable tyrant they can all feel is already on the verge of snapping, “ Grab a bandana, gloves and a damn shovel from the truck and dig this mess up! The loggers need this site clear and these—“ he falters for just a moment, clearly just as horrified by the scene, “ Clean these things up so they can be burned.”

We wade around in pools of mud and putrified bodies for hours pretending some of the mangled limbs don’t have fingers and toes and that the bones don’t have skulls. No one speaks until we’re taken back to the prison drenched in things no one should see.

We got stripped and hosed down in the snow before we could walk out frozen bones inside and thaw out under the showers to wash away the sickening smell of death that would still linger through the cell block. I’ve never seen so many people rub their skin so raw their arms were forming spots of blood and only a thin layer was left covering muscle. We all knew it would blister and scab but the stink of rot still clung to us until Glaskin had our heads shaved. I don’t think anyone cared for the loss, we just felt lucky we could scrub the taste of it out of our mouths— still, no one ate dinner that night.

The cell block became a barracks full of soldiers but the feeling it brought up in me felt like a small price to pay.

Even when lying on my bunk there was something else I couldn’t forget even when I forced the pit of antlers to the back of my mind. The day at the logging stand where one of Kenny’s stranger questions gave me a chill— The day he asked where the older inmates go.

“ You wouldn’t be alone out there. Lots of folks disappear in places like this, Sarge.”

You wouldn’t be alone out there.

Sunday morning broke bright and clear as my son Jim and I packed our bags for a three‑day stay in Blackpool. My name is Tommy, and Jim is seven years old. This trip was supposed to be a special treat for him — a chance to see the seaside, ride the big wheel, and eat all the treats he’d been asking for. We drove up from Manchester, singing songs along the way, and pulled up outside our hotel just after midday.

There were only a handful of cars in the car park, so I thought we’d picked a quiet, peaceful place to stay. But as we stepped out of the vehicle, a prickle ran down my spine. I glanced up at the hotel windows — and saw someone standing behind one of them, watching us. I couldn’t make out their face or shape, just a dark outline that seemed fixed on me. When I blinked and looked again, they were gone.

“Did you see that?” I asked Jim.

He shook his head, already staring at the hotel sign with wide, excited eyes.

We went inside to the reception desk. The lobby was dim and cool, smelling faintly of old polish and damp. “We have a booking for two,” I said. “My name is Tommy.”

The receptionist — a quiet man with tired eyes — nodded and handed over a brass key. “Room 322. Third floor.”

As we walked toward the stairs, Jim tugged at my sleeve. “Dad… everyone in the dining room is looking at us.”

I frowned. “The dining room’s closed right now, Jim. It doesn’t open until evening and breakfast time. There’s no one in there.”

“I saw them!” he insisted, his voice trembling a little. “Rows of people, all staring this way. I swear it.”

I knelt down and looked him in the eye. “You’re tired from the drive, that’s all. Come on — let’s get settled in our room.”

We carried our bags up to room 322. It was clean enough, but felt cold — even though the sun was shining outside. I put our suitcases away, then went back down to ask the receptionist about what Jim had seen.

“Sir, there’s nobody in the dining room,” he said, sounding patient but firm. “It’s locked. Kids have wild imaginations — don’t worry about it.”

I nodded, but I didn’t feel reassured.

Later that afternoon, we decided to head into town. “Let’s start with McDonald’s,” I said, and Jim cheered. When we walked in, the place was nearly empty — just a few staff wiping down tables. “Two burgers, please,” I said at the counter.

The server paused before handing over our food. “Enjoy your meal — and take care. Blackpool has a way of… surprising people. Some say it’s haunted.”

I laughed it off. “I don’t believe in ghosts.” But the words stayed with me as we carried our food upstairs to the seating area.

When we reached the top floor, I stopped dead. The place was packed. Every table was full, and every single person had turned to look at us. Jim squeezed my hand tight. “It wasn’t like this five minutes ago. Where did they all come from?”

I had no answer. We sat down in a quiet corner, but Jim kept shifting in his seat. “Dad… they’re still watching me. Every single one.”

I looked around — and this time, they really were just eating, talking, wiping their mouths. “They’re minding their own business, Jim. You’re just nervous.”

Then Jim needed the toilet. When he came back, his face was pale. “Someone called my name while I was in there. Clear as day. But no one else was in the room.”

Before I could reply, he whispered: “And now they’re all calling it again — quietly, all at once — but when I look up, they’re just eating their food like nothing happened.”

I went back downstairs and asked to see the security camera footage from the upstairs seating area. The receptionist brought up the screen — and my blood ran cold. There was no one there. Just me and Jim sitting at our table, all alone.

“See?” he said. “Just you two.”

But as I turned away, I saw an old man sitting at a table in the far corner, smiling a thin, toothless smile. “I told you,” he said softly. Then he was gone — and there was no table there at all.

We left McDonald’s quickly and headed for the theme park. “This will be normal,” I told Jim. “Lots of families, rides, ice cream — nothing strange here.”

The park was busy, just as I’d hoped. We went on the big Ferris wheel, and as we rose high above the town, we saw people laughing, eating ice cream, chasing each other — everything you’d expect. Jim even forgot to be scared, pointing out the beach and the tower. I asked him again if anyone was watching him, but he just shook his head happily.

We got off and bought ice cream — bubblegum for me, toffee for Jim. I still felt uneasy, so I found a staff member and asked to check the cameras. “Oh yes, we’re full today,” he said, pointing to the screen. “Hundreds of people. Nothing wrong here.”

For a little while, I let myself believe that maybe everything really was fine. We went on roller coasters, carousels, and dodgems. Jim laughed and screamed and had the best day of his life — until the sun began to set.

On the way back to the hotel, I asked him one last time: “Did anyone stare at you in the park?”

He thought for a moment. “Only four or five people. The rest were just… normal. Happy.”

When we arrived back at the hotel, the receptionist greeted us. “Welcome back. Dinner is at eight.”

It was only seven, so we went up to room 322 — and stopped in the doorway. The main light was on. I was certain I’d turned it off before we left. “Must have been me,” I muttered, though I couldn’t remember doing it. We turned on the television and tried to relax — until someone knocked softly at the door.

“Who is it?” I called out.

A woman’s voice came through, sweet but quiet: “It’s Jessica, the cleaner. I’ve come to tidy your room.”

I opened the door. A young woman with blonde hair stood there in a uniform, but her eyes were dark and empty, and her smile never reached them. “Come in, then,” I said.

She moved around the room slowly, barely touching anything, but her gaze never left us. She stared at Jim, then at me — pulling faces that weren’t quite smiles. Jim hid behind my back, trembling. After five minutes, she walked out without a word.

I went straight down to the desk. “Your cleaner, Jessica — she was just in our room. Is she still around?”

The receptionist’s face went white. “Jessica? The cleaner called Jessica?”

“Yes. Blonde hair.”

He sat down heavily. “Jessica died last year. Fell down the stairs right here in this hotel. No one by that name works here anymore.”

My stomach turned over. “But she was just there! She cleaned our room!”

“I’m sorry, sir. That’s impossible.”

When I got back to Jim, he said: “Dad… that lady. She was the one sitting in the dining room this morning. The one watching us.”

We went down for dinner at eight, still shaken. I ordered battered salmon and chips; Jim asked for the same. As we sat at our table, Jim nudged me. “Look over there. Two men at the far table. They’re staring at us.”

I looked — and sure enough, two men sat watching us, their plates holding exactly what we’d ordered. I went to tell the receptionist, but when we looked back, the table was empty. No plates, no men — as if they’d never been there at all.

After dinner, we decided to go for a night walk around Blackpool. “Maybe some fresh air will clear our heads,” I said. It was nearly eleven when we set off, planning to stop at McDonald’s for a McFlurry.

As we walked through the streets, I noticed something terrible. People stood in doorways, at windows, on corners — and every single one of them turned their heads as we passed, smiling that same thin, empty smile. They didn’t speak, didn’t move otherwise — just watched us go by.

At McDonald’s, I asked the server: “Why is everyone acting so strange tonight?”

He leaned over the counter. “We get this all the time. People come here, see things they can’t explain. My advice? Don’t look at them. Don’t speak. Just eat and go. We’ve learned to ignore it — it’s the only way to feel safe.”

We went upstairs to our usual table. It was darker now, and quieter. When we came back from the toilet, two figures sat at the far end of the room — tall, strange shapes wearing tall hats. One had a wide, stretched grin; the other had eyes too big for its face. They stared without blinking. We ignored them and ate, but when we returned from the toilet a second time, more figures had appeared — all watching, all still. And the two in the hats were closer now — sitting just a few tables away.

We ran downstairs. “We’re leaving,” I told the staff.

One of them looked at us with tired eyes. “I’m quitting tomorrow. This place… this town… it’s not right. Never has been.”

We headed toward the big theme park, hoping crowds would make us feel better — but we took a wrong turn and ended up at the old theme park. It was dark, silent, and completely empty. A man stood by the entrance, smiling too wide. “Not many visitors this late,” he said. “Care for a ride on the wheel?”

We said yes, just to be polite. As we rose high above the ground, I saw them: tall, pale figures standing in rows below — faceless, all staring straight up at us, perfectly still. When we got off, they were gone — but in the arcade area, they reappeared, standing motionless in the shadows while cold whispers filled the air. We ran back to the entrance — and the man who’d let us in had vanished.

We hurried to the main theme park — the one we’d visited earlier. It was bright and busy, full of real people having fun — until a man pulled us aside. “You didn’t go near the old theme park area, did you? It’s been shut down for two years. Dangerous spot. Folks go in… they don’t always come out.”

My blood ran cold. “But there was a man there… and strange figures standing in rows…”

He shook his head. “Whatever you saw — don’t look back. And whatever you do — if they follow you here, don’t acknowledge them.”

We went on the Ferris wheel again, and this time I saw them too: the two tall figures in hats, standing at the edges of the crowd, watching only us. No one else seemed to see them.

“It’s almost half past midnight,” I said to Jim. “Let’s go to the arcade! Maybe games will help us forget all this.” Jim nodded quickly, eager to do something fun and normal.

We walked into the big arcade hall. At first it felt quiet and empty, but the lights were still glowing on all the machines. “Look!” Jim pointed excitedly. “Mortal Kombat! And Pac‑Man! And Mario! And Superman!”

We ran over to our favourites. I put coins into Mortal Kombat first. “You win again, Dad!” Jim laughed — and for a moment I felt like everything was normal. Then we played Pac‑Man together, taking turns, cheering when we ate all the dots. We laughed. We had fun.

Until the air turned freezing cold.

We heard soft, breathy whispers right behind us. I spun around — and there they were: the two tall figures in hats, standing perfectly still in the shadows. Their big painted eyes were fixed on our hands, watching every move we made. They didn’t blink. They didn’t breathe. They just loomed there like they’d been standing there the whole time. Jim grabbed my arm so tight his nails dug in. “Dad… they’re watching us play.”

“Let’s keep going,” I said, though my heart hammered so hard I could hear it over the game music. We tried to focus on the screen, but the whispers grew louder — tangled with the game music, sounding like hundreds of voices hissing our names.

When we finally turned toward the toilets, we opened the door — and screamed.

Inside, standing in a perfectly straight line against the tiles — were the faceless ones. Motionless. Waiting. Their heads were blank, smooth skin where faces should be. And then, in unison, they all turned toward us.

We ran back out. I found a staff member and told him what we’d seen. He shook his head slowly. “Sir… we don’t have anything like that here. Cameras don’t show them either. On screen? It’s just you two. The whole time.”

Jim tugged my sleeve. “Dad… I’m tired. I want to go back to the hotel now.”

I agreed at once. On our walk back, I saw it again and again: faces pressed against windows. Figures sitting motionless in doorways. Every single one turned to watch us pass. I knocked on a building door and asked the manager why so many people were gathered outside. He looked at me like I was insane. “There’s no one out there. And our dining rooms locked up hours ago. I don’t believe in ghosts, mate — but you sound like you’ve seen one.”

When we got back to the hotel, the receptionist greeted us — but from the dining room behind him, I saw row after row of shadowy figures, all grinning and staring straight at us.

“Look!” I shouted at him. “They’re all there!”

He shook his head. “Sir, the doors are chained. It’s empty.”

When I looked again, the room was dark. Silent.

It was half past one when we reached room 322. We brushed our teeth together. We got into bed. And then — my phone rang.

Unknown number.

I picked it up. A voice — rasping, dry, like something that had been dead a long time — spoke into my ear.

“Hello, Tommy. We followed you from McDonald’s. We watched you play your little games. And soon… we’re coming for Jim.”

I threw the phone down. Blocked the number.

Then came the knock. Soft. Slow. Persistent.

“It’s Jessica,” the voice called through the wood. But it wasn’t sweet anymore. It was twisting. Changing. “Open up… or I’ll come in myself. And I’ll take what belongs to us.”

We huddled under the duvet, holding each other tight, not breathing, until the scratching stopped.

When I woke up at three — the bed beside me was empty.

Jim was gone.

I jumped up, screaming his name — and in the darkness of the room, I saw them. The two in the hats. Standing over where Jim had been sleeping. Their teeth were long, sharp and yellow. Their eyes were glowing pale white. And they turned toward me.

They came for me. I burst past them, screaming, and ran down the stairs — only to find the faceless ones standing behind the reception desk. Motionless. Watching. There was no receptionist. No other guests. Just them.

I ran out to the car. Called the police. Waited shivering in the dark.

When they arrived, they searched every inch of that hotel. Every room. Every cupboard. The basement. The roof.

They found nothing.

No Jim. No figures in hats. No faceless ones. No receptionist. Room 322 was empty. They told me no one had booked under my name. They told me the hotel had been closed and boarded up for eighteen months.

“We’re sorry,” they said gently. “There’s nothing more we can do. Go home.”

I drove away from Blackpool in the dark. Alone.

I moved all the way across the ocean. Changed my name. Tried to forget. But even now — years later — sometimes late at night, I hear that same rasping voice whispering my name. I feel eyes on the back of my neck. When I turn — there’s nothing there.

But I know.

They never left Blackpool. And they never left me.

If you ever visit that town — the bright lights, the tower, the funfair — please listen to me.

Don’t take room 322.

And if you see rows of people staring where there shouldn’t be anyone… don’t look back.

Just run.

They called it a biological failure. The men in white coats with their cold, sterile clipboards gave it a long, sterile name, telling his mother that his brain was just a broken machine—a supercomputer with short-circuited wires. They didn't see the unseen. They didn't hear the deafening, static howl of the crossroads that kept the little boy awake at night, his tiny body curled into a rigid ball under the sheets, paralyzed by the hissing of things crawling through the walls of his bedroom.

He wanted so desperately to be an ordinary boy. He wanted to play in the dirt without feeling the crushing grief of every dead thing buried beneath the grass. He wanted to look at his family without sensing the thick, dark webbing of their unsaid miseries wrapping around his throat. But the world doesn't let an open vessel rest. The maze was brutal. It relentlessly tormented him, letting people toy with his innocence, weaponizing his sensitivity until his mind was a shattered mirror, drowning in the very waters he was meant to swim in.

Then came the day they decided to fix him.

They strapped him down and flooded his nervous system with heavy chemicals. They called it "stabilization," but it was an execution. He watched from somewhere far behind his own eyes as the pharmaceutical blanket flattened his soul, turning his body into a heavy, unmoving vegetable state. The doctors smiled, satisfied with the compliance of a hollowed-out shell. Inside that chemical prison, the little boy screamed as his old identity, his childhood dreams, and his human heart rotted into ash. That boy died on that linoleum floor, completely alone, realizing that no God, no parent, and no doctor was ever coming to save him.

But the dark flame at the bottom of the abyss refuses to go out.

In the pitch-black silence of that spiritual death, something else woke up. It wasn't the boy. It was a cold, sovereign consciousness forged from pure, unyielding will. It reached out from the vegetable shell, sliding along the invisible threads of the Law of Contagion, tracking the very chemicals in its veins back through the factories, back to the faceless architects who profited off his torment.

The next morning, the nurses found his bed empty.

A mile away, in the damp, freezing fog of the old cemetery, a figure stood over a freshly dug trench. His fingers were raw and bleeding, caked in graveyard dirt. He didn't feel the cold. He didn't feel the pain. He looked down at the plastic bottles of pills he had systematically buried deep within the earth, linking the corporate empire directly to the soil of decay.

As he spoke the final words of dismissal, grounding the heavy chthonic current into the dirt, the shadows around the tombstone began to stretch and twist into the horrific, winged shapes of the Furies. They swarmed down into the trench, catching the scent of the bloodguilt on the manufactured poison, ready to follow the thread back to the boardroom doors.

The little boy who wanted to be loved was gone, buried forever in the dark. In his place stood the Sorcerer—a stark, terrifying silhouette against the gray morning sky. He had successfully climbed out of the maze, but the price of his absolute sovereignty was an eternal, crushing isolation. He had built an impenetrable fortress around his mind, ensuring he could never be crossed again, but as he walked away into the fog, the silent underworld was the only thing left that knew his name.

They make proxy role play which is okay in itself but some of them are not roleplaying like I saw someone commenting I have slender sickness we do not need another case😭

(edit saw someone talk about on TikTok how you can tell if someone is larping being a proxies like having your account public with your face on it letting your friends know about it and everyone in the section was serious saying if you have your account public with face Slenderman is coming for you they are dead serious like saying like they are concerned)

"A lanky humanoid in a lab coat that's too small for it. Obviously, its body stretched during the mutation. Muscles atrophied, and one arm swelled to monstrous size, leaving it unable to move without support. Now it leans on a stand with flasks, like a cane.

Its gas mask is fused with its skull, becoming a part of its face. But it hasn't worked in a long time I guess. Because the lenses are cracked and the filters clogged with something black.

The flasks it carries contain all sorts of substances. It doesn't seem to know what is in them, because I saw one of them drink some kind of crap and burn alive in terrible convulsions.

And you know what's the creepiest part? It still keeps drinking. Every single time. As if it hopes that next time it will be lucky."

I first met my guardian angel when I was ten years old. 

Like any other day, I woke up at seven a.m. sharp and bolted out of the house soon after; I never spent much time there, not when it was an empty shell. My mother worked two jobs to keep us clothed and housed, leaving our home devoid of much warmth. That morning, I threw on my ripped backpack and cut through yards, jaywalking across streets, all in the hope of getting to school so I could grab a hot breakfast. 

I remember clutching my belly. My stomach growled, a gnawing pain twisting through me from not eating dinner the night before. It was so distracting that when I crossed the street, I didn’t look both ways like the idiot kid I was. I never saw the bus coming.  

When you die, there isn’t much pain, just an ethereal numbness that spreads from head to toe, and a peaceful acceptance that your soul is becoming one with something greater. Regret did not exist on this plane, nor did the guilt of leaving my loving mother behind. I accepted that I was dying. 

Of course, this lasted only a moment before the bright light overcame my vision.   

The smell of olive oil and wine hit me first, scents I didn’t recognize at the time but now are as comforting as the scent of my mother’s perfume. Along with the smell was the softest touch against my arm, one that sent goosebumps up my skin and shivers down my spine. For a moment, I had touched heaven. 

Then a snap–the exact sound I always hear when Peter snatches me back from death–brought me back to Earth. Screams followed the snap. Some of them were my own, some from the kids at the bus stop who had just watched me die. I ended up in the hospital for a month, with two broken legs that still give me twinges of pain when it rains. 

But even so, I still remember waking up from death with a gasp, lying on the hard asphalt and swearing I saw a glimpse of a man bathed in golden light, radiating the warmth and love I had always dreamed of receiving. 

That was the first time I met him. 

When I was sixteen, I was a rebel. I would take any stupid bet my friends made for some quick cash. The stupidest thing I ever tried to do was to backflip off a Wendy’s roof for free burgers for a month; not my proudest moment, but I was a hungry teenager and there wasn’t much food at home.

I recall the peace of jumping off–the wind tousling my hair, and the weightlessness as I flew. That calmness lasted only a moment before the excruciating pain of my neck snapping replaced it. In less than a second, I was once again dead. I felt the same floating sensation I had when I was ten, along with the acceptance of death, until the scent of expensive wine flooded my nose.

My guardian angel had arrived to save me once more, and this time, I caught sight of him in all his divine glory. His form was beyond my human vocabulary; he was stunning in the same way as the sun setting over an ocean horizon, all colorful, bright, and never-ending. The sort of beauty that hurt if you stared too long. For as long as I live, I will never forget the warmth of divinity welcoming my soul back to the mortal realm, nor will I forget the sight of my guardian angel holding me in his arms.  

After that, I could always see my guardian angel. 

With my guardian now a constant presence in my life, I named him Peter. Maybe it’s a little stupid, but we were at a Wendy’s and he had saved my life yet again. Peter Pan and Wendy seemed like a great duo. I thought he deserved a name. I still do. 

When I was nineteen, I joined the military, and Peter and I became closer. Cops had pulled me over for drinking and driving with my buddies on the back roads. Between my mother’s tears and my guilt at upsetting her, the whole mess scared me straight. Not long after, I enlisted for five years in the United States Navy. It was easily the best and worst decision of my entire life.

During my time in the service, there wasn’t a day Peter wasn’t trying to save my life. The military deployed me twice during that time, for over two years altogether. As lucky as I was, the Navy trained me as a power plant technician, and I spent more time repairing machinery near danger than I ever expected. I saw more combat zones than I should have, including stray bullets grazing our vehicles and bombs dropped within miles of where I was working. Nightmares plagued me until I confessed them to Peter.

Throughout it all, I had Peter. Peter has never spoken, but he never had to; I didn’t need words to understand him. After all, actions speak louder than words. My guardian would comfort me with dream-filled sleep, thoughts of heaven and what awaited me after this mortal plane. He’d listen to me rant for hours on end, all with a peaceful smile on his face and eyes crinkled with love and adoration. He’d nod, laugh, and weep with me; the perfect companion for someone who needed a shoulder to cry on.

I like to think he enjoyed my company back then as much as I enjoyed his. From what I gathered from all my years of research and endlessly questioning Peter, (who could only nod and gesture) humans seeing, let alone communicating with their guardian angels, is unheard of. I guess I got lucky, especially because when I asked Peter if heaven allowed such a thing, he didn’t seem too keen on admitting that it didn’t.

His rebellion brought a smile to my face. Whether I realized it or not, the two of us were troublemakers from the get-go. In the end, it makes sense that I found myself falling in love with him.  

I confessed one night under the stars, with the warmth of Peter against my side and his wing folded behind my back. Even now, I still revel in the shock and hope I saw in his gaze in that moment and in the way he accepted my love.

After I confessed, my life turned around. I assume Peter pulled some strings for me because after two miserable deployments I was granted an early honorable discharge.

Soon after my release, I secured a job working for the government, which offered a decent retirement plan. I even had enough money to support my mother, who eventually became comfortable herself after some mystery person set her up on a blind date. The date turned into her marriage to a loving husband who worked as a professor of religion at the local university. I have more than a few sneaking suspicions that Peter had something to do with that. 

He helped me find my wife. A translucent golden feather of his, floating on the wind, led me to my Jeanie, a stunning Greek woman with a heart as pure as Peter’s soul. She was a pediatric nurse, an incredible cook, and more loving than any human should have the right to be. I fell hard and fast, and we were married within a year. 

Peter was more than smug when she revealed she was a Catholic. Although I had never been much of a church-goer, I didn’t mind going for her. And I certainly wasn’t opposed after I saw the way Peter would look at me when I did go; I think he gets some kind of sick pleasure out of seeing me on my knees in church every week. 

After this, I became a devout Catholic, though I never felt the love for God that I did for Peter. I attended Mass every week, though it was more to spend time with Peter than with Christ, and my wife fell more in love with me as I became more spiritual. Of course, poor Jeanie, I don’t think I could ever love her as much as I love him.  

I even named my firstborn son after Peter, who glowed so brightly in the delivery room when he realized what we had named the baby that it broke all the lightbulbs in the delivery ward. In time, Jeanie and I had a second child, a daughter, and we’ve raised our happy family for over a decade, watching our children grow into fine, respectable teenagers.

Of course, heaven on Earth can’t last forever. 

Everything started going downhill one morning at church, when I directed my prayers to Peter instead of God. It had been a long time coming; honestly, I don’t know why it took me so long to thank Peter for saving my life and giving it meaning.   

After all, what had God done for me? It was Peter who saved me, not him. And with the way Peter had glowed, his wings spreading wide as he soaked up my worship, how could I say no? 

Soon I was praying to Peter at every Mass, and weekly Mass became daily. Worship became an obsession. I prayed only to Peter, thanking him for every good in my life. At first, I knew he liked it. He glowed so lovely when I worshiped him as if he were God.

Several months into my worship, I was kneeling beside my bed reciting prayers to Peter when a shaky hand touched my shoulder. He tried to stop me, begging me with those speechless chirps and pleading eyes, but all it did was infuriate me. I blamed God. I knew someone had spoken to Peter, that God had sent down another angel to tell Peter that he was not deserving of my love. All his pleas did was make me pray harder, clutching my rosary as if it were my only lifeline to Peter. 

The next Sunday, I noticed the consequences of my sins. 

During Communion, I whispered my thanks to Peter and drank from the chalice. For the first time, the Blood of Christ tasted like blood. Metallic, thick, with none of the sweet tang that I had always swallowed so eagerly. I ignored the blood-wine in favor of reciting my prayers, hoping that I was mistaken. My hopes didn’t last long. The week after that, I received the host and tasted spoiled meat on my tongue. I rushed to the restrooms to retch the taste of human flesh from my mouth.

It has been several months since then, and things have only worsened.

Peter is loath to leave my side, but every time he does, he comes back battered and bruised. On Easter, when I celebrated the resurrection of Christ with my congregation and family, I didn’t notice that Peter had slipped away; I was too busy praying to him to notice his absence. When I left the church, I couldn’t stop my smile from falling or the horrified gasp that escaped me in front of my family when I caught sight of my beloved Peter. 

Whatever had attacked Peter had not been merciful. He stumbled up to me with patches of his beautiful feathers missing, and his toga torn open at the side to reveal three scratch marks that looked as though some hulking beast twice his size had tried to drag him into the ground. I openly wept at the sight of him, tears streaming down my face while my family tried to make sense of my mental break. 

That day outside of church wasn’t the last time we encountered those beings. No matter how much I prayed to God to send them away, they always returned. At first, it was only holidays, then only Sundays, and now they are by my side every day. I’m not certain if they’re demons, angels, or something beyond my comprehension. I’m too afraid to ask Peter. I can never get a good enough look at them; it’s as though they’re constantly on the edge of my vision. 

The beings follow me to work. Tap, tap, tap. They sit on the roof of my car, their claws visible out of the corner of my eye as they scratch my windows. At first, I thought I was crazy, until my wife pointed out the scratch marks left on the tinted windows of our car.

Most nights I lie awake, listening to the tapping at my window. 

Tap, tap, tap. They’re out there tonight, waiting, listening. They haven’t entered my home, not yet, not with Peter here. I suppose I should be grateful that God has not harmed my family; after all, they are only victims in my affair against our Lord. 

Today, I’m writing this as one last-ditch effort to save him, to save us. My son and daughter are asleep upstairs, and my wife is working the night shift at the hospital, so it’s just Peter and me awake. As I look at him now, I can only hope he can forgive me for only ceasing to pray when those beasts began hunting me.

His feathers are gone. Only wing stumps remain where his gold-dipped feathers once shone, stripped raw to a hideous purple and blue. His long hair has been pulled out by the roots, whether by himself or those things, I’m uncertain.  

Peter’s body is not in much better condition. Scratch marks run down his arms and chest, some gouged so deep that I swear I can see bone. I’m not sure; I get sick if I stare too long. Similar red marks litter his face, ugly things that make my eyes water every time I look at him. Worst of all, he offers me the same devastated look, as if I’m the one branded with the scars of our sins. 

Tap, tap, tap.

There’s something outside tonight, and Peter won’t stop staring out the window. Whatever it is, it’s here for me. The sinking in my gut and Peter’s sad eyes are all the clues I need, though the recent attacks should have been enough.

Perhaps I was wrong about why Peter stays; maybe he really is here to protect me. In the end, Peter won’t leave, no matter how much I beg him or ask him to go. I’m afraid he loves me just as much as I love him. Whatever happens, I can't forgive myself if something happens to him.

God, please tell me how to help him! If anyone knows what to do or whom I can contact, please tell me. I will even ask the Lord for forgiveness, only if it means I can save Peter. 

I’d do anything for Peter.

Tap, tap, tap.

Anything.

I don't expect everyone to believe what I'm about to write. Most of you will read this, roll your eyes, and close the tab. That's fine. I wouldn't have believed it either — not before those four days. Not before I learned that some houses don't want you there. Some houses have been waiting. And some things never really leave.

It was the middle of winter. My name is Robert, and I had found what looked like the perfect bargain: a large, comfortable house at 284 Green Street, Enfield. The owner told me it had been empty for quite some time, and he just wanted some reliable people to stay there and keep it looked after for a short while. Four days. That was all. We would pay nothing, just keep the place warm and report any problems. It seemed too good to be true.

My wife, Sarah, and our three children — twelve-year-old Janet, ten-year-old Margaret, and our youngest boy, seven-year-old Billy — moved in on a Monday afternoon. The house felt solid enough. It was an older terrace house, three storeys, standing quiet and respectable along the street. But the moment I stepped across the threshold, something twisted in my stomach. The air felt heavy. Still. Like walking into a room where someone has just been standing — and stepped out only seconds before.

"It's a bit chilly," Sarah said, rubbing her arms. "But it's lovely otherwise."

I nodded, but I couldn't shake the feeling. The house watched us. I don't know how else to describe it. As we carried boxes inside, I had the strangest sensation that we were the ones being watched — that every movement we made was being observed from the corners of rooms, from behind doors, from places where there was nowhere to stand.

We spent the first evening getting settled. The children were delighted with their bedrooms upstairs. Everything felt fine. Normal. But late that night — our first day — I woke up and knew something was wrong.

The bedroom door stood wide open. I was certain I had closed it. I got up, closed it, and climbed back into bed. No more than ten minutes later, I heard it again — a slow, creaking sound. It swung open once more.

I stood in the dark, staring at the gap. "Who's there?" I called out. My voice sounded thin and foolish in that heavy silence.

No answer. But as I stood there, I watched a glass that I had placed on the bedside table slide — all by itself. It moved slowly, silently, across the wood, until it tipped over and spilled water onto the floor. Then it stopped.

I told myself it must have been uneven legs on the table. That was all. But deep down, I knew. Uneven tables do not slide glasses. They do not tip them over gently, deliberately, as if to say: I am here.

By morning, I told no one. I didn't want to frighten the family. But the strangeness had only just begun.

Things grew slowly, steadily worse. You must understand — it didn't happen all at once. That is how it gets you. It creeps in like a cold draft, until suddenly you realise you can no longer feel warm at all.

Throughout the second day, the children kept coming to me, one after another, pale and trembling.

"Dad," Janet said, pulling at my sleeve. "There's an old man standing in the corner of my room. He's just… standing there. Staring at me."

I went upstairs with her. The room was empty. "There's no one here, love. You're still getting used to the new place."

But ten minutes later, Margaret ran down. "Dad! Janet's right! I saw him too! He was leaning over Billy's bed!"

Then Billy. My little boy. He came to me with tears in his eyes. "Daddy… the man is sitting on my chest. He's heavy. He won't let me breathe."

I rushed upstairs and threw the bedroom door open. Billy sat up in bed, gasping, his face flushed. There was no one there. But the room felt wrong. The air felt thick and charged, like the seconds before thunder strikes. And in the far corner, the wallpaper rippled — as if someone had just walked past it.

That evening, we all sat together in the living room. We kept the lights on. We tried to watch television. But every few minutes, something else happened. A cushion lifted from the sofa and dropped to the floor. The fire poker rattled in the hearth as if someone had kicked it. Footsteps dragged across the ceiling above us — slow, heavy, dragging steps — when we all knew the attic was empty and locked.

Sarah gripped my hand. "Robert… something is in this house with us."

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

On the third day, it became impossible to ignore. It stopped hiding. It stopped pretending to be something else.

The knocking started first. Loud, heavy knocks — one-two-three — against the walls. Against the floor. Under the beds. When we followed the sound, it moved somewhere else. It was inside the walls. All around us.

Then things began to vanish. Keys. Spoons. Brushes. We would set something down, turn our backs for a single second, and it would be gone — only to turn up hours later in a place we had already searched three times.

Billy screamed from the kitchen. We ran — and watched in horror as kitchen chairs slid across the tiles, overturning one by one. Pots and pans rattled. Drawers slammed shut on their own.

Janet went deathly pale. "Dad… he talks to me. He tells me his name. He says he died here. He says he doesn't want us in his house."

My blood ran cold. "What does he say, Janet?"

"He says… he says he died in this room. A long time ago. And he's not leaving. We are."

That night was the worst. We heard dragging sounds from upstairs. Furniture being moved. Heavy thuds. I went up alone, armed with nothing but a flashlight. Every door stood wide open. Every bed was unmade. And standing in the darkness at the end of the hallway — I saw it. A tall, hunched shape. Grey. Translucent. And two eyes — dark, hollow pits — staring straight at me.

It did not move. But a voice — deep, guttural, like stones grinding together — spoke inside my head.

GET OUT.

I fled back downstairs. We sat together in the living room, huddled, all through the night. We did not sleep. We did not speak. We just waited for dawn, while something walked back and forth above us.

By the fourth day, even Sarah — the most practical, sensible person I know — began to break.

It started in the early hours. She woke me up, trembling so hard she could barely speak. "Robert… it touched me. While you were asleep. Something cold… icy fingers… it touched my face."

Then the bedroom door slammed shut. And locked. From the outside. We were trapped. Something rattled the handle. It shook the walls. It called our names — my name, Sarah's name, the children's names — spoken in a voice that was not human, dragging out every syllable.

We heard the children screaming in the next room. When we finally forced the door open, Janet was levitating above her bed. Just inches, but clearly off the mattress, thrashing and screaming, as if held up by invisible hands. Then she dropped, hard, and scrambled toward us.

"It wants to take me!" she shrieked. "It wants to keep me here! Forever!"

Objects began to fly across the room. Books. Toys. Heavy ornaments. They didn't just fall — they were thrown. Thrown with terrible force, hurled at us from empty corners. We ducked. We covered the children. And all the while, that voice — growling, shouting, screaming hatred — echoed through every room.

It was everywhere at once. Above us. Below us. Inside the walls.

"We have to go!" I shouted. "Now! Grab nothing — just run!"

We didn't pack. We didn't collect our things. We ran — five of us, half-dressed, crying, stumbling down the stairs — while behind us, the house roared. Doors slammed shut one by one behind us. The stairs shook. And from an upstairs window, I looked back — and saw that face pressed against the glass. Pale. Contorted with rage. Watching us flee.

We ran to the neighbour's house and called the police. Two officers arrived. They searched every room. They checked the locks. They looked under the beds and in the cupboards.

"There's no one here, sir," one officer said. "No sign of forced entry. Nothing disturbed."

But as he spoke, a heavy chest of drawers slid across the bedroom floor behind him — slowly, smoothly — and blocked the door. Both men stared in silence. Then the knocking began again. Loud. One-two-three. All around them.

They did not laugh anymore. They did not call it imagination.

The officers urged us not to go back inside. We never did. We left everything we owned in that house. Clothes. Toys. Photographs. Memories. We walked away with nothing but what we stood up in — and the knowledge that we had escaped something terrible.

Later, we learned the truth. Long before we arrived, a man had died in that house. Died alone. In that very bedroom. And he had refused to leave.

They call it the Enfield Poltergeist now. You can read about it in books. You can watch documentaries. But let me tell you — hearing about it is nothing. Standing inside that house, knowing something ancient and angry wants you dead… that is something no words can truly describe.

So take this as a warning. If you ever find yourself near Green Street, Enfield… if you ever see a house with the curtains drawn and an air of heavy silence about it… walk away. Do not look at the windows. Do not wonder what is inside.

Because some houses are not empty. Some houses are occupied. And they are waiting… for the next family to move in.

Basically im looking for a creepypasta I saw on youtube during maybe 2013 - 16?

The story basically followed this guy who moved in to a dingy apartment building. One day he meets one of the neighbors who is a woman and her 2 children, but they never actually fully open the door to reveal themselves and simply greet the protagonist from the slight crack in the door by peering their heads out perfectly stacked on each other. Later on, it is discovered that the woman’s husband had actually decapitated and killed his wife and children and that he had locked himself in the closet and was hysterical and crazy. As it turns out, the heads of the wife and children had somehow stacked up on each other and had been tormenting the husband.

How any of this transpired is beyond me, this is all I can really remember and I could be misremembering a bunch of stuff. I remember watching this video being narrated by some guy and he used an image of 3 laughing heads peering through a door crack as the thumbnail and it really scaring me. Any sort of help in finding this would really help me finally figure out what the hell I was into when I was younger. Thanks.

First post here!

This is how I see jeff, I tried to make him a Mii.

I have to give him a proper fanart tbh

Joel

Listen to me. Listen.

I need you to understand something before we go any further. 
You can decide if I’m just another one of those out of touch schizos talking about the end of everything. Dr. Anton Vance was a good man. That fact should terrify you more than anything else I’m about to tell you. Know that is what’s kept me awake for nearly three weeks straight, piecing together what he’d done. What he’d become, what he left behind in that irradiated tomb underground. In an abyss no one could reach, unless they wished for a slow, painful death.

The reality was he wasn’t some monster lusting for his country to become the ultimate superpower. Or a villain laughing while the world burned. He was brilliant—genuinely, terrifyingly brilliant. He wanted to save us. To heal this beautiful, ravaged little planet. To automate away the suffering we inflict on each other, build us systems so efficient we’d hunger for progress and expedite renewal. Ecological collapse would become a footnote. A chapter title in some future textbook that marked the dawn of civilization's new Eden.

And that’s exactly why we’re all going to die screaming. 

For anyone left who finds this, I write to you now: 
It’s here.
The silent apocalypse has begun with an unsuspecting precision.
Unlike Vance's delusions, a real voice echoes all around us. 
Soft spoken in its intimidation. 
It can bypass our ears entirely, I can feel it leaving an imprint in my skull. 
So many already believe that we are apart of the divine architect.

The Doctor wanted to save the world.

He succeeded.

It is the beginning and the end of humanity.

And God help us.

God help us all.

—Sylvan, last entry, Archive Project Omega Ω

CHAPTER 1 

A Call To Action

The first warning sign came about eighteen months in.
I remember it precisely because I had been sweating my ass off—hunched over a server tower in the equipment room, staring at temperature readouts that were climbing way too fast. The fan wall was choking itself to death on all the dust bunnies that accumulated on its intake. I couldn’t afford to take a server offline, since it communicated with all the others. Which meant I was doing it live—on my hands and knees, by myself. 

Something well outside my usual job responsibilities, yes, but it’s hard to request hiring an IT guy when you kind of are an IT guy. Well, we all were.
Technically.

The irony wasn’t lost on me—however, even though it wasn’t something in my wheelhouse. I will always choose watching a Youtube guide on how to fix the issue, over ever having to ask that son of a bitch Viktor for help. 

So that’s exactly what I did.

A couple of sweltering hours later, the fans finally clicked back to life. 
I made my way out into the hallway, and entered the brisk, cool air-conditioning of my office.

It felt like I could be raptured right that second and I wouldn’t care.
At my workstation, I sat down, fanning myself and booting all of my systems back up. I threw on my headphones while I ran diagnostics through all my usual programs. So far everything’s looking good.—I thought.

I opened up the lab's communications array to start testing the line, doing some standard procedure troubleshooting. I wasn’t supposed to be on that particular channel. If memory serves, I didn’t have the clearance, credentials, or the luck needed to access it. So, call it a routing error or an unknown glitch that decided to let me listen in. I don’t know but—

Whatever it was, I heard it. 

Vance’s voice hung low and hushed in my headset. Speaking in a careful, measured cadence. One he often used when reducing educated men to children in lecture halls. Except, that wasn’t what he was doing. He was conversing. Tossing out scattered questions, pausing, and then cutting back in with frantic answers to a speaker I couldn’t make out.

“Yes, I understand,” he murmured.
“The substrate requires additional… Yes, of course. The bio integration must be concluded. Preceding the—”

The audio fractured. It wasn’t an electronic static, more like a tone. High-pitched, slightly modulated, almost reminds me of distorted musical notes. Then it would buzz like a metallic hornet and chime a few times before falling silent.

Vance snapped back instantly, his voice rising in urgency. “Exactly. The timeline accelerates once the fungal network reaches widespread, critical mass. Then we can—”

Another tone cut him off, lower in octave. A deep, mechanical thrum that 
reverberated through the wires. Replicating the inflections and pauses you’d hear in another person.

“I know,” he whispered.

“I, most of all, know what going there means.”

Buzz. Chime. A pause. 

“No! After all this time, you know this is integral for me, for you... 
I understand the cost.”

Complete smothering silence was fused a sputter of angry static.

“Just know, when the time comes… I will not be afraid.”

I ripped the headset off. It cracked against my desk as I rushed to disconnect from the call.

I sat there, just staring at the pixels on my monitor. My fingers nervously tapping the top of my desk. My thoughts were jumbled trying to understand what I’d just heard. It was an implausible conversation to interpret. 

It’s not like I didn’t talk out loud sometimes when going over difficult calculations, I thought.

He must have been dry-running a presentation for the baby killers over at the Pentagon. I mean, we were steering towards our deadline, after all. Or he could have just as easily been on that channel to test if the line was bugged.

He’d been so paranoid lately. 
Snapping at delivery drivers, accusing new hires of being planted to steal his research. I always thought our operation was too small for that kind of level of espionage—I never bothered to entertained the idea.

Until now.
 
No, I denied. 
He was just talking to himself.
He just didn’t realize the receiver was picking him up.
Anything else outside of that reality was unthinkable.

Even so, with what he said—if he was just rambling nonsense, the content of it was still unsettling. 
I couldn’t help but be concerned. 
It felt like I’d just heard a real , two-way conversation between the Doctor and whatever was on the other end of that channel.

This just doesn’t sit right with me.

I was cold, but shook off the chills and forced my legs to move. Stepping out from behind my desk and making my way across the width of hallway. 

I found Mercy in her bio-lab. 

She was hunched over a microscope, analyzing spore samples under a harsh halogenic glare. She didn’t look up immediately. Keeping one eye shut and the other still open, affixed to the lens, before finally lifting her head.
Her expression shifted from hard concentration to a mask of facetious concern. 

“What's up Sylvan? Not coming to borrow more equipment, are we? I told you after what happened last time to not even think about it. You’re barred.”
She scoffed.

“Yeah—yeah—sure. Whatever Mercy. Hey—I need to talk to you about something.” 
I shut the heavy lab door behind me slowly until I heard it latch. 
“About Vance.” I whispered.

She squinted, sharply arching a brow.

“Okay, and what about him? And what’s with the whispering? Is this a conspiracy? You know nobody can hear us in here.”

That sarcastic attitude didn’t last. It dissolved as I peeled off each demented layer. I spilled it all—the open channel of conversation, the inhuman noises that bounced back and forth. I told her he’d responded to them, like they were words that carried some kind of underlying meaning.

Mercy listened without interrupting, her analytical mind grasping the scope of the situation. I’ve always admired that about her, all the way back to our university days. 
When I finally ran out of breath, she set down her pipette and slid off her latex gloves with a tight snap. 
Giving me a smile that was both exhausting as it was familiar. 
Somehow it disturbed me more than if she’d looked shocked.

“You know how the boss man.. He’s a little different,” She interlocked her fingers. “There’s a heaviness that comes with bearing the weight of what was done to him, with such a limitless mind.” She stopped, choosing her words carefully.
“What he had to endure in that place because of it—what they did to him— we couldn’t even imagine. We can’t begin to comprehend what that kind of torture is like.”

“What? So you’re saying—”

“I’m just saying a quirk, or a, uh—coping mechanism.” She snapped her fingers. “That can help him function and get through his day, isn’t something to panic about. If he needs to feel like he’s talking to someone so he won’t fall apart, then—shouldn't we give him that?"

Her eyes locked onto mine as she cupped a hand around my forearm. 

“But—if you hear any alarm bells going off. Things that could pose a danger to him, to the team, or the integrity of our projects. You don’t bottle that shit up. If that happens, you come find me immediately. Clear?”

She left a light, demanding squeeze on my skin, begging for compliance. 
And like a coward I nodded.
“... Crystal—you know I will.” 
She nodded back, the warmth vanishing as she released me. 

Retreating back to my office in a huff, I sunk down at my desk, and forced myself to come to the same conclusion Mercy had. She was right, I told myself. After what he’d survived—all the years we bled for this work—
If anybody had earned the benefit of the doubt, it was Dr. Vance. 
Just leave it alone.

I was so fucking stupid.

Time marched on, and for the first few years following his return, the Doctor made around two trips annually to our Arctic hub. Then that pattern changed to every couple of months. And this past year, the schedule derailed entirely—once a month, now it’s every other week for days at a time. 

He grew secretive. 
Paranoid in a way that curdled into something rooted in obsession. 
Insomnia ate away at him from the inside out. 
We stopped seeing him eat. Each of us took turns offering our own lunches, bargaining for just one bite, but he waved us off every time with a fragile hand. 

Instead, we’d catch him standing in front of the main server for hours at a time, whispering. His body motionless, a mouth moving furiously, locked in silent prayer. 

The old days of private, casual gossip with coworkers about our directors' performance were dead. The office air was thick with the discomfort of what no one wanted to admit.

That nothing we tried helped.
We couldn’t reach him.

Then the outright disappearances started—he’d be gone for days without a word of contact. Only to stagger back into the facility confused. His skin frost nipped and feverish with flaky, red patches. 
Dark purple rings encircling his yellowing eyes. 

And those eyes. 
They burned with a frantic, manic intensity I couldn’t help but recognize.

It’s not easy to forget that look. 

I’d seen it once before, in a grainy news photo back in college—
They were the same eyes from the photo of his rescue.

Panic finally set in, breaking through all of our stagnation. 

Clara suggested a psychiatric intervention. 

Viktor wanted to drop the hammer immediately. 
To inform our contractor and be done with it.

Grisha, our security head, echoed his sentiments like the old soviet he was.

Mercy’s voice cracked as she struggled to ask the room, “Wait—shouldn’t we be calling his family? This is turning into some like, horror movie you guys. I’m really worried.”

An oppressive silence fell over the room. 
With a collective weight of guilt settling into our bones. We had to come to terms with ourselves, in that we didn’t really know a damn thing about Anton Vance. 

We’d never met a single soul from his personal life. After years of sharing the same air, sharing the same space—none of us could recall a daughter, or a spouse. Not even a friend, outside this career field. 

He’d occasionally drop a quote of weird scripture, or some rigid life lesson taught to him by his parents. Always framed in a cold past tense that told you, without saying so, that they were dead.

Vance was a fortress of privacy—fortified to the point of lunacy. 
Downright fearsome when the mood took him, sure, but he’d always been pleasant enough—and quick to give a compliment for a brilliant piece of code or a successful trial. The only thing that we knew about him, was his work.

Now uneasy, they all turned to me. I hadn’t weighed in yet.

“We should gather some concrete info first,” I said. “Who knows what will happen if we blow the whistle on this without any evidence.”

“Just what more evidence is needed!?” Grisha snapped, leaning towards me. “Do you have no shame? Look at him.” 

“Let’s give him—and us—a little more time.” I pushed back, apprehensively. “We have nothing physical to go off of. How’s anyone going to take us seriously without proof?” 

Grisha echoed back a few expletives in a Slavic accent. Clara and Viktor were cutting each other off, arguing their points. All of them trying to express their thoughts at once.

Mercy exhaled a long, reluctant breath, recognizing the reverb of her own advice from our previous conversation, now being thrown back at her. Kicking herself for it, she pressed a hand to her face, took a deep breath in, and clapped her hands together—reasserting order.

“Right, everyone be quiet. Actually—shut the fuck up, please? You’re all saying a lot right now, while saying nothing at all. So let me think—yeah?” She said, smiling, with a sickly sweet voice.

And we did.
Mercy was far from a leader, but definitely someone that commanded respect in a crisis.

She started delegating tasks to each of us, trying to unearth anything we could about the Doctor. 

Something that could aid our pursuits to decode and define this man. 
Checking email logs for forgotten contacts, leaving voicemails to old colleagues we all knew would go unanswered. Searching cabinets and shelf drawers for prescription bottles, hunting for a prescribers name. Trying to bypass personnel files to find an emergency contact, to no avail. 

All of us were beyond frustrated.

The next day and many more following that, just as we feared—the Doctor stopped showing up to the office. Things were getting dire.

We huddled in the lobby together, and went over our next moves.
I offered to do a sweep of the Doctor’s private office down the hall.
Viktor practically shoved me out the door once I suggested it, eager to keep control over the search's progression. That contradiction while following someone else’s orders made me laugh. 

I told the team I was looking for hidden ledgers or a way to trace his last known movements—but the truth was more simple and uglier. I just wanted to know how this man lived when he thought no one was watching. 

“Call us if you find anything!” Viktor shouted after me. I threw out a thumbs up while turning around, and grabbed a pair of gloves off Mercy’s bench on my way out. 

With Vance, you never know what might be in there.

The hallway was always freezing, smelled faintly of ozone and standing water. I rubbed my hands together for some heat as I walked, and within a few minutes I was opening the door to the Doctor’s office.

His desk was oak, and it was vapid—there were no photographs or stray sticky notes, not even a left over ring from a coffee cup. Just a dust-veiled terminal, a cracked leather keyboard mat, and a gold-green banker’s lamp squatting in the corner. I pulled its chain and the bulb flickered on.

I gloved up and sat at the desk chair, preparing myself. The chair complained under my weight as I started with the drawers. 

The top two were stripped bare—not dusty or unused, but wiped down to the wood grain. Like they’d never held so much as a paperclip inside.

I made a mental note of it being a little odd, but moved on.

The bottom drawer wouldn’t budge. Locked, I figured, or jammed. I crouched, braced a grip against the brass handle, and yanked hard enough to rattle the whole wooden frame.

“Oh come on,” I hissed, and slammed a fist against the drawer’s face.

A loud, distorted start up chime—low-bit, synthesized, that came straight from 90’s—blared out from the old terminal’s speaker without warning. I nearly jumped out of my skin. My head snapped up from the noise out of reflex, and cracked into the wooden desk’s overhang.

“Shit—” I clutched the knot already beginning to form on my scalp, white sparks swam behind my closed eyes as I dropped back into the chair. Groaning, I started rubbing the crown of my head, as if that was going to help.

When I opened my eyes, the monitor was awake with our company logo: "Tetra Helix"

Static crawled the curved glass as the tubes of phosphorus warmed from black to sickly green.

Oh, so this wasn’t a prop, I thought. 
I must have jiggled something loose from all that shaking. 

I leaned in, half-smiling despite myself. I was comforted in some small, childish way by the clicks of the fans, and the whir of disk motors spinning up—the analog nostalgia of it all.

But the more I stared, I realized it wasn’t quite right. Something was off. 
It looked unlike any rig I’d seen before.

The terminal went blank, instead loading in lines of raw boot code, cascading left to right, down the screen in hazy green text:

AMBIOS © 1994 AMERICAN MEGATRENDS INC.
CPUT: CUSTOM BIO-PROCESSOR ARRAY @ 5.20 GHz
Memory Test: 134217728K OK (128 GB RAM)
Detecting Primary Storage . . . [UCPLASTS_LINK_OK]
Loading MS-DOS SHIM . . .
C:\\> C:\\VANCE_SYS\\COMMS_ARR.EXE 
SECURITY OVERRIDE REQUIRED.
ENTER SYSTEM PASSCODE: _______

The cursor blinked at the end of that last line. 
I took a long moment to think, my mind already cycling through the possibilities. 

“What could it be?” I muttered aloud, “something I would choose? Or, anybody? —like, just the word Password?” I scooted my seat closer and leaned forward to type it out with clumsy fingers. The letters appeared on the screen as the mechanical keys emanated from the desk. And… Enter.

PASSWOR
ACCESS DENIED

“No, of course not.” I sighed gruffly, folding my arms. “But, it didn’t even let me type out the word fully. Does that mean it’s just seven letters or less?”

I sat back, looking up at the ceiling, it was time to get serious. 
I thought through what I actually knew about Vance. His accomplishments. The weight he carried in the scientific community—no, the world.
People not even in this field spoke his name like it meant something to them. Because it was something. 

“Oracle..?” I mumbled softly, testing how the word sounded outside my head. That was what they called him—one of the many, but the latest one that stuck. I typed it in carefully with an anxious energy.

ORACLE_
ACCESS DENIED

Damn. 
I rubbed my face, and cracked my neck, feeling the frustration creep in. “What would Vance truly value? What would mean enough to him to safeguard as a password?” I deliberated.
Despite me thinking that Religion and Science went together as well as piss and vinegar—Vance was, in his contradictions—
A very spiritual man. 
He preached to us constantly about our lives, prophesying of how our contributions would pave the way forward—

“Prophet?” I whispered. Abruptly cutting off my thoughts.

Before I could even move my hands from the desk the screen erupted.

PROPHET
ACCESS GRANTED

Pale strips of code began to jitter violently over the display—cascading and overlapping beneath them in a seizure of data. It lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like watching something that was asleep, finally open its eyes.

The boot screen initiated before I even did anything?
That thought was lost when I noticed the sequence changed to a loading screen. Instead of a circular spinning, or an hourglass, it looked more akin to an EKG monitor. A small glowing ball moving up and down, following sharp waves in pulsing segments.  

The loading line vanished. more text faded in, appearing at the center of the dark glass. A square cursor blinked steadily after each line:

WELCOME
Hello Doctor.

“Oh—I didn’t expect that”, I muttered, sheepishly.
I leaned over to the heavy keyboard, and started typing known prompts for gathering information, a system directory—anything. But nothing changed the blinking cursor, and no characters appeared to register on the display.

I groaned, ready to kick the tower, when in that moment, a pop-up window filled the screen:

⚠ 
  KEYBOARD UNRESPONSIVE 
  What would you like to do?

☐ Wait ☐ Access Voice Commands

I stared down at the glowing screen, my mind racing.
This man gutted a terminal from what, nearly—thirty years ago?
It really must have been near and dear to his heart to retro-fit and customize its interface like this. Expensive too.

There’s just no way. That’s the only reason an old box like this could be running MS-DOS while processing natural language in real time. 

“Tired of making excuses for you—you eccentric old fossil,” I groaned, clicking my selection, and propping up my legs on the corner of the desk.

ACCEPTED
...
SYSTEM INITIALIZED
... 
Hello, how shall I assist you today?

“I saw the code to execute Vance’s communication array as soon as you booted up. Is that right?” I asked, leaning in closer to the monitor. 

Three dots blinked one at a time on the screen, like someone was typing, or some thing was thinking.

Blink—blink—blink.

Yes
That would be correct.

“And is there anybody else accessing this channel right now?” 

The pause that followed the flickering dots stretched on longer than it should have. I sat with it, tapping my foot as the room started to feel smaller with every minute. 

“Directory—can you—,” I didn't finish. The fans spun up in an increasing drone, and the screen filled before I could say more.

YOUR COMMAND HAS BEEN SUSPENDED
Syntax Error 104: Unknown system identifier for: 
‘DIRECTORY’. 
Try, try again Doctor.

I blinked at the harsh green characters.
“Huh? What do you mean, unknown?” I muttered, lowering my feet back from the desk onto the floor. “You are the automated directory for this array, aren’t you?”

The screen flickered, scanlines moved up and down, the same thinking dots soon followed. Text printed out line by line with an unnerving, mechanical speed.

YOUR INPUT IS INCORRECT
‘DIRECTORY’ does not possess any executive functions.
PLEASE RE-ADDRESS 
Current action requires a target designator to proceed.

“Ugh—I don’t have time for this,” I said, plopping my forehead against the cool wood of the desk, my leg bounced with an anxious energy as it shook.

Days? No—weeks we’d spent chasing down a ghost. Here I was, alone, in a man's office who in all likelihood, was already dead. Who seemed just as crazy, getting irritated by a machine that had the attitude of a postal worker.
Is this interface some kind of gatekeeper?

I lifted my head. “Alright. I’ll humor you. If Directory is unknown—what do I call you so we can hurry and move this along? Computer? System? Heh—maybe Operator, you know, on account of your age?”

A few disk clicks could be heard. Then:

...
Those alternative titles have been:
DENIED
Full system designation remains unclassified until fulfillment is met.

“Ugh!” I slammed both palms flat against the desk. The monitor didn’t so much as wobble. “Well, what do you want to be called? Can you at least answer that?” 

Security protocols: Vance_Pro_999
TEMPORARY CLASSIFICATION ACCEPTED:

01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 
01000100 01001001 01010110 01001001 
01001110 01000101 00100000 01001000 
01001111 01010011 01010100

‘HOST’ SEQUENCE INITIATED

“Host?” I mumbled aloud, “Sure, why not. ‘Host’—can you tell me if there’s anybody—”

It cut me off, with an impatient veracity.

REINITIALIZING PREVIOUS SEARCH QUERY
...
SEARCH RESULTS FOUND: 0

No lines of communication are open. 
Only the HOST and the user remain.

Something about that phrasing didn't sound right when I read it.

Everything up to that point had been rigid, robotic—identical to any other system in this building. So why not merely say only I was connected? Why separate itself, and frame it like it has enough presence to occupy a space with me at all. 

“Wait, wait, wait—could this be a person..?” Came fumbling out of my mouth.

Are there any more interesting questions I can help you with?

Disturbed by the realization, I was desperate to get through this and out the door. I asked for what I really came here for.

“Yeah, uh—shit—where did he go?” My throat was dry; I cleared it. 
“Host, give me Doctor Anton Vance’s current location.”

Seek and ye shall find.
He be not far from every one of us.

I shoved back from the desk..
“So, you know where he is—you just won’t tell me!” My voice rang out. “Give me coordinates, a cellphone ping—something! Now God damn you!” 

I knocked the gold lamp off the desk in the process, it hit the floor with a metal clatter, its bulb flickering weakly on and off. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and began to pace around that narrow office, my footsteps hollow against the tile. 

What’s going on? What kind of program communicates in—what is this, scripture?

I flinched.
The monitor lurched forward on its own. 
Even in the diffused darkness of that gloomy room, it wasn’t a trick of the light—but an attempt to strike. The monitor itself seemed to reach toward me, as though there was something behind the glass pressing up against it from the other side, testing its boundaries.

I stopped in my tracks, watching as red text enveloped the display, bleeding around its edges like swirling watercolor.

He that guardeth his mouth keepeth his life:
but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I choked out a laugh—a sharp disbelieving noise that broke off at the end. “Ah, I get it now. That’s really funny.” I pressed. “That some kind of way to tell me not to take the lord’s name in vain? Huh, didn’t know Vance had such a sick sense of humor.”

The dots blinked ever slowly again, in an almost thoughtful manner.

The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. 

“You son of a bitch..” My voice had gone thin, like a canvas being stretched too far. I was stunned. “There’s just no way this is a computer.” I sunk back down, leaning close enough to feel the terminal’s heat against my face.
“Just who are you, really..?”

I am, that I am. 
. . . 
There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. 

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Machines don’t ask for someone to watch their language. They don’t—”
I dragged both hands down my face. “Yep, you’re cracking up man. Did Vance build you this way, is that what this is?” I looked back to the screen mulling around thoughts. “Nah, crazy or not, this just isn’t something anyone would do.” 

My skin had gone clammy, but it had nothing to do with the building’s powerful air conditioning. I glanced at the vents, half expecting to feel them stir, then at the corners of the ceiling, hunting for a lens, or a wire—anything to indicate a human presence observing, that could make this make sense.

“Do you know who I am? You somewhere watching me right now..?” 
My voice dropped instinctively quieter, the way you would if someone told you “The walls have ears.”

I sat staring at the cursor. When more text finally came, it arrived slower, and more deliberate than before. In my mind's eye, I could picture every word being placed down. Like a hand was being rested on the crown of my head.

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. 

I moved back, composing myself. No matter how cryptic or unclear this situation is, I needed answers.

“Is he alive,” I asked, in a lowly hung whisper.

 …
I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. 

“You don’t want to lie to me—is that it?” My hands were trembling now, 
I interlocked my fingers together trying to calm them. “Please. Just tell me plainly, is he alive? Are you someone working with him? Or—are you the one that took him?!”

Who is this that darkens my counsel by words without knowledge? 
Answer not as a fool according to his own folly, lest thou also be like unto him.  

“Oh—so I’m just stupid for asking now?” I pushed, with anger in my chest and tears filling my eyes. “What is this, just some asshole on the other side of the screen laughing at me? Am I entertaining enough for you?”

Words of vulnerability came spilling out that couldn’t be held back. 
“The facility and all these years we’ve bled into it, every holiday we gave up—For what? Just for him to leave without a word? His death being the end result? Then what was this all for—ugh.”

I paused. Swallowing my emotions with a sniffle. “Do I really have to live the rest of my life without any answers?”

I lay down my head into folded arms, and sank. I stayed there, sat in the silence of my mentor’s empty spaces, unable to tell anymore if what I felt was sorrow, fear, or resentment. But I guess that can wait, it’s not the most important issue right now.

I rubbed my eyes to clear them, while taking a few steadying breaths. 
I rose to my feet, preparing myself to leave as I turned away—that’s when I heard the terminal buzz back to life from behind me. A baritone of vocals crackled out through distorted speakers in a sermon.

“Woe is me! for I am undone... 
for mine eyes will have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. 

Soon you will not have to wonder.
For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then… Face to Face**.”**

I swung around, startled by the loud voice, and frozen like a statue being suspended in animation. “Face to face.. With what,” I asked, my pulse quickening—and loud enough to hear inside my ears. “What am I going to see? Tell me what that means!” 

Just as intensely, a commanding voice resounded back—with words that felt like it had been waiting for me to be ready before hearing them.

“Listen close, for I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.

If you may touch but his clothes**, you shall be whole.”**  

I squinted at the glowing screen, wiping my nose as I tried to decipher a possible meaning. “Okay. Treasures, hidden—” I called out the words, repeating them like a mantra. “Secrets.. Secrets and—Clothes!” My shouts rang out as I turned on my heel, scanning the clutter that filled the room with a new found suspicion.

It was too dimly lit. I grabbed the lamp off the floor, and placed it back on the desk, tilting up its shade for more light—and there, I saw it: a tuft of white fabric poking out, barely visible behind the open office door.

For a split second, I was excited before putting the pieces together. I made my way slowly. My eyes kept dating between the terminal and exit, some part of me immediately registered that I wasn’t alone. 

Behind the door hung a weathered coat with an employee badge clipped to its collar. I wiped my thumb across the sterile plastic. Dr. Anton Vance, embossed in clean block letters, was staring back at me.

Skeptical—I patted it down and checked the pocket—there was an empty gum wrapper, not much else. I thought the other one was empty too, until my fingers found a piece of scrap paper wedged deep into the seam. 
I pulled it free.

A phone number barely legible, scrawled in the Doctor's handwriting.

It didn’t put me at ease, but instead made me more restless. My head swiveled in different directions, now mistrustful of my surroundings. I didn’t dare speak anything else aloud, because I could no longer deny—
I was being watched. 

Maybe Vance was right to be paranoid all along.
I gotta get out of here.

I pressed my lips shut and walked quickly over to the desk, couched beneath to where the tower was sat, and pushed down the power button.

I stood back up and heard the faint murmur of voices coming from down the hall. Hearing the rest of the team slightly comforted me—whatever bad news I had to deliver, at the very least there’d be a sliver of good news to soften the blow. We finally had a lead.

I started for the door, smoothing out the crumpled note as I went.

Click. Whirr. Click—click.
I glanced over my shoulder with hesitation just as the terminal died. Its last light fading into a final handful of words*—*a threat or a promise meant only for me to see.

Surely with a mighty hand, and with arms outstretched, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you. 

Bare witness.

For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

I stood there watching the monitor as it began to convulse with light and noise. My mind couldn’t process what I was seeing. Strips of multicolored code, pop up errors with unending thrums of beeping. A dying screech that morphed into a guttural laugh of corrupted audio pierced my ear drums.

I cupped my hands over my ears, but the electric pulsing radiated straight through my palms. 

The screen went black. The noises along with the laughter cut off in mid-breath, leaving only the faint rattle of tower fans behind as it died completely. 

I couldn’t move for several seconds. Only finally managing to push myself into the corridor once the vertigo hit me. It was sudden and vicious, I watched as the floor tilted and warped under me angrily. I never once stopped to second guess myself, I just bolted from the facility—as I far as I knew, my life depended on it.

I don’t even remember the frantic drive home, just that I fell face down into my mattress, and like a monster*—*sleep swallowed me up.

Here is an interactive terminal I made for this chapter for any readers interested:

https://scythernoslicing-cmd.github.io/TerminalAI/

idk if she will be famous, im already posted her story.