No writing again today and very little writing last night. That end-of-may deadline for chapter five is not going to be met but, were you really expecting it to be. When have I ever smoothly met a deadline.
In my defence I did get quite a lot done today outside. Mother saw the starlings attempting to start a new nest in one of the other gazebo panels so I spent all day removing every panel, washing them, and then numbering them so we won't forget what goes were. It was absolutely filthy up there. Almost every panel was stuffed with weeds, bird down, and feathers; The bird shit was even worse. I had to scrub every panel for at least 10-20 minutes each just to get them semi-decent. It was a lot of work and I did it all by myself, Mother was off doing her own things, but at least we won't have to worry about any more baby starlings.
Well, even though the chapter won't be finished tonight, I'm going to get as much written as I can tonight. Lets hope tonight's definition of "as much as I can" is larger than yesterdays.
Yours & Mine,
S.O. Skinner

Hello beautiful mailers! I am a lucky panda blessed by abundant post. Alphabetized thanks to:
 
u/DaniGeek Thank you for this majestic tiger postcard - and the stories about people being less than majestic. The stuffed dog one made me think I was hallucinating. Thanks for sharing!
 
u/happyjoy23 What a gorgeous card! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it, and it was such a pretty surprise to open. ‘U’ is for unique. Thank you!
 
u/kk6321 Thank you for the Oregon postcard, and for the Vulcan sticker. The post people liked it too :)
 
u/LavendarLarry x2 Thank you for this cute card and the bonus card too! It’s always exciting to open a card and something falls out - what better than another card? (Cash. Cash is better but if anyone sent me money on this sub I would be very, very worried. The other things I like that much are either alive or edible. So: cards are the best thing that can fall out of an envelope.) Thank you!
 
u/major_ad5436 Thank you for this amusing card (the little rude bird is right, there is a difference between caring and giving a - wait, I don’t know if we can swear on this sub), and what an amazing blue seal! The golden snail sticker is really cool too but the seal is a mystery to me: what is it made of? How does it stay on? Thank you!
 
Until next time, thank you all so much! Love you!

Part 1
Part 2
Content Warning: Child Abuse
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

Part 1
Part 2
***
Darkness gave way to dimness as I opened my eyes and saw slivers of gray light printed on the ceiling like lines on the page of a ruled notebook. In the distance, I heard the sound of pans clanking against the kitchen stove, and I became ever-aware of the scent of cinnamon and bacon sneaking in from under my closed bedroom door. For a moment, I was back in sixth grade. My dad was downstairs cooking up his famous from-scratch buttermilk pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. It was probably 7:00, maybe 7:05, and I had fifteen minutes to get up, shower, dress, eat, then it was off to Middle School with dad: for me to learn, him to work.
It was the day we were set to be assigned our Ancient Civilizations project. Unless something went terribly wrong, I would be choosing Ancient Rome. I didn't know much about it, other than it was some great empire, but even then I didn't really understand what an empire was. I was just happy that I would get to build something with my dad. I turned on my side and looked at the closed blinds, the source of the gray lines, then the cabinet with all my trophies, and finally the wobbly, firetruck-red chair pushed under my desk. I was home at last. The past fifteen years were nothing but a dream. There was no blinking. No malevolent demon chasing me. No inexplicable chaos…
It was a sweet fantasy. But one that became bitter the longer I tried to chew on it.
I swept my legs out from under the covers and sat, face-down, on the corner of my twin mattress. My feet were adult's feet. My room was my former room. And that was Trent downstairs cooking breakfast. Unless, of course, it was my dad, in which case I'd have bigger problems than merely waking up from a good dream.
After changing into a fresh shirt and pants, I went downstairs and saw that it was, in fact, Trent cooking breakfast. He was wearing a plain t-shirt through which I could see the ripples of his large back muscles as he whisked what I presumed was pancake batter. He must not have heard me, because he didn't turn around when I made it to the end of the hall. I leaned against the wall, arms folded, and watched him for a minute as he finished whisking the batter, then poured it onto a hot griddle (spilling a few dribbles on the counter in the process), watched it bubble, flipped it, then transferred the golden medallion onto a plate stacked five high. Next to the pancakes was a plate filled with bacon, and a small aluminum pan of scrambled eggs.
"Smells good," I said at last. "Find everything okay?"
I thought I might startle him with my abrupt appearance; instead, Trent looked over his shoulder, chewing on a piece of bacon. He swallowed and said, "Oh, it's you. Yeah, I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen. I thought I'd make us some breakfast."
It occurred to me then that Trent likely wasn't a guest in other people's homes very often. Lucky for him, I didn't mind him using a kitchen that hadn't been mine in many years. I was going to tell him as much when I saw an opened box of Bisquick sitting on the counter. I pointed to it and asked, "you found that in the pantry? My dad usually makes his pancakes from scratch."
He turned to look at the box, then back at me. "No, I went out and got that. And the bacon and eggs. I didn't want to dig into your supply without asking, and you were asleep, so..."
I felt my eyebrows furrow as I checked the time on the stove-clock. "It's 8:17 in the morning. Are you telling me you went out to the store, bought all these ingredients, then came back and cooked them? Just how early did you get up?"
"Around five," he answered as casually as if I had asked his dog's name. "I don't usually get much sleep. Around four, five hours is all I need. It's actually unusual for Antennas to need more than that amount. But I suppose you are unusual."
I opened my mouth in disbelief. Not only had he commandeered my kitchen, he was calling me unusual? At 8-fricken-17 in the morning?
"Sorry," Trent said, reading my expression, "I'm… well, let's just say I've not had many personal relationships. I'm used to being blunt. It's just easier that way." He took out a plate and transferred two pancakes, some eggs, and a few slices of bacon onto it. Then he held it up to me as a peace offering.
I sighed. "This better be good," I said with a wry smile and took the plate.
"Trent-certified, but no guarantees. Refunds not allowed." He replied, which made me giggle.
We sat across from one another at the dining room table. The meal was pretty good, but it was no dad's special: the pancakes were clearly box pancakes, the scrambled eggs lacked cheese and had a little too much pepper, and the bacon was… well it was bacon, no complaints there. Still, it was nice to settle down and have a somewhat normal morning.
After we ate, Trent unfurled the long arc of his life, which began as the second youngest brother of eight siblings in rural Oklahoma. Trent's 'pops' was in the logging business, first as a lumberjack, then as an owner of his own logging company. His dad acquired the business while Trent was still young, so school was never a high priority for him—at least not the way contributing to the household was. The rest of his childhood he summed up in two lessons: "Being 'close' has nothing to do with distance," and "don't touch strange plants in the woods."
I asked him if he kept in touch with any of his siblings, to which he responded, saying, "The only reason they haven't had a funeral for me is because it would be too much work." When I asked him to elaborate, he said he'd not had contact with anyone in his immediate family for over a decade. He kept tabs on them. For example, he knew his mother had dementia, and his dad was forced into retirement by his oldest brother (who had gone on to take over the logging company). His sisters were all married and moved to other parts of the country. He considered reaching out several times, but his situation required a degree of security that wasn't conducive of close family ties, not that there were particularly strong ties even before he broke contact. Trent admitted to being a bit of a black sheep.
"It all circles back to one of my jobs as a Home Inspector," he explained. "After I moved out, I tried college and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I entered the workforce and did a bunch of odd jobs. Construction, carpentry, plumbing. I even drove a garbage truck for a while. But I ended up in Home Inspection. There was one job in particular which made me aware of…" Trent paused and gestured toward the space between us, "our situation. The blinks. You remember what I told you about origin points being like a station where other realms intersect with our world? Well, this house was like Union Station or JFK airport if you prefer a plane analogy. There was a pile of junk up to my knees in the basement of that house; all of it had been blinked in. I spent a couple days on the property, running tests, trying to identify the strange phenomenon, but on day three I rolled up to an army of what I thought at the time were Feds, parading around the property like ants on an anthill and sectioning it off with crime-scene tape." I saw disgust funnel into Trent's expression. "They're not Feds at all though. At least not anymore. I call them "the Organization," a group of people who lead in the formalized understanding of what you know as 'blinking'. And they're the reason I have to take precautions."
I considered this for a moment. Trent's story was certainly plausible, but I was missing a key piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so, what does this 'Organization' want? You make it seem like they're not good people. Have they tried attacking you?"
This caused Trent to laugh for a solid ten seconds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean if you knew what I knew, you might think it's funny, too."
"Then tell me"
Trent took a deep breath, then released. "It's a long story. The gist of it is this. The Organization has a certain device which I call 'the Receiver'. Think of it like a giant antenna—no, not us kind of Antennas, an actual antenna. It's like the machine equivalent of us, but with a billion times the bandwidth. Their goal is to use the Receiver to map our world in relation to other dimensions, then use that map to establish dominion over everyone and everything. In order to do this, they need muscle: both human muscle, and Antenna muscle. They're in the process of harvesting as many of us they can find. They're like a giant diamond company who is taking to the mines. When they find a stone, they take it back to their factory for cutting and refinement. In real terms, they run tests on us and attempt to augment our powers. The ultimate goal is to create a 'Strong Antenna', or an Antenna capable of causing phase shifts—blinks." Trent saw from my expression that he was starting to lose me, so he stood up and began rolling up his shirt.
"What are you doing?" I asked, turning away. Then I saw what he wanted to show me. There was a long scar beginning high up on his ribs and slashing all the way down to his left hip. There was also what appeared to be a patch of burn marks on his stomach.
"It was early on when I got these." Trent explained. "I was naive. I actually thought I'd be able to reason with these people. The only reason I escaped was because of dumb luck and a box of hand grenades. But that's a tale for another time. I learned two important lessons that day. First, the Organization isn't fucking around. And two, they aren't immortal. Most of them are regular, every-day humans, except for their obsession with power." Trent let his shirt fall, covering up the marks. "I ran into them again recently at their Headquarters. My team and I are working on a plan to…" he paused, seemingly weighing his words, then changed gears. "Well, I guess we can go over that another time."
I couldn't help but feel that Trent was holding something back. As much as I tried to resist thinking about yesterday, the old demon-man's words kept ringing in my head. You think he can help you? He's only here to help himself. Then I thought about what Trent said at the deli: "that's the thing that got me really interested in you. Somehow you seem to be able to control it without gear, just by praying." Did Trent think I was a Strong Antenna? Is that the only reason he's helping me? Because he wants to recruit me? And if that is the case, what if I said 'no'?
"Listen, Trent," I started, but I saw Trent was already nodding. Still, I pressed on. "I need you to tell me what I'm actually doing here. Why did you agree to help me? And what does helping me really mean? I want to know the truth."
"The truth is…" Trent started, then stopped and looked out the glass door that led onto the deck. I looked too and saw a sparrow had alighted on our old bird feeder. It tried pecking at some of its non-existent grains, then sang what I assumed was a song of displeasure before taking back off to the skies.
"The truth is: I do want to recruit you. I think you have the potential to be the strongest tool in my arsenal, but I won't require it. To date, I've helped 53 of our kind, but only seven have stayed on. Most decide to go on and live normal lives." Trent scooted his plate to the side. "In our case, this can essentially go one of two ways. In either instance, we pass through Chicago for two stops. First, I need to meet up with an associate who has something to drop off to me. Then I need to stop at a storage locker and trade out some gear that will allow me to open a phase portal. When we arrive at your origin point, I'll open the portal and you'll look inside. Based on everything you've told me, I'm guessing that childhood accident was when the demon appended itself to your life. By seeing how it entered your life, you should be able to figure out how to dispel it. At least that's the working theory. Returning to the origin point has always worked for the other Antennas, although I must admit your situation is different, but I can't imagine it's so different that this method won't work at all. After you return demon-free, you're free. You can walk out and never see me again and hopefully you'll live a happy and peaceful life. Or you can decide to throw your lot in with mine, and I can show you how deep the rabbit hole goes, so to speak." Trent looked into my eyes, and when I didn't respond for a few seconds, he said, "that's it. That's all I got."
I smiled and responded with one sentence.
"When do we leave?"
***
Memories have a strange architecture. In some ways, they are the great safety net of our experiences: collecting them like a bucket under a leaky roof. In other ways, they are an eternal reminder that nothing ever truly lasts. Perhaps a better way of thinking about memories is as the ghosts of our past lingering in the present. As I took one last stroll through my childhood house, feeling that it might be my last time for a long while, I felt the imprints of childhood memories press into my awareness: I could hear my father's voice reading to me at my bedside; I could see him holding one of my stuffed animals above my head as I wrestled him for it; I could recall the times when I'd sneak down the stairs late at night and quietly open the freezer, grab the ice cream carton, then head back upstairs to eat it.
I felt a yearning to return to those memories: to walk into the fictitious pictures my mind was painting on the canvas of my present. I knew I couldn't return, but I still wanted something to hold onto. I went back to my room and grabbed the cotton-stuffed tomato from off my closet cabinet. Then I walked through my dad's study and removed a volume I recalled him frequently reading, a hard-cover book with a green binding called, "A Collection of Great Works". I placed these items by my feet in the passenger seat of Trent's van, and just as we were about to leave, I remembered something else.
"My plant!" I blurted.
"Your what?"
"My plant—and my car. I left them it the deli. Do you think we could swing by and get it?"
Trent checked the time, then said, "Yeah, I guess we can. I just hope it isn't towed."
Luckily, it wasn't. I half-expected to find a ticket on the windshield, but there wasn't one of those, either. I unlocked the door to my Jetta and got into what felt like an active oven. "Hot!" I said and rolled down all the windows, then cranked up the AC. I saw my plant resting in the cupholder that I'd left it in the previous day. I picked it up and touched its soil. It was dry and beginning to crack. Hang on little guy, I thought. Then I led the way back to my house.
When I arrived, I parked at the head of the driveway. I turned off the car, then ran inside with the young tomato plant, bringing it to the upstairs bathrooms sink and dousing it in water. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to add, but I figured after the sauna experience it had yesterday, I could afford to go a little overboard. Once it was fed, I opened the small purple drapes and placed it on the windowsill which faced East, meaning it would hopefully get plenty of morning sunlight.
"Good, now?" Trent asked after I hopped back in the passenger seat of the van.
"Yeah," I said. "Good now."
"Then lets get a move on."
***
Road tripping with Trent was a much different experience than when we were driving for our lives. For one, Trent wasn't nearly as tense. He drove with the windows down and one hand on the steering wheel like out of a Mustang commercial, talking intermittently about his adventures: people he'd met, jobs he'd done, close calls. He was like a living radio. And when his personal station wasn't on, he was playing one of his CD's—classic rock, mainly. When he was in an 'off' period, I found myself looking out the window at the rolling wheat fields and cloudy blue sky. Journey was playing, and the lyrics to one of the songs crept into my head and reverberated there:
The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow…
I've been trying to make it home,
Got to make it before too long…
Ooh I can't take it, very much longer…
In a strange way, I felt like I was leaving home. But in another way, I was going back. And then it occurred to me that perhaps I didn't have a home at all. Did I ever have one? These past couple days had called everything about my life into question, to the point where the past seemed as mysterious as the future, and both intersected at that one place in the woods. The place where it all began. The place we were headed.
We only stopped once at a gas station to refuel, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, other than one heated discussion with Trent that began when he addressed his vehicle as "Car" for the fifth time.
"Okay, you need to come up with a better name than that."
"What do you mean?" Trent asked, seeming genuinely confused.
"You have a super-car and you named it 'Car'. That's actually embarrassing."
"But, it is a car."
I facepalmed. "First of all, it's a van."
"A van is a type of car."
"Second of all, would you name your kid, 'kid'?"
Trent thought it over for what I thought was much too long. At last he concluded, "No, I'd probably name him 'boy', or if it's a girl, 'girl'."
After five more minutes of his childish banter, we settled on the name "Ava"—my choice, after rejecting his runner-up name "Scar".
At around the seven hour mark, I dozed off, then woke up a couple hours later to the sensation of the van dipping, then bumping up into an elevated climb. The evening sunlight that was pressuring my eyelids to open, dissipated, and everything was suddenly dark. I opened my eyes and saw we had entered a parking garage. Trent pulled into an open spot on the second level.
"We're here," he said and gathered up his gun which he stashed in a driver's side underboard compartment that I'm guessing he had installed himself.
"I see that"
"You want to wait here, or—"
I opened the car door, which was answer enough for Trent. We both got out and started down Maple Avenue. I had been to several cities before, Chicago among them, but the size of the buildings always struck me with awe. As we walked alongside dozens of other pedestrians, I looked up and traced the closest tower to its peak, guessing how many stories it was in my head. Then I'd be pulled out of my game by the honking of some nearby vehicle.
We continued for two blocks until Trent made a path directly toward the nearest Starbucks. I didn't know what I was picturing for a meeting with his associate, but it definitely wasn't a meetup at a coffee shop. Still, I followed him in. Then when I saw that Trent was leading me to a corner table where a casually dressed Chinese girl who appeared even younger than me was sitting, I blurted in a hushed tone, "her? She's your associate?"
"Took you long enough," said the Chinese girl, looking up from what appeared to be some kind of homework assignment.
"And she's in school?" I asked, incredulous.
The associate looked to me, then to Trent (who nodded), then back to me. "It's just a cover. I'm glad to see it still works, though." She reached out to shake my hand. "I'm Allison. It's nice to meet you."
Trent gave me a smirk, then said, "looks can be deceiving."
I grunted an affirmation and shook Allison's hand. "I'm Lauren. It's nice to meet you, too."
"You have it?" Trent asked, skipping right to business.
"Of course," Allison replied and removed a mailing package from her backpack, setting it on the table. "You want to go make sure it works?" She asked, gesturing up at the ceiling with her eyes.
Trent seemed to think it over for a second, then looked at me. But before he could say anything, Allison cut back in—
"—I'll stay with her. It's been a while since I've had any female company. Why don't you let us girls talk while you take care of that?" She said in a seductive yet authoritative tone which garnered her years that her appearance did not reflect.
Trent hesitated, but only for a moment. "Okay, I'll be right back," he said. Then he hurried out the door in the direction we had come from.
"Come, sit with me." Allison invited. "Tell me about yourself."
I took a seat on the small wooden seat opposite Allison, then crossed my legs. "What do you want to know?" I asked, feeling discomfort rise in my stomach. Nothing about this situation, from the mysterious package, to Trent leaving me alone with this girl, to the girl herself, whose voice was as velvety smooth as the latte she was stirring with a black coffee straw, sat right with me.
"I'm curious about what you think of Trent."
"Trent?" I repeated. I realized this was the first time I was putting any of my thoughts about Trent or our relationship into words. "I guess... he's a pretty straightforward guy. He seems to know what he's doing."
Allison flashed me a small smile, then took a sip of her latte. I saw the sticker on her drink read "Chai". Then she set the cup down and sighed. "Yes, he's very straightforward. Definitely doesn't mince words." She looked up into my eyes. Hers were a rich black, like onyx pebbles, but there was something about the way the light refracted off them which simulated a kind of inward motion, as if they were tiny whirlpools. Her smile spread across her lips. "I'm curious. What did he tell you?"
"Tell me about what?"
"About what you're doing. About where you're off to. What's the plan?"
"Don't you know?" I asked, but it immediately occurred to me that maybe she didn't know. I never saw Trent with a cellphone. Just how did he communicate with his 'associates'? And what if he didn't want her to know what we were doing for a good reason? Should I tell her?
"No, Trent keeps his cards close to his chest. He always has."
"Don't you work together, though?"
Allison waved her left hand in the air. "Of course, but it's because of the nature of our work that most of our communication is done in person, so Trent doesn't tell me much outside of the current job. I was just curious, is all."
"That makes sense. I mean, I'm actually pretty curious about what you do, too."
"Oh?" Allison's voice went high, as if she suddenly sensed an opening. "Then, why don't we trade stories. You tell about your trip, and I'll tell you about mine."
I thought it over for a second. I really did want to hear what Allison had to say, and she was Trent's co-worker, it's not like I was spilling crucial secrets to an enemy. "We're currently on our way to Southern Illinois. Specifically, we're going back to my origin point so I can confront a demon that Trent thinks blinked into my life there."
Allison stopped stirring, but her eyes didn't break from mine. "A demon, huh?" She raised the cup and took a long sip, then placed it back on the table and continued stirring. "I met a demon once," she started, looking up at the walls as if her life was playing on a screen there. "It was back in China, where I was born." She dropped her attention back to me. "Do you mind if I reminisce a little? Maybe you can get something out of it."
I shook my head, but something in my gut started to stir again. Allison continued.
"I was born during the Era of the Once Child Policy. As a result, my mother decided to leave me in a shoebox on the side of the road. I was a girl, so that's just how it was... Like many other babies in my... 'condition', I ended up in foster care. However, for whatever reason, I wasn't adopted. Years passed, and when I turned six, the government decided I'd be of better use building our impoverished town's GDP in a factory that assembled electronic devices for Western countries. Mostly they had me cleaning, but when I turned eight, one of the employees asked for my help with one of the soldering machines. That turned out to be the beginning of the end for me. I sliced open the ring finger of my right hand. I remember specifically seeing the bone underneath the split flesh and thinking it looked so small and white. The employee claimed to have nothing to do with my accident, and the management declared my injury "minimally invasive" and bandaged it up. Two weeks later and who would have guessed that the wound would become infected, and, well..."
Allison dropped the straw into her cup and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers out for me to see. There were only four. Her ring finger was missing, and a small v-shaped scar had taken its place.
"I'm lucky that the surgeon was experienced enough to take out the whole digit, that way it healed in a way which makes it somewhat difficult to notice. You didn't notice, after all. But, then again, is that really luck?" She made a fist and brought it to her lips, stifling a laugh. "No... Now I remember. My luck was still yet to come." She continued stirring. "Because, you see, after that incident, they moved me to a clothing factory with a boss who had a penchant for getting drunk and roughing up his workers, and, well, one night I was walking back to foster care when I heard the outside door to the manager's office slam shut, and there he went, stumbling, slurring insults, curses, and here I was, perfectly in his path. We met eyes, and in them I saw absolutely nothing. A hollow shell of a man, and I can still remember what it looked like to see that shell fill with a demon."
Allison's eyes went wide with some strong emotion that I couldn't place. "He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me out into the field, far away from civilization. I tried to fight at first, but every time I tried to lunge away, I was only ripping a hole in my own scalp. It felt like flames were spewing from my head, and my only respite was when the blood eventually cooled over the wound. By the time he had thrown me against the rock, I'd already all but given up. Then, when my head met the stone, I heard a pop and my grip on the world loosened. The man continued touching me, but it was as if I was disconnected now, floating somewhere above my own head, and gravity was beginning to reverse, causing me to float higher and higher, away from the horrible nightmare below."
Allison paused for a moment, and I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
"Then I saw the most bright light I'd ever seen. At the time I thought it was either the Sun or Heaven or something like that. It was just too bright for this world. But then after looking for a little longer, I noticed it was in the shape of a person. It reached out toward me, and I had never been so quick to respond. When I touched it, I felt all my pain immediately dissipate. And I felt warm and... peaceful. And I was no longer in the sky. I was back in the field. But when I looked around, the man was gone. Vanished, right out of existence. I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my first experience with the Shifts. All I knew then was that I was free, and I damn well wasn't going to waste that. I ran as far as I could, away from the factories, the foster home, the corrupt governments and corporations. I kept running until I arrived at a City that didn't know me. That didn't want to know me. And I liked it that way, because it's easier to live as a ghost than as a victim."
Allison perked up, and when I turned around to see what for, I saw Trent entering back through the door.
"But you know what's interesting?" Allison blurted out, her voice becoming quieter. "Trent never took me back to confront my demon." Her voice became a whisper. "In fact, I can't recall him ever taking any of us back."
For a moment the whole world became a still frame. Allison's clear, olive skin, and dark eyes, made darker with eyeliner; her narrow nose; her small lips now coiling into a smile. My entire body was a hair trigger hat only needed the slightest force to set it off. And when Trent placed his hand on my shoulder, I whirled around and narrowly missed a haymaker that swept just shy of Trent's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" he said and stepped back with his palms up. "It's just me. Is everything okay?"
I turned back to Allison, but she seemed different now. Her expression was benign; confused, even. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I—you"
"We were just talking about where you were off to next." Allison said without a hint of pretense.
"Okay, well, chat time is over. It's time to go." Trent said and started guiding me toward the door. I turned back and saw Allison mouth some words which I swear I heard, as if they had been directly transmitted into my brain.
"See you soon" she purred.
She was smiling.
***
The next leg of the trip passed mostly in silence. It was a little over an hour to the storage facility which was located just South of Chicago. My heart was beating wildly in my chest as I pictured Allison's smile. I wanted to ask Trent if demons could possess Antennas, if somehow one of us could become compromised, but then I remembered Allison's words and stopped myself. Because I didn't know if I could really trust Trent. I tried to tell myself I could trust him—that it was Allison who was the liar. Her whole persona seemed fake at best, and possessed at worst. But, then... what if she was telling the truth? What if Trent was the enemy?
He sensed my quietness and tried striking up a couple conversations, but I only gave one-word answers. Somehow, our trust was so brittle that a single, well-placed sentence was enough to snap it. When he asked if everything was okay, I lied and said that I just had a headache and needed more rest. So I leaned my head against the stuffed tomato and tried to sleep, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to.
We arrived at the facility just as the sun was setting for the night. Trent pulled up to the self-service gate and scanned a card which caused the automatic doors to swing open. We looped down a couple rows of the outdoor units until we came to #48.
"We're here," Trent prompted, but this time I didn't budge. I felt his eyes on me after he turned off the ignition. "Hey," he called. "Are you awake?"
I was silent.
I heard Trent quietly click open his door, then close it the same way. I waited a few seconds then turned my head and watched him from the driver's side mirror. He opened the storage locker, then walked inside and turned on a light. It occurred to me then how dimly lit this outdoor storage facility was. There was a weak overhead lantern peeking over every fourth garage like an anglerfish's lure, leaving a large portion of the road not hit by the light bubbles completely dark.
I tried to plan my next move. I could leave Trent and run. But where would I go? Or I could stay and see Trent's plan through. There was a chance this was all an elaborate trap. Maybe Trent was working with the demon, or maybe he was the demon. But then why did he save me? Twice. Maybe he was actually a double agent for the Organization. But he could easily have captured me by now. Unless he needs me to go back to the origin point for a different reason... I considered everything I had learned up until this point: we live at the cross-section of different realms; these other realms interact with our world; Antennas, who are a very small minority of people, can see these interactions; the Organization wants to harness our power and create a 'Strong Antenna' to achieve some kind of universal hegemony; I'm the closest thing to a Strong Antenna to date; Trent knows this; He's taking me back to my origin point, despite not taking the others back to theirs; Trent claims to want to fight the Organization; the best way to fight the Organization would be with a Strong Antenna. What if Trent was trying to make me into a Strong Antenna?
I considered this chain of reasoning. It seemed very plausible, especially after Allison's cryptic messages. Was she trying to warn me of this? But that smile, and the "see you soon"... If she wasn't being possessed, why would she be seeing me soon?
Suddenly my thoughts gave way like a broken dam as I heard a ping come from Ava's radar. I jumped, thinking that all of the electronics turned off with the ignition, but when I looked at the circular sonar map, I saw a red dot had just emerged in the top-right corner. I looked out the window in the direction of the ping, but I couldn't see anything heading down the road.
Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.
Four more dots appeared behind the first, and they were approaching.
I jumped out the van and ran over to where Trent was hauling in a large cardboard crate into the back of the van. "Trent, there's pings on the radar. A bunch of them."
He dropped the box next to three others, and I realized I had never seen inside the back of the van. It was filled with what looked like pneumatic tubes wired into circuits, and in the center was a tri-pod which was holding a large halo-shaped ring.
"Pings?" Trent said, then his face widened with shock as he realized what I meant. "Shit, how many?"
"Five, maybe more now. And they're getting closer."
"Five?" He jumped out the back and ran into the storage locker. I thought he was going to close the door, but when I saw him hauling boxes back toward the van, I yelled at him. "What are you doing!?"
"I need to load this up for tomorrow. Here," He tossed me his keys. "Get it started."
"Fuck, seriously?"
Trent didn't respond, only kept shuffling boxes into the van.
I turned and ran to the door and hopped in the driver's seat. As I was turning on the ignition, I saw the row of bushes that was just outside of the facility begin to rattle. The next sweep revealed a whole sea of pings. I rolled down the window and shouted Trent's name.
"One more, that's all. Get in the passenger seat, I'll be there in a sec."
I scooted over the center console and waited, clutching at the bottom of my pants legs. Just as Trent slammed the rear door of the van shut, I saw the first figure emerge onto the road ahead of us. It looked like some kind of large coyote, though it was hard to tell because it was still fifty meters out.
"Now detecting 53 controlled agents." Ava said right as Trent jumped in and shut the driver's side door. "Net anomalies: 53."
"Ava, increase radius to five miles." Trent instructed as he backed up all the way to the end of the lane and spun us around toward the gate. Just as we left, I saw the pack of coyotes stalking toward us, slow at first, then in a dead sprint.
"Increasing radius." Ava responded. "Increased. Recalculating… Recalculating… Re—complete. Now detecting 451 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 451."
"What does 'controlled agent' mean?" I asked.
"Hold on," Trent said and accelerated into the gate, bursting through it. The whole van shook, and I heard my phone fall in the crack between the seat and door. Trent steadied the van, then said, "It means the things chasing us are being controlled by something that isn't detectable."
"The demon?"
"That'd be my guess."
"But why can't Ava detect it?"
Trent switched to the right lane, then merged onto the Interstate-South ramp. "Probably because it isn't trying to kill us."
"Then, what—" I looked back at the map and basically had my question answered. All 451 pings were coalesced in a semicircle on one side of the map. The side of the map that we had just come from. "Is it trying to force us toward the crash site?"
"It seems that way." Trent answered.
"Trent, pull over."
"Huh?"
"Pull over!" I yelled.
He looked at me, eyes wide. Then he did as I had instructed and pulled off in the middle of the ramp. The red dots slowly closed in on our position.
"Now detecting—"
"Shut up, Ava." I said. I could feel my blood boiling. "I'm not going one step further until you tell me the truth. Why are we going to my origin point? What is your real motive?"
"What do you mean? I already told you."
I unlocked the passenger side door.
"Wait," Trent said and reached out toward me. "Just, wait."
There was silence, except for the pings indicating that the beasts behind us had re-encroached on our position to about fifty meters.
"Okay, I didn't tell you everything. But we don't have time now—"
I opened the door.
"Okay, okay. I didn't tell you everything, it's true. I've never done this with anyone else, but the reason is because I never needed to. And if I told you what might happen, you would have refused it."
"Refused what?"
"This—me, my help. Lauren, I am trying to help you. But you have to understand—it's likely that neither of us are going to live past tomorrow. You're basically confronting a dark entity in a place where I can't protect you, and if you somehow do manage to kill it, you'll be coming back to the fight of your life. Because I don't have the power to hide you from the Organization. They're going to show up and try to take you. I really don't know how you've lasted as long as you have. Whatever protection you had growing up, it's gone now. And now I'm all you have. And in some twist of fate, you're all I have."
Ava reactivated. "Now detecting 1,117 controlled agents. Proximity till contact: 20 meters. Net anomalies: 1,117."
I closed my door. "But what if I still don't want to go through with it?"
Trent pointed at the screen. "Then we die right here, right now, together. Because I am one-hundred percent certain that if we don't go to that crash site, we're dead anyway. All of us."
Another ping rolled through. I checked the side-view mirror and saw the swarming pack of dogs reach the van and bound around the rear wheels. I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with Father Martin and the conclusions I had drawn. Father, I've been… wrestling with something, and I think God wants me to confront it. I think I've been running away and hiding from it for so long that I'd convinced myself it disappeared...
"Go," I said just as I felt the collision of the coyotes slamming their bodies against the side doors.
Trent didn't waste any time stepping on the gas. I watched as the coyotes diminished in the distance and the pings receded into the back of the map, never disappearing fully, but covering the flank of our retreat—a reminder lingering on the edge of our awareness that there was no turning back now. That, one way or another, this was ending tomorrow.
And I'd either be dead, or something else entirely.

[First] [Previous]

Thank you u/abrachoo for the meme.

Transcription Subject: Takke, Venlil/Unemployed
Date [standardized human time]: February 26, 2137
Nervously, I walked towards the soon-to-be-opened restaurant, ‘The Orangery.’ I have been jobless for a month now, and I might have to go back to living with my parents if I can’t find any work soon. I really have to nail this interview. Relax, you have experience in this line of work, you got this. I checked one last time if my black fur was still neatly combed and clean before I knocked on the door and opened it slowly. “Hello, may I enter?”
“Depends, are you here for the interview?”
“Yes?”
“Good, come in. You’re the first, and I want to keep this quick.” I opened the door fully and saw a tattered-looking venlil, covered in scars from head to toe, sitting at one of the tables. “Are you coming?,” he asked, impatience at my hesitation marrying his tone. I swallowed and made my way over to the table. He idly gestured to the seat as he went over a list. “Name?”
“My name is Takke, but most people call me Tak.” I gave a formal greeting with my tail, expecting him to do the same. The man, however, simply leafed through a stack of papers while searching for something.
“Takke…22 years old…2 years of experience as a waiter and 3 as a cook,” he read from my resume, not paying me any attention. This man clearly has predator disease; I hope he isn’t my boss and is simply HR, although I doubt it.
“Sorry, what is your name, sir?” He continued reading my resume for several more seconds, completely ignoring me.
“Gilt.” After several minutes of awkward silence, he spoke up again, “Do you have a problem with working with humans?”
“Ye-what, why do I need to work with humans? They wouldn’t go to a salad restaurant, right?” I suppose I could if I only have to serve one once in a while, and if they don’t get aggressive.
“I’m no bigot, anyone can eat here…and maybe you could come into contact with a human in other ways,” Gilt said, moving his ears and tail in discomfort.
“Other ways?” I asked with concern.
“Oh, you know, perhaps…a delivery guy! Yes, a delivery guy could be human, you should be able to pick up food, from a delivery man, no matter if he’s a human, venlil or other.”
“To answer your question, mister Gilt, I am open to working with humans,” I half-heartedly lied.
“Good!” he exclaimed, waging his tail slightly. “And now for the final question, how desperate are you?”
“I’m sorry? I don’t follow.”
“How desperate are you for this job?”
This is starting to sound like a…”Quite, sir, to be honest. Why do you-?“
Gilt cut me off before I could finish my sentence, “Good, you’re hired.” He suddenly leaned forward and grabbed my paw for some reason, shaking it vigorously. “Your first day is overmorrow at second claw, you will be oriented then. Here are the keys. And sign this contract.” He quickly pushed a contract towards me. After a quick glance over it’s contents, I signed it, not having much choice but to work for this crazed man. Well, I could always go and live with my mother again, although I’d rather not. It’s not that I don’t love her, but she doesn’t have any sense of privacy, and I’ve gotten quite used to living on my own.
“Thank you mister Gilt, I will not let you down.”
“Yeah, yeah, now let’s move it, I still have to buy a lot of furniture at the thrift store,” he said all while pushing me towards the door, before suddenly pausing to think for a moment. “But only quality furniture of course, because this a legitimate place, with quality furniture,” Gilt said as he resumed pushing me out of the restaurant.
As we exited, a white venlil with blond spots walked up to Gilt. “Hello, I am here for the interview.”
“Go away, we already got someone,” Gilt snapped at the spotted venlil.
“Hi, is this the Orangery?” a second venlil asked, walking up towards Gilt.
“No, go away!”
Transcription Subject: Takke, Venlil waitecook
Date [standardized human time]: February 28, 2137
The Orangery stood on the far edge of the shopping centre, out where people only ever came for a specific store or locale. It stood snug in between a groomer salon and a rare tailor, something that had become more popular lately with the arrival of the humans.
Entering the shop, I was greeted by a strange collection of furniture one could politely call ‘colourful.’ No table was the same, only a few chairs had a matching other counterpart, and when they did, they were not even always placed at the same table. It could have been done as an artistic choice, but I’m not sure it was. On the walls hung framed pictures of green rolling hills, often displaying strange grazing animals that had an uncanny resemblance to a venlil, but quadrupedal and bearing a nose. On the counter —near the entrance— stood a plush version of one of these animals. Weirdly enough this version had its eyes facing more forward than those on the pictures, looking nearly as though it had binocular vision. Another strange detail was that there were several potted plants placed throughout the restaurant. Keeping plants inside is not something usually done in venlil culture, usually reserved to only a couple of species. Gojids and kolshians, most notably.
Passing the strange decorations and furniture, I took a look at the well-stocked bar. What was noticeably, some of the bottles only contained a measly 6% alcohol. Should I be expecting other species too?
The kitchen was fairly normal, the only thing out of place being that the wares were oddly big, as though they were made for a larger species. The most notable proof of this was the apron hanging from a hook. There were 3 words printed on it in a language that I did not recognize. I guessed that it was for a nevok considering the size of it. Why would a nevok be working here, don’t they usually charge much more then other species? Perhaps a takkan, there are not that many bipedal species that are this big. Now I think about it, I have no idea with how many people I’m going to work with, or anything about this company to begin with. I thought as I put on the oversized apron, the bottom hanging so low that it almost became a tripping hazard. I began taking inventory of everything in the kitchen so that I would know where everything was before I would officially start.
The chime above the door must have rung, but I was too focused on taking inventory to process what I heard. A creeping sensation came over me, and I saw a large, looming thing from the corner of my eye. I quickly spun around with a jump and saw that a massive human was standing in the doorframe. I quickly concluded that it was a man, as it was clearly missing the enlarged mammalians human females had, and it definitely had the increased muscle mass that some of the males had. He was even bigger then the humans I had seen and avoided in the streets; he had to have ducked to fit through the doorframe. This must be one of those ‘alpha males’ I have read about. His face bore a matte white mask. It was made out of some thick plastic like it was meant to protect his face, it was featureless, except for small holes around the mouth and 2 larger holes for the eyes, each complete with tinted glass covering.
Those 2 eye holes bore into me; I couldn’t move while he stood there looking at me as I was further backed into a corner, the human blocking both exists. “Sorry that I’m late, the bus had to take a detour due to an accident. I’m Maarten, I’m going to orient you into your new job,” it said with a low grumbling voice, while I stood flabbergasted from what he just said.
“Y-you must be mistaken sir, this is the Orangery, we serve salads. I work for Gilt,” I said, pulling all my courage together to get this predator out of the restaurant.
“I know. Gilt is my business partner, we both own this restaurant. Er, well he’s the one who signed the lease contract, but still.” He stood still for a moment, presumably thinking, but I couldn’t read any emotion from him. Without a tail or ear movement, and the mask obstructed any facial expression the human could possibly make. “Wait, let me guess, Gilt never told you that you would be working with or for a human?”
I gave an ear flick that signed ‘no.’ In return, Maarten dragged a hand over his mask and let out a drawn out sigh.
“Of course he didn’t. Takke was it, right? Could you please hand me my apron? So I can get started on showing you the ropes.” I began to undo the strap on the back as fast as I could, not wanting to be seen as stealing the fake pelt of a predator. “I can’t believe someone from the cooking store at the refugee centre had ordered a bunch of aprons saying ‘Bite the cook.’” At that, he began making a barking noise that my translator told me was laughter. I hastily took off the apron and threw it on the ground like it was on fire. I cursed myself for possibly angering him. He simply grabbed the apron off the ground and took a good look at my name tag that was still attached to the apron. His emotionless mask stared at it for a few moments. “T...A…K? Is that correct?”
“Y-yes, that is what everyone calls me. How did you read that? Almost no one but venlil can read Venlilian.”
“I have been here for months, of course I picked some up. Having to use a visual translator for everything is getting…tiring. Anyway-“ He walked over to a cabinet that hung low enough for him to look onto it with ease and grabbed a venlil-sized apron. “-This one is yours,” he said as he threw it directly into my paws.
“I bought a cookbook and a whole ton of Earth vegetables, that way we can be the only restaurant in town that serves human food. Well, there was this food truck selling burritos, but still. And don’t worry, the salads won’t contain any predatory stuff, that’s illegal. That means, no: meat, milk, cheese [pasteurized milk], honey [insect puke], eggs, or mayonnaise [condiment made from eggs].” I was bewildered by how casually Maarten summed up a list of the most grotesque things one could eat like it was the most normal thing in the world, and unfortunately my translator did its work perfectly in explaining what each item was. I know humans call themselves omnivores, but I didn’t think they meant it this literally. “Actually, I’m not sure if honey is illegal, I have to look that up.”
“I…I thought humans didn’t eat animals any more and only ate lab grown flesh.”
“Only the rich still do. Oh, you mean the eggs and mayonnaise. Don’t worry, the translator messes up on that one.” Oh good, it’s some fake lab-grown eggs like their flesh-food. Maarten leaned against the freezer as he leafed through the cookbook, as he nonchalantly spoke, “The eggs are not fertilized, so their’s no baby bird inside.” What?!
“How can you even tell that they’re unfertilized? And how do you get to the eggs in the first place, do you just grab them out of a nest?” I was getting a bit shaken by the sudden reveal. The humans on television were always portrayed as extremely kind-hearted beings that would never hurt another creature. We were constantly told that they had overcome their predatory nature, and now this one is telling me they still eat other animals eggs like it was nothing. And what was that about drinking milk? From who? Their own? Or is it from cattle? VENLIL?
“No, it’s not like we go hunting for them, we just keep this bird called chicken [nearly flightless predator bird] that we keep as livestock [cattle], they lay eggs when we give them a lot of food.” I’m going to faint, what next, humans actually do want to keep us as cattle? I began supporting myself on the counter to stabilize myself a bit. “Hey, are you alright? Shit, I told you too much, didn’t I?”
“No, I’m fine, that was just a lot to progress,” I half-heartily lied.
“I suppose I treated you too much like a human,” he says with a deep sigh. “If it makes you feel any better, I have not eaten any of those ‘predatory’ foods since I arrived here on Skalga, not even meat. How about this, we’re just going to cook, no more talking about predatory stuff. It’s just you, me, a bunch of vegetables, fruits and knives,” he said, finishing off with an awkward cough.
[Fast-forwarding by 5 hours]
“-the krakotl exterminator kept trying to fly high enough to reach the feline predator, but she kept failing due to the high gravity. Her venlil partner kept telling her to get a ladder, but that only angered her even more,” I said with a hardy laugh. Maarten joined in, his barking laugh sparked only a little fear. His canines were fully exposed too, as I had asked him to take off his mask since it had prevented me from reading any of his emotions. I’m starting to understand those human sympathizers, they’re big and scary looking with their predatory looks and behaviour, but they’re clearly people.
“They’re exterminators, why didn’t they just burn the tree down?”
“Not only was that some holy tree from a group of gojid’s who worship the protector, but they also have new rules. According to that venlil exterminator, they’re no longer allowed to burn human pets. Instead, they have to catch them and bring them back!”
“Bloody [blood covered] hell [punishment afterlife], they’ve turned into some shitty version of animal control.” Maarten’s stomach growled, which startled me for a moment. “I could eat a horse [large prey, grazer]. How about you, shall we eat some of this stuff?” I wish he would stop saying stuff like that.
I grabbed one of the many bowls of salad we had made. The one I choose was one made with a strange yellow scaled fruit called a pineapple. The recipes were in the most part fairly simple, although some things had a finesse to it that I still had to practice. On top of that was remembering the exact combinations and how to make the dressing and the ‘vegan’ mayonnaise. Good thing that Maarten leaves the recipe book here for me to use, even if I have to use a visual translator to read it.
I placed my bowl down at one of the many tables when I saw a piece of paper sticking out of the front door. Someone had slotted it in from outside, and it was now jammed in-between the doorframe and the door itself. Looking closer, it was made from the same paper as they make flyers, and the same size too, however, what was on it was anything but advertising.
It was a collage of photos. All of them had humans on them posing for the camera, most of which held a gun of some sort. What was more shocking was what else was on the photos. Several animals, but all dead, save for the few canine predators sitting besides their owner. I did not recognize the animals, but what was disturbing was that they more often than not looked like people from the Federation. One looked like a male Sulean with a brown fur instead of black and white, and another as well like a sulean but without the antlers. The third looked like a small sivkit, and another photo had a species that looks like a mazic with massive tusks.
I trembled in horror as to what I was seeing, when suddenly it was snatched out of my paws by Maarten as he came up from behind, looming over me. He crumbled the paper up while he grumbled something about Humanity First messing up relations. He was about to throw it into the trash as he suddenly changed his mind and instead stuffed it into his pocket. I didn’t know anymore if I wanted to work for a human. Then again, where else was I going to work?
A/N:
As always I really appreciate comments, it gives a lot more satisfaction than a few up arrows.
A special thanks to u/InstantSquirrelSoup for proofreading. Check out his fic: Arxur Hospitality.
A quick thanks to aMANTEIGAdo for the Liiry fanart
[First] [Previous]

For the True Anatomy by Claire Massey
Published and excerpted from Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories About Birds (2011) edited by Nicholas Royle

Her dad had a rucksack with a pocket for everything, but he'd forgotten to bring the map. He didn't tell them until they were out on the moor. Annie was running round in circles, jumping over sheep muck, and screeching and flapping her arms like wings.
'Will you stop it?'
'Scrawk.'
'Stop it.'
'Sarah, leave Annie alone.' Her mum had stopped to unwrap a bar of Chocolate-Covered Kendal Mint Cake.
'I'm sure it's definitely this way.' Her dad pointed to a path that stretched on through more unremarkable grass before dipping out of sight.
A sharp wind hit her in the face as she turned to follow. Annie hurtled ahead, arms still outstretched.
The first skeleton was right beside the path. Annie stuck her trainer into the ribcage. 'What is it, Dad?'
'A bird, I think.'
'But there's no beak, Dad.' Annie was still prodding at it with a scuffed toe.
She yanked on Annie's cagoule, pulling her backwards, away from the bones. 'How could there be a beak? There's no skull, stupid.'
The second skeleton was more fragmented. A solitary rib arched from the grass. After that, skeletons seemed to litter their path like markers – even when they'd left the dirt track to cross a field, taking what was supposed to be a shortcut. Each one was stripped of its flesh and feathers. Some had bones that looked like old leather, twisted and pliant. Others were bleached and riven with fine cracks like porcelain. None had skulls.
* * *
The bubbles looked like strange growths on her feet. She plunged her heels back into the water and let her head slip beneath the surface, tangled her fingers in her hair. When she emerged she heard a creaking sound: the top drawer in her room being opened. She jumped up into the steam-misted air and wrapped herself in a towel.
Her mum was pulling handfuls of feathers from the top drawer and stuffing them into a Sainsbury's carrier bag.
'Mum.' Water dripped from her skin and made small thuds on the rough carpet.
'Sarah, this is ridiculous. Why didn't you tell me?'
'Mum, don't.'
'We're here for a week. You need to unpack.'
'It's OK. I'm not bothered about –'
'I'm going to have to complain. I know they said they hadn't had much time to clean up between the last guest leaving and us arriving but this is ridiculous.' Her agitated hands were downy, tiny white plumes stuck in the creases of her palms. 'And why would someone do this? Why would they?'
'It's OK, Mum. I'll empty it.'
'Fine.' She wiped her hands on her jeans, freeing feathers to the air. 'Fine. Just make sure you do. And put the bag straight in the bin outside.'
The carrier big was half-full but it felt like it had nothing in it. She pushed the door to and waited till she could hear her mum's voice raised over the sound of the telly upstairs. There was now a bare patch in one corner of the top drawer, revealing a fragment of a drawing on the paper at the bottom. She put the carrier bag down and pressed more feathers aside, uncovering a diagram of a small bird skeleton. She shifted the feathers around: there were numerous diagrams and illustrations laid out. They looked like photocopies from textbooks. There were skeletons with wings outstretched. Disembodied wings. Small lizards with wings. There were pictures of fossils that showed wings with claws and feathers etched into stone. One image showed a crouched human skeleton with a bird's skull. Another showed a bird skeleton with a human skull. There was a note handwritten underneath it: 'For the True Anatomy – Early Bird. Barry Cleavin, 1976.' The human skull was perfectly aligned with the bird's neck. The white bones of the body looked like they were in motion on the inky background, about to take off.
She tipped the contents of the carrier bag back into the drawer, obsucring the pictures. Then she sank to her knees to pick every stray feather from the carpet.
* * *
The play area, where her mum had demanded she take Annie, turned out to be a swing and a sandpit behind the barn. She sat on the swing and dug her heels into the ground. It was freezing. Stark blue sky rose above the barn's red corrugated roof. She watched her breath make clouds as Annie plunged her hands into the old earthernware sink that had been commandeered for sand.
'I wish I had a bucket.'
'Shut up.'
Annie whimpered and pulled her hands from the sand.
'What is it now?'
'There's something sharp near the bottom.'
'Well, don't put your hands in there, then.'
Annie pushed her hands back beneath the surface.
'Why are you doing that?'
'Because I want to know what it is.'
'No, let me do it.' She jumped from the swing and pulled her gloves off.
The sand was damp. She ground her fingers into it until she touched something hard and smooth – a shell, perhaps, but the contours weren't right. She prodded and tugged, the weight of sand making every movement arduous. Finally, she dragged the skull free by its beak.
'I'm telling Mum.' Annie ran in the direction of the cottage. 'Mum! Mum!'
The skull was yellowed, the colour of old paper. Sand tumbled from its crevices and pooled in the dirt between her boots. She looked into the eyeless sockets and prised the beak apart to extract its crumpled, ink-stained secret.
'This way, Mum.' Annie's voice bounced ahead of her through the cold air.
'Sarah? Sarah, what is that you've got there?'
The paper softened on her tongue. As it disintergrated she felt her arms lift a little at her sides.

A quick note: there are some hooks in place for this area, but I had one of my players invited to come with friends by a Bullywug he met in his backstory. EDIT: Feedback is welcome. I hope you enjoy!

The Undermarsh

Origins Before Jigow came to be--when there were dozens of small towns and communities dotting the shoreline of the Ifolon River, there was an unnamed Bullywug village. These folk were secluded with the druidic magic of the elders, hidden amid a large mangrove forest. However, as Jigow formed, the big folk unknowingly built their stilt houses over the top of the Bullywug village. And so the village stayed hidden beneath Jigow for decades, the only outside folk ever entering the village being those invited by a Bullywug. As the village grew, it came to be known at first by the outsiders and then by everyone as the Undermarsh. When he was a child, Elder Colbu found the secret entrance to the Undermarsh while playing around the Babberbug Tree in the Jumble. He wandered on in and became quick friends with the bullywugs and has maintained a positive relationship with the hidden village ever since. One problem--the market in the Undermarsh was at first used by bullywugs to sell their unique goods to the folk from above, but as more were invited, outsiders began to sell. Now, the bullywugs share the relaxed demeaner of most Jigow communities, so they didn't see this as a problem. They even let the outsiders sell contraband, drugs, and other items not easily available in markets above so long as they weren't harmful to the bullywugs or their friends. The Aurora Watch began to notice an influx of drugs and contraband in certain groups of Jigowers, however they didn't give up the name or location of the Undermarsh, so they haven't been able to find the secret village. Their efforts to find where this is coming from have continued.
Finding the Undermarsh By the Babberbug Tree, a giant mangrove in the centre of Jigow, a set of stairs lead deep below the stilt village. As the thick roof of trees and houses above blocks the sunlight, the Undermarsh is illuminated by floating green fireflies.
Undermarsh Description Atop a lake of brown-green water sits a second swamp village sized for bullywugs half the height of ordinary folk. Here, the houses are crammed between the swamp and the houses above, and tall folk barely fit between the buildings, and often have to wade through the water rather than the take the bridges between the dispersed houses.
The Bullywug Families The Undermarsh residents primarily hail from one of three families--the Chabbers, the Gruchos, and the Lonyos. The Chabbers hail from far flung rainforests, and are often thinner and more agile than other Bullywugs. Their bright green skin makes them easily identifiable. The Gruchos were the earliest residents of the Undermarsh and have mud-brown skin that helps them camouflage in the swamp environs. The Lonyos come from an island in the Emerald Gulf and are much more bulky than other bullywugs and worship a centuries-old giant frog wizard.
Cookouts To celebrate the arrival of a new group of friends, the Bullywugs of the Undermarsh all gather and hold a massive cookout. Traditional swamp foods of all kinds can be found here, and players can mingle with various folk.

Undermarsh Locations

The Chabber Family Swamphouse The primary establishment of the Chabber family is their Swamphouse. The mud here has been heated by thermal vents awakened during the calamity, and now mixed with herbs and diluted with water, have become much like hot springs of bathhouses. The Swamphouse provides three types of mud baths.

Mud Bath	Description	Price per Person per Hour	Additional Effects
The Dip	A simple mud bath fitting up to six creatures. Roll 1d4 for who else is in here (feel free to roll more than once if you'd like) 1. A drow ex-aurora watch who was fired 2. A young Bullywug who's nervous around outsiders 3. 1d10 actual frogs 4. Elder Colbu Public	1sp	Characters can reroll one hit die, taking the new roll when taking a short rest while here.
The Dive	A deep mud bath filled with swamp herbs and diluted with fresh seawater. Characters shorter than 5 feet must sit on the edge or swim to keep themselves aloft (the bullywugs like to sit at the bottom of the pit for a while before going back up for air). Private	1gp	In addition to benefits above, characters gain 1d8 temporary hit points.
The Plunge	A mud pit so deep you'd need to swim for a number of minutes and push against the thermal rifts to reach the bottom. At the very bottom is a frog amulet that allows a creature to reroll any number of hit dice, taking the new roll when they take a short rest. After use looses its magic. Private	10gp	All benefits above are doubled and the character can remove one exhaustion point.

The Grucho Family Restaurant The primary establishment of the Grucho family is their restaurant selling traditional Bullywug food. They value hospitality and cater to all kinds of people, but also take no shit. The following is a list of food they sell.

Food/Drink	Description	Price
Trung'git	A boiled lizard egg with the lizard foetus in it.	3sp
Chaslo	Swamp worms caught and dried to the point of being crunchy like fries	1sp
Thish Albaa	Swamp-picker bird fried and stuffed with reeds dried like seaweed	4sp
Guo Guo	Mudskippers fried and soaked in a herbal soup, turning it black.	7sp

The Lonyo Family Mud Pits The primary establishment of the Lonyo family are their mud pits. Here they collect and breed Giant Mudskippers, mounts perfect for traversing the swamp and marsh. They won't sell mudskippers to just anyone though. You have to prove to them that you are capable of taking proper care of them. The following is a list of what they sell.

Item/Service	Description	Price
Giant Mudskipper (buy)	A Giant Mudskipper rented for you! Reins and saddle provided	50gp
Giant Mudskipper (rent)	All must be returned in good condition and on time or additional fees may apply.	3gp/day
Mudskipper Feed	Dried reeds baled up like hay. 10lbs, feeds 1 Giant Mudskipper for 1 day	5cp

Giant Mudskippers use the Giant Frog statblock.

The Undermarkets

The one location in the Undermarsh that sees more non-bullywugs than bullywugs is the market. Exclusive to folk invited to the Undermarsh by the bullywugs, the market is largely unregulated. So long as dangerous or hostile are kept out of the market, everything can be bought or sold; drugs, contraband, and more! However, due to the lack of regulation, items come at varying prices. Roll on the following table to determine how the price is modified

1d20	Price Modification
1	2x base price
2-7	1.5x base price
8-10	1.3x base price
11-13	0.8x base price
14-19	0.6x base price
20	0.3 base price

Undermarsh Scenes

1d10	Scene	Description
1	Aurora Incursion!	A lone member of the Aurora Watch accidently finds his way into the Undermarsh (not in armour, so disguised). He stops the characters and talks to them. If he sizes them up as capable and thinks they'd join him he attempts to hire their services. If he is successful he attempts to raid the Undermarket and arrest as many marketers as possible. Otherwise he attempts to sneak out and let his commander know of the location.
2	Volcanic Gurgle	A burst of heat comes up from deep within the earth, causing the marsh to briefly overflow and create a small tsunami that risks hitting the characters. Roll 1d4 for what might also get hit (or just use something from their surroundings): 1. An old Bullywug taking his grandchild on a walk. 2. A market stall and their owner (either moving to the markets or already at it) 3. A rickety bridge that would easily break 4. A baby Giant Mudskipper tied up to a pole
3	Swamp Race!	A group of three Bullywugs ready their racing Giant Mudskippers when one keels over with sickness. Now out of the competition, they offer half the reward of 50gp to a character who fills in for them and wins. Use another scene as a complication while the group races through the swamp and under the bridges connecting houses.
4	Bullywug? Barber!	A purple frog man calls out to the characters. They are actually a grung who has come from far away and is trying to open up a barber shop in the Undermarsh. They offer to pay a character 5gp if they let him do their hair and/or facial hair so he can show of his skills. Make it crazy!
5	Wizard Menace	A Bullywug child leaps from a bridge into a pool of mud only to have it frozen underneath it by a teenage wizard. The wizard has been a menace for the past week since they discovered this place (no invite, but also haven't done anything super bad). Roll 1d4 for their specialty: 1. Cryomancy 2. Enchantment 3. Suggestive Illusions 4. Making people sneeze
6	Firefly Blackout	The thunderous step of a Horizonback spooks the fireflies illuminating the Undermarsh, causing them to all go dark. Roll 1d4 for what happens in the pitch darkness 1. A child attempts to steal something expensive-looking for a character 2. A visitor trips over their own feet and tumbles into the mud and begins drowning 3. A Giant Mudskipper is spooked and runs off, pulling three market stalls into the swamp along with it. 4. A Bullywug raises a tiny, glowing, red crystal aloft to illuminate the area (its Ruidium).
7	Psychedelic Swamp Gas	Iridescent fog, swirling with pink and blue and purple rises and surrounds the characters who begin to hallucinate. Roll 1d4 for what they hallucinate 1. A manifestation of a powerful negative memory 2. A manifestation of a powerful positive memory 3. Something wacky and zany 4. A faint voice reverberating like its submerged speaking, but its too muffled to understand (its the Apotheon)
8	Bullywug-ification Potion!	A wandering alchemist experimenting on Bullywug magic drops, accidently spilling a bubbling green potion over all the characters. They must roll Cha saves or be transformed into Bullywugs (changes height, weight, all that, but not traits and stuff) until the end of their next long rest or a remove curse spell is cast on them. Note: probably don't use this one if something important is going to happen that day, like meeting an important character or doing the final event
9	Leapfrog Champion!	A Bullywug approaches the strongest-looking charactes and asks to go against them in a leapfrog competition. Whoever gives up leapfrogging in a straight line (through buildings, people, and even the swamp if needed) looses. Roll 1d4 for possible complications and include some scenes (1. A house is in the way 2. The walkway ends and they must begin leaping through the swamp 3. A sleeping Giant Mudskipper is in the way 4. A crowd of Bullywugs is in the way) If a character wins they are rewarded with the Graves of Leapfrogging, allowing them to triple a jump's distance once per day while wearing them.
10	Swamp Buddy!	A dugong approaches the characters and quickly becomes friendly to them. They've got a buddy whenever they come to the Undermarsh now!

He suddenly came towards me in the dirty tunnel that leads to the subway, up the stairs from the mall, dressed in Adidas pants and a puffy duvet jacket. His breath steamed in the cold. A woman stumbled next to him, in broken high heels. They looked like they were in a hurry, to get away from someone or something. Destroyed faces, but not because of age or starvation, they looked young and healthy.
He should’ve been at least twenty years older now, I told myself it couldn’t be him and looked away without knowing if the man had seen me or not.
His face, as I remember it, spoke of his past addictions. No traces of serious violence, but at the same time deformed as after a fight. The proportions seemed wrong. Symmetrical, but swollen. I saw the tattoo on his neck, on the left side facing me, the outline of an animal head. Kåres' tattoo was red, this man's tattoo shimmered in purple. It could’ve been a bruise. A milky haze surrounded them, except for the man’s white sneakers that shined sharp against the gray concrete. It looked like they were living on that thin line between partying and homelessness. I was sure he was dead.
When they’d passed by, a sour smell of adrenaline hovered in the air. I stood there, in my own thoughts, long after I’d missed my train, looking down at my blurry hands, as a whole inner world of sadness and trauma started to open. I wanted to think that I had buried what happened that summer somewhere deep, deep down, where it had been crushed by the weights of new, better memories. But the man with the tattoo dug it all up again. I looked at my own hands and felt I was going into dissociation. Right there and then, I promised myself to write about it.
I met Kåre in the late summer, my first summer without Dad. I lived alone in our apartment on the Red Line towards Norsborg. When I think back to that summer, I see the broken living room clock before me. It stopped working long before when Dad was still alive, but it reminded me that something had stopped in me too.
Summer was happening somewhere out there, slipped in through the cracks in my closed blinds, it felt like time was rushing by without ever touching me. I went out sometimes, sure. To the mall with some friends, to the park or the empty schoolyard. We climbed up the fire escape ladder and carved swear words into the brick wall.
One day in the beginning of August we drove down south, me, Eli and Sindra. I remember how we cranked down the windows and it was claustrophobically hot. Eli put on a playlist called Happy Hardcore. Songs with frequencies as high as the summer sky.
I leaned out the window. Pine trees, red cottages, and wheat fields smeared together by the speed. When I saw the landscape dance past me I remembered Dad’s crosses. He took me out in the woods. Pointed out pits, hills and ditches and said they were graves, fireplaces and traps. Dead shapes, waiting for the right time to wake up.
Dad was a janitor, but he dreamt of becoming an archeologist. He leant scientific books and read them to me like bedtime stories, instructions about how pendulums and squares can be used as instruments to find ancient monuments.
He believed in Earth radiation; the theory that lines make out a checkered pattern around Earth. The past generations knew a lot of things about this radiation. Old amphitheaters and cairns are strategically placed around ethereal force fields. Where the lines cross each other in X:es, a swirling energy arises, whose original purpose was lost a long time ago. Sometimes, when we were out in the woods and came to a particular glade or grove, he’d lift me up and put me down in the middle of one of those crosses. I stood completely still, barely breathing while he measured with a pendulum to see if Earth’s radiation made my aura bigger or smaller. Dad was so proud of my aura.
We stopped at a pizza place. Eli and Sindra had to go get gas, so I went in by myself. When I stood in line for the bathroom, that’s when I saw the horse head. It looked down at me from the wall, with bulging eyes made out of glass. I wondered why they used it as decoration. It looked bizarre and sinister, in every way unbearable.
When the bathroom was available I quickly ran inside and locked the door. I leaned against it, and tried to focus on my breathing, like Dad had taught me. Where the mirror should’ve been, someone had written "horror vacui” with a black marker. ”Fear of the void”.
I washed my wrists with cold water. The water took the uneasy feeling with it in a swirl down the drain. When I felt better I went out to Eli and Sindra, who were already in the car.
We drove on. The evening came. One of those blue, late summer evenings when the light deepens and the air cools down. The road narrowed down. I got nauseous, it felt like we were moving inwards, in a curve. We parked on the road and I looked up at the stars. I pointed out little bear, but they didn’t care. They were trying to locate the music in the woods.
I didn’t really feel like they wanted me there, so I kept my distance. After a while the ground thinned out into sand and the smell of pine trees mixed with sea salt. I saw lights glimmer where the trees opened up to the ocean. Some people were dancing, others were just squeezing through. Eli and Sindra stood further down the beach, next to a fire. They tried to be cool but they looked so tense. I remember how obvious it looked, how they were flickering just like the flames. I turned around and walked into the woods again.
I found a hill that looked good to sit at, and that’s where I met him. Kåre.
I remember the hill was covered in strangely shimmering moss. When I turned around he looked at me with small pupils through the haze. The tattoo on his neck, some kind of animal head, so red I thought it was a wound at first. It looked like a children’s drawing, or back in the day when they used to stuff animals without knowing what they looked like, so they just made something up. I pushed away the memory of the horse head in the restaurant, and instead, I thought about that embroidery, the one in Dad’s office. I was scared of it as a child, I never wanted to go in that room alone. I wondered what had happened to it, did I still have it? Grandma made it for him, isn’t that what he said? I looked at the tattoo again and shivered, it had the same, bulging eyes.
Kåre smiled at me, and I looked down at the hill, speckled with moss. It grew in spirals, I’d never noticed that before, that moss curves, turn after turn, like a swirling paisley pattern. Kåre put something in my hand. It was a green pill, and one side was pressed with a symbol, looking almost like a human gut.
“That’s a trojaborg”, I said surprised. “The symbol, it’s a labyrinth. They actually exist, near the coast, by mountains and the ocean, like here.” I looked up at him.
I used to worry about my high-pitched voice, it sounded like I was always trying to get attention, but now I just sounded rough, like someone else was speaking through me. “Some people think it’s a Christian thing”, I said, “because they think that they put the stones in the middle down first like a cross and then built the paths after that. But it’s not a cross, it’s just an intersection with two lines. The cult surrounding labyrinths is way older than Christianity. We had labyrinths in Scandinavia before, long, long before, when the ocean was like a highway up here…”
Kåre lit two cigarettes and gave me one. I smoked with him and started to feel euphoric. It felt so good to speak without restrictions, to put together things I must’ve heard once, like Dad always did.
“There are labyrinths in marble floors and on wooden doors of old houses. The symbol became a Christian thing, but it was used in old rituals long before that. Sometimes they call it the ‘virgin dance’, and that sounds like a ritual to me. They sacrificed things, too. Think of it as, like, a dance.” I did a little swirl. “Some people think the word trojaborg comes from the word ‘troj’, which means twisting. Rotation. Spinning something around and around and around…”
Kåre dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, leaned down and looked at something metallic. He had a thin mustache that didn’t match his boy-like body. I didn’t know if he was listening, but I kept talking. “Labyrinths exist in every culture, or at least stories about them”, I continued, “they’re a symbol for the uterus and death at the same time, a spiral towards the ethereal.”
I didn’t feel any shame, I just wanted to keep talking.
“Some trojaborg’s are built at places named after bears. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but bears symbolize resurrection ‘cause they sleep all winter but wake up again in the spring. The Saamis bury dead bears sometimes. The farmers pushed collectors and hunters away but they never stopped sacrificing, they came back. They always do.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against the stone. The woods were full of sounds, music and someone's high-pitched voice. When I opened my eyes I saw a red Bengal light down by the water. I looked at it for a while, before continuing.
“People are superstitious to this day. When fishermen were going out to sea and didn’t want any bad luck, they ran through the trojaborg before they left. When they’d reached the middle they ran straight out, without following the paths. They thought the bad luck would get stuck in there. Absorbed by the force.”
Kåre stroked my arm with his fingertips. I breathed out, felt a tingling warmth in my chest, and I didn’t say anything else for a while.
“What did you say about horse cemeteries?” he asked when the sun was starting to rise, and I saw that what was lying on the ground was small pieces of aluminum foil.
“You mean bear cemeteries?” He nodded.
“They are often found near the trojanborg’s, some think they were built with stones from old ruins. Graves from people that lived by the shore and hunted seals and whales. Those who came here first, and hunted in the moonshine.” I looked up at the stars that were starting to fade.
“The labyrinth was a manifestation of the sun cult and later Christianity, a definitive way to shut them out. But I don’t think…”
“What do you think, then?” He smiled. I didn’t know what to say. I remembered what Dad said. About certain places that generate darkness. Places that make things move around them, wander in cycles. He always told me to watch out for the intersections, the crosses. We’re drawn to them, attracted by the invisible forces, but we have to watch out.
“If you’ve made sacrifices at the same place for over a thousand years, I don’t think you’ll leave it in the first place. It takes a lot... ”
I tried to look Kåre in the eyes, but he was busy picking up foil from the moss-covered rocks and putting it in a zip bag.
“I don’t believe in coincidences”, I said, “maybe there was something, like something in the ground that made people seek those places out... And seek them out over and over again.”
We stood up and walked down the hill, side by side, into the haze of people dancing and screaming.
The sound of laughter, an exaggerated, broken laughter, woke me up. I was lying in the backseat with my throbbing head in Kåre’s lap. He tried to speak over the music, almost screaming, I remember hearing him say something about how he couldn’t stand up straight anymore. Because it was so strong now, so fucking strong.
I couldn’t see Eli or Sindra, the guys sitting in the front seat were complete strangers to me.
The broken laughter-guy interrupted Kåre. “Hahaha! You fucking freak! You fucking hippie!”
The other one, the one driving, asked for coordinates. Kåre answered: “That place has no price. You just gotta have something she wants. You have to deliver.”
“Deliver what? What does it cost?” the other one asked skeptically.
Kåre sighed. “Do you know what ‘the left-hand path’ is?”
A silence, before that repulsive, broken laughter exploded again. “Hahaha! You fucking weirdo! You fucking psycho!”
“Didn’t think you’d know anyways”, Kåre said.
The car stopped at a road barrier and we got out, squinting in the bright sunshine. I’d never met them before, and they both looked much older than me, a few years older than Kåre. We climbed over the barrier and started walking down a path. It seemed to lead us nowhere, until the woods opened up and revealed a red little house. Kåre went around the house to the front door and pulled out a key.
Broken laughter-guy said: “But like, I don’t believe in that kind of stuff! The fucking hocus pocus shit!”
I stepped onto the porch and found myself just standing there, looking at an old dartboard. It reminded me of something. It was speckled with marks from the arrows but also some darker spots, so scuffed you couldn’t make out the lines between the different scores.
My thoughts were interrupted by sounds coming from the other side of the house. It sounded like something falling and breaking, like the deafening sound of iron pipes rolling down concrete stairs and Kåre screamed: “For fucks sake!”
I looked down at the cracks in the wooden deck and fell into a melancholic state. Thoughts of summer evenings here with people that have been dead for many years, or maybe are sitting alone at a retirement home somewhere with nothing but memories left. Fantasies blending in with my own summer memories, and stories my Dad used to tell me. Summers with his Mom, things that might’ve been just dreams, or someone else’s memory, I don’t know whose.
A chair with broken legs was standing in front of the house. I poked at it with my foot, it wobbled a bit, and in a swaying, slowdown of time, I remembered. I was completely sure. I’d been here before.
Kåre had finally managed to open the door. He smiled at me from inside the house, through the window. It was dark in there, but I could see stacks of books and piles of electronic devices, TV:s and stereos. Leaning against the walls and exploding out of the drawers.
Kåre gave something in a Coop bag to the broken laughter-guy and they shared a squarelike hug. I observed them through the window. I could see their lips moving, but I had no idea what they were saying to each other. They looked over at me with a big grin, before they disappeared out of my vision and I could hear the front door opening, and eventually, the car driving off.
I followed Kåre into the woods, down towards the sea. We took our shoes off and ran barefoot through the sand. The sea was quite big, surrounded by compact trees reflecting in the black, shining water. We waded towards a cliff. This was the ocean two thousand years ago, I thought to myself as I climbed the big stone. We took our shirts off and layed down, close to each other.
“It’s really weird”, I said after a while, “I feel like I’ve been here before. On this cliff, and in the house too. I feel like that sometimes, like I should remember something, but I just can’t.” The sunlight was blinding me, I squinted at him. “I was brought up in a way that make you different.”
“Make you different”, he mimicked, but I ignored him.
“It was just me and my Dad, we didn’t have anything else. He never told me anything about his own childhood. He blamed it on his bad memory, but I never believed him. Maybe you inherit it, the pushing things away, the suppression.” I leaned back on the warm stone. “I’ve always felt rootless.”
“Me too”, Kåre mumbled.
“How did you find this place, do you know people here or something?” I tried to seem unbothered, didn't want to dig up something dark in him.
“I leant it from an old lady, she lives in the woods now.”
The heat from the sun beamed at my spine, but I still shivered. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a Coca-Cola. I drank so fast I choked, but it didn’t taste of anything at all, just a hint of rust.
“There’s something in the woods I think you’d like to see”, he whispered and stroked my hair.
We stuffed his backpack full of beer and cigarettes. I borrowed a fleece jacket that smelled of gasoline. Kåre had a coat with dark stains all over the chest. When he leaned against the wall and rolled a spliff, as I kneeled in his shadow to tie my shoes, we looked like a bad sign, an omen, two outgrowns on the same darkness. I remember feeling like we were directed towards a swirling hatred.
Kåre kicked rocks as we walked down the road. The sun was still shining bright, coloring the clouds. We reached a field surrounded by small, timbered cottages. It seemed abandoned and forgotten, but as if something was kept awake there.
Kåre and I were the only things visible in the dark windows. I asked him about the old lady he leant the house from. Who was she?
He kicked away a big stone. “Do you really want to know?” he asked.
I thought about it for a while, not really knowing why I wanted to know, or even what I was doing here with Kåre in the first place. But there was something about him, something about the way he distracted me from everything else.
“I usually don’t experience this”, I mumbled, “I usually remember, but when you were in the house and I waited for you on the porch, I just knew I’d been there before. Maybe I’ll remember more if you tell me about her?”
“Sure”, he said, “if you want to remember. She used to slaughter the small animals on the porch. That says a lot about her, I guess. She found it practical. I helped her clean it up afterwards…”
“Wait, what do you mean, slaughter the small animals on the porch? What does that mean?” I tried to look him in the eyes, but he looked away.
“She’d slaughter the big ones by the sea.” The way he said it made it sound neutral, like he couldn’t care less about the animals.
We walked into the woods again, towards the mountains. The dried moss crunched under our feet. It became softer at places, and the ground gave away. Rocks, pine trees and moss repeated themselves in a landscape without landmarks.
When I slipped and fell I found myself just lying on the ground for a while. The woods were still now, and the only thing I heard was a faint rumble from far away, maybe it was the highway that sounded just as lonely as the sea. I closed my eyes, the tiredness made me feel soft. When I tried to stand up again the world flickered before my eyes and I had to lean against a tree.
In my memories, that’s when I heard the scream. It sounded like an animal, or any creature dying a painful death. It made me completely lose my perception of reality. I couldn’t breathe, like after getting punched hard in the stomach and I had to sit down again. When I tried to locate where the sound came from, it disappeared.
I stood up and felt the weight of something hard and cold in my hand, a stone. I must’ve picked it up from the ground, but I couldn’t remember doing so. Shaken by adrenaline, I started running in the direction I saw Kåre disappear in. I caught up with him. He stopped and stood with his back turned towards me.
“Did you hear that?” I looked into the woods. “It sounded like an animal”, I continued. “A big animal… It sounded sick, so fucking sick. You heard it, right?”
I pulled my hand through my hair and crushed a bug that I smeared on my jacket, disgusted by the texture. He didn’t answer. He looked at something, something I couldn’t see. The realization that I was in the middle of nowhere with a crazy stranger suddenly struck me.
“We have to go back. It’s getting dark.” I tried to raise my voice but I sounded like a pathetic little girl.
He didn’t answer, instead, he kneeled down, leaning forward, his hands intertwined behind his neck, rocking back and forth. His ears looked so small. It looked like he was crying, something shiny over his cheeks.
I lightly put my hand on his shoulder and stroked down his arm. He grabbed my wrist, as fast as lightning. I screamed and tried to break free, but tripped and fell backward.
That made him relax. He leaned over me in the dark woods like he was about to say something, but I’ll never know what it was. I struck the stone as hard as I could and hit his temple, a dull sound echoed through the woods. He stumbled back with his hands around his head, and I stood up and started to run.
It felt easy, even though I was running uphill, every step felt irresistible like something was pulling me forward. Soft shadows grew out of the gaps in the rocks, trees and stone blended together. I remember seeing a pine tree that stood bent with its crown growing down towards the earth instead of up towards the sky. A tree that grows like that speaks of something so wrong, something so sick, and twisted out of itself. And I can't say why I continued running in that direction.
I kept on running up until the ground hardened and the woods thinned out. Some light birch trees circled a glade next to an uphill mountain. It was like stepping into a room, separated from the hungry rocks and dark pine trees. The ground was covered with small, yellow flowers, almost shining in the dark.
I started regaining feeling in my legs again. I breathed in hoarse gasps and my eyes flickered in every direction. The direction felt crucial, but at the same time it felt like the choice wasn’t mine, there was something else, something beyond.
I started climbing, in a desperate neither one of them, straight up the cliff. I climbed in small jumps and bent tree roots. The higher I climbed, the more targeted I felt. I tasted blood in my mouth. On the inside of my eyelids I could see Kåre standing down in the glade, picking up stones and throwing them at me. I imagined him grabbing my foot to try and pull me down, tearing at me like an animal. It was only when I’d reached the top of the mountain that I dared to turn around.
Space howered deep blue over the trees. The glade was empty, but down there I thought I could see the shining flowers like small, yellow eyes staring up at me where I stood, swaying on the edge.
I turned around. A cold, bare mountain plateau opened up in front of me. My gaze was immediately drawn to an uneven circle further ahead. It took a while for my eyes to adjust and it started taking form, swirl after swirl, curling like a snake. The trojaborg.
Dad would’ve thought it was magnificent, with stones as big as human heads in the cross towards the center. In the dark, the proportions felt bigger and the paths cleaner than in the ones he’d shown me as a kid. Shadows fell over the entrance. I squinted, it looked like something was laying there.
A rush of dark euphoria made my eyes water and my mouth stretch out in a big smile. I had found it myself, stumbled upon it in the middle of the woods, it had chosen me. I straightened my back and took a couple of steps towards the labyrinth, but when I saw my long shadow I realized how visible I was, standing alone on the big, empty cliff. The rush became fear and I started moving backwards instead, very carefully.
The place radiated a static tension. Just to be there felt wrong, like an act of violence in every step I took. When I reached the edge of the plateau a strong, nauseating smell made me freeze in a violent body memory. We were out in the woods one autumn, me and Dad, when it started to smell just like that, intestines and death, the smell of a ripped animal. We heard dogs barking, I froze in shock and Dad had to carry me back to the car. But now there weren’t any dogs, just the wind.
I looked at the trojaborg. The dark and shapeless shadow in the entrance had grown and now appeared sharper. I slowly moved closer, pulled in against my will. I saw what it was just a few meters away, when it was already too late, too late to back down. It was a horse, or what once was a horse. It still radiated body heat. A bulging eye stared up at the sky.
Dizzy with feelings of dissociation, I just stood there, unable to look away. Its belly was ripped. Intestines spilling out against my white sneakers. A few meters away, in between the trees, something coil-shaped with an unborn’s unfinished features in a coat of mucus and blood. I felt my disgust turning into panic, like when a phobia turns psychotic and violates reality.
I looked down the cliff. If I tried to climb down in the dark, I’d likely break my legs or my neck. I considered following the plateau into the woods on the other side, but I knew I couldn’t go further into the woods. Something or someone out there was capable of ripping a pregnant mare open.
My thoughts were interrupted by a melodic sound, like the echo of distant voices. I crawled backwards up against a rock and imagined a group of people or someone talking to themselves, or maybe calling for a dog. The sound came from the woods on the other side of the cliff. I pressed myself against the rock and crawled into a cave under it. All of my focus was turned towards the trees, I listened out into the silence and tried to make out the sound again. My fear wanted to confirm it, decode it as something with a natural explanation, but every time I thought it would come back I was met by silence. The hope that it could have been voices slowly faded away.
I lied there, frozen for I don’t know how long, just listening to the silence. I started to relax and my thoughts began to wander. I thought of Eli and Sindra, and the life that went on parallel to this. I saw them in front of me, bored, waiting for the night bus or just for something to happen. They had probably forgotten about me, or in which case they wouldn’t miss me.
My legs were numb and tingling. I suddenly couldn’t focus on anything else and decided to try and climb down the cliff after all. I carefully began crawling out of the cave, when I was almost out I heard the sound again, more distinctly this time. I could no longer dismiss it as imagination. Instead, I told myself it must be an animal, some kind of bird, a capercaillie or a grouse. As it came closer, the thoughts of an animal became more and more difficult to visualize. I heard guttural, sharp syllables, long hisses, sounds expressing wills and desires. I stared at the unbroken line of trees as if pure willpower could hold them back. A painful silence followed, as I tried to breath as quietly as possible. My breathing ceased completely when a shadow moved behind the trees and began to crawl over the cliff.
It slowly came closer, a gnarly and skinny figure, something uneven and powerful about its movements told me it could be moving much faster if it stood up straight. At first, I thought it was heading right towards me, but it stopped at the lifeless horse. Paralyzed, I watched as it lifted its head, breathing heavily as if sniffing for something. It turned its head towards me without its body moving, a faint soaring rose in my ears. The moon was shining through a crack in the clouds, and its eyes were reflecting the light - predator eyes, narrow rips of lust.
I pressed my back against the stone until I was shaking. The realization that it was her felt purely physical and had no name. The long hair covered her face in stripes. Mere disgust filled me as she kneeled over the horse's body and pressed herself against the open stomach. She lifted her bloody smile up towards the moon and in a chopping rhythm she began to thrust out what now sounded like a hymn, words with monotone, slashing syllables. Her words grew stronger, it felt like she was singing, like she was calling out for someone. The song reminded me of gale, it came from deep within and carried sorrow, but it wasn’t pure.
I tried to convince myself she couldn’t see me. I pushed as far into the cave as possible and imagined I became part of the stone. But I couldn't shut it out, the sound of steps coming closer, branches breaking. More voices, echoing between the trees out there, answering her. They came from the other side, wandering up the hill, towards the trojaborg, moving out on the stone plateau in a spider-like walk. Sounds and movements in a restrained ecstacy. They looked like mirror reflections of her, her friends, her sisters. They were connected by something more than the song, a coordinated motion. I widened my eyes and stared out into the darkness. Their naked skin gleamed like wax in the moonshine when they stretched their arms out and pulled, pulled on a rope.
At the end of the rope, a shape. I heard the whimpering of a broken vocal cord, the remains of a scream, Kåre’s scream. In an increasing rhythm, they pulled him towards the labyrinth. And with the logic of a nightmare, I suddenly understood what was about to happen, as if I had experienced it before.
They forced him into the horse's body. His voice drowned inside the animal. She laced with something shiny and sharp, an iron wire. Threaded it through the skin and started sewing it together. She trapped him inside the horse's belly. The sound of their song grew louder and louder as Kåre’s voice started to fade. I layed on my stomach with my face against the ground and tried to find the words, when all I could hear was their voices intertwining with something stronger, darker, even more evil than themselves.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t Kåre, it couldn’t be him buried inside of the horse. I tried to think this wasn't actually happening, but my body was aching and the taste of vomit in my mouth was real. My eyes slowly closed and I faded into a slumber where everything was too late and happened too far away from me. In a way I already knew it when we walked through the woods, it pulled at me, the power beyond us, she wasn’t a stranger. The hymn, we’d sung it. I slowly began to mumble their song, I couldn’t keep it at arm's length anymore.
I was halfway out of my body when the stone started to tremble. A powerful wave as if after a thunder strike came from inside the mountain, drowning their voices in a roar. It suffocated all other sounds from the woods. Their song slowed down and turned into screams as they fled in between the trees, leaving nothing but an echo behind. I was hidden in a cave and over there in the trojaborg inside the horse's body, was Kåre.
Everything went quiet. I thought I’d lost my hearing, that the sound wave had punctured my eardrums. I got up on my elbows and started crawling out of the cave. The second wave was longer and stronger than the first one. It came from deep within the mountain, the vibrations rushed like thunder in my ears, like stone being crushed against stone. I managed to get out at the last moment, if I’d hesitated it would've crushed me.
My last memory of the trojaborg is something I’ve tried to re-evaluate in my head, I’ve tried to make it something else, but the same images always come back to me. I’d crawled to the edge of the cliff and was just about to let go when I turned around. I looked towards the labyrinth, I saw the horse so clearly, it rose on its front legs and opened its eyes.
I let go of the edge and just slipped down, my hands gripping after tree roots and rocks. The moss was wet and slippery but also soft and it catched me when I fell. When I ran through the forest in the darkness it felt like I was shining and pulsating from the fear leaving my body. I finally got to the highway when the sun was starting to rise and followed the road down south, wading through the soaked meadowsweet that grew in the ditches, the smell vapid, stunning me. The sight of a dead fox forced me up on the road. Eventually, a truck stopped and picked me up. I have no other memories of how I got home. I just know I reached my apartment when the sun was starting to set again.
When the door closed behind me and I had locked it, a calmness filled me. For the first time in a couple of days, I was completely alone, out of sight of everyone. Inside the silence I heard familiar sounds, the buzzing of my fridge and someone walking around in the apartment above me. The blinds were down and most of my things were already packed in moving boxes stacked up in the living room.
I felt like hugging myself. I went to the bathroom and kneeled down in the shower. Dirt and moss ran off of me and swirled down the drain. I sat there, long after the water had turned cold.
A shirt in my closet still smelled of Dad. I put it on and layed down in my bed, stared at the ceiling and took in what was left of him. I searched for a pattern but all I saw was the animal head, Kåre’s tattoo flickering in front of me. He must’ve known about the amazing force in the trojaborg, it dazzled him. He’d seen the ritual before, she’d shown him, and invited him. He’d seen the dead rise up from the ground and he wanted to use the force selfishly. I pushed the thoughts of him away and turned my questions inwards. I tried to follow a memory far back, a summer on a train, on my way with Dad. On my way home, that’s how I remembered it, but home where? Home to who? The memory split ways and led nowhere.
I had no doubts that I was Kåre’s intended victim. When we were in the car on our way from the party and I lied with my head in his lap, he said something about left-handed magic. I assumed it was just a superficial hobby, maybe he even knew less than I did.
Deep inside of me, I've always known that life requires sacrifice. Sacrifices turns your desires into actions and push deep into the webs of relations, so deep the chaos has to part ways. But a sacrifice is only a maybe, you abandon all rights to feel remorse. Kåre didn’t understand the basic principle of a sacrifice, that a sacrifice is no longer yours when it involves a strong force. My thoughts moved in spirals and drove me into a shallow sleep.
I woke up cold and sweaty, searching in my memory after someone to tell all this to. Dad's armchair was still standing in front of his desk. I crawled up in it and explored what Dad had left behind. In the top drawer I found his phone book. I started flipping the pages, page up and page down, filled with Dad's handwriting. My gaze lingered on crossed out and circled names.
A couple of pages stuck together as if someone had spilled something on them and I had to carefully pry them open. A photograph fell into my lap. I picked it up with a growing feeling of anxiety. “At mothers. Summer -79” it said on the back. Reluctantly, I turned the photo around.
The house looked newly painted and the chairs had cushions with a floral pattern, and there on the chair under the dart board I sat with my legs dangling, next to grandma. I don’t remember ever meeting her, to me she was nothing more than a story my dad used to tell me. She was sitting in such an unnatural way. Her long hair covering her face, I couldn’t make out if I saw her from behind or from the front, as if the photo had been double-exposed. I think she smiled at the camera.
I stood up from the armchair and rushed out on the balcony. Feeling protected by the darkness, I found myself just standing there for a while, trying to calm my breathing, looking down at the shadows of my backyard. Who took that photo, was it Dad? Had we been there together, with her, at her house? A light turned on in the house opposite to me. I pushed myself against the wall so I wouldn’t be seen.
In the living room stood a moving box filled with Dad's books, neatly packed up to the edge. I was overcome with a sense of abandonment and began tearing out the books. One by one I read the titles before tossing them in a pile on the floor. My outburst didn't last long, pretty soon I collapsed into a powerless fetal position. I continued to go through the last ones at the bottom of the box but it took a long time, I started flipping through the books and got sidetracked. I opened a booklet with the title "The Goddess in the Labyrinth" and looked through the text. Mostly stuff I already knew, words that Dad underlined with a pencil, and nothing about left-handed magic.
The box was empty and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I was about to get up when I noticed an old envelope stuck to the side of the box. I picked it up and brought it closer to the light from the window. On the back was our address, the old address. I turned the envelope over, "To my little Jackie, Christmas -81" it said in red ink. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, it wasn’t my father's, even though the envelope and its contents were dedicated to me. I examined it carefully. The envelope was torn open but the contents appeared to be intact. I picked out something that looked like a folded handkerchief. With a faint hum in my ears, I unfolded the fabric until it layed fully spread out on the floor in front of me. It wasn't an embroidery, I remembered it wrong, it was some kind of stitching representing an animal head. I understood why I never dared to enter that room alone, the eyes were bleeding holes. Above it, someone had sewed sharp letters like on a tapestry:
Twist a man swollen sore
Twist him inside animals roar
Twist his heart, twist his lungs
Twist his words in his tounge
Twist a man in his horse
Twist screaming animal force
I will twist the iron wire
Until you tears of blood will cry
I didn't stay in the apartment that night. I moved out that autumn into a collective in Vårberg. I gave Dad’s things to charity. I still wake up from that dream. In the dream I stay, without trying to escape. The mountain rumbles and shakes as if thunder is coming from within it.
I crawl out of my hiding place behind the rock. The darkness does not come from the woods or the night sky, it comes from the trojaborg. Pours out of it in a swirl, counterclockwise, toward the horse's body in the opening. The horse stands up. The darkness beams through it as it throws its head back in a scream. It opens its eyes and the darkness swirls out of them straight at me. I feel the blood crush my veins as Earth slows down and starts spinning in the other direction.

My mom keeps a scrapbook of photos holding several memories. Every photo that I was in followed the same pattern, at least until I turned 22.
In these memories, I would be in the backyard running around with Trevor with my shirt off. Trevor is our family pit bull. Thank you very much.
My body devoid of fat or muscles would expose the outline of my ribs. My arms would dangle by my hips, and my grin in need of braces would present no charm.
All the way up till my third semester at community college, I thought I would have this exact physique until I died. Christ, do I now wish I could have still lived out that past insecurity.
My usual school appetite of zero sugar Gatorade and a side of apple slices had ceased a bit.
I didn’t suddenly have an epiphany where I looked down at my hollow exterior and realized that I should start putting more food in my system from then on. Nothing like that at all.
My mother had called me. The things she said… her voice. God, it was a cry that sent a shockwave through my body.
At around 2PM, my father had a heart attack. Tragic, but it hadn’t been unexpected. Like what my body would later become, he too was a heavy individual.
He spent most of his last few years on earth breathing through an oxygen mask while he sat in a wheelchair on the backyard deck.
After I had watched the man, my childhood hero, eat himself to death, lowered 6 feet under within a casket as my mom and I cried our souls out, it would have been the best time to use it as motivation to hit the gym. This hadn’t occurred. Weeks after the funeral, I spent countless of checks at nearby fast-food joints.
The passenger seat of my car had filled up with empty food bags, wrappers, and several unfinished cups of vanilla-flavored coffee drinks. Don’t even get me started on the piss bottles underneath my bed.
With all of this, others thought of me as a lazy and heavy individual. What killed me was that they were right. I wouldn’t stand in front of the mirror and look at my body and feel proud. I just… couldn’t.
After I clocked out from one of my shifts during the late afternoon, I had passed a local burger joint on my way home. For once, a spark of willpower had shined deep within me. I drove past the location and had congratulated myself when I pulled up to my childhood home. That hadn’t lasted long.
When night came, I drove back to the place and feasted down on two double doubles with a side of chili cheese fries. It embarrasses me to admit it, but I spent the next 2 minutes sobbing alone in my car as I finished the second burger. Humiliation over my weight hurt like fire. Unfortunately, comfort food didn’t seem to hurt until it went down my throat.
A few days later, I had received an ad on my laptop about a health program. I had been scratching Trevor’s belly as I spent my time browsing random YouTube videos.
That was when it popped on the right side of the screen. It had been a website that involved a program that specialized in healthier lifestyles. Yet… the company presented a routine where you could eat all you want. You wouldn’t have to cut out all of the good…unhealthy stuff from your diet. You didn’t even have to work out.
As much as I would love to say that my future downfall would be for not reading the entire agreement of the website, that had not been the reason. Aside from the no diet or exercise for weight loss, I hadn’t noticed any red flags regarding the program. I typed out my information on the contact form below and didn’t hear anything for two days. That’s when I got the call. A woman with a friendly voice had spoken on the other end. She set up a time and a date for when I could stop by the location.
May 7th…
When I arrived at the building, I noticed that the parking lot had been entirely filled up. I ended up parking at a local hiking trail on the other side of the street. When I made my way towards the location, a three story bricked building surrounded by spruce tress, I took note of the vehicles. While some of them appeared okay when it came to cleanliness, others had not. They were covered in thick coats of dust, along with the several dried and white droppings of bird shit.
When I entered the building, I filled out a form at the front desk, and a male worker in scrubs wrote me a room number: 213. I found the room after going up to the second floor. I’m surprised I hadn’t taken note of how isolated the place felt. There was also a loud flushing sound from beyond the walls. It was the kind of noise you’d hear behind the door of a public restroom when you walked by.
I found the room and waited inside. The pictures on the walls made me turn away and gag as soon as I realized what they were. There were several photographs of hands holding the removed and gold-like fat from patients. For some, it may have been motivating. For me, I was ready to lose my lunch.
It hadn’t been long until a thin woman with dyed blue hair entered the room and smiled. We talked for a bit about my weight. What was in my usual diet, and if I had always been this particular weight.
She then took a file off a nearby table and pulled out a trio of photos. The first image showed a brown and boxlike metallic belt. There were a pair of large and white tubes sticking out from both sides, and in the middle, was what looked like a clear and round glass casing.
The second photo had been of an obese man standing behind a brown backdrop, presumably around 300 pounds. If I didn’t stop eating what I ate, I might have ended up looking like him.
The third and final photo had been the same man. This time, he had slimmed down, and was even putting on muscle. The female worker smiled and told me that the man hadn’t worked out or changed his diet at all. What shocked me even more was when she told me that his eating habits had become worse, and yet he still had what I considered “the ideal male physique.”
The woman told me the machine was a device that helped suppress the weight of the patients in the facility. I didn’t have to hear anything else. It was unintelligent of me to not ask any other questions, yet that fantasy… my old body . . maybe even one that was better than before, it sounded wonderful.
The worker opened the door, and we went down the hall and into a room through a pair of yellow and metallic doors. There was a chair and a metal table off to the right. There, the device sat.
I also took notice of a brown door connected to the room. It didn’t matter then. All I wanted was the damn weight to go away. The woman asked for me to remove my shirt, and she sat me down in the chair and begin to set up the device. She hooked up the belt from the machine around my waist.
I closed my eyes and began to cry a little. This had to work. Earlier, I had thought about stopping my vehicle, and go back home and forget the entire program. For all I knew, they could have just been a group of scammers that wanted to harvest my organs.
No… I needed this. This fantasy had to become true. If I opened my eyes a little quicker, I would have noticed the woman pointing a syringe towards my neck…
I had woken up in a dazed state. The lights had been on in the large room, and yet my surroundings weren’t the first thing I noticed. The aroma stung my nostrils. It was like I had been thrown into a nonworking trash compactor. No crushing at all… only the smell of waste.
I wretched so hard that I felt a migraine coming along. That’s when I saw the other patients. From all around, there were several men and woman, all of different ages. They were strapped down in metallic chairs. They too had been wearing the same contraption I had around my waist. Their weight had grown far beyond from what a living person could take.
Incisions had been made just above their hips, and those tubes from the machines had been forced within the cuts. A fluid of yellow, red.. and brown was being sucked out of their bodies, and disposed from within the belt-like machine, then down holes imbedded in the ground in front of their seats.
There had also been metal buckets placed below their exposed buttocks. That’s when I realized the smell had not been garbage and waste, but excrement.
Some of patient’s bodies hadn’t been heavy at all. Loose skin from their faces and limbs hung below the chairs, and it continued on a bit before stopping at their shoes.
On the other end of the room, there was that same brown door. Nurses came in and out carrying large trays of fast food, desserts, and several packs of soda cans.
The first thing I thought would happen was that the patients would knock the food out of the workers hands, and use the remaining energy they had to break out of their prison. Instead, they only looked up at the nurses without saying anything, and began to grab at the food before stuffing it into their mouths and barely chewing.
There had been that vacuum sound, the one that I heard beyond the walls from earlier. The machines had turned on, and the suction of the tubes began. Groans echoed throughout the room. I heard someone to the right throw their head forward and vomit.
I looked down at my body.
Like everyone else, incisions had been made just above my hips where those tubes had been placed. These people, the owners of those dust covered vehicles… they didn’t seem like they wanted to leave. Had they been here for months? Stuffing their faces, having these meals and fat pumped out of their body after it hit their stomachs?
I pictured my future, the despair of my mom as she wondered where I had gone. Even if she found my car outside this building in the future, it would be too late for when she came back with a bunch of armed police men.
Would she find my body, either heavier than she had ever seen me or any other human, or twig thin with all my excess skin hanging all the way to the floor? What if I too accepted this life, and decided to enjoy the rubbish these workers would continue to feed me until my heart would give out?
It’s sad to note that most of these things later happened. Months later, my mom had tracked down the location, and the building had been swarmed to the brim with a swat team and cruisers. They had found my body near death, frail with loose skin that stretched on.
Although all of this happened so long ago, I still can’t think about it without wanting to burst into tears. I’ve been a part of a rehabilitation center for a while now. After everything that I went through, my body will never become the ideal figure that I’ve always wanted to have.
Writing all of this down helped a little thankfully. I might show it all to my psychologist tomorrow morning. If I did indeed present it to them, I’ll probably post this online as well. If anyone on Reddit or face book is reading this right now, I hope that you can all look past the grotesque aspect of my life story.
If any of you have been struggling with weight insecurities, I hope that you’ll be kinder to yourselves. Don’t let it drag you down. If you do want to get into better shape, I shall cheer you on. My mom’s mental health has been improving since then, and if I’m lucky enough, I can come back home and start up community college again. The next thing I’m hoping to work on is letting go of that facility. Despite all the pain I went through, I sometimes have this urge to look up that website and find another location.

He suddenly came towards me in the dirty tunnel that leads to the subway, up the stairs from the mall, dressed in Adidas and a puffy duvet jacket. His breath steamed in the cold. A woman stumbled next to him, in broken high heels. They looked like they were in a hurry, to get away from someone or something. Destroyed faces, but not because of age or starvation, they looked young and healthy.
He should’ve been at least twenty years older now, I told myself it couldn’t be him and looked away without knowing if the man had seen me or not.
His face, as I remember it, spoke of his past addictions. No traces of serious violence, but at the same time deformed as after a fight. The proportions seemed wrong. Symmetrical, but swollen. I saw the tattoo on his neck, on the left side facing me, the outline of an animal head. Kåres' tattoo was red, this man's tattoo shimmered in purple. It could’ve been a bruise. A milky haze surrounded them, except for the man’s white sneakers that shined sharp against the gray concrete. It looked like they were living on that thin line between partying and homelessness. I was sure he was dead.
When they’d passed by, a sour smell of adrenaline hovered in the air. I stood there, in my own thoughts, long after I’d missed my train, looking down at my blurry hands, as a whole inner world of sadness and trauma started to open. I wanted to think that I had buried what happened that summer somewhere deep, deep down, where it had been crushed by the weights of new, better memories. But the man with the tattoo dug it all up again. I looked at my own hands and felt I was going into dissociation. Right there and then, I promised myself to write about it.
I met Kåre in the late summer, my first summer without Dad. I lived alone in our apartment on the Red Line towards Norsborg. When I think back to that summer, I see the broken living room clock before me. It stopped working long before when Dad was still alive, but it reminded me that something had stopped in me too.
Summer was happening somewhere out there, slipped in through the cracks in my closed blinds, it felt like time was rushing by without ever touching me. I went out sometimes, sure. To the mall with some friends, to the park or the empty schoolyard. We climbed up the fire escape ladder and carved swear words into the brick wall.
One day in the beginning of August we drove down south, me, Eli and Sindra. I remember how we cranked down the windows and it was claustrophobically hot. Eli put on a playlist called Happy Hardcore. Songs with frequencies as high as the summer sky.
I leaned out the window. Pine trees, red cottages, and wheat fields smeared together by the speed. When I saw the landscape dance past me I remembered Dad’s crosses. He took me out in the woods. Pointed out pits, hills and ditches and said they were graves, fireplaces and traps. Dead shapes, waiting for the right time to wake up.
Dad was a janitor, but he dreamt of becoming an archeologist. He leant scientific books and read them to me like bedtime stories, instructions about how pendulums and squares can be used as instruments to find ancient monuments.
He believed in earth radiation; the theory that lines make out a checkered pattern around Earth. The past generations knew a lot of things about this radiation. Old amphitheaters and cairns are strategically placed around ethereal force fields. Where the lines cross each other in X:es, a swirling energy arises, whose original purpose was lost a long time ago. Sometimes, when we were out in the woods and came to a particular glade or grove, he’d lift me up and put me down in the middle of one of those crosses. I stood completely still, barely breathing while he measured with a pendulum to see if the earth’s radiation made my aura bigger or smaller. Dad was so proud of my aura.
I reached out the window and felt the shape of my hand in the wind.
We stopped at a pizza place. Eli and Sindra had to go get gas, so I went in by myself. When I stood in line for the bathroom, that’s when I saw the horse head. It looked down at me from the wall, with bulging eyes made out of glass. I wondered why they used it as decoration. It looked bizarre and sinister, in every way unbearable.
When the bathroom was available I quickly ran inside and locked the door. I leaned against it, and tried to focus on my breathing, like Dad had taught me. Where the mirror should’ve been, someone had written "horror vacui” with a black marker. ”Fear of the void”.
I washed my wrists with cold water. The water took the uneasy feeling with it in a swirl down the drain. When I felt better I went out to Eli and Sindra, who were already in the car.
We drove on. The evening came. One of those blue, late summer evenings when the light deepens and the air cools down. The road narrowed down. I got nauseous, it felt like we were moving inwards, in a curve. We parked on the road and I looked up at the stars. I pointed out little bear, but they didn’t care. They were trying to locate the music in the woods. I didn’t really feel like they wanted me there, so I kept my distance. After a while the ground thinned out into sand and the smell of pine trees mixed with sea salt. I saw lights glimmer where the trees opened up to the ocean. Some people were dancing, others were just squeezing through. Eli and Sindra stood further down the beach, next to a fire. They tried to be cool but they looked so tense. I remember how obvious it looked, how they were flickering just like the flames. I turned around and walked into the woods again.
I found a hill that looked good to sit at, and that’s where I met him. Kåre.
I remember the hill was covered in strangely shimmering moss. When I turned around he looked at me with small pupils through the haze. The tattoo on his neck, some kind of animal head, so red I thought it was a wound at first. It looked like a children’s drawing, or back in the day when they used to stuff animals without knowing what they looked like, so they just made something up. I pushed away the memory of the horse head in the restaurant, and instead, I thought about that embroidery, the one in Dad’s office. I was scared of it as a child, I never wanted to go in that room alone. I wondered what had happened to it, did I still have it? Grandma made it for him, isn’t that what he said? I looked at the tattoo again and shivered, it had the same, bulging eyes.
Kåre smiled at me, and I looked down at the hill, speckled with moss. It grew in spirals, I’d never noticed that before, that moss curves, turn after turn, like a swirling paisley pattern. Kåre put something in my hand. It was a green pill, and one side was pressed with a symbol, looking almost like a human gut.
“That’s a trojaborg”, I said surprised. “The symbol, it’s a labyrinth. They actually exist, near the coast, by mountains and the ocean, like here.” I looked up at him.
I used to worry about my high-pitched voice, it sounded like I was always trying to get attention, but now I just sounded rough, like someone else was speaking through me. “Some people think it’s a Christian thing”, I said, “because they think that they put the stones in the middle down first like a cross and then built the paths after that. But it’s not a cross, it’s just an intersection with two lines. The cult surrounding labyrinths is way older than Christianity. We had labyrinths in Scandinavia before, long, long before, when the ocean was like a highway up here…”
Kåre lit two cigarettes and gave me one. I smoked with him and started to feel euphoric. It felt so good to speak without restrictions, to put together things I must’ve heard once, like Dad always did.
“There are labyrinths in marble floors and on wooden doors of old houses. The symbol became a Christian thing, but it was used in old rituals long before that. Sometimes they call it the ‘virgin dance’, and that sounds like a ritual to me. They sacrificed things, too. Think of it as, like, a dance.” I did a little swirl. “Some people think the word trojaborg comes from the word ‘troj’, which means twisting. Rotation. Spinning something around and around and around…”
Kåre dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, leaned down and looked at something metallic. He had a thin mustache that didn’t match his boy-like body. I didn’t know if he was listening, but I kept talking. “Labyrinths exist in every culture, or at least stories about them”, I continued, “they’re a symbol for the uterus and death at the same time, a spiral towards the ethereal.”
I didn’t feel any shame, I just wanted to keep talking.
“Some trojaborg’s are built at places named after bears. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but bears symbolize resurrection ‘cause they sleep all winter but wake up again in the spring. The Saamis bury dead bears sometimes. The farmers pushed the collectors and hunters away but they never stopped sacrificing, they came back. They always do.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against the stone. The woods were full of sounds, music and someone's high-pitched, rough voice. When I opened my eyes I saw a red Bengal light down by the water. I looked at it for a while, before continuing.
“People are still superstitious, to this day. When fishermen were going out to sea and didn’t want any bad luck, they ran through the trojaborg before they left. When they’d reached the middle they ran straight out, without following the paths. They thought the bad luck would get stuck in there. Absorbed by the force.”
Kåre stroked my arm with his fingertips. I breathed out, felt a tingling warmth in my chest, and I didn’t say anything else for a while.
“What did you say about horse cemeteries?” he asked when the sun was starting to rise, and I saw that what was lying on the ground was small pieces of aluminum foil.
“You mean bear cemeteries?” He nodded.
“They are often found near the trojanborg’s, some think they were built with stones from old ruins. Graves from people that lived by the shore and hunted seals and whales. Those who came here first, and hunted in the moonshine.” I looked up at the stars that were starting to fade.
“The labyrinth was a manifestation of the sun cult and later Christianity, a definitive way to shut them out. But I don’t think…”
“What do you think, then?” He smiled. I didn’t know what to say. I remembered what Dad said. About certain places that generate darkness. Places that make things move around them, wander in cycles. He always told me to watch out for the intersections, the crosses. We’re drawn to them, attracted by the invisible forces, but we have to watch out.
“If you’ve made sacrifices at the same place for over a thousand years, I don’t think you’ll leave it in the first place. It takes a lot... ”
I tried to look Kåre in the eyes, but he was busy picking up foil from the moss-covered rocks and putting it in a zip bag.
“I don’t believe in coincidences”, I said, “maybe there was something, like something in the ground that made people seek those places out... And seek them out over and over again.”
We stood up and walked down the hill, side by side, into the haze of people dancing and screaming.
The sound of laughter, an exaggerated, broken laughter, woke me up. I was lying in the backseat with my throbbing head in Kåre’s lap. He tried to speak over the music, almost screaming, I remember hearing him say something about how he couldn’t stand up straight anymore. Because it was so strong now, so fucking strong.
I couldn’t see Eli or Sindra, the guys sitting in the front seat were complete strangers to me.
The broken laughter-guy interrupted Kåre. “Hahaha! You fucking freak! You fucking hippie!”
The other one, the one driving, asked for coordinates. Kåre answered: “That place has no price. You just gotta have something she wants. You have to deliver.”
“Deliver what? What does it cost?” the other one asked skeptically.
Kåre sighed. “Do you know what ‘the left-hand path’ is?”
A silence, before that repulsive, broken laughter exploded again. “Hahaha! You fucking weirdo! You fucking psycho!”
“Didn’t think you’d know anyways”, Kåre said.
The car stopped at a road barrier and we got out, squinting in the bright sunshine. I’d never met them before, and they both looked much older than me, a few years older than Kåre. We climbed over the barrier and started walking down a path. It seemed to lead us nowhere, until the woods opened up and revealed a red little house. Kåre went around the house to the front door and pulled out a key.
Broken laughter-guy said: “But like, I don’t believe in that kind of stuff! The fucking hocus pocus shit!”
I stepped onto the porch and found myself just standing there, looking at an old dartboard. It reminded me of something. It was speckled with marks from the arrows but also some darker spots, so scuffed you couldn’t make out the lines between the different scores.
My thoughts were interrupted by sounds coming from the other side of the house. It sounded like something falling and breaking, like the deafening sound of iron pipes rolling down concrete stairs and Kåre screamed: “For fucks sake!”
I looked down at the cracks in the wooden deck and fell into a melancholic state. Thoughts of summer evenings here with people that have been dead for many years, or maybe are sitting alone at a retirement home somewhere with nothing but memories left. Fantasies blending in with my own summer memories, and stories my Dad used to tell me. Summers with his Mom, things that might’ve been just dreams, or someone else’s memory, I don’t know whose.
A chair with broken legs was standing in front of the house. I poked at it with my foot, it wobbled a bit, and in a swaying, slowdown of time, I remembered. I was completely sure. I’d been here before.
Kåre had finally managed to open the door. He smiled at me from inside the house, through the window. It was dark in there, but I could see stacks of books and piles of electronic devices, TV:s and stereos. Leaning against the walls and exploding out of the drawers.
Kåre gave something in a Coop bag to the broken laughter-guy and they shared a squarelike hug. I observed them through the window. I could see their lips moving, but I had no idea what they were saying to each other. They looked over at me with a big grin, before they disappeared out of my vision and I could hear the front door opening, and eventually, the car driving off.
I followed Kåre into the woods, down towards the sea. We took our shoes off and ran barefoot through the sand. The sea was quite big, surrounded by compact trees reflecting in the black, shining water. We waded towards a cliff. This was the ocean two thousand years ago, I thought to myself as I climbed the big stone. We took our shirts off and layed down, close to each other.
“It’s really weird”, I said after a while, “I feel like I’ve been here before. On this cliff, and in the house too. I feel like that sometimes, like I should remember something, but I just can’t.” The sunlight was blinding me, I squinted at him. “I was brought up in a way that make you different.”
“Make you different”, he mimicked, but I ignored him.
“It was just me and my Dad, we didn’t have anything else. He never told me anything about his own childhood. He blamed it on his bad memory, but I never believed him. Maybe you inherit it, the pushing things away, the suppression.” I leaned back on the warm stone. “I’ve always felt rootless.”
“Me too”, Kåre mumbled.
“How did you find this place, do you know people here or something?” I tried to seem unbothered, didn't want to dig up something dark in him.
“I leant it from an old lady, she lives in the woods now.”
The heat from the sun beamed at my spine, but I still shivered. He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a Coca-Cola. I drank so fast I choked, but it didn’t taste of anything at all, just a hint of rust.
“There’s something in the woods I think you’d like to see”, he whispered and stroked my hair.
We stuffed his backpack full of beer and cigarettes. I borrowed a fleece jacket that smelled of gasoline. Kåre had a coat with dark stains all over the chest. When he leaned against the wall and rolled a spliff, as I kneeled in his shadow to tie my shoes, we looked like a bad sign, an omen, two outgrowns on the same darkness. I remember feeling like we were directed towards a swirling hatred.
Kåre kicked rocks as we walked down the road. The sun was still shining bright, coloring the clouds. We reached a field surrounded by small, timbered cottages. It seemed abandoned and forgotten, but as if something was kept awake there.
Kåre and I were the only things visible in the dark windows. I asked him about the old lady he leant the house from. Who was she?
He kicked away a big stone. “Do you really want to know?” he asked.
I thought about it for a while, not really knowing why I wanted to know, or even what I was doing here with Kåre in the first place. But there was something about him, something about the way he distracted me from everything else.
“I usually don’t experience this”, I mumbled, “I usually remember, but when you were in the house and I waited for you on the porch, I just knew I’d been there before. Maybe I’ll remember more if you tell me about her?”
“Sure”, he said, “if you want to remember. She used to slaughter the small animals on the porch. That says a lot about her, I guess. She found it practical. I helped her clean it up afterwards…”
“Wait, what do you mean, slaughter the small animals on the porch? What does that mean?” I tried to look him in the eyes, but he looked away.
“She’d slaughter the big ones by the sea.” The way he said it made it sound neutral, like he couldn’t care less about the animals.
We walked into the woods again, towards the mountains. The dried moss crunched under our feet. It became softer at places, and the ground gave away. Rocks, pine trees and moss repeated themselves in a landscape without landmarks.
When I slipped and fell I found myself just lying on the ground for a while. The woods were still now, and the only thing I heard was a faint rumble from far away, maybe it was the highway that sounded just as lonely as the sea. I closed my eyes, the tiredness made me feel soft. When I tried to stand up again the world flickered before my eyes and I had to lean against a tree.
In my memories, that’s when I heard the scream. It sounded like an animal, or any creature dying a painful death. It made me completely lose my perception of reality. I couldn’t breathe, like after getting punched hard in the stomach and I had to sit down again. When I tried to locate where the sound came from, it disappeared.
I stood up and felt the weight of something hard and cold in my hand, a stone. I must’ve picked it up from the ground, but I couldn’t remember doing so. Shaken by adrenaline, I started running in the direction I saw Kåre disappear in. I caught up with him. He stopped and stood with his back turned towards me.
“Did you hear that?” I looked into the woods. “It sounded like an animal”, I continued. “A big animal… It sounded sick, so fucking sick. You heard it, right?”
I pulled my hand through my hair and crushed a bug that I smeared on my jacket, disgusted by the texture. He didn’t answer. He looked at something, something I couldn’t see. The realization that I was in the middle of nowhere with a crazy stranger suddenly struck me.
“We have to go back. It’s getting dark.” I tried to raise my voice but I sounded like a pathetic little girl.
He didn’t answer, instead, he kneeled down, leaning forward, his hands intertwined behind his neck, rocking back and forth. His ears looked so small. It looked like he was crying, something shiny over his cheeks.
I lightly put my hand on his shoulder and stroked down his arm. He grabbed my wrist, as fast as lightning. I screamed and tried to break free, but tripped and fell backward.
That made him relax. He leaned over me in the dark woods like he was about to say something, but I’ll never know what it was. I struck the stone as hard as I could and hit his temple, a dull sound echoed through the woods. He stumbled back with his hands around his head, and I stood up and started to run.
It felt easy, even though I was running uphill, every step felt irresistible like something was pulling me forward. Soft shadows grew out of the gaps in the rocks, trees and stone blended together. I remember seeing a pine tree that stood bent with its crown growing down towards the earth instead of up towards the sky. A tree that grows like that speaks of something so wrong, something so sick, and twisted out of itself. And I can't say why I continued running in that direction.
I kept on running up until the ground hardened and the woods thinned out. Some light birch trees circled a glade next to an uphill mountain. It was like stepping into a room, separated from the hungry rocks and dark pine trees. The ground was covered with small, yellow flowers, almost shining in the dark.
I started regaining feeling in my legs again. I breathed in hoarse gasps and my eyes flickered in every direction. The direction felt crucial, but at the same time it felt like the choice wasn’t mine, there was something else, something beyond.
I started climbing, in a desperate neither one of them, straight up the cliff. I climbed in small jumps and bent tree roots. The higher I climbed, the more targeted I felt. I tasted blood in my mouth. On the inside of my eyelids I could see Kåre standing down in the glade, picking up stones and throwing them at me. I imagined him grabbing my foot to try and pull me down, tearing at me like an animal. It was only when I’d reached the top of the mountain that I dared to turn around.
Space howered deep blue over the trees. The glade was empty, but down there I thought I could see the shining flowers like small, yellow eyes staring up at me where I stood, swaying on the edge.
I turned around. A cold, bare mountain plateau opened up in front of me. My gaze was immediately drawn to an uneven circle further ahead. It took a while for my eyes to adjust and it started taking form, swirl after swirl, curling like a snake. The trojaborg.
Dad would’ve thought it was magnificent, with stones as big as human heads in the cross towards the center. In the dark, the proportions felt bigger and the paths cleaner than in the ones he’d shown me as a kid. Shadows fell over the entrance. I squinted, it looked like something was laying there.
A rush of dark euphoria made my eyes water and my mouth stretch out in a big smile. I had found it myself, stumbled upon it in the middle of the woods, it had chosen me. I straightened my back and took a couple of steps towards the labyrinth, but when I saw my long shadow I realized how visible I was, standing alone on the big, empty cliff. The rush became fear and I started moving backwards instead, very carefully.
The place radiated a static tension. Just to be there felt wrong, like an act of violence in every step I took. When I reached the edge of the plateau a strong, nauseating smell made me freeze in a violent body memory. We were out in the woods one autumn, me and Dad, when it started to smell just like that, intestines and death, the smell of a ripped animal. We heard dogs barking, I froze in shock and Dad had to carry me back to the car. But now there weren’t any dogs, just the wind.
I looked at the trojaborg. The dark and shapeless shadow in the entrance had grown and now appeared sharper. I slowly moved closer, pulled in against my will. I saw what it was just a few meters away, when it was already too late, too late to back down. It was a horse, or what once was a horse. It still radiated body heat. A bulging eye stared up at the sky.
Dizzy with feelings of dissociation, I just stood there, unable to look away. Its belly was ripped. Intestines spilling out against my white sneakers. A few meters away, in between the trees, something coil-shaped with an unborn’s unfinished features in a coat of mucus and blood. I felt my disgust turning into panic, like when a phobia turns psychotic and violates reality.
I looked down the cliff. If I tried to climb down in the dark, I’d likely break my legs or my neck. I considered following the plateau into the woods on the other side, but I knew I couldn’t go further into the woods. Something or someone out there was capable of ripping a pregnant mare open.
My thoughts were interrupted by a melodic sound, like the echo of distant voices. I crawled backwards up against a rock and imagined a group of people or someone talking to themselves, or maybe calling for a dog. The sound came from the woods on the other side of the cliff. I pressed myself against the rock and crawled into a cave under it. All of my focus was turned towards the trees, I listened out into the silence and tried to make out the sound again. My fear wanted to confirm it, decode it as something with a natural explanation, but every time I thought it would come back I was met by silence. The hope that it could have been voices slowly faded away.
I lied there, frozen for I don’t know how long, just listening to the silence. I started to relax and my thoughts began to wander. I thought of Eli and Sindra, and the life that went on parallel to this. I saw them in front of me, bored, waiting for the night bus or just for something to happen. They had probably forgotten about me, or in which case they wouldn’t miss me.
My legs were numb and tingling. I suddenly couldn’t focus on anything else and decided to try and climb down the cliff after all. I carefully began crawling out of the cave, when I was almost out I heard the sound again, more distinctly this time. I could no longer dismiss it as imagination. Instead, I told myself it must be an animal, some kind of bird, a capercaillie or a grouse. As it came closer, the thoughts of an animal became more and more difficult to visualize. I heard guttural, sharp syllables, long hisses, sounds expressing wills and desires. I stared at the unbroken line of trees as if pure willpower could hold them back. A painful silence followed, as I tried to breath as quietly as possible. My breathing ceased completely when a shadow moved behind the trees and began to crawl over the cliff.
It slowly came closer, a gnarly and skinny figure, something uneven and powerful about its movements told me it could be moving much faster if it stood up straight. At first, I thought it was heading right towards me, but it stopped at the lifeless horse. Paralyzed, I watched as it lifted its head, breathing heavily as if sniffing for something. It turned its head towards me without its body moving, a faint soaring rose in my ears. The moon was shining through a crack in the clouds, and its eyes were reflecting the light - predator eyes, narrow rips of lust.
I pressed my back against the stone until I was shaking. The realization that it was her felt purely physical and had no name. The long hair covered her face in stripes. Mere disgust filled me as she kneeled over the horse's body and pressed herself against the open stomach. She lifted her bloody smile up towards the moon and in a chopping rhythm she began to thrust out what now sounded like a hymn, words with monotone, slashing syllables. Her words grew stronger, it felt like she was singing, like she was calling out for someone. The song reminded me of gale, it came from deep within and carried sorrow, but it wasn’t pure.
I tried to convince myself she couldn’t see me. I pushed as far into the cave as possible and imagined I became part of the stone. But I couldn't shut it out, the sound of steps coming closer, branches breaking. More voices, echoing between the trees out there, answering her. They came from the other side, wandering up the hill, towards the trojaborg, moving out on the stone plateau in a spider-like walk. Sounds and movements in a restrained ecstacy. They looked like mirror reflections of her, her friends, her sisters. They were connected by something more than the song, a coordinated motion. I widened my eyes and stared out into the darkness. Their naked skin gleamed like wax in the moonshine when they stretched their arms out and pulled, pulled on a rope.
At the end of the rope, a shape. I heard the whimpering of a broken vocal cord, the remains of a scream, Kåre’s scream. In an increasing rhythm, they pulled him towards the labyrinth. And with the logic of a nightmare, I suddenly understood what was about to happen, as if I had experienced it before.
They forced him into the horse's body. His voice drowned inside the animal. She laced with something shiny and sharp, an iron wire. Threaded it through the skin and started sewing it together. She trapped him inside the horse's belly. The sound of their song grew louder and louder as Kåre’s voice started to fade. I layed on my stomach with my face against the ground and tried to find the words, when all I could hear was their voices intertwining with something stronger, darker, even more evil than themselves.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t Kåre, it couldn’t be him buried inside of the horse. I tried to think this wasn't actually happening, but my body was aching and the taste of vomit in my mouth was real. My eyes slowly closed and I faded into a slumber where everything was too late and happened too far away from me. In a way I already knew it when we walked through the woods, it pulled at me, the power beyond us, she wasn’t a stranger. The hymn, we’d sung it. I slowly began to mumble their song, I couldn’t keep it at arm's length anymore.
I was halfway out of my body when the stone started to tremble. A powerful wave as if after a thunder strike came from inside the mountain, drowning their voices in a roar. It suffocated all other sounds from the woods. Their song slowed down and turned into screams as they fled in between the trees, leaving nothing but an echo behind. I was hidden in a cave and over there in the trojaborg inside the horse's body, was Kåre.
Everything went quiet. I thought I’d lost my hearing, that the sound wave had punctured my eardrums. I got up on my elbows and started crawling out of the cave. The second wave was longer and stronger than the first one. It came from deep within the mountain, the vibrations rushed like thunder in my ears, like stone being crushed against stone. I managed to get out at the last moment, if I’d hesitated it would've crushed me.
My last memory of the trojaborg is something I’ve tried to re-evaluate in my head, I’ve tried to make it something else, but the same images always come back to me. I’d crawled to the edge of the cliff and was just about to let go when I turned around. I looked towards the labyrinth, I saw the horse so clearly, it rose on its front legs and opened its eyes.
I let go of the edge and just slipped down, my hands gripping after tree roots and rocks. The moss was wet and slippery but also soft and it catched me when I fell. When I ran through the forest in the darkness it felt like I was shining and pulsating from the fear leaving my body. I finally got to the highway when the sun was starting to rise and followed the road down south, wading through the soaked meadowsweet that grew in the ditches, the smell vapid, stunning me. The sight of a dead fox forced me up on the road. Eventually, a truck stopped and picked me up. I have no other memories of how I got home. I just know I reached my apartment when the sun was starting to set again.
When the door closed behind me and I had locked it, a calmness filled me. For the first time in a couple of days, I was completely alone, out of sight of everyone. Inside the silence I heard familiar sounds, the buzzing of my fridge and someone walking around in the apartment above me. The blinds were down and most of my things were already packed in moving boxes stacked up in the living room.
I felt like hugging myself. I went to the bathroom and kneeled down in the shower. Dirt and moss ran off of me and swirled down the drain. I sat there, long after the water had turned cold.
A shirt in my closet still smelled of Dad. I put it on and layed down in my bed, stared at the ceiling and took in what was left of him. I searched for a pattern but all I saw was the animal head, Kåre’s tattoo flickering in front of me. He must’ve known about the amazing force in the trojaborg, it dazzled him. He’d seen the ritual before, she’d shown him, and invited him. He’d seen the dead rise up from the ground and he wanted to use the force selfishly. I pushed the thoughts of him away and turned my questions inwards. I tried to follow a memory far back, a summer on a train, on my way with Dad. On my way home, that’s how I remembered it, but home where? Home to who? The memory split ways and led nowhere.
I had no doubts that I was Kåre’s intended victim. When we were in the car on our way from the party and I lied with my head in his lap, he said something about left-handed magic. I assumed it was just a superficial hobby, maybe he even knew less than I did.
Deep inside of me, I've always known that life requires sacrifice. Sacrifices turns your desires into actions and push deep into the webs of relations, so deep the chaos has to part ways. But a sacrifice is only a maybe, you abandon all rights to feel remorse. Kåre didn’t understand the basic principle of a sacrifice, that a sacrifice is no longer yours when it involves a strong force. My thoughts moved in spirals and drove me into a shallow sleep.
I woke up cold and sweaty, searching in my memory after someone to tell all this to. Dad's armchair was still standing in front of his desk. I crawled up in it and explored what Dad had left behind. In the top drawer I found his phone book. I started flipping the pages, page up and page down, filled with Dad's handwriting. My gaze lingered on crossed out and circled names.
A couple of pages stuck together as if someone had spilled something on them and I had to carefully pry them open. A photograph fell into my lap. I picked it up with a growing feeling of anxiety. “At mothers. Summer -79” it said on the back. Reluctantly, I turned the photo around.
The house looked newly painted and the chairs had cushions with a floral pattern, and there on the chair under the dart board I sat with my legs dangling, next to grandma. I don’t remember ever meeting her, to me she was nothing more than a story my dad used to tell me. She was sitting in such an unnatural way. Her long hair covering her face, I couldn’t make out if I saw her from behind or from the front, as if the photo had been double-exposed. I think she smiled at the camera.
I stood up from the armchair and rushed out on the balcony. Feeling protected by the darkness, I found myself just standing there for a while, trying to calm my breathing, looking down at the shadows of my backyard. Who took that photo, was it Dad? Had we been there together, with her, at her house? A light turned on in the house opposite to me. I pushed myself against the wall so I wouldn’t be seen.
In the living room stood a moving box filled with Dad's books, neatly packed up to the edge. I was overcome with a sense of abandonment and began tearing out the books. One by one I read the titles before tossing them in a pile on the floor. My outburst didn't last long, pretty soon I collapsed into a powerless fetal position. I continued to go through the last ones at the bottom of the box but it took a long time, I started flipping through the books and got sidetracked. I opened a booklet with the title "The Goddess in the Labyrinth" and looked through the text. Mostly stuff I already knew, words that Dad underlined with a pencil, and nothing about left-handed magic.
The box was empty and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I was about to get up when I noticed an old envelope stuck to the side of the box. I picked it up and brought it closer to the light from the window. On the back was our address, the old address. I turned the envelope over, "To my little Jackie, Christmas -81" it said in red ink. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, it wasn’t my father's, even though the envelope and its contents were dedicated to me. I examined it carefully. The envelope was torn open but the contents appeared to be intact. I picked out something that looked like a folded handkerchief. With a faint hum in my ears, I unfolded the fabric until it layed fully spread out on the floor in front of me. It wasn't an embroidery, I remembered it wrong, it was some kind of stitching representing an animal head. I understood why I never dared to enter that room alone, the eyes were bleeding holes. Above it, someone had sewed sharp letters like on a tapestry:
Twist a man swollen sore
Twist him with animals roar
Twist his heart, twist his lungs
Twist his words in his tounge
Twist a man in his horse
Twist screaming animal force
I will twist the iron wire
Until you tears of blood cry
I didn't stay in the apartment that night. I moved out that autumn and moved into a collective in Vårberg. I gave my Dad’s things to charity. I still wake up from that dream. In the dream I stay, without trying to escape. The mountain rumbles and shakes as if thunder is coming from within it.
I crawl out of my hiding place behind the rock. The darkness does not come from the woods or the night sky, it comes from the trojaborg. Pours out of it in a swirl, counterclockwise, toward the horse's body in the opening. The horse stands up. The darkness beams through it as it throws its head back in a scream. It opens its eyes and the darkness swirls out of them straight at me. I feel the blood crush my veins as the earth stops and starts spinning in the other direction.

Children age 4/5
Class Name: A type of Sea Creature
Teacher: M/F, First name is a popular name from the 90s, surname is a tea brand
Teaching Assistant: M/F, First name starts with X,Y, or Z, Surname is a landform
School Dog: M/F, Black Labrador, very friendly. Name is a common nickname of a popular 80s name.
Boy 1: Short black hair, dark eyes. Loves playing hairdressers and is quite sensitive. Very sweet. First name is a virtue name, often considered a girl's name. Middle name reflects his strength of character. Surname starts with A, B, or C and means protectoguardian.
Boy 2: Neat brown hair, blue eyes, and red glasses. Laughs a lot, and loves cars. First name is an old man name, and middle name is the name of a president. Surname ends in 'Stone' and starts with D, E, or F
Girl 1: Curly blonde hair always done in intricate styles, and blue eyes. Very loud and chatty, and enjoys playing in the roleplay area. First name is in the top ten UK girl names. Middle name is also the name of a Disney character. Surname is a type of bird.
Girl 2: Long straight brown hair and brown eyes. Very energetic and loves drawing. Will constantly ask teachers to colour with her. First name begins with H. Middle name is a type of mineral/gem. Surname is one syllable and starts with H.
Boy 3: Messy brown hair, and green eyes. Best friends with Girl 2 and loves dressing up in princess dresses. First name is a common boy's name. Middle name has a Welsh connection. Surname is also the surname of a celebrity and starts with I, J, K or L.
Boy 4: Curly blonde hair, and blue eyes. Very sweet, but has a tendency to wander off. Frequently picks flowers to give to his teachers. First name is German, and middle name is French. Surname starts with Mc.
Girl 3: Long dark brown hair and dark eyes. Very quiet, but can be quite cheeky when she wants to. Loves playing with dolls. First name is a colour, and middle name is a common flower. Surname is Indian and starts with S.
Girl 4: Short brown hair, with a choppy fringe. Very popular, and sometimes bossy. She loves telling stories and putting on shows. First name means 'Noble'. Middle name and surname have Sanskrit roots. Surname starts with S.
Boy 5: Brother of Girl 4. Long curly brown hair and brown eyes. Loves building and discovering how things work. First name is a mashup of two common boy names, and middle name relates to an animal. Surname is the same as Girl 4.
Boy 6: Light brown hair, and blue eyes. Very curious, and always asking questions. Loves Marvel and comics. First name is a name you might also give a dog. Middle name happens to be the name of a Marvel character.. Surname starts with T.
Girl 5: Long blonde hair, always slightly tangled. Pink glasses. Very introverted but clever. Often carries a stuffed toy with her. First name is the same as Girl 1, but with a different nickname. Middle name is very sweet. Surname is a verb and starts with T
Girl 6: Black braided hair with purple highlights. Energetic and friendly with a love for music. First name is African and starts with Z. Middle name refers to when she was born. Surname is Ugandan and starts with any of the last 6 letters of the alphabet.

My nephew is 2 and half, really sweet, social kid.
His parents are orthodox Jewish and pretty strict about some things. Please do not make judgements about this in the comments, as that is not useful.
I am looking to get him books from the library that will help his speech development and keep him entertained. His parents are (relative to their community) open minded in some ways, but they're super strict about kosher rules and don't want him to have books with non kosher animals in them. I would love for him to have more books with a plot he can relate to so he can more frequently hear words that will be useful to him. Like things around the house/foods, but with an actual plot.
He absolutely is obsessed with vehicles lately.
Looking for ideas for good stimulating books that could work, but have no images of animals (or only kosher animals like chickens, cows, ducks, goats, birds etc) I am aware this is not ideal. Would appreciate some genuine suggestions though!
Edit, for anyone who might find this in a search: So far, my biggest success was a book called Trucker and Train. Nephew is obsessed with it.
But actually when I brought it over, my sister in law and brother mentioned that they recently spoke to their Rabbi about the non kosher animal thing, and it seems that after 2 years old, and as long as it is really for educational purposes (so not a non kosher stuffed toy) they can and will be less strict about this rule going forward. Although I truly do appreciate the comments that gave ideas with no judgment, and I think their preference is still for only kosher animals in books that are illustrated (vs photo books being totally fine).